Chapter 25
John is aware that he is in this book and that it represents a parallel life that more or less approximates his actual life. You are probably not in the book (yet) but you are aware of John being in the book. You are imagining things about John—and he is imagining things about you as you read along. Imagine that.
The oddities and indignities of being both fictional and human are material concerns to John, and they would be to you too, if you were in fact, in the book.
For example, in the matter of Mrs. Gilmore; how would she (how does she) feel about being labeled a literary perfectionist who’s perfectionism prevents her realization of literary fame and fortune or, at least, realizing some modicum of personal literary satisfaction?
Conversely, Mrs. Gilmore may secretly be hard at work writing 2,000 words a day a la Proust about the vagaries and certainties of living in Eureka Springs, that most curious of American cities. Maybe she has a secret—is full of secrets—and writing a Proustian novel is but one of them. I wonder if she is having inappropriate thoughts about the scullery maid. Or, more likely, as was also the case with Proust, bothersome imaginings about the gardener, especially when he works in hot weather and takes his shirt off.
I suppose we could also produce a different scenario for Mrs. Gilmore: perhaps teaching school was a cover for more clandestine and perhaps even subversive activities. Say, as an employee of a multi-national corporation bent on reorganizing time and matter so that American voters would collectively take leave of their senses and hypnotically, amnesia-like, vote for whores in the employ of the same corporation where Mrs. Gilmore may earn the bulk of her farina? Is it possible that Mrs. Gilmore is singlehandedly responsible for the results of our most recent election?
These ideas may be fiction; one or all of them could be true. More or less.
What about you? Are you aware that you are operating in parallel lives, realities, and Universes? Plutarch was probably the first author to think about how lives are intertwined and woven by threads of recognition, imagination, awareness and lack of awareness, and faith in God or lack of Faith in God. If you dream yet another strand is woven into your subconscious and, if you are tuned in enough the strand may be a conscious one. Plutarch nattered on about this at great length—he was a Platonist after all—but you are tired of this thread…so we will drop it.
However:
Suppose you are married. Suppose you are a Christian. Suppose you have purchased a car or a pop tart this morning.
As a wife or husband your husband or wife understands you and your world in a completely different way than you do, even though he or she observes your operation and navigation of the world in as intimate a way as possible. She or he may be thinking of you as a pop tart, which should make you happy! Or, maybe he or she purchased some other pop tart this morning. Boy that would be something.
If you are a Christian than you know that God knows you. Does God know you in the way you know yourself? Is God’s opinion of you lesser or greater than your opinion of yourself?
The car salesman knows you as a chicken to be plucked, or as a $400 commission check. If the salesperson is of a salacious bent he or she may imagine knowing you in a salacious way; imagination is another (3rd) way of knowing. The complexity of others is something that car salespeople overlook; they may have active imaginations, but they are always at the center of the action: mostly, they only imagine themselves.
Dr. Sloan knows Dr. Sloan and she knows John. John knows John and he knows Dr. Sloan. That’s at least six levels of knowing if you count imaginative knowing, which you should count since you are reading this book, in itself proof of parallel lives, realities, and Universes.
Imagine how complicated this becomes if we factor in God knowing Dr. Sloan, and knowing John too. He knows them perfectly (a God thing) and consequently knows them as perfect—or as utterly contemptible; at the end of the game the knowing door swings only one way—and everyone will know what there is to know.
The word ‘complication’ however, hardly covers it when we might suppose that John, for example, does not know himself very well. Perhaps John does not know that he is not old, or deaf, not a bumbler, not a famous timewaster and village know-it-all. Maybe John is, if he bothered to look, vigorous, patient, peeve-free, and open to suggestions and new ideas. Perhaps the ‘Out of Business’ sign visible to most people who look into his eyes says something entirely different. Maybe it says ‘Dime a Dance’ or ‘Hot Cha Cha.’ That would be a surprise to John. But it would be cool.
