Jim Meirose
The Recapitulation of the Accusations Brought Against Father Girard,
or: In the Cans
(Excerpt from work in progress — Dans l'odeur de la sainteté (In the Odour of Sanctity))
Here’s an example of the type of experience that caused Théot, even though she was born into a peasant family, to be immediately enveloped by bizarre supermystical hallucinations; Oho, the sun says here, thus now it’s Monday again, so; Push up out the beds. Another day. The day again eight need to get there. Another. Paralysis. Today, uh—oh, yes. Mother and Father don’t yet. Little Stannie’s boy. Good no need to hear it. Math Anxiety. Yesterday Father was up insomnia. Yes, lucky. Always bitching and bitching about insomnia. Good money easy work, get up walk three feet turn and quickly stoop pull flip and smooth, that deftly results in a neatly made bed. She wakes. See if you’re careful things get right. What the hell is going on! With every stop stoop pull bang-snap, being careful pays off in the end. Shower tonight. Problem; impatience. Hurry just dump all to tonight need to get the fuck out before. They want it now. Nora’s coverlump hit the floor. This makes no sense; a void opens below me as long as I am faced with math it makes me feel everything will stop making sense and then even after the math is gone everything will stay that way, but; Stannie wants sax now. Large rip of a creak. It’s not to play sax that he studies with me. Again and again just one creak to me but everycreak’s from a newboard out unseen where Mother is. There’s other reasons. What the hell you yell like that you have been told! People who push and push and push to master things that the back side of their brain knows are not up their alley get drowned down in the screech and boomy bang roll and brightly crashing din din din everpulsating all day and night sometimes twenty-four hours a day in urban centers are being driven by something else. Go push pull water into face clean pull-down towel. Something is in that has their common sense plugged back away in the rear butt of their brain pot. Red. It pushed and pushes and packs it back in there like some old time great big Phineas Gage style mining-style pre-accident guy. I was not yelling something woke me up what the hell? Tamp and tamp in all tight that plug of common sense set to blow out rot in the bonedome keep it pushed in run around take this lesson that lesson play Phineas Gage to the dangerous dream bashing common sense packed down impotent impotent in the brainy backhole it’s safe. Me! Phineas Gage sighing to the men up the mine I know what I’m doing carry on carry one yeah pick my teeth pare my nails years pass the sax bleats the same years ahead as it bleated back when it first jabbed the brainface’s mouth all reedy woody and it would have been better the first raspy note had shimmered through shakily banging a reedshard in the lip bloody perhaps that would have coated the prettycake with a slimy toxic saxophobia case and a quickpick loudouch and run for the assorted half-used junkdrawered styptics as the sax gets laid down and perhaps hopefully that becomes its figurative soulgrave forever. You got woke up Nora? But it goes on and on maybe one lesson or one thousand, if Stannie is lucky at least someday short of his end, the Phineas Gage actor will set on some Lauralee Wreathseat and in relief pull out a Camel. In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States. You bitching about getting woke up? Then out will come some showy maybe Marine Corps Zippo advertised too long ago in the Leatherneck mag not the current copy but about the fifth copy. Go if only I could be woken up Nora! Next he flicks to light the fresh butt, and at last common sense gets pushed one hairsbreadth too far and blasts the tamping-rod about before Gage sits and shoots all nine feet of its thick rigidity clear out the hole and in and out Gage’s head. Hey—don’t go in a close the bathroom door! The commonsense spurt-juice then will flashflood the brain and quench the foolfire. Go back and dress. Stannie will come to himself through the veil and as the rod arcs out up and down all gone over the nearest horizon, too fast for him to notice. Toast two quick slices had been the goal but that’s a time slice too much. He can then freely allow himself to re-experience the hour when he was deluded into believing he was already fully virtuosic, hypnotized to enter just a bit too far into his saxophonical fantasy. I didn’t sleep at all last night Nora! His sax-fantasy soothed soothed yes, also soothed deeper and longer than otherwise by someone’s sweet eyes ripe rump and lips, he stepped mesmerized onto a stage what stage never mind what stage it doesn’t matter. The taste of whole milk butter fresh from the churn. Then, Stannie will remember standing stage center. You did and I didn’t. Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell was first performed at Weimar, under the direction of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. There, once targeted by the audience’s hundred or so wide waiting eyes, a logical copy of the minetamper’s rod will shoot from his forgetful fogbank, shoot backwards into and up from the dark rectal backside forbiddenly gross area of his brain, where everything’s dull slow stale and cloyingly dense. How dare you yell at me like that! The rod will then come out into the world from right between his eyes, shouting at him to shout back at himself, Why the hell did I think I could do this? How dare you attack me you know it sets me off but you do it again and again and again you don’t give a shit selfish Nora! It is too hard expensive and embarrassing in the end. I like butter. I quit; Nora! Plus Nora is a stupid name it can’t even be popped into a quick witty nickname it’s already a nickname they didn‘t even give you a real name they jumped right to your nickname why the hell was that why have you not got a real name Nora? You’ve sold on eBay! Why? Put this sax up on eBay! Whyyyyyyy! And he will stride back into like and pick up where he left off and the dead disconnected monster delusionista resident deep in the center of his physical manyfissured grey matter of a mind-case will suffocate, wither, die, shrink, and rot. Come on out. Hopefully without leaving deposits of toxic residue there to fester and age and come alive later so unexpectedly to conk him down dead. Or you like a dog! Just as he’s biting into a great moist double-chocolate Betty Crocker boxed-up product prepared by a nun volunteer. I bet if I bang a biscuit on the door your face bump with no name will smell it like a dog will on the dog it’s a nose but on you its—unnameable; but because you are not a dog or so I am told I will bang my big dong against the door. The nun came from one of the orders that run soup kitchens clothing banks pet rescue groups and other such admirable institutions whose signs are tacked onto splintery manyholed phone poles next to overgrown fields only one and two cars pass by a week. It tastes supergood. These nunneries rely on the support of fat-pocketed corporate tax break seekers or their financial people. Hey doggie dog here’s the dongie-dong. They must delegate these low tasks to immunized empty suits all scurrying antlike at their bidding, since they are too fatly successful to function in the common low herd’s world. Come come come get the dongie-dong! Come doggie doggie dog, here girl pretty girl hey hey hey come on get it! Get OUT of here you scare me to death! Oh are you going to say like you always do that you are jealous of my sax? I have a path to greatness and you don’t? Do you know what the opposite of greatness is, doggie? Quite quiet you are. That means you don’t know the answer so here it is dog! It’s insignificance. Any questions? How ‘bout limited? Or littleness? Or lowness? Or mildness? Or miniature? Or slightness? Or smallness? Softness? Teenyness? Tinyness? Unimportence? Or perhaps we should get down all the way and see if you agree you are what all these fancy—shmancy snappers all point to; you are stupid Nora. You can’t learn Nora! You need to get off your ass and understand my triggers, Nora! Why is every action or word I can think of that you could use to do the opposite of setting me off, you are frightened to use or too simple to use or to do anything all the opposite of the usual things that set me off. Am I too hateful for you to treat properly? Too nauseating for you to be kind to? That is why I know you find me