hand, you might just dance through the thick green foliage and come out completely unscathed. The difference is the luck of the draw on that particular day."
"What part does God play in all this?" Billy asked while eyeing coconuts in the tree above.
"Well, the way I figure it, God did his thing when he created us, then went off somewhere else to see if he could do a better job. It's like we're on our own and may the best man win."
Billy thought for a moment as he climbed the tree to fetch coconuts, then said, "So you do not feel that God has condemned us to eternal punishment."
"Hell no," the rancher said. "God said, in effect, get out of my face and go do your own thing. It was more a divorce decree rather than a sentence, and that's why we don't have to worry about any interference from him. We're free to do it our way, and if we goof it up, well, we live in our own dung until we draw a better card. No big deal. It's all according to the law of averages. Win some, lose some."
Billy slammed two coconuts together cracking both. He handed one to Ned Piffle and said, "What you are saying is so beautiful! You have given me a completely new understanding. Truly, Rancher Piffle, there is nothing to fear from the Almighty for all of life is based on statistics, a branch of mathematics that analyzes numerical data and draws conclusions from them. We define the problem by asking why certain things happen to people, and in the analysis of the data we find that it is all based on frequency distribution of patterns relating to probabilities. For example, the probability of my beloved Lillie being ravished and killed by a band of ruffians was, let's say, fifty percent with a three percent margin of error."
The old rancher took a bite of the coconut meat and looked at Billy with squinted eyes. "Son, that's just another way of saying that bad things happen to good people just because it was time for it to happen."
"Yes," Billy said, "and since God doesn't do it there's no reason for religion in a statistically-correct world. Everything doesn't happen for the best or the worst. It just happens because that's the way the universe is constructed. Oh how freeing, how exciting. My faith is now in mathematical probabilities and not in a vengeful God, and I will learn to be the best of all possible gamblers."
"Now you're talking," Ned said as he finished his coconut and tossed it into the water. "Come on, let's go see if we can find any semblance of civilization on this island."
6
As the two men walked to the top of the sand dune they saw three lovely maidens running toward them with picnic baskets. The girls were French with names of Marie, Arie and Parie, they said in their native tongue as they drew from the baskets a platter of fruit and fish sandwiches, five wine glasses and a bottle of cold French white wine. Billy felt lucky.
After eating and drinking until nothing was left, the three girls--all sisters they said--invited the men to their home where they lived alone on the other side of the island. On the way a coconut fell from one of the trees and landed on the head of Arie, causing a skull fracture. One out of five, thought Billy, appreciating the odds. After carrying her to the hospital in the village, the remaining four journeyed to the red tiled green home of the sisters on the other side of the island where they lived together for a time.
Ned arranged to have his cattle sold at an auction and the money wired to him so that he could buy nice things for Marie to make her more receptive to his advances. Billy was careful to avoid any penetrative encounters with Parie because of the statistical possibility of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. He was learning to play the odds to be the best of all possible gamblers. Rancher Fiffie was not so lucky. During the ninth month he consented to marry Marie before the baby came, at which time Billy moved to the Hilton Hotel alone and accepted a job as a dishwasher.
Two weeks later the stove exploded in the hotel kitchen where three men including Billy were working. The other two were badly burned but Billy was not touched. One out of three, he thought as he wrote about the experience in a small black book he now carried with him to jot down the statistical data of his life embracing Lady Luck.
One night Billy was in a car driven in a rainstorm by a local resident known as Big Mon. Big Mon took a curve at high speed, lost control, and the car traveled more than two hundred feet in the air and crashed into a tree. Big Mon was killed but Billy stepped out of the demolished vehicle without a scratch. He pulled out his little black book and wrote: One out of two. The odds are still with me. They weren't for long, however. Three days later a hurricane hit the island as Billy was approaching Ned's and Marie's house, and their red tile roof came crashing down on Billy. Before he lost consciousness Billy was heard to say, "Craps!"
While he was in the hospital with a broken arm, cracked ribs and red tile shrapnel wounds in his head, Billy gave a great deal of thought to the actuary tables and the precise calculation of statistical risks in this world. He decided he didn't want to play the game anymore. Life was a gamble, sure, but he was tired of toss-ups, guessing, speculating and tempting fortune. He would have to find another god, one that offered a better chance of survival in this craziest of all possible worlds. In the meantime, Ned and Marie had another child and Ned went to work selling life insurance to the natives.
Upon discharge from the hospital Billy found a job waiting tables at a French restaurant near the pier. When the cruise ship Lollypop docked and the thousands of tourists descended upon the village, Billy worked a sixteen hour day and had fallen asleep on a bar stool with the patrons yelling at him. He awoke when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see a tall, dark and handsome thirty-something man who said, "You appear tired and tuckered out, my friend. May I ask what is the cause of this lack of stimulation?"
Billy slid off the stool, offered his hand and said, "I am Billy Barker."
"And that is the reason for your exhaustion?"
"No," Billy replied. "I have been snapped at, admonished, tripped and untipped in attempting to serve the people of the cruise ship Lollypop, and frankly sir, I will be happy to see the last of them."
The stranger smiled. "You simply have not been in control of the situation as the master of your destiny, a pillar of power, a self-imaged warrior of self-created reality."
Billy felt his adrenalin beginning to run. "Who are you?"
"My name is Hap Landing from Buffalo, and I am a psychomentalist."
"And what is that!" Billy asked open mouthed.
"It is one who uses the power of the mind to create the best of all possible worlds."
Uh oh, Billy thought, then asked, "Is this power from God?"
"Oh no," said Hap Landing with a slight frown. "It is from the stimulation of sixteen thousand brain cells that are lying dormant in the average person, which will make you the lord of your world, the ruler of your domain."
Billy massaged his long fingers. "Will you teach me this power?"
"Oh yes, but you must sign a contract to compensate me for my efforts. I require one hundred dollars as a down payment, then one hundred dollars for each brain cell that is awakened, which, by the way, only I will know, for a grand total of one million six hundred thousand dollars."
Billy gasped. "But I don't have that kind of money."
"Oh but you will. Each time a brain cell awakens and your self-image is boosted, you will magnetically attract at least two hundred dollars into your possession. By the time your brain is fully alive you will be a multi-millionaire."
"I
