A picture of an American writer, as Bill, the famous intelligencer.
Profane Lives, Holy Republic: The RCR and its Discontents, by Martin Reid
FROM THE INSIDE FRONT JACKET: In this collection of interviews and first-person narrative accounts, acclaimed travel writer and ethologist Reid presents the side of the Holy Republic frequently, and all too deliberately, hidden from the outside. Sometimes taking great risks, he explores the underworlds that flourish within the RCR, not merely despite, but in some cases alongside and even with the connivance of, the Republic's famously strict religious authorities.
In this volume you will meet the aboriginal pagan subculture that proliferates in the Republic's most elite military units, the hidden sapphic network that makes use of the institutional privileges granted convents and lay religious orders to avert prosecution, the men running the Republic's famously violent patroclean organized crime rings, and many other unexpected voices from the Great Power of the South.
Their stories ring with longing, pain, delight and an intense ambivalence about the Republic in which they live. What does it mean to be loyal to a state that regards you as evil? Is there such a thing as freedom in such a place, if it is won only by hiding? And why stay? Reid applies both his compassion and his keen wit to seeking out answers to these and other questions.
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Pages 62-65: From the chapter A Man of Substance
I found him in the Catia suburb of Caracas. I drove my rented palanquin through the streets of the beach town, past the sleepy hotels catering to families on summer holiday, the restaurants offering the local seafood, and the tacky tourist shops selling garish patriotic RCR-themed beachwear. Eventually I found my way into a neighborhood where the houses were larger, their gardens more robust and well-kept. And finally, I found myself in one of those areas I would have been shocked to know existed in the RCR at all, luxury without apology in a society claiming to be defined by Christian egalitarianism.
The villa, remorselessly modern and expansive, lay far back in a copse of trees to enclose guests in a veil of shaded privacy. Willows shook their branches and the music of the local insects informed me it was midsummer. Making my way up the gravel drive to the door, I was greeted not by the matronly housekeeper I expected, but a young man, smartly dressed in a tailored black suit who explained he was the secretary. It was he who informed me of the rules of the interview: I could not use the name of my subject I had been given, I could not publish my interview until five years after my subject died, and once he declared he did not want a matter discussed or printed his wishes would be respected, absolutely.
"Or else I'll be killed?" I joked.
"Yes," the secretary answered, not breaking his smile, but not giving me the first reason to doubt his sincerity.
From there I was led through what would have been the most uncharacteristic foyer and living room for a home in the RCR. It lacked the first piece of religious artwork or family heirloom rifle, but was lined with bookshelves groaning beneath the weight of countless cheap paper novels, many of them of dubious moral character and unlikely to pass even the most permissive censor.
A citizen of the Republic I had come to know over the previous few months would, rather than live in such a place, have a hard time explaining why they had not burned the place down. In short, it was the sort of place that might pass for a sophisticated art gallery in London, hosting receptions at which Brandon princesses would be led away drunk.
At the center of the house, where normally we might expect a Renegade of this social class to have a protected garden for his children to play, was a courtyard centered around an immense pool, far larger than even my hotel's. At the pool's edge, between its blue and the manicured hedges, I saw a crush of tanned and dark-skinned bodies. Apparently I had been invited to a party without my knowing. Attendants passed out towels, glass tumblers heavy with cachasa and rum-based cocktails were handed around, tables with toasts, fruits and cheeses were well-loaded and continually refreshed with new trays.
For the longest time, as we walked through the crowd I realized something made me uneasy which I could not identify. Only belatedly did I understand there were no women present. There were a few attendees with long hair, and some with eyes and lips painted, but none were women, either by birth or intent. As we walked to where my subject sat, at the far right corner of the pool, I realized the guests were staring at me, some with mild curiosity, but a few with glances that were hard and suggestive. I fumbled awkwardly with my wedding ring hoping to politely announce the necessary; it accomplished nothing.
Finally we reached him. He was older, thin, careworn, of European features, and looked for all the world like the chauffeur charged with getting the handsome young heirs around him safely home. His manner was curt, but not unfriendly. He had the plainspoken habits of one who had seen something of the world and was not easily awed or fooled. He gestured for me to sit, and I did. I asked him his name, and he confirmed it, and if he would like to start the interview, which he said he did, after draining a glass of cashasa in a way I could only call impressive.
