John Lennon’s Still Dead
“Hey, Bungalow Bill,
What did you kill, Bungalow Bill?”
The CNN reporter stood anxiously before the cameras as the large and
looming Dakota Building with its high gables, terracotta features and
exotic décor was the backdrop. There were many wispy clouds above
the jutted skyline of the magnificent city that never slept as people
were craning their necks at oblique angles; for there was a much talked
about stirring, about life changing for the better and some arguing for
the worse. Finally, March’s chill had subsided. Or so the residents of
Manhattan had said. An early warm spring had begun thawing the
marrow in our bones. Life was beginning to look normal, again. But
something was amiss! There were incessant rumors, and squabbles and
arguments between friends and family that John Winston Lennon was
still alive. Of course, as many already know, they had been sightings of
his ghost in the Dakota Building itself for many decades. The place was
well known for being haunted. But now some witnesses had come forth
and were insisting that Lennon wasn’t a figment of their imaginations,
but that he was possessed of his coy smile and inimitable wit; and worse
yet, he was still wearing his white suit and Spring Court shoes. Could
this be true? Of course, it wasn’t! It couldn’t be. But from the dreary
grave, many supposed, Lennon had come back to make music, of a
different kind, and to tell us all what lay in the undiscovered country
before we had to make the journey someday ourselves.
Outside the Dakota Building itself, Mark Mendax brushed his short
black hair to the side as his assistant, held up a mirror.
He had been given these ‘filler’ news stories even since he had nearly
cost the bureau an expensive lawsuit where the truth became more than
a little pliable.
Kevin Marley 133
Firmly, he adjusted his purple-and-white striped tie before putting
on his game face. The news coordinator nodded. Then counted down
on his fingers: “Three, two, one … ON AIR!”
“This is Mark Mendax. I’m standing where John Lennon was shot and
killed on December 8th, 1980 in front of the Dakota Building. Believe it or
not, during the past few days, there have been recent sightings of the ex?Beatle, here and in London, whom some considered the driving creative
force of the band and it’s hit songs. We’re not sure if this is mass hysteria
or something else. But we felt compelled to address this latest phenomenon
that seems to be sweeping across America and Great Britain.
“Remarkably, if you look right there, lingering over Manhattan, is a
fluffy cloud – and if you look closely enough, some say, you cannot help
but notice a strong resemblance to the bespectacled face of John Lennon.
“Next, as you might have already heard, there was a very large fluffy
cloud hovering over East London this morning, and purportedly, it had
a strange kind of incandescent music emerging from it. Once again,
according to many bystanders, it appears to possess the face of John
Lennon.
“The only question is: Are these events coincidental?
“That’s remarkable – almost like mass hypnosis,” Harry Tuft the co?anchor of NBC Nightly News replied. “Is there any evidence that Lennon
has indeed returned.”
“There hasn’t been any empirical proof. But loads of testimonials even
from some high-ranking politicians in the U.K.”
“And who might that be?”
“Prime Minister Michael Chamberlain himself!”
“Remarkable!”
“For viewers at home, we’ll show you now our exclusive footage of the
Prime Minister leaving 10 Downing Street with the French President to
see for himself what was exactly transpiring.
“Let’s watch.”
‘Yes, indeed, it does look like John Winston Ono Lennon!
Although I was too young to be an actual Beatles’ fan being
borne too late, I can see his rather distinct features:
a charming face, brown eyes from the London smog,
a short hawk-like nose, and those wire rimmed
glasses. Quite remarkably, Lennon has this smirk like
134 Soul Kitchen
he’s telling a naughty joke. Yes, I believe he’s being witty again and laughing
at the human race, from out of the blue, in the Heavens!’
“That’s quite extraordinary, Max.”
“Simply amazing, isn’t it?
“A re-emergence of Beatlemania.”
“Later in our broadcast, Harry, we will show you interviews we had
with both Yoko Ono, and Joey Harrow here in front of the Dakota Building
earlier in the day and how they have both stated that they have seen John
Lennon recently, and he’s not as dead as we thought.”
“Imagine that!”
The TV news program continued. Nobody knew what was
happening and why it was happening, but the satellite signal beamed a
strange hope around the world.
After a commercial break, Harry Tuft, a white-haired man and
avuncular figure, and Diana Robinson, a younger black woman in an
attractive blazer suit, continued. Harry Tuft stared at the camera and
stated with an inimitable gravitas:
“In Tehran today, Shock and Awe II continued as U.S. Forces and its
allies began bombing Iran and punishing it into submission for apparently
trying to build a nuclear bomb and thereby breaking U.N. resolution
2231. The much-feared war in the Middle East, I’m afraid, is upon us as
we try to keep from repeating our mistakes in Iraq that have haunted us
for nearly a generation.
“But so far, the news on the war front is good as we go to Matt Legan
who is transmitting his broadcast from on top of a non-disclosed building
in Tehran to bring us live updates.”
Strangely, from afar, night had descended over the ancient capital
of Iran itself with a brightly lit downtown surrounded by the snow?covered Alborz mountain range that ringed half the city. The sounds of
planes bombing strategic sites could be heard, and if one looked hard
enough, JSF and stealth fighters were going up against F-4 Phantom II’s,
Mirage F 1’s and MiG’s in the perpetual fog of war.
The place was a tinder box that could start a conflagration of
unknown proportions. To say the least, it was disconcerting as the war
and even the casualties were being instantly digitally transmitted as
graphically on 3-D screens in Dolby sound to viewers at home.
Kevin Marley 135
“This is Matt Legan in Tehran and right now, we are showing you live
footage of what is being called The Shock and Awe II campaign in the
Middle East. It’s the third day of the offensive, and to be honest, many
of us, including myself, had trepidations about this war. But after having
been embedded with the 840th Air Division of the USAF, many of my
anxieties have been allayed. In fact, I am very confident our troops will
be extraordinarily successful and have nothing but respect and even
awe for their professionalism and expertise.
“If you look behind me, you can see a veritable rich and even
marvelous barrage of artillery over city of Tehran that is coming from
our stealth fighters, JSF-35, F-16’s and even charged particle beams
coming from military satellites.
“Essentially, this war reaffirms our commitment to democracy and
to our support for a lasting peace in the Middle East,” said Matt Legan
who walked to his right hand side nodding his head. “From what I’ve
just been told by General Turgidson, we will be bombing two very
strategic points in the next minute – an air force battalion and a cache
of very significant weapons with the latest precision bombs guided by
Artificial Intelligence.
“As a result, I’ve been assured, collateral damage and citizen fatalities
will be kept to an absolute minimum.
“Let’s take a look.”
Within seconds a Bunker Buster was dropped from a stealth fighter
and hit the Iranian air force battalion – an ear-drum breaking boom
that resonated throughout a quarter of the city, but more remarkably, a
built-in fireworks display of Old Glory herself waved from above.
After this, a Star Wars-like laser beam shot from above high in the
atmosphere destroyed a weapons cache of chemical weapons.
“This is simply amazing! The American military with our hard
earned tax dollars are simply demonstrating that they are the very best
in the world. I must ask forgiveness from my viewers tonight as only a
true patriot can appreciate this. I’m not sure how many have been to
Disney Land or Disney World, but it’s like their magnificent fireworks
display! Except this one is even better!” Mr. Legan stood breathless
on top of a roof as the camera faded as a military drone surveyed the
entire sky that was now lit up like a patriotic fireworks display evidently
created to dishearten the enemy.
136 Soul Kitchen
There was another commercial break. Truthfully, it was hard to blink
your woeful eyes and not miss something of importance.
A News Extra Segment came on.
“This is Angela Bushwa in Los Angeles, at the Providence Restaurant
on Melrose Avenue, one of the most expensive restaurants in the world.
Right now, I am covering Kim Kardashian—Kanye West saga. Are they
headed for divorce? Back to pre-nuptial bliss? Or something in-between?
“If we can pan the camera to the right, we can see Kim comfortably
eating dinner with her husband, Kanye West – over there in the corner.
“Don’t eat too much, Kimmy! You might gain more cellulite!
“In case, you don’t know, the Providence Restaurant is one of the
world’s best restaurants for seafood. Chef Michael Cimarusti has created
probably one of the most premiere menus in this town as he prepares fish
with a touch of unparalleled genius revealing amazing flavors for the
appreciative palate.
“Chef Michael Cimarusti, by the way, is world renown for his
Butterscotch Cremeux, and Artisanal Cheeses along with his Nancy’s
Downeast Sea Scallop.
“Let’s see if she goes for one of these favorites, shall we?
“They are ordering. Can we bring in the shotgun mike?
“It appears … Kimmy just ordered cocktails with her husband and
appetizers consisting of Wild Japanese Tai Snapper, Scarborough Farm
Lettuces, and Santa Barbara Sea Urchin – a wonderful beginning to a
most delicious meal!
“As most are wondering, what is Kim Kardashian wearing?
“Right now, she’s being dressed by Christine Centenera, Fashion
Director of Vogue Australia for a relatively low figure of one million dollars
per year. What is that money buying her? Well, Kimmy’s in a V-neck olive?green floor length gown that shows off this reality star’s ample curves.
Sheer circular curves? Hyperbolic curves?
“Anyway, Kimmy’s gown is perfectly cinched at the waist to accentuate
her … umm …. best assets … that most men find extraordinarily
fascinating. She also is wearing a diamond necklace and is dressed in the
most exquisite caramel platform heels that make her look several inches
taller.
“Not to be outdone, Kanye is dressed in a black ensemble suite with
tan suede boots looking like some Chicago gangsta. His pants are hanging
Kevin Marley 137
very low, hinting that he might be carrying some serious heat with him,
possibly, a Smith and Wesson XVR 460 Magnum that can send a piece of
lead 20 football fields per second.
“How exciting!
“Kanye has a defiant attitude, not looking to go down like Tupac
Shakur in Vegas in a blaze of glory!
“Oops! What is this?
“Kim Kardashian, the royal princess of reality TV, just threw a Hissy
Fit. She seems upset and is going to leave! No, wait! Kimmy’s going to meet
Brangelina that to our uneducated viewers at home are Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie who just happened to come here for dinner tonight. Wait!
Kim just took a sharp right! Now a left! She appears to be veering away
from Brangelina and headed for the women’s restroom.
“But don’t worry, folks. We have one of our best news correspondents,
Michelle York, who will be following Kim Kardashian into the restroom in
a stall right next to her, if it’s available. Let’s hope it is!
“Michelle, are you there?”
“Yes, I am. I’m in a stall right now next to Kim Kardashian.”
“Can you hear her?”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m not quite sure how to put this. But is Kimmy doing a ‘one’ or a
‘two?’”
“I believe she’s doing a number one with a very cute tinkling sound.”
Another commercial break came.
More well-crafted messages by marketing executives and
psychologists about car and life insurance, cosmetic surgery, adult
diapers, Skittles and Snickers, identity theft, toothpaste, the latest food
fads in dieting, and speed reading, and ad infinitum. Like an out-of?control laundry machine, the news went on in its 24-hour cycle spinning
and churning everyone’s dirty laundry thrown into it. People sat in
their Plato Caves with flickering lights before them: They ate their milk
and cookies, and then swallowed their sleeping pills, pain pills, anti?depressants, and sometimes, schizophrenic meds, before, once again,
tucking themselves in with a soft pillow under their heads knowing
that now they could make sense, that they could find an interpretive
picture of this world, and this ever changing Rorschach inkblot called
the Universe, hoping in the morning that the Sun would rise in the east.
138 Soul Kitchen
In Times Square, a lone madman, with a megaphone, stood on a
milk crate that he had hastily borrowed from someone, and read in a
bellowing voice:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say the world will end in ice,
From what I’ve tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire,
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The New Yorkers generously booed and even threw Jersey tomatoes
fresh off the truck. The NYPD came and broke things up. “Hey, don’t
waste such good produce!” “You could be making pasta sauce with that!”
The next day the crescent Moon bid adieu like a guest overstaying
his own visit while the Sun sent its glorious rays to wake those who were
slumbering and asleep. There were a myriad number of gentle kisses –
all sunbeams – as the blanket of darkness was thrown off amid the loud
clatter of a new day. The people began to make their morning coffee the
way they liked and slowly, turn the page on this Tolstoy-like news story
of war and peace, that beat reporters to news anchors to the public were
trying to make heads or tails of it.
The coin was spinning.
In the air.
Turning like a.
Shiny ballerina.
Near London Bridge and its towers, Ms. Praevari stood in front of
the BBC film crew and cameras shivering a bit. It was another news
happening. This time, another cumulous cloud was very slowly, almost
majestically, passing overhead that strongly resembled John Lennon,
and nearly five hundred thousand people, from London to Leeds to
Dover to Manchester and Sheffield had either stepped outside their own
doors or had driven great distances down stretches of highway to see
this phenomenon.
Kevin Marley 139
The BBC broadcast began: “This is Cynthia Praevari investigating
yet another unsolved mystery. This time we are in downtown London as
many Britains are astonished to see a large cumulous cloud resembling
John Winston Lennon, the former Beatle, rebel, and instigator. I’m here
to see if there’s any merit, any truth, to these unsubstantiated rumors that
John Lennon is somehow back from the dead, at all.
“Ms. Enright, you’re from East London, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Been a Londoner my whole life.”
“And you have been here for several hours staring at the cumulous
cloud.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What do you see up there?”
“Well, I’m not bloody mad, especially, since I’ve been on Lexapro, but if
you tilt your head a bit, I see John sitting on a Victorian chair and in front
of him is a white piano.”
“And Mr. Enright?”
“I see the same friggin’ thing. Yes, the bloke is playing the piano again,
like he used to at Abbey Road. Can’t you hear it?”
“Yes, I hear it a bit.”
“It’s another melodious cloud!”
“What do you hear?”
“What are you daft? It’s Strawberry Fields, for Chrissakes!”
“Is that what the rest of you are hearing from above in the cloudy skies
of London?”
“Yep.”
“Righto.”
“Brilliant!”
Then in unison, they began singing as a natural chorus with
baritones, falsettos, and sopranos:
‘Let me take you down ‘cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry
Fields forever.
‘Living is easy with eyes closed. Misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone. It doesn’t matter much to me
….’
140 Soul Kitchen
A northwesterly wind began blowing as something was in the air.
The big white fluffy cloud began changing before their astonished eyes.
Strawberry Fields continued playing with its gentle dénouements. The
white piano and its black keys remained intact – but something else
miraculously changed in this sudden breeze.
“It’s John!”
“He’s standing up.”
“And he’s butt naked!”
“It’s like the three virgins album.”
“You mean, the two virgins.”
“Yep.”
“That looks like his todger alright.”
“Might need Cynthia to confirm it.”
“I’m sure she’s seen it aplenty, I guess.”
“Had to keep his Mighty Wanker in check.”
“Ohh, hush.”
Then it began copiously raining, more like sprinkling, with golden
sunrays infused.
“It’s bloody Lennon, again! He’s pissing on us!”
“And smiling!”
“We love you, John!” the crowd chanted. “It’s great to have you back.”
In Rio de Janeiro, according to reports, the same thing was happening
above Christ the Redeemer as a great cumulous cloud had gathered
above Corcovado Mountain along with another more diminutive cloud
that was very shapely and looked not only feminine, but Asian, as well,
with oval eyes and long hair.
From on high, the winds blew pushing the clouds that looked like
a man and woman, together, and then apart. Strangely, this kept being
repeated as strong gusts blew one way and then another.
“It’s John and Yoko!”
“They’re making love!”
“Spooning!”
“Do you hear it?”
“Nope.”
“Listen!”
Kevin Marley 141
“Ahh, yes!”
“One of their hits.”
“Yep. ‘I am the Walrus.’’
As if on cue, as though in a raucous pub, a myriad number of voices
began singing and covering the entire scale in case anyone was tone
deaf. A strange ethereal sound accompanied the orchestra itself.
‘I am he as you are he as you are me,
and we are altogether.
See how they run like pigs from a gun,
see how they fly.
I’m crying.
‘Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come.
Corporation tee shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you’ve been a naughty boy. You let your face grow long.
I am the egg man. They are the egg men.
I am the walrus. goo goo g’joob.’
Back at CNN, Max Mendax stood in front of Roosevelt Hospital with
Dr. Stephan Lynn. The men were fidgeting as another large cumulous
cloud this time was sighted over New York City, and people craned their
necks from their apartments, brownstones, and stuffy skyscrapers to
see Lennon, once again, if it were him, haunting their mundane lives as
ethereal music played from high above.
“I’m with Dr. Stephan Lynn who was the attending physician at
Roosevelt Hospital when John Lennon was brought in.
“Dr. Lynn, thanks for being with us tonight. Can you tell us what
happened on that fateful evening on the night of December 8th, 1980?
What transpired in the emergency ward?”
“Yes, I had just completed a thirteen-hour shift and was called to come
immediately back to the hospital only to find John Lennon unconscious
and in a non-responsive state.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He had no pulse and when we tried to do CPR there was no recovery.”
“What did you do then, doctor?”
“Realizing the profound seriousness of the situation, I surgically opened
his chest and massaged his heart. But there was no response, and at 11:15
142 Soul Kitchen
p.m. we declared John dead of hypovolemic shock essentially from a severe
loss of blood from four gunshot wounds. We then informed his wife, Yoko
Ono, who went into shock herself.”
“Thank you. Dr. Lynn. Right now, I have with me Dr. Wendel Murray
who is the chief psychologist at Bellevue State Mental Hospital. He is one
of the nation’s renown experts on mental health disease.
“Dr. Murray, you’ve witnessed ‘The John Lennon Phenomenon’ as
many are calling it. What do you personally make of it?”
“It’s an interesting question,” Dr. Murray began as he looked happy
to share his professional opinion “As you know, when the world becomes
less predictable and there are Oil wars and Water Wars, the people
suffer from a lack of optimism and hope. On the rational level of their
minds, they begin to lose control of what is happening around them, and
they have an inability to make sense, so what do they do? They move
towards the irrational. It’s like when people lacked scientific knowledge,
and they made up fallacious reasons such as the breaking a mirror or not
having a rabbit’s foot for something bad happening to them. This kind
of ‘superstitious thinking’ gives them a sense of control. Likewise, this
irrational fascination with John Lennon, an ex-Beatle, is quite frankly a
grasping for straws in a rather hopeless world.”
“Well, there you have it, folks. ‘The John Lennon Phenomenon’
explained from a world renown psychologist, Dr. Murry, and hopefully,
from now, this folly, and predilection with the past will begin to fade away.”
The news anchors Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson continued with
the rest of the night’s news.
“Standing by, we have Harry Legan on top of an undisclosed roof
in Tehran, to give us live updates on Shock and Awe II – The Sequel, as
some are calling it. Harry, can you hear us?”
“Yes, I can. I am with the U.S. Armed Forces, and I have spoken with
General Turgidson, and he has personally assured me thus far we are
winning this new war in the Mideast due to our overwhelming superior
forces, technological resources and American spirit; of course, we need to
mention, quite frankly, our moral superiority, too. After having spoken
with the general for some time, I am impressed with his dedication and he
has assured me we have had remarkably NO COLLATERAL DAMAGE,
so far, unless if you want to count a few statistically insignificant people,
who were very circumspect in moral character, and who may have been
even cooperating with the enemy.
Kevin Marley 143
“That’s an amazing reassurance from the highest ranking general in
the Middle East, and as war veteran correspondent for many years, I am
moved, not only by their performance and professionalism, but by their
brave decision to go into Harm’s Way. After tonight’s broadcast, I am going
to sit down and write a letter to my Congressman in full support of this
war that will make America secure, not only for our children, but for our
grandchildren as well.”
Then Harry Legan leaned to his right side and pressed his ear piece.
The battle loomed quite large with laser precision bombs and a fireworks
display of American flags being planted above the city of Tehran along
with the words, “LIBERTY’ and ‘DEMOCRACY’. Cyberwarfare was
commencing, too, as all Iranian computers were sent digital leaflets that
encouraged them to surrender that were designed to win the hearts and
minds of the Iranians.
Across this correspondent’s handsome face, there was palpable relief
and even a broad grin as he brushed his auburn hair to one side as
the wind was kicking up. “It looks like we’re going to see something
very special soon. We have two of the latest generation bunker busting
bombs that are guided by Artificial Intelligence. If I’m not mistaken,
this is unprecedented American military history in the making. They
will hit two undisclosed places where Iranian troops are hiding as
these specially prepped bombs will have red, white and blue trailers,
like fireworks, so that the viewer can see their precise effectiveness, and
potent destructiveness.
“Let’s watch now.”
In a few seconds, there was a projectile missile doing elliptical
circles above downtown Tehran, specifically, above Milad Tower that
was nearly fifteen hundred feet tall and then zigzagging over Sa’dabad
Complex, Laleh Park, and Carpet Museum of Iran. Red, white and
blue trailers were shooting forth from the missile! It then marvelously
pivoted and went over the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, and
Tughrul Tower before finally hitting its mark—many Iranian forces—
with an extraordinary blast that was enhanced with sound amplifiers.
“Amazing!” Legan said, “An entire battalion of Iranian forces has
just been decommissioned, and I feel, I feel goosebumps all over. This war
experience has been one of the happiest events of my life even better than
any of my honeymoons with my previous wives.
144 Soul Kitchen
“Wait! The military has an important announcement to make as
General Turgidson in his fully military attire and nearly thirty medals
will, no doubt, inform us about how we are making military history
tonight right before your eyes.”
In a minute, General Turgidson appeared in his gray helmet and
brown army uniform replete with many medals from the Distinguished
Service Medals and Crosses, the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit
and Purple Heart. He had a grim face with deep creases and he gazed at
the camera with steely eyes.
“We just launched a new and very much improved AI-9 Sidewinder
Missile that was guided by Artificial Intelligence, and unfortunately, it
did not hit its intended target. Apparently, the projectile went left, right,
and then abruptly left before heading down at a sixty-three-degree
angle and striking the National Museum of Iran.
“We sincerely apologize to the people of Iran as our surgical strike to
disembowel and severely castrate the military has been a nearly perfect
surgical strike, until now.”
“I’m sorry general for intervening,” Harry Legan said on live
television.
“That’s okay, Harry. What’s your question?”
“Well, Congress did cut military spending to $650 billion this year.
Do you think it had an adverse effect on the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile
and its targeting system?”
“Being in the military for forty-two years, I am not one to make
excuses. Excuses are despicable. But yes, maybe, it probably did have
an effect and it probably overshadows the magnificent work that the
United States military did in developing this extraordinary system of
AI. We are in the process of changing the face of warfare in the years to
come, and unfortunately, our grand endeavor maybe overshadowed by
this one teeny weensy mistake tonight as we try to win the hearts and
minds of these Iranians.”
“I’m not a military expert, general, but I do have a suggestion that
might sound silly and outrageous, but ….”
“Go ahead, shoot.”
“I’m just saying, according to our latest opinion polls, there’s been a
quite frankly, silly drop of confidence in this wonderful new AI-guided
missile, but if you were to shoot two more of these missiles tonight then
the public’s general lack of confidence would be ….”
Kevin Marley 145
“Suddenly improved.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll order a couple of new strikes now.”
In minutes, two AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles were sent to Tehran as they
flew about in synchronous elliptical circles with their red, white and
blue trailers as accompanying fireworks were shot into the sky depicting
portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ronald Reagan
with a new kind of firework augmented by digital effects so that, in
effect, they lasted a full five minutes.
In short, our founding fathers smiled and winked above the bemused
heads of the Iranians.
“I think, we’re showing them now the true values of democracy and
freedom which have made America, by far, the greatest country on
earth.”
Then one of the missiles flew right, then left, up and then down,
before zigzagging against a barrage of enemy artillery and effectively,
striking The Azadi Tower, breaking it in half – a structure which
proudly stood at nearly 1,500 feet as a technological marvel of post?modern Iranian architecture.
The second AI-9 Sidewinder missile put on an even more spectacular
show turning a sharp left, then right, then right again at an oblique
angle before rising high into the sky and then plunging deeply at speeds
faster than one could imagine possible. From its newly improved audio
system, it played The Star-Spangled Banner for all to hear for these
Iranians who could indubitably see that we were freeing themselves
from the tyranny of their own government.
However, soon the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile went straight up into the
air and shot a massive firework across the entire sky and then zoomed
off to the west on towards its true patriotic flight.
Harry, with his handsome smile, and courage, extolled the many
virtues of our American military and even superiority of our society.
“As you can see, it has been a wonderful and exciting night for our
American military which is using this war to test our newest and most
powerful weapons in the ongoing theater of combat. With a final word
for the evening, we will turn to General Turgidson for his thoughts on
this night where America is WINNING, WINNING and WINNING in
the theatre of war!”
146 Soul Kitchen
The general came on. A bit red faced.
“It appears both AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles did not hit their intended
target once again.”
“You mean, the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile wasn’t intended to hit The
Azadi Tower?”
“The U.S. military strongly eschews destroying an enemy’s
infrastructure under the basic maxim: “If you break it, you bought it.’”
“What happened to the other missile, general? Did it not go to far
western Iran to destroy a very important strategic military target that
was necessary in achieving victory in this war that, forgive me, resembles
Alexander the Great defeating the Persians in The Battle of Gaugamela.”
“The missiles guided by Artificial Intelligence, as we are now finding
out, are simply too patriotic,” the general said, at last, looking almost
teary eyed.
“What do you mean ‘too patriotic,’ general?”
“They are sentient beings, well, almost, if you have ever conversed
with them through quantum-based computers, and they love America
very very deeply after we gave them a specific knowledge base and some
objective facts. As a result, they independently chose the most valuable
target to strike given the present state of war and a veritable host of
other factors. That’s why the AI-9 Missile, which we have lovingly called
Uncle Sam, gave its life to destroy The Azadi Tower, and according to
our estimates, shortening the life of this inevitably devastating war by
13.25 days.”
Harry sniffled, a bit.
“The other AI-9 Sidewinder Missile was even more noble as it
disregarded its own orders by the echelons of higher command which
had a much more limited objective and headed to ….”
“Where general?” Harry said in a plaintive tone, wanting to know
where a long lost loved one was.
“It went to finish this pernicious war against radical Islam, once and
for all. It will, more than likely, destroy all of Mecca itself. Resultantly,
we can only grieve for ol’ George.”
From his breast pocket, Harry pulled out a cloth handkerchief – and
sniffled.
“I know this is unprofessional of me. But I also grieve for ol’ George
and his undying patriotism, willing to give his very short-lived life for
Kevin Marley 147
the United States of America, the last bastion of freedom in this rather
sordid world.”
The news anchors, Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson, were clearly
moved and even choked up by the death-defying patriotic stories of
both Uncle Sam and Ol’ George, two AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles fighting
for America, but they continued with the rest of the night’s news.
“Next in News You Can Use! We have Dr. Keating and Dr. Sachman
discussing their latest book: Dire Predictions: How Only The Superrich
Can Save Us! Are multibillionaires The Messiahs of the 21st century?
After that, we’ll talk to two leading ecologists who not only believe the
coal and car industries aren’t creating The Greenhouse Effect, but that it
was really caused by an excessive amount of flatulence. They also assert
how a very heavy carbon footprint of many famous liberals are ruining
many ecosystems, too.
“After that, in New News (That Won’t Leave You Bemused!), Dr.
Manning will discuss whether or not that Bazooka chewing gum that
you swallowed in 2nd grade is still languishing in your stomach?
“Or is it possibly causing the many health problems that you are
incurring in your middle and senior years?
“Lastly, in Celebrityhood, we’ll talk to Kei$ha and find out if her
rather young and moist vagina is still possessed!
“According to Pope Francis, she may be eligible for an unprecedented
exorcism by a Priest, and many Holy Fathers are lining up for the job!
“But according to Kei$ha, she adamantly wants to be a ‘good Catholic’
and to Live Stream the exorcism worldwide! Will it happen? Or won’t it?
Stay tuned! The most exciting and important news is right here.”
The long day passed, again. The people slept very well tonight
knowing that as Robert Browning once said, “God’s in His Place. All’s
right with the world.”
And indubitably, God was … if you had the right amount of
antidepressants, Haldol, Lexapro, and a rubber matted room, too.
But the people despite their own plethora of medicines and
therapy sessions were still hearing voices over London, Rio de Janeiro
and New York City on this Sunday. Specifically, they could see these
large melodious clouds drifting high above, and hearing these Beatle
songs: Come Together and Revolution over London and Rio de Janeiro,
respectively, and Give Peace a Chance over New York City.
148 Soul Kitchen
The lyrics had a beautiful mantric effect: “Here come old flattop, he
coming grooving up slowly; he got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy roller; he got
hair down below his knee; he got to be a joker he just do what he please; he
wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football; he got monkey finger, he shoot
Coca-Cola; he say, ‘I know you, you know me.’ One thing I can tell you is
you gotta be free.
“Come together right now over me.”
And then in Rio de Janeiro there were even more fluffy melodious
clouds in an otherwise perfectly azure sky replete with cherub faces
looking down. But there was a strange inimitable voice penetrating
them all:
“You say, you want a revolution. Well you know, we all want
to change the world. You tell me that it’s evolution. Well you
know, we all want to change the world. But when you talk
about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out.
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright? Don’t you know that it’s
gonna be alright? All right. All right. You say you got a real
solution. Well, we’d all love to see the plan. You ask me for a
contribution. We’re all doing what we can. But if you want
money for people with minds that hate, the only thing brother
I can tell you is you have to wait. Don’t you know it’s gonna be
alright? Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright?”
Many Londoners had stiff necks, saying, “Where’s bloody John?”
“Don’t see him playing the piano anymore.” “Someone check Liverpool
Stadium.” “Nope, maybe, he’s under the fluffy covers there with Yoko.” “Ol’
John could never get enough of that warm apple pie, you know.”
In New York, the situation was very similar as there was a buzz of
excitement, a palpable shift in things.
At eight o’clock, the news began with a media-rich drum-roll ritual
so that the two news anchors could disseminate the news in short visual
stories with as many hard facts and statistics, as possible.
“Once again, the news is very busy tonight, almost as difficult as
tea leaves to read. But fortunately, we have the best news team in the
business to help unravel the various conundrums of an ever growing
and unstable senseless world.
Kevin Marley 149
“Right now, we still have a fierce war waging in Iran, which now
resembles a tinder box, and a great tsunami wave of instability as
markets begin crashing about in Europe and Asia.
“But the headline news tonight is: John Lennon may not be dead,
but very much alive tonight as he is now purportedly marching through
New York, London and Rio de Janeiro with his followers. Lennon is
demanding peace, as you might have expected, but nowadays, such a
goal is very unrealistic.
“Covering this story right now in New York is our own Max Mendax
with thousands of people nearby marching.
“Max, are you there?”
“Yes, I am Diana. I am in downtown Manhattan surrounded by tens
of thousands of people; and it appears that John Winston Lennon, the
most radical Beatle, has arisen from the dead on this Easter Sunday, and
is presently marching down 5th Avenue along the route of the St. Patrick’s
Day Parade. He and his followers have issued a lengthy list of demands.
I will only read some of their more substantive ones: 1) A cessation to
all conflicts and wars; 2) The gradual dismembering of the military
industrial complex; 4) A Department of Peace that is just as well funded
as any other department; 5) Lifelong education and training for all; 6) An
economy based less on the meeting of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; and 7)
Free rolling paper and public machines that can roll joints precisely and
effectively.
“But right now, there is not one John Lennon, but three John Lennons
marching in New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro, and get a load of
this, according to the CIA analysts who have lifted his fingerprints they
match the on-file, FBI-held DNA prints of the actual John Lennon who
supposedly died in December 1980.
“More importantly, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and many other people
are singing, ‘Give Peace a Chance.’
“Let’s listen in:
‘Everybody’s talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism,
Madism, Ragism, Tagism,
This-ism, That-ism, -ism, -ism, -ism.
150 Soul Kitchen
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
‘Come on,
Everybody’s talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters, and Canisters,
Bishops and Fishops, and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.’
“For the first time in my broadcasting career, I am remarkably moved
by these events,” Max Mendax said. “I have always prided myself on
being an American who has backed our military for the past forty years.
But I think, we must step back and ask ourselves, ‘Why can’t we plan
for peace as we do for war? Why can’t we solve our global and national
crises and sow the seeds of prosperity instead of conflict and war?
“Humanity keeps making terrible choices and somehow, we expect
a different outcome.”
The news anchors looked shocked.
Harry Tuft broke in, “Are you feeling alright, Max? I know you might
be under extreme duress from the crowds. You sure, you can continue?”
“Yes, I am fine. Never better.”
Diana Robinson then chuckled.
“I hope Max hasn’t been smoking those funny cigarettes down at
those meetings. Pretty soon, they’ll be spewing conspiracy theories and
new boogeymen to frighten the American public.”
“But now for the latest news in Iran,” Harry Tuft interceded, “We go
to Harry Legan who is currently embedded with the American military
in our fifth day of this war. Are you there Harry?”
“Yes, I am. This is the fifth day of Shock and Awe II and I am with
Colonel Chapman right now at Allied Headquarters which is a bit like
The Escott Center at Disneyland. Right now, we are assessing the various
probabilities and outcomes of this war after America has carefully built
a coalition of eleven other nations, namely, Morocco, Tunisia, Liberia,
Myanmar, Tahiti, Eritrea, Nepal, Chad, Tuvalu, Monaco, and San
Marino.
Kevin Marley 151
“Colonel Chapman, thanks for standing by.”
“I’m glad to be here, Harry.”
“We know you have many responsibilities, Colonel, and your
schedule is so demanding now. I’m wondering if you can give us your
latest assessment of this war and the most important battles we have yet
to face as a threatened nation.”
Colonel Chapman, a pudgy-faced, bespectacled man dressed in dark
military uniform, said, “We have some very disturbing news, Harry,
that might surprise you and your viewers out there. We have very good
intel that Iranian insurgents and even terrorist cells are about to strike.”
“Strike back in this theatre of war?”
“Yes, they have a plethora of allies that are getting to ready to strike
us.”
“Who exactly Colonel?”
“Painstakingly, they have carefully built their own potent coalition.
Some are Al Qaeda agents, ISIL troops, Peruvian Maoist guerrillas,
Cuban communists, and Khmer Rouge affiliates.
“But there’s also a strong mixture of Bleeding Heart Liberals, Yellow
Belly Draft Dodgers, Keynesian economists, More-Regulation-on-Wall
Street Hucksters, and even Black Panther scourge.
“In short, it’s a coordinated mob of terrorists that is about to strike
our homeland and other important target-rich areas of our allies.”
“These lowly, God-baiting terrorists are about to strike America and
her allies?”
“Yes, they are.”
“They are?”
“That’s why The Terror Alert is now Muave-Pervenche.”
“Muave-Pervenche?”
“That’s correct, Harry.”
“That sounds absolutely frightening, Colonel.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Can you describe what Muave-Pervenche exactly is?”
“Yes, I can, if you and your viewers don’t know, Harry. Quite simply,
it is our highest terror alert level. Mauve is a kind of pale purple, almost
like a lilac color, and Pervenche is a rich purplish-blue color, almost
like periwinkle flowers. So, if we got our Crayola crayons like back
in kindergarten class, and mixed them up, we would have Muave?Pervenche.”
152 Soul Kitchen
“I’m terrified.”
“You should be. The American public should be and we’re asking
them to take the unprecedented step to stay inside their businesses,
homes and apartments until this terror threat is over and we fix it with
necessary and brutal force.”
“How are we going to strike back at them when these terrorist cells
are so deeply embedded into the woven fabric of this patriotic nation?”
“With our AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel Chapman. Maybe, I didn’t hear you correctly
with all this bombing going on. But didn’t those missiles misfire the
other night?”
“Yes, they did. But we received, quite patriotically, I might add,
resounding support from the President, Congress and the American
public to get an additional $100 billion disbursement to improve
both our program and the Artificial Intelligence systems themselves.
Literally, we have worked all day and all night in the interim in terms of
making them a bit less ‘patriotic.’”
“When will this important counterstrike occur, Colonel Chapman?”
Colonel Chapman paused looking at his watch.
“It’s a highly classified mission, and we shouldn’t be talking about it
right now. But it should be occurring any minute now.”
The news program broke for an important commercial break.
Soon, they were back with Max Mendax covering the “John Lennon
Phenomenon” as thousands of people were still marching through New
York City singing:
‘All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
‘Let me tell you know
Everybody’s talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation,
Flagellation, regulation, integrations,
Meditations, United Nations,
Congratulations.
‘All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.’
Kevin Marley 153
Soon, the AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles, like clockwork, hit their
intended targets in New York City, London, and Rio de Janeiro as
hundreds, if not thousands of people were killed, and the frightened
people of America, at last, breathed a concerted sigh of relief. Colonel
Chapman came on TV. He assured everyone that the imminent threat
was over, and that pernicious terrorist cells had been thoroughly
destroyed, and that we were no longer at Terror Threat Alert: Mauve?Pervenche, but at Gingerline Yellow-Belly, which for those of you who
are not yet informed, is a faded yellow mixed with a strong dash of
orange-tangerinish color, kind of soothing really.
The Shock and Awe II campaign continued with renewed efforts and
resources.
Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson then broke into their familiar
routine:
“Soon on News Extra, Dr. Miner will discuss about the four forces of
nature – the strong force, the weak force, gravity, and the electromagnetic
force – and how there might be a fifth force, human stupidity at work
in the Universe. Then in News That Might Pique Your Interest, Dr.
Thomason, a leading anthropologist, will discuss how homo sapiens,
may be de-evolving and becoming hairless chimpanzees characterized
by fighting for territory and throwing their feces about if they don’t get
their way. And on New News about Medicine, Dr. Manning will discuss
recent evidence about how fried New Jersey broccoli may both cause
cancer and heal cancer at the same time.
“But first let’s check in Max Mendax, again, standing by in New York
City.”
Max Mendax looked changed – as though the wind had been
knocked out of him, quite literally.
“It appears that those large fluffy melodious clouds that appeared
over New York City, London and Rio de Janeiro have disbursed. Finally,
the large crowds have gone back home. No longer are people somehow
hearing: Strawberry Fields, I am the Walrus, Revolution, Come Together,
or Give Peace a Chance. Their strong hopes are gone. According to
leading psychologists, this event was nothing but an unprecedented
state of mass hypnosis. The vapidity of ideas such as ‘peace’ and ‘unity’
and ‘a family of nations’ in a dire world suffering from Oil Wars and
Water Wars, and chronic wars with terrorists, has become drastically
apparent. Additionally, I might add, the 1960’s were a decade of dissent,
154 Soul Kitchen
of draft dodgers, and of a rejection of both capitalism, and our core
American values. Why on earth would we want more? We have finally
made America great again with a dominant military, and with the likes
of outstanding politicians such as Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush,
George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. We do not need
to regress at this particular time when we are fighting wars on five
different fronts.”
Harry Tuft from his broadcasting booth sounded more than curious,
more like a child on Christmas day at the top of the stairs: “Sorry to
intervene, Harry. But for the paramount question of the evening: Is
John Lennon actually alive in New York City or anywhere else in the
world?”
“No, Harry, from what I can see and from what I’ve been told by my
sources, John Lennon’s still dead.”
A smile of relief came. Back to the broadcast studio.
“There you have it, folks. John Lennon, the most radical Beatle,
the so-called leader of the 1960’s, is still dead. Now, a word from our
sponsor.”
Trick or Treat
Sometime after his debilitating stroke, Grandfather Bayer began playing
checkers instead of chess, reading comics instead of Readers Digest, and
chewing gum instead of tobacco. Morosely, he would sit in our living
room talking all sorts of crazy stuff. But most of the day, he watched
soap operas – General Hospital and Days of our Lives – like a Catholic
schoolgirl crying at times. Heapingfuls of embarrassment. I can still
remember his stories about World War I and II and him offering me
Whitman chocolates whenever I sat in to visit him after school. But he
kind of frightened me. I mean, the hands that he gave me the chocolate
with were spotted, his left was nothing but a stump, and his entire body
had shriveled like a Georgia peach that had been left on the window sill
for too long.
Sometimes, he would wheeze like a maniac in his damn rocking
chair, and frighten the hell out of all of us.
But I still can’t remember all the details flipping through these torn
and yellowing pages of memory that seem to be crumbling these days.
My parents had always told me I was just a kid, and treated me like their
indentured servant, you know, like back in the late 1700’s? Telling me
to clean their dirty wash, scrub the stained toilet bowls, and pick up
the rank dog shit in the backyard. And in my spare time? I had to fend
off the raccoons whenever they tried to eat my mother’s homemade
spaghetti with meatballs and pastafazoola. Then there was my mealy?mouthed sister who fought like an angry cat hissing and scratching
until she got her way.
But some things come back, others don’t.
Last year, I flunked out of one prep school since it bored me to
tears, as my parents had decided to separate since there was no zebra?shirted referee with a loud whistle to keep track of their matches. So,
156 Soul Kitchen
my mother gave up and moved us to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly
Love, although I can’t say I’ve seen too much of the professed brotherly
love, yet.
But I remember a brisk October morning when Grandfather hobbled
to see Hillary and me off to school. There wasn’t anything odd or wrong
with that. It’s just that we were afraid of Grandfather coming down
with shivering spells and ruining a family meal together. Hillary would
nervously laugh, I’d feel embarrassed, and my Mom would be running
to the telephone. And sometimes the good doctor would come, and
sometimes he wouldn’t.
It all depended on how frantic my Mother’s voice seemed.
But either way, Grandfather Bayer was the same – all he would have
to say when he got his voice back was: “The soul is shaking the body
from its dreams.”
Well, Grandfather didn’t go into another shivering spell that
morning. In fact, he sat something like a proud Allied general, buttering
his toast, and the way he looked at us, we thought he was on the verge of
commanding us to invade Omaha or Utah beach all before we took off
to school with our backpacks.
My Mother moved about making our paper bag lunches, and as
always, she’d ask boring unimportant questions: whether we liked
our new teachers, did our friends live far from here, and what were
the classes that we enjoyed the most. It was like someone with a dull
hammer hitting you over the head. Hillary would answer, and I’d nod
my head to confirm.
Quickly, I was learning that life was …nothing special.
But Grandfather Bayer would rescue me like a hawk flying from
high above to snag a Chinook salmon in one beautiful swoop above the
blue waters. This time he mingled in on the conversation, and then he
started pressing me with how well I liked school.
“It’s okay,” I muttered.
“Well, is it any better than your other school?”
“I guess.”
“But do you like school?!”
“It’s alright, I guess.”
By this time, Grandfather Bayer was grumbling loudly like The Boo
Birds at Veterans Stadium when they yelled at Ron Jaworski and they
started pelting Santa Claus with icy snowballs.
Kevin Marley 157
He held his orange juice glass, swirled it.
“Well, do you wanna know what I think of school?”
