Another Roadside Attraction (36 page)

Nobody could blame Purcell for being impatient. What a relief it would have been if we could have reached a speedy decision! But although Plucky's surge through life may have been crass and physical, he had never been a dummy. Moreover, in the course of his odd extralegal relationships with poets and artists, he had acquired a broad if uneven education. He recognized what an awesome responsibility we had, we who must decide the fate of Christ's body—and, perhaps, in so doing, the fate of Christianity and the fate of the Western world. Yes! It could come to that! And in the secret brothel of his heart, Plucky knew that before we reached a decision on this matter we must establish a foundation for that decision. So, begrudgingly, he allowed me to persist in my think-tank approach, although in deference to his impatience I sacrificed a large measure of thoroughness.

In the main room, the Puerto Rican wall clock sounded the hour of 8:50 (it was always ten minutes behind). There was a slight rustling in the snake pen. Who knew how the fleas were enjoying their holiday? As for the tsetse fly, it was as self-contained in its lonely house of permanent preservation as was the Corpse who was laid out on the table before us like a banquet at a Rotary Club for ghouls.

“Assuming,” said I, “that the Corpse is who we suspect it to be, the next question is: what are the implications of it having been concealed by the Roman Catholic Church? Plucky believes that only a tiny handful of Vatican officials know about the Corpse. Right, Plucky?”

“Yeah. I'm sure of it. Just a few administrators in the Holy Office would know about it. The information would have passed down from generation to generation by a very select hierarchy of hard-nosed fascists. Otherwise, you know, it would of leaked out long before now. As for the general run of cardinals and bishops and monsignori, some are good, kind, loving holy men and lots are psychopathic, ambitious, egotistical power freaks as ugly as any that work the street corners of Hell. But good or bad, they—being human—couldn't carry on without their faith. Why, those jackals in the Felicitate Society have a sincere belief in Jesus and Mary, even though their duties are a mockery of everything Christ is supposed to have stood for. No, I'm sure that only a handful of big operators are in on the concealment. Maybe even the popes aren't always in on it. I doubt if Pope John XXIII was. On the other hand, Pius XII was just the type to have been a party to it. This current cat, I don't know about him. Say, Amanda, is it against the rules of the fast for me to light up a stogy?”

“Well, no, I suppose not. Go ahead.”

“Okay,” I said, grimacing at the unmoving fish to which Plucky applied the heat of his match, “if only a tiny band of high-echelon conspirators have been aware through the ages that Jesus was not alive and well in Heaven but stone-cold dead in the basement of the Vatican, what has been their motives; what are the implications of the concealment? Look, folks,
the Resurrection is the foundation of Christianity
. It's the mainstay. You might say that without the fact of the Resurrection, the Christian religion is just an empty charade. Maybe it ought not to be that way, since immortal or not, Jesus taught a lot of wonderful things to help man lead an ethical and humane life, but that's the way it is.” I opened the New Testament I had purchased in Mount Vernon the afternoon before. “Let me read you this in Paul's own words. It's First Corinthians 20:14: 'And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also in vain.'

“There you have it. Whether or not the idea of the Resurrection is relevant to the true meaning of Christ, it has been essential to the foundation, development and expansion of the Christian Church. Right? Now, if certain key Catholic administrators have been aware all along that there
was
no Resurrection . . .”

“Then the Church is the biggest can of worms in human history,” said Purcell through a ghost-sheet of smoke.

“Maybe. Maybe and maybe not. Depends on the motives.”

“Why is that, Marx?” asked Amanda. Although she had contributed little to the discussion so far, Amanda remained curious and alert. Ziller, on the other hand, seemed content to stare moodily at the Corpse, studying it from all angles as fellow magicians had studied Houdini's butterpat-in-an-empty-cafeteria trick.

