§86 Suicide is self-education

Suicide is self-education. Suicide demands training and preparation.

“Teach yourself to bear the loss of loved ones bravely,” counsels Seneca. For this prepares one to apply the lesson to oneself.” The Hagakure instructs that one prepares for death in everyday life. The two are inextricable.

Every morning, the samurai … would bathe, shave their foreheads, put lotion on their hair, cut their finger nails and toenails, rubbing them with pumice and then with wood sorrel, and without fail, pay attention to their personal appearance. It goes without saying that their armor in general was kept free from rust, that is was dusted, shined, and arranged.

Although it seems that taking special care of one’s appearance is similar to showiness, it is nothing akin to elegance. Even if you are aware that you may be struck down today and are firmly resolved to an inevitable death, if you are slain with an unseemly appearance, you will show your lack of previous resolve, will be despised by your enemy, and will appear unclean.

It is neither busy-work nor time-consuming. In hardening one’s resolution to die in battle, deliberately becoming as one already dead … there will be no shame.

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[1] Seneca, Essays and Letters, 205.
[2] Hagakure, 39.

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Before I left basecamp to head back to town for equipment and supplies I reburied what was broken or rotted or of no use to me. I also figured that Glim wasn’t digging furiously to get at those cotton socks or brand new pairs of underwear. Atop the mound I planted the bottle of whiskey along with a note. Given the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich incident I didn’t want to tempt Glim with strong drink but I also didn’t want to deprive him of it. I figured he of all people could use one. The note read:

Dear Glim,

I’m really sorry about what happened. I have your Revolver and Holster. They are safe with me. I will give them back if you want. Just let me know somehow. In fact, everything is still yours. I’m just borrowing them. Except things that were rotten or broken. They are buried herein. I will return with more supplies soon. You’re idea of a basecamp was a good one so I hope you don’t mind I borrowed that too. It is called Camp Glim in your honor.

Your Forest Friend.

I wrapped the blanket and the cast iron skillet with a cast iron lid and a few other items I could use in a tarp to keep them safe and secure and then I started the trek back to town.

Coming down the mountain with the Revolver Holstered at my side I reflected on all that had happened. There was much to think about on the long trip back. Most important, I felt really bad about the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich incident. I knew that Glim had escaped from prison after killing someone and then he tried or tried to try to kill the Spectre and there was such a thing as punishment or retribution or wrath. But what happened seemed a little excessive, except if we’re talking wrath, in which case it starts to make more sense. But I liked the Raccoon and I would never go out of my way to harm him. So because the bargain was my idea and because it was my Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich that did that to him the whole thing felt like it was partly my fault. As far as I was concerned my side of the bargain hadn’t been met. I still owed him. For his story. For the basecamp idea. For all the really nice gear from his rucksack. I would have to come up with something good.

I also talked myself into some assurance that the Spectre wouldn’t come for me to become a Raccoon because I didn’t have a Reverse UNO card on my forehead because if I did then Glim would have seen it, is what my reasoning was. Plus, I wasn’t trying to kill or capture the Spectre, s why would I? Then I talked myself into the horrible realization that what the card really was was something much much worse than a Reverse UNO card because who knows what cards the Spectre truly deals and if it’s face down it can’t be good or at least it could be really bad? Then I talked myself into some assurance that I had done nothing wrong and so whatever the UNO card stuck to my forehead was it couldn’t be that bad and it had to be better than a Reverse UNO card. Then I realized that I truly felt like I had done nothing wrong and that’s a sure sign I had done something very wrong and just didn’t feel ashamed about it and probably actually felt pretty good about myself for whatever I did that was truly wrong. Then I wondered if I had a conscience. Then I wondered if someone with a good conscience would say No out of humility in answer to the question of whether or not he had a conscience while someone with a bad conscience would say Yes out of blind arrogance. I pondered that for a while. Then decided to say Maybe so I could move on to the next topic.

Then the next topic hit me! I never asked Glim what the Spectre looked like. All I knew about was what he said about the appearing then the floating and before all that the shivering mountain and some deep darkness. That’s it. I never thought to get more details. Did the Spectre have any distinguishing features or characteristics for the purposes of identification? The Spectre floats and so the Spectre has no legs, I deduced, but you could still have legs and yet you do float simply because you can float. If I could float you’re damn right I would float, I said to myself with a firm nod.

How about arms? The Reverse UNO card was played or rather plucked or rather plucked then played from Glim’s forehead. But does that require arms and hands when it comes to the Spectre? The Spectre does not abide by the rules of the world and instead reigns over them so who knows what rules pertains and how things work? So I was back to learning nothing new from what little I knew.

What about the shivering? When the earth shivers that will be a dead giveaway, I confirmed to myself. But must the mountain always shake and shiver? Does the Spectre not sometimes arrive like or as a thief in the night? Does the Spectre always appear in Darkness? How about sometimes appearing in blinding light? Maybe the Spectre is invisible most of the time and what Glim saw was the exception and not the rule.

Now I arrived at the basic problem in all of this. I was trying to paint a fuller picture of the Spectre using only Glim’s brief account and I’m not even sure Glim knew what was happening to take it all in for what it truly was and from that shard of skewed recounting I was trying to settle on the rules and characteristics and tell-tale signs and exceptions and variations and counterpoints and it was just silly and hopeless. I had missed my chance to get the full story from Glim and knowing what can happened to Glim when we talk I didn’t think it would be fair to try again. And yet I had to chew on these question to figure it all out. If I was going to track down the Spectre I needed to know as much as possible.

I asked the Revolver what he knew and the Revolver said he couldn’t add much.

I was still at the bottom of the rucksack when it all happened, said the Revolver. Just a shiver, I can confirm that. Then a brief flurry of commotion. Then sniffing and scratching by a very furry and very confused Raccoon. Over time dirt and debris settled on everything and what dim light there was at the bottom of the rucksack was extinguished and everything became muffled and then silent but for vibrations from above. Often there would be digging and pawing and scraping and in the beginning I expected Glim to return. Then an eternity passed and I stopped expecting anything.

Where were the bullets, I asked? I didn’t find anyin the rucksack. Not in the Revolver. Not in a side pocket. Were they scattered or lost?

That’s a good question!, exclaimed the Bullets. Where were we? Were we there?

No, said the Revolver. You weren’t there. You hadn’t even been born.

The Revolver looked consternated, plagued by a knowledge he both felt he should share and keep to himself. Then he shared.

There were, in fact, no bullets in me or in the rucksack or anywhere because Glim didn’t bring any, said the Revolver.

We were all dumbstruck by this revelation. How could that be?, we all wondered.

To understand that, said the Revolver, you have to understand Glim. Glim, said the Revolver, was just a guy trying to find his way in the world who got lost in the process. In fact, Glim was a pretty good man at heart who had gone very bad. I don’t know what that made him anymore. But I liked him regardless, or maybe because of it.

I will say that Glim was not what you would call a criminal mastermind. This is what got him into trouble while trying to lead a life of crime. He just wasn’t very good at it. We would spend days and weeks hold up in a seedy motel with him just reading and reading, book after book. He was meticulous, taking little notes on the page and in his notebook with something that caught his attention that he needed to remind himself of or work out. Then he would scribble down his own thoughts about the notes he took and the book he was reading. Sometimes he would read the notes back to himself and I have to say that they were pretty good thoughts and they would consume him until it was time to do crime and then we would go out and do crime and more often than not he was still thinking about what he thought of and wrote down while reading and taking notes and so he forget to load me with bullets and so it was not unusual for him to do crime with an unloaded me without even realizing it and that would drive me crazy. In a way his worst mistake was to remember to load me when not being loaded would have been much better. It was just that kind of luck, I guess.

This is all to say that when Glim broke out of prison and rushed around furious and frantic to gather up supplies from hidden and secret stashes and he threw an unloaded me into his rucksack with everything on top of me and me at the bottom and we all charged up the mountains I could pretty much guess that he forgot to bring bullets. In fact I called out to any bullets in the rucksack many times and there was no response, so unloaded I was and unloaded I would remain, I sighed to myself.

Of course knowing what we know now, even if I was by his side and fully loaded when the Spectre appeared it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It wasn’t that kind of showdown. It’s just that he wasn’t even Prepared according to his own plan.

I can relate, I said. I can relate, believe you me.

* * *

As we traveled back to town there was also plenty of time to get to know each other. I told the Revolver the story of solitary scouting up to that point. In return, the Revolver told the story of his revolvering. Unfortunately, said the Revolver, there were just no books written about guns. It’s an area that nobody knows much about or has much interest in learning. Maybe one day one of those Primsbses will sit down and set pen to paper to properly tell the story of guns. Until that time, said the Revolver, maybe the best place to learn about guns is from the musical called Guns Guns Guns.

Guns Guns Guns ran Off-Broadway for many years and then toured the country under the title, Guns Galore. Guns Guns Guns tells the story of guns through each actor on stage in the role of a gun. Each gun sings their own story and listens intently while the other guns on stage, who are really paid actors, tell their stories.

The innovative part is that each word sung by an actor in the role of a gun is matched by the sound of that particular gun firing. So a song of 100 words will also consist of 100 gunshots timed word-for-shot to perfection.

There are just too many good numbers to list, said the Revolver, but I can give you the highlights.

There is the Song of the Revolver, sung by the Smith & Wesson Model 10, the classic double-action .38 Special revolver with a four-inch barrel. Importantly, because the Model 10 Revolver only holds six bullets the Song of the Revolver is delivered in six-word increments with a pause so as to reload itself while the music plays on.

The aria, delivered by the Beretta 92, a pistol chambered in 9mm with a 15 round magazine standard capacity, can fire off longer lines and even string a few lines of song together before the Beretta has to drop its mag, slap another one into itself, and rack its slide to chamber another round before continuing singing amid the gunfire.

There is a tap dance number performed by the Colt M1911, a single action pistol chambered in .45 ACP, just like the one Thomas Magnum used to execute that reprehensible KGB spy named Ivan with in Episode 1, Season 3 of the TV drama Magnum P. I.

Then a Glock 17, which is a stiker-fired, polymer framed pistol also chambered in 9mm or Luger 9mm or NATO 9mm or 9x19mm Parabellum, delivers a powerful song titled, A Little Peace and Quiet. Si vis pacem parabellum, as they say.

A fan favorite is the touching duet, sung by an AK-47, chambered in 7.62mm and an M-16 in 5.56mm, called Why Can’t We Be Friends?, with the famous refrain of 2.06mm is all that separates us.

And these are just a few highlights.

