Porter Must Be Stopped

It is at Porter’s request that I appear before you today. Porter, who leans with a lanky assurance, who smacks the dust from the brim of the Stetson, who stops, and who smiles, and who grows more popular as the days go by. A groundswell, an earthquake, a tsunami of love obliterates the bell-tower, the barn, the quarry and the aerodrome and the garden at Versailles, the panopticon and the trebuchet and the ziggurat, the cairn and the cottage and the finger sandwiches I skewered, in the days gone by, with the red plastic toothpick in the shape of the pirate sword. Goodness gracious. The time is now, of a ripeness now to offer up a word of thanks to this Porter of ours, this Porter who is almost too modest for his own good.

But then whoa. Whoa up there. Do we abandon ourselves to the same modesty? Shackle ourselves to the same restraint? Porter may be modest, you say, say you, but does that mean we have to be modest for him?

No. And neither should we temper the awe that we feel, the regard we endure, the astonishment we suffer at the damage he leaves in his wake. The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. The lifetime batting average (.327). Pater Patriae of the Province of Malta, Worshipful Master of the Order of the Masons, Sunoco Oil Preferred Customer #07242.

Terrif is what we say, right? Mercy.

We surrender, the ground gives way beneath us, the very earth itself – the loam and the char and the bed of the worm – wobbles at the impact of, exfoliates with the scent of, cries out with the name of the man who paso dobles us into submission. Sakes alive! Through no fault of his own Porter has been made out to be some kind of a hero.

Granted, this was Porter’s own doing and he has no one but himself to blame, and please don’t mention this to Porter when you see him, and we’d never bring it up were it not for the crack in the egg, the twinge in the knee, the recent tilt of the galaxy in a darkward direction, but Porter is not what he has made himself out to be. Porter is a fake. He has been toying with our emotions for too long now and the time has come for us to put an end to it. Porter must be stopped.

Not that there are no dissenting voices. Joe here. He thinks Porter is just fine. Porter is just peachy as far as Joe is concerned. Stand up, Joe. Now you all of you know Joe. Take a good look at Joe. The slant of the brow, the twitch of the eye, that lubricous flare of the nostril. Joe who paddles his way into our midst, who rotisseries into the heart of the soiree, who tremulates the air with a tincture of decay -- the fungal spore and the flesh of the tuber and the tang of the dust of the guano. Joe. The Joeness of Joe. But is Joe so very different than the us, than the we, than the we-ness of we? Have we not, each of us, in our own way, had as much contact with Porter as Joe here? Of course we have. Which is all the more reason to pause, to reflect, to calibrate the mass of an object in motion, the mass of an object at rest, the curvature of the space-time continuum, the quantum entanglement of photons in a gazpacho of pepper and wine. X-rays reveal that Joe’s immune system is riddled with polyps and barnacles and deadly carbuncular incriminations. Is it any wonder the ripple of that original sin tickles up into the very marrow of our being as well? We can all of us hear it, can we not? That buzzing in the bones? That click of the brittle ligament? Can we not, all of us, feel it? That synaptical trill of the puckered ilium? That shadow, that breaker black, that brutal umbrella of the wing of the buzzard?

We could ask Joe to expunge himself, we could ask of Joe, but no. No. That would not be meet, or just, or true to blame Joe, Joe who is not to blame, no. The person to blame is Porter. Porter is to blame and it is Porter who must be stopped.

Granted. Granted. Porter says that he cares – check -- but have you ever seen Porter at any of these gatherings we gather to honor his name? He was not invited, you say, say you, and kudos to you for skirting the obvious, the inevitable, the indelicate question. Did Porter not think that our party was worth the effort to crash? Is there no such thing as gratitude? Is there no such thing as chivalry? Where was Porter when the ice ran out? Where was Porter when Iggy here was shaken from head to toe by a torturous hacking cough, Iggy here who has suffered so much in the past because of Porter’s neglect? Iggy here, back in the day: a handsome young man with a bright future ahead of him. And what about Betsy, tangled in the tether at the rail of the dirigible berthing platform, or Jojo in the maw of the ravenous bruin, or the Neely boys, trapped in a bathysphere beneath the arctic ice? Where was Porter when Bob and Marie Smithison here were experiencing the sexual incompatibilities which have so marred their marital life? Porter was nowhere to be found.

Not that it was always this way. Remember the old days? Remember how it was before Porter came onto the scene? The chocolates. The red plush carpet. The unlimited sex. A mango in every tub. A trampoline in every planetarium. All of this was ours and then Porter showed up. First he started crying. Then he wanted a bottle. Before we could put a stop to it he was walking, he was talking.