...
I was wondering if you would like to start by commenting on the portrayals of the Patrocleans of the RCR in motionplays and imageboxes.
Why would I want to do a thing like that?
Everyone knows the idea presented of you in Renegade culture. It might be helpful for you to address that first, so that they understand the difference between it and the reality.
Oh dear, so this is how we're beginning? "Where the forbidden costs everything, the profits are unimaginable"? That nonsense?
Yes.
Where the first thing I have to tell you is that whole notion that every Patroclean in the RCR from the Rio Grande to the Terra del Fuego is a violent psychopath is the deliberate, planned and strategized work of the state. Even what you see in England. I can sit in the theater, read the list of producers and financiers in the end credits, and recognize the republic moneymen and Jesuit shell companies.
That's a strong accusation. Some of the motionplays you're talking about are beloved works of art.
Like
Signage?
Yes.
Made with 22 million from the Ministry of Culture, funneled through banks in New Netherland.
But the main characters are so sympathetic.
They kill each other and themselves and like fifty other people over the course of the movie. If you ask me, the Jesuits got their money's worth with that one.
So it's all lies, then? What do you do then, to make the money to afford a place like this?
Oh, I think I like you. Yes, Patrocleans are, because they are so marginalized in the Republic's society, forced disproportionately to take up criminal enterprise. And because they cannot expect the protection of the police like other citizens, they must undertake violence in their own defense, collectively and individually. I will dispute none of that.
But what the state wants is to say we are this way by virtue of our orientation, that we are corrupt by virtue of it and this corruption finds expression in these horrifying things we do. Whereas the truth is, the Patrocleans of the RCR would quite likely be not that much like those of other nations if left to ourselves.
You see that boy over there, the one who gave you the hard sell when you walked over?
Um, yes. The man he gestured to sported the freckles to suggest Irish blood, but had the cheekbones and square build to suggest far more Mestizo ancestors than Hibernian.
One of my my very best. His job, if you must know, is to provide security for one of my businesses in the city. More particularly, if a customer tries to leave without paying, it's his job to discourage them. And that discouragement can become extreme. To the point where he might allow the customer on his way only with the gift of a small paper bag and the recommendation to find a good surgeon, forthwith.
Jesus.
But I'll tell you know before he was expelled from university for uncleanliness, he was on track to become a marine biologist at Santiago de Chile. And to this day he can tell you more about sharks than you will find in any book. Society did not want him for its purposes, but I will make use of him for mine. His great talent was left untapped, so now necessity teaches him new ones.
So was that how you got your start?
Some things belong only to myself. But I will tell you how most do, in this life. It's some variant on the theme of rejected by family, by commune, by the state, left to one's devices, on the street. And let us be clear what these devices most likely are. Only some, like your friend over there we were just talking about, have the perfect balance, of the capacity for violence, but also the sanity and restraint necessary to pursue violence as a profession. Most young patrocleans severed from society lack his knack, and so they must sell their bodies. And in the RCR, to have sex with another man is to both learn, and to create, a secret. And a secret of great power, at that.
Inevitably, those secrets start getting used. It's not a proud or noble thing, and I've heard so many times some patroclean idiot in Neupreussia exclaim how sad it is his RCR brothers prey on each other the way they do, the blackmail, the extortion, the protection. But once again, this is what we are left with when the world takes everything better.
Now, another inane thing I hear to no end, is why do it, if the consequences are so dire? The answer I dare say is something someone like you can't even understand. You've never lived in a society where the satisfaction of your most basic and necessary human urges are a crime.
I can imagine--
Don't spout absurdities. You can't. You really can't. The answer as to why someone would risk everything to scratch that itch is neither more nor less complicated than what the poet calls that somber drumbeat in the blood. Continued life, even to a certain point, has no point if there is no satisfaction. And so the Patrocleans of the RCR satisfy their urges, no matter the punishment, no matter the cost. And with each satisfaction comes the steady flow of secrets. One man runs a plastic surgery clinic. Another is a detective with a key to an evidence locker. Another guards the door to the air-to-air missiles at the military field. Eventually, all are pressed into service. Like I said, life itself is only so valuable if it is without pleasure or hope.