The centerpiece of the musical is the Ballad of the Kentucky Long Rifle of the kind that Daniel Boone would have fired that is both long and a rifle but not manufactured in Kentucky in the same way that Vermont Maple Syrup is actually made in New Jersey and then secretly injected into birch trees in Vermont without Vermonters even knowing about it (chuckle). The Kentucky Long Rifle was renowned for its accuracy, due to the lengthy barrel of over 50 inches and the rifling of the barrel, which spins and thus stabilizes the ball for a much truer and longer trajectory. When the Kentucky Long Rifle delivers his story in song it takes an absolute forever because each word is followed by the actor reloading himself through his muzzle, stuffing all sorts of things into the barrel, tamping them down nice and compact, retracting the ramming rod, and then singing next word of the song whilst firing. The Ballad of the Kentucky Long Rifle requires the whole of Act 2 and a good portion of Act 3 to get through. It is an exercise in patience, to say the least.

The Grand Finale is a big song and dance number with a chorus line of all the guns with all of them singing with guns firing all at once with every word sung and fireworks exploding and strobe lights flashing and a simulated earthquake.

After a lengthy tour that spiralized the country many times over Guns Guns Guns became one of the most popular musicals of all time. Soon the musical was adapted for kids to perform in school under the title, Guns Galore, Fun!

I highly recommend seeing it if it comes to your town, added the Revolver .

One of the storylines in the musical, continued the Revolver, is the gradual and then the sudden supplanting of revolvers by pistols as they became the weapon of choice for everybody on all sides of the equation. The gradual part is the decades of more or less parallel tracks that revolvers and pistols followed until pistols themselves changed and were supplanted by pistols themselves.

Would you like to hear more?

I nodded.

* * *

In the beginning, of course, was the revolver, said the Revolver. We know this from the 1903 documentary titled The Great Train Robbery with the startling scene of a stern looking cowboy looking directly into the camera before raising his revolver and firing directly into your face. Just as the revolver was being perfected by Samuel Colt in 1873 so it could appear in Western movies and television shows for decades to come, and just as Horace Smith and Dan Wesson invented the Smith & Wesson Model 1899 in 1899 so cops and gangsters like James Cagney could shoot it out in Chicago with beer and blood running through the means streets, the pistol in the form of the M1911, designed by John Browning in 1897, was born so soldiers could carry it into battle to kill other soldiers in war movies just after the First World War.

Movies like The Heart of Humanity (1918) and The Lost Battalion (1919) introduced audiences to American soldiers crawling through the mud with M1911 pistols so as to sneak up on and shoot Germans with Luger pistols in the face. In the movie The Unbeliever (1918) a German officer waves an M1911 at an elderly peasant woman and threatens to shoot her in the face while an American soldier holds an M1911 to the head of a French maiden for reasons unknown because movies were silent back them. German soldiers also execute a mother and her young child by impromptu firing squad on the orders from a German officer nonchalantly smoking a cigarette but in this case they use the Mauser Gewehr rifle with bayonets affixed so as to run them through also so no pistols of any sort were required. War movies were really violent back then.

World War II was when the M1911 really exploded onto the scene with millions making their ways into the hands of American officers like John Wayne in the film called, The Longest Day (1962) where Mr. Wayne plays Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Vandervoot of the Vandervoots, where Wayne in the role of Vandervoot invents time travel to go back in time to reset the clock of the war using only his trusty M1911 to shoot Germans in the face. The movie gets its title from the final line of the movie where someone asks Vandervoot how his day went, and Wayne replies, Long, and because it’s John Wayne delivering the line and because you just saw the movie you know he wasn’t kidding.

Sadly there are not many movies made about the Korean War, being the most uninteresting of wars, but the war was made semi-famous by the movie called MASHED POTATOES (1970), which inspired a television program of the same name, where the title points to just how messy war can be, like mashed potatoes you see, with the title in all caps for emphasis. In the MASHED POTATOES episode titled Officer of the Day (Season 3, Episode 3), Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, or Doctor Hawkeye Pierce, nicknamed for a character named Hawkeye in the book titled, Last of the Mohicans, based on the movie, Last of the Mohicans (1992), where Hawkeye was an absolute killer with his Kentucky Long Rifle, refuses to carry the proffered M1911, as per regulations that the officer of the day be armed. Maj. Frank Burns insists, to which Hawkeye replies:

I’ll carry your books. I’ll carry a torch. I’ll carry a tune. I’ll carry on, carry forward, Cary Grant (chuckle), cash-n-carry, carry me back to Ole Virginie. I’ll even Hari Kari, Hawkeye offers, if you’ll show me how. But I will not carry a gun.

In the same episode, Colonel Flagg, who you just have to see to understand, waves his M1911 at a pesky Korean while threatening to execute him by shooting him in the face. Hari kari is not the Korean word for suicide, of course. Suicide that is painless is, however, the title of the theme song for MASHED POTATOES, although hari kari is not necessarily painless and in fact hari kari is made intentionally painful to show or demonstrate the courage not to be. This reminds me of the episode where Corporal Klinger, played the good-hearted Jamie Farr, who grew up both Lebanese and in Toledo, Ohio, which was coincidentally where Corporal Klinger haled from, threatens to hari kari by pouring gasoline on himself, which would in fact be painful and not painless, if he isn’t discharged from the Army and sent home. The gasoline in the gasoline can isn’t really gasoline. It’s water. And Colonel Potter suspects as much. So he distracts Klinger so Radar O’Reilly can put real gas in the gas can. When Klinger proceeds to douse himself he realizes the very same. Comedy ensues.

In the movie Platoon (1986), when Sgt. Barnes holds a pistol to the head of the crying Vietnamese girl and threatens to shoot her in the face it’s an M1911! This is the inciting incident for the war within the war between Barnes and Sgt. Elias who are fighting to save or destroy the soul of Charlie Sheen and by extension the soul of America, itself.

So for the most part the M1911 pistol traveled the world shooting soldiers and other people in the face during wartime.

The revolver followed a similar but different path. The revolver was the gun of the Old West where John Wayne, in his many roles as a U.S. Cavalry officer, would shoot Savage Indians in the face most often with a Colt 1873, also called the Peacemaker or the Frontiersman. The Colt 1873 also made its way into television in shows like Rawhide (1959-1965) and Bonanza (1959-1973), both set in the 1860s. When Jimmy Stewart finally acknowledges that law and order in the west is built on the gun by shooting the town menace, Liberty Valance, played by Mr. Lee Marvin, in the face — or so he thinks — that gun is a Colt revolver.

Just a few years after Rawhide and Bonanza the Colt revolver would become the Smith & Wesson Model 10 wielded by cops and robbers alike, but mostly by cops. The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1977). Kojak (1973-1978). Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). Everyone carried some version of the Smith & Wesson Model 10, chambered in .38 Special. The revolver with a 4-inch barrel was standard for the beat cop who holstered his gun at his side. The snub-nosed version, often the Model 36, with a two inch barrel, became de rigeur for detectives who did more talking than shooting but still needed to show criminals the business end of law enforcement. The smaller size was perfect for a sling holster inside the cheap suit that a detective could afford on his detective’s salary.

In the television program called The Rockford Files (1974-1980), the private investigator named Jim Rockford, played by Mr. James Garner, famously kept his snub-nosed revolver, a Smith & Wesson Model 19, in the cookie jar atop his refrigerator. Rockford almost never used a gun and instead relied on his charm and whit to get himself into and out of trouble. And yet, like Ransom Stoddard, played by Mr. Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, having a gun and not needing it is better than needing a gun and not having one.

The apex of the revolver in police procedurals was of course Det. Harry Callahan, played by Mr. Clint Eastwood, in Dirty Harry (1971) who wielded his Smith & Wesson Model 29, chambered in.44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world. Little did Dirty Harry Callahan know but this was the beginning of the end for the revolver. The swan song sung in the key of .44 Magnum explosions before the revolver falls silent.

The TV series Magnum P.I. (1980-1988), starring Tom Selleck, who also played competing private investigator Lance White in one classic episode of The Rockford Files titled White on White and Nearly Perfect (Season 5, Episode 4) and in another episode of The Rockford Files that was not as classic, was the effective bridge between the Smith & Wesson revolver of the police procedural and the M1911 pistol of war movies. As a former Navy officer who fought in Vietnam, the now-private investigator continues to use his trusty M1911 in episodes requiring he shoot someone in the face. Even in the opening credits we see Magnum slapping in a fresh mag and then prowling the jungle with it and then peeling out in his Ferrari 308 as a rock guitar totally slays it. By contrast, the bad guys and a few side characters still used revolvers, mostly snub nosed, with the rock guitar totally not slaying it, and the message was clear.

The television program called Miami Vice (1984-1990), which was about stopping only the best vices you could possibly have in Miami, served as a second bridge and then a third bridge between the revolver and the pistol. While Det. Sonny Crocket, played by Mr. Donald Johnson, packed a state of the art and very sexy, nickle-plated Bren Ten pistol chambered in 9mm, which would become the round of the future, Sonny’s partner named Det. Ricardo Tubbs, played by a fortune teller named Phillip Michael Thomas, carries a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard, which is a snub-nosed revolver with a shrouded hammer, chambered in .38 Special with a five round capacity. This is the same type of revolver used by that South Vietnamese officer who only needed one of those rounds to execute the Viet Cong prisoner by firing point-blank into the side of his head. Again, the message was clear.

Apropos of its exotic location, Miami Vice also introduced exotic guns such as Uzis and MACH-10s. One such exotic gun, which appeared in an episode titled, Cuba Libre (Airing: January 23, 1987), was the Glock 17. The Glock 17 is a polymer frame pistol, chambered in 9mm., with a load capacity of 17 +1 made possible by a double-stack magazine. The Glock gun was invented by Gaston Glock of Vienna, Austria who started out by manufacturing curtain rods and then invented his gun which was so good because he didn’t know how guns invented over the centuries worked and so he just designed a gun on how he thought it probably should be designed and it turned out to be perfect. The Glock 17 required just a few component parts, compared to other pistols that required a dump truck full of levers and springs and rods all packed into a small space where so much could go wrong so the gun jams just when your life depends on it firing. The metal slide of the Glock 17 was mounted on a polymer or plastic frame that meant a lighter firearm that was easier to wield. The round capacity of the Glock 17 was 17 + 1, meaning the double-stack magazine could hold 17 rounds and with one round already chambered so you could draw your pistol with 18 rounds ready to go instead of the five or six bullets that a revolver served up.

The round was fired with an internal striker instead of a hammer like on the M1911 and most other pistols of the time and all revolvers. The internal striker was lighter, more efficient and more reliable. The striker also lightened the trigger pull giving the Glock a feather touch, which was really good if you were a good shooter and really bad if all you wanted to do was shoot yourself in the leg.

