down on the Ol’ Brain Ranch

photo by Allison Guan

by John Sullivan

(A new situation comes into focus.  The bulbous / florid-faced / fake-smiley guy is talking to an empty suit draped over an empty chair.  Talking ardently, even strenuously, occasionally grabbing the suit by its lapels & hoisting it (gently) off the chair to speak to confront the suit (more or less) face to face.  You realize he’s talking to his father.)

aka “Doc Benway”

I … I … I always hated how you had to control us.  Just like you controlled the rest of your pathetic gulag.  Like even we were just another cog in your low-rent shit-show.  We could hardly breathe or make a peep with you in the room, overbearing down-down-down-pressing, steady down and unrelenting.  Until your plan didn’t work anymore.  Until you walked out the front door that last time, and I laughed like a geek all alone with his tank of nitrous.  Then I vomited, a lot, and so did Mom. Then I cried for three days straight.  Mom stayed in her room, it seemed like forever.

(Mr. Bulbous / the Florid-Faced / aka “Doc Benway realizes he has an audience for his performance.  He turns to you and becomes an acolyte of The Method – or some approximation of that POV on acting technique.)

I’m doing my empty chair exercise.  It’s my homework.  My therapist showed me how.  A private moment dontcha’ know. Every few days I use these props to make a scene.  I lend that scene whatever content seems right at the time.  (Pause & proudly)  Lots of people do this: they fill it with their own content but they never talk about it.  It’s their own private moment and it stays that way.  Each one sees whomsoever each one projects.  (Like throwing down a challenge:) Lots of people have therapists.  Common as a ghost on the Queeen’s Great Highway.

(Pause.  Mr. Bulbous / aka “Doc Benway” sinks inward, closes his eyes and begins a series of deep breaths.  He quickly breaks the surface of his reverie, and speaks:)

Hey about that ending, you know, back in the orgone bubble and all, sorry that ending was so damn quit-gone-done.  But it’s better than it used to be.  You shoulda’ seen our first version and the wigged-out little cohort of subjects that went through the process.  A psychic wringer, for sure.  They had to sign NDA’s by the time we got through it all.  We found that it’s better to leave the table still wanting more than running full-tilt for the vomitorium, no? (Pause) But you’ve got to admit, that felt pretty cool, huh?

You

Pretty cool?  I wouldn’t know.  (You’re still breathing hard / the leakage hasn’t stopped yet.  Your mind / body still aches from that full frontal assault.  You’re full of / almost bloated with strong resentment:) I don’t have any words for what I felt.

aka “Doc Benway”

No words, huh?  That’s still a pretty common reaction.  (Mr. Bulbous / aka “Doc Benway” looks you up & down.  His eyebrows arch / his nostrils quiver.  What a devious / swaggering / judgmental bastard!)

You

And have you ever done your own hard time in that bubble?

aka “Doc Benway”

Hah!  You think I’m crazy?  (Pause)  So you’re the “blessed messenger” of the moment?  Not the 1^st or the 2^nd but “the next,” huh?

You

So I was told.

aka “Doc Benway”

I was expecting something more ephemeral, you know: long sparkly hair trailing a gold-red penumbra / wide, permanently startled eyes / palms & fingers raised in a mudra of transparency, openness & constant flux.  Instead, there You are.  You … a special-ops spook spackled together in some gummint’ lab.

You

A spook designed to infiltrate Ghostland?  Well, that’s essentially how deep cover works.  (Pause) What do you do here – at this “Brain Ranch”?  Why did you set up this operation in Ghostland.  Who pays for it?

aka “Doc Benway”

Well, we cook up recipes for simulating out-of-body dreaming, spells full of sweets & sex & lush / languid heat.  That’s our prime merch: and you just got a little taste.  Hey, we’ve got to keep the lights on you know.  But we really work on memories, and measure and calibrate all sorts of things.  Sometimes we have to recalibrate.  If you came in here on Monday, you’d see a whole slew of different types of beings in here for recalibration.  Mostly ghosts, but a few really unusual embodied beings.  It’s a work in progress: sooner or later we hope to make the recalibration permanent, or at least automatic.  (Pause) As to why we’re here … I’m not sure.  Some quantum quirk … something to do with tangled skeins of space /time … you know, metaphysical antagonists locked together waiting for the inevitable detonation when matter & anti-matter collide for the final countdown.  But I feel your confusion.  Think about it.  We could be having this same conversation (more or less) in many other times and places, simultaneously. 