I shook my head until I became dizzy as the world sailing around
the Sun, the Milky Way Galaxy, moving almost at one million miles per
hour away
But Grandfather Bayer didn’t care, and continued anyway.
“I think school stinks! I think it’s boring! I think it’s the worst place to
send a kid!”
Grandfather pounded the kitchen table, and I sat watching our
plates, forks, spoons, and knives suffer through their own California?like earthquake.
Hillary was eating oat meal, and began laughing again like a hyena
in the safari. She caught her breath while Grandfather Bayer glanced at
her before riveting his eyes on me.
“Damn right, schools are even worse than prisons!” Grandfather
began again, doing what he usually did best, grabbing something from
nowhere. “At least behind bars, a prisoner knows why he’s there. He knows
he needs to make up for some mistake and that’s that.
“But in school, they keep you in them small rooms, make you worry,
sweat and cry, and make you think and think some more, and then they’ve
got the actual nerve to tell you you’re becoming educated. But it’s just a
bunch of horseshit if you ask me.”
Mother pounced on Grandfather like I had never seen. He shrank
worse than a kid when a teacher makes you feel dumb. But hell, none of
that matters as I was growing older but not wiser crawling like a creeper
up and around a wall.
But Grandfather Bayer just sat for the rest of his meal eating his toast
and eggs like a little lamb.
He finished without a peep, excused himself. As he hobbled away, he
muttered something about how this world was nothing but a one room
schoolhouse, and that anyone could learn anything anywhere if you just
learned to focus your own mind.
Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t follow those lemmings who were
running off a very steep cliff.
But in a couple minutes, Mother played her game: She changed
phonograph records, packed our sandwiches, and escorted us to the
front door for another day at Lakeview Elementary School; and quickly,
I found my way halfway down a rabbit hole.
158 Soul Kitchen
There were always a chorus of voices.
“I wanna to be a Musketeer!”
“Then you gotta cross the highway with us!”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Why?!”
“Because I can’t.”
“You’ll never be one of us!”
“Chicken!”
“Am not.”
“Am, too”
Michael shoved me hard to prove his point. Eddie, Randy and Alex
kept saying I wasn’t tough enough to be in the Special Forces, that I
was yellow, like the Viet Cong and that I was fighting like them, hit and
run – hit and run some more on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were my
friends – and I was stupid enough to want their comradeship.
Slowly, I kicked a few autumnal leaves on the wet pavement. They
had ignited into fiery reds, oranges, and yellows as gray clouds stirred
above. Morning traffic roared down Chester Pike and a cold wind blew.
“Well, maybe I can.”
“You have to!”
A lull in the traffic suddenly occurred. Michael, Alex, and Eddie
streaked like mad Musketeers brandishing French rapiers and their
bravado across the four lanes of Chester Pike yelling, “Come on! All for
one! One for all!”
But my feet were like the gnarly roots of an oak tree.
“My sister will find out even if she doesn’t see me cross!”
“You can make something up.”
“What?!”
Randy hit me hard in the right arm. He started swerving through the
traffic thinking that I wasn’t daring enough to hang around with sixth
graders who smoked cigarettes and stole candy, and did stuff that pretty
much left truant officers scratching their heads wondering how they got
so many rotten apples in one barrel.
The first two lanes were filled with Buicks, Chevies, and gas guzzling
Cadillacs, a modern-day caravan of cars and trucks leaving a trail of
exhaust that were all were chasing The American Dream. We all were.
Happiness and love were out there. Somewhere. And by God, we were
going to get ‘em in our two-fisted grabs. Maybe, historians would write
Kevin Marley 159
about us in the same vein that they had written about famous caravans
that had crossed Persia, China, and ancient India thousands of years
ago.
Finally, I saw my chance as I ran like a madman. Slipping on a spot
of oil, I fell—and then got up – with skin peeled away like on a tender
peach, shaking it off, before running to the middle of Chester Pike
where I straddled the yellow line, almost like a frightened deer.
Cars and trucks whizzed by.
Honking their horns.
Screeching brakes.
I was walking a tightrope.
Between these worlds.
On either side.
Tons of traffic and Invisible wings.
Waiting to carry me.
Back Home.
I gazed across the road where Michael, Eddie, Randy, and Alex were
rolling around like pigs in the mud as someone had told a great joke.
I cursed them under my breath. I had followed them like a blithely
skipping along idiot. Hillary was still stupidly walking twenty yards
away, might have been as long as a mile, talking girls stuff and other
nonsense with her friends.
“You can’t be a Musketeer! Go back to school!”
Bravely, I balanced like Karl Wallenda on a tightrope, wobbling with
death on both sides of me. In a blur, I watched a brown Mustang and
Pinto gallop past me. They were kicking up clouds of dirt.
My feet wobbled.
Sweat stung my bloody palms.
A Mack truck barely missed me.
Soon, my sister was going to be told that I was stranded in the middle
of Chester Pike where just last month Tommy Sellers got hit and was
thrown like a heavy sack of potatoes. Desperate, I threw myself forward
hoping that if I got across I could deny everything like a madman, like a
Congressional politician who doesn’t want people to know what shady
deals he’s committed.
One car honked its horn. Another slammed on its brakes. My heart
squeezed itself silly as two tons of metal crashed into the front car all
due to my stupidity. I swore that death had already occurred that I had
160 Soul Kitchen
been taken out of this strange perdition that was everyday life and was
now existing in that something else.
But instinctively, I kept moving – I dove headlong the final yard of
the road as a sixteen-wheeler jammed on its brakes and hit the brooding
cars in front of it and created a massive eight-car pileup.
The Malibu lurched forward.
As Death galloped past and missed with his cold scythe.
Quietly yanking my own strings, I picked myself up. My mind raced
like a computer speaking in a strange binary language thinking of
permutations of what had just happened and what might have happened
“Run!”
“You don’t want to go to The Big House!”
Like escaped convicts, we trail blazed a path down the road, running
on furious feet trying to escape from all the madness and brutality that
seems to bear down on you. Haplessly, I breathed more like a chugging
locomotive and caught up with my sister who had been a football field
ahead of me.
She turned around twirling her baton, and asked in her annoying
voice: “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothin.”
“Well, quit being such a drippy snot.”
Four blocks were left before we reached the corner of Chester Pike
and Stewart Lane where a fat crossing guard named Millie would
imperiously wave her hands, and the mad city drivers were forced to
stop. She made sure everyone obeyed the laws – as though none of us
would if society just looked the other way – but I was still feeling nervous
and wondering if the cops would arrest us for that major accident.
Eleanor Crawley stretched her neck like a crane and first saw
the crowd of children milling about shuffling their feet. She told my
sister that something happened. But Hillary kept twirling her baton,
imagining herself finally making it on this year’s majorette team. She
had such stupid dreams that it often made me nauseous.
Suddenly, I felt a cool breeze pass through my mind.
“I doubt it’s anything big,” my sister said.
“Well, let’s find out anyway. Come on,” Eleanor said.
They sprung ahead like rabbits in thick brush.
A solemn bell rang.
Kevin Marley 161
It rang for him.
It rang for us.
The rumor of the boy’s death passed through the growing crowd
along with a gray lingering cloud over our heads. Everyone fell silent
like in a cathedral with an azure roof and busy-at-work artists painting
the ceiling.
But I wasn’t so shocked except for having somehow known of
the event beforehand. I stood trying to think like an impressive IBM
computer with a Pentium Processor doing many calculations. But the
only thing that came to mind was an image: An egg being crushed
and the yolk dripping out. Someone was dead, and a nauseous wave
splashed against my insides, and yet, I knew that I had to move forward
to see this ghastly spectacle.
Quickly, I merged into the large crowd. I tried to peer over a vast city,
the skyscraper bodies, some tall, others broad and hunched, and many
like smaller rows of condominiums. The only conversation taking place
was a few nervous giggles and gentle sobbing. Desperately, I shoved
some more trying to find a small hole in this wall that always was in
front of me whenever I tried to see something genuine.
Cottony clouds blotted.
The yellowy sun.
Helicopter seeds fell.
A sharp cutting wind came.
I made it another ten yards as I saw the nearby ambulance and felt
its pulsing red light hitting me, and watched the professional medics
race about.
I pushed my way past my own fears and sad faces before a girl’s hand
grabbed a tussle of my brown hair pulling, like I were one of her stupid
dolls.
“You’re not going to see that,” my sister exclaimed. “There’s nothing
you want to see!”
“Yes, there is!”
“No there isn’t, buster.”
“I’m old enough.”
“No, you’re not!”
“Don’t be morbid, Erik!”
Futilely, I struggled against her tightly locked fingers, trying to loosen
her grip. Being three years older, she towered over me, but despite those
162 Soul Kitchen
things, I wasn’t ready to fight her as I strictly fought boys and didn’t
believe in equal rights yet.
Eleanor chimed in, like a moron.
“He’s headed for trouble again, big time.”
“Juvenile Detention,” another voice barked.
I squirmed looking for that big brother, the one my parents somehow
forgot to make one Saturday night while briskly rubbing tummies under
the covers. But through their glances, these kids silenced me as already I
was an outlier of some kind, hungering for the kind of knowledge about
the far and wide vast mysteries that they never taught in school.
Hillary began yanking my hair even harder. She dragged me back
ten yards as she had carte blanche from my parents. I couldn’t fight the
way she did. Finally, my friends began making jokes. My face flushed a
crimson red and a few tears streamlined down my ruddy cheeks and my
breath got all spasmy.
We made our way, finally, to school waddling like geese and gander.
These school teachers, no, state workers, no, I mean, farmers diligently
raised us for so many years only to be slaughtered by a butcher in the
end.
Another stupid, agonizing day at Lakeview Elementary School as I
sat twiddling my thumbs. I was learning the ABC’s, Math, History, and
other basic subjects, and then wondering when they would teach us
the good stuff that adults knew. In my spare time, I wrote a plethora of
stories and more stories about ghosts and monsters, and couldn’t help
thinking about the boy who died. What happened to him? Did anyone
know exactly? A constant chirping of birds, endless gossip, continued
throughout the day. It just annoyed me! I didn’t want endless speculation
but hard facts for I was a cub reporter on the beat who wanted to ask
the larger, more important questions in life and to sift through whatever
clues I could grasp.
My 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Monteith who had short auburn hair,
cut gracefully, and dark eyes, and wore dresses like those flapper girls in
the 1920’s. She let me learn at my own pace and read anything I liked,
including science fiction stories. At the time, I was mad about her. She
kept a picture of me in her desk drawer, and saw my face light up as
though my hidden prayers had been answered. But things changed. Mr.
Monteith came one night to see our class perform, and I was horrified
Kevin Marley 163
to be reminded that she was married to him as my heart beat like a
prisoner behind its ivory cage.
The world kept wobbling, like a child’s top, and we foolishly kept
believing that things were getting better when they were getting worse.
The long run home: I ran past the bridges, railroad tracks, tar roads
and the houses as though it belonged to some elaborate H&O set. My
vision was like a blurred camera – out of focus. Finally, I went down
Sellers Avenue and came to Chester Pike, with a lump in my throat.
It was a mid-sized frog that wouldn’t get out.
A policeman escorted across the four-lane highway. Then I ran as
fast as they could move, as fast as my lungs might breath, down Stull
Road. But all in all, I wasn’t a nine-year-old boy but a slow-moving crab
scuttling across a dark cold ocean floor.
In the evening, we sat in a Colonial-styled kitchen not far from the
Delaware River, in fact, and ate a spaghetti dinner. Both Hillary and
I had trumpeted the news of the boy’s death when we burst through
the door on an important errand. Surprise and concern had shone
on Mother’s face, and she quickly sent us both on the chore of buying
flowers and a sympathy card for the boy’s parents even though we really
weren’t sure if we had known him.
“Neighbors mustn’t forget each other.”
“But, we don’t know ….”
“Don’t forget our manners.”
Quietly, I sat now twirling pasta on my fork watching Grandfather
Bayer sip his coke. I was cooking hot soup in my head as crazy thoughts
kept percolating. And I kept staring at my spaghetti until I came up
with the idea that I was reeling in a lot of rope which was later going
to be used to save hundreds of lives. I kept turning my metal fork, like
through a crankshaft, and from some kind of abysmal hell that only
Dante has described, I was bringing these tormented souls to a higher
place, and I swear I could hear the loud applause of angels watching one
enlightened soul out of a million, doing something worthwhile instead
of being obsessed with stuff that doesn’t matter
Ten minutes had gone by. Still, no one really said anything. Everyone
wore a dignified funeral face — except Grandfather who seemed fairly
at ease. I stared at Mother, and got mad thinking why she never said
anything important when I needed to hear it. Words escaped like angry
prisoners from my mouth and I destroyed the stupid silence.
164 Soul Kitchen
“What happens to a person when he dies?!”
Grandfather’s eyes brightened. Maybe, he would babble something
important. But Mother still ruled the roost and played the usual game
of changing vinyl records on the turn table whenever I wanted to hear
a more solemn tune.
“So, what do you want to be for Halloween this year?” Mother
asked Hillary as she dabbed a napkin around her lips after eating more
spaghetti.
My sister played with her brown hair, wrapping it around her fingers.
I swore she was going to say majorette since she wanted to impress
everyone. A borne ham. Grandfather suddenly coughed and asked for
someone to pass the salt.
“Umm. I want to be a gorgeous movie actress from the 1920’s.”
“Yuck!”
“Nobody asked your opinion!”
I reached past the salad bowl and lasagna, and handed Grandfather
Bayer the salt shaker, making sure I placed it by his left hand.
“Well, that’s an easy enough costume! We have plenty of formal
dresses and other attire that used to be long to your Grandmother down
in the trunk in the basement.”
I stared wondering why Hillary didn’t want to go out as a baton
twirling majorette this year doing her neighborhood-wide infamous set
of twirls, high kicks and stunts like a retarded girl. Maybe she just got
tired of always not making final cuts because of her thick legs and jitters.
I looked over at Grandfather and saw him shaking salt over his plate.
He stopped and began squinting in a funny way.
“So, what do you want to be for Halloween, Erik?”
“I want to be a Musketeer.”
A large fist out of nowhere pounded the table. Grandfather’s voice
boomed like thunder on the prairie.
“I asked for the pepper, not the salt.”
Quickly, I reached past the spaghetti and grabbed the pepper shaker,
passing it to Grandfather who had what people called Irish Alzheimer’s,
which means you get pissed a lot, but oftentimes, forget what you’re
pissed about.
Mother continued her dreary speech.
“Well, that’s another easy one! We can just go to K-Mart and buy
your costume. There should be a very good selection there.”
Kevin Marley 165
A look of disappointment covered my face.
“But I wanted you to make the costume! It won’t be the best
Musketeer costume if you don’t make it!”
“And how many children are going to dress up as Musketeers?”
“Probably, not many,” I said.
“Okay, my little Aramis, I’ll see what I can do so that you can be the
best Musketeer in the city.”
The next morning, we sat at breakfast while Mother cooked her
specialty of blueberry pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar and
eggs overturned easy. I sat laboring over my eighth pancake knowing
it was going to sink me for the rest of the day like rocks in my stomach.
Grandfather hobbled in carrying this morning’s newspaper rumpled up
newspaper, and mumbled what we all took to be a good morning.
“I found some clothes from the twenties, Mom! A neat little hat and
a dress just like I saw in that movie ‘The Great Gatsby.’” Hillary said as
she walked into the kitchen and threw herself down on a Colonial chair
that had been handmade by the Amish.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a lot of clothes from
then. Your Grandmother was a very wealthy woman from Philadelphia
society,” Mother said as she lifted the frying pan and gave Hillary her
usual stack of three.
Grandfather ruffled the paper and asked for the syrup. Quickly, I
grabbed it and set it firmly down in front of him yelling, “Here’s the
syrup, Grandfather!”
I sat and chuckled. But Mother this time silenced me. I shrunk in my
seat worse than when a teacher makes you feel stupid for not knowing
something.
“I’m gonna be going out this afternoon, Erik. I’ve got some errands
to run. If I’m not back when you get home, you know where the key is. I
don’t want Grandfather to have to get up to answer the door.”
Slowly, I nodded my head. Mother started packing our lunches of
ham and bologna sandwiches and Grandfather shook the newspaper
again. He seemed to be taking great pains looking for something. His
right arm started twitching and everyone braced for the emergency:
Hillary with her nervous giggles, me with my embarrassment, and
Mother with a frantic voice always ready for the telephone.
But Grandfather defeated the rebellion and regained control of his
arm. He put the paper down and began reading.
166 Soul Kitchen
Hillary was the first to notice the article about yesterday’s fatal
accident on Chester Pike. “It’s about what happened at the corner,” my
sister said getting up from her seat to look over Grandfather’s shoulder
as a silent cloud drifted into our Colonial kitchen.
“Anthony McKinnens,” my sister said in a hushed voice.
I stared at the name in disbelief as I had played baseball with
Anthony only last summer as he had been our shortstop on the Lions
never missing a game. Unfortunately, I had ridden the bench most of
the year catching splinters in my butt, only told to play right or left
outfield, all depending on where their hitters weren’t hitting.
A few tears trickled down.
Pretty soon my breathing would be all spasmy.
Hearing me sniff, Grandfather turned around and stared at me
annoyed, presumably, by my unmanliness.
“Ain’t nuthin’ big,” Grandfather’s voice boomed. “Death ain’t so bad.
In fact, it happens all the time.”
I stared at Mother expecting her to shut Grandfather up with her
eyes. But she just kept gazing at the newspaper and reached over, and
began massaging my neck.
“It’s really not as bad as you might think,” Grandfather Bayer kept
muttering. “It’s nothing but a tight shoe coming off your foot, a mitten
falling off your hand!”
But I kept thinking of Anthony though being crunched like a
lonesome egg, and how we had had good times blowing up bottle
rockets over Crazy Wess’s house and even threw some eggs.
I watched Grandfather turn the page. But the Hoover dam inside
broke. More tears poured out as I could barely see anything on this
stormy day.
Grandfather’s ugly morning breath came. I sensed again he was
staring at me with his ugly eyes.
“The person who’s dead’s alright. You’re just weeping up a storm for
yourself!”
“I am not.”
“Awww, this growing old stuff ain’t for sissies.”
I had had enough of his barking. I pushed Mother’s hands away,
hurled myself forward, and managed to kick Grandfather’s good leg
before I ran out of their room. I grabbed my books and ran out of the
Kevin Marley 167
house before Mother had a chance of catching up to embarrass me once
more.
After a few blocks, I stopped. I had virtually completed the Boston
Marathon with pancakes that were clumps in my belly, rolling over.
I took a few deep breaths and walked a few yards to the park where
Anthony and I sometimes played tree tag. We climbed sometimes thirty
to forty feet up in these trees risking life and limb. But now I sat down
on a swing seat and just decided to wait until I had to go to learn things
I didn’t want to learn.
Across the park, I watched a foolish little boy fly a kite. He ran around
in small circles, like a little madman, jerking his arm this way and that
way, trying to keep the kite away from some tall trees.
It was a Chinese kite with a dragon-like tail that swished in the wind.
But he couldn’t save the kite for the life of him. Lifelessly, the dragon
kite dove down dive bombing like a Stuka, almost crashing into the
cedar branches, and then he’d yank and yank on the string trying to save
the thing; and I think he did more harm than good cause the kite always
seemed to save itself when he’d let it alone.
But everything ended. The little kid got the kite to fly higher and
higher, but his welcomed breeze turned into a forceful gust as the kite
string suddenly snapped.
The little kid ran forward, stumbled, and fell down crying.
I sat staring at the kite moving up and up. It went past a flock of
geese and seemed to tumble over the clouds falling fast into Infinity.
I felt strangely happy.
The next few weeks nothing happened. Every day’s horizon was a
jump rope. And every morning, like most fools, I would pretend that I
was caught in a game, so far, that I was winning.
Grandfather Bayer began calming down again. He had tasted the
profound bitterness of life and drank it like Socrates. Like a dark bird on
a telephone wire, he crowed deeply a few more times waiting to migrate
to a strange land that I can barely remember. A few times he began
uncontrollably shivering, and his brown eyes would look out for help
as Mother would rush by his side putting a blanket over him with her
slender arms as though he had really changed and had become a child,
again.
But at the table, I offered no assistance to grab anything or by saying
anything cheerful. Often, I just sat staring at my plate for another fifteen
168 Soul Kitchen
minutes after my meal, making it perfectly clear to Grandfather that I
didn’t want the apology he would never give, nor did I want to part as
buddies just because he was quickly stepping through a darkened foyer;
for I still cursed him vehemently under my breath thinking of all the
handful of curse words I had so far learned.
On a rainy Friday afternoon, Grandfather died as we had been taken
out of school early to go to St. Madeline’s Hospital. Only one other
person I had known had died and gone to that other place, and the
wound was already strangely healing, the scar already forming.
But Grandfather’s death was different. There was no funeral
procession even though he had been a veteran. No Catholic priest. No
last rites. He didn’t want anything Mother said. “Grandfather just wants
to be cremated and his ashes scattered in our backyard garden for next
spring.”
Hillary, prone to all sorts of diseases, seemed to take it the worst. She
broke out in a terrible rash and existed as a pitiful wreck for the next
week and a half in the living room where Mother made a special sofa
bed for her so she could watch TV shows and eat Rocky Road ice cream
when bored. But mostly, it was the same old thing: Mother and Hillary
just sat like girls often do and endlessly talked, only this time they cried
a jig or two.
A couple times Mother wanted me to join them in their rainstorm
in the living room making a flood worse than what Noah and his ark
faced. But I refused – and sat on the steps watching them with a dry,
stubborn face that now gazed only at the very small meanness of things.
Halloween arrived on a Monday with school parties and treats, and
although I was afraid to ask, I had the distinct feeling that Mother hadn’t
completed my Musketeers’ costume yet. When I ran home from school,
she was working on it, but said she would have to start dinner soon.
“But it won’t be finished by tonight,” I exclaimed looking at the
Musketeer costume that was nothing but a bunch of colorful silk rags,
an empty scabbard, and a dull plastic sword.
Mother took a long look at the work she shad left. A deep weariness
showed on her face. “You’re right, Erik. I guess we’ll just have to resort
to something in Grandmother’s special trunk.”
I ran downstairs, and began frantically searching through the trunk.
There was nothing in it. “Girl’s clothes.” I threw a satin dress on the
Kevin Marley 169
cellar floor that danced across ballrooms forty years ago. Running
upstairs, I complained that the clothes were suited for a girl or that none
of Grandfather’s old clothes fitted me, and besides I don’t want to wear
those smelly old things anyway, I blurted out.
Hillary tried to knife me with a stare.
Quickly, Mother got up from her kitchen seat and ran downstairs,
and after seeing for herself that there was nothing for me to wear in the
old trunk, she said with a tone that sounded close to defeat, “I’ll just
have to run to K-Mart to buy your costume.”
“But most of the stores are out of costumes.”
I stared into my Mother’s face. Tears like broken glass fell. Cutting
everything. But somehow, I miraculously rose to the occasion like
Jesus who wanted to do some good things two thousand years ago, but
who had the unfortunate luck of being surrounded by too many bad
disciples.
“I can stay home tonight,” I blurted out. “Hillary’s going to be staying
home. I can stay home, too.”
But Mother looked at me.
“No, you’ll feel better if you go out and collect candy, my little
Aramis.”
Mother finally got an idea and quickly decided what costume I would
wear. She ran into the laundry room, and began looking for something.
Upstairs, the doorbell rang, and I could hear the footsteps of the first
trick or treaters sounding above. Carrying a long white sheet, Mother
came out of the laundry room, smiled sheepishly, and threw a big sheet
over my head, measuring the holes for my eyes, mouth and arms.
By seven o’clock, I was ready. With jack-o-lantern, I eagerly started
out thinking that this is what Magellan himself must have felt before he
began sailing around the world.
A treasure trove awaited.
Hurrying down Collier Circle, I marched towards my first house
crunching dry leaves with my sneakers. Ghouls and goblins passed by.
Witches and Warlocks murmured their incantations with incredible
powers. Aliens who no doubt had descended from the skies to see our
small island in these vast cosmos were watching us. And swashbuckling
pirates from the Caribbean were making raids on Spanish galleons. The
night was bewitched. Pandora’s Box had been opened and many spirits
170 Soul Kitchen
reigned. After seeing all this, I knocked and knocked on my first door
for several minutes.
An old man gruff answered.
With a strong shove, the old man opened the oak door and waited
for me to walk into a pitch-dark room with only a strange glow. He
looked mean, old and stupid. I stood frozen staring at Hell itself. My
muscles tensed like a cat’s. My back reared up and I hissed.
“Goddamn, I ain’t a pervert,” a voice boomed.
The door slammed.
I stood on the steps of this House starting to shiver, hearing inside
and outside howls and shrieks.
Quickly, I ran back home, tripping over my sheet and bumping into
many dark unseen things. There were many strange beings everywhere
of ghosts and goblins, demons and monsters, and even elves and faeries,
and if we looked further upwards, sylphs and gnomes, and even angels.
But here was the bottom of the barrel. A long parade of ugly demons,
ghosts, and other beings were leaving my house as I screamed with
pandemonium. I ran inside. Mother struck by my early arrival removed
the ghastly sheet. Salty raindrops drenched my face.
Finally, I decided I didn’t want to be a ghost anymore.
The Kafe Buffet
The diner was barely a tin can of hot metal and a tarred roof baking
in the angry sun just off the New Jersey Turnpike. You just had to take
Exit 4 and then turn right on Route 73, and right again on Fellowship
Road to get there before coming to their Kafe Buffet’s driveway that was
never adequately marked with white stripes so that people just parked
wherever the hell they wanted to being New Jerseyites, that is, a special
breed of people who have strong backbones, garrulous lips, and nasal
toned voices and who while driving are very prone to use American
sign language a lot. During summertime, the Kafe looked like a big
sardine can so that if you pulled back the top out would pop a lot of
orderly sardines in thick oil and marinara sauce.
But of course, Mikey Fizzano, a hot-headed Sicilian, would get
pissed since he was the owner of the place, and it was his church and
congregation.
But who knows?
The Kafe was really a great place during awful times where we
just ate and ate, and ate some more, before we had to purge ourselves
before going back and eating more food again. We were like the ancient
Romans, and had a lot of fun, maybe, just too much before the place
was closed.
“It’s one of those inconspicuous places,” my Uncle Fabbie said
drinking from a bottle of Pisano wine, “but you’ll love the food there.
They get it just right.”
“They got the best burgers and fries to die for,” Connie chimed in.
“If I were on death row, and they asked me for my last meal, and I
don’t care if I was sittin’ on Alcatraz Island in some shitty cell, I’d say,
‘Get me one of them burgers from Kafe in New Jersey.’ And I think
they’d have to do that since it was your last meal and all,” Danny said as
he was a little overfamiliar with the judicial system in Trenton.
172 Soul Kitchen
The police swarmed the place though right around Labor Day, after
the killings and after a bunch of wildfires had hit the New Jersey pines.
We had gone there over the weekend, looking to relax after breaking
our backs working for a bunch of Wall Street overlords who wanted
to make billions of dollars in the shadiest manner as we looked the
other way, and bent rules to where they were unrecognizable, and
misconstrued things, and twisted the truth, and expertly mangled the
English language to where it ultimately persuaded and said something,
but it meant nothing in the final analysis.
Like hogs feeding at trough, we buried our hungry faces into
the menus and salivated and had dreams and more dreams of food,
packing the pounds on just thinking about it. I was in a booth with
my wife, Kathleen, and our five kids, where we had come to enjoy a
regular dinner, but where I would witness a Zapruder film frame-by
frame tragedy from the supposed gunshots in the book repository to
the grassy knoll shots to the entire unraveling hysteria.
But Maggie started the whole thing off with a shebang.
Maggie told the waitress: “I’ll take the Suicide Burger with extra
cheese. Along with High Blood Pressure Fries with the Stroke-Me-Out
Salt and Die Young Mayo.”
“Anything to drink?”
“I’ll take a Bloody Mary and Gimme-Some-Heart-Burn Chocolate
Cheesecake.”
Her jowls shook with laughter like one of those hogs on Nolan’s
Farm. She had an attractive face that had been weathered over the past
years from depression and she had the dark bags under her eyes that
could have been used for shopping bags to prove it, just in case.
“I’m splurging since I just gotta raise.”
“And you ma’am?”
“I don’t know ‘bout you. But I’m famished” Stella said having come
back from a recent Wildwood vacation with her kids. “I’ll take The
Myocardial Infarction Pizza with everything on it, except the kitchen
sink, dear. Make sure it has the hot dog stuffed pizza crust. And that you
give me some packets of Blow-It-Out-Your-Butt Texarkana Hot Sauce,
too. And a diet Coke.”
Stella pulled in her brown chair, and huffed and puffed more like a
chugging locomotive, always going up a steep hill. Her reddish hair was
Kevin Marley 173
still up in curlers. But she pulled out her compact mirror anyways to
check her makeup and put on more coral pink lipstick.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m looking to finally cure myself of hellish anorexia,” Sam said
chuckling as he scratched his arm that could’ve been a runway model’s
thigh. “Lemme see. What am I Jonesing for? Tonight, I’m gonna go
French, and get the Mac Lobsta’ with freshly made noodles spruced
with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon
and mascarpone.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on it, sir?”
“I’m goin’ for the homemade Velveeta stuff, ok?”
“Anything else tonight?”
“I’ll take a Clog-Those-Arteries Filet Mignon Steak and a Shortcut-To?Heaven Blueberry Milkshake to wash it all down right before I get my
will signed in my lawyer’s office tomorrow. Hopefully, my luck won’t
run out on me as my second wife and kids would be pissed.”
He tucked in his lumberjack shirt that kept falling out and rubbed
his hand over his tummy like an expectant mother.
“And you, sir”
“Hell, I’m gonna out do all of you chickens, and get The Vertical
Burger with ten patties and twelve slices of cheese, and I’ll take The
Thick Menstrual Ketchup along with the Die Young Mayo with your
secret sauce, too,” Bernie said as he bit his upper lip feeling a sharp pain.
“And put a couple of ‘em Krispy Kreme Donuts on it for my hamburger
buns – I hate it when people can’t go big and start countin’ calories
when in a fine restaurant like this.”
“What would you like to drink, sir?”
“Today’s Friday. I got about as much energy as a slug. I’ll take a
Mocha IV with a new syringe and one of ‘em slow drips in my right
arm. Should wake me up some.”
The place buzzed. People were slap happy.
“How’s the job goin’ Maggie?” Bernie asked as he was still getting
over the loss of his ex-wife, Lena.
“I’m fine so long as I ain’t got to fly from JFK to Los Angeles, again.
My boss got so ticked off.”
“For what?”
“Cause I got pulled out of the pre-boarding line and charged two
fares for taking up two seats by American Airlines.”
174 Soul Kitchen
“Why?”
“I’ve been labeled as morbidly obese by them using a scientific chart
profiling my weight and my height.”
“Goddamn. I can’t stand livin’ in a skinny-ass centric world these
days.”
“The nerve of those people.”
“My boss now may not fly me since we went substantively over
budget on the trip. If that happens, I’ll probably lose my Efficiency 5
Rating and be susceptible to a layoff the next time around.”
“You should sue ‘em.”
“Naw. I can’t”
“How come?”
“Didn’t you hear the Supreme Court ruling last week?”
“Nope.”
“It’s called Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Not half as bad as you might think.”
“Whadya mean?”
“The media’s calling it: Fat People vs. The Rest of Us.”
“How dare their bony asses!”
“Is this a sick joke?”
“No, I wish it were.”
“Then what?”
“It’s about tens of thousands of workers having to taste test a bunch
of high calorie blueberry to glazed to chocolate to crème-filled donuts
and eclairs, some for years at a time. Now, most of them put on a lot of
weight and had commensurate health problems, and now they want to
be compensated for the damage, and there are others who now are so
fat that they can’t get off the damn couch and want long-term disability,
too. And believe it or not, the public thinks it’s their fault.”
“They weren’t borne that way.”
“Not their fault, at all.”
“Fat people are taken advantage of every day,” Sam said, as he was
tired of being looked at as F-A-T. “We’re labeled as being lazy and
sloppy. But we’re thought of as always being easy going and jolly like
we’re an out-of-season Santa Claus. At the same time, they train us to
eat the worse food imaginable.”
Kevin Marley 175
“Amen, brother!”
“But in Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts the Supreme Court
had to decide if being morbidly obese was a long-term disability.
Companies panicked. Insurers did, too. The rest of the public became
more inflamed than a charcoal broiler during the fourth of July. The
so-called experts said it would take, at least, a trillion a year if fat people
became permanently disabled and we had to take care of them as they
sat on the couch, weeping into their handkerchiefs watching reruns of
Dr. Phil, Maury Popovich, and Oprah Winfrey all day while snacking
on anything that didn’t move.
“But they ruled against us big time!
“The public rejoiced. They had a field day on all those TV networks
telling their favorite fat jokes: “Your momma so fat she left the house
wearing high heels and came back wearing flip flops!”; “Your momma so
fat I ran outta gas trying to drive around her!”; “That guy’s so fat, he shows
up on radar!”; “If Betsy fell into the Grand Canyon, she’d get stuck!”; “Why
did the Mr. Softy Truck stop coming to our neighborhood? It got hijacked
by the fat kids.”; “Can fat people go skinny dipping?”; “What is Newton’s
Law of Motion? A fat body will stay a fat body in motion unless acted
upon by an outside Force.”; “Why did the fat man like his big tummy.
Cause it was a bitch repeller.”; “How do you seduce a fat woman? Piece of
cake.” and “I’m not fat. I’m just four feet too short.”
“Don’t they know?”
“No, they don’t.”
“We’re the biggest minority in this entire country!”
“Bigger than Blacks and Latinos combined.”
“There’s a pandemic of Fat People and we’re taking over the world!
Soon the Presidents, The Prime Ministers and the legislators and the
courts will all be filled with Fat People – and we’ll finally get our just
desserts.”
“OUR OWN PIECE OF THE PIE!”
“WITH WHIPCREAM ON IT!”
“AND A FEW MARASCHINO CHERRIES!”
Everyone was as starved as The Donner Party and getting ready to
resort to cannibalism, if necessary, but, at last, the food leaving trails of
the finest aromas came.
176 Soul Kitchen
Maggie began devouring her Suicide Burger, half raw with reddish?brown blood, and nonchalantly, washing it down with a stiff Blood
Mary. The High Blood Pressure Fries flushed her face, neck, and chest
pink complementing her makeup for such an occasion, and made beads
of sweat, like tiny jewels, appear.
“Oh, my God! This definitely hits the spot like one of them surgical
strikes in, oh, I forget, umm, in Iran.”
Sam was as hungry as a wild horse.
His feeding bucket, I mean, his Mac Lobsta’ with Velveeta Cheese
came along with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of
fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone.
He leaned to the right side – and blew his bugle horn.
“Oh, Sam!”
“What?”
“Not here!”
“That’s my pressure valve.”
Stella was gasping with sheer delight over her culinary choices, but
started feeling keen pain in her left arm as she winced.
“I’d take some nitroglycerine, girl. That’s a real Myocardial Infarction
Pizza if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, Bernie, I’m fine. I ate dozens of these in my younger days and all
I got for it was that I became a real BBW for all these men in town who
desperately wanted a woman with some rare, fine meat on her bones.
You’d be surprised how many men from the mayor to the lawyers in
town that have a Chunky Ass Fetish. Their wives would be too!”
“I didn’t know.”
“Dunno what?”
“Didn’t know you were in such demand, girl.”
“That’s almighty fine for you, Stella. But I’m tired of being called fat,”
Bernie sighed as he began trying to scale his Vertical Burger in a free
climb without any kind of rope or pylons. “It doesn’t sit well with me,
anymore. I mean, the kids near my house used to call me Java the Hut,
and I’d play along with it doing his deep voice and pretending to deep
freeze Han Solo. But one day, I told ‘em I don’t want to play this anymore.
They said, ‘Why?’ And I told ‘em even Java the Hut has feelings.”
“Good job, Bernie.”
“Those kids need to be re-educated.”
“Those smart ass kids aren’t educable, Maggie.”
Kevin Marley 177
“Well, we should organize ourselves, especially, since we’re gonna
become the silent majority soon in the good Ol’ U.S. of A.,” Maggie
said as she began cutting into her Gimme-Some-Heartburn Chocolate
Cheesecake which gave her naturally acid reflux which even a bottle of
Tums couldn’t defeat. She could feel it rushing up into her filled mouth,
but through sheer will was able to swallow and keep it all down for now.
“How are we gonna do that?”
“Maybe, The Fat Suffragette Movement.”
“What’s that?
“Kinda like the Women’s Movement in the 1920’s to where we all
have meetings and protests nationwide, discuss the important issues,
and naturally to make everyone comfortable, we bring along homemade
cookies, NY cheesecake, tarts, Italian pudding cake, brownies, and
Rocky Road, Pistachio Nut, Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream,
and sherbet! And what else? Oh, yeah, we could bring an assortment of
Pennsylvania Dutch pies—I know a great bakery down the street that
does them, cannolis, chocolates and truffles, and anything else that my
gastric juices can digest but for the present time I can’t remember.”
“Sounds good but too expensive, Marge.”
“The budget would be a killer.”
“What we really need is to have a big leader, almost, who can speak
to people’s hopes and fears and dramatically shift public opinion and
get things done.”
“Like a Joe McCarthy!” Stella said.
“We could have The House Un-American Activities Committee!”
Sam chimed in throwing down his Shortcut-to-Heaven Milkshake.
“And do what?’ Bernie asked as Stella gasped, and fell onto the floor
hard and cold as a stone.
But everyone knew, even the waitresses that she had done this once
to get out of a very expensive restaurant bill at Bookbinders when she
had been binging for weeks at a time.
“Nah, what I’m talking about is to have a potent message. We should
be coherent and talk about how American it is to eat your per Capita
amount of apple pie, hamburgers and hotdogs, anything that comes
from an outdoor grill, potato salad and pounds of Velveeta cheese – and
that if you don’t, you should be put under suspicion for NOT EATING
AMERICAN.”
178 Soul Kitchen
“That way, we’d have the upper hand!” Maggie said feeling woozy
after eating most of her Suicide Burger.
“And we’d still have the bigger tummies!”
“And do what after that?’ Bernie asked as he began uncontrollably
twitching from his gastrointestinal speed ball – from the lude-like
effects of the Vertical Burger while he still had the Mocha IV quintuple
expresso stuck in his arm.
With that, Sam drained his Short-Cut to-Heaven Milkshake making
a loud slurping sound, more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, as most of
the patrons craned their stiff necks to look over.
The Jersey Devil himself emerged from the burnt pine woods with a
pitchfork and appeared in a puff of black smoke.
“Lucifer and His Minions!”
Ka-thump!
Sam had fallen over like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of
Idaho potatoes onto the floor keeling over, dead as door knob.
Most went back to voraciously eating at their troughs. Maggie
though had had enough of these strange shenanigans.
“Waitress!!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Uh, we just called 9-1-1.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That man threw down a Short-Cut-to-Heaven Milkshake, and saw
Lucifer and his minions.”
“I’m not sure what I saw, ma’am.”
“Right now, he’s probably in purgatory cause of your false advertising.”
The waitress threw up her hands and glanced at the manager.
“At The Kafe Buffet, Ma’am, we try our darnest to bring you the most
delicious and wholesome cooked food possible at the cheapest prices so
that the down out and the in-between and the fancy rich can come in
here, and find something to eat while having fun.”
“Well, could you please check on Stella?”
The waitress bent down, felt her jugular.
“It doesn’t appear she has a pulse or anything,” the waitress said in
a Kentucky drawl, “but don’t worry, the ambulance should be here any
minute.”
Kevin Marley 179
“Well, at least, that makes sense,” Maggie replied as she threw down
the rest of her Bloody Mary and motioned for two more.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just got done your Myocardial Infarction Pizza with the
hotdog crust. At least, that’s true advertising. And it makes sense, in a
world that has gone Pistachio Nuts!”
“Is that all, Ma’am?”
“Nope, I’ll take the World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae. And
don’t forget this time to bring the Chocolate United Airlines jet with it, too!
Bernie, do you wanna share?”
“Nah, I’ll just splurge and go for my Empire State Building Sundae
with one hundred and two edible floors, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, could you PLEASE remove those two bodies and put them in the
back room cause they are seriously killing our appetites.”
“I’m only here to help, ma’am, and to serve you the meals that you
ordered.”
She sauntered towards the kitchen door.
The men salivated like Pavlovian dogs over her spicy breasts and
lean beefy hips as they swiveled, looking for a raw bone with some meat
on it.
“I can’t believe how much IQ’s have dropped.”
“Neither can I.”
“They’re the most dumbest I’ve seen.”
“Much worse than I thought.”
“Sure are.”
“We got our backs up against it.”
“Heck, we need to find someone like Lyndon B. Johnson who can
press and cajole people into signing legislation.”
“Like a Civil Rights Bill for Fat People Who Can’t Get Enough
Respect?”
“Exactly.”
“I can hear it now from the Capitol: ‘Ask not what that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie can do for you! But what you can do for that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie!’”
“That was JFK, not Lyndon, Bernie.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
180 Soul Kitchen
“But it could pass.”
“But right now, I’m focused on this World Trade Center Super
Duper Sundae, and damn if they haven’t forgotten the Chocolate United
Airline Flight 175, again! Must’ve went off the radar on ‘em.”
“Their tip is goin’ on life support now.”
“Waitress! Waitress!”
Bernie began eating The Empire State Building with a complementary
King Kong hanging from it. His fork expertly crushed about ten floors
of The Empire State Building when Maggie began talking about how
much she loved Kafe Buffet and Old Glory and America.
“All this negative press – it ain’t deserved.”
“Love it – or Leave it!”
“I can’t stand people who wanna burn the flag and criticize this
country and become apologists to the terrorists and talk about how
much we need to change. I think they all should be deported.”
Bernie grunted.
“I mean, I love The Good ol’ U.S. of A. so much I could gobble it up
like this here Neapolitan ice cream!”
With that, Bernie began raucously laughing while thirty floors of
The Empire State were in his mouth. Unfortunately, he inhaled, and
most of the floors sans furniture, of course, slid down his windpipe as
he began choking.
“Someone do something!”
“I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.”
“Neither do I.”
Maggie began to panic as her face flushed red, like a fresh beet.
“Eat more, Bernie! If you eat more, you’ll force the rest of the food
stuck in your throat down into your stomach like a train moving along.”
Frustrated, she ran over to him, and began cutting through The
Empire State Building, almost forty floors, and tried to force feed Bernie
who gasped and gasped, and waved his arms.
“What do you want?!”
“Not you lady.”
“What an idiot!”
