I
Circle around the park, joining hands in silence
Watch the evil black the sky
The storm has ripped the shelter of illusion from our brow
This power is no mystery to us now
…
Their yellow haze and crowds of eyes
Will plug up the mind that moves
Moving with grace the men despise
And women have learned to lose
We’ll share our bodies
In disdain for the system
The Sky is a Landfill – Jeff Buckley
Pity those that imagine society as passive or benign, a friend with whom to frolic playfully; rather, it’s a wrestler to whose moves we must not fall. Its purposes, goals, and directions are its own and our distinct desires it will gladly subdue. Further, it’s a part of us and can’t be expelled. We are strange syntheses, warring marriages of customs and drives tumbling forward with one or the other struggling to lead, a match in which one side’s ultimate triumph would mark both’s final defeat. The trick is to parry and dance and push, conscious of the game, so we can have a say in what it is. We only lose by pretending we can stand still…
Lobe Users Handbook
A crook, pock-marked soul, slipping through the streets. We’re in there somewhere among the washed-out faces, wiping windscreen eyes, the plaster-glues of blurred contempt, the rushes of hurrying hatred and relief. Pastels of a city painted into life. Down there beyond the next crack lies the next step. We microscope the cracks, beetles with binoculars staring past our toes. But look up! Tramplings to avoid in the whirl-coloured air and The Mansions awaiting our dirty love. The faint glimmers of will propel static through our structure, and we buzz on.
Buzz us on our muse—we will kiss the morrow for it bathes our sorrows in the sweet caress of forget-ful-ness! The liquid of the dead into which we descend. Aye, but we may breathe here yet like a babe unborn. Plug us in. Plug us in. ‘Sblood, we are ready to return. And on and on, the furtive looks from the otherwise blank eyes of a million radishes mimicking men planted afore as we wind the streets—the crowd, the crowd, buzzings of life… Yet strip away the nervous jerks, the twitterings of talk, the burps, the squelches, the tip-tap of feet, the suits, the smiles, and what’s left? How long can the flattening continue ‘til we reach 2D? How long can the notion of character survive the lie that decadence is what makes you interesting? No, decadence is running for a bus when you don’t know where you’re going; not much better than propriety, refusing to get on one when you don’t know where you are; or piety, the irrational aversion to all things vehicular! Excretions, all, of our petty myth. No, decadence, no better than being a priest. What then? Enter true character. Strut ye proudly onto the stage, skull in hand. Character. Being where you need to be when you need to be there. Bus or no!
And yet we are not. Where we need to be. Across the city. And so on we go, disheveled by a sleeting rain; on yet, we glide on; on we glide foregone of any alternative, on a trajectory straight, eyes to the front, to the goal, afraid to turn (reflections have been cruel of late—the disjointed figure of a wretch in the shiny windows of a well-polished store, a swaying criminal among the books and magazines behind the glass, outcast among the beautiful faces for sale). Awash, a wash with rain but no cleaner than before. Water was never meant to be this way. The piss of the audience upon the stage and no exit—none where we’re wanted at least.
And the rain charges down, a sheeting mess, pricks from the dead sun’s grave, dried disappearances, a swarm of wet screams that cry us through the street, soaking horrors that sing us to sleep; the pitched rain has us in its grasp, but we forge on, our eyes almost fallen to its swords. We blunder forward. We have scraped ourselves to the core, devoured the seeds of our will, but on go we, moving through the rain’s screens, screen after grey screen, moving, tumbling on. The rain has wet us through… sunk deep… It bounds among our ribs and whispers secrets in ripples beneath our skin…
Now a whirring wisp of wrath spins us from this reverie and a puff of verbal violence brings the gull-faced man with screeching eyes, all tongue, fury, and umbrella beak: Have at ye, sinner! Alien from the deep! Crawled ye from the blackest hole, return to it must ye! We retreat not knowing our breach. Another, bent over, static in the glue of his own emissions, watches with glee. Umbrella man’s eyes bore a lasering annihilation—he the superman, we the slave—we flee his suited stare. The rain drives us on.
Express, express, the air of soft callings, simple callings, the urge to run and fight and lift ourselves out of the haze, up and on!
Flirting with huge mistakes. Story of our life. If there’s a huge mistake, a radically monstrous conglomerate of bad judgement, the metaphorical vision of monstrousness itself, snapping enough of vice-like jaw and cutting enough of razor-like teeth to scare the stomach out of any sensible soul whose visual apparatus is effectively connected, we are wont to prostrate before it and proclaim “Have a go!”. And, as it primes itself to devour us, eyes bulging with desire, saliva swinging in huge pendular globs from its purple lips, we are just as wont to roll from its onrushing bite in languid wonder at what perverse neural arrangements in our (surely) tiny brain had prompted us to make its unpleasant acquaintance in the first place.
And in that languid roll are we now, on our way to procure Lobe as the day dies beautifully, the rain abating, cloud clearings and bubbles of lava-light foaming over towered glass, soaking towers in red-mirrored tides, the last creaking colours of the sun a-sink splashing o’er the melting city, and goblets of rainbow pouring before our steps, flooding the concrete now we bound. On, run on, lest we be slowed.
And then there.
There, in the bright doorway, tall, silhouetted, hooded, a crooning oval, a misshapen baby over us bows, and reaches in his skirts. Passes a pill now between two thin fingers, sleek and buttery, and speaks, deep and crackled, lowered low, a jumpy whisper bubbling with phlegm.
‘Lobe.’
And, awash in a swirl of grasping gratitude, we pluck it tenderly from digits that then depart sleekly up a baggy sleeve as we mirror-vanish the pill into our garb.
He pulls back into the hall (a hunched macrocephalic in a dark room envision we, cloudy thoughts milling, storms of a massive cranium), and the rectangle of hallway light narrows into a thin line as the door shuts and we drink in the waning light and the thought of Lobe. The haze will clear and life jangles with promise!
II
In order that current capitalist self-expansion, which being representative of the blank or null ideology, and therefore potentially subsumptive of all other ideologies—making it more dangerously effective than any of them—be prevented from annihilating, in tandem with market-driven technologies, the basis of human individuality—which has always subsisted in a psychological environment of tension between the symbolic and the real, a dialectic that is currently (disastrously) closing in on the limit of collapse—an anti-product is needed that is more stimulative of consumer desire than any product yet conceived…
Lobe Users Handbook
The black marble floor has only recently been installed in the CEOs office and it sees the CEO step over it and peer down into the roiling eddies of its surface, into the whorls of dark on light, the CEOs bony face reflecting the stark rigidity of the marble that looks upon him more unkindly than he on it, and on seeing his reflection tattooed with its vortices, he moves his gaze instead to the window next to which, in conformity with the classic theme, there stands a statue, a Michelangelo’s David, slingshot at the ready. The CEO turns now to face his visitor, the giant in the figure’s sights, a black-robed man sitting at his desk.
Judge Hanratty picks up a paper weight and turns it over in his hands:
‘You’ve done well, Mr. Threze.’
‘Gavon, please.’
‘You’ve done well, Gavon. You offer a service to the community, and I am sure everyone is grateful. We must always think of the community and of the community’s children. I’ve been a judge for almost thirty years now. For almost thirty years I’ve served the community. I know its value. You can’t put a price on that.’
He pauses and replaces the paper weight on the desk bringing his fingers together in front of his chest in a gesture of supplication.
‘We care about the children. We care about society. Lobe is indeed a crisis. How can we help? How can we make sure the children get the help they need? Sometimes the law is weak, Gavon. I say this even after my long service, my long service under its auspices. I say this as a representative of the law. I admit this openly. Sometimes, the law is weak, and justice is not served. I say, even as a judge, the law can be weak and not serve justice. As the face of the law, I know there is no denying it. What are we then to do, we believers in justice? How are we to see it served? You serve your community. Your organization protects us all as the law should. You take in the youth and care for them, the addicts, the reprobates, the delinquents, the malcontents, the lawbreakers, the scum, our children. You clean them so they are fit again to share in the fruits of a free society. I know that. I appreciate that. And though I am the law, I know the law does not always appreciate it. How can we close that gap between justice and the law? When the greater justice is not served, where then is the law? When criminals walk free, where jurisprudence is corrupted with misguided notions of process and correctness, where the youth are gilded in a liberal armour, and their sins forgotten and left to fester… ‘
‘I am the law and know as well as anyone the law’s sins, and, in you and your organization, I see the quest for justice we both desire. And justice is priceless. It is worth more than all other considerations. I believe we can help each other, Gavon, and help the law. The youth need you and you need the youth, and I can send them to you in greater and greater numbers, and the law must follow because justice must be served, and justice is priceless… Though a price will always be paid amongst men of good will. And we are men of good will, are we not?’
‘We are, Judge, we are.’
III
Confrontational ideological modalities meld into disparate and conflicting isolated social structures within which political discourse becomes increasingly refined and purified to the point where inter-structural communication becomes impossible to reconcile with accepted norms of cooperative engagement. This meta-structural arrangement is concomitantly unstable, but its dissolution paradoxically tends to lead to repetitive cycles of resolution, which can only be broken when a supra-ideological force is imposed on the whole. This force is Lobe.
Lobe Users Handbook
In the makeup room, we hover before Prigh Santabee, between his blank mirrorward stare and his blank mirrored eyes, eyes when bored, as now, that draw you languidly into their void, but when desirous can jitter with intensity. The makeup lady, busily about him, brushes damp hairs from his forehead, powders uneven patches of colour mapping his pout, floods the islands and smooths the seas. A growing impatience and Prigh enlivens. His eyes glitter anew, the hotel awaits, jitters in his groin. Assistant Sarah is standing at his shoulder. He asks when? She says, four. He texts Callum: be there at 4. Then, to his wife, a cursory line, I’ll be late.
Prigh’s moistening on arrival at his seat alerts him to the hot studio lights, the effect intensified by the thick layer of makeup just applied. And they’ll start later than he thought, increasing the chances of deleterious sweating by the end and making him wonder in a self-consciously paranoid way, as he probes with a stray finger the surface of one his now creamy cheeks, if the makeup lady over-caked him intentionally. And all this wrapped up in a glum cloud of contempt for live TV, with its continuous potential for humiliation and its paltry upside. One false move and end up viral. Get everything right and be ignored.
Adding to Prigh’s discomfort at the heat of the studio lights is the awkward placement of his dick in his underwear, and he moves his backside and legs around to try to shift it, but fails, so he needs to slide his hand down there and readjust himself and do it so it doesn’t look obvious. The cameras… Cameras. He gets put in front of so many it’s like sleep is the only escape. But even then, they follow him into his dreams, cloaked in symbolic reference, the eye of some obscure beast, reflections in windows, the stare of a malevolent moon.
Now Senator Sheehan and congresswoman Martin arrive. He offers a cursory nod and proffers, with some satisfaction, the same hand he’s just removed from his underwear to both, then takes out his phone, looks over his talking points, and quietly passes wind.
The anchor is a slim Indian woman, Sana. She enters the studio to meet the dying scent of Prigh’s gases, only noting it with a transient squint. She sits among her guests and turns to greet each of them, moving so as not to impact her immaculate shoulder-length hair, which never misbehaves enough to obscure any of her angle of view, traveling as it does in eerie choreography with her head, just as her dress, with similar precision, hugs her body neatly giving only so as not to reveal enough curves or cleavage to provoke leering. Prigh leers in spite.
Sana’s inner emotional thermostat hovers perpetually around zero—the lizards she has to deal with day-to-day settled in the logic of her blood. Prigh’s stiff frame and shifting demeanor, case in point, suggestive of a nascent erection at her presence, a thought that elicits in her a light reflexive retch. Unpleasant, though not of substance enough to disturb the nature of her engagement, the rhythm of which continues to play its banal melody across her features—features only beginning, when the makeup is removed and she stares at her naked skin in the mirror, to show subtle signs of permanent disappointment. Her colleagues bathe in their pure mercenary fix (cynical world weariness their badge of lucidity), but she has grasped at being an instrument of truth even while recognizing that ,more often, she’s no more than a net over which lies are volleyed—endless tennis matches with the umpire dead and rotting in his chair. And so now, always on the verge of sleep, her remaining loyalty to the cause is little more than concrete boots anchoring her to the bottom of the media sea.
‘One minute everyone’, she says, and smiles a bright smile, which Sheehan and Martin return. Prigh only breathes in sharply and observes how, with all that ethnicity and education dripping off, she just defines political correctness. He’ll save his smile for the 3,2,1… when it’s obligatory to display the someone – just – shoved – a – toothbrush – up – my – ass – and – I’m – having – my – teeth – cleaned – from – the – inside look.
No smile either from the final guest, a left-wing pundit with a funny name who arrived only moments ago and looks asleep, the loud intro music now provoking a lifting of eyelids that mitigates only slightly his fazed-out demeanour.
Another drug-addled progressive, Prigh thinks, then observes the segment headline flashing multiply across the army of screens surrounding them:
‘The Lobe Crisis’
3,2,1…
IV
Lobe is the substantial realization of an anti-ideology in that it suppresses the neuronal activity of memetic sequestering of libido-laden physiological micro-structures in the prefrontal cortex and redirects this energy in a sustainable self-reinforcing and self-integrating loop that extends deep into the hypothalamus.
Lobe Users Handbook
Lyin’ on my bunk, 6 bunks to the room, all full, the room not too big neither, boring blue, why they made it same colour as our suits beats me, sometimes it’s just like heads walkin’ round the room, ‘xaggeration, but when you’re hazing out and it’s dark ‘cos you only got one lamp, not much.
So I’m lyin’ on my bunk half asleep, just come out one sleep and ready go back to another, until lunch anyways, not much to do now, less and less achally, keep us holed in here way too long. Have hand on Kayna’s book, but let it drop on the floor, that half sleep you don’t know where you are, but not a dream neither, kind of floatin’s what it’s like, just have that thought don’t sleep too long, and that’s because the lunch, but you could ask me, Where are you? and I might say, Back home… maybe, but almost sleep. Then a shout, Malena! which is me, MALENA! this time almost a scream that jerks me up, right up, my whole body. I’m up before I even know where I am and Kayna’s face, MALENA! sound bouncin’ off the walls, her face almost white and two holes for eyes, black fire, and brown hair can’t hardly see it combed back tight into her head, all face, wide white face over boxy body, straight down every angle, straight down in the blue suit like a blue brick, hate boilin’ up her, and the book in her hand. What you do my book?! Malena!
Walkin’ over here now.
Nothin’, what? Left it just here. What, Kayna?
Me, Kayna, and three others in here, and they’re just lookin’, propped up, disturbed, but mostly kinda grey and wantin’ to stay out of it, don’t know what they’ll do if she hits me, probly nothin’, I wouldn’t. Look at Kayna again, she says, look at this, bitch!
What, Kayna? And I look at the book and the top corner is bent back, all the pages stuck together in one, bent back outa shape from the block of book.
I don’t know!
Give you my fuckin’ book, and what you do! She’s almost on me now but just shovin’ the bent book in my face, What you do!?
Jesus, fuck, I just left it here right next to my bed, don’t know what… and one of the other girls is lookin’ away now, and I don’t know what the fuck, but I try to put it together in my head before I get beat, and say, Someone musta stepped on it.
Yeah, someone fuckin’ step on it, you leave it down there bitch, fuckin’ careless bitch!
Don’t need to shout about it, Jesus! What the fuck? It was an accident, Kayna! Still can’t believe even this happenin’.
Fuckin’ careless bitch, here’s an accident and she takes the book and smashes it in my face and it hurts bad but I’m just thinkin’, thank fuck it’s paperback! That’s really I’m thinkin’! and hold my face and fall down back on the bed and put my legs up in case she punches me. But no punch, I just hear, Care that, bitch! and then a door slammin’ and still don’t look out from behind my hands, but then I do and she’s gone and book’s gone and there’s no way, there’s no way I’m going to be able get back to sleep after that.
Five of us are lobsters, only one in for a regular and that’s shopliftin’. Coupla the lobsters were in before too, know the drill, but now just for Lobe, and me, it’s just Lobe, and looks like anyone caught within 100m of Lobe now gonna get thrown somewhere… here, if you’re under age. Told me I got three months, but then the guards keep sayin’ it’s up to them and I don’t believe really, but still has me scared, must admit. Kayna is Lobe too and has been hazin’ out for longer than all us but I can’t get it that it’s just Lobe hazin’ did that, hope to fuck not. I’ve heard stuff, but Christ that bitch must have other problems, definitely the other girls said so, saw her freak before, but not that bad, seems gettin’ worse. There was that fight in the canteen but that was ‘cos someone tried to lift her food and if someone lifts your food you can’t let that fly, you’ll be prey, ‘ventually starve maybe, who knows? But there some weak bitches in here gettin’ their food lifted all the time and it’s not like you can have as much as you want and it’s not like you can just squeal to the guards ‘bout anythin’ without gettin’ kicked and even by some who didn’t lift your food would do that to you, just for squealin’, usual thing, even in school you can’t squeal, though I gotta say when you come in first as a lobster here you’re more chilled, like more “enlightened”, last thing you want is a fight, or squealer talk, just want to be doin’ your own shit whatever it is, like me it’s art, but you think they’d give me a pen and paper for anythin’ ‘cept class and not leave everythin’ in the classroom? No, and ok we can still get books if we make points for behaviour but not like it used to be, the ones here before keep sayin’, used to be more activities and books and everythin’ but not now, and because of that you even start to like the classes. S’all relative with nothin’ else, it’s classes, canteen, exercise yard, room, and apart from that just shit and shower, everythin’s important in a stupid way, so even they’re just standin’ there trying to teach you—and not easy for them either I admit with everyone hazin’ out and they’re not supposed to beat you even which I’m told you can get a lawyer in if they do, but of course you got to prove it, and no-one’s gonna to say they don’t throw a slap now and then like they know they can, probly even would myself, who knows? what you expect?—Anyway, standin’ there tryin’ to teach you and it’s all just social skills and some of our “great” history and of course the big favour they’re doing us by gettin’ us off Lobe which is the greatest evil. Yeah right, like we’ll eat that shit, I mean I’ll eat the rest but not one of us in here for Lobe or even whoever just ever tried it is not countin’ the days to get out and get on again. Peace of mind crushes all m’fers and none you got in here apart from a few books. Basically TV, all the time, can’t even ever switch it off, they turn the sound down from 12-6 the night, but that’s it, and the shit they have on: First News, shopping channel, WWE, some ball game which no-one cares… Best quality I ever saw was a fuckin’ Popeye cartoon, I achally watched. Anyway it’s all just TV and a few books, like I said, like they let you one a month max, how fuckin’ slow readers they think we are? It’s why we swap ‘em round, not that they’re hardly worth it have to say bein’ history stuff a lot of ‘em and biographies but not of anyone or anythin’ interestin’ mostly except I was enjoying Kayna’s book, about old scandal pres, Rick Laxon, from what? Fifty years ago? Makes him seem more human, everyone I ever heard talk about him said real ass, but you know, read what he was thinkin’ and how he was when young, and then seemed to have some good in there, buried, but in there, but he gets into a thing and then the only way out to throw the good out the window, what can you do? But compare him, that’s the point, what I wanna say, compare him to what we got now is just animals. Don’t care what First News says, they can leave it on 24/7, won’t change my mind, what we got now makes Laxon look like a fuckin’ God.
V
The immediate result of Lobe proliferation is inevitably economic shock, the intensity of which being directly proportionate to the speed of proliferation. It is advisable then that introduction to a given population be managed such that socio-economic perturbations be mollified to the extent that proliferation not be considered an immediate existential threat to the powers. Failure to manage Lobe penetration in a controlled manner risks the powers sustainably reversing and eliminating production and spread.
Lobe Users Handbook
Mr. President sits. And we, hoist on invisible strings, watch. His face mild and flickering, eyes a queer fog, customary anger, amusement, self-satisfaction, departed. Becalmed grey ovals as still as the body, now collapsed in jellied sack over the leather armchair in which he reclines, demeanour enlivened only when leading news story reloops on the hour flashing his face with frames of flicker-light, and he reloops watching himself, threads viscous as on we rest. awareness signalled by fluttering eyes, twitching shoulders, and rapid palpitations of lips into and out of shapes that could be words. Concern. But mocked by the comic lambent crescents under his eyes that mark starkly the limits of the induced orange tan matting his face, and the bouffant of bright yellow hair that, engineered to adhesive perfection, looms protectively over his bald scalp. Growing animation now, and sack body coheres into human shape and bouffant wobbles ominously as he hoists himself up in the chair, one small hand a prop.
A bowed and withered minion faces Mr. President—John Connor, Chief of Staff. Oval face corrugated cardboard grey and grooved, with a muscular tension married to a too-much-blinking that marks a guarding of movement of lips, lest the wrong words depart them, and eyes, lest the wrong look escape them.
Mr President speaks:
‘My sons…’
His sons.
Males; forties; faces that would scare paint dry; expressions carved in features that when seen on animals inevitably result in mercy killings; often photographed looming over dead endangered beasts, bearing huge rifles and shit-eating grins. Yet are treated like Kings, and are, or Princes more like, freak princes many would happily see guillotined as on the cover of socialite magazines standing smugly next to cheerleaderesque wives, all huge smiles that look chiseled into their wooden faces by some mad guiseppe.
