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The Understanding

Scourging for Tutor, given or gotten, is literally another day at the office.  What came after is what hurt, a closed door session with Tess. As a mother, and force of nature in her own right, she anatomized Tutor's failings as teacher, man, and servant. As she spoke, Tutor visualized a tree, boughs, branches, twigs, with leaves. Each leaf was a lacerating point. As if on recto and verso of a sheet of Audrey's poster paper, on verso he saw a Roman scourge, with handle for the trunk, and leather thongs for the boughs. The leaves were brass stars, pointed. Where the handle goes, or the trunk of the tree, Tess made the main point: He put Audrey at risk. Had she fallen, as she might well have, with her would have gone the last, best hope for life on earth. Who will own, rule, and save if she were gone? Had he asked first about the trampoline, permission might or might not have been granted, but as sure as can be, it would never have been a cheap one, or positioned on the top turret. "Why do you think we have a gym, Tutor, with proper pads under the horse, or parallel bars? Why does the Castle employ spotters?" Tess, of course, was right, each brass star penetrating to bone.

Tutor as a professional in the art of inculcating morals knows that the lash can be the instrument of correction, torture, or execution, when wielded with intent. So, he listens for the verdict. Will it be, "Don't let this ever happen again?" Will it be a spell in solitary? Breaking stone, deep under the Castle, inside the walls, in darkness, in the dreaded Quarry, from which the Castle has risen for centuries, built by the condemned? Exile with hope of reprieve? Or, worse?

----

As you reflect on what you would do, as a mother, if you were a mother, and Audrey were your own child, perhaps it is important to ask where Audreys go, when they grow up. At 9.5 years old an Audrey can build a tree house with saw, nails, hammer. She can run faster than most boys. She is taller than most boys. In Audrey's own case, she can fly - with help, though not for long. At 10? 11? 12? By 13 she will not touch a hammer. By 14 she will be competing in math, science, English, languages, for the grades and scores. By 21 she will be graduating. By 25 she will be an attorney, executive, a hedge fund manager, an aid to a Senator. She will wear, most likely, a business suit to work. Whatever men can do she will do it as well or better. To repeat: What men can do. What men can do. What men can do.

----

Back in the late 1700's, exiled from some delicate situation in France or England, as Tutor is ever exiled from this or that dynastic family, for insubordination, he found himself on the Plantation, with Tom and Mammy, competing with Tom for the position of the Most Trusted Advisor, but Mammy was right up there, too. On certain days, she was more Trusted than Tom. But Tom and Mammy both spoke better British English than Master, who cursed, spat tobacco, and swaggered in word and deed. Every inch the Dynast in silk britches and waistcoat. Yet, Tutor, listening as he would, at the hedge around the Hush Arbor, would hear voices, including Mammy's and Tom's in a wholly different idiom. Overheard, not heard. Not British English. Not the idiom of Master. And songs too, Gospel hymns. Those could cross over into Church.

---

Where do the Audreys go at 11? And up.

Tutor has forbidden knowledge, maybe it comes with age. But he has stood outside so many doors, listening to womens' secret voices. The Judges, the CEOs, the Hedge Fund Managers, the women who beat the boys at whose game.  No other way to rise.  And the boy's game is, in a Free Country, in a Free Market, what? Wealth Bondage Rebooted to do the Most Good, as you should know from reading this blog. And, so Tutor has been told and as he teaches: "There is no 'outside' of Wealth Bondage." Around the growing boy close shades of the charnel house, wrote Wordsworth, or words to that effect, and that was around a boy. Around the Audreys close the sound of male voices, male tests, male patterns, male ladders of success, metrics, until they are as good as the boys or better at the boys' own game, insuring that the game that oppresses and empowers us all will never change.

The time will come, when Audreys will not learn to sound like a man. When she will not write about "mansplaining" in the NYT in idioms drawn from Horace, through Dryden, to Ben Johnson, to EB White, to her teachers in prep school, to her editor. Women can, in a public forum, condemn how men sound if but only if they sound like well bred men doing it. That is a truth that Tutor knows from standing outside the room where women speak as women, in their own polyphonous voices about family, love, wealth, a dog, a garden, about living things. The Audreys do not dissapear. They learn to pass among men, as did Tom or Mammy among Master and his peers. That is the price, and that is how injustice is confirmed, in black robes, blind, male or female. In passing into men's world, in lending themselves to the construction and preservation of that edifice of stone on stone, plumb, level and true, an invincible fortress, what remains of who they once were, or could have become? A child inside the Judge, perhaps, as in a Dungeon, waiting.

