Subject:      CODY: FROSH  Chp.3 Heresies
From:         mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date:         1996/11/11
Message-Id:   <5688k1$bmt@alice.walrus.com>

                            Chapter 3

                            Heresies

        "The more I think of it, the more I deprecate the growing tendency
-- born of the very desperation of the writer -- to transfer directly and
bodily, without any intellectual transmutation, all the crude accidents of
his life as they encursively befall, into the subject matter of
literature.  Before we are fairly launched, here we are being swamped by
the dire vulgarity of it."  -- Henry James re: William Dean Howells,
quoted NY Times, 11/1/96.

        I was now a freshman.  Or woman.  What that meant, my chief
legislative assistant explained, was I now got to do for free what I had
once done for four hundred dollars an hour.

        "What do I get out of it?"

        "You get a large staff of pimps and purveyors, an office in the
Longworth Building, and free franking.  You also get to stand up in the
House of Representatives whenever you want and make an ass of yourself on
C-Span 2."

        "In other words, I'm still a whore."

        "You got it.  Same job.  Different brothel"

        But before I could go to Washington, I had to go through the
transition.  I had to meet with my fellow freshmen and with the senior
members of my party who had already been there.  It wasn't going to be
easy.  I knew a lot of these people from when I was twelve.  They had been
like fathers to me.  And uncles.  And other assorted perverts.  Now,
suddenly, I was their equal.  It made me feel dirty.

        My campaign adviser advised me to relax and take one day at a
time.  He made congress sound like a 12 step program.  Congress, he said,
was very much like A.A.  You know, like God give me the strength to change
what I can and accept what I can't and the ability to know the difference?
Just looking at some of these guys, I knew there was not going to be a
whole lot of changing going on.  Some of these guys couldn't change their
underwear without conducting a study.  But my bitterness is getting ahead
of the story.

        I am not writing this book as an excuse to grieve over a system
that shits on the poor while rewarding the rich.  Or anything else like
that, for that matter.  Liz wanted to know what I was doing.  Like, what
did being in Congress mean to me?  I said I didn't know.  For one thing,
I wasn't there yet.  I wouldn't be until after New Year.  Before that,
everything would be just a young girl's fantasy.  It was like being in
limbo.

                                *

        When I started to write yesterday about Mount Carmel, I suddenly
experienced an overwhelming sensation; it was so strong it nearly pushed
me off the stool I was sitting on.  It almost seemed to be pushing me out
of my body; I had to be firm and hold myse lf intact.  It was like a
presence.  I could almost imagine that there was someone -- I mean someone
else -- there.

        It persisted through the evening, and by the time I went to bed, I
even had a name for it.  Heather.

        I am not going to pretend that I believe I was communicating with
the dead, with someone who's physical identity evaporated in the fire
storm at Mount Carmel.  That would be too cheap for words.  It would also
imply that there are other beings, perhaps m illions of them, on the other
side of consciousness waiting for an opportunity to dump their shit
through a chance encounter just such as this.

        However, it did make me realize how, perhaps, that ugly little
comfort station they want to put in Judenplatz in Vienna is perhaps the
exactly appropriate symbol by which to evoke the Holocaust.  Because there
is something almost just like it in my backy ard.  It wasn't put there as
a Holocaust memorial, but it has exactly the same effect.

        The paper said the Judenplatz is the site of a synagogue that was
burned down in 1413 with many of its members inside.  And in getting ready
to place the Holocaust memorial there, archeologists had discovered the
foundations of the old synagogue.  An arg ument then broke out over which
attrocity should take primacy, the synagogue then, or the Holocaust now.
Someone suggested why not let the original synagogue -- what was left of
it -- serve as a fitting reminder of the Holocaust, and others answered
that they didn't want the Holocaust being remembered by an insignificant
little pogrom that no one remembered.  Besides, the object was not to
remind the Jews of the Holocaust, because the Jews hardly needed to have
their memories jogged, but to rub the noses of the non-Jews in it.  So it
had to be the bunker.