The Glock 17 was chambered in 9mm, which was the standard NATO round for NATO-related shooting of people in the face internationally which meant that you could easily shoot them in the face locally, as well. Speaking of which, a skilled shooter can empty the Glock in a matter of seconds, raining down a hailstorm of lead for the criminal to eat. Reloading was fast and easy, which was a general virtue of pistols over revolvers. With a standard carry of two extra magazines your average beat cop could bring to bear over 40 rounds in a firefight. And most important of all, the Glock never failed to fire. Unbeknownst at the time of the airing of Cuba Libre, the Glock 17 would soon become the future of all handguns setting off by responding to a new arms race with a new standard of what a handgun was in its heart of hearts. The reason was simple.

As episodes of Miami Vice showed, criminals were using new and powerful weapons that could hold lots of bullets and reload quickly while cops still carried those ancient five or six shot revolvers. It became embarrassing. Gaston Glock originally designed his pistol for the Austrian Army, but by coincidence and about the time that Cuba Libre was airing, the Glock Firearms Company, operating in America out of Smerna, Georgia, was working to insinuate this novel firearm into American law enforcement, as well.

Soon, Glock had supplanted the Smith & Wesson Model 10 lineage as the new standard in American Law Enforcement. The revolver still appeared in police procedurals but the passing of the torch can be observed in the series called Law & Order (premiering in 1991). In the first half of each hour-long episode of Law & Order two New York City detectives investigate a crime, while in the second half of the episode two district attorneys prosecute the offenders. The two detectives are typically an older, world-weary detective and a young, sexy detective that is prone to extreme violent as well as extreme sexiness.

In the first five seasons of Law & Order both detectives carried a snub-nosed revolver — a Smith & Wesson Model 36 with a five-round capacity — because the snub-nosed revolver was not seen as an indication of being old and grumpy instead of young and sexy. It was just what every detective carried.

It is not until Season 6 (1995) that the young hot detective, played by Mr. Big, punches someone in the face because he is extremely violent and he is replaced by an even hotter detective named Benjamin Bratt. This detective carries a Glock 19, which was the compact version of the Glock 17, with a 15 + 1 capacity, neatly holstered at his side, while the old, grumpy Det. Lenny Briscoe, played by Mr. Jerry Orbach as is everybody’s favorite character on Law & Order and there isn’t even any debate about it, still carries his Smith & Wesson Model 36 in his shoulder holster inside his cheap brown suit.

In an spooky parallel, the television program NYPD Blues, which premier in 1993, paired two detectives in a similar fashion. Detective Andy Sipowicz, played by Dennis Franz as the slightly — meaning largely — racist as well as alcoholic and extremely violent detective who turns out to the core of the show, carries a snub-nosed Model 36 in his shoulder holster, while the younger, good looking partner, Det. Bobby Simone, played by Jimmy Smits of L.A. Law fame, carries a Glock 17 holstered at the side of his fashionable slacks that match his fashionable jacket and tie. The message is clear. Morgenröthe where the new and sexier day is one of the Glock.

That’s easy, said the Revolver. In addition to being a gun I am something of a scholar. In those down times when we weren’t doing crime and Glim was being a bookworm I watched the television. Television shows. Movies on television. Made for television movies. Documentaries. Documentaries about television shows and movies. There was even a movie about a documentary of a television show. I watched for hours. For days. For weeks. Nonstop. I couldn’t stop. Glim liked to have the television on for the little flicker in the background. The volume was always down of course but it didn’t matter to me. I could tell what was truly happening. Some guns had people. Others didn’t. Some guns got to fire. Others remained silent. In some ways the bad guys who had guns became bad guys for me but only because they had terrible aim while the good guys with guns could mostly shoot good and more often than not they killed what they fired at. I don’t know the reason for this but it was a pattern I detected.

So you did root for the good guys?

Yes, sometimes, but sometimes not. You are seeing things wrong. When someone with a gun fires everywhichway while hitting nothing that is a bad person and it’s a tragedy for the gun. That’s where my judgement and sympathy lie. That’s where I place my scorn and empathy. That gun that is working as hard as it can but it can never realize itself and that makes me angry in the sense of righteous indignation. What makes me cheer is comedy as just the opposite of tragedy and so not in the sense of being funny. Every time I see a gun on the screen there is drama about what will happen and when a gun realizes itself the sense is one of genuine comedic. It is a relief, a celebration, and that’s what gets my applause.

So I watched television and movies on television and sometimes we would go to a movie and fortunately Glim liked action movies with lots of guns and not movies like Mystic Pizza (1988) or Steel Magnolias (1989), both starring Ms. Julia Roberts before her real breakout in Pretty Woman (1990), which also had no guns. Can you imagine sitting through a monstrosity like that just waiting for someone, anyone!, to please pull a gun and all they do is sit around talking about how they feel about literally everything? In fact, to my knowledge, Ms. Roberts never wielded a gun in a movie. She did guest star in an episode of Law & Order, titled Empire (Season 9, Episode 20), which had gun-promise but her primary weapon turned out to be the power of seduction over Det. Benjamin Bratt whom she was dating at the time in real life. What a coincidence!

Before that my cop would come home from work and crack open a beer and put a TV dinner in the oven and we would sit in front of the television until after midnight. You can learn so much by watching the television that you never have to leave your couch, except to do or fight crime, so that television and the movies became my home away from home and my education on the ways of the world and on the world of guns and specifically the story of the revolver and how the pistol replaced us.

You see, at the time of the airing of Cuba Libre on the television show Miami Vice, the Glock was not really getting into the hands of bad guys. The Glock 17 was far too expensive for most common criminals. In truth, the Glock 17, and chambered in 9mm, was proliferating among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and the revolver was being retired, or more accurately, it was being abandoned. This was due to the cutting edge design and performance of Glock handguns and the aggressive trade-in program that allowed police officers to exchange revolvers for Glock handguns at very favorable rates. It was a tidal wave. A sea change. And we were swept aside. Old police revolvers flooded the resale market for criminals to pick up on the cheap. This is how Glim and I met. For years I walked the beat alongside my cop. We apprehended all sorts of bad guys. My cop fired me at the range religiously. He cleaned me and kept me in tip-top shape. Then came the Glock 17 and I was passed on like I was damaged goods. I’m not damaged good.

A whole range of emotions welled up in the Revolver.

Here now, said the Revolver. Draw me. Take me out of the Holster. Look at me. I am a Smith & Wesson Model 10. My roots extend all the way back to the original Smith & Wesson 1899, also called the Smith & Wesson Military & Police. My steel is blued like my mood sometimes. I am chambered in .38 Special. My six-chamber cylinder holds six bullets. I am no snub-nosed revolver. I have a 4-inch barrel for balance and accuracy. I am double-action. Do you know what that means?

I did not.

Let me show you.

Wrap your right hand around me. Now cradle your right hand with your left and tighten. Feel the grip you have over me.

Raise me to eye level. Savor the weight. I am heavy. Heavy but balanced. I have heft. I have substance.

Now, let your finger caress the trigger. I’m cold with a comforting warmth. You want to pull me don’t you?

I really did.

But don’t. First, cock the hammer with your thumb. Pull it back until I click into place. See the cylinder rotate. I’m cycling up the next round. Feel the trigger. I’m already drawing back for you. Now I am ready.

Aim me.

I aimed at a tree for lack of anything aim at. The Revolver was indeed heavy. I had to use all my strength and coordination to keep it steady and on target.

What do I do now?

Pull the trigger. A nice steady pull. Don’t rush. Be deliberate but steady. Steadiness is always rewarded. Or punished, as the case may be, the Revolver added.

I pulled the trigger.

When the trigger of an unloaded gun is pulled what follows is the most dissappointing anti-climactic unremarkable click imaginable. The click is brief and meek and almost embarrassed at the muted sound of itself. This was the sound the Revolver made when I pulled the trigger. I don’t know what I expected with an unloaded gun but that was not it. Or maybe what I expected was more than what a toy gun sounds like when what a real gun sounds like without bullets is the sound that a gun that is toy makes. Just a meek and mild click such that when you are playing guns with toys you have to make the noise for the gun for it to mean anything at all in what you are playing and I felt the very same for the Revolver that for it to mean anything I would almost have to make the noise for the gun. That feeling was a letdown to discover.

The Revolver could feel the disappointment in me.

Let’s do that again, said the Revolver. But this time don’t cock the hammer. You can fire me another way. It will be harder but in a pinch it’s faster. And over time if you train this way you will become a much better marksman.

Hold me up. Aim me. Caress my trigger. Now pull.

I pulled. The pull was long and heavy. It was hard. Not an easy short light pull like before. I had to grip tighter. The pulling with my finger drew the barrel off target. Everything moved wrong. I fired so the Revolver went click but with barely enough strength in my hands to keep the Revolver steady and barely enough strength in my little finger to finish the pull. There was almost nothing about me that was able to adequately fire the Revolver even when it was still unloaded.

Now let’s say I’m loaded and you fire me with the proper training to control me. Do you know what happens? Do you know what I am?

I did not.

When you fire me I am buttery smooth. A sheer pleasure. My barrel will not kick up like a snub-nosed revolver. I absorb the blast with my heavy frame. I am a sheer pleasure to shoot. Yes, I will be buttery smooth. Buttery smooth …

And with training to control me you will be back on target for the next shot with no problem at all. BAM!, said the Revolver. Buttery smooth …

The Revolver was really getting into it.

BAM! Buttery smooth …

You could tell that he loved what he did and I really respected that.

Now I am empty, said the Revolver. What do you do?

I reload.

Precisely. Slide this release button and lower the cylinder gently. I am hefty but I am also a delicate flower. If you had fired all my bullets you would now see the spent shells still inside me. Press the ejector rod and watch the shells fall out the back as so many petals in a puff of wind. Now you can slide fresh bullets into me. Do you know how they slide?

Buttery smooth?, I volunteered.

The Revolver nodded approvingly.

Gently close me up and rotate the cylinder until a chamber lines up with the barrel. You’ll feel a light click. This click will feel very satisfying.

It really did. Just a light confident click to know that everything was in its right place and the Revolver was ready to fire once again.

It’s that easy, said the Revolver.

Will you teach me to fire you? I don’t really have anything I absolutely need to shoot at the moment but I’d like to learn. I’ll keep you clean and I’ll never trade you in for a newer model.

I would be happy to. This begins with learning the rules on handling a gun. They aren’t many but they are inviolate. Glim broke about four of them regularly.

I promised! Scouts honor!!

The first rule he broke was the first rule of guns. But he broke it in the weirdest way by abiding by the rule while not abiding by it. The rule is, Always assume your gun is loaded. This is the prime rule of safety. The problem was, Glim always assumed the gun was loaded even when it wasn’t but when it needed to be and he never checked one way or another.

