In the course of these reports, I have frequently had occasion to advert to the philosophical admonitions with which Buckaroo Banzai, that tireless defender of the world's wellbeing, occasionally points the way to clearer reasoning for those of us who have cast our lives' lots with him. It has been drawn to my attention, however, that I have previously omitted to note that these precepts may be applied to the most mundane of circumstances as well as in those hours when the success of our various endeavors -- whether musical, scientific, or martial -- or indeed our very survival stand imperiled. Indeed, B. Banzai himself has provided many examples of the pertinence of his principles to even the most seemingly trivial of incidents, a fact which is of course axiomatic among the Blue Blazes worldwide who have devoted themselves to following in B. Banzai's giant footsteps, but is, it has been borne in upon me, less well known among those members of the public to whom, I confess, these aides memoires are tacitly addressed.

To rectify my inadvertent error, therefore, I offer the following account of an incident which took place on the pastoral grounds of the Banzai Institute, that tiny enclave whose band of hardy souls are nevertheless devoted to an enterprise that spans the globe.

The occasion for the conversation reported below arose when a Blue Blaze, who was present at the Institute on the occasion of my dearest Pecos' dramatic seminar on the evolutionary traits of nautiloids -- at which she stunned the scientific community by announcing her discovery that this exquisite genus of cephalopods, long thought to be evolutionary dormant, a "living fossil," is in fact actively speciating and indeed experiencing a dramatic "radiation" even now -- took advantage of her transitory presence in New Brunswick to complete an exchange of communications between herself and our stalwart Perfect Tommy.

As later inquiry developed, this Blue Blaze, who shall be nameless in this retelling not due to a desire to shield her from any shame but in recognition that her subsequent progress merits the provision to her of a clean slate, had met and enjoyed the acquaintance of Perfect Tommy at one of the Institute's frequent survival courses, this one being conducted in the malodorous albeit lovely expanses of northernmost Florida, where cypress knees reach up from fog-shrouded swamp water to tangle with the Spanish moss hanging from the branches above. The development of their friendship subsequent to the scheduled conclusion of this training had not followed a line satisfactory to the young Blaze, and one evening early in her tenure at our home base she returned a letter she had received from Perfect Tommy after their parting. It needs only to be added that her delivery of this missive took place with the lagniappe of a rock, around which the epistle was wrapped, and that the method of deposit was in the form of a pro-jectile, successfully directed at Perfect Tommy's window at an extremely early hour of the morning.

Although a peaceful body of souls, we at the Institute are not undefended, in light of our awareness of the existence in this world of malevolent powers -- not the least of them being, as readers of this series so well know, the venomous Hanoi Xan, who has sworn unceasing enmity to B. Banzai and all who embrace his moral stance. The breaching of the glass in Perfect Tommy's window accordingly triggered a variety of sensory apparati designed to register the presence of a threat to our security, and it ineluctably followed that nearly the full population of the bunkhouse roused itself and, heavily armed, investigated what proved to be, as I have told you, a simple stone with an unfortunately noncommittal (if I may be permitted to venture an opinion on this sensitive subject) communication from Tommy to the Blaze crumpled around it.

To her credit, it must be stated that the Blue Blaze in question at no point shrank from identifying herself as the author of the event which so rudely disturbed our night's sleep. Realizing that what had been intended to be a private communication had resulted in the alarums and excursions which she could hear taking place within the bunkhouse, she steadfastly remained in situ at her location in the garden until Rawhide and myself emerged to make a short reconnaissance of the house's immediate environs. Moreover, she instantly drew our attention to her presence and volunteered a frank account of her actions.

