The Jesus in George Marshall

The Individual: An assemblage of fragments artificially brought together by the mind in a "unity" which cannot stand up to examination.

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

I'm having one of those deeply suspicious days wherein I don't believe anything anymore, and all is suspect. It feels as if some wrong turn has been taken. A single misstep which has disturbed the trajectory of my journey, and I find myself out to sea. Thinking causes headaches, deep breaths make me cough, and the pain in my shoulder will not relent.

August Strindberg was haunted by the scent of celery, and I find myself hounded by the pungent odor of leeks. Are you aware of the onion-like heart of the leek, which makes the eyes tear more than any onion ever could. It is a terror, the leek. And I cannot determine if the scent is seeping out of me, out of my very pores, or if it follows like a fog. How can One be sure?

I am in a panic!

A fervor!

Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed into a disgusting creature.... some sort of bug. I am trying to take it easy. The universe seems to have something in store for us. Something crazy.

I must get organized!

I must go home, clean my house, scrub the corners, file the papers, and do the laundry.

I will make a list of priorities which begins:

1) CALM DOWN

Here is the situation:

Upon waking one morning I found the following note pinned to the lapel of my pajamas:

Marie Antoinette died with a mouthful of jism, sprayed forth from the pecker of a most talented man. A musical genius, whose work was suppressed for fear of a world-wide spiritual liberation. His name was George Marshall, and he was a man of unknown racial origin, an orphan: found in Egypt, raised in Greece, exiled to France. Had a torrid love affair with Missus Antoinette, before her untimely demise. Just before, in fact. She died with a mouthful of his eternal artistic legacy. He disappeared shortly afterwards. I fear it was the Goons.

I believe it is in Plexus that George Marshall first appeared, at least in my conscious experience. Henry Miller has a childhood friend that he is identical to. They were bosom buddies and they both got sick and he spent some time living out in the country with George. Then something changed and he who was once his friend became his nemesis. The coin flipped and they were opposites. George Marshall became his enemy. This is all that I can recall of the episode.

The root of their conflict was, of course, a woman. One that Henry was idealizing, and George Marshall was not one to idealize. He thought it foolish. Especially in the case of this particular woman.

George Marshall.

Never have I identified with a character more than with George Marshall.

This identification, I admit, is dubious, considering that I can't really remember many specifics about the character at all. My only recollection is the deep sensation of knowing that I am him.

I do not mean this literally. Although, I shall proceed as if I do.

ON THE FIRST DAY:

Sometime, right around the Turn of the Century, it came to my attention that I was none other than George Marshall.

This is a very difficult sentence to phrase properly, so I ask that you please forgive my seeming redundancy. There is a very specific moment of revelation which I feel it is imperative for me to express from the get-go, if we are to have any hope of arriving at the same place, so to speak. Or rather, on the same page. Therefore I am impelled to try this sentence in a variety of forms and phrasings so as to make sure that the bases are covered, so to speak, and that whomever should chance to read this volume might have the greatest possibility of understanding the particular and peculiar realization that occurred to me on that fateful day.

The day of which I am speaking was the day that I realized that I was George Marshall, or, rather, if you please, George Marshall was me. I and George Marshall were one and the same. There are many reasons why this sudden revelation was rather shocking. For one, I never knew of George Marshall, prior to our defining first contact, and when we did encounter each other, very little was revealed. In fact, I didn't actually meet him, in the flesh, that is to say, in person, I merely read about him. The reading wasn't even an autobiographical account. It was fictionalized second-hand reporting, by a well-known exaggerator, who, in this particular case, was not inclined to go into much detail about the character which I have since spent my life trying to construct.

George Marshall isn't even his real name.

But alas, what's in a name?

There's the name you're given, of course, and then there's the name you give yourself. And sometimes they're the same and sometimes they're different. I wouldn't say that mine is an exceptional case. Not at all. I don't pride myself on being "radical" or think that it's anything out of the ordinary. Like all men, I see myself in the mirror in the morning and in my head I acknowledge that the image I see in the mirror is me. It isn't shocking, and it never has been. I may notice new things, but I have never had a startling revelation or alternate recognition whilst looking in the mirror. It has always been that I meet my own reflection in more or less the way that I expected I would. Without event.

It was very much the same when I became George Marshall. I merely recognized myself and accepted that fact as I accept the fact of my own face in the mirror. No use denying it, I know who I am. And perhaps there are moments when we surprise ourselves, with our behaviors and our capabilities, however, we usually know where we begin and end. There have been instances of religious experience (and chemically induced experiences) in which people have reported a sensation of not knowing where they began and ended. Regardless, the best I can do to explain it is that I instantly accepted the fact that I am George Marshall and I don't even remember that much about him, however, I plan to go back and investigate.

The fact that George Marshall and I were one and the same, indivisible, and united in the deepest sense, was not something that was readily apparent to the casual observer. I had no proof. All I had was the first instance of deep and unquestionable knowing with which my life had ever been graced. When I realized that George Marshall and I were one and the same, I realized that I had never realized anything before in all my life. I had thought that I had known many things; however, upon knowing the first thing that I had ever truly known, I then knew that I had never known anything. Again, this is a difficult and specific moment of realization to phrase. This is a peculiar experience which I would love to go into great elaboration upon, because it is a pleasure and an intense delight to recall those feelings of the first knowing. However, time is of the essence, and I must stick to the point.

The point is, in that moment, I knew, for the first time, something, and that something was that George Marshall and I were one and the same. In that instant I felt timeless, boundless, infinite and always. Not only was I George Marshall; George Marshall was also I. He was born again in me and was able to witness himself. In me, as me, George Marshall was restored to life. Reborn. It sounds much more mystical than it was, and yet, no words can properly give glory to the holiness of the situation. It was the stuff that science fiction novels are based on; of which religious literature speaks.