Tenth Interlude: From the Desk of Otis Bulfinch

My mother used to say, "You never know when a good thing's a bad thing, and a bad thing's a good thing."

When I failed to unmask McQuary at the Turnverein Germania Hall in Joplin, Missouri, and left the gymnasium to tread with heavy heart the sconced and paneled hallway and descended the stairwell while my right hand passed lightly down the polished banister, and I pushed open the heavy oaken doors beyond the foyer and stepped out of the Hall and onto the covered, darkling portico to skip down the marble steps into the empty, twilight street, I breathed deeply and decided I was no longer going to be a character in McQuary's tale. Upstairs in the massive room, the Purple Knight and the Yellow Kid and Van Hennessey and Herr Brautigam and the little fellow with the mustache and spectacles and the Germans might mill about forever, but not I.

McQuary had won, and he was free to promote his lies and tell his stories, but I would no longer give a shit. Yes, I would continue to author his story—otherwise, how would it ever end?—but I would no longer intervene. I would hold the Purple Knight of the Ozarks and his story lightly in my hands, neither rigidly clinging to the concept of "historical truth" nor letting everything slough downward in a mudslide of despondency. From now on, I would let the Purple Knight sway back and forth in his hammock in the fo'c'sle of a long forgotten ship while the sails pop and flutter overhead and white gulls cry from a distant shore. I would let the Purple Knight massage the palms of pretty girls and look into their eyes and speak of Mesmer and Darwin and the temples of Vishnu. I would let him proclaim his virtues and deny his vices. I would let him.

Truth be told, I learned at last that's the only honest way to hold the past—lightly and with no expectations. And so began my redemption.