AN UNTRILOGY

By August Franza

PANDEMONIUM describes the chaotic and surreal world of Amerika where anti-heroes Straw and Giacomo Giacomo plan their escape and go in search for three women in fabulous Oklo-homa.

In THE SKY WAS BLACK, the young man (his only identity) learns how shatteringly different the real world is from the movies he loves.

In THE SPELL, on a long train journey, two men and a woman confront each other and bitterly argue about what they think they believe to be true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798369423592

August Franza

August Franza writes and writes and writes... and keeps writing.

Book preview

Copyright © 2024 by August Franza.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/17/2024

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

860622

CONTENTS

Pandemonium

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 4A

Chapter 4B

Chapter 4C

Chapter 4D

Chapter 4E

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

The Sky Was Black

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

14

15

16

The Spell

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

A FLEA’S NOTEBOOKTHE LIFE I HAD IN MINDIF I DIE BEFORE I LIVECOLLISIONMADE IN BROOKLYNBLOCKHEADTHE MURDER OF HITLERCUCKOO SONGSHUNGERTHE KIERKEGAARD NOVELFEIRGTHE SKIN GAMEBLOODSTREAMTHORN IN THE FLESHTHE GRAND HIGHWAYCHINESE BOXESTHE HAUNTING OF KATE MCCLOUDAXETHREE WOMEN

P

A

N

D

E

M

O

N

I

U

M

PANDEMONIUM

A laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer… Stubb in Moby Dick (Chapter 39)

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Stubb in Moby Dick (Chapter 39)

It’s a long trip. We are the only riders. Wm. S. Burroughs in The Ticket That Exploded.

We are guilty of everything. Herbert Huncke

You have to pull the democratic and idealistic clothes off American utterance, and see what you can of the dusky body of it underneath. D.H. Lawrence

PANDEMONIUM

Chapter 1

The upsidedown-footed woman came toward him one foot yelling to the other measuring wildly their razor-sharp imbecility. The street had no xlypols. The exit door opened, the foot pushed the button and down it went with mad precision, leaving the other to randomly croak at the grayhaired man who shoveled heaps of coal from the street to the weeping foot. The whole street genuflected as the young man came down from the statue which glared ominously. It was used to striking him. The frenetic one ate one bit of coal carrying the other to the statue which was glorified in hate. The woman, coming toward him upsidedown footly, had fled, gave the xlypols to the sweating man with the shovel screaming Yes, that is he. Ladislav Strawinsky from land-bound Pragur as he was forced into listening to its national anthem

Land of Hope and Glory (But Not for Us).

Pragur’s flag is black with a yellow dot in the middle wildly off center and unable to endure. The Coat of Arms of Pragur says

The Lord Helps Nobody.

The government is The Rolling Person in Charge : once a week for each citizen.

Yes, that is he, that is he and the xlypols will drown you in land-bound Pragur. As the young man heaved cries of shock and war to the lost maniac-footful-upsidedown woman taking the shovel from the sweating man yelling hit him hit him hit him while the black flag with the yellow dot twisted itself around his neck with armies of xlypols crashing through screaming like madmen while drinking nectar from the skulls of the slain that once knew Ladislav Strawinski, known as Straw at his deranged school. The nickname stuck as did his father’s rage at the idea of having a dried stalk for a son.

Always his father’s rage—"YOU DON’T HAVE A PRAYER! YOU DON’T HAVE A CHANCE! YOU’RE STUPID!

And then Straw was thrown out. Out of the house. Out of the school. Out of the country. He had to get used to it, get used to being a ghost.

Missing. Presumed Dead. That is what the congregation pronounced and predicted, among other curses, led by his father who was always rigid and unforgiving. Straw, according to some in the Underground, was rather innocent but now he was alone and unknown.

Vojtech Strawinsky was a hard man, a strict and oppressive father. He gave no ground. You don’t have a prayer or a chance! he predicted. As the owner of a ladies’ shop and an asbestos factory he demanded total obedience from his son. But Straw was a dreamer, having no aptitude for business. He would rather stare out the window through the night concocting his own outcomes – of fantasy-- which fell loose.