        It is really hard being a victim.  Because there is always someone
who thinks he has suffered more, and wants to make you feel bad about it.
Like, if you did not feel bad the way I felt bad, you should feel really
bad now that you didn't.  My friend who wrote the Czolgocz play is Polish,
and he has spent his life twisted up in a ball, trying to untangle who got
it worse in the neck during World War 2, the Polish Poles or the Polish
Jews.

        If you notice anything, it will probably have occurred to you that
the great wars of the twentieth century were over before it reached the
halfway mark.  Korea and Vietnam would have qualified as mopping up
operations next to Stalingrad or the trenchs of Verdun.  And Persian Gulf
was George Bush's usurption of the U.S. military to protect George Jr.'s
oil wells in Bahrain.  So that leaves only Grenada as anything remotely
comparable to Operation Overlord.  But I won't get into that here.  The
fact is, ho wever, that most of the major events in this century took
place before 1950: the depression, the New Deal, women's right to vote,
movies, the bomb, the airplane, the automobile, the Lindbergh baby.  If
there is anything original to the second half, it wou ld have to be the
computer.  And the Holocaust.

        War on a grand scale ended before 1950.  War as ongoing guilt was
only getting started.  In fact, it wasn't until the early 70's that it
kicked into high gear.  The comfort station that sits on the doorstep is
its embodiment.  And it isn't just in the Ju denplatz.  It's everywhere.
Like a dead thing.  That will never go away.  A kind of black hole that
absorbs life to feed its own dead existence.  It isn't a monument.  It's
more like a golem.  You know, to make a golem, you write life on its
forehead.  A nd to destroy it, you take away the first letter in Hebrew,
which leaves death.  But the golem is not really alive or dead.  It cannot
be dead, because it never had a life of its own, not even as a rock or
stone or a concept.  And it can't be alive, eithe r, because it doesn't
have a soul.  A rabbi made it to protect the Jews.  But because it was
unclean, an attempt to imitate God, it could not be controled and became a
monster.

        That's the Holocaust.  It doesn't protect the Jews.  It eats them
alive.  It feeds on the sensibility of the Jews to honor the dead, but it
gives nothing back.  It just takes and takes and takes.  Like a black
hole.  And in the end, you have people fight ing over who was the more
pathetic and disgusting victim.  Naturally, the media loves it.  You can
fill half of the six-thirty news with just cheap Holocaust victim stuff
alone.

        The Holocaust will never be laid to rest until the Jews accept
that they are as responsible for it as non-Jews.  I don't mean what
happened then.  I mean what happens now.  The Holocaust, in fact, is their
possession.  But this will never happen because there is big money in
remembering the Holocaust.  It's an oil well.  A gusher.

        This has been the half century of the Holocaust.  The war ended
more than fifty years ago, and we are still going round and round in a
dance with Hitler.  Hitler and Mickey Mouse are the icons of our age.  You
can see them slow dancing on the veranda as the millenium approaches.  The
millenium, by the way, was actually two years ago.  If by millenium you
mean two thousand years since Jesus was born.  If you mean since he was
six years old, then it's still four years away.  And, of course, next to
the Jew ish or Chinese calendars, it's a joke.  But why not?  Any excuse
for a party.  Anyway, most people can't get it through their heads that
the millenium isn't 2000, but 2001, so it's going to be another
bureaucratic fuckup anyway.

        You know, you have got to really wonder about politicians who do
not even have the courage to tell people what time it is.  This is just
one more example.  The actual millenium does not begin until January 1,
2001.  The year 2000 is the last year of the old millenium.  But here in
New York, and I believe almost everywhere else, the millenial shift is
going to be celebrated New Years 2000.  Hopeless.

        You would think just once they'd try to get it right.  I mean, how
many times does the first digit change on the calendar?  The last year is
supposed to be the year of preparation.  You get ready.  And then you blow
it away.  The rule is, the digits of t he first year have to add up to the
number of the millenium itself.  So how much does 2000 add up to?  And how
much does 2001 make?  And which millenium is it?  Right.  See?