You

But here and now?  Surrounded by ghosts? Doing science with a bunch of ghosts??  What’s your point?

Aka “Doc Benway”

Absolutely!  We get that, and a lot of what we want to do is pretty fruitless with a population of ghosts.  But at least informed consent is no problema.  Otherwise, this is mos’ def not the best platform to work from.  Remember what they always say: location – location – location, no?  (Shrugs) But we make do.

You

That’s pretty vague.  What do you calibrate?  Why do you do it?  Who pays for it?

Aka “Doc Benway”

We help all these beings channel their behavior, so they can do what needs to be done.  Can you imagine living your whole life after death with an ecstatic disorder?  Or just giving up, staying glued to bunk or cubicle or some lobotomizing device?  That could get you sideways with the agencies that round up beings showing angelic tendencies.  Or limp wills.  Ghost or no, you gotta’ walk the Highway.  It’s not a good thing to sneak around the rules or break laws down here.  And there are a lot of rules to follow.

You

Why’s that?  When most of the citizens are ghosts, what are the powers trying to prove?

aka “Doc Benway”

(aka “Doc Benway” bristles:) Gadzooks, but you’re so irritating?  Are you some kinda’ anarchist, or what?  (A pause for you to fill in the blank. But you’ve got nothing, so on he goes:) Look: ghosts have to get in line, travel on the right side of the highway, show up on time and ready to work.  Just like you.  And not ask stupid questions. And keep their noses out of stuff that’s not their problem.  Or soon enough it will.  Then they’ve got to deal with it, too.  For real.  (Pause. aka “Doc Benway” can sense he’s been a bit harsh, maybe too obsessed with raw crowd control & he seeks to make amends. But why?) See, rules and laws are our collective punishment for being so easy to con.  (Pause)  I don’t like it either.

You

Bleak view, you’ve got.  But then, your world seems a lot like a religion, or a cult.  A really harsh, unforgiving religion that seems to undermine a body’s autonomy. Sanity, even. 

aka “Doc Benway”

It sure attracts a lot of people with that mind-set.  (Pause.  aka “Doc Benway” leans forward for an intimate / advice-giving moment:)  Here’s the scoop on understanding religion (and politics) out back in these western antipodes of the meta-cosmos (and then some); You must be willing to dissect / classify / and organize &/or delete a mountainous shit-ton of largely irrelevant / received (metaphysical / ontological) nonsense.  All 2^nd or 3^rd hand.  Much like trying to delve straight down to the core of a series of nesting Russian dolls.  Only this delve is never that straight.  As in: “The Big Bad Monad: Begat the Bipolar / Sacrosanct Dyad, Begat a series of Rock-Steady Triads, Begat the Internally / Eternally Warring Tetrads, & on & on into that infinite Universal Multiplicity (replete with multi-polarities / elective affinities / and overarching delusions), which ultimately Begat Back to the Prime Singularity which Begat the emergence of mindful rays / data points / the prima materia and its coordinates, which well-up & Beget our infinite solid forms of illusion.”  (Pause for a big-breath & some prideful self-regard.  aka “Doc Benway’s amazed at his own memory for detail.)  So now you see it all, podner: QED!

You

(You interject as the Doc takes a breath:) That’s one gnarly mouthful of theogenic grist.  What does it … what do you mean?

aka “Doc Benway”

I mean: don’t believe everything you see or hear while you float through Ghostland.  This may all be real, but it may be also untrue.  On the other hand, maybe it’s all true, but that don’t make it real.

(You’re still not convinced of aka “Doc Benway’s” sincerity.  And there are so many data gaps in his story.  There’s got to be more to this operation than traffic control, propagating confusion & providing a ready source of both skilled tech droids& unskilled day-labor, but he’s not talking.  You press for more details:)

You

So what’s the rest of your “scientific” agenda?

aka “Doc Benway”

Well, be it human or not, ephemeral or substantial, a trace electromagnetic signature or just a mass of meat, the brain (I Say) the brain is our Grail down here on the ranch.

You

The brain?  The brain of a ghost?

aka “Doc Benway”

Sometimes, but not always.

