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State of unBeing 46
Living in such a state taTestaTesTaTe etats a hcus ni gniviL
of mind in which time sTATEsTAtEsTaTeStA emit hcihw ni dnim of
does not pass, space STateSTaTeSTaTeStAtE ecaps ,ssap ton seod
does not exist, and sTATeSt oFOfOfo dna ,tsixe ton seod
idea is not there. STatEst ofoFOFo .ereht ton si aedi
Stuck in a place staTEsT OfOFofo ecalp a ni kcutS
where movements TATeSTa foFofoF stnemevom erehw
are impossible fOFoFOf elbissopmi era
in all forms, UfOFofO ,smrof lla ni
physical and nbEifof dna lacisyhp
or mental - uNBeInO - latnem ro
your mind is UNbeinG si dnim rouy
focusing on a unBEING a no gnisucof
lone thing, or NBeINgu ro ,gniht enol
a lone nothing. bEinGUn .gnihton enol a
You are numb and EiNguNB dna bmun era ouY
unaware to events stneve ot erawanu
taking place - not iSSUE ton - ecalp gnikat
knowing how or what 5/31/98 tahw ro who gniwonk
to think. You are in FORTY-SiX ni era uoY .kniht ot
a state of unbeing.... ....gniebnu fo etats a
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
CONTENTS OF THiS iSSUE
=----------------------=
EDiTORiAL Kilgore Trout
LETTERS TO THE EDiTOR
STAFF LiSTiNGS
[=- ARTiCLES -=]
iCONS FROM THE WATER TABLES Clockwork
PAGES FROM A DiARY Crux Ansata
[=- POETASTRiE -=]
UNTiTLED Howler in the Shadows
DEAD SPAWN ELEMENTALS Rudi
THE 11:30 TO CHiCAGO Howler in the Shadows
[=- FiCTiON -=]
THE PROFESSOR STRUGGLES WiTH HiS CRAFT Rich Logsdon
TENDER LOVE Rich Logsdon
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
EDiTORiAL
by Kilgore Trout
Geez, is it May already? Not like it was that hard to tell, being in
Texas and feeling the sun preparing to take vengeance on all of us who are
spoiled by air conditioning. And we do have that nice little smoke wave
coming in from the south, which makes smoking cigarettes look like a healthy
habit. I'm waiting for gas masks and clown wigs to come back in style.
In interesting personal news, my dreamlife has been so intesne lately
that I think I've already got enough material to make another article out of.
The dreams all have plots, are extremely vivid, and are immensely twisted.
Some people wanted me to relate one of them in this very editorial, saying
that out of my many dreams it was definitely the strangest one I had ever had,
and that something that bizarre should be shared with the world.
So I think you'll have to wait on that one. I guess that's a good side
effect of taking anti-convulsants. It's a lot more interesting than TV,
anyway.
We're still making copies of the audio issues for those of you who can't
access them, and basically we've come up with the trade of an audio tape for
you sending us something "strange" or "unique." If you'd like more details
and/or addresses, email us and we'll be happy to set something up with you.
Other than that, I don't really know anything right now, especially as
the whole day I feel like I've been on withdrawal from drugs or something even
though that's not the case, so I watched a bunch of music documentaries while
I put the zine together. And I also shook uncontrollably at times as well.
But that's okay, because the other night when I was trying to sleep I was
hallucinating the face on Mars in my closet. I'm kinda used to it now.
Before I make a compleat fool of myself, I'll shut up and let you get on
with the zine. It's all good (just don't bite it) and keep those submissions
coming in. Drop by #unbeing on undernet, and until next month, enjoy...
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
LETTERS TO THE EDiTOR
From: Beattrack
To: kilgore@sage.net
Subject: mailing list
As I sit here, with the Wonder Years blaring in the background and Fred Savage
whining about his latest plight, I'm thinking 'hmm...why the hell should I be
added to the mailing list?'. Yes, lame thought, I must say so myself, but the
first thing that pops into my mind is that this online mag. kicks ass. Then I
think, 'no, that is really sucking up, I can't say that'. The next thought
that pops into my head is that I've read every last issue, and then I realize
that I don't want to tell you that for fear that I'll sound like some sort of
loser with no life, so I realize that I must resort to the last really dumb
reason that I can think of, which is that I just really like the mag. and I
think I'm in love with Nathan, wait, I didn't just think that. So if any of
these reasons are good enough, add me to the list. If they aren't, feel free
to write me and tell me that I have no friends.