Sadly, John is old, and deaf, and a bumbler, a timewaster and village know-it-all, but remember that he may not know that for sure or maybe he only suspects it. In his present mind’s eye he is rather heroic: on a Mission from God and charged with saving Normal Christianity. This re-imaging has puffed him up a bit; you may be able to see a glimmer of ‘Hot Cha Cha’ in his dull brown eyes. (Try and imagine it.)
Dr. Sloan does not suffer fools gladly. She has made an exception in John’s case because he can surprise her once in a while; say with the whole Fiacre slash Warrior Queen Deal, and once by insisting she travel with him to Kansas City to confab with a band of relocated Somalis farming on some abandoned slum land. That was unusual. Today, watching him brown-off hoards of Appalachian American ruffians in pick-up trucks was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, especially when the AARs’ started firing rifles in the air. That was unusual too, and not something you see every day.
She is aware of John’s many peeves and accounts him to be a peevish person. She is herself, however, not without a few ticks; more than one person thinks of her as a sort of Princess and the Pea character; consequently, she could be kinder in her assessment of John and what she views as his crankiness.
Among Dr. Sloan’s cranky peeves are College and University Deans, sloppy design work, prima donnas other than herself, fructose, imitation vanilla, camouflage pajamas, trust fund babies, hymn singers, complainers (other than herself), Anton Webern, small ‘c’ Conservatives (i.e., Texans), blondes named Ann Coulter, the blond Meg Ryan, professional blonds, dry bread, tax cheats, uncomfortable shoes, banana republics, squirrels, margarine, society ladies and Junior Leaguers, anti-immigration morons, drunken anti-immigration morons and drunken Junior Leaguers, the fleshpots of Egypt and anything related to Odessa, Texas.
Naturally Dr. Sloan believes that John and all other right thinking people hold these same advanced views—that would be peeves—and that agreement on these matters and ideas, constructs, and conditions signals intelligence and possession of at least a baseline appreciation of culture.
The fact of the matter (this matter anyway) is that John is largely in favor of blonds, drunk or sober, and usually is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. He would also hold out for a field trip to the fleshpots of Egypt prior to making judgment. That said he is entirely in agreement in the matter of Odessa. My God, have you been there?
The question of course then is how well does Dr. Sloan know herself? We see that she does not know John exactly and, if she did, she would hold him a bigger fool than she already imagines him to be. So: in the matter of self, does she know herself better than she knows John?
Who knows?
She does, of course. We can agree that Dr. Sloan knows herself very well and it will help to know that the listing of her peeves is purely imaginative. (Maybe. Maybe not.) But as imagination specifically related to Dr. Sloan, it takes on an entirely separate and functional reality—just as Plutarch’s Lives shaped our knowing of Pyrrhus of Epirus, Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Coriolanus, Aemilius Paullus, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, Sulla, Sertorius, Lucullus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Mark Antony, and Marcus Junius Brutus—all real people who, if we understand science correctly, stood in the same rain you stand in, breathed the same air, and are integrated into our personal DNA.
If you were John and had seven years of Latin taught by Nazi Brown Shirts disguised as Dominican nuns, you would know these ‘lives’ to be real lives. But truly, they only exist in John’s imagination and there only by way of Plutarch’s imagination. Yet they are as real as Dr. Sloan is real—and as John is real.
Isn’t it cool to think that their lives run parallel to yours? That your life runs parallel to theirs?
What is left to discover of course is how Jake Cooker sees himself as an actor in all of these distinct and separate lines of existence. How does Jake see himself? How does God see Jake? Do God and Jake see Eye to eye? How does (will) Jake see Dr. Sloan and John? How will Dr. Sloan and John see Jake? How will Dr. Sloan see John see Jake? How will John see Dr. Sloan see Jake? Most importantly, will Lulu Cooker be wearing a push up bra?
A fandango, as you can see, ain’t beanbag.
