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And if you think they did, I guess you never read any history. Because what they didn’t just grab—I mean “confiscate”—the Catholic Church “earned” over hundreds of years by scaring the shit out of people. I mean, literally the holy living shit. Want an example? Among a lot of other sleazy cons, they pulled a scam that none of the con artists I know would ever have the brass balls to even try—there are limits to what you ought to do to scam somebody out of their money. But the church—to be fair, most churches—they don’t care about those limits. And their big fund-raising project was a perfect example.
It worked like this. A guy from the Vatican comes around and tells everybody, “Guess what! You are mos def going to Hell.” And they’ve got pictures of Hell, and really scary descriptions, and they make it absolutely terrifying. And “everybody” is mostly peasants who don’t know shit except how to grow enough food to survive. This wasn’t easy at the time. Everybody who wasn’t growing food had a sword, supposedly to protect you, and you had to let them take some of your food. And of course, the priests had to have their cut, because they were so busy praying for you all the time they couldn’t grow their own. And then some gang of bandits would roll in, and they’d take more. And if there’s any left at all, you might—might—have enough left to feed yourself and your family.
But now this guy from the Vatican comes around and says, “Yo, you’re going to Hell.” And it sounds bad, but what is that anyway? The guy says, “Ever burn your finger? So imagine that all over your whole body, inside and out. And if your finger hurts, it’s over in a day or so, right? But it doesn’t work like that in Hell.
“You always wanted to live forever, right? So now you do. And every single second, from now until the end of time, you are feeling that burn, but a million times worse, all over your body, inside and out, and it never gets any better and it never ends—I mean forever, ’cause it’s Hell. And all because you’re a sinner.”
“I am? Really?”
“Sure—you can’t help it.”
“Well, shit, I don’t wanna burn forever.”
And the guy from the Vatican gives you a really kind smile. “I can help,” he says. “Buy one of these things—it’s called a papal indulgence, and it means the Pope himself forgives you for your sin.”
“Really? What sin?”
“Doesn’t matter—this sucker takes care of all of ’em! Isn’t that great?”
And so you buy it, because Hell scares the shit out of you. And in those days, if you were a peasant, that means you buy it with food. And if you don’t have enough left now to make it through the winter—so what? Dying of starvation is temporary. Heaven is permanent, and you just bought a ticket! Guaranteed!
See what I mean about no self-respecting criminal would touch it? And they did it all over Europe, thousands of times, until they’d raised a fortune—maybe two or three fortunes.
But oh—hang on, you say. That is totally immoral. Those guys couldn’t have been from the Vatican—not really. I mean, all those priests and bishops and cardinals are totally holy dudes, and they’d never allow that. These indulgence salesmen couldn’t possibly be from the Vatican.
Yeah, they were. Really. Sent by the Pope himself. From the eleventh century and on, all is forgiven, even if you haven’t done it yet, for a little cash on the barrelhead. But the scam really got going with Leo X. He was a son of Lorenzo Medici, and you have to know that family was capable of just about anything, as long as there was money in it. Leo was no different.
Pope Leo X wanted to raise money—and not so he could feed the poor or take care of lepers. Nope. He wanted money so they could throw up some more pretty buildings and fill them with pretty art. And that’s God’s truth.
And another truth? That makes the Vatican just exactly the kind of rich, entitled, self-loving, sleazy, useless entity I truly get off on taking things from. It’s what I live for—grabbing stuff from people too rich and privileged to deserve it. If anything could give me the last big boost of inspiration, it was thinking about taking it from the Vatican.
But yeah—one last truth? I wasn’t going to take it from them this time. Because it was a wall. And that just plain can’t be done.
18
So after three days of no more than grinding my teeth and staring at Monique and trying not to think about what Bernadette was going to do to me, I finally figured out that I had to go somewhere alone. I wanted to stay, be close to Monique. Just in case, you know, she changed her mind? Which, let’s face it, women do all the time. But after three days, she hadn’t changed her mind about me. In fact, she seemed to get more pissed the longer I went without thinking up something brilliant. I mean, she didn’t come up with anything either, but I’m not stupid enough to try to tell her that.
So finally, I’d had enough of coming up empty and suffering with turquoise testicles. I told her I needed some alone time, and she didn’t exactly beg me to stay. And I took off for a little place I’d been saving for a rainy day. It was just
a cabin, stuck in the middle of thirty-five acres of woods and not much else, right on Lake Erie. I had made a few improvements, of course—stronger walls, doors, windows, and roof, a bunch of electronic and mechanical toys to discourage visitors, that kind of thing. I have a couple of places like it, scattered around in quiet, isolated spots, places where it’s hard to find me and even harder to get at me. I can afford them, and when I need a safe and quiet place, it’s money well spent. Plus, this place was near the facility where Mom was stashed at the moment, just a couple of hours away, so I could visit once or twice. I like to drop in and hold her hand whenever I can. I mean, she’s my mom, and all the family I’ve got.
