The Snake Oil Wars Read online

  THE SNAKE OIL

  WARS

  or

  Scheherazade Ginsberg

  Strikes Again

  PARKE GODWIN

  A FOUNDATION BOOK

  D O U B L E D A Y

  New York · London · Toronto · Sydney · Auckland

  A Foundation Book

  Published by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103

  Doubleday, Foundation, and the portrayal of the letter F are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

  ISBN 0-385-24772-9

  ISBN 0-385-26350-3 (pbk.)

  Copyright © 1989 by Parke Godwin

  All Rights Reserved

  These ePub, Mobi and LIT editions v1.0 by Dead^Man November 2011

  dmebooks at live dot ca

  Printed in the United States of America

  August 1989

  First Edition

  BP

  YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE

  Copyright © 1945 by WILLIAMSON MUSIC CO. Copyright Renewed.

  Used by permission.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  I’LL BE SEEING YOU

  Copyright © 1938 by WILLIAMSON MUSIC CO. Copyright Renewed.

  Used by permission.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  To those lucid and courageous minds who gave you the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, Falwell, Robertson and the God-inspired Rule of the Righteous. To those intrepid souls who fight with unflagging zeal to remove from libraries dangerous books they have not read and from theaters those spiritually toxic films they have not seen, believing that thought is a controlled substance and secular thinking hazardous to mental health.

  Prologue:

  Godhead, or doing hard time

  A few million years ago aliens invaded Earth.

  Well, not really an invasion, just a class of graduating students who thought the young planet would be a fun place to party. Even more fun was leaving two annoying brothers, Barion and Coyly, stranded on this uncharted world where the highest form of life was a dismally unpromising ape. Everyone knew humanoid apes were losers that began primitive and violent ended religious and lethal.

  Where the party got home, no one could remember exactly where they’d left the brothers. Not to worry. Being close to immortal, someone would find them sooner or later.

  With nothing else to occupy their time, Baryon and Coyly took a dead-ending ape and boosted its intelligence far earlier than was legal or even prudent. Though briefly fashionable, anthropoids were never a major study among their kind. The field work was spotty and accepted theories disastrously inaccurate.

  For example, the post-life energy pools. These carbon cycle creatures continued after death as personal energy. As time went on, Barion and Coyul had to take charge of a growing mass of restless human personalities whom death rendered more permanent than improved – vicious, vain and self-deluding as ever. They polarized according to taste around Baryon or Coyul, conditioned to expect an uppercase god, devil or other deities. To their pleasure or consternation, they found only the unassuming Barion in a place/state of mind called Topside, or an equally bewildering Below Stairs where Coyul ran his office like a salon and tried amid constant and colorful interruptions to compose music and keep his guests from each other’s throats.

  By the time Sorlij found the beleaguered brothers he’d marooned as a student prank, their experimental ape had evolved into a formidable creature whose emotions lagged far behind his intellect, capable of brilliance and mayhem in consecutive breaths.

  Coyul, known by then as the Prince to his intimates, was left to clean up the mess and reeducate the results of their irresponsible meddling. Barion was taken home for trial and sentence.

  EXTRACT FROM THE TRIAL OF BARION

  UNAUTHORIZED EXPERIMENTATION AND

  PREMATURE SEEDING

  (From Sorlij’s testimony)

  SORLIJ: Against all reasonable projection, the species is promising but painfully immature. Fortunately their system is so remote, they won’t constitute a danger to the main civilizations during those millennia needed to fit them for society at large.

  Why was Coyul left rather than Barion?

  SORLIJ: He did the crucial work in lifting the species over Cultural Threshold. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of that, but he seems to know them better.

  And your instructions to Coyul

  SORLIJ: The obvious: to bring their emotional growth into parity with their intellectual capacity. Some are already admirable specimens. But he must educate them away from dualistic or miraculous doctrines immediately.

