Pandora’s Bust
“What makes you think I need any help? And who told you about the Beast?” Something about this man greatly annoyed her.
“Pardon us,” said the Angels. Mary turned. “We beg forgiveness but we sent this man a vision. We thought the people should play some part in the holy conflict.”
The leader said, “We pray we don’t offend you, Blessed Mother. We did not mean to imply you need our help. We only beg participation.”
The apology failed to placate Mary. “If you want to help you might tell me who you are.”
The angels said, “They call themselves–”
“Shut up,” said the Holy Virgin. To the bald man, “Who are you?”
“We call ourselves the Society of Early Christians. We seek to purify our souls from modern decadence. We have thus adopted, in our own pathetic manner those mortifications which so distinguished–”
“Enough.” For a moment no one spoke or moved. Mary imagined she could smell decay rising from the purified bodies. Then her anger exploded. “Will you get your faces off the ground?”
They scrambled upright and the moment Mary saw Baldhead’s face her anger passed in understanding. “Michelangelo Ben Canaan,” she whispered. “What happened to you? How had such a lovely body come to such a wreck?”
Ben Canaan’s face, once golden with life, now an evil blotch of eczemic red and malnutrition yellow, had shrunk into the bone. When he spoke his mouth struggled to form the words. “You’re…”
“I am not. Forget who you think I am. Tell me what happened.”
“You should know, Blessed Virgin. I’ve joined your ranks of holiness.” For a moment the old Ben Canaan swagger flared up again, then died.
Mary said, “I’ll judge whatever holiness I see. First tell me how you came to this… this purification.”
Ben Canaan blinked, as if he found it hard to relate past fictions with present realities. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I shouldn’t claim any holiness. Not if I want to get any. I used to claim a lot more for myself. Do you remember all those claims I used to make? How I made myself the people’s champion?” He took a deep breath, Afterwards he spoke more easily. “Not so much as fool, then, as just a sinner I did recognize the conflict: machine-centered world against a man-centered world. But I couldn’t see behind it. No, that’s not right. I didn’t look behind it, because I wanted to believe it was something I could conquer. I wanted to think that I alone determined history. So I made myself the great humanistic hero.”
“I thought you did very well at it.”
“No! No grace. no grace. Don’t you see?”
“Humanism has its place, Michelangelo.”
“Not my kind of humanism, the weak delusion kind, the self-centered kind. I thought I could use machines against themselves. Manipulation, that’s the answer. So I thought. Yes, you’re right. I did do a good job of it. But the machines did a better job of using me. Holy Mother, try to remember”
Mary thought back to her Pandora dream, to Ben Canaan’s sudden anguish when the Homeostatic Law Library said—
“No human being may testify against a machine. That’s not the way I wrote it, but so what? I gave it to machines and let them twist it right back at me.” He sighed. “But that’s not what woke me up. I realized, after the Law Library clicked off, after the cops had left me all alone—the telephone. I was using a machine to talk to another machine. I’d become a bastard machine myself.” The six men behind him shook their bowed heads, sharing through their own memories Ben Canaan’s degradation. But Michelangelo himself tossed back his head like he used to do before a fight. “No hope, no refuge. I prayed. Like no man ever prayed before I prayed to Jesus. Look!” He thrust forward his bald head, almost in Mary’s mouth. “God sent me a sign. All my hair fell out.”
“You used to have such nice hair.”
Ben Canaan started. His head cocked, he looked inward momentarily, then continued his monologue. “God spoke to me through baldness. ‘Only Jesus can save you. And Jesus won’t touch you if you don’t relinquish your fleshy ease and comfort.’ I understood. I thank God for revelation. Since then I’ve lived inside my hair shirt and outside my man-made structures. I’ve eaten nothing but bark peeled from dead trees and drunk nothing but tepid water I pray constantly for God’s strength against my urges.”
“Amen.” muttered his followers.
“Not constantly” said Mary. “You took the time to start an organization.”
