The Weekend Eudemon
A most-enjoyable evening yesterday.
My parents returned last week from a three-week trip to Russia. To celebrate nothing in particular, Dad and I went to the Hillcrest Lounge after work to consume beer from long necks and old rock-n-roll and country from the jukebox. We were joined by one of his neighbors and the neighbor's son-in-law from California.
I left the three of them, so I could relieve Marie from the Seven. My alma mater was playing football 200 yards across the field, so I took them to the game, which we watched through the fence (thereby dodging the $5-per-person gate fee, which knows no age exceptions). Besides the cost-savings, I like it outside the fence because I can run around and throw footballs to my kids.
There's also something about being outside the bright lights. On the poor side of the fence, you're on the outskirts. If you walk fifteen yards away, you're more in darkness. You clearly see the dying sunlight as the cool night breeze come in to take away the warm sunlit air.
The poor side of the fence also offers anonymity. I like living in a small town where most [Cheers! theme song] "everybody knows your name," but a change is nice. The poor side of the fence is on the visitor's side, so no one knows me and no one talks to me. I can watch the game and stands on the other side, and won't be distracted every thirty seconds by a friend, neighbor or client.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the familiarity, but it's neat to sit back and watch my small town and its high school without the distractions. The term is terribly overused these days, but it's "surreal." I remember my older brothers taking me to the same football field--whose contours, victory bell, and bleachers haven't been changed in 40 years--when I was five. I remember playing on the "kids' hill" when I was twelve. I remember hanging out with my friends in the bleachers as a high schooler. To stand there and watch it now, in form and substance mostly unchanged all these years, is pleasurable and sad at the same time.
"Nostalgic" is the word, I guess, though it's overused these days, too.
Malcolm's Messages (What's this?)
Chapter 3: Malcolm Goes Noontide (continued)
Malcolm's voice rang through the air, above the neighing of the motor equines. Two men in shirts and ties looked at each other, amused. The one said to the other, jokingly: "Well, he ain't MTV, but he ain't bad."
Malcolm looked at the man benevolently. "You compare me to the wonder box," he said. "I am flattered, for it is a wonderful machine.
"I have seen you come here almost every day, sir. Perhaps you and I could become friends."
"O.K.," said the man, other words failing him, disarmed by Malcolm's sincerity and harmlessness.
"So I say again," Malcolm boomed, arms upraised, returning to the Face Ocean, "such things are good. But you must be leery of them, for they are double agents. They are gifts from the Kings Beyond the Purple Islands, but they also work for the Wicked Gnome.
"Do not look at me with such surprise. You know about double agents. When you drink the fermented grape, you taste goodness and fun and sometimes even the great gift of mild intoxication, the state of mind in which all things are seen for their loveliness. Yet then you taste sickness. You vomit or hold your head in pain or feel tired. Sometimes the fermented grape leads to violence and sexual indulgence.
"And the gun. That, too, is a double agent. It allows us to hunt for food, but it also allows us to be killed by thugs. And the rock is a double agent. It builds these marvelous Temples, but it also falls from high places and crushes us. The same for the tree. And food, too: It nourishes us, but makes some of us sluggish and prematurely ready for the Black Cavern.
"Yes, you all know about double agents. Everything around us is a double agent. We live in a world of spies that cannot be trusted.
"Do I sound crazed to you? No doubt I do. But I also ring true." He could see in the Face Ocean, now numbering five thousand, that they heard lunacy but absorbed wisdom, and did not know what to think.
"Am I double agent, too, Malcolm?" said a man, half-sincerely and half-mockingly.
"Yes, the tone in your voice just now disclosed it."
The man fell silent.
"But it is a good question," Malcolm continued. "Rest assured: We are all double agents."
"And those things that fill your days with busy-ness, they, too, are double agents. And that is why I am here.
"For I come from far away. And I have heard of your plight. These double agents have tricked you into thinking they work only for you. And in their cunning, they have sought to ravish you and lead you to the Black Cavern, unready, numb with excitement, oblivious. The Wicked Gnome inside you takes all these harmless things and twists them into looking like Great Things. It is then that they work harm.
"Do you think I speak nonsense? 'What,' I sense you speaking in yourselves, 'is Malcolm talking about? Does he think the stick game is evil?'
"No! I repeat: I do not think the stick game evil. But it is a double agent. All things are double agents, and you must therefore be leery of all things for if you forget that something is a double agent, trouble comes. If you forget that the water is not only fun but also deep, your child will drown.
"Do you need proof that the stick game and the wonder box and the consuming places are hurting you? Consider these proofs: They wound Reason and Love, the two highest things in our world. If Reason and Love are wounded, you can be sure that you are being led down a foul road.
"As for Reason, I have already alluded to the Wicked Gnome's works there. He takes these things and elevates them in you to the status of Great Things for which you sacrifice much, too much. It is in your great sacrifice that the work of the Wicked Gnome is revealed. For if these things had not been wrongly elevated–imperceptibly, like the work of a usurper–in your soul, you would not make the sacrifice of time and money that you make for them, and would rather reserve such sacrifices for the real Great Things–Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
"As for Love, its wound is terrible and deep. For these things have made us think we are busy. We have, after all, begun to think of them as Great Things that must be pursued like real Great Things. And because we pursue them like Great Things, we begin to think we have no time, it all being absorbed by these false Great Things. And it is only with time that we can truly show our love for others. Charity, they called it in the old days; it is lacking. Money is not lacking, so some of it is given to charities, but true charity–the giving of time and attention to another–is lacking because falsities have become Great Things in our Mazes."
For the first time since Malcolm had left his basement, he perceived anger. Some in the Face Ocean had left; others had indignantly turned away to chat with their friends; a few glared at him.
But many stayed and simply listened.
And Mr. Rufus came there, too. Haggard with years and many wives. And he listened. Malcolm spoke to Rufus and the others for many days without pause, and they were nourished.