  Sorlij, are we to understand you blithely told him to negate the major religions of a species never without them anywhere in the known universe?

  SORLIJ: The situation was tertiary. Their technology is already probing into space, yet their essential thinking hasn’t changed in thousands of years, and these emotional tendencies are at the root of it like a large tumor in the base of the brain. Radical surgery was required.

  Your own discipline is...?

  SORLIJ: Marine biology. My work is known throughout the field.

  BARION: We always said he did a mean oyster.

  Strike that remark from the record. Sorlij given the parameters of this improbable anthropoid, do you as a scientist think they will accept Coyul’s adjustment?

  SORLIJ: Oh yes, eventually. What else can happen when you introduce an intelligent being to an empirical fact?

  BARION: Among humans, civil war.

  Strike that. Barion, you’ve already been warned about these impertinent interruptions.

  BARION: Not impertinent but expert. I spent five million years among them. Anyway, what have I got to lose? I know I’m going to the Rock. I’m more worried about Coyul when he tries to educate Topside.

  SORLIJ: Why? They can’t destroy him.

  BARION: They’re human, they’ll try. Hope springs eternal.

  1

  Your teeth are okay

  but your gums have to come out

  The television commentator’s voice was far more familiar to older viewers than his image on camera, cadenced and thoughtful, recalled as filtering through the shortwave radio static of 1940.

  “This is John Mcbain for Topside Television, Not since the days of the London Blitz have I reported a story so fraught with consequence for Mankind. In a few moments, here in this Megachurch, Coyul, the alleged younger brother of Barion, will address the population of Topside on an issue that promises to rock the establishment to its religious foundations. Barion was said by some to be God – not as we conceived of Him, but in fact. Darker stories are told of Coyul and his longtime sway over Below Stairs. One thing is certain: there are few Topside today not watching and listening for what Coyul has to say...”

  McBain’s estimate was conservative; there were few Below Stairs not watching with equal concern. Their friend and cosmic therapist, the beloved and sympatico Prince was assuming the mantle dropped by Barion. They knew Coyul’s message to Topside would be as popular as the repeal of Prohibition to bootleggers.

  Brooding in the cool, dark Sports Bar in the high-rise district of Below Stairs, Arnold Rothstein squinted at the TV set and wished money were still meaningful. In life he’d financed much of the action along Broadway, immortalized by Damon Runyon as the Brain. Now he felt ancient stirrings like a hunting call. He wanted to lay a sound bet for a piece of the action, however meaningless. The Brain turned to his dr
inking companion, a former New York editor who had offed himself through a fondness for chic narcotics.

  “Ten to one they don’t buy him at all. Seven to five they don’t let him finish the telecast. Even money he won’t make it out of the starting gate.”

  “I’ll take some of that.” The editor was known in betting circles as more of a fish than a handicapper. “The Prince is upscale, man. High concept, great moves. What’s the bet?”

  Arnold Rothstein considered. Money was a pleasant memory. The stake should be something one desired very much or wanted, out of common sense, to avoid. “Loser goes Topside to a revival meeting.”

  “That is a downer.”

  “I am not finished.”

  Rothstein lifted a qualifying finger. “Just to make it interesting, loser has to come forward and wave to the winner on camera.”

  “What the hell, I feel lucky today. Bet.” They shook hands. Coyul will finesse the whole scene.”

  RIOT IN TOPSIDE MEGACHURCH!

  FUNDYS VOTE RIOTOUS NO ON COYUL

  NEW PREXY HAS NARROW ESCAPE

  “This is Cathy Cataton for TSTV. Here’s what’s happening...”

  Cathy Cataton didn’t have the standard bland-blond screen image of Nancy Noncommit of BSTV, rather what some males would call a hatchet face; wide cheekbones and a narrow chin, her hair in short, dark curls. Only after death did she find her true calling as a newswoman.