Bernie pressed his fist to his stomach and then cupped motioning
that he wanted the Heimlich maneuver done. Maggie ran behind him
and put her stout arms around his waist and began pushing up and into
his diaphragm.
Kevin Marley 181
The patrons watched still voraciously eating and ordering food.
At first, nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ! Come on, Bernie. Cough this shit up!”
Spectacularly, then about 30 floors of The Empire State Building were
coughed up in pristine condition like they had not even been eaten.
Then the rest of it, even the tower. Bernie was still gasping for precious
O2
as Maggie continued. Soon, his Vertical Burger was coughed up in
perfect condition with ten grilled patties of delicious hamburger meat,
twelve slices of finely melted cheese, and Krispy Kreme Donuts as
hamburger buns, almost dripping hot off the serving platter.
“I guess he had indigestion.”
“Yep.”
“Sure did.”
Bernie, however, was still turning shades of deep blue. Maggie
continued with renewed strength as she didn’t want to see another
friend collapse.
Up came lunch.
Once again, it was like it had never be eaten and passed hungry lips:
This time, it was an exquisitely French-chef made chaud-froid of egg
capped with sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream which, of course,
belonged to a main entrée of foie gras custard with haricot beans and
boudine blanc.
Another heave ho!
Quite miraculously, then came the main course comprised of a very
delicious hickory smoked veal rump with coffee emulsion made in an
exquisite manner by the most delicate hands followed by a rich dessert
of chocolate ganache with blueberries.
A few bystanders gawked – it was a miracle!
“Heck, it looks like he never even touched it.”
“Someone should grab a plate. Chow down!”
“Why not? It’s free.”
By now, Bernie was turning Persian blue. More meals began coming
up from the depths of his stomach that seemed to be almost infinite: last
night’s midnight snack of anchovy pizza, a five-course dinner, an Italian
lunch consisting of a pound of pasta and a hearty American breakfast
along with deluxe nachos, a few Kit Kat bars, and a bag of glazed donuts
182 Soul Kitchen
from the day before – they had all been discounted bargains, too hard
to ignore.
“This guy’s a treasure chest.”
“He’s coughed up everything.”
“Grab a dish!”
Desperate, Maggie gave one more final pull as Bernie’s mouth
suddenly enlarged, and a finely polished kitchen sink flew from his
mouth, and landed ka-thud onto the table.
“Never saw that before!”
“Me, too.”
Bernie collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
And was dead.
Maggie sobbed.
A few of the patrons of Kafe Buffet tried to console her.
“It’ll be alright.”
“He’s up there with Jesus shaking hands right now.”
“Not one of them there sparrows falls to the ground outside your
Father’s care.”
Maggie had had enough. She grabbed a steak knife and pushed them
away as a small circle of friendly neighbors surrounded her.
“Something’s wrong here, folks. How can a black man be lying there on
the floor navy blue in the face? How can he throw up everything including
the kitchen sink?
“This here ain’t normal.
“Life’s not supposed to be this bizarre.
“We’re just people eating a regular dinner and then the shit hits the
fan and everyone’s dead in my group? Sam, Stella and now Bernie? You
poisoned our food and drink. This is some kind of conspiracy.”
“Maggie put the knife down.”
“What did all of us have in common?”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
“I’m gonna find out what happened.”
“We’re here to help.”
“You could’ve helped Bernie!”
“Bernie had eaten too much.”
“Nothing could be done for him.”
“But you can save me?”
Kevin Marley 183
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From yourself.”
Maggie lunged at a few of them who were wearing hunting gear and
plain clothes with a serrated steak knife.
“Get back! Get back!”
The patrons obliged moving back a few steps.
“This here’s as serious as a heart attack!”
“Now, don’t do nuthin’ stupid?”
“You callin’ me stupid?!”
“I’m just saying you ate a Suicide Burger.”
“You’re sayin’ I didn’t read the menu!”
“No, I’m not saying that, Maggie.”
“I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doin’.”
“Ok.”
“We just want what you want, Maggie. And that’s for this here thing
to be finally over.”
“Me, too.”
With that, Maggie cut her jugular vein so that the blood spewed
worse than at a slaughter house gushing all over and running mahogany
red onto the floor. The dishwasher came and mopped it up swishing
with suds, and wringing the mess into a few buckets, and the endless
patrons who came to The Kafe from all walks of life went back to their
seats barely missing a drum beat, errr, leg.
Secrets of The Prison House
“Life’s stranger than fiction, gentlemen. No one exactly anticipated
these things, these kind of monumental paradigm shifts like glaciers
breaking off Antarctica. They’re like a Hollywood script writer going
berserk with an overactive imagination. Never could anyone, even
Alvin Toffler, or the best futuristic thinkers have anticipated this kind
of thing happening in a million years,” Mark said as he looked fatigued
before he poured another tall glass of Chardonnay. “Anyone else?” “No,
thanks.” “Mark, I think you had enough ….” “Enough of what? Enough
of committing professional suicide, like the rest of us? Of creating a
compendium of engrams that contains more powerful and possibly
destructive information than the previous Manhattan Project? Come
on, gentlemen, we’ve treated people no better than shabby guinea pigs
that drank from water bottles and shat in their wired cages,” Mark said
as he was a Princeton neurologist who had to make the beltway trip
every weekend to our nondisclosed military installation.
“I’m just tired of these lies. The ones I have to tell my wife. Aren’t
you? They’ve turned us into Dr. Mengele and his cohorts.”
From what I could see, Mark was about to go on a binge, again,
questioning The Patriot Act and Homeland Security as we ate dinner in
Marras while a few customers turned their heads.
We weren’t being trailed – or at least I didn’t think so.
I’m sure NSA went through all our emails and telecommunications
since we were classified as ‘assets’ and we had a very high security
clearance at a time when another Cold War was upon us.
But diarrhea of the mouth wasn’t tolerated.
He would be risking our high-level security clearance, as well.
Mark looked more like a balding Roman Senator during at time,
maybe a millennium and a half ago, when The Republic fell. Like the
Kevin Marley 185
rest of us, he pondered the opening gambits in this intricate game of
not two, but three-dimensional chess played where kings and queens
still ruled with an iron fist, and bishops and knights, and rooks followed
their strict orders; and alas, when all was said and done, we were merely
their disposable pawns.
Washington, D.C. was busy, as usual, as the capitol, the incessant
talking head of America. There were meetings, and house cleanings, as
one party went through the revolving door, and left the White House,
and then another ceremoniously entered as things grew more and more
dire. Any semblance of democracy was gone – vanished as Water Wars
and Oil Wars commenced and terrorism waned, and then grew, and
then grew some more as nation states under severe strain in terms of
resources and growing populations began to crumble, and the division
of the haves and have-nots grew.
The world was falling apart before our eyes as graves stood tenantless
and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber, some.
By this time, the Emperor had no clothes as he walked about
completely naked in his Grecian temple and everyone complemented
him on his finely woven raiment. He ascended to his throne and golden
seat that had been obsequiously dusted off by a servant. The public
applauded as more edicts were handed down in a capricious manner,
with finely sounding patriotic names, as the intelligentsia were hard at
work behind the scenes contemplating how to maintain this crumbling
façade of a democracy and a Republic. The stench of defeat was in the
air more like Caesar’s Rome before it fell to the unruly Huns.
None of us had Time for this nonsense.
But then again, all this nonsense was about Time.
But what was it?
At last, a mathematical formula.
“I’m just surprised we didn’t think of it sooner. We could have been
more astute. Someone could have looked at the human physiology more
as an impressive video recorder even if they did not have the quantum
mechanical computer to download the terabytes and then play them,”
David said as he was our ancient Hebrew scholar borrowed from Tel
Aviv University who often was quiet deferring to others.
“Everyone was thinking, differently,” Sam interjected.
186 Soul Kitchen
“But isn’t it amazing that all this time we thought of history more as
belonging to the realm of artifacts and excavations from ancient Egypt
with its tombs to India and its Taj Mahal palaces to Samaria instead of
something that was actually palpable and genetic.” He waved his hand
like a short white flag of surrender, and detested this entire charade
masquerading as modern science. In short, we were on a godless quest
for very specific engrams, and according to the Pentagon and Homeland
Security, it didn’t matter how many innocent people we had wrongly
detained, then maimed or inadvertently killed because they had the
right genetic markers for having lived during these critical time periods.
Mark stared at David. His brain had been thoroughly pickled in
martinis and the finest whiskey during the past two years, and in truth,
we were all gauging our culpability and guilt in this new Manhattan
Project as we feared a significant shift in the political winds in
Washington D.C. and even in America, in short, afraid people would
one fateful day wake up with a strong rebuking conscience.
“We believed that by going back into time to attain these newer
technologies before the Russians and Chinese did that the ends justified
the means. And by virtue of that, we were doing our country a great
service. But this time, no doubt, we are on the wrong side of history.
“At last, we’re the bad guys.”
Oddly, in Marra’s, where we feasted on a wonderful smorgasbord of
thin slices of handmade pizza, pasta fazool, meat lasagna, bruschetta,
calamari, marinara, and fettuccine and washed it down with pitchers
of cold frothy beer, Felicita played like a fresh spring breeze; and after a
harsh winter that had frozen the marrow in our bones, we felt we could
live again, somehow. Maybe, we would be reborn like the green buds
from the dirty soil.
Children were happy to be playing baseball outside. Birds were
migrating northward again following the light. Azaleas and roses were
sprouting with their petaled faces turned towards the sun.
Things would get better.
But more than likely, we were deceiving ourselves; and for some
reason, we got infinitely better at it.
My head throbbed from another migraine as my stomach rumbled
from eating too quickly. Maybe, they were going on strike after all these
years of virtual slave labor. I dipped my Italian bread in a dish of oil as
the waitress came to take our order as we ate in this family restaurant
Kevin Marley 187
every week more like an anodyne, a couple of aspirins, to ease our
growing existential worries.
Life remained the same, an incredible opportunity before falling
apart – despite all our efforts to bend it to our Herculean will so that it
wouldn’t end in tragedy.
Yet, The Cosmic Eggshell was broken.
A yellow downy chick was emerging.
It was Wednesday evening – as it was deemed so by our Roman
calendars and even by our Rolex and digital watches. Yet, it is always
Wednesday evening in the folds of space and time as we were told by
our theoretical physicists. It was just a matter of reorienting ourselves.
Finally, we were done with the dirty work of digging for more and
more engrams as we had washed our filthy hands for the day and even
had taken showers; and now we sat more like academicians at dinner
looking over our notes. The fourth dimension had been codified as a
long series of very intricate and complex algorithms, which had been
aided by the discovery of some new subatomic particles.
Time, however, kept repeating itself more like a needle skipping on
a vinyl record. Skipping. Endlessly, we gossiped about work, family,
and friends to distract ourselves, and then carefully waxed and waned
about the many things we had found from so-called bygone times
from the American Revolution to the Civil War to ancient Egypt to the
Greeks and Romans in an Italian restaurant passed down in the family
for several generations. The restaurant had a certain kind of ambience
where we could forget the exigencies of work and the fetid, boorish
politics of The D.C. Beltway.
A small statue of David gazed out and reminded us of the importance
of art, beauty, and truth.
We kept eating delicious Italian food, like there was no tomorrow,
on red and white checkered cloth as there were Impressionist paintings
of Rome, Venice and even Pompeii about us. We were become half?inebriated. Many of the patrons were doing the exact same thing eating
comfort food and numbing themselves as they were talking with their
hands, trying to ignore the decline of our own empire. There was a
resounding chorus of strong voices, even in our heads, if we listened
closely.
“Tutto è meraviglioso.”
“Si.”
188 Soul Kitchen
“Questo non è altro che amore.”
Was it true? Everything that William Blake had said? That Dante
Alighieri had written about?
Worlds upon many mysterious worlds, never dreamt of, except by
inspired poets, were colliding with one another like billiard balls – as
there was a New Heaven and a New Earth being slowly formed as things
were becoming more surreal by the minute.
We were now listening to Arrivederci Roma as our faces were filled,
beyond our usual easy casual smiles, with a ghastly fear.
In this group of elite scientists, culled from the finest institutions,
Sam was our defacto leader since many of us were apprehensive about
this new kind of science where we rummaged through people’s brains
and physiology for engrams, and then stored them for posterity, giving
the important ones to Homeland Security. He was a very handsome,
sun tanned and mid-thirties cognitive neuroscientist from Harvard
University who was originally from Oakridge, Tennessee which
obviously had been an important center for the original Manhattan
Project. He stood six foot-two and with his dark framed glasses and
well-trimmed features he easily had an air of confidence that he exuded.
Quietly, I admired him for he had an inimitable Southern charm,
especially, with the ladies; and since, ultimately, he had everything I
had not – an oratorical gift, a well-established career path with many
prestigious publications behind him that had led to tenure at Harvard
University, a beautiful wife, Mellissa, and two young children, and even
a palatial estate – almost out of a Mark Twain novel with hanging willow
trees, and a small fish-filled lake; and in short, Sam had never really lost
at anything in life.
“I’m not gonna go into our culpability, gentlemen. We can argue that
we were good soldiers simply taking orders. But if the political winds
strongly shift in Washington, D.C., we’re in trouble,” Sam said as he
tried to allay our anxieties, ironically enough.
“And if they don’t?”
“If not, and the American people themselves remain like docile
sheep and cattle, and braying like donkeys, we’ll be forgotten everyone
except by The New Historians.
“But think about it. Mankind’s history is only five million years
old, right? A mere blip on the screen, cosmologically speaking. Well,
unbelievably, there have been only three explanations for our own
Kevin Marley 189
existence as human beings, namely: 1) The Earth, life itself, and our
own human evolution is nothing more than the result of a biological
serendipity, and that when we die it’s ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as
they say. Essentially, we don’t continue unless we have offspring; 2) Or
if we believe the Bible, we are here as Children of God, and due to the
fall of Adam and Eve, we are being perennially tested with temptation
during our lives here. In this theological scenario, if we repeatedly sin,
we go to Hell, for all of eternity. But if we are good or repent, we go
to Heaven and enjoy immortality; Or 3) There’s the more mysterious
explanation that’s been out there for many thousands of years, human
reincarnation. Man’s not a mere physical body, but a Soul; he’s a Spark
of the Divine flame, as the Mystery Schools have stated from ancient
Greece and Rome, and onwards. Like a carpenter, he’s building
both physical and etheric bodies to travel to many realms to garner
experiences. Essentially, Man’s learning important life lessons in this
one room schoolhouse, and reincarnation or rebirth is the overriding
reason for all the discrepancies down here. We’re at different stages of
physical, mental and spiritual development as some are focused on
sheer survival, others are working on material development in this
world, while a few are learning their last lessons as human beings,
namely, how to expand human consciousness, and they are attempting
to become Mahatmas or great souls.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense really and can explain the
present-day inequities.
“Right, gentlemen?”
Bob Akin grumbled a bit. His bulging eyes were like that of a
bullfrog as he was chain smoking Marlboro cigarettes and had to suffer
the indignity of never dating women who were his first, or even second
choice. However, he was part of the Mensa society, and he was our
philologist in-residence with almost a freakish photographic memory
who could quote William Faulkner and Papa Hemingway and even
Chaucer in Middle English, if you told him the specific passage. But at
the same time, he had the personality of a bold and reckless gambler
who had a history of winning big in black jack games in Reno and Vegas
before being banned by most casinos.
“It’s there in literature if you look closely,” Bob said in his Kentucky
drawl. “It’s all there in the Gnostic writings, the Vedas and their fantastic
stories of rishis and sages performing magical feats, and The Tao with
190 Soul Kitchen
their Chinese masters floating away on the backs of white cranes into
the sunset. Surprisingly, or not, those stories support what we are finally
seeing through The Brain Reader that there is much more to life than
meets the eye.”
“But who and what are we are the paramount questions as Man has
changed so drastically,” Alex said as he drank another beer and ate more
linguini. “Who would have thought that we had lived in Atlantis and
Lemuria long ago?”
“Indubitably, we’re talking about an entirely new concept for the
scientific community, ‘Soul Growth,’” Bob interjected as he often
wanted the floor. “But what have we found, when we have finally seen
the much bigger picture of involution and evolution? Essentially, Man
is a Traveler to many different planets and realms as his many bodies
are like finely built vehicles. We step into our cars and then drive down
the proverbial road of life, before stepping out and moving to another
adventure.
“Long ago, the Gnostics had these same doctrines of reincarnation
and even of karma in their Christian teachings that we’re beginning to
reassert. Mystic Christianity was potent in its original ideology before it
became watered down and corrupted. But the funny thing is: You can’t
institutionalize a major religion with these concepts so they were later
omitted by the Church Elders.”
“That’s right,” Sam said as he adjusted his glasses. “Read Divine
Comedy. Or Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality that harkens
to the very fact that we will be around here existing for thousands of
years, not in these flesh and blood bodies, of course. But nonetheless
alive! The Bard of Stratford upon Avon himself thoroughly appreciated
the bawdiness of people, while at the same time, speaking of a much
greater reality. Indeed, Hamlet’s own father dressed as a warrior warns
his son: ‘I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale
unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young
blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted
and combined locks to part, and each particular hair stand on end like
quills upon the fretful porcupine.’
“It’s the same thing, gentlemen, only we’re beginning through
modern science and the quantum computer to unlock the secrets of the
prison house.”
Kevin Marley 191
Bob joined in, again.
“Or read The Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, or Walt Whitman who in their various
gifts of rhetoric poetically argued more for the quantum mechanical
world than a blasé Newtonian. They talk more of the Soul than the
body, if you sense their deeper meaning.”
“There has been a tectonic shift in the world view of things, more
like the fall of fascism in the mid-1940’s or that of communism in the
late 1980’s as the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall fell,” David ventured
as he drank more wine, “And how this all pans out, who knows when
the music stops?”
Slowly, we were unraveling with our grubby fingers what had often
been called The Present. What a name! How true! Ultimately, it turned
out to be an exacting riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma
many had tried to figure out for centuries, but failed.
More music played on.
With dark beguiling eyes, an Italian girl in a short black dress made
her way table. She was a gorgeous flower, exuding perfumed-like air,
and then she asked if we needed anything, as if her palpable miracle of
beauty in the midst of ugly chaos wasn’t enough.
“Another job.”
“Immunity from future prosecution.”
“The burning of The Patriot Act.”
“Is that all? I’ll get the chef to whip that up right away with some
bruschetta and calamari, okay?”
“Sure.”
There was a laughter, and more endless chatter as we tried to embrace
simpler times when the world seemed as easy as a summer baseball
game between the Mets and the Phillies with hot dogs, popcorn and
soda vendors and the national anthem where we had, once, proudly
sang the words, and put our hands over our hearts.
Many of us imagined what it would be like to go back in time before
things went terribly amiss.
“Well, read Edgar Cayce,” I ventured wading into this conversation.
“He gave over 14,000 readings that were recorded by a stenographer,
and he spoke very specifically in minute detail of people’s past lives.
“Cayce went into a trance of some kind as he eventually became
known as The Sleeping Prophet, and then he presumably read from The
192 Soul Kitchen
Book of Nature. The Hindus call it The Akashic Records. It’s where all
our lives and the lives of every living thing, and even the Earth and the
planets are kept, more like a spiritual library, and anyway, Cayce had
access to it. Unbelievably, he spoke about the Subject and his past lives
and the various and complex relationships the person had, and it was all
frightfully karmic, terribly intertwined, as though people were bound
by invisible cords of steel itself.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Kinda like a precursor to our work.”
“Yeah, you have to read the case studies to see how people were
linked by these invisible bonds in marriage and friendship, or as
business associates, and how as the old adage goes: What goes around,
comes around.
“It’s all there in The Book of Nature that we all seem to be reading
these days.”
“I’ll have to read it sometime, Edmond.”
“But it’s more than that,” I expostulated still wanting to make my
point. “Casey’s work actually documents the very principle of karma,
about how God’s Mill turns very slowly, but surely, and that if you swing
your foot out of cruelty and kick a dog on a street, or cheat on your wife,
or commit suicide in a cheap hotel room, or a heinous murder in a fit of
drunken rage, you don’t really escape anything here. It’s like a life lesson
neatly tucked away in a wooden desk drawer. The Akashi Records don’t
fade, or disappear. Later on, you open it up. And remarkably, it’s still
there. An assignment to be worked on.”
“I admit that all this is new and very startling,” Alex interjected as
he was growing tired of Homeland Security sticking their giraffe-like
necks into our business. “Presumably, we’re seeing incredible pictures of
the ancient past. But can we really be sure? What if these are rational
dreams of some kind that we somehow tapped into? What if our scientific
method is flawed?”
“Perhaps. But we’re moving into a new epistemology, a very knew
way of analyzing things based upon cellular memory, and in looking
at the world, as we try to combine these holographic engrams with the
traditional methods of objective modern-day science,” Sam said as he
had been reluctant himself to accept the massive changes when we had
first begun.
Kevin Marley 193
“It’s a beginning.”
“And beginnings are always a messy affair,” Alex rejoined.
“Well, I understand you, Alex. But what particular theories have you
deduced, so far?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t sound that promising. It’s not going to win any
Nobel Prizes or even grants.”
“And that’s exactly my point!”
“Which is what?”
“What if we’re simply projecting our own intricate schemes and
ambitions onto this strange Rorschach inkblot?”
An eerie kind of doubt crept in.
“Man is a Traveler to many realms as we have seen with our very
eyes, gentlemen. Rebirth is an established fact, not just in the scientific
community where it has been empirically verified, but now it’s sweeping
into the public domain. History is something completely different than
we had imagined,” Sam stated emphatically as more vintage wine was
poured. “According to our research, Atlantis and Lemuria existed as
actual continents peopled with the human race, as men and women
there looked vastly different than now, and that human evolution is
a lot more complicated thing than we have previously understood,
especially, in the light of all these recorded histories which remarkably
do not contradict one another.”
“But what if we’re terribly mistaken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What if the cellular memory that we’re seeing is being misinterpreted
somehow by the coding program.”
“Alex has a point,” Bob chimed in.
“Possibly.”
“Oh, it’s just chicken shit.”
“It’s a new worldview, just as when Copernicus convinced most
rational people that we lived in a heliocentric universe, or when the
Spaniards and Columbus proved that the world wasn’t flat, and that
there was a New World out there to be conquered.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“There are always naysayers and stragglers.”
194 Soul Kitchen
“Oh, fuck you, Sam. You always need to make an eloquent argument
and must have the last word on what’s supposedly true with your
Harvard credentials. But you know what? You grow into the truth.
You can’t pour it onto anyone’s head despite what you may think,” Alex
blurted out.
His black hair was slicked back as he sucked on a cigarette to calm
his
jittery nerves.
We all felt terribly guilty despite having not officially broken any
laws.
“I wholeheartedly agree. Yes, I’m guilty as charged. Let’s not mince
words. I’m arrogantly ploughing under nearly three hundred years of
scientific methodology, or rather expanding upon it,” Sam said. “But
gentlemen, we’ve made our cozy bed and have to lie in it come what
may.”
“We could quit en masse,” Mark said as he ate more bruschetta and
stared at the waitresses who were more like sirens in our catastrophic
and stormy seas.
“It’s like joining the CIA,” David said. “Once you’re in – you’re never
out.”
“Look, we’re panicking when we don’t have to,” Bob joined in the
conversation again. “The higher ups will have to fall, before we do.”
“Morris and Wilson?”
“You gotta be joking.”
“Anyway, now that reincarnation is an established fact in our
American society. I’m wondering how we are going to separate the
chaff from the wheat, the charlatans from the real thing. I mean, you
remember the frightful past. You had all these people pretending to be
someone great from the past yet they couldn’t even hold down a job or
balance their own checkbook – the Napoleans, the Alexander the Greats,
the Cleopatras, Nicola Teslas, Thomas Edisons, the Shakespeares, etc.”
“Quite right.”
“These people have given reincarnation a very bad name as they
have used it primarily for self-aggrandizement.”
“I’m hoping our research teams will begin to cross reference our
data in this nationwide database, and we’ll finally put to rest some of
those shenanigans,” Bob said as he eyed some of his stocks on his I-pad.
He ate another chicken wing and got barbecue sauce on his plaid shirt.
Kevin Marley 195
“This new science that verifies reincarnation should also weed out the
charlatans as we examine The Book of Nature itself.”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll build a great Alexandrian Library, again,” Sam
mused thinking of the vast implications.
“Sounds good.”
“But I wouldn’t get your high hopes up.”
“Why not?”
“Because, if you remember your ancient history,” Mark reminded
them slurring his own words, “the Alexandrian library was burnt to the
ground by a spiteful Caesar and his Roman soldiers in a fit of angst.”
“So?”
“History’s strangely repeating itself.”
“America has become The Roman Empire through our political
machinations and military might; and now Julius Caesar, and his men
might burn us and all this knowledge if we aren’t careful.”
Time was a sticky nuisance. Ordinarily, it made us obsessed with the
Earth’s revolution and its never-ending slow dance around the Sun as we
also revolved around the Milky Way Galaxy itself while simultaneously
racing further out into the unknowns of space at over a million miles
per hour. Time had always been confused with mere sequential events,
so that it became intertwined with so-called real events and became
a fantastic blur. Right now, things, however, were different. Time was
being mathematically defined as the fourth dimension in our world
with much greater clarity, precision by some of our greatest minds in
both physics and math. In essence, we had another Sputnik moment
in 2057 – a full one hundred years later – as the ruthless Chinese
with stolen technology, along with the pesky Russians, had made the
first quantum-based computer with qu-bits finally overcoming the
last obstacle of quantum decoherence to race perilously ahead of us
with these marvelous supercomputers. They could do fuzzy logic and
even think in rudimentary terms. It was the beginnings of Artificial
Intelligence (AI), but that’s an entirely different story. The Chinese and
Russians were even jointly mathematically exploring the 4th dimension,
and with new kinds of technology, they were able to move along not
just the X and Y axes, but the Z axis, as well, and some patently feared
they were only a few decades away from time travel. Of course, I say
these things not as an elaborate excuse, as many have already accused
me of, so that my harsh penal sentence here might be reduced but so
196 Soul Kitchen
that you might understand the perilous risks we had to take when we,
at last, took our supercomputers and began finding the equivalent of
holographic engrams in human physiology. In a sense, modern science
found and unraveled The Book of Nature in the human body as all
earthly events leave their own smudged fingerprints.
At the behest of National Security, we had been summoned to
Washington, D.C., and given full clearance by Pentagon brass well
over three years ago, whilst being told we were the best scientists of
our particular fields. Then we were commanded to explore this new
frontier – ancient civilizations and the technologies they beheld – no?holds-barred before we fell behind even further. At first, we approached
our work hesitantly as we probed these ‘so-called volunteers’ who
had arrived at our scientific laboratory through the cover of night
and military escort surreptitiously as many of our pressing questions
weren’t fully answered. We were told by Morris and Wilson to just do
our important work. Our subjects had certain genetic markers we had
found, which predisposed them, to living in certain periods of time,
and to being witnesses to very important historical eras and to possibly,
being knowledgeable of very important ancient technology we were
trying to acquire.
In truth, I was never fully comfortable with my assignment as we
had to acquire these holographic engrams no matter what was the cost.
It all began as a blind faith to our own government and to national
security needs. We felt a silly patriotism, at first, and then made short
but lengthy excuses, and then wandered deeply into an elaborate maze
of hedgerows and more. Of course, they enticed us with large salaries
and very fruitful and ripened benefits, and even the promise of sharing
in the patents of some these new technological discoveries.
All in all, the needle was skipping, and history was repeating itself.
This monstrosity was something out of the Milgram Experiment
where the teacher gave electric shocks to the student when mistakes
were made following, as the protocols said, the orders of an authority
figure. In that experiment, Professor Stanley Milgram wondered how
many subjects would give the fatal 450-volt charge, and being curious,
he polled his Yale University colleagues and forty psychiatrists from
medical school who basically believed that not much would transpire,
and that ultimately only about 3% of their subjects would deliver the
fatal shock in this very controlled setting.
Kevin Marley 197
Obviously, they were astounded to find that the real figure of
conformity to an authority figure was 65%.
Essentially, we were no different than anyone else even though most
of us graduated from the Ivy League, and we possessed these shiny?lettered degrees that declared us the best and the brightest scientists
of our generation. Obviously, we had distinguished ourselves with
new papers, impressive cutting-edge research, and even technological
breakthroughs. Maybe, we thought we were infallible. Or that we were
the good guys and that we would never show up in this movie as the
bad guys. I’m not sure. Like most, we became casualties in our blind
obedience and pathetic submission to the United States Government,
and to Homeland Security officials who oversaw these tragic
experiments; and like most Americans, we were cowering in fright in a
darkened corner.
But I digress in telling this remarkable story that will probably
never see the light of day. Modern science had foregone its well?established protocols, and had opened Pandora’s Box; and we found
like sparkling diamonds and rubies and diamonds the ancient wisdom
of the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, the Egyptians with their remarkable
pyramids, and at last, the Essenes who had, indeed, witnessed many
miracles.
We needed to garner these technological advances, before other
began to sequester them.
The 3rd generation quantum mechanical computers were finally
here with these newly developed Intel Pentium processors and they
possessed qu-bit software, not a binary language as before, that was
now fully capable of speaking a ‘new interdimensional language’; and
remarkably, it could interface with the Human Brain. At long last, Man
and Machine began to ‘talk’ to one another! Surprisingly, we found that
the human brain itself was like a supercomputer in that it had a myriad
number of directories and files and that under every file is the actual
software programming language that is creating, almost dictating, the
beliefs, the thoughts, speech and actions of its subject.
These new computer breakthroughs and revolutionary software
programs were one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our present?day age; if the first computer revolution was like going to the moon,
this next computer revolution was like going way beyond our own solar
198 Soul Kitchen
system as we were able to access the so-called past and all the knowledge
that was available and to slowly begin to access that technology.
But they pale, I’m afraid, in comparison to our myriad mistakes.
At first, engrams had been explored when Karl Lashley experimented
in 1929 with rats who ran intricate mazes. He had them run as fast as
they could time them, and then Lashley scraped tissue from different
parts of their brain having them run the maze, once again. Overall, he
was looking at the possible diminishment in their skills and speed, and
hence, memory. But ironically, Lashley found that memory was non?localized. Later, almost a hundred years later, with human subjects,
past-life engrams were found in the reptilian brain as we began to see
these holographic images from the brain stem via The Brain Reader.
Essentially, we found dense packets of DNA, cryptic in nature, and
then within it, holographic engrams of presumably the subject’s many
past lives in eras that we had not even imagined existed. What did we
exactly see? Was it possible? Who knows? The only thing we did know as
trained scientists in the empirical method was that we began to see a
panorama of vivid pictures of a very ancient and mysterious past where
both man and the Earth were evolving; and it was here where we saw
the unbelievable – Lemuria, Atlantis, with its almost incomprehensible
technological feats, and ancient Egypt with its spectacular pyramids
being built; Rome with its Emperors and Senate, and before that,
civilizations rapidly growing up along the Mesopotamia and Euphrates
Rivers, the Ganges, and the Yellow River; and then more recently, the
Spanish Inquisition, the rise and fall of the British Empire, the American
Revolution, the Civil War, world wars, and so on, like never-ending
newsreels to the present day. Many of our longstanding questions about
what exactly happened were definitively answered with time as we
consulted with many historians for verification and confirmation. We
had insisted, however, upon a triangulation of data. Eventually, many
of our premises about history and Man himself were quickly turned
upside down. Was Man merely a biological creature? Was he a Traveler of
some kind? Did he have a soul? We were now dealing, quite admittedly,
with this strange kind of personal truth seen through the very eyes
of our subjects. But there also was this greater historical truth, only
this was not the truth of dusty history books, speculations at wooden
lecterns, and dry scholarly lectures, but now the living record through
holographic engrams of our case studies.
Kevin Marley 199
The Homeland Security representatives were always there like
Gestapo agents. There was no escaping them and the Army soldiers
stationed nearby ready for anything, monitoring us. On the date in
question, I believe, June 3rd, Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson, were on
hand to observe these new experiments and protocols, which meant that
they were there to make sure we extracted all necessary information,
and to report back to headquarters if anything went amiss.
But according to our new attorney general, I am a seditionist who
recklessly violated many national security laws, and who gave secrets
to the Chinese and the Russians, hence, I have been stripped of my
American citizenship; with broad brush strokes, masterly done, they
have even managed to paint me even worse than a modern-day Benedict
Arnold in supposedly surrendering vital information and technological
data to a sworn enemy. Resultantly, habeas corpus has been suspended,
as they claim I, Dr. Edmond Cotton, suffer from a chronic psychosis
that features delusions of grandeur, paranoia and persecution. That all
might well be true as I no longer consider myself a rational human being
nor a reliable witness as I am fed psychotic drugs intravenously every day.
Right now, for instance, I am heavily sedated on a litany of medicines
trying to write about these events like a wooden boat sailing into a sea
of fog and stormy weather.
Overall, it was an infernal mess where we tried to carefully backpedal
to save ourselves. The instinct for self-preservation being found in the
brain stem is one of the hardest impulses to suppress through social
conditioning or other treatments as many of our scientists had found.
Imagine, for a moment, if you will, being a scientist like myself on
this Manhattan-like project. You walk through an amazing labyrinth;
and then in the middle, beyond the many layers of military security
with their retinal scans, is a very large, elaborate dentist’s office, sixty
feet wide, and only much more sinister with a X-ray-like machine
that was actually a quantum-based computer as we had to invasively
probe our subjects reading engrams within their Reptilian brains. Then
through the Brain Reader, we had it transposed so that we could see
the holographic engrams on a crystalline screen where these scenes
from everyday life were capable of being both viewed and recorded
simultaneously. This time things, however, did not go that smoothly
as the subject violently jerked in his leather chair strapped in, half-
200 Soul Kitchen
somnolent, drooling, at times, and even losing control of his bodily
functions as trained orderlies perfunctorily cleaned him. Frequently,
we took his measurements and biological readings. This was necessary
as we were trying to measure to what extent human beings could
withstand this kind of psychic trauma of their own hidden memories
from resurfacing. It was like having layers of your own entire personality
being stripped away from you one after another. There were many
signals to watch for. Elevated blood pressure. Rapid heartbeat. Muscle
spasms. REM’s. Biochemical markers for stress.
“It’s near Gethsemane! And the right time period.” “But he’s
clearly uncomfortable.” “We need this information, McNamara.”
“Go deeper, gentlemen. I’m not looking to have arguments
about protocol.”
Case Study A4239 began hyperventilating and having anxiety
attacks with a rapid pulse and night sweats, or what we called ‘waking
nightmares.’ We began looking at his cellular memory more like a neatly
stacked set of DVD’s that could be readily played with the right kind of
technology. We were instructed to minimize their pain and discomfort
as best we could by Morris and Wilson who observed everything in this
research facility. But those words were merely perfunctory. Obviously,
we compensated with a plethora of medicines that Sam and the nurses
administered and by bringing them to a lower metabolic state hoping to
minimize the impact of this invasive procedure, but it was only a matter
of time, as we had warned them, before subjects began having strokes,
myocardial infarctions, and then our first tragic fatality.
It was hauntingly remarkable to stare into the past:
Specifically, we saw him, Case Study A4239, at the foot of the Mount
of Olives, walking through the Garden of Gethsemane speaking in the
forgotten tongue of ancient Hebrew that Yeshua himself had spoken.
It was late in the day, and then night as this scene unraveled like a
movie. The Middle East was a harsh arid land even back then with low
lying hills, sparse trees and bushes, thirsty and hungry livestock, and
brown grass. As day commenced again, Roman soldiers were nearby
congregating and discussing events in Latin. They stood about five feet
seven, smaller than I had imagined, wearing dark red colored tunics,
Kevin Marley 201
helmets, shields and javelins as there was a political tumult even worse
than today.
A mid-day Sun mercilessly beat down and scorched everything that
could not find the respite of shade.
David, who had been picked personally for this special assignment,
could relate to us what was exactly happening.
“He’s definitely an Essene, not a Pharisee nor a Sadducee. His name
is Emmanuel. They are waiting for someone important.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probe deeper.”
“He’s with Thaddeus and Matthew.”
“Two of the disciples?”
“It’s impossible to say although if we can get a clear picture of the
night sky, and the position of the constellations we can feed it into the
computer and come close to knowing the exact year.”
“Fat chance.”
But Case Study A4239 began gripping his left arm even under
incredible anesthesia and having a myocardial infarction as our
procedure was far too invasive, ripping cellular memories terabyte by
terabyte from him, clearly beyond the bounds of the Hippocratic Oath.
We went to work, as usual.
“Clear!”
“Give him an IV of nitroglycerine and a clot buster.”
“Streptokinase?”
“Yeah, hurry.”
“Christ! We’re killing him.”
The defibrillator jolted Case Study A4239’s chest as there was an
arrhythmia to his overly stressed heart that we could not readily correct.
He was an African-American man in his mid-fifties, who was six foot?three and nearly three hundred ten pounds, and who had a history of
angina that we deliberately chose to ignore. There were shiny beads
of sweat, diamond-like on his mahogany skin, covering his forehead.
On the medical table, he was now lying half naked with a thin sheet
pulled up to his waist. We had extracted almost 300 terabytes and other
forms of cellular memory, and extraordinary data that his system did
not readily give up. More than likely, he was not going home tonight
202 Soul Kitchen
as he was rapidly degrading further as he suffered a Widow maker, a
dangerous obstruction of the main coronary artery to his brain, which
was now being deprived of oxygen. To the people in this room, he was no
more than Case Study A4239 as his personal details had been carefully
redacted from his file to keep our sympathies from interfering with our
duties in The Control Center. But scientifically speaking, he was very
important to us—the first subject we had that had been confirmed as an
Essene during the time of Jesus Christ, around 30 A.D.
But it all boiled down to this: We still had important questions about
the mysterious life of Jesus Christ, a Syrian prophet, and the Mission
of Golgotha that had until recently belonged to the realm of scholars
and history books; and to be frank, we needed to understand ‘the
atomic blast of white light’ that had occurred near the time of his death
covering the entire world.
“Always when we get this damn close something happens,” Morris
said as he threw a book filled with regulations and protocols against the
wall. He paced back and forth wringing his own hands.
“Keep going, gentlemen,” Wilson replied as he stepped towards the
patient knowing he had to give the President and the Senate Committee
his report tomorrow.
But it was impossible, as we searched for the needle in a haystack.
In minutes, we revived him as he straddled two worlds, the past
and the present that had been inscribed in a living book. His breathing
was severely labored, and foam came out of his mouth. We cleared his
passage way. Violently, his body shook and was in upheaval, like an
entire country being overthrown in a coup de tat.
It didn’t look good.
As the anesthesiologist, I was monitoring his vital signs and the
IV when Case Study A4239 became more awake from an adrenaline
injection given by McNamara. He gripped my arm and pulled me closer.
“What am I doing here?”
“I’m afraid you’ve had a heart attack.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“What am I doing here, man?!”
“I’m here to help you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Kevin Marley 203
“We’re all doctors and orderlies.”
“You’re a Brother.”
“Yes, I am.”
“How could you be doin’ somethin’ like this? This ain’t right! Don’t you
know your own history?”
“We’re trying to keep you alive.”
“These abductings are true!”
“Please try and relax, Mr. – umm. You’ve just had a severe heart
attack.”
“Shit, you don’t even know my name.”
“I just got here.”
“Look, I’m not a fuckin’ guinea pig!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Tuskegee Air Men!”
“What?”
“Damn you! This is nuthin’ but a Tuskegee Airmen Operation!”
Case Study A4239 violently struggled as he twisted in his seat and
instinctively fought for his life against the attending nurse and another
physician who overpowered him, much like a large reptile caught by
intruders and now wrangling to get back to his own environment. I
backpedaled, not knowing what to do, as I had taken a Hippocratic
Oath and now I was clearly violating it. The machines began sounding
off, and the life ebbed away.
This time – he flat lined.
Sam jumped on the medical table and began giving him CPR
pounding as he foamed at the mouth and began looking more like
another cold corpse.
“He just needs his heart massaged.”
“Sam.”
“We can open up his chest if we have to. I’m not gonna let this man
die under our care. It’s a violation of all that we stand for in our medical
profession, gentlemen.”
“Mr. Hinkins.”
“Just give me more time.”
“Unfortunately, we have none, gentlemen.”
The Homeland Security officials had had enough as Army officers
came in to escort Sam down from the operating room table to lead
204 Soul Kitchen
him to the debriefing room. A bed of dark clouds came circling over
us. We were herded more like cattle and sheep as no longer were we
noble men able to apprehend the mysterious and inexplicable, but farm
animals that were told not to even possess an opinion, but just to play
our specific roles.
Meanwhile, we dressed in our street clothes, trying to recompose
ourselves as the orderlies took the body, Case Study A4239, to the
morgue down the hallway. When we were done, Bevan Morris and
Wilson came in to give their patented speech when something went
wrong.
“Gentlemen, I appreciate your efforts today despite what
encumbrances we have had today and challenges that we presently face
as we boldly acquire technologies of the past.
“You are all being nominated for a Congressional medal of honor for
your noble work. I have no doubt it will go through after having spoken
with Senator Jefferson Davis Johnson of Oklahoma just yesterday. He
is the head of this research committee, as you know, and he is very
impressed with our findings to date.
“Presently, we find ourselves significantly behind the Russians and the
Chinese as our intelligence community has informed us. This happened
because we shunned parapsychology and considered it beyond the
realm of our scientific system and even methods of epistemology, and
we have paid a steep price for it.
“No doubt, as kick off arrives, we are playing catch up.
“Let me remind you: Our competition has accumulated a vast
compendium of knowledge concerning ancient societies from
thousands of years ago that were, contrary to public opinion, not in
the Dark Ages, but were very advanced in their own unique ways:
the Atlanteans, for instance, who probably had more sophisticated
and powerful technology than ourselves before they were doomed by
their own factional fighting, greed, selfishness, and wars; the Egyptians
who excelled at science and the art of astronomy and who built the
magnificent pyramids by levitating large blocks as some had always
previously suspected; the Greeks and Romans who had built the
Alexandrian Library replete with compelling treatises on many subjects
and various mysteries before it was unfortunately burned to the ground
by mistake; and then the quiet and devotional Essenes, who belonged
Kevin Marley 205
to another important School of Mystery, and their adept, Yeshua, who
somehow created this miraculous atomic blast that swept the entire
world.
“But nonetheless, we have made important inroads through no short
part due to your effort. We have developed new insights into the human
condition and technologies that will hopefully aide us in moving past
the competition. For instance, we have recently created the first indepth
hologram of the human body, and have compared it point by point with
the existing hologram of the universe.
“Let me emphasize, also, for those of you who may still harbor
some doubts or reservations about this New Manhattan Project: It is
paramount that you remember that this is a National Security issue.