The first rule mean that you never point at anything you don’t mean to shoot even with an unloaded gun because your assumption is that the gun is loaded. Glim did just the opposite. He was always pointing me at people unloaded while thinking I was loaded. He really wasn’t cut out to be a criminal.

In obedience to the first rule the second rule is to check your gun to confirm that it is loaded or unloaded, and even if you confirm that your gun is unloaded you still abide by the first rule. Different guns have different ways to check. For me you simply swing out the cylinder and conduct a visual check. There is nowhere for a bullet to hide.

A pistol is more involved to know that it is unloaded. You must drop the magazine so no bullet can be fed into the chamber. Then you rack the slide to eject any bullet currently in the chamber. Then, with the slide retracted you conduct a visual check down into the chamber and straight through the grip. If you can see your toes wiggling below the pistol is empty. If you can still see a bullet in your pistol then you have weird problems.

Another rule is to know what’s behind what you aim to shoot because what you aim to shoot is not always what is truly shot and what is shot is sometimes not what you meant to shoot and so whatever ends up getting shot make sure it either absolutely matters or it absolutely doesn’t matter. There is no in between.

There are more rules that I will teach you. But here’s thing. I’m no good without bullets. Alas, if only it were not so. But you are just a little kid and I mean this in the literal sense. Can a little kid get his hands on bullets for me to fire? If not, I will only make the sound of disappointment and you cannot learn to fire by above all learning to control the explosion that firing is so you still fire with accuracy and control. You also can’t experience the pleasure of firing in its fullness. The sound that runs through you. The vibration. The force. The authority. The power.

I was pretty sure the Revolver was right. After getting so excited about learning how to shoot I was deflated. I kind of felt like I had let down the Revolver too. I was worse than Glim. At least he could get bullets even if he sometimes forgot to load them. I couldn’t even forget to load them because I couldn’t even get my hands on them in the first place so as to forget about them.

Our conversation fell silent as we trekked down the mountain.

After a while I asked the obvious question you ask a gun that I wanted to ask for a while now but didn’t know how since I didn’t know the etiquette of asking or not asking. Finally I asked.

Did you ever kill anyone … besides that man in Reno? Did you kill anyone else? Or at least shoot them in the leg or something?

I’m not going to answer that, replied the Revolver. Don’t feel bad for asking, but it’s just not something that good guns talk about.

Is it because you feel bad about it? Or maybe you feel good if it’s the bad guy and bad if it’s a god guy?

You still don’t understand who I am, said the Revolver. I don’t get caught up in who’s good or bad, right or wrong? The meaning of my life is not mapped onto the sensibilities of a television episode or traced by the arc of a movie. I am a gun. I am made of steel with a burnished walnut grip. I root for who wields me. Who wields me fires me. What I aim at I hit. When I hit I mean to kill. To kill is to fully realize me. This is my summum bonum. This is my being and becoming in the best and truest sense.

So in the hands of your cop you would kill Glim?, I asked so I could reflect back what I thought the Revolver meant. And in the hands of Glim you would kill the cop? And each would fully realize you?

Yes, answered the Revolver. And do you know why?

Why?, I asked.

Because I am a gun. You watch television or movies watching characters with guns and you see what the guns do through they eyes of someone you’ve decided is good or bad. This makes you decide what guns are good and bad. When I watch the same scenes I watch the guns. I rooting for them to fully realize themselves and this is how I decide who to cheer for. It’s who fires the gun that fully realizes himself for me thereby. The best movie ending would be where guns blaze and everybody dies because every gun kills. The End. Fade to Black. Roll Credits.

This was a stark reality for my little mind to grapple with that you could have different values and be entirely reasonable about them.

Don’t you care about people one way or another except as ways to fully realize yourself?

The Revolver thought a moment.

Officially, said the Revolver, the answer is, No.

He paused.

Then he continued.

But I would be lying if I said I didn’t get attached to someone, just like anyone else would. So until the cop traded me in I liked him. He was a good and honest cop who tried to do his job and by extension he tried to wield me the best he could and I appreciated that and I was always ready for him. Glim was just a lovable loser with his head in the clouds and since his family rejected him I thought someone should have his back and that someone turned out to be me. So I do get attached, admitted the Revolver. But never in a way that interferes with who I am, he added. This is why suicide is so true for a gun. Who wields we root for. Who fires we give thanks to. Who dies we honor accordingly. Absolute realization by way of absolute negation.

We had been talking for a long time over a long distance and the Revolver had given me a lot to think about. Coming out of the wooded hills we could see the grassy field below.

Here we are, I said. That’s the Rec Center I was telling you about. We head down that road into town.

Maybe I should put you and the Holster in my backpack. I know you aren’t loaded but me carrying you around might cause a stir and I like to stay invisible if you know what I mean.

Believe you me, said the Revolver. I know what you mean. Don’t we?

The Holster blinked.

* * *

When we returned to Camp Glim I walked up to the mound. The mound was still fresh dirt with no signs of digging. The whiskey bottle was no longer planted on the mount. Instead it was tipped on its side resting peacefully on the note I had left. This made me happy.

Next I pulled back the tarp to see that everything I left was still there. Then I got to work. At this point there really needs to be a montage for setting up basecamp with some fiddle music that scratches and revs up and really gets rolling in the manner of a covered wagon crossing the wide open plains until a fair looking family comes to a grove of walnut trees and a little brook besides and they say to themselves, We do no farther. They hop out of the wagon and immediately the fiddle starts playing in energetic fashion as they set to work building a home and a barn and postholing for fences and raising sheep and cattle and planting a garden with horses now hitched to a plow and then the scene cuts to nighttime with the windows of the little house glowing from the fire within while the family sits around the dinner table piled high with a roast beast and mashed potatoes and fresh baked bread with an apple pie cooling and they hold hands and give thanks for giving us this land delivered to them this day from the Savage Indians and the fiddle slows and transitions to a harmonica as everyone goes to bed and sleeps soundly, but in short, Camp Glim was both rudimentary and far more settled and comfortable than anything I knew while coming and going up and down the mountain.

The shelter was a teepee held up by lodge poles. The teepee was small but it was big enough for a bed and my belongings.

Just outside of the teepee I cleared the ground for a campfire squared in heavy stones with a long flat rock laid down along one side of the ring of square fire. Now I could cook lots of good food on a blazing fire with warming plate for my pot and cast iron skillet to rest on.

With twine made from dried material like shoots and strips of bark I lashed together a tripod to suspend my pot over the fire. This was just for cooking soups or porrages or making tea with all the flowers and herbs that abounded all around camp. With the babbling brook of unfevered beaver water winding through the clearing I had an endless supply and sometimes I simply bent down to take a long, satisfying draught of fresh clean cold water.

With a solid axe I packed in I pushed deep into the forest to collect and process and stack firewood that would last for days instead of just one night. I also split trees length-wise for longer plank built for building camp items like little tables and workbenches. They spouted everywhere. One for preparing food. Another for eating by the fire or doing crafts in the evening. A stool here. A drying rack there. A small table for inside the teepee. A frame to lift my sleeping bag and wool blanket off the ground. And of course a hutch to store my supplies.

The hutch had to be weather-proof and animal-proof and Spectre-proof — chuckle — so a lot of time went into the design and building of it. The hutch was essentially a three-dimensional raft with heavy branches lashed together on all sides, also called a box. The box sat raised above the ground on heavy legs to keep things dry from below and with a slanted roof to shed water from above. Mud and clay helped to seal the hutch tight. This is what I used for the hutch and the teepee to keep the weather out. An experienced Indian or Frontiersman would take one look and walk away in disgust. Everything was in fact a sight to behold and not in a good way. But they worked, mostly, and they were beautiful in my eyes. It was summer camp done for real. I was also reaching the limit of what I thought the Handbook had to teach me, but I still kept it at the ready for the best knot to use or to identify a plant or simply for pleasure of reading about words on skin and nibblings and bookbinding. Always at my side was the Revolver, unloaded, nestled in the Holster.

I also brought up what I thought might be a decent gift for Glim. Next to the mound I left a new note.

Dear Glim,

This is your son’s book. It’s small thanks for your story plus everthing else you’ve done for me.

Your Friend in the Forest.

Next to the note I cracked the book open and laid it flat on the ground so the front and back covers faced up. That way Glim could see the title and the artworks on the cover. He could also see the back with a photograph of his son, Glim Primsbs V, now in his mid-50s by my guess, with thinning hair and sallow eyes from thick bottled glasses and a lifetime without direct sunlight. There was a short biography of Glim V just covering all his fancy degrees and famous books and places of being a professor with nothing mentioned about his dad though you wouldn’t expect that but I thought Glim would like to read it nonetheless.

It may be noticed that in total I had burned the pages of three books from the library in town and essentially stolen a fourth book to leave it in the forest forever. I do not pretend to be Customer of the Month at our local library. Sometimes, however, a higher cause calls you and as solitary scouts we must make choices about what truly matters most and of course accept the consequences whatever they may be. Beside, but before me Glim’s book had never ever been checked out so I believe the good achieved in the forest far outweighed any harm done to the general public and their thirst for knowledge back in town. Those are my moral positions on the matter.

* * *

Setting up basecamp was the First Prong in the Three Pronged Strategy I devised.

The Second Prong of all three prongs was to venture out not to get anywhere close to what looms but to fan out in the mode of tracking. Instead of traveling far only to be booted I would go wide looking for signs of the Spectre in the manner of a broken twig or a blade of bent grass. I put my ear to the ground to detect any distant shuddering of the world. Think like the Spectre, I repeated over and over, though I had no idea how the Spectre truly thinks.

The Third Prong was preparation for the confrontation with Spectre. Here’s how it would all go down, I decided. I would be walking through the forest minding my own business. Suddenly we would meet. Without a moment’s hesitation I would begin as follows.

The Spectre I presume, I would say. I didn’t expect to encounter you here.

That’s a really good start, I said to myself. Be surprised yet unsurprised. Be casual, nonchalant, almost indifferent yet confident and knowing.

I could sense my grip already tightening ever so slightly.

Well, I would say, Have a nice day, and I would make like I was going my separate way as if there was nothing of I had any concern over one way or another.

Then again …, I would slip in just as the Spectre made to float off, there are a few things that are worth clearing up since we did meet by accident. Why not make the most of our chance meeting, wouldn’t you agree?, I would chuckle confidently.

Always be confident. Always be chuckling. It will be unsettling coming from just a little kid.

Already the Spectre is on his back foot. Defensive without even knowing what this is all about. What could this little kid possibly want with me?, the Spectre will wonder to himself. And that’s my secret weapon. He thinks I’m just a little kid and I am a little kid but if he only knew how I got this far!