Refraining from offering any stricture on her conduct in that first, somewhat dismayed, moment of discovery, Rawhide ordered the Blue Blaze to present herself at the front door somewhat later the same morning for a further exploration of the circumstances and consequences of her act. Rawhide, customarily the most courteous and even-tempered of men, may have been a trifle short with the Blue Blaze due to his constitutional loathing of being interrupted on those rare occasions when he has allowed himself to anticipate an unbroken night's sleep. Certainly it is true that he gave no appearance of enjoying our nocturnal excursion, barefoot as he was and clad only in hastily-donned trousers and his hat. (How did Rawhide manage to don his hat in the exigency of the moment? My curiosity aroused, I put that question to him later that day, learning that the hat had been sitting upon his revolver, such that in possessing himself of the side-arm, he had naturally laid his hand upon the Stetson, and, all unthinkingly, equally naturally perched the hat where it belonged.)

At the appointed hour, the Blue Blaze appeared at our door. In the interim, a brief conversation among several of the Hong Kong Cavaliers -- those members of our scientific community who comprise the Institute's justly famed syncopated music ensemble -- during the course of the customary comparison of notes over breakfast, had established the Blaze's identity and her record while at the survival courses, which proved to be highly commendable. Her participation in Pecos' seminar had also been distinguished both for aptitude and attitude: so much so, my love imparted to us, that Pecos had planned to recommend her for apprenticeship. Perfect Tommy, deeply chagrined by the unforeseen publicity for his amorous adventure as well as justifiably, in my opinion, embarrassed by the revelation of his none-too-empathetic termination of that liaison, recommended the death penalty for the Blaze's transgression. Needless to say, his recommendation was rejected on the spot, but it is true that I had no inkling of B. Banzai's intended course of action when, attended by Rawhide and myself as material witnesses, should such be necessary, he met with the offending Blue Blaze to discuss her conduct. The colloquy that transpired richly illustrates the aptness of certain principles, which B. Banzai has identified as those we should strive to embody, for application to even so ephemeral an occasion as this one.

Buckaroo Banzai: In this place, an attack on any of us is an attack on all-- and thus, in this instance, an attack on yourself.

Blue Blaze: I didn't mean to....

Buckaroo Banzai: Intentions are no more than anticipatory excuses. To have discipline is to act with comprehension, not purpose.

Blue Blaze: I shouldn't have thrown the rock.

Buckaroo Banzai: Are you sorry that you did?

Blue Blaze: No, I'm just sorry I woke everyone up.

Buckaroo Banzai: To throw the rock is to wake everyone, whether that happens or not. An act is its consequences, even the ones which do not occur.

Blue Blaze: So, if I was going to throw the rock, I should have known why?

Buckaroo Banzai: At the risk of sounding like (smiling) Yoda, there is no why.

Blue Blaze: (joking) I should have known that there is no why and thrown the rock anyway.

Buckaroo Banzai: That might have been best.

Blue Blaze: But what about the crummy way Perfect Tommy treated me? Am I supposed to take that lying down? What about 'treat me bad, I'll treat you worse'?

The reader unfamiliar with this series may need a note of explanation here. The Blue Blaze was quoting from the motto we at the Banzai Institute have informally adopted, "Treat me good, I'll treat you better; treat me bad, I'll treat you worse." The audacity of the young woman's disingenuous effort to turn B. Banzai's dictum to her private ends snatched at my breath, but of course the master found no difficulty in disarming this neophyte's effort to turn his own sword upon him.

Buckaroo Banzai: That precept does not relieve an individual of the need-- which is also a most precious right-- to choose. It also does not relieve the individual of the responsibility for the choice made.

Blue Blaze: I know. I'll go quietly. (squaring her shoulders ) OK-- that's what I did, and I'm mostly sorry, but the other hand, that's what I did. What would you have done in my place?

For the second time in a single minute I found myself bereft of respiratory power. Could this Blue Blaze have truly realized what leap of imagination she had just requested Buckaroo Banzai to make? And was it possible that my chief was, in compliance with her bizarre request, even now imagining himself in the outre, if not entirely unthinkable, position of having been (though I hesitate to apply so unfeeling a term to what was doubtless a more kindly intended severance) jilted by Perfect Tommy? Certainly it is true that B. Banzai's expression grew abstracted, indeed even dreamy, as he entertained this question. I darted a glance at Rawhide, but was unable to discern upon the features of my cohort, whose habit it is never to be surprised by even the most extreme of developments, any fraction of the bemusement that had overtaken me.