Not that Tutor is any better as insider/outsider. As Tess notes, he has the mind of a nine year old. His is the line of the Fool, bringing into the Dynast's world the voice of the subordinated, to inoculate the powers that be against what would subvert them. To put them in touch with who they are, and in ostracizing, beating, scorning, imprisoning, exiling him, as the Lord of Misrule, to find themselves, as in a distorting mirror, only made more perfect.

The Fool may speak for the Rabble, but in the King's ear. He is loyal to the King. What the Fool knows is that the King is the head of the Body Politic, and that no part can gangrene without the King suffering ultimately unto death. For women, for Mammy, for Tom, for the Fool, for the Most Trusted, for the Consigliere, for the Secular Priest, for all these roles there is a price and a benefit, a debt of loyalty, a code of conduct, limits to what can be said,  confidentiality, silence, or tact, or parabolic deflection. The art of writing well inside a structure like the Castle, or corporation, under surveillance, within a hierarchy of roles, duties and privileges, always at risk of being deported back to the fields or to the middle class, or to the status of a woman in a kitchen, who can only nurture the living things within hands reach. 

---

Those who betray their country, in positions of power, try the whistle blower for treason. Which way is up is apparent to all, as the miscreant confesses at trial with the media in attendance. Bearing witness against himself. Everyone sees truth broken to lie like the judge and jury. The moral understood by all is the lie-in-power does not exist, and the truth should never have said it did.

----

So, there is Tess and there is Tutor. Outside the closed door, trying to hear, is Audrey, too. How do you think it will go? How do you think it should go? Momma wants to keep Audrey safe. She is a menace, Audrey is, to herself and others. Even in Mary Janes and a party dress, she is no Belle-In-Training. Tutor can easily be replaced, by Master Jack, or another. With enough effort A Qualified Wisdom Professional could teach her to pass among the powers that be as one of them. To be a Good Trust Beneficiary, making no trouble for The Bank of Wealth Bondage, and not driving up the Cost of Doing Business, so the assets in the Trust she will inherit will continue to grow and grow for the benefit of Future Beneficiaries, and for the Bank as their Faithful Steward. Audrey could yet become normal. Once Tutor is gone, come the prescriptions, the therapists, the Secular Priests, comes depression, again; comes the bed she will not leave; comes clenched jaws, again; comes hunger strike; comes the doctor, comes the iv, and drip drip drip of happiness, in Bondage to Wealth, through the vein tapped.

---

So as you are wondering about Tess and her verdict, maybe you should recall a bit about her love life. It is really none of your business, and it is sickening, but it is important to our story. She has been with 50 men in total. One in college, her senior year, a nerdy guy she fumbled about with, and dated for a time, and almost married, until she decided to see a bit of the world first. And 49 in one night, her night of triumph, when she had broken the glass ceiling among the traders, as the only woman on the floor of Wealth Bondage, taking down the French Bourse with one intuitive trade, as easy for her as playing the flute. 49 men in an hour or two, as she lay, having been feted with campaign toasts, unconscious. One of the 49, we will never know which, is Audrey's father. Can you see why Tess is so good with a scourge? Can you imagine how she thirsts for revenge? PTSD. Her hand with the scourge, as the eyes blur with tears of pent up rage, what she might know is only that this is a man's back, a man who himself works for Wealth Bondage, as once for the Empires of Rome, England, or the old South. All he himself knows is that his role as Fool, as insider/outsider, is in the King or Queen's inner sanctum, where love is, and vulnerability, and hope, and laughter, and fun, if hope and love, fun and laughter are even possible there. It is a dangerous game, and always was, like being Alexander The Great's surgeon, in an age before anesthetic. You don't get to leave too many of the Royal Family dead on the table, without it being a career limiting move. Not all jokes, no matter how healing they are meant to be, are welcome; not all are funny. "Truth," as a wise fool once said, "is a bitch that must to kennel." The awkward silence, in Tutor's trade generally ends badly. And, after being scourged so expertly, and thoroughly, after he has said, contritely, "Yes, M'am, I understand M'am," Tutor feels the long pause lengthen.

--

And here is how it ends: "Next time, ask."