From there I would begin to pace back and forth to keep the Spectre confused and off balance while I sortie a series of well designed questions sprinkled with some really startling insights. Yes, it was coming together nicely, I said to myself. Almost too easy.

In the end I would find out that the UNO card on my forehead was indeed a Reverse UNO card. The Spectre would admit that I didn’t deserve it and would pluck it from my forehead but only as a retraction and then float away in shame as when a good Spectre has done bad and knows it and so tries to do good. I would not kill or capture the Spectre. The Spectre would simply be vanquished from me. Sent to his room without supper.

You really are diabolical, I laughed aloud to myself. If they only knew they would write a song about you for you.

The Song of the Solitary Scout, I mused to myself and I began to hum a few bars

Or, in the alternative, the Spectre would be forced to reveal that it’s a really good UNO card, maybe for being such a good solitary scout, and we would have a little impromptu awards ceremony in the forest right there and then and the Spectre would turn over the card and it would have my picture on it as the picture of a solitary scout and the Spectre would tell everyone how proud he was of me and maybe Glim would be there and all would be forgiven by the Spectre because of how Glim wasn’t that bad afterall, or maybe my card would be a Reverse UNO card but one that I could play for Glim to reverse the Reverse UNO card played by the Spectre so that he could be Glim again and that would be my good deed for the day and maybe the best deed I had ever done.

I got so excited at how things were working out that I couldn’t wait to accidentally run into the Spectre somewhere out in the deep dark forest. Well, I just played that scene out over and over in my head until it was so true and real that all that needed to happen was for it to happen and I got excited for a very long time, then I got impatient because it was taking too long, then I got annoyed and my annoyance and impatience and excitement lasted for quite some time as I traipsed through the forest always trying to seem nonchalant while just waiting for everything to happen. That will be some enhappening, I said to myself.

Then, after an eternity passed I just got bored. I stopped venturing out as much and puttered around camp instead. I played bits and pieces of the scene but mostly be best parts. I knew it so well I almost couldn’t think about it anymore.

* * *

Finally, after another literal eternity I got indignant with the Spectre for now showing himself and I started to change plans to really let the Spectre have it. No holds barred this time. No more punches pulled. No quarter given. This got me excited and I stoked the campfire amid darkness all around and sparks flew and I started working out the new scenes for this tongue lashing when the Spectre appeared. The earth did not shudder to announce him. Instead all grew still. Sound was sucked out of the world. The fire melted into a puddle of blue flame. All was blue and silent and still. There was me. There was the puddle of blue fire. There was the Spectre on the other side.

What happened next!, demanded the Bullets. Did you start your questioning? Did the Spectre crumble like a cookie?

Not exactly.

Well, what happened?

What happened was, all my courage drained out of me. All the words I composed in my head to perform so victoriously fell from the page and scattered into dust. My heart left me so I was a just a heartless little kid standing alone in the forest face to face with the Spectre.

Why were you so afraid? What did the Spectre look like?

I don’t know, said the storyteller. I mean, don’t know what the Spectre looked like. It didn’t matter what the Spectre looked like. The Spectre wasn’t there for looks. I only know the presence I felt, not by sight or touch or hearing but by the absoluteness of the Spectre. It was absolute presence experienced in my absolute absence and it was absolute absence experienced by my mere presence and I was terrified accordingly. Do you know why monsters and demons are depicted in paintings and stories and songs with all sorts of hideous features like horns and fangs and scales and horrid wings and fiery eyes and grotesque expressions and terrifying weapons?

No, said the Bullets.

It’s because you can’t convey absolute presence experienced by absolute absence and absolute absence experienced by mere presence and you can’t do that because particular appearance does not convey the absoluteness of the presence of it and you can’t do it because you can’t make someone experience their own absolute negation so as to experience absolute presence that is really only experienced as the apparent presence of what is really absolute anyway. So you have to scare them with all sorts of trappings that make horror graspable by someone who is not experiencing their absolute negation by way of absolute presence as absolutely outrageous strength and what you get is both scary and pale in comparison. This is all to say that the Spectre was simply absolute presence as absolutely outrageous strength held up to reflect me in my absolute absence.

What did you do?

I acted like a hero, I said.

What do you mean.

Well, do you remember the ancient hero who faced his absolute negation for the first time in the face of himself as his friend?

Yes, said the Bullets.

What does he do? He runs. He races through the forest. He flees. He takes flght. He crosses the vast ocean to escape his own reflection even though which way he goes he now knows the absence in his very self. It follows him everywhere. It precedes him. It is him in his heart of hearts and he knows it and cannot escape it. The absolute presence of his absolute absence.

Well, just like the ancient hero I fled. I baled into darkness. I tore through the forest. I went everywhichway tripping and falling and stumbling over rocks and roots and crashing through bushes to escape the absolute presence of the absolute absence of me. It was not a dignified run in the manner of the opening credits of Chariots of Fire (1981), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, where everybody is running like gods and they are all having fun and the world is set to the music of Vangelis, who also won an Academy Award for Best Music. No, I ran more like a segment from Benny Hill with music blaring within and all around except I was scuttling in absolute terror and it wasn’t very fun or funny at the time.

What happened next?

Exactly what you would expect to happen. I burst out of a thicket not knowing where I was but just wanting to get away and I stumbled into a clearing I had not seen before. All was casted in a blue light. In the center of the clearing a pack of wolves gathered around a small basket. A spotted bobcat with impressive ruffs weaved in and out of the pack while a giant black bear standing up on its back feet looked down from above. All were focused on the basket where something inside cooed and cried softly and even giggled a little.

Some sort of deliberation was underway with animated gestures and growls and snarls of approval or disagreement. Finally, everyone nodded. All were in accord. There was a pause. Then in a flash all set upon the basket with teeth bared and with claws slashing they tore apart whatever was inside with flesh and blood splattering everywhichway.

I cried out in terror which is not something you want to do while witnessing a feeding frenzy. You really want to be very quiet so as not to call attention to yourself and you want to sneak away so as not to be seen. I, instead, cried out and and they all looked up and straight at me with blood still dripping from their fangs and flesh still clinging to their claws.

After just having experienced the absolute presence of my absolute absence this new situation was in some regards a downgrade because of what I just explained on how not truly scary monsters are because they do not convey blah blah blah, but let me amend this insight by saying that when you stumble upon a feeding frenzy among those that not even monsters but straight up killer animals with fangs and claws and lots of fur, so much fur, and there is a pack of them with a few friends consisting of a ruffed bobcat and a big black bear it’s okay to be genuinely afraid and to run and so I ran and there was so much running that evening and the only place I could see to run to was straight back into the thicket I stumbled out of and so I dove into it with my whole heart while just behind me I could hear the mob of predators giving chase and calling out obscenities such as, Ask me about about your car’s extended warranty! or Can I tell you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! or Attention must be paid! Just real nasty stuff. I could hear them stomping around looking for me amid the indigo light and they were sniffing and growling and deeply frustrated that nobody had seen me leap into the thicket.

I could feel all this happening within and all around and wanted to cry out again but I stifled myself. Maybe I was safe, I thought to myself. Maybe I was sound.

What I was was not safe or sound.

Maybe it was my little beating heart racing and the tremors it caused. Whatever it was was enough to awaken the branches and brambles and vines of the thicket that began closing in, wending their way all over me, spinning me around and wrapping me up tightly, and from each appendage sprouted thorns and briars that broke through whatever protection my clothes and boots provided and pierced me everywhichway and the more I struggled the more of these needles broke off and spread all over underneath and worked deeper into every part of me.

Then came the scratching and etching from within as each needle set to work scribbling into my flesh and on the surface of my organs and into my heart of hearts and up upon my skin from down below so the scribbles were not skin deep but were coming from deep within up and onto my skin above and I could feel all the needles setting to work all at once dipping into my own blood so as to scribble my body while outside the thicket the mob of wolves and one bobcat and one black bear continued to hunt for me while within was being scratched and scribbled on and it became a bit much and so I felt that this would be as good of a time as any simply to pass out and so I passed out while the mob searched on until they gave up and went home and until the needles had scribbled themselves out of things to scribble so there was nothing left.

When I came to after I don’t know how long I was back at basecamp in my teepee in my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag was soaked with sweat and my clothes were riddled with pin pricks and I could feel the rawness of the scribblings within so maybe it wasn’t that long ago and they all felt like they were saying something I knew but just couldn’t put my finger on.

I flashed back to my encounter with the Spectre and shame and disappointment washed over me. It was maybe my only chance and I had completely failed. Failed in spectacular fashion. It was an epic failure. Knowing now the sheer presence of the Spectre amid my absolute absence I realized how ridiculous my whole plan was to begin with so riddled as it was with so many flaws with the whole inquisition and me pacing back and forth and coming out victorious. I winced at my own arrogance and ignorance and immaturity. When will you grow up?, I asked myself. Then I passed out again.

As the sun rose and set and stars spiralized above I went in and out of consciousness. A fever dream ensued. I replayed the encounter with the Spectre over and over. I remembered racing through the dark forest headless in the manner of a chicken. I bursted out into that clearing. Unthinkable horrors ensued. I was bounded up in the thicket with needles running wild within. Over and over these scenes played and seared into my heart of hearts. Then, across the back of my neck a particular burning. My neck grew hot and then fiery and then sizzling as fresh inscriptions rose up to the surface. I could feel them and in feeling them I could see them with my mind’s eye. They glowed in hot indigo as flesh and blood now mixed with air and sweat. They were tiny words written in find needlepoint. At top were just a few words in a familiar format. I squinted with the squintiest of mind’s eyes so I could read them.

Hospitality Merit Badge

Hospitality … This sounded so familiar but I couldn’t place it. It certainly wasn’t in the Handbook, not even in the very back of merit badges that almost nobody goes to. Where had I heard about Hospitality before? Then I remembered!

I had seen that strange word and strange words like it in a chapter of Glim Primsbs V’s book titled, A History of the Histories of Scouting, titled, Scouting Apocrypha.

In the chapter on Scouting Apocrypha Glim writes, Amid disputes over true scouting and competing visions and personal rivalries between scouting big people so as to establish the conditions of possibility for boys who scout who are boys there was a curious shared space of consternation and that space was one of the Scouting Apocrypha.

The Boys Who Scout organization, Glim continues, makes evident its official and sanctioned doctrine in the form of the Scout Handbook in its many editions as well as associated material such as the Scoutmaster Handbook, the Merit Badge Catalogue, and Handbooks for boys who are cubs who scout and cubs who are Webelos who are boys. Together, these constitute Scouting Doctrine.

