The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow

Author:James Morrow [Morrow, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE IMMACULOIDS WERE COMING. Ontological terrorism. Lurid as it sounded, I had no reason to doubt Charnock’s forecast, and so upon returning to Norfolk I pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts, grabbed my phone, and, after pleading my case to Gertrude Lingard, got Londa on the line. If Charnock could be believed, I told her, he’d sold his soul and his schematics to a shadowy society whose members included not only Enoch Anthem but also the very professor with whom I’d sparred during my dissertation defense.

“They call themselves CHALICE,” I said. “The Christian Alliance of Immaculoids, Chiliasts, and Evangelicals.”

“Beware of Phyllistines bearing acronyms,” Londa said.

“Charnock thinks they have at least three ontogenerators. They’re planning to cook up an army of fetuses and set them loose on the world.”

“What a totally atrocious idea.”

“It was a dark day when Anthem and Pielmeister found each other, and a darker day when they learned about Charnock’s damn machine.”

“Raiders of the Lost Christian Consensus. Keep me posted, Socrates.”

Next I called Natalie. The news of Pielmeister’s involvement flabbergasted her, but she was cheerier than the last time we’d talked. Our fetus had not attended the most recent meetings of British Renaissance Poetry, Greek Drama, or Arthurian Romance.

“Listen, darling, this shitty thing we’re going through, Charnock says it’s about to happen to lots of couples.”

“How many is lots?”

“Thousands.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“I thought it might. Does it?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Hurry home. If I have to deal with that fucker again, I’m going to jump out a window.”

I spent the next thirteen hours on the road, stopping only to empty my bladder and fill my gas tank. By 2:00 A.M., Natalie and I were lying in bed together, conjoined like adjacent jigsaw-puzzle pieces, drifting off to sleep.

A storm was raging when I awoke, alone now, the thick gray rain clattering on the windows like scrabbling claws. My stomach seemed filled with electrified acid, as if I were digesting a flashlight battery. I glanced at the alarm clock. It was almost noon. Soon Natalie would be back from British Renaissance Poetry. I staggered to the kitchen and phoned Dexter, telling him about the rarities I’d scored en route to Maryland. He said we’d sold two copies of Ethics from the Earth while I was gone and that the schizophrenic I’d taken under my wing had been asking about me.

Natalie and I entered the living room from opposite directions, our gaits identical, a despairing shuffle. Stark red veins encircled her eyes like meridians, their lids swollen with weeping.

“I don’t hate him, not exactly,” she said. “But I can’t take much more of this.”

My anger was primal, fury refined to a malignant elixir. I became my own sort of immaculoid, pure in wrath, pristine in spite, and it was this incarnation of Mason Ambrose who now grabbed an umbrella, rushed into the storm, and drove nine blocks to the Silbersack Building, home of the philosophy department. I dashed down the second-floor hallway like a small but implacable cyclone, then

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