The Golden Calf

Would you believe it, but after all the talk of humanism, democracy and other foggy non-sense, a true genius arose to lead the people to the only and last destination left to itinerant human curiosity: self-worship. His name was Athanasius Byol and years ago he suggested we put our collective mortal resources into one great project (proudly, resoundingly, with a bang, he said.) He thought it would be a good idea to converge the advances in physical and theoretical sciences in an attempt to build a living, thinking, self-willed, ever-learning, ever-growing god. Many luminaries of the day agreed with him and, with more enthusiasm and money than sense, they struck out, or, rather, ventured inwardly, into the void of the human heart, summoning all due arrogance to bolster the project and, with a few well-placed votes, set the stake into the ground.
When our founding fathers started the great project they built it at the foot of a mountain. They started with a modest edifice and seemingly honorable intentions. Now, may years later, the town has grown and assimilated the once furtive site. Today the building is a pillar of ostentation and its chambers a workshop of preposterous claims. Curiously, the project never developed a name befitting its ambitions, as if naming it would consign it to the realm of mere mortals, thus its tentative designation forever remained shadowy and fluid: the Effort.
The founding fathers’ intentions were honorable if you measure them with an economist’s rod. Disease and hunger would be eliminated, everyone would be housed, job security, so on and so forth. But, as it turned out, much, much more than was offered would be required of the purported beneficiaries.





My Children, Like Arrows in the Hands of an Archer


Soon after the crucifixion, following the abortive battle in the garden of Gethsemene, the devil embarked upon another course of action. He acknowledged the blind-siding blow and quietly, secretly, outlined a new plan, one which amply accommodated his defeat but in a face-saving fashion. He would sire offspring with a virtuous woman and this child, a son (parity with God was henceforth necessary), would be brought up a virtuous human being, not more, but certainly as closely as possible to the standard of the Christ. Between the conception of this idea and its realization something like twenty centuries elapsed which he trifled away in more or less the usual fashion by seeding the earth with wars and corruption, made ever more efficient by unwitting accomplices like Marconi, Einstein, Turing. His faithful retinue, the fallen host, he decided, would remain in the dark concerning the new initiative.
The son would be educated in the scripture, attend Sunday school, enter a seminary at eighteen, receive counsel, attention, love, care, prayers, and, when in the course of his structured life time was ripe, be baptized. The markedly human instinct to invest in children, help them excel where parents fail, now became as true of the devil, and so he faithfully assumed the part. Some portion of his spirit, he calculated, would return to Heaven with his son and neutralize the gaping void that presages his future.
The boy’s name was Greg Sweet and I knew him well when I was growing up. I had never seen a child so pampered, so doted over, but despite everyone’s efforts he turned out rotten. Up to his third year of life, Greg was a relatively average boy whose inherent wickedness did not materialize before the dawning of that rudimentary self-awareness which, in most normal children, is characterized by a brief phase of selfishness. No, Greg immediately seized upon domination, coercion and deception. He loved to fight and the awakening of his pugnacious instinct coincided with a realization that his hands were mere instruments of procurement: they could steal, punch, and grab. By the time he was five he mastered sleight of hand. By eight he was a poker player and legerdemain with no equal, at least in our town. Greg killed cats, poisoned trees in neighboring yards, frequently started fires, hated schoolwork, and exaggerated everything; for an hour each day he gazed in the mirror, losing himself in the infinite recession of images created between the mirror and the reflection in his own eye. He harbored an almost demented fear of birds. When he was thirteen, about a week before his birthday, two local boys who accused him of racketeering stabbed him to death. His funeral was a seriocomic affair where his father, who, as mentioned, is that old serpent the devil, bellowed, gasped, snarled and cursed so audibly that the minister, Father Morelli, out of fear and confusion lost his footing and fell into the grave pit. He fractured his leg and two days later when my mother and I were visiting him I heard him confess that, “though God is merciful, Greg may be the first child not permitted into Heaven!” I believe he was right.