THE MINUTE YOU'RE DEAD: 
SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY IN BOSTON TERAN'S GOD IS A BULLET 

by MICHAEL ROBISON

On the edge of a steamy Thai jungle sits a shabby sordid bar. Out back there's a whorehouse and a pit for cockfights and dogfights. The interior walls of the bar are covered with graffiti in a dozen different languages. In a drug-enhanced state, Teran's companion adds his own unintelligible scrawl. Teran asks him what it means and he answers, "God is a bullet right to the head. You start to feel better the minute you're dead." He had heard it from a junkie Buddhist monk excommunicated for his addiction. In an interview, Teran commented, "I never forgot it. It sounded almost like a nursery rhyme the way he said it. That statement talked right to me. I think it says all kinds of things about the human predicament."

Teran's GOD IS A BULLET is a dark tale of violent redemption through retribution. When a young girl disappears after a ritualistic satanic murder, two lives of quiet desperation converge to find her. The child's father, Bob Hightower, is a bitter desk jockey sheriff trying to cope with a failed marriage, and Case Hardin, a girl struggling with heroin addiction, is a former member of the cult that has abducted his daughter. Unlikely heroes, the two form an uneasy alliance in a savage saga of death and destruction played out against the scorched sands of the Southern California desert and the squalid border towns of Mexico.

Teran's publisher wrote an almost unheard of half-million dollar check for a new and unproven writer's first book. They recognized the strength of his style and story, but whether they could predict the whirlwind controversy that it invoked is unknown. To those who love it, it's a powerful and breathtaking tale of violent salvation. To those who hate it, it's an unrealistic, childishly written, godless tract glorifying child pornography and vigilante murder. Although hundreds of comments have been recorded, both pro and con, discussion of Teran's vivid literary devices, with the exception of his flamboyant, simile-laden style, has been sadly lacking. This article discusses the themes and symbolism in Boston Teran's GOD IS A BULLET.

Teran runs loose and wild with the language. Nouns and adjectives turn into verbs, grammar and definition are bent double, and if similes were snakes the book would be a serpentarium. Although he has been criticized for stylistic excesses, the language evokes powerful visual images, and his use of the present tense gives the book an energized sense of immediacy. Teran also ignores the banal demands of the pseudo-realists and writes a searing, phantasmagoric epic of bloody salvation. Amidst all this Teran manages to intricately weave subtle themes of philosophy, anthropology, psychology, mysticism, and mythology.

Teran took a big chance with the violence in GOD IS A BULLET. It easily surpasses that which Spillane was condemned for, and the book unflinchingly confronts the ultimate act of vigilantism. It stands alongside Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN as one of the most hardboiled novels I've ever read. Besides being extremely hardboiled, Teran's and McCarthy's books share other interesting characteristics. Both examine man's capacity for violence, and they both conclude that violence is an essential component of man's makeup. McCarthy’s Judge declaring that war is the essence of man closely parallels Case's philosophy that God is a bullet. Both books express a skepticism about the significance of any absolute moral imperative in the world and, not surprisingly, both books have garnered similar criticism for the unpopularity of the views they express, and the vividness by which they are portrayed.

In 1909 Arnold Van Gennep published RITES OF PASSAGE, a landmark treatise in anthropology. In the book he cites three rituals involving the change of religious or social status of an individual that appear common to many pre-industrial societies. The first phase involves separation of the individual from his present religious or social standing. This phase is a symbolic death of the old self, and often includes painful rituals such as tattoos, circumcision, piercings or scarification. In the second phase the individual exists in a netherworld, a state of nothingness. It is a darkness that is death, a darkness that is the womb. This is a sacred, mystic no-man's land, and the person in this state is considered dangerous and is often thought to possess supernatural powers. The initiate may fast in the wilderness, kill a lion, or travel to a sacred place. In the third and final phase the person is resurrected into society in a new role.

Gennep called these three phases the rite of separation, the rite of transition, and the rite of incorporation, and they appear in the titles of the three middle divisions of Teran's book and represent a major theme. Gabi, Case, and Bob all endure their own rite of passage. Case's withdrawal from heroin begins her rite of separation from her former self; her rite of transition involves the search for Gabi and culminates in the murder of the ranger's wife and Cyrus. Her phone call reuniting her with Bob and Gabi completes her rite of incorporation. Gabi's abduction represents her nightmare rite of passage.

Although Case and Gabi must endure their own ordeals, the book centers upon Bob's predicament. Gabi's situation allows her few meaningful choices, and serves predominantly as a catalyst for Bob and Case's odyssey. Case's rite of passage is less significant than Bob's because her beliefs and attitudes are fully mature at the beginning of the novel. Case is a mentor hero for Bob, opening his eyes to the true nature of the world, nurturing the power within him, and giving him the strength and the will to use it.

