Having my way with Ulysses

The problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised.

Reach down. A lil mo. So. Draw back your glave. Hot and hairy, hugon, is your hand! Here's where the falskin begins. Smoos as an infams.Holy Mother Public Relations, Inc.
10th Heaven, Empyrean
Meeting Minutes

Date: November 29th
Time: 2:28 am
Location: 10th Heaven Empyrean building: Mary’s office. Also the hallway outside of Mary’s office between her office and the toilet.
Purpose: Crisis mode. Damage control. Situation analysis. Family meeting.


Attendees:
Holy Mary: Mother of God, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church, Mother of divine grace, Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of good counsel, Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Savior, Virgin most merciful, Mirror of justice, Cause of our joy, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, Queen of Confessors, Queen of the family, Queen of Peace, and Queen most forgiving. Also Jesus, Martha, and Joseph.

Agenda:

1. Damage control full crisis mode.

2. Find out if what we have here is an actual crisis or just a situation we can handle like others we no longer speak of (e.g.: Lost track of Jesus’ physical location when he was twelve years old. Got him back, though. Eventually. Also: virginity).

Discussion:

1. Jesus stated that although Martha lives here now, does she have to be here for this? Martha pointed out that somebody has to hold back Mary’s hair when she pukes, which could be any time now. Both then were silent, contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal flesh of theirhisnothers fellowfaces. Jesus welcomed Martha to stay and help in whatever capacity she likes.

2. Mary says we stole the damn thing a long time ago. Is there somewhere she can lie down or something? Jesus said it was stolen again. Mary wants to know why Jesus didn’t just get rid of the damn thing, it was only a bit of dried prune under all that crystal and gold. Jesus said he thought it was pretty. It reminds him of the ultimate mortality of fruit.

3. Topic: if people discover that the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata Rome until we stole it, that the divine shrunken dried up scrap we shoved into that little jar is actually made from an old plum and is not the foreskin of an eight day old boy, we might be facing a game changing crisis of faith we haven’t seen since the Reformation. Ideas floated: steal it back; uphold the excommunication of anybody who speaks of (and we should add onto that: even thinks about) the holy foreskin; immediate circumcision of Jesus and let’s get a new little jar to put it in. The thieves might have the fake, but we can produce the real thing whenever we like. Jesus says no we cannot produce the real thing whenever we like.

4. Mary can’t remember who was the mohel who circumcised Jesus? Maybe we should call him in here. Joseph suggests if Mary wasn’t so obliterated drunk right now she’d remember. And if she didn’t insist on hiring her drinking buddies for everything then maybe we would have had a decent mohel who would have finished the job in the first place. Somebody union even. Martha suggested Joseph focus on his duties. Jesus considered turning Mary’s water into wine.

5. Martha wants to know how it is nobody noticed that Jesus was never circumcised. Joseph said who looked? They never had to change his diapers. He was the perfect baby. So cute too. Quiet. Slept through the night. A good eater. Never cried. Took care of himself, really. Terrible two’s were a holy bitch, but he was such a perfect baby.

Action Items:

1. Somebody make coffee. We need Mary a bit closer to sober for this. Martha? Joseph to make coffee.

2. Martha suggested we not turn this thing into a bigger crisis than is necessary. We must analyze the situation as it evolves and we absolutely cannot be the first ones to signal that we think this is a crisis. It might not be a crisis, just a situation. We cannot look like we are on the defensive in any way. Perhaps we should perform the circumcision ourselves? Mohelim can’t keep secrets. Jesus to clean spot on floor where he just vomited. Also, Mary could use a clean up while you are at it.

3. Martha suggested we never lie to the public about this. We can, however, consider honest misstatements. For example, we might tell everybody that the real foreskin ascended bodily to heaven, but got stuck around Saturn on the way. Joseph to compile a list from Martha’s dictation of possible honest misstatements to be used as talking points. Joseph will check Mary’s schedule and compile a list of possible public appearances she can make on Jesus’ behalf: we think Mary will want herself out front on this so the kid won’t screw it up. Martha to monitor Mary’s fitness for public events as her current ability to get her shit together seems dubious.