Before I could answer, Purcell butted in. “There's a sound possibility, chums, that the highest spiritual authority in human history” (Plucky was growing enamored of that phrase “in human history") “has never been concerned with matters of the spirit at all. Not the top dogs, anyway. There's the possibility that it has always been a secular organization masquerading as a religion. The fact is, and it is a
fact
, the Catholic Church has never had but one single ultimate goal: the total mental, physical and spiritual domination of every being on this globe. Every move the Church has made throughout its existence has been to further that goal. Despite periodic lapses in taste, such as the Inquisition and the various purges and conquests, it's been crafty and subtle in moving on its goal. Crafty and subtle—and
successful
, considering that there are 650 million Catholics in the world today, and that the Church is the richest corporation in the world and one of the most powerful political forces. Today, the Church is more apt to use censorship and economic boycott and political pressures to get what it wants—it has learned the lesson of more civilized conquerors—but it's still working day and night for totalitarian Earth domination. You'd better believe it. If that big old bulldozer of conquest was operating in the interests of Jesus and Mary and God—as incongruous as that might be—it wouldn't be half so scary. But now that we know that
they
know that their Christ was not divine and that their most essential dogma is only a con job, well, what are we to think but that the Church is, at its highest level, a super-duper fascist conspiracy that uses the Jesus hype just to control people and manipulate them?”

Purcell's speech sent a shiver up my spine like an electric eel shinnying up an icicle.

“As much as I'd prefer to deny it, Plucky, your contention is a definite possibility.”

“Why would you prefer to deny it?” inquired Amanda. Her hands were still folded in her lap.

“Why? Because, dear, if the high authority of the Vatican has never believed in Jesus but has only used Christianity as a front for political and economic tyranny, then . . . well, it's just too depressing to dwell on. Even its critics have seen Catholicism as a moral, if misguided, force. But if it has been consciously secular all along, if it has been immoral in its liver and its bones, then it represents an evil so frigging huge and dark and deep that it makes the human spirit seem puny and gullible: too vulnerable to cherish. It makes the struggle of living seem a sick joke.”

“Oh, Marx,” Amanda sighed. “You're so melodramatic. So what if it's this way or that way? When I was in convent school I used to stare out the windows at the clouds. I used to chase butterflies in the Mother Superior's flower patch. Those clouds and those butterflies, they didn't know secular from religious—and they didn't care.”

“I'm neither a cloud nor a butterfly,” I snapped.

“We're all the same as clouds and butterflies. We just pretend to be something different.”

My next remarks I addressed to Purcell. “Your contention is a possibility, but there is, fortunately, another possibility. Myabe the Vatican bosses have been more enlightened than we suspect. Maybe they have always known that Christ's life was an example for the living and not a sky-pie promise for the dead. Maybe those few hardy leaders have been cognizant of that and could accept it; but simultaneously, they have been aware that the mass of Western man could
not
accept it. So they have conspired to
protect
mankind from that heady knowledge, to protect him from it until that time when evolution has molded him into a stronger creature, one unafraid to face dying without the illusion of a Disneyland beyond the grave. Maybe their concealment has been a humane act of the most noble proportions.”

Plucky munched his cigar and furrowed his virile brow. “It could be, Marvelous. It could be. It wouldn't alter the general situation much—but I like to think that it could be.”

“I wish this pantry had a window in it,” said Amanda.

She was probably daydreaming of clouds.

An erratic clock kept track of our arguments. It ticked with a Puerto Rican accent. In the clock's ticking I heard Carmen Miranda dancing. Did you know that after Carmen Miranda's death her estate was sold at auction? Andy Warhol went to the auction and purchased Carmen Miranda's old shoes. Carmen Miranda had extremely tiny feet. Her shoes were about a size 1. Or smaller. If there is a shoe size minus 1, then that is what Carmen Miranda wore. The heels of her shoes, however, were very high, so that her shoes were as tall at the heel as they were long overall. Carmen Miranda must have felt as if she were always walking downhill. Anyway, Andy Warhol has her shoes now. A diamond-like hush has overtaken Carmen Miranda's dancing feet. Only their echo is preserved in the Latin ballroom of our wall clock.

“So, Plucky,” said I, “we've got those two possibilities as far as motives go, but as you say, it's academic because it's impossible for us to verify it one way or the other. However, and this hits a little closer to home, no matter which motive is correct, the authorities responsible for the concealment are going to be pretty frantic about getting the Corpse back. Right?”

