The 21st-Century Man by Ataide Tartari IV EURO-IZING AFROS 27. Oh God, another protest demonstration! Leroy Brown opened just one eye and looked at the clock beside his bed. 9:07 a.m...9:07 a.m.!!! His workday would begin by 1:00 p.m., but he was blasted awake at 9:07 a.m. because these fucking demonstrators decided to walk down his street again! He couldn't stand it anymore. Some people--the majority of the country, in fact--were used to see these demonstrators and this fight and this street war only when they turned the evening news on. But not Leroy Brown--oh no, Leroy Brown had to hear it, had to feel it, evening or not evening, for he lived right in the middle of the battle zone of downtown Los Angeles. He finally got up, got dressed, kissed his mother, and went to the street. The battle zone was deserted now. The demonstrators went away and the usual traffic still didn't dare to fill the street. Brown examined his old car and felt happy, since it hadn't been burned and its windows hadn't been cracked. Inside the wheels, the electrical engines came to life and pushed the old electric direct-drive vehicle down the deserted street. Behind the steering wheel, Brown was wondering when the hell would his...Life...begin, for It obviously hadn't begun yet. To live in the battle zone wasn't Life; to drive a cheap, old--old, not vintage-- and unrecherchÊ car wasn't Life; and to keep his mother from living in the palatial place she deserved wasn't Life, either. His mother, Coretta, was worshipped by him. She wasn't his biological mother; he had been adopted. But, to him, something was meaningful only when it was made or it was won for his mother. The car of his dreams was to drive his mother to the best places, the house of his dreams was Coretta's palace, the job of his dreams was the position that would make Coretta proud, and money, to him, was a thing made to buy the finest things for her...Life had to begin; It had to begin for her! His Life hadn't begun, yet his life could end any moment. The demonstrators still were in his street, three blocks away. When he noticed it he stopped the car, put it in reverse, and began to drive it backwards. But then a thump made him stop. Jesus! What happened?...A stone! Someone threw a stone at his car! All of a sudden he was afraid, frozen, petrified and...another stone hit his car...and it cracked the rear window...which was transformed into thousands, millions of tiny pieces of glass. Brown covered his face with both hands and tried to bend down...but the goddamned seatbelt didn't let him bend...He was desperate. He started to weep and tried to release himself from the belt...but he couldn't find the fucking button! He couldn't release himself!...He was so petrified, he didn't open his eyes...but then he found courage to open them...so he saw that his right hand had been cut by those tiny pieces of glass...and it was bleeding--blood! Jesus Christ! I'm bleeding!...Then, weeping, with his eyes open, he managed to push the right button and unfasten the fucking seatbelt. He placed his head between his knees and began to say, loudly, the Lord's Prayer. His prayer was apparently useless, for some animals began to walk and scream over his protected head, on the top of his old and unrecherchÊ car--oh my God, save me! save my mother!--and one of the filthy animals opened his car door and pulled--pulled! The son of a bitch pulled him out of his car! Toward the street! Onto the dirty concrete! Like an animal! An animal among animals! An animal ready to be eaten and severed and turned into a bunch of bloody and unrecognizable pieces of meat! Someone kicked him, but not hard. The animal jus wanted him to stand up. "Stand up, faggot!" Brown kept his weeping face on the dirty ground. He was so petrified, he pretended not to hear. But he had heard it, of course. And the animal had called him a faggot...Did he know him? Well, he was sort of...effeminate...he knew it, but he wasn't a faggot. Faggot was...ignoble. He finally managed to take his face off the ground and look at the animal who had called him a faggot. As soon as he saw that face he knew it--that animal was an Euro-Ized... No, he had an Euro-Ized face and an Euro-Ized color, but he obviously was--they obviously were The Euro-Izers! "Hey, faggot, are you with them? With the fucking Afros?" Some years ago--before 2055, that is--nobody would ask such a question to Leroy Brown, for the answer was obvious. The answer was printed on his skin! He was an Afro! (Or Afro-American, as it was common to say by then.) But now everything was so politicized that to be an Afro had only one meaning: to be against the Euro-Izer Movement. The Euro-Izers were usually hidden in their trenches and the Afros were usually on the street, making protest demonstrations against them and against the faction of the media that supported them, and against everyone who dared showing some sympathy for the Euro-Izing Devil. Bu sometimes, like now, the Euro-Izing Devil left the Hell's Trenches to fight the Afro-Demonstrators in the battle zone. Holding his bleeding hand, Brown stood up, but he didn't dare to face the Euro-Ized Euro-Izer. He kept his sight at the hurt hand and said, "No, I don't even know what's going on. I was just driving and--" The bastard looked around, at his fellow Euro-Izers, and yelled, "Hey! This faggot is saying that he doesn't know what's going on! I think we should show it to him, what do you think?" He laughed. Everybody laughed. Brown knew what was going on, but now he wanted to know what was going to happen to him. The animals had his destiny in their hands...or was it his Destiny, his Fate, his...Karma...to be in a place like this, far, far, far, far away from the place of his dreams, his recherchÊ dreams?...Yes, it could be his Karma...or it could be the position of the stars and planets; they could be in a very unfavorable position-- Then another Euro-Izer approached. He wasn't laughing like the others. And he was respected by the others, Brown could see it. Everybody stopped laughing. Gently, this Euro-Izer gentleman grabbed Brown's arm and asked, "Are you okay?" This gentleman's manners made Brown think that some star or planet had entered a more favorable position. He was less frightened now. "Yes, thank you." "I'm sorry about your car. We'll pay for the damage." "Oh, you don't need to...I just want to...drive away, because I'm late--" "What happened to your hand? Do you want to go to a hospital?" "It won't be necessary, I think. It was cut by the glass." "All right. If you need anything don't be afraid to call me. My name's Luther Owsley." Luther Owsley...But of course! Brown hadn't recognized him at first--he was rather different from that Luther Owsley he was used to see on the video--but now he realized that he was being saved by a celebrity: Luther Owsley, the Euro-Izer leader. It seemed that he was free to get out of that goddamned battle zone. The animals obeyed their gentleman leader and retreated. He took a gray-and-pink silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and wrapped it around his hurt hand. As soon as he closed the door another thump hit the car. Then another one. And again. And again. It was raining stones on his car! Brown placed his head between the knees again...He was only listening to the noises of the war now...and the noises were telling him that the stone rain stopped...and those bodies, dozens of bodies, were hitting it. The noisy bodies were walking on the roof of his car!...Fighting! They were fighting! There was a fight on, over, and around his car! He was weeping again and he didn't look at what was really going on, but he knew that the two armies, the Afro Force and the Euro-Izer Force--he knew that they just had engaged in open warfare. The open warfare continued for two centuries, or so it seemed to him, until he heard the sound of several explosions--tear gas! The police arrived! The noise was lower, then the warriors were farther! The police stopped them! He was saved! The tear gas had reached him. It was nearly impossible to see anything. He opened the door and stepped out of his car in order to thank the police force for the rescue. I seemed that there were two navy-blue uniforms approaching him, so he lifted his head and was about to say Thank-you-for-rescuing-me-officer when the navy-blue uniform pulled his arms and handcuffed him--handcuffed him! * * * In the precinct, Leroy Brown, the prisoner, was identified and put on a line together with the other Afro and Euro-Izer prisoners. The line was crawling and ended before the table of an old and tired policeman who barely looked at the prisoners. The old man just glimpsed to see the skin color of the prisoner. If he or she were an Euro-Ized subject, he automatically knew which side he or she was on. If the subject wasn't Euro-Ized, well, the subject had to make a choice. The old man didn't ask anything to Leroy Brown. The question was always the same, so the next on the line should know what to answer. But Brown stopped before the table and said nothing. The policeman looked up at him. The effeminate voice of Leroy Brown said, "Listen, officer, this is a terrible mistake. I am a victim. I was just passing by when I was caught by these filthy gangs of hoodlums." "Which one?" the tired policeman asked. "You didn't understand me, officer. I don't belong to any of these gangs--" "Afro or Euro-Izer?" "This is a mistake. I--" "Listen, I'm very tired, fag, and I want to go home. Will you fucking choose a fucking side or not?" How vulgar the bastard was! He was deaf and didn't have any sensibility! He realized that Brown wouldn't answer, so he answered for him: "With the Afros." Another policeman started to pull him, but he turned and yelled to the old man, "No! With the Euro-Izers!" He knew that their leader, Luther Owsley, had been arrested, too. At least there was a gentleman leading these hoodlums, someone who could protect him. This was Owsley's Karma. * * * It was a big cell and there was a dozen of Euro-Izers in it. Luther Owsley was sitting and concentrated on something. He had been arrested innumerable times since the Euro-Izer Movement began; then he remained calmly philosophizing. He knew the purpose of the Movement. That was enough to him. The cell door was opened and other Euro-Izers came in...The Euro-Izers and an effeminate victim of them. The Euro-Izer leader raised his eyes and saw Brown. He was very surprised. He looked at Brown's face and said, "I'm deeply sorry--" "Leroy Brown." "I'm sorry, Mr. Brown. I'm afraid we cannot pay for this damage." "It's the police that has to pay! How can they make this mistake? I'm an innocent victim!" "I know you are. But, believe me, it happens all the time." "It never happened to me--" As soon as Brown said to me he began to weep again. His cellmates started to laugh and Owsley made him sit by his side. "I don't know how many times I've been arrested...It's a price to pay." Brown wiped and dried his eyes. "To beat the Afros?" "No, we don't want to beat the Afros. We don't want to beat any group. We just want to be respected by the Afros and everybody else...The opposite is happening: The Afros want to beat us--that's the reason of their existence." "I know--I've seen them on TV. One of them said the FDA should forbid the drug you take--" "And arrest those who take it after the prohibition--" "As far as I know you'd be the first one, since you fabricate your drug, too." Before 2055, the pharmacist Luther Owsley was as Afro as the president of Liberia. 