His sons… and John’s inside voice, fucking fat prick, little deaths every day, the President knows how to fuck your soul, he’ll open you up with camaraderie, good will and trust and then stick his cock in and come all over your insides. And then it’s too late and you’re in the game… Two more fucking years. He wonders if he’ll still be human, still be a man. Kicking the rest of the staff no compensation; they know as well as he, their revenge the knowledge of his humiliation, the upward curling of the mouths, the sneaky composure in their eyes. He wonders what the nickname is. Thought he heard someone say ‘John-John’. They’ve got so much less to lose. He’s in an alleyway holding up the walls and the storm lingers over always ready to piss his fading strength away.
‘My sons…’, Mr. President repeats.
You would be taken by the curious incandescence of the skin, the purple-veins streaking their forks through its moist terrain, the face all dull lips meeting and parting viscously under the shining beaked nose. Eyes, stark potholes sinking into nowhere. He’s an old tortoise knocked on his back or an abandoned hatchling, or both. He’s every broken and helpless thing that writhes and seeks impossible relief. But that’s the future when his sons stand over him in anticipation.
Now…
‘Take Toby, Toby’s got no interest. He has no centre. And a man must have a centre, John. I’ve made money all my life, I know about money, I know money inside out. No-one knows money like me. But I have a centre, and you need a centre, a centre to lead, to act, to do, to be, dammit. Nobody could become President without a centre. How did I get here? Is that how I got here? That’s not it. Nobody can run anything without it… It’s… it’s not just the money… It’s the money. But it’s the drive. You can’t define it. I don’t know what happened. Who knows? Why doesn’t he have it? Who can put it there? I remember when he was young, I always emphasized… Now I was busy, active. I admit it. I was active. Who can get anywhere without being active? And I loved the game. We all end up shit in the end. We all rot. Don’t we, John? We all rot, just shit in the ground, nothing but shit… But you have to love the game. What else can keep you going? So, OK, I wasn’t always there and maybe it was his mother… Women. Women find it much harder, John. To be tough. Especially with all this. The PC, the… You know what I mean. Nobody wants to be tough. Especially a woman. And he had everything. Maybe too much. You want to provide. But then you add it all up and are you left with a man? But I always told him when I was there, when we had time. And I did make time. No-one can say I didn’t. I made fucking time! And you know, John, people say a lot of things about me. His mother says a lot of things about me. And not all good. You know that. But nobody, nobody ever said I didn’t make time. Especially in my position. With the demands on me. Nothing is free. The demands. There’s always the demands. So, I made time, and I told Toby, all of them about Character. That’s what I emphasized. They say all sorts of shit about me. Everything. There’s nothing they won’t say. They call me shallow. Because they don’t want to see it. Because they want what I’ve got. They envy me, and they can’t admit it because they hate the swagger, they hate the style. They see it and they don’t understand it, John. But I’ve always emphasized character. I’ve always looked at the great men, studied them, held them up. The very best. Followed their example. Nobody who knows me could fail to appreciate that. The great men are in me. I put them there. And then they say I’m shallow? That it’s just the money? You can’t do what I’ve done and it’s just the money! But they’ll say anything, John. We know that. They’ll say anything, and it doesn’t bother me. But Toby. Nobody can say I wasn’t there. They can’t say that. Before every big game, before every big speech, before that play, what was it? He did a play, it was… it will come… I told him, remove yourself, fuck the audience, fuck them; it’s not them, it’s you; it’s a war with you; win that and all’s won, lose it and all’s lost. The audience will follow. They always follow. And he did great. I’m sure he did great. His speeches, everything, I’m sure he did great. I saw one. It blew me away… considering. He was ten. I saw the seeds of character. Of a real man. His mother didn’t care enough. What did she show she cared? Women… And then says that shit. But I saw it there and nurtured it. I gave him my seed, John. That’s the most important part. I gave him my seed. Put it in there. But it didn’t grow. It didn’t grow. I look at him now. And it’s not there. You can’t pretend these things. It’s not there.’
‘Maybe he needs more direction. Maybe you can give him that. Get him more involved.’
‘More direction? More involved? How much more direction? How much more involved? He takes it and he squanders it. This Lobe thing. Jesus. Do I even want to let him in anymore? I always ask, I try, but then there’s a voice says, it’s over. He’s lost… It’s a goddamn thing to say. About your own son. Of all people. After everything. But how many times have I invited him? And what’s he doing? I say, get up here. I say, you can help me out. I give him every opportunity. What kind of a man doesn’t want an opportunity?’
‘I don’t know, Mr. President.’
VI
…the automation of instrumental ends, the ultimate efficiency and triumph of enlightenment reason, has, as its dark after-image, the annihilation of thought itself and thus the absolute superfluity of the form of reasoning it champions and that underlies the logic of its existence. The triumph of subjective reason then can only be fully glimpsed in its demise. Enlightenment devours itself before our eyes and demands we applaud its victory. And the God we killed in its name revenges himself on us by showing that what is most sacred in us must evaporate just as he did in the brilliant light of progress.
Lobe Users Handbook
At least Kayna the not so bad thing is she calms down and she can achally laugh ‘bout it and I do too, not holdin’ any grudge or nothin’ but never will be comfortable around the sort who can turn at any moment so how you supposed to treat them? Of course I want no trouble but you can’t be a princess to someone who’s just waitin’ to kick you in the pussy minute you’re not expectin’, and I would say that’s the way I’m thinkin’ ‘bout Kayna now though I could be wrong ‘cos it’s just that one time though she didn’t achally say sorry but just came back and gave me the book and said nothin’ which I will read it anyway, never look a gift horse etc, but if she slaps me up again then it’s definitely… I’m not gonna be anyone’s bitch in here, I’ve seen that too many, but it’s not just her here now anyway, we whole team havin’ a laugh because what can you do they dressed us up in colours and left us in the staff canteen, we the ones who are not the worst of behaved they say. So anyway a few of us all dolled up in the staff canteen eatin’ staff food and First Newsies all over the place with cameras and tellin’ us to behave ourselves and don’t try to get famous, and two minute delay on the live feed, only reward for funnin’ will be some cage time and all credits removed, permanently, they said, though that may been ‘xaggeration, though they did say they had word, and the staff in charge said, ‘Just fuckin listen to them and do what they say, it’s straight down from the top, make it look good, do your Oscar thing, or if you can’t, just shut up and eat, and don’t fucking embarrass us, it’s the government, a Senator, and has the ear of the pres, and HE will be watching, but don’t let that make you be a hero even worse, ‘cos we said already two-minute delay, no bluff, it’s only lose-lose, no one’s going to see your shit no matter what, it’s just straight to the cages. You’d be fucking dumb to try it, and you’ve been chosen for not being dumb so don’t fuckin’ prove us wrong. And remember one last thing who’s got a right to let you out…‘
And so on, and that last bit was the kicker, you gotta consider… But who cares? They couldn’t hardly hear we said here anyway, and fuck you had to say something when the guy comes in lookin’ like he’s chewing on dog shit, all made-up like a nancy boy, and his name is Prick or Prigg or something, believe it?? And achally sounds more like Prick when I hear it and we put our heads down and laugh and he’s lookin’ around wavin’ hardly even makin’ eye contact, How are you? How are you? So was that me or my soup you were talking to, Prick? Give me a break, m’fucker actually smells like shit when he passes, been eating what? And when he looks my way and says, How are you? Kanya says, I think he wants to fuck you, and if he was achally lookin’ at me straight I might think that ‘cos his eyes are bouncing around weird, but I think it’s more like he’s just a total stick-up-the-ass makes him look like a pervert ‘cos he doesn’t know how to look and might end up lookin’ at your soup or your tits or your pussy as well as your face like we’re all just furniture here. Then he makes a speech. Jesus, it’s short thank fuck, and then the director says clap and we all achally do, pathetic, I know, but not worth bein’ the only one who doesn’t, is it? But what a creep, lookin’ at us now like we’re aliens, like he’s afraid he’ll get some disease, but I’ll bet if anyone has anything it’s him, gonorrhea or herpes, some mess, he’s just got that look like he’s fucked a lot of dirty pussy. I tell to Kanya ‘cos she’s nearest and she laughs, bit too loud probly ‘cos one of the staff looks at her and I hope the fuck she doesn’t get in trouble or will probly blame me, last thing I need and by the time I get to thinking that, the Prick guy is already on his way out, and I get back to the food because one thing is the food is better achally, and I’m not going to waste time or let someone lift it while everyone is looking at the Prick’s ass waltzing out of the room and all the newsies and cameras followin’ like dogs hopin’ for a sniff.
