There, I dreamed that the Lord of the skies had hurled such a great wind against the sea, she gave birth to a storm, so terrible, it threatened to break up the ship. Abandoning the rest of the crew to their own fear, as they plea-bargained with their gods for a little more time in which to distance themselves from the sins of the past, I fell into a state of suspended animation, until I was awakened by the Captain, himself.

“What’re you doin’ asleep?“ he asked. “Get up ’n’ call on your god! Perhaps he’ll spare us so that we do not perish.“ Jon. 1:6.

When the crew cast lots to determine on whose account this calamity had befallen them, the lot fell to me.

“Tell us why this calamity has come upon us,“ they demanded of me. “What’s your occupation? Where do you come from? What’s your country? And of what people are you?“ Jon. 1:8.

“I am a new breed of man called Homo Sapiens,“ I replied, “the final act of a divine drama that has played itself out over millions of years, to help you get a better sense of the Original Being. Unlike previous species of man, such as Homo Neanderthalensis, I bring together the great wisdom of the body and the vast intelligence of that void, you call the mind, for within me are joined heaven and earth in one very unique and harmonious whole. While heaven is my country, like an only begotten son do I strive to love the earth, from whence I’ve come, just as I do my father in heaven. Only I have yet to find she who’s missing—the life I’m meant to lead—my link to heaven in other words.“

At that, they grew even more afraid. “What is it you’ve done,“ (Jon. 1:10) they asked? For they knew that I had failed, as a sentinel for Uncle Sam, to warn them when I received word from the Lord concerning their condition or loss of soul.

“What shall we do,“ they asked, “that the sea may quiet down?“ For the sea was growing more ’n’ more tempestuous. Jon. 1:11.

“Pick me up ’n’ throw me into the sea,“ I replied. “Then the sea’ll quiet down for you, for I know it’s because of me that this great storm has come upon you.“ Jon. 1:12.

Instead, they tried to stabilize the ship, enough, so that she could be kept from capsizing and safely steered to calmer waters.

The sea only grew angrier with them.

In a last ditch effort to save themselves, they cried out, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.“ Jon. 1: 14–15. And so did they throw me overboard.

Having gotten her man back, did the sea cease to rage.

Fearing the Lord even more, did they sacrifice their animal natures to the Lord and vow to live Neanderthal lives no more.

Swallowed up by a great gray whale, like a single spermatozoon by an egg, was I spared some semblance of a life. Forced to give body to one whale of an idea, did I struggle, for three days ’n’ three nights, to free my self from this notion before it absorbed me and spewed out upon dry land, a sentinel for the house of Uncle Sam.

“Get up,“ commanded the One Voice, “return to Honolulu and proclaim what I tell you.“

Having just had one helluva dream, did I awaken to my true calling in life.

“It is difficult to say, my son,“ he replied, “without going back to the beginning of the encounter, and working our way through this seemingly incomprehensible maze of symbols. For it is the first real look into the nature of the demons, still plaguing you, that we’ve had since their exposure over a month ago. While this dream reveals little about the one, other than the femaleness of the recessive side of your nature, it deals primarily with the dual aspect of the other, more dominant male side of your animal nature.“

“What I find most interesting,“ interjected my shadow, “is the passion with which your body responded to that part of you which acts out or uses body language to express itself.“

“For the body desires nothing more,“ claimed my soul, “than to be reunited with who you really are.“

“Don’t you see,“ inquired my mentor, “how badly your body yearns to be reunited with the creative potential hidden away within all the banality of your male sexuality?“

“In learning to trust the body,“ advised my soul, “you must overcome your distaste for the language that she uses. Otherwise you’ll miss what she’s trying to tell you in her own picturesque way.“

“Aroused by her passion for unity,“ expounded my mentor, “were you awakened to the nature of this demiurge, when his genius sprang from the wild side of your being, like an erection.“

“As this daemon struggled to keep his anonymity,“ explained my shadow, “he used the cryptic language of the body to confuse you about your own sexual orientation.“

“By getting you to reject him,“ acknowledged my soul, “on the basis of your fear of the homosexual factor present within the psyche of all mankind, he hoped to keep you from giving body to the more creative aspect of himself, imprisoned within this lie.“

“Finding little satisfaction in his union with body on the metaphysical plane,“ continued my mentor, “he quickly turned his attention to you, when he realized you shared the same desire, albeit from a very different perspective. Unsure of your own perspective, you couldn’t find it in your heart to accept the manner in which your creative daemon presented himself to you. Since you could only see him through the lens of your subjective bias, you played right into his hands whenever he tried to force himself upon you from this point of view. Thus were you forced to have sex with your self, over ’n’ over.“