2055 was the year that he, as a pharmacist, decided to popularize among the Afros the process to whiten the colored ones--a process that had been used by many wealthy Afros, mainly artists, for more than a half century...Yes, he wanted to whiten everyone who wasn't white, including himself! Therefore, what Owsley wanted wasn't just an affordable drug--he wanted a political earthquake! He wanted to created a political San Andreas Fault! He wanted to shake the foundations of any policy based on minority rights or quotas or whatever...and more! His drug was, well, a drug, and the political theory of the stone liberals that the government didn't have the right to forbid a free person to take anything he or she wanted to, nor have the right to forbid the existence of any drug --this political theory had, in the 21st century, forbidden the government to forbid drugs. It could control, it could advise, but it could not forbid...Then the so-called "Free-Drug America" had to accept Mr. Owsley's affordable whitening drug...but it didn't...the liberals and the liberal Afros didn't...because one of their sacred and established principles was conspiring to destroy another one of their sacred and established principles...and because the dreadful conservatives had loved it--the conservatives were in love with a drug!...Then Luther Owsley had go what he wanted: a factory to produce large quantities of his whitening drug, making it affordable, a massive propaganda to make colored people buy it, a political association to spread his ideas and protect his customers, and a coast-to-coast political earthquake. Owsley stood up and began to talk to the Euro-Izers. "My wife's coming here to bail us out. My company will pay everything, as always. And she will bail Mr. Brown out, too, who is here due to an unfortunate mistake." Brown nodded, as if to say, Thank you. Owsley was still talking when a policeman arrived and opened the cell door. "Leroy Brown," he yelled. Brown stood up. "You were bailed out by a woman." "A Chinese woman?" "I think so." "Thank God!" He passed by Owsley and said, "She's my employer. I had called her, but I didn't know if she was coming or not. Thanks anyway, Mr. Owsley." "Oh, I didn't forget about your car," said Owsley. He took a card from his pocked and gave it to Brown. "Call me." Brown looked at the card, which read, EURO-IZING INC. --LUTHER OWSLEY, PRESIDENT, and replied, "I will." Then he walked out of the jail and went to meet and thank his employer, Cynthia Jiang. 28. Cynthia Jiang was driving a car that was on the RecherchÊ List of Leroy Brown. In fact, almost everything about her was on his RecherchÊ List; the neighborhood where she lived, the house where she lived, her clothes, her favorite restaurants and clubs and, of course, the fact that her first husband was the richest person of the whole world now, a man that flew to the moon as frequently as he drove in the battle zone. According to Cynthia, her first husband would never become a trillionaire without her, for she had taught him how to seize the fashionable, how to seize the opportunities, in order to make money. Brown never believed her. It was pretty obvious that her first husband was a born money-maker. That man would make it with or without her; this was what his common sense said. His employer was a great woman, she knew everything about art and fashion, but she wasn't a money-maker. She could never have taught this...simply because this wasn't her Karma. Karma or no Karma, the fact is that she was losing money since the Twenties, and she was rich enough to keep losing it until the end of her days--and this was recherchÊ, too! She was a daughter--or the mother--of the glorious Twenties. Right now she was parking in front of the museum where Leroy Brown worked, the Museum of Translucidist Art--her museum--a symbol of the glorious, crazy, and profitable Twenties. Brown stepped out of the car and felt the warm wind that was coming from the ocean. It was a hot day in Malibu. He and Cynthia entered the museum, passed by her huge ten-foot-high double-canvas Translucidist painting that represented Direct Democracy--another permanent symbol of the Twenties--and went to the office. She closed the door and looked into his eyes. She was very charming, he thought. As the 21st century itself, she was in her sixties, and those wrinkles seemed to be a perfect combination with her Asian eyes, as if she had been born with them. And the way she had her hair, tied back in a pony tail, made it more evident--and elegant. "Are you happy with this job, Leroy?" He froze...What?...Is she going to fire me? I live among criminals, and now I became one of them! I was arrested! It was absurd, unfair, but I was arrested! She doesn't want criminals in this museum! "Yes, I love this place, darling. You know that I love it." "I asked if you're happy--" "Happy? Well, I have my ambitions but...they don't make me...unhappy." "That's what I'm asking you, Leroy. Does this museum belongs to your plans?" Well, it seems she won't fire me after all. Am I going to be promoted...because I was arrested?! "I can't imagine myself out of here, Cynthia." "Good...because our curator will retire next year...and I was thinking of you...Do you want to replace him?" He opened a broad and effeminate smile. "It would be marvelous!" He wasn't thinking about money; he was thinking about...recherchÊ! He was thinking about the improvements in his social life, in parties, in recherchÊ places, in social status and, mainly, he was thinking of how his mother would feel about this new status--her new status, too! "All right. But you must understand that you'll have to study and learn a lot, therefore you'll have to work together with the present curator till the next year." "I understand. And I'll read a lot. Don't worry, darling." "I trust you, Leroy, but I'm worried about the place you live. Our curator just can't live in the inner city. What happened with you today was just an advice...What do you think?" He knew it! He knew it! It was his Karma to get out of the battle zone! He was arrested because of it! Everything was clear now! He had to be arrested, and he was happy he'd been arrested, because the Superior Thing had planned it for him, because the stars had changed their positions, and...because...this...was...his...Karma! "I was...waiting for this moment, Cynthia. I knew I'd leave that place--and the time has come." "You'll live near here, Leroy. We'll find a nice place for you--and your new salary will be enough to afford it." "May I answer your first question again?" "If you're happy?" "Yes." "You don't need to. I can see it in you face--" And then the grinning Cynthia sat closer to the grinning Leroy, changed her tone, and asked, "Tell me, Leroy, do you know if those handsome Euro-Ized guys have kept their...Afro-Sized...you know--" That sounded weird, although it is true that there were several women who had more intimacy with effeminate men than with other women. "Oh, I don't know, darling. I've never had one." He giggled. "But--" "What?" "Their leader, Luther Owsley--well, I wasn't staring at it, but I saw something...big...filling his left leg--" "Come on, Leroy, I know that you pay attention to these things...Don't be shy; I stare at crotches, too." He raised his hand to the mouth. "Darling!" "Don't forget that I invented Translucidist Fashion! And men wore it, too. You could check any guy's dick jus walking on the street. Unfortunately the Twenties are over and nobody wears it anymore." "I didn't live in the Twenties, but it seems that the Sixties are becoming crazy, too." "It's a quite different situation, Leroy. In the Twenties, I and Igor were young and we changed the world with art and fashion, but mainly with art. Everything became artistic in the Twenties, even politics...and now it seems that everything is spinning around a new drug, a drug that is causing the collapse of the most important minority of our country along with its cultural assets and the social policies it has gained in more than one century." Brown never knew which side he was on. Today he felt he should choose one of them, he felt he should think about it. And now, to his surprise, he disliked what the Translucidist Queen had just said. He felt she was on the wrong side. "I don't think so, Cynthia. Your father is Chinese, you're Asian-American, but you don't belong to a minority as I do. Believe me, it's very uncomfortable, no matter how much privileges you gain. It's uncomfortable to have a privilege. It's uncomfortable that other people think that you need a privilege. I feel as if the society had rejected us because we were not normal, and then the society decided to accept us with privileges because we're not normal...and we'll never be normal, no matter what. There are statistics made for us, only for us, because we're an ethnic group, because we're not normal. I've never seen a regular statistic without 'black' and 'Hispanic'--just like I've never seen a regular statistic with 'Jew,' 'Polish,' 'Irish,' 'German,' 'French,' 'Russian,' or whatever...I don't care if my ethnic group will collapse or not. I don't care. I don't know if this drug is good or not. Nevertheless, I understand Luther Owsley. I know why he's taking it. I think he realized that it doesn't matter if he is rejected or privileged in our society anymore. Both situations are uncomfortable because they're not normal. If an Euro-Ized look is the same as a normal look, I think he made the right choice...That's what I think." "Jesus, Leroy! I never knew that you're not proud of your roots! You don't belong to an abnormal group. To be part of a minority group doesn't mean that you are no normal." "That's what the psychiatrists and sociologists say, but that's not what I feel, Cynthia. I know that I should be proud of who I am, of what I am. But I'm not proud--I'm accepted because it is politically correct to accept, say, 'a person like them.' I can win a contest, an award, and I'll never know if I won it because I'm good enough or because I'm black enough--this is the source of this sensation, of this uncomfortable sensation." "This is a shock to my political beliefs!" "I'm sorry, darling. You know that I hate politics. That's why I disliked both sides, the Afros and the Euro-Izers--they are too politicized. But now...I don' know--" "Are you going to take this drug?" "I don't know." "Why not? You said you'd like to have a normal look...I wouldn't say normal--mainstream is the right word." "No, this is different. Not normal: this is exactly how I feel." "Well, and now I don't know what to think, too. I am liberal, and the liberals are on the Afro side. I though you were on their side. I thought the Euro-Izers to be naive people, victims of a powerful conservative lobby that wants to standardize them in order to cancel their civil rights... Now you showed me a psychological reason I didn't know. You sort of justified this whitening drug with a non-political argument. You surprised me. I really don't know what to think." "Then we are on the same side, Cynthia--the confused one." "Oh, how I wanted to be young again! I wanted to feel that excitement again! I wanted to be part of something meaningful and radical. I wanted to shake the world and be shaken by it again...As a liberal I should hate this Luther Owsley, but I can't deny that he's shaking the world. It's not like I and Igor did in the Twenties, but the bastard's shaking the Sixties!" "Yes, he's shaking--and the Afros are shaking him." He dug into his pocked and pulled out Owsley's card. "Do you want to know him?" "What is this?" she said, looking at the card. "Mr. Owsley is a gentleman and he wants me to call him. He said he'll fix my car." "And when are you going to call him?" He shrugged. "Tomorrow--next week--" "Arrange a meeting with him. I want to know him...I want to know if there's some Twenties in his Sixties blood--" "Then you will suck his blood, like a vampire, to regain your youth?" "I can't suck his blood, but maybe I can suck some"--she opened a smile--"excitement." 