As such, we have been given very significant latitude by the President
and Congress to conduct our important work and engage in vital
research with these new sets of protocols, and although uncomfortable,
at times, these procedures are necessary to ensure our technological
supremacy and America’s national security. Our top priority is attaining
this information and these commensurate technologies that were once
possessed by ancient civilizations no matter what the cost. In short,
there’s no turning back. We cannot afford for the Chinese and the
Russians to surpass us technologically in the 21st century. It would be
disastrous as they would possess unheard of weapons and we would not
even know where to begin to counter them.
“Like you’ve asked, we’ve consulted with those at The Attorney
General’s Office and lawyers about your many personal questions; and
let me make it perfectly clear, you are not violating your Hippocratic
Oaths nor the Geneva Convention nor any other written set of ethics
that the United States of America may have signed into law during the
past one hundred years.
“You are simply following the direct orders of the current presidential
administration and Congress itself, which in these matters of vital
national security supersedes all else per the renewed Patriot Act with
its latest addendums.”
Summarily, Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson then left the premises
with their military attaches after having made sure we signed, once
again, confidential agreements that made any kind of betrayal a
treasonable offense. Of course, it was an intimidation technique as
206 Soul Kitchen
we had, like good soldiers, previously signed and cowered our heads
in subservience to the state. Strangely, we felt paralyzed under the
numerous rationalizations and missteps we had frightfully made while
working less for the country we knew, and more for the Third Reich,
only this time we were trying to uncover the latest secrets of ancient
civilizations such as Atlantis and Lemuria that were surprisingly more
advanced than our own in many ways.
An awkward silence.
Boulders.
We had to climb over.
“That was a tough one in there, Edmond.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I’ll get over it like I always do.”
“I can’t believe they ordered me to stop giving him CPR,” Sam
interjected.
“I’m not sure if I can honestly look myself in the mirror,” Mark
replied busily tying his shoes. “I see this ghastly face like I don’t even
have a soul.”
“Neither can I to be truthful,” Alex said as he combed a few tufts of
hair to cover his bald head. “My wife’s even noticed some change in me,
too. The other night she said I looked like something the cat brought in.”
“We should do something before it’s too late.”
“Before what?”
“Before we become these voiceless voices.”
“In case you haven’t been watching the nightly news, it’s been
officially declared open season on the individual,” Sam offered. “Any
kind of dissension has been thoroughly squashed through The Patriot
Act. At last, George Orwell was right about 1984, Big Brother, and The
Thought Police.”
“Except the goddamn date,” Alex remarked as a few of us chuckled.
“Yep, get your huntin’ license,” Bob added as he was getting ready for
another legally blind date, again.
“My nerves are frayed, man. Like never.”
“Mine, too,” Mark added.
“The real question is: Would you sit in that chair having your cellular
memory put onto DVD’s?”
“Nope.”
Kevin Marley 207
“Hell, no.”
“You see how these people come out with scrambled eggs for brains
and a hazy look in their eyes.”
“This whole thing reeks of The Milgram Experiment a long time
ago,” I ventured wondering to what extent we were under surveillance.
“I keep looking for a two-way mirror of some kind. The only thing
I’m constantly wondering is whether we really are the scientific
experimenters or the subjects.”
“I might quit and tell my story,” Mark confessed as he was tired of
these shenanigans and had started AA meetings.
“I wouldn’t do it, man.”
“The times have changed with that Patriot Act. They have flipped
everything upside down in this country,” Alex began to muse while
he slowly put his pants on. “True patriotism is what?! Sedition! And
sedition? Hell, you get a Senator or a Congressman’s seat, and more
power, and a pension! It’s now called something noble and patriotic
to create an authoritarian state with a myriad number of vague and
obscure laws that oppress your fellow American citizens! They can
throw you in jail for anything and even legally drone strike your ass if
you keep complaining.”
“As Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘Those who sacrifice liberty for
security deserve neither.”
“Well, not to deflate things, gentlemen,” Bob said as he began
walking towards the darkened corridor. “But I know which side of my
bread’s buttered.”
“And by whom.”
The excruciating work in our Homeland Security laboratory
continued even with a greater zeal as we had been pressured to speed
up our results. During the next six months as our sleeves were rolled up,
our filthy hands were caked in blood, deceit, and even state-sponsored
terrorism; we were lost to ourselves as we were engaged in in recovering
holographic engrams and viewing them through The Brain Reader. I
kept asking myself one of the more pertinent riddles of my entire life,
“What do you do when life keeps getting worse?” But I never had an
answer. We had many more casualties, but as they say, the first one is
always the toughest. Ironically, we were progressing – Dr. Mengele and
his cohorts – learning and studying more about the ancient continents
208 Soul Kitchen
of Lemuria and Atlantis that had existed a very long time ago, and we
were getting closer to our main objective, the Mission of Golgotha. Well
over two thousand years ago, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were
a materialistic, self-aggrandizing, and publicity seeking sort unlike
their brethren, the Essenes, who were a devout group of whom many
belonged to one of The Schools of Mystery. The Schools of Mystery, as we
had found out, upheld various principles and a general education that
taught knowledge about life itself and The Atman where neophytes were
trained in various techniques to develop their own root thinking and
consciousness. As we had found out through our investigations, there
had been Schools of Mystery in Egypt, Greece and Rome – and some
in the Middle East where Yeshua had lived. But besides these things,
we had found out there was The Law of Rebirth, and the important
corollary that groups of people often incarnate together to accomplish
tasks that had been left undone. This has happened many times. Most
notably in early America when it was being founded in 1776, by a select
number of souls that were highly qualified for their undertaking; or
conversely, in Spain during their dreaded Civil War in the late 1930’s
when they needed to atone for their collective brutality and cruelty
demonstrated in the New World; overall, it appeared that souls fell in
a gentle rain and were trying to find their way to the vast, endless sea
before evaporating again, like in an evanescent mist. Essentially, if this
corollary were true, and it appeared to be, then we should find Essenes,
once again, living together in some kind of capacity.
To Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson, we were their highly recruited
and controlled assets more like in a covert CIA operation as we could
never tell our stories in the light of day. I’m sure they had us closely
monitored and even dreadfully bugged in the office and at home, and
that by doing such things, it led to my rendition in a foreign country I
still do not know the name of. On an October morning, they continued
another inspiring speech with slightly veiled threats as I realized that
there was no way out, that our lives had been forever ruined by our
participation in this infernal mess.
Personally, I sat in a permanent kind of lingering fog where everything
was not so well defined. I didn’t know what to believe anymore as a
rational scientist who once had fervently adhered to logical analysis,
the empirical method, and peer reviewed findings. But now our entire
Kevin Marley 209
epistemology was changing, and we were using ‘Subjective Findings’
that could be verified in an objective manner, if that made any sense.
Another year went by as we were lobsters being slowly cooked in
pots of boiling water falling into a bewildering kind of comfort.
There were less violent outbursts.
Less rebellious talk.
They feed us well at the trough.
Like pigs.
On a few occasions, I made various excuses as I lingered about as
though I had some unfinished business, rechecking data, filling out
more paperwork and finishing highly confidential reports as they all
went home, Sam, Mark, David, Alex, and Bob, and then I went back
to The Control Room. I had to see for myself. I needed to sit in that
dreaded chair that was already marked by death, and begin a series
of experiments on myself. I had to know one way, or the other, as my
conscience was bothering me much like a yelling madman; and like
Henry David Thoreau, I had to know what it felt to pursue the truth
and as Thoreau himself once said: ‘Rather than love, than money, than
fame, give me truth.’
Even if it scorched me.
The experiments then began in earnest.
Through a glass darkly, I began to see many things. As the Germans
once called it, I perceived the ding-an-sich, or the thing-in-itself, and
then past the confusing façade of the personality, quite literally, an
amalgamation of programming, and then like coming to an open vista,
I saw more clearly the ancient past that we all have traversed through as
I began chronicling our journey, that of the Atman itself.
Upon reflection, it’s pitifully short how sophisticated humans think
their actual history is. With dense blinders on, historians state that we’ve
been these cursed bipedal creatures for a mere 200,000 years, and that
we’re descendants of a brute like Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal
Man, and further back, from silverback gorillas and chimpanzees.
They view life itself as merely a series of accidental cosmic events and
biological serendipity, that we arose from the chemical soup 3 ½ billion
years ago and then we began a very long journey of Darwinian-like
struggles as the human condition constitutes only misery and suffering.
210 Soul Kitchen
Lastly, to add insult to injury, when the Grim Reaper comes for you,
there’s nothing left but dust.
But as I was finding out, our history is much grander as the old
proverb is accurate: Truth is stranger than fiction.
Meanwhile, these experiments at this secretive military base
continued without any kind of abatement. Ingenuously, we had
developed even more invasive methods to probe and then quickly
download more terabytes and even petabytes of engrams. Soon, the
winter of my discontent deepened into a loathing and self-disgust as
I went from being a mild-mannered physician to having a volatile
temper prone to manic-depression episodes and even paranoia as I
contemplated both suicide and telling my story to the national press
before they destroyed me like the many whistle blowers before me.
My well laid plans were to commit treason and sedition against the
U.S. government as it had become my enemy and the people’s enemy
growing like an octopus-like monster living in the deepest ocean.
Verily, Case A5637 could have been anyone’s grandmother: Her
silvery hair was neatly tied into a large bun while she wore a green
dress with hyacinth flowers patterned on it along with cheap perfumes.
Her face was soft, doughy and covered with two layers of rouge under
the lights. Carefully, we folded her hands on her lap and removed any
jewelry as she was heavily sedated for the very invasive procedures; and
for the most part, Case A5637 was ordinary to a high degree except for
the fact that she also possessed the genetic marker of having been an
Essene during the time of Jesus Christ. Systematically, we began probing
her reptilian brain and aggressively downloading her holographic
engrams that were subsequently viewed on The Brain Reader. As might
have been expected, these startling technological developments were
slowly filtering down into the everyday world, and were in the process
of making court rooms obsolete as plaintiffs and defendants’ brains
were routinely scanned while giving testimony, and the truth of what
happened objectively rendered.
Relentlessly, we probed her reptilian brain like computer hackers as
this person who was a sweet grandmother became nothing more than
a vast encyclopedia set of information. Amazingly, we began seeing
situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean the continent of Lemuria
before its demise hundreds of millions of years ago. The atmosphere was
Kevin Marley 211
dense as there was a strange fire-fog pervading everything. Man lived in
a large forest reminiscent of the tallest sequoias in Northern California,
only much taller, with roaming animals of many species large in both
girth and height. Remarkably, as we had found, Man was not only a
Traveler to different realms, but was still a part of nature itself, not a
separate entity, with his own peculiar volition in constant competition
with everything else. Essentially, the Lemurian was spiritual in nature,
a true clairvoyant, whose ‘inner eye’ was open, and who understood
the howling wind, the rumblings of the earth, the roar of the active
volcano, the singing of a rustic stream, and the call of different birds as
a language unto itself.
Remarkably, Man could ‘see’ before so-called civilization and its
incessant demands impinged upon his abilities.
Essentially, the Lemurian was one with Nature as he moved through
the giant fern-like forests with long confident strides knowing both
bird and beast alike; his basic perceptions of the world allowed him to
see, not just the form, but the spirit of animals and plants as he truly
communed like in the faery tales of old.
Surprisingly, Case Study A5637 was a different gender, a male
Lemurian in this particular incarnation, as we were often finding out
that the human soul to maintain balance incarnates as both genders.
As we were quickly discovering, the Lemurian lived like a Shaman who
could commune with the spirits of the mountains and trees, and the
rivers and the forests as his sacred life was one not necessarily based
upon form, but of vibrant energies and the unremitting flow of life
itself. To him, language was not a dead thing, an albatross, conveniently
tied around one’s neck. But it was an alive thing, and as such, it held
an immense kind of radiating mantric power over one’s fellow beings,
animals and even nature itself. As a result, the Lemurian used the power
of The Word therefore in a constructive manner for to do otherwise was
unthinkable to him.
These stages of life were fully unanticipated.
Additionally, the Lemurian both understood the life force, or as
some ancient cultures have called it: Chi or Prana. They managed their
life force wisely as the Lemurians’ life was aligned with the higher
laws of nature and even the stars in the nighttime sky, which we were
coming to understand was a pervasive energy system. In terms of the
212 Soul Kitchen
sacred act of procreation, the Lemurians were guided by higher beings
at a propitious time, as they mated with each other in this way as the
generative force wasn’t misused the way it is often today. In sharp
contrast, there was no pain with the birthing process; and when so?called death came for the Lemurian, it was not the hideous, frightful
experience that most endure now, but was more like a tight shoe or a
glove coming off for the Lemurian was not afraid of transitioning to a
higher state of consciousness.
Strangely enough, Man was still going through what we found to
be the mysterious processes of Involution and Evolution. Unbelievably,
during these Cosmic Days and Nights, The Great Work was continuing.
And for Man himself, this meant that he was building various bodies so
that he could travel to many different worlds much like Alighieri Dante
had written about in his Divine Comedy. Man was an inveterate Traveler.
Unbelievably, He built these bodies more like a carpenter laboring to
build the foundation and then the framework for a three-story house.
In the parlance of The Schools of Mysteries, Man was building a three?fold soul and a three-fold ego where one was the shadowy reflection of
the other, and in-between these two entities, the Ego and the Soul, the
human race was still laboring to build the all-important Mind.
The Mind of Man was the very important fulcrum on which
everything turned. The Mind had to mediate between the higher and
lower selves, which was no small or easy task. In its present state of
development, the Mind was less a fully developed body, and more a
single sheath which accounted for man’s confusion, lack of rationality,
logic, and even insight into the human condition and world events.
However, as we were to find out, this critical phase would pass as the
mind of man was destined to become a developed body like his physical
body is today.
In addition to these things, Man, was trying to reawaken his many
latent germinal abilities as the Lemurian was trying to awaken the
seeds of both Will and Imagination. As perversely morbid as it might
sound, Lemurian males were made to fiercely fight one another, to
impale themselves upon sharpened spits and to carry heavy burdens
to extreme limits. These incredible contests were done to awaken the
dormant qualities of will, and strength in a human being. In contrast,
the Lemurian women were led to the great forests, far away, and forced
Kevin Marley 213
to sit in isolation and hear the great tempests, the resounding floods,
and the battering winds; and by doing so, they developed the important
faculties of imagination and memory. Women, as a result, became the
pioneers of culture and the possessor of what constituted a ‘good life,’
and for the most part, still lead in being the forbears of culture.
But this rare window was quickly closing, again.
Then relentlessly these Milgram-like experiments continued as we
ruthlessly extracted more terabytes of engrams. Case Study A5637’s
reptilian brain was probed further into another mysterious past: There
was a strange confusing collage of images transmitted to The Brain
Reader as the computer tried to arrange them sequentially. Like flipping
through a large compendious book, soon we were at a new chapter
where she was living in the Middle East as a Jewish girl no more than
nineteen years of age, very petite, with shoulder black hair and large
brown eyes. A tender green branch. Blossoming in spring. She watched
in a large crowded courtyard of nearly two hundred people as Pontius
Pilate, the fifth prefect installed by Rome, stood and argued with the
Jewish church leaders who were calling for justice against this man
from Galilee.
Next to Pontius Pilate, a Galilean stood who was a young and dark?skinned fisherman with long brown hair and who calmly faced the
hostile crowd despite being already bruised by his captors. This man
had dared called himself The Son of God and a witness to the truth. He
had been ruthlessly apprehended in the garden of Gethsemane through
a great betrayal, and now he was looking out at the Church Leaders and
even many of his detractors who had heard the persistent rumors of
him being a holy man. But this surly crowd was growing restless and
would have undoubtedly taken matters into their own hands had it not
been for the Roman soldiers maintaining order.
Another rebellion was impermissible.
Caesar would have his head.
As befitting a Roman soldier, Pontius Pilate was dressed in a vest of
iron, a dark red tunic and a cape with leather sandals. He held authority,
and was weary of this arid and isolated outpost that had befuddled him
too many times. He raised his hand to silence the outcries as he looked
at the rabble come to cause trouble, no doubt. “I have found no offense
in this Galilean. What has this man done to deserve such punishment?”
214 Soul Kitchen
“Jesus has blasphemed!”
“He calls himself The King of the Jews!”
“He is only misguided,” the Prefect retorted as more Roman soldiers
hustled into the pavilion, as the crowd numbering well over two
hundred swelled and grew more tumultuousness.
“He undermines Roman authority and yourself by placing himself in
charge.”
The Sun burnt the ground. A sinister drought was making the land
barren and the people hungry. A northwesterly breeze blew as the
prefect cursed these persistent Jews who often made his life miserable.
The Middle East was a strange crucible of bodily flesh, hatred, and
vengeance, even more so than the present day.
The crowd itself had its own peculiar mood like a brooding
thunderstorm. It clamored for a so-called justice, and Pontius Pilate
realized that he had to decisively act demonstrating Roman strength
and fairness while pacifying these church leaders and Caiaphas who
were threatening, again, an insurrection.
“Every time this year, Rome shows its beneficence, and releases one
prisoner from its jails. Who shall it be this year? Tell me.” Pontius Pilate
asked the crowd as he motioned to a Roman soldier to bring forth one
of their prisoners. “Here stands Barabbas, a convicted murderer whom
you no doubt know. And here is Jesus of Nazareth who is accused of
nothing more than blasphemy. Which one do you want released?”
“Barabbas! Barabbas!”
“Are you sure?”
One strange collective voice echoed in these hills and made the
Prefect wave his hand. The crowd erupted with a raucous cheer as this
disheveled and homely bearded man, Barabbas, broke into a clownish
smile with a toothless grin, and declared his freedom in newfound
joy. He smiled at Jesus of Nazareth before descending the stairs like a
rambling circus bear to his own people who nonetheless were revolted
by his mere presence.
The matter was still undecided.
“What shall be done with him?”
“Crucify him!”
“Why? What evil has he done?”
“Crucify Yeshua!”
Kevin Marley 215
Pontius Pilate stepped forward to assert his authority as he detested
these trouble makers and religious zealots whom he had no personal
affinity for.
“I see no fault that justifies sending this man to his death,” Pontius
Pilate said. “He calls himself King of the Jews and has an inflated
opinion of himself as most of the rabble standing before me now. You
are no better than him.
“That is a minor infraction of the law, nothing more.”
The Church Elders and Caiaphas yelled back in disdain.
“Jesus himself makes a mockery of Roman law calling himself a
king, and he commits blasphemy against our highest teachings. What
are we supposed to do?”
“How can we tolerate a man like that?”
“Crucify him!”
The last disjointed image that we stole was of a darkened hallway as
Pontius Pilate confronted Jesus himself over these many accusations.
“Are you king of the Jews?”
“Does this question come from you? Or from my detractors?”
“Your High Priests, your own people, delivered you up to me. They
want me to have you executed. I need to know if you consider yourself
a king?”
“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, do you think my
followers would have let them hand me over?”
“Then you are a king?”
“That is why I was born here on Earth. I am here to give testimony
to the truth. All men who hear the truth hear my voice.”
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
“What is the truth?” Pontius Pilate asked.
The monitor itself went blank.
“We’re losing her,” I exclaimed. “Her blood pressure’s climbing into
the stratosphere, 200 over 120.”
“We really need to stop this,” Sam said as he glared at Bevan, and
Greg Wilson who conferred in a corner of the room like overseers on
some Southern plantation. “She’s gonna stroke out any minute now.”
To them, men were like beasts who had once escaped the chains of
slavery and feudalism only to be recaptured, bitterly so, and placed in a
larger, more secure dungeon.
216 Soul Kitchen
If Case Study A5637 died or suffered serious damage, they were not
worried. Why would they be? This sixty-seven-year-old grandmother
from Mobile, Alabama was merely collateral in an ongoing covert
war against our longstanding enemies. Legally, it had been fixed by
The President, the Attorney General and Congress through nefarious
legislation as we used retroviruses to cover it up mutating old strains,
and then conveniently called it the bubonic plague, the Swine flu, the
Asian bird flu, or the Spanish flu of 1918 to scare the public even more
into submission.
“I’m doing the IV thrombolytic now,” I said feeling paranoid
about my work now. Quickly, I stuck the needle in her arm as she was
beginning to become more restless. “We can do a portable CAT scan
within minutes, and then Sam can do the neurosurgery, if necessary.”
“She’s salvageable,” Sam yelled as Morris and Wilson were still
conferring about various deadlines and reports that necessitated
progress.
“Of course, she is, gentlemen. I’ve reviewed her record. But what are
we trying to do here? We are trying to attain these newer technologies
before the Chinese and the Russians do. They’ve made great inroads
into charged particle beam warfare, time travel and even teleportation,
and God knows what other things. Right now, we are trying to save the
United States from irreparable harm from her enemies,” Morris said as
he was like a Napoleonic general, always anxious, before his own troops.
“Just download the rest of her engrams, codify it, and send me
a conclusive report tomorrow,” Wilson declared as if she were the
convenient bookends to a Britannica encyclopedia set.
“We don’t have time for this kind of debate.”
“And if she dies? To hell with The Hippocratic Oath and the U.S.
Constitution and The Bill of Rights?” Sam retorted.
“Mr. Hinkins.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe we’ve lost on our own moral
compass? That we’re not a true democracy anymore, and that we keep
making more rationalizations every day?”
“You have been heard.”
“Personally, I feel like Dr. Josef Mengele and his cohorts. I suppose
you’ll give us the Iron Cross next for our exemplary performance here.”
“You’re relieved, Mr. Hinkins. The rest of you can finish your work.
Unfortunately, we do not have time for these kinds of discussions,”
Kevin Marley 217
Morris said as he nodded to the Army officers to escort him out of the
room.
The Army officers grabbed him.
“It’s Dr. Hinkins.”
“You have only yourself to blame, Dr. Hinkins.”
“You can’t suppress the truth forever.”
“And why not?”
“Because it will eventually rise to the surface.”
“Get him out of here.”
“I can walk out of here myself.”
Dr. McNamara filled in. We were replaceable cogs in a great machine.
It kept turning and turning, and in case anyone didn’t notice, it was
chewing and spitting out lifeless dead bodies.
Case Study A5637’s blood pressure began dropping some from the
IV that I had put into her arm. Momentarily, we stopped downloading
engrams and she began to waken from her deep sleep.
Quite honestly, she could have been anyone’s grandmother as I
stared into her glossy eyes.
“Son, what am I doing here?”
“We’re trying to keep you from having a stroke,” I said as I watched
McNamara, out of the corner of my eye, getting ready to begin
downloading all her holographic engrams.
“That’s nonsense. I don’t have hypertension.”
“That may be true, but you suffered an accident.”
“What kind of accident?!”
“We’ve had to do some exploratory surgery.”
“Just download all the engrams, Dr. McNamara. We can now
store everything hyper digitally, and don’t have to go through this
cumbersome process with all the drama inherent in it. Quite frankly,
it’s starting to get on my nerves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are they talking about?”
“Nothing in particular,” I replied as I swallowed the last remnants of
self-respect I had.
“They’re talking about me as though I am not even here.”
“It’s just medical terminology.”
“I’m not a guinea pig, am I?”
218 Soul Kitchen
Within half a minute, Case Study A5637’s eyes shut for the final time
like a heavy wooden door being slammed. Her engrams were being
ruthlessly downloaded in the so-called name of progress. Beyond a
doubt, I knew we were all guilty of murder and kidnapping charges no
matter what legal tricks the current presidential administration made
and what clever rationalizations as physicians we had made to ourselves.
“I’m giving her clobazam,” I stated trying to stave off the inevitable.
“Her blood pressure’s rising, 220/120. We’re losing her, again.”
An evening rose folded its petals
People were no longer people if that made any sense. They were
through a complete degeneration nothing but rechargeable batteries for
greedy multi-national corporations and defunct nation states; and now
through these mysterious things called engrams, they were becoming
encyclopedic bookends capable of being snatched through secret CIA
programs, then stealthily brought to military bases where their engrams
were digitally downloaded through the advancements of quantum?based supercomputers into our secret files; and for some, they were
the vital keys to explore our greater past as human beings from the
mysterious and forgotten continents of Lemuria to Atlantis to ancient
Egypt to modern history to ad infinitum.
In the men’s dressing room, we felt the humiliating sting of defeat,
like a football team in last place. We tried to console ourselves as best
we could knowing that we would probably be castigated in a not so
distant future, the men and women who had let The Land of the Free
and Home of the Brave morph into an authoritarian surveillance state
exchanging our liberties and freedoms for ‘more security’ so that we
could sleep better at night.
“I’m through with these shenanigans. I’m resigning,” Sam said as he
was through with the program itself.
“We can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“We’ve all signed contracts and confidentiality agreements,” Mark
added as he looked even worse than before having fallen off the wagon,
again.
“They’ll sue us to Kingdom Come.”
“What can one man do?”
“It’s like David versus Goliath.”
Kevin Marley 219
“And worse, we don’t have any trusty slingshots with us.”
Remarkably, I remained quiet. I didn’t know what to say. And words,
what were they? Words were the neatly shoveled dog shit we threw
around from sunrise to the nightly news; and we did this to create some
kind of narrative for ourselves to make us feel good in an otherwise
unbearable human condition.
With trepid feelings, I waited until everyone was gone, and then
I hooked myself up as best I could to the Brain Reader to download
holographic engrams. Despite having taken another dose of thioridazine,
my hands shook as I began losing my own mind by doing this kind of
dangerous research.
For the past year, I had known many things. I had the genetic
marker for having been an Essene at the time of Jesus Christ’s birth
and his resurrection in 30 A.D. Yet, I had done nothing. Also, I had
downloaded many other past lives that were astonishing to relive, that I
had somehow known all along in the back recesses of my consciousness.
Unfortunately, history was repeating itself.
Modern-day Rome led hapless Christians into the lion’s den to be
devoured.
This pursuit of truth needed to involve personal risk, and to even
possess a subjective component, more than just being a white lab coat
doctor collecting nameless data and making conjectures and spewing
more endless theories.
Personally, I didn’t know what to believe. As a scientist, I had
fervently believed in the empirical method, test results, and scientific
journals and naught else. My core identity was now being disassembled
and reassembled in an arduous manner. Only now, in hindsight, there
were four basic emerging facts: 1) Man was a Traveler to many different
realms; 2) The Law of Rebirth exists; 3) The Law of Consequence
appears to regulate our lives; and 4) The Human Body is a temple as all
the ancient schools of mystery have said.
Bravely, I used this new machinery to transcend the empirical world
that I had been trained to always observe and measure. If relaxed, I
could concentrate like a powerful laser beam my thoughts and pierce
the veil of Maya. At first, I traveled past much darkness and many
illusory images before I could see myself in many past lifetimes as it was
all definitively here in my cellular memory. Earthly memories flooded
220 Soul Kitchen
my mind like a river over running its shores. Twinging, I saw myself as
an inveterate actor from the roles of hero to villain to house maker to
scholar to nomadic wanderer to priest to the village idiot to even a petty
thief. What was I doing? Why was I here? These questions echoed in my
mind like a philosopher shouting with much curiosity in a great chasm.
I was gathering information so that one day I might become aware of
the Soul that I Am. In a virtual poof of smoke, time disappeared as I
perused The Book of Nature or The Akashi Records. Right here, for
anyone’s study and understanding, was every event that had ever taken
place, a kind of vast encyclopedic history.
In the first weeks, I had significant success in examining my own
past lives. But there was much lingering physical discomfort from
psychological distress to headaches to even paranoia from this kind of
intrusion, a ripping away of the sheaths of my own ego. But I made
adjustments. Soon, I began to see even more of my human lives and
then beyond the record of the human personality, and indeed, view the
story of the Human Soul itself.
Flipping pages within a book, I saw my Soul along with an entire
life wave of innumerable Souls leaving the very highest heavens to
wander through a myriad number of other worlds. Kicked out of
Heaven, we left like Adam and Eve from Paradise to gain invaluable
experience and knowledge, so that we could truly know the Atman.
Seeing these images, I saw our very long sojourn that had taken an
incalculable number of years stretching throughout an unfathomable
infinity. I could see my Soul, like an expert craftsman, hard at work
building bodies, its physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies,
for simplicity’s sake, that are vehicles used to travel to numerous worlds
throughout Creation itself from the highest Heaven to Dante’s Inferno.
More eons of time elapsed, and then I eventually saw myself in specific
incarnations as a human being, endowed with individuality and free
will to express myself for The Highest Good. But like most neophyte
Souls just starting out on their human careers, I made a terrible mess of
things: I ran about without any kind of inner compass to guide me and
wreaked havoc with All of Creation and even this morsel of a world as
our “small acts” ripple in a very large pond affecting everything.
I felt ashamed to see myself in this Divine Light wearing many
masks as an ogre, a tyrant, a thief, a heartless bully, and even once as a
Kevin Marley 221
cold-blooded murderer. But slowly, a piece of dark coal began turning
into a bright and shiny diamond. In essence, I grew up. I learned many
lessons, many different languages as a polyglot, played as both an actor
and as an actress in many different scenes from lots of diverse cultures
in the world; I struggled for Soul Growth, and once in a blue moon, I
reaped the good harvest of some of my better, nobler actions. I could
see, for instance, during the last few chapters of this very strange and
compelling novel, my soul projecting itself into time and space as an
Atlantean standing on an ancient continent now foregone as if it were
yesterday; and then, as if turning more pages, I could see myself as a
handsome Egyptian burning in the hot sun seeing the pyramids rise
spectacularly in the desert and a mighty culture flourish that possessed
its own knowledge before I incarnated again, now as a short, stocky
Macedonian who followed Alexander the Great through Asia Minor
on many conquests; and then in this furthering narrative, I became an
Essene who took a leap forward in his own evolution and now followed
this Jewish man through the city of Jerusalem and many other places
learning through parables and miracles that appeared to defy the very
laws of physics; and after this, a long respite in these Heavens to bathe
in, I incarnated as an Italian poet during the 13th century living another
shallow life, as a civil servant, before I had another spiritual awakening,
trying to finally awaken from this slumber that had lasted for many
millennia.
This was The Second Act.
So much had preceded this period.
But I regress, I’m afraid, my life as an Essene in the Middle East is
what is vital, and the time that I had spent with this adept from the East.
I needed to know more about the Mission of Golgotha before I became
lost in all these myriad pictures, a strange kaleidoscope, of pain and
misery, and a flood of memories.
Backwards, I fell into Time, again, like in an incredible whirlpool.
It was a hot day – for the momentous day still in question – as
only the hardiest plants and trees could survive here with the barest
precipitation. Strangely, time could be relived through these holographic
engrams as I saw this Essene slowly walk along a stony path while being
harangued and severely beaten by Roman soldiers. He carried a heavy
cross along the Road to Calvary. He was languishing under the weight
222 Soul Kitchen
of this burden after having been given in a court yard already 40 lashes
and a painful crown of thorns before he struggled and fell.
“Alright Your Highness, let’s move!”
His face was bloodied with one eye swollen shut. His stiff body
rose, then faltered. Many Jews jeered him. Others ruthlessly mocked
him. Cowardly, we had been his followers mostly in hiding, and in not
demonstrably stating our allegiance, as we felt pangs of remorse when
he was whipped by a Roman soldier. Finally, Yeshua fell again as his
wobbly legs gave out. The heavy cross toppled on him. He looked unable
to get up this time. In her anguish, Mother Mary rushed nearby to her
son to let him know that he was not alone in this time of immense trials.
“I am here, Yeshua.”
“You see, Mother, I shall make everything new again. The veil shall be
torn asunder. All souls will soon see the face of their Father.”
“I am with you.”
Caiaphas smiled as he was dressed in a long robe and an elaborate
kippah befitting his position as the church leaders followed this
procession. His hands were folded, and he had a smug satisfaction
knowing that they had contrived to bring about Yeshua’s downfall
despite what the Prefect himself had wanted.
But their perpetual air of arrogance would be their own undoing.
Mercilessly, the Sun beat down upon all living things: This fiery
inferno gave life, nursed it in its infancy, and youth, and then scorched it
to death beyond recognition. The Middle East was not so much a place,
but a merciless cauldron of struggles and endless challenges between
God’s chosen people and infidels.
Slowly, Jesus stood again. He teetered under the struggle. Bravely,
he carried the cross as the Roman soldiers, more like a band of robbers,
continued to harangue and beat him, “Do you want to give back your
crown of thorns? The Messiah?! Get going! You’re going to the top if I have
to ride you like a mule myself.”
A few Jewish women objected.
“Yeshua is a holy man.”
Along the stony path, the prophet fell again as there was a strong
westerly breeze and clouds moving in. The soldiers continued to whip
him. Abenader, finally, came on horseback to see what was going on:
“Are you blind? Can’t you see he can’t go on? Help him.”
Kevin Marley 223
Cassius looked for help. Finally, he pointed to a large Jewish man
who was walking with his family.
“You! Get over here!”
“What do you want from me?”
“This pathetic man can’t carry his cross anymore. You will help him to
the top of Mount Calvary.”
“I can’t do that”
“Get going!”
“It’s none of my business. Get someone else!”
“Do as I tell you!”
“He’s a holy man help him!” an old woman pleaded.
“Alright, but remember, I am an innocent man. And now I am being
forced to carry the cross of a condemned man.”
Simon of Cyrene then slowly bent down and helped Jesus of Nazareth
carry the heavy cross as I was witnessing these strange miraculous
events through holographic memories. Previously, I had felt a kind of
kinship to this time and place, and had recognized this ancient Hebrew
as my mother tongue from long ago.
The journey continued.
Many jeered.
Others cried in grief.
The great dividing wall of mankind.
Finally, they made it to the top of Mount Calvary outside of
Jerusalem’s walls as a storm in the distance was approaching. Simon
of Cyrene was relieved of his duties. He stood afraid and wary of the
Roman soldiers. The city of Jerusalem could be seen below; for many
it was just another day. The crucifixion of Jesus proceeded, along with
two other criminals, as the primitive dictates of crime and punishment
were meted out.
They hammered Jesus to the cross. Then raised it with strong ropes
before placing it in a deep hole.
On the cross it said: IESUS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM.
The Mission of Golgotha was nearly over.
The skies darkened. A strange breeze blew.
One of the criminals desperate shouted: “If you are the Son of God,
why don’t you save yourself? Prove to us you are who you say you are.”
The crowd laughed. They had heard the stories many times over, and
none had ever been proven true.
224 Soul Kitchen
Caiaphas approached the cross with a scepter.
“Yeshua, you said, ‘I can destroy the temple in three days, and rebuild
it.’ Yet, it appears, you cannot come down from that cross. If you are the
Messiah come down so that we may see and believe.”
Jesus looked at the darkening skies. Some of the Roman soldiers
began sensing something as their own horses were jittery.
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
“Listen, he prays for you! Even in death he rises above you.”
“Rubbish!”
“He outlives you.”
“We deserve this, but he does not,” the other man on the cross cried
in anguish who still held out hope.
“Free us!”
“I have sinned, and my punishment is just. I ask only that you
remember me, Lord, when you enter your Kingdom.”
“On this day you shall be with me in paradise.”
The other condemned man on the cross – laughed.
But from the darkening skies, a black crow landed on his cross. He
moved down closer to the offender and then pecked his eyes out before
a Roman soldier shooed the bird away.
He screamed.
Strangely, the wind began to swirl, with a life of its own, as clouds
covered the sun like a darkened veil. The storm approached Mount
Calvary as the many rumors and myths the Roman soldiers had heard
about appeared to be coming true.
“It is only a foolish wives’ tale,” one Roman soldier conjectured.
“Superstitious beliefs,” another replied.
“They are ignorant Jews. Don’t listen to them.”
But they could hear the prayers of the Essenes rising higher, silently
carried on invisible wings, for their Messiah.
“God sent his only son here to change the Earth.”
“Now, there will be a New Heaven, too.”
“As above, so below.”
“Let Thy Will be done.”
Soon, it became more tumultuous. The dark storm was growing
more ominous with strange ethereal beings in the air; they were now
approaching the city of Jerusalem and even Mount Calvary. Harried,
Kevin Marley 225
and even afraid, the Jewish leaders began riding their donkeys back
down the trail before they were caught in this sudden and foreboding
storm.
Mother Mary approached her son.
Kissed his bloodied feet.
“I am thirsty,” Yeshua said as his life was ebbing away.
A Roman soldier put a wetted sponge on his spear and gave it to
him.
“Flesh from my flesh, heart of my heart. My son, let me die with you.”
“Woman, behold your son. I shall take away the sins of this world.”
Yeshua was now alone on the cross as the grace of the Lord
disappeared.
“My God, why have you forsaken me?”
The question echoed into the farther reaches.
Yeshua breathed his final breath.
“It is accomplished. My Mission is over,” Yeshua said as his face
became sallow and turgid. “Father into your hands I commend my
Spirit.”
A large blast – almost atomic in nature – radiated across the entire
globe. But it was not a force of destruction, but of light and life. This
was the crucial point we had been searching for as The Body of Christ
enveloped the earth and took away the sins of the world. The world
itself was renewed as: Many would now hear. Many would now see.
Many would now feel the stirrings of their own Soul. It was like large
tuning fork being struck and making the other tuning forks, resonate at
the same frequency.
Likewise, the world and all its inhabitants began to resonate at a
higher frequency and that was the Mission of Golgotha.
But Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson abruptly came in. Apparently,
they knew of my furtive activities, and without hesitation, they began
downloading all my engrams as soldiers handcuffed me and Sam, Mark
and even David began interpreting what was happening.
Machiavelli would have been proud of them for following the tenets
of The Prince. A book I had read a long time ago – and had forgotten.
Afterwards, I was taken away as an enemy of the state and held
in solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay as my entire profile and
history became what they wanted it to be.
226 Soul Kitchen
Weeks and months blurred by, more like a race car whizzing by
various towns and road signs at an incredible speed. They fed me a
potent mix of opiates, anti-depressants, and even schizophrenic drugs
while ruthlessly downloading more and more engrams as I became
their newest encyclopedic set. Unbelievably, I was held on this military
base as habeas corpus had been indefinitely suspended and then even
brought before a military tribunal even though I was an American
citizen who had never belonged to the armed forces. In my hot and
sultry cell, I methodically washed and dried my face with a cloth rag,
and then stared into the bathroom mirror. Strangely enough, I could
see a middle aged African-American man with mahogany skin, and
sad, pensive eyes and a handsome, but worn face looking back at me;
his mask was falling apart though as I saw rugged grooves and salt
and pepper whiskers that had never been there before, and even his
future death; looking further, he possessed his father’s sternness and
compulsions, and traces of my mother’s softness and kindness who had
been born on the streets of Trinidad, and it was all a genetic collage of
sorts.
Was I him?
Was I someone else?
The Entity behind the mask?
Summarily, I had been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison
without any chance for parole while being stripped of both my
nationality and my constitutional rights. Effectively, my life was over. I
had been convicted of violations of the Espionage Act, for copying and
disseminating classified military field reports, and State Department
cables, and interfering in government research projects. I had told my
story to the New York Times, but they refused to publish it when Sam
Hinkins, Mark McNamara, Bob Akins, and the other scientists had
refused to corroborate any of my story. They had also greatly disparaged
me. The media didn’t back away because of an inability to verify how the
U.S. government was treating its own citizens in terms of kidnapping,
and torturing them, and subsequently even killing them. But they failed
to report these egregious acts as operatives basically controlled what is
televised and what is printed.
At the sentencing, at Guantanamo Bay, they had chemically
lobotomized me. I felt woozy and even incoherent. I stared at the
Kevin Marley 227
judge who looked stern and mendacious. He had a black thin crown of
hair, with a large nose and beady eyes. On my right-hand side, I had a
militarily dressed attorney even though I do not remember ever having
met him before.
My hands trembled. I looked at the handcuffs they had locked me in.
I suffered from a depression that was like being buried in a twelve-foot
hole. Like most, I was confined within a jail within a larger jailhouse in
this corrupted Republic. But what bothered me most was that I had scars
running across my wrists. I had had no choice. I had attempted suicide
after being confined for two years. Defiantly, I finally stood to give my
plea before Judge Kaufman as I was still seething from my colleagues,
the corporations, and the indolent citizens that had allowed America to
become such a corrupted state. Maybe, I would not see it fall. I would
not live long enough. But the rebellion would come nonetheless as a
glorious, vaunted Rome crumbled and fell from within before being
overrun by the Huns.
“I have been falsely accused of treason – as so-called patriotic
government officials are, in truth, seditionists. Now, I am being thrown
away. What was my fault? I did not want to torture and kill my fellow
Americans and I wanted to pursue the truth. I tried to tell my story to the
media, and then I was apprehended, and my entire life was destroyed.
“With time, it will be you that will be considered the Benedict
Arnolds of these times.
“You ask me what happened during our experiments? What is truth?
I do not think you have the eyes nor the ears to see it. As Jesus himself
once said, ‘Do not cast pearls before swine.’
“But in this case, I will. I have no choice.
“Yes, I found the needle in the haystack as I had the suspected gene.
The U.S. Government even has even confirmed it. The most important
moment in mankind’s history was not this century nor the past one,
but the crucifixion – as an atomic blast spread out and filled the entire
world and began raising this plane of existence to a much higher level. It
is hard to describe this truly ineffable event. I can only say: What is not
of love, of true compassion, will not be able to last here. It will be like
trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
“For now, you hold political power, much material wealth, and a
crass rule more as an atavistic reminder of our cruel past.
228 Soul Kitchen
“You believe that the acquisition of wealth, and your bureaucratic
control are Power. But what is Power? You do not see the grass and the
flowers bragging about their power, nor the animals, and the dolphins
and the whales, nor mountains and the rivers, nor the stars or galaxies
before you? Nor the adepts and masters? Why? Because it is a Power
not over, but a power with that ultimately works in this world, galaxy,
and universe that you have barely begun to comprehend. Nation
states were not meant to last forever. They are merely stepping stones
in mankind’s development. That’s all. The United States was divinely
inspired, and it was meant to secure individual freedoms and rights
while simultaneously making sure that the larger groups of community
that comprised it were functioning at a higher level that respected both
the spirit of the law and the major principles found within democracy.
“The United States wasn’t meant to be a hegemonic dynasty that
lasted for hundreds of years. This country was meant to spread a basic
model of governance and individual rights to a world in desperate need.
But you have hijacked this once noble Republic and have turned it into
an authoritarian surveillance state that now spies on all its citizens
and threatens and detains anyone who resists this vast hegemonic
superpower. This isn’t liberty! This isn’t freedom! But tyranny! And the
sooner we hit bottom from another financial disaster or an instigated
war, and start over as a nation the better! We are more like a big braggart,
“Hey, Bungalow Bill,
What did you kill, Bungalow Bill?”
