Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy
12
345 B.C.
It was summertime in Athens and the living was easy. For many. For others, it was hard. On purpose. Wise men choose how to suffer. Wise men exercise, unlike our narrator. Wise men toughen themselves against the elements.
Suffering builds character, muscle, profit, epistemological elasticity, and other desirable outcomes. Like the ability to not complain about the bloody weather. Dio, wise or not, rolled naked in the hot sand buffeting the river near the Cynosarges.
He kicked his legs in the air as his sixty-nine-year-old balls slapped into the searing hot dirt like gammonballs. They depressed the earth and anyone unwise enough to watch. The first twenty tea bags made Dio yelp in pain. But still he persisted, like a lunatic, or a Senator born silver spoon in hand with a credulous media at their back.
The sand caked up on his skin, producing a protective crust. Nature’s armor. It may not repel an arrow, but it certainly repelled women. He had his staff to keep away the men, alongside pantomiming a pair of scissors. He was too old for sex stuff now.
That ship had limply floundered among the shoals of a wedding two years back. Not his, of course. Don't be silly. But the bride had been less than satisfied all the same.
The only man he had ever wanted to screw had died at that wedding. Plato the poet, the great thinker, the proto bigot, had simply collapsed dead. One assumes he encountered an exception to his grand philosophy he couldn't explain away.
It happens to all of us eventually. On social media, it arrives instantly. In between the unsolicited pictures of Dick Van Dyke, usually.
The city’s circus seals had thrown Plato a great funeral with all the pomp and circumstance the arrogant prick could have wanted. Dio had attended. Not to gloat, nor to make a scene. He missed his nemesis.
In Plato’s oversized absence his mind risked calcifying. There was no adversary to keep Dio sharp and alert. His students were mousier than their master had been. They'd updated his definition of man to include, “broad nails.”
A plucked chicken with the toenails of a man. Why not a bird with molars? Why not some penis-related exception? Why cling to universals? Categories and classes were for nerds. He should ask Aristotle if a burrito is a sandwich and watch his head blow.
He considered sensible objects as he turned onto his stomach and dropped his jewels in the sand. His particular jewels, not anyone else's. Nor a universal idea. An idea couldn't burn in hot sand. A category couldn't have its short and curlies singed off.
Only an individual person, place, or thing could suffer. Grouping individuals together was shoddy reasoning. But he knew it would go on. Thanks to Plato, an entire industry of people would pursue collectivist academics. They’ll call it sociology. Dio shuddered.
Plato would leave skid marks through history.
He flipped again to lay on his back, coin purse flopping to rest on the sand between his legs and squinted at a hunched figure standing over him. He exclaimed, “Manes? Is that you? You disgusting bastard, how are you? Gods, you just keep flaring up.”
“Manes?” A young, unfamiliar and deep voice replied. “Not familiar with Manes. Not all hunchbacks are named Manes, you bigot. But you. You must be Diogenes the Dog, yes? I’d recognize that beautiful, manly beard anywhere.”
“I suppose so,” Dio sighed. He'd grown tired of his fame. A philosopher couldn't even toast his testes in hot river sand without interruption anymore. “What do you want?”
“My name is Crates of Thebes.”
“That's an identity, not a desire,” Dio sighed. “Try again or piss off. I'm roasting nuts here. Very busy.”
“I want to be your student.”
“No,” Dio assured him. “You don't.”
“I really do,” Crates insisted.
“You're too ugly,” Dio complained as he rested on his elbows.
“Says the naked hobo with smoking genitals.”
Dio yelped and jumped to his bare feet. He'd overcooked them and the smell of burnt and blistered scrotum joined the scorching furnace air. “Hera's useless tits,” Dio cursed, fanning at his crotch. “You don't know what being my student means.”
“I don't,” Crates admitted. “But I've done a lot to learn.”
“Like what, Mr. Summer Warrior?” Dio asked, cupping his nuts close to his mouth and blowing cool air on them. “Have a fight with your daddy? Tell you to take the garbage out? Turn down your music? Did you throw a tantrum and yell ‘I'm gonna be a dog!’”
“Not really,” Crates replied cheerfully. “Philip slaughtered my family but forgot to steal our money. So, I gave away my inheritance, dodged the tracksuits, and found you in Athens training your body. I saw you perform at the Olympics.”
“Perform? I don’t perform. I philosophize. I’m a man. I peepee standing up. And what inheritance? That face? Give more. I can still see it.”
“Two hundred talents or so,” he declared. Dio whistled. That was a lot of money. You could buy a small state for that. Or a Senator from a small state. If you persisted. “I decided to save some in case I have kids. They don't need to suffer because of me.”