29. The world was upside-down in the Sixties. How could he explain what was happening? He was changing the goddamned society, therefore he shouldn't gather a conservative support. He didn't know if he was making it better or if he was making it worse, but, what the hell, only History could answer this little and insignificant question after some years, some decades, when History scholars change their political moods, if they ever change their political moods, and when they analyze this particular period of the country's life under the impartial light of Science, if Science has anything to do with History...So, in short, he didn't know what he was doing, or why he was doing whatever he was doing, or for whom he was doing whatever he was doing. Had his drug affected his mind? His thoughts could be upside-down, just like the Sixties...or the Sixties could be upright if his upside-down thoughts were seeing them upside- down...or-- Beeeeeeeeep! "Yes?" "Mr. Owsley, there's a couple here: Mr. Leroy Brown and Ms. Cynthia Jiang. They want to see you." "Let them in." Luther Owsley pushed a button on the desk and opened his office door. The office was predominantly white, the favorite color of Euro-Izing Inc. Stepping on the white floor, yellow Jiang and black Brown entered his office. Owsley was standing near the door and happy to shake their hands. He had seen Brown two weeks ago, when he had been his cellmate. He soon realized that Brown should be the kind of person who was frequently annoyed when he was remembered that he belonged to a minority--twenty-four hours per day, that is--the kind of person he could save. Effeminate men were always uncomfortable about it, he knew it. He had thousands of effeminate customers. He knew that they were the leas afraid of chemicals and plastic surgery. They didn't think twice to change the way they looked. It was as if happiness, to them, had something to do with physical metamorphosis. "You must be Mr. Brown's employer," Owsley said. "Yes, Leroy is studying to be the curator of my museum, the Museum of Translucidist Art. He's one of the best." "I'm sure he is. Unfortunately he was caught in the middle of a street fight and was arrested by mistake. I think it was my fault...I know you paid the bail, Ms. Jiang, and I'm glad you came here with him. I want to reimburse you." "Oh, forget it, Mr. Owsley. It won't be necessary...and I came here because I wanted to know you and...I want to understand what's going on. I don't even know the kind of drug you produce--" "I know who you are, Ms. Jiang. I--" "Cynthia." "I know how you changed the world in the Twenties, Cynthia. You and M.Igor Slysh." "That's why I want to understand the Euro-Izer Movement. I know that it is different from the Translucidist Movement--it's not related to art--but its impact on the society is almost the same." "No, it's not the same. The media loved you Movement, and the same media hates my Movement--and that is a big difference! According to the media, the impact of my Movement on the society is completely negative. They say I'm destroying the society." "That's not what I meant. The fact that the media is talking about you symbolizes your impact on the society. You can't deny it." "I can't agree with you, Cynthia. You were loved--you don't know how it feels to be hated." "Anyway, there's another thing: Once you start a movement, once you have thousands who depend on you, who trust you, you simply can't step back. You can't withdraw. Your Movement, like mine, gathered momentum and cannot be stopped. It doesn't matter now if the media hates you or loves you. The Movement doesn't have an owner. You started the Euro-Izer Movement as I started the Translucidist Movement in the Twenties, but it doesn't belong to you anymore--it belongs to the people--it belongs to History. So...let History drive your Movement--" Jesus, she was right! He couldn't control the media and History was driving his Movement, so his thoughts were useless--as useless as the opinions of the scholars, for he had pushed the goddamned key and things were happening and the society was changing and useless thoughts and opinions wouldn't make anything happen! Cynthia Jiang had probably tried to change the Translucidist Movement in the Twenties, and she learned that she couldn't, she just couldn't extinguish or change what she had created; History was driving it and it would change or extinguish when History ordered to. "Frankly, Cynthia, I never saw the Euro-Izer Movement from this angle. I believe that--" Brown turned to him and asked, "Do you believe in Destiny?" "I believe in cause and effect." Like every person who thinks that understand the supernatural causes of natural effects, this effeminate black man before him was behaving as if it was his duty to lecture the rationalist crowd in order to make them see how the zodiac, the spirits, the vibrations, the positive and negative energies, the mystic numbers, the ancient Egypt, the pyramids, the magic crystals, the spells, the Superior Thing, the UFOs, the supernatural wights--to make them see how these invisible causes were ruling the world, were ruling their very lives...how these causes belonged to a general Destiny...how Destiny couldn't be changed by individual will...how the will itself couldn't be changed because it belonged to the person's Karma...how there was no chance, either, for everything that happens is part of a master plan, an non-human, supernatural master plan... "Your Movement has its own Karma, then you must behave as Cynthia said--everything that happened and everything that will happen are effects of its Karma." Owsley smiled. Leroy Brown was his customer, all right. That was typical: Every effeminate man he knew was an effeminate mystic who considered himself a reincarnation of Shirley MacLaine. And every ShirleyMacLaine wanted to be as white as she had been. "I know the causes of the Euro-Izer effect. All I wanted to know now is if this effect is the cause of something good or something bad." "I've always been a liberal," said Cynthia, "and the liberals, as you know, believe that it is something bad. But, believe me, it has no meaning compared to the movement, the change, the social impact itself. Anything that shakes any establishment is something good. If the liberal establishment, with its ethnic quotas and minority rights, is being shaken--well, that's all right--let it be shaken." "The shaking comes first--?" "It sure comes!" Well, the revolutionary was back! Any revolution was something good--as long as it did not become established, that is-- "If you really are liberal, Cynthia, you lost your friends since you entered my office...unless you came here to kill me." She laughed, the effeminate mystic laughed, Owsley laughed. Then Owsley turned to Brown and asked, "Have you brought your car?" "No, I came with her, in her car." "That's all right." He pulled his drawer, took a piece of paper, and began to scribble something. "I'll give you an address. You just drive it to this garage and they'll bill me for the repair of your car." Brown still wasn't the curator, so he couldn't say no to a free repair, no matter how cheap it was. He took the piece of paper and put it into his pocket. Owsley stood up. "I'll show you the drug that is shaking the liberal establishment." "I'm afraid I can't take it," said Cynthia, grinning. * * * Cynthia and Leroy followed Owsley into the hall next to his room. When she passed before him, she stared at his crotch to check if Leroy was right about the volume...and she saw nothing. The cuckoo was hidden. It probably was excited by the street fight when Leroy saw it, or it wasn't as Afro-Sized as she thought. In fact, nothing was Afro-Sized in this Euro-Ized character. His nose was as thin as a needle. His lips were very thin, either. And his cheekbones were as Euro as any WASP's. And his skin--well, it seemed that Snow White was his mother. They were walking through one of the corridors of the main building of Euro-Izing Inc., the building that faced the street, the facade of the Whitening Drug House, when Owsley stopped before the ground-to-ceiling glass window and stared at the mob. One story below, about fifty feet away, the mob recognized him, Luther Owsley, the Euro-Izing Devil, with his red cloak, his arrowlike tail, his horns, his long fingernails, and all. The Euro-Izing Devil kept staring at them with his hands on the hip, in a defying way. The mob began to shout and wave the big signs they were carrying, signs that said, "Black Killer," "Stop This Racist Genocide," "No More White Ass-Kissing Drug." White ass-kissing drug??? Then someone in the mob threw a stone. The stone hi the glass window right in front of Owsley. Leroy covered his face, waiting for another rain of glass. The Euro-Izing Devil didn't move--he didn't blink!...And Cynthia looked at his crotch to see if the cuckoo was excited now. Owsley smiled at the mob and turned to Leroy. He saw him covering his face and said, "Don't worry. This glass is bullet-proof and stone-proof. These bastards can't hit us." "Thank God!" To Cynthia, he said, "Their chief is down there." She looked at the mob and asked, "Where?" "There," he said, pointing at the character. "He's wearing a brown T-shirt and a black cap." "Yes. I can see him." * * * Luther Owsley was right. Spiky Little was here. And he was talking to his friend Morgan Dawson, an Afro activist and congressman. "Come on, Spiky, you know that we can't do it! I'm trying to stop this new bill that'll liberalize the racist genetic treatment on babies; that's all we can do by now." "You know, this is funny. The racist genetic engineering will ruin the business of this son of a bitch. If black moms can give birth to white babies--" "Some of them are doing it already, although it's illegal." "And we can't stop these racist mothers--I can' imagine what would happen if this racist thing were legal...Anyway, if they can give birth to white babies, these babies would never buy this fucking racist drug. The son of a bitch would be broke." "Jesus Christ, Spiky! You prefer to beat your enemy or to save our people?" "Both, Morgan. I prefer both. That's why I want the racist genetic treatment forbidden and the racist drug forbidden." "I tried to put the FDA people against the wall last week, but they kept showing me these medical figures about the whitening drug. They keep saying there's no damaging side-effects, that it is according to the law and so on. I don't know what else we can do, except a bill to outlaw all drugs, including grass and coke." "No way! We can't get back to the fucking Conservative Age! We must find a way to outlaw only racist drugs, Morgan!" "Not at the Capitol Hill, Spiky. Everything I tried led us to a dead end." "If the Capitol is a dead end we must go to the courts--what do you think?" "That's not my area. We must talk to the lawyers. But the lawyers have to grab at something, some law, to sue the son of a bitch." "Principles, Morgan, Principles!--Justice!--Civil Rights!--Racism!--that's what we must grab at!" "Yeah...maybe you're right. I don't know. I don't even know if there's justice in our country. There's no Afro justice here! Justice's pale and has a needle nose. The Afros are becoming a fucking endangered species and they don't give a shit!" The Afros were probably knocking at the wrong door. "Endangered species" was the province of the EPA. * * * The all-white laboratory of Euro-Izing Inc. had several people in white smocks, all of them white--or Euro-Ized. In/ any ckse, you/couldn't tell which one of them wasn't a born white. They stared at Leroy Brown. An Afro! A demonstrator! The Afros invaded the building! "Don't worry," yelled Owsley. "Mr. Brown is my friend." And the white smocks resumed their tasks. Cynthia looked at Leroy. She knew what uncomfortable meant. She saw it; she saw the impact of those stares on Leroy's pride (or amour propre, as he would say). She saw the dark side of Leroy's I'm-not-normal Syndrome. Owsley had an ampule with...the drug...in his hand. "This is it," he said. Cynthia held the ampule and smiled. "I thought it looked like milk." "We don't need white ink to be white, but we do need ink to be colored--" "What do you mean?" "Hormone! We need a hormone to stimulate the production of the melanin that darkens our skin." "And people like me produce too much ink, too much melanin--I know that," said Brown. "But how can this drug stop it?" "The Radioactive MSH--this is the name of the whitening drug--simply kills the cells that produce the ink. It's just like a hormone produced by the pituitary gland, right in the middle of the brain, but it is radioactive to kill these cells. Think of it as a Trojan Horse: It pretends to be the ordinary MSH, then it is absorbed by these cells and kills them. So your body doesn't produce melanin anymore--you're freed from the ink--you're white!" "That sounds easy--" "It is easy!" Cynthia opened her hand and gazed at the ampule again. "So...if this thing killed your ink producers you'll never be colored again." "That's right. I'll be white--forever." That did it. That was enough resuscitate her Liberal Conscience, which she thought it was dead: This drug is a goddamned amputation...a racial amputation!...It works as a racist scalping that cuts only the rebel cells, the cells that don't want to be like the conservative, square cells, the cells that behave differently from the majority's cells...Owsley didn't create a drug that offers a new opportunity, a new experience to its users--he created a drug that takes its users from their African origins, that removes them from their ethnic group, that amputates, forever, their racial ID!...With his drug, there are no experienced persons; every user is an amputated person, a racially amputated person! But then, Cynthia saw that Leroy was staring at Owsley with a smile on his face. He was either envying or feeling attracted to him. Or both. Owsley was a real handsome guy. He had a handsome thin nose, handsome lips, handsome hair, a handsome white skin--and he probably had a