VL-IV (15) False Raptor, pages 378/380
Robin Landseadel
robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Thu Apr 23 11:15:21 CDT 2009
On Apr 23, 2009, at 7:33 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> Robin Landseadel wrote:
>
>
>> . . . more string pulling, and about as deus ex machina as the
>> scene could
>> possibly be designed. Of course, we are not quite done with Brock.
>>
>
> yes, he has his own journey mediated by V&B Towing
>
> explaining that his bones will be taken out?!
>
> there isn't a Puncutron on tap for what ails him...
> but he may end up a karmic adjustment client himself eventually, it
> only took Weed a few years
This is a long excerpt, but necessary here. There's hardly anything
else in Vineland [save perhaps the overall "tone" of the book] that so
resembles "Against the Day." I'm thinking of the CoC's "underground"
trips: " . . . rising a wall of earth each side of the narrowing
road, in which tree roots twisted overhead now, and mud, once
glistening, had grown darker. . ." There's also third-world [Native
American] mythology and payback. I'm thinking of Frank's little peyote
trip with El Espinero & Estrella, the resonances of that tale with
Brock's journey to the underworld. It's also the best "Fairy Tale" in
Vineland, with the Karmic Law of Fairy Tales fully in effect in both
storys:
"It's Brock Vond, man. In person. His Huey's on the hillside, his
ride is in the creek."
"Time to lock and load, Blood."
"Let's hit it, Vato."
Brock had been vague over the phone about how he'd started
off in a helicopter and ended up in a car. He hadn't been aware
of any transition. But it had been an unusual sort of car, almost
without compression, unable to get over any but the easiest
grades until at last it slowed to a halt and would start no more.
And there was the telephone beside the road, and the lighted
sign said DO IT, so he had picked up, and there was Vato at the
other end. He felt in some way detached, unable to focus or,
oddly, to remember much before he found himself at the wheel
of the failing, unfamiliar car, whose battery now finally went
dead as the headlamps dimmed weakly into darkness.
At last he saw the lights in the distance, like running lights of a
ship out on the sea . . . there was nothing else in the landscape
by now—Brock could scarcely see the road. The F350, El Mil
Amores, came nearer and louder, and finally stopped for him.
"Hop in, Blood."
"What about the car?"
"What car?"
Brock looked around but couldn't see the car anywhere. He
climbed in next to Blood and they started off along the nearly
lightless road. Soon the surface changed to dirt, and trees
began to press in on either side. As he drove, Vato told an old
Yurok story about a man from Turip, about five miles up the
Klamath from the sea, who lost the young woman he loved and
pursued her into the country of death. When he found the boat
of Illa'a, the one who ferried the dead across the last river, he
pulled it out of the water and smashed out the bottom with a
stone. And for ten years no one in the world died, because
there was no boat to take them across.
"Did he get her back?" Brock wanted to know. No, uh-uh. But he
returned to his life in Turip, where everyone thought he'd died,
and became famous, and told his story many times. He was
always careful to warn against the Ghosts' Trail leading to
Tsorrek, the land of death, traveled by so many that it was
already chest-deep. Once down under the earth, there would
be no way to return. As he stared out the window, Brock
realized that around them all this time had been rising a wall of
earth each side of the narrowing road, in which tree roots
twisted overhead now, and mud, once glistening, had grown
darker, till only its smell was present. And soon, ahead, came
the sound of the river, echoing, harsh, ceaseless, and beyond it
the drumming, the voices, not chanting together but
remembering, speculating, arguing, telling tales, uttering
curses, singing songs, all the things voices do, but without ever
allowing the briefest breath of silence. All these voices, forever.
Across the river Brock could see lights, layer after layer,
crookedly ascending, thickly crowded dwellings, heaped one
on the other. In the smoking torch- and firelight he saw people
dancing. An old woman and an old man approached. The man
carried objects in his hands that Brock couldn't make out
clearly. Then he began to notice, all around in the gloom,
bones, human bones, skulls and skeletons. "What is it?" he
asked. "Please."
"They'll take out your bones," Vato explained. "The bones have
to stay on this side. The rest of you goes over. You look a lot
different, and you move funny for a while, but they say you'll
adjust. Give these third-worlders a chance, you know, they can
be a lotta fun."
"So long, Brock," said Blood.
VL, 378/380
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