nauseous, Nora. That’s why. Throw out my sax. Every day you tell me. Throw the damned thing away it’s made you crazy! That makes me twice as mad when you tell me that Nora—but, oh, fuckbutt! My student’s in an hour, and; what’s worse this is garbage day! Together in this dense realization, universes mystically touch pulling the common space of a nonexistent Venn diagram under Sax and Mousie simultaneously, so the rush to their cans; they push their pedals; their lids snap together and they bend as a duo and fingergrip the inner lids of their identical forty gallon drippy-stained hundred and four dollar when discounted Simplehumans. Instantaneously, in the Einsteinian sense, the inner liner and the outerlid of Mousie’s lip snap together nipping his already fairly cracked inflamed and dehydration-damaged fingertips. Hurry hurry fumbleybum. When that tune was announced at the old Apollo, and the young man with the opposite of a big flashfat thumbstub of a horn trod the boards and that was the birth of a legend thank God the tapes were rolling praise the Lord, but—it’s not that Fingertips it’s lower case fingertips the tips of Mousie’s finger nipped ablaze but put the ouch o ahh into the backfight pull up of the bag and the spin close and twist seal the sinkbag—why the hell do I have to rush like this? Everything around me crowds around and gets in the way and does his or her best to fumbleme up. Father has taught I can never learn. Across the room in the semidarkness, oh! Way down in I’ve spoon dug and scraped out and not even a unicorn-cyst’s worth of demonic sebum-filthmass pushed flowed of oozed at all, even when I applied the most mighty pressure-pinch—unlike the fate of Victor-François, second duc de Broglie, Marshal of France whose entire headtop splitup overflowing from a similarly intentioned pressure, like a summer caterpillar weighted with two bricks. Even morphine, first isolated from the opium poppy by the German pharmacist, Friedrich Sertürner, cannot heal that pain. What’s that no not stumble not fall shit it’s a sneaker. Run with no footsteps to the front out the warm air I don’t remember opening the door even but I must have because here I am at the houseside, and fuck, fluck, tinderbox, yes by all that is Flintstone! Anything in the way on the floor in the dark is twenty times larger than after the instant you recover yourself and identify it. By all that is Naked and Afraid, I swear the big brute of an exterior mastercan is now fighting tooth and nail to stay shut. Recover yourself when stumblingy stumblingblocks you planted yourself last night or earlier can go one of two ways. I am no barbarian at the gates, M’seur Shitcan! There’s no exception. I am just a humanboy performing a morningchore decreed long ago by the author of my being! You recover and stabilize don’t fall and move on and the anger drains fades and nothing’s ever remembered. And not just that immediately after I must spray away my nighttime reek and pull up fresh jockeys too-tight because of my recent sudden adolescent birthspurt, and flash my ass down to and climb the rubber-rope up into MisterDoctor Sax’s tallmasted ramshackle. Or you recover and know there’s no way you won’t fall. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. So clench up tuck under and go and shield the parts of you most easily broken and let go and before you could ever fear what you may fall on you will know if you’ve luck or not by if you are pierced with the secondary wave of superfast sensations maybe pain maybe not and so the ground comes up into you pounds up like some slugger and only then do you know you’ve fallen that’s how fast all and everything happens. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Mr. Gurdjieff. Buildingly childrenstatues deeply down all just Legos. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Get up, no time to dwell further. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. The goal is to beat the young snickermouse to the hot studio. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fucking hot day—okay, rip! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Grip the can liner edge pull up and latch back so the rim’s out of way of the uppull. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Grip uppull. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Godslam. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. It slipped and the world slaps up the next slide of what a world of just pain appears as. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fingertips. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. God! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Almost slashed off pain-style, but look. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. It’s just that the catchlip down behind’s somehow slimy. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Time’s a’ wastin’, shit. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Rip out the garbage bag heavy with filth, up step back pull together quickly tie. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. God! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Praise slick Lucy herself, that went right. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Carefully run down the steps commanding my innerself no stumble no fall not this time no, get the garage door back luckily unlocked and dart out. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Thinking it is hard to believe the world around me held back from stopping me but perhaps it felt falling like floppy idiot was enough torment for one ten-minute span of my life. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fingers ache. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Ache ache thinking. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. John Wedgwood founded the Royal Horticultural Society the same year, coincidentally, but that fact does not negate the fact that at today’s lesson Stannie’s boy—which is his name to me because I have identified subliminally that his other name is a lie and not remembering is just a flagsignal to never ever use it or, things like arousing his demon will occur, which is just one of the zillion things that could possibly go wrong and that must not be triggered—by my cheating phone-ring, they must not—he will no doubt repeat again, using this time about the fifteen hundredth variation of how what he’s saying can possibly be worded, his positive knowledge that he’ll never learn math. Alvan Clark, American telescope manufacturer felt the same way as a youth, but got there. Why can’t you? Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. He tells himself he won’t and of course his misleading goal of wanting to learn is transformed without his knowledge to being never ever learn. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. So this lesson will wash over like a bucket of ice-cold Atlantic beachfluid thrown in his face when he finishes his sandcastle to wake him up and let him know that the castle will disappear nearly instantly in the next tide. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. And worse yet in his case not only are the normal tides of youth ebbing and flowing inside his popper, out past the horizon rages the perfect storm named early in the cyclone season, StannieNora, a category five. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. When he gets to the lesson—and this is why I need to be seated before the door when it opens—he will be drenched weatherbeaten exhausted dehydrated and ice-cold dumbed-down with the fact that he’s a failure and he’ll stumble in because concurrent with being a failure he is a good son a good soldier and will never waver from following the commandment that’s tableted with honor cementing the rocky rule, honor thy father and thy mother. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Moses is dead but continues having slidup into the limp emptyglove that is Stannie, the moment he lay with Nora and they pulled the cosmic trigger to initiate the pulling together over the next nine periods of son-our-son, Stannie’s boy. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. And, also, lest the world forget, we must restate that this is the year that Thomas Charles will prove instrumental in founding the British and Foreign Bible Society. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. A boon to humanity, it is. The result of all this circular pap and roundy-round circumstance, was, that she was released in September seventeen thirty, and the case was transferred to the court of Aix-en-Provence. Catherine was first placed in a convent in Toulon and then taken to a convent in Aix for the trial, which began on January tenth, seventeen thirty-one, under the Parliament of Aix. What was found there was surprising. But first a word from our sponsor You have been listening to the Norman Gospel Educational Network. Piles for pilecream oh no we meant to sing Pilecream for Piles oh no we meant to sing Piles for Pilecream Pilecream for Piles itch and seep or whatever other backside symptoms you may feel the need to hide from your spouse. Like it is; thank God there is a radio in this heap. What story they just told; what stupidly put together by some wild imagination all amuck amire amuck deep six; a housewife in Palestine recently widowed watched from her unrepaired back window way down back forty just at the space of stone too rocky to plow, seeing one whiterobed guy kneeling leaning on the big stone they called the rock-hard-tooth, because the day her late husband Lucas was killed by their primitive dentist was the day the supershrubby nuclear brush-busting machine bought on eBay slashed down the field driven by their recently laid off stuntly grown maxibese farmhand, who went too far and slammed into the newly cleared-off naturally Jurassic ancient wild, tall, hard as steel big stony pillar previously hidden behind its thickly snarled tight opaque wall of ancient vegetation. The dentist had Lucas down in the slopechair. The dentists had found the core of Lucas’ largest tooth to be dry empty past rot all gassy. Hup. Out the toothlike landmark the robed speck of a man knelt hands clasped on the stone all prayer-like. Ms. Housewife grabbed up her birdwatching addict of a common-law husband’s big black binoculars, peered, and, No! Yes! Yon man wears a fully nonfashionably trimmed out beard! Yes! Hup. Behind yon man on the ground lie two sleepers. The space around the praying man glowed freakishly; and lo and behold, on his head was a—this toothmass needs extraction, said the dentist—first this toothmass needs loosening—on his head was a yeah—the dentist picked up a tiny hard sledge—a cell phone leapt off the table to her ear—the dentist pounded down the toothtop—oh! She speedialed her husband—one rare bird flew—shit cried the husband gripping slapping the phone over—missed it again heaven hell the fuck—the dentist pounded and pounded Lucas into—what, he cried to her—four hours in the dental chair pound on pound the toothy steel bonehard tall blunt tipped mouth-pillar—tears fell—Lucas gave up—there’s a man out the field—the dentist dialed for medics—Lucas’ tooth stood tall and tight though his brain gave up from one too many jolts—what kind of man—a man is praying—Lucas was called at three fifteen—praying? No—yes and above his head floats—Doctor Sax blew red light after red light but the early no traffic-state of twilit moto affairs saved his butt—the man wears a halo—what is a halo—what have you ingested to see beyond the veil—we agreed you would never ever again touch the stuff—Jesus is in the field—Jesus? No no—Yes Jesus is in the field playing the Agony in the Garden scene—no can’t be—Lucas stood before Saint Peter—for the first time since Eden, big Jesus came out—a great tractor sped the husband all lurching over thousands of bone-dry furrows to get home and find out—I want to shake your hand Lucas, said Jesus—I want to shake your hand for your service. Hup. I tried and tried and tried to pull some strings but, unfortunately, your sentence of an eternity in hell was upheld—but I found you an inspiration in the garden—you made it go as planned—I couldn’t have done it without and there is rejoicing in paradise this day but, someone has to pay the price. Silverlinings have a cloud, you know, or something like that—but, that you must pay with your life is unfortunate. Go now with these officers. But know that we are arranging the very next new regional library complex back on Earth to be named after you. Go—the great sedan sped Doctor Sax all lurching over thousands of bone-dry deep and shallow long and short potholes until finally arriving at his studio. By bitcoin by blockchain thank Saint Fiona of Hippo, patron of saxophonists across every single galactic discipline, Jackson-cat included, praise God I made it solidly butt-planted on my teacherstools no time for that unfortunately but the slick leather pressed by my poundage will serve to keep things clean. Now wait for the student. They should be here now. See, see. Haste makes waster. There was probably time to hit the head after all. But that’s for future reference, oh. That’s how you learn you know. Superclick.
Hello, Doctor. How are you? Am I on time? I left my watch home.
Mousie bustled to the stool over from Dr. Sax, pressed himself down, and flexed his fingers to illustrate the obligatory chattering smalltalk customary between such semi-strangers.
My fingers hurt like hell, my!
Why what happened?
The lid of our iron garbage can snapped down on them when I was doing the trash.
—how does this boy know that happened to me too? Why did that happen to both of us? Need to question this boy further he may not be who he pretends to be—
That’s too bad, Mouse. That’s your name, right? Mouse?
Yes it is.
Oh, that’s great. I am so terrible with names. I hope you’re not offended that I was unsure of your name.
No not at all. I am sure that with the great bulk of students you must have, all the names mix together all Gordian in your head.
Yes that’s true. Quite spritely word choice there, Mouse—all Gordian. Clever.
Not really. It’s not me pop pop popping. It’s somewhere very much further inside.
—inside? My word where’d that come from—ask—check—know—say—
What do you mean inside, Mousie?
Probably the demon my Father says I house. I’ve told you before—what, you don’t remember?
Oh, yes I do. But I told you there are no such things. Without going through all the details again, I thought you believed me when I told you that believing in this demon will hold you way back, not just from learning math but in every area of your life.
I never said I believed. I just let you go on and on with my mouth shut. Just because I don’t say I don’t believe you that doesn’t mean I do.
Touche! All right. Your Father isn’t paying for logical analysis lessons for you. Let’s let this line of pap go gone and get down into this week’s math. How’s about it?
Sounds good.
All right here. Consider the sequence five, eight, eleven, fourteen, and seventeen. What is the fiftieth number in this sequence? Specified for two manuals, it is largely made up of various scale passages, arpeggios and trills, and features much hand-crossing of different kinds what—no yes and maybe in the cosmos-mysterioso uh eh no whut pull back the nonreins stop the nonhorse all dizzy dizzy dizzy—it is no sin to run from poison—
What’s the matter boy? I asked you a question. Look at me!
For what?
Did you hear the question or not?
Mousie’s face set hard; that hard way that not only jolts the questioner but the questioned as well sucking a bile-taste up behind the face overspreading the inside inch thick that if allowed to set will mask him this way forever; Son Mousie, how many times do I have to tell you if you make these unholy faces God never intended you to wear one time too often, he will set your face hard slick and ugly the way you set it in fun, forever. The lord will tolerate fun to a point—
Your rude streak got you again, I see, Mouse—don’t pretend you don’t hear listen now, listen good. One time more only, I will give you. Here it is again—consider the sequence five, eight, eleven, fourteen, and seventeen. What is the fiftieth number in this sequence?
—he said last time what comes after last times in general from him before is unpleasant so so so snap over the subject, it will only hurt for less than an instant; say this Mouse say to him, Wait, wait, Doctor. Why do we have to go over solving problems like that?
It is in the curriculum son. But, stop. Think. Do not question. Just give me the answer.
I want to know why. I can kind of see normal arithmetic and even some algebra as something someday useful. Tell me why this line of questioning is needed. I won’t go further until you convince me this is worth learning. Not to treat me like a child!
—This is a virtuosic two-part toccata in twelve sixteen time—
Doctor Sax reached around into his left back-butt pantssack and pulled out a phone.
