Ellis Weiner - Atlas Slugged AGAIN - The Secret Sequel to the Towering Masterpiece

Once again Dragnie found herself marveling at the face and the appearance of the man whom she had, in essence, married. It was a face so comfortable with itself that it seemed to fall asleep on itself, yet simultaneously a face so hardened by a life not merely lived, but consciously experienced, that it betrayed no sign of having aged or, in the end, existed. His mouth was pure, a mouth that, if it could speak, would announce to the world what a mouth should and must be, for all men, throughout time. His eyes, existing as a matched pair as if they were diamond cufflinks or precious earrings fashioned by one of the top jewelry designers in the world, conveyed a dual nature. They were at once both proud and shy, sensitively concerned and cruelly indifferent, alert to danger and blankly oblivious of the actual meaning of the words “danger” or “alert” or “to.” His hair was as wise as his eyebrows were intelligent, while his ears had the hard, sculpted purity and radiant tensile strength of a bridge that spanned chasms, announcing to all who saw it that no challenge was beyond the ability of man’s mind to meet, solve, and then forget about utterly and forever.

“John?” she said, unaware that she was speaking, unaware that she was breathing, unaware of anything and everything of which men can be aware. “Do you have an idea?”

“Yes,” Glatt said.

“What is it, John?” asked Hunk Rawbone, silently vibrating with a desire to obtain an answer to his query.

“Good.”

“It’s a good idea, John?” inquired Regnad Daghammarskjold, falling silent after he had finished speaking.

“Yes.”

“Care to let us in on it, old pal?” Sanfrancisco said.

“No.”

“We’ll just have to take your word for it?” Mr. Jenkins cried. “Is that what you’re saying, Glatt? Is that what you would have us believe? Is that what you’re communicating to us? Is that the idea?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s fine for you,” Mr. Jenkins cried. “But when word gets out that none of our overseas customers’re going to be buying our products, there’ll be mass panic. Everyone’ll be afraid of losing their jobs. What if they look to the government for help? That’s not what I signed up for. That’s not what I signed up for at all! But I’m the nominal Head Person of the United States of America and I’ll have to say something.” He pressed a button on the intercom in front of him. “Miss Davis? Call the press boys. Tell them in a week I’ll be making a speech about the international economic situation to the general public boys. Then call the speech writer boys and have them come up with something. Then call my wife and have her tell the in-law boys that I’ll have to work over the weekend and won’t be able to attend the drama festival, and to convey my regrets to the Boys From Syracuse boys, the Three Sisters boys, and the Guys ‘n’ Dolls boys.” Mr. Jenkins turned to the others. “You people had better think of something,” he cried. “It doesn’t remove any skin off of my nose if this country’s population all becomes unemployed. I’ve got a job. But that job is to tell everybody else that nothing’s wrong when everybody knows that everything’s wrong.”

The person to Mr. Jenkins’s right, a puling and whiny person of no substance, cried, “This is a terrible crisis and I’m afraid!”

“Yes!” yelled Mr. Jenkins. “We’re all frightened of what might happen to us!”

“Are you afraid, John?” Dragnie asked.

“No,” John Glatt said.

“You still despise me, don’t you, John?”

Dragnie and Glatt were back in their home, in the proud penthouse of the dignified but good-natured Johnsonwood Building. It was night, and all daylight had disappeared, as if the sun had gotten tired and gone to bed. Glatt sat pitilessly at his desk, his attention focused with unswerving intensity upon the notebook in which he had been writing since their return on the train earlier that afternoon. Now, as then, his implacable posture announced his absolute immersion in his task. Now, as then, his confident, strong, clean hand responded to his will, grasping the pen and moving it in specific, controlled, clean gestures to inscribe letters on the clean, college-ruled, white paper, the letters in their turn forming words, from which, when reading it back, his consciousness would derive meaning.

Glatt did not look up when responding to Dragnie’s question. His eyes squinted slightly with amused contempt. “Yes,” he said.

“And you know that I despise you?”

“Yes.”

A faint smile played about Dragnie’s mouth. She left Glatt’s office and went to the bedroom. There was no need for either of them to say goodnight. There was no need for either of them to exchange physical gestures of affection. There was no need for either of them to engage in sexual activity with the other, nor had they done so in ten years. Sex, Dragnie knew, was the body’s way of externalizing the ego in all of its desires, fears, fantasies, and requirements. Most people needed to have sex multiple times in order to assuage the needs of a self that had been irreparably damaged by the cowardly, life-hating mediocrities that controlled society—the looters, who simply stole what others had created or achieved; the leeches, who sucked wealth and reputation from those who had their true claim; the moochers, who sought for free what others had paid for in thought and labor; the koochie-koo-ers, who begged for care and support in exchange for their winning cuteness; the hootchie-kootchers, who demanded acclaim and reward simply because they could dance in a provocative manner. But Dragnie and Glatt were immune to this need, because, as supremely rational beings, their selves—and this they knew with the absolute certainty of purest certitude—were perfect. It had therefore only been necessary for them to engage in sex once. That had taken place ten years earlier in a mutually-brutalizing act of seduction, rape, triumphalism, surrender, gloating, name-calling, bullying, shaming, taunting, objectivizing, sneering-and-leering, self-glorification, and self-loathing. Their “marriage,” their partnership, their union, had been undistracted and undiminished by sex, or conversation, ever since.

Dragnie turned out the light as, in his study, Glatt continued to work on his achievement.

“Prepare for landing.”

Regnad Daghammarskjold’s voice echoed throughout the spaceship as, below, the mottled and dusty surface of their destination drew nearer. “Co-ordinate the rockets. Get ready to turn off the engines.”

All around him, the crew flawlessly operated switches and, with cool efficiency, checked important readings preparatory to the craft’s touchdown.

“I hope this baby works properly!” Sanfrancisco De Soto chuckled in roguish humor.

“It will,” Dragnie murmured. She spoke, not out of hope, but conviction. The ship had been designed over the course of three days by John Glatt, its materials supplied by Hunk Rawbone’s mills, and fabricated under her personal supervision in Tagbord Rail’s most experienced factory. Now, under the command of the breathtakingly attractive Swedish pirate, its maiden voyage was on the verge of a successful completion.

“Stabilize the gyroscopes,” Regnad ordered. “Adjust the controls and line up the necessary components properly.”

Finally the craft touched down on the surface. “Confirm that everything is pressurized,” the pirate said. “Turn off the motors and turn on the lights. Assure that the cabin pressure is correct for human habitation.”

“How much time do we have?” Sanfrancisco asked.

Dragnie glanced at her watch, an expensive timepiece she proudly wore in unashamed pride. Beautifully enhanced with precious jewels and waterproof to thirty atmospheres, it was built with the utmost precision and expressed her own personal style. “Fifteen minutes.”