Buckaroo Banzai: Oh... I think I would have thrown the rock.

At this point in the proceedings, B. Banzai stood up, signaling an end to the dialogue. The Blue Blaze, transfixed by the conviction that her fate had been sealed without an overt pronunciation of the sentence, posed, as she thought, one last question to him.

Blue Blaze: Do you know if there's a flight to El Paso tonight?

Buckaroo Banzai: Are you leaving us?

(startled)

Blue Blaze: Aren't you throwing me out?

(more startled)

Buckaroo Banzai: It never occurred to me.

Rawhide: It occurred to me. Try and find a more peaceable way to express yourself, understand?

The astonished Blue Blaze, attempting to simultaneously convey contrition and delight, nodded mutely in acquiescence to Rawhide's admonition. Struck motionless by her rapture at not being physically ejected from the contemplative community, the desire to join which had for so long been the animating focus of her dreams, the Blaze stood like a stock as B. Banzai, Rawhide, and I made our ways past her out of the room. I am happy to be able to add to this account an averral that the Blue Blaze was indeed subsequently added to our complement of apprentices, and later gained an internship, and has shown herself worthy of the trust and faith so reposed in her on numerous occasions.

~~~

from Arkansas Aloha, And Other Tales Of The Banzai Institute, Reno Nevada, Granite Press (1981)

reprinted by permission

~~~

Subsequent to the publication of my narrative of the instructive denouement of the incident of The Blue Blaze In The Night-time, I received inquiries from several readers. These readers noticed that B. Banzai and Rawhide at first blush may appear to have differed concerning the appropriate disposition of the Blue Blaze's case. However, appearances in this instance, as so often in our lives, are deceptive -- indeed do we not have B. Banzai's own word for it that not everything is what it seems, but everything is what it is? While, as B. Banzai has justly observed, every man can predict the past, I will venture to predict the past as it did not happen, and suggest -- though it is an educated suggestion, based on years of experience of the principals -- that if B. Banzai had not clearly said that the Blaze might remain among us, Rawhide would have worded his homily another way.

Indeed, though it is a venerable form of amusement for the two of them to appear to pit Rawhide's pithy common sense against B. Banzai's somewhat difficult (for those of us who do not match his deep level of enlightenment) maxims, the simple truth is that the two of them are in profound accord at nearly every pass. Indeed, in those periods when Rawhide has helmed the Institute during some necessary absence of B. Banzai, many of us have been taken aback by the degree to which this quiet gunsmith's "frontier justice" has been couched in reasoning worthy of our very Boss, albeit expressed in our range-bred companion's inimitable drawl.

It is thusly, then, that on this occasion Rawhide's apparent discord with B. Banzai's decision must be construed. That B. Banzai did not regard his judgment to be seriously, or even spuriously, controverted is richly evident in his treatment of Rawhide's further remarks:

Rawhide: . . . much too forgivin'.

Buckaroo Banzai: There is no such thing as forgiveness.

Rawhide: No such a thing, huh? All I know is, in Texas when a kid busts out a window, somebody spends a night in the barn.

B. Banzai, appearing to be much struck by Rawhide's remark, stopped in his tracks as if to contemplate it. Several seconds passed, during which our redoubtable leader's face became animated by a whimsical expression that accorded oddly with the features B. Banzai inherits from his Mongol ancestors. His retort was given in a tone of longsuffering patience, that of a teacher with a willfully dimwitted pupil:

Buckaroo Banzai: But Rawhide, there is no such thing as Texas.

excerpt from Arkansas Aloha and Other Tales of the Banzai Institute, Reno Nevada, Granite Press (1981)

reprinted by permission

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