Repressed emotions flowered on the stage. Lonely hearts could fall in love with the hero. The sociopaths could beat up the minor characters and murder the major characters.
Somewhere in the outer edges of the action Raven laughed. Hullabaloo! he called.
“Raven!” Sonny called again. He reached out to touch one of the actors. The woman flinched. She had not expected Sonny’s touch. It wasn’t in her script.
Sonny jerked back. He had not expected to feel flesh when his mind told him that the images being projected were composed of light.
He had never backed away from an encounter with Raven, but right then he felt he had fallen into a game that was more than he expected. Raven was in charge again. Raven the director. And Sonny? A petty player on the stage, one to be manipulated by the unfolding story.
Anthrax and smallpox, dirty nuclear bombs, flying airplanes into public buildings, and other atrocities aimed at the destruction of civilization had not worked. But enough images with their latent chaotic message could garble the nervous system. This was clear to Sonny as the audience in the darkened theater dove into the action and disappeared in the void.
Like a dream. But entering the dream without a guide could prove extremely dangerous.
Sonny! Raven called from the middle of his fantasy. Come on in.
Sonny turned and faced Raven. Handsome as the devil on Sunday at church, he presented an imposing figure. The women flocked into his new, light-based reality, thinking they were the anima to his animus, and he the answer to their bewildering dreams. The young men, those lost long ago to the chaos of the world, entered to be warriors at his side.
20
On either side of Raven stood two lovely girls dressed in satin white with lace fringes, white gloves, and vaporous veils on heads so innocent and lovely they brought tears to a man’s eyes. Each girl held a prayer book in one hand; in the other hung a white mother-of-pearl rosary. They were obviously dressed for their First Holy Communion, and they looked up at Sonny with such longing that their gaze tore through Sonny’s heart, deep into his soul, which expressed its grief with a deep sigh, a sigh that startled those waiting to jump into the laser-projected reality.
What has he seen? people whispered. And why does he tremble and grow pale?
My daughters! Sonny cried, a cry that came like the roar of a tiger that had just seen its mate burned alive by hunters who cared naught for transubstantiation, and what that might mean to a person’s endlessly wandering soul.
The cry, loud and painful, echoed in the darkened movie house, its reverberations swayed the quantum particles of light, and even Raven’s triumphant face for a moment reflected dread.
Sonny had finally seen the images of the two spirits lifted from Rita’s womb, two daughters he would have raised, taken to school and on trips to the sacred ceremonies and magic mountains of the state, playful girls who would run to hug and kiss him after an afternoon of splashing in the water of the river, the Ganges that flowed through the valley, two who would sing and dance into young womanhood, with all the pain and joy that meant. Two to play piano and guitar, hear the cuentos of the ancestors, pray to saint and kachina alike, learn the old ways, and grow to bless his middle years. Two whose future he would watch unfold, even as his hair turned gray and he, abuelito, stooped to pick up his grandchildren.
Two dressed in the innocence of Communion white.
Naomi had pointed the way, prophesying the egg in the water would reveal the daughters who stole his heart. Now it was up to him to take them back.
Beelzebub! Sonny hurled the first insult that came to mind, thinking that if Raven could compose the movie’s reality he could also hold the girls prisoners.
A murderous desire filled Sonny. He would kill Raven, even if that meant killing part of his own psyche, images that had hounded him since a time when the deepest seas were crystalline.
Sonny, no! the old man cried. It’s a trick!
Of course it was a trick, as had been made clear in all the stories told about Raven. His taunting was to be expected, along with his sick way of drawing Sonny into his circle, just as he was now enticing an entire generation into the world of false images.
But rage clouded Sonny’s good sense, and he didn’t recognize the tools of the new technology as the same smoking mirrors used by the Aztec gods long ago to present false images. Tezcatlipoca came to mind.
Sonny struck at Raven, but the vampire who sucked not human blood but human energy protected himself by unfurling silken wings and tripping Sonny by stepping on his ankle, the same foot Sonny had broken years ago steer wrestling.