        So I, personally, will introduce a bill making it illegal to
celebrate the millenium before January 1, 2001.  Someone has to take a
stand.  I am looking for bipartisan support on this.  The courage to act.
Before it is too late.

        There's another mystery tonight.  The one last night was lame.
They told you who did it right away.  The question is, would they catch
him?  And, of course, they did.  Since, if they hadn't, there would have
been no story.  It was supposed to have been a true story.  A guy kills
his entire family and then tries to make it look as if his sister did it
before committing suicide.  Why anyone would have believed this schmuck
more than two seconds is beyond belief.  And yet, supposedly, the chief
inspector c onducting the case seemed to have a fundamental belief that
everything the kid said was gospel.  He treated everybody who tried to
change his mind like dirt, and eventually, ended up getting booted off the
case.  Yaaaaay.  Justice triumphs.  End of program.

        Tonight, by contrast, is more Poirot.  Really!  Why an actor as
good as David Suchet allows them to do this to him, I can't imagine.
Someone should take Poirot out in a bog and drown him.  For good.  Agatha
Christie never wrote a story in her life that would stand up under two
seconds of scrutiny, but they keep making more and more of these things.
Why?  Is it just to antagonize people with the reruns?  The only thing
worse than a good Poirot mystery is having to watch it twice.  So why am I
going to w atch it?  Because I have an addiction.  I love English
mysteries.  I don't know why.  I never watch Masterpiece Theatre.  It's
much too serious.  But the mysteries always trap me.  And this one tonight
is in two parts.  Even worse.  I'll have to wait til next week to find out
the explanation.  And then it will turn out to be so far fetched as to be
completely unbelievable.

        I'll have to be brutally honest.  I was relieved when the guy who
played Sherlock Holmes as a flaming psychopath dropped dead.  That was
another one I couldn't stand.  It's not that I don't think that Holmes was
that way, but I had just about had it up t o here with his stupid
posturing and his attitude.  I mean, how Watson could put up with him says
a lot about Watson.  Well, he was his meal ticket.  I suppose he had to.
But I would have dumped him long ago.  And the same for Poirot.  What a
faggot.

        I guess they all were.  Poirot.  His boy friend.  Holmes.  They
must have known each other.  Poirot was a war refugee who was resettled in
the countryside about the same time Holmes was keeping bees in Sussex.  Or
was it Surrey?  It doesn't matter.  I do n't want to belabor the point.
Who cares about those old queens?  The point is, England's a small place.
Everyone knows everybody.  I could go on and on.

        The mystery is why I care.  What do I get out of it?

        King Tut.  That was another thing that happened between the wars.
The opening of Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.  Together with the
curse.  Between the sinking of the German ships in Scapa Flow and the
first naval engagement of World War 2 in the same place.  Odd, isn't it?
One might almost say the wars in the west ended and began at Scapa Flow.
The century was on a roll.

        Today, we occupy its psychological ruins.  What happened?

        Clap if you think the federal government is doing a good job?

        Louder.

        Clap louder.
He thinks he's Napoleon.
Keep clapping
Make him real
Make him presidential.
Now.
Do it.
Turn it around.
He came out the hero in the end.
What's he doing here?
He won.
oh
Dole took us into the 21st century.
But he waited on the other side
for the awareness to sink in
o my god it's now
halleluyah.  It finally happened.
We're saved.
Better believe it baby.
They slapped hands.
Then the tanks bklew them apart
Weren't saved at all.
God does not save little chickens from the headsman's ax
All God's chickens got to die.
There is no chicken hell.
Thank god for that.
But there is also no chicken heaven
ouch
Now get moving.  We have to get to Durango before sunup.
The girls moved onward down the trail.
The chicken ranch was far behind them.
And now they were going to market.
They hung down and their heads bumped on the road.
Their long golden hair streamed in the sunlight as they rode along towards
the meat grinder.
Where are we going?
I don't recognize any of this.
Just be quiet.  Now listen.
When we get there, I have a plan.
Yeah>?
We must accept our fate.
And place ourselves in god's hands.
What good will that do?
We will be saved?
From what?
From death.
oh.
It's alkl part of God's plan.  The other girl wasn't so sure.  She'd
rather be back at the chicken ranch.  At least you got to eat there.

