Secret Lottery

I got to the end of the New York Times this morning and discovered that I agreed with both Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman.

Something was desperately wrong.

I thought about that, concerned. I detoured around an article on Edward Hopper’s marvelous paintings of New York, and found myself contemplating Weegee, the crime photographer, and Woody Allen, equivalent New Yorkers in their ability to have bent the cityscape to their personal views. And then I searched for Hopper’s painting ”Nighthawks,” which the article talked about but did not show.

I looked at it on the 17-inch monitor, the tough couple on the end, and the counterman in his white uniform, and the solitary man in fedora with his back to us. The Times says there is an iconic nature to it, and there is no door, and thus how the counterman, the hard couple and the solitary man get out is a mystery. I never saw it like that, thinking the entrance is just to the right of the frame edge. But it is a fine metaphor for how I was feeling on an Easter morning.

Thomas Friedman got my juices flowing with his attack on the President’s energy policy, or lack of it. He wants gas to cost four bucks a gallon, much less than they pay in Europe. I agree. That would kick our market in the ass and get those ponderous SUVs off the roads, over time. And he wants to build more nuclear plants, which is probably a good thing, the technology having evolved since Three Mile Island. The profits on oil are just fueling the causes of the people we are fighting.

Why is the President more worried about Social Security, which will go bust in thirty-five years, than about what is going to go bust this year or next? All the Chinese and Indians will be driving their own SUVs by that time and the climate will likely have changed sufficiently enough that Florida, and many retirees, will be underwater.

But I found Maureen Dowd’s column the more troubling of the two. She reports that the Catholic Church just woke up to the fact that Dan Brown has written a book that tells the truth about the origins of Christianity. A Cardinal has been appointed to warn people not to read The Da Vinci Code, which has sold dozens of millions of copies and has been read even by people like me, safe at Big Pink’s poolside.

Dan ripped the lid off the conspiracy that has subjugated womankind since the crucifixion. The secret the Church finds so threatening is this: Mary Magdalene was no whore. She was an apostle, whose legacy was smeared by Paul and the rest of the men to keep women in thrall to the Patriarchy. She had a relationship with Jesus, and offspring, the line of which is actually the Holy Grail.

I was startled a few years ago to discover that Jesus had a brother named James. I may have dozed during the part of the sermons that discussed the family tree of Joseph and Mary, thinking that it ended with Jesus. The discovery of a limestone box that may, or may not, have held the bones of Brother James ignited discussion of the family of Jesus, and there were alleged implications on the status of Mary. Half-brother is the most charitable I could find, and there are other interpretations that are controversial, to say the least.

Since then, I have discovered that the Shroud of Turin actually is not the image of Christ, but rather of last Grand Master of the order of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay. There was a book to that effect in a large display at the Barnes and Nobel mega-store near the tire store where I was held captive, waiting on the installation of some valve stems.

I have now thoroughly examined all the conspiracies.

I have no proof that the Knights Templar, or their successors the Freemasons, have anything to do with allocating the parking places under Big Pink. But suffice it to say that Washington was a Freemason, and Big Pink is located in a part of Virginia that was ceded to Washington DC when he was actually alive. I believe I can find documentation that effect, if I surf the web enough, or have further automotive work done by the book store.

I am not sure that Maureen Dowd or Dan Brown went far enough. There is more to the story. Senior Government Officials have lived in Big Pink. The security cameras are said to have been installed by the State Department. There appears, then, to be a direct connection.

There is garage parking under the hulking mass of the building, dark and cavernous. There are not enough spaces there between the weight-bearing columns of adamant concrete to accommodate the vehicles of all the residents.

Accordingly, the condominium board, who may be Freemasons, have established a list by which one can request a garage space for a modest monthly fee. It is a long list, since the garage keeps the snow and salt off the cars, and enables groceries to be delivered directly to the service elevators.

A parking place indoors is a precious thing. and depending on the severity of the season, can be 32 names. There are 32 degrees of the Masonic order. Coincidence?

Some people have been on the list for years, watching their names slowly rise toward the top, and then disappearing into the sanctum of the basement with their cars.

Or disappearing somewhere. My name is on the list, just in case. I slipped down into the garage the other day to inspect the garage after talking to Jack, the former telephone lineman who looks like the dapper rich uncle on the Monopoly Board. Jake knows everything about everyone at Big Pink.

He was smoking a cigar on the bench by the main entrance. I asked him about the list, and how long one could wait until a spot opened up.

He carefully tapped the ash from the end into the concrete urn net to him. ”Depends on the elections, and who has to leave town,” He said carefully. ”And it depends on who dies.”

â”That sounds ominous,” I said carefully. “No one ever really leaves Washington.” 

”That is only the beginning of it,” he said softly. ”The spaces are not all the same size. Some of them are narrow, and some of them are big enough for an armored Lincoln.”

”So what does that mean, Jack? You wait for years for a space to open up and then get a crappy place to park?”

Jack smiled that enigmatic smile of his, looking off into the middle distance. ”No,” he said. ”Then there is the secret lottery they don’t want you to know about.”

I looked in the garage, and he was right. Some of the spots are different sized. I am going to do some more digging on this story. But if Jack is right, I could be onto something big.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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