Valis

10

It would not be in China, nor in India or Tasmania for that matter, that Horselover Fat would find the fifth Savior. Valis had shown us where to look: a beer can run over by a passing taxi. That was the source of the information and the help.

That in fact was VALIS, Vast Active Living Intelligence System, as Mother Goose had chosen to term it.

We had just saved Fat a lot of money, plus a lot of wasted time and effort, including the bother of obtaining vaccinations and a passport.

A couple of days later the three of us drove up Tustin Avenue and took in the film Valis once more. Watching it carefully I realized that on the surface the movie made no sense whatsoever. Unless you ferreted out the subliminal and marginal clues and assembled them all together you arrived at nothing. But these clues got fired at your head whether you consciously considered them and their meaning or not; you had no choice. The audience was in the same relationship to the film Valis that Fat had had to what he called Zebra: a transducer and a percipient, totally receptive in nature.

Again we found mostly teenagers comprising the audience. They seemed to enjoy what they saw. I wondered how many of them left the theater pondering the inscrutible [sic] mysteries of the film as we did. Maybe none of them. I had a feeling it made no difference.

We could assign Gloria's death as the cause of Fat's supposed encounter with God, but we could not consider it the cause of the film Valis. Kevin, upon first seeing the film, had realized this at once. It didn't matter what the explanation was; what had now been established was that Fat's March 1974 experience was real.

Okay; it mattered what the explanation was. But at least one thing had been proved: Fat might be clinically crazy but he was locked into reality -- a reality of some kind, although certainly not the normal one.

Ancient Rome -- apostolic times and early Christians -- breaking through into the modern world. And breaking through with a purpose. To unseat Ferris F. Fremount, who was Richard Nixon.

They had achieved their purpose, and had gone back home.

Maybe the Empire had ended after all.

Now himself somewhat persuaded, Kevin began to comb through the two apocalyptic books of the Bible for clues. He came across a part of the Book of Daniel which he believed depicted Nixon.

"In the last days of those kingdoms,

When their sin is at its height,

A king shall appear, harsh and grim, a master of stratagem.

His power shall be great, he shall work havoc untold;

He shall work havoc among great nations and upon a holy people.

His mind shall be ever active,

And he shall succeed in his crafty designs;

He shall conjure up great plans.

And, when they least expect it, work havoc on many.

He shall challenge even the Prince of princes

And be broken, but not by human hands."

Now Kevin had become a Bible scholar, to Fat's amusement; the cynic had become devout, albeit for a particular purpose.

But on a far more fundamental level Fat felt fear at the turn of events. Perhaps he had always felt reassured to think that his March 1974 encounter with God emanated from mere insanity; viewing it that way he did not necessarily have to take it as real. Now he did. We all did. Something which did not yield up an explanation had happened to Fat, an experience which pointed to a melting of the physical world itself, and to the ontological categories which defined it: space and time.

"Shit, Phil," he said to me that night. "What if the world doesn't exist? If it doesn't, then what does?"

"I don't know," I said, and then I said, quoting, "You're the authority."

Fat glared at me. "It's not funny. Some force or entity melted the reality around me as if everything was a hologram! An interference with our hologram!"

"But in your tractate," I said, "that's exactly what you stipulate reality is: a two-source hologram."

"But intellectually thinking it is one thing," Fat said, "and finding out it's true is another!"

"There's no use getting sore at me," I said.

David, our Catholic friend, and his teeny-bopper underage girlfriend Jan went to see Valis, on our recommendation. David came out of it pleased. He saw the hand of God squeezing the world like an orange.

"Yeah, well we're in the juice," Fat said.

"But that's the way it should be," David said.

"You're willing to dispense with the whole world as a real thing, then," Fat said.

"Whatever God believes in is real," David said.

Kevin, irked, said, "Can he create a person so gullible that hell believe nothing exists? Because if nothing exists, what is meant by the word 'nothing'? How is one 'nothing' which exists defined in comparison to another 'nothing' which doesn't exist?"

