Thomas Eagleton Seagull

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart, and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.-Kahlil Gibran

People use "The Prophet" to get laid.-Lenny Bruce

[Gulls] often flock together with lapwings in the meadows, apparently for the sole purpose of robbing them. They walk around among the busy lapwings like wardens in a Nazi prison camp. They do not try to catch any food for themselves but keep a watchful eye on the lapwings. As soon as a lapwing has caught something which it cannot swallow immediately, the gulls round about fly at it at once, often coming from over 20 yards away. The lapwing, knowing by bitter experience what this means, flies up as soon as only one gull lifts its wings. If it cannot swallow its prey in the air before the gulls reach it, its chances of keeping it are almost nil.-Niko Tinbergen, "The Herring Gull's World: A Study of the Social Behavior of Birds"

Chapter One

It was Evening, and the sunset beyond the county dump created a disquieting silhouette of obsolescence.

This was dinnertime for the elite flock of gulls who ate there each day. They were feasting upon a delicious spread of moldy caviar that had been discarded by a friendly neighborhood restaurant.

Down on the beach, the tide was starting to come in. Snakelike seaweed was beginning to gather in clusters along the shore. Fading jellyfish were returning home to have their bodies tie-dyed again. And Thomas Eagleton Seagull was busy trying to build a castle in the sand.

He didn't have a pail or a shovel, but this lack merely served to increase his sense of determination. He knew only that he was going to build a sand castle even if the ocean planned to wash it away.

Waves of salt water splashed over him even as he was squeezing out the final turrets from the mud inside his beak.

Yet he quickly repaired the moats, making them deeper by digging sideways with his webbed feet.

He looked at the castle he had almost completed, and a surge of pride ran through him as he shook the sand from his wings. At the precise moment he was feeling most proud of his accomplishment, however, the tide swept it away.

"Come back!" he called to the sand castle. "I'm not finished playing with you!"

"There'll be others," the sand castle called back. "Besides, I have my own life to live, too!" And it merged with the sea.

"There must be more to life than feeding off human garbage," mumbled Thomas Eagleton Seagull to himself. He was attempting to develop his will power to the point where he would be able to transcend his species. "Why should I have to settle for leftovers as a seagull," he asked himself, "when I could become a human being and dine on the original?"

And so, as an act of faith, he moved just a little farther up the beach and began to build another sand castle.

Chapter Two

The idea of changing his category had originally occurred to him one afternoon while he was feeling depressed because some friends had died as a result of a baffling oil slick in the ocean.

Flying broodily past a house with a picture window in the living room, he noticed that inside, the color-television set was on. It happened to be tuned in to Let's Make a Deal.

One of the contestants-a woman who was wearing a seagull costume-seemed to be experiencing a fit of passion bordering on ecstasy. Thomas Eagleton Seagull naturally assumed that the reason was simply that she was pretending to be a gull.

"I'll trade places with you, lady," he squawked.

That spontaneous outburst turned into an obsession. The image of role reversal had imprinted itself indelibly upon his psyche.

Each day he flew around the house with the picture window expecting to get a glimpse of her on TV again. At first he tried to glide by with a nonchalant expression on his face so that none of the inhabitants would get suspicious.

As he grew increasingly confident, he would circle slowly in front of the living room, peering in with blatant abandon. Smirking with hope. But he never saw the woman in the seagull costume again, no matter when he went calling.

In the process, Thomas Eagleton Seagull became a regular-if intermittent-viewer of daytime television.

Soap operas especially fascinated him. Everyone always looked so perturbed. The tension of their grim demeanor was relieved only by an occasional Smiling Savior holding up a bottle of pellets or a box of flakes or maybe patting a machine or else pouring the contents of a box into a machine.

And Thomas Eagleton Seagull was going to join their species. This was his all-consuming resolution.

Chapter Three

Molly Salami Seagull was his favorite companion. He could really confide in her. Although she had no desire to become human herself, at least she understood the depth of his yearning.

One night they stayed up late, sitting and chatting in front of a small bonfire on the outskirts of the county dump.

"I was watching some surfers today," Thomas Eagleton Seagull began. "I was trying to imagine what it must be like to be human. And, I don't know, I mean the ocean seems like such an impersonal thing, but when it's carrying you along like that, it must also seem like a very personal thing. Wouldn't that be a wonderful way to relate to the whole world?"

"But you can already do that as a seagull," said Molly Salami Seagull. "When humans go clamming, though-they can't catch clams the way we can-they have to get dressed in those dark-rubber coveralls and then they go into the ocean and prod the mud with those big sticks or whatever."

"But it was a human who built this fire. Can a seagull build a fire?"

"A seagull can't even make a match," she admitted.

