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May 16, 2007
choose a fate for Jerry
One: A terraced island rises from a southern sea. Snatches of Gregorian chant can be heard. A barefoot friar, his tonsured pate surmounted by a halo, sings in church Latin: "Brother, you were a schismatic and a heretic. You denied popes, saints, fathers, and councils. To purge your sins, you shall say 50 million Ave Marias. While you perform that penance, your cellmate shall be another American sinner. Brother Fallwell, meet brother Capote."
Two: A giant lotus blossom floats amid puffy clouds in a cerulean sky. A beatific and cherubic personage, seated cross-legged upon the lotus, speaks in Sanskrit: "Beloved Jerry, you were not very compassionate, were you? It is not my will, but the immortal law of nature: you shall be cast down into the briny depths of New York Harbor to feed, as a flatworm, upon the effluvia of Greenwich Village. May you be a self-effacing and contented flat-worm so that you may be reborn the next time as a grub."
Three: Peter, wearing long hair and love beads, waves everyone through the gate even though it's no wider than the eye of a needle. Jerry enters to see, though an acrid haze, clumps of people sprawled on an infinite grassy lawn. Everyone seems to be singing along to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. An angel arrives to ask Jerry whether he would like to join the saved in the single-sex couples area? Or would he first like to try some heavenly kumba?
May 16, 2007 12:01 AM | category: none