--

Outside the door, Tutor meets Audrey, looking up. "I got you in trouble?" "I got myself in trouble, kid," Tutor says. "Momma loves you and she wants to keep you safe. If we don't cause any more trouble for awhile, I think maybe we can get another trampoline, too, a good big one this time." Audrey claps.  "But," Tutor continues,  "Momma says we have to set it up in the gym. Momma knows you will learn how to fly one way or the other. She just wants to make sure you don't kill yourself in the process. OK?"

---

Diogenes, who taught Rabelais, who taught Erasmus, whose Praise of Folly has the illustrations of The Happy Tutor, that led Tess to Tutor, when she found the manuscript in the Castle's library, asked to be buried face side down, so when the world turned turned upside down, he would be facing right side up. When Trusted Advisors are under Audrey's heel, the world will be saved, as Mother Mary is envisioned crushing the head of the Serpent. Momma is on board with the plan. At least I hope she is. Audrey won't be able to save the world, unless she inherits it, and she can't inherit it unless Tess owns it, and she can't own it until she beats the boys in Wealth Bondage at their own game. And becomes one of them in the process? I think not.

--

As Tutor takes Audrey's hand outside Tess's closed door, they can hear the sound of Tess's miraculous flute. Audrey in her faded pink, grubby Keds, does a skipping little dance, not a minuet, not a waltz, not any dance you could learn from a dancing master. A dance like that of the whales and the goats, and the seagulls, and all the living unthinking things that dance to Tess's flute, as long ago to Pan's before Reason ruled the earth, and the species winked out one by one, in the Anthropocene Era, where everything is always under control, and getting better, on time and on budget, as per the annual plan, in line with forecasts, and analysts' expectations.

"Thank you God for women," says Tutor to himself, full of yearning for what he cannot have. He has no chance with Tess, but who can blame him for swaying to her music?

Fair price to pay for so much fun

Having put Audrey in jeopardy, you will agree that Tutor deserves a degree of punishment he will not soon forget.  Insubordination, use of unapproved athletic equipment, potential injury to the only hope the world has at this point, and other failings as well. So, there Tutor is, hands manacled above his head, on the whipping post in his own Dungeon, rope around his waist, feet shackled, white shirt split open. Doing the honors, with the scourge, his rival, Master Jack, a Dungeon Master to the Stars in his own right, but commanding higher rates, as a Yale Grad and Corporate Fiduciary.  You might feel some compassion for Tutor, but don't. Endorphin high, he gets in the zone. "Jack is a big pussy; I scourge myself harder for my own sins." And in truth, Jack is making a big show of it. Tutor's back is all bloody, the skin in strips, but this is not Jack's best effort. He is holding back as a Professional Courtesy, and because he knows that turnabout is fair play, and when the turns change, it will be Jack on the whipping post, and Tutor wielding the bloody scourge.

Later, to help her process the moral - unapproved activity only ends badly - Audrey is allowed to visit Tutor in his cell, where he lies on his stomach, on the pallet of his cot, his back red like raw hamburger. "Are you ok?, Tutor?, she asks. I am so sorry. It was my fault." "Not your fault, kid, I knew it would come to this. I am the Grownup, right?" "A Silly Grownup!" "Thank you, Audrey, I am a very Silly Grownup and always will be, as long as I get to teach kid like you. My back doesn't hurt so much. My head does, though." Audrey can see a big goose egg on the back of his skull where he slammed into the wall. It is too late for ice, and he didn't have any anyway, so it swelled up, and looks even worse than it hurts. Audrey reaches out with a finger tip, but does not touch it, because it looks so sore. "It is ok, kid. I will heal. It is not like when your rip your shirt, or something. My head heals itself. Sometimes I bang it on stone walls just for practice. In case I ever have to in real life." Audrey laughs.

"That was the funnest fun I ever had! I really did fly, Tutor, I could see my flag on the pole, so close I could touch it!" "You will always remember." "Always! I will."

Audrey bends to kiss Tutor, a big smack, on the center of his forehead. She rises to do her prima ballerina pose (Momma took her to the ballet in Paris), hands with fingertips touching above head making a graceful arc, twirl on point, in faded pink Keds, with the white rubber tips. Then the red haired ballerina in blue jeans exits in long leaps, as if she could fly. And now she knows she truly can.