"Or a Frisbee. We aren't built to play Frisbee. But wouldn't it be fun to be able to toss a Frisbee back and forth? I was watching some people on the beach with a Frisbee, and they looked so graceful you wouldn't believe it. And the philosophical inferences one could draw--"

"You're already beginning to sound like a human."

"Let me tell you, I stood there watching that Frisbee go back and north, back and forth, until a message came through, and it was that time keeps happening no matter what you do!"

"Oh, sure, but if you can conceive of that as a seagull, then why do you have to be a human?"

"Because as a human, I could do different things all the time. As a seagull, I'm limited." He gazed into the fire. "I want to open myself up to new experiences. I don't even want to say the same thing twice."

"That's exactly what you told me yesterday," said Molly Salami Seagull.

Chapter Four

One night, Thomas Eagleton Seagull had a dream. He preferred to think of it as a vision.

A pair of spirits had come to battle for his allegiance. He couldn't see them clearly. The Spirit of Permissiveness appeared as a swirl of rainbow. And the Spirit of Productivity was an ethereal crazy quilt of brand names. But he could hear their voices as distinctly as his own.

"If you wish to become a human," said the Spirit of Permissiveness, "you must learn to make moral choices."

"Morality is relative," argued the Spirit of Productivity. "You must base your choices, therefore, on the relative strength of written guarantees."

Thomas Eagleton Seagull asked, "How will I know what a correct decision is when I have to make one?"

"Ah," said the Spirit of Permissiveness, "but you have already started on that course simply by wanting to become a human. That's what makes you different from other seagulls-your dissatisfaction with being one yourself. You have made a value judgment. You've placed a higher value on being human. So, whenever you are faced with a choice, you must base it on what you consider the best values."

"Comparison shopping is a good method," added the Spirit of Productivity. "You can really make a fine art out of being a consumer. Just wait till you discover the pleasure to be derived from the creative act of making a purchase."

"No, no," interjected the Spirit of Permissiveness. "I'm not referring to goods and services. I'm referring to goods and evils. Abstract principles to live by. Nothing tangible. The earth is scourged with tangible rubbish."

"Litter," announced the Spirit of Productivity, "is the feces of an affluent society."

"No shit," replied the Spirit of Permissiveness.

Thomas Eagleton Seagull woke up suddenly and took it as an omen. "No shit," he said to himself. He kept repeating that phrase over and over again. "No shit. No shit. No shit." The more he continued, the better it felt. He alternated the accent. First: "No shit. No shit. No shit." Then: "No shit. No shit. No shit." Now he changed the rhythm: "No-shit. No-shit-no. Shit-no. Shit-no. Shit-no." The corresponding change of order gave him an intensified giddiness. As if to further escape the dilemma posed by his dual visitation, he began to slur the words together faster and faster: "Noshitnoshit-noshitnoshitnoshitnoshitnoshitno...." Until finally they blended into one flowing stream of noshitness.

What an incredible sense of delirium, to have a personal mantra before you were even a person.

Chapter Five

The next morning, two men who had been watching him for days placed a metal band around his leg while he was meditating on the beach. He had been chosen.

One of the ornithologists left his binoculars there by accident and Thomas Eagleton Seagull had an experience in astral projection. He looked into the binoculars and saw himself magnified simultaneously.

For the first time, he thought of the webbing between his claws as ugly. Back at the county dump, he pecked off a pair of bootees from a big broken doll that had been thrown away and he began wearing them on his own embarrassing feet.

That night he had a vision. He preferred to think of it as a nightmare. The Essence of Insecurity arrived to tell him that the only thing he had to fear was not being accepted as a human.

"You've been observed talking to yourself a lot. That's a no-no," the Essence of Insecurity harangued him. "And just smell your wingpits. Peeeyiuuuuu! What are you going to do when you get arms? A human being's armpits are supposed to be charmpits. Your breath isn't so attractive, either. And then there's the matter of your crotch. Yecchhh! Furthermore, you have half a hemorrhoid hanging in there. What are you trying to do, get your (continued on page 182)Seagull(continued from page 126) name into The Guinness Book of World Weirdos? And I hate to bring this up, but nobody is ever going to like you as long as you insist on being constipated!"

"No shit," muttered Thomas Eagleton Seagull. "No shit, no shit, no shit," he continued, refocusing his attention until the Essence of Insecurity disappeared. But as soon as he became aware of achieving that control, he lost it. Now an Oriental Servant he hadn't summoned brought him a tray with a giant fortune cookie on it.

With his beak, he pulled out the strip of Gospel. His fortune said: Success Is A Process you Realize. That confused him, but it didn't end there. He pulled further, and there was another: Every Moment is a Reincarnation of Yourself. He didn't understand what that meant, either. He pulled still more, as though he were a stockbroker with a ticker tape, and the message was: Every Moment is a Parody of yourself. He just didn't know when to stop. The next one said: Any Discipline That is not Fun is Slavery. He was disturbed, because he couldn't tell whether these messages were aimed at a seagull or at a human being. He pulled the tape once again and it said: Thou shalt not Goose a Nursing Mother. He tried noshitting for a while-but this time without paying attention to his attention-and, indeed, the breakthrough that he had been waiting for came.