And so eventually, the secrets and the goods the secrets unlock begin to flow like great rivers, throughout the whole Holy Republic, and beyond. We do wonderful business with the aboriginal countries in the northern plains.
Does this include illicits?
You know trafficking in coca, poppies and their derivatives is strictly forbidden in the Republic, and more importantly, does not happen.
Now I know you're taking the piss.
Not at all. Just like you do not know what it is like to live in a society where love for another adult is a crime against the state, I do not think you were alive during the Leonine War. Or maybe, if you were, you would have been watching children's imagebox shows or playing cricket or whatever you English brats do. So you have no idea. The assassination of Leo set something off in the church, I think. Something instinctual and primal. Some kind of deep institutional memory. In the RCR, you see, the state has always been Daddy and the church is Mommy, in a very real way. Now Mommy is sometimes unreasonable or impractical and gets ignored, but Daddy's word is always final. Then suddenly, with Leo, a pope is dead, the imagebox is telling us coca traffickers are responsible, and that payoffs to certain judges may have been made, and Mommy just sets Daddy aside as if he's not even there, and suddenly we all find out that if we push her far enough, Mommy is quite ready on her own to drown us all in the tub.
Now, they tried to tie that noose around our necks. They tried, and tried, and tried, to attribute the murder of Leo to the Patrocleans. But the evidence just did not fit and it was too important for the actual perpetrators to be exterminated for them to engage in the type of shallow moral theater they would have preferred. So instead the Magnificos were correctly identified, were targeted, were destroyed, and you can still see the scorch marks in some of the town squares of New Granada where that bit of nastiness all ended.
But the end result of the Leonine War was that coca trafficking does not happen, and we are quite serious about this, because no one in the republic wants to see a return to those days. Certain concessions have in fact been made by certain parties to some enterprising Patroclean businessmen, and in return we help the state prevent the emergence of new coca traffickers.
What about the famous links between RCR Patrocleans to spying and intelligence operations, then?
Oh, there may be some truth to that. Just a little. The trade in secrets I was discussing, that metaphorical river, extends to and includes the state's secrets that fall into certain hands. Of course here you must keep in mind the propaganda influence is felt there too. The idea that Patrocleans are inherently treacherous is very old. And of course in its way it is true, just no more and no less than all humans are, whoever they happen to fornicate with.
But yes, one cannot be a Patroclean involved in, let's say, extralegal business and not at some point come across some matter someone in the state might not want you to know. It is much less exciting than you might think.
There are rumors you knew the famous agent known as Senor Bill. Are they true?
At the time he crossed my path of course, I had no idea what he was doing. On meeting him I actually thought it would have been impossible for anyone that beholden to hallucinogens and prostitutes, even by the standards of the circles I move in, to be an effective intelligence asset.
How much do you know about Bill? Was he English, Scottish or from one of the American countries?
Forgive me, I am not being deliberately obtuse about this, it was impossible to tell. He was an avalanche of contradictory stories, some sold as jokes, some advertised openly as misdirection. It was easy, you see, to see him as a curiosity or a madman or, his favorite pose, a failed writer of obscene stories.
Though he spoke English, which is usually enough to convince the average Renegade of a man being the devil himself--you would not perchance be hiding horns under that blonde hair of yours?--his oddness made him come off as harmless, which was his trick, until it was too late.
So there were no signs he planned to infiltrate the Advanced Radiation Weapons Research Facility in Arica Province, steal plans for the Republic's advanced sunsplitter project, abduct a prominent physicist who was his contact on the promise of getting him to Neupreussia, and then kill him once he got him alone?
None. And believe me, I am sorry to say there were none. Bill was a charming person so far as I remember, and I may have my issues with the republic, but I am far from being inclined to betray it to the English.
Do you know anything about what may have happened to him? It's one of the twentieth century's great mysteries.
Little more than the same speculation you will have heard. All we know is that Bill was successful in his mission. Some say he lives as a grace and favor guest of the Brandons at one of the royal palaces in recognition of his service, imposing his attentions on the servants with impunity. Others that he found a home in one of the aboriginal republics on the plains, finding satisfaction in running a small business and consulting on occasional intelligence matters with those governments. And one school of thought here is actually that Bill chose to stay in the RCR. The republic is vast, you see, with rain forests, mountain ranges and deserts that can swallow easily anyone resourceful who truly does not want to be found.