Becky
[those are all good reasons for wanting to be added to the mailing list, to
which you've been added. we don't really mind sucking up too much since we
really don't get a lot of it, and i've read every issue as well, and i don't
think i'm a loser, so don't be so hard on yourself. heh. woof.]
--SoB--
From: Tae Moon
To: kilgore@sage.net
Subject: Subscription
Dear Kilgore,
Please add me to your list. Why? Because, just because. Really, I am
trying to learn about postmodernism and I think I will enjoy your ezine.
thank you,
Tae Moon
[postmodernism, you say? sometimes we serve it on toothpicks as an
afterdinner snack. enjoy! slurp.]
--SoB--
To: kilgoret@geocities.com
From: Bircham
Subject: deserving titles
Hello,
Yes, I am still alive. It's amazing what a weekend in a psychiatric
hospital can do for you. All the orange jello and carrots you want for not
stabbing yourself in the neck.
I too, noticed I was not under the correct categorie in last month's
issue. I knew the problem would be fixed, so I didn't worry. As for
Crackmonkey, what makes you think I don't deserve to be a groupie for Sob?
Why is it that you are? I figured, since two heads are better than one, we
could really do some amazing things TOGETHER, that would show our
appreciation for the writers of this zine. We could make up t-shirts with
SoB on it and wear them in wet t-shirt contests. Summer is just around the
corner. We could get matching tattoos or even bake together. The
possibilities are endless. Let's not ruin this relationship between the
only two Official Groupies of SoB, before we give it a chance to bloom and
become something beautiful.
Oxide de Carbone
[i think i'll let the intergroupie dialogue take off on its own accord. it
seems to me to be the right thing to do, anyway. prozac.]
--SoB--
From: "j"
To: <kilgore@sage.net>
Subject: i wanna be a member of the Mailing List!
because i am a proponent of the
'take-off-and-nuke-'em-from-orbit' theory of advancing the
Cause of intelligent evolution on Earth!
[i prefer the crashing asteroid hypothesis. more time for lots of really bad
drama. with nukes, you only have like 30 minutes at the most. with
asteroids, you have years in which to overact and flub your lines, but it's
still okay because you know you're going to die anyway. squish.]
--SoB--
From: Mark McHugh
To: kilgore@sage.net
Subject: State of unBeing Mailing List
Please add me to your list!
I can Be and unBe, there is no question!
Plus I'm a big RAW and Vonnegut lover. I once paid $74 to my college
library because, due to a night of wandering drunken in the tunnels
below the college, lost a 5-novel Vonnegut collection. I woke up inside
a vast darkness. Once I found some light, I was horrified to find that
I had slept the night away in one of the lecture halls connected to the
tunnels (Thank God for a prof forgetful or lazy who left the backdoor
unlocked). Here's the kicker. I went through my pockets to make sure I
hadn't been mugged and found one of those goofy and divinely mad Jack
Chick comics! I wonder if I met a wandering Baptist that night? I
guess I'll never know...
--
Mark McHugh
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. E=mc2
[ahh, nothing like jack t. chick to brighten up your day, especially after
losing a whole set of vonnegut novels. lake of fire, evil catholics, gays
trying to contaminate the national blood supply, demonic role playing
games... i could go on forever, and apparently so can jack. i'll let him
keep making his little pamphlets. after all, if he stopped, i wouldn't be
able to collect them anymore.]
--SoB--
From: "Sweater Girl"
To: kilgoret@geocities.com
Subject: Fan mail, assurance, etc.
I was re-reading some old issues of SoB and came across an editorial
you wrote (issue #29). I was a little struck: you said the real
reason that the August issue was late that year was prolly because
you wanted to see if anyone beyond the writers care about the zine...
and while this may be obsolete, I'm following an impulse and morphing
back into that caring, sensitive girl I once was and uhhh.. noting
that I love the zine and read and reread the issues regularly. So,
anyways, bask in the glow of fan mail and disregard any fleeting
thoughts that people don't appreciate you or any of the writers <they're
just spiffy too>.
YEah.
SweaterGirl
[well, thank you very much. i was trying to remember the last time i was a
caring, sensitive girl and think that maybe -- possibly -- that would have to
be in 1979. i would have been only four then, but there is a chance that
during that time period i might have actually been a caring, sensitive girl
for a while. if at all.]