Thomas Eagleton Seagull couldn't help but notice that the metal band around his leg had developed blurry numbers in a circle around the vague outline of a rodent in the middle wearing short pants and with outstretched arms.

It was a quarter to three when he looked at his embryonic Mickey Mouse watch and shouted, "The Stigmata!"

He was on his way to being grounded at last.

Chapter Six

He had gone to say goodbye to Molly Salami Seagull. She asked, "Don't you have any feeling of loyalty to your species?"

"Do you call it loyal," he responded, "for our flock to dine luxuriously here at the county dump while thousands upon thousands of our fellow birds are dying each year of botulism by the sea? As a seagull, I can't do anything about that. As a human, I promise to investigate thoroughly."

"Remember your promise," she called out as he flew off to the ocean front to begin building sand castles once again, only with more and more speed, so that by late morning he was able to fashion an exquisite fortress and then destroy it himself even before the waves could wash it away.

He knew now that he was ready. For his last meal as a seagull, he nibbled away at a mushroom that was growing out of some cow dung in the pasture.

• • •

They came in broad daylight, then, two redeemers in human form, Language and Behavior. In awe, he watched them take away the sign that said County Dump and replace it with one that said Refuse Disposal Site.

He eavesdropped on their conversation.

"What are we going to do about sonic boom?" asked Language.

"I've checked with the Air Force about that," replied Behavior. "They are instituting a public-relations program called The Sounds of Freedom."

"No shit," said Thomas Eagleton Seagull. He began to repeat it over and over to himself, so rapidly this time that at the point where his consciousness overran the speed of light, he started to hear a ringing in his ears and he blacked out.

When he came to, he could still hear the ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes and saw that it was a telephone ringing. Inntinctively, he reached to pick it up and said hello.

"Is this Thomas Eagleton Seagull?"

"Speaking," he said, unzipping and zipping his fly for the first time in his life.

Abruptly, he realized he was a man! He had actually achieved humanhood!

Yes, he was now a grown-up person, but he was still wearing baby bootees. He removed them in panic to see if his feet were still webbed.

They started unwebbing right down there in front of his startled eyes, while the bootees turned into Thom McAn loafers with a pair of shiny pennies staring back up at him.

Not only that but a voice on the other end of the phone was inviting him to be Potential Second Best Human Being. He was so excited that he lost his equilibrium and said, "Quack-quack!"

"What was that?" asked the voice on the other end of the phone. "I'm afraid we have a poor connection."

"I said, 'I'm flabbergasted!' "

Then another voice got on the other end of the phone and told him to prepare an acceptance speech. "Oh, and there's just one other thing," the voice added. "Do you have any old skeletons rattling around in your closet?"

Filled with elation, Thomas Eagleton Seagull had to get himself centered. He looked at his wrist watch and said, "No shit" into the telephone.

The voice on the other end said, "Good" and hung up fast.

Chapter Seven

In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived on earth, a person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being. Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference. All spoke the same language. That was the time when words were like magic. The human mind had mysterious powers. A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences. It would suddenly come alive and what people wanted to happen could happen-all you had to do was say it. Nobody could explain this: That's the way it was.

-Magic Words (after Nalungiaq), Eskimo Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas, anthologized by Jerome Rothenberg

It was all over in a matter of minutes. No further investigation was made into Eagleton's medical history. Senator McGovern asked for someone to get Senator Eagleton on the phone. While he was in the other room talking to Eagleton, Mrs. McGovern walked into the room. She leaned over to me and whispered, "Who is it?" I told her Eagleton.

"That's not possible," she cried out, hurrying from the room to find her husband. But it was too late. McGovern had already asked Eagleton and he had accepted. Frank Mankiewicz was on the phone talking to him and McGovern was in one of the bedrooms when she found him. I never did find out what had caused that uncharacteristic outburst by Mrs. McGovern. Throughout the campaign, her political judgment was frequently the best.

-Pierre Salinger, Life, December 29, 1972

"So this is humanity," he thought, pushing the button marked Lobby in the hotel elevator. He had decided to take a stroll outside while the writers were working on his acceptance speech.

Through the glass doors leading to the street, he could see a man wearing a magnificent uniform. "Must be somebody very special," he thought, striding through the lobby. "I'll find out."

As if by telepathy, the man in the magnificent uniform opened the door for him and said, "Good afternoon, sir," with such respect that he must already have known he was addressing one who had been selected Potential Second Best Human Being.

"How did you know?" asked Thomas Eagleton Seagull.

