Gore Vidal - Messiah

My sense then of all that I had not been, negative as it was, saved my self-esteem: I was, in this, unlike my contemporaries. I had, in youth, lost all respect for the authority of men and since there is no other discernible (the "laws" of nature are only relative and one cannot say for certain that there is a beautiful logic to everything in the universe as long as first principles remain unrevealed… except of course to the religious who know everything, having faith), I was unencumbered by belief, by reverence for any man or groups of men, living or dead, though their wit and genius often made my days bearable since my capacity for admiration, for aesthetic response was, I think, highly developed even though with Terence I did not know, did not need to know through what wild centuries roves the rose.

Yet Clarissa's including me among the little Hamlets was irritating, and when I joined in the discussion again I was careful to give her no satisfaction; it would have been a partial victory for her if I had denied my generic similarity to my own contemporaries.

Paul spoke of practical matters, explaining to us the way he intended to operate in the coming months; and I was given a glimpse of the organization which had spontaneously come into being only a few weeks before.

"Hope we can have lunch tomorrow, Gene. I'll give you a better picture then, the overall picture: and your part in it. Briefly, for now, the organization has been set up as a company under California law with Cave as president and myself, Iris and Clarissa as directors. I'm also secretary-treasurer but only for now. We're going to need a first-rate financial man to head our campaign fund and I'm working on several possibilities right now."

"What's the… company called?" I asked.

"Cavites, Inc. We didn't want to call it anything but that's the law here and since we intended to raise money we had to have a legal setup."

"Got a nice sound, ah, Cavite," said Hastings, nodding.

"What on earth should we have done if he'd had your name, Paul?" exclaimed Clarissa, to the indignation of both Hastings and Paul. They shut her up quickly.

Paul went on in his smooth deep voice, "I've had a lot of experience, of course, but this is something completely new for me, a real challenge and one which I'm glad to meet head-on."

"How did you get into it?" I asked.

Paul pointed dramatically to Hastings. "Him! He took me to a meeting in Laguna last year. I was sold the first time. I got the message."

There was a hush as we were allowed to contemplate this awesome information. Then, smiling in a fashion which he doubtless would have called "wry," the publicist continued: "I knew this was it. I contacted Cave immediately and found we talked the same language. He was all for the idea and so we incorporated. He said he wasn't interested in the organizational end and left that to us with Iris sort of representing him, though of course we all do since we're all Cavites. This thing is big and we're part of it." He almost smacked his lips.

I listened, fascinated. "Anyway he's going to do the preaching part and we're going to handle the sales end, if you get what I mean. We're selling something which nobody else ever sold before and you know what that is?" He paused dramatically and we stared at him, a little stupidly. "Truth!" His voice was triumphant. "We're selling the truth about life and that's something that nobody, but nobody, has got."

Clarissa broke the silence which had absorbed his last words. "You're simply out of this world, Paul! If I hadn't heard you, I'd never have believed it. But you don't have to sell us , dear; we're in on it too. Besides, I have to catch a plane." She looked at her watch. She stood up and we did too. She thanked Hastings for lunch and then, before she left the patio on his arm, she said: "Now you boys get on together and remember what I've told you. Gene must be used, and right away. Get him to write something dignified, for a magazine." We murmured assent. Clarissa said good-by and left the patio with Hastings. Her voice, shrill and hard, could be heard even after she left. "The truth about life! Oh, it's going to be priceless!"

I looked quickly at Paul to see if he had heard but, if he had, he didn't betray the fact. He was looking at me intently, speculatively. "I think we're going to get along fine, Gene, just fine." Leaving me only a fumbled word or two of polite corroboration with which to express my sincere antipathy; then we went our separate ways.

I met Paul the next day at his office for a drink and not for lunch since, at the last minute, his secretary called me to say he was tied up and could I possibly come at five. I said that I could. I did.

His offices occupied an entire floor of a small sky-scraper on the edge of Beverly Hills. I was shown through a series of rooms done in natural wood and beige with indirect lighting and the soft sound of Strauss waltzes piped in from all directions: the employees responded best to three-four time according to the current efficiency reports.

Beneath an expensive but standard mobile, Paul stood, waiting for me in his office. His desk, a tiny affair of white marble on slender iron legs had been rolled off to one side and the office gave, as had been intended, the impression of being a small drawing room rather than a place of intense business. I was greeted warmly. My hand was shaken firmly. My eyes were met squarely for the regulation-length of time. Then we sat down on a couch which was like the open furry mouth of some great soft beast and his secretary rolled a portable bar toward us.

"Name your poison," said the publicist genially. We agreed on a cocktail which he mixed with the usual comments one expects from a regular fellow.

Lulled by the alcohol, by the room, disarmed by the familiar patter in which one made all the correct responses, our conversation as ritualistic as that of a French dinner party, I was not prepared for the abrupt: "You don't like me, do you, Gene?"

Only once or twice before had anyone ever said this to me and each time that it happened I had vowed grimly that the next time, no matter where or with whom, I should answer with perfect candor, with merciless accuracy: "No, I don't." But since I am neither quick nor courageous, I murmured a pale denial.

"It's all right, Gene. I know how you probably feel." And the monster was magnanimous; he treated me with pity. "We've got two different points of view. That's all. I have to make my way in this rat-race and you don't. You don't have to do anything, so you can afford to patronize us poor hustlers."

"Patronize isn't quite the word." I was beginning to recover from the first shock. A crushing phrase or two occurred to me but the publicist knew his business and he changed course before I could begin my work of demolition.

"Well, I just wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings. In my business you get used to this sort of thing: occupational hazard, you might say. I've had to fight my way every inch and I know that a lot of people are going to be jostled in the process, which is just too bad for them." He smiled suddenly, drawing the sting. "But I have a hunch we're going to be seeing a lot of each other so we ought to start on a perfectly plain basis of understanding. You're on to me and I'm on to you." The man was diabolic in the way he could enrage yet not allow his adversary sufficient grounds for even a perfunctory defense. He moved rapidly, with a show of spurious reason which quite dazzled me. His was what, presently, he called "the common-sense view."

I told him I had no objection to working with him; that everything I had heard about him impressed me; that he was wrong to suspect me of disdaining methods whose efficacy was so well-known. I perjured myself for several impassioned minutes and, on a rising note of coziness, we passed on to the problem in hand, congenial enemies for all time: the first round clearly his.