VII
Lobe is chemical reason and curatively antithetical to the regressive mechanisms stimulated by the corporate chemico-entertainment complex which is itself the supporting column on which military suppression of creative politics rests.
It is chemical freedom in that it subverts its own form in action and encourages action in thought, opening up the space in which the hypnotic dogma of proliferated consumer choice is replaced with an orientation towards meta-cultural realization and exploration. Choice becomes less demarcated and granular, and smoother and more open. We move from the shore to the sea and beyond.
Lobe Users Handbook
He stands at the start block in the middle of the roman stairway that descends into the shimmering water of the swimming pool, and he stares down the pool’s blue length. The pool stretches before him in immaculate symmetry, framing sun sparkles that leap about the thin cone of the champagne glass perched lightly between his fingers. Toby, the president’s son; thick-legged, sharp-nosed Toby; front-mounded, jelly-paunched, Toby, with a shallow broad chest and pale angular face that meets and departs from itself in odd dissonance—a sinister asymmetry always attested.
90, clear, a perfect day. His, a bland contentment though marred with impatience. His wife Tania has for more than ten minutes been past the other end of the blue rectangle, behind the patio doors in the holiday house that faces onto the pool and is their weekend retreat. This is longer than necessary to fetch more champagne, longer than the remit of time he had subconsciously apportioned her when he had murmured his directive as she lay beside him on the adjacent sunbed staring through her sunglasses up at the stark blue above. She had risen a little sullenly for his liking, now that he thinks about it, walked a little slowly. And his image is of her dawdling by the huge screen in the lounge just behind the glass, caught in that cooler universe of air-con and entertainment. Something has caught her eye, some novelty distracted her on the always-on screen, and she, with champagne bottle already in hand, has stalled.
And for how long? He doesn’t want to shout. If he shouts, he’ll lose his mood, and his moods are fickle—they come and go as they please—and when he has one he wants, he covets it.
He had stood up, thinking he might see her through the glass, but with the fierce light out here, the relative gloom of the lounge is impenetrable. He slurps down the last of the champagne and looks dolefully at the entrance. Impatience whips round his gut. Bitch can’t do a simple thing, always something. He’d often thought her not worth it…
If she comes out right at this moment, the mood will dissipate, and he won’t care, but if she continues to dawdle, the impatience will become real anger and the effects will linger even after she comes, and then he’ll be angry, not just about the champagne, but that she spoiled his mood. Come on, what the fuck are you doing in there…?
The sun glares high at him through a streaking of cirrus, and he salutes to block the worst of it and peers again. Nothing. He could just lay down. She’ll be out soon. Surely. Unless she’s sat down on the leather couch, maybe lain down there. Fuck, for all he knows, she’s asleep. To spite him? Should have gone himself. She could be lying there as she is almost every afternoon when she complains it’s too hot outside. Only she agreed today to come out to get some color. He had even reminded her gently to make sure she got her sunscreen all over, rubbed some considerately in, was glad of her stupid company for once, but she’s probably had enough, and too lazy to come out and give him his drink. Maybe wants to piss him off as she always does when he does something she doesn’t like, and won’t tell him, but pulls shit like this instead. He’s told her so many times to just say it.
Fuck it, he decides, and walks towards the glass.
Lobe promises vision, and above we fly: above the white rectangle that hugs the pool’s blue innards, its deep cobalt core heavy and sombre in the light; above the moving circle of Toby’s thinning yellow hair, the only incongruity in the pristine scene; and we hear the slow patter of wet steps and the hum of the pump driving water through the chemical feeder and back again. Toby would only notice the pump if it stopped, and there is no other sound except his feet, and nothing to see in the glass before him except his own reflection growing larger now against the dark interior. He moves his head. We swoop low and follow. Maybe she’ll see him and come. Damn woman!
He slides the glass door open and the lounge is illuminated before him. And, before the lounge, he stands silhouetted against the bright sky. Tania is there, on the phone, and looks at him now in her irritatingly irritated way and gestures at him hurriedly to close the patio door, temporarily placing her hand over the mobile to mute her voice as she removes the phone from her ear and rasps at him, “Mosquitoes!”. Huh? He should worry about mosquitoes? What about the fucking champagne? He enters, slowly, and slides the door shut as she pushes the mobile back to her ear and continues her conversation animatedly.
‘Who’s on the…?’
She waves him away without answering.
I’ll get it my fucking self then. He trudges towards the cooler and grasps the wet bottle. Tania has turned from him towards the TV screen, which she stares at while she talks.
Fucking let me talk, she thinks. Out there for five minutes. Can’t you wait? I get a phone call. What do you want? I don’t answer it just so I can bring you your champagne in record time?
He grabs a corkscrew, pops the champagne open, pours, and looks past her to the screen. The news is on. Usual shit. His eyes drift down to the mantle below the TV on which a small clock shows one thirty. There’s a photo of Tania’s dear daddy next to the clock, owner of the home, thankfully absent. In the photo presence he stands regally in a navy military uniform, stiff and arrogant, marine officer’s sabre unsheated and erect—a hard prick beside him; the prick reflected in eyes that though only tiny dots somehow dominate the scene. They scream what are you doing to my daughter? and Toby finds the thought funny enough to smile his bent smile and walk forward and put one rude hand on Tania’s ass. She turns towards him briefly and then without expression turns away.
The TV shouts about an earthquake somewhere, and he wonders how many people have died, hoping, oddly, it’s a lot. He leans over Tania from behind and tries again.
‘Who’s on the phone?’
‘Powadee, Powadee,’ she blurts and goes immediately back to her patter.
Powadee? Who the fuck is Powadee? Sounds like a fucking maid. Then he remembers: that Asian bitch whose decrepit husband works for Merrill Lynch, or did, and who must be ten years younger than Tania. Whores. Whores everywhere. He slurps some champagne and moves a hand up, around, and over Tania’s left breast.
‘Christ, Toby.’
Tania tells Powadee she’ll call her back.
‘You got your champagne.’
‘What was all that about?’
‘Nothing. Just talk. Let’s go back out.’
The slow musty air has tired Toby, and he pauses and looks up again at the TV.
‘Suit yourself,’ she says and disappears outside.
Whatever. If she wants to go out, I’ll stay here.