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
STAFF LiSTiNG
EDiTOR
Kilgore Trout
CONTRiBUTORS
Clockwork
Crux Ansata
Howler in the Shadows
Rich Logsdon
Rudi
GUESSED STARS
Beattrack
j
Mark McHugh
SweaterGirl
Tae Moon
SoB OFFiCiAL GROUPiES
crackmonkey
Oxyde de Carbone
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
[=- ARTiCLES -=]
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
iCONS FROM THE WATER TABLES
edited by Clockwork
Session Start: Thu Apr 02 22:11:58 1998
[22:11] *** Now talking in #unbeing
[22:11] *** Topic is 'State of unBeing e-zine -- and you look at it and say,
'that's no aircraft.'' [22:11] *** Set by kilgore on Thu Apr 02 21:45:23
<clock_> that's no aircraft.
<kilgore> hey, clocky.
<clock_> hey, freak nut.
<kilgore> did you see that special?
<clock_> yeppers.
<kilgore> i'd seen it before. last summer.
<clock_> really, the same show?
<kilgore> yup. cuz i remembered all the stuff... cuz it happened like three
or four months after the phoenix sights of march 13, 1997, and i was following
all those shows since i didn't have a job then.
<clock_> well, that's lame.
<kilgore> the upn shows i don't recognize, though.
<clock_> yeah, supposedly the upn show is new.
<clock_> at least that is what i am told. by them.
<morrigan> but of course, i will. i wouldn't want to let you down, kilgore..
;)
<morrigan> hey clock
<kilgore> every time i watch springer, the violence escalates dramatically
from the last show. pretty soon, it's just going to be a continous
high-pitched tone and an hour of fisticuffs.
<clock_> howdy.
<clock_> i want them to have two minor league baseball teams on springer, all
decked out with bats and cleats...
<kilgore> that mexican guy is gonna be on the upn stuff, i think. one of the
mexican universities even has a ufology department.
<clock_> that would be fun.
<kilgore> i always like that shot out of the space shuttle window of the "ice
particles" dodging that streaking flash... that one really impresses me for
some reason.
<clock_> i keep hearing about some recent ufo sighting in mexico... art bell
mentions it all the time. i don't have any clue what it is, tho. yes. i
really enjoy that one also. good stuff.
<kilgore> um, i'm not sure if they're the old ones from 1995-96 or newer.
mexico has been getting a bunch of stuff flying around, and they publicize the
hell out of it. ithink it might be smog monsters, tho.;)
<kilgore> i would also suggest digging around ftp.rutgers.edu /pub/ufo for a
TON of textfiles.
<clock_> alien dust bunnies.
<kilgore> i thought i saw a tooth fly across the screen in that last
interchange.
<clock_> a tooth?
[22:20] *** LeighDe (LeighDe@152.orlando-06.fl.dial-access.att.net) has joined
#unbeing
<kilgore> i don't think it was, but it would have been cool. "i'm angry at
the bitch cuz the bitch is angry at me!"
<LeighDe> hi
<kilgore> hello
[22:20] *** kilgore sets mode: +o clock_
<clock_> hello...
<clock_> tank you master sir.
<LeighDe> hi
<morrigan> hello.
<LeighDe> i was confused about channel name; am glad to see my perception was
wrong
<clock_> what was your perception?
<LeighDe> was worried about suicide is all
<clock_> worried that we would all be suicidal?
<LeighDe> if that makes me sick i will leave channel; i m sorry
<clock_> no. that doesn't make you sick. and if you are sick, hey, that's
fine. we have no problem with that.
<LeighDe> no clock;' on other occasions only saw one nick here; thought was
call for help; i was wrong
<kilgore> and do you, leighde, read our little zine? or are you just browsing
channels?
<LeighDe> kilgore, neither, long story
<kilgore> rutgers has a pretty big archive that runs up to files like 1996...
i like it a lot.
<kilgore> there's even a database of sightings that you can download, i
think... never played with it too much, tho...
<LeighDe> im only lovesick but i care about pe0ople
<clock_> up to 1996? does that include 1996 and after...or everything before
1996?
<clock_> it's a damn good thing to care about people... unfortunately not
everyone does.
Session Close: Thu Apr 02 22:28:57 1998
Session Start: Thu Apr 02 22:33:45 1998
[22:33] *** Now talking in #unbeing
[22:33] *** Topic is 'State of unBeing e-zine -- and you look at it and say,
'that's no aircraft.''