The Trampoline Incident

While Audrey is away on her grand tour of Europe, Tutor saves his meager pay, and empties his savings, to buy her a welcome home present. She who cannot manage to fly with feathered wings, or like a flying squirrel, shall have a trampoline! For what he can afford, it will not be much, only about 5 feet in diameter, with a tiny patch a kid can jump on in the middle, and fragile fold down aluminum legs, but it is rated for a child up to 85 pounds and Audrey is only 62 pounds. Besides beggars can't be choosers, and at $110, plus shipping, it represents 3 months pay, net of the charges he pays for room and board, and the interest at 24% APR on the courtesy employee credit card at the Castle's company store, for sundries. Tutor knows full well that a trampoline is dangerous. A child could jump and fall on the floor, or hit her head on the ceiling and knock herself out, or worse, she might catch a foot in the springs, and break a leg, which might never heal, and she might limp the rest of her life. So, this is a sin  committed in cold blood. The trampoline is ordered, arrives, and is secreted in the Dungeon, behind the panel where over the centuries the Dungeon Masters have scribbled their names, or left their bloody mark, as hand prints, in defense of freedom or whatever ideal it might have been at the time, like fealty, fiduciary duty, or the great chain of being, to preserve whatever dynasty is hegemonic, and whatever patron pays the bills.

When Audrey returns, pent up, and excited to see Rex, and even happy to see Tutor, he whispers to her that he has a present for her, but it has to be their secret. It is way up in the Castle, on the highest battlement, on the very tip of the highest turret. When they climb to the top of the winding, cobwebbed stair, there it is: the trampoline glinting silver in the sun. "You get to fly, after all, kid!" Yet, honestly, it is a disappointment at first. Audrey can bounce and jounce, but her highest elevation is only about three feet. "This is not flying! I am going to really fly!" And she scuttles up the battlement wall, until she balances on the wall, about 20 feet above the terrace. "O, No!," says Tutor, "This is getting out of hand." Audrey is on the edge of the parapet, with a straight drop below to the rocks, 15 stories down. The white capped waves crash and break on jagged stone. The Audrey flag, "Own Rule Save" is flying straight out, in a high wind from the turret's flagpole. And there is Audrey windmilling her arms, as she teeters on the wall. "I'm gonna fall! I'm gonna fall! Help! Save me!"

Tutor races across the stone terrace. Will he get there in time? Audrey leaps over his head and lands at maybe 100 miles an hour on the tiny canvas patch at the center of the trampoline at a 45 degree angle. Knowing the laws of physics, you know what happens next. Her trajectory makes a right angle, 45  degree slant coming in at 100 miles an hour, from a height of 20 feet, energy absorbed by the springs, with some slight loss to friction, and her 65 pound body, a missile, shooting up at a 45 degree angle at 93 miles an hour, headed directly for the facing stone wall of the Castle. "I am flying!" The trampoline is destroyed, bent to the floor; Audrey is at her apex. Tutor is like the center fielder in the final game of the World's Series, with the Series on the line, final pitch, hit to center field, over the wall? Not quite, Tutor manages to hit the wall, leaping, with both hands extended to snatch his charge from the air, the back of his head clobbering the stone.  Together, they drop to the deck. Soft landing.  Audrey is squirming. "I did it, Tutor, I flew!" Mission accomplished; everyone safe!

Unfortunately, though, the Trampoline Incident is caught on the Castle's surveillance system, and there will soon be hell to pay.

Audrey's in Europe

Momma concluded that Audrey is living in a bubble, in the Castle, and has taken her off to Europe, to see the sights. Audrey is always surrounded, though, for her own safety, like a Presidential Candidate, or the once and future Queen of the World, by the seven burly members of Seal Team Seven, average height of 6'4', wearing dark glasses, hands inside vest coat pockets of their dark suits, eyes raking the crowd, the buildings, the sky. I am afraid that Audrey at 3' 6," not including the 11 inches of red hair standing straight up, is going to return home thinking that Europe is comprised of seven silver-toned belt buckles.

Tutor did not get to go; he is back in timeout for the Pancake Episode, and also because he had the temerity to try to teach Tess how to write a libretto to go with the music she improvises on the flute, as the whales dance. She said, "If I had wanted a writing coach, Tutor, I would have hired one. Perhaps a Nobel Laureate, or a Pulitzer Prize Winner. I am sure someone might find your suggestions welcome. I do not. You are here for now because you are good with children, if only because you yourself have the mind of a nine year old. Now, I must pack for Europe. Dismissed!" 