  “Coyul the new appointee head of Topside triggered a riot in our largest Megachurch today when he attempted to set the record straight on his intended program. TSTV cameras were on the scene.”

  For Topside watchers who had never met or seen Coyul, his televised image was an anticlimax. He was short and plump, and in his mild, patient manner, there was a disconcerting cosmic ennui.

  “Ladies and gentlemen – by whatever name, image or reputation you may know me – my name is Coyul. My brother Barion, who managed this establishment for so long, never represented himself as a god, never promised you a messiah, only wisdom and common sense to those rare spirits brave enough to heed it.”

  End of clip. Cataton again: “Coyly never got a chance to finish his presentation. He was interrupted by an American from Kansas.”

  And cut to Coyul again on the podium. “Elation found it necessary with so many conflicting faiths, to establish an absolute freedom of belief. Frankly, it never occurred to either of us to do otherwise from the time we started with you five million years ago —”

  “Did Barion lie to us?”

  Now the screen image was much more photogenic: a slender thirtyish man who ran agitated fingers through his rumpled hair. “I think every Christian is asking that question with me.” A caption superimposed on the impassioned young image; LANCE CANDOR, AMERICAN. DIED SAVING THE PRESIDENT OF THE U. S. FROM ASSASSINATION. In the row behind Candor, a small woman in a faded paisley dress waved a placard:

  KANSAS FOR GOD AND THE BIBLE!

  In his vulnerable honesty, Lance Candor reminded viewers of young James Stewart, game but about to collapse on the Senate Boor in the Capra movie. For American idealism, Can. dor made Stewart look like a Chicano.

  Mr. Candor repeated his challenge; “Did Barion lie to us on the inerrancy of the Bible?”

  And cut to Cathy Cataton again; “Candor was only the beginning. The riot broke out in earnest when Coyul matter of factly explained, or tried to explain, the essential fact of what he termed an anthropological experiment gone wrong —”

  Coyul again, visibly aware of laboring in a lost cause. “You’re not finished. Not nearly finished. You’re not the center of a Battering myth, but let me help you.”

  “KILLLLL HIMMMM —”

  The cameras caught a forward surge through the audience, like tall grass lashed by a high wind. Acres of people rising, stampeding down on the mild little figure in front of the microphones. The tidal wave of moral outrage converged on the podium, engulfing Coyul as he simply vanished and Cataton’s voice-over ended the segment. “‘Trouble right here in River City.’ The confrontation brewing for years between radical and conservative religious viewpoints here in Topside seems to have come to a head in Coyul, thought by many to be the Devil. How long his authority will be accepted, if at all, is up for guesses.”

  Below Stairs in the Sports Bar, the New York editor tried to hedge his lost bet with Arnold Rothstein, “Okay, I go Topside. All the way across that dead-ass Void. But no getting Born Again; that’s not part of the bet.”

  The Brain was a gracious winner. “Just so I can see you on camera.”

  “Hey, Mr. Rothstein.” Legs the bartender turned up the TV sound, still tuned to Cathy Cataton, “Get this.”

  “... repeat the last item just in. A few minutes ago, Lance Candor, who challenged Coyul in the Megachurch, hurled a bomb into Coyul’s office —”

  Rothstein’s lip curled. “And they call this hell.”

  “— completely destroying the new appointee’s salon, Coyul himself and two guests. Candor has not yet been apprehended and Fundamentalists throughout Topside are cheering his action.”

  The Brain turned to his drinking companion. “Do I win or do I win?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” The vanquished editor communed with the bottom of his glass. “Beats me how you could call it so close.”

  “Son,” said the wise old Brain, “it is a lead pipe cinch you do not hail from Kansas.” He tapped his empty glass on the bar. “Legs? One more time, no ice.”