Tania strolls through the haze. Petty little prick. He’ll sulk a while and then slink over like nothing’s happened. The poolside surface is hot under her feet, and she realizes she’s forgotten her Zoris, but rather than go back into the lounge where she’s left them and see Toby, who’ll think triumphantly she’s come back for him, she opts to skip barefooted to the end of the pool, which now shudders in her vision as she bobs over in manic little jumps, more manic as her feet get hotter and hotter, so much so she considers jumping in the water and just swimming the rest of the way, but she bears it for the last few metres, and by the end half dives, half flops onto her sunbed, grabs her feet to massage the heat out of them, laughs at herself mildly and recalls what Powadee had said moments before, embrace the madness, Tania, just don’t let it choke you.
The screen almost shudders at the noise from the amateur video. It is an earthquake, and a big one. Chile. Toby didn’t even know they had them down there. Thousands killed. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. A tsunami alert. More chaos on the way. A mosquito buzzes across the screen and he swats at it, missing (they go so slowly yet he can never catch them). On the screen are drone pictures of the devastation—looks like a great foot has come down and stepped on the landscape. Shitty wooden houses crushed flat. What a fucking mess. Now interviews with families. Tears, anguish, shouts, in the babble of a language he doesn’t understand. Don’t they speak Spanish there? Doesn’t sound like Spanish. And then an extended interview with a woman with a shawl wrapped around her face in front of what he guesses is her destroyed house. The mosquito buzzes back right up to his nose this time, and he lurches back spilling some of his champagne as a wave breaches the edge of his glass. Fucker… And back to the screen. The woman’s voice quicker now—a familiar pattern—louder and quicker, and the camera focuses in on her head—though all you can see is a close-up of the shawl—and, through the babble, he imagines he hears words in English. Louder now. Has he accidentally turned the volume up? The mosquito swoops in again—bzzz! He swats and doesn’t spill this time. The babble continues to stream from the TV, the language unknown to him, but words here and there he can somehow make out… And then there’s a scream and the camera jerks back and a huge mass of water floods across the scene and the woman and the camera plunge and sink and resurface, and he can’t make out what’s happening but the shawl is in there tumbling… Bzzz!—the mosquito in front of his eyes—he leans back and fires an open hand forward, and it smashes through the air and onto the TV screen, and between his fingers a woman’s face screams out at him and then disappears.
He should never have married Tania. Or anyone. But to be unmarried, at his age in his circle, it wasn’t done. It suggested fear of domination, that you feared you couldn’t do what you always did just because you were married. It suggested a pussy of a man. It suggested you really loved her actually. In a cloying dependent way. He had heard that men in Argentina who didn’t cheat on their wives were considered in need of therapy. Not getting married suggested you were disturbed because you clearly had marriage all wrong otherwise you’d know it was a win-win. Everything and more. He wasn’t afraid to cheat on her though—that wasn’t it, not out of fear, but not out of love either. He had slipped into the habit of not doing it, that’s all, and it was a habit that wasn’t all that easy to break. If she did though. If she did, he would fucking break her. She wouldn’t. He was pretty sure. And that made things more stable. Eventually, that starts to mean something.
VIII
…while ethical considerations must remain paramount, they must be effectively divorced from blind emotional responses. Though Lobe aids with the separation or gap that allows the reasoning faculties to continue to function optimally even in highly pressurized ethical contexts, mental support and training is desirable to supplement Lobe use in this respect and outcomes will always be at least partially dependent on individual psychological make-up. Fluid and effective cooperation in a post-capitalist Lobe-fueled society is absolutely essential to maintain sustained function, particularly in the initial stages. A high degree of ethical adherence then is a necessary column of support in terms of our goals and should be fostered in advance by all means necessary.
Lobe Users Handbook
So, it’s about a coupla weeks after the Prick thing when the buzz starts buildin’ about somethin’ new. They’ve got some lobsters talkin’ about a “deal”, and this one for us only, couple said they already been pitched and no coincidence they were at the lunch party for the Prick, all of ‘em, so I’m at least half ‘xpectin’ they’re gonna call me only I’m not sure what it is or what I’ll say and they say it’s not really up to us, just got to sign, as long as your guardian does, what are you going to do? fight about it? ‘cos the whole thing is they let you out early, and they just want to know about Lobe, so they say, so I dunno because anythin’ say about Lobe I’m smellin’, even though the ones who said they signed up said they already started and it’s nothin’ just a few questions and play around a bit for a week with some psych docs and gettin’ out is the thing, not just good behaviour points but achally gettin’ out, which again I’m sus, could be they got paid to say it, don’t know them from whoever, who knows? But at least the guardians have to sign off—should have a lawyer in there but who’s gonna pay for that?—and without a lawyer and what, how much paper, small print? Dunno, you do get kinda negative, on the other hand I’ve got two more months comin’ and I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t want them to call me.
So two days later I get the call and guardian already signed off, so kinda done deal and I’m pissed nobody told me (but fuck her, she never did want to tell me shit anyway) but I still need to sign too and I feel like playin’ them like I won’t and they call me in and guess what? it’s the Sleaze himself in there, which I don’t expect, usually keeps a low profile, but there he is all smilin’, sit down, we appreciate your help etc. and this the same guy who’d put you in a cage in 2 blinks if he felt it. And I’m like, OK, kind of puffed up to be honest, wonderin’ who else got chose… and I sit down and he’s lookin’ at me all daddy-like, but anyway even though his name he’s not as creepy lookin’ as the Prick, kinda bank clerk, dry and clean, pointy triangle-head, a bit freak-scary but the glasses mild it down and he’s not pale or anything like most staff, but looks healthy even, all clean suit but open shirt like he’s not that stuck up—but then again the cages. Anyway, I get the feel to throw the bit of cheek in, so I says, what help? I didn’t help you any yet, Mr Threze (haha) and there’s a jump of somethin’ nasty in his eyes, but then he does the smile thing again and is all cool and says he’ll just walk me through the details and yeah achally I don’t want to play all that much and calm my rocks and look at the contract, but no way I’m going to read it all, and anyway he goes through point by point, summary-like, and thing that jumps out is do this and out in a month, probation, but still, out for guaranteed once I do, only doesn’t say what I’ll do exactly just says the same as the lobsters who already said, play around with the psych docs, and make yourself available, he says, be cooperative, answer a few questions, and I’m still sus and then he says with a kind of pop light in his eye, you may be required to take Lobe again as part of the experiment, like as if we don’t both know he just about said you may be required to take a bunch of free money and spend it any way you want, and that’s why the pop light came on, and I know he knows I know and so on, but doesn’t matter because after that I’m sold even I know he’s sellin’ me and I sign under my guardian’s sign and bounce right outa there big smile on my face.