This is the reason Mousie! You learn it or I will call your Father. Then I will hand the phone to you and you can convince him to continue to pay me thousands of dollars to teach you to be more of a childish defiant asshole than you were before you met me. Not to mention the side-benefit of allowing you to pile up layer upon layer of stupidity on yourself, which, if I do nothing to stop you, will harden and become irrevocably permanent. Shall I call?
Mouse caught the phone in his gaze. The question from Sax implied time to think through to pop out the right answer had also been granted. Cry foul cry foul, if time not granted—if Sax fouls out this will be over—time to think is here on this silver platter and the thinking involves projecting the stepwise chain of block-on-block towerbuilt future growing ahead and wavebreaking away the previous horrors laid down in the last pass of the loop Mousie had rotated to at and past here but he must not know no not know or creation itself will be blasted back in the dark and a new future will be exposed and this over and over and over until inevitably a future is peeled back the final one required to be looped around to and which must be irreversibly fatal. Nothing no nothing can’t be nothing and there it is the answer Father’s fist shaking Father’s sounds pounding too primitive to be words just as once in a memory or what have you inevitable newspaper edition will claim some animal gorilla ape of some kind whining canine feline or mouse or even the assorted long thick table leg shaped voicerod is imagined by the next newshound in the sequence to actually be sentient and speak actual words that actually seem to be intelligent; words like Mouse you will never ever learn math, or, Mouse you will never ever cast out your inner stupidity generating innerdemon but no those will not appear until the next millennium so can’t know that was just a random spark and for years not for years, the nail of Mousie’s right index finger has grown out in two halves why why why no one knows that’s an unanswerable question if you ask me, Mr. Rayburn, just like why Jupiter sports the great red spot why do they ask why at times of boredom when the science game is slow do they ask these questions that have no answers; but the answer to why should Sax not call Father is simple just is, so Mouse said simply, No, don’t call my Father. He will be pissed. So, the answer to your question is exactly one hundred and fifty-two! There!
Mousie!
—The Napoleonic Code was adopted as French civil law—
There it is. There. So. Is your dick hard now, Mister-bosstutor?
What? What do you mean by that?
—huh—
Aspercreme will help that son. AS it helped Damodar Pande, Prime Minister of Nepal, and many others.
—everybody on earth knows what’s meant by that he wants to be stepped up toward moral ground a notch so he can rush grab grapple me down pour over words suck the tanks out from the hedgerow to advance providing cover for the armymen brother and I brother and me big bags of one hundred green plastic armymen Mommy can we get those no Mousie big bags of fifty green plastic armymen no twenty-five green plastic armymen no twelve no six no three no none—no defense no armymen and there’s no ammo for the tanks so Mouse rubbed his moist eyes and told the teacher, I’m sorry Doctor, I shouldn’t have said that. It just came.
I am relieved you apologized Mousie. It was very unlike you to say something like that.
I know.
As a matter of fact, you seem a bit off in general. Something’s on your mind today. And I sense it is not good. Tell me about it.
Mouse opened his hands palms up on his knees and examines the maps spread out on his bed. The cool of the room. The lines across short and long and curved and straight. The—
Mouse, you seem to not feel like saying much today, but if you let it out, it will clear your mind. You cannot learn effectively without a clear mind. Cadiere was first placed in a convent in Toulon and then moved to a convent in Aix for the trial, which began on January tenth seventeen thirty-one. So there, so, there, uh! So there so there so there, so, there see what can happen see, Mouse! So fist those hands over hide those palms it’s superstition be a man of science fact and black and white judgement like me and them and them and on and on somewhat like some species of the math devil Pi but no too late you’re tricked very well the well-planned trickster beats the on the fly trickster each and every time Mouse—if you do not prepare for life you will be very sorry Mouse; nothing comes close as hell on earth as waking up almost at the very end and glancing back clear-headed for the first time and seeing all the years and years gone to waste forever Mouse what one would not wish they had never lived Mouse Mouse no push that away we have heard that one hundred and one times already all before the age of ten no point in wasting time on number hundred and two and beyond once the sponge soaked through more water’s just waste more water more advice more preaching more pontificating teaching instructing training coaching helping schooling or guiding because overdone these are waste seed spilled on the ground the bible said yes and the bible said no because the swervy swirly long short palmlines have already been ejaculated onto the within. Clear mind clear head clear day why’re these good. Clear head blocked clogged closed all the heads seem so why’re these good. Shut down turn in look away don’t see so why is this good. Don’t listen don’t hear might be sleep nothing serious only sleep good for all men wouldn’t you agree Mister Sax-Masterson? Or is it Bat? Sorry sir. I forgot your name was Bat—I think I am just tired, Doctor. I think I might be coming down with something. I feel weak somehow.
Mouse, it’s good you told me. I think let’s make this lesson just four hours.
Really?
Yes. But let’s make these four hours really count! Our goal is to make your Father proud—that is the only goal that should matter, to a boy full of beans and health such as you! Come on! Here; a car traveled two hundred and eighty-one miles in four hours and forty-one minutes. What was the average speed of the car in miles per hour—sixty of course—good; now yes as always capping off this weekly brainwashing session his voice will command this was and thusly; hast thou at long last plus super-ardently climaxed bless my heart, Mousie absolutely y’all climaxed precious Savior be ye quite good, Mousie rouse break through—In a group of one hundred and twenty people, ninety have an age of more than thirty years, and the others have an age of less than twenty years. If a person is selected at random from this group, what is the probability the person's age is less than twenty—point two five of course—good; materialize being Christ’s regard fulfill immediately Holy Moses even as I try and strain to think otherwise popping—yours truly Meanselle Sax—the length of a rectangle is four times its width. If the area is one hundred m sub two what is the length of the rectangle—twenty meters of course—good; but he will dodge swerve and bog me yes I chased ball in the fast lane but survived regardless of state your objective son yes I moved my head away right when the fifty pound potty pot fat corporate flowerplant plunged shattering on the things to do today list but survived regardless of his shit shout on over saying Nirvana-head be you now baby—a six-sided die is rolled once. What is the probability that the number rolled is an even number greater than two—one third of course—good; but; Stop! Demonic embedded problem maximum total misinterpretation generator of famous witch woman Cadiere who was released in September seventeen-thirty as her case was transferred to the court of Aix-en-Provence and the lesson be over now the lesson over be each dimension of a cube has been increased to twice its original size—but, so, if the new cube has a volume of sixty-four thousand cubic centimeters, what is the area of one face of the original cube. No, yes, please, please. The answer can only be four hundred square centimeters. Please, please. Be. As in; world population reaches one billion people.
Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Calliope, Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Permafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Published books include: Understanding Franklin Thompson (Exp. novel - JEF pubs (2018)), Sunday Dinner With Father Dwyer (Exp. Novel - Scarlet Leaf Press (2018)), Inferno (E-Chap - Underground Voices), Mount Everest and Eli the Rat (Lit. Novels - Montag). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
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or: In the Cans
(Excerpt from work in progress — Dans l'odeur de la sainteté (In the Odour of Sanctity))
Here’s an example of the type of experience that caused Théot, even though she was born into a peasant family, to be immediately enveloped by bizarre supermystical hallucinations; Oho, the sun says here, thus now it’s Monday again, so; Push up out the beds. Another day. The day again eight need to get there. Another. Paralysis. Today, uh—oh, yes. Mother and Father don’t yet. Little Stannie’s boy. Good no need to hear it. Math Anxiety. Yesterday Father was up insomnia. Yes, lucky. Always bitching and bitching about insomnia. Good money easy work, get up walk three feet turn and quickly stoop pull flip and smooth, that deftly results in a neatly made bed. She wakes. See if you’re careful things get right. What the hell is going on! With every stop stoop pull bang-snap, being careful pays off in the end. Shower tonight. Problem; impatience. Hurry just dump all to tonight need to get the fuck out before. They want it now. Nora’s coverlump hit the floor. This makes no sense; a void opens below me as long as I am faced with math it makes me feel everything will stop making sense and then even after the math is gone everything will stay that way, but; Stannie wants sax now. Large rip of a creak. It’s not to play sax that he studies with me. Again and again just one creak to me but everycreak’s from a newboard out unseen where Mother is. There’s other reasons. What the hell you yell like that you have been told! People who push and push and push to master things that the back side of their brain knows are not up their alley get drowned down in the screech and boomy bang roll and brightly crashing din din din everpulsating all day and night sometimes twenty-four hours a day in urban centers are being driven by something else. Go push pull water into face clean pull-down towel. Something is in that has their common sense plugged back away in the rear butt of their brain pot. Red. It pushed and pushes and packs it back in there like some old time great big Phineas Gage style mining-style pre-accident guy. I was not yelling something woke me up what the hell? Tamp and tamp in all tight that plug of common sense set to blow out rot in the bonedome keep it pushed in run around take this lesson that lesson play Phineas Gage to the dangerous dream bashing common sense packed down impotent impotent in the brainy backhole it’s safe. Me! Phineas Gage sighing to the men up the mine I know what I’m doing carry on carry one yeah pick my teeth pare my nails years pass the sax bleats the same years ahead as it bleated back when it first jabbed the brainface’s mouth all reedy woody and it would have been better the first raspy note had shimmered through shakily banging a reedshard in the lip bloody perhaps that would have coated the prettycake with a slimy toxic saxophobia case and a quickpick loudouch and run for the assorted half-used junkdrawered styptics as the sax gets laid down and perhaps hopefully that becomes its figurative soulgrave forever. You got woke up Nora? But it goes on and on maybe one lesson or one thousand, if Stannie is lucky at least someday short of his end, the Phineas Gage actor will set on some Lauralee Wreathseat and in relief pull out a Camel. In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States. You bitching about getting woke up? Then out will come some showy maybe Marine Corps Zippo advertised too long ago in the Leatherneck mag not the current copy but about the fifth copy. Go if only I could be woken up Nora! Next he flicks to light the fresh butt, and at last common sense gets pushed one hairsbreadth too far and blasts the tamping-rod about before Gage sits and shoots all nine feet of its thick rigidity clear out the hole and in and out Gage’s head. Hey—don’t go in a close the bathroom door! The commonsense spurt-juice then will flashflood the brain and quench the foolfire. Go back and dress. Stannie will come to himself through the veil and as the rod arcs out up and down all gone over the nearest horizon, too fast for him to notice. Toast two quick slices had been the goal but that’s a time slice too much. He can then freely allow himself to re-experience the hour when he was deluded into believing he was already fully virtuosic, hypnotized to enter just a bit too far into his saxophonical fantasy. I didn’t sleep at all last night Nora! His sax-fantasy soothed soothed yes, also soothed deeper and longer than otherwise by someone’s sweet eyes ripe rump and lips, he stepped mesmerized onto a stage what stage never mind what stage it doesn’t matter. The taste of whole milk butter fresh from the churn. Then, Stannie will remember standing stage center. You did and I didn’t. Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell was first performed at Weimar, under the direction of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. There, once targeted by the audience’s hundred or so wide waiting eyes, a logical copy of the minetamper’s rod will shoot from his forgetful fogbank, shoot backwards into and up from the dark rectal backside forbiddenly gross area of his brain, where everything’s dull slow stale and cloyingly dense. How dare you yell at me like that! The rod will then come out into the world from right between his eyes, shouting at him to shout back at himself, Why the hell did I think I could do this? How dare you attack me you know it sets me off but you do it again and again and again you don’t give a shit selfish Nora! It is too hard expensive and embarrassing in the end. I like butter. I quit; Nora! Plus Nora is a stupid name it can’t even be popped into a quick witty nickname it’s already a nickname they didn‘t even give you a real name they jumped right to your nickname why the hell was that why have you not got a real name Nora? You’ve sold on eBay! Why? Put this sax up on eBay! Whyyyyyyy! And he will stride back into like and pick up where he left off and the dead disconnected monster delusionista resident deep in the center of his physical manyfissured grey matter of a mind-case will suffocate, wither, die, shrink, and rot. Come on out. Hopefully without leaving deposits of toxic residue there to fester and age and come alive later so unexpectedly to conk him down dead. Or you like a dog! Just as he’s biting into a great moist double-chocolate Betty Crocker boxed-up product prepared by a nun volunteer. I bet if I bang a biscuit on the door your face bump with no name will smell it like a dog will on the dog it’s a nose but on you its—unnameable; but because you are not a dog or so I am told I will bang my big dong against the door. The nun came from one of the orders that run soup kitchens clothing banks pet rescue groups and other such admirable institutions whose signs are tacked onto splintery manyholed phone poles next to overgrown fields only one and two cars pass by a week. It tastes supergood. These nunneries rely on the support of fat-pocketed corporate tax break seekers or their financial people. Hey doggie dog here’s the dongie-dong. They must delegate these low tasks to immunized empty suits all scurrying antlike at their bidding, since they are too fatly successful to function in the common low herd’s world. Come come come get the dongie-dong! Come doggie doggie dog, here girl pretty girl hey hey hey come on get it! Get OUT of here you scare me to death! Oh are you going to say like you always do that you are jealous of my sax? I have a path to greatness and you don’t? Do you know what the opposite of greatness is, doggie? Quite quiet you are. That means you don’t know the answer so here it is dog! It’s insignificance. Any questions? How ‘bout limited? Or littleness? Or lowness? Or mildness? Or miniature? Or slightness? Or smallness? Softness? Teenyness? Tinyness? Unimportence? Or perhaps we should get down all the way and see if you agree you are what all these fancy—shmancy snappers all point to; you are stupid Nora. You can’t learn Nora! You need to get off your ass and understand my triggers, Nora! Why is every action or word I can