We, as usual, had gotten caught in the crossfire between David and Kevin, but under altered circumstances.

"What exists," David said, "is God and the Will of God."

"I hope I'm in his will," Kevin said. "I hope he left me more than one dollar."

"All creatures are in his will," David said, not batting an eye; he never let Kevin get to him.

Concern had now, by gradual increments, overcome our little group. We were no longer friends comforting and propping up a deranged member; we were collectively in deep trouble. A total reversal had in fact taken place: instead of mollifying Fat we now had to turn to him for advice. Fat was our link with that entity, VALIS or Zebra, which appeared to have power over all of us, if the Mother Goose film were to be believed.

"Not only does it fire information to us but when it wants to it can take control. It can override us."

That expressed it perfectly. At any moment a beam of pink light could strike us, blind us, and when we regained our sight (if we ever did) we could know everything or nothing and be in Brazil four thousand years ago; space and time, for VALIS, meant nothing.

A common worry unified all of us, the fear that we knew or had figured out too much. We knew that apostolic Christians armed with stunningly sophisticated technology had broken through the space-time barrier into our world, and, with the aid of a vast information-processing instrument had basically deflected human history. The species of creature which stumbles onto such knowledge may not show up too well on the longevity tables.

Most ominous of all, we knew -- or suspected -- that the original apostolic Christians who had known Christ, who had been alive to receive the direct oral teachings before the Romans wiped those teachings out, were immortal. They had acquired immortality through the plasmate which Fat had discussed in his tractate. Although the original apostolic Christians had been murdered, the plasmate had gone into hiding at Nag Hammadi and was again loose in our world, and as angry as a motherfucker, if you'll excuse the expression. It thirsted for vengence. And apparently it had begun to score that vengence, against the modern-day manifestation of the Empire, the imperial United States Presidency.

I hoped the plasmate considered us its friends. I hoped it didn't think we were snitches.

"Where do we hide," Kevin said, "when an immortal plasmate which knows everything and is consuming the world by transubstantiation is looking for you?"

"It's a good thing Sherri isn't alive to hear about all this," Fat said, surprising us. "I mean, it would shake her faith."

We all laughed. Faith shaken by the discovery that the entity believed in actually existed -- the paradox of piety. Sherri's theology had congealed; there would have been no room in it for the growth, the expansion and evolution, necessary to encompass our revelations. No wonder Fat and she weren't able to live together.

The question was, How did we go about making contact with Eric Lampton and Linda Lampton and the composer of Synchronicity Music, Mini? Obviously through me and my friendship -- if that's what it was -- with Jamison.

"It's up to you, Phil," Kevin said. "Get off the pot and onto the stick. Call Jamison and tell him -- whatever. You're full of it; you'll think of something. Say you've written a hot-property screenplay and you want Lampton to read it."

"Call it Zebra,"Fat said.

"Okay," I said, "I'll call it Zebra or Horse's Ass or anything you want. You know, of course, that this is going to shoot down my professional probity."

"What probity?" Kevin said, characteristically. "Your probity is like Fat's. It never got off the ground in the first place."

"What you have to do," Fat said, "is show knowledge of the gnosis disclosed to me by Zebra over and above, which is to say beyond, what appears in Valis. That will intrigue him. I'll write down a few statements I've received directly from Zebra."

Presently he had a list for me.

#18. Real time ceased in 70 c.e. with the fall of the temple at Jerusalem. It began again in 1974 c.e. The intervening period was a perfect spurious interpolation aping the creation of the Mind. "The Empire never ended," but in 1974 a cypher was sent out as a signal that the Age of Iron was over; the cypher consisted of two words: KING FELIX, which refers to the Happy (or Rightful) King.

#19. The two-word cypher signal KING FELIX was not intended for human beings but for the descendents of Ikhnaton, the three-eyed race which, in secret, exists with us.

Reading these entries, I said, "I'm supposed to recite this to Robin Jamison?"

