Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

DANCING PHOTONS

The intellectual love of things consists in understanding their perfections.

–spinoza

Linda Lovelace, a projection of light traveling 186,000 miles per second through film of events that actually transpired in Miami years before, is taking first one inch of Harry Reems's penis, then two, three, five, the whole incredible nine inches, and paranoid little Marvin Gardens, hunched in his seat, overcoat in lap, snorts the last of his coke.

It was the forty-fourth time Marvin had seen Deep Throat and the twenty-third time on coke, and under the overcoat his hand was magically transforming into Linda's mouth again, that separate reality where the dancing photons on the screen and the synergizing synapses in his brain joined to produce more than 3-D better than Technicolor realer than real God yes higher than a kite oh Lord.

Marvin was having a rare happy moment in which the extraterrestrial invasion wasn't worrying him.

He, Harry Reems, is about to come, and Marvin Gardens, too, wondering in one corner of his mind about the eternity of protoplasm, because when he conies she'll take it out of her mouth and-splat!-he'll shoot all over her face. Marvin is waiting, but take an amoeba now does it die when it splits? Are there two new amoebas or is it two selves where there was one self before? God, she's got all of it now, faster, call them Krazy and Ignatz say, now is Krazy the first amoeba and Ignatz a twin or are both of them still Krazy, two Krazies instead of one? Jeez, right I down her throat now, and when they split again we have four, she's licking the head now ah that's good and about to swallow it all again, call them say Groucho Chico Harpo and Zeppo, which is the original amoeba or are they all, are amoebas really immortal then? Now now here it comes now one amoeba dividing forever now going on and on for all eternity now a single explosion of DNA seed now now ah Christ Christ yes now now now yes Eternal God oh good.

"Blake Williams had a mnemonic for my discovery," Bertha Van Ation was excitedly telling Juan Tootreego as they passed the DEEP THROAT marquee. "Mother Very Easily Made a Jam Sandwich Using No Peanuts, Mayonnaise, or Glue. See? Mercury Venus Earth…"

But about those amoebas: Marvin Gardens, more relaxed now, is buttoning his coat and heading for the exit. Linda Lovelace continues to schlurp and suck on the screen behind him, but he is deciding that after the first split there are two amoebas, of course, but should you call them children of the first amoeba-him or her or it? And after the second split there are four. After the third split, eight. Nowhere does the phase change denoted by the symbol "death" appear to have occurred. Is one of the eight third-generation amoebas the original amoeba (him or her or it), or are all of them the original? And how does 8 = 4 = 2 = 1, anyhow?

Markoff Chaney was about to have a dream come true. He was renting his old room at the YMCA on Chicago Avenue again, using it as a base for further anti-Dashwood activities. He had gone for a walk, and as he approached the intersection of Michigan and Lake Shore Drive, he was thinking about a new letterhead that would say FRATERNAL ORDER OF HATE GROUPS and have Robert Welch, Abby Hoffman, Anita Bryant, and George Wallace listed as officers. Perhaps he might add Natalie Drest and make her "Chairperson of the Board."

"Hsst!" a voice said. "You-yeah, you, shorty." The midget stiffened and whirled around. "Hssst!" he said, "You-yeah, you, asshole."

"Hey, no offense," the speaker said. "I got a business proposition for you." The midget looked at him sharply; he didn't look at all as shady and unsavory as a person should look who was offering a business proposition on the corner to a total stranger.

"What are you selling?" he asked. "Not selling," the friendly giant said. "Giving away. One hundred fifty dollars."

"And what do I have to do for it?" the midget asked warily, drawing a little closer.

"I'm a butler," the man said-and, in fact, he did not look like butlers the midget had seen in movies. His face was much longer from the nose down than most people's; it gave him a permanent look of one who smells something but hasn't found it yet. Most Chicagoans, Chaney had noticed, look like they'd just found it and it was worse than they'd imagined. "The lady I work for is very rich. And very eccentric." He tried to leer suggestively; the effect was like a bishop winking. "She has a thing about m--… about you people of less than average stature." Markoff Chaney felt his heart leap. Could it be true??

"One hundred fifty dollars?"

"That's right. She gets these moods and sends me out looking every so often."

"I'm game," the midget said, deciding. He could feel the pulse in his temple. Au revoir, ma cherie, he thought, firmly convinced that was French for "good-bye to virginity."

"There's just one thing," the butler said as they walked along. "You've got to do just what I tell you. Don't be afraid; she's not a real kink-no whips and chains or anything of that scene-but, well, her tastes are a little peculiar. I promise you won't be hurt."

"Tell me," the midget said.

"It's like a little drama or charade," the butler said, lowering his voice. He explained certain things.

"What?" the midget asked. "I don't get to fuck her?"

"But it will be enjoyable, nonetheless," the butler said, "and you collect one hundred fifty smackers for it, remember."

"Oh, well," Chaney said, quoting one of his basic axioms for Guerrilla Ontology, "insanity is another viable alternative."