There is even the rumor, to which I attach no credit, that Bill set himself up as a man of business using the proceeds of his work against the state and has built some kind of criminal empire here.
But you don't think that's possible.
The notion is ridiculous. He would have to have completely mastered the language, the accent, the culture, to remain hidden. He would had to have a backstory that would stand up to the authorities he incidentally came into contact with so that they would not suspect who he was and what he had done. And he would have to live in accordance with that backstory, the rest of his life.
Do you think the Republic would have used the weapon envisioned in the plans?
Well the idea of killing all the organisms in a given area with radiation and leaving infrastructure intact has military value. But I can't imagine us doing it unprovoked. Well, Fortitude wouldn't. And Hannibal wouldn't. But, ha, Cleanser just might have.
My Dad used to say that the world is lucky, given a man like Cleanser had access to kernelsplitters, that there's anyone left alive anywhere.
Well your father is a
puta. Cleanser is the reason those candyasses in Wittenberg aren't speaking Russian now. And he was the only one who was willing to avenge--
I meant no offense--
Well you offended anyway. All the self-described "civilized" nations, all the crowned heads, all the fancy men, could not do the job. So you came to
us. And you came to
us, I might add, after spending several hundred years trying to extinguish us to the last man. I can take you to the clioseum in Bogota and show you the scalps Edward VIII's army collected off people who are blood ancestors to the men in this room. And you came to
us to ask us to save you. And fools that we are, we did. So I now get to listen you to drink my liquor and insult Cleanser, of all people.
Maybe we should change the subject.
Maybe we should.
Do you regret not having a family?
I'm sorry?
The RCR is one of 46 nations left in the world that do not recognize sex-concordant matrimony. Following the events of last week in the Commonwealth of Kuwait, that number is expected to drop to 45. So without marriage, and with an explicit ban on Patroclean adoptions, you don't expect to have a family, do you? Or do you count your friends and community as your family?
Well, the fact that the Republic has not enacted the reforms you speak of, and is not likely to within my lifetime certainly, is regrettable. But if by matrimony you mean am I paying to keep a woman's arse fat, I know it only too well. And considering all the pleasure I've had from her, I may as well have had congress with a horse. But in this I think I am not too different not even from most husbands who would rather have husbands themselves, but many husbands, period.
And children?
Two sons.
What do they think about you? Specifically, about your orientation?
Both are dead. One died at Bandar Abbas, the other when the Guadeloupe went down in the Aegean. Neither knew. When the syndic judged me incorrigible but declined to recommend prosecution on account of the avoidable harm to my family, those are the sourest words I ever heard in my life, avoidable harm to my family, the deal was simple: they would not know, I would not see them again, I would support them, and I would stay out of a hard labor facility in the Sonora. An unwritten provision of the bargain was that I would do myself in, but I had other plans, and proved myself inconveniently durable.
I am very sorry to hear that. All of that.
No life is perfect. But I have fifty million in the bank, I have to illicitly buy prescriptions to keep up my minimum schedule of sex four times a day with my choice of the young men you see before you, and the weather here is congenial to these old bones. So beyond a certain point, for me to complain about the injustice done me by life would be churlish.
Yes, about that.
About what?
Injustice. How many men have you killed?
That's actually a rather hard question. For one, they don't just conveniently pop up a flag when the deed is done. Some crawl away, and who knows, maybe they're walking around somewhere right now, staring at their hand-tablets like morons. And then there are all the people who might have had a bad day, or maybe a last bad day, not on account of something I did myself, but something I told someone else to do.
That many, then?
...
How many you yourself, if you have bothered to keep count, that is?
Not more than fourteen. Not counting the crawlers.
Any regrets?
I do not know if you've been paying attention to anything I've said, but if I had spared time for regrets in the first place, things for me would have ended back there with the syndic.
...
At this point, we were interrupted. A muscular young man with tightly curled hair and aquiline features had walked up, and waited patiently for my subject to acknowledge him. "Yes?" my subject asked, his mock-annoyance betraying no small affection.
"Bill, you have been sitting over here droning on forever to this stupid Englishman. You said we would do lunch."
"Well," he leaned towards me with a bewitching smile, like a mischievous child, as he lifted his unfashionable hat, and placed it on his head. "I am called."
