AZOTUSLAND chapter Forty Two

On Wednesday morning there had been much excitement in the Batcave. A new pack of super heroes had been delivered that the boys had ordered and a new world war ensued repleat with lots of children's sound effects.

Lucille, Carver and Matisse were not the least interested. They were playing and ancient rock game which they seemed to understand but which eluded Jim and Jeremy both.

When Jim came down at noon for a visit and Matisse wanted to show him her artwork.

One struck him hard. A tracing of a large hand with brilliant flaming colors. It looked like the hand of God to him.

"Pumpkin, what do you call this one?" he said, expecting her to say "Happy hands" or the usual kid thing.

She looked up at him and said "The Hand of God", then she smiled and skipped off.

Jim left a few minutes later with the art and walked up the long way around the North side of the complex. It took him by the back lot where there was lots of yellow tape and bits of charred Stang.

Well this wasn't the "Hand of God" he said to himself.

Later that day Jim got an email:

Know how you love BBQ Jim. Call off your attack dog or he might get bitten.
~Rnonymous

Maugham had gotten his own email.

You are so predictible. Should have learned chess instead of checkers. Be seeing you.
~R

Maugham noticed that the Red Van was gone but had no idea if hit had simply been towed or moved off on it's own power.

On the agenda for the day on the Azotuscafe.com site was a movie for kids at 6 p.m. in the Theater with Jeremy supervising; a lecture by a Muslim theologian on the notion of peace in the Koran in the library at 7, and a CD party in the Big Room for a new Bay Area band named Tallulah Bankhead, named after the famous and eccentric actress. The CD was aptly named, Lifeboat.

Jim, down in the belly of Azotus could have used a lifeboat. Finishing this paper was killing him.

He had run through the various arguments off and on for days. He was exhausted and his work looked like shit.

"What's the point?" he thought and felt.

He walked past all these great authors and looked at how hard they had worked to get at what was real, valuable, weighty. Row after row in the warm firelight flickering. Anders Nygren on Meaning and Method; DeRougemont on the romantic myth; Merton on solitude, Thich Nyat Hanh on war; the English Puritans, who had been persecuted, on depression and the care of the heart, mind, body and soul. He thought of Becker dying at a young age, Jim's age really, but still wanting to get at truth.

Then there was Pascal, Kierkegaard, Percy, and even a few moderns. He liked Anne Lamott very much and David Sedaris made him laugh out loud, which was not easy to do.

But how much of it was artifice? How much bullshit?

He remembered Kierkegaard's words well because they were on the wall on the one piece of art he had in the room. It was Van Gogh's Crows Over a Wheatfield and overlayed with Kierkegaard's words:

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward."

He was caught however in the present...between the past and future. And this was his time and he had no real constraints except the limitations of being human (that and being one vehicle short).

He put the finishing touches on and published it to the website, then poured a large glass of Bordeaux and sat back in his chair and listened to Over the Rhine performing I Want You to Be My Love.