Not even one more day they’re callin’ me in do my first bit. Before they start I ask they gonna give me Lobe for this and the guy who brings me in says no, you’re the teacher—well, fuck—and I suppose the shit look I give him worries, and he says, probably next time, you’ll get your chance, and kinda smirks and sits me down in front of a bunch of instruments. There’s a microphone and a slider dial on a steel panel thing and words across say, ‘SLIGHT SHOCK’, ‘MODERATE SHOCK’, ‘STRONG SHOCK’, ‘VERY STRONG SHOCK’, ‘INTENSE SHOCK’, ‘EXTREME INTENSITY SHOCK’, ‘DANGER EXTREME SHOCK’, and ‘XXXX’, which makes me laugh, and I’m caught up in all the weird, what they want me to electrocute someone, wtf? And the guy leaves the room and another comes in, typical, thin, white coat, all that, and he’s explainin’, listen carefully… and seein’ that panel I do listen, and he says, OK, so, this is a learning experiment and you’re going to be the “teacher” and uh—he calls the first guy back in, who has another girl with him now (who I never seen her before)—this is Leone who will be the “learner” and we shake and smile at each other and he says, Leone is going to be in the next room, and you’ll stay here. You can take her in, Jim, and Leone walks out with Jim. Leone will be strapped to a chair in the other room and connected to this machine. The idea is for you to try to aid her learning. She has learned a list of word pairs and you’ll test her by naming one of the words in each pair and she has to name the other. If she gets it right, you move on to the next question. If she gets it wrong, you give her a shock and then move the slide dial up one to the next shock level…
Ok, I think, so I do have to electrocute someone… So he says, let’s begin and gives me the list of words to ask her, and I feel a bit like playin’ and shockin’ her even if she gets it right, cos I guess she probly will and that’ll be no fun but the professor guy is lookin’ right over my shoulder so I’ll play it straight—on a road outa here, no point fuckin’ that up now.
Anyway, she gets the first one right. Boooring, haha. but straight after gets one wrong and I give her a shock, bzz, and I hear a little, hm, out of her, like someone pinged her with a pebble, but that’s it, doesn’t complain or nothin’, and I slide the dial up and look at Whitecoat who just nods then I ask again and the bitch gets it wrong again. Dummy. Shock and up. So, this the gig for ‘bout 5 minutes and she’s got like half of them wrong, like wtf? Not the brightest bulb, and I’m on 150 volts here, ‘STRONG SHOCK’ and she’s like, Owww, pretty loud now when it hits. Thank fuck it’s not me in there all’s I’ll say. And it’s not fun ‘cos I’m like her torturer so I’m thinkin’ maybe they got it wrong and say to Whitecoat, it’s hurtin’ her, and he says, please continue, and I say, ok, on you, bud, and give her a couple more and she keeps gettin’ the fuckin’ things wrong even though at this point I’m rootin’ for the bitch, not gettin’ off on all this shoutin’ outa her for sure, like what the fuck am I? And we’re on 195 volts ‘VERY STRONG SHOCK’ now and I’m like to Whitecoat, you sure its supposed to hurt her like this. Look, it’s 195, ‘Very strong shock’, I read it slowly in case he’s dense and he just says, the experiment requires you to continue, and I’m like, fuckin’ hell, first day and I’m a fuckin’ Nazi and I say again, on you bro’, you told me to, and I keep going and what I’m thinkin’ is if I keep shockin’ her it’ll fry her brain and she only gonna get worse, and it’s like they set it up that way so it’s a no win and I do feel sorry for the bitch, I mean there’s some I probly wouldn’t. but I don’t know her from no-one, she never did nothin’ to me. And just like I thought she gets more and more wrong and it’s a fucker of a long list we gone through, and we’re up at “INTENSE SHOCK” now, and she’s gone from shoutin’ to more like screamin’ I’d call it, and she screams out “Staaaawwwwp”, and I’m like, dude, I actually say, dude, are you some kind of psychopath, can’t you hear that? what the fuck? and he just says, it is absolutely essential that you continue. And I think, how the fuck did I get myself into this shit, how the fuck? Absolutely essential, why? I say, What, you want me to kill her? Absolutely essential?? And he says, you have no other choice but to continue and at this point I’m convinced he’s made of fuckin’ silicon, fucker, no choice? And I feel like telling the bitch, this is hurtin’ me more than it’s hurtin’ you, but considerin’ the way she’s screamin’ in there, that’s worse than a lie, but damn it’s not like I want to shock her and I stand up and walk around a bit and say to Whitecoat, she’s screamin’ in there! and he says again, you have no other choice but to continue, and it’s killin’ me to sit down again and do it but what can I say except, fine, I’ll quote you on that, believe me, your choice, and I’m prayin’ for her to get some of them right now, but I know she won’t and all sorts of pleadin’ and shoutin’ and shit coming from her, let me out, staaawwp, no more, please and so on etc. and professor psychopath lookin’ over my shoulder telling me I have no choice and literally won’t say another fuckin’ word, and I’m right up at ‘DANGER SEVERE SHOCK’, and I’m like again, you see that, ‘Danger’. That says, ‘Danger’ and you really want me to do more? ‘Danger, severe shock’. Severe, right? OK? and you want me to go on, really?? And he just repeats the same ‘xact fuckin’ line and I wish to fuck Leone could know all this I’m sayin’ so she knows I’m no psycho so when I press the button to ask I shout in after, sooooorrry, all’s I can say, but she just keeps screamin’ and beggin’ me to stop and someone let her out and she can’t stand it, and I swear I’m gonna fuckin’ cry, never did this shit to nobody before, got in a few fights, but hardly even scratched a bitch and now I’m at the last couple of levels and Leone stops screamin’ and I think the audio is broken and I say to Whitecoat, is the audio broken? and he just shakes his head. And I say, it’s over then? reckonin’ she got knocked out from all the shocks, it’s over? she’s out? and he shakes his head and I’m like, oh fuck, you can’t be fuckin’ serious, and look at him and he starts his fuckin’ no choice’ line again and I’m like, can’t you check on her? but he just shakes his head and says, go on, and I’m shakin’ and ask Leone the question knowin’ she can’t even hear to answer now, no way, and shock the bitch I’m screamin’, fuuuuck, while I’m doing it and it’s just one more to the last level ‘XXXX’ and shout at Whitecoat, if she’s dead it’s on you, all on you, remember that! and ask her the last question, fuck knows why, and pull the last lever, BZZZZ, and swear to God nearly jump up and slap that motherfucker in the face I’m finished and I’m cryin’ and they can’t get me outa there quick enough, oh holy christ what I got myself into, holy fuckin’ christ she better not be dead.
IX
… in the long-term a flattening of the economic curve along with an overall loss in material wealth, which may be offset to a degree by increased international cooperation. Technological development will temporarily stall due to the reduction in market pressure and there is a danger of a violent counter-reaction from non-users who may regain control of the military complex.
Lobe Users Handbook
The door buzzes, and he remembers the NRA guy. He’ll want something. Fuck. Toby’s all for guns. Hunting—done it all his life. Killed more animals on safari than he can remember, but these people can never get enough. Always wanting meetings, or bills, or bills killed, or speeches, or guests for their shows, or promo vids, and on and on. He looks at the photo of Tania’s dad on the mantle and makes a vulgar one-finger gesture. The photo stares angrily back at him.
His security duty answers and he clears them to let the NRA man in. Mulch Hammond enters with a smile so wide and elastic it seems to split his small head.
‘Toby, Toby,’ he extends his hand and grips Toby’s with surprising strength.
He’s a small mediocre-looking man but with an odd confidence as if when he looks in the mirror, he sees a larger more impressive figure and that image he projects through his inferior and aged physique. Toby shakes his hand and invites him through to the lounge.
‘Drink?’
‘Sure, what are you drinking?’
‘Champagne. ‘
’Good enough’, he laughs amiably. ‘Where’s the little lady?’