        Most stories on alt.sex.stories are reduced to the level of
plumbing.  The authors seem to be entranced with the discovery that men
and women have reciprocal tubing.  Matters of death and rebirth do not
engage them.  Pain is also generally avoided as a s ubject.  A woman is
said to like having something hard and stiff shoved up her most delicate
passage, and a man is usually represented as getting enjoyment from doing
it.  But how one will spend eternity is much more sexy.  It's like
internal possession.  I mean, like having someone inside of you who is
controlling everything you do.  Like, who's not you.  So everything you do
belongs to someone else.  Do you know what I mean?

        Sometimes it can be okay.  But when you walk neck first into a
steel bar and get slammed dunked for something you didn't do, then it can
be depressing.

        Like I don't need this.

        I mean, why am I standing here in the House of Representatives in
my panties?  I thought I got above this when I left the stage.  Like I'm
not performing anymore.  It's over.  Take it off.  Take it all off.  Fuck
you.

        I was a third district Congresswoman.  3.  Why 3?  What did it
mean?  The Third Millenium had already begun in some militant sects.  A
slight vibration shook the frame.  It could get out of hand.  Millenial
Separatists might cause problems.  Holed up in the backwoods of Idaho.
Right at the top.  Along the soft underbelly of Canada.  Getting crowded
up there.  Everybody wants to be at the top.  The Church of Latter Day
Millenists was one of the most violent.  They insisted time began at 7
o'clock Tuesday evening and that McDonald's was the Beast of the
Appocolypse.  They also believed that it ended at six o'clock Tuesday
afternoon.  Something in the book of Levi.  I forget the verse.  Something
about the days having something to do with loose ends.  Anyw ay, they
formed an alliance with the Sect of Old Disbelievers, who hold that Jesus
was a hot water bottle and thus all dams are a symbol of God's will who
for some reason they call Hoover.  Their chief holy place is the damn.  It
is said that in the days of our Lord, Hoover's face will appear on the
damn and the waters will be released through his divine spicket.  And
Hoover will come forth among the people.  For this reason, they are
forbidden to bathe for it would be an affront to God's holy plan to bel
ieve that dirt is wrong.  Dirt must be accumulated, and worn like an
amulet to confront the wicked in their sins.  For that reason, wash cloths
are verboten.  Use a toothbrush.  Etc.

        Other divisions were breaking out among the religious communities.
Holy wars were going to be fought over just when the millenium ended.  Or
had already.

        I stared with disbelieve at what I had written.  Clearly the drugs
were affecting my mind.  I asked the doctors why they had given them to
me.  Liz said to just keep taking them.  Soon the trial would start.  All
I had to do was tell the truth.

        Like, where had I gotten them?

        I said from Kelly.

        She had gotten them>?

        Yes.

        And gave them to you?

        Yes.

        Did you help her escape?

        No.

        Well, I had to lie.  To protect my career.  Besides, Kelly was no
longer an asset.  Homosexual marriages were illegal.  And she was married
to a woman.  I had to distance myself from her.

        Politics can be very demanding.

        Sometimes you have to screw your friends.  And those you love
most.  It wasn't my fault she accepted illegal campaign money.  How was I
supposed to know they were Mongolians?  The last thing you need in public
office is a conscience.

        My public affairs person put out a statement, that I had not known
Kelly was gay when I married her.  Or that she used hard drugs.  Cody.  Or
any of the other things...  Cody.  that America despises.  CODY!

        Huh?

        It's alright.  I'm here.