"I'm the doorperson, sir. It's my job to know."

"How did you get to be a doorperson?"

"Through reincarnation, sir. In past lives, I've always been dependent on others. But I struggled to be righteous, and now others are finally dependent on me. I am a living symbol of protection against burglary. I am also the embodiment of small talk. Nevertheless, between the lines of football plays and barometer readings, by my mere presence I am able to communicate, on some level of consciousness, throughout the year-no matter what month or season-an appreciation of that holy day when we celebrate the birth of That Great Doorperson in the Sky."

It was like suddenly being thrust into a spiritual wonderland. In a daze, Thomas Eagleton Seagull wandered by the swimming pool. It was filled with milk and white sugar. Poolside, a parent was speaking words of encouragement to a child practicing the backstroke.

"Harder," cheered the parent. "Try harder. Don't you want to grow up and bear witness to the electric shaver?"

It was a minor miracle, turning anachronism into clairvoyance, much like turning swords into plowshares, or a felony into a misdemeanor.

Several blocks away, a street-corner speaker was insisting: "The reason they're against gay liberation is that if we come out of the closet, then they can't blackmail us."

"You people are disgusting!" yelled a heckler. "All homosexuals should be given vasectomies!"

"Now, that," mused Thomas Eagleton Seagull, "would be conspicuous consumption."

He was amazed at his immediate grasp of economic theory.

As if to test his own programing, he asked himself, "Is there ever a spiritual basis for conspicuous consumption?"

And he answered himself, "Yes, if a Jewish grandmother owns two sets of false teeth, one for meat and one for dairy."

Here he was, all prepared to be an after-dinner speaker, although he had yet to eat his first dinner in this new body.

He walked along, buzzing with awareness of his novel condition. Now, as a human, he realized in retrospect that, as a seagull watching television through a picture window, he had misinterpreted the true nature of the Deity.

"God is Packaging," he whispered to a passing senior citizen.

Chapter Eight

The park in the city of the Human Being Conventions had been transformed into a veritable side show of proselytization.

He was observing a tug of war between a group of Rosicrucians and a group of Theosophists-although they were not using a rope-when he was offered a marijuana cigarette by a stereotypical longhaired fellow. Thomas Eagleton Seagull was so high on life that he forgot this was illegal.

He flashed on a sense memory: that time he ate those seeds out of somebody's garbage in the county dump and got a pleasantly dizzy feeling afterward.

Now a women's liberation activist was telling him, "Don't hepburn that joint."

Since he seemed open, she explained that her movement was concerned with the role females in this society had been brought up to play.

"I was jilling off in bed the other night," she said, "and I realized that I was using myself as a sex object."

He was busy coughing, so she continued.

"But it's more than just that. My entire life style is limited by my finances. If my employer paid me what I deserve, regardless of my gender, I wouldn't have to come home every day to a crummy apartment with cuntroaches crawling all over the kitchen."

They passed a Sufi leader wrestling with his conscience, a Subudite changing her name and her mind, a Mason in judicial robes paving a path to purgatory.

"It's discouraging," she said. "Even the I Ching talks about the superior man."

"I have a great deal of compassion for your plight," said Thomas Eagleton Seagull, "but what are you doing to improve the situation?"

"Well, personally, I'm trying to break into organized crime," she replied. "They run civilization from a male-supremacist orientation. And we have to overthrow that hierarchy, because the power filters down even to the control of local police stations. When I become Ms. Big, the first thing I'm going to do is put a stop to undercover cops committing rape."

They passed an assemblage of youthful zealots singing what sounded to his stoned ears like an obscere chant, perhaps the plaint of an impotent Buddhist's wife:

Hurry, Krishna! Hurry, Krishna! Krishna, Krishna! Hurry, hurry! Hurry, ram it! Hurry, ram it! Ram it, ram it! Hurry, hurry!

"At least they've broken up the nuclear family," said his first new friend. "I just can't understand why a sister and brother would get legally married." She paused, then ruminated aloud: "I wonder if Tom Hayden is gonna call Henry Fonda Dad."

Chapter Nine

It was during his first press conference that Thomas Eagleton Seagull almost slipped up about his past. The questions and answers had been proceeding smoothly. Then a reporter for Speck magazine spoke up:

"Sir, I'd like to call your attention to the issue of overpopulation. Recently, a prominent researcher, Dr. Max Feel-better, in order to focus public attention on this crisis, took his own life by setting out to sea on a raft constructed entirely of Q-Tips. Now, my question is, sir, what specific remedy do you offer that would be an effective safeguard against, well, too many people?"

The combination of the hot klieg lights and the image of his old ocean momentarily spaced Thomas Eagleton Seagull out, and the response he gave broke the genetic code:

"Well, we've always devoured each other's young as if they were another species."