Tania’s father stares out from the mantelpiece in approval. Mulch is a real man. Toby could learn from him. Decadent Toby, drifting Toby, victim of his vices. He had had his vices too but handled them like a man. Toby has no style, no fire. He doesn’t know how to burn. Even his thoughts are half-hearted: “Fuck this, fuck that”, and what does he ever do? Nothing. It’s enough for him to think. Mulch though, wants. He’s driven. A big man inside a small. He’ll get what he wants or hurt himself trying.
‘Sit down, sit down.’
Mulch settles onto one of the leather armchairs in the lounge.
‘Nice place. You got the right idea, Toby. Get away from all the bullshit…. I like that pool. Should have brought my trunks.’
Toby’s vision of Mulch in trunks almost makes him laugh out loud.
‘Won’t last long, Mulch, but I’ll make the most of it. What can I do for you?’ (And maybe that’s too fast, maybe more small talk would have greased the air between them better, but he doesn’t have the patience).
Mulch does his split-face smile again.
‘You know, I would have talked to your dad directly, Toby, but he’s got all this foreign stuff now, and this can’t wait…’
Mulch’s eyes drink Toby in, but he can’t taste his father. Toby lacks the President’s vision and energy, and has a touch of that liberal cynicism that too often afflicts this generation of the ruling class, a cynicism that wants to blind itself to the advantages of what sustains it, but refuses to grasp the logic of its inner contradictions and festers in a resentment it can never reconcile. But Toby is no idealist, at least. He’ll deliver even if his taste for the game is faded. Mulch wouldn’t have come otherwise.
‘Sure, you know I’m a friend of the NRA.’
‘Hell, I know, Toby. You’ve always been good to us, and we need friends with the liberal vultures circling. Especially now, after that shooting, you heard? right!?’
Toby remembers something on the news about a five-year old who was given a gun by his parents. Early training. Brought him to the range, everything. Let him keep it by his bed. Told him to watch out for intruders. And then one evening he shoots his aunt when she comes in to say goodnight. Nobody knows why for sure. Maybe scared. Maybe even pissed off. They couldn’t get much sense out of him afterwards. But he got her right in the chest and she didn’t last more than a few minutes. Usual outrage ensued, but there was no crime there. Just another tragedy.
‘Terrible accident,’ Mulch is saying, and he’s peering into Toby’s eyes looking for any hint of how much he has to lay on the sauce, but his eyes meet nothing but Toby’s grey recognition, and a neutral murmur.
‘Yes, heard about it.’
‘Well, you know, the usual liberal crap, feeding it, exaggerating the whole thing, like it’s some big crisis, like kids are blowing people away everyday.’ Mulch shakes his head with real disgust. ‘So, they want legislation. They want to make it a crime to give anyone under twelve a gun. Well you know: Next it will be sixteen, then eighteen. Who knows how far it will go? Congress is under pressure, Toby. We’ve got First News, but they’ve got everyone else. Polls are bad. Swing state senators… You know the deal. We’ve got to kill the bill, and we’d love the President on it, taking a real interest. We could lose this…’
Easy call, Toby thinks. It’s second amendment. He looks over to the mantlepiece at Tania’s father and almost feels like trolling him by denying Mulch. In a way, the father’s presence is more real than the NRA man’s. Mulch is just a package of ideology opening before him revealing its predictable contents, but the father is something else, something Tania wants to see in him but never will. He would have taken the frame and smashed it long ago if it wasn’t… wasn’t for…
‘I’ll talk to him.’
‘I knew you would, Toby. I knew you would.’
And he really did, any doubt retroactively dispelled, and there’s just the drink now and the sun outside, and in the faint distance at the end of the pool the little lady lying prone, an umbrella slightly swaying, the deep cobalt of the pool, and Toby nodding and leaning forward with the champagne:
‘Let me fill that for you.’
When Tania re-enters, Mulch has left, but Toby still sits with champagne glass in hand. She sees Mulch’s glass and Toby sees her seeing and says, ‘the NRA guy. He’s gone.’ And then, before she can turn away, he gives her a look she’s seen before, a childlike look of desire that now, when clouded with alcohol, is all the more juvenile. He wants to fuck her, and as contemptuous as she is, she knows she’ll let him. The eyes of Father on the mantle blaze.
Her father, his father. Every success, every triumph, an addendum to the story of the father. The world begins and ends with the father. Selfishness is a tough armour and it’s written into the book of the world. And that’s how Toby has learned to be too. God said let there be light, and it was his light. He made men in his image and that divine selfishness passed into us. What we do, we do to see ourselves in it. And it wasn’t him in his father’s battles. Only his father making all in his image, creating his own light, the perfect country only HE could manifest. All hail! As if there could be an end, as if he didn’t always need more, his light in constant search of an inner darkness as illuminated as any external sin, no more able to accept Eden than bearded old Yahweh. Has to plant the apple tree. Has to know it will all go wrong. Old Yahweh and his bad apple, Toby chuckles, and his face fleetingly achieves a pleasing symmetry before collapsing into its usual dissonance.
He’ll get in on this NRA thing, show this token interest. But lobe, fuck that. Lobe and the propaganda fight, the culture wars, no. Fuck the culture, and fuck the future. If the next generation decides to descend into some communist drug-fuelled Nirvana, that’s their problem. It’s not a generation he has any intention of contributing to. His father could never see it that way. The star unyielding to its universe, forever denying entropy. But not him. He takes Tania by the hips and turns her around.
X
—- EKM PORTAL TO THE CITY WITHOUT ORGANS —-
… circumstances of a post-consumer society will in time mimic the effects of Lobe on an individual pre-social transformation. Society itself becomes the embodiment of a Lobe-induced perspective. With this marriage of the internal and external, the mode of maintaining the impetus of social change is permanently incubated and transcends the necessity of all supplemental effects including that of Lobe itself.
… being an environment in which creativity is considered the norm, the fourth human age (the first being the pre-cultural, the second being the religious, and the third being the scientific), the age of art will have been successfully initiated.
Lobe Users Handbook
Lobe walks with us through the swarming urban mass and we glow with it as the city’s organs spin round us ever thicker, spinning thick the culture-sodden mass, with the clouds swilling greedily over the busy streets, the stinking swell of rush, the tornado of noise, traffic howling through the air and we on our night walk and the fall wind upon us.
The night walk and the grim wind whipping through the street-lined trees, which now near naked of their leaves rattle darkly… Grim wind and the trees whipped, rattle naked, the new moon through them dapple cut. ‘Twill be morning before we can breathe afresh, but the cold brings a winsome clarity: Pound the ground with hand and fist so that it might quake before us! Kick on its dry mass so we may rise again! There is nothing but the dust of history to blind us to ourselves!
But we are tired, bog-tired, gut-tired, the head hangs on, bobbing over, the sick stick of our insides holds us up, just about, a brown fade, sleepless-tired—stillness would be enough to settle the bag of self before its fall. To fall, tumble and twirl, down, down, a clown released from our casket, tumbleweed tumbling on.
On and on, Lobe spreads through the crooks and nooks of the city, awakening, unburdening, melting selves into selves, flinging minds over sleeping streets, every creeping and flying thing its vessel, bodies no longer but thoughts in the mesh, ideals and moods the roads and routes of its travels, more seeing and hearing and sweeping and swooping. Lobe resets the city into mood-melded zones through the gels of which flow its eager travelers—surfers of the night, cloaked in sin.
—- PRIMARY CONSTELLATION —-