Scouting Doctrine is founded on what is called Scouting Scripture. Most directly, Scouting Scripture consisted of what you might call Pre-Doctrine Doctrine in the way of Handbooks that all flowed into and that shaped and formed Scouting Doctrine. The Birch-Bark Roll by Seth Seethley, Scouting for Boys that Scout by Gen. Badminton, and Boy Pioneers, by Mr. Dan Beard, are prime examples of Scouting Scripture where the authors are considered to be founders and progenitors of scouting for boys who scout. Perhaps more important, however, is the deeper, more personal and more revealing collection of letters and pamphlets, memos and even bounded books penned by these and other individuals including Sir Arrow-Weathervane and Dr. John Hard-Gravestone that go into scriptural depth and subtlety about scouting in its very heart of hearts while Handbooks are in a sense distilled and simplified, even oversimplified, translations of Scouting Scripture.

Scouting Scripture was not merely academic. Scouts are not eggheads, as one scoutmaster with a head decidedly not in the shape of an egg let alone a yolk inside his big eggy head pointed out. Scouting Scripture was vital to the everlasting debate over Scouting Doctrine especially when it came time to issue a new edition of the Handbook. This was cause for everyone to scour Scouting Scripture for just the right passage to defend and substantiate their positions on what scouting truly is so as to have it inscribed in the next, newer and truer Handbook, or to refute and discredit someone else’s position as false and not true to the spirit or the letter of scouting. To have the very words of Gen. Badminton or Seethely or any of the other recognized founders on you side was better than pointing a loaded Remington 4-S, chambered in a mere .22 LR, at your scouting adversary because those were the most powerful words in all the scout world.

Thus, concludes Glim V, in the opening passage of the chapter on Scouting Apocrypha, if scouting big people established the doctrinal condition of possibility for boys who scout, then Scouting Scripture is the condition of possibility for big people who establish doctrine.

One problem, of course, was that these founders of scouting seldom agreed on anything for very long and thus the rivalries and fallings out and competing scouting organizations. So unlike Holy Scripture, which is consistent through and through without fail or exception, Scouting Scripture was generally, though not universally, understood to be a collection of competing and often contradictory views on what true scouting is. And yet every word in Scouting Scripture was considered scriptural because how could a founder of scouting be heretical in what scouting truly is?

Then there was what came to be known as the Scouting Apocrypha. These were epistles, manifestos, treatises, confessions, and dialogues that seem to describe true scouting in its very origins. Almost always, pieces of Scouting Apocrypha appeared under the names and even the signatures of true founders like Dr. Harden-Grave or Sir Arrow-Weatherhead, people who were authoritative and prolific in their writing on what true scouting is. But just as often these bits and pieces were, quote, discovered, unquote, in a dusty trunk in the corner of some attic, or they circulated throughout scouting but no one knew where they really came from, or the look of the signature just wasn’t quite right.

In addition to questions about the authenticity of a piece of Scouting Apocrypha, the substance of various pieces was often a little different than what most big people who scout were accustomed to readings as Scouting Scripture. Take apocryphal merit badges, for instance, which comprised the bulk of Scouting Apocrypha. In his chapter on Scouting Apocrypha, Glim V offers a glimpse into merit badges purported to be original and essential to scouting. These included: Eggs, Big and Little. Exorcism. Leaping and Falling. Geology, Joints & Jointedness. Healing. Horology. Hospitality (there’s that word!), n’Existentialism pas. Penmanship. Permanent Revolution. Neverness. Perpetual Peace. Magnetic East. Soaps and Lotions. Pharmacology. Prosperity. Mood Rings. Morning. Mourning. Broken Wings. Solitary Flying. Hedgehogs.

Scouting Apocrypha also extended to possible laws and mottoes and troths and descriptions of what scouting truly is.

The Epistle to the Siouxians was held up as the prime example of Scouting Apocrypha in this regard. The Siouxian Epistle was a letter sent to Troop 72 in Sioux City, Iowa, signed by Gen. Badminton and Seth Seethley. The letter is dated January 16, 1911 which places it after the publication of the Zeroth Edition of the Scout Handbook in 1910 that Badminton and Seethley collaborated on, but before the First Edition of the Handbook, overseen by a full committee of big people who scout, which was first published in August of 1911. The First Edition of the Handbook is where the Twelve Scout Laws first appear exactly as they will appear in subsequent editions for decades and for generations.

A scout is: Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent.

Siouxians begins as follows:

From Badminton and Seethley, scouting founders,

To the boys and big people of Troop 72 in Sioux City, Iowa,

Greetings and Salutations.

The epistle appears to be a response to Troop 72, who must have inquired about a range of matters on what scouting truly is. From the contents of Siouxians most points of inquiry fall under the heading of scouting housekeeping. Tent or Hammock? Which syllable to accent on the latter, and how the o in mock is to be pronounced so as not to sound uncouth? And the like. Then the epistle goes to the heart of the matter.

Yes, write Gen. Badminton and Mr. Seethley, there are Scout Laws to go by. These were alluded to in the 1910 edition of the Handbook but we confess that the treatment was disorganized and unsatisfactory. The first edition of the Handbook, coming out later this year, will enumerate these laws in clean, precise & comprehensive fashion. As authors of the Scout Laws we feel at liberty to share them with you now. We admonish you to take up and obey these laws even before they become scouting dogma in the hopes that they will bless you on your scouting journey. There are 13 of them, all to appear in the First Edition of the Handbook. Every single one of them, no exceptions.

Badminton and Seethely then enumerate each Scout Law along with a brief description exactly as they will appear in a few short months except that the epistle and the Handbook do not match in two specific cases. Let us investigate more closely.

The First Law, of course is Trustworthiness. Badminton and Seethely write, A scout’s honor is to be trusted. If he were to violate his honor by telling a lie, or by cheating, or by not doing exactly a given task, when trusted on his honor, he may be directed to hand over his scout badge. This is just as it will appear in the First Edition of the Handbook.

The Second Law is Loyalty. A scout is loyal to all to whom loyalty is due: his scout leader, his home, and parents and country. Same here and so on and so forth until we come to the Tenth Law.

The tenth law is Bravery. Here we encounter the first difference. A scout has the courage to face danger in spite of fear and has to stand up for the right against the coaxings of friends or the jeers or threats of enemies, and defeat does not down him. So far so good. But in the epistle Badminton and Seethley include a bit more than we find in the First Edition of the Handbook. This is called the Courage To Be, they explain.

The Eleventh and Twelfth Laws are Cleanliness and Reverence, just the same in the epistle and Handbook.

Then there appears the Thirteen Law, appearing nowhere in the First Edition of the Handbook or in any subsequent edition. The Thirteenth Law returns to Bravery. A scout is also brave in not being, they write. The scout has the courage to stand up to life itself and in spite of fear, say, No, Thank You, according to reverence, obedience and cheerfulness in his heart of hearts. This is called the Courage Not To Be.

Badminton and Seethely go on to elaborate in some detail the meaning of the Thirteenth Law, the Courage Not To Be. They preface these remarks with the following:

Each point of the Scout Law is expressed in a single word but each of these words has a deep meaning. Sometimes a Scout Law is double deep and proceeds bothwhichways as the one single way. You should understand the full meaning of each law so well that you can explain it in your own words.

Then they write:

The Courage Not To Be has in itself a revelatory character. The Courage Not To Be is an expression of the essential act of self-affirmation as self-negation. This is Courage as Reverence and Obedience that shows the nature of being as becoming self-negation as Courage to be found in being itself against itself in its self of self. This is the Courage of Neverness, being and becoming, so as not to be, Nevermore Evermore. Thus, the Courage Not To Be is rooted in the experience of Neverness beyond experience as the Courage Not To Be in toto Forevermore.

Siouxians concludes with the following:

Scouting is a way of Life, but is it not also a way of Death?

The Siouxian Epistle underscores how significant and fraught the Scouting Apocrypha can be.

First and foremost, is the letter even authentic? It surfaced in 1929 in a cache of letters and sundry acquired at an estate sale in Mankato, Minnesota, approximately 200 miles north-by-northeast from Sioux City, Iowa. It is easy to see how a letter could travel that far over two decades but it is also not clear what route it took and by whom it traveled so as to track back to Troop 72 and all the way to Badminton and Seethely. We find no records of it in the Troop 72 archives, and neither Badminton nor Seethley reference the epistle elsewhere.

So what if the letter is authentic or inauthentic? Well, if the epistle is authentic then now a can of worms is opened on so many levels of worms, is what. Does this mean the Thirteenth Law is an originary law that truly goes to the very heart of scouting? If so, was true scouting perverted and corrupted in its tender years by the committee of Handbook big people who overrode two founders, visionaries & prophets and struck an entire Scout Law in the manner of a committee of Moseses with 11 Commandments but only liking 10 of them. If so, is the case of the Thirteen Law in the Siouxian Epistle isolated or is it just one symptom of a wider disease of scouting where other cases may be discovered of Scouting Doctrine not being entirely doctrinal because they are not truly wholly scriptural where those cases are the Scouting Apocrypha itself?

A smaller example of tinkering with Siouxians points to this possibility. Handbooks for generations will proclaim that, quote, Scouting is a way of life, unquote. The declaration stands for itself and needs not further explanation or justification, except if this self-evident statement is actually only half of the originary statement that has been excised of its full meaning and significance, namely, that scouting is both a way of life and a way of death. Differences in punctuation are relevant, too. The Handbook offers up its version in statement form as dogma and surety.

Scouting is a way of life
FULL STOP

By contrast, Siouxians poses a question to Troop 72, in particular, and perhaps to scouting in general to grapple with and not merely to be conditioned to believe. What began as somewhat contemplative and reflective was both slashed and then translated into the didacticism and dogmatism.

Now a different picture of Scouting Doctrine and even Scouting Scripture is portrayed as the possibly of being, at least in places, snippets and grafts of true and full Scouting Scripture that was suppressed and discarded only to bubble up and resurface in bits and pieces as happenstance, albeit mixed with true forgeries and spurious artifacts, as many maintained. Thus Scouting Apocrypha may answer questions on true scouting while still being a question unto itself because it was never clear and certain which questions are really being answered scripturally and this is the puzzle within the puzzle that is the Scouting Apocrypha.

Another example of Scouting Apocrypha may be witnessed in the small work titled, Scouting in Darkness.

Darkness is falling, declare many editions of the Handbook, before proceeding to discuss how to enjoy camp at night where the very next line reads excitedly, The campfire is about to blaze! So here light penetrates darkness and darkness can do nothing to stop it when a good scout knows how to build a great fire. The Handbook then declares that, Tomorrow is another day. It will be full of excitement and surprises. That’s what every day is in the camp of a real troop of real patrols of real scouts. True scouting toward a better tomorrow, some might call it.

Darkness is falling is also the opening line of Scouting in Darkness. This modest work is not a manual. It is more of a meditation. Even a scouting prayer. Glim V explains that there is no single and complete version of Scouting in Darkness. Instead, unnumbered pages from numerous of the same or slightly different manuscripts ravaged and scattered to the wind are raked into a pile that Glim V sifts through and sorts.

Importantly, the author of Scouting in Darkness remains in question because authorship is never revealed in pages extant. However, most agree that of all the scouting founders the author of Scouting in Darkness is most likely to be Dr. Harden-Grave as perhaps the most introspective among them. For Scouting Apocrypha purposes authorship is attributed to Quasi-Dr.-H to denote possible but not certain authorship.

Glim V reproduces what remains of the work, comprised of a series of aphorisms, in an organization that Glim readily admits may or may not align with the original and with headings that are not original and are merely meant to be helpful to the reader.

Thus we read Scouting in Darkness as best as Glim can reconstruct it:

Readiness to Enter Darkness.
A scout must be ready to burn as your own dark flame. How can true darkness fall if always casted out by light?

This dark night of contemplation should first of all annihilate and undo what is meaningless, arid, afflicted, and empty in scouting.

Oh, night that guides the scout. Oh, night even more lovely than the dawn.

Darkness Beyond Understanding
When we enter into darkness that is beyond understanding we find a growing lack of words as sheer quietude in all that we say.

Speak the scout cannot. He speaks no human language. He speaks only in dark signs shown with fear and trembling overcome by courage that is merely silence.

Soon the scout falls silent. In wise silence the scout honors the ineffable and inexpressible. In silence beyond words the simplicity of darkness becomes something complex. Timelessness takes on the duration of the temporal and with neither change nor confusion of what constitutes light darkness enters the scout’s heart of hearts as what totally surpasses the order of the scouting world. Quae pugna verborum silentio cavenda potius quam voce pacanda est.

Darkness as Secret Knowledge
In darkness there is self-forgetfulness full and complete so as to seem that the scouting soul no longer exists.

This is the most secret scouting knowledge which no one knows except he who receives it, and no one receives it except he who desires it, and no one desires it except he who is a scout who is a boy in his heart of hearts penetrated to the marrow by the silence of darkness.

This very darkness is the supreme illumination of our mind just as when the eye sees pure light it seems to see nothing at all.

Darkness into Flight
How much rest can this poor little bird have amid all the trials of life? Does darkness not bestow soothing which carries the soul out of its senses?

I feel as a bird with broken wings and can say nothing of meaning. Take, then, these broken wings and learn to fly. Learn to fly little bird and learn to die so free. When we hear the voices sing the book of love will open up and let us in. Yeah, yeah.

It is love that guides the heart to soar into darkness in solitude without its knowing how or in what manner. With thoughts enflamed of scouting design the scout puts on swift wings and explores his solitary scouting flight. Solitary flight into darkness in the spirit of true scouting.

Darkness as Homecoming
The happy night of contemplation leads the soul so solitary and secret on the scouting path to neverness as home and homecoming.

On a dark night, kindled in love with yearnings, the scout goes forth without being observed. His home is now at rest. He rests truly for now he is truly home.

Darkness as Oblivion
Let me then die and enter into this darkness. Let us silence all our cares, our desires, our imaginings.

All ceased and I abandoned myself leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies of the field. And so I am dissolved as nothing and annihilated and know not. Darkness such that light cannot overcome it. To live happy and to die happy I return home, eternal, at last.

Collectively, these and many other pieces of the mysterious puzzle came to be known as the Scouting Apocrypha, and nobody knew what do to with any of it because nobody knew what to make of it, which isn’t quite true or accurate, writes Glim V.

Questions certainly abounded. Questions abounded about whether or not a piece of Scouting Apocrypha truly came from one or more of these esteemed founders of scouting or whether it was penned by someone trying to pass it off as such.

Questions also abounded about whether or not any of it was consistent with what scouting truly is according to what was already considered Scouting Scripture so as to be included in the Handbook or a manual or supplement material as official Scouting Doctrine and in and among Scripture itself, or whether doctrine and scripture as we know it would have to change radically and fundamentally.

Finally, there was the particular question of whether what was eventually deemed scriptural and doctrinal should be made available to the general scouting population so that, as one scoutmaster put it, any pimply boy who scouts can get his grubby hands on it, or whether it should be reserved for scouting in secret by way of the Order of the Arrow because what appeared in the Scouting Apocrypha, almost everyone agreed, was highly potent and maybe too potent for just any boy who scouts who is a boy. Some scouting knowledge is not for everyone, was the reasoning, and it took a special scout to handle special scouting. In short, should some or all of Scouting Apocrypha be for every scout or no scout or somewhere in between?

Just as perplexing were the many references sprinkled in among pieces of Scouting Apocrypha attributed to multiple founders that mention a secret and private scouting group that was even more private and secret than the Order of the Arrow with its rectangular Arrow of Light patch consisting of an golden arrow and a rising sun on a scout red background that identified you a member so you knew who you were. Some believed that this secret-private scouting organization was so private-secret that it didn’t even have a patch to identify members by so you never knew even if you were in or out. Well, this Order, if it existed at all, became its own debate folded into debates about scripture and doctrine. Was it an Order within the Order of the Arrow? Was it a completely different Order? Was it a little of both? Was it neither?

Some thought that this secret order was definitely an Order within the Order of the Arrow and you had to be Tap-Tapped for the Order of the Arrow and have the Arrow of Light badge sewn into your scouting uniform and then but a few very select scouts were Tap-Tap-Tapped to become and to be a member of the Order within the Order of the Arrow.

Others were sure that the secret organization was a separate group and there was a separate induction, maybe a Nudge Nudge instead. Soon a debate ensued over the manner of induction. Was it Tapping? Nudging? Winking? Were there two of whatever there were, or three or even four, in quick or slow or maybe medium-slow succession?

Then, theories abounded about what this secret scouting organization actual did. Some thought it was just a fancy group of elite scouts, maybe learning over-elaborate knots and obscure Indian signs for words like procrastination, which entails simply laying in bed under the covers all day long and into the night, where the same Indian sign signifies ennui.

Others suggested it was the secret organization was a training ground for boys who scout who are called up by governments to fit into small scouting spaces to spy and blow things up and that they met at a supersecret headquarters inside Mount Rushmore and it was believed that this will probably be the inspiration for a movie about supersecret scouting which is both, quote, Based on Actual Events, unquote, and quote, Not Based on Actual Events, unquote.

Nobody knew the answers to any of these questions on Scouting Apocrypha, writes Glim V. Or rather, everyone knew the answers to these questions where answers went everywhichway. This did not stop big people who scout from using, and some would say abusing, Scouting Apocrypha. A certain piece of Apocrypha would be invoked by a scouting big person with the qualification of, IF it were indeed authored by thus and such, and then this big person who scouts would proceed with his argument as if the piece of Apocrypha in question was in fact authentic and scriptural and thus solid ground for his own views on what scouting truly is.

In this manner, Scouting Apocrypha would be used to support new positions on doctrine or refute current dogma or undermine new positions on old questions or revive old questions on new positions. Some felt that Scouting Apocrypha advanced a too radical view of scouting while others believed that this is precisely the point since Scouting Apocrypha goes to the very root of true scouting. Some felt that Scouting Apocrypha pushed Scouting Doctrine and Dogma in new and exciting directions. Others felt it was a bridge too far. Others argued that the Apocrypha actually preceded and begot scouting in a way that scouting has now gotten away from. This debate pointed to more basic and perplexing questions.

Many assumed that Scouting Apocrypha was at best a hodgepodge begotten by multiple founders. If authentic it was by a collection of big people who disagreed. Thus there was no internal logic or deeper and unifying meaning to be gleaned or discerned. Pieces were viewed as both scriptural and as fragments of different, competing pictures of scouting that did not combine into a single, whole picture.

But what if Scouting Apocrypha did in fact advance a deeper knowledge and a more profound logic for scouting for boys who scout that big people simply could not discern, perhaps because they were people who were big, and so these big people were simply incapable or unwilling to peer into dark waters to see what resides at bottom?

Those who detected an internal logic instead of a hodgepodge based their views in part on a legend or rumor that was in fact divided into two possible legends leading back to the belief that there was a single mysterious unnamed and unnameable author.

The first version of this legend talks about a single author whose Scouting Scripture secretly informed all the founders so they were in fact merely disciples on the true nature of scouting for boys who scout. Some believed that all of these founders as disciples read from a single, originary Handbook, dubbed the Ur-Handbook, now lost except as pieces of the Apocrypha written or rewritten by these disciples to convey the messages of the Ur-Handbook.

A variation of this first legend is that the mystery author never actually wrote anything down and simply whispered truths to his disciples, the scouting founders. This mysterious non-author was called the Scout Whisperer, akin to the Horse Whisperer, and many would add that if scouts where horses then no horses would be necessary, and this was one thing that everyone consternated over the Scouting Apocrypha could agree on. It followed that the Scouting Apocrypha did or at least could have an internal logic that was only clouded and muddied by misguided translations and adulterations by what were now dubbed Scouting Disciples or Apostles, instead of founders, such that each of them advanced their own often competing version of true scripture.

Others embraced the legend of the Scout Whisperer but argued that this mystery author did not preceded the founders but followed them so as to clarify the muddiness of original scouting in its many versions. This school of thought therefore embraced the internal logic of the Scouting Apocrypha but as a rectification and purification of what was corrupt in the beginning in the manner of a New Scouting Testament to replace the Old Testament of Scouting.

Any of these variations of the single-author–single-logic theory would override assumptions about contradiction and multiplicity of both authorship and visions, now commanding an even deeper look into the Scouting Apocrypha and how it shapes and even reshapes Scouting Doctrine.

On this way of thinking about the Scouting Apocrypha it also becomes easier to picture a secret organization as the keepers and practitioners of this deeper scouting within and beyond scouting. But this only raised new questions. Were their uniforms way cooler with cooler neckerchiefs and badges and patches and ranks and handshakes than regular scouting, which now seemed bland and plebeian by comparison? It was just too terrifying to contemplate.

Underneath it all was a basic question. Was the Scouting Apocrypha new nourishment or a poison pill or both?

The Scouting Apocrypha became such a problem and plagued big people who scout for so long that finally everyone put differences aside and came together for the Council of Men on Boys Both of Whom Scout (1945-1963), held in Trenton, New Jersey just after the war and lasting until it felt like the world would freeze. The Council in Trenton was convened with three tasks in mind. First, determine the authenticity of authorship in the Scouting Apocrypha. Second, determine consistency with or the establishment of new scouting doctrine and dogma. Third, decide on suitability for general scouting or scouting in secret.