Straw had one escape besides his dreams which he had no control over. He found something he could depend on—reading. Reading anything that came along. A newspaper, especially when there were wars. All that hubbub and fighting which was bigger than his silent battles with his severe and demanding father. Other people’s war relieved him.

Buried beneath all of this—he read somewhere that each mans’ life is a labyrinth – was something he never wanted to think about. He pushed it far away any time the other dared to appear. It had a name. Annette Volland. Annette Volland. Annette Volland. The name was pure music to Straw. It was better to keep it as an ‘it’. Just forget the dream and try to go on living. It was better to think about someone real. And that was Bela Libor.

A decent young man, Straw (somewhat tall, somewhat lean, somewhat dumb) had been seduced by Bela Libor, an enticing shopgirl—Bela! Bela! Kiss me, pum-kin!--who worked for his father because she, with two ripe pum-kins, fronted the shop. When Bela got pregnant and produced a child—Bela! Bela! What’s a condom?--—that was too much for Vojtech. Straw was cast out—Out! out! brief canoodler. But BELA, BELA, KISS ME PUM-KIN! hung in the Pragurian air.

In his head, this new world he floundered into, far away from landlocked Pragur and Vojtech, was featureless, without structure. No walls. No in or out. No up or down. No floor or ceiling. Like space. How could he search for something without a ‘something’? His familiar language was useless. He’d have to find a new one with new words in a new world. **********

A new world? That would be Amerika, often spelled with a K by Pragur comedian Paul Lafka because a ‘k’ outwits a ‘c’, don’t you see?

Straw, relieved of his tormenting father and a deserted Bela, boarded a run-down merchant ship named Speedwell Victory and suffered his way across the bounding Atlantic to the new world. What happened on that rotting, unstable ship will be told later. ***********

Straw had no intention of going to Oklo-homa either, wherever that was, even though he had heard a song with that name and saw people jumping around to dizzying music. He had been told on the Speedwell Victory that Oklo-homa meant fulfillment. But Straw ended up short of that goal, out of breath and penniless, in the Automotive Theater of Detroit which was in a cold northern part of the new world. *******

But Straw, glad to be free of parental restrictions, and restrictions of any kind, had hopes. He found work as a laborer in the automobile industry which Detroit was infamous for. That was where Straw’s ghost world had led him, at least for the present.

He sent a letter or two back home to Bela, saying he was sorry for what happened, even though Bela forced it on him: Bela, Bela, kiss me, pum-kin!, as he joyously recalls. He asked for the baby. He didn’t know if it was a boy or girl. He knew life would not turn out well for either of them in the old country. He ignored writing to his intimidating father and browbeaten mother.

He tried to get used to his menial job in the automobile business. He was sweeping floors and cleaning in what was called a ‘parts department’ where parts often fell off the crowded work tables for Straw to pick up and replace.

He found himself involved in a strike, a workers’ strike against the owners of three vast automotive companies that dominated Detroit, the Gems, the Gims, and the Tims. They even dominated Oklo-homa (wherever that was) since the automobiles produced in Detroit sped everywhere in the new world on roads called highways. Goodbye byways like the mud-covered ones in Pragur. Except in the winter when they hardened and you could fall and break something.

Even though his brain was ghostworlded, Straw tried to learn English as a matter of survival and by which he soon began to understand what was happening in cold Detroit. The UMA (United Makers of Automobiles), twenty thousand of these makers, walked off their jobs in protest. This included Straw who desperately needed the slim pay he was getting. Don’t worry, the UMA told him. The union will pay you as long as you join and support the strike and don’t get involved with those Disney people.

Disney? Was that in Oklo-homa, too?

And join and support the strike Straw did. He carried a picket sign in the street that said UMA ON STRIKE! He soon found out what it was all about. If the union succeeded, he would be getting a pay raise among other things. Other things didn’t mean much to Straw at this time. But he, curious to hear the argument the union had with the ‘management’, tried to read about it but his English was inadequate and lousy…. so he dreamt about it, carefully nurturing Bela and the baby as his and his alone. In mud-spattered or hardened Pragur.