The CNN reporter stood anxiously before the cameras as the large and
looming Dakota Building with its high gables, terracotta features and
exotic décor was the backdrop. There were many wispy clouds above
the jutted skyline of the magnificent city that never slept as people
were craning their necks at oblique angles; for there was a much talked
about stirring, about life changing for the better and some arguing for
the worse. Finally, March’s chill had subsided. Or so the residents of
Manhattan had said. An early warm spring had begun thawing the
marrow in our bones. Life was beginning to look normal, again. But
something was amiss! There were incessant rumors, and squabbles and
arguments between friends and family that John Winston Lennon was
still alive. Of course, as many already know, they had been sightings of
his ghost in the Dakota Building itself for many decades. The place was
well known for being haunted. But now some witnesses had come forth
and were insisting that Lennon wasn’t a figment of their imaginations,
but that he was possessed of his coy smile and inimitable wit; and worse
yet, he was still wearing his white suit and Spring Court shoes. Could
this be true? Of course, it wasn’t! It couldn’t be. But from the dreary
grave, many supposed, Lennon had come back to make music, of a
different kind, and to tell us all what lay in the undiscovered country
before we had to make the journey someday ourselves.
Outside the Dakota Building itself, Mark Mendax brushed his short
black hair to the side as his assistant, held up a mirror.
He had been given these ‘filler’ news stories even since he had nearly
cost the bureau an expensive lawsuit where the truth became more than
a little pliable.
Kevin Marley 133
Firmly, he adjusted his purple-and-white striped tie before putting
on his game face. The news coordinator nodded. Then counted down
on his fingers: “Three, two, one … ON AIR!”
“This is Mark Mendax. I’m standing where John Lennon was shot and
killed on December 8th, 1980 in front of the Dakota Building. Believe it or
not, during the past few days, there have been recent sightings of the ex?Beatle, here and in London, whom some considered the driving creative
force of the band and it’s hit songs. We’re not sure if this is mass hysteria
or something else. But we felt compelled to address this latest phenomenon
that seems to be sweeping across America and Great Britain.
“Remarkably, if you look right there, lingering over Manhattan, is a
fluffy cloud – and if you look closely enough, some say, you cannot help
but notice a strong resemblance to the bespectacled face of John Lennon.
“Next, as you might have already heard, there was a very large fluffy
cloud hovering over East London this morning, and purportedly, it had
a strange kind of incandescent music emerging from it. Once again,
according to many bystanders, it appears to possess the face of John
Lennon.
“The only question is: Are these events coincidental?
“That’s remarkable – almost like mass hypnosis,” Harry Tuft the co?anchor of NBC Nightly News replied. “Is there any evidence that Lennon
has indeed returned.”
“There hasn’t been any empirical proof. But loads of testimonials even
from some high-ranking politicians in the U.K.”
“And who might that be?”
“Prime Minister Michael Chamberlain himself!”
“Remarkable!”
“For viewers at home, we’ll show you now our exclusive footage of the
Prime Minister leaving 10 Downing Street with the French President to
see for himself what was exactly transpiring.
“Let’s watch.”
‘Yes, indeed, it does look like John Winston Ono Lennon!
Although I was too young to be an actual Beatles’ fan being
borne too late, I can see his rather distinct features:
a charming face, brown eyes from the London smog,
a short hawk-like nose, and those wire rimmed
glasses. Quite remarkably, Lennon has this smirk like
134 Soul Kitchen
he’s telling a naughty joke. Yes, I believe he’s being witty again and laughing
at the human race, from out of the blue, in the Heavens!’
“That’s quite extraordinary, Max.”
“Simply amazing, isn’t it?
“A re-emergence of Beatlemania.”
“Later in our broadcast, Harry, we will show you interviews we had
with both Yoko Ono, and Joey Harrow here in front of the Dakota Building
earlier in the day and how they have both stated that they have seen John
Lennon recently, and he’s not as dead as we thought.”
“Imagine that!”
The TV news program continued. Nobody knew what was
happening and why it was happening, but the satellite signal beamed a
strange hope around the world.
After a commercial break, Harry Tuft, a white-haired man and
avuncular figure, and Diana Robinson, a younger black woman in an
attractive blazer suit, continued. Harry Tuft stared at the camera and
stated with an inimitable gravitas:
“In Tehran today, Shock and Awe II continued as U.S. Forces and its
allies began bombing Iran and punishing it into submission for apparently
trying to build a nuclear bomb and thereby breaking U.N. resolution
2231. The much-feared war in the Middle East, I’m afraid, is upon us as
we try to keep from repeating our mistakes in Iraq that have haunted us
for nearly a generation.
“But so far, the news on the war front is good as we go to Matt Legan
who is transmitting his broadcast from on top of a non-disclosed building
in Tehran to bring us live updates.”
Strangely, from afar, night had descended over the ancient capital
of Iran itself with a brightly lit downtown surrounded by the snow?covered Alborz mountain range that ringed half the city. The sounds of
planes bombing strategic sites could be heard, and if one looked hard
enough, JSF and stealth fighters were going up against F-4 Phantom II’s,
Mirage F 1’s and MiG’s in the perpetual fog of war.
The place was a tinder box that could start a conflagration of
unknown proportions. To say the least, it was disconcerting as the war
and even the casualties were being instantly digitally transmitted as
graphically on 3-D screens in Dolby sound to viewers at home.
Kevin Marley 135
“This is Matt Legan in Tehran and right now, we are showing you live
footage of what is being called The Shock and Awe II campaign in the
Middle East. It’s the third day of the offensive, and to be honest, many
of us, including myself, had trepidations about this war. But after having
been embedded with the 840th Air Division of the USAF, many of my
anxieties have been allayed. In fact, I am very confident our troops will
be extraordinarily successful and have nothing but respect and even
awe for their professionalism and expertise.
“If you look behind me, you can see a veritable rich and even
marvelous barrage of artillery over city of Tehran that is coming from
our stealth fighters, JSF-35, F-16’s and even charged particle beams
coming from military satellites.
“Essentially, this war reaffirms our commitment to democracy and
to our support for a lasting peace in the Middle East,” said Matt Legan
who walked to his right hand side nodding his head. “From what I’ve
just been told by General Turgidson, we will be bombing two very
strategic points in the next minute – an air force battalion and a cache
of very significant weapons with the latest precision bombs guided by
Artificial Intelligence.
“As a result, I’ve been assured, collateral damage and citizen fatalities
will be kept to an absolute minimum.
“Let’s take a look.”
Within seconds a Bunker Buster was dropped from a stealth fighter
and hit the Iranian air force battalion – an ear-drum breaking boom
that resonated throughout a quarter of the city, but more remarkably, a
built-in fireworks display of Old Glory herself waved from above.
After this, a Star Wars-like laser beam shot from above high in the
atmosphere destroyed a weapons cache of chemical weapons.
“This is simply amazing! The American military with our hard
earned tax dollars are simply demonstrating that they are the very best
in the world. I must ask forgiveness from my viewers tonight as only a
true patriot can appreciate this. I’m not sure how many have been to
Disney Land or Disney World, but it’s like their magnificent fireworks
display! Except this one is even better!” Mr. Legan stood breathless
on top of a roof as the camera faded as a military drone surveyed the
entire sky that was now lit up like a patriotic fireworks display evidently
created to dishearten the enemy.
136 Soul Kitchen
There was another commercial break. Truthfully, it was hard to blink
your woeful eyes and not miss something of importance.
A News Extra Segment came on.
“This is Angela Bushwa in Los Angeles, at the Providence Restaurant
on Melrose Avenue, one of the most expensive restaurants in the world.
Right now, I am covering Kim Kardashian—Kanye West saga. Are they
headed for divorce? Back to pre-nuptial bliss? Or something in-between?
“If we can pan the camera to the right, we can see Kim comfortably
eating dinner with her husband, Kanye West – over there in the corner.
“Don’t eat too much, Kimmy! You might gain more cellulite!
“In case, you don’t know, the Providence Restaurant is one of the
world’s best restaurants for seafood. Chef Michael Cimarusti has created
probably one of the most premiere menus in this town as he prepares fish
with a touch of unparalleled genius revealing amazing flavors for the
appreciative palate.
“Chef Michael Cimarusti, by the way, is world renown for his
Butterscotch Cremeux, and Artisanal Cheeses along with his Nancy’s
Downeast Sea Scallop.
“Let’s see if she goes for one of these favorites, shall we?
“They are ordering. Can we bring in the shotgun mike?
“It appears … Kimmy just ordered cocktails with her husband and
appetizers consisting of Wild Japanese Tai Snapper, Scarborough Farm
Lettuces, and Santa Barbara Sea Urchin – a wonderful beginning to a
most delicious meal!
“As most are wondering, what is Kim Kardashian wearing?
“Right now, she’s being dressed by Christine Centenera, Fashion
Director of Vogue Australia for a relatively low figure of one million dollars
per year. What is that money buying her? Well, Kimmy’s in a V-neck olive?green floor length gown that shows off this reality star’s ample curves.
Sheer circular curves? Hyperbolic curves?
“Anyway, Kimmy’s gown is perfectly cinched at the waist to accentuate
her … umm …. best assets … that most men find extraordinarily
fascinating. She also is wearing a diamond necklace and is dressed in the
most exquisite caramel platform heels that make her look several inches
taller.
“Not to be outdone, Kanye is dressed in a black ensemble suite with
tan suede boots looking like some Chicago gangsta. His pants are hanging
Kevin Marley 137
very low, hinting that he might be carrying some serious heat with him,
possibly, a Smith and Wesson XVR 460 Magnum that can send a piece of
lead 20 football fields per second.
“How exciting!
“Kanye has a defiant attitude, not looking to go down like Tupac
Shakur in Vegas in a blaze of glory!
“Oops! What is this?
“Kim Kardashian, the royal princess of reality TV, just threw a Hissy
Fit. She seems upset and is going to leave! No, wait! Kimmy’s going to meet
Brangelina that to our uneducated viewers at home are Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie who just happened to come here for dinner tonight. Wait!
Kim just took a sharp right! Now a left! She appears to be veering away
from Brangelina and headed for the women’s restroom.
“But don’t worry, folks. We have one of our best news correspondents,
Michelle York, who will be following Kim Kardashian into the restroom in
a stall right next to her, if it’s available. Let’s hope it is!
“Michelle, are you there?”
“Yes, I am. I’m in a stall right now next to Kim Kardashian.”
“Can you hear her?”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m not quite sure how to put this. But is Kimmy doing a ‘one’ or a
‘two?’”
“I believe she’s doing a number one with a very cute tinkling sound.”
Another commercial break came.
More well-crafted messages by marketing executives and
psychologists about car and life insurance, cosmetic surgery, adult
diapers, Skittles and Snickers, identity theft, toothpaste, the latest food
fads in dieting, and speed reading, and ad infinitum. Like an out-of?control laundry machine, the news went on in its 24-hour cycle spinning
and churning everyone’s dirty laundry thrown into it. People sat in
their Plato Caves with flickering lights before them: They ate their milk
and cookies, and then swallowed their sleeping pills, pain pills, anti?depressants, and sometimes, schizophrenic meds, before, once again,
tucking themselves in with a soft pillow under their heads knowing
that now they could make sense, that they could find an interpretive
picture of this world, and this ever changing Rorschach inkblot called
the Universe, hoping in the morning that the Sun would rise in the east.
138 Soul Kitchen
In Times Square, a lone madman, with a megaphone, stood on a
milk crate that he had hastily borrowed from someone, and read in a
bellowing voice:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say the world will end in ice,
From what I’ve tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire,
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
The New Yorkers generously booed and even threw Jersey tomatoes
fresh off the truck. The NYPD came and broke things up. “Hey, don’t
waste such good produce!” “You could be making pasta sauce with that!”
The next day the crescent Moon bid adieu like a guest overstaying
his own visit while the Sun sent its glorious rays to wake those who were
slumbering and asleep. There were a myriad number of gentle kisses –
all sunbeams – as the blanket of darkness was thrown off amid the loud
clatter of a new day. The people began to make their morning coffee the
way they liked and slowly, turn the page on this Tolstoy-like news story
of war and peace, that beat reporters to news anchors to the public were
trying to make heads or tails of it.
The coin was spinning.
In the air.
Turning like a.
Shiny ballerina.
Near London Bridge and its towers, Ms. Praevari stood in front of
the BBC film crew and cameras shivering a bit. It was another news
happening. This time, another cumulous cloud was very slowly, almost
majestically, passing overhead that strongly resembled John Lennon,
and nearly five hundred thousand people, from London to Leeds to
Dover to Manchester and Sheffield had either stepped outside their own
doors or had driven great distances down stretches of highway to see
this phenomenon.
Kevin Marley 139
The BBC broadcast began: “This is Cynthia Praevari investigating
yet another unsolved mystery. This time we are in downtown London as
many Britains are astonished to see a large cumulous cloud resembling
John Winston Lennon, the former Beatle, rebel, and instigator. I’m here
to see if there’s any merit, any truth, to these unsubstantiated rumors that
John Lennon is somehow back from the dead, at all.
“Ms. Enright, you’re from East London, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Been a Londoner my whole life.”
“And you have been here for several hours staring at the cumulous
cloud.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What do you see up there?”
“Well, I’m not bloody mad, especially, since I’ve been on Lexapro, but if
you tilt your head a bit, I see John sitting on a Victorian chair and in front
of him is a white piano.”
“And Mr. Enright?”
“I see the same friggin’ thing. Yes, the bloke is playing the piano again,
like he used to at Abbey Road. Can’t you hear it?”
“Yes, I hear it a bit.”
“It’s another melodious cloud!”
“What do you hear?”
“What are you daft? It’s Strawberry Fields, for Chrissakes!”
“Is that what the rest of you are hearing from above in the cloudy skies
of London?”
“Yep.”
“Righto.”
“Brilliant!”
Then in unison, they began singing as a natural chorus with
baritones, falsettos, and sopranos:
‘Let me take you down ‘cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry
Fields forever.
‘Living is easy with eyes closed. Misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone. It doesn’t matter much to me
….’
140 Soul Kitchen
A northwesterly wind began blowing as something was in the air.
The big white fluffy cloud began changing before their astonished eyes.
Strawberry Fields continued playing with its gentle dénouements. The
white piano and its black keys remained intact – but something else
miraculously changed in this sudden breeze.
“It’s John!”
“He’s standing up.”
“And he’s butt naked!”
“It’s like the three virgins album.”
“You mean, the two virgins.”
“Yep.”
“That looks like his todger alright.”
“Might need Cynthia to confirm it.”
“I’m sure she’s seen it aplenty, I guess.”
“Had to keep his Mighty Wanker in check.”
“Ohh, hush.”
Then it began copiously raining, more like sprinkling, with golden
sunrays infused.
“It’s bloody Lennon, again! He’s pissing on us!”
“And smiling!”
“We love you, John!” the crowd chanted. “It’s great to have you back.”
In Rio de Janeiro, according to reports, the same thing was happening
above Christ the Redeemer as a great cumulous cloud had gathered
above Corcovado Mountain along with another more diminutive cloud
that was very shapely and looked not only feminine, but Asian, as well,
with oval eyes and long hair.
From on high, the winds blew pushing the clouds that looked like
a man and woman, together, and then apart. Strangely, this kept being
repeated as strong gusts blew one way and then another.
“It’s John and Yoko!”
“They’re making love!”
“Spooning!”
“Do you hear it?”
“Nope.”
“Listen!”
Kevin Marley 141
“Ahh, yes!”
“One of their hits.”
“Yep. ‘I am the Walrus.’’
As if on cue, as though in a raucous pub, a myriad number of voices
began singing and covering the entire scale in case anyone was tone
deaf. A strange ethereal sound accompanied the orchestra itself.
‘I am he as you are he as you are me,
and we are altogether.
See how they run like pigs from a gun,
see how they fly.
I’m crying.
‘Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come.
Corporation tee shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you’ve been a naughty boy. You let your face grow long.
I am the egg man. They are the egg men.
I am the walrus. goo goo g’joob.’
Back at CNN, Max Mendax stood in front of Roosevelt Hospital with
Dr. Stephan Lynn. The men were fidgeting as another large cumulous
cloud this time was sighted over New York City, and people craned their
necks from their apartments, brownstones, and stuffy skyscrapers to
see Lennon, once again, if it were him, haunting their mundane lives as
ethereal music played from high above.
“I’m with Dr. Stephan Lynn who was the attending physician at
Roosevelt Hospital when John Lennon was brought in.
“Dr. Lynn, thanks for being with us tonight. Can you tell us what
happened on that fateful evening on the night of December 8th, 1980?
What transpired in the emergency ward?”
“Yes, I had just completed a thirteen-hour shift and was called to come
immediately back to the hospital only to find John Lennon unconscious
and in a non-responsive state.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He had no pulse and when we tried to do CPR there was no recovery.”
“What did you do then, doctor?”
“Realizing the profound seriousness of the situation, I surgically opened
his chest and massaged his heart. But there was no response, and at 11:15
142 Soul Kitchen
p.m. we declared John dead of hypovolemic shock essentially from a severe
loss of blood from four gunshot wounds. We then informed his wife, Yoko
Ono, who went into shock herself.”
“Thank you. Dr. Lynn. Right now, I have with me Dr. Wendel Murray
who is the chief psychologist at Bellevue State Mental Hospital. He is one
of the nation’s renown experts on mental health disease.
“Dr. Murray, you’ve witnessed ‘The John Lennon Phenomenon’ as
many are calling it. What do you personally make of it?”
“It’s an interesting question,” Dr. Murray began as he looked happy
to share his professional opinion “As you know, when the world becomes
less predictable and there are Oil wars and Water Wars, the people
suffer from a lack of optimism and hope. On the rational level of their
minds, they begin to lose control of what is happening around them, and
they have an inability to make sense, so what do they do? They move
towards the irrational. It’s like when people lacked scientific knowledge,
and they made up fallacious reasons such as the breaking a mirror or not
having a rabbit’s foot for something bad happening to them. This kind
of ‘superstitious thinking’ gives them a sense of control. Likewise, this
irrational fascination with John Lennon, an ex-Beatle, is quite frankly a
grasping for straws in a rather hopeless world.”
“Well, there you have it, folks. ‘The John Lennon Phenomenon’
explained from a world renown psychologist, Dr. Murry, and hopefully,
from now, this folly, and predilection with the past will begin to fade away.”
The news anchors Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson continued with
the rest of the night’s news.
“Standing by, we have Harry Legan on top of an undisclosed roof
in Tehran, to give us live updates on Shock and Awe II – The Sequel, as
some are calling it. Harry, can you hear us?”
“Yes, I can. I am with the U.S. Armed Forces, and I have spoken with
General Turgidson, and he has personally assured me thus far we are
winning this new war in the Mideast due to our overwhelming superior
forces, technological resources and American spirit; of course, we need to
mention, quite frankly, our moral superiority, too. After having spoken
with the general for some time, I am impressed with his dedication and he
has assured me we have had remarkably NO COLLATERAL DAMAGE,
so far, unless if you want to count a few statistically insignificant people,
who were very circumspect in moral character, and who may have been
even cooperating with the enemy.
Kevin Marley 143
“That’s an amazing reassurance from the highest ranking general in
the Middle East, and as war veteran correspondent for many years, I am
moved, not only by their performance and professionalism, but by their
brave decision to go into Harm’s Way. After tonight’s broadcast, I am going
to sit down and write a letter to my Congressman in full support of this
war that will make America secure, not only for our children, but for our
grandchildren as well.”
Then Harry Legan leaned to his right side and pressed his ear piece.
The battle loomed quite large with laser precision bombs and a fireworks
display of American flags being planted above the city of Tehran along
with the words, “LIBERTY’ and ‘DEMOCRACY’. Cyberwarfare was
commencing, too, as all Iranian computers were sent digital leaflets that
encouraged them to surrender that were designed to win the hearts and
minds of the Iranians.
Across this correspondent’s handsome face, there was palpable relief
and even a broad grin as he brushed his auburn hair to one side as
the wind was kicking up. “It looks like we’re going to see something
very special soon. We have two of the latest generation bunker busting
bombs that are guided by Artificial Intelligence. If I’m not mistaken,
this is unprecedented American military history in the making. They
will hit two undisclosed places where Iranian troops are hiding as
these specially prepped bombs will have red, white and blue trailers,
like fireworks, so that the viewer can see their precise effectiveness, and
potent destructiveness.
“Let’s watch now.”
In a few seconds, there was a projectile missile doing elliptical
circles above downtown Tehran, specifically, above Milad Tower that
was nearly fifteen hundred feet tall and then zigzagging over Sa’dabad
Complex, Laleh Park, and Carpet Museum of Iran. Red, white and
blue trailers were shooting forth from the missile! It then marvelously
pivoted and went over the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, and
Tughrul Tower before finally hitting its mark—many Iranian forces—
with an extraordinary blast that was enhanced with sound amplifiers.
“Amazing!” Legan said, “An entire battalion of Iranian forces has
just been decommissioned, and I feel, I feel goosebumps all over. This war
experience has been one of the happiest events of my life even better than
any of my honeymoons with my previous wives.
144 Soul Kitchen
“Wait! The military has an important announcement to make as
General Turgidson in his fully military attire and nearly thirty medals
will, no doubt, inform us about how we are making military history
tonight right before your eyes.”
In a minute, General Turgidson appeared in his gray helmet and
brown army uniform replete with many medals from the Distinguished
Service Medals and Crosses, the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit
and Purple Heart. He had a grim face with deep creases and he gazed at
the camera with steely eyes.
“We just launched a new and very much improved AI-9 Sidewinder
Missile that was guided by Artificial Intelligence, and unfortunately, it
did not hit its intended target. Apparently, the projectile went left, right,
and then abruptly left before heading down at a sixty-three-degree
angle and striking the National Museum of Iran.
“We sincerely apologize to the people of Iran as our surgical strike to
disembowel and severely castrate the military has been a nearly perfect
surgical strike, until now.”
“I’m sorry general for intervening,” Harry Legan said on live
television.
“That’s okay, Harry. What’s your question?”
“Well, Congress did cut military spending to $650 billion this year.
Do you think it had an adverse effect on the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile
and its targeting system?”
“Being in the military for forty-two years, I am not one to make
excuses. Excuses are despicable. But yes, maybe, it probably did have
an effect and it probably overshadows the magnificent work that the
United States military did in developing this extraordinary system of
AI. We are in the process of changing the face of warfare in the years to
come, and unfortunately, our grand endeavor maybe overshadowed by
this one teeny weensy mistake tonight as we try to win the hearts and
minds of these Iranians.”
“I’m not a military expert, general, but I do have a suggestion that
might sound silly and outrageous, but ….”
“Go ahead, shoot.”
“I’m just saying, according to our latest opinion polls, there’s been a
quite frankly, silly drop of confidence in this wonderful new AI-guided
missile, but if you were to shoot two more of these missiles tonight then
the public’s general lack of confidence would be ….”
Kevin Marley 145
“Suddenly improved.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll order a couple of new strikes now.”
In minutes, two AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles were sent to Tehran as they
flew about in synchronous elliptical circles with their red, white and
blue trailers as accompanying fireworks were shot into the sky depicting
portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ronald Reagan
with a new kind of firework augmented by digital effects so that, in
effect, they lasted a full five minutes.
In short, our founding fathers smiled and winked above the bemused
heads of the Iranians.
“I think, we’re showing them now the true values of democracy and
freedom which have made America, by far, the greatest country on
earth.”
Then one of the missiles flew right, then left, up and then down,
before zigzagging against a barrage of enemy artillery and effectively,
striking The Azadi Tower, breaking it in half – a structure which
proudly stood at nearly 1,500 feet as a technological marvel of post?modern Iranian architecture.
The second AI-9 Sidewinder missile put on an even more spectacular
show turning a sharp left, then right, then right again at an oblique
angle before rising high into the sky and then plunging deeply at speeds
faster than one could imagine possible. From its newly improved audio
system, it played The Star-Spangled Banner for all to hear for these
Iranians who could indubitably see that we were freeing themselves
from the tyranny of their own government.
However, soon the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile went straight up into the
air and shot a massive firework across the entire sky and then zoomed
off to the west on towards its true patriotic flight.
Harry, with his handsome smile, and courage, extolled the many
virtues of our American military and even superiority of our society.
“As you can see, it has been a wonderful and exciting night for our
American military which is using this war to test our newest and most
powerful weapons in the ongoing theater of combat. With a final word
for the evening, we will turn to General Turgidson for his thoughts on
this night where America is WINNING, WINNING and WINNING in
the theatre of war!”
146 Soul Kitchen
The general came on. A bit red faced.
“It appears both AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles did not hit their intended
target once again.”
“You mean, the AI-9 Sidewinder Missile wasn’t intended to hit The
Azadi Tower?”
“The U.S. military strongly eschews destroying an enemy’s
infrastructure under the basic maxim: “If you break it, you bought it.’”
“What happened to the other missile, general? Did it not go to far
western Iran to destroy a very important strategic military target that
was necessary in achieving victory in this war that, forgive me, resembles
Alexander the Great defeating the Persians in The Battle of Gaugamela.”
“The missiles guided by Artificial Intelligence, as we are now finding
out, are simply too patriotic,” the general said, at last, looking almost
teary eyed.
“What do you mean ‘too patriotic,’ general?”
“They are sentient beings, well, almost, if you have ever conversed
with them through quantum-based computers, and they love America
very very deeply after we gave them a specific knowledge base and some
objective facts. As a result, they independently chose the most valuable
target to strike given the present state of war and a veritable host of
other factors. That’s why the AI-9 Missile, which we have lovingly called
Uncle Sam, gave its life to destroy The Azadi Tower, and according to
our estimates, shortening the life of this inevitably devastating war by
13.25 days.”
Harry sniffled, a bit.
“The other AI-9 Sidewinder Missile was even more noble as it
disregarded its own orders by the echelons of higher command which
had a much more limited objective and headed to ….”
“Where general?” Harry said in a plaintive tone, wanting to know
where a long lost loved one was.
“It went to finish this pernicious war against radical Islam, once and
for all. It will, more than likely, destroy all of Mecca itself. Resultantly,
we can only grieve for ol’ George.”
From his breast pocket, Harry pulled out a cloth handkerchief – and
sniffled.
“I know this is unprofessional of me. But I also grieve for ol’ George
and his undying patriotism, willing to give his very short-lived life for
Kevin Marley 147
the United States of America, the last bastion of freedom in this rather
sordid world.”
The news anchors, Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson, were clearly
moved and even choked up by the death-defying patriotic stories of
both Uncle Sam and Ol’ George, two AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles fighting
for America, but they continued with the rest of the night’s news.
“Next in News You Can Use! We have Dr. Keating and Dr. Sachman
discussing their latest book: Dire Predictions: How Only The Superrich
Can Save Us! Are multibillionaires The Messiahs of the 21st century?
After that, we’ll talk to two leading ecologists who not only believe the
coal and car industries aren’t creating The Greenhouse Effect, but that it
was really caused by an excessive amount of flatulence. They also assert
how a very heavy carbon footprint of many famous liberals are ruining
many ecosystems, too.
“After that, in New News (That Won’t Leave You Bemused!), Dr.
Manning will discuss whether or not that Bazooka chewing gum that
you swallowed in 2nd grade is still languishing in your stomach?
“Or is it possibly causing the many health problems that you are
incurring in your middle and senior years?
“Lastly, in Celebrityhood, we’ll talk to Kei$ha and find out if her
rather young and moist vagina is still possessed!
“According to Pope Francis, she may be eligible for an unprecedented
exorcism by a Priest, and many Holy Fathers are lining up for the job!
“But according to Kei$ha, she adamantly wants to be a ‘good Catholic’
and to Live Stream the exorcism worldwide! Will it happen? Or won’t it?
Stay tuned! The most exciting and important news is right here.”
The long day passed, again. The people slept very well tonight
knowing that as Robert Browning once said, “God’s in His Place. All’s
right with the world.”
And indubitably, God was … if you had the right amount of
antidepressants, Haldol, Lexapro, and a rubber matted room, too.
But the people despite their own plethora of medicines and
therapy sessions were still hearing voices over London, Rio de Janeiro
and New York City on this Sunday. Specifically, they could see these
large melodious clouds drifting high above, and hearing these Beatle
songs: Come Together and Revolution over London and Rio de Janeiro,
respectively, and Give Peace a Chance over New York City.
148 Soul Kitchen
The lyrics had a beautiful mantric effect: “Here come old flattop, he
coming grooving up slowly; he got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy roller; he got
hair down below his knee; he got to be a joker he just do what he please; he
wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football; he got monkey finger, he shoot
Coca-Cola; he say, ‘I know you, you know me.’ One thing I can tell you is
you gotta be free.
“Come together right now over me.”
And then in Rio de Janeiro there were even more fluffy melodious
clouds in an otherwise perfectly azure sky replete with cherub faces
looking down. But there was a strange inimitable voice penetrating
them all:
“You say, you want a revolution. Well you know, we all want
to change the world. You tell me that it’s evolution. Well you
know, we all want to change the world. But when you talk
about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out.
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright? Don’t you know that it’s
gonna be alright? All right. All right. You say you got a real
solution. Well, we’d all love to see the plan. You ask me for a
contribution. We’re all doing what we can. But if you want
money for people with minds that hate, the only thing brother
I can tell you is you have to wait. Don’t you know it’s gonna be
alright? Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright?”
Many Londoners had stiff necks, saying, “Where’s bloody John?”
“Don’t see him playing the piano anymore.” “Someone check Liverpool
Stadium.” “Nope, maybe, he’s under the fluffy covers there with Yoko.” “Ol’
John could never get enough of that warm apple pie, you know.”
In New York, the situation was very similar as there was a buzz of
excitement, a palpable shift in things.
At eight o’clock, the news began with a media-rich drum-roll ritual
so that the two news anchors could disseminate the news in short visual
stories with as many hard facts and statistics, as possible.
“Once again, the news is very busy tonight, almost as difficult as
tea leaves to read. But fortunately, we have the best news team in the
business to help unravel the various conundrums of an ever growing
and unstable senseless world.
Kevin Marley 149
“Right now, we still have a fierce war waging in Iran, which now
resembles a tinder box, and a great tsunami wave of instability as
markets begin crashing about in Europe and Asia.
“But the headline news tonight is: John Lennon may not be dead,
but very much alive tonight as he is now purportedly marching through
New York, London and Rio de Janeiro with his followers. Lennon is
demanding peace, as you might have expected, but nowadays, such a
goal is very unrealistic.
“Covering this story right now in New York is our own Max Mendax
with thousands of people nearby marching.
“Max, are you there?”
“Yes, I am Diana. I am in downtown Manhattan surrounded by tens
of thousands of people; and it appears that John Winston Lennon, the
most radical Beatle, has arisen from the dead on this Easter Sunday, and
is presently marching down 5th Avenue along the route of the St. Patrick’s
Day Parade. He and his followers have issued a lengthy list of demands.
I will only read some of their more substantive ones: 1) A cessation to
all conflicts and wars; 2) The gradual dismembering of the military
industrial complex; 4) A Department of Peace that is just as well funded
as any other department; 5) Lifelong education and training for all; 6) An
economy based less on the meeting of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; and 7)
Free rolling paper and public machines that can roll joints precisely and
effectively.
“But right now, there is not one John Lennon, but three John Lennons
marching in New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro, and get a load of
this, according to the CIA analysts who have lifted his fingerprints they
match the on-file, FBI-held DNA prints of the actual John Lennon who
supposedly died in December 1980.
“More importantly, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and many other people
are singing, ‘Give Peace a Chance.’
“Let’s listen in:
‘Everybody’s talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism,
Madism, Ragism, Tagism,
This-ism, That-ism, -ism, -ism, -ism.
150 Soul Kitchen
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.
‘Come on,
Everybody’s talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters, and Canisters,
Bishops and Fishops, and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.
All we are saying is give peace a chance.’
“For the first time in my broadcasting career, I am remarkably moved
by these events,” Max Mendax said. “I have always prided myself on
being an American who has backed our military for the past forty years.
But I think, we must step back and ask ourselves, ‘Why can’t we plan
for peace as we do for war? Why can’t we solve our global and national
crises and sow the seeds of prosperity instead of conflict and war?
“Humanity keeps making terrible choices and somehow, we expect
a different outcome.”
The news anchors looked shocked.
Harry Tuft broke in, “Are you feeling alright, Max? I know you might
be under extreme duress from the crowds. You sure, you can continue?”
“Yes, I am fine. Never better.”
Diana Robinson then chuckled.
“I hope Max hasn’t been smoking those funny cigarettes down at
those meetings. Pretty soon, they’ll be spewing conspiracy theories and
new boogeymen to frighten the American public.”
“But now for the latest news in Iran,” Harry Tuft interceded, “We go
to Harry Legan who is currently embedded with the American military
in our fifth day of this war. Are you there Harry?”
“Yes, I am. This is the fifth day of Shock and Awe II and I am with
Colonel Chapman right now at Allied Headquarters which is a bit like
The Escott Center at Disneyland. Right now, we are assessing the various
probabilities and outcomes of this war after America has carefully built
a coalition of eleven other nations, namely, Morocco, Tunisia, Liberia,
Myanmar, Tahiti, Eritrea, Nepal, Chad, Tuvalu, Monaco, and San
Marino.
Kevin Marley 151
“Colonel Chapman, thanks for standing by.”
“I’m glad to be here, Harry.”
“We know you have many responsibilities, Colonel, and your
schedule is so demanding now. I’m wondering if you can give us your
latest assessment of this war and the most important battles we have yet
to face as a threatened nation.”
Colonel Chapman, a pudgy-faced, bespectacled man dressed in dark
military uniform, said, “We have some very disturbing news, Harry,
that might surprise you and your viewers out there. We have very good
intel that Iranian insurgents and even terrorist cells are about to strike.”
“Strike back in this theatre of war?”
“Yes, they have a plethora of allies that are getting to ready to strike
us.”
“Who exactly Colonel?”
“Painstakingly, they have carefully built their own potent coalition.
Some are Al Qaeda agents, ISIL troops, Peruvian Maoist guerrillas,
Cuban communists, and Khmer Rouge affiliates.
“But there’s also a strong mixture of Bleeding Heart Liberals, Yellow
Belly Draft Dodgers, Keynesian economists, More-Regulation-on-Wall
Street Hucksters, and even Black Panther scourge.
“In short, it’s a coordinated mob of terrorists that is about to strike
our homeland and other important target-rich areas of our allies.”
“These lowly, God-baiting terrorists are about to strike America and
her allies?”
“Yes, they are.”
“They are?”
“That’s why The Terror Alert is now Muave-Pervenche.”
“Muave-Pervenche?”
“That’s correct, Harry.”
“That sounds absolutely frightening, Colonel.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Can you describe what Muave-Pervenche exactly is?”
“Yes, I can, if you and your viewers don’t know, Harry. Quite simply,
it is our highest terror alert level. Mauve is a kind of pale purple, almost
like a lilac color, and Pervenche is a rich purplish-blue color, almost
like periwinkle flowers. So, if we got our Crayola crayons like back
in kindergarten class, and mixed them up, we would have Muave?Pervenche.”
152 Soul Kitchen
“I’m terrified.”
“You should be. The American public should be and we’re asking
them to take the unprecedented step to stay inside their businesses,
homes and apartments until this terror threat is over and we fix it with
necessary and brutal force.”
“How are we going to strike back at them when these terrorist cells
are so deeply embedded into the woven fabric of this patriotic nation?”
“With our AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel Chapman. Maybe, I didn’t hear you correctly
with all this bombing going on. But didn’t those missiles misfire the
other night?”
“Yes, they did. But we received, quite patriotically, I might add,
resounding support from the President, Congress and the American
public to get an additional $100 billion disbursement to improve
both our program and the Artificial Intelligence systems themselves.
Literally, we have worked all day and all night in the interim in terms of
making them a bit less ‘patriotic.’”
“When will this important counterstrike occur, Colonel Chapman?”
Colonel Chapman paused looking at his watch.
“It’s a highly classified mission, and we shouldn’t be talking about it
right now. But it should be occurring any minute now.”
The news program broke for an important commercial break.
Soon, they were back with Max Mendax covering the “John Lennon
Phenomenon” as thousands of people were still marching through New
York City singing:
‘All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
‘Let me tell you know
Everybody’s talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation,
Flagellation, regulation, integrations,
Meditations, United Nations,
Congratulations.
‘All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.
All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance.’
Kevin Marley 153
Soon, the AI-9 Sidewinder Missiles, like clockwork, hit their
intended targets in New York City, London, and Rio de Janeiro as
hundreds, if not thousands of people were killed, and the frightened
people of America, at last, breathed a concerted sigh of relief. Colonel
Chapman came on TV. He assured everyone that the imminent threat
was over, and that pernicious terrorist cells had been thoroughly
destroyed, and that we were no longer at Terror Threat Alert: Mauve?Pervenche, but at Gingerline Yellow-Belly, which for those of you who
are not yet informed, is a faded yellow mixed with a strong dash of
orange-tangerinish color, kind of soothing really.
The Shock and Awe II campaign continued with renewed efforts and
resources.
Harry Tuft and Diana Robinson then broke into their familiar
routine:
“Soon on News Extra, Dr. Miner will discuss about the four forces of
nature – the strong force, the weak force, gravity, and the electromagnetic
force – and how there might be a fifth force, human stupidity at work
in the Universe. Then in News That Might Pique Your Interest, Dr.
Thomason, a leading anthropologist, will discuss how homo sapiens,
may be de-evolving and becoming hairless chimpanzees characterized
by fighting for territory and throwing their feces about if they don’t get
their way. And on New News about Medicine, Dr. Manning will discuss
recent evidence about how fried New Jersey broccoli may both cause
cancer and heal cancer at the same time.
“But first let’s check in Max Mendax, again, standing by in New York
City.”
Max Mendax looked changed – as though the wind had been
knocked out of him, quite literally.
“It appears that those large fluffy melodious clouds that appeared
over New York City, London and Rio de Janeiro have disbursed. Finally,
the large crowds have gone back home. No longer are people somehow
hearing: Strawberry Fields, I am the Walrus, Revolution, Come Together,
or Give Peace a Chance. Their strong hopes are gone. According to
leading psychologists, this event was nothing but an unprecedented
state of mass hypnosis. The vapidity of ideas such as ‘peace’ and ‘unity’
and ‘a family of nations’ in a dire world suffering from Oil Wars and
Water Wars, and chronic wars with terrorists, has become drastically
apparent. Additionally, I might add, the 1960’s were a decade of dissent,
154 Soul Kitchen
of draft dodgers, and of a rejection of both capitalism, and our core
American values. Why on earth would we want more? We have finally
made America great again with a dominant military, and with the likes
of outstanding politicians such as Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush,
George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. We do not need
to regress at this particular time when we are fighting wars on five
different fronts.”
Harry Tuft from his broadcasting booth sounded more than curious,
more like a child on Christmas day at the top of the stairs: “Sorry to
intervene, Harry. But for the paramount question of the evening: Is
John Lennon actually alive in New York City or anywhere else in the
world?”
“No, Harry, from what I can see and from what I’ve been told by my
sources, John Lennon’s still dead.”
A smile of relief came. Back to the broadcast studio.
“There you have it, folks. John Lennon, the most radical Beatle,
the so-called leader of the 1960’s, is still dead. Now, a word from our
sponsor.”
Trick or Treat
Sometime after his debilitating stroke, Grandfather Bayer began playing
checkers instead of chess, reading comics instead of Readers Digest, and
chewing gum instead of tobacco. Morosely, he would sit in our living
room talking all sorts of crazy stuff. But most of the day, he watched
soap operas – General Hospital and Days of our Lives – like a Catholic
schoolgirl crying at times. Heapingfuls of embarrassment. I can still
remember his stories about World War I and II and him offering me
Whitman chocolates whenever I sat in to visit him after school. But he
kind of frightened me. I mean, the hands that he gave me the chocolate
with were spotted, his left was nothing but a stump, and his entire body
had shriveled like a Georgia peach that had been left on the window sill
for too long.
Sometimes, he would wheeze like a maniac in his damn rocking
chair, and frighten the hell out of all of us.
But I still can’t remember all the details flipping through these torn
and yellowing pages of memory that seem to be crumbling these days.
My parents had always told me I was just a kid, and treated me like their
indentured servant, you know, like back in the late 1700’s? Telling me
to clean their dirty wash, scrub the stained toilet bowls, and pick up
the rank dog shit in the backyard. And in my spare time? I had to fend
off the raccoons whenever they tried to eat my mother’s homemade
spaghetti with meatballs and pastafazoola. Then there was my mealy?mouthed sister who fought like an angry cat hissing and scratching
until she got her way.
But some things come back, others don’t.
Last year, I flunked out of one prep school since it bored me to
tears, as my parents had decided to separate since there was no zebra?shirted referee with a loud whistle to keep track of their matches. So,
156 Soul Kitchen
my mother gave up and moved us to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly
Love, although I can’t say I’ve seen too much of the professed brotherly
love, yet.
But I remember a brisk October morning when Grandfather hobbled
to see Hillary and me off to school. There wasn’t anything odd or wrong
with that. It’s just that we were afraid of Grandfather coming down
with shivering spells and ruining a family meal together. Hillary would
nervously laugh, I’d feel embarrassed, and my Mom would be running
to the telephone. And sometimes the good doctor would come, and
sometimes he wouldn’t.
It all depended on how frantic my Mother’s voice seemed.
But either way, Grandfather Bayer was the same – all he would have
to say when he got his voice back was: “The soul is shaking the body
from its dreams.”
Well, Grandfather didn’t go into another shivering spell that
morning. In fact, he sat something like a proud Allied general, buttering
his toast, and the way he looked at us, we thought he was on the verge of
commanding us to invade Omaha or Utah beach all before we took off
to school with our backpacks.
My Mother moved about making our paper bag lunches, and as
always, she’d ask boring unimportant questions: whether we liked
our new teachers, did our friends live far from here, and what were
the classes that we enjoyed the most. It was like someone with a dull
hammer hitting you over the head. Hillary would answer, and I’d nod
my head to confirm.
Quickly, I was learning that life was …nothing special.
But Grandfather Bayer would rescue me like a hawk flying from
high above to snag a Chinook salmon in one beautiful swoop above the
blue waters. This time he mingled in on the conversation, and then he
started pressing me with how well I liked school.
“It’s okay,” I muttered.
“Well, is it any better than your other school?”
“I guess.”
“But do you like school?!”
“It’s alright, I guess.”
By this time, Grandfather Bayer was grumbling loudly like The Boo
Birds at Veterans Stadium when they yelled at Ron Jaworski and they
started pelting Santa Claus with icy snowballs.
Kevin Marley 157
He held his orange juice glass, swirled it.