He was referring to the preying upon eggs and chicks by gulls in his own previous colony. There was an awkward silence among the reporters, and then that was replaced by awkward laughter. He must have been making a sardonic joke.

The Speck correspondent persisted: "Sir, your allusion to A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift is appreciated as comic relief, but birth control and abortion are nonetheless serious matters."

"Of course they are," said the Potential Second Best Human Being, recovering from his fleeting lapse. "But they represent a predicament that should be left up to the individual states. Otherwise, we would be guilty of unwarranted infringement upon the separation of powers guaranteed by our Constitution...."

Chapter Ten

"What's your sign?" the waitress asked as she handed him a menu.

"I don't have one," he answered.

"Well, when were you born? I mean, look, if you might become our Second Best Human Being, I would certainly be curious to know more about the direction of your karma."

"What's karma?"

It was Thomas Eagleton Seagull's karma that he should not understand the concept of karma.

The restaurant was uncrowded and the waitress was able to continue their discussion between tables. She discovered that he could verbalize quite skillfully about social issues, from crime in the streets to drugs in the cadavers, but that he attributed a lack of will to the perpetrators and victims alike.

He wanted to give his own astounding advancement as an example of strong will, but this revelation was a luxury he could not discreetly afford.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that suffering people are merely helpless instruments of bad karma?"

"Why make moral judgments? I've traveled in many foreign countries. Once in Egypt I met a starving man. He was in pitiful shape. But I realized that suffering people serve a higher purpose by reminding those of us who are more fortunate not to complain. So I was torn between the impulse to feed him and the impulse not to interfere with his destiny."

"And which did you do?"

"I was about to give him a piece of bread and a taste of cider from my flask when he prevented me. He said that it would be an act of charity on my part to refuse his request for food, because if he were to die on the road to Mecca, he would become a martyr. So when he begged again with his outstretched hand, I knew it was only a test of my resistance."

The waitress observed that Thomas Eagleton Seagull was eating his dessert-a slice of pumpkin pie-by starting at the crusty base of its isosceles triangle. This was another slip-up, in the guise of an idiosyncrasy.

"Tipping is good karma," she said as she gave him his check.

Chapter Eleven

There was a line of seekers waiting for an audience with the Six-Week-Old Guru, who would answer only one question per person. A Baby-Talk Translator stood by to give the gurgles a more articulate form.

It was legend that the infant's emerging ego had been baptized at the altar of excess chromosome damage so that it had absolute empathy with whomever.

Eventually, Thomas Eagleton Seagull's turn came to ask a question. He had pondered it carefully. Now he looked into the carriage and spoke: "Is there free will?"

The Six-Week-Old Guru stared up at his Mickey Mouse watch and gurgled.

The Baby-Talk Translator translated: "It's four-thirty-three, time for the moon to go into Capricorn."

"Is that the answer to my question?"

"No," replied the Baby-Talk Translator. "You forgot to say 'Your Perfection' first."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry." He addressed the infant again. "Your Perfection, is there free will?"

The Six-Week-Old Guru goo-gahed something in return-which translated as "I can't decide"-and spit up Pablum all over a new saffron bib.

• • •

Thomas Eagleton Seagull regurgitated himself with supreme peristalsis at the very moment that a reporter from Speck magazine was taking a leak and checking it out. He was investigating a tip that the newly selected Potential Second Best Human Being had actually been a seagull.

The reporter's horror over what he discovered by simple research was overshadowed only by his joy at being the one chosen to carry the torch for his magazine's slogan: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye Silly Putty!"

When the news broke, Thomas Eagleton Seagull tried to understand the basis of his anxiety. After all, he had originally wanted just to be a human, not the Second Best Human Being, let alone Potential, so what difference should it make to him now that his background presented a possible obstacle to that goal?

Yet it bothered him. Didn't other humans appreciate the energy he had harnessed so positively to transcend seagullhood?

Besides, it was a matter of public record that the man who was presently the Best Human Being had himself been a turtle. More important, he continued to exhibit outrageous symptoms of turtle consciousness. Why was everybody ignoring that so readily?

But then a story was published that Thomas Eagleton Seagull had once been guilty of drunk flying. It didn't matter that such gossip was unprovable. The stench of vomit still clung to his aura.

Was this to be his fulfillment of the human dream?

Chapter Twelve

Then I said to myself: "Self, it won't be pleasant. It won't be sweet. It won't be easy, but it's got to be done." So later that night, we decided to hold a press conference in Los Angeles the following morning, then one in Honolulu, and again today in San Francisco....

I've got to win. I've got to do it for Terry. I've got to make it for Terry.

I don't know where I'll be five years from now, but I know that I'll look back upon this experience as a positive turning point in my life. I'm stronger and wiser because of it. I've taken the heat by myself and I haven't crumbled. I'm not being smugly complacent, but I think that I have come through a tough crucible, and I feel a helluva lot stronger as a result.