4. Jesus to get immediate circumcision so we can produce physical proof if necessary. Jesus first to research the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity, and degree of severity of ongoing crisis (possibly just a situation and not a crisis) before anybody even thinks of coming at him with a knife.

5. Martha to sharpen a knife.

6. Joseph to get Matthew in here for consultation re: financial impact of crisis. Possibly still just a situation and not yet a crisis. And for Christ’s sake, let’s keep the stockholders in the dark as long as we can. Joseph to contact Thomas Moore’s assistant re: Moore’s schedule asap. We need a lawyer on this.

7. We think Mary said we must be the ones in constant control of the flow and formulation of public opinion. Hard to understand her from the toilet with all that hair in her face. Maybe nobody will care that the relic was never real. Get some people on all the other major relics, can’t have people opening those boxes too: Christ knows what they might find. Joseph to deploy guardian angels to Thomas Aquinas’ skull , Augustine’s elbow, all of the true crosses, and the piece of Jesus’ foreskin in Coulombs Abbey, France. Tell them to take their flaming swords with them.

8. Martha suggested we remain calm. These things sometimes burn out faster than shooting stars.

Minutes typed by: Joseph
Approved by: Martha

 
 
 

Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods.

And now, O Alcibiades, the divine thing having been performed, tell me, are the girls and the youths and the philosophers as fond of thee as ever?10:42 pm

Scene: [Around the ideal form of a table sit Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pistritus, and a mirror reflecting an even more ideal form of a table around which sit Glycera, Chloe, Phyllis and a mirror reflecting ooh look at that table, way more ideal, around which sit Anemone, Posie, Echo in a mirror, and a mirror reflecting ok now I like this one best, wait, can I see that first table again? reflecting Mars, Venus, and Juno and a mirror reflecting turtles all the way down.  On each ideal form of a table sits a container of plums. Some of the containers are coffins, some are eggs.]

Glaucon: [Brotherly, breathing on the mirror while the others stare hard at the plums] On behalf of Alcibiades, for the fulfillment of his one great goal, I call them to life across the waters of Lethe.

Juno: [Chewing a plum] You hear that?  Venus, get off of Mars, we have to troop to the call.

Anemone: Poor ghosts. I really anticipate disaster here.

Echo: Disaster here.

Posie: [Carving into the table with a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife reminiscent of Roman history]  e ar space ach e ar e period.

Alcibiades: Anything yet?

Anemone: He is so expectant!

Echo: expectant!

Posie: [Carving]   tea ay en tea exclamation point.

Glycera: [Wearing a frock of muslin and yellow shoes]  He wants me again.  Already.

Phyllis: Well don’t go.  That man would make his own mother an orphan.

Chloe: Isn’t his father the son of his own mother?

Anemone: He heard her say that.  Look his face is growing dark.

Echo: Growing dark.

Posie: eye en gee space dee ay ar kay period.

Pisistratus:  All is lost.  I’m leaving.

Glaucon: Stay, we have all the mirrors aligned in perfect harmonic proportions.  This will work.

Pisistratus: It will work if we bribe somebody.

Alcibiades: Glycera’s soul is far away.  What if she won’t assume her etheric double?

Juno: Ok, place your bets. Will she assume her etheric double?  I say yes.  A whore like that? Come on.

Mars: I say yes too. Last time she had her leg up over our left shoulder.  I could watch that again 16 times in a row.

Venus: Alcibiades’ left shoulder. She won’t.  He’ll beg until he’s black in the face but I’ll have to incarnate for her.  Where’s my ruby dress?

Phyllis: Huzzah! I think Venus will go for you. I wonder if she has a ride?  She can take Aristotle, he’s parked out back.