“Well, do you wanna know what I think of school?”
I shook my head until I became dizzy as the world sailing around
the Sun, the Milky Way Galaxy, moving almost at one million miles per
hour away
But Grandfather Bayer didn’t care, and continued anyway.
“I think school stinks! I think it’s boring! I think it’s the worst place to
send a kid!”
Grandfather pounded the kitchen table, and I sat watching our
plates, forks, spoons, and knives suffer through their own California?like earthquake.
Hillary was eating oat meal, and began laughing again like a hyena
in the safari. She caught her breath while Grandfather Bayer glanced at
her before riveting his eyes on me.
“Damn right, schools are even worse than prisons!” Grandfather
began again, doing what he usually did best, grabbing something from
nowhere. “At least behind bars, a prisoner knows why he’s there. He knows
he needs to make up for some mistake and that’s that.
“But in school, they keep you in them small rooms, make you worry,
sweat and cry, and make you think and think some more, and then they’ve
got the actual nerve to tell you you’re becoming educated. But it’s just a
bunch of horseshit if you ask me.”
Mother pounced on Grandfather like I had never seen. He shrank
worse than a kid when a teacher makes you feel dumb. But hell, none of
that matters as I was growing older but not wiser crawling like a creeper
up and around a wall.
But Grandfather Bayer just sat for the rest of his meal eating his toast
and eggs like a little lamb.
He finished without a peep, excused himself. As he hobbled away, he
muttered something about how this world was nothing but a one room
schoolhouse, and that anyone could learn anything anywhere if you just
learned to focus your own mind.
Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t follow those lemmings who were
running off a very steep cliff.
But in a couple minutes, Mother played her game: She changed
phonograph records, packed our sandwiches, and escorted us to the
front door for another day at Lakeview Elementary School; and quickly,
I found my way halfway down a rabbit hole.
158 Soul Kitchen
There were always a chorus of voices.
“I wanna to be a Musketeer!”
“Then you gotta cross the highway with us!”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Why?!”
“Because I can’t.”
“You’ll never be one of us!”
“Chicken!”
“Am not.”
“Am, too”
Michael shoved me hard to prove his point. Eddie, Randy and Alex
kept saying I wasn’t tough enough to be in the Special Forces, that I
was yellow, like the Viet Cong and that I was fighting like them, hit and
run – hit and run some more on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were my
friends – and I was stupid enough to want their comradeship.
Slowly, I kicked a few autumnal leaves on the wet pavement. They
had ignited into fiery reds, oranges, and yellows as gray clouds stirred
above. Morning traffic roared down Chester Pike and a cold wind blew.
“Well, maybe I can.”
“You have to!”
A lull in the traffic suddenly occurred. Michael, Alex, and Eddie
streaked like mad Musketeers brandishing French rapiers and their
bravado across the four lanes of Chester Pike yelling, “Come on! All for
one! One for all!”
But my feet were like the gnarly roots of an oak tree.
“My sister will find out even if she doesn’t see me cross!”
“You can make something up.”
“What?!”
Randy hit me hard in the right arm. He started swerving through the
traffic thinking that I wasn’t daring enough to hang around with sixth
graders who smoked cigarettes and stole candy, and did stuff that pretty
much left truant officers scratching their heads wondering how they got
so many rotten apples in one barrel.
The first two lanes were filled with Buicks, Chevies, and gas guzzling
Cadillacs, a modern-day caravan of cars and trucks leaving a trail of
exhaust that were all were chasing The American Dream. We all were.
Happiness and love were out there. Somewhere. And by God, we were
going to get ‘em in our two-fisted grabs. Maybe, historians would write
Kevin Marley 159
about us in the same vein that they had written about famous caravans
that had crossed Persia, China, and ancient India thousands of years
ago.
Finally, I saw my chance as I ran like a madman. Slipping on a spot
of oil, I fell—and then got up – with skin peeled away like on a tender
peach, shaking it off, before running to the middle of Chester Pike
where I straddled the yellow line, almost like a frightened deer.
Cars and trucks whizzed by.
Honking their horns.
Screeching brakes.
I was walking a tightrope.
Between these worlds.
On either side.
Tons of traffic and Invisible wings.
Waiting to carry me.
Back Home.
I gazed across the road where Michael, Eddie, Randy, and Alex were
rolling around like pigs in the mud as someone had told a great joke.
I cursed them under my breath. I had followed them like a blithely
skipping along idiot. Hillary was still stupidly walking twenty yards
away, might have been as long as a mile, talking girls stuff and other
nonsense with her friends.
“You can’t be a Musketeer! Go back to school!”
Bravely, I balanced like Karl Wallenda on a tightrope, wobbling with
death on both sides of me. In a blur, I watched a brown Mustang and
Pinto gallop past me. They were kicking up clouds of dirt.
My feet wobbled.
Sweat stung my bloody palms.
A Mack truck barely missed me.
Soon, my sister was going to be told that I was stranded in the middle
of Chester Pike where just last month Tommy Sellers got hit and was
thrown like a heavy sack of potatoes. Desperate, I threw myself forward
hoping that if I got across I could deny everything like a madman, like a
Congressional politician who doesn’t want people to know what shady
deals he’s committed.
One car honked its horn. Another slammed on its brakes. My heart
squeezed itself silly as two tons of metal crashed into the front car all
due to my stupidity. I swore that death had already occurred that I had
160 Soul Kitchen
been taken out of this strange perdition that was everyday life and was
now existing in that something else.
But instinctively, I kept moving – I dove headlong the final yard of
the road as a sixteen-wheeler jammed on its brakes and hit the brooding
cars in front of it and created a massive eight-car pileup.
The Malibu lurched forward.
As Death galloped past and missed with his cold scythe.
Quietly yanking my own strings, I picked myself up. My mind raced
like a computer speaking in a strange binary language thinking of
permutations of what had just happened and what might have happened
“Run!”
“You don’t want to go to The Big House!”
Like escaped convicts, we trail blazed a path down the road, running
on furious feet trying to escape from all the madness and brutality that
seems to bear down on you. Haplessly, I breathed more like a chugging
locomotive and caught up with my sister who had been a football field
ahead of me.
She turned around twirling her baton, and asked in her annoying
voice: “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothin.”
“Well, quit being such a drippy snot.”
Four blocks were left before we reached the corner of Chester Pike
and Stewart Lane where a fat crossing guard named Millie would
imperiously wave her hands, and the mad city drivers were forced to
stop. She made sure everyone obeyed the laws – as though none of us
would if society just looked the other way – but I was still feeling nervous
and wondering if the cops would arrest us for that major accident.
Eleanor Crawley stretched her neck like a crane and first saw
the crowd of children milling about shuffling their feet. She told my
sister that something happened. But Hillary kept twirling her baton,
imagining herself finally making it on this year’s majorette team. She
had such stupid dreams that it often made me nauseous.
Suddenly, I felt a cool breeze pass through my mind.
“I doubt it’s anything big,” my sister said.
“Well, let’s find out anyway. Come on,” Eleanor said.
They sprung ahead like rabbits in thick brush.
A solemn bell rang.
Kevin Marley 161
It rang for him.
It rang for us.
The rumor of the boy’s death passed through the growing crowd
along with a gray lingering cloud over our heads. Everyone fell silent
like in a cathedral with an azure roof and busy-at-work artists painting
the ceiling.
But I wasn’t so shocked except for having somehow known of
the event beforehand. I stood trying to think like an impressive IBM
computer with a Pentium Processor doing many calculations. But the
only thing that came to mind was an image: An egg being crushed
and the yolk dripping out. Someone was dead, and a nauseous wave
splashed against my insides, and yet, I knew that I had to move forward
to see this ghastly spectacle.
Quickly, I merged into the large crowd. I tried to peer over a vast city,
the skyscraper bodies, some tall, others broad and hunched, and many
like smaller rows of condominiums. The only conversation taking place
was a few nervous giggles and gentle sobbing. Desperately, I shoved
some more trying to find a small hole in this wall that always was in
front of me whenever I tried to see something genuine.
Cottony clouds blotted.
The yellowy sun.
Helicopter seeds fell.
A sharp cutting wind came.
I made it another ten yards as I saw the nearby ambulance and felt
its pulsing red light hitting me, and watched the professional medics
race about.
I pushed my way past my own fears and sad faces before a girl’s hand
grabbed a tussle of my brown hair pulling, like I were one of her stupid
dolls.
“You’re not going to see that,” my sister exclaimed. “There’s nothing
you want to see!”
“Yes, there is!”
“No there isn’t, buster.”
“I’m old enough.”
“No, you’re not!”
“Don’t be morbid, Erik!”
Futilely, I struggled against her tightly locked fingers, trying to loosen
her grip. Being three years older, she towered over me, but despite those
162 Soul Kitchen
things, I wasn’t ready to fight her as I strictly fought boys and didn’t
believe in equal rights yet.
Eleanor chimed in, like a moron.
“He’s headed for trouble again, big time.”
“Juvenile Detention,” another voice barked.
I squirmed looking for that big brother, the one my parents somehow
forgot to make one Saturday night while briskly rubbing tummies under
the covers. But through their glances, these kids silenced me as already I
was an outlier of some kind, hungering for the kind of knowledge about
the far and wide vast mysteries that they never taught in school.
Hillary began yanking my hair even harder. She dragged me back
ten yards as she had carte blanche from my parents. I couldn’t fight the
way she did. Finally, my friends began making jokes. My face flushed a
crimson red and a few tears streamlined down my ruddy cheeks and my
breath got all spasmy.
We made our way, finally, to school waddling like geese and gander.
These school teachers, no, state workers, no, I mean, farmers diligently
raised us for so many years only to be slaughtered by a butcher in the
end.
Another stupid, agonizing day at Lakeview Elementary School as I
sat twiddling my thumbs. I was learning the ABC’s, Math, History, and
other basic subjects, and then wondering when they would teach us
the good stuff that adults knew. In my spare time, I wrote a plethora of
stories and more stories about ghosts and monsters, and couldn’t help
thinking about the boy who died. What happened to him? Did anyone
know exactly? A constant chirping of birds, endless gossip, continued
throughout the day. It just annoyed me! I didn’t want endless speculation
but hard facts for I was a cub reporter on the beat who wanted to ask
the larger, more important questions in life and to sift through whatever
clues I could grasp.
My 3rd grade teacher was Mrs. Monteith who had short auburn hair,
cut gracefully, and dark eyes, and wore dresses like those flapper girls in
the 1920’s. She let me learn at my own pace and read anything I liked,
including science fiction stories. At the time, I was mad about her. She
kept a picture of me in her desk drawer, and saw my face light up as
though my hidden prayers had been answered. But things changed. Mr.
Monteith came one night to see our class perform, and I was horrified
Kevin Marley 163
to be reminded that she was married to him as my heart beat like a
prisoner behind its ivory cage.
The world kept wobbling, like a child’s top, and we foolishly kept
believing that things were getting better when they were getting worse.
The long run home: I ran past the bridges, railroad tracks, tar roads
and the houses as though it belonged to some elaborate H&O set. My
vision was like a blurred camera – out of focus. Finally, I went down
Sellers Avenue and came to Chester Pike, with a lump in my throat.
It was a mid-sized frog that wouldn’t get out.
A policeman escorted across the four-lane highway. Then I ran as
fast as they could move, as fast as my lungs might breath, down Stull
Road. But all in all, I wasn’t a nine-year-old boy but a slow-moving crab
scuttling across a dark cold ocean floor.
In the evening, we sat in a Colonial-styled kitchen not far from the
Delaware River, in fact, and ate a spaghetti dinner. Both Hillary and
I had trumpeted the news of the boy’s death when we burst through
the door on an important errand. Surprise and concern had shone
on Mother’s face, and she quickly sent us both on the chore of buying
flowers and a sympathy card for the boy’s parents even though we really
weren’t sure if we had known him.
“Neighbors mustn’t forget each other.”
“But, we don’t know ….”
“Don’t forget our manners.”
Quietly, I sat now twirling pasta on my fork watching Grandfather
Bayer sip his coke. I was cooking hot soup in my head as crazy thoughts
kept percolating. And I kept staring at my spaghetti until I came up
with the idea that I was reeling in a lot of rope which was later going
to be used to save hundreds of lives. I kept turning my metal fork, like
through a crankshaft, and from some kind of abysmal hell that only
Dante has described, I was bringing these tormented souls to a higher
place, and I swear I could hear the loud applause of angels watching one
enlightened soul out of a million, doing something worthwhile instead
of being obsessed with stuff that doesn’t matter
Ten minutes had gone by. Still, no one really said anything. Everyone
wore a dignified funeral face — except Grandfather who seemed fairly
at ease. I stared at Mother, and got mad thinking why she never said
anything important when I needed to hear it. Words escaped like angry
prisoners from my mouth and I destroyed the stupid silence.
164 Soul Kitchen
“What happens to a person when he dies?!”
Grandfather’s eyes brightened. Maybe, he would babble something
important. But Mother still ruled the roost and played the usual game
of changing vinyl records on the turn table whenever I wanted to hear
a more solemn tune.
“So, what do you want to be for Halloween this year?” Mother
asked Hillary as she dabbed a napkin around her lips after eating more
spaghetti.
My sister played with her brown hair, wrapping it around her fingers.
I swore she was going to say majorette since she wanted to impress
everyone. A borne ham. Grandfather suddenly coughed and asked for
someone to pass the salt.
“Umm. I want to be a gorgeous movie actress from the 1920’s.”
“Yuck!”
“Nobody asked your opinion!”
I reached past the salad bowl and lasagna, and handed Grandfather
Bayer the salt shaker, making sure I placed it by his left hand.
“Well, that’s an easy enough costume! We have plenty of formal
dresses and other attire that used to be long to your Grandmother down
in the trunk in the basement.”
I stared wondering why Hillary didn’t want to go out as a baton
twirling majorette this year doing her neighborhood-wide infamous set
of twirls, high kicks and stunts like a retarded girl. Maybe she just got
tired of always not making final cuts because of her thick legs and jitters.
I looked over at Grandfather and saw him shaking salt over his plate.
He stopped and began squinting in a funny way.
“So, what do you want to be for Halloween, Erik?”
“I want to be a Musketeer.”
A large fist out of nowhere pounded the table. Grandfather’s voice
boomed like thunder on the prairie.
“I asked for the pepper, not the salt.”
Quickly, I reached past the spaghetti and grabbed the pepper shaker,
passing it to Grandfather who had what people called Irish Alzheimer’s,
which means you get pissed a lot, but oftentimes, forget what you’re
pissed about.
Mother continued her dreary speech.
“Well, that’s another easy one! We can just go to K-Mart and buy
your costume. There should be a very good selection there.”
Kevin Marley 165
A look of disappointment covered my face.
“But I wanted you to make the costume! It won’t be the best
Musketeer costume if you don’t make it!”
“And how many children are going to dress up as Musketeers?”
“Probably, not many,” I said.
“Okay, my little Aramis, I’ll see what I can do so that you can be the
best Musketeer in the city.”
The next morning, we sat at breakfast while Mother cooked her
specialty of blueberry pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar and
eggs overturned easy. I sat laboring over my eighth pancake knowing
it was going to sink me for the rest of the day like rocks in my stomach.
Grandfather hobbled in carrying this morning’s newspaper rumpled up
newspaper, and mumbled what we all took to be a good morning.
“I found some clothes from the twenties, Mom! A neat little hat and
a dress just like I saw in that movie ‘The Great Gatsby.’” Hillary said as
she walked into the kitchen and threw herself down on a Colonial chair
that had been handmade by the Amish.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a lot of clothes from
then. Your Grandmother was a very wealthy woman from Philadelphia
society,” Mother said as she lifted the frying pan and gave Hillary her
usual stack of three.
Grandfather ruffled the paper and asked for the syrup. Quickly, I
grabbed it and set it firmly down in front of him yelling, “Here’s the
syrup, Grandfather!”
I sat and chuckled. But Mother this time silenced me. I shrunk in my
seat worse than when a teacher makes you feel stupid for not knowing
something.
“I’m gonna be going out this afternoon, Erik. I’ve got some errands
to run. If I’m not back when you get home, you know where the key is. I
don’t want Grandfather to have to get up to answer the door.”
Slowly, I nodded my head. Mother started packing our lunches of
ham and bologna sandwiches and Grandfather shook the newspaper
again. He seemed to be taking great pains looking for something. His
right arm started twitching and everyone braced for the emergency:
Hillary with her nervous giggles, me with my embarrassment, and
Mother with a frantic voice always ready for the telephone.
But Grandfather defeated the rebellion and regained control of his
arm. He put the paper down and began reading.
166 Soul Kitchen
Hillary was the first to notice the article about yesterday’s fatal
accident on Chester Pike. “It’s about what happened at the corner,” my
sister said getting up from her seat to look over Grandfather’s shoulder
as a silent cloud drifted into our Colonial kitchen.
“Anthony McKinnens,” my sister said in a hushed voice.
I stared at the name in disbelief as I had played baseball with
Anthony only last summer as he had been our shortstop on the Lions
never missing a game. Unfortunately, I had ridden the bench most of
the year catching splinters in my butt, only told to play right or left
outfield, all depending on where their hitters weren’t hitting.
A few tears trickled down.
Pretty soon my breathing would be all spasmy.
Hearing me sniff, Grandfather turned around and stared at me
annoyed, presumably, by my unmanliness.
“Ain’t nuthin’ big,” Grandfather’s voice boomed. “Death ain’t so bad.
In fact, it happens all the time.”
I stared at Mother expecting her to shut Grandfather up with her
eyes. But she just kept gazing at the newspaper and reached over, and
began massaging my neck.
“It’s really not as bad as you might think,” Grandfather Bayer kept
muttering. “It’s nothing but a tight shoe coming off your foot, a mitten
falling off your hand!”
But I kept thinking of Anthony though being crunched like a
lonesome egg, and how we had had good times blowing up bottle
rockets over Crazy Wess’s house and even threw some eggs.
I watched Grandfather turn the page. But the Hoover dam inside
broke. More tears poured out as I could barely see anything on this
stormy day.
Grandfather’s ugly morning breath came. I sensed again he was
staring at me with his ugly eyes.
“The person who’s dead’s alright. You’re just weeping up a storm for
yourself!”
“I am not.”
“Awww, this growing old stuff ain’t for sissies.”
I had had enough of his barking. I pushed Mother’s hands away,
hurled myself forward, and managed to kick Grandfather’s good leg
before I ran out of their room. I grabbed my books and ran out of the
Kevin Marley 167
house before Mother had a chance of catching up to embarrass me once
more.
After a few blocks, I stopped. I had virtually completed the Boston
Marathon with pancakes that were clumps in my belly, rolling over.
I took a few deep breaths and walked a few yards to the park where
Anthony and I sometimes played tree tag. We climbed sometimes thirty
to forty feet up in these trees risking life and limb. But now I sat down
on a swing seat and just decided to wait until I had to go to learn things
I didn’t want to learn.
Across the park, I watched a foolish little boy fly a kite. He ran around
in small circles, like a little madman, jerking his arm this way and that
way, trying to keep the kite away from some tall trees.
It was a Chinese kite with a dragon-like tail that swished in the wind.
But he couldn’t save the kite for the life of him. Lifelessly, the dragon
kite dove down dive bombing like a Stuka, almost crashing into the
cedar branches, and then he’d yank and yank on the string trying to save
the thing; and I think he did more harm than good cause the kite always
seemed to save itself when he’d let it alone.
But everything ended. The little kid got the kite to fly higher and
higher, but his welcomed breeze turned into a forceful gust as the kite
string suddenly snapped.
The little kid ran forward, stumbled, and fell down crying.
I sat staring at the kite moving up and up. It went past a flock of
geese and seemed to tumble over the clouds falling fast into Infinity.
I felt strangely happy.
The next few weeks nothing happened. Every day’s horizon was a
jump rope. And every morning, like most fools, I would pretend that I
was caught in a game, so far, that I was winning.
Grandfather Bayer began calming down again. He had tasted the
profound bitterness of life and drank it like Socrates. Like a dark bird on
a telephone wire, he crowed deeply a few more times waiting to migrate
to a strange land that I can barely remember. A few times he began
uncontrollably shivering, and his brown eyes would look out for help
as Mother would rush by his side putting a blanket over him with her
slender arms as though he had really changed and had become a child,
again.
But at the table, I offered no assistance to grab anything or by saying
anything cheerful. Often, I just sat staring at my plate for another fifteen
168 Soul Kitchen
minutes after my meal, making it perfectly clear to Grandfather that I
didn’t want the apology he would never give, nor did I want to part as
buddies just because he was quickly stepping through a darkened foyer;
for I still cursed him vehemently under my breath thinking of all the
handful of curse words I had so far learned.
On a rainy Friday afternoon, Grandfather died as we had been taken
out of school early to go to St. Madeline’s Hospital. Only one other
person I had known had died and gone to that other place, and the
wound was already strangely healing, the scar already forming.
But Grandfather’s death was different. There was no funeral
procession even though he had been a veteran. No Catholic priest. No
last rites. He didn’t want anything Mother said. “Grandfather just wants
to be cremated and his ashes scattered in our backyard garden for next
spring.”
Hillary, prone to all sorts of diseases, seemed to take it the worst. She
broke out in a terrible rash and existed as a pitiful wreck for the next
week and a half in the living room where Mother made a special sofa
bed for her so she could watch TV shows and eat Rocky Road ice cream
when bored. But mostly, it was the same old thing: Mother and Hillary
just sat like girls often do and endlessly talked, only this time they cried
a jig or two.
A couple times Mother wanted me to join them in their rainstorm
in the living room making a flood worse than what Noah and his ark
faced. But I refused – and sat on the steps watching them with a dry,
stubborn face that now gazed only at the very small meanness of things.
Halloween arrived on a Monday with school parties and treats, and
although I was afraid to ask, I had the distinct feeling that Mother hadn’t
completed my Musketeers’ costume yet. When I ran home from school,
she was working on it, but said she would have to start dinner soon.
“But it won’t be finished by tonight,” I exclaimed looking at the
Musketeer costume that was nothing but a bunch of colorful silk rags,
an empty scabbard, and a dull plastic sword.
Mother took a long look at the work she shad left. A deep weariness
showed on her face. “You’re right, Erik. I guess we’ll just have to resort
to something in Grandmother’s special trunk.”
I ran downstairs, and began frantically searching through the trunk.
There was nothing in it. “Girl’s clothes.” I threw a satin dress on the
Kevin Marley 169
cellar floor that danced across ballrooms forty years ago. Running
upstairs, I complained that the clothes were suited for a girl or that none
of Grandfather’s old clothes fitted me, and besides I don’t want to wear
those smelly old things anyway, I blurted out.
Hillary tried to knife me with a stare.
Quickly, Mother got up from her kitchen seat and ran downstairs,
and after seeing for herself that there was nothing for me to wear in the
old trunk, she said with a tone that sounded close to defeat, “I’ll just
have to run to K-Mart to buy your costume.”
“But most of the stores are out of costumes.”
I stared into my Mother’s face. Tears like broken glass fell. Cutting
everything. But somehow, I miraculously rose to the occasion like
Jesus who wanted to do some good things two thousand years ago, but
who had the unfortunate luck of being surrounded by too many bad
disciples.
“I can stay home tonight,” I blurted out. “Hillary’s going to be staying
home. I can stay home, too.”
But Mother looked at me.
“No, you’ll feel better if you go out and collect candy, my little
Aramis.”
Mother finally got an idea and quickly decided what costume I would
wear. She ran into the laundry room, and began looking for something.
Upstairs, the doorbell rang, and I could hear the footsteps of the first
trick or treaters sounding above. Carrying a long white sheet, Mother
came out of the laundry room, smiled sheepishly, and threw a big sheet
over my head, measuring the holes for my eyes, mouth and arms.
By seven o’clock, I was ready. With jack-o-lantern, I eagerly started
out thinking that this is what Magellan himself must have felt before he
began sailing around the world.
A treasure trove awaited.
Hurrying down Collier Circle, I marched towards my first house
crunching dry leaves with my sneakers. Ghouls and goblins passed by.
Witches and Warlocks murmured their incantations with incredible
powers. Aliens who no doubt had descended from the skies to see our
small island in these vast cosmos were watching us. And swashbuckling
pirates from the Caribbean were making raids on Spanish galleons. The
night was bewitched. Pandora’s Box had been opened and many spirits
170 Soul Kitchen
reigned. After seeing all this, I knocked and knocked on my first door
for several minutes.
An old man gruff answered.
With a strong shove, the old man opened the oak door and waited
for me to walk into a pitch-dark room with only a strange glow. He
looked mean, old and stupid. I stood frozen staring at Hell itself. My
muscles tensed like a cat’s. My back reared up and I hissed.
“Goddamn, I ain’t a pervert,” a voice boomed.
The door slammed.
I stood on the steps of this House starting to shiver, hearing inside
and outside howls and shrieks.
Quickly, I ran back home, tripping over my sheet and bumping into
many dark unseen things. There were many strange beings everywhere
of ghosts and goblins, demons and monsters, and even elves and faeries,
and if we looked further upwards, sylphs and gnomes, and even angels.
But here was the bottom of the barrel. A long parade of ugly demons,
ghosts, and other beings were leaving my house as I screamed with
pandemonium. I ran inside. Mother struck by my early arrival removed
the ghastly sheet. Salty raindrops drenched my face.
Finally, I decided I didn’t want to be a ghost anymore.
The Kafe Buffet
The diner was barely a tin can of hot metal and a tarred roof baking
in the angry sun just off the New Jersey Turnpike. You just had to take
Exit 4 and then turn right on Route 73, and right again on Fellowship
Road to get there before coming to their Kafe Buffet’s driveway that was
never adequately marked with white stripes so that people just parked
wherever the hell they wanted to being New Jerseyites, that is, a special
breed of people who have strong backbones, garrulous lips, and nasal
toned voices and who while driving are very prone to use American
sign language a lot. During summertime, the Kafe looked like a big
sardine can so that if you pulled back the top out would pop a lot of
orderly sardines in thick oil and marinara sauce.
But of course, Mikey Fizzano, a hot-headed Sicilian, would get
pissed since he was the owner of the place, and it was his church and
congregation.
But who knows?
The Kafe was really a great place during awful times where we
just ate and ate, and ate some more, before we had to purge ourselves
before going back and eating more food again. We were like the ancient
Romans, and had a lot of fun, maybe, just too much before the place
was closed.
“It’s one of those inconspicuous places,” my Uncle Fabbie said
drinking from a bottle of Pisano wine, “but you’ll love the food there.
They get it just right.”
“They got the best burgers and fries to die for,” Connie chimed in.
“If I were on death row, and they asked me for my last meal, and I
don’t care if I was sittin’ on Alcatraz Island in some shitty cell, I’d say,
‘Get me one of them burgers from Kafe in New Jersey.’ And I think
they’d have to do that since it was your last meal and all,” Danny said as
he was a little overfamiliar with the judicial system in Trenton.
172 Soul Kitchen
The police swarmed the place though right around Labor Day, after
the killings and after a bunch of wildfires had hit the New Jersey pines.
We had gone there over the weekend, looking to relax after breaking
our backs working for a bunch of Wall Street overlords who wanted
to make billions of dollars in the shadiest manner as we looked the
other way, and bent rules to where they were unrecognizable, and
misconstrued things, and twisted the truth, and expertly mangled the
English language to where it ultimately persuaded and said something,
but it meant nothing in the final analysis.
Like hogs feeding at trough, we buried our hungry faces into
the menus and salivated and had dreams and more dreams of food,
packing the pounds on just thinking about it. I was in a booth with
my wife, Kathleen, and our five kids, where we had come to enjoy a
regular dinner, but where I would witness a Zapruder film frame-by
frame tragedy from the supposed gunshots in the book repository to
the grassy knoll shots to the entire unraveling hysteria.
But Maggie started the whole thing off with a shebang.
Maggie told the waitress: “I’ll take the Suicide Burger with extra
cheese. Along with High Blood Pressure Fries with the Stroke-Me-Out
Salt and Die Young Mayo.”
“Anything to drink?”
“I’ll take a Bloody Mary and Gimme-Some-Heart-Burn Chocolate
Cheesecake.”
Her jowls shook with laughter like one of those hogs on Nolan’s
Farm. She had an attractive face that had been weathered over the past
years from depression and she had the dark bags under her eyes that
could have been used for shopping bags to prove it, just in case.
“I’m splurging since I just gotta raise.”
“And you ma’am?”
“I don’t know ‘bout you. But I’m famished” Stella said having come
back from a recent Wildwood vacation with her kids. “I’ll take The
Myocardial Infarction Pizza with everything on it, except the kitchen
sink, dear. Make sure it has the hot dog stuffed pizza crust. And that you
give me some packets of Blow-It-Out-Your-Butt Texarkana Hot Sauce,
too. And a diet Coke.”
Stella pulled in her brown chair, and huffed and puffed more like a
chugging locomotive, always going up a steep hill. Her reddish hair was
Kevin Marley 173
still up in curlers. But she pulled out her compact mirror anyways to
check her makeup and put on more coral pink lipstick.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m looking to finally cure myself of hellish anorexia,” Sam said
chuckling as he scratched his arm that could’ve been a runway model’s
thigh. “Lemme see. What am I Jonesing for? Tonight, I’m gonna go
French, and get the Mac Lobsta’ with freshly made noodles spruced
with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon
and mascarpone.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on it, sir?”
“I’m goin’ for the homemade Velveeta stuff, ok?”
“Anything else tonight?”
“I’ll take a Clog-Those-Arteries Filet Mignon Steak and a Shortcut-To?Heaven Blueberry Milkshake to wash it all down right before I get my
will signed in my lawyer’s office tomorrow. Hopefully, my luck won’t
run out on me as my second wife and kids would be pissed.”
He tucked in his lumberjack shirt that kept falling out and rubbed
his hand over his tummy like an expectant mother.
“And you, sir”
“Hell, I’m gonna out do all of you chickens, and get The Vertical
Burger with ten patties and twelve slices of cheese, and I’ll take The
Thick Menstrual Ketchup along with the Die Young Mayo with your
secret sauce, too,” Bernie said as he bit his upper lip feeling a sharp pain.
“And put a couple of ‘em Krispy Kreme Donuts on it for my hamburger
buns – I hate it when people can’t go big and start countin’ calories
when in a fine restaurant like this.”
“What would you like to drink, sir?”
“Today’s Friday. I got about as much energy as a slug. I’ll take a
Mocha IV with a new syringe and one of ‘em slow drips in my right
arm. Should wake me up some.”
The place buzzed. People were slap happy.
“How’s the job goin’ Maggie?” Bernie asked as he was still getting
over the loss of his ex-wife, Lena.
“I’m fine so long as I ain’t got to fly from JFK to Los Angeles, again.
My boss got so ticked off.”
“For what?”
“Cause I got pulled out of the pre-boarding line and charged two
fares for taking up two seats by American Airlines.”
174 Soul Kitchen
“Why?”
“I’ve been labeled as morbidly obese by them using a scientific chart
profiling my weight and my height.”
“Goddamn. I can’t stand livin’ in a skinny-ass centric world these
days.”
“The nerve of those people.”
“My boss now may not fly me since we went substantively over
budget on the trip. If that happens, I’ll probably lose my Efficiency 5
Rating and be susceptible to a layoff the next time around.”
“You should sue ‘em.”
“Naw. I can’t”
“How come?”
“Didn’t you hear the Supreme Court ruling last week?”
“Nope.”
“It’s called Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Not half as bad as you might think.”
“Whadya mean?”
“The media’s calling it: Fat People vs. The Rest of Us.”
“How dare their bony asses!”
“Is this a sick joke?”
“No, I wish it were.”
“Then what?”
“It’s about tens of thousands of workers having to taste test a bunch
of high calorie blueberry to glazed to chocolate to crème-filled donuts
and eclairs, some for years at a time. Now, most of them put on a lot of
weight and had commensurate health problems, and now they want to
be compensated for the damage, and there are others who now are so
fat that they can’t get off the damn couch and want long-term disability,
too. And believe it or not, the public thinks it’s their fault.”
“They weren’t borne that way.”
“Not their fault, at all.”
“Fat people are taken advantage of every day,” Sam said, as he was
tired of being looked at as F-A-T. “We’re labeled as being lazy and
sloppy. But we’re thought of as always being easy going and jolly like
we’re an out-of-season Santa Claus. At the same time, they train us to
eat the worse food imaginable.”
Kevin Marley 175
“Amen, brother!”
“But in Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts the Supreme Court
had to decide if being morbidly obese was a long-term disability.
Companies panicked. Insurers did, too. The rest of the public became
more inflamed than a charcoal broiler during the fourth of July. The
so-called experts said it would take, at least, a trillion a year if fat people
became permanently disabled and we had to take care of them as they
sat on the couch, weeping into their handkerchiefs watching reruns of
Dr. Phil, Maury Popovich, and Oprah Winfrey all day while snacking
on anything that didn’t move.
“But they ruled against us big time!
“The public rejoiced. They had a field day on all those TV networks
telling their favorite fat jokes: “Your momma so fat she left the house
wearing high heels and came back wearing flip flops!”; “Your momma so
fat I ran outta gas trying to drive around her!”; “That guy’s so fat, he shows
up on radar!”; “If Betsy fell into the Grand Canyon, she’d get stuck!”; “Why
did the Mr. Softy Truck stop coming to our neighborhood? It got hijacked
by the fat kids.”; “Can fat people go skinny dipping?”; “What is Newton’s
Law of Motion? A fat body will stay a fat body in motion unless acted
upon by an outside Force.”; “Why did the fat man like his big tummy.
Cause it was a bitch repeller.”; “How do you seduce a fat woman? Piece of
cake.” and “I’m not fat. I’m just four feet too short.”
“Don’t they know?”
“No, they don’t.”
“We’re the biggest minority in this entire country!”
“Bigger than Blacks and Latinos combined.”
“There’s a pandemic of Fat People and we’re taking over the world!
Soon the Presidents, The Prime Ministers and the legislators and the
courts will all be filled with Fat People – and we’ll finally get our just
desserts.”
“OUR OWN PIECE OF THE PIE!”
“WITH WHIPCREAM ON IT!”
“AND A FEW MARASCHINO CHERRIES!”
Everyone was as starved as The Donner Party and getting ready to
resort to cannibalism, if necessary, but, at last, the food leaving trails of
the finest aromas came.
176 Soul Kitchen
Maggie began devouring her Suicide Burger, half raw with reddish?brown blood, and nonchalantly, washing it down with a stiff Blood
Mary. The High Blood Pressure Fries flushed her face, neck, and chest
pink complementing her makeup for such an occasion, and made beads
of sweat, like tiny jewels, appear.
“Oh, my God! This definitely hits the spot like one of them surgical
strikes in, oh, I forget, umm, in Iran.”
Sam was as hungry as a wild horse.
His feeding bucket, I mean, his Mac Lobsta’ with Velveeta Cheese
came along with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of
fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone.
He leaned to the right side – and blew his bugle horn.
“Oh, Sam!”
“What?”
“Not here!”
“That’s my pressure valve.”
Stella was gasping with sheer delight over her culinary choices, but
started feeling keen pain in her left arm as she winced.
“I’d take some nitroglycerine, girl. That’s a real Myocardial Infarction
Pizza if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, Bernie, I’m fine. I ate dozens of these in my younger days and all
I got for it was that I became a real BBW for all these men in town who
desperately wanted a woman with some rare, fine meat on her bones.
You’d be surprised how many men from the mayor to the lawyers in
town that have a Chunky Ass Fetish. Their wives would be too!”
“I didn’t know.”
“Dunno what?”
“Didn’t know you were in such demand, girl.”
“That’s almighty fine for you, Stella. But I’m tired of being called fat,”
Bernie sighed as he began trying to scale his Vertical Burger in a free
climb without any kind of rope or pylons. “It doesn’t sit well with me,
anymore. I mean, the kids near my house used to call me Java the Hut,
and I’d play along with it doing his deep voice and pretending to deep
freeze Han Solo. But one day, I told ‘em I don’t want to play this anymore.
They said, ‘Why?’ And I told ‘em even Java the Hut has feelings.”
“Good job, Bernie.”
“Those kids need to be re-educated.”
“Those smart ass kids aren’t educable, Maggie.”
Kevin Marley 177
“Well, we should organize ourselves, especially, since we’re gonna
become the silent majority soon in the good Ol’ U.S. of A.,” Maggie
said as she began cutting into her Gimme-Some-Heartburn Chocolate
Cheesecake which gave her naturally acid reflux which even a bottle of
Tums couldn’t defeat. She could feel it rushing up into her filled mouth,
but through sheer will was able to swallow and keep it all down for now.
“How are we gonna do that?”
“Maybe, The Fat Suffragette Movement.”
“What’s that?
“Kinda like the Women’s Movement in the 1920’s to where we all
have meetings and protests nationwide, discuss the important issues,
and naturally to make everyone comfortable, we bring along homemade
cookies, NY cheesecake, tarts, Italian pudding cake, brownies, and
Rocky Road, Pistachio Nut, Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream,
and sherbet! And what else? Oh, yeah, we could bring an assortment of
Pennsylvania Dutch pies—I know a great bakery down the street that
does them, cannolis, chocolates and truffles, and anything else that my
gastric juices can digest but for the present time I can’t remember.”
“Sounds good but too expensive, Marge.”
“The budget would be a killer.”
“What we really need is to have a big leader, almost, who can speak
to people’s hopes and fears and dramatically shift public opinion and
get things done.”
“Like a Joe McCarthy!” Stella said.
“We could have The House Un-American Activities Committee!”
Sam chimed in throwing down his Shortcut-to-Heaven Milkshake.
“And do what?’ Bernie asked as Stella gasped, and fell onto the floor
hard and cold as a stone.
But everyone knew, even the waitresses that she had done this once
to get out of a very expensive restaurant bill at Bookbinders when she
had been binging for weeks at a time.
“Nah, what I’m talking about is to have a potent message. We should
be coherent and talk about how American it is to eat your per Capita
amount of apple pie, hamburgers and hotdogs, anything that comes
from an outdoor grill, potato salad and pounds of Velveeta cheese – and
that if you don’t, you should be put under suspicion for NOT EATING
AMERICAN.”
178 Soul Kitchen
“That way, we’d have the upper hand!” Maggie said feeling woozy
after eating most of her Suicide Burger.
“And we’d still have the bigger tummies!”
“And do what after that?’ Bernie asked as he began uncontrollably
twitching from his gastrointestinal speed ball – from the lude-like
effects of the Vertical Burger while he still had the Mocha IV quintuple
expresso stuck in his arm.
With that, Sam drained his Short-Cut to-Heaven Milkshake making
a loud slurping sound, more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, as most of
the patrons craned their stiff necks to look over.
The Jersey Devil himself emerged from the burnt pine woods with a
pitchfork and appeared in a puff of black smoke.
“Lucifer and His Minions!”
Ka-thump!
Sam had fallen over like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of
Idaho potatoes onto the floor keeling over, dead as door knob.
Most went back to voraciously eating at their troughs. Maggie
though had had enough of these strange shenanigans.
“Waitress!!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Uh, we just called 9-1-1.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That man threw down a Short-Cut-to-Heaven Milkshake, and saw
Lucifer and his minions.”
“I’m not sure what I saw, ma’am.”
“Right now, he’s probably in purgatory cause of your false advertising.”
The waitress threw up her hands and glanced at the manager.
“At The Kafe Buffet, Ma’am, we try our darnest to bring you the most
delicious and wholesome cooked food possible at the cheapest prices so
that the down out and the in-between and the fancy rich can come in
here, and find something to eat while having fun.”
“Well, could you please check on Stella?”
The waitress bent down, felt her jugular.
“It doesn’t appear she has a pulse or anything,” the waitress said in
a Kentucky drawl, “but don’t worry, the ambulance should be here any
minute.”
Kevin Marley 179
“Well, at least, that makes sense,” Maggie replied as she threw down
the rest of her Bloody Mary and motioned for two more.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just got done your Myocardial Infarction Pizza with the
hotdog crust. At least, that’s true advertising. And it makes sense, in a
world that has gone Pistachio Nuts!”
“Is that all, Ma’am?”
“Nope, I’ll take the World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae. And
don’t forget this time to bring the Chocolate United Airlines jet with it, too!
Bernie, do you wanna share?”
“Nah, I’ll just splurge and go for my Empire State Building Sundae
with one hundred and two edible floors, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, could you PLEASE remove those two bodies and put them in the
back room cause they are seriously killing our appetites.”
“I’m only here to help, ma’am, and to serve you the meals that you
ordered.”
She sauntered towards the kitchen door.
The men salivated like Pavlovian dogs over her spicy breasts and
lean beefy hips as they swiveled, looking for a raw bone with some meat
on it.
“I can’t believe how much IQ’s have dropped.”
“Neither can I.”
“They’re the most dumbest I’ve seen.”
“Much worse than I thought.”
“Sure are.”
“We got our backs up against it.”
“Heck, we need to find someone like Lyndon B. Johnson who can
press and cajole people into signing legislation.”
“Like a Civil Rights Bill for Fat People Who Can’t Get Enough
Respect?”
“Exactly.”
“I can hear it now from the Capitol: ‘Ask not what that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie can do for you! But what you can do for that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie!’”
“That was JFK, not Lyndon, Bernie.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
180 Soul Kitchen
“But it could pass.”
“But right now, I’m focused on this World Trade Center Super
Duper Sundae, and damn if they haven’t forgotten the Chocolate United
Airline Flight 175, again! Must’ve went off the radar on ‘em.”
“Their tip is goin’ on life support now.”
“Waitress! Waitress!”
Bernie began eating The Empire State Building with a complementary
King Kong hanging from it. His fork expertly crushed about ten floors
of The Empire State Building when Maggie began talking about how
much she loved Kafe Buffet and Old Glory and America.
“All this negative press – it ain’t deserved.”
“Love it – or Leave it!”
“I can’t stand people who wanna burn the flag and criticize this
country and become apologists to the terrorists and talk about how
much we need to change. I think they all should be deported.”
Bernie grunted.
“I mean, I love The Good ol’ U.S. of A. so much I could gobble it up
like this here Neapolitan ice cream!”
With that, Bernie began raucously laughing while thirty floors of
The Empire State were in his mouth. Unfortunately, he inhaled, and
most of the floors sans furniture, of course, slid down his windpipe as
he began choking.
“Someone do something!”
“I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.”
“Neither do I.”
Maggie began to panic as her face flushed red, like a fresh beet.
“Eat more, Bernie! If you eat more, you’ll force the rest of the food
stuck in your throat down into your stomach like a train moving along.”
Frustrated, she ran over to him, and began cutting through The
Empire State Building, almost forty floors, and tried to force feed Bernie
who gasped and gasped, and waved his arms.
“What do you want?!”
“Not you lady.”
