BC(E)

Stories are, in many senses, didactic. That is, they serve a purpose to teach something. Aesop's Fables are the perfect example of this; they were stories created with the explicit purpose of teaching a moral or a lesson to whomever would listen. No fox ever flattered a crow into dropping the cheese it had taken so the fox could eat it, but the idea of the story is still useful.

When PaPa LaBas, Black Herman, and the rest of the crew bust into the gathering at Villa Lewaro, to levy their charges against Hinckle Von Vampton and Hubert "Safecracker" Gould, they tell a story. Ostensibly, the story is true; in any (Atonist) court of law, it'd have to be to convict them of anything. But, better than true, the story is there to teach a lesson. Through allegory, LaBas and Herman elaborate not only what Von Vampton and Gould have done in the past, but what they are doing in the present.

Their story is an interesting amalgamation of Egyptian mythology and Judeo-Christian religion and history. The beginning of the story, all about Osiris, Set, and Isis, and setting up the rest of the narrative, is interesting, but what particularly intrigues me is the edited story of Moses. In Judeo-Christian religion, Moses was more or less the savior of the Jewish people. He was born to a normal Jewish family but set in a basket on the Nile because "Pharoah gave this order to all his people: 'Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live'" (NIV, Ex. 1:22). For clarification, the story implies that this order was specifically given to boys born to the Hebrews, not actually all of Pharoah's people. Moses ends up adopted by Pharoah's daughter, yadda yadda yadda, and we fast forward to when he flees Egypt for killing a guard. He meets Jethro (sometimes referred to as Reuel), marries Zipporah, sees the burning bush, goes back to Egypt to free his people from the grip of Pharoah, brings them into the desert, sets up their legal structure, and inspires a new leader Joshua (interestingly, a more accurate translation of the original texts tells us that Jesus' actual name was probably also Joshua (Yeshua, to be precise); not important, but it always fascinated me that we could know that fact and still consciously ignore it) to bring the people to their promised land.

LaBas and Herman's version of the story is a little different (and to be clear, is what I am referring to from here on out unless I explicitly mention the Judeo-Christian narrative). Moses is again plucked from the river in a basket by Thermuthis, "the stubborn, self-indulgent daughter of a weak Pharoah" (174). Instead of being secretly Hebrew, Moses is now a man who sneaks off to the Domain of Osiris. He hears from the other worshippers of Osiris that the best sound could be found with old Jethro the Midianite and decides to study under him. He goes off, learns the songs, goes to leave, and is coerced into marrying Zipporah in order to learn Jethro's "family secret." Moses then sets out to learn from the actual Book of Thoth from Isis. He does this, returns to Egypt, and plays a show for the Egyptians with all that he's learned.

This is where the story gets particularly interesting to me. Going back to when Moses leaves Jethro, Jethro attempts to warn him that all Isis could teach him is, at least at that time, the bad side of the Book. Moses, just as Thor Wintergreen after him, has delved into forces and powers he neither understands nor really accepts. Thor stepped in with the Mu'tafikah only to be persuaded by Biff Musclewhite to give them up. A similar effect occurs when Moses plays his Egyptian show.

The show begins with Moses' announcement that the show "would be a dignified concert and that everyone would have to leave them old nasty-assed animal fetishes and 'rattlers' and all these other 'flesh-pipes' back home and that there would be no savage dancing" (182). He has come in belittling the beliefs of the people and appropriating their techniques to his own ends. This is important! But, "[t]he Osirians were furious. They knew this to be an Atonist trick and decided to disrupt the concert" (182). Moses has tipped his hand, and the Osirians will strike back.

The concert is set up, the people are herded in, and Moses begins to play. However, "[the songs] weren't coming across like the way they had at the old man's fireplace. They sounded flat, weak, deprived of the lowdown rhythms that Jethro had brought to them" (182-3). Moses' taking of Jethro's songs has left something to be desired. The people throw grain on the stage and hiss at him. Moses knows something is wrong.

Things go crazy when Moses tries to perform the songs and dances from The Work. "The ears of the people began to bleed. Some of them charged the stage and tried to get at Moses but the Atonist thugs beat them back. 1 Osirian priest could no longer take it. He and several others knew what Moses had learned and knew how it was using him" (183). Moses is confused that this Work, all this he learned from the Book, did not successfully make the people go crazy. Instead, the Osirians rise from their place in the stands, and, not knowing The Work that Moses did, were still able to fill the air with beautiful songs and calm the people. They begin to dance, and Moses is irate.

In LaBas and Herman's narrative, this part of the story probably serves to link Moses, Judaism, and eventually Christianity to Atonism. However, more than that, it serves to elaborate what exactly Von Vampton was trying to do with the Talking Android. The role of the Android was to infiltrate the ranks of the J.G.C.s, and make it look ridiculous or wrong from the inside out. This is exactly how Moses operates in this story; he, though supposedly independently, was most likely influenced by the Atonists to join the Osirians and learn their tricks. Eventually, he hits the jackpot, goes out to Jethro, and learns the most powerful force of the Osirians. Even better, he learns of the Book of Thoth, learns from it, and returns to Egypt to finish his secretly Atonist task. Using the most powerful force of the Osirians and the divine force of the Book of Thoth, Moses tries and fails to convert the Osirians away from their "uncultured" ways and towards Atonism. Likely, this is what would have happened if Von Vampton sent the Talking Android to Harlem to perform instead of Irvington-on-Hudson. In fact, the story hints at both the suppression of Jes Grew and its eventual resurgence; Moses unleashes a nuclear bomb on the Nile by misuse of The Work, quieting the Osirians as the Left Hand rises to equal power with the Right Hand. Yet, many years later, Herman and LaBas reference the creation of the Ten Commandments in Judeo-Christian canon by saying that Moses returned from communicating with his God one day to find his children "dancing before the despised Bull God Apis, the animal which carries the living spirit of Osiris" and that Moses "heard the 'heathen sounds' [...] he hadn't heard since the old days in Egypt" (187). That is, the Osirians, even under the titan of Atonism Moses had become, resurged, if only briefly; in the same way, Jes Grew was destined to wax and wane against Atonism as time went on.

What I find particularly compelling about all of this is the way it ties into the way we talk about stories/histories from the past. Looking back to White's interpretations from our packets, we say that history and fiction can and did blend together. Whether for purposes of morality or artistic license, in the past and in LaBas and Herman's story, truth and fiction are blended together both to tell how the past was and how the present is. Does this strike any of you meaningfully? I just thought it was fascinating to point out.