V.V. (8) Benny

[Mutualcode at aol.com]

Karen Hudes:

"The righteous thing would have been to defend Fina, but he defers to Angel
as her owner of sorts (and someone to whom he is in debt). Since Benny can't
make any claim to her, and really wants nothing to do with her anymore, he
won't step in to protect her.

Compare this with his later defense of Paola against Pig Bodine. Whether
he's matured or he loves her, or just feels more of a sense of possession
this time around, the code still looms large--Benny reminds Pig that he owes
him one."

Or, with Benny's encounter with SHROUD, where when pressed: "Which way does 
it go?" He responds: "It's one way... All one way."

If I had to place Benny in a career, *letter carrier* is what comes to mind, 
for one of those private concerns, which weren't so common back in the days 
when V. was published. He seems to be delivering some sort of code, of which 
he is only half conscious. It's like The Code is using him for Its own 
purposes, and he keeps coming up against Its Interdictions. The scene reminds 
me of one from M&D, half dreamed by Mason:

    "Up late between Stars, Mason listen'd downhill to the Owls as they 
hunted, and kill'd, himself falling into a kind of stunned Attendance, but a 
step and a half this side of Dream.... In the Turning-Evil of this time, 
awaiting her sure Return, he seem'd one night to push through to the other 
side of something, some Membrane, and understood that the death-faced Hunters 
below were not moaning that way from any cause,- rather, 'twas the Sound 
itself that possess'd them, an independent force, using them as a way into 
Secular Air, its purposes in the world far from the Rodents of the Hill-side, 
mysterious to all."

Maybe what Benny is delivering- to the reader if no one else, and unbeknownst 
to him- is a legacy of ownership. Can you own something without being 
possessed youself? What about just delivering the mail?


mu