Letters

These ceremonies will not take place. The fireworks will occur rather earlier than the Water Music: about 7:00 A.M., at sunrise. Charges of TNT, appropriately placed in the already opening foundation seams and other key structural members, will drop this architectural and pedagogical obscenity into its own foundation hole and rebury the Algonquin relics, together with some newer, paleface ones: a future enrichment of the past by the present. This demolition exercise, unlike the Great Chesapeake Bay Bridge Plot of 1967, has been competently engineered with the aid of construction blueprints stolen, along with explosives and detonators, from Mensch Masonry, Inc., and with the presumably expert advice of the late “Red Baron” André Castine.

Alias A. B. Cook VI? I shall never know. Erstwhile threatener with blackmail of his own fiancée? (I asked Jane quickly at our latest — and final — talk, hoping to tuck up that dangling thread of our Author’s plot.) Perhaps before their firm affiancement changed his strategy, or for some other, more complex reason? I shall never know. Some things Jane was “not ready to talk about yet.” So be it, my dear, and adieu.

On the bridge in ’67 and again at Fort McHenry two weeks ago, I frustrated Drew’s intention; I shall not again. At Barataria Lodge on Bloodsworth Island last week, I did him the favor of saving his life; he will return that favor this morning, unknowingly, by ending mine. It’s a few days past my equinoctial deadline for winding up 13 R, the last installment of my life’s recycling; but flexibility & leisurely improvisation have been of the essence of this reenactment, and shall be to its end. Yesterday Now!

6:15 A.M.: I have spotted what look to me like the late Reg Prinz’s cameramen, with portable equipment, down by the empty dedication platform, filming the “cornerstone” (which has but one engraved face, the tower being round) by Available Light, of which there is more & more as the setting moon lights up the Chesapeake to westward while the approaching sunrise lightens the Choptank to eastward. They ducked for cover when a campus patrol car cruised by. Should they enter the tower (or stay where they are), they have about 45 minutes to live. If I try to warn them, Drew is likely to intercept me and thwart my Plans for the Morning. If I succeed in warning them, they may blow the whistle and thwart Drew’s plans as well.

Now they have reappeared from under the platform. The Associate Indian speaks with them, gesticulates; but he & Drew do not Sequester them with the night watchman. Perhaps they are in on the operation, either from its inception or as of now, and are merely discussing camera angles. Not a bad replacement for their confiscated footage of 9/16!

Now all three take cover again — no, all four: there’s Drew with them — as an unmarked VW Beetle drives slowly up and parks behind the platform. Intelligence Types? Undergraduate lovers or other Innocent Bystanders? Complications.

6:35: The driver has left that parked VW and moved out of my sight toward the base of the tower. Male; couldn’t recognize. Drew & Co. have reemerged, conferred — a touch anxiously, I daresay — and perhaps agreed to disagree concerning the slaughter of the innocent. The Associate Indian now withdraws to a safe remove with the cameramen, and Drew hurries into the building: risking his life, it appears, either to save an Innocent Bystander’s or to prevent a very daring I.T. from saving Schott’s Tower.

6:45: I (and perhaps some others) have 15 minutes or less to live, in which interval I must close this Codicil, attempt to go down & pop it into the cornerstone, and hurry back inside, not necessarily to here.

Hold on: there goes Drew, alone & at a trot, over towards the others. Well, now. Don’t be distressed, lad; you did your best.

6:50: Someone is barreling up from belowstairs. It almost sounds as if he’s got the stuck elevator working: there’s an electrical hum or buzz. All I can hope, sir, is that you’re a culpable I.T. and not an I.E., for you’re about to die. No chance now to deposit this as planned. Improvise, old attorney! Can I make, um, a thick paper airplane of it & sail it out from here at the last possible minute, towards my young friend?

Such a racket outside my door! Somebody really wants into this belfry.

6:53: Good-bye, Polly; good-bye, Jane; good-bye, Drew. Hello, Author; hello, Dad. Here comes the sun. Lights! Cameras! Action!

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF (& of the Intrinsic Value of Everything, even of Nothingness) I hereunto set my hand & seal this 26th day of September, 1969.

T.A.

S: Jacob Horner to Todd Andrews. The end of Der Wiedertraum.

Remobilization Farm

Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada

Thursday, September 4, 1969

Mr. Todd Andrews

Andrews, Bishop, & Andrews, Attorneys

Court Lane

Cambridge, Maryland 21613 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Andrews: