"That's better. At least you didn't fall into feeling guilty about the block. That's an infinite regress. The next stage is to feel guilty about feeling guilty… and pretty soon you're back in the trap again, trying to be the governor of the nation of Dorn."

"The Robot," George said.

Mavis toked and said, "Mm?"

"I call it the Robot."

"You picked that up from Leary back in the mid-'60s. I keep forgetting you were a child prodigy. I can just see you, with your eyeglasses and your shoulders all hunched, poring over one of Tim's books when you were eight or nine. You must have been quite a child. They've sure mauled you over since then, haven't they?"

"It happens to most prodigies. And nonprodigies, too, for that matter."

"Yeah. Eight years' grade school, four high school, four college, then postgraduate studies. Nothing left but the Robot at the end. The ever-rebellious nation of Me with poor old I sitting on the throne trying to govern it."

"There's no governor anywhere," George quoted.

"You are coming along nicely."

"That's Chuang Chou, the Taoist philosopher. But I never understood him before."

"So that's where Hagbard stole it! He has little cards that say, 'There is no enemy anywhere.' And ones that say, 'There is no friend anywhere.' He said once he could tell in two minutes which card was right for a particular person. To jolt them awake."

"But words alone can't do it. I've known most of the words for years…"

"Words can help. In the right situation. If they're the wrong words. I mean, the right words. No, I do mean the wrong words."

They laughed, and George said, "Are we just goofing, or are you taking up the liberation of the nation of Dorn where Hagbard left off?"

"Just goofing. Hagbard did tell me that you had passed one of the gateless gates and that I might drop in, after you had a while alone."

"A gateless gate. That's another one I've known for years, without understanding it. The gateless gate and the governorless nation. The chief cause of socialism is

capitalism. What the hell does that bloody apple have to do with all this?"

"The apple is the world. Who did Goddess say owns it?"

" 'The prettiest one.' "

"Who is the prettiest one?"

"You are."

"Don't make a pass right now. Think."

George giggled. "I've been through too much already. I think I'm getting sleepy. I have two answers, one communist and one fascist. Both are wrong, of course. The correct answer has to fit in with your anarcho-capitalism."

"Not necessarily. Anarcho-capitalism is just our trip. We don't mean to impose it on everybody. We have an alliance with an anarcho-communist group called the JAMs. John Dillinger's their leader."

"Come off it. Dillinger died in 1935 or something."

"John Dillinger is alive and well today, in California, Fernando Poo and Texas," Mavis smiled. "As a matter of fact, he shot John F. Kennedy."

"Give me another toke. If I have to listen to this, I might as well be in a state where I won't try to understand it."

Mavis passed the pipe. "The prettiest one has quite a few levels to it, like all good jokes. I'll give you the Freudian one, as beginners. You know the prettiest one, George. You gave it to the apple just yesterday.

"Every man's penis is the prettiest thing in the world to him. From the day he's born until the day he dies. It never loses its endless fascination. And, I kid you not, baby, the same is true of every woman and her pussy. It's the closest thing to a real, blind, helpless love and religious adoration that most people ever achieve. But they'd rather die than admit it. Homosexuality, the urge to kill, petty spites and treacheries, fantasies of sadism, masochism, transvestism, any weird thing you can name, they'll confess all that in a group therapy session. But that deep submerged constant narcissism, that perpetual mental masturbation, is the earliest and most powerful block. They'll never admit it."

"From what I've read of psychiatric literature, I thought most people had rather squeamish and negative feelings about their genitals."

"That, to quote Freud himself, is a reaction formation. The primordial emotional tone, from the day the infant discovers the incredible pleasure centers there, is perpetual astonishment, awe and delight. No matter how much society tries to crush it and repress it. For instance, everybody has some pet name for their genitals. What's yours?"

"Polyphemus," he confessed.

"What?"

"Because it has one eye, you know? Also, Polyphemus rhymes with penis, I guess. I mean, I can't remember exactly what my mental process was when I invented that in my early teens."

"Polyphemus was a giant, too. Almost a god. You see what I mean about the primary emotional tone? It's the origin of all religion. Adoration of your own genitals and of your lover's genitals. There's Pan Pangeni-tor and the Great Mother."

"So," George said owlishly, still not sure whether this was profundity or nonsense, "the earth belongs to our genitalia?"

"To their offspring, and their offspring's offspring, and so on, forever. The world is a verb, not a noun."

"The prettiest one is three billion years old."

"You've got it, baby. We're all tenants here, including the ones who think they're owners. Property is impossible."

"Okay, okay, I think I've got most of it. Property is theft because the Illuminati land titles are arbitrary and unjust. And so are their banking charters and railroad franchises and all the other monopoly games of capitalism-"

"Of state capitalism. Not of true laissez-faire."

"Wait. Property is impossible because the world is a verb, a burning house as Buddha said. All things are fire. My old pal Heracleitus. So property is theft and property is impossible. How do we get to property is liberty?"

"Without private property there can be no private decisions."

"So we're back where we started from?"

"No, we're one flight higher up on the spiral staircase. Look at it that way. Dialectically, as your Marxist Mends say."

"But we care back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction."

"The Statist form of private property is an impossible fiction. Just like the Statist form of communal property is an impossible fiction. Think outside the State framework, George. Think of property in freedom."

George shook his head. "It beats the hell out of my ass. All I can see is people ripping each other off. The war of all against all, as what's-his-name said."

"Hobbes."

"Hobbes, snobs, jobs. Whoever. Or whatever. Isn't he right?"

"Stop the motor on this submarine."

"What?"

"Force me to love you."

"Wait, I don't…"

"Turn the sky green or red, instead of blue."

"I still don't get it."

Mavis took a pen off the desk and held it between two fingers. "What happens when I let go of this?"

"It falls."

"Where do you sit if there are no chairs?"

"On the floor?" If Iwasn't so stoned, I would have had it by then. Sometimes drugs are more a hindrance than a help. "On the ground?" I added.

"On your ass, that's for sure." Mavis said. "The point is, if the chairs all go away, you still sit. Or you build new chairs." She was stoned, too; otherwise she'd be explaining it better, I realized. "But you can't stop the motor without learning something about marine engineering first. You don't know what switch to pull. Or switches. And you can't change the sky. And the pen will fall without a gravity-governing demon rushing into the room to make it fall."

"Shit and pink petunias," I said disgustedly. "Is this some form of Thomism? Are you trying to sell me the Natural Law argument? I can't buy that at all."

"Okay, George. Here's the next jolt. Keep your asshole tight." She spoke to the wall, to a hidden microphone, I guessed. "Send him in now."