“Having gotten nowhere with a gut level response,“ proffered my shadow, “you decided to take another look at him from the perspective of my domain. Hoping to find a more reasonable way of dealing with the sexual aspect of this urge, you were just as disappointed by the more widely accepted heterosexual solution to the problem, as you had been, by the homosexual approach of this daemon in the rough, for neither bias seemed to bring you any closer to the true nature of the demiurge.“

“At that point,“ asserted my mentor, “did you turn to the superior ability of your intuitive faculty, to examine the situation in view of some of the choices you had recently made. To kick the habit of giving into the urge, whenever it demanded sex, you realized that you’d have to do more than just get tough with this part of you, for no matter how hard you tried to shove the urge aside, it always crept back into your life like a cat with nine lives. In your desperation to find a more creative outlet for this urge you latched onto the job of shipfitter with the hope of having hit it on the head. Encouraged by the response of this daemon, to take a more aggressive approach than passive resistance, you resorted to the same tactic the government uses, that old staple of throwing canned interpretations at a subject until one sticks. Confronted by your desires for willy-nilly sex, were you forced to put down this little rebellion which, much to your surprise, you succeeded in doing.“

“Having reduced the urge to its lowest common denominator—to an inordinate desire to spill your guts out,“ inferred my shadow, “did you step outside yourself to look at it from a more objective point of view. Confronted by the truly awesome power of the urge, you wondered if we could even help you redirect it down a more appropriate avenue in life. Though you came close to getting a concession from the beastly side of nature, you ruined your chance when you showed your contempt for that part of you.“

“Realizing that he still held the upper hand,“ reiterated my mentor, “he wasn’t about to give into your prejudice against the racy workings of the lower echelons of your being.“

“Accept your sexuality for what it is,“ broke in my shadow, “a reminder of your incompleteness.“

“Don’t you see, my son,“ exclaimed my mentor, “the triune nature of this urge—how you desire to be at one with your body and the creative potential hidden within it, as much as they desire unity with not only each other but you too, for you are their only means of expression.“

“Though you may feel as if an unfair burden has been placed upon you,“ concluded my soul, “in reality, you are being asked to do no more than what you’ll demand of the woman you’ll one day marry—to love the beast within you, with all her mind, all her heart and all her soul, till it can no longer hold back the secret of its inmost being from you.“

“If only you would say no to the Great Gray Whore,“ had my soul whispered in my ear, “I would fulfill your every desire for union with me. But you would have to stop whoring around with her first,“ she insisted, “and run away with me to the Promised Land.“

“If it were that simple,“ I explained, “believe me, I’d be the first to take off with you, as in the days of old, when I was younger ’n’ freer, and could run away with you at the drop of a hat. Only I can’t do that anymore. I’m tied down now, bound to this godforsaken can by a contract I made with the government of the United States, like a pact with the devil, for two years of my life.“

“Don’t ya see,“ she argued, “that it’s a nonbinding contract.“

“Like hell it is!“ I exclaimed. “I can’t just walk away from it. I’d find my ass in the brig so goddamn fast, I wouldn’t know what hit me.“

“In the eyes of God,“ she retorted, “the only contract that is binding, is the one that bound you to me, for life, in your mother’s womb. Don’t you remember the solemn vows we made, before you were born—how I promised to show ya the way, if only you’d take me there—and how you promised, as you were leaving the womb, that you’d come back one day, to take me with ya, wherever we’d decide to go. O how I’ve longed for the day when we’d be as one again!“

“You don’t understand,“ I complained. “It’d be insane for me to return with you to never-never land.“

“No,“ she refuted, “it’d be insane for you to go on as you are.“

“There’s nothing I can do about it,“ I insisted.

“You can always say no,“ she persisted.

“Yeah right,“ I contested. “And end up in the brig. What kinda deal is that?“

“Well,“ she conjectured.

“I’m afraid not,“ I exclaimed.

“I’m afraid so,“ she rebutted.

“What d’ya mean?“ I asked.

“You’re afraid to go to the brig,“ she replied.

“I am not,“ I insisted, even though I knew she was telling the truth.

“And you’re afraid that’s what the Navy’ll do to ya, too,“ she persisted, “if you start saying no to them.“

“You’re goddamn right!“ I exclaimed.

“You just need to start dealing with your fear,“ she concluded.

“A broken egg!“ replied my shadow in jest.