think of that you could use to do the opposite of setting me off, you are frightened to use or too simple to use or to do anything all the opposite of the usual things that set me off. Am I too hateful for you to treat properly? Too nauseating for you to be kind to? That is why I know you find me nauseous, Nora. That’s why. Throw out my sax. Every day you tell me. Throw the damned thing away it’s made you crazy! That makes me twice as mad when you tell me that Nora—but, oh, fuckbutt! My student’s in an hour, and; what’s worse this is garbage day! Together in this dense realization, universes mystically touch pulling the common space of a nonexistent Venn diagram under Sax and Mousie simultaneously, so the rush to their cans; they push their pedals; their lids snap together and they bend as a duo and fingergrip the inner lids of their identical forty gallon drippy-stained hundred and four dollar when discounted Simplehumans. Instantaneously, in the Einsteinian sense, the inner liner and the outerlid of Mousie’s lip snap together nipping his already fairly cracked inflamed and dehydration-damaged fingertips. Hurry hurry fumbleybum. When that tune was announced at the old Apollo, and the young man with the opposite of a big flashfat thumbstub of a horn trod the boards and that was the birth of a legend thank God the tapes were rolling praise the Lord, but—it’s not that Fingertips it’s lower case fingertips the tips of Mousie’s finger nipped ablaze but put the ouch o ahh into the backfight pull up of the bag and the spin close and twist seal the sinkbag—why the hell do I have to rush like this? Everything around me crowds around and gets in the way and does his or her best to fumbleme up. Father has taught I can never learn. Across the room in the semidarkness, oh! Way down in I’ve spoon dug and scraped out and not even a unicorn-cyst’s worth of demonic sebum-filthmass pushed flowed of oozed at all, even when I applied the most mighty pressure-pinch—unlike the fate of Victor-François, second duc de Broglie, Marshal of France whose entire headtop splitup overflowing from a similarly intentioned pressure, like a summer caterpillar weighted with two bricks. Even morphine, first isolated from the opium poppy by the German pharmacist, Friedrich Sertürner, cannot heal that pain. What’s that no not stumble not fall shit it’s a sneaker. Run with no footsteps to the front out the warm air I don’t remember opening the door even but I must have because here I am at the houseside, and fuck, fluck, tinderbox, yes by all that is Flintstone! Anything in the way on the floor in the dark is twenty times larger than after the instant you recover yourself and identify it. By all that is Naked and Afraid, I swear the big brute of an exterior mastercan is now fighting tooth and nail to stay shut. Recover yourself when stumblingy stumblingblocks you planted yourself last night or earlier can go one of two ways. I am no barbarian at the gates, M’seur Shitcan! There’s no exception. I am just a humanboy performing a morningchore decreed long ago by the author of my being! You recover and stabilize don’t fall and move on and the anger drains fades and nothing’s ever remembered. And not just that immediately after I must spray away my nighttime reek and pull up fresh jockeys too-tight because of my recent sudden adolescent birthspurt, and flash my ass down to and climb the rubber-rope up into MisterDoctor Sax’s tallmasted ramshackle. Or you recover and know there’s no way you won’t fall. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. So clench up tuck under and go and shield the parts of you most easily broken and let go and before you could ever fear what you may fall on you will know if you’ve luck or not by if you are pierced with the secondary wave of superfast sensations maybe pain maybe not and so the ground comes up into you pounds up like some slugger and only then do you know you’ve fallen that’s how fast all and everything happens. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Mr. Gurdjieff. Buildingly childrenstatues deeply down all just Legos. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Get up, no time to dwell further. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. The goal is to beat the young snickermouse to the hot studio. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fucking hot day—okay, rip! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Grip the can liner edge pull up and latch back so the rim’s out of way of the uppull. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Grip uppull. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Godslam. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. It slipped and the world slaps up the next slide of what a world of just pain appears as. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fingertips. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. God! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Almost slashed off pain-style, but look. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. It’s just that the catchlip down behind’s somehow slimy. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Time’s a’ wastin’, shit. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Rip out the garbage bag heavy with filth, up step back pull together quickly tie. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. God! Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Praise slick Lucy herself, that went right. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Carefully run down the steps commanding my innerself no stumble no fall not this time no, get the garage door back luckily unlocked and dart out. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Thinking it is hard to believe the world around me held back from stopping me but perhaps it felt falling like floppy idiot was enough torment for one ten-minute span of my life. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Fingers ache. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Ache ache thinking. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. John Wedgwood founded the Royal Horticultural Society the same year, coincidentally, but that fact does not negate the fact that at today’s lesson Stannie’s boy—which is his name to me because I have identified subliminally that his other name is a lie and not remembering is just a flagsignal to never ever use it or, things like arousing his demon will occur, which is just one of the zillion things that could possibly go wrong and that must not be triggered—by my cheating phone-ring, they must not—he will no doubt repeat again, using this time about the fifteen hundredth variation of how what he’s saying can possibly be worded, his positive knowledge that he’ll never learn math. Alvan Clark, American telescope manufacturer felt the same way as a youth, but got there. Why can’t you? Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. He tells himself he won’t and of course his misleading goal of wanting to learn is transformed without his knowledge to being never ever learn. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. So this lesson will wash over like a bucket of ice-cold Atlantic beachfluid thrown in his face when he finishes his sandcastle to wake him up and let him know that the castle will disappear nearly instantly in the next tide. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. And worse yet in his case not only are the normal tides of youth ebbing and flowing inside his popper, out past the horizon rages the perfect storm named early in the cyclone season, StannieNora, a category five. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. When he gets to the lesson—and this is why I need to be seated before the door when it opens—he will be drenched weatherbeaten exhausted dehydrated and ice-cold dumbed-down with the fact that he’s a failure and he’ll stumble in because concurrent with being a failure he is a good son a good soldier and will never waver from following the commandment that’s tableted with honor cementing the rocky rule, honor thy father and thy mother. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. Moses is dead but continues having slidup into the limp emptyglove that is Stannie, the moment he lay with Nora and they pulled the cosmic trigger to initiate the pulling together over the next nine periods of son-our-son, Stannie’s boy. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. And, also, lest the world forget, we must restate that this is the year that Thomas Charles will prove instrumental in founding the British and Foreign Bible Society. Because if I don’t do that I will again get his hell. A boon to humanity, it is. The result of all this circular pap and roundy-round circumstance, was, that she was released in September seventeen thirty, and the case was transferred to the court of Aix-en-Provence. Catherine was first placed in a convent in Toulon and then taken to a convent in Aix for the trial, which began on January tenth, seventeen thirty-one, under the Parliament of Aix. What was found there was surprising. But first a word from our sponsor You have been listening to the Norman Gospel Educational Network. Piles for pilecream oh no we meant to sing Pilecream for Piles oh no we meant to sing Piles for Pilecream Pilecream for Piles itch and seep or whatever other backside symptoms you may feel the need to hide from your spouse. Like it is; thank God there is a radio in this heap. What story they just told; what stupidly put together by some wild imagination all amuck amire amuck deep six; a housewife in Palestine recently widowed watched from her unrepaired back window way down back forty just at the space of stone too rocky to plow, seeing one whiterobed guy kneeling leaning on the big stone they called the rock-hard-tooth, because the day her late husband Lucas was killed by their primitive dentist was the day the supershrubby nuclear brush-busting machine bought on eBay slashed down the field driven by their recently laid off stuntly grown maxibese farmhand, who went too far and slammed into the newly cleared-off naturally Jurassic ancient wild, tall, hard as steel big stony pillar previously hidden behind its thickly snarled tight opaque wall of ancient vegetation. The dentist had Lucas down in the slopechair. The dentists had found the core of Lucas’ largest tooth to be dry empty past rot all gassy. Hup. Out the toothlike landmark the robed speck of a man knelt hands clasped on the stone all prayer-like. Ms. Housewife grabbed up her birdwatching addict of a common-law husband’s big black binoculars, peered, and, No! Yes! Yon man wears a fully nonfashionably trimmed out beard! Yes! Hup. Behind yon man on the ground lie two sleepers. The space around the praying man glowed freakishly; and lo and behold, on his head was a—this toothmass needs extraction, said the dentist—first this toothmass needs loosening—on his head was a yeah—the dentist picked up a tiny hard sledge—a cell phone leapt off the table to her ear—the dentist pounded down the toothtop—oh! She speedialed her husband—one rare bird flew—shit cried the husband gripping slapping the phone over—missed it again heaven hell the fuck—the dentist pounded and pounded Lucas into—what, he cried to her—four hours in the dental chair pound on pound the toothy steel bonehard tall blunt tipped mouth-pillar—tears fell—Lucas gave up—there’s a man out the field—the dentist dialed for medics—Lucas’ tooth stood tall and tight though his brain gave up from one too many jolts—what kind of man—a man is praying—Lucas was called at three fifteen—praying? No—yes and above his head floats—Doctor Sax blew red light after red light but the early no traffic-state of twilit moto affairs saved his butt—the man wears a halo—what is a halo—what have you ingested to see beyond the veil—we agreed you would never ever again touch the stuff—Jesus is in the field—Jesus? No no—Yes Jesus is in the field playing the Agony in the Garden scene—no can’t be—Lucas stood before Saint Peter—for the first time since Eden, big Jesus came out—a great tractor sped the husband all lurching over thousands of bone-dry furrows to get home and find out—I want to shake your hand Lucas, said Jesus—I want to shake your hand for your service. Hup. I tried and tried and tried to pull some strings but, unfortunately, your sentence of an eternity in hell was upheld—but I found you an inspiration in the garden—you made it go as planned—I couldn’t have done it without and there is rejoicing in paradise this day but, someone has to pay the price. Silverlinings have a cloud, you know, or something like that—but, that you must pay with your life is unfortunate. Go now with these officers. But know that we are arranging the very next new regional library complex back on Earth to be named after you. Go—the great sedan sped Doctor Sax all lurching over thousands of bone-dry deep and shallow long and short potholes until finally arriving at his studio. By bitcoin by blockchain thank Saint Fiona of Hippo, patron of saxophonists across every single galactic discipline, Jackson-cat included, praise God I made it solidly butt-planted on my teacherstools no time for that unfortunately but the slick leather pressed by my poundage will serve to keep things clean. Now wait for the student. They should be here now. See, see. Haste makes waster. There was probably time to hit the head after all. But that’s for future reference, oh. That’s how you learn you know. Superclick.
Hello, Doctor. How are you? Am I on time? I left my watch home.
Mousie bustled to the stool over from Dr. Sax, pressed himself down, and flexed his fingers to illustrate the obligatory chattering smalltalk customary between such semi-strangers.
My fingers hurt like hell, my!
Why what happened?
The lid of our iron garbage can snapped down on them when I was doing the trash.
—how does this boy know that happened to me too? Why did that happen to both of us? Need to question this boy further he may not be who he pretends to be—
That’s too bad, Mouse. That’s your name, right? Mouse?
Yes it is.
Oh, that’s great. I am so terrible with names. I hope you’re not offended that I was unsure of your name.
No not at all. I am sure that with the great bulk of students you must have, all the names mix together all Gordian in your head.
Yes that’s true. Quite spritely word choice there, Mouse—all Gordian. Clever.
Not really. It’s not me pop pop popping. It’s somewhere very much further inside.
—inside? My word where’d that come from—ask—check—know—say—
What do you mean inside, Mousie?
Probably the demon my Father says I house. I’ve told you before—what, you don’t remember?
Oh, yes I do. But I told you there are no such things. Without going through all the details again, I thought you believed me when I told you that believing in this demon will hold you way back, not just from learning math but in every area of your life.
I never said I believed. I just let you go on and on with my mouth shut. Just because I don’t say I don’t believe you that doesn’t mean I do.
Touche! All right. Your Father isn’t paying for logical analysis lessons for you. Let’s let this line of pap go gone and get down into this week’s math. How’s about it?
Sounds good.
All right here. Consider the sequence five, eight, eleven, fourteen, and seventeen. What is the fiftieth number in this sequence? Specified for two manuals, it is largely made up of various scale passages, arpeggios and trills, and features much hand-crossing of different kinds what—no yes and maybe in the cosmos-mysterioso uh eh no whut pull back the nonreins stop the nonhorse all dizzy dizzy dizzy—it is no sin to run from poison—
What’s the matter boy? I asked you a question. Look at me!
For what?
Did you hear the question or not?
Mousie’s face set hard; that hard way that not only jolts the questioner but the questioned as well sucking a bile-taste up behind the face overspreading the inside inch thick that if allowed to set will mask him this way forever; Son Mousie, how many times do I have to tell you if you make these unholy faces God never intended you to wear one time too often, he will set your face hard slick and ugly the way you set it in fun, forever. The lord will tolerate fun to a point—
Your rude streak got you again, I see, Mouse—don’t pretend you don’t hear listen now, listen good. One time more only, I will give you. Here it is again—consider the sequence five, eight, eleven, fourteen, and seventeen. What is the fiftieth number in this sequence?
—he said last time what comes after last times in general from him before is unpleasant so so so snap over the subject, it will only hurt for less than an instant; say this Mouse say to him, Wait, wait, Doctor. Why do we have to go over solving problems like that?
It is in the curriculum son. But, stop. Think. Do not question. Just give me the answer.
I want to know why. I can kind of see normal arithmetic and even some algebra as something someday useful. Tell me why this line of questioning is needed. I won’t go further until you convince me this is worth learning. Not to treat me like a child!
—This is a virtuosic two-part toccata in twelve sixteen time—
Doctor Sax reached around into his left back-butt pantssack and pulled out a phone.