Straw, was fully a father from a great distance. He would raise his child with curiosity to the extent that his raging father and beaten-down mother would relent from punishing Bela. He would try to love Bela, baby, and all their teacups, too. All would go well as the sweet dream in which Straw struggled to return to his former sweat land of distorted fantasies. He would return with piles of UMA pay. However, his future ended abruptly in cold Detroit which had no songs like he heard of existed in far-off Oklo-homa.

Awake, Straw was told that the President of the UMA was a fighter for increased union pay and closure. Even more than that, the union president, Jose van Mann, was a fighter for all people, not just Straw and the UMA. Straw was impressed. No one had ever fought for him, certainly not his tyrannical father or his browbeaten mother. He recalled rightly that Bela had taken advantage of his innocence. Bela! Bela! Kiss me, pum-kin! What’s a condom? as he slipped it in with Bela’s help. His co-strikers on the street told him what the strike was all about. And what he heard was all new to him, including the UMA marching song.

We’re on the right side of this battle, a short, graceful striker called Giacomo Giacomo told him.

Why not? Straw thought. What’s the point of being on the wrong side of things? He knew very well what the wrong side of life was like. That was his former existence in pointless Pragur.

Then Giacomo added, We’re in a battle of the working class against the rich.

Yes, of course, Straw concluded. I’m not rich so I must be working class. ‘Working class against the rich’ was a new phrase, something he had never heard before. With his goddamn father in charge of him, Straw had only been a servant and a slave.

It’s between the haves and have-nots! cried Giacomo.

It was clear to Straw who he was: a have-not.

It’s between the billionaire class against everybody else.

Straw knew he couldn’t even count to one million so he must be ‘everybody else’. He began seeing possibilities in this cold new life in Detroit.

Then the striking workers told him the history of the UMA going back many generations. They told him how weak unions had been trampled by the rich owners in the old days who ate all the goods. They told him of the old miners’ strike in corruptly rich England which was led by NUM, the National Union of Mineworkers. 185,000 miners shogged the system but the strike was a complete failure. Post-strike opinion and assessment said it was caused 1) by the name of the strike: NUM, too close to the word NUMB, and 2) the strikers’ song ‘By The Waters Of Babylon I Sat Down and Wept’, although it had moral implications, did not have any political ‘heft’ which Straw was learning about.

Or did Straw miss something being not so bright and with the grandeur of Oklo-homa always on this mind? (Wherever that Oklo-homa was.) To clear things up Giacomo gave Straw an UMA book to read but Straw’s limited English wasn’t ready for it. And the fact was that England was an island (a really big one) while he came from land-bound pointless Pragur.

We’re not have-nots anymore! strikers shouted, waving their signs. These rotten exploiters had better watch out!

Straw waved his sign although it was starting to feel heavy. And especially so when he tried to read the book about the great debates between the workers and the owners through the generations. The reading was extremely difficult for him especially because he was a Jew. What he was trying to understand sounded like heresy, which meant opposing Rabbinic doctrines that he had learned in pointless Pragur without even going to synagogue. His oppressive father was a Jew, too, even though he didn’t practice it, and neither did Straw, but that made Straw a Jew, anyway. Or something.

But that was all over.

And soon what he as trying to read started to get into his ghost mind. He recalled that ‘something’ from a long time ago which confused him then and was confusing him now. He knew so little and he had so much to learn.

Giacomo, with the aid of other strikers, held up an immense photo on thick cardboard of Arius of Antioch.

Yes! Yes! cried the strikers, hoisting posters of Arius of Antioch on their own. "Most goddamnly and assuredly,

ARIUS! ARIUS! ARIUS!

Giacomo patted Straw on the shoulder, saying, The book’ll tell you everything you need to know about this rebel!

Straw opened the book and tried to read about this Mr. Arius while the strikers thundered, It’s all between the haves and the have-nots!!

Giacomo climbed on top of the immense photo shouting, MOUNT RUSHMORE! MOUNT RUSHMORE! And suddenly the four presidents of Mount Rushmore fame-- Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt (T not FD, Straw was informed), and Lincoln--appeared among the strikers with their own signs proclaiming their support for the strike.