"Say they're from your screenplay Zebra,"Kevin said. "Is this cypher real?" I asked Fat. A veiled expression appeared on his face. "Maybe."

This two-word secret message was actually sent out?" David said.

"In 1974," Fat said. "In February. The United States Army cryptographers studied it, but couldn't discern who it was intended for or what it meant."

"How do you know that?" I said.

"Zebra told him," Kevin said.

"No," Fat said, but he did not amplify.

In this industry you always talk to agents, never to principals. One time I had gotten loaded and tried to get hold of Kay Lenz, who I had a crush on from having seen Breezy. Her agent cut me off at the pass. The same thing happened when I tried to get through to Victoria Principal, who herself is now an agent; again, I had a crush on her and again I was ripped when I started phoning Universal Studios. But having Robin Jamison's address and phone number in London made a difference.

"Yes, I remember you," Jamison said pleasantly when I put the call through to London. "The science fiction writer with the child bride, as Mr. Purser described her in his article."

I told him about my dynamite screenplay Zebra and that I'd seen their sensational film Valis and thought that Mother Goose was absolutely perfect for the lead part; even more so than Robert Redford, who we were also considering and who was interested.

"What I can do," Jamison said, "is contact Mr. Lampton and give him your number there in the States. If he's interested he or his agent will get in touch with you or your agent."

I'd fired my best shot; that was it.

After some more talk I hung up, feeling futile. Also I had a minor twinge of guilt over my devious hype, but I knew that the twinge would abate.

Was Eric Lampton the fifth Savior who Fat sought?

Strange, the relationship between the actuality and the ideal. Fat had been prepared to climb the highest mountain in Tibet, to reach a two-hundred-year-old monk who would say, "The meaning of it all, my son, is -- " I thought, Here, my son, time turns into space. But I said nothing; Fat's circuits were already overloaded with information. The last thing he needed was more information; what Fat needed was someone to take the information from him.

"Is Goosein the States?" Kevin said.

"Yes," I said, "according to Jamison."

"You didn't tell him the cypher," Fat said.

We all gave Fat a withering look.

"The cypher is for Goose," Kevin said. "When he calls."

"'When,'" I echoed.

"If you have to you can have your agent contact Goose's agent," Kevin said. He had become more earnest about this than even Fat himself. After all, it was Kevin who had discovered Valis and thereby put us in business.

"A film like that," David said, "is going to bring a lot of cranks out of the woodwork. Mother Goose is probably being rather careful."

"Thanks," Kevin said.

"I don't mean us," David said.

"He's right," I said, reviewing in my mind some of the mail my own writing generates. "Goose will probably prefer to contact my agent." I thought, If he contacts us at all. His agent to my agent. Balanced minds.

"If Goose does phone you," Fat said to me in a calm, low, very tense voice, unusual for him, "you are to give him the two-word cypher, KING FELIX. Work it into the conversation, of course; this isn't spy stuff. Say it's an alternate title for the screenplay."

I said, irritably, "I can handle it."

Chances were, there wouldn't be anything to handle. A week later I received a letter from Mother Goose himself, Eric Lampton. It contained one word. KING. And after the word a question mark and an arrow pointing to the right of KING.

It scared the shit out of me; I trembled. And wrote in the word FELIX. And mailed the letter back to Mother Goose.

He had included a stamped self-addressed envelope.

No doubt existed: we had linked up.

The person referred to by the two-word cypher KING FELIX is the fifth Savior who, Zebra -- or VALIS -- had said, was either already born or would soon be. This was terribly frightening to me, getting the letter from Mother Goose. I wondered how Goose -- Eric Lampton and his wife Linda -- would feel when they got the letter back with FELIX correctly added. Correctly; yes, that was it. Only one word out of the hundreds of thousands of English words would do; no, not English: Latin. It is a name in English but a word in Latin.