“Right you are, dad. They'll want it back or they'll want it destroyed. Either way would probably suit them. The one thing they cannot afford is to have the concealment become public knowledge. Especially at a time like this.”

“What's so special about this time?” Amanda wanted to know.

“Hell's bells, Amanda, didn't you read my letter? The Church is in trouble, the biggest trouble it's been in since the split in the sixteenth century. I explained all that to you. I made quite a study of it and bored you shitless with it in my letters. If you remember, I raved about how the whole Catholic setup is isolated, defensive, antiquated and authoritarian and how it's in a state of crisis. The all-powerful position of the Pope has been weakened with millions of Catholics disobeying his prissy old virginal order that they can't fuck without making babies—Catholic babies. Priests and nuns and monks in various parts of the world are rebelling openly against their so-called 'superiors' over a whole shooting gallery of questions—like civil rights, war, celibacy, poverty, repressive dogma, superstitious doctrines and fascist politics. Man, there's revolt on a hundred different fronts over a dozen different issues. Not long before I bugged out, there was violence in St. Peter's Square. It was the night before the world synod of bishops opened, and the liberal and conservative Catholics were fist-fighting right under the Pope's window. It was a 'prayer vigil' for poverty, a subject the Church has always had a minimum of interest in, and it turned into a free-for-all. Man, it took every microgram of will power in my little pink body to keep out of it. Wow, I'm telling you my palms were sweating.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Amanda, I've talked to you, too, about the deep division in the Church. About how the slaves are throwing off their chains, to coin a phrase, and how the Church is coming apart at the seams.”

Amanda nodded. “Yes, I remember. It's delightful, isn't it? All that howling for freedom. But I guess I don't think about it much.”

“Well, now's the time to start thinking about it, baby love,” I said. “Because like it or not, you're directly involved.”

“He's not putting you on,” confirmed Plucky. “With the Church so shook by internal revolution it's more defensive than ever. Now, of all times, it simply couldn't afford the scandal of a
corpus delecti
.” Again he tapped the mummy on its shrunken knees.

Amanda puckered her eminently puckerable lips. “You guys have only talked about the poor Catholics,” she said. “Where do the dear Protestants fit into this?”

I took it upon myself to explain. “As I see it, the fundamental difference between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches is that the Catholic Church is a tightly organized, international power whereas the Protestant churches are a fragmented, unorganized, largely impotent, national power. There are plentiful differences in dogma, of course, but as our pal Plucky is fond of saying, that's academic. Basically, the two churches are bound together much more intimately than most Christians think. Should the Roman Church fall, the Protestant churches won't rush in and fill the void. They will fall soon afterward. The Catholic express and the Protestant choo-choo are rolling on the same rails, and if the bridge washes out, both are destined for the gulch. In the long run, Protestants stand to lose as much from the mortality of Jesus as do the Catholics. We can't expect any support from them. Except maybe the Unitarians. They'll embrace any heresy, I understand.”

Purcell abruptly rose to his feet. A funeral plumage of concern arrived as if by messenger in his blue eyes. “Look here, you all,” he said, “it's possible that we here in this pantry stand between the Church and its survival. Do you dig what that means? They'll stop at nothing to prevent us from blowing the whistle on this Corpse. If they get to us before we make it public—if that's what we're gonna do—they won't hesitate to kill us. Every one of us, including Thor. I brought this dead Jesus here into your house without an invitation—and I've put your lives in danger. It's grim, man. The sensible thing for me to do would be to take the Corpse and bug out. I could hole up with it in a motel or somewhere until I—or we—decide what to do with it.”

“Oh, Plucky,” said Amanda in the voice that her lisp made seductive even when her thoughts were far from sex, “we wouldn't think of it. You just don't want us to have any fun.”

John Paul gave Purcell a look that could be counted as a vote of confidence. As for me, I checked on Mon Cul to ascertain that he was not dozing on the job. I heard an assassination in each muffled blast of duck-hunter's shotgun. I heard a rendezvous with alien triggermen in each approach of vehicle on the Freeway. I heard the spike heels of Carmen Miranda dancing toward me in the dimension of the dead, intent upon avenging this smear on her Catholic girlhood, cha cha cha.