Curiously interested, even though he was a Jew (non-practicing, renegade), Straw read the wonderful story of the rebel Mr. Arius who believed that God the Father and the Son of God did not always exist together. Straw never existed together with Vojteck. That the son and the father did not exist together was a recent idea. Straw knew about that from his own experience. The old idea was godson-songod, all in one. Straw knew from his own life that it couldn’t work. But the new idea that godson-songod were now separated caused Arius to be considered a shit and was dragged about in perennial warsmoke.

Talk about a strike in Detroit! A strike is heaven compared with the religious and theological turmoil that Mr. Arius was causing in Antioch.

Giacomo, on high, was still talking and yelling: Mount Rushmore! Mount Rushmore!

The four presidents shouted, singing: Which side are you on? while Straw kept trying to read in the book he was given by Giacomo Giacomo.

President Lincoln sang: My daddy was a miner/ And I’m a miner’s son/ I’m sticking with the union/ til every battle’s won.

The four presidents cried: Which side are you on?

President Roosevelt sang: Don’t be a scab for bosses/ Don’t listen to their lies/ Working folks don’t have a chance/ Unless we organize.

The four presidents shouted: Which side are you on?

President Jefferson sang: We want the man who loves the sick/and the man who loves the poor/ We want the man who hates the rich/And calls them greedy dicks.

The four shouted: Which side are you on?

Straw rocked back and forth while deep into the unmanageable book.

President Washington sang: Jesus told us what to do/ And fight until our blood is blue/ Outcasts like him we are, we are/ Until we bring the bosses down/ And we become the stars!

When Giacomo Giacomo saw two lovely women walking by, he jumped down from the photo and grabbed Straw’s arm. Let’s go! Let’s go! To Oklo-homa! he shouted. Here comes our fate. Did you ever see such lovely shapes?

Legs, too, Straw was thinking. Bela had beautiful legs. He had kissed them from toe to thigh and deep within. But it was just that once, more’s the pity.

And then Straw drifted upwards into a dream with Bela while the four Presidents uncorked their union songs. But it was Bela who caught his avid attention. Bela was selling in the ladies’ shop in pointless Pragur but what was she selling? She was dancing for the Four Presidents who’d come in to buy frocks for their ladies which were long gowns with flowing sleeves.

Of course, the Four Presidents got into arguments over their fashion choices when Bela stripped and tried everything on while the arguments raged on. But when she got to the gowns, the presidents stood stock still in admiration even though they had a lot of other business on their minds, like dominating a vastly big country much much bigger than pointless Pragur and getting rid of anybody who didn’t believe in the Godgiven MANIFART’S DESTONY. And that meant getting rid of tons of Indians who were on the land first, for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Indians were trying to make sense of the senseless

MANDISFARTO? DESTINTOOTOOUNUK?

They said it all wrong and got delivered by the American Army after ghost world. BYE-BYE BOO-HOO! said the invaders of the Indian lands.

Straw knew how the Indians felt. He really knew.

The gowns the four presidents were trying on were too stunning to ignore. Each head of state grabbed the one that most attracted him, went into the fitting room and minutes later emerged tout habile’.

Washington who was absorbed with enacting the first protective tariff, the first naturalization law, and the first U.S. copyright law was dressed in a sheer lightweight fabric that created a semi-transparent and lustrous appearance. It was a beaded cap sleeve gown in coral. Washington’s moves enhanced the lustrousness.

Jefferson, embarking on navigating tension between the British and the French, defeating Barbary pirates, dealing with Federalists, and was determined to swipe the Louisiana Purchase from the French, was dressed in a one-shoulder illusion-sweep of chiffon in antique rose. That made T. drool.

Lincoln, burdened with how to deal with slavery, how to respond to the South’s challenge, how to campaign for the election, and how to deal with political rivals, was dressed in a high-necked floral trapeze gown in nude gold. He dressed his wife in it and the whole thing turned blue. By the time he went back and replaced the gown with the gown, the South gave up.

Teddy Roosevelt, enacting the Pure Food and Drug Act, determining how to steal and promote the Canal Zone in Panama, reform the financial system, and deal with the 1902 coal strike that threated law and order, and while the strikers were striking, put the dirty bastards down, was dressed in a boat-necked ankle-length sequined gown in pine. It was so beautiful, the Canal Zone shuddered into being.