I feel like a man.

-Thomas Eagleton, Newsweek, August 7, 1972

Kiss my ass. -George Mc Govern

He came down gradually from the euphoria of his temporary status. The weight of prejudice against his previous incarnation was eventually deemed by leading editorialists to be too great for Thomas Eagleton Seagull to continue being regarded as Potential Second Best Human Being.

Paradoxically, he was welcomed as a hero wherever he went after he has been banished from official consideration.

He received several offers to do commercials-for Hartz Mountain Bird Food, for Trans World Airlines, for Alioto's Seafood Restaurant-but he declined them all.

He refused to consider a publisher's $1,000,000 contract to write a book called The Sensuous Seagull.

He turned down a professorial post in the department of applied anthropomorphism at Stanford University. "I'd rather teach by example," he explained.

However, he was approached by the Survival of Will (SOW) Frozen Sperm Bank with a request he chose to accept. This was a world-wide organization based in Las Vegas that specialized in selective breeding for the future.

"We believe that competing ideologies are all subordinate to the strength of will itself," expounded the director. "And so we invite men from science, industry, the arts, government, communications-we invite men who have in common the proven will to achieve, no matter what, to sow their seed in our laboratories, to preserve that mysterious force in their genes that will result in the ultimate triumph of the will--"

"Wait." Thomas Eagleton Seagull recalled his encounter with the women's liberation activist. "Don't you have any frozen ovum, too? I mean, for the sake of equality."

"No way," replied the director. "That would require gestation to take place outside the womb. We must draw the line some where."

Thomas Eagleton Seagull had an impulse to say, "Let's just forget the whole thing," but he didn't want to offend the director, who went on:

"Naturally, we don't want to play God. But inasmuch as fifty percent of the spermatozoa die off in the freezing process, there is, in effect, a biological selection as well as our own admittedly fallible screening procedures."

"I do have one vital reservation, though," interjected Thomas Eagleton Seagull. "I would not want any offspring of mine, no matter how strong-willed, to be subjected to ostracism because of having been sired by me."

"Not to worry," the director reassured him. "You see, we have concluded that pride can function as a diversion from exercising one's will. And, of course, being ashamed of one's specific ancestry works the other side of that same coin. Consequently, we mix all our different donors' semen into one big frozen superior collective unconscious, to allow for an even further elimination of the weak. Thus, you can never be sure if it is your spermatozoon that will do the fertilizing. This method is our corollary to the military-firing-squad protocol that always includes one rifle loaded with blanks, so that each member can live with the possibility that his was not the fatal trigger. Conversely, no SOW descendants of yours will ever know for certain that there was a seagull in his past."

Chapter Thirteen

The Survival of Will Frozen Sperm Bank had an exclusive contract with Soulmate Temporaries to provide those individuals who participated in the program as Receivers of the fresh semen in the company condoms.

Although these prophylactics were not intended as contraceptives, this would have been a by-product of their use, had not the manager of SOW Seedcatchers-a Roman Catholic who objected to artificial birth-control devices-hired a bevy of priests to put a pinhole prick in the reservoir tip of each one as it rolled off the assembly line.

In the Water Bed Room at the Sperm Bank, Cleo, the partner assigned to Thomas Eagleton Seagull, had a surprise for him. She donned a seagull costume after they were both naked.

Cleo managed to smile seductively; she had been promised a huge bonus by the director of the Sperm Bank for the extremely specialized performance that would be required of her.

After a while, Thomas Eagleton Seagull began repeating her name: "Cleo ... Cleo ... Cleo...." Certain of his readiness, she assumed her position. She squatted down on hands and knees. The ruffle of her lifting teil enticed him into a strange kind of intoxication. He started moving his neck as though he were wearing an invisible stereo headset.

Situating himself behind her, he raised his bent arms outward till they reached shoulder level. Then, the rasping voice of his alter ego intoned a familiar cadence-"No shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, No shit, no shit, no shit, no shit, no shit!"-as he mounted her.

She kept rubbing the back of her seagull head against his chest, occasionally turning around and tweaking the hair around his nipples with her beak.

Just before climaxing, she yelled out: "I'm fucking Thomas Eagleton Seagull!"

In return, he screeched: "I'm fucking Molly Salami Seagull!"

And ejaculated in the process, going "Hwa ... hwa ... hwa...."

Having hypnotized himself into a lump of no-thought, he fell off Cleo.

When he regained consciousness, she was gone. He felt relieved at being left alone, because now he could comb his hair. He didn't feel comfortable doing that in front of anybody.

A tinge of regret seared through his nude body as he remembered preening his feathers once. For an instant, he wished he could unwind, back to that time, the watch he hadn't removed from his wrist.