“What an idiot!”
Bernie pressed his fist to his stomach and then cupped motioning
that he wanted the Heimlich maneuver done. Maggie ran behind him
and put her stout arms around his waist and began pushing up and into
his diaphragm.
Kevin Marley 181
The patrons watched still voraciously eating and ordering food.
At first, nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ! Come on, Bernie. Cough this shit up!”
Spectacularly, then about 30 floors of The Empire State Building were
coughed up in pristine condition like they had not even been eaten.
Then the rest of it, even the tower. Bernie was still gasping for precious
O2
as Maggie continued. Soon, his Vertical Burger was coughed up in
perfect condition with ten grilled patties of delicious hamburger meat,
twelve slices of finely melted cheese, and Krispy Kreme Donuts as
hamburger buns, almost dripping hot off the serving platter.
“I guess he had indigestion.”
“Yep.”
“Sure did.”
Bernie, however, was still turning shades of deep blue. Maggie
continued with renewed strength as she didn’t want to see another
friend collapse.
Up came lunch.
Once again, it was like it had never be eaten and passed hungry lips:
This time, it was an exquisitely French-chef made chaud-froid of egg
capped with sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream which, of course,
belonged to a main entrée of foie gras custard with haricot beans and
boudine blanc.
Another heave ho!
Quite miraculously, then came the main course comprised of a very
delicious hickory smoked veal rump with coffee emulsion made in an
exquisite manner by the most delicate hands followed by a rich dessert
of chocolate ganache with blueberries.
A few bystanders gawked – it was a miracle!
“Heck, it looks like he never even touched it.”
“Someone should grab a plate. Chow down!”
“Why not? It’s free.”
By now, Bernie was turning Persian blue. More meals began coming
up from the depths of his stomach that seemed to be almost infinite: last
night’s midnight snack of anchovy pizza, a five-course dinner, an Italian
lunch consisting of a pound of pasta and a hearty American breakfast
along with deluxe nachos, a few Kit Kat bars, and a bag of glazed donuts
182 Soul Kitchen
from the day before – they had all been discounted bargains, too hard
to ignore.
“This guy’s a treasure chest.”
“He’s coughed up everything.”
“Grab a dish!”
Desperate, Maggie gave one more final pull as Bernie’s mouth
suddenly enlarged, and a finely polished kitchen sink flew from his
mouth, and landed ka-thud onto the table.
“Never saw that before!”
“Me, too.”
Bernie collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
And was dead.
Maggie sobbed.
A few of the patrons of Kafe Buffet tried to console her.
“It’ll be alright.”
“He’s up there with Jesus shaking hands right now.”
“Not one of them there sparrows falls to the ground outside your
Father’s care.”
Maggie had had enough. She grabbed a steak knife and pushed them
away as a small circle of friendly neighbors surrounded her.
“Something’s wrong here, folks. How can a black man be lying there on
the floor navy blue in the face? How can he throw up everything including
the kitchen sink?
“This here ain’t normal.
“Life’s not supposed to be this bizarre.
“We’re just people eating a regular dinner and then the shit hits the
fan and everyone’s dead in my group? Sam, Stella and now Bernie? You
poisoned our food and drink. This is some kind of conspiracy.”
“Maggie put the knife down.”
“What did all of us have in common?”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
“I’m gonna find out what happened.”
“We’re here to help.”
“You could’ve helped Bernie!”
“Bernie had eaten too much.”
“Nothing could be done for him.”
“But you can save me?”
Kevin Marley 183
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From yourself.”
Maggie lunged at a few of them who were wearing hunting gear and
plain clothes with a serrated steak knife.
“Get back! Get back!”
The patrons obliged moving back a few steps.
“This here’s as serious as a heart attack!”
“Now, don’t do nuthin’ stupid?”
“You callin’ me stupid?!”
“I’m just saying you ate a Suicide Burger.”
“You’re sayin’ I didn’t read the menu!”
“No, I’m not saying that, Maggie.”
“I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doin’.”
“Ok.”
“We just want what you want, Maggie. And that’s for this here thing
to be finally over.”
“Me, too.”
With that, Maggie cut her jugular vein so that the blood spewed
worse than at a slaughter house gushing all over and running mahogany
red onto the floor. The dishwasher came and mopped it up swishing
with suds, and wringing the mess into a few buckets, and the endless
patrons who came to The Kafe from all walks of life went back to their
seats barely missing a drum beat, errr, leg.
Secrets of The Prison House
“Life’s stranger than fiction, gentlemen. No one exactly anticipated
these things, these kind of monumental paradigm shifts like glaciers
breaking off Antarctica. They’re like a Hollywood script writer going
berserk with an overactive imagination. Never could anyone, even
Alvin Toffler, or the best futuristic thinkers have anticipated this kind
of thing happening in a million years,” Mark said as he looked fatigued
before he poured another tall glass of Chardonnay. “Anyone else?” “No,
thanks.” “Mark, I think you had enough ….” “Enough of what? Enough
of committing professional suicide, like the rest of us? Of creating a
compendium of engrams that contains more powerful and possibly
destructive information than the previous Manhattan Project? Come
on, gentlemen, we’ve treated people no better than shabby guinea pigs
that drank from water bottles and shat in their wired cages,” Mark said
as he was a Princeton neurologist who had to make the beltway trip
every weekend to our nondisclosed military installation.
“I’m just tired of these lies. The ones I have to tell my wife. Aren’t
you? They’ve turned us into Dr. Mengele and his cohorts.”
From what I could see, Mark was about to go on a binge, again,
questioning The Patriot Act and Homeland Security as we ate dinner in
Marras while a few customers turned their heads.
We weren’t being trailed – or at least I didn’t think so.
I’m sure NSA went through all our emails and telecommunications
since we were classified as ‘assets’ and we had a very high security
clearance at a time when another Cold War was upon us.
But diarrhea of the mouth wasn’t tolerated.
He would be risking our high-level security clearance, as well.
Mark looked more like a balding Roman Senator during at time,
maybe a millennium and a half ago, when The Republic fell. Like the
Kevin Marley 185
rest of us, he pondered the opening gambits in this intricate game of
not two, but three-dimensional chess played where kings and queens
still ruled with an iron fist, and bishops and knights, and rooks followed
their strict orders; and alas, when all was said and done, we were merely
their disposable pawns.
Washington, D.C. was busy, as usual, as the capitol, the incessant
talking head of America. There were meetings, and house cleanings, as
one party went through the revolving door, and left the White House,
and then another ceremoniously entered as things grew more and more
dire. Any semblance of democracy was gone – vanished as Water Wars
and Oil Wars commenced and terrorism waned, and then grew, and
then grew some more as nation states under severe strain in terms of
resources and growing populations began to crumble, and the division
of the haves and have-nots grew.
The world was falling apart before our eyes as graves stood tenantless
and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber, some.
By this time, the Emperor had no clothes as he walked about
completely naked in his Grecian temple and everyone complemented
him on his finely woven raiment. He ascended to his throne and golden
seat that had been obsequiously dusted off by a servant. The public
applauded as more edicts were handed down in a capricious manner,
with finely sounding patriotic names, as the intelligentsia were hard at
work behind the scenes contemplating how to maintain this crumbling
façade of a democracy and a Republic. The stench of defeat was in the
air more like Caesar’s Rome before it fell to the unruly Huns.
None of us had Time for this nonsense.
But then again, all this nonsense was about Time.
But what was it?
At last, a mathematical formula.
“I’m just surprised we didn’t think of it sooner. We could have been
more astute. Someone could have looked at the human physiology more
as an impressive video recorder even if they did not have the quantum
mechanical computer to download the terabytes and then play them,”
David said as he was our ancient Hebrew scholar borrowed from Tel
Aviv University who often was quiet deferring to others.
“Everyone was thinking, differently,” Sam interjected.
186 Soul Kitchen
“But isn’t it amazing that all this time we thought of history more as
belonging to the realm of artifacts and excavations from ancient Egypt
with its tombs to India and its Taj Mahal palaces to Samaria instead of
something that was actually palpable and genetic.” He waved his hand
like a short white flag of surrender, and detested this entire charade
masquerading as modern science. In short, we were on a godless quest
for very specific engrams, and according to the Pentagon and Homeland
Security, it didn’t matter how many innocent people we had wrongly
detained, then maimed or inadvertently killed because they had the
right genetic markers for having lived during these critical time periods.
Mark stared at David. His brain had been thoroughly pickled in
martinis and the finest whiskey during the past two years, and in truth,
we were all gauging our culpability and guilt in this new Manhattan
Project as we feared a significant shift in the political winds in
Washington D.C. and even in America, in short, afraid people would
one fateful day wake up with a strong rebuking conscience.
“We believed that by going back into time to attain these newer
technologies before the Russians and Chinese did that the ends justified
the means. And by virtue of that, we were doing our country a great
service. But this time, no doubt, we are on the wrong side of history.
“At last, we’re the bad guys.”
Oddly, in Marra’s, where we feasted on a wonderful smorgasbord of
thin slices of handmade pizza, pasta fazool, meat lasagna, bruschetta,
calamari, marinara, and fettuccine and washed it down with pitchers
of cold frothy beer, Felicita played like a fresh spring breeze; and after a
harsh winter that had frozen the marrow in our bones, we felt we could
live again, somehow. Maybe, we would be reborn like the green buds
from the dirty soil.
Children were happy to be playing baseball outside. Birds were
migrating northward again following the light. Azaleas and roses were
sprouting with their petaled faces turned towards the sun.
Things would get better.
But more than likely, we were deceiving ourselves; and for some
reason, we got infinitely better at it.
My head throbbed from another migraine as my stomach rumbled
from eating too quickly. Maybe, they were going on strike after all these
years of virtual slave labor. I dipped my Italian bread in a dish of oil as
the waitress came to take our order as we ate in this family restaurant
Kevin Marley 187
every week more like an anodyne, a couple of aspirins, to ease our
growing existential worries.
Life remained the same, an incredible opportunity before falling
apart – despite all our efforts to bend it to our Herculean will so that it
wouldn’t end in tragedy.
Yet, The Cosmic Eggshell was broken.
A yellow downy chick was emerging.
It was Wednesday evening – as it was deemed so by our Roman
calendars and even by our Rolex and digital watches. Yet, it is always
Wednesday evening in the folds of space and time as we were told by
our theoretical physicists. It was just a matter of reorienting ourselves.
Finally, we were done with the dirty work of digging for more and
more engrams as we had washed our filthy hands for the day and even
had taken showers; and now we sat more like academicians at dinner
looking over our notes. The fourth dimension had been codified as a
long series of very intricate and complex algorithms, which had been
aided by the discovery of some new subatomic particles.
Time, however, kept repeating itself more like a needle skipping on
a vinyl record. Skipping. Endlessly, we gossiped about work, family,
and friends to distract ourselves, and then carefully waxed and waned
about the many things we had found from so-called bygone times
from the American Revolution to the Civil War to ancient Egypt to the
Greeks and Romans in an Italian restaurant passed down in the family
for several generations. The restaurant had a certain kind of ambience
where we could forget the exigencies of work and the fetid, boorish
politics of The D.C. Beltway.
A small statue of David gazed out and reminded us of the importance
of art, beauty, and truth.
We kept eating delicious Italian food, like there was no tomorrow,
on red and white checkered cloth as there were Impressionist paintings
of Rome, Venice and even Pompeii about us. We were become half?inebriated. Many of the patrons were doing the exact same thing eating
comfort food and numbing themselves as they were talking with their
hands, trying to ignore the decline of our own empire. There was a
resounding chorus of strong voices, even in our heads, if we listened
closely.
“Tutto è meraviglioso.”
“Si.”
188 Soul Kitchen
“Questo non è altro che amore.”
Was it true? Everything that William Blake had said? That Dante
Alighieri had written about?
Worlds upon many mysterious worlds, never dreamt of, except by
inspired poets, were colliding with one another like billiard balls – as
there was a New Heaven and a New Earth being slowly formed as things
were becoming more surreal by the minute.
We were now listening to Arrivederci Roma as our faces were filled,
beyond our usual easy casual smiles, with a ghastly fear.
In this group of elite scientists, culled from the finest institutions,
Sam was our defacto leader since many of us were apprehensive about
this new kind of science where we rummaged through people’s brains
and physiology for engrams, and then stored them for posterity, giving
the important ones to Homeland Security. He was a very handsome,
sun tanned and mid-thirties cognitive neuroscientist from Harvard
University who was originally from Oakridge, Tennessee which
obviously had been an important center for the original Manhattan
Project. He stood six foot-two and with his dark framed glasses and
well-trimmed features he easily had an air of confidence that he exuded.
Quietly, I admired him for he had an inimitable Southern charm,
especially, with the ladies; and since, ultimately, he had everything I
had not – an oratorical gift, a well-established career path with many
prestigious publications behind him that had led to tenure at Harvard
University, a beautiful wife, Mellissa, and two young children, and even
a palatial estate – almost out of a Mark Twain novel with hanging willow
trees, and a small fish-filled lake; and in short, Sam had never really lost
at anything in life.
“I’m not gonna go into our culpability, gentlemen. We can argue that
we were good soldiers simply taking orders. But if the political winds
strongly shift in Washington, D.C., we’re in trouble,” Sam said as he
tried to allay our anxieties, ironically enough.
“And if they don’t?”
“If not, and the American people themselves remain like docile
sheep and cattle, and braying like donkeys, we’ll be forgotten everyone
except by The New Historians.
“But think about it. Mankind’s history is only five million years
old, right? A mere blip on the screen, cosmologically speaking. Well,
unbelievably, there have been only three explanations for our own
Kevin Marley 189
existence as human beings, namely: 1) The Earth, life itself, and our
own human evolution is nothing more than the result of a biological
serendipity, and that when we die it’s ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as
they say. Essentially, we don’t continue unless we have offspring; 2) Or
if we believe the Bible, we are here as Children of God, and due to the
fall of Adam and Eve, we are being perennially tested with temptation
during our lives here. In this theological scenario, if we repeatedly sin,
we go to Hell, for all of eternity. But if we are good or repent, we go
to Heaven and enjoy immortality; Or 3) There’s the more mysterious
explanation that’s been out there for many thousands of years, human
reincarnation. Man’s not a mere physical body, but a Soul; he’s a Spark
of the Divine flame, as the Mystery Schools have stated from ancient
Greece and Rome, and onwards. Like a carpenter, he’s building
both physical and etheric bodies to travel to many realms to garner
experiences. Essentially, Man’s learning important life lessons in this
one room schoolhouse, and reincarnation or rebirth is the overriding
reason for all the discrepancies down here. We’re at different stages of
physical, mental and spiritual development as some are focused on
sheer survival, others are working on material development in this
world, while a few are learning their last lessons as human beings,
namely, how to expand human consciousness, and they are attempting
to become Mahatmas or great souls.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense really and can explain the
present-day inequities.
“Right, gentlemen?”
Bob Akin grumbled a bit. His bulging eyes were like that of a
bullfrog as he was chain smoking Marlboro cigarettes and had to suffer
the indignity of never dating women who were his first, or even second
choice. However, he was part of the Mensa society, and he was our
philologist in-residence with almost a freakish photographic memory
who could quote William Faulkner and Papa Hemingway and even
Chaucer in Middle English, if you told him the specific passage. But at
the same time, he had the personality of a bold and reckless gambler
who had a history of winning big in black jack games in Reno and Vegas
before being banned by most casinos.
“It’s there in literature if you look closely,” Bob said in his Kentucky
drawl. “It’s all there in the Gnostic writings, the Vedas and their fantastic
stories of rishis and sages performing magical feats, and The Tao with
190 Soul Kitchen
their Chinese masters floating away on the backs of white cranes into
the sunset. Surprisingly, or not, those stories support what we are finally
seeing through The Brain Reader that there is much more to life than
meets the eye.”
“But who and what are we are the paramount questions as Man has
changed so drastically,” Alex said as he drank another beer and ate more
linguini. “Who would have thought that we had lived in Atlantis and
Lemuria long ago?”
“Indubitably, we’re talking about an entirely new concept for the
scientific community, ‘Soul Growth,’” Bob interjected as he often
wanted the floor. “But what have we found, when we have finally seen
the much bigger picture of involution and evolution? Essentially, Man
is a Traveler to many different planets and realms as his many bodies
are like finely built vehicles. We step into our cars and then drive down
the proverbial road of life, before stepping out and moving to another
adventure.
“Long ago, the Gnostics had these same doctrines of reincarnation
and even of karma in their Christian teachings that we’re beginning to
reassert. Mystic Christianity was potent in its original ideology before it
became watered down and corrupted. But the funny thing is: You can’t
institutionalize a major religion with these concepts so they were later
omitted by the Church Elders.”
“That’s right,” Sam said as he adjusted his glasses. “Read Divine
Comedy. Or Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality that harkens
to the very fact that we will be around here existing for thousands of
years, not in these flesh and blood bodies, of course. But nonetheless
alive! The Bard of Stratford upon Avon himself thoroughly appreciated
the bawdiness of people, while at the same time, speaking of a much
greater reality. Indeed, Hamlet’s own father dressed as a warrior warns
his son: ‘I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale
unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young
blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted
and combined locks to part, and each particular hair stand on end like
quills upon the fretful porcupine.’
“It’s the same thing, gentlemen, only we’re beginning through
modern science and the quantum computer to unlock the secrets of the
prison house.”
Kevin Marley 191
Bob joined in, again.
“Or read The Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, or Walt Whitman who in their various
gifts of rhetoric poetically argued more for the quantum mechanical
world than a blasé Newtonian. They talk more of the Soul than the
body, if you sense their deeper meaning.”
“There has been a tectonic shift in the world view of things, more
like the fall of fascism in the mid-1940’s or that of communism in the
late 1980’s as the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall fell,” David ventured
as he drank more wine, “And how this all pans out, who knows when
the music stops?”
Slowly, we were unraveling with our grubby fingers what had often
been called The Present. What a name! How true! Ultimately, it turned
out to be an exacting riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma
many had tried to figure out for centuries, but failed.
More music played on.
With dark beguiling eyes, an Italian girl in a short black dress made
her way table. She was a gorgeous flower, exuding perfumed-like air,
and then she asked if we needed anything, as if her palpable miracle of
beauty in the midst of ugly chaos wasn’t enough.
“Another job.”
“Immunity from future prosecution.”
“The burning of The Patriot Act.”
“Is that all? I’ll get the chef to whip that up right away with some
bruschetta and calamari, okay?”
“Sure.”
There was a laughter, and more endless chatter as we tried to embrace
simpler times when the world seemed as easy as a summer baseball
game between the Mets and the Phillies with hot dogs, popcorn and
soda vendors and the national anthem where we had, once, proudly
sang the words, and put our hands over our hearts.
Many of us imagined what it would be like to go back in time before
things went terribly amiss.
“Well, read Edgar Cayce,” I ventured wading into this conversation.
“He gave over 14,000 readings that were recorded by a stenographer,
and he spoke very specifically in minute detail of people’s past lives.
“Cayce went into a trance of some kind as he eventually became
known as The Sleeping Prophet, and then he presumably read from The
192 Soul Kitchen
Book of Nature. The Hindus call it The Akashic Records. It’s where all
our lives and the lives of every living thing, and even the Earth and the
planets are kept, more like a spiritual library, and anyway, Cayce had
access to it. Unbelievably, he spoke about the Subject and his past lives
and the various and complex relationships the person had, and it was all
frightfully karmic, terribly intertwined, as though people were bound
by invisible cords of steel itself.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Kinda like a precursor to our work.”
“Yeah, you have to read the case studies to see how people were
linked by these invisible bonds in marriage and friendship, or as
business associates, and how as the old adage goes: What goes around,
comes around.
“It’s all there in The Book of Nature that we all seem to be reading
these days.”
“I’ll have to read it sometime, Edmond.”
“But it’s more than that,” I expostulated still wanting to make my
point. “Casey’s work actually documents the very principle of karma,
about how God’s Mill turns very slowly, but surely, and that if you swing
your foot out of cruelty and kick a dog on a street, or cheat on your wife,
or commit suicide in a cheap hotel room, or a heinous murder in a fit of
drunken rage, you don’t really escape anything here. It’s like a life lesson
neatly tucked away in a wooden desk drawer. The Akashi Records don’t
fade, or disappear. Later on, you open it up. And remarkably, it’s still
there. An assignment to be worked on.”
“I admit that all this is new and very startling,” Alex interjected as
he was growing tired of Homeland Security sticking their giraffe-like
necks into our business. “Presumably, we’re seeing incredible pictures of
the ancient past. But can we really be sure? What if these are rational
dreams of some kind that we somehow tapped into? What if our scientific
method is flawed?”
“Perhaps. But we’re moving into a new epistemology, a very knew
way of analyzing things based upon cellular memory, and in looking
at the world, as we try to combine these holographic engrams with the
traditional methods of objective modern-day science,” Sam said as he
had been reluctant himself to accept the massive changes when we had
first begun.
Kevin Marley 193
“It’s a beginning.”
“And beginnings are always a messy affair,” Alex rejoined.
“Well, I understand you, Alex. But what particular theories have you
deduced, so far?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t sound that promising. It’s not going to win any
Nobel Prizes or even grants.”
“And that’s exactly my point!”
“Which is what?”
“What if we’re simply projecting our own intricate schemes and
ambitions onto this strange Rorschach inkblot?”
An eerie kind of doubt crept in.
“Man is a Traveler to many realms as we have seen with our very
eyes, gentlemen. Rebirth is an established fact, not just in the scientific
community where it has been empirically verified, but now it’s sweeping
into the public domain. History is something completely different than
we had imagined,” Sam stated emphatically as more vintage wine was
poured. “According to our research, Atlantis and Lemuria existed as
actual continents peopled with the human race, as men and women
there looked vastly different than now, and that human evolution is
a lot more complicated thing than we have previously understood,
especially, in the light of all these recorded histories which remarkably
do not contradict one another.”
“But what if we’re terribly mistaken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What if the cellular memory that we’re seeing is being misinterpreted
somehow by the coding program.”
“Alex has a point,” Bob chimed in.
“Possibly.”
“Oh, it’s just chicken shit.”
“It’s a new worldview, just as when Copernicus convinced most
rational people that we lived in a heliocentric universe, or when the
Spaniards and Columbus proved that the world wasn’t flat, and that
there was a New World out there to be conquered.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“There are always naysayers and stragglers.”
194 Soul Kitchen
“Oh, fuck you, Sam. You always need to make an eloquent argument
and must have the last word on what’s supposedly true with your
Harvard credentials. But you know what? You grow into the truth.
You can’t pour it onto anyone’s head despite what you may think,” Alex
blurted out.
His black hair was slicked back as he sucked on a cigarette to calm
his
jittery nerves.
We all felt terribly guilty despite having not officially broken any
laws.
“I wholeheartedly agree. Yes, I’m guilty as charged. Let’s not mince
words. I’m arrogantly ploughing under nearly three hundred years of
scientific methodology, or rather expanding upon it,” Sam said. “But
gentlemen, we’ve made our cozy bed and have to lie in it come what
may.”
“We could quit en masse,” Mark said as he ate more bruschetta and
stared at the waitresses who were more like sirens in our catastrophic
and stormy seas.
“It’s like joining the CIA,” David said. “Once you’re in – you’re never
out.”
“Look, we’re panicking when we don’t have to,” Bob joined in the
conversation again. “The higher ups will have to fall, before we do.”
“Morris and Wilson?”
“You gotta be joking.”
“Anyway, now that reincarnation is an established fact in our
American society. I’m wondering how we are going to separate the
chaff from the wheat, the charlatans from the real thing. I mean, you
remember the frightful past. You had all these people pretending to be
someone great from the past yet they couldn’t even hold down a job or
balance their own checkbook – the Napoleans, the Alexander the Greats,
the Cleopatras, Nicola Teslas, Thomas Edisons, the Shakespeares, etc.”
“Quite right.”
“These people have given reincarnation a very bad name as they
have used it primarily for self-aggrandizement.”
“I’m hoping our research teams will begin to cross reference our
data in this nationwide database, and we’ll finally put to rest some of
those shenanigans,” Bob said as he eyed some of his stocks on his I-pad.
He ate another chicken wing and got barbecue sauce on his plaid shirt.
Kevin Marley 195
“This new science that verifies reincarnation should also weed out the
charlatans as we examine The Book of Nature itself.”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll build a great Alexandrian Library, again,” Sam
mused thinking of the vast implications.
“Sounds good.”
“But I wouldn’t get your high hopes up.”
“Why not?”
“Because, if you remember your ancient history,” Mark reminded
them slurring his own words, “the Alexandrian library was burnt to the
ground by a spiteful Caesar and his Roman soldiers in a fit of angst.”
“So?”
“History’s strangely repeating itself.”
“America has become The Roman Empire through our political
machinations and military might; and now Julius Caesar, and his men
might burn us and all this knowledge if we aren’t careful.”
Time was a sticky nuisance. Ordinarily, it made us obsessed with the
Earth’s revolution and its never-ending slow dance around the Sun as we
also revolved around the Milky Way Galaxy itself while simultaneously
racing further out into the unknowns of space at over a million miles
per hour. Time had always been confused with mere sequential events,
so that it became intertwined with so-called real events and became
a fantastic blur. Right now, things, however, were different. Time was
being mathematically defined as the fourth dimension in our world
with much greater clarity, precision by some of our greatest minds in
both physics and math. In essence, we had another Sputnik moment
in 2057 – a full one hundred years later – as the ruthless Chinese
with stolen technology, along with the pesky Russians, had made the
first quantum-based computer with qu-bits finally overcoming the
last obstacle of quantum decoherence to race perilously ahead of us
with these marvelous supercomputers. They could do fuzzy logic and
even think in rudimentary terms. It was the beginnings of Artificial
Intelligence (AI), but that’s an entirely different story. The Chinese and
Russians were even jointly mathematically exploring the 4th dimension,
and with new kinds of technology, they were able to move along not
just the X and Y axes, but the Z axis, as well, and some patently feared
they were only a few decades away from time travel. Of course, I say
these things not as an elaborate excuse, as many have already accused
me of, so that my harsh penal sentence here might be reduced but so
196 Soul Kitchen
that you might understand the perilous risks we had to take when we,
at last, took our supercomputers and began finding the equivalent of
holographic engrams in human physiology. In a sense, modern science
found and unraveled The Book of Nature in the human body as all
earthly events leave their own smudged fingerprints.
At the behest of National Security, we had been summoned to
Washington, D.C., and given full clearance by Pentagon brass well
over three years ago, whilst being told we were the best scientists of
our particular fields. Then we were commanded to explore this new
frontier – ancient civilizations and the technologies they beheld – no?holds-barred before we fell behind even further. At first, we approached
our work hesitantly as we probed these ‘so-called volunteers’ who
had arrived at our scientific laboratory through the cover of night
and military escort surreptitiously as many of our pressing questions
weren’t fully answered. We were told by Morris and Wilson to just do
our important work. Our subjects had certain genetic markers we had
found, which predisposed them, to living in certain periods of time,
and to being witnesses to very important historical eras and to possibly,
being knowledgeable of very important ancient technology we were
trying to acquire.
In truth, I was never fully comfortable with my assignment as we
had to acquire these holographic engrams no matter what was the cost.
It all began as a blind faith to our own government and to national
security needs. We felt a silly patriotism, at first, and then made short
but lengthy excuses, and then wandered deeply into an elaborate maze
of hedgerows and more. Of course, they enticed us with large salaries
and very fruitful and ripened benefits, and even the promise of sharing
in the patents of some these new technological discoveries.
All in all, the needle was skipping, and history was repeating itself.
This monstrosity was something out of the Milgram Experiment
where the teacher gave electric shocks to the student when mistakes
were made following, as the protocols said, the orders of an authority
figure. In that experiment, Professor Stanley Milgram wondered how
many subjects would give the fatal 450-volt charge, and being curious,
he polled his Yale University colleagues and forty psychiatrists from
medical school who basically believed that not much would transpire,
and that ultimately only about 3% of their subjects would deliver the
fatal shock in this very controlled setting.
Kevin Marley 197
Obviously, they were astounded to find that the real figure of
conformity to an authority figure was 65%.
Essentially, we were no different than anyone else even though most
of us graduated from the Ivy League, and we possessed these shiny?lettered degrees that declared us the best and the brightest scientists
of our generation. Obviously, we had distinguished ourselves with
new papers, impressive cutting-edge research, and even technological
breakthroughs. Maybe, we thought we were infallible. Or that we were
the good guys and that we would never show up in this movie as the
bad guys. I’m not sure. Like most, we became casualties in our blind
obedience and pathetic submission to the United States Government,
and to Homeland Security officials who oversaw these tragic
experiments; and like most Americans, we were cowering in fright in a
darkened corner.
But I digress in telling this remarkable story that will probably
never see the light of day. Modern science had foregone its well?established protocols, and had opened Pandora’s Box; and we found
like sparkling diamonds and rubies and diamonds the ancient wisdom
of the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, the Egyptians with their remarkable
pyramids, and at last, the Essenes who had, indeed, witnessed many
miracles.
We needed to garner these technological advances, before other
began to sequester them.
The 3rd generation quantum mechanical computers were finally
here with these newly developed Intel Pentium processors and they
possessed qu-bit software, not a binary language as before, that was
now fully capable of speaking a ‘new interdimensional language’; and
remarkably, it could interface with the Human Brain. At long last, Man
and Machine began to ‘talk’ to one another! Surprisingly, we found that
the human brain itself was like a supercomputer in that it had a myriad
number of directories and files and that under every file is the actual
software programming language that is creating, almost dictating, the
beliefs, the thoughts, speech and actions of its subject.
These new computer breakthroughs and revolutionary software
programs were one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our present?day age; if the first computer revolution was like going to the moon,
this next computer revolution was like going way beyond our own solar
198 Soul Kitchen
system as we were able to access the so-called past and all the knowledge
that was available and to slowly begin to access that technology.
But they pale, I’m afraid, in comparison to our myriad mistakes.
At first, engrams had been explored when Karl Lashley experimented
in 1929 with rats who ran intricate mazes. He had them run as fast as
they could time them, and then Lashley scraped tissue from different
parts of their brain having them run the maze, once again. Overall, he
was looking at the possible diminishment in their skills and speed, and
hence, memory. But ironically, Lashley found that memory was non?localized. Later, almost a hundred years later, with human subjects,
past-life engrams were found in the reptilian brain as we began to see
these holographic images from the brain stem via The Brain Reader.
Essentially, we found dense packets of DNA, cryptic in nature, and
then within it, holographic engrams of presumably the subject’s many
past lives in eras that we had not even imagined existed. What did we
exactly see? Was it possible? Who knows? The only thing we did know as
trained scientists in the empirical method was that we began to see a
panorama of vivid pictures of a very ancient and mysterious past where
both man and the Earth were evolving; and it was here where we saw
the unbelievable – Lemuria, Atlantis, with its almost incomprehensible
technological feats, and ancient Egypt with its spectacular pyramids
being built; Rome with its Emperors and Senate, and before that,
civilizations rapidly growing up along the Mesopotamia and Euphrates
Rivers, the Ganges, and the Yellow River; and then more recently, the
Spanish Inquisition, the rise and fall of the British Empire, the American
Revolution, the Civil War, world wars, and so on, like never-ending
newsreels to the present day. Many of our longstanding questions about
what exactly happened were definitively answered with time as we
consulted with many historians for verification and confirmation. We
had insisted, however, upon a triangulation of data. Eventually, many
of our premises about history and Man himself were quickly turned
upside down. Was Man merely a biological creature? Was he a Traveler of
some kind? Did he have a soul? We were now dealing, quite admittedly,
with this strange kind of personal truth seen through the very eyes
of our subjects. But there also was this greater historical truth, only
this was not the truth of dusty history books, speculations at wooden
lecterns, and dry scholarly lectures, but now the living record through
holographic engrams of our case studies.
Kevin Marley 199
The Homeland Security representatives were always there like
Gestapo agents. There was no escaping them and the Army soldiers
stationed nearby ready for anything, monitoring us. On the date in
question, I believe, June 3rd, Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson, were on
hand to observe these new experiments and protocols, which meant that
they were there to make sure we extracted all necessary information,
and to report back to headquarters if anything went amiss.
But according to our new attorney general, I am a seditionist who
recklessly violated many national security laws, and who gave secrets
to the Chinese and the Russians, hence, I have been stripped of my
American citizenship; with broad brush strokes, masterly done, they
have even managed to paint me even worse than a modern-day Benedict
Arnold in supposedly surrendering vital information and technological
data to a sworn enemy. Resultantly, habeas corpus has been suspended,
as they claim I, Dr. Edmond Cotton, suffer from a chronic psychosis
that features delusions of grandeur, paranoia and persecution. That all
might well be true as I no longer consider myself a rational human being
nor a reliable witness as I am fed psychotic drugs intravenously every day.
Right now, for instance, I am heavily sedated on a litany of medicines
trying to write about these events like a wooden boat sailing into a sea
of fog and stormy weather.
Overall, it was an infernal mess where we tried to carefully backpedal
to save ourselves. The instinct for self-preservation being found in the
brain stem is one of the hardest impulses to suppress through social
conditioning or other treatments as many of our scientists had found.
Imagine, for a moment, if you will, being a scientist like myself on
this Manhattan-like project. You walk through an amazing labyrinth;
and then in the middle, beyond the many layers of military security
with their retinal scans, is a very large, elaborate dentist’s office, sixty
feet wide, and only much more sinister with a X-ray-like machine
that was actually a quantum-based computer as we had to invasively
probe our subjects reading engrams within their Reptilian brains. Then
through the Brain Reader, we had it transposed so that we could see
the holographic engrams on a crystalline screen where these scenes
from everyday life were capable of being both viewed and recorded
simultaneously. This time things, however, did not go that smoothly
as the subject violently jerked in his leather chair strapped in, half-
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somnolent, drooling, at times, and even losing control of his bodily
functions as trained orderlies perfunctorily cleaned him. Frequently,
we took his measurements and biological readings. This was necessary
as we were trying to measure to what extent human beings could
withstand this kind of psychic trauma of their own hidden memories
from resurfacing. It was like having layers of your own entire personality
being stripped away from you one after another. There were many
signals to watch for. Elevated blood pressure. Rapid heartbeat. Muscle
spasms. REM’s. Biochemical markers for stress.
“It’s near Gethsemane! And the right time period.” “But he’s
clearly uncomfortable.” “We need this information, McNamara.”
“Go deeper, gentlemen. I’m not looking to have arguments
about protocol.”
Case Study A4239 began hyperventilating and having anxiety
attacks with a rapid pulse and night sweats, or what we called ‘waking
nightmares.’ We began looking at his cellular memory more like a neatly
stacked set of DVD’s that could be readily played with the right kind of
technology. We were instructed to minimize their pain and discomfort
as best we could by Morris and Wilson who observed everything in this
research facility. But those words were merely perfunctory. Obviously,
we compensated with a plethora of medicines that Sam and the nurses
administered and by bringing them to a lower metabolic state hoping to
minimize the impact of this invasive procedure, but it was only a matter
of time, as we had warned them, before subjects began having strokes,
myocardial infarctions, and then our first tragic fatality.
It was hauntingly remarkable to stare into the past:
Specifically, we saw him, Case Study A4239, at the foot of the Mount
of Olives, walking through the Garden of Gethsemane speaking in the
forgotten tongue of ancient Hebrew that Yeshua himself had spoken.
It was late in the day, and then night as this scene unraveled like a
movie. The Middle East was a harsh arid land even back then with low
lying hills, sparse trees and bushes, thirsty and hungry livestock, and
brown grass. As day commenced again, Roman soldiers were nearby
congregating and discussing events in Latin. They stood about five feet
seven, smaller than I had imagined, wearing dark red colored tunics,
Kevin Marley 201
helmets, shields and javelins as there was a political tumult even worse
than today.
A mid-day Sun mercilessly beat down and scorched everything that
could not find the respite of shade.
David, who had been picked personally for this special assignment,
could relate to us what was exactly happening.
“He’s definitely an Essene, not a Pharisee nor a Sadducee. His name
is Emmanuel. They are waiting for someone important.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probe deeper.”
“He’s with Thaddeus and Matthew.”
“Two of the disciples?”
“It’s impossible to say although if we can get a clear picture of the
night sky, and the position of the constellations we can feed it into the
computer and come close to knowing the exact year.”
“Fat chance.”
But Case Study A4239 began gripping his left arm even under
incredible anesthesia and having a myocardial infarction as our
procedure was far too invasive, ripping cellular memories terabyte by
terabyte from him, clearly beyond the bounds of the Hippocratic Oath.
We went to work, as usual.
“Clear!”
“Give him an IV of nitroglycerine and a clot buster.”
“Streptokinase?”
“Yeah, hurry.”
“Christ! We’re killing him.”
The defibrillator jolted Case Study A4239’s chest as there was an
arrhythmia to his overly stressed heart that we could not readily correct.
He was an African-American man in his mid-fifties, who was six foot?three and nearly three hundred ten pounds, and who had a history of
angina that we deliberately chose to ignore. There were shiny beads
of sweat, diamond-like on his mahogany skin, covering his forehead.
On the medical table, he was now lying half naked with a thin sheet
pulled up to his waist. We had extracted almost 300 terabytes and other
forms of cellular memory, and extraordinary data that his system did
not readily give up. More than likely, he was not going home tonight
202 Soul Kitchen
as he was rapidly degrading further as he suffered a Widow maker, a
dangerous obstruction of the main coronary artery to his brain, which
was now being deprived of oxygen. To the people in this room, he was no
more than Case Study A4239 as his personal details had been carefully
redacted from his file to keep our sympathies from interfering with our
duties in The Control Center. But scientifically speaking, he was very
important to us—the first subject we had that had been confirmed as an
Essene during the time of Jesus Christ, around 30 A.D.
But it all boiled down to this: We still had important questions about
the mysterious life of Jesus Christ, a Syrian prophet, and the Mission
of Golgotha that had until recently belonged to the realm of scholars
and history books; and to be frank, we needed to understand ‘the
atomic blast of white light’ that had occurred near the time of his death
covering the entire world.
“Always when we get this damn close something happens,” Morris
said as he threw a book filled with regulations and protocols against the
wall. He paced back and forth wringing his own hands.
“Keep going, gentlemen,” Wilson replied as he stepped towards the
patient knowing he had to give the President and the Senate Committee
his report tomorrow.
But it was impossible, as we searched for the needle in a haystack.
In minutes, we revived him as he straddled two worlds, the past
and the present that had been inscribed in a living book. His breathing
was severely labored, and foam came out of his mouth. We cleared his
passage way. Violently, his body shook and was in upheaval, like an
entire country being overthrown in a coup de tat.
It didn’t look good.
As the anesthesiologist, I was monitoring his vital signs and the
IV when Case Study A4239 became more awake from an adrenaline
injection given by McNamara. He gripped my arm and pulled me closer.
“What am I doing here?”
“I’m afraid you’ve had a heart attack.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“What am I doing here, man?!”
“I’m here to help you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Kevin Marley 203
“We’re all doctors and orderlies.”
“You’re a Brother.”
“Yes, I am.”
“How could you be doin’ somethin’ like this? This ain’t right! Don’t you
know your own history?”
“We’re trying to keep you alive.”
“These abductings are true!”
“Please try and relax, Mr. – umm. You’ve just had a severe heart
attack.”
“Shit, you don’t even know my name.”
“I just got here.”
“Look, I’m not a fuckin’ guinea pig!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Tuskegee Air Men!”
“What?”
“Damn you! This is nuthin’ but a Tuskegee Airmen Operation!”
Case Study A4239 violently struggled as he twisted in his seat and
instinctively fought for his life against the attending nurse and another
physician who overpowered him, much like a large reptile caught by
intruders and now wrangling to get back to his own environment. I
backpedaled, not knowing what to do, as I had taken a Hippocratic
Oath and now I was clearly violating it. The machines began sounding
off, and the life ebbed away.
This time – he flat lined.
Sam jumped on the medical table and began giving him CPR
pounding as he foamed at the mouth and began looking more like
another cold corpse.
“He just needs his heart massaged.”
“Sam.”
“We can open up his chest if we have to. I’m not gonna let this man
die under our care. It’s a violation of all that we stand for in our medical
profession, gentlemen.”
“Mr. Hinkins.”
“Just give me more time.”
“Unfortunately, we have none, gentlemen.”
The Homeland Security officials had had enough as Army officers
came in to escort Sam down from the operating room table to lead
204 Soul Kitchen
him to the debriefing room. A bed of dark clouds came circling over
us. We were herded more like cattle and sheep as no longer were we
noble men able to apprehend the mysterious and inexplicable, but farm
animals that were told not to even possess an opinion, but just to play
our specific roles.
Meanwhile, we dressed in our street clothes, trying to recompose
ourselves as the orderlies took the body, Case Study A4239, to the
morgue down the hallway. When we were done, Bevan Morris and
Wilson came in to give their patented speech when something went
wrong.
“Gentlemen, I appreciate your efforts today despite what
encumbrances we have had today and challenges that we presently face
as we boldly acquire technologies of the past.
“You are all being nominated for a Congressional medal of honor for
your noble work. I have no doubt it will go through after having spoken
with Senator Jefferson Davis Johnson of Oklahoma just yesterday. He
is the head of this research committee, as you know, and he is very
impressed with our findings to date.
“Presently, we find ourselves significantly behind the Russians and the
Chinese as our intelligence community has informed us. This happened
because we shunned parapsychology and considered it beyond the
realm of our scientific system and even methods of epistemology, and
we have paid a steep price for it.
“No doubt, as kick off arrives, we are playing catch up.
“Let me remind you: Our competition has accumulated a vast
compendium of knowledge concerning ancient societies from
thousands of years ago that were, contrary to public opinion, not in
the Dark Ages, but were very advanced in their own unique ways:
the Atlanteans, for instance, who probably had more sophisticated
and powerful technology than ourselves before they were doomed by
their own factional fighting, greed, selfishness, and wars; the Egyptians
who excelled at science and the art of astronomy and who built the
magnificent pyramids by levitating large blocks as some had always
previously suspected; the Greeks and Romans who had built the
Alexandrian Library replete with compelling treatises on many subjects
and various mysteries before it was unfortunately burned to the ground
by mistake; and then the quiet and devotional Essenes, who belonged
Kevin Marley 205
to another important School of Mystery, and their adept, Yeshua, who
somehow created this miraculous atomic blast that swept the entire
world.
“But nonetheless, we have made important inroads through no short
part due to your effort. We have developed new insights into the human
condition and technologies that will hopefully aide us in moving past
the competition. For instance, we have recently created the first indepth
hologram of the human body, and have compared it point by point with
the existing hologram of the universe.