[22:33] *** Set by kilgore on Thu Apr 02 21:45:24
<clock_> aha.
<clock_> where'd everybody go?
[22:34] *** kilgore sets mode: +o clock_
<kilgore> everybody keeps leaving me. mommy.
<kilgore> leighde left. you left. morrigan left. morrigan came back,
confused. she left again. you came on.
[22:34] *** clock_ changes topic to 'State of unBeing e-zine -- we're one of
those internally lit blimps. really.'
[22:34] *** morrigan_ (morrigan@204.250.51.134) has joined #unbeing
<morrigan_> well then.
[22:34] *** morrigan_ is now known as morrigan
<clock_> wacky.
[22:35] *** clock_ sets mode: +o morrigan
<clock_> so what was up with leihde?
<clock_> or leighde
<kilgore> um, i just went to the rutgers site, and the latest files looked to
be from late 95...
<kilgore> she said she was being a bummer and left.
<clock_> man. she was depressed.
<clock_> late 95...hmm. well. hmm.
<kilgore> and we were being extra nice. no talk of rubber suits and gas mask
sex or anything like that radley guy when he came in last night.
<morrigan> seriously.
<clock_> did she get scared?
<morrigan> yes. poor gal.
<morrigan> heh.
<clock_> oh yes. that should happen sometime. i feel bad about leighde. she
needs some zucchini.
<morrigan> sounds like an excellent plan...
<kilgore> um, he was pretty quiet, and he left. he was from my provider.
which is probably why he came in, to see if he knew me.
<clock_> did you hit on him?
<clock_> ha. Dr. Douglas Richards is on art bell fri night...talking about
atlantis ruins.
Session Close: Thu Apr 02 22:50:00 1998
Session Start: Wed Apr 08 23:50:18 1998
[23:50] *** Now talking in #unbeing
[23:50] *** morrigan sets mode: +o clock_
<morrigan> hey there...
<clock_> hello...how's life?
<morrigan> good enough...
<clock_> that's good.
<morrigan> how's yours?
<clock_> not bad, i guess. i'm not starving. not missing any limbs. have 6
senses. so, all is well.
<morrigan> heh
<clock_> do you ever leave here?
<morrigan> occaisionally.... ;)
[0:26] *** Alcibiadz (st3h9@Bayou.UH.EDU) has joined #unbeing
[0:26] *** morrigan sets mode: +o Alcibiadz
<clock_> hey, you. where have you been?
<Alcibiadz> what's new?
<Alcibiadz> here and there
<clock_> oh, nothin much at all.
<Alcibiadz> what's the url for the new mars face pic?
<clock_> uhmm...hold on.
<clock_> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews/mgs/cydonia/
<Alcibiadz> thanks, brb.
[0:31] *** Alcibiadz has quit IRC (Leaving)
<clock_> sure...
[0:33] *** kilgore (kilgore@ppp-13.sage.net) has joined #unbeing
[0:33] *** clock_ sets mode: +o kilgore
<kilgore> i am not dead.
<clock_> hey, i know you.
<morrigan> hey...
[0:34] *** kilgore changes topic to 'State of unBeing e-zine -- hey, i know
you. you're <nick>!'
<kilgore> jeez... you know, if people don't stick a topic up before i come in,
you have to put up with my crappy ones.
<clock_> i've just been distracted...warez boy.
<kilgore> um, i just saw a release date for eyes wide shut... tentative
december 18, 98
<clock_> ok. neato.
<clock_> probably have some wacky competition.
<kilgore> kubrick shall rule in my little world.
<clock_> mine, also.
<kilgore> "i saw a guy doctoring ufo photos. he admitted it to me." ;)
<clock_> oh, sure, mr ftp. lock up. that's great.
<kilgore> mike myers will be bringing "sprockets" to the big screen. would
YOU like to pet my monkey?
<clock_> uhhh...no.
[0:40] *** ansat (crux_ansat@106.houston-04.tx.dial-access.att.net) has joined
#unbeing
[0:40] *** clock_ sets mode: +o ansat
<kilgore> did he say hancock was coming on tomorrow or today?
<clock_> today.
<kilgore> hiya, ansat.
<clock_> hey, babe.
<ansat> hi
<morrigan> hey ansat....
<kilgore> what time? 1?
<clock_> i think so...not sure.