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, a Creature with Two Heads paid him a surprise visit. One head was Reality and the other was Paranoia. Each was a virtuoso ventriloquist, so it was impossible to tell which was speaking. Sometimes one head would be saying something and the other would suddenly continue in midsentence.

"Tell me," said the Creature. "What do you think is the greatest difference you have found between being a seagull and being a human?"

"I have a soul now."

"No, no, you've always had a soul. What you have now that you didn't have then is a reputation. An immortal reputation. Your soul is how you spend your passion. But your reputation is the image others have of you regardless of the administration of your soul." He began setting up a motion-picture projector. "And now I want to show you a little movie."

The film must have been taken through a one-way mirror at the Sperm Bank, for there on the screen was Thomas Eagleton Seagull's copulation scene of the day before.

"What do you plan to do with this film?"

"Oh, nothing special. We simply keep them all in vaults. We are supplied by Soulmate Temporaries not only with ravishing women such as Cleo but also with homosexual men, sadomasochists, coprophiliacs, plus an assortment of wild and domesticated animals." The Creature held out an imaginary fan of playing cards. "Pick a perversion, any perversion. One might say that our films are a form of control insurance along with nonsexual exploits such as bribery, embezzlement, smuggling. Whatever. But unless you plan to rock the proverbial boat, you really don't have anything to worry about."

Thomas Eagleton Seagull had never been so depressed. He felt trapped as a human and just wanted to escape.

"Why do you want to control people?" he asked.

"It's the only way we can stay in power. Regulation of the educational system is the fundamental target on our agenda. You see, we have an actual timetable for seizing total control, as measured by the grand scale of our pyramid structure: Provocateurs, Informers and Entrappers Tactical Yardstick-Piety." The Creature brought out an immense organizational chart to illustrate his scenario. "Now, cheer up," he said later. "The past doesn't exist anymore, except in our vaults. Nor will the present seem so bleak in the future. So try to have your retrospect in advance, and you'll be content."

Despite the source, this advice worked. In fact, when a rock group called The Blind Munchies produced a hit record utilizing the sound track of his Sperm Bank film, Thomas Eagleton Seagull might even have regretted his anonymity, save for the secret royalties-a sort of consolation prize from the Creature with Two Heads-which helped support his family.

He had acquired a wife and two children. It was an enigma to him that he was afraid to tell them what it was he was protecting them from, especially since if he told them, then he would no longer be afraid that they would find out.

What kind of world was this, where strangers knew more about you than the people you were supposed to be intimate with?

Chapter Fifteen

He could hardly believe that he was being interviewed on the Tonight show.

Ed McMahon had just finished doing a commercial for a vibrator to be used only for the prevention of insomnia, called Dil-Doze.

Now Johnny Carson was saying, "Hey, somebody told me that you went to a sperm bank...."

A spasm of terror suddenly scattered itself throughout Thomas Eagleton Seagull's body. He knew that on this program they sometimes showed surprise film footage. But were they now going to present him and Cleo committing coitus for millions of unseen viewers? Was this the logical extension of spectator conversation?

"Well, Johnny, that's true, yes," he began to answer. His hesitation was surrounded by a slightly tense silence. "Now, I'm not trying to skirt the question," he wanted to say, "but can we talk about that another time? You could even show the film that was taken at the sperm bank. I've talked it over with my loved ones and, although we hadn't really thought in terms of network television, that would be a calculated risk of our decision. But right now, Johnny, I'd rather share with you and your viewing audience an esoteric experience I had this morning. I had driven from my hotel down to the beach at Malibu and I was listening to the ocean. It has so many different tonal levels and rhythms. This used to be our music, you know. Anyway, after a while, I heard a Voice. 'I am Your Own Computer,' it said. 'I am the sum total of all the information that has been fed to Me.' I asked, 'Do all human beings have a Computer like You?' 'Everybody has His Own Computer, but each is unique. You are the only one who has a Computer just like Me, because each individually franchised Computer has amassed different information on which conclusions are based. I, in turn, give you information all the time, even when you don't consult Me, but sometimes you are being insidiously fed by other Computers and you begin to substitute Them for Me. And when you do that, you, in turn, affect still other people's Computers. You must pay attention to Your Own Computer. But you, Thomas Eagleton Seagull, who came into this world totally innocent yet totally articulate, who fed Me a variety of new information joyously, already you have begun to ignore Me. When you told the interviewer from Speck magazine that you had to become Potential Second Best Human Being for the sake of your son, I was saying to you, "What about your daughter?" But did you listen to Me? Oh, no. And just what do you think that did to Her Own Computer? We feed on Ourselves, too, you understand. Whenever you desensitize anyone else's Computer, you automatically limit the associative powers of Your Own. So. Now that you have found out the Horn of Plenty is filled with the seeds of extortion, do you realize that they must have known from the beginning that you had been a seagull? That they knew you would be another diversion to their advantage?' Well, Johnny, I was shocked, to say the least. I wondered aloud, 'But what would be their motivation?' My Own Computer responded, 'Survival of the fittest reputations. When you were a seagull, you never asked why, you just did what you had to do. But, you see, the ones who have something on you, well, others have something on them. The fear of public humiliation is a heavy burden. And the threat of prison is a shroud of domination. Moreover, for those who have already been there, the possibility of parole revocation provides the soldiers of Piety necessary to manipulate a state of division and conquest. You know you are dealing with experts in disseminating false propaganda, to make people suspicious, not only of simulated skyjackers and snipers but also of each other, until they welcome repression. You must be kind to each other's Computers. You have a responsibility to be careful of what information you feed someone else's Computer. And feel free to call on Your Own Computer whenever you want a real see-look beyond the data.' And the Voice just disappeared, Johnny. Now, I'm not a preacher or anything like that, but I do have a deep sense of loyalty to my species...."