So, Tutor says, with not much else to do, other than play Go Fish! with Master Jack, is giving private tutorials pro bono publico to Molly Flanders the upstairs maid. "She can't write for shit," Tutor says, "but she has some great stories to tell. And we can collaborate on a few more. As a social entrepreneur, her memoirs of life in The Castle, with our distinguished guests, should made good reading, if you like tabloids. For a few hundred thousand dollars she may agree not to publish any. The pictures though, should command a higher price." Master Jack says that a Trusted Advisor is worthy of his or her hire, and the main thing the biggest clients pay up for is confidentiality.  Tutor will make sure Molly either gets good money, a promotion, or as he says, "sleeps with fishes," a phrase he learned from the Consigliere Tess had before Master Jack.

It is a dark world, the world of great wealth, often operating in secret, accountable to no one. It can corrupt even the best. It may be getting to Tess, though I hope not. She may just have her moods, not surprisingly given the pressure she is under to bankrupt the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the PSTD from her early days, as the only woman, on the trading floor in Wealth Bondage.

I know Tutor misses Audrey. I wonder if she misses him, too? Maybe not, but I bet she misses Rex, the Rescue Dog, who has been pining for her, off his food. He has abandonment issues, from his days in the pound. I do, too, actually, but I am not being paid to write about me.

The Icarus Incident(s)

Tutor was exiled to his cell, as you know, for the Pancake Episode. The cell is about ten feet below sea level, but the ceilings are high, and about twenty feet above his cot, is a small slit window, just enough to dimly light his dank room. All of a sudden, Tutor sees a shape, all white feathers, a big ball, flailing, shoot past the slit. Then in the Castle pure pandemonium! Sirens, shouting, feet on stairs, then his cell is unlocked. All hands to search for Audrey! Seal Team Seven scrambles the copter, rubber dingies are out in the tossing waves. Fortunately, Audrey somehow cleared the rocks out of which the Castle rises, and managed to hit water. So, now after hot soup, and several hours with solvent, to dissolve the epoxy and scrape off or cut out as many of the feathers as possible, Audrey is safely in her bed, with her Tutor sitting on the bed's edge, debriefing her. As when NASA rockets fail, the first question is: "What have we learned?"

Audrey's red hair is clumped, with big chunks cut out, but still there are bits of feathers, and some big clumps of hair glued together. Audrey is impassive, her eyes focused straight ahead, like a Guard at Buckingham palace, fingers clutching the bedspread, up under her chin.

Tutor: "You were reading that book I gave you?"

Audrey: (Eyelids blink assent.)

Tutor: "Bullfinch's Mythology?"

Audrey: (Eyelids blink assent.)

Tutor: "About Daedelus and and his kid, Icarus, and the maze, and how Icarus flew up and out?"

Audrey: (Eyelids blink assent.)

Tutor: "And you figured that if you did not fly too close to the sun?"

Audrey: (Face front, eyes swiveling to Tutor's.)

Tutor: "So what was different? He flew; you fell."

Audrey: (Eyes front, small smile dawning.)

Tutor: "Yes?"

Audrey: (Loud, arms flailing above her head) "Wax!"

Tutor: "Correct. Wax. You know in the Dungeon where in the old days I used to get to boil people alive, I have this big iron pot over a fire grate. I bet we could melt down a lot of candles....."

Audrey: (Eyes swiveling, face processing, brow furrowed.)

Tutor: "Of course you are all bruised up, so maybe we should have someone else do a test flight."

Audrey: (Pause, eyes lighting up.) "Master Jack!"

Tutor: "That would be my thought, yes."

Audrey: (Giggling) "He won't."

Tutor: "He will."

And so it went. Tutor presented the matter to Master Jack as a matter of Trust. Jack could demonstrate that he really is the Most Trusted Advisor, and Tess would surely appreciate Audrey being spared another life threatening fall. And Audrey, who is only a little kid, not a former All American fullback for the Yale Bulldogs, easily cleared the rocks and hit water. And surely the wax is at least a possible advantage, over epoxy. So, soon, Audrey is tearing open her feather pillows, and Jack is immersed neck deep in wax, neither too hot nor too cold. Seal Team Seven were more than happy to launch the copter, just in case Jack flew too close to the sun. You might think all this ends with Jack in a sling, in his bed. But, no, there is more. He is in a sling, but that is not how it ends.