<kilgore> take a walk on the wild side.
<kilgore> cool. ansat, graham hancock will be on artie tonitie.
<ansat> hi clock, hi morrigan...
<ansat> how's that Hancock book you two were reading?
<clock_> haven't started it yet, actually.
<kilgore> i read it last summer.
<ansat> is it good?
<clock_> how come there isn't a #christianwarez
<ansat> i read his The Sign and the Seal years ago, and liked it....
<kilgore> um, how come there isn't a #satanistwarez?
[0:46] *** clock_ changes topic to 'State of unBeing e-zine -- our offices are
under the left paw of the Sphinx.'
<kilgore> heh.
* ansat is the left paw of the sphinx
* kilgore is the right paw of the sphinx
<kilgore> wonder twin egyptian powers, activate!
* kilgore says, "form of a purple pteradactyl!"
<ansat> go go gadget dead civilisation....
* clock_ is the apparently very large ass of the sphinx, and isn't sure he is
happy about it.
<kilgore> i never understood why the other person always had to change into
something made of water. WTF? "form of an ice cube!?" oooh, superpowers my
ass.
<kilgore> superpowers of the very large ass of the sphinx, rather.
<kilgore> wow. wendy o. williams killed herself.
<ansat> who?
<clock_> whos dat?>
<kilgore> lead singer of the punk group Plasmatics. they used to blow up
equipment and chainsaw guitars.
<ansat> Sonny Bobo's wife was running for senator today, right? anyone know
if she won?
<kilgore> she was always mentioned in a cDc textfile where the guy went to
hell and had to try and fuck WoW to put out his flamin' cock o fire.
<ansat> looks like something's happening in DC.....
<kilgore> so, i guess people are more upset about tammy wynette's death than
wendy o. williams.
<kilgore> riots? please say riots.
<clock_> what's happening in dc?
<ansat> nothing that important. ;)
Session Close: Thu Apr 09 00:55:42 1998
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
"You approach the turnstiles leading into the Circus-Circus and you know
that when you get there, you have to give the man two dollars or he won't let
you inside... but when you get there, everything goes wrong; you misjudge the
distance of the turnstile and slam against it, bounce off and grab hold of an
old woman to keep from falling, some angry Rotarian shoves you and you think:
What's happening here? What's going on? Then you hear yourself mumbling:
'Dogs fucked the Pope, no fault of mine. Watch out!... Why money? My name is
Brinks; I was born... born? Get sheep over side... women and children to
armored car... orders from Captain Zeep."
--Hunter S. Thompson, _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
PAGES FROM A DIARY
by Crux Ansata
1942 050298
Last night I went out to see Kilgore and I Wish My Name Were Nathan and
Clockwork and Styx and all those down in Austin, with the idea of going out
for a drink afterward. I had barely gotten out of the subdivision when I had
an odd experience. I was driving along, and a bird flew at the windshield.
It hit and bounced over the car. I was very shaken, and told I Wish My Name
Were Nathan and Kilgore it was a very bad omen, but didn't think much of it.
I hit the bookstores and picked up three new books -- well, one new and
two used -- and got to Austin. We did crossword puzzles, rapped about
psychiatric medication, and I had a couple of beers. We went to three
different coffee shops, and I even ran in to Dancing Messiah for the first
time in a long time. About three I headed home. I hadn't been able to sleep
the night before, and wanted to get to bed.
Apparently, I fell asleep behind the wheel. I was stupid. I should have
known I was too tired. I should have taken myself off the road. But I
thought I could make it. When Dad and I tried to reconstruct the accident as
the sun came up, we decided one wheel left the road, and then the second, and
I found myself in a ditch, and hit a barrier to keep things out of the tunnels
that run under roads. We guess that was when I lost my front tires.
Tire marks exist on the first bar. That was probably from my front tires
exploding. Tire marks exist on the second bar. That was probably from the
back tires, though only one of them blew, and it isn't clear when. There are
at least four more bars, but the tire tracks don't begin again until the dirt
next to the perpendicular road. Apparently, I flew some several feet.
I remember heading toward this barrier. I think I remember thinking I
needed to get over it to get back on the road. I know I was very disoriented.
Next thing I remember was sitting in a car that wasn't moving. Turns out I
was in the turning lane of the perpendicular road. My horn was in my lap, my
rear view mirror was on my floor, and I was very concerned. My car would
start -- all the electronics made it through fine -- but