The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Drake looks back at the ceiling and talks abstractly. "You had to get an M.D. long ago, before you specialized. Do you know any case where germs gave up and went away because the man they were destroying had a noble character or sweet sentiments? Did the tuberculosis bacilli leave John Keat's lungs because he had a few hundred great poems still unwritten inside him? You must have read some history, even if you were never at the front lines like me: do you recall any battle that refutes Napoleon's aphorism about God always being on the side of the biggest cannons and the best tacticians? This bolshie in Russia, Lenin, he has ordered the schools to teach chess to everybody. You know why? He says that chess teaches the lesson that revolutionaries must learn: that if you don't mobilize your forces properly, you lose. No matter how high your morality, no matter how lofty your goal: fight without mercy, use every ounce of intelligence, or you lose. My father understands that. The people who run the world have always understood it. A general who doesn't understand it gets broken back to second lieutenant or worse. I saw a whole platoon wiped out, exterminated like an anthill under a boot. Not because they were immoral or naughty or didn't believe in Jesus. Because at that place, on that day, the Germans had superior fire power. That's the law, the one true law, of the universe, and everything that contradicts it- everything they teach in schools and churches- is a lie." He says the word listlessly now. "Just a lie."

"If you really believe that," the doctor asks, "why do you still have the nightmares and the insomnia?"

Drake's blue eyes stare at the ceiling. "I don't know," he says finally. "That's why I'm here.")

"Moon, Simon," the Desk Sergeant called.

I stepped forward, seeing myself through his eyes: beard, army surplus clothes, stains all over (my own mucus, somebody else's vomit). The archetypical filthy, dirty, disgusting, hippie-commie revolutionary.

"Well," he said, "another bright red rose."

"I usually look neater," I told him calmly. "You get a bit messed over when you're arrested in this town."

"The only way you get arrested in this town," he said, frowning, "is if you break the laws."

"The only way you get arrested in Russia is you break the laws," I replied cheerfully. "Or by mistake," I added.

That didn't set well at all. "Wise guy," he said gently. "We like wise guys here." He consulted my charge-slip. "Nice record for one night, Moon. Rioting, mob action, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace. Nice."

"I wasn't disturbing the peace," I said. "I was disturbing the war." I stole that one-liner from Ammon Hennacy, a Catholic Anarchist that Mom was always quoting. "The rest of the charges are all bullshit, too."

"Say, I know you," he said suddenly. "You're Tim Moon's son. Well, well, well. A second-generation anarchist. I guess we'll be locking you up as often as we locked him up."

"I guess so," I said. "At least until the Revolution. Afterward, we won't be locking you up, though. We're going to establish nice camps in places like Wisconsin, and send you there free to learn a useful trade. We believe that all policemen and politicians can be rehabilitated. But if you don't want to go to the camp and learn a productive trade, you don't have to. You can live on Welfare."

"Well, well, well," he said. "Just like your old man. I suppose if I looked the other way, while some of the boys took you in back and worked you over a bit, you'd come out still making wisecracks?"

"I'm afraid so," I smiled. "Irish national character, you know! We see the funny side of everything."

"Well," he said thoughtfully (he was awfully fond of that word), "I hope you can see the funny side of what comes next. You're going to be arraigned before Judge Bushman. You'll find yourself wishing you had fallen into a buzz saw instead. Give my regards to your father. Tell him Jim O'Malley says hello."

"He's dead," I said.

He looked down at his charge-slips. "Sorry to hear it," he mumbled. "Nanetti, Fred," he bawled, and the kid with the broken arm came forward.

A patrolman led me to the fingerprint room. This guy was a computer: "Right hand." I gave him my right hand. "Left hand." I gave him my left hand. "Follow the officer." I followed the officer, and they took my picture. We went down some halls to the night court, and in a lonely section the patrolman suddenly hit me in the lower back with his club, the exact spot (he knew his business) to give me liver problems for a month. I grunted but refused to say anything that would set him off and get me another clout, so he spoke. "Yellow-bellied faggot," he said.