Sonny reached out to grab the girls, his daughters, one in each arm, hoping he was in time to pull them out of the laser fire, which burned like halogen, diatomic molecules gone wild.
But they were gone, evaporated, as the controllers of the projectors, Raven’s cronies, expertly changed the scene, and in an instant Sonny was no longer in the midst of the miner’s strike, but alone in a wide and empty desert of white sand where the restless wind blowing across the dunes cried like La Llorona as she wandered aimlessly down dry arroyos. Nothing lived in that desolation except a few spindly yucca plants, the lotus of the desert, flowers on which bodhisattvas dared not sit.
Do you like the movie? Raven asked. And where would you like to go next? The Iberian peninsula where some of your most recent ancestors lived, or Mexico where your Indian blood flows, or the court of Peter the Great, Napoleon’s France, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the founding of Santa Fe—Ah no, you’ve been there. I can’t think of a place you haven’t been in your dreams. Unless it’s this new reality.
He gestured at the virtual reality at his command. This is it, Sonny. The new soma holiday. No more of those chemical highs, no more ecstasy drugs, none of that caca the kids learn to mix from the Internet, just the world of images to dazzle you. Think of it, Sonny, the image is now returned to its rightful place as mover of the universe, ahem, as it always was.
Control, Sonny, he continued. This is the way to control the world. I give the kids a new fad every day, violent video games, action movies, images they mistake for knowledge.
Sonny shuddered. If Raven’s tricks could move him from scene to scene, where would he wind up next? And why had the beautiful daughters suddenly disappeared? He had seen them, and for that he gave thanks. Now he had to learn to play Raven’s game. Be coyote.
You would have me believe you’re my brother, he said to Raven. Like the yin and yang enclosed in a circle, or the DNA double helix, the staircase whose genetic sequence has been reduced to four letters. ACTG. The four sacred laws of the dharma wheel.
Or the two snakes that bite each other’s tails and become the circle, Raven added, for he loved to play at the analogies of life. The caduceus of Hermes, your guardian angel.
I pray to Santo Menos, Sonny thought, the patron saint of the Chicanos. And to my mother’s Virgencita, la Guadalupana. La Wonder Woman of liberated Chicanas.
And Sonny did pray. With a deep breath he asked for guidance from the ancestors. No coyote warrior ever went into battle without asking for help. He did not pray to Santiago, El Matamoros, the blood-letting saint, instead he prayed to San Isidro and La Virgen.
This time you’ve gone too far, Sonny said, and moved without a sound toward Raven.
Raven placed one hand on his chin. I do what I have to do to gain ascendancy. Once done, the past can’t be righted. Not even in the dreams you’ve learned to control. You see, the shaman is trained to help others. Seeking lost souls, he dares to enter the depths of Hades, the Mictlan of the Mesoamericans, Hell of the Christians, which by any other name are aspects of the psyche. Trained to help others, that’s the key, Sonny. But you are not trained to help yourself. And so, I break the seventh seal, and leave you to wander for future eternities in this wasteland, a desert created by the genius of our kind. Here you will sense a time that does not flow, separated from those you love, never again to feel human touch or comfort.
>
He raised his carved sword, the scimitar that could slice the body of a man in two, create duality from the unity all men seek, for only by destroying wholeness could Raven win.
The question was, Did he have this power or was he bragging?
The soul cannot be erased from the memory of our kind, Sonny answered, and Raven clenched his teeth.
It can!
No, it returns and returns. So I will seek my daughters, he said with confidence.
They are illusions, Raven shouted.
I won’t give up.
Your obsession is your death, Raven clearly pronounced.
Was obsession the ego’s trap? Prajna had warned him he was too attached to the world, and it was the ego and its power, its desire for worldly goods, that tripped the man. But what of that dark residue beneath the ego, the anima who always visited Sonny, the feminine entity of every man’s psyche, the strange and seductive woman of his dreams, analogous to the living flesh, Rita, her warm embrace, her breath hot on his neck, the warm ooze of her sex when they made love.