“Aw, shut up,“ I yelled out, in my anger over having received such a stupid response. “I ain’t no goddamn egg.“

“What you say is what you are,“ retorted my shadow, “cause two negatives always make a positive.“

“You’re the egghead,“ I shouted back, “not me.“

“You’re the one who penetrated her womb and sowed the seeds of consciousness,“ he enigmatically proclaimed.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?“ I demanded to know.

“What Michael is trying to tell you, if you’d just shut up and listen,“ exclaimed my soul, “is that I am with child.“

“O, I get it now,“ I sarcastically exclaimed. “What you’re tryin’ to tell me is that I, a mere mortal, got you, a spirit, pregnant. Yeah, right! Why don’t you tell me another one of your goddamn lies.“

“I do not lie,“ she strongly asserted, “for lying ’n’ deception belong not to me, but rather to the evil magician.“

Deep down, I knew she was telling the truth.

“You’ve been penetrating my womb for some time,“ she exclaimed, “and with little regard for the outcome. Don’t you see—it was bound to happen sooner or later.“

“So what does this mean?“ I asked out of my own bewilderment.

“It means that, in three or four months,“ replied my mentor, “you’ll be giving birth to some new aspect of yourself.“

“But why must I wait so long?“ I asked.

“It takes a long time for an idea to gain flesh,“ he responded. “And as you can see, there’s a lot that needs to be done yet, in preparation for the birth of this work of art.“

“Are we all eggmen?“ I asked.

“Yes,“ replied my shadow, “just as I am you and you are me, you are Humpty Dumpty.“

As I stood in this Asian garden, waiting for the sun to shine, I was inevitably forced to endure the scorching heat of the dragon, when the powers that be called upon the crew of our ship to provide continuous illumination fire on a company of Viet Cong, after they had ambushed some of our troops in the vicinity of a friendly village. While these phosphorescent lights hung high in the air, like huge candles in the limbs of a gigantic tree, I stood by and watched, with a heavy heart, as we saturated the village in a firestorm of shells that left no one to return fire. In the ensuing silence, I spun around to leave and turned right smack dab into the pockmarked face of this big ole fat moon, a mere reflection of all that was left now, of this little bit of scorched earth.

While all the king’s arses and all the king’s men sat around the table in the war room, choking on their own smoke as they wrestled with the affairs of state, I thought I saw the Joker, Instinct, at the head of the table, laughing because I couldn’t put Humpty together again.

O how the heads of state did sneer with the facial contortions of the animals they had become.

Hurt by such callousness, I started crying. As the purified spirit of one among so many, struggled to rise above the insanity of playing with real guns ’n’ drums, I was hurt even more deeply by the invocation of God that came over the ship’s radio from the fleet Chaplain’s own mouth:

“O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of their guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain their white sands with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.“ (Excerpted from Mark Twain’s The War Prayer)

Instantly, I realized He spoke in a language peculiar to all of mankind, and yet as different as every individual who has ever lived, for this babble was meant to confuse all but the one in whose tongue he spoke. To keep from losing touch with Who I Really Am, I had no choice then, but to listen to the One Voice, as it painstakingly pointed out to me the way I must go. Otherwise, I would only find confusion.

“Few like what he has to say,“ proclaimed some strange ensemble from across the void.

“They might learn what He really wants of them,“ I thought to myself, “which may conflict with their own agendas. As out of touch as they are with their feelings—the original language of mankind—they are incapable of seeing through the great darkness that has descended upon us and thrown our world into a tailspin.“

“Like a schizophrenic,“ he went on to say, “had the right hand of man lost touch with the left one, when the right began to pay homage to those individuals whose central focus in life revolved entirely around the self and no one else. Having created a new god on Mt. Olympus, that is, within the psyche of man, did the right proceed to amass for its self, so much of the power ’n’ wealth of the world, it left an incredibly huge vacuum or black hole from which then arose the god of the left, or worship of the collective—to the complete denigration of the individual. In the rush to serve these gods, did the hands of men fabricate two titans, one to the east, the other to the west, to rule over themselves. In place of the one Lord Who had ruled over the hearts ’n’ minds of men since time immemorial, now stood the images of an old business tycoon and his nemesis, the bear. Since the world could ill afford to support one titan, much less two, there arose such a clamor between the two of them, for the souls of men, that many lives were needlessly lost in the struggle to find a military solution to the psychological problems of mankind—this schizophrenic split in man’s collective psyche.“

“To find healing for the terrible rift that divides us,“ proclaimed Jinny, “you need only turn to me. Embrace me as of old, and I will show you the way to true happiness. Refuse me, and I will unleash upon you the madness that engulfed your fathers.“

And so did all three disappear, leaving me alone atop my perch, to drift about aimlessly in a sea of conflicting emotions.

