Read Online Henry of Atlantic City by Frederick Reuss - Free Book Online

come to think of it. Or ministers or brahmins or monks.”
    Henry said Father Crowley had told him that there were only four gospels and none of them had been found in caves.
    “That’s because Father Crowley is a Catholic with a big C, and that’s what big-C Catholics believe.” Sy went to the window and pulled the curtain shut, then went to turn on the TV. “If you’re
really
catholic, though, you never rule
anything
out.” Sy took a piece of chocolate out of his pocket and broke it in half and offered some to Henry. “Are we going to watch a movie, or are we going to have a theological discussion?”
    Henry said he didn’t care. But what he would like would be to get those books.
    “What books?”
    Henry said the ones he found in the library next to Sy’s sister’s store,
The Secret History
and
The Coptic Gnostic Library
.
    Sy laughed. “Oh,
those
books.”
    Henry said it is impossible that anyone see anything of those things which are firmly established unless he becomes like them.
    “Go on.”
    Henry said unlike the case of man who is in the world, he sees the sun but is not the sun and sees the heaven and the earth and all the other things but he is not these.
    “Nice. Very nice. Go on, go on.”
    Henry said it is not so with the truth because he sees the truth and is the truth.
    “Somebody needs to write a book about
you
! If I wasn’t stuck in this mess, I’d do it myself.”
    Henry said only the wretched labor in vain.
    “Right you are, kid. Anyway. We’re sort of stuck here for now.”
    Somehow, Sy had changed. He was like someone who went down into the water and came up with nothing. In Byzantium Sy was different. There he was like someone who went down into the water and came up with a fish but let the fish go afterward. Maybe he went down too many times. Maybe he let go of a fish he should have kept. Or maybe he kept a fish he should have let go.
    Henry remembered one day when he had gone with Helena to Sy’s place. There was a big box in the middle of the room and Sy said it was an orgone accumulator and he built it himself. He said the box captured all the energy in the universe and concentrated it inside and if you sat in the box you could feel the energy. It was called
orgone
. Henry wanted to go inside but Sy said no. He said you had to be prepared.
    Helena laughed at Sy and said he was crazy. Sy had a book that was written by a man named Wilhelm Reich, who had invented the box and gone to prison because, Sy said, he had discovered a new level of human consciousness the same way Jesus Christ had. Sy said Reich called Christ the archetypal genital character. He said he had followed the instructions for the orgone accumulator very carefully and every day he sat in it for a little while.
    Helena asked what he did inside.
    “I work toward my full orgastic capacity.”
    “That’s disgusting,” Helena said.
    “I’m talking about orgone energy,” Sy said. “The living pulse of the universe.”
    Sy took more chocolate out of his pocket and ate some and gave a piece to Henry. Then he took out the video and put it in the VCR .
    Henry asked what the movie was.
    “
Total Recall
. With Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
    Henry said he had never heard of it.
    “I’m not surprised,” Sy said and gave Henry another piece of chocolate. Sy sat on the couch and Henry lay down on the floor and they watched the movie. Afterward Sy asked Henry if he liked it.
    Henry said it was all wrong.
    “How can a movie be all wrong?”
    Henry said because Schwarzenegger was not nailed to a tree in the end and the world was saved anyway. In the divided world there are those who come to know the truth and those who despise the truth because they are created by error. Error created this world and that was why Jesus had to come and ransom it back for his father by getting killed.
    “Jesus, Henry,” Sy said.
    Henry said the only lost causes are the ones who can’t rise above ignorance and see that the world they live in