I’m pretty sure she can’t tell the difference between me sitting there holding her hand and me five thousand miles away. That’s what all the doctors say, and I’ve got no reason to think they’re wrong. But I do it anyway. Doctors have been wrong before. And who knows? Things can change. I’m not holding my breath. Mom’s been like this an awful long time now. And they’ve told me the chances that she’ll ever come out of it are so close to zero the difference doesn’t make any difference, too, and I’m just throwing away my money. But they don’t object very much when I pay them, either.
So anyway, I left Monique in Manhattan and drove west to my cabin. It’s around 570 miles, and I pulled through the gate a little after dark and stopped at what looks like some kind of power-company box. It isn’t. It’s my security monitor. It’s covered by a hidden camera, one of many on my perimeter. I used my pass code and opened the box to see if I’d had any visitors. I hadn’t had any. The state of mind I was in, that actually seemed depressing. Of course it isn’t. I like being alone, mostly, and right now I really needed to be.
All my little alarms and traps said I was. Nobody was waiting for me, nobody had been here, so I drove on down the dirt road to the little house. It was a nice drive, around half a mile, and it let me remember the place a little. It was a good backup for my place in the Ozarks. Just backup, though, because honestly? The mountains are better than the lakefront, and the Ozarks are always better than Ohio. But this place was secure and good enough for now. I’d only been here a couple of times, mostly to check it out and then secure it after I bought it. But it had everything I needed—music, books, Internet, clothes, and food, mostly MREs. I’d drive into town and get fresh food tomorrow, but there was plenty of dried stuff for now. So I had an MRE, cracked open a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Scotch, and sat on the porch looking out at the lake.
It was quiet, I was alone, and my brain stayed empty. At least the mosquitoes were glad to see me. They came at me like they hadn’t eaten in months. I got tired of feeding them pretty quick and went inside. I was still restless, cranked up from the drive, so I put on some music, something that might soothe me enough that I could either sleep or think. I picked Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert. Perfect for what I had in mind. Aside from the fact that the music is totally dope, it helps me drop into kind of an active trance state—sort of zoned out but totally awake and sharper mentally.
And anyway, I love the album, because it’s a live recording that should never have happened. It’s solo piano, and I have a thing for music made by solo instruments. Bach, Joe Pass, whatever. Something about just having one instrument to think about gets into me and sends me to a good place. Keith Jarrett is one of the best, and The Köln Concert is one of his best. No distractions, no drums or anything else. Just the man and a truly crappy piano. Seriously—the piano sucked. And Jarrett was exhausted when he got to Cologne and was in major pain from a bad back. He took one look at the piece of junk he was supposed to play and said no way and went back to his car. But the promoter was kind of special: a seventeen-year-old girl who thought Jarrett was the absolute greatest thing ever. She actually got him out of his car and back onto the stage with that crappy piano. He sits down, starts playing—and it’s maybe one of the greatest improvised concerts ever. A great example of making chicken soup from chicken shit.
I had a top-notch sound system in the cabin, and I was way the fuck out in the middle of the woods, so I cranked it up and just let it rip. That’s inspired me before, kicked loose some wicked ideas. That’s really the trick to making the gray matter hum. You have to distract it, take it offline, make it think life is a really good idea and full of peace and love and puppies and pink sunsets. For me, music is the way to do that. And I love just about all music, as long as it’s done well. I had one great high school teacher who showed me the door in and taught me that all music comes from the same place. You just have to let go of all the labels and listen. I mean, really fucking listen. And if you can do that it doesn’t matter if it’s gamelan or Gershwin or Grateful Dead.
But some of it is better for yelling and throwing stuff, and some of it is better for thinking. This Jarrett recording was absolutely excellent for soothing my unconscious into behaving. It’s worked before. This time it didn’t do shit. I listened through to the end anyway, sipping the Scotch and feeling tragic. When the music was over and nothing had happened, I gave up and went to bed.
I slept late. I guess all the pain, anxiety, and jet lag finally caught up to me. It was almost noon when I dragged my ass out of bed. I poked around in my supplies for something to eat. It was all stuff with a long shelf life, and just about as appetizing as eating the furniture. But there was some cereal and some canned milk, and I thought I could probably choke it down. I sat down and stared at it for a while, trying to talk myself into eating it.
I was still sitting there feeling like shit when my alarm went off.