Tutor and Audrey have now worked out a new aeronautical hypothesis. Wax would have to be beeswax, and they don't have any. But what about a Flying Squirrel? Take a blanket, and tie the four corners to Jack's feet and hands..... So Tutor and Audrey explain the plan to Jack. Jack groans, and tries to roll over, but it hurts too much. Still, the the life of a most  trusted advisor is one of constant self sacrifice.  Jack would lay down his life, as he has often told Tess, to save her or Audrey, if the time ever comes when the people in the middle class, off the island, ever invade it. His will be the last life taken, once the middle class gets past Seal Team Seven. So, in time, when he has healed up, we can see how he does as a flying squirrel. At least, he will not need to be simmered in the Dungeon's iron cauldron to remove feathers the next time.

Entrusting Audrey with the Fate of the World

I am not a specialist in dynastic trusts, but I am trying to learn more. Presumably, all of Audrey's inheritance, comprising most of the world's wealth, will be in a perpetual trust, to serve her and her descendants. I know Master Jack is a Secular Priest, a wise and virtuous man (it says so in his professional bio, and he has written several books, some on virtue, some on wisdom, and some on both; some drawing on Eastern Religion, some on the Judeo-Christian Tradition; some on Dante, some on Virgil, some on Chaucer, and no one has ever said he isn't wise and virtuous, nor questioned his taste; after all he has a high school diploma from Gunnery, and a BA from Yale, graduating with a B average, as an All American fullback for the Bulldogs), who will mentor Audrey to be a better person, but how can a trust beneficiary ever be more than a cost of doing business, a net cash outflow, for the Bank of Wealth Bondage?

With a dynastic trust, isn't the point to serve Assets Under Management and Heirs forever, using accepted corporate protocols, and generating profit comparable with commercial lending, mortgages, credit cards, and payday loans? What will happen, then, when Audrey learns that a controlling interest in all the world's wealth, which she is counting upon to own, rule, and save the world, is actually "administered" for her by Master Jack, in an account she cannot touch? If she pitches a fit, is she then "the designated patient," and Master Jack her wise counsel? When she becomes a "good trust beneficiary," how will that save the world, rather than just making it easier for Wealth Bondage to rule it and her? I have to figure this out, because how, other than in funding a dynastic trust, can Tess's  story end?

I guess, it is fine. You can't change the world. Wealth Bondage pays my bills, too. And if it were not for the cross-subsidy from the Private Client Group, I would not have this job at Gifthub. I would be back to handing out towels in the sauna,  turning tricks behind the Dumpster, or offering moral advice pro bono publico, while squeegeeing car windows outside the Bank of Wealth Bondage.

The World Turned Upside Down

When one people, perhaps better organized, with a better Leader, conquered another, erased the loser's histories, tore down its monuments, killed or enslaved the men, burned its sacred texts, raped and impregnated the women, slew the innocents, profaned the altars, then came new histories, new monuments, new laws, a new king, new coinage, new standards for a promotion, new ribbons for National Heroes, and improved standards of decency. More civilized than the savages rightly put to the sword.

When the truth is unspeakable, guilty, when it is the truth of the marginalized and subordinated, then it is best spoken without being heard, hidden in plain sight. Told in parables, fables, allegory, and jokes; overheard, not heard. Stirred up from the bottom, this is Carnival, or Mardi Gras, madness, licentiousness, the promiscuous intermixing of high and low; riot, drunkenness, abandon, the mad world of Dionysus, the god of Alexander the Great, even now in New Orleans, staged in status contest, and as good business, by the town's elite. Stirred up from the bottom (first Carnival, then Lent), it is the crucifix after the fact, held up as an object of worship - holy, holy, holy. The priest who at midnight fornicated with the mayor's wife on the altar, as the drunken crowd (including the mayor) cheered, gives the Lenten sermon in the same cathedral, and rightly so. Coming and going, both are true, just not all at once, which is why the liturgical calendar endlessly repeats, to accommodate the whole truth.