“That's weirdly cool of you,” Dio admitted, wincing as he dropped his meatballs in the sand with a thud and a sizzle. “What is it you think you can learn from me? How to fry up nuts? I hug statues in winter, I beg for food, and masturbate in public. That’s it.”
“Do you mean you force people to examine which of their convictions are reasoned and which are merely convention? That you teach how to toughen your body and mind so you can live as free as a god no matter the circumstance?”
Dio stared at the idiot in amazement. “Sure. That’s the ticket.”
“Certainly,” Crates said. “You’re not just a mad man, after all.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Dio demurred. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Socrates gone mad.”
“I think the important part is the mad chunk, really.”
“You think the gods aren’t mad?”
“I don’t know what I think the gods are. I think they’re in everything. Your hideous face, this beautiful river, this searing sand, my aching nuts. But I don’t know if they care about anything. Or if they’re able to. They may just be an animating principle.”
“You’re not worried about tea bagging them?”
“They let me know when they’ve had enough,” Dio protested, eyeballing his own balls. “Like now. I don’t think there’s a single hair left on these babies. Smooth as wrinkled chicken eggs.”
“Smells like it,” Crates agreed. “So, how about it? Taking students?”
“No,” Dio declared. “But we can hang out. You’re weird. I’m off to the baths if you want to see me wet and naked instead of just naked.”
“What's wrong with bathing in the river?” Crates asked. “I mean, it’s right there.”
“Humans try to improve on perfection. Even if they can't. Especially then. I’d like to see how its working out.”
Crates nodded, handing Dio his cloak, his bag, and the staff he’d begun using to help tool around. Staves were technically weapons not allowed in the city, but folks made an exception for aging philosophers, though whether from pity or love was unclear.
“Mr. Dio!” Came a cry nearby. Swiveling their heads, the two saw one of the orphans in chains being led by a train of priests. “They say I stole from the temple! Help!”
“Did you?” Dio asked.
“Well,” the teenaged thief's voice cracked. “Of course!”
“Deny it next time!”
“Okay!” The boy yelled as the priests yanked on his shackles. “Yeah! That makes more sense!”
Crates watched the procession and commented, “A little thief being led by bigger thieves.” Dio smiled and nodded. The new guy was on the level.
They wandered along the road flanking the city walls to the baths, coming close to the Academy. “Watch your step,” Dio warned. “Gets slippery around here. Even with Plato gone there’s enough trash everywhere to catch the unwary unawares.”
“Ah, yes,” Crates agreed. “Academics. I’m familiar.”
Dio nodded. This Crates was growing on him, like a fine mold that always laughed at your jokes.
The Dipylon baths came into view. A fat, squat building, circular in shape and littered with windows spewing steam. Even from the outside it smelled like most baths. Wet socks, cocks, and jocks. The two wrinkled their noses at the sight and entered.
The interior was sunlit through the windows, which turned out to be quite a bad thing.
A radial pool about three feet deep ate the majority of the space from the center, with benches submerged a foot below the surface along its edge. Slime slick steps descend to its bottom, barely discernible through a swirling muck of browns and shadow.
No less than a dozen turds bobbed along in what Dio hoped was water. Sacrifices for the gods, perhaps. Or the final bowel movement of the dead man floating face down in the latrine calling itself a bath. He must have been pretty backed up. All that lamb.
Amazingly, a couple circus seals lounged waist deep, doing their best to ignore the mess. Elbows on the lip, one said to the other, “My doctor recommends bathing here at least once a week. Says it's great for keeping consumption at bay.”
“No doubt,” the second seal agreed, blowing his nose in the bath. “I read a study from Dr. Ozymandias about it. The still water pacifies the air in the lungs, calms down spirits so they don’t fire the humors in there. Modern medicine is truly a wonder.”
The first grunted in agreement, bubbles floating to the surface as he did.
The old dog and the young pup shared a look and exclaimed together, “Nope!”
“So,” Crates wondered aloud outside after exiting. “Where is someone supposed to bathe after bathing in that shithole?”
Dio clutched a hand on his staff and the other to his stomach laughing. The kid was in. Diogenes the Dog had his first student. He’d give teaching a go again.
If he ever wanted to quit, he could just say he learned more from his students than he ever taught them.
Debase the Currency - Whether Coin or Clout - Show Who Rules Them - And Set Yourself Free - Go East Old Man - To Learn Something New - Make Peace With Darkness - And Shine Your Light - Witness Inaction In Action - Before the Great Game - Of Two Competing Conceits - Leaving a Strange Legacy