Prosperous, happy, fruitful... the Latin word "Felix" occurs in such injunctions as that by God Himself, who in Genesis 1:21 says to all the creatures of the world, "Be fruitful and increase, fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds increase on land." This is the essence of the meaning of Felix, this command from God, this loving command, this manifestation of his desire that we not only live but that we live happily and prosperously.

FELIX. Fruit-bearing, fruitful, fertile, productive. All the nobler sorts of trees, whose fruits are offered to the superior deities. That brings good luck, of good omen, auspicious, favorable, propitious, fortunate, prosperous, felicitous. Lucky, happy, fortunate. Wholesome. Happier, more successful in.

That last meaning interests me. "More successful in." The King who is more successful in... in what? Perhaps in overthrowing the tyrannical reign of the king of tears, replacing that sad and bitter king with his own legitimate reign of happiness: the end of the age of the Black Iron Prison and the beginning of the age of the Garden of Palm Trees in the warm sun of Arabia ("Felix" also refers to the fertile portion of Arabia).

Our little group, upon my receiving the missive from Mother Goose, met in plenipotentiary session.

"Fat is in the fire," Kevin said laconically, but his eyes sparkled with excitement and joy, a joy we all shared.

"You're with me," Fat said.

We had all chipped in to buy a bottle of Courvoisier Napoleon cognac; seated around Fat's living room we warmed our glasses by rubbing their stems like fire sticks, feeling pretty smart.

Kevin, hollowly, intoned, to no one in particular, "It would be interesting if some men in skin-tight shiny black uniforms show up and shoot us all, now. Because of Phil's phonecall."

"Them's the breaks," I said, easily fielding Kevin's wit. "Let's push Kevin out into the hall with the end of a broom handle and see if anyone opens fire on him."

"It would prove nothing," David said. "Half of Santa Ana is tired of Kevin."

Three nights later, at two a.m., the phone rang. When I answered it -- I was still up, finishing an introduction for a book of stories culled from twenty-five years of my career* ( * The Golden Man, edited by Mark Hurst, Berkley Publishing Corporation, NY., 1980. ) -- a man's voice with a slight British accent said, "How many are there of you?"

Bewildered, I said, "Who is this?"

"Goose."

Aw Christ, I thought, and again I trembled. "Four," I said, and my voice shook.

"This is a happy occasion," Eric Lampton said.

"Prosperous," I said.

Lampton laughed. "No, the King isn't financially well-off."

"He -- " I couldn't go on.

Lampton said, "Vivit. I think. Vivet? He lives, anyhow, you'll be happy to hear. My Latin isn't very good."

"Where?" I said.

"Where are you? I have a 714 area code, here."

"Santa Ana. In Orange County."

"With Ferris," Lampton said. "You're just north of Ferris's mansion-by-the-sea."

"Right," I said.

"Shall we get together?"

"Sure," I said, and in my head a voice said, This is real.

"You can fly up here, the four of you? To Sonoma?"

"Oh yes," I said.

"You'll fly to the Oakland Airport; it's better than San Francisco. You saw Valis?"

"Several times." My voice still shook. "Mr. Lampton, is a time dysfunction involved?"

Eric Lampton said, "How can there be a dysfunction in something that doesn't exist?" He paused. "You didn't think of that."

"No," I admitted. "Can I tell you that we thought Valis is one of the finest films we ever saw?"

"I hope we can release the uncut version sometime. I'll see that you get a peek at it up here. We really didn't want to cut it, but, you know, practical considerations... you're a science fiction writer? Do you know Thomas Disch?"

"Yes," I said.

"He is very good."

"Yes," I said, pleased that Lampton knew Disch's writing. It was a good sign.

"In a way Valis was shit," Lampton said. "We had to make it that way, to get the distributors to pick it up. For the popcorn drive-in crowd." There was merriment in his voice, a musical twinkling. "They expected me to sing, you know. 'Hey, Mr. Starman! When You Droppin' In?" I think they were a bit disappointed, do you see."

"Well," I said, nonplussed.