  2

  Hazards of terminal patriotism;

  enter a blonde

  Coyul didn’t expect to be blown up. After his fiasco in the Megachurch, he looked forward to a restful interlude in his salon, with Richard Wagner the morning’s only scheduled appointment Coyul would rather discuss music than theology any day, and Wagner needed approval for a new operatic extravaganza. Approaching his salon, he heard the mellow tones of his piano in a very un-Wagnerian strain, He opened the door; an oasis to the jaded eye.

  Barion never did much by way of furniture; ancient file cabinets, a plain desk, a few wooden chairs. Coyul’s sense of decor was more opulent. White walls, subtle lighting, furnishings in cream and beige leather. There was a liquor cabinet for guests whose virtues clung beyond death, several music stands, spacious cathedral windows through which the view changed to the watcher’s whim, To one side stood Coyul’s computer for musical notation. The white grand piano dominated the salon, As he suspected, not the Giant of Bayreuth at the piano but George Gershwin, fat cigar clamped between his teeth, long fingers caressing melody from the keyboard.

  “George, good to see you,” Coyul brightened immediately. “Is that from the new show?”

  “The love song for the second act. Want to hear the lyrics?”

  “Do I want a migraine?” The crisp, staccato voice came from the depths of an easy chair turned toward the windows. Aloof as Gershwin was convivial, George Kaufman rose in ectomorphic sections, left arm coiled around his neck to scratch at his right car. He gazed gloomily out the window on a privately remembered view of Forty-fourth Street in New York. “How was your opening, Prince?”

  Coyul sank down on the leather lounge. “Don’t wait up for the reviews. Told them the truth and started a riot,”

  “We heard of some disagreement,” Gershwin said.

  “What else is new?” Kaufman scrutinized the rug at his feet, bending to remove a tiny piece of lint which he deposited in an ashtray. “They’ve been shooting without a script for years.”

  “I was expecting Wagner – not keenly, but have you seen him?”

  “Oh, he came.” Gershwin flirted with the Magic Fie theme, turning the phrase subtly blue. “Took one look at as and left.”

  “Well, I deserved one break today,” Coyul said candidly. “To what do I owe this delightful recess? Problems with the show?”

  “It’s that refugee from Woodstock they gave me for a collaborator,” Kaufman barked in his best curmudgeon voice. “Ricky Remsleep, the professional hippy. Wrote a
love scene for the second act. No pace, no laughs, just soggy lines with guitar music yet. Every time Remsleep feels significant, he wants a guitar behind the actors.” The co-author of memorable Broadway hits scowled at the rug, “I hate love scenes.”

  “The act needs a love scene,” Gershwin appealed to Coyul, “and the scene needs a song, and your office was a good place to argue.”

  Kaufman found another microscopic piece of lint on the carpet. He wandered back to the window, digging in his ear. “Groucho could add five minutes to an act with ad libs, but at least he got laughs.”

  Coyul passed a hand over the coffee table; a sumptuous spread of hors d’oeuvres appeared in its wake. Kaufman was no more interested in food dead than he had been alive, but post life had cured Gershwin of composer’s stomach. He oaded a plate and carried it back to the piano. “Who started the riot?”

  “Fundamentalists, wouldn’t you know; very big in America now. ‘Age cannot wither nor custom stale.’ Play me the love song, George.”

  Like most Gershwin songs, the limpid, deceptively simple melody would be remembered long after the show. Coyul sipped Glen Morangie and allowed his mind to wander with the music. Five million years among humans, from Pithecanthropus to George Bush, could jaundice even an acting god. Coyul surrendered to nostalgia, longing for his own mercurial kind. Where was Barion now? Where was Purji, charming, truant and irresponsible as an explosion herself?

  The yearning in Coyul was rare but genuine. Odder still, he’d thought of Purji often lately, as if her energy were actually coming nearer. No hope there: the last anyone heard of that splendid female, she’d dropped out of society altogether. Disappeared.

  Gershwin modulated into an arresting key change. “Here’s the bridge.”

  The unmusical Kaufman suffered. “George, couldn’t you just mail it in?”