The four Presidents commented excitedly on each other’s choices of fashion before they sat down to tea where they discussed the very sexual Fear of Flying by Erica Jung-- a woman, no less.

This is a really dirty book, Lincoln said.

Why? Jefferson said. Because she talked about a zipless fuck?

What’s that? asked Washington who was still making the rowing motions he made while crossing the Delaware River. What’s a zipless fuck?

A zipless fuck is just casual sex. It’s absolutely pure. Spontaeous. No connections! Just a fuck!

Maybe you and the slaves can do it, Lincoln said to Jefferson, but not among us Kentuckians.

Teddy Roosevelt was getting angry about this kind of talk so they switched to talking about the correspondence between Gustave Flaubert and George Sand.

You know, Lincoln said, It bothers me that Aurore Dupin had to change her name to George Sand and wear male attire to achieve her fame.

No, no, she was already well-known as a memoirist, journalist, and novelist by the time she did that, Jefferson said. I think there were other factors involved, a deeply committed man since he still had slaves which the South surrendered. When a linguist showed him the moral ambiguity of his syntax, he went and had more sex with them.

Yes, indeed, Washington said. George Sand was a rebel, a fighter for women’s rights, she was against marriage. She even smoked cigars which women were not allowed to do.

That’s what probably killed her, Jefferson said.

Not at all, Lincoln said. she lived a long productive life, and I like her ideas about marriage.

She also wrote 70 novels, Washington said.

That’s where Flaubert comes in, Roosevelt said. They were great friends,

Were they lovers, Mr. Flaubert and Miss Sand? Lincoln asked.

I doubt it, Roosevelt said. "Lovers aren’t friends and friends aren’t lovers. Anyway, he mainly got his sex in Egypt among the prostitutes and naked boys. You ought to read Flaubert in Egypt. It came out recently. That’ll give you a sexual jolt, Roosevelt toothily smiling. I sometimes think sex is more fun than hunting."

What interests me, Jefferson said, is Flaubert’s criticism of Sand. He said her great flaw was a lack of style. She just knocked out the novels one after the other with no style which was pre-eminent with Gustave.

The importance of style is what kept Flaubert from writing many books, Lincoln said. He wrote only six."

But what six! Jefferson said. "Who reads George Sand anymore? But your Emancipation Proclamation, Abe, is all style, if you don’t mind me calling you Abe. And nobody reads the Emancipation Proclamation anymore."

"My Emancipation Proclamation is all style," Lincoln said.

But Abe, is ‘all style’ the best idea for a speech about slavery? Instead of coming right out and slamming the South, you beat around the bush. That means George Sand’s lack of stylishness got her more readers than your stylishness, Abe and Flaubert’s, too, said Roosevelt. I know all about it. One can kill animals with style or not. Hemingway and I know how to do it—with real style!

So they talked and talked until it was time to change into their macho-men’s clothes.

Meanwhile, Giacomo Giacomo wouldn’t stop drooling over the two lovely ladies he in front of spotted.

I’m very horny, Straw. This trip is taking too long. The ocean is too wide for my erogenous zones to endure.

But Straw, reading intensely, shook Giacomo Giacomo off. He had to master what he was reading.

He found out The Emperor was summoning a Council to denounce Mr. Arius and his followers and defend Homoousianism which distinctly said that Jesus was the same in being and the same in essence with God the Father; therefore Mr. Arius was a heretic for believing that Jesus was begotten in human time. Check your historical clock! If that is so, then Jesus is only the SECOND God, not the first. The right wing Christians demanded the absolute truth that godson=songod.

Which side are you on? A deep question that echoed into Straw’s being.

Jesus only a SECOND God? Outrageous! cried the Council, marching in the streets along with the pickets. The Emperor has ordered the penalty of death for those who support Mr. Arius and the Arians. Any piece of writing by Mr. Arius must be burned, the Council said, and the heretic who owns the work must be put to death!

The Council had a chant that rang through the streets along with the four presidents’ rants: Arius! Arius! Let’s be serious/ Let’s strike a pose that’s very imperious.

Giacomo Giacomo warned the Council to do better if it was going to compete with the four presidents.

The book Straw was holding bursts into flames as the four presidents looked on in horror, outrage, and concupiscence.