"Then we'll see you up here. You have the address, do you? I won't be in Sonoma after this month, so it must be this month or much later in the year; I'm flying back to the U.K. to do a TV film for the Grenada people. And I have concert engagements... I do have a recording date in Burbank; I could meet you there in -- what do you call it? The 'Southland'?"

"We'll fly up to Sonoma," I said. "Are there others?" I said. "Who've contacted you?"

"'Happy King' people? Well, well talk about that when we get together, your little group and Linda and Mini; did you know that Mini did the music?"

"Yes," I said. "Synchronicity Music."

"He is very good," Lampton said. "Much of what we get through lies in his music. He doesn't do songs, the prick. I wish he did. He'd do lovely songs. My songs aren't bad but I'm not Paul." He paused. "Simon, I mean."

"Can I ask you," I said, "where he is?"

"Oh. Well, yes; you can ask. But no one is going to tell you until we've talked. A two-word message doesn't really tell me very much about you, now does it? Although I've checked you out. You were into drugs for a while and then you switched sides. You met Tim Leary -- "

"Only on the phone," I corrected. "Talked to him once on the phone; he was in Canada with John Lennon and Paul Williams -- not the singer, but the writer."

"You've not been arrested. For possession?"

"Never," I said.

"You acted as a sort of dope guru to teen-agers in -- where was it? -- oh yes; Marin County. Someone took a shot at you."

"That's not quite it," I said.

"You write very strange books. But you are positive you don't have a police record; we don't want you if you do."

"I don't," I said.

Mildly, pleasantly, Lampton said, "You were mixed up with black terrorists for a while."

I said nothing.

"What an adventure your life has been," Lampton said.

"Yes," I agreed. That certainly was true.

"You're not on drugs now?" Lampton laughed. "I'll withdraw that question. We know you're squared up now. All right, Philip; I'll be glad to meet you and your friends personally. Was it you who got -- well, let's see. Got told things."

"The information was fired at my friend Horselover Fat."

"But that's you. 'Philip' means 'Horselover' in Greek, lover of horses. 'Fat' is the German translation of 'Dick.' So you've translated your name."

I said nothing.

"Should I call you "Horselover Fat'? Are you more comfortable that way?"

"Whatever's right," I said woodenly.

"An expression from the Sixties." Lampton laughed. "Okay, Philip. I think we have enough information on you. We talked to your agent, Mr. Galen; he seemed very astute and forthright."

"He's okay," I said.

"He certainly understands where your head is at, as they say over here. Your publisher is Doubleday, is it?"

"Bantam," I said.

"When will your group be coming up?"

I said, "What about this weekend?"

"Very good," Lampton said. "You'll enjoy this, you know. The suffering you've gone through is over. Do you realize that, Philip?" His tone was no longer bantering. "It is over; it really is."

"Fine," I said, my heart hammering.

"Don't be scared, Philip," Lampton said quietly.

"Okay," I said.

"You've gone through a lot. The dead girl... well, we can let that go; that is gone. Do you see?"

"Yes," I said. "I see." And I did. I hoped I did; I tried to understand; I wanted to.

"You don't understand. He's here. The information is correct. 'The Buddha is in the park.' Do you understand?"

"No," I said.

"Gautama was born in a great park called Lumbini. It's a story such as that of Christ at Bethlehem. If the information were 'Jesusis in Bethlehem,' you would know what that meant, wouldn't you?"

I nodded, forgetting I was on the phone.

"He has slept almost two thousand years," Lampton said. "A very long time. Under everything that has happened. But -- well, I think I've said enough. He is awake now; that's the point. Linda and I will see you Friday night or early Saturday, then?"

"Right," I said. "Fine. Probably Friday night."

"Just remember," Lampton said. "'The Buddha is in the park.' And try to be happy."

I said, "Is it him come back? Or another one?"

A pause.

"I mean -- " I said.

"Yes, I know what you mean. But you see, time isn't real. It's him again but not him; another one. There are many Buddhas, but only one. The key to understanding it is time... when you play a record a second time, do the musicians play the music a second time? If you play the record fifty times, do the musicians play the music fifty times?"