When the Council in Trenton convened the main order of business was to form committees to take up these questions on behalf of the Council and this was the first and lasting breakdown of the Council because some big people who scout thought there should only be three committees, one for each of the three main directives, with independent rulings on each piece of Scouting Apocrypha by each committee according to its particular scope and mandate. The objection to this committee structure was just how disjointed the arrangement could become where a single merit badge, for instance, could be deemed inauthentic but also doctrinal and definitely suitable for all scouts. Or maybe a merit badge was authentically authored but not doctrinal and only suited for scouting that was both elite and private. The nonsensical combinations were numerous and it was pointed out that this was the problem that the Council was convened to address and avoid in the first place.

Others felt that a single committee should be tasked with a complete assessment of one single piece of Scouting Apocrypha, answering all three questions, and there should be as many committees as needed to take up each and every piece. It was objected that this gave a single committee the power of the whole because it was effectively deciding all the questions and then the Council would become a rubber stamp. Others felt that the Council would become a wrench in the works by undoing all the committee’s detailed work through pointless debate and groundless objections. Someone called it a hydra with too many independent heads, while others called that person a hydra with all his heads cut off. Others labeled it a chicken without a head just running around for no reason. Soon there became a question of who had a head and who did not and whether that head, on or off, was natural or supernatural.

It was also objected that this particular committee structure meant that each committee would work in isolation and would not be able to detect patterns of a deeper logic among the whole. Others felt that there should be a steering committee to do that job. But who would steer the steering committee?, some wondered aloud, and it was proposed that the committees could collectively steer the steering committee.

There was, however, one point that everybody agreed on. Nobody liked meeting in Trenton, New Jersey, and felt that a resort town with a warmer climate and a fun nightlife would be a more appropriate setting for big people to tackle such weighty matters on behalf of boys who scout.

This spiralizing went on for nearly two decades with committees and commissions and advisory boards tasked with studying the question of how to handle questions on mandate and scope and authority and decision-making. Meanwhile, what were called study groups with no official authority to decide anything were organized to at least start a preliminary assessment of actual Scouting Apocrypha with the idea that one way or another these groups would morph into official committees and they wouldn’t have to start from scratch with so much time wasted.

Much work was done on draft protocols to assess authenticity, dogma, and distribution. The problem was these study groups could not agree on method, even unofficially and provisionally, and fights would break out over the smallest matter with big people pulling scout knives or trying to tie each other into elaborate knots and especially knots that only appeared in earlier editions of the Scouting Handbook so probably no one would know how to get out of them but that caused everyone to scour past editions of Handbooks for new, older knots to tie big people into and this took about 4 years of study group time where everyone was learning knots and trying them out on boys who scout who are boys so as to scale up to big people who scout while making little progress on Scouting Apocrypha.

It was also observed that if the Council in Trenton decides that thus and such is authentic and doctrinal but a specific Regional Council or Scout District or even Troop still feels it is neither you can’t force them to adopt what they think is both spurious and heretical — or could you?? — but then that observation tended to undermine the whole point of the Council coming together in Trenton to decide once and literally for all and so nobody talked much about this because the washed out bridge was so far down the track and we weren’t even out of the station yet, as one leathery old scoutmaster put it.

The wrangling and indecision persisted for decades until one morning a young scoutmaster on the back bench leaned in and said jokingly, Let’s just burn it all and leave no trace. The ears of everyone perked up. It was pure music them because most everyone was secretly thinking the same thing and they were just too afraid to say it. The idea caught on like wildfire and by that very afternoon it was decided.

Burn it all. Leave no trace.

It was also determined that no secret organization existed besides the well-known Order of the Arrow and anyone who was a member of this nonexistent secret Order also did not exist. Thus began the Age of the Bonfire beginning that very night with a scout bonfire to rival all scout bonfires fed by Scouting Apocrypha as pamphlets, letters, memos, and treatises, as well as notes and minutes and protocols of the Council itself. Thus it was decided that the Council in Trenton never even happened. Nothing should remain. Total erasure. It was an infection of the body-scouting that we needed to sanitize by all available means. The Council adjourned and everyone rushed back home to burn a bonfire locally until every bonfire ran out of Apocryphal fuel. Then, each Regional Council and District and Troop issued a single statement, It Is Done, until all of scouting did the very same so that what was done was truly done and dusted.

What survived, writes Glim V, was by mere chance and oversight, or there were a few cases where conscientious big people tried to preserve some record, but by preserving or recording what had happened they only harbored incriminating evidence and were branded traitors and breakers of their scouting oaths in the next age, the Age of the Hunt, and so they went underground while scout turned on scout to track them down and root them out. A new Informant Merit Badge was established so boys could spy on big people and turn them in for the patch and a special ribbon of acknowledgement. Then an Informant Informant Merit Badge was established because now a boy who scouts who is a boy knows or may know something about the Scouting Apocrypha and so he too needed to be informed on. This went on and on until boys were informing on other boys who informed on other boys who informed on big people without even knowing what they were informing about and this was precisely the point. Needless to say, the scouting organization slimmed down for awhile while it was being purged but this only scrubbed it clean, top-to-bottom side-to-side, and so it was really worth it. Now nobody remembers or nobody talks about the Scouting Apocrypha. It is lost to generations. Lost forever.

This is where scholars like Glim Primsbs V are so valuable and diligent and courageous to track down what has been erased so as to lift faint impressions from the pages of time and across place to tell as much of the story as possible. The problem is that these were really only the very faintest of impressions. A list of possible merit badges. Mentions of that secret, unnamed organization. Shards and fragments of laws and mottoes and troths often preserved in ancient languages that knew no translation key.

Some may have been spurious, Glim concludes, but much that was genuine was also burned in the bonfire. From an historian’s standpoint the greatest loss, regardless of the authenticity or doctrineness of any of it, was not being able to tell the complete story. Now, all you can do is tell the story of the story you cannot tell.

* * *

Remembering all that I felt an enfeverdreamed thrill run through me that maybe the inscriptions within were nothing less, or more, than the Scouting Apocrypha. With that in mind I read the back of my neck with my mind’s eye in expectus.

Hospitality Merit Badge

Hospitality is an ancient law that is both ancient and a law. To learn more, run, don’t walk, to your nearest hotel or motel or Holiday Inn. In this manner you will or will not earn your Hospitality merit badge.

Then there was an imprint of the circular merit badge embroidered with a massive white pillow in the manner of the bleached bones of a whale with a tiny, exquisitely wrapped mint resting comfortably on top of the pillow in expectus.

That’s it?, I grumbled to myself. No captivating introduction or description. No requirements and no checklist to know what to do so you know when you have earned the merit badge. And that’s what the scouting world fought over and needed to burn? There has to be more.

I scanned the back of my neck. I felt around for more words. I tensed up so as to squeeze out fresh lines. Nothing was forthcoming.

What kind of supersecret merit badge is this? It’s not even a complete merit badge. No wonder it was casted into the flames. It has to be suspect and spurious. Maybe even just a draft of what would become spurious. Then again, maybe there is a real one somewhere and I have to find it. Maybe the Hospitality merit badge was so supersecret that you couldn’t even write anything down except for the most simple directions. It was then up to the scout to seek out the real requirements. Then again, what is inscribed is in a sort of minimal way a complete set of instructions. And the intro is captivating. Sort of. Not really. But that tiny mint really looks good right about now. I’m starving!

I was, in fact, ravenous.

I crawled out of my teepee and rummaged around for anything to eat. I didn’t have the strength to make a fire to cook a meal. All I could find were Johnny cakes that had been in a tin for who knows how long. They were equal parts cake and mold but I devoured them anyway and took long draughts from the babbling brook and I laid on my back staring blankly at the blue sky above while flour and cornmeal and salt and sugar and a little lard and mold circulated through my veins on a river of cold water. Nothing was going to happen until all that ran its course.

Soon I was fast asleep. I didn’t wake until night when darkness ruled the land. I was starving again and without a campfire burning it was pitch black. I crawled back into my tent and felt around for my trusty scouting knife. I didn’t have time to find a cup so with a trickle of blood flowing I drank directly from me. It was like a second helping of Johnny cakes. I could feel the energy flowing back, more than enough to quell the hunger pangs and to relax in mind and body so as to fall back asleep and to sleep soundly and peacefully until morning.

The morning was crisp and clear and I already had a pot of soup and dumplings on the crackling fire. I was starving again and I decided that salty broth and gooey dumplings would hit the spot. It was dinner for breakfast!

As I sat sipping tea while the soup simmered I ruminated over the Hospitality merit badge to sift and sort what I had read but now with a clear and focused mind. There were so many questions to work out and so I started over. Is the writing on the back of my neck a fragment or early draft and so my real task is to find the full and final description of the Hospitality merit badge to discover what it really says? If that’s what I’m being asked to do where do I even begin? It could be anywhere in town. I can start in the library and go book by book because it wasn’t on the Books on Scouting shelf so if it’s in the library it is surely misplaced but who knows where it could be and that could take forever and if it’s not there then where do I even start to look next?

On the other hand, what if what I read really is all there is to it? What does it want me to do?

To learn more, run, don’t walk, to your nearest hotel or motel or Holiday Inn.

Well, first of all, I felt that the command to run was figurative and all it’s saying is hurry, don’t delay, don’t dawdle. The problem was, after Eager Salmon went belly up and the Eggnog’s Yule Log empire collapsed all anyone did was leave town and no one came to visit anymore and so all the hotels and motels shuttered and we never even had a Holiday Inn and especially not one with the legendary Holidome that is too wondrous for a boy who scouts to even contemplate without shedding tears of joy.

I searched my mind to figure out where I could go in town. I was coming up blank. Then, like those hotels and motels, I shuddered because I remembered that time I was spitted out on the corner across the street from the Peas in a Pod Inn round about midnight. Sea shanties rose up in my ears. Toothless wenches smiling broadly echoed my memory. Fights spilling out onto the street bowled me over. The roar of laughter and beer and roast beast on a spit rose up on all sides. Was this where I needed to go? I shuddered again almost in spite of myself.

Maybe, I hoped, the Hospitality merit badge wasn’t even real. Maybe it was spurious. A fake. A ruse. And so just maybe I wouldn’t have to go to the Peas in a Pod Inn after all. And technically, the Peas in the Pod Inn was an inn and not a hotel nor motel nor a Holiday that is an Inn nor an Inn that is any Holiday I would like to go on and so it didn’t even qualify. Or did it? This was the problem. Without earning the merit badge how was I to know what actually qualifies? And yet, this is what is etched into my flesh with my very own blood. What is inscribed from within can’t possibly lead to error, can it? Or can it?

Now I was spiralizing just like that day in the field. I was in a fog. There really was only one thing to do and I knew it. The siren was calling again. Run, don’t walk, to the Peas in a Pod Inn, I said to myself with resolution and just a little trepidation.