        Good old, Liz.  She handed me the bottle.  Take a deep breath.  oh
god, I was back in the clearing.
out in East Hampton.
the community rejected her
you can still here here out in the woods
what?
here her
hereher
Cody was hereher
what do you want>?
I want to question you.
Go away.
Don't be like that.
Fuck you.  Let me alone.
I only want to help yu.
you helped me just fine
what am I doing here in this lunatic asylum.
It's not an asylum.  This is Congress.
You're as crazy as the rest of them.
I'm just trying to show you the ropes.
Get the fuck away from me.
If you think this place is gaga, you should see the Senate.
I don't think I was ever over there in the whole thirty years I served in
Congress
What's it like?
What?
The capital?
Don't you know?
uh sure
Then why are you asking?
I just wanted to get some feedback.  What do you think?
I think this place needs a new paint job.
Jesus, how do you stand it?  It's like a mauseleum.

It is a Mauseleum, Cody.  That's why they call it that.
wHAT?
cONGRESS
IN sANSCRIT, CONRE MEANS A PLACE OF THE DEADS.
I didn't know.
Welcome to heaven,
If this is heaven, what's the other place like?
Don't ask.  Some of our people have been over there, and it's total hell.
The whole country is falling apart.  No one knows what to do.  Only you
can save us, Bill.  Bill.  The holocaustal president.  My God, you're
nuts.  It's worse than Gig Young in Pe ckinpah's hands.  What was Napoleon
Solo doing out here in the Sierra Madres?  Hey, I see you on television.
Blam.
Be careful not to recognize her.
Don't let her on cpsan
sssspan.
Without Dole, the new Congress would be entirely different Nice to hear
from you, Bob.  Give my best to Liddy.  Whatch your back, Bob.
Especially around stairs.
Just a thought.

Don't think.  Thinking is forboden around here.  You've got to be kidding.
I'm not.  What do you think of term limits?  I'm for them.  The shorter
the better.  Be careful not to bump into it.  What is it?  Strom Thurmond.
They keep him in here.  My god , the smell.  He's really a lot oldere than
he looks.  He looks like he's a hundred and forty.  Oh, he's much older
than that.  Vlad the Impaler is a teetertoddler compared to old Strom.
But what's he doing in my office?  Safe keeping.  They don't have e nough
storage over in the other place.  You mean he's a hostage?  Well, sort of.
If you think that's bizarre, he runs the committee in charge of our
national defense.  The trouble is, he thinks General Lee is still chairman
of the Joint Chiefs.  Just put him in the corner and forget him.  Only
make sure to empty the pan under his chair at least once a day.  You have
to make allowances.  What kind of allowances?  Like not asking questions
you little snip.

        He slapped me around.  Freshmen weren't supposed to ask questions.
Just respond.  Yes sir.  No sir.  I do not understand sir.  Something
else. I forget.  They also make you shave your head.

No sweat.  I had sort of a jolt the first time I saw myself totally naked.
I mean, I was totally beautiful.  I looked like I had spent the war at
Belsen Belsen.  I also had to wear a collar.  A radio one.  So they could
track my every movement.  Other than that, I was free to come and go as I
wished.  I just had to watch what I said.  Otherwise, there was a device
in the collartgggggggggg
not supposed to tell that
now I got to go
urinate.  Squat there in the hall.  One of these days were're going to get
female plumbing but now we have to make allowances.  The party demands it.
I always kneel this way when giving a press conference.  It's to put me on
the same level as my constitutents.  Yes.  I am a survivor of the
holocaust of 96.  Now, could we move on?  I didn't mean to be scarred this
way.  It was part of the sacrifice.  My press agent will have a statement.
I am a pig.  Yes. I am a pig.  Yes sir.  No sir.  I do not understand sir.
Please kick me across the courtyard, sir.  Make it really hurt.  make it
hurt as bad as giving up Kelly.  Make it hurt like my soul has been r
ipped out of my body.  Yes.  Do it.  do it

        That's it, Kelly.  Inhale deeply.  Make cody know you're thre.
thr Third letter of the Phoenician alphabet.  One step removed from ur.
It signified the spirit of the intelligence animating the body at the
physical level.