"Once," I said.

"Thank you," Lampton said, and the phone clicked. I set down the receiver.

You don't see that every day, I said to myself. What Goose said.

To my surprise I realized that I had stopped shaking.

It was as if I had been shaking all my life, from a chronic undercurrent of fear. Shaking, running, getting into trouble, losing the people I loved. Like a cartoon character instead of a person, I realized. A corny animation from the early Thirties. In back of all I had ever done the fear had forced me on. Now the fear had died, soothed away by the news I had heard. The news, I realized suddenly, that I had waited from the beginning to hear; created, in a sense, to be present when the news came, and for no other reason.

I could forget the dead girl. The universe itself, on its macrocosmic scale, could now cease to grieve. The wound had healed.

Because of the late hour I could not notify the others of Lampton's call. Nor could I call Air California and make the plane reservations. However, early in the morning I called David, then Kevin and then Fat. They had me take care of the travel arrangements; late Friday night sounded fine to them.

We met that evening and decided that our little group needed a name. After some bickering we let Fat decide. In view of Eric Lampton's emphasis on the statement about the Buddha we decided to call ourselves the Siddhartha Society.

"Then count me out," David said. "I'm sorry but I can't go along with it unless there's some suggestion of Christianity. I don't mean to sound fanatic, but -- "

"You sound fanatic," Kevin told him.

We bickered again. At last we came up with a name convoluted enough to satisfy Fat, cryptic enough to satisfy Kevin and Christian enough to satisfy David; to me the subject wasn't all that important. Fat told us of a dream he had had recently, in which he had been a large fish. Instead of an arm he had walked around with sail-like or fan-like fins; with one of these fins he had tried to hold onto an M-16 rifle but the weapon had slid to the ground, whereupon a voice had intoned:

"Fish cannot carry guns."

Since the Greek word for that land of fan was rhipidos -- as with the Rhiptoglossa reptiles -- we finally settled on the Rhipidon Society, the name referring elliptically to the Christian fish. This pleased Fat, too, since it alluded back to the Dogon people and their fish symbol for the benign deity.

So now we could approach Lampton -- both Eric and Linda Lampton -- in the form of an official organization. Small though we were. I guess we were frightened, at this point; intimidated is perhaps the better word.

Taking me off to one side, Fat said in a low voice, "Did Eric Lampton really say we don't have to think about her death any more?"

I put my hand on Fat's shoulder. "It's over," I said. "He told me that. The age of oppression ended in August 1974; now the age of sorrow begins to end. Okay?"

"Okay," Fat said, with a faint smile, as if he could not believe what he was hearing, but wanted to believe it.

"You're not crazy, you know," I said to Fat. "Remember that. You can't use that as a cop-out."

"And he's alive? Already? He really is?"

"Lampton says so."

"Then it's true."

I said, "Probably it's true."

"You believe it."

"I think so," I said. "We'll find out."

"Will he be old? Or a child? I guess he's still a child. Phil -- " Fat gazed at me, stricken. "What if he isn't human?"

"Well," I said, "we'll deal with that problem when and if it arises." In my own mind I thought, Probably he's here from the future; that's the most likely possibility. He will not be human in some respects, but in others he will be. Our immortal child... the life form of maybe millions of years ahead in time. Zebra, I thought. Now I will see you. We all will.

King and judge, I thought. As promised. All the way back to Zoroaster.

All the way back, in fact, to Osiris. And from Egypt to the Dogon people; and from there to the stars.

"A hit of cognac," Kevin said, bringing the bottle into the living room. "As a toast."

"Damn, Kevin," David protested. "You can't toast the Savior, not with cognac."

"Ripple?" Kevin said.

We each accepted a glass of the Courvoisier Napoleon cognac, including David.

"To the Rhipidon Society," Fat said. We touched glasses.

I said, "And our motto."

"Do we have a motto?" Kevin said.

"'Fish cannot carry guns,'" I said.

We drank to that.