You

So if the brain is your Grail then what is the heart … of a ghost, or any other being?

aka “Doc Benway”

(Pause.  Of course, no answer.  aka “Doc Benway” slaps you on the back & lets loose a spasm of eerie laughter.  His own approximation of joy:) Just having a laugh with you, eh.  (Pause again to catch his breath & calm down.)  But seriously, we’re not a bunch of yay-hoos just laying down the whiskey & howling at the moon; we’re really doing critically actuating science. 

You

So you say.  And just who are all these We’s you keep mentioning.

aka “Doc Benway”

(aka “Doc Benway” spreads his arms wide in what he hopes you’ll see as an all-inclusive gesture:)  Collaborators from “galaxies far – far away”, or right next door on a slightly different but very similar time /space thread.  Cabals of practitioners, consortia of adepts, alliances of anchorites, coteries, cliques, multitudes of mandarins, diverse species of concerned communities … you see what I’m saying?  We’re basically all on the same page with it.  When the deal’s gone down and your skin is firmly locked into the game, what is science, anyway, if not one huge grand consilience: a shared cloaca maximus moving people & ideas in a single shared stream? Onward & upward … standing on the shoulders of giants … and all that jazz. (aka “Doc Benway” stops here to assess the impact of his cloying babble.  But you’re naturally agnostic and so about to disabuse him of any unearned optimism on that front.)

You

(With a nuanced smirk:) Hmmm!  And so you say, in so many words, yet again.

aka “Doc Benway”

(Holding his head in both hands like a pitiable / sore-headed melon. aka “Doc Benway sighs:) O Ye of nil to little faith … I hope, at least, you brought some extra wine.  You’re gonna’ need plenty of ballast (& hella’ anesthesia) to make your way through what’s yet to come.  (But he quickly recovers the dubious aura of his possibly jive-ass expertise:) Seriously, we’re mapping the various brains we work with.  We’re heavy into CREB blocking and promoting; you know: shaping / expunging/ deleting / sometimes implanting memories.  We’re searching for the loci of memory, hallucination and delusion in each “species”.  Using a comparative approach, dontcha’ know?  We’re in tight conversation with neuro-chemical ghosts.  Ghostland’s become a node for this kind of research.  And speaking of ghosts and memories … aren’t memories sort of like ghosts …  (Here, aka “Doc Benway” waits for you to acknowledge the seminal importance and breathtaking precision (?) evident in this work.  But you don’t.  aka “Doc Benway” clears his throat, smoothes his rumpled lab coat & forges on:) Anyone can see thatwe’ve made great strides disassembling and reconfiguring all kinds of memories.  Long ago memories and memories of what just happened.  Erasing bad memories / enhancing and embellishing the good ones.  Creating prosthetics for total memory transplants.  That’s the gist of what we call Project Mnemosyne.  (Hey, it’s just a working title.) We now know a lot about how these engrams are coded and stored, and where they’re stored and how they’re accessed & integrated .  Most of the chemistry and a lot of the pathways for neural wiring, too. 

You

Prosthetics and neural wiring, you say?  With these ghosts?  What ARE you talking about?

aka “Doc Benway”

We don’t understand it either.  Hey, it’s some pretty thorny “rough magic” – but it seems to work.  So we just soldier on, chemically seeding new memories, more or less; we can also send little “memory movies” directly into our subjects … I mean patients … piggybacked on benign viral vectors.  This is our big work, the magnum opus … our greatest contribution to the evolving science of / biochemical behavioral restructuring …

You

 (Breaking in @ /:) YOU MEAN ABSOLUTE LOCKDOWN ON THOUGHT & WILL!!  You take someone’s memories or give them different ones.  You know you’re altering who they are.  Or were.  Or what?  Steering their wills in someone else’s chosen direction.  Why do you mess with everyone’s free will?  Even the so-called will of a ghost?  (Pause.  You notice another lingering gap in aka “Doc Benway’s” response to your questions.)  Who pays for all of this “science”?