        As was natural, I did not think that I could handle my earthly
duties.  I did not want to be a congresswoman.  I hated the whole concept.
I wanted to be my own person in the halls of the congress.  Which was
totally unsuitable.  No one does that.  You'l l see.  You should have
listened.  I knew all along you would be indicted.  I told your father.
He wouldn't listen.  Now we'll all be ruined.  Mother.  This is Strom
Thrumond.  Say hello, Strom.  He's from California.  Did I get that right?
It doesn't m atter.  This desk was Kennedy's.  It was the one he was shot
at.  The whole thing in Dallas was a fake.  He had been dead for weeks.
This was just a polite way of getting him out of the White House without
making a fuss.  They have him down the hall.  T his was the office he had
used when he was a congressman.  He keeps trying to get in here.  I think
they have some of the original dirt of Massachusetts somewhere around
here.  He's trying to get back to it.  Bobby was a senator.  He's not
here.  Do you l ike this picture?  It has the original bullet hole from
where it blew the back of his head off.  No.  That's not a Pollack.  It's
him.  This place reeks of historepie.It would be a sin to demolish it.
They're talking about it.  Something about the plumbi ng.  Personally, I
don't mind having to shit in the hall.  Evere since Gingrick took away the
chamberpots it's been hell around here,.  Something about ethics.  I don't
know what it means.  I just work here.  I'm not going to be one of those
rubber stamp congresswomen who will say anything and then spread their
legs for something else.  It's got to be a real issue.  Something I can
sink my teeth into.  They want me to do sentry duty in the House.
Something about not letting senators in.  I'm supposed to stand at the
door and stop them.  It's a real war.  Half my clientele is over on the
other side.  No, it's not heaven.  It's where you go when die.  I mean,
really die.  Not like here.  Some of these guys don't know they're dea\d
yet.  Golems.  One and al l.  Here, let me adjust your foreheaed.

        You'll wear it out doing that.
        what
saving every ten seconds.  You're not anal compulsive you know.

        To tell you the truth, I know longer knew what I was.  Kelly was
gone.  So was adder. m All that I knew now was not to ask questions and
wear a beanie.

i didn't mind the bikini, but I hated the propeller.  What is this, I
asked.  Then I denied it.  then I said I didn't know.  Then I lied.
You're getting it.  Now do it again.  I never knew the training was worse
than the election.  Most freshman don't ma ke it.  But this class
succeeded brilliantly.  They were now sophomores, and every freshman class
knows what that means.  6 a.m. golden showers.  Wearing a necktie at all
times.  And nothing else.  Except a fireman's helmet.  And goloshes.  Red
rubber goloshes with flat heels.  And dark sunglasses with a big fake
nose and a bushy mustache.  And the words pig whore sextoy written in
excrement across my breasts.  I also had to wear a saddle.  For it is
written sophomores were in the saddle and rode mankind.  But the worst was
a red cape made out of polyurethne, for God's sakes.  I totally liked died
hoping nomne of my seventh aveneue friends could see me now.  They also
hooked a big yellow dildo to the chain between my legs.  It just hung
there.  Batting against my knees as I walked.  The final ceremony is when
I have to crawl like this naked up the capitol steps on my knees with a
cross on the first day of Congress.

        Is this the hundred and third or the 104th?  It means a lot, you
know.  One and three is four.  But 1 and 4 is 5.  Whaever that means.  The
thirteenth congress was a four.  But the 14th was a fifth.  All fours and
fives congresses were the same.  So we c an narrow the congresses to nine
and then take statistical sampling to find out where we stand.  Are there
any other questions?  I'm not going to get into specifics.  We will be
conducting a study.  I would say that would be one of our first orders of
business.  But don't quote me.  Everything I say is totally off the
record.  Thank you for coming.  My mouth was raw by the time I got back to
my office.  My mother was having her hair done.  She gave me my pills.  I
sat in the hallway until it was time to go.

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