Bob's rite of separation begins when he pursues an independent investigation into the murders and Gabi's abduction, and is completed when he drives off with Case in search of Gabi and is tattooed by the Ferryman. Thus begins his long horrific rite of transition, accented by his new name, Bob Whatever, and later, Coyote. The section of the book entitled Rite of Transition ends with Bob murdering Errol. The violent gunfight in the desert and his recovery of Gabi are part of his rite of incorporation. Resisting the temptation to kill Arthur and Maureen completes his rite of incorporation. Although he has returned, he has undergone a profound transformation, and his former place in society no longer fits him. He has no desire to go back to his former job, he refuses to have his facial tattoo removed, and he eventually disappears with Case and Gabi.

Freud's theories of human behavior, that we are dominated by unconscious sexual frustrations and suppressed childhood experiences, have proven fertile ground for writers of crime fiction. The dark sexual content and characters driven by inner demons they cannot comprehend or control make for good reading. Beginning with William Faulkner's SANCTUARY, the tradition continues in William Gresham's NIGHTMARE ALLEY, Dorothy Hughes's RIDE THE PINK HORSE, and Patricia Highsmith's THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. The appeal remains strong, and the trend persists in the contemporary voices of James Ellroy in THE BLACK DAHLIA and Kent Harrington in DARK RIDE.

In 1907 Freud forged a partnership with a promising young psychologist named Carl Jung. For several years it appeared that Jung would be the successor to the psychoanalytic throne, but his research diverged from Freud's and the bond between the two great men was broken. First, Jung came to reject Freud's emphasis on sexuality and childhood trauma in treating mental illness and concentrated more on the patient's current problems. Second, Jung detected a pattern of recurring elements in his patients' dreams, which led him to believe there are primal ideas and concepts shared by all people, representing the foundation of a collective unconscious.

Jung called these primal concepts archetypes and discovered that they extended beyond the realm of dreams into significant and repeated themes in literature, art, religion, and mythology. Archetypes include human images such as the villain, mother, maiden, child, hero, and old man; places such as heaven, hell, and paradise, and other images such as animals, angels, monsters, gods, and devils. The concept of family is an archetype. Even shapes, such as circles, crosses, and stars can be archetypes. Later in his life, Jung decided that these archetypes were actual entities and that their existence could induce events which appeared to be incredible coincidence. He called this theory synchronicity.

One of the most striking characteristics of Teran's book is the homage paid to Carl Jung's theories of psychology, and the sound rejection, voiced by Teran's characters, of the teachings of Freud. Case sneers at childhood sexual abuse as an excuse for a crippled psyche. Hannah, the old woman who raised Cyrus, doubts that anything that had ever been done to him was reason enough for him to be as bad as he was. The Ferryman invokes Jung directly when giving Bob a tattoo, and the arts of divination mentioned in the book, the I Ching and Tarot, have been linked to Jung's theory of synchronicity. Even Gennep's theory of the ecumenical existence of rites of passage coincides with Jung's concept of universal unconscious.

SYMBOLISM AND MOTIFS

By embracing the primal world of Jung and his archetypes, Teran abandons traditional ground and ventures into a feverish mythological saga. He complements this theme by establishing a strong mythic motif drawn from many cultures. Before the story even begins, the epigraph tells the tale of the Aztec sun god Huitzilopochtli, strengthened by human blood, driving back the moon and the stars to allow the sun to rise. Bob and Case discuss how a person deals with a personal Leviathan, the serpent or dragon in Hebrew myth. Case tells Bob the American Indian myth of how the trickster raven created the world. The two wiggly lines that Case tattoos on Bob's face are the sign of the Egyptian god Hapi, the symbol of the Nile. The Ferryman is a direct reference to Charon, the Greek god who ferried the dead to the underworld, and his dogs are transformed into the multiheaded beast from hell, Cerberus, in the following passage:

"In her pocket she can feel the snapshot of Lena she stole clip against her skin as the dogs grab at the space around her till they are one beastly shape with half a dozen heads snarfing up the crumbs that fall across her jeans."

Jung identified the bird as a symbol of transcendency. With its power of flight, it is capable of rising above the world, a telling allegory for the elevated experience associated with transcendence. In Teran's book, Case is the transcendent character. Her cult experience and rejection of its mores, symbolized by her break from heroin addiction, allows her a piercing insight into the nature of the world and a clear understanding of what must be done to recover Gabi. Thus it is appropriate that Case is compared to a bird. She is described as having a "jawline of bones that protrude like the thin spine under a bird's skin." Seated and talking to Bob, her arms are spread "like the wings of a hawk getting ready for fight or flight." And then there is Lena's sad and moving interpretation of their relationship. Looking up at the ancient Indian rock painting, she makes her perceptive observation:

"'You're the bird,' Lena whispered. 'You have the ability to fly. To overcome. And me, well... I can only hide inside my shell.'"