Looking ahead, I saw a doctor who reminded me of Dr. Jekyll, though he looked like Uncle Sam, standing over a young man whose battered body lay wrapped in a bloody sheet on the table before him. To the left of the young man’s body, in the shadow of Uncle Sam, stood another nefarious surgeon general, I immediately recognized as Hyde, though he looked a lot like Ho Chi Minh. As they stood there bickering over the fate of the young man’s life, I realized that neither of them could ever gain control, either in life or in death, of the spirit of the young man while it remained free.

Forced back into my body, I sat straight up on the table, looking a bit like the risen Christ, for I wasn’t about to let these two thugs take control of my life. I had to take the helm if I didn’t want to end up hanging from the cross of one or the other of these two thieves, who had already taken so much from the world, in the name of their respective ism, there was little else left for them to take, but life itself. Since I was neither an unrepentant god nor an apologetic beast, I wanted no part in the killing of other human beings. Nor did I care to lose my life participating in such a dead-end affair. Although I sympathized with the plight of the apologetic beast, I knew that his way of life left as much to be desired as that of the moral right or unrepentant god, for hidden within the desire to destroy the terrible images they saw in each other, lay the hope of one day unearthing the missing link, a way of being that seeks to live out the best of both worlds instead of the worst.

Only I couldn’t imagine what the missing link looked like, much less how it would act in my situation. While I sincerely believed that Jesus would never have participated in the killing of another human being, I didn’t know what to do about my own participation in such an act, now that I was in the position to take another’s life. After all, I wasn’t Christ. Nor was I even Christlike. Yet I knew the missing link was, in spite of its apelike appearance, more like Christ then I could ever hope to be, for this gentle humanoid was ultimately tied to its maker by the limits of its imagination, of which I was just now becoming aware.

“To you,“ stated my mentor, “has been given the secret of the kingdom, but for those outside, everything comes in images.“ Mk. 3:11.

“Only I do not know this secret of which you speak,“ I insisted.

“When an animal looks,“ replied my mentor, “it does not perceive. Nor does it understand what it hears when it listens, for it lacks imagination. And so it is with all who have never learned to enter, a second time, the womb of the imagination, for I tell you, unless your shipmates become like children, they will never enter the kingdom. Bound by the images of Instinct, they will instead be left standing outside to wail and gnash their teeth, like animals seeking entry to their master’s house.

“Pay attention,“ admonished my mentor, “to what you hear rather than to what you see. ’For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.’ Mk. 4:22.

“Now that you know,“ he concluded, “wherein the kingdom doeth lie—having seen the face of God there, with your own eyes—take care, lest you lose sight of this vital link to Who You Really Are, or what consciousness has been given you, will be taken away.“

“I shoulda known,“ I yelled across the table to Greg, as the hootin’ ’n’ hollerin’ for “more, more“ gave way to a frenzy of hand clapping and foot stomping.

Greg said not a word. Nor did he have to, for the look on his face said it all, that we were stuck here until the show was over. Having selected a table at the far end of the building, he’d not foreseen the possibility of our getting so completely cut off from access to the building’s only exit, by such an unwieldy crowd.

Having stripped down to her panties and a pair of high heels, our stripper teasingly flung her shoes out into the audience in response to its demand for more. In a move calculated to whip her audience into a real frenzy, she stepped up to the edge of the stage, only to taunt those seated in front by thrusting her pelvis back ’n’ forth, just inches from their faces. At the height of their frenzy, did she finally yield her panties to the sailor lucky enough to have snatched this little bouquet from the air as it flew out of her hand, over the heads of her audience. Standing there, now, stark naked, did she begin to wave her perfumed twat in the face of this one sailor, rubbing her hands up ’n’ down her thighs ’n’ buttocks, as if she were taunting him to take her. Unable to resist such an offer, he leaped up onto the stage and quickly stripped down to nothing, as she continued to erotically rub ’n’ wriggle her greased body around in front of him. Then, with a fully erect phallus, he pursued her about the stage in a little chase scene that just drove the others wild. Finally catching hold of her arm, he spun her around and plunged his rod into her. With that, she backed off, and grabbing hold of his hand, ran back stage with her catch.

The show was over. Or so we thought, until hordes of scantily clad, nubile young females came swooping down upon us, like nymphs from out of the wood, into a clearing spilling over with young bucks.

