Killing the Cross Read online

  Then we went to the Pyramids and looked around. I never knew they were forty stories high. That’s high. I never really thought about this stuff. I have to admit, I actually have some respect for the ancient Egyptians now. Can you believe it, Dad, me having respect for something or someone? Forget the fact that I was a straight-A student in high school. Remember when I was Valedictorian and we were going to my graduation and I was all nervous about giving my speech and you said wait until I get to college and find out that I am really just a C student? Remember that, Dad? Of course you don’t, you can’t even remember which glass you put your teeth in most nights. But anyways, I didn’t know that there are over one and a half million stone blocks in the biggest pyramid, and each one of them weighs close to 15 tons. Ingrid says that it was built in only 23 years. Well, it doesn’t take an Einstein to do the math. That means that each block would have only six minutes to be cut, moved, and put in place with perfect precision. No stopping, no mistakes, for 23 years. Something doesn’t add up. I am going to have to use my C brain on this one, cocksucker.

  Foley

  Dad,

  It’s simple, really, how they built the pyramids. At least this is how I think they did it: Before they put in that damned dam up the river, the Nile used to flood at the same time every year. I’ve been hiding out in the library, in case you were wondering how I knew all this stuff. If you look at the satellite photos, and I’m sure you’re gonna run right out and look at those satellite photos, you can see how the banks of the Nile left flood lines right next to where the Great Pyramids are. It’s right downstream of a big bend in the Nile. From what I’ve been reading, the priests back then who really ran things knew precisely to the day and hour when the Nile would flood, and how much. So you can see how if they were going to build something big next to the river, they would know exactly how close. The last people to really think about all of this stuff were back in the 60’s and 70’s when everything was “Pyramid Power” and all those pot smokers like you were just all happy to look for some magical mystical explanation about how the pyramids were built like aliens and spaceships and all that happy horseshit.

  Well maybe they were right, but I don’t think so, because the answer is really simple if you think about it. I read that the Phoenicians had mastered sea traveling and built these cranes that were just sticks with an animal skin bag on one side of the fulcrum and the load attached to the other side. They could swing what they wanted no matter how heavy just by pouring in enough water on the other side and swinging their load around the fulcrum. That got me thinking. Every one of the “experts” has said that those huge blocks were rolled on logs by hundreds of men up a dirt ramp that was built higher and higher and spiraled around the pyramid as it was built. Then the same experts say that it would take longer to build the ramp than it would to build the pyramid itself. So they don’t know how the hell the thing was built, really.

  To me it’s obvious. When the Egyptians came along, they learned all the stuff about water and the sea from the Phoenicians and then they came up with their own ideas. Number one, they were experts at making beer, probably the first ones in history. People don’t realize how much grain there was being grown along the Nile in those days. Probably more than in the whole Midwest of America. That was a lot of easy beer making material. Also, it took a lot of space to store all of that grain, which would explain why they would need a pyramid that big, not just as a big tomb, but I’ll get to that later. The beer was fizzy, though, don’t you think? I mean most people don’t realize that you get more carbonation from fermenting something naturally than you get from the store-bought stuff that has the carbon dioxide pumped back into it. So, the fizzy stuff is the same stuff that you get when you drop baking soda into vinegar, like when you did when you were a kid. What does this have to do with building pyramids? Well, the rock they used was actually limestone, formed in huge deposits of sediment along the banks of the Nile from millions of years of flooding and drying. Kind of like the gesso you use to prime your canvasses before you ruin them with your paintings. But enough about you. Limestone is basically all calcium carbonate, the same as baking soda except in solid form. It is porous. It has millions of holes in it. It is almost three times less dense than water, which means that it will practically float on its own. Can you imagine what would happen if a chunk of limestone were soaked in fresh beer? That’s right, it would get all fizzy and float like a big Alka-Seltzer tablet.

  Now what does this have to do with a 15-ton block of limestone, you ask? Well, if you had enough beer to soak a block that big in, it would have the same effect. And if you had enough grain and water, then you might be able to make enough beer to float a 15-ton block. Or several hundred of them. So imagine a quarry next to a river that floods the same amount at the same exact spot every year at the same time. Then imagine cutting lines and layers in the solid limestone like you would if you were dicing an onion. Then pack your grain from the year’s harvest deep into the sliced slots and add water. In a few days, you’d have enough fizz percolating up to break those slabs into individual stones just from the pressure alone. Then here comes the Nile pouring in on top of it all at flood time and popping those stones out of the matrix just like Chiclets.

  They’d bust out and be swept downstream, dropping out of the current right at the bend, virtually at the foot of where the construction was going to be. Do that for a few years in a row, and you’ve got the blocks all piled up there ready to go, none of this dragging and rolling them one at a time in a big line like ants. The base of the pyramid is perfectly level, too. How do you think they did that? Well, there’s a reason that a carpenter’s level has a bubble in a capsule of water. Oh, wait, you are the expert carpenter, I forgot. “Screw-it-and-glue-it” McMann, how could I forget what everyone called you? So you can appreciate this theory of block moving, especially after having us haul all those blocks by hand up that muddy mountain road in North Carolina to build our dream home. I guess that you weren’t smart enough to pave the road first so a truck and a forklift could simply deliver the cinder blocks.

  Anyway, the Egyptians had the foresight to let the river do the work as it had for thousands of years. Once they had a level base on the edge of a flood plain, and all of their building blocks on site, they simply had to maneuver them into place. And why build a ramp when you can use a system of channels and locks and water cranes? One level is just as easy to reach as the next when the water rises that high, right dad? I could go on and on about the inner burial chamber and how it is really a vertical water elevator to float one block at a time to the proper lever then spit it out like a giant Pez dispenser, or how the hollow sarcophagus is not just a coffin for the Pharaoh, but a tribute to his genius for using it as a flotation platform to push the solid stones up through the main shaft. But why bore you to death, right dad? How could you have known that your beloved son would one day solve the mystery of the Great Pyramids, especially after shooting the neighbor’s dog, or showing up to pick my prom date up exactly one week early? Oh yeah, I forgot to tie in the grain warehouse thing. That’s what the pyramids were, not just a grave. Oh, and they acted like beacons too, because they were close to the Mediterranean Sea. That’s why they built them so high, so all the other primitive cultures around the world would know right where to sail to and buy their beer-making supplies.

  Your genius son.

  Foley

  Dad,

  I like Egypt. Egypt is cool. I told Ingrid about my theory about the Pyramids and she says that my greatness is really coming out. She says that it is just natural for a great mind to think of amazing things. I tell her about my chasing around packs of women in burlap robes squeezing their butts and making them squeal and she likes that too. I told this other lady I met about my theory of the Pyramids and she wasn’t too pleased. She said that I had to come and listen to her about who I really was, and she began to tell me my fortune. It was in the back room of the big library downtown, and she got out all these big du
sty books and started telling me stuff. She said that some of the books at Alexandria had not completely burned, and that they held the secrets of the universe. She said that she had been keeping an eye on me ever since I filled out a library card application, and she knew from my birthday that I was someone very special.

  I asked her how she knew I was really who I wrote down and not some impostor, or some spy, or one of these guys that had gone to a graveyard and found some little baby’s name and gotten a false birth certificate and a passport, and she said she could just tell from talking to me. I thought she was pretty cute, too, hell she’s one of the few that doesn’t wear her body all covered up along with her head, so I could actually see her pretty brown eyes and she really wears that mascara like you imagine that an Egyptian lady would like Cleopatra and all. So she starts talking about my birthday and how I was born in the last few days of January on the cusp between Capricorn and Aquarius and how it was the last few days of the year and I asked her what she meant because January is the very beginning of the year and she said not really because in the astrological calendar the new year does not begin until near the end of January or even beginning of February sometimes. She says that I was born in the year of the dragon, and the way I was born just after midnight on the day that I was, that I am a special kind of dragon. She says that predictions made a long time ago say that one special dragon will come during our lifetime, during special times that need a special leader. She says that might be me. She says that all the signs point to it: That I am The Dragon. She says that there are different kinds of dragons. She says that I am a Blue Wood Dragon. I don’t know what kind of dragon I am, but I’m banging her now.

  Took her straight back into that dark little secret room of hers and did her good. Ingrid would shit if she found out. I think she would get jealous. She wouldn’t have before, but something has changed. She’s getting all clingy and shit. I like this little Cleopatra chick though. She’s good people. Anyone who tells me that I’m going to take over the world one day and fucks like she does is all right with me. She’s reminded me again, like Ingrid did, that I have a destiny and that I am important to the fate of the world and to Mankind, something that you never told me. I matter, you old cocksucker, do you get that? I MATTER! I’m gonna go catch some more of this Egyptian sunshine. Catch you later old man. Remember WWW.

  Foley

  Foley,

  Get your ass home NOW! Jesus, you really need help. Who in the Hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? I let Marlene read some of your letters, and she is appalled. You really need to see a shrink. I am not sending you a dime! You got yourself into this mess, and you can get yourself out of it. Still living the life of Riley, I see, gallivanting off around the world, living in sin with your little girlfriend, what are you trying to prove? You are just like your mother, never sticking to anything or anyone, floating around on the breeze. Once a hippy, always a hippy, I suppose. Well, you had your chance. The Lord was your salvation once, I thought. At least, that’s what you declared to everyone and God at your baptism. Is this how you would like everyone to remember you now, running around with some overeducated Jezebel out in the land of Abraham? What the Hell is wrong with you? I am through with you. You have put the mission at risk, and I will not tolerate your megalomaniac behavior. Terminate your shenanigans now and return for debriefing. Stop trying to blame the Dutch. You are always trying to blame your problems on someone else. The Dutch have nothing to do with what is happening to you or to anyone else for that matter. The Dutch are no different from anyone else. Your story about the Pyramids is the only thing that makes sense at all. Maybe if you come home and study like you used to, you can still have a good life. And don’t tell me “www.” I know WWW, you little bastard.

  Love,

  Dad

  Dad,

  What’s this? A letter, no less, from the great one himself. The old man still has the touch, sending me a letter in a foreign country and shit. Way to go, Dad! Hey, hat’s off for sharing my fucking letters with your stupid new wife. Way to jeopardize the mission, douche bag. It’s not like she’s smart enough to catch on, but still, use some common sense. You don’t seem to understand my struggle anyway. You never experienced any of the things that I face in America. The racial quotas, the psychological wars, the gender battles in the workplace. That’s why I like traveling. The middle-aged white male still rules most of the world. People listen to me when I speak, they pay attention when I walk into a room, they do what I say without making smart-ass comments or arguing with me for the sake of arguing. I love it. Women adore me and my American accent, they literally throw themselves at me.

  You never had to face the political blackballing of the average white male. It was something that you never experienced first hand, so you write it off as paranoia if anyone talks about it. Talk about it today in the wrong context, and get branded as a racist. Go into a post office or any government agency and see what I am talking about. Get a female boss, even if she is white, and see how well you are treated as a white male. Oh right, I forgot, you are retired now. You never had to compete in the workplace with people that are trained from birth to hate you as an “oppressor.”

  I guess that’s it. I finally figured out why I hate you so fucking much. You and all of your hippy friends were so free to do what you wanted, and now it turns out that it was all just fashion. You have sold out all of your ideas like a pair of faded jeans at a yard sale. Get someone who really gives a fuck about what is going on and boy, for you that person didn’t get enough mother’s milk, or ‘‘it’s all been done before” or some such shit like you like to yell before your dumbass Christian wife calms you down and gives me that look like I am a bad influence on you. On YOU, motherfucker, what is she thinking, the biggest dope smoking, long-haired, hell-raising dickweed in his day, and somehow, I am paying for all of your sins? Somehow, I am the bad guy in all of this? Straight-A student, first in his class in every goddamned school I ever went to, except that worthless fucking party school on the Hill, and somehow, I am the demon seed in your little pseudo-Christian, Martha Stewart cuckold there, Daddio? The two of you can suck it. Suck it hard, you toothless old sellout.

  I have been reading Mein Kampf. I love it. Hitler talks about “the fighters, the lukewarm, and the traitors.” You are a traitor to your ideals, dad. You cashed them in and now dementia will set in because you cannot remember who you are or what you stood for. Senility is when you let go of the rail in the dark hallway. Once you were a fighter, but that was back when people could sit around on welfare and smoke pot and dream up all kinds of effete intellectual solutions to stuff. Now, we have to work constantly. I have a college degree and it doesn’t mean dick. They say that there is no caste or class system in America, but what is that “salary history” shit all about when you go to apply for a higher paying job? It’s just another way to keep people down.

  Hitler was a genius. He was a master of political thought. Here’s another little language tidbit for you, graybeard, you know that saying “for all intensive purposes” and the faggy fucking English majors say that it is not a real phrase, but then they have no idea of its origins? Well, it is really “for all intents and purposes.” Right there in black and white in Mein Kampf in little Adolph’s own words. The best thing that Hitler talks about is the “general longing” of his country’s people. Their “natural patriotism.” You went against that patriotism, and now you stand for nothing. And now your entire generation is a generation of sellouts and lukewarms and traitors. The largest generation in human history set adrift. That is why America is ripe for the slaughter. How do you tell a stupid person that they are stupid? Better yet, how do you tell millions of stupid people that they have been brainwashed?

  Hitler says, “To learn history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events.” Pretty profound words from a man that you cannot even mention in public anymore without be
ing immediately branded as some kind of neo-nazi lunatic, don’t you think? And to think that most patriotic Americans would be shocked to realize how much they actually identify with Hitler’s writings on Nationalism. You should read it sometime, it is not rambling. The man definitely knew how to put words together. And now the same censorship and totalitarianism that we abhor in him has become our social paralysis. You cannot even have an open discussion on the man’s ideas without fearing for your life. Strange.

  I guess it all comes down to identity though. You had the luxury of throwing one away. Another thing that you denied me. After you fucked up my head with your Marxist hippy ideals and ruined my face and body with your drugs and anemia-inducing “health-food” I never got the chance to form and an “identity.” I was ridiculed and picked on as a runt from the earliest age that I can remember, and I always had to run so fast and hard just to survive my childhood that I never had the luxury of forming a sense of self or well-being or anything close to an identity. How cute, how you grew up the larger, older brother, making fun of your little brother and becoming the big basketball jock in your family, only to shock everyone and become a hippy abstract painter. How suave, how debonair, how cool. And to think how many times that you yelled at me for being selfish. You’ve screwed the pooch on this one. I’ve got you by the balls. You’ll die a loser with no real contribution to mankind. Hats off to you, you selfish, traitor cocksucker. Now what have you got to say?