Was all this illusion? No, there had to be a reality that clothed itself in tree, stone, fish and fowl, and especially a reality that came in the body of the beloved. Else what’s a life for?
The Zia Stone, Sonny said, making small talk as he inched ever closer to his dark brother.
It can’t help you, Raven chuckled. Even if you had it in front of you, you couldn’t read its message.
But there are old men in the pueblos who can, Sonny thought, tiring of the inaction, aware that he was a child of the desert and that in the desert death came quickly.
At least destroy the bomb, he said.
Raven laughed, that awful laugh that said: You are so dumb. You haven’t figured out a single line of the drama and you call yourself a detective!
Did you believe I would waste the plutonium pit on your sacred mountain? No, I’m giving it as a Christmas present to Al Qaeda. Let the terrorists do the dirty work. Let the masses think they’re the enemy, when the real enemy is within. You know this.
You made a deal, Sonny said, resigned.
Of course I made a deal. It’s in my nature, as well as yours. Human nature thrives by making deals. Evolution is adaptation. I will give the authorities the code. At the last moment, of course. High drama. The clock ticks down and I call the boys from the Los Alamos Labs. You see, I’m holding a press conference with the mayor and all the local politicians. Coverage by CNN. I’ll blame today’s favorite target, the terrorists. The Evil Empire boys. Blame Syria, Iran, Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, North Korea. People are so dumb. They believe the government’s message, forgetting evil also lies inherent in the messenger. I love it. So, the cameras will shift from us to the scientists on the mountain as they punch in the code and the ticking goes dead. Cheers galore. I love it!
You’re crazy—
I’ve told you never to say that! Raven shouted, jumping forward and trembling with rage, his face red with laser light, veins bulging along his neck, thunder flashing across the desert space, La Llorona’s cry chilling the blood.
Humph, humph, hah, haah, heeee-eee. He laughed, struggling to control his own chaotic essence. You try to get me mad. Hatter mad. Doesn’t work, Sonny, I am as old as you. I, too, share in the collective memory of the species, share in the protein code of every cell. Damn DNA! I am the building block of the species! Don’t you get it? That’s how complex I am. I can’t be dismissed with a wave of you’re crazy.
When the going gets tough, Sonny thought, it’s coyote nature that must face Raven. Coyote howls and coyote bites.
My dog? he asked.
The little mutt hasn’t fallen asleep, Raven replied. But she has to. Half a dog’s life is to sleep, perchance to dream—
Here he let out a robust explosion of laughter that echoed to the ceiling. You get it? Perchance to dream, and in that dream of your dog’s sleep, I will enter like the assassin I am. You’ll be helpless, Sonny. They minute she dreams your image, I strike. Do you understand? The soul is the image of your life’s eternity. Killing it will be the end of you, I guarantee.
And this? Sonny asked. What’s this for?
This is a game. I wanted you to see what our so-called civilization has come to. Virtual reality. You’re on the way out, Sonny. Future anthropologists will find the machines, but they won’t find a trace of the makers or those who went to the movies. They won’t find Diogenes. You see, my dear boy, we are images in the movie of life. We are projections who strut and fret our hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more. The light will go out, Sonny, the movie will end. You will disappear into a void far beyond virtual reality.
Now! the old man said.
It was time to toss down the gauntlet. His trump.
Tamara knows, he said.
Raven’s eyebrows knitted in a scowl. The tramp. She knows nothing!
She knows your plan!
Raven cocked his head. Have you talked to her?
No, but I’m on my way.
Damn her! Raven cursed, shaking violently. She has the hots for you! She’ll give you any secret to get in your pants!
Sonny pressed the point. Maybe in your sleep you’ve confessed to her, a word here, a word there, and you let slip the way for me to find you in my dream. Find my daughters.
Your obsession will kill you, Raven screeched. Your soul is already dissolving in the river of memory!
My river is the Rio Grande, Sonny replied. And you’re as much afraid of dissolution as anyone.
