Robert Pirsig - Lila. An Inquiry Into Morals

Is it better to have wisdom or is it better to be attractive to the ladies? That was a question debated by Provengal poets way back in the thirteenth century. Sidis opted for wisdom, but it seemed to Phædrus there ought to be some way you could have both.

The question seemed to imply the stupidity of women but a feminist could turn it around and ask, Is it better to have wisdom or be attractive to men! That’s practically the theme song of the whole feminist movement. Although the feminists and the male Provengal poets would appear to be condemning the opposite sex, they are, in fact, both actually condemning the same thing: not men, not women, but static biological antagonism to social and intellectual Quality.

Phædrus began to feel a slow rock of the boat.

His own cells were sick of all this intellectualizing. They’d had enough for one day. They’d had way too much, in fact, and were starting to switch him off. Tomorrow they’d need him when they got hungry, and they would turn him on again to find them some food, but for now they were rubbing him out. He felt like Hal, the computer in 2001, as its internal patterns slowed down. Daisy… Daisy… give me your… answer… true.

Lila, Lila, what is your answer true?

What a strange, strange day this had been.

Phædrus became aware again of Lila’s body next to him, and again the gentle rocking of the boat. That was the only good thing that had happened all day, the way their bodies paid no attention to all their social and intellectual differences and had gone on in as if these people that owned them didn’t exist at all. They had been at this business of life for so long.

Now that he was quiet he noticed that the boat’s motion wasn’t so much a rocking as a surge, a very faint, very slow, lift and drop accompanying the waves. He wondered if that could be a surge coming in from the ocean. Probably not, he thought. They were still way too far up river from the ocean. Still it could be, he thought. If the tides get up to Troy maybe the surge could get this far.

It could be…

He waited for each next faint lift and fall to come, thinking about it, and then after a while didn’t think any more.

Fatso thought that was pretty funny the way Lila come in. He said she come in like the Queen of Diamonds and wished to know where Mr Jamison could be found. Fatso can imitate anybody, perfect.

Fatso said he didn’t tell her nothing but he just listened. She said she’s on her way to Florida for the season. She was on a yacht with a gentleman and she wished to stop by and renew old acquaintances.

When Fatso said that Jamie broke up laughing.

If she’s with a gentleman what does she want to see me for? Jamie said.

I guess she misses you.

She wants something.

One way to find out, Fatso said.

So the next day they went to where she told Fatso she would be. She wasn’t there so they sat down. Then she come in the door. Sad. She was really looking old. She used to be a real looker. Getting fat too. Drinking too much beer. She always did like her beer. She better take care of herself. Lila saw them and come over to the table where they was sitting. Jamie got up and opened up his arms for a big hug. He said, You really came all the way here just to see me? That’s too much. Too much!

Then he saw the man coming in behind her was with her. He caught one look in that man’s eyes and his muscles went tight… He hugged Lila but he watched that man. His hair was all white… like snow, and his eyes was cold real cold… Like looking in a refrigerator… at the morgue… Bad vibes all over him… All the time he was holding Lila that man was watching them…

What the hell’d she bring him here for? Fatso didn’t say nothing about that. He told her a hundred times not to bring the clientele around. That was the rule. What was the trouble now?

The man put out his hand to shake.

Jamie shook it.

He put out his for Fatso to shake.

Fatso shook it.

This is the Captain, Lila says.

Pleased to meet you, Cap’n, Jamie says.

The Cap’n looks like he wants to sit down.

He sits down.

The Captain is full of smiles like he’s the nicest man ever lived. Nobody fooled. He wants to buy drinks for everybody. Everybody drinking. Everybody smiling. Everybody just sits around and talks nice now till their teeth drop out, if that’s what they want. But that isn’t what they want.

Jamie had nothing to tell. They all looked at him like he was supposed to say something but he didn’t.

Fatso started asking questions then. He asked the Captain where he was from and where they’re going and all about that. He asked about what kind of boat they had and how big it was and how fast it went. Jamie never heard Fatso ask so many questions.

The Captain just sat there with the cold eyes and answered everything just exactly right. Like some kind of detective, maybe. Watch out, Fats, don’t tell him nothing, Jamie thought.

Lila kept looking over like she wanted Jamie to do some talking. Then she said, What are you doing these days, Jamison?

Jamison!?? She never called him that before. What kind of air was that? He thought about it. Then he said, I don’t know, Mizz Lila. He said it that way to mock her a little. Not much of anything, I guess. He made it sound like he just up from Alabama.

Nothing at all?

No ma’am. Every year I’se just a little lazier. Don’t want to do nothing I don’t have to. All wore out with things I don’t have to do.

He watched the Captain when he said this. The Captain just smiled. That made Jamie feel better. If he was a detective he gonna know what that’s about.

We have an opportunity for you, Lila said, which we hope might interest you.

Oh, you do? Jamie said. Let’s hear it.

Lila looked at him funny like she saw how it was going. She said, The Captain has been advised that he needs another crew member for his ocean voyage and we have been hoping that you might consider an offer. I’ve told him you are an excellent person, she said.

Jamie caught her wink. He smiled a little. Then he had to laugh.

What are you laughing at? Lila said.

You sure haven’t changed. Crazy Lila! Always thinking something crazy. That’s why you came all the way here just to talk to me? Just for that?

Yes, she said, and looked at him. She turned her mouth down like he busted every nice feeling she ever had. What’s wrong with that?

Oh, Lila, he said. You sure come a long way.

He looked at both of them for a while. He wondered what kind of place they come from that they could come here and talk to him like that.

He said, You mean you and the Captain here want to sit on your luxury yacht, sippin’ Juleps and watchin’ the sunset go down, while I stand there and say "Yessah, yessah"?

Not like that, Lila said.

What the hell do you think I am? Jamie said. It really made him mad, coming all the way down here just to hear this. And they thought they were being nice to him.

He turned to the Captain. Is that all you came here for? To find yourself a cheap nigger to work on your boat?

The Captain looked like he never heard it. Like what he said to him just bounced off some stone wall. It’s not my idea, he said.

Then what did you come here for?

I don’t know, the Captain said. That’s what I was trying to find out.