handsome... cuckoo...too! She shivered. Was Leroy looking forward to become a racially amputated person? Still staring at the handsome guy, Leroy asked, "How were you when you were colored? I'm curious." Owsley smiled. "I'll show you." Then he gestured to them and they walked to another room. This room had a screen hanging on the wall. He turned the screen on. It was showing six photos of the same man. The thing was like some kind of Euro-Izing Via Crucis, but this martyr, who was black and wide-nosed in the firs picture and white and thin-nosed in the last one, he wasn't Luther Owsley. "Do you know him?" asked Owsley. "No, but he's dressed like a pop star," said Leroy. Cynthia moved closer to the screen and pointed at the last picture, the photo where the character was definitely Euro-Ized. "Yes, he was a pop star. I don't recall his name, but I know him. He was a pop star." "Michael Jackson was his name. He's considered a pioneer. He was Euro-Ized in the 20th century--he was the first Euro-Izer." Then the screen began to show another dark face. This one was real dark. It was jet black. It was so black, it was impossible to see how wide was his nose was; the eyes and the teeth were the only light that could escape from this black hole. "This is you?" asked Cynthia. "Luther Owsley, circa 2052," he answered. Another photo. Luther Owsley, 2056. A light brown face and a very, very, very wide nose and lips. Then another one. Almost white. First plastic surgery on the nose. Then... well, the rest of his metamorphosis. Leroy sighed. "Jesus, you were very--" "Ugly?" "Like me." Christ, how could they talk like this? It was disgusting. It was against her Liberal Conscience. She could understand uncomfortable situations and social changes and shaken establishments, all right. But...racism?! A member of an ethnic group ridicularizing his own group's characteristics? Using beauty standards from another ethnic group? Ohhhhhh, no--she couldn't accept this...But then, on second thoughts, what did she know about their spirits to condemn them? She knew she was divided in two: An individual like Leroy Brown was just this, an individual; he had his will and he had his individual rights. And on the other side there was an ethnic group and their rights as a group and the civil rights of a minority group. And both sides were right...She couldn't tell Leroy to say no to Owsley's drug; this was part of his individual rights...and she couldn't accept this racial amputation... She wanted to be like Igor: To him, right-or-wrong didn't belong to the real world; profit-or-loss was the only rule. 30. His unrecherchÊ car was ready. New windows, new painting. This free repair had been very good, much better than he expected. He was driving it as if he were driving a new car. It still wasn't the car that his mother Coretta deserved, yet he was driving her to her favorite shopping mall. In the mall, while Coretta was talking to a salesgirl who seemed to know everything about ladies' underwear, especially the most expensive ones, Brown walked out of the store. In a few seconds he reached the store he was looking for, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. This store was very small and you couldn't the insides of it--which was according to the law. The same law that liberalized the drugs had imposed severe restrictions on how they should be sold and how they should be produced. The law demanded federal control on the drug business. The FDA controlled their production and the FBI controlled the drug stores. They couldn't be sold in marts' shelves nor in ordinary drugstores. The place had to be special, designed only for selling this kind of product. So Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had no window. You couldn't see which products the store was selling, unless you came into it. The facade of the store had a painting, a reproduction of the cover of the century-old Sergeant Peppers album. Its entrance was a black revolving door with huge white letters that advised, according to the law, that the place was forbidden for those who were younger than twenty-one. The store was forbidden for teenagers; they couldn't even enter it, it didn't matter if they were alone or accompanied by an adult. Brown passed through the black revolving door and entered. The guard looked at his face and decided that he wasn't young enough so he didn't need to ask for an ID. He looked around. The environment was rather dark and foggy. He felt as if he were in a film noir. He was Humphrey Bogart playing Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe...Bogey was looking around. He wasn't looking for a clue; he was trying to find the whitening way, the Euro-Ticket to get him out of that Afro-Darkness. Bogey glimpsed the guard and concluded that he was a retired policeman...yes, a retired policeman who used to arrest drug dealers when he was young and now--well, that's life--now he was protecting a place which was selling pure drugs, drugs that were much better than the expensive and poisonous stuff he used to confiscate in the streets, drugs that were quality-controlled by the government, the same government that underpaid him to arrest these now-honest salesmen...The world was noir, like the films. Bogey began to scan the shelves. There were several types of cocaine--cocaine with heroin, light cocaine, extra light cocaine, cocaine gum, cocaine candy--as well as other drugs like marijuana, opium, ecstasy, and so on. A black Jamaican or reggae-player character stood by his side and started to look at the various types of cocaine. Bogart looked at his hands and saw that he was holding a lot of marijuana and some opium, too. The reggae player finally picked up a box of Joplin's Extra Light. Extra light?! Bogey thought he was preparing some kind of Russian Roulette Party, but it seemed that he just wanted to play reggae in Jamaica without leaving Los Angeles. Then the reggae player turned to Bogey and said, "Try this one. It makes you ready for anything." Bogey just smirked and picked up a box of Joplin's Extra Light and began to read what the FDA people had written about its effects, its correct dosage, the ways of taking it, and its chemical composition. When the reggae player walked away, Bogey returned the box to the shelf. Ah, the whitening stuff! Luther Owsley's stuff! There was a shelf full of it. There were two types of whitening drug before Bogey's eyes: the "Normal" Radioactive MSH and the "Alpha" Radioactive MSH, which--it was written--was more efficient. Owsley's drug came in a syringe, not in ampules like the one he had shown in the lab. The cardboards that held the drug-filled syringes advised that the user should take only two of them--the second and last shot after 30 days--and that the drug was valid for twelve days only; it should be taken very soon. (The radioactive drug lost its efficiency so fast, Owsley's company had to make weekly replacements on the drug stores.) The whitening drug was the kind of drug that a person should take in clinics and hospitals; the fact that it was being sold amidst cocaine, heroin, and grass was consequence of a purely political decision. Luther Owsley wanted to keep it far from stimulants and hallucinogenic drugs, for it provoked a very different kind of effect, but it was decided that its social side-effects were as socially dangerous as stimuli and hallucinations. So the Radioactive MSH was here, far from the ordinary drugstores and marts, far from the black teenagers who supposedly weren't old enough to understand how politically correct their ink producing cells were, and far from the sight of those who didn't dare to enter a...dump like this. Bogey hesitated for an instant. He looked around and picked up a syringe. "Alpha". He acted as if he were awkwardly stealing something. While he was paying for it, still showing an awkward behavior, he started to think what he would say to his mother...No! What was he thinking? Humphrey Bogart, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe were motherless characters! Stepping out of this film noir atmosphere, Brown was trying to hide the small bag in one of his pockets--in fact, he was trying to hide it from his mother. He couldn't explain it to her; he had to explain it to himself in the first place. He didn't know if he would find the guts to take the drug...and do the plastic surgery...to become a white man...a handsome man like Luther...or just become a man who could walk on the streets like a normal person, without any political or social meaning printed on his face like a goddamned sign, like a T-shirt full of words begging for quotas and privileges and social compensation...An explanation, for Christ's sake, an explanation! He couldn't explain it to himself...of course! Of course! The explanation--or the lack of it--dawned on him: He didn't have to explain to his mother or to himself why he had bought this syringe because this explanation didn't belong to this world! He did what he did because it was written somewhere that today he would do it! These explanations were in the realm of the Superior Thing, of the Karma, of the stars! He had to buy it!--and he did buy it! And now...well, he didn't know what would happen...but he was sure the Superior Thing knew it! 31. Yes, the Euro-Ized Afro-Sized cuckoo of the Euro-Izing Devil was growing now--and he wasn't using any Translucidist Fashion to show the Translucidism Queen how Afro-Sized it was. She kept staring at it while the Euro-Izing Devil removed his red cloak...until the cuckoo started to sing inside the old Chinese clock as if it were telling the world it was twelve o'clock. The Twenties are back! The Twenties are back!--that's what she was telling herself. The cuckoo had dug a big hole in the ground, thrown her Liberal Conscience into it, covered it, planted some flowers, and placed a big gravestone with an epitaph: "Its hopeless boredom could not match the joyful excitement of the politically incorrect." When she seduced Igor, in the Twenties, she was young, she was in her twenties, and she needed money to change the world...but now, in the Sixties and in her euphemistic middle ages, she needed nothing but--well, she needed the twenties back. She wanted to feel alive again. And all she had to offer in her seduction game was the advice and incentive of a person who had created and managed the Twenties. Luther Owsley, who was forty, was young enough to be the son she had never had, then he was the kind of person who would never know how the actual Twenties had been, for his Twenties, and the Twenties of the younger people, was a mythological Twenties. Her accounts were holy stories, her belongings had mystic properties, and her incentive was a blessing. Now that his Afro-Sized cuckoo had put her Liberal Conscience six feet under, she was ready for the blessing. She was feeling alive again, so his whitening drug was correct and deserved her blessing--and his cuckoo should keep singing. * * * Owsley was betraying his wife with an older woman but he was feeling all right. She wasn't just an older woman, she was a legend. And, besides, since he knew her he was felling happy and he was sure about what he was doing. She had taken a big, heavy weight from his back. The media still hated him, but it didn't matter now. She made him understand that he had created a living thing that could not be driven by him or by the media. He created it, it was changing the society, and that was it! And he was feeling good! Cynthia...nice Cynthia...She had called him several times since he first met her, usually to give advice, until she finally started to invite him. He went to her museum and now he came to her house. He came even knowing what was going to happen. He wasn't excited about the idea, but then he couldn't let her down. That was out of the question. She was the Translucidism Queen, for Christ's sake! If she wanted him, she would have him. When he arrived it was all set for a scene right from the Translucid Twenties. Her groin was shaven and she was wearing one of these pair of pants from the Twenties, with a transparent triangle on the crotch. She was rather wrinkled, but she still was slim. He felt nothing when he saw this old lady pretending to be a girl, but he pretended to be excited --because that was what the Translucidism Queen wanted! * * * The exhausted cuckoo stopped singing and returned to the nest. The Translucidism Queen almost had a heart attack, but she was...alive! The Twenties were back! "Boy, you must've been a young scamp in the Twenties!" "Well, at least I was