No, no, Raven protested. There is no river that can erase my energy. You know that.
Let’s put it to the test, Sonny challenged. Let’s meet there.
Raven grew interested. And make an end of the game, he said.
Sonny shrugged. Why not? I win or you win.
Sonny was suggesting the denouement. Not the OK-Corral shootout, but a duel to the end on the banks of the holy river, the muddy Nile, Prajna’s Ganges, China’s Yangtze, actually New Mexico’s Rio Grande, which was always too thin to plow and too thick to drink.
By the Barelas Bridge, Raven said.
Done, Sonny agreed.
By now he had circled in on the unsuspecting Raven, using his wily dialogue to lull Raven into false security, and he was close enough to lunge forward and rip the Zia medallion from Raven’s neck.
Ah-ha! Sonny cried, holding up the prize.
Oh-no! Raven countered, his grin as big as a watermelon slice. He signaled, a light of one of the laser projectors died instantly, and the Zia medallion disappeared from Sonny’s fingers. Sonny was left holding thin air.
I see you believe in illusions, Raven scoffed.
Of course Sonny believed in illusions. He and Rita liked to take in a Saturday-night movie once in a while, or rent a video and watch it at her place, where after a long and tiring day at Rita’s Cocina a beer and a good movie was a prelude to making love. Movies as foreplay.
I honor the art of image making, Sonny replied, looking at his empty fingers. The image is holy. But you and the producers of illusion have taken our myths and made them vulgar.
Vulgar is as vulgar does, Raven said, pointing at the hundreds of moviegoers ready to enter the movie in which they could participate. $Millions$ $Millions$ The masses are so bored with their ordinary lives they flock to the screen. Hollywood offers psychic relief for the lumpen. Our producers offer escape from reality, and the masses lap it up. Look!
He flashed a signal and created a new dimension, a time-space so distanced from human conception that it became the archetypal Armageddon, the end of the world, Ezekiel’s vision, a scene so murderous it drove fear into those who watched, terrifying the moviegoers and sending them screaming and scurrying for the exits.
Another light went out, the light that embodied Raven, and he disappeared with a Tra-la-la. The river at 6:00.
Sonny exited, leaving the now-bare stage, walking hurriedly through the lobby and into the bright sunlight of the pleasant March afternoon.
He squinted, blinded as he was, and had not yet cleared his vision when someone grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. He felt a hunting knife prick just beneath his ribcage.
A furious Bear pressed his face against Sonny’s.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know—” Sonny managed, and felt the knife press deeper into his flesh.
“Where is he?” Bear repeated, his full-blown rage smothering Sonny, the knife ready to pierce straight into the liver, as Jesus had once been pierced, allowing the blood to flow, creating in that horrendous act a new river, one the Roman soldiers had no way of knowing would flow into the future.
The enraged Bear was too strong to push away, the knife too sharp to evade. Coyote sense might get him out of the jam, not brute strength.
“The sonofabitch killed Naomi!”
“Let me handle Raven—”
“I’ll do it my way! First Raven, then Augie! Where are they?”
“Ease up …”
Bear, breathing like a wounded animal, pulled back a fraction.
“No tricks, Sonny, no tricks or I swear I’ll cut you open!”
“Augie’s going to get his, sooner or later. You’ve got to let me take care of Raven.”
“Because of his witchcraft? Because he can fly? I’m not afraid of that. I’ll get him or die trying. Where is he?”
The crowd around them pressed forward, thinking this was part of the movie, or a staged act to incite them further: foreplay. These big men were gladiators, the Indian obviously had the upper hand, and now they had to choose if Sonny lived or died. “Kill him!” some jeered, thumbs down. Others shouted, “Give him a weapon to defend himself!”
“I don’t know,” Sonny replied. “I lost his trail …”
“I just left her … held her in my arms. The sonofabitch didn’t have to kill her. I blame myself for letting her go. She was afraid of him, needed to get out of town, she said. He led her along, told her about the big scheme to siphon Indian water rights. They needed her out of the way.”