This is the reason Mousie! You learn it or I will call your Father. Then I will hand the phone to you and you can convince him to continue to pay me thousands of dollars to teach you to be more of a childish defiant asshole than you were before you met me. Not to mention the side-benefit of allowing you to pile up layer upon layer of stupidity on yourself, which, if I do nothing to stop you, will harden and become irrevocably permanent. Shall I call?
Mouse caught the phone in his gaze. The question from Sax implied time to think through to pop out the right answer had also been granted. Cry foul cry foul, if time not granted—if Sax fouls out this will be over—time to think is here on this silver platter and the thinking involves projecting the stepwise chain of block-on-block towerbuilt future growing ahead and wavebreaking away the previous horrors laid down in the last pass of the loop Mousie had rotated to at and past here but he must not know no not know or creation itself will be blasted back in the dark and a new future will be exposed and this over and over and over until inevitably a future is peeled back the final one required to be looped around to and which must be irreversibly fatal. Nothing no nothing can’t be nothing and there it is the answer Father’s fist shaking Father’s sounds pounding too primitive to be words just as once in a memory or what have you inevitable newspaper edition will claim some animal gorilla ape of some kind whining canine feline or mouse or even the assorted long thick table leg shaped voicerod is imagined by the next newshound in the sequence to actually be sentient and speak actual words that actually seem to be intelligent; words like Mouse you will never ever learn math, or, Mouse you will never ever cast out your inner stupidity generating innerdemon but no those will not appear until the next millennium so can’t know that was just a random spark and for years not for years, the nail of Mousie’s right index finger has grown out in two halves why why why no one knows that’s an unanswerable question if you ask me, Mr. Rayburn, just like why Jupiter sports the great red spot why do they ask why at times of boredom when the science game is slow do they ask these questions that have no answers; but the answer to why should Sax not call Father is simple just is, so Mouse said simply, No, don’t call my Father. He will be pissed. So, the answer to your question is exactly one hundred and fifty-two! There!
Mousie!
—The Napoleonic Code was adopted as French civil law—
There it is. There. So. Is your dick hard now, Mister-bosstutor?
What? What do you mean by that?
—huh—
Aspercreme will help that son. AS it helped Damodar Pande, Prime Minister of Nepal, and many others.
—everybody on earth knows what’s meant by that he wants to be stepped up toward moral ground a notch so he can rush grab grapple me down pour over words suck the tanks out from the hedgerow to advance providing cover for the armymen brother and I brother and me big bags of one hundred green plastic armymen Mommy can we get those no Mousie big bags of fifty green plastic armymen no twenty-five green plastic armymen no twelve no six no three no none—no defense no armymen and there’s no ammo for the tanks so Mouse rubbed his moist eyes and told the teacher, I’m sorry Doctor, I shouldn’t have said that. It just came.
I am relieved you apologized Mousie. It was very unlike you to say something like that.
I know.
As a matter of fact, you seem a bit off in general. Something’s on your mind today. And I sense it is not good. Tell me about it.
Mouse opened his hands palms up on his knees and examines the maps spread out on his bed. The cool of the room. The lines across short and long and curved and straight. The—
Mouse, you seem to not feel like saying much today, but if you let it out, it will clear your mind. You cannot learn effectively without a clear mind. Cadiere was first placed in a convent in Toulon and then moved to a convent in Aix for the trial, which began on January tenth seventeen thirty-one. So there, so, there, uh! So there so there so there, so, there see what can happen see, Mouse! So fist those hands over hide those palms it’s superstition be a man of science fact and black and white judgement like me and them and them and on and on somewhat like some species of the math devil Pi but no too late you’re tricked very well the well-planned trickster beats the on the fly trickster each and every time Mouse—if you do not prepare for life you will be very sorry Mouse; nothing comes close as hell on earth as waking up almost at the very end and glancing back clear-headed for the first time and seeing all the years and years gone to waste forever Mouse what one would not wish they had never lived Mouse Mouse no push that away we have heard that one hundred and one times already all before the age of ten no point in wasting time on number hundred and two and beyond once the sponge soaked through more water’s just waste more water more advice more preaching more pontificating teaching instructing training coaching helping schooling or guiding because overdone these are waste seed spilled on the ground the bible said yes and the bible said no because the swervy swirly long short palmlines have already been ejaculated onto the within. Clear mind clear head clear day why’re these good. Clear head blocked clogged closed all the heads seem so why’re these good. Shut down turn in look away don’t see so why is this good. Don’t listen don’t hear might be sleep nothing serious only sleep good for all men wouldn’t you agree Mister Sax-Masterson? Or is it Bat? Sorry sir. I forgot your name was Bat—I think I am just tired, Doctor. I think I might be coming down with something. I feel weak somehow.
Mouse, it’s good you told me. I think let’s make this lesson just four hours.
Really?
Yes. But let’s make these four hours really count! Our goal is to make your Father proud—that is the only goal that should matter, to a boy full of beans and health such as you! Come on! Here; a car traveled two hundred and eighty-one miles in four hours and forty-one minutes. What was the average speed of the car in miles per hour—sixty of course—good; now yes as always capping off this weekly brainwashing session his voice will command this was and thusly; hast thou at long last plus super-ardently climaxed bless my heart, Mousie absolutely y’all climaxed precious Savior be ye quite good, Mousie rouse break through—In a group of one hundred and twenty people, ninety have an age of more than thirty years, and the others have an age of less than twenty years. If a person is selected at random from this group, what is the probability the person's age is less than twenty—point two five of course—good; materialize being Christ’s regard fulfill immediately Holy Moses even as I try and strain to think otherwise popping—yours truly Meanselle Sax—the length of a rectangle is four times its width. If the area is one hundred m sub two what is the length of the rectangle—twenty meters of course—good; but he will dodge swerve and bog me yes I chased ball in the fast lane but survived regardless of state your objective son yes I moved my head away right when the fifty pound potty pot fat corporate flowerplant plunged shattering on the things to do today list but survived regardless of his shit shout on over saying Nirvana-head be you now baby—a six-sided die is rolled once. What is the probability that the number rolled is an even number greater than two—one third of course—good; but; Stop! Demonic embedded problem maximum total misinterpretation generator of famous witch woman Cadiere who was released in September seventeen-thirty as her case was transferred to the court of Aix-en-Provence and the lesson be over now the lesson over be each dimension of a cube has been increased to twice its original size—but, so, if the new cube has a volume of sixty-four thousand cubic centimeters, what is the area of one face of the original cube. No, yes, please, please. The answer can only be four hundred square centimeters. Please, please. Be. As in; world population reaches one billion people.
Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Calliope, Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Permafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards. Published books include: Understanding Franklin Thompson (Exp. novel - JEF pubs (2018)), Sunday Dinner With Father Dwyer (Exp. Novel - Scarlet Leaf Press (2018)), Inferno (E-Chap - Underground Voices), Mount Everest and Eli the Rat (Lit. Novels - Montag). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
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