Which side are you on? they screamed while Giacomo Giacomo was now dragging Straw in pursuit of the two lovely ladies who kept walking by.

Lovely ladies are more important than anything, Giacomo told Straw.

But what about the strike? Straw said.

Yes, of course, Giacomo chimed in, as long as you can spell homoousianism.

But, Straw said, trying to counter Giacomo, what’s the connection between the UMA strike and this homoousian… business and the four presidents?

You don’t see it? Giacomo says haughtily.

(They will be using the present tense now because Giacomo believes its use is more dramatic and connects people and places much more intimately in what’s to come.)

This is very important, Giacomo tells Straw, because people experience the world based on the structure of their language.

For example, he produced another book he was carrying in his hat which he wore because he hated being bald. Being short was bad enough.

That book says: A speaker of Hopi Indian language has a structure that both reflects and shapes the way they think about time.

Thinking about time? Giacomo says. I never think about time. I think about women!

Seemingly, the book says, the Hopi language has no present, past, or future tense. Instead, the Hopis divide the world into two domains.

No past, present or future tenses? Straw muses. What do they need a language for?

Giacomo reads: The key domain consists of the physical universe, including the present, the immediate past, and the future; the even keyer domain consists of the remote past and the world of dreams, thoughts, desires, and life forces.

Like the zipless fuck?" Straw says to nobody.

Also, Giacomo continues, there are no words for minutes or days of the week in the Hopi language. Native Hopi speakers often had great difficulty adapting to life in the English-speaking world when it came to being on time for work.

You said it! Straw says. If I was a minute late my father would blow his top!

They never heard of a ‘clocking in’ or a ‘time clock’, Giacomo went on reading. When the boss tells a Hopi he’s late for work, the Hopi says, ‘Late for what? I’m in the even keyer domain. It is due to the simple fact that this was not how the Hopi indians had been conditioned to behave concerning time in their Hopi world, which follows the phases of the moon and the movements of the sun."

That make sense, Straw enunciates, but it becomes terrifically confusing. How do they get by from day to day. How do they know when it’s time for lunch? Or what time the mailman comes? Or when to declare war? I guess that’s why they got wiped out. You gotta know the time. If I didn’t get to work on time my outraged father would go crazy. Where did you learn all this, Giacomo?" asks Straw.

Giacomo Giacomo, Giacomo says.

I heard you the first time, Straw says.

No. My full name is Giacomo Giacomo. From the Giacomos of Giacomedi. In regard to what I know, I learned all this from the book you were reading before it exploded. I’m amazed and heartened at the distinction D.H. Lawrence makes between cold-hearted fucking and warm-hearted fucking. Have you seen those two lovely women walking by? They’re for the latter, I bet, the warm-hearted fucking. Now that I’m distracted, I’ve lost track of them and it hurts my eros.

Well, yes, Straw says, I was reading about the strike.

Yes. One should. Strike while the iron is hot. I desire to have the attention of the lovely ladies.

No, says Straw. I was having other dreams, thoughts, and desires.

Fine, Giacomo Giacomo says, I inhabit reality with gusto. There is no time for anything but the way of all flesh. Cakes and ale, you know. That’s life. And women, too. Especially.

All I can say is I’m glad we’re not Hopis, Straw says, or we’d exterminate ourselves.

Don’t worry, Giacomo tells Straw, they’ve been exterminated. Long ago. They couldn’t keep up with our tenses. They couldn’t report to their jobs on time and understand time-management and time-saving which are civilized man’s whole reason for being. So we ‘clocked’ the Hopis, so to speak. In a manner of speaking.

Straw will like to stop and think about that and maybe have a discussion but the author reminds Straw and Giacomo that they are standing on the deck of Speedwell Victory, a rotting and crumbling merchant ship which is sloshing around in wallowing ocean waters the story of which we’ll get to in a while but not right now. **********

I must find the two lovely women, Giacomo says. This ship is in danger. But I’ve got to know if you can spell homoousianism. Everyone I ask can’t spell it, making such a mess that a Chinese court sentenced Dr. Shen to three years in prison. I’m sure those two lovely women can spell it right.