Oy vey. Hard to imagine now, with Porter in our midst, but there was a time when we could walk the streets at night in safety. There was a time when lemonade was free, when dogs were small and fluffy, and friendly in a respectful sort of way, warm but from a distance like a scattering of ceremonial pyres. There was a time when the dogs would cry out to the moon in a series of well-modulated yips, when the pip-pip-pip of the red rubber lungs and the ping-ping of the strawberry heart would sing to the Portuguese tinker who’d render it back, hammer in hand, note for note, a symphony of metallurgic ecstasy. Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, when lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, when the howitzers were filled with confetti and the AK-47’s sprayed the fertile slopes above the petting zoo with the seed of the sunflower that ricochets into bloom. Boom the yellow blossom in the wind above the innocent city, and the blooms peppered with bees, and fed with manure, watered at dawn by Peruvian virgins and gathered at dusk by den mothers in patent leather penny loafers and mint-green Bermuda shorts.

It was a time of excitement and a time of wonder, a time of first love on the homefront and of harmony on the international scene. How could we have known? How could we – eight miles from shore, pitched up onto a floatable seat cushion with a sack of peanuts and a scrimshaw whistle and a fragget of hardtack clenched between the teeth, how could we -- abob in a froth of chum and garnished with shrapnel and peppercorn and nougats of ruddiferous shark repellent – have known? Have known or have seen – huddled round a brazier, second and eight, twenty yards from the goal, stripping the skin of the pig into crispy niblets and thumping the helmets and slapping the butts and catapulting the marshmallows into the hungry bleachers – have seen, have known, have known or have seen, in a single tick of the clock the squeal of delight, the egg of a sudden breached, the sperm burrow into that insensate lump of protoplasmic matter which in a few short months would become known as… Porter?

And so it goes. And tender the turn of the earth, and the dawn of desire, and some of you like Porter, some of you have been moved by Porter’s charm, some of you have even had sex with Porter. The tablecloth reeks of it, the air is ripe with it, the very runnels and the pores of the wallpaper drip, drip with the ichor of an adulterous love. Porter has been breeding again. Porter’s offspring bubble up into view, thicken as we speak – shh. Can you hear them? The spawn of his indecorous loins? The pitter, the patter, the pudge of the minikin feet? And having sullied the blood of our fathers, they babble up onto the stoop in their greasy pantaloons, finger the puncture in the screen, thrust a pudgy limb inward to graze the alabaster flesh of the immaculate we.

The virginal we. The inviolate we.

But maybe Porter did not really mean it, you say. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe we are being too harsh with Porter, too hasty, too quick to pick, to pick and to quibble. In 1460 an earthquake measuring 10.2 on the Richter Scale shook the city of Lisbon, Portugal, killing 60,000 people and leaving over half a million homeless. It would be ridiculous to hold Porter responsible for these deaths. The people of Lisbon were no fools. They were perfectly aware of the danger they faced and had been given ample warning weeks, even months before the event. That they chose to put their trust in Porter is no one’s fault but their own.

Blame them? God forbid! No, no more than we blame the apple that ripens in the heat of the sun. How infinite the reach of that ravenous gravity! How seductive the growl of the reef in the belly of the swell, the workaday hum of the Porter hello, the Howdy-Doody and the tip of the hat and – charmed up onto the brim of the lip – that lickit, that squib, that bauble of marmalade sweet to the touch of the knuckle or the finger or the tongue. Never again. That would be the vow that we take. No not never to ever be fooled again by the normalish demeanor that Porter adopts. As if he were the regular. As if he were the normal. As if we could ever be so gullible, so simple as to swoon at the ten fingers and the ten toes and the bowler derby and the vest and the Porterarian torso in orbit round the knob of the shillelagh. Oh look. Oh lookie-loo. Out there in the so-called air, on the so-called sidewalk, once again impersonating a pedestrian? Porter? Porter!

Maybe he meant well, you say, say you, maybe –

No. Do not be swayed by the gifts that he offers you. The baby crocodile. The Jujubes. The portable ballista. Do not be wowed by the innocence as you call it and the oh my goodness, say you, the goodness of Porter. We are sick of Porter and this goody-goodness of his, this greaty-greatness. We don’t think it was so great, that thing that Porter did. Anybody with a belly and a opposable thumb and a biscuit of a brain could have done the thing that Porter did. Porter to the rescue, go Porter go, like he didn’t know there was going to be this truck coming, like he didn’t crouch there on the curb waiting for little Bobby Murcheson to waddle into sight. Boom: out in front of the truck Porter throws himself to save the Murcheson boy. Typical, right? As if he didn’t see everybody out there looking at him. Out there looking at the loss of his legs, the losing of the legs, like it was the legs is what it was all about, like it was a blow to the commonwealth the losing of the legs, a blow to the hosier and the cobbler and the boot-blacks of the world, the goose-stepper and the punter and the Rockette in the Kevlar bikini, the stilt-walker and the gandy-dancer and the cadre of unicycle emissaries, the kickers of the shit and the stompers of the grape and the jiggers of the Irish jig. What’s it going to be next – Porter cuts off his arms to give little Wendy Tonelli a roomier seat on the bus? Where does it end? Porter blows himself up to give little Laurie Jensen an unobstructed view of the Christmas parade? Enough already.

For too long now we have slumbered in the bosom of a fraudulent Madonna. Wake up, America, wake up! Belly up over the lip of the hammock and onto the sod, skitter out the mouth of the inflatable castle, crack the lid of the casket to answer the call. Like the turn of a tiny screw at the heart of a tornado, the evidence gathers of its own accord.

Dust the skin on the inside of your thigh and tell me the print that you find there. Porter’s. You tell the dog to heel and the dog does not heel? Porter’s influence. Your stamps no longer stick, your lashes no longer curl, the squirrels they snicker in the night as you pass with the torch held high, and the sword in hand, through the cavern of the green, through the rib and the hip and the shoulder of the oak – they snicker. He dismantles the barricade, swims the moat, snips the bra -- listen. Shh. Listen. That slant to the news? Porter. That twist of the witness? Porter. That flicker of doubt in the voice of the crooner? It goes without – does it not? -- go without saying? The Porterarian view of history has insinuated its way into our secondary school curriculum. He has falsified the meteorological charts. Had you ever heard of Burma until Porter came onto the scene? Burman is a figment of Porter’s imagination.

A figment. A fragment. Here is the map of where Porter is hiding, the hide of the buffalo, here hold it, from the scriveners, here, the dotted line and here the x. Careful now. The bead of ink that quivers in the light? This is where he’s at. At the crossroads, at the heart of the x, in the leathery heat of the virginal turf, and the pores of the hide, in the collagen and the chromium and the corium he hides, he abides.

Or so they say. Or so the rumor has it, but then you look and he’s gone. Va-moose. From out the vapor that remains you inhale the essence of Porter. You harry the air inward to scour the guts, to baste the liver and the kidney and the spleen, marinate the ovaries, butter the viscera and the vastus and the epidermical vestiments with the spirit, the sign of the spirit, the outward manifestation of an inward and spiritual grace.

Porter he giveth. Porter he taketh away. Blesséd be the name of --

You wake to find yourself another centimeter shorter. The brick missing at the base of the cathedral. The letter missing. The finger missing. You tug at the umbilicus to find the mother missing but hearken unto me, oh my brother, oh my sister, let not your heart be troubled. He who sees the fall of a single sparrow, does he not also see you?

Behold. The paw prints in the talcum powder on the carpet in the hall. The prints that belong to Fluffy (how could it be otherwise?) but the pattern, the dot-dash, the dot-dot-dash? As if Fluffy of her own accord could navigate the nuance of a code that wireless operators wrestle for years to master. As if the purr that percolates (even now) up into the palm of the hand were sincere, as if it weren’t a tremor from out the brittle carapace that covers the earth, a melodious premonition of the betrayal to come. We know better than to believe the bitter squall of the cicada, the burble of the brook, the lascivious whisper of the Vanuatuan caldera.

Late is the hour. Black is the night. Even now the Porterarians meet at dusk on the outskirts of the innocent city. That smoke on the horizon, adrift even now into the nostrils of our children? That smoke is the ceremonial bonfire of the Porterarian cavalry. They have abducted old Mrs. Bertheson and they are roasting her on a spit. They have fondled our women. They have ejaculated on our front doorsteps. They have donned their colorful native costumes and danced till dawn on the graves of our mothers.

The Foxtrot. The Flamenco. The Polonaise. The mahogany clogs, the leather sombrero, the coconut brassiere and the eagle feather bonnet and the codpiece hammered from the ingot of Peruvian brass. The dancing is what they wanted, is what they live for, is what Porter told them to do. If only Porter would give us what we want, would tell us what we want, would tell us what to do. We wanted a wife. We wanted a child. We wanted a mistress. We wanted a BB gun, a Easy Bake Oven, a crack regiment of Royal Fusiliers and yes, we surrender, we confess: love is what we wanted. We wanted love, but then Porter had to butt in there, to push his way into the space, the empty space between us and ourselves and we look we try to see ourselves but there is something blocking the way: Porter. It is Porter, Porter who blocks the way.

If only Porter were smaller -- the size of a Jovian moon (a Ganymede or a Callisto) or smaller still (a Lithuania, a Montenegro) or yet again smaller, more portable, edible, embraceable (a duck, a quail, a hummingbird aperitif), squishable, squashable (a nit, a gnat, an aphid of the order Hemiptera), quashable, washable – would we, could we yield? Yield as in the days of yore – the dawning, the introduction, the babble? The change of the diaper. The heft of the flesh in the palm of the hand. He looked up at us with an expression of wonder. Wonder at how innocent of the future we were. Did we feel patronized? Yes we felt patronized. But oh, he was just a baby, you say. And so he was. And the time before that he was, yes, and before that, and again, so-and-so begat so-and-so and ibid, etcetera, geronimo.

The city of Tokyo scrambles the jet fighters, cracks open the armories, pinwheels the fleet into position off the rocky coast. Unmistakable the radar signature and fat – Jupiter-fat, galactically fat -- the pong-pong-pong of the sonar. Like cellophane, like the husk of the pinyon, like the alkaline crisp at the brim of the geyser, the bitter crackle of a Geiger counter tickles the nose of the imperial sub. The breakers boil, the bells clang, the fishermen flee. Up out of the sea he rises, snout the size of a tanker, the peepers ablaze, the dorsal crest a crown of electrified bristle in a bed of ectoplasmic gel – Porter.

Porter yammer the Japs. It is Porter who snips the bond between the quick and the dead, who boogaloos at will across the fathomless deep, who shatters the subtitles, smacks the projector, stutters the voice of the hero and the gal and the chubby sidekick with the red checker vest and the porkpie hat. They guppy agape. They yap without a sound. With what blip of the lip, with what secret silent whistle, with what seismographic delicacy do we scribble the word that rides the broken breath? Porter. Porter. The camera stammers, struggles to catch the cops, the commissioner, the geisha with the Tommy gun as she clatters up the fire escape and over the roof to the getaway copter.

Porter clears the harbor. Towers up -- all gigantical and rubbery and green -- to blot the sky. A platoon of bazooka-wielding Boy Scouts he crushes underfoot, fondles a pregnant whale, incinerates a crane, badmintons a half-dozen fighters jets into the burning sea. With a swipe of his tail he severs the aqueduct, the elevated train, the turret of the tank that carries the nuclear missile. Through a thicket of buildings he dog-paddles – the brick and the steel, the glass and the bone and the stone – to reach the city square.

He kneels in the rubble. The earth shakes. That pile-driver of a knee punctures the crust-of-pie cobble that covers the runnel and the cloaca and the culvert, the grotto and the cave and the underground rail, the lava tube, the catacomb, the den of the fox and the cloister of the shrew. On his hands and knees now he crawls, and with that scaly forelimb of his he reaches. The venomous tip of the claw descends, hovers, wavers above the table at the heart of the open-air bistro. There beside the red napkin and the glass of Chablis and the cinnamon biscotti dusted with sugar? The Philadelphia™ Cream Cheese sandwich, toasted, on sourdough, garnished with chive, and chilled, and with an olive, and belonging to me. Not to Porter but to me. The owner being me, as if he didn’t know, as if it was an accident, as if it was somebody else when we all of us knew it was him was the one ate the sandwich. Him.

Analysis of recent spectrographic emissions at the outer fringe of the galactic cluster, along with computer simulations derived from previous data, suggest that the universe is expanding far more rapidly than we – given the amount of visible matter – could have ever predicted. In other words, there must be more matter out there than we realized. But where is this matter? Where has it gone? Who has taken it? Porter. Porter has taken this matter. Porter is the one.

He will deny it if you ask him. Where is the dark matter, Porter? He will smile. Curdle that fist of his, gurgle and smile. Back under the reef he will scuttle, into a cloud of silverfish, into the wormhole in the hull of the sunken galleon chatter, backwards, pincers at the ready should we dare to follow.

If he would beg forgiveness, forgiveness would be in the offing. If he would incinerate himself in the furnace of our love, sand himself down to a pinch of carbon, a nubbin of snuff, a tender frizzle of protons and electrons, leptons and muons and quarks, would it be enough? Could it be enough? If he would offer up a sign – a freckle in the shape of the Isle of Tahiti, the cry of a curlew at the crack of dawn, the snap crackle pop of a comet upside the belt of Pleiades – would we hearken to his plea? Could we? Should we? Yeah, and verily, and hearken unto his plea, hearken, were he but to fold us in his arms, to stroke us on the brow and whisper it is you, my child, mon Cherie, my boob-a-loo, my pumpkin, you and you alone I choose to call my own.

But hush. Hush now. The ballista quivers in the grip of the winch. The hawk hovers. The quasar coils. Here. Behold: the baby burrows out the breach, and here the kick, and here the cry, and here the head crowning up to kiss the air. Let us in the grace of another day begin again, oh Porter, oh port of call in the heat of the day, oh portable god in the heart of the fray, oh pliable, buyable, crucifiable flesh in the hollow of the palm of the hand. Let us pray.