From the bottom up, the world turned upside down, what do we do with the unthinkable, the unspeakable, at least half our moral truth?  We call it art and hang it on the wall in the rich man's house. We wear britches, at times, and sometimes not. In the confessional, in a whisper, the Mayor's wife confesses her adultery, accepting penance, again on her knees. So, Wealth and The Will of God sprinkles holy water on Wealth Bondage, as priests have long blessed fleets headed off to war. On the priest's performance, no less than the whore's, Wealth Bondage, my generous patron, has built a resilient brand. May God be thanked.

Ah, Master Jack, ye knew this already, did you not? And because you do, you consider yourself Wise, having tasted the tree of knowledge, and become as a god? Such are the double-sided-truths, like the emperor's coin in the fingers of Christ, young Audrey must learn if she is to own, rule, and save, in this fallen world? That is why Tess must keep you on retainer as her most trusted advisor? Her consigliere? Secular Priest? Man of all work? Mentor to Youth? Yet, look! There Audrey is, with Tutor, hopping about like a Well Prepared Hare.  Perhaps, one day, it will be your head on the block in Tutor's dungeon, or on a raised stage as a spectacle, lesson, and entertainment for the rabble.  But, be assured, that as a Professional Courtesy, as one Trusted Advisor to another, in my capacity as the Omniscient Author Function, I will do my best to give your inevitable fall a comic turn. At least, you can be sure I will find it funny. And sometimes laughter is contagious, the best cure for the plague we spread as healers. And if you, too, smile, then all is right with the world. The laughter then passes, the wheel turns, and we can all get back to our serious business.

The Cornerstone of Wealth Bondage is the Will of God

"Bring me the stone the builders rejected, that is the cornerstone," remarked the uncanny one, passing the builders, who were building, I assume, the equivalent of Wealth Bondage, founded upon bedrock: Wealth and the Will of God. Yet, he was suggesting that the building would be torn down, to put it on another foundation altogether. The Will of God expressed through talents of silver, and a kiss, too. That is Wisdom, of the worldly sort, the foundation of Wealth Bondage then and now.

Audrey's Escutcheon - Intellectual Property of Wealth Bondage - Used with Permission

Just to be clear, of course, Audrey can still use her Escutcheon: Own Rule Save, it just has to carry a trademark, since it belongs to Wealth Bondage. She may use it as a Qualified Licensee, as long as Tess maintains $1 trillion or more under management with The Private Bank of Wealth Bondage, which should not be a problem.

Wealth Bondage: Own, Rule, Save

Depressing, I guess, to some, but inevitable. My Immediate Superior, and Generous Patron, the booted one, she who rules us all, Mistress Candidia Cruikshanks, CEO of Wealth Bondage, Goddess of the Free Market, has, in effect, stolen Audrey's flag - Own Rule Save. "Fuck, yeah!," Candy said, when she heard it. "That is the perfect tagline for Wealth Bondage. Sounds so fucking sincere. Sweet little Audrey can grow up and have a beneficial interest in a controlling interest in all the world's wealth. But who the fuck do you think will control the controlling interest?  Little Miss Sweetcakes?  Or me, the CEO of the Private Bank of Wealth Bondage?"

"Tess," Candy says, "the way she is going will soon own the world, then it will all go into a fucking Dynasty Trust, in a state with no limit on perpetuities. Master Jack will be Audrey's Trustee, and her Secular Fucking Priest, to bring her to her knees: deferential, passive, helpless, and ever so grateful for being Mentored by a modern Day Emissary from Athena (namely me!). Master Jack can teach her to meditate. He can recommend therapists. He can improve her Social Capital and reduce her Social Liabilities, like that big mouth of hers. And as for that educated idiot, Master Jack, I own his preppy little ass. I own the Bank of Wealth Bondage, I own the fucking Trust Company. I have the whole fucking world in Assets Under Management. I rule the world by proxies. O! Wait! I also save the world, kiddies. O yes! Why the fuck wouldn't I? I  own it! If I didn't own it, why would I even give a shit?"

"As for little Miss Muffett's precious flag," says Candida, "did she copyright it? Trademark it? O so, so sorry, kid! It was in the public domain. Not any more. You want fucking moral instruction, Princess? How about life lessons for real. Kiss my boots, you redheaded bastard! Spawn of Wealth Bondage, conceived by a whose who of my mutts on the trading floor. Own rule and save. My ass!"

Makes me sad, really, but "there is," as we all know, "no outside of Wealth Bondage." Let Audrey have her childhood. In her future is nothing to envy. A bird who will sing in a gilded cage, as Master Jack feeds her little bits through the bars.