Dr. Shen is always in my thoughts, Straw says, fighting the new words. Can what, by the way?

They were in your book, Giacomo says.

The two lovely women?

No, Giacomo says with a stern look. The vastly odd spellings of Homoousianism. Can you?"

Straw looks off at the wallowing ocean which was getting deeper and grayer.

I was thinking about the Hopi people who have no words for minutes or days of the week. What freedom that would be! And the key domain of those Hopi people. I’d like to go there. Are they anywhere near Oklo-homa?

Exterminated, Giacomo announces. They’ve been exterminated. I told you we got rid of those pests. This boondoggled ship is headed for the new world and there’s no turning back.

Giacomo Giacomo comes across to Straw as knowing plenty.

I do, Giacomo says, confusing past and present. I used to know plenty.

You’re reading my mind, Straw says, following the leader.

Yes, Giacomo says. I left my family and drove to the end. That’s how to do it. To become a tree… one more in that cluster surrounding us that can’t be noticed. That way I observe and learn, life without breathing. Who would think of it? To become a tree. That’s it. Most people would run off with the money to an island but they would always be traced and caught. The world always catches up with you like that. Accomplices would eventually turn you in, or confess on death beds. But not a tree. As a tree it’s all me. No one else. I become a tree. As a tree.

That’s fine, Straw says, but what about those two lovely ladies?

Have you seen them? Giacomo asks. I caught a glimpse of them walking, firmly, surely. I’ve been searching for them….

As a tree?

Yes, of course.

The ship’s Captain STC appears, having just swallowed grams of opium and the past tense. Wallowing toward Straw and Giacomo Giacomo, he says, Welcome aboard this rotting hulk! I’m Captain STC. I’m afraid there’s a mutiny going on below deck which is no use to me. This can’t be helped. I’m a poet. I am creating…

Can you spell homoousianism? Giacomo says, interrupting.

Straw wonders: Can one interrupt the Captain of a ship, even a rotting one, without being flogged?

Of course I can, the Captain shouts I am a poet! into the darkening air. I’m a poet.

He spells homoousianism perfectly correctly the very first try.

But what about the contrary doctrine of homoiousianism? says Giacomo. Can you spell that? There’s an important distinction that caused a lot of bitter and antagonistic feelings.

Poets make everything happen, the Captain answers. I’ve just assigned two women to steer this rotting hulk out of this diabolical weather-related mess.

Where are they? Giacomo pursues.

At the helm.

Helm? What is the helm? I know nothing of the sea, Straw says. I’m from a land-bound land.

It steers this rotting hulk.

Where the women are? At the helm of this hulk? Straw expostulates.

Poet, said Giacomo Giacomo, can you end the strike between the UMA and the greedy whores who make cars and trucks which are despoiling our sentimental journey on this planet?

Of course, Captain STC said. "But you’ve switched to the past tense without my permission. This is a serious matter. I want you to know that I disagree with McTaggart’s argument that the temporal order is an illusion and is only mere appearance. For us as we live, if not for the Hopis, past and present distinctions are critical. ‘I am the Captain’ is critically different from ‘I was the Captain’. In the latter case, there could be a mutiny if I was the Captain and there is no one in charge."

"But there is a mutiny going on right now and you are the Captain right now!"

That’s because I am a poet right now and not the Captain. In this moment of time as a poet, I used to be the Captain. Therefore mutiny is possible.

I withdraw the past tense, Giacomo says obediently but not semantically. The presence of the two lovely ladies makes the present tense exceedingly desirable.

Straw is getting seasick and starts retching and dry-heaving. He has never been on a ship before, especially in the present tense. He comes from Pragur, a land-bound country very far from any river, lake, waterfall, or ocean.

Pragurites have a song which dreams and fantasizes about laving bodies of water which will appease them. The song is called ‘Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.’ Can I sing it to you?" he says ignoring Captain STC at his peril now knowing the laws of the sea.

But first, Straw says, for my friend here, can you end the strike against greedy manufacturing whores, stop the mutiny, and lead my friend to the two lovely women?

When I finish my great poem about concupiscence, the Captain says, and get rid of this mind-bending constipation that my opium addiction is causing.

"A tree knows nothing of