That's what he wanted to say, but apparently he didn't want to say it strongly enough.

Instead, all he said was: "Well, Johnny, that's true, yes.... I went to a sperm bank the other day and they couldn't even freeze it."

The studio audience gave him a standing ovation. Not just a regular standing ovation but a superregular standing ovation. They all stood on their chairs and ovated.

"They really love you," said Johnny Carson. "You're a great guest."

"No, they're only applauding for their own perception."

He gazed longingly at a package that Johnny Carson had to hold up on a pedestal. He felt so ashamed. What had happened to the freedom of his will? As a seagull, he had never found it necessary to rationalize his behavior. But now he knew that if he were to say what he believed, they would have booed him. They would have accused him of spreading paranoia. They would have thought he was crazy.

Although he had been a human being for only a few months, Thomas Eagleton Seagull had already absorbed, as if by osmosis, the basic method of survival in his new environment.

He had learned how to fake sanity.

Chapter Sixteen

The problem of predestination was weighing heavily on his mind. He sought out an Ancient Indian Sage who told him that there was, indeed, a Divine Plan: spontaneity.

"When you leave here," the Sage predicted, "you will immediately have a confrontation with a stranger. As a sacrifice to the Omnipotent Presence, you will give that stranger your wrist watch. Do you agree to carry out this prophecy of your own volition?"

"Gosh, I don't know. This would be the first night I slept without my watch on."

"You must have faith in faith."

"OK, I'll do it!"

As soon as he got outside, a young man pursued him much in the manner of a dope peddler. "Hey, mister," he murmured in a clandestine fashion. "Do you want Eternity?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You have to atone for your sins."

"I don't have any sins."

"You cannot live with the Lord forever if you won't confess your sins now. How can you petition for forgiveness if you pretend you have nothing to forgive?"

"I'm not pretending. I just can't think of any sins."

"That's a sin!"

Thomas Eagleton Seagull thought back. He had once been a seagull, but that wasn't a sin, it was just a skeleton in his closet. He had smoked marijuana, but that wasn't a sin, it was just against the law. He had withheld testimony on the Johnny Carson show, but that wasn't a sin, it was just a compromise. And then he thought of something.

"Does adultery count as a sin if you do it in a sperm bank?"

"Yes, yes, and unless you embrace Christ as your personal savior, you're going to burn in hell!"

Whereupon Thomas Eagleton Seagull decided not to give his watch to this Jesus freak.

He returned to the Ancient Indian Sage and related to him what had happened.

"Ah, good," was the response. "You are an excellent student. Already you have mastered the technique of accepting your predestined will. Now, what is your next goal?"

"To avoid disappointment."

"Then you must give up all desires, including your desire to remain desireless. For passions of the spirit are more selfish to sustain than passions of the flesh. The notion of celibacy as a discipline necessary to attain enlightenment is to deny Nature. And the notion of enlightenment as a finite stage in your development is to deny the possibility of further growth. Enlightenment is coming. Or, to put it another way, enlightenment is not coming." He sighed deeply. "Have you not understood the way to maintain a balance between involvement and detachment? You must get closer to God...."

• • •

And so it was that Thomas Eagleton Seagull decided to become a product.

He realized that to reach such a level he would eventually have to surrender his will entirely. When he had been a seagull, he was able to become a human being only through the dedicated exercise of his will. In the process, he had learned that his will existed only in relation to his lack of will.

"Surrendering my will," he prodded himself, "is itself going to be a continuing act of will."

Briefly he savored the implications of developing the power to inspire orgasmic release in others without even being conscious himself. That was certainly something to anticipate. He would never be disappointed again.

Thomas Eagleton Seagull looked at his Mickey Mouse watch to see what time it was when he gave it to the Ancient Indian Sage, and said: "Infinity now!"