Ouroboros, the snake swallowing its tail, represents a recurrent theme in GOD IS A BULLET. It is first introduced as the tattoo on Hannah's shoulder and as a part of her primitive paintings on the stone oven not far from her trailer. Typical of many mythological symbols, it has multiple meanings. It is the sign of the continuous cycle of creation and destruction, and the infinite circle of its body is a boundary between what is and what isn't. To the Egyptians it represented the end of time when Ouroboros, the creator god, turned back on itself. In some versions the body of Ouroboros is half light and half dark, representing the juxtaposition of opposing principles similar to the Chinese Yin and Yang.

It is this final interpretation that Teran weaves into his story. Case and Cyrus are similar in many ways. Both have found the strength to reject a serious drug habit. Both have walked the Left-Handed path. They are both atheists, finding strength in hate. As Case says, "I don't know where he starts and I leave off sometimes." Nevertheless, Case has turned away from the evil that Cyrus embraces. She opposes him with deadly intent. The paradox of their relationship is symbolized by Ouroboros, intimately linked yet diametrically opposed. Ouroboros is sometimes represented as a dragon, a synthesis of the dark realm of the serpent and the celestrial transcendence of a bird. Just as Case is the bird, Cyrus is surely the chthonian snake.

The plot of Teran's book, the search for Gabi, mirrors the classic mythological quest. The stated goal of a quest, the recovery of a person or object, usually overlays a hidden, more significant goal. In Greek mythology the hidden goal was often the accumulation of glory through heroic acts. Self-knowledge is often a hidden goal in literary quests. Both heroic acts and self-knowledge are of prime importance in the development of Bob Hightower's character. From a gutless simpering wimp, he finds the courage to make important and dangerous decisions. Rejecting his ineffectual former beliefs, he is able to shed his worthless persona and regain his pride and self-respect through action. Another symbolic goal of their quest is couched in Jung's archetypes. Gabi is the archetypal child, the embodiment of the promise of a new beginning and paradise restored. Case and Bob are searching for far more than a stolen girl.

A critical view of religion is as American as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It is commonly said that more blood has been spilled in the name of Christ than for any other reason. Many early settlers in the United States were religious extremists, and Christian courts condemned witches to be hanged or, in one case, pressed to death. With this in mind, it's not surprising that religion has a strong negative connotation in GOD IS A BULLET. For some, like John Lee, it is a facade that hides hypocrisy and evil. For Bob it is both an ineffective opium and a condescending snobbery. While he lets everything that matters in this life slip away from him, he consoles himself with his faith, and at the same time he places himself on a pedestal built from his fine Christian morals and looks down with a sneer at those below him. Bob Hightower's last name was not a random choice. Over the years he has become a hollow shell of a man. Charles Willeford, in his essay "New Forms of Ugly" from WRITING AND OTHER BLOOD SPORTS, describes what Bob has allowed himself to become, an immobilized man. He has allowed his vitality to slip away into an ugly morass of inaction. Sarah tells her present husband that she left Bob because he became unresponsive. Bob gave up the active life of a field officer to sit at a desk. He has receded from the essence of life, action and decisions.

Ironically, it is the abduction of Gabi that marks the beginning of his resurrection to life. Bob, contrary to his normal habit of deferring to standard police procedure, begins an independent search for Gabi. This is significant for two reasons. First, it has drawn him from his miserably passive existence back into action. Second, it represents his first step outside the narrow bounds of what he views as proper. Through his revealing philosophical conversations with Case and the cathartic motion of the search, Bob resurrects himself in a slow existential purge and transforms himself into a powerful vigilante killer. One might question the virtue of the transition, but for Bob it is a choice between being and nothingness.

Philosophy has long debated whether ethics are fixed and eternal or relative to a particular age. Teran's GOD IS A BULLET suggests that an absolute and unalterable set of moral values is a crippling liability in this world. Ethics that do not adapt to the environment are a part of Bob's inability to act in an effective manner and recover Gabi. Other authors have suggested likewise. In John D. MacDonald's THE EXECUTIONERS, a lawyer's family is terrorized by an ex-convict. The legal system is powerless to help him because the convict is careful about his harrassment, staying narrowly within the limits of the law. In order to protect his family, the lawyer must reject his faith in due process of law and deal out some decisive vigilante justice. James Dickey explores the same theme in DELIVERANCE when a group of civilized men vacation in the wilderness and are forced to deal with the savage locals on their own brutal terms.

Teran broaches several important themes in GOD IS A BULLET, including the significance of violence to man, the role of religion in life, and the nature of ethics. With a touch of irony, he has told the story of an atheist girl, resurrected by confession and hope. He has told the story of a man reduced to nothingness through inaction and reborn with the courage to make his own decisions. In the end, Teran reaffirms the existential belief that a man's existence is grounded in action. As Sartre stated, "There is only hope in action."

Copyright© 2003 Michael Robison

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