Juno: Venus your bet’s a throwaway.  Just listen to her heart beating! Can hear it two mirrors over.

Glycera: I guess I can go, but I won’t use a condom. I hate condoms. Well at least I had my period last week so there’s that.  He bites, though.  It’s off putting.

Chloe: You’re fertile!  Oh you’ll have a nice ripe egg for him.

Glycera: Oh fabulous, I’ll get pregnant.  Great.

Anemone: Will she?

Echo: She?

Posie:  capital ess ach e question mark.

Glycera: What do you think, ladies?

Phyllis: It’s a holocaust; you’ll get burned.

Chloe:  Yes she’ll burn. The young green shoots of new plumtrees require putrefaction first. End it now and go to him, it will be the beginning of something.  And the Gods are involved, so there will be mirror effects all over the place.  Lose yourself in it.  I mean, look at these plums.  They’re dying. They won’t be fully empowered until putrefied. The tomb of death is the womb of new life.

Glycera: Ok, here I go.

Juno: You hear that? Let’s get started.

Juno, Venus, and Mars: [Breathing on the mirror] We call them to life across the waters of Lethe.

He gets the plums, and I the plumstones.

It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

8:54 pm

But I suppose a plumstone is a seed, so it can return a plum.  History repeats itself.  The year returns.  Plumstone becomes tree becomes plum.  Don’t swallow the stone, it will tear your guts out.  But the new plum, is it the same plum?  Plum metempsychosis perhaps.  O sweet little, you don’t know how nice you tasted.  Yum yum.  See you next time around.  The new I want but: nothing new under the sun.  Self similar but not the same.  Only once it comes.  Returning: not the same.  Plum, plumstone, tree, plum.  Depends on where will it land.  Sand, nothing grows.  Fall at 32 feet per second per second, then rise little tree.  Resurrection.  Are you not happy in your ground plumstone?  Ba.

Quicker, darlint! On now. Dare it. Let there be life.

12:56 pm

He didn’t see it.   He suggested I name it It is a God who Gave us this Peace.  People always quote the first page.  Doesn’t anybody read on?  Tityrus worships Rome with his speech to his exiled friend; that’s the god he means.  Early Virgil, still a masterpiece, but it doesn’t work for the story as I told it.  I named it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums.  You get it.  The elements compound and compound and that’s where to find the story.  Accretion.  What do you want to read?  Over and again it is: once upon a time and every day until one day and because of this and because of this until finally and ever since that day.  Excretion!  If that’s the story you want to consume then open wide, we’ll spoon it right in.  Here’s the airplane coming in for a landing.  I talked about two vestals aged 50 and 53 out for the day.  You could see them.  Midwives.  I filled it and filled it.  You could even smell them.  Childless and condemned to be so forevermore.  Carrying with them a misbirth with a trailing navelcord.  Planting their plum stones per second per second onto concrete.  Too tired to see the view.  Too tired to look up or down or speak and spent their savings to get there.  See them?  They’ll be sore tomorrow.  And for their aches they use Lourdes water.  What more than what I? What else could I?  And I think it’s funny.  Even if it did remind me of that time with the alley girl.  Crawford didn’t realize I was done either.  And Professor MacHugh didn’t see it.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll include it in a short story collection.

He tapped his chest sadly

He had flickered up and flinnered down into a drug and drunkery addict, growing megalomane of a loose past.11:13 am

Yeah well, forgive me for saying.  Not to speak ill of, you know.  You understand I’m sure.  But come on.  It was no heart attack and why tiptoe around it.  Ok, yes.  Funeral and all.  Must not upset.  Still.  It was an o.d. and we all know it.  Where do you think his money went?  Check his arm.  Accidental, possibly.  And you may be shocked but at least he didn’t suffer.  A moment and it is done.  Like dying in his sleep.  The best death.  But enough talk of bad hearts and don’t look at me like that.  Let’s call a plumb a plumb.