Aka “Doc Benway”

(aka “Doc Benway” is taken aback.  Swiftly & with vehemence.)  Whoa!  Back off the gas pedal before you hit a big brick wall.  Sounds like you could use a swift kick and a stiff dose of detachment, yourself.  (aka “Doc Benway” holds up a fully primed syringe & licks the needle with his tongue.)  These “everyone’s” you’re so concerned about are mostly ghosts – ephemera, more like creepy mist than a person.  Free will … what a strange concept in a world of mostly ghosts.  Like a ghost of a concept, no?  (aka “Doc Benway” lets loose a stream of uncanny sniggering – more like dismissive scoffing than anything joyous or even mildly amused:) And Free Will?  (Scoffs, again:) Well, most of our clients / subjects / patients (pick whatever works best for you) “freely ask” for our help.  Anyhoo: Free Will is an antiquated  idea, even in your world.  Only useful when you’re need of someone to blame, or you’ve got a social obligation you’d like to ignore.  Down here, (well, at least down here on the Brain Ranch), we believe that all Will – you know, the authority to voice and do stuff on your own – IS NOT FREE / that it comes at a price.  And that is price determined by variable rates, sliding scales, an argy-bargy process, dontcha’ know.

You

I think I better go now.

aka “Doc Benway”

Maybe so, but before you go remember: the worms of the Sky and the birds of the Earth will all dine out on paupers and princes, alike, on kings and queens, on molls and models and movie stars, and then on you and I.  All in due time.  The Root Man says we’re all the same-same.  Unmoored and aimless in the same-same tiny life-boats trying to capture shards of our memory to relive, yet again.  (Pause.  aka “Doc Benway” waits for that last talking point to sink in.  Then:) Remember what those pilgrim hordes keep singin’:

Wolf-fire-star-child-
Flames across the sky
We are all of these together
Our spirits will never die.

We’re part of each other, it’s irreversible.  So don’t hate me.

You

I don’t hate you.  But I don’t trust you much either.

aka “Doc Benway”

Well – to be honest – I don’t trust me that much, too.  My cover story vs. the official version?  Who knows which is what? And that there’s the rub.  All this messing around in other people’s memory nodes – even when they’re ghosts of former people – has made me a knee-jerk / bone-headed / kinda’-sorta’ nihilist.  At this point, I don’t even trust my own childhood. 

You

So where does that leave you?  (Pause for yet another answer that never comes.)  I’ve still got to move this Codex on down the road.  How do I get to the realm of the Queen of Oblivion / the daughter of Strife?

Aka “Doc Benway”

Just follow your nose. It’s that whiff of Amnesia you’ll be seeking.  It’s subtle but it’s heavy on the scent of chalk and flint and ionized air.  (Pause)  Just don’t spend too much time with Lethe and her ilk.  Remember: you’re a messenger not a martyr.  Martyrdom is nothing but a trap for the oppressed.  If you’ve been chosen to struggle with the weight of smuggling that infernal Codex into places where it’s never voluntarily acknowledged, then you are already at war, and, in a war, there’s absolutely no substitute for total victory. (Pause)  And pay some freakin’ attention to what you see and where you go and what’s around you.  It’s easy to doze off and get turned around and irrevocably / irreversibly (I say) lost in these parts. (Pause.  This next parting shot is disconcerting.  aka “Doc Benway’s” statements carry not a hint of irony, distain or misdirection:)  Sure as this whole kludged shebang goes hurtling down the hill toward entropy and poof! / disappearance, don’t you ever forget this one big truth.  When any new engram smacks you in the hippocampus, the hinge to that memory – to any memory at all – is merely necessary truth.  Nothing more / nothing less.

*

As you walk away from aka “Doc Benway” & his Brain Ranch, this idea of necessary truth ping-pongs around in your brain-pan, & its resonance does nothing to steel your resolve or reveal your best / your straightest path.  Nothing but questions stirring in this unquiet sea, now, and very few answers bob to the top.

So is memory a necessary element of truth?  Is truth the bedrock of what you remember, or think you remember, or is the truth of any memory merely negotiable, as necessary?  Necessary toward what end?  Absolutely, or only up to a point?  Does too much truth capsize the balance among eidetic images, recombinant imaginings, neuro-chemical constructs imbedded in your glials, and all the feelings these memories uncork? 

Are all your stories coded as memories necessarily true?  A little, or a lot?  Are true stories necessary, no matter what they trigger / no matter how they make you feel?  Why would that be? 

Do ghosts persist in space / time because they remember too much, or because they’ve forgotten most everything?  And what could be the necessary truth of any story in Lethe’s kingdom / in the Realm of Erasure / in the Land of the Last Great Forgetting?

“& So these questions, questions, questions kiss the ashram like bullets back in the day.”

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Allison Guan is a poet and photographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. In her free time, she can be found falling down Wikipedia rabbit-holes and figuratively consuming textbook pages.