The Illuminatus! Trilogy

While far above the highest mountains in California another aspect of my consciousness soars like winged poetry: and knows, somehow, more about what is coming than Dr. Troll's seismograph: for I am the last, truly the last. The ecologists are right: mine is not merely an endangered but nearly an extinct species, and my senses have been sharpened beyond instinct by these last years. I circle around, I circle around, I soar: I bank: I float. I am, rare moment for me! not thinking about fish, for my belly is full at present I circle around, circle around, thinking only about the soaring, the freedom, and, more vaguely, about the bad vibes coming up from below. Must you have a name? Call me Hah' One, then: haliaeetus leucocephalus the last: symbol once of imperial Rome and now of imperial America: of which I neither know nor care, for all I know is the freedom of my estate and about that the Romans and the Americans have never had aught but the most confused and distorted ideas. Wearing my long green feathers I circle around. I am Hali One and I scream, not with rage or with fear or with anger; I scream with ecstasy, the terrible joy of my very existence, and the scream echoes from mountain to mountain to another mountain, resonating onward and onward, a sound that only another of my species could understand, and none are left to hear it. But still I scream: the shriek of Shiva the Destroyer, true face of Vishnu the Preserver and Brahma the Creator: for my scream is not of life or death but of life-in-death, and I am equally contemptuous of Perri and of August Personage, of squirrels and of men, and of all lesser birds who cannot ascend to my height and know the agony and supremacy of my freedom.

No- because they broke Billie Freshette slow and ugly and they broke Marilyn Monroe fast and bright like lightning They broke Daddy and they broke Mama but shit like I mean it this time they ain't going to break me No even if it's greater with Simon than with any other man even if he knows more than any other man I've had No it can't be him and it can't even be Hagbard who seems to be the king of the circus the very Ringmaster and keeper of the final secret No it can't be any man and it most certainly by Jesus and by Christ it can't be going back to Mister Charlie's police force No it's dark like my own skin and dark like the destiny they've inflicted on me because of my skin but whatever it is I can only find it alone God the time that rat bit me while I was sleeping Daddy screaming until he. was almost crying "I'll kill the fucking landlord I'll kill the motherfucker I'll cut his white heart out" until Mama finally calmed him No he died a little then No it would have been better if he had killed the landlord No even if they caught him and they would have caught him No even if he died in the goddam electric chair and we went on welfare No a man shouldn't let that happen to his children he shouldn't be realistic and practical No no matter how good it is no matter how wonderful the come it will always be there in the back of my head that Simon is white No white radical white revolutionary white lover it doesn't matter it still comes up white and it's not acid and it's not a mood I mean shit you have to decide sooner or later Are you on somebody else's trip or are you on your own No and I 'can't join God's Lightning or even what's left of the old Women's Lib I mean shit that poetry Simon quoted is all wrong No it's not true that no man is an island No the truth is every man is an island and especially every woman is an island and even more every black woman is an island

On August 23, 1928, Rancid, the butler in the Drake Mansion on old Beacon Hill, reported a rather distressing fact to his employer. "Good Lord Harry," old Drake cried at first, "is he turning Papist now?" His second question was less rhetorical: "You're absolutely sure?"

"There is no doubt," Rancid replied. "The maids showed me the socks, sir. And the shoes."

That night there was a rattier strangulated attempt at conversation in the mansion's old library. "Are you going back to Harvard?" "Not yet."

"Are you at least going to try another damned alienist?" "They call themselves psychiatrists these days, Father. I don't think so."

"Dammit, Robert, what did happen in the war?" "Many things. They all made profits for our bank, though, so don't worry about them." "Are you turning Red?"

"I see no profit there. The State of Massachusetts killed two innocent men today for holding opinions of that sort." "Innocent my Aunt Fanny. Robert, I know the judge personally-"

"And he believes what the friend of a banker should believe."

There was a long pause, and old Drake crushed out a cigar he had hardly started. "Robert, you know you're sick." "Yes."

"What is this latest thing- glass and nails in your shoes? Your mother would die if she knew."