“Let me emphasize, also, for those of you who may still harbor
some doubts or reservations about this New Manhattan Project: It is
paramount that you remember that this is a National Security issue.
As such, we have been given very significant latitude by the President
and Congress to conduct our important work and engage in vital
research with these new sets of protocols, and although uncomfortable,
at times, these procedures are necessary to ensure our technological
supremacy and America’s national security. Our top priority is attaining
this information and these commensurate technologies that were once
possessed by ancient civilizations no matter what the cost. In short,
there’s no turning back. We cannot afford for the Chinese and the
Russians to surpass us technologically in the 21st century. It would be
disastrous as they would possess unheard of weapons and we would not
even know where to begin to counter them.
“Like you’ve asked, we’ve consulted with those at The Attorney
General’s Office and lawyers about your many personal questions; and
let me make it perfectly clear, you are not violating your Hippocratic
Oaths nor the Geneva Convention nor any other written set of ethics
that the United States of America may have signed into law during the
past one hundred years.
“You are simply following the direct orders of the current presidential
administration and Congress itself, which in these matters of vital
national security supersedes all else per the renewed Patriot Act with
its latest addendums.”
Summarily, Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson then left the premises
with their military attaches after having made sure we signed, once
again, confidential agreements that made any kind of betrayal a
treasonable offense. Of course, it was an intimidation technique as
206 Soul Kitchen
we had, like good soldiers, previously signed and cowered our heads
in subservience to the state. Strangely, we felt paralyzed under the
numerous rationalizations and missteps we had frightfully made while
working less for the country we knew, and more for the Third Reich,
only this time we were trying to uncover the latest secrets of ancient
civilizations such as Atlantis and Lemuria that were surprisingly more
advanced than our own in many ways.
An awkward silence.
Boulders.
We had to climb over.
“That was a tough one in there, Edmond.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I’ll get over it like I always do.”
“I can’t believe they ordered me to stop giving him CPR,” Sam
interjected.
“I’m not sure if I can honestly look myself in the mirror,” Mark
replied busily tying his shoes. “I see this ghastly face like I don’t even
have a soul.”
“Neither can I to be truthful,” Alex said as he combed a few tufts of
hair to cover his bald head. “My wife’s even noticed some change in me,
too. The other night she said I looked like something the cat brought in.”
“We should do something before it’s too late.”
“Before what?”
“Before we become these voiceless voices.”
“In case you haven’t been watching the nightly news, it’s been
officially declared open season on the individual,” Sam offered. “Any
kind of dissension has been thoroughly squashed through The Patriot
Act. At last, George Orwell was right about 1984, Big Brother, and The
Thought Police.”
“Except the goddamn date,” Alex remarked as a few of us chuckled.
“Yep, get your huntin’ license,” Bob added as he was getting ready for
another legally blind date, again.
“My nerves are frayed, man. Like never.”
“Mine, too,” Mark added.
“The real question is: Would you sit in that chair having your cellular
memory put onto DVD’s?”
“Nope.”
Kevin Marley 207
“Hell, no.”
“You see how these people come out with scrambled eggs for brains
and a hazy look in their eyes.”
“This whole thing reeks of The Milgram Experiment a long time
ago,” I ventured wondering to what extent we were under surveillance.
“I keep looking for a two-way mirror of some kind. The only thing
I’m constantly wondering is whether we really are the scientific
experimenters or the subjects.”
“I might quit and tell my story,” Mark confessed as he was tired of
these shenanigans and had started AA meetings.
“I wouldn’t do it, man.”
“The times have changed with that Patriot Act. They have flipped
everything upside down in this country,” Alex began to muse while
he slowly put his pants on. “True patriotism is what?! Sedition! And
sedition? Hell, you get a Senator or a Congressman’s seat, and more
power, and a pension! It’s now called something noble and patriotic
to create an authoritarian state with a myriad number of vague and
obscure laws that oppress your fellow American citizens! They can
throw you in jail for anything and even legally drone strike your ass if
you keep complaining.”
“As Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘Those who sacrifice liberty for
security deserve neither.”
“Well, not to deflate things, gentlemen,” Bob said as he began
walking towards the darkened corridor. “But I know which side of my
bread’s buttered.”
“And by whom.”
The excruciating work in our Homeland Security laboratory
continued even with a greater zeal as we had been pressured to speed
up our results. During the next six months as our sleeves were rolled up,
our filthy hands were caked in blood, deceit, and even state-sponsored
terrorism; we were lost to ourselves as we were engaged in in recovering
holographic engrams and viewing them through The Brain Reader. I
kept asking myself one of the more pertinent riddles of my entire life,
“What do you do when life keeps getting worse?” But I never had an
answer. We had many more casualties, but as they say, the first one is
always the toughest. Ironically, we were progressing – Dr. Mengele and
his cohorts – learning and studying more about the ancient continents
208 Soul Kitchen
of Lemuria and Atlantis that had existed a very long time ago, and we
were getting closer to our main objective, the Mission of Golgotha. Well
over two thousand years ago, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were
a materialistic, self-aggrandizing, and publicity seeking sort unlike
their brethren, the Essenes, who were a devout group of whom many
belonged to one of The Schools of Mystery. The Schools of Mystery, as we
had found out, upheld various principles and a general education that
taught knowledge about life itself and The Atman where neophytes were
trained in various techniques to develop their own root thinking and
consciousness. As we had found out through our investigations, there
had been Schools of Mystery in Egypt, Greece and Rome – and some
in the Middle East where Yeshua had lived. But besides these things,
we had found out there was The Law of Rebirth, and the important
corollary that groups of people often incarnate together to accomplish
tasks that had been left undone. This has happened many times. Most
notably in early America when it was being founded in 1776, by a select
number of souls that were highly qualified for their undertaking; or
conversely, in Spain during their dreaded Civil War in the late 1930’s
when they needed to atone for their collective brutality and cruelty
demonstrated in the New World; overall, it appeared that souls fell in
a gentle rain and were trying to find their way to the vast, endless sea
before evaporating again, like in an evanescent mist. Essentially, if this
corollary were true, and it appeared to be, then we should find Essenes,
once again, living together in some kind of capacity.
To Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson, we were their highly recruited
and controlled assets more like in a covert CIA operation as we could
never tell our stories in the light of day. I’m sure they had us closely
monitored and even dreadfully bugged in the office and at home, and
that by doing such things, it led to my rendition in a foreign country I
still do not know the name of. On an October morning, they continued
another inspiring speech with slightly veiled threats as I realized that
there was no way out, that our lives had been forever ruined by our
participation in this infernal mess.
Personally, I sat in a permanent kind of lingering fog where everything
was not so well defined. I didn’t know what to believe anymore as a
rational scientist who once had fervently adhered to logical analysis,
the empirical method, and peer reviewed findings. But now our entire
Kevin Marley 209
epistemology was changing, and we were using ‘Subjective Findings’
that could be verified in an objective manner, if that made any sense.
Another year went by as we were lobsters being slowly cooked in
pots of boiling water falling into a bewildering kind of comfort.
There were less violent outbursts.
Less rebellious talk.
They feed us well at the trough.
Like pigs.
On a few occasions, I made various excuses as I lingered about as
though I had some unfinished business, rechecking data, filling out
more paperwork and finishing highly confidential reports as they all
went home, Sam, Mark, David, Alex, and Bob, and then I went back
to The Control Room. I had to see for myself. I needed to sit in that
dreaded chair that was already marked by death, and begin a series
of experiments on myself. I had to know one way, or the other, as my
conscience was bothering me much like a yelling madman; and like
Henry David Thoreau, I had to know what it felt to pursue the truth
and as Thoreau himself once said: ‘Rather than love, than money, than
fame, give me truth.’
Even if it scorched me.
The experiments then began in earnest.
Through a glass darkly, I began to see many things. As the Germans
once called it, I perceived the ding-an-sich, or the thing-in-itself, and
then past the confusing façade of the personality, quite literally, an
amalgamation of programming, and then like coming to an open vista,
I saw more clearly the ancient past that we all have traversed through as
I began chronicling our journey, that of the Atman itself.
Upon reflection, it’s pitifully short how sophisticated humans think
their actual history is. With dense blinders on, historians state that we’ve
been these cursed bipedal creatures for a mere 200,000 years, and that
we’re descendants of a brute like Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal
Man, and further back, from silverback gorillas and chimpanzees.
They view life itself as merely a series of accidental cosmic events and
biological serendipity, that we arose from the chemical soup 3 ½ billion
years ago and then we began a very long journey of Darwinian-like
struggles as the human condition constitutes only misery and suffering.
210 Soul Kitchen
Lastly, to add insult to injury, when the Grim Reaper comes for you,
there’s nothing left but dust.
But as I was finding out, our history is much grander as the old
proverb is accurate: Truth is stranger than fiction.
Meanwhile, these experiments at this secretive military base
continued without any kind of abatement. Ingenuously, we had
developed even more invasive methods to probe and then quickly
download more terabytes and even petabytes of engrams. Soon, the
winter of my discontent deepened into a loathing and self-disgust as
I went from being a mild-mannered physician to having a volatile
temper prone to manic-depression episodes and even paranoia as I
contemplated both suicide and telling my story to the national press
before they destroyed me like the many whistle blowers before me.
My well laid plans were to commit treason and sedition against the
U.S. government as it had become my enemy and the people’s enemy
growing like an octopus-like monster living in the deepest ocean.
Verily, Case A5637 could have been anyone’s grandmother: Her
silvery hair was neatly tied into a large bun while she wore a green
dress with hyacinth flowers patterned on it along with cheap perfumes.
Her face was soft, doughy and covered with two layers of rouge under
the lights. Carefully, we folded her hands on her lap and removed any
jewelry as she was heavily sedated for the very invasive procedures; and
for the most part, Case A5637 was ordinary to a high degree except for
the fact that she also possessed the genetic marker of having been an
Essene during the time of Jesus Christ. Systematically, we began probing
her reptilian brain and aggressively downloading her holographic
engrams that were subsequently viewed on The Brain Reader. As might
have been expected, these startling technological developments were
slowly filtering down into the everyday world, and were in the process
of making court rooms obsolete as plaintiffs and defendants’ brains
were routinely scanned while giving testimony, and the truth of what
happened objectively rendered.
Relentlessly, we probed her reptilian brain like computer hackers as
this person who was a sweet grandmother became nothing more than
a vast encyclopedia set of information. Amazingly, we began seeing
situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean the continent of Lemuria
before its demise hundreds of millions of years ago. The atmosphere was
Kevin Marley 211
dense as there was a strange fire-fog pervading everything. Man lived in
a large forest reminiscent of the tallest sequoias in Northern California,
only much taller, with roaming animals of many species large in both
girth and height. Remarkably, as we had found, Man was not only a
Traveler to different realms, but was still a part of nature itself, not a
separate entity, with his own peculiar volition in constant competition
with everything else. Essentially, the Lemurian was spiritual in nature,
a true clairvoyant, whose ‘inner eye’ was open, and who understood
the howling wind, the rumblings of the earth, the roar of the active
volcano, the singing of a rustic stream, and the call of different birds as
a language unto itself.
Remarkably, Man could ‘see’ before so-called civilization and its
incessant demands impinged upon his abilities.
Essentially, the Lemurian was one with Nature as he moved through
the giant fern-like forests with long confident strides knowing both
bird and beast alike; his basic perceptions of the world allowed him to
see, not just the form, but the spirit of animals and plants as he truly
communed like in the faery tales of old.
Surprisingly, Case Study A5637 was a different gender, a male
Lemurian in this particular incarnation, as we were often finding out
that the human soul to maintain balance incarnates as both genders.
As we were quickly discovering, the Lemurian lived like a Shaman who
could commune with the spirits of the mountains and trees, and the
rivers and the forests as his sacred life was one not necessarily based
upon form, but of vibrant energies and the unremitting flow of life
itself. To him, language was not a dead thing, an albatross, conveniently
tied around one’s neck. But it was an alive thing, and as such, it held
an immense kind of radiating mantric power over one’s fellow beings,
animals and even nature itself. As a result, the Lemurian used the power
of The Word therefore in a constructive manner for to do otherwise was
unthinkable to him.
These stages of life were fully unanticipated.
Additionally, the Lemurian both understood the life force, or as
some ancient cultures have called it: Chi or Prana. They managed their
life force wisely as the Lemurians’ life was aligned with the higher
laws of nature and even the stars in the nighttime sky, which we were
coming to understand was a pervasive energy system. In terms of the
212 Soul Kitchen
sacred act of procreation, the Lemurians were guided by higher beings
at a propitious time, as they mated with each other in this way as the
generative force wasn’t misused the way it is often today. In sharp
contrast, there was no pain with the birthing process; and when so?called death came for the Lemurian, it was not the hideous, frightful
experience that most endure now, but was more like a tight shoe or a
glove coming off for the Lemurian was not afraid of transitioning to a
higher state of consciousness.
Strangely enough, Man was still going through what we found to
be the mysterious processes of Involution and Evolution. Unbelievably,
during these Cosmic Days and Nights, The Great Work was continuing.
And for Man himself, this meant that he was building various bodies so
that he could travel to many different worlds much like Alighieri Dante
had written about in his Divine Comedy. Man was an inveterate Traveler.
Unbelievably, He built these bodies more like a carpenter laboring to
build the foundation and then the framework for a three-story house.
In the parlance of The Schools of Mysteries, Man was building a three?fold soul and a three-fold ego where one was the shadowy reflection of
the other, and in-between these two entities, the Ego and the Soul, the
human race was still laboring to build the all-important Mind.
The Mind of Man was the very important fulcrum on which
everything turned. The Mind had to mediate between the higher and
lower selves, which was no small or easy task. In its present state of
development, the Mind was less a fully developed body, and more a
single sheath which accounted for man’s confusion, lack of rationality,
logic, and even insight into the human condition and world events.
However, as we were to find out, this critical phase would pass as the
mind of man was destined to become a developed body like his physical
body is today.
In addition to these things, Man, was trying to reawaken his many
latent germinal abilities as the Lemurian was trying to awaken the
seeds of both Will and Imagination. As perversely morbid as it might
sound, Lemurian males were made to fiercely fight one another, to
impale themselves upon sharpened spits and to carry heavy burdens
to extreme limits. These incredible contests were done to awaken the
dormant qualities of will, and strength in a human being. In contrast,
the Lemurian women were led to the great forests, far away, and forced
Kevin Marley 213
to sit in isolation and hear the great tempests, the resounding floods,
and the battering winds; and by doing so, they developed the important
faculties of imagination and memory. Women, as a result, became the
pioneers of culture and the possessor of what constituted a ‘good life,’
and for the most part, still lead in being the forbears of culture.
But this rare window was quickly closing, again.
Then relentlessly these Milgram-like experiments continued as we
ruthlessly extracted more terabytes of engrams. Case Study A5637’s
reptilian brain was probed further into another mysterious past: There
was a strange confusing collage of images transmitted to The Brain
Reader as the computer tried to arrange them sequentially. Like flipping
through a large compendious book, soon we were at a new chapter
where she was living in the Middle East as a Jewish girl no more than
nineteen years of age, very petite, with shoulder black hair and large
brown eyes. A tender green branch. Blossoming in spring. She watched
in a large crowded courtyard of nearly two hundred people as Pontius
Pilate, the fifth prefect installed by Rome, stood and argued with the
Jewish church leaders who were calling for justice against this man
from Galilee.
Next to Pontius Pilate, a Galilean stood who was a young and dark?skinned fisherman with long brown hair and who calmly faced the
hostile crowd despite being already bruised by his captors. This man
had dared called himself The Son of God and a witness to the truth. He
had been ruthlessly apprehended in the garden of Gethsemane through
a great betrayal, and now he was looking out at the Church Leaders and
even many of his detractors who had heard the persistent rumors of
him being a holy man. But this surly crowd was growing restless and
would have undoubtedly taken matters into their own hands had it not
been for the Roman soldiers maintaining order.
Another rebellion was impermissible.
Caesar would have his head.
As befitting a Roman soldier, Pontius Pilate was dressed in a vest of
iron, a dark red tunic and a cape with leather sandals. He held authority,
and was weary of this arid and isolated outpost that had befuddled him
too many times. He raised his hand to silence the outcries as he looked
at the rabble come to cause trouble, no doubt. “I have found no offense
in this Galilean. What has this man done to deserve such punishment?”
214 Soul Kitchen
“Jesus has blasphemed!”
“He calls himself The King of the Jews!”
“He is only misguided,” the Prefect retorted as more Roman soldiers
hustled into the pavilion, as the crowd numbering well over two
hundred swelled and grew more tumultuousness.
“He undermines Roman authority and yourself by placing himself in
charge.”
The Sun burnt the ground. A sinister drought was making the land
barren and the people hungry. A northwesterly breeze blew as the
prefect cursed these persistent Jews who often made his life miserable.
The Middle East was a strange crucible of bodily flesh, hatred, and
vengeance, even more so than the present day.
The crowd itself had its own peculiar mood like a brooding
thunderstorm. It clamored for a so-called justice, and Pontius Pilate
realized that he had to decisively act demonstrating Roman strength
and fairness while pacifying these church leaders and Caiaphas who
were threatening, again, an insurrection.
“Every time this year, Rome shows its beneficence, and releases one
prisoner from its jails. Who shall it be this year? Tell me.” Pontius Pilate
asked the crowd as he motioned to a Roman soldier to bring forth one
of their prisoners. “Here stands Barabbas, a convicted murderer whom
you no doubt know. And here is Jesus of Nazareth who is accused of
nothing more than blasphemy. Which one do you want released?”
“Barabbas! Barabbas!”
“Are you sure?”
One strange collective voice echoed in these hills and made the
Prefect wave his hand. The crowd erupted with a raucous cheer as this
disheveled and homely bearded man, Barabbas, broke into a clownish
smile with a toothless grin, and declared his freedom in newfound
joy. He smiled at Jesus of Nazareth before descending the stairs like a
rambling circus bear to his own people who nonetheless were revolted
by his mere presence.
The matter was still undecided.
“What shall be done with him?”
“Crucify him!”
“Why? What evil has he done?”
“Crucify Yeshua!”
Kevin Marley 215
Pontius Pilate stepped forward to assert his authority as he detested
these trouble makers and religious zealots whom he had no personal
affinity for.
“I see no fault that justifies sending this man to his death,” Pontius
Pilate said. “He calls himself King of the Jews and has an inflated
opinion of himself as most of the rabble standing before me now. You
are no better than him.
“That is a minor infraction of the law, nothing more.”
The Church Elders and Caiaphas yelled back in disdain.
“Jesus himself makes a mockery of Roman law calling himself a
king, and he commits blasphemy against our highest teachings. What
are we supposed to do?”
“How can we tolerate a man like that?”
“Crucify him!”
The last disjointed image that we stole was of a darkened hallway as
Pontius Pilate confronted Jesus himself over these many accusations.
“Are you king of the Jews?”
“Does this question come from you? Or from my detractors?”
“Your High Priests, your own people, delivered you up to me. They
want me to have you executed. I need to know if you consider yourself
a king?”
“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, do you think my
followers would have let them hand me over?”
“Then you are a king?”
“That is why I was born here on Earth. I am here to give testimony
to the truth. All men who hear the truth hear my voice.”
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
“What is the truth?” Pontius Pilate asked.
The monitor itself went blank.
“We’re losing her,” I exclaimed. “Her blood pressure’s climbing into
the stratosphere, 200 over 120.”
“We really need to stop this,” Sam said as he glared at Bevan, and
Greg Wilson who conferred in a corner of the room like overseers on
some Southern plantation. “She’s gonna stroke out any minute now.”
To them, men were like beasts who had once escaped the chains of
slavery and feudalism only to be recaptured, bitterly so, and placed in a
larger, more secure dungeon.
216 Soul Kitchen
If Case Study A5637 died or suffered serious damage, they were not
worried. Why would they be? This sixty-seven-year-old grandmother
from Mobile, Alabama was merely collateral in an ongoing covert
war against our longstanding enemies. Legally, it had been fixed by
The President, the Attorney General and Congress through nefarious
legislation as we used retroviruses to cover it up mutating old strains,
and then conveniently called it the bubonic plague, the Swine flu, the
Asian bird flu, or the Spanish flu of 1918 to scare the public even more
into submission.
“I’m doing the IV thrombolytic now,” I said feeling paranoid
about my work now. Quickly, I stuck the needle in her arm as she was
beginning to become more restless. “We can do a portable CAT scan
within minutes, and then Sam can do the neurosurgery, if necessary.”
“She’s salvageable,” Sam yelled as Morris and Wilson were still
conferring about various deadlines and reports that necessitated
progress.
“Of course, she is, gentlemen. I’ve reviewed her record. But what are
we trying to do here? We are trying to attain these newer technologies
before the Chinese and the Russians do. They’ve made great inroads
into charged particle beam warfare, time travel and even teleportation,
and God knows what other things. Right now, we are trying to save the
United States from irreparable harm from her enemies,” Morris said as
he was like a Napoleonic general, always anxious, before his own troops.
“Just download the rest of her engrams, codify it, and send me
a conclusive report tomorrow,” Wilson declared as if she were the
convenient bookends to a Britannica encyclopedia set.
“We don’t have time for this kind of debate.”
“And if she dies? To hell with The Hippocratic Oath and the U.S.
Constitution and The Bill of Rights?” Sam retorted.
“Mr. Hinkins.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe we’ve lost on our own moral
compass? That we’re not a true democracy anymore, and that we keep
making more rationalizations every day?”
“You have been heard.”
“Personally, I feel like Dr. Josef Mengele and his cohorts. I suppose
you’ll give us the Iron Cross next for our exemplary performance here.”
“You’re relieved, Mr. Hinkins. The rest of you can finish your work.
Unfortunately, we do not have time for these kinds of discussions,”
Kevin Marley 217
Morris said as he nodded to the Army officers to escort him out of the
room.
The Army officers grabbed him.
“It’s Dr. Hinkins.”
“You have only yourself to blame, Dr. Hinkins.”
“You can’t suppress the truth forever.”
“And why not?”
“Because it will eventually rise to the surface.”
“Get him out of here.”
“I can walk out of here myself.”
Dr. McNamara filled in. We were replaceable cogs in a great machine.
It kept turning and turning, and in case anyone didn’t notice, it was
chewing and spitting out lifeless dead bodies.
Case Study A5637’s blood pressure began dropping some from the
IV that I had put into her arm. Momentarily, we stopped downloading
engrams and she began to waken from her deep sleep.
Quite honestly, she could have been anyone’s grandmother as I
stared into her glossy eyes.
“Son, what am I doing here?”
“We’re trying to keep you from having a stroke,” I said as I watched
McNamara, out of the corner of my eye, getting ready to begin
downloading all her holographic engrams.
“That’s nonsense. I don’t have hypertension.”
“That may be true, but you suffered an accident.”
“What kind of accident?!”
“We’ve had to do some exploratory surgery.”
“Just download all the engrams, Dr. McNamara. We can now
store everything hyper digitally, and don’t have to go through this
cumbersome process with all the drama inherent in it. Quite frankly,
it’s starting to get on my nerves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are they talking about?”
“Nothing in particular,” I replied as I swallowed the last remnants of
self-respect I had.
“They’re talking about me as though I am not even here.”
“It’s just medical terminology.”
“I’m not a guinea pig, am I?”
218 Soul Kitchen
Within half a minute, Case Study A5637’s eyes shut for the final time
like a heavy wooden door being slammed. Her engrams were being
ruthlessly downloaded in the so-called name of progress. Beyond a
doubt, I knew we were all guilty of murder and kidnapping charges no
matter what legal tricks the current presidential administration made
and what clever rationalizations as physicians we had made to ourselves.
“I’m giving her clobazam,” I stated trying to stave off the inevitable.
“Her blood pressure’s rising, 220/120. We’re losing her, again.”
An evening rose folded its petals
People were no longer people if that made any sense. They were
through a complete degeneration nothing but rechargeable batteries for
greedy multi-national corporations and defunct nation states; and now
through these mysterious things called engrams, they were becoming
encyclopedic bookends capable of being snatched through secret CIA
programs, then stealthily brought to military bases where their engrams
were digitally downloaded through the advancements of quantum?based supercomputers into our secret files; and for some, they were
the vital keys to explore our greater past as human beings from the
mysterious and forgotten continents of Lemuria to Atlantis to ancient
Egypt to modern history to ad infinitum.
In the men’s dressing room, we felt the humiliating sting of defeat,
like a football team in last place. We tried to console ourselves as best
we could knowing that we would probably be castigated in a not so
distant future, the men and women who had let The Land of the Free
and Home of the Brave morph into an authoritarian surveillance state
exchanging our liberties and freedoms for ‘more security’ so that we
could sleep better at night.
“I’m through with these shenanigans. I’m resigning,” Sam said as he
was through with the program itself.
“We can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“We’ve all signed contracts and confidentiality agreements,” Mark
added as he looked even worse than before having fallen off the wagon,
again.
“They’ll sue us to Kingdom Come.”
“What can one man do?”
“It’s like David versus Goliath.”
Kevin Marley 219
“And worse, we don’t have any trusty slingshots with us.”
Remarkably, I remained quiet. I didn’t know what to say. And words,
what were they? Words were the neatly shoveled dog shit we threw
around from sunrise to the nightly news; and we did this to create some
kind of narrative for ourselves to make us feel good in an otherwise
unbearable human condition.
With trepid feelings, I waited until everyone was gone, and then
I hooked myself up as best I could to the Brain Reader to download
holographic engrams. Despite having taken another dose of thioridazine,
my hands shook as I began losing my own mind by doing this kind of
dangerous research.
For the past year, I had known many things. I had the genetic
marker for having been an Essene at the time of Jesus Christ’s birth
and his resurrection in 30 A.D. Yet, I had done nothing. Also, I had
downloaded many other past lives that were astonishing to relive, that I
had somehow known all along in the back recesses of my consciousness.
Unfortunately, history was repeating itself.
Modern-day Rome led hapless Christians into the lion’s den to be
devoured.
This pursuit of truth needed to involve personal risk, and to even
possess a subjective component, more than just being a white lab coat
doctor collecting nameless data and making conjectures and spewing
more endless theories.
Personally, I didn’t know what to believe. As a scientist, I had
fervently believed in the empirical method, test results, and scientific
journals and naught else. My core identity was now being disassembled
and reassembled in an arduous manner. Only now, in hindsight, there
were four basic emerging facts: 1) Man was a Traveler to many different
realms; 2) The Law of Rebirth exists; 3) The Law of Consequence
appears to regulate our lives; and 4) The Human Body is a temple as all
the ancient schools of mystery have said.
Bravely, I used this new machinery to transcend the empirical world
that I had been trained to always observe and measure. If relaxed, I
could concentrate like a powerful laser beam my thoughts and pierce
the veil of Maya. At first, I traveled past much darkness and many
illusory images before I could see myself in many past lifetimes as it was
all definitively here in my cellular memory. Earthly memories flooded
220 Soul Kitchen
my mind like a river over running its shores. Twinging, I saw myself as
an inveterate actor from the roles of hero to villain to house maker to
scholar to nomadic wanderer to priest to the village idiot to even a petty
thief. What was I doing? Why was I here? These questions echoed in my
mind like a philosopher shouting with much curiosity in a great chasm.
I was gathering information so that one day I might become aware of
the Soul that I Am. In a virtual poof of smoke, time disappeared as I
perused The Book of Nature or The Akashi Records. Right here, for
anyone’s study and understanding, was every event that had ever taken
place, a kind of vast encyclopedic history.
In the first weeks, I had significant success in examining my own
past lives. But there was much lingering physical discomfort from
psychological distress to headaches to even paranoia from this kind of
intrusion, a ripping away of the sheaths of my own ego. But I made
adjustments. Soon, I began to see even more of my human lives and
then beyond the record of the human personality, and indeed, view the
story of the Human Soul itself.
Flipping pages within a book, I saw my Soul along with an entire
life wave of innumerable Souls leaving the very highest heavens to
wander through a myriad number of other worlds. Kicked out of
Heaven, we left like Adam and Eve from Paradise to gain invaluable
experience and knowledge, so that we could truly know the Atman.
Seeing these images, I saw our very long sojourn that had taken an
incalculable number of years stretching throughout an unfathomable
infinity. I could see my Soul, like an expert craftsman, hard at work
building bodies, its physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies,
for simplicity’s sake, that are vehicles used to travel to numerous worlds
throughout Creation itself from the highest Heaven to Dante’s Inferno.
More eons of time elapsed, and then I eventually saw myself in specific
incarnations as a human being, endowed with individuality and free
will to express myself for The Highest Good. But like most neophyte
Souls just starting out on their human careers, I made a terrible mess of
things: I ran about without any kind of inner compass to guide me and
wreaked havoc with All of Creation and even this morsel of a world as
our “small acts” ripple in a very large pond affecting everything.
I felt ashamed to see myself in this Divine Light wearing many
masks as an ogre, a tyrant, a thief, a heartless bully, and even once as a
Kevin Marley 221
cold-blooded murderer. But slowly, a piece of dark coal began turning
into a bright and shiny diamond. In essence, I grew up. I learned many
lessons, many different languages as a polyglot, played as both an actor
and as an actress in many different scenes from lots of diverse cultures
in the world; I struggled for Soul Growth, and once in a blue moon, I
reaped the good harvest of some of my better, nobler actions. I could
see, for instance, during the last few chapters of this very strange and
compelling novel, my soul projecting itself into time and space as an
Atlantean standing on an ancient continent now foregone as if it were
yesterday; and then, as if turning more pages, I could see myself as a
handsome Egyptian burning in the hot sun seeing the pyramids rise
spectacularly in the desert and a mighty culture flourish that possessed
its own knowledge before I incarnated again, now as a short, stocky
Macedonian who followed Alexander the Great through Asia Minor
on many conquests; and then in this furthering narrative, I became an
Essene who took a leap forward in his own evolution and now followed
this Jewish man through the city of Jerusalem and many other places
learning through parables and miracles that appeared to defy the very
laws of physics; and after this, a long respite in these Heavens to bathe
in, I incarnated as an Italian poet during the 13th century living another
shallow life, as a civil servant, before I had another spiritual awakening,
trying to finally awaken from this slumber that had lasted for many
millennia.
This was The Second Act.
So much had preceded this period.
But I regress, I’m afraid, my life as an Essene in the Middle East is
what is vital, and the time that I had spent with this adept from the East.
I needed to know more about the Mission of Golgotha before I became
lost in all these myriad pictures, a strange kaleidoscope, of pain and
misery, and a flood of memories.
Backwards, I fell into Time, again, like in an incredible whirlpool.
It was a hot day – for the momentous day still in question – as
only the hardiest plants and trees could survive here with the barest
precipitation. Strangely, time could be relived through these holographic
engrams as I saw this Essene slowly walk along a stony path while being
harangued and severely beaten by Roman soldiers. He carried a heavy
cross along the Road to Calvary. He was languishing under the weight
222 Soul Kitchen
of this burden after having been given in a court yard already 40 lashes
and a painful crown of thorns before he struggled and fell.
“Alright Your Highness, let’s move!”
His face was bloodied with one eye swollen shut. His stiff body
rose, then faltered. Many Jews jeered him. Others ruthlessly mocked
him. Cowardly, we had been his followers mostly in hiding, and in not
demonstrably stating our allegiance, as we felt pangs of remorse when
he was whipped by a Roman soldier. Finally, Yeshua fell again as his
wobbly legs gave out. The heavy cross toppled on him. He looked unable
to get up this time. In her anguish, Mother Mary rushed nearby to her
son to let him know that he was not alone in this time of immense trials.
“I am here, Yeshua.”
“You see, Mother, I shall make everything new again. The veil shall be
torn asunder. All souls will soon see the face of their Father.”
“I am with you.”
Caiaphas smiled as he was dressed in a long robe and an elaborate
kippah befitting his position as the church leaders followed this
procession. His hands were folded, and he had a smug satisfaction
knowing that they had contrived to bring about Yeshua’s downfall
despite what the Prefect himself had wanted.
But their perpetual air of arrogance would be their own undoing.
Mercilessly, the Sun beat down upon all living things: This fiery
inferno gave life, nursed it in its infancy, and youth, and then scorched it
to death beyond recognition. The Middle East was not so much a place,
but a merciless cauldron of struggles and endless challenges between
God’s chosen people and infidels.
Slowly, Jesus stood again. He teetered under the struggle. Bravely,
he carried the cross as the Roman soldiers, more like a band of robbers,
continued to harangue and beat him, “Do you want to give back your
crown of thorns? The Messiah?! Get going! You’re going to the top if I have
to ride you like a mule myself.”
A few Jewish women objected.
“Yeshua is a holy man.”
Along the stony path, the prophet fell again as there was a strong
westerly breeze and clouds moving in. The soldiers continued to whip
him. Abenader, finally, came on horseback to see what was going on:
“Are you blind? Can’t you see he can’t go on? Help him.”
Kevin Marley 223
Cassius looked for help. Finally, he pointed to a large Jewish man
who was walking with his family.
“You! Get over here!”
“What do you want from me?”
“This pathetic man can’t carry his cross anymore. You will help him to
the top of Mount Calvary.”
“I can’t do that”
“Get going!”
“It’s none of my business. Get someone else!”
“Do as I tell you!”
“He’s a holy man help him!” an old woman pleaded.
“Alright, but remember, I am an innocent man. And now I am being
forced to carry the cross of a condemned man.”
Simon of Cyrene then slowly bent down and helped Jesus of Nazareth
carry the heavy cross as I was witnessing these strange miraculous
events through holographic memories. Previously, I had felt a kind of
kinship to this time and place, and had recognized this ancient Hebrew
as my mother tongue from long ago.
The journey continued.
Many jeered.
Others cried in grief.
The great dividing wall of mankind.
Finally, they made it to the top of Mount Calvary outside of
Jerusalem’s walls as a storm in the distance was approaching. Simon
of Cyrene was relieved of his duties. He stood afraid and wary of the
Roman soldiers. The city of Jerusalem could be seen below; for many
it was just another day. The crucifixion of Jesus proceeded, along with
two other criminals, as the primitive dictates of crime and punishment
were meted out.
They hammered Jesus to the cross. Then raised it with strong ropes
before placing it in a deep hole.
On the cross it said: IESUS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM.
The Mission of Golgotha was nearly over.
The skies darkened. A strange breeze blew.
One of the criminals desperate shouted: “If you are the Son of God,
why don’t you save yourself? Prove to us you are who you say you are.”
The crowd laughed. They had heard the stories many times over, and
none had ever been proven true.
224 Soul Kitchen
Caiaphas approached the cross with a scepter.
“Yeshua, you said, ‘I can destroy the temple in three days, and rebuild
it.’ Yet, it appears, you cannot come down from that cross. If you are the
Messiah come down so that we may see and believe.”
Jesus looked at the darkening skies. Some of the Roman soldiers
began sensing something as their own horses were jittery.
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
“Listen, he prays for you! Even in death he rises above you.”
“Rubbish!”
“He outlives you.”
“We deserve this, but he does not,” the other man on the cross cried
in anguish who still held out hope.
“Free us!”
“I have sinned, and my punishment is just. I ask only that you
remember me, Lord, when you enter your Kingdom.”
“On this day you shall be with me in paradise.”
The other condemned man on the cross – laughed.
But from the darkening skies, a black crow landed on his cross. He
moved down closer to the offender and then pecked his eyes out before
a Roman soldier shooed the bird away.
He screamed.
Strangely, the wind began to swirl, with a life of its own, as clouds
covered the sun like a darkened veil. The storm approached Mount
Calvary as the many rumors and myths the Roman soldiers had heard
about appeared to be coming true.
“It is only a foolish wives’ tale,” one Roman soldier conjectured.
“Superstitious beliefs,” another replied.
“They are ignorant Jews. Don’t listen to them.”
But they could hear the prayers of the Essenes rising higher, silently
carried on invisible wings, for their Messiah.
“God sent his only son here to change the Earth.”
“Now, there will be a New Heaven, too.”
“As above, so below.”
“Let Thy Will be done.”
Soon, it became more tumultuous. The dark storm was growing
more ominous with strange ethereal beings in the air; they were now
approaching the city of Jerusalem and even Mount Calvary. Harried,
Kevin Marley 225
and even afraid, the Jewish leaders began riding their donkeys back
down the trail before they were caught in this sudden and foreboding
storm.
Mother Mary approached her son.
Kissed his bloodied feet.
“I am thirsty,” Yeshua said as his life was ebbing away.
A Roman soldier put a wetted sponge on his spear and gave it to
him.
“Flesh from my flesh, heart of my heart. My son, let me die with you.”
“Woman, behold your son. I shall take away the sins of this world.”
Yeshua was now alone on the cross as the grace of the Lord
disappeared.
“My God, why have you forsaken me?”
The question echoed into the farther reaches.
Yeshua breathed his final breath.
“It is accomplished. My Mission is over,” Yeshua said as his face
became sallow and turgid. “Father into your hands I commend my
Spirit.”
A large blast – almost atomic in nature – radiated across the entire
globe. But it was not a force of destruction, but of light and life. This
was the crucial point we had been searching for as The Body of Christ
enveloped the earth and took away the sins of the world. The world
itself was renewed as: Many would now hear. Many would now see.
Many would now feel the stirrings of their own Soul. It was like large
tuning fork being struck and making the other tuning forks, resonate at
the same frequency.
Likewise, the world and all its inhabitants began to resonate at a
higher frequency and that was the Mission of Golgotha.
But Bevan Morris and Greg Wilson abruptly came in. Apparently,
they knew of my furtive activities, and without hesitation, they began
downloading all my engrams as soldiers handcuffed me and Sam, Mark
and even David began interpreting what was happening.
Machiavelli would have been proud of them for following the tenets
of The Prince. A book I had read a long time ago – and had forgotten.
Afterwards, I was taken away as an enemy of the state and held
in solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay as my entire profile and
history became what they wanted it to be.
226 Soul Kitchen
Weeks and months blurred by, more like a race car whizzing by
various towns and road signs at an incredible speed. They fed me a
potent mix of opiates, anti-depressants, and even schizophrenic drugs
while ruthlessly downloading more and more engrams as I became
their newest encyclopedic set. Unbelievably, I was held on this military
base as habeas corpus had been indefinitely suspended and then even
brought before a military tribunal even though I was an American
citizen who had never belonged to the armed forces. In my hot and
sultry cell, I methodically washed and dried my face with a cloth rag,
and then stared into the bathroom mirror. Strangely enough, I could
see a middle aged African-American man with mahogany skin, and
sad, pensive eyes and a handsome, but worn face looking back at me;
his mask was falling apart though as I saw rugged grooves and salt
and pepper whiskers that had never been there before, and even his
future death; looking further, he possessed his father’s sternness and
compulsions, and traces of my mother’s softness and kindness who had
been born on the streets of Trinidad, and it was all a genetic collage of
sorts.
Was I him?
Was I someone else?
The Entity behind the mask?
Summarily, I had been sentenced to thirty-five years in prison
without any chance for parole while being stripped of both my
nationality and my constitutional rights. Effectively, my life was over. I
had been convicted of violations of the Espionage Act, for copying and
disseminating classified military field reports, and State Department
cables, and interfering in government research projects. I had told my
story to the New York Times, but they refused to publish it when Sam
Hinkins, Mark McNamara, Bob Akins, and the other scientists had
refused to corroborate any of my story. They had also greatly disparaged
me. The media didn’t back away because of an inability to verify how the
U.S. government was treating its own citizens in terms of kidnapping,
and torturing them, and subsequently even killing them. But they failed
to report these egregious acts as operatives basically controlled what is
televised and what is printed.
At the sentencing, at Guantanamo Bay, they had chemically
lobotomized me. I felt woozy and even incoherent. I stared at the
Kevin Marley 227
judge who looked stern and mendacious. He had a black thin crown of
hair, with a large nose and beady eyes. On my right-hand side, I had a
militarily dressed attorney even though I do not remember ever having
met him before.
My hands trembled. I looked at the handcuffs they had locked me in.
I suffered from a depression that was like being buried in a twelve-foot
hole. Like most, I was confined within a jail within a larger jailhouse in
this corrupted Republic. But what bothered me most was that I had scars
running across my wrists. I had had no choice. I had attempted suicide
after being confined for two years. Defiantly, I finally stood to give my
plea before Judge Kaufman as I was still seething from my colleagues,
the corporations, and the indolent citizens that had allowed America to
become such a corrupted state. Maybe, I would not see it fall. I would
not live long enough. But the rebellion would come nonetheless as a
glorious, vaunted Rome crumbled and fell from within before being
overrun by the Huns.
“I have been falsely accused of treason – as so-called patriotic
government officials are, in truth, seditionists. Now, I am being thrown
away. What was my fault? I did not want to torture and kill my fellow
Americans and I wanted to pursue the truth. I tried to tell my story to the
media, and then I was apprehended, and my entire life was destroyed.
“With time, it will be you that will be considered the Benedict
Arnolds of these times.
“You ask me what happened during our experiments? What is truth?
I do not think you have the eyes nor the ears to see it. As Jesus himself
once said, ‘Do not cast pearls before swine.’
“But in this case, I will. I have no choice.
“Yes, I found the needle in the haystack as I had the suspected gene.
The U.S. Government even has even confirmed it. The most important
moment in mankind’s history was not this century nor the past one,
but the crucifixion – as an atomic blast spread out and filled the entire
world and began raising this plane of existence to a much higher level. It
is hard to describe this truly ineffable event. I can only say: What is not
of love, of true compassion, will not be able to last here. It will be like
trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
“For now, you hold political power, much material wealth, and a
crass rule more as an atavistic reminder of our cruel past.
228 Soul Kitchen
“You believe that the acquisition of wealth, and your bureaucratic
control are Power. But what is Power? You do not see the grass and the
flowers bragging about their power, nor the animals, and the dolphins
and the whales, nor mountains and the rivers, nor the stars or galaxies
before you? Nor the adepts and masters? Why? Because it is a Power
not over, but a power with that ultimately works in this world, galaxy,
and universe that you have barely begun to comprehend. Nation
states were not meant to last forever. They are merely stepping stones
in mankind’s development. That’s all. The United States was divinely
inspired, and it was meant to secure individual freedoms and rights
while simultaneously making sure that the larger groups of community
that comprised it were functioning at a higher level that respected both
the spirit of the law and the major principles found within democracy.
“The United States wasn’t meant to be a hegemonic dynasty that
lasted for hundreds of years. This country was meant to spread a basic
model of governance and individual rights to a world in desperate need.
But you have hijacked this once noble Republic and have turned it into
an authoritarian surveillance state that now spies on all its citizens
and threatens and detains anyone who resists this vast hegemonic
superpower. This isn’t liberty! This isn’t freedom! But tyranny! And the
sooner we hit bottom from another financial disaster or an instigated
war, and start over as a nation the better! We are more like a big braggart,
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