Robert Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"There's a random factor somewhere," technicians said at Illuminati International; "There's a random factor somewhere," Hagbard Celine said, reading the data that came out of FUCKUP; "There's a random factor somewhere," the Dealy Lama, leader of ELF, said dreamily in his underground hideout beneath Dealy Plaza.

Drivers on treacherous mountain roads swore in confusion at signs that said:

SLIPPERY WHEN WET

MAINTAIN 50 M.P.H.

FALLING ROCK ZONE

DO NOT LITTER

Men paid high initiation fees to revel in the elegance of all-WASP clubs whose waiters were carefully trained to be almost as snobbish as the members, then felt vaguely let down by signs warning them:

WATCH YOUR HAT AND COAT

NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST PROPERTY.

THE MGT.

The Midget became an electronic wizard in his spare tune. All over the country, pedestrians stood undecided on curbs as electric signs said WALK while the light was red and then switched to DON'T WALK when the light Went green. He branched out and expanded his activities; office workers received memos early in the morning (after he had spent a night with a Xerox machine) and puzzled over:

1. All vacation requests must be submitted in triplicate to the Personnel Department at least three weeks before the planned vacation dates.

2. All employees who change their vacation plans must notify Personnel Department by completing Form 1472, Vacation Plan Change, and submitting it three weeks before the change in plans.

3. All vacation plans must be approved by the Department Supervisor and may be changed if they conflict with the vacation plans of employees of higher rank and/or longer tenure.

4. Department Supervisors may announce such cancellations at any time, provided the employee is given 48 hours notice, or two working days, whichever is longer, as the case may be. (Employees crossing the International Date Line, see Form 2317.)

5. Employees may not discuss vacation plans with other employees or trade preferred dates.

6. These few simple rules should prevent a great deal of needless friction and frustration if all

employees cooperate, and we will all have a happy summer.

– THE MGT.

On April 26 of the year when the Illuminati tried to immanentize the Eschaton, the Midget experienced aches, pains, nausea, spots before his eyes, numbness in his legs and dizziness. He went to the hotel doctor, and a short while after describing his symptoms he was rushed in a closed car to a building that had a Hopi Indian Kachina Doll Shop in front and the Las Vegas CIA office in the back. He was fairly delirious by then, but he heard somebody say, "Ha, we're ahead of the FBI and the Cesspool Cleaners on this one." Then he got an injection and began to feel better, until a friendly silver-haired man sat down by his cot and asked who "the girl" was.

"What girl?" the Midget asked irritably.

"Look, son, we know you've been with a girl. She gave you this."

"Was it the clap?" the Midget asked, dumbfounded. Except for his pornographic Tarot cards, he was still a virgin (the giant women were all so damned patronizing, but his own female equivalents bored him; the giantesses were the Holy Grail to him, but he had never had the courage to approach one). "I never knew the clap could be this bad," he added, blushing. His greatest fear was that somebody would discover his virginity.

"No, it wasn't the clap," said the kindly man (who didn't deceive the Midget one bit; if this guy couldn't pump him, he knew, they would send in the mean, tough one; the nice cop and the nasty cop; oldest con in the business). "This girl had a certain, uh, rare disease, and we're with the U.S. Public Health Service." The gentle man produced forged credentials to "prove" this last allegation. Horseshit, the Midget thought. "Now," the sweet old codger went on, "we've got to track her down, and see that she gets the antidote, or a lot of people will get this disease. You understand?"

The Midget understood. This guy was Army Intelligence or CIA and they wanted to crack this before the FBI and get the credit. The disease was started by the government, obviously. Some fuckup in one of their biological war laboratories, and they had to cover it up before the whole country got wise. He hesitated; none of his projects had ever been consciously intended to lead to death, just to make things a little unpredictable and spooky for the giants.

"The U.S. Public Health Service will be eternally grateful to you." the grandfatherly man said, eyes crinkling with sly affection. "It isn't often that a little man gets a chance to do such a big job for his country." That did it.

"Well," the Midget said, "she was blonde, in her mid-twenties I guess, and she told me her name was Sarah. She had a scar on her neck- I suppose somebody tried to cut her throat once. She was, let's see, about five-five and maybe 110-115 pounds. And she was superb at giving head," he concluded, thinking that was a very plausible Las Vegas whore he had just created. His mind was racing rapidly; they wouldn't want people running around loose knowing about this. The antidote had been to keep him alive while they pumped him. He needed insurance. "Oh, and here's a real lead for you," he said "I just remembered. First, I want to explain something about, uh, people who are below average in stature. We're very sexy. You see, our sex gland or whatever it's called works extra, because our growth gland doesn't work. So we never get enough." He was making this up off the top of his head and enjoying it. He hoped it would spread; he had a beautiful vision of bored rich women seeking midgets as they now seek blacks. "So you see," he went on, "I kept her a long time, having encores and encores and encores. Finally, she told me she'd have to raise her price, because she had another customer waiting. I couldn't afford it so I let her go." Now the clincher. "But she mentioned his name. She said, 'Joe Blotz will be pissed if I disappoint him,' only the name wasn't Joe Blotz."

"Well, what was it?"

"That's the problem," the Midget said sadly. "I can't remember. But if you leave me alone awhile," he added brightly, "maybe it'll come back to me." He was already planning his escape.

And, twenty-five hours earlier, George Dorn, quoting Pilate, asked, "What is Truth?" (Barney Muldoon just then, was lounging in the lobby of the Hotel Tudor, waiting for Saul to finish what he had called "a very important, very private conversation" with Rebecca; Nkrumah Fubar was experimentally placing a voodoo doll of the president of American Express inside a tetrahedron- their computer was still annoying him about a bill he'd paid over two months ago, on the very daynight that Soapy Mocenigo dreamed of Anthrax Leprosy Pi; R. Buckminster Fuller, unaware of this new development in his geodesic revolution, was lecturing the Royal Institute of Architects in London and explaining why there were no nouns in the real world; August Personage was breathing into a telephone in New York; Pearson Mohammed Kent was exuberantly balling a female who was not only white but from Texas; the Midget himself was saying "Rude bastard, isn't he?" to Dr. Naismith; and our other characters were variously pursuing their own hobbies, predilections, obsessions and holy missions). But Hagbard, with uncharacteristic gravity, said, "Truth is the opposite of lies. The opposite of most of what you've heard all your life. The opposite of most of what you've heard from me."

They were in Hagbard's funky stateroom and George, after his experience at the demolished Drake mansion, found the octopi and other sea monsters on the wall murals distinctly unappetizing. Hagbard, as usual, was wearing a turtleneck and casual slacks; this time the turtleneck was lavender- an odd, faggoty item for him. George remembered, suddenly, that Hagbard had once told him, about homosexuality, "I've tried it, of course," but added something about liking women better. (Goodness, was that only two mornings ago?) George wondered what it would be like to "try it" and if he would ever have the nerve. "What particular lies," he asked cautiously, "are you about to confess?"