healthy enough to use my Translucidist pants without shocking anyone." "Come on, you still are a pretty woman." She smiled. "You're a very kind person, Luther...Do you say these things to your wife?" "Uh-huh." He didn't like the question. "Is she Euro-Ized?" He sighed. "She's a born white." Looking at his face she realized that she was beginning to behave like a boring jealous girl, so she decided to enter the adult blessing business. He had done what she wanted; now she had to pay the bill. "I was wondering about what we could do to improve the social acceptance of the Movement." "We?!" "Do you want me out of the Movement, Luther?" "I didn't know you were in it!" "I am...now." "Well, what do you suggest? I was thinking about hiring a serial killer to eliminate Spiky and all the journalists that hate me." "That's part of the problem, I think. Your Euro-Izing drug is a serial killer--of cells." "Of Afros--or Afro-Americans, as they used to say decades ago. My drug just kills what keeps the Afro- Americans from being Americans: it kills the Afro prefix of them." He was obviously delighted with his grammatical realization that his radioactive drug was killing only prefixes and preserving classifying adjectives and count nouns, as if it were a neutron bomb. "I know nothing about chemistry but...is it possible to produce a reversible whitening drug?" "I think so, but it makes no sense. My drug is good because it is inexpensive, efficient, fast and definitive! With my drug a colored person becomes white in sixty days! How do you think an inferior product could improve the social acceptance of the Movement?" "Well, if the Euro-Ized ones could return to the colored breed, nobody would accuse you of"--she remembered her Liberal Conscience's expression, racial amputation, but didn't dare to mention it; it was buried and should keep resting in peace--"plotting against an ethnic group, of belonging to a conservative plan to eliminate minorities." "I don't belong to any conservative plan, you know it. Besides, only adults can buy my drug. I suppose they know what they're doing. If they're tired of being white, well, they can use make-up or whatever...And what happens if you've done plastic surgery and now you want your old face back?" "I know what you mean. You're right. You're talking about the individual, but the media is always talking about groups, ethnic groups--and that is our problem." "The point of view of the media is based on political conventions. There are political standards in our society; corrects and incorrects. They don't give a damn to the point of view of the individual; they want to know which side he is on or which group he belongs to. My drug is never sold to individuals; it is sold to a group. And the group is not a collection of individuals--no! It is something ethereal, without soul, without opinion--it is a fucking political convention!" She smiled and kissed him--the whole thing had dawned on her!--the solution was very simple!--very simple indeed!...It was passing on her mind, scene by scene, like a cinemascope movie...The Twenties are back!...She knew how to give her incentive, her blessing, to the Movement of the Euro-Izer Afro-Sized Luther Owsley...She knew how to improve the social acceptance of the Movement--not only improve, but make it likable...through the corniest way: They had to put an individual, one individual, above the group! Very simple! Very simple indeed! "Have I said anything funny?" he said. "I was thinking about a personal drama...It was passing on my mind like a movie...It's the kind of personal drama the televised media wouldn't ever refuse." Now he was smiling. "I'm interested." "Well, do you know M.Igor Slysh?" "Sure--who doesn't?" And so she began to outline the screenplay of the movie that could make the Euro-Izer Movement as popular and fashionable as her own Translucidist Movement had been-- --well, she was exaggerating. No Movement could be as popular and fashionable as the Translucidism had been, of course. Her gifted blessing could, say, remedy it-- 32. As soon as he put his feet on that floor, the same floor where he used to perform all those Translucidist rituals... with that golden cane...that Translucidist Water...that weird, transparent clothes...Oh God, it seems that it happened yesterday!--as soon as he put his feet on the Museum of Translucidist Art floor, in Malibu, he felt as if some young blood were running through his seventy-year-old veins. The museum entrance was empty, but he felt as if he were surrounded by all those people, those journalists, artists, cameras, smiling people, pretty girls--he was surrounded by the art world! The world he had conquered! He was in the Twenties! He, the Patron of Translucidism! And then he saw the aged face of the China Girl and got back to the Sixties, to the decrepit and boring Sixties. "Igor, I'm glad you could come!" She kissed her former husband in the mouth. "Well, I'm here, Cynthia, but...where's your party?" "You came too early, Igor. I said nine p.m." "Then my secretary's becoming deaf--" "That's okay." "Anyway, I don't know why you demanded my presence here. I don't belong to the art world anymore--I don't even know your new curator, the reason of this party!" "You must know him. Don't forget that you own half of what was left of our museums, including half of this one." He smiled. "I don't have enough memory to remember it. Only my computer knows what I own--" "Christ, I know you're the richest one, Igor, but you don't need to snob me!" "I'm not snobbing you! I've never matched your talent!" "Don't be silly, Igor...Let's meet our new curator. He's in the office." * * * The Superior Thing was playing with him. He had told his mother about the drug and she answered by saying that she had been praying everyday to understand what was going on with their race and to know when her son would finally surrender to this drug. So God answered her: Her son had surrendered to the drug and its purpose was to bring comfort and ease to their race. God, she understood now, was withdrawing the Babel Tower punishment. There was a world language now, English, which was being spread by Him--and now He decided that the whole world, everybody, should regain the color of the primordial parents, Adam and Eve. The Euro-Izer Movement, she was sure, was created by God, for He wanted a peaceful, non-divided humanity. He wanted no more divisions between His sons and daughters; they all should speak the same language and look like brothers and sisters because they all were brothers and sisters--they all should speak and look like Adam and Eve! It was the will of God! It was his mother's Karma to understand it in the Biblical way. He must have known it. If it was his Karma to take the drug, it was his mother's Karma to forgive him. She couldn't change the things that weren't in the realm of this world. But he couldn't foresee what was going to happen after taking the drug. Cynthia changed! The world around him changed! The Superior Thing was playing with him and opened every door for him after it. The drug was a landmark, a starting point. The door to the RecherchÊ World was open--right now! Cynthia had decided to anticipate the retirement of the present curator and introduce him, the new curator, with a big and very recherchÊ party. And she was planning something else for him. She hadn't explained what it was, but it had something to do with Luther Owsley and the legendary M.Igor Slysh. So Leroy Brown was talking to the most special guest of his introduction party, his mother Coretta, and telling her about the RecherchÊ Life that she would lead from now on when Cynthia and M.Igor Slysh entered the room. Brown stood up. "Leroy Brown, our new curator," she said to Slysh. They shook hands and Slysh stepped toward Coretta Brown who was trying to rise from a very low couch. She was a weak old lady and this couch seemed to be made for strong, young people only. "And this is Coretta Brown, his mother," she said. Slysh put his right hand on her shoulder and said, "Please, don't stand up, Mrs. Brown." She looked up and let her body collapse onto the couch. Then he shook her hand. "I am M.Igor Slysh." Coretta just smiled at him. They all sat down and kept smiling until Slysh turned to Cynthia and asked, "When did you change it? The museum is different." "I didn't change it--it was redecorated three years ago." "But I came here two years ago and I don't remember this--" "Two years?! The last time you came here was in fifty-eight!" "Impossible! We're in sixty-two, and I remember that--" "He came here in fifty-seven, Cynthia," said Brown. "I know it because that was my first year in the museum." "Well, he must be right," said Slysh. "He's young. Our memory's getting old, just like our bodies." "That's why we must preserve our fountain of youth." Preserve our fountain of youth? What was she talking about? Brown knew that something was going on between her and Luther, but he didn't know how committed to each other they were. In any case, this affair couldn't possibly have anything to do with a "fountain of youth" or anything like that, much less with her former husband who certainly didn't know anything about this new affair of hers. On the other hand, she might not be talking of this commitment, but of the other one she now had to Mr. Owsley: to support his Movement. If that was it...Brown would be forever young! Slysh just smiled-- --and Cynthia explained: "We must do something exciting, Igor, as we did in the Twenties. We must support actions that change the society." He kept smiling. "The Twenties are over, Cynthia. I exists only in here, in the Museum of Translucidist Art. Let's face it." "Igor...I know it is over, but...something is happening--a new Movement." Then she turned to Brown. "Leroy, show him your photo." "Of the invitation?" "Yes." He picked one of the colorful invitations the museum had printed for the party, for his party, and handed it to Slysh. His face was on its cover. "We took this photo two weeks ago...Now look at Leroy," she said. Slysh shrugged. "Well, this picture is not good. It is dark." Then he pointed at Brown's face, on the photo. "This is not his color." Brown smiled. "This was my color--two weeks ago. I was darker, not the picture." Slysh shrugged again, as if saying, So what? So what, Cynthia? Where's our goddamned fountain of youth? "He took the whitening drug," she said. "The Euro-Izers' drug?! And it didn't horrify you, Cynthia?" "Of course not! Should it?" "Well, you've always been a liberal, Cynthia. And this new drug is strongly condemned by the liberals." "Yes, it is. But that's very superficial. I saw what's lying beneath the surface and it changed my mind. It's very...moving." "What's so moving about another political issue that makes liberals and conservatives get their hands on their guns?" "That--is--on--the--surface! This political issue is based on what is happening on the surface! The liberals and the conservatives don't know what they are talking about because they are not seeing the personal, human drama lying beneath the surface." Leroy Brown wondered if she were talking about him, about his personal...human drama?! Sure, he liked to confess his human weaknesses--but then he hated to hear these interpretations of his weaknesses, as if he were a movie character created to drive the whole theater to tears. So he looked right into her eyes and said, "This is not that dramatic, Cynthia. I'm not sick." "No, Leroy. I'm saying that, from now on, the Euro-Izer Movement should be seen not from the political angle, but from the personal angle. Your personal decision--to take the whitening drug--is much more important than any political question." Brown looked at his mother. It seemed that her mind wasn't in this room. She probably was praying. And he didn't know if Cynthia was right. He wondered if it were more comfortable to publicize a person's soul than to proclaim a political opinion. Was it?...Naaah! Of course not! It was better to be considered naive or d'mod' or politically incorrect than to feel embarrassed and humiliated. "Any political question is dirty. I've been arrested because of it. But...is this a good idea?" "Why not? Would you like to say what you've said to me--your reasons--why you've decided to take the whitening drug--?" "To whom?" "The media." "They wouldn't listen to me--who am I?" "That's where Igor enters!" Slysh stared at her, his eyes widening. "Me?!" "Yes. What about that company you bought in forty-five? Your computer knows that you still own it." "StarMedia?" Then