“Time to exit, stage left,“ hollered Greg above all the confusion.

“Yeah,“ I shouted back, “before we’re attacked.“

With that, I felt a hand grab hold of my genitals and start rubbing them. Shocked, I shoved aside the hand of the sweet young thing standing there, looking longingly into my face. Bound by the laws of my humanity to seek out her alone who could open my eyes to the true nature of my being, I realized I could not mate with just any available female. And as she turned her head to gaze back into my eyes, after having been snatched from me by another able-bodied seaman, I could see that she was not the one I sought.

“Come on,“ yelled Greg as he tugged at my arm. “Let’s get the hell outta here before you change your mind.“

“I don’t know about you,“ he exclaimed, once we had gotten clear of the place, “but I’ve seen about all I care to see. Let’s go back to the ship, before you do something you’ll later regret.“

“Not yet,“ I shot back after having had my appetite for sex wetted.

“Then I’m going back by myself,“ he insisted.

“Let’s try one more place,“ I pleaded with him. “Then I promise, I’ll go back with ya. Besides, I don’t think it’d be very wise for either one of us to go gallivantin’ off, like this, without the other. Do you?“

“O, all right,“ he begrudgingly consented. “I’ll go with ya, this time. Then, that’s it for me cause, afterwards, I’m headin’ back to the ship whether you come with me or not.“

“Okay,“ I added with the hope of ending the discussion on a more conciliatory note.

Hesitating momentarily, he looked up ’n’ smiled. “Against my better judgment, I’ll go with ya,“ he replied.

“All right!“ I exclaimed triumphantly, though not without some misgivings, especially after we had all agreed, on our arrival in Subic Bay, to avoid Sodom, and keep out of Gomorrah at all costs. Nor did I hear a peep from my faculties, which remained uncharacteristically silent on the matter. Having made up my mind, I wasn’t about to cave into their nagging doubts about what I should or shouldn’t do.

“I’ll meet ya up on the fantail. Okay?“ I asked, halfway expecting Greg to renege on his pledge to go with me, thus forcing me to reconsider going into Olongapo, as I would never have done so, alone.

Quickly finding ourselves outside the main gate, we were immediately set upon by a swarm of hacks driving jeeps, they had purchased through army surplus and had converted into jitneys, the locals called jeepneys. Having selected the first driver who approached us, were we deposited—without ever having been asked where we wanted to go—in that part of Olongapo’s anatomy, most seamen seemed to gravitate. Instantly, were we surrounded by a horde of small children, of all ages, some of whom began begging for pesos, while their more enterprising compadres offered us sisters and virgin mothers as “good f–ks“, like commodities on the floor of the exchange, only for dollars instead of pesos. As they raced to get their hands on one of the handful of coins I had flung into the street, to divert their attention, we ducked around a corner, only to be confronted by a young Philippine tough wielding a butterfly knife.

“Ten dollars, please,“ he demanded as he pressed the blade into my ribs and threatened, in broken English, to run me through if I failed to comply.

Pulling out the ten dollar bill I’d stuck in my shirt pocket for convenience sake, I handed it over to him, whereupon he immediately disappeared down the gangway between the two buildings in front of which we’d been left standing, a bit shaken by the whole affair.

“So here we stand, like two idiots,“ bemoaned Greg, “after havin’ been fleeced of more money, in the last ten minutes, than we’ve spent on ourselves, the entire trip, waitin’ for it to happen again.“

“Are you suggesting,“ I inquired, “that we return to the ship.“

“If not,“ he replied, “then, at least, that we get our butts inside one of these places with some other sailors, for our own safety.“

Looking down the street, I wondered who had not lived in this godforsaken town, to keep it from turning into the biggest little whorehouse in all the South Pacific. When suddenly I saw a drunken sailor go traipsing into some nondescript place several doors down, I turned to Greg and said, “There’s our cue. Let’s go.“

Inside, I watched with disgust as this same sailor went from one nubile young prostitute to the next, lifting up their short skirts and spreading their legs apart, to inspect their twats as they sat motionless on their stools at the bar, like pieces of meat on a counter, till he’d selected the cut he wanted. Wary of the sudden craving that had come over me, to jump into this field of strawberries and wallow around, rubbing them all over my naked body and eating which ever ones I wanted, I backed off with the realization that man does not live by images alone, “but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God“. Mt. 4:4. As we hurried out the door, I realized that whatever I so sorely sought lay hidden within this craving, waiting for me to give it the energy it needed to cross over the threshold of consciousness into my awareness.