he started to grin and shake his head at same time. "They're independent. I've never told them what to do." "Come on, Igor. Your newspapers, cable, satellite TVs, and Net sites always advertised your opinions on the energy business--and now you tell me they're independent!" "All right, I have a certain...influence...on my editors, but I'm not William Randolph Hearst. Press is not my business." Cynthia leaned toward him, put her right hand on the back of his white-haired head, her mouth on his left ear, and whispered, "As art wasn't your business when you knew me, Mr. Patron of Translucidism..." Brown couldn't hear everything she said, but he was sure that she was kind of blackmailing him. Slysh grinned and looked at Brown. "Well, I'm not, but I think I can...become...William Randolph Hearst...Why not?" Brown laughed, Slysh laughed, Cynthia laughed--even Mrs. Brown laughed! All of a sudden she was listening to their surrealistic plotting. She probably didn't know who William Randolph Hearst had been, but the employer of her son was planning to turn her partner and former husband into an inventor, the kind of inventor that could invent characters, realities, tendencies, fads, celebrities, politicians, opinions, unwritten laws, corrects and incorrects, truths, and History. * * * Luther Owsley's entrance was an event. The other guests, 99.9% of them liberals, art-world liberals like Cynthia (the most fashionable type of liberalism, since liberalism was one of the most important artistic credentials)--well, these artists, would-be artists and art lovers who were always willing to follow the newest liberal doctrine, they all stared at the Euro-Izing Devil while he entered the museum. Their liberal-demonstrator instincts were telling them to boo him, but they knew he was a guest; he was Cynthia's or Leroy's guest. Owsley stopped to watch one of the works of art and, as it was a transparent Translucidist painting, he could see, beyond the canvas, the people talking to each other in small groups and staring at him. But he didn't look embarrassed. He kept his chin up. As Cynthia had taught him, he wasn't driving the Euro-Izing Movement anymore, so the hell with the angry liberal stares; they were glaring at the Movement--which belonged to History--not at him. Cynthia kept looking at Owsley and at what was happening in the party...You fools, you don't know the kind of make-up that I and Igor are preparing for Luther. It'll be just like the drug; it'll change his political appearance so fast, you'll have to change your liberal minds overnight. She walked toward Owsley and saw that his wife was right behind him. Goddammit! She was pretty! She was young! Very young! She was thirty, probably. And her husband was getting laid with a sixtyish lover! Well, she wasn't exactly a lover, she was more like a...sexual partner...than a lover. But, anyway, she was envious. The fountain of youth could bring excitement to her life but not that thirtyish prettiness. Owsley introduced his wife to her and they politely shook hands. Cynthia looked around, at the glaring liberals, and said, "This situation will change. I promise." "M.Igor Slysh is here?" "Yes, he's come. And he's having a very good time." * * * He sure was. The old man was swimming in the goddamned fountain of youth. He was surrounded by artists, smiling people, pretty girls, journalists...just like in the Twenties...These people wasn't even born in the Twenties, then Slysh, the legendary Patron of Translucidism was, in the Museum of Translucidist Art he had built, recreating, reinventing the Twenties for them. As his accounts wen farther and farther from the real Twenties, the young audience became happier and happier. The History books were wrong, of course. If the Patron of Translucidism was telling so, they had to be wrong. These smiling boys and girls would never doubt him. The man had been there, for Christ's sake! He had created the Twenties!...And Slysh, no realizing it, was training to be William Randolph Hearst. His audience was so eager to know about the Twenties, to hear his accounts of the Twenties, it was practically pushing him to invent the reality, the truth, and the History-- Cynthia finally managed to pull the excited Slysh-Hearst to the office again. Mr. and Mrs. Luther Owsley were already here, and so were Leroy Brown and his mother. As Owsley seemed to behave like his receptive audience, Slysh began to tell him stories about the Twenties, but then Cynthia made him stop. It was time to talk about business. It was time to plot. Brown told him why he took the drug, what he felt about belonging to a minority, and everything else he had told Cynthia, and then Owsley talked about what he was feeling in fifty-five when the Euro-Izer Movement began. These two personal, human dramas were becoming as fictitious as Slysh's accounts of the Twenties when the old lady, Leroy's mother, decided it was time to tell them the Truth: Their personal reasons were unimportant before God's Will, and God wanted to recreate the original paradise on Earth; that's why He was unifying the language and the color. This was ridiculous, Slysh thought, but Slysh-Hearst said it could be useful "in certain commercial-TV markets." Brown found it an insulting ironic comment and, in an attempt to support his mother, he made his own version of what she had told them and inserted all these mystical creatures and zodiacal influences into his mother's Biblical story, telling that it was hard to affirm if the personal reasons were more or less important, for everything and everybody had their own Karma and everything was linked together, "but not in this world." Slysh smiled and shook his head as if to say that the Brown family was a hopeless case. Cynthia felt that "her team" was going in the wrong direction and decided, undemocratically, that she, Slysh, and Owsley would be the triumvirate behind this new William Randolph Hearst who would recreate Leroy Brown in order to place him--together with all of the "Browns"--above minorities, ethnic groups, and civil rights. As far as Leroy Brown was concerned, the only thing he could know was that he would "tell his story." That was enough for him, and that was what she said to him. And so Brown seemed happy because he was only going to tell his story, and Owsley seemed happy because he was going to look like a social altruist, and Slysh seemed happy because StarMedia would finally profit if they could invent an embroidered enough human drama to overmerchandise it, and Cynthia seemed happy because she was going to keep that Afro-Sized cuckoo singing in her clock, and Coretta seemed happy because her son was going to enter God's army to promote His will-- --what a fucking blessing! 33. From the very beginning the creators--the triumvirate-- started to lose control. Their character, their creature, was living his own life. It doesn't mean that Leroy Brown became a rebel or something like that. Oh, no. He was just doing what he was said he was going to do: to tell his story. And the triumvirate knew they had to avoid, no matter what, mentioning...minority rights. They couldn't mention it! They couldn't whisper it! The whitening drug was a healing medicine to cure, say, spiritual problems, period; and Leroy Brown would prove it to the world. The triumvirate knew what their character had to prove, yet they were not sure of how to dramatize it--they weren't playwrights!--so when Leroy Brown began to tell his story, TV producer Jon Jacobson realized it was good enough and dramatic enough to be shown without any other screenplay. Slysh, his employer, agreed. And so Cynthia who argued that Brown's mystic version of the facts would be interpreted as esoteric by the majority of the public and cause deep sympathy. Owsley agreed, too, and he loved the fact that Brown was an absolutely non-political character, which would contribute to take politics away from his whitening business--as well as his bËte noire, Spiky-- --who was watching open-mouthed Leroy Brown's drama. This program with Leroy Brown was shown two days earlier as the first chapter of a special report on the Euro-Izer Movement, in Kandor Television, a satellite channel owned by StarMedia. Spiky hadn't seen it, but Morgan Dawson, his pawn in the Capitol Hill, had recorded it to show him. "I can't believe it, Morgan. I can't fucking believe it. They're not showing both sides. They're not making a real report." Jon Jacobson didn't produce a clichÊ story like everybody did, that's what Spiky meant. This was, from the start, a journalistically incorrect report. Every journalist, when not writing editorials, had to pretend they were neutral. They weren't, of course. But the correct journalism demanded two sides, demanded Manicheism, and the journalist was always, always above these two mandatory sides. So the liberal journalists, who obviously were pro-Afros and anti-Euro-Izers, they showed the two armies and the two generals, Owsley and Spiky. Very neutral. Same space for both armies, same mikes and cameras for both generals--except for the angle: Owsley was always more aggressive and cynical than Spiky. The conservative ones did the same, from the reverse angle. What they didn't do, and what Jon Jacobson was doing, was to show this issue without the mandatory two sides. Spiky was used to see the two sides on these reports--everybody was--but as the triumvirate had forbidden Jacobson of showing, mentioning, whispering anything that might resemble minority rights, he ignored the existence of warring armies and the reason of their conflict. Kandor Television's special report--and the rest of the print and electronic media of StarMedia from now on--had only one side: Leroy Brown's. "I know, Spiky. I saw it four times. They don't mention what's happening. They don't mention you--they don't mention the Afros one single time! The whole thing was narrowed down to this faggot who keeps saying that everything's ruled by the stars, that the spirit don't have color or race, and all this shit." "Who the hell is he?" "A fucking John Doe. The whole report tells his story to explain why an ordinary man takes the racist drug. That's bullshit, of course. A fucking soap-opera. The report never tells how people are driven to take the racist drug." Spiky turned to the wall where the electronic screen was hanging on. They were in Spiky's room, at the Afro HQ, in downtown Los Angeles, where the Afro general used to plan his battles against the racist drug. They didn't know they were only four blocks away from the fucking John Doe's unrecherchÊ home, but Spiky recognized the street where this film was made--Leroy Brown's street. "It was here," said Brown, looking at the camera. He was on the right front seat of Kandor Television's van, looking back at the cameraman. His color still was brown, light brown, five weeks after the first shot and one week after the second and last one. In three or four weeks he would be mistaken for Snow White. "Right here?" said the interviewer who was driving the van. "Precisely." He stopped the van and stepped down, with Brown and the camera in tow. The image shook as the cameraman walked. Brown and Al, the interviewer, were looking down at the street pavement. Brown was saying, "Al, can you see these little pieces of glass near the gutter?...They're from the shattered windows of my car." Al didn't ask Brown the ordinary question that a journalistically correct interviewer would certainly ask, like, Who did it, Why do you think they did it, or Which group did it. No. Instead, he asked, "What were you feeling, Leroy? It must've been frightening!" Sure, Brown wasn't that kind of guy who would deny that he was frightened. He was light-years away from being manly. So, remembering what had happened that day, he...cried! The image was closing on Brown's weeping face. He was even more effeminate when he was crying. And now there was a proper background music to accompany his crying. Dawson looked at Spiky. "What have I told you? A fucking soap-opera!" Spiky said nothing. He seemed touched by that soapoperalike scene. Now Brown was wiping his tears and answering Al's question: "I was very, very frightened. It was terrible. I felt I was going to die. But then I remembered what was behind me and behind everything that was happening to me--" "God?" "You may call Him as you like. But the fact is that we're here in this world because we have a purpose, because we have several tasks to accomplish and several bridges to cross. And, from time to time, the Superior Thing challenges us and warns us. I was warned that day. It was my Karma to cross that bridge and meet Mr. Owsley. And it was his Karma to meet me. Everything was arranged by the Superior Thing. He knows what He does." "Tell me how this karmic meeting was." "This meeting was arranged in our previous lives. I still don't know if we were brothers or even relatives--" "In another life?" "Yes. Anyway, we did something together in our previous lives and this became part of our Karma, so we had to meet in order to keep doing what we were doing." "And what is that? Do you know?" Brown smiled. "Nobody knows these things, Al. It's part of our Karma, but we don't know. We cannot know our future --only the Superior Thing can. I couldn't imagine what was it before our meeting, but now I know it has something to do with what Mr. Owsley does." "The whitening medicine?" Whitening...medicine!!! "Few people understand what he is doing, Al. Few people. There's a poisonous cloud in the air which is poisoning the people and disturbing their sight. His task in this world, the task that is in his Karma, the task for which the Superior Thing brought him to this world--his task is to give Inner Peace to people like me; to bring us closer to our brothers and sisters." "Were you looking for Inner Peace?" "I didn't know it was possible till the day that this glass was shattered," he said, pointing at the ground. "So I wasn't looking for it. The Superior Thing had to warn me. That day was horrible, but now I'm almost healed up." * * * This healed up business had been too much for Spiky. The mystic faggot had been hired by the racist conservatives, he was sure of it. And the mystic faggot was an actor; he was just reading some script written by a fucking racist writer in order to call him and the Afros and politics of "poisonous cloud." A fucking soap opera, as Morgan had said. "Turn this shit off, Morgan. I can't see the rest of it." "I thought you wanted to." "It's got a different approach all right--mystic, unpolitical--but then, so what? It's the same racist, conservative shit." "Yes, but how are the people going to react to this shit?" Spiky stood up and walked toward the door. "I don't give a shit...I think I'm becoming a pessimist like you and the fucking lawyers." "The lawyers know that justice is white, Spiky." "Yeah, but they're going to the federal courts, anyway, with this new idea on the violation of civil rights, aren't they?" "The racial genocide approach?" "I think so--I don't know--" "I know: you don't give a shit--" 34. It was 2063 and it was summertime. Sylvester, the very guru of the so-called Spiritual Renaissance of the Sixties, was marching in downtown Los Angeles, a place where the majority of the population was following his spiritual guidance. His thin, white nose was pointing at the horizon and his white Indian tunic was fluttering in the wind. By his side, marching with him, were several spiritual leaders from all over the world: Hindis, Buddists, Shintoists, the Dalai Lama, and Paco Haranne, a Spaniard who could see your former lives just by looking at your face. It had been this Spaniard who told Leroy Brown that his name should be Sylvester, since he had used this name, in several languages, five times before--in five different lives, of course. And the gifted Spaniard had seen that Brown had never been black before--so it was his Karma, indeed, to take Owsley's drug. Now, thanks to Haranne, he was sure about it. The gifted Spaniard had been one of the first spiritual leaders to get in touch with him right after the presentation of the series produced by Jon Jacobson. Haranne knew, since he was a child, that it was his duty to use his talent with people like Leroy Brown. Haranne's own guru had told it, decades ago. When he was seven he looked at the mirror and saw Cleopatra. He didn't understand what he was seeing, and then he looked again and saw Nebuchadnezzar. The poor child was confused. He couldn't understand his powers. But then, when he was ten, he found the guru who explained who he really was, who he had been--Cleopatra and Nebuchadnezzar--and how, and for whom, he had to employ his talent...Well, that was the story Haranne kept repeating in talk shows. The fact that the reincarnation of Cleopatra and Nebuchadnezzar needed expensive fees to use his talent could be easily explained by the material world's Karma--just like the self- promotion's Karma could explain why he was helping, for free, Sylvester (formerly Leroy Brown), the Euro-Izer Movement, and Luther Owsley. So Sylvester, leading the Spiritual March, the March for a collective Inner Peace, was feeling utterly confident with a person like Haranne by his side. This marvelous spiritual atmosphere that had been surrounding him for the past eight months had made him forget all of these old, material preoccupation as ambition and personal planning. Sylvester wasn't Leroy Brown. He was so sure that another world, the invisible supernatural world, was governing his life, he didn't dare to make personal plans anymore. He wasn't even planning to leave his unrecherchÊ home in downtown Los Angeles, for now he was surrounded by his followers, he was worshipped by his neighbors. As soon as he began to tell his story through Slysh's StarMedia, his life began to change in an unforeseeable way. He always knew about the existence of another worlds, another lives, invisible powers, influencing spirits, and the Superior Thing--he always felt them--but he didn't know that there were so many people that were eager to be guided by a person like him; people who were not like these skeptical, cynical figures who want to remain as blind as a bat and pretend that chance and human will rule the world. He received thousands of letters from people like him, people who were caught in the middle of this dirty political war simply because they belonged to a minority, to the wrong minority. He became a celebrity, overnight. He became the person who could teach...them...how to achieve Inner Peace; he became their guru. The spiritual leader kept leading the March. Their faces were as peaceful and encouraging as their spiritual messages. The Dalai Lama, an old man with a shaven head, was used to take long spiritual walks in the rarefied Himalayan atmosphere and so he could easily march for miles and miles in the dense Los Angeles atmosphere. The other Orientals who knew everything about Karma, reincarnation and, mainly, about Inner Peace, kept smiling at everyone and bowing with their joined hands before the chest. Paco Haranne, the Spaniard, was looking ahead and sweating a lot when a Japanese man holding a huge camera appeared before him and tried to take his photo. It was obvious that this Jap wasn't a professional photographer, for the was so clumsy that he couldn't focus his camera on Haranne while walking backward. He said something to Haranne that finished with "neh" and finally managed to take a photo. The Spaniard looked at his face and--blink!--he saw Hirohito! Hirohito! This clumsy Japanese had been a Japanese emperor! The triumvirate, the people who created this new Leroy Brown, Sylvester, and lost control over their creature, was in the second row of the Spiritual March, right after the spiritual leaders. Slysh didn't know why he had accepted to participate in this ludicrous thing...Marches, demonstrations--hah! He always hated these "liberal" things. There was no profit in these things and, besides, he was too old for these juvenile efforts. Sure, this forgotten appendix to his fortune, StarMedia, was finally profiting; he somewhat owed it to the Movement. But then, where was the excitement, the fountain of youth promised by Cynthia? The Movement was in the hands of this gang of ShirleyMacLaines that was marching in the front row! The pathetic ShirleyMacLaines! What was the excitement in nodding yes at these pathetic characters? Soon they would be on a stage talking about astral projection and reincarnation and mystical adventures and Karma and every kind of nonsense stuff and he, the creator, the only one who truly invested in them, he would be in the second row nodding yes...How pathetic! How pathetic! Luther Owsley, marching beside Slysh, had the same sensation, but...how could he complain if he was the main beneficiary? Yes, he hated the ShirleyMacLainization of his ideas and, yes, the medical purposes of his drug had been completely turned upside-down (as it had happened to many drugs before) but, thank God, Spiky and the Afros were defeated in their own territory, where they were marching-- and in a couple of months. Suddenly politics was dirty and against the Spiritual Renaissance, which means that, to the followers of Sylvester, the Afro politics was spiritually dirty while his own Radioactive MSH, giving Inner Peace, was spiritually clean. And so how could he complain? He had to nod yes and he had to say Thank you. Cynthia Jiang, beside Owsley, was looking at her pants and thinking if she should've worn her old Translucidist pants. No one would notice her, probably. No one would remember how great she had been in the Twenties, and so she'd keep her current status as The Employer of Sylvester The Guru. It was depressing to re-create a movement and never lead it. It was depressing to march in the second row. Oh, how she longed to be there, in the front row, just like in the Twenties. Leading! Leading! Leading and showing the world her works of art and her shaven groin-- * * * On the stage, staring at thousands of followers, Sylvester was listening to what the gifted Spaniard was saying. His own spiritual speech would end the event, after Haranne. The other spiritual leaders had already spoken, as well as Luther Owsley who had to be interrupted because the audience was getting weary with his cold, materialistic, rational, and worldly way. Well, it wasn't only a matter of style; he was the kind of person who always denied obvious facts as the influence of stars upon his life and the contacts with beings that weren't living in the visible world, but nevertheless were taking care of it. Owsley was acceptable, but not for a long time. Paco Haranne had forgotten, completely, the reason of the Spiritual March. He had forgotten that they were leading a whole minority to extinction, a self-extinction for spiritual reasons, a self-extinction for the Inner Peace's sake. He was saying to the thousands of whitening faces before him the same things he had been saying through his career--he was talking about his visions. "And do you know why this part of the state of California is sliding into the ocean?" he asked the audience, with his peculiar Spanish accent. "Noooo," was the answer of the whitening faces. "Well, I am looking at the face of your city and I am seeing that your city has existed before, in another age." "Ohhhhhhhh." The little mouths of the whitening faces were sighing. "I'll try to explain what I am seeing...It's a very beautiful city, very beautiful...There are five rows of marble columns," he said, pointing at where these marble columns allegedly were. "The columns are about fifty-foot high and they are sustaining gardens with plants that go down on its sides...The streets are covered with marble, too, as the buildings around the plaza. Beautiful people are walking in the streets and beneath the columns. These people are wearing a lot of gold--bracelets, necklaces...and there are many golden sculptures in the city...It's a very prosperous and rich city--and this is the Karma of your city!...But you must prepare yourselves because the city I am seeing was destroyed...It slid into the ocean..." "Ohhhhhhhhhhh." "Yes, my friends, looking at the face of your city I can see...Atlantis!" "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." "That's why your city has this Karma--because it is a reincarnation of Atlantis--you have the prosperity and richness of Atlantis built in it, but you also have the fate of Atlantis built in it!" Christ, what had this Atlantis business to do with leading a minority to the full integration with the society? ...But then the gifted Spaniard couldn't be interrupted. Right now his fantastic powers had discovered, among thousands of whitening faces--just like that!--two girls that had been citizens of Atlantis in her previous lives. He called the two girls and they were climbing the stairs to meet Haranne, face to face, so he would be able to check, very closely, their former lives and be sure about how their Karma looked like. The two girls were very embarrassed. They couldn't face the audience; the looked at the ground and at Haranne, and they smiled and giggled. Haranne grabbed the hand of the taller girl and brought her closer to him and to the mike. She kept looking at the floor. He gently touched her chin in order to make her look into his eyes. "What's your name, dear?" "Mariah," she said, still giggling. "A beautiful name--" She giggled. He was looking into her eyes. She was quite beautiful. It seemed that the gifted Spaniard had other talents too, like recognizing pretty faces among thousands of ordinary faces. She wasn't old enough to enter a drug store and buy the whitening drug, yet she had taken it and she was white now. And she had used the inexpensive plastic surgery of the Euro-Izer Movement, a clinic that used only robots programmed to make only three types of surgery: thinning noses, slimming cheekbones, and narrowing lips. Like Owsley, she was so Euro-Ized, no one could tell that she had belonged to a minority. "How old are you?" "Nineteen." "Well, Mariah, you really lived in Atlantis. Your name was Amphitrite, and it seems that you were a princess, but I'm not sure yet." She glanced at the audience and giggled. Haranne gestured at the other girl and she approached. He looked right into her eyes. This girl was pretty too, but in a different way. She wasn't white; she was whitening. And she didn't do any plastic surgery. Her nose wasn't thin; it was small and very proportional; her lips were rather fat and sensual, and her cheekbones were very whitelike--a pretty young face. "And what's your name, dear?" "Aretha." "How old are you, Aretha?" "Sixteen." They were really leading the whole minority to extinction, it seemed. She was a sixteen-year-old girl and she was already whitening, she was going to be white for the rest of her life. Owsley should be proud, but...where were her parents? "Aretha, when you were sixteen, in Atlantis, you were the king's favorite lover. I can see how beautiful you were then. You used to wear a thick gold necklace on top of your bare bosom when you met him. The king of Atlantis was in love with you, I can see that. Your name was Cytherea." The young girl was moved. Her boyfriend probably never said these things to her; he had never said these things about her beauty and he'd never loved her like the king of Atlantis. When the gifted Spaniard finally stopped showing off his amazing talents, Sylvester found it hard to return to the main subject, namely, how to lead all these followers of his spiritual guidance into Inner Peace. But then he recalled an idea that had dawned on him a week ago. "...and I realized," he was saying, "that the relationship that exists between these phenomena is no incidental. I realized that everything is tied because everything is part of only one phenomenon. This is an event that was prepared by the Superior Thing because He wants us to behave according to His plan...When Mr. Owsley explained me how the medicine worked I didn't realize it, I didn't make the connection...but now everything is very clear to me: The medicine uses what was once known as the Third Eye in order to produce its effects...but the Third Eye is the most important organ of our body, it is the most spiritual organ we have, and by reaching it, Mr. Owsley's medicine reaches our soul..." Sylvester knew how Owsley hated this interpretation of it; he could see it in his face. According to the skeptical Owsley, he'd mistaken the pituitary gland, which produced the ordinary MSH and was not affected by his Radioactive MSH--he had mistaken this gland for the pineal gland, which --according to Owsley--was just a useless appendix in the middle of the human brain. "...and so what happened when the medicine reached my Third Eye? I felt the difference in my soul. I reached the Inner Peace, but not only Inner Peace--I started to feel things that I didn't feel before--I started to notice the presence of several entities around me, entities that I hadn't noticed before--I started to pay attention to what people around me is thinking--not through my ears, and not through their mouths, but through my"--he pointed at the middle of his forehead--"Third Eye...Yes, when we develop our Third Eye we see things that we thought they didn't exist, we can even feel what another people are thinking and feeling. We have these powers, but we're not used to use them. We're not used to use our Third Eye...So by taking this medicine Mr. Owsley produces you're not only reaching the Inner Peace, you're rediscovering the powers of your Third Eye, you're exciting the most spiritual organ of your body-- "Descartes--the French philosopher Descartes knew it, in the seventeenth century--he knew everything about the powers of our Third Eye. He wrote about it. He wrote that the human soul lives in the Third Eye...There were ancient nations that knew how to use the powers of the Third Eye and there's evidence that the Third Eye of our extraterrestrial ancestors were above their skulls, like an antenna to receive thoughts, emotions, messages from the spirits, cosmic energy..." * * * While Sylvester's speech went on, Paco Haranne talked to Aretha, the sixteen-year-old girl, on the backstage. She was excited with his talents, his admiration for her beauty, and his story about Atlantis, and she wanted to know more, everything, every detail, of the relationship between her and the king of Atlantis--and he was excited with her juvenile shape, he juvenile fitness, her juvenile giggling, and he was eager to explain her, in every detail, every detail, how the relationship between the king and his favorite lover in the libertarian Atlantis was. And so the excited couple left the stage while the triumvirate nodded yes at the guru of the Spiritual Renaissance of the Sixties, their little effeminate Frankenstein. The Spiritual March was over, as far as Paco Haranne was concerned. The reincarnation of Atlantis was about to slide into the ocean--then he had to seize the day! 35. Spiky was returning home after spending three weeks in Washington with Dawson and other Afro activists. Three wasted weeks; his wife knew it already. The Afros' civil rights were being boycotted by the executive, the legislative, and the judicial powers. Spiky should be jaded. He entered his home and kissed her. She embraced him and said, "You look awfully tired, honey. What happened?" "Nothing happened--that's the problem. We're going downhill and we cannot change this situation." She just sighed. She didn't want to say anything that could encourage him to make a political speech. Like her neighbors and friends, she was tired of it; she jus wanted...well, some inner peace-- He looked around and asked about their daughter: "Where's Aretha?" "She's taking a bath, I think." She didn't know how to explain it to Spiky. He would be mad with Aretha and with her. Their daughter--as her school friends and several teenagers she knew--she had taken the racist drug. She knew that, politically, that would represent the end of Spiky. An Afro leader and activist couldn't possibly have a whitened teenage daughter. That would be impossible. That would be morally indefensible. And who was responsible for that? Aretha, the teenager? Of course not! It was her mother! Spiky was out of town, so she was supposed to prevent their daughter from taking the racist drug, and she didn't. Aretha said that all of her friends had already taken the drug; she had to take it; she had been the last one. Aretha made a point with this phrase, the last one, as if to show her mother how tyrannical her parents had been with such an absurd prohibition, as if her parents wanted to take her away from her friends and turn her into a lonely girl that would remain locked in her bedroom for the rest of her life and become a virgin spinster. She was trying to find some courage to tell it to Spiky when her whitening daughter came out of the bathroom. "Hi, Dad. How was your trip?" "Not very good." Her father started staring at her. She looked at her mother, who was so frightened that started to sweat. Aretha was wearing a black thermal jacket, which was too hot for that weather, a pair of black synthetic gloves, and her face seemed to have two tons of make-up on it, as if she were an actress trying to impersonate a red-faced alien creature. "Jesus! Where are you going, Aretha?" said Spiky. "Nowhere...Why?" "Because you--" Her mother took a deep breath, raised her voice, and said, "She wants to tell you something." "To tell what?" Aretha asked, as cynically as she could. Then her mother pulled one of her gloves and yelled, "This!" Spiky stared at her whitening hand and slapped her, leaving his fingerprints on the muck that covered her face. "Go wash your face," her mother said. Aretha rushed toward the bathroom and locked the door. Spiky turned to his wife, raised his hand, but held it back. She began to cry. "And where were you? Can you fucking tell me?" "We can't control these things, Spiky! For Christ's sake!" she said, sobbing. "How could I know that she was at Tina's taking the drug. You know Tina. She's been here several times. She's a nice girl. I couldn't forbid Aretha of going to her home just because she became white." "Why not? Tina had taken the fucking drug, hadn't she? She was white now, wasn't she? You should've forbidden her of seeing Tina." "What kind of fucking liberalism is this, Spiky? You want to keep your daughter from meeting people who became white? What's that? Racism? Do you know something, Spiky--you're a fucking racist--you're more racist than the fucking racist drug!" He slapped his wife five times and went crashing out the front door and jumped into his car and put all of its horsepower on the street's pavement and vanished. * * * He was so mad, he had no idea where he was going to. There were no red lights to him; he just kept going. Aretha! Aretha, his own child! She would be white now...and forever! A poor child who does something stupid in her youth, something like a tattoo, something like a mark of your naive youthful days that you have to keep till the last of your days...Her future, her whole life, was indelibly marked by these racist, conservative pigs...yes, these fucking racist, conservative, and fascist pigs...like the fucking Luther Owsley...Luther Owsley, you motherfucker, you fucking racist pig, you indelibly marked my child! He grabbed the car telephone and called Euro-Izing, Inc. "Can I talk to Luther Owsley?" "Mr. Owsley is not here," a female voice said. "Do you want to leave a message?" "Where's he?" "I can't give you this information, sir, but you may--" He turned the phone off and cursed: "Fuck you." The fucking racist pig must be in Malibu, Spiky thought. The Afros had investigated this new "spiritual" phenomenon and discovered that its earthly source was in the Museum of Translucidist Art. No one could explain why, except for the obvious fact that this faggot, the effeminate guru, worked there as a curator, whatever a fucking curator was. So Spiky fucking raced to fucking Malibu. * * * Sylvester was in his chair, behind his table, watching the large screen hanging on the wall, which was showing the metamorphosis of Nkumasu, the South African president. The pitch-black Nkumasu was the newest unexpected customer of Luther Owsley. In America the Afros had said that Luther Owsley's drug meant poison to the South African political leaders. If they took it, they'd be politically and socially dead...Well, Nkumasu, who was considered a sure runner-up, took Owsley's drug two months before the election and became the first Euro-Ized president of South Africa. On the couch, Cynthia was smiling and Owsley was laughing. They weren't interested in South African politics, but Nkumasu was sure helping the American Euro-Izer Movement since he had ridiculed the Afro forecasts. But then two loud snaps were heard. Sylvester made one of his typical effeminate gestures and Owsley stood up, went to the door, and opened it. He looked at the hall and saw the guard wounded and lying on the floor and rushed to help him. Cynthia asked him what had happened but he didn't answer. She looked at Sylvester and stood up. Sylvester stood up, too. Then they heard another four loud snaps and rushed toward the hall. When they arrived they saw two bodies lying on the floor. The guard and Luther Owsley had been shot dead. "Oh my God!" said Cynthia. Sylvester gave a very effeminate yell and fainted. Now there were three bodies lying on the floor. Cynthia looked ahead and saw Spiky, about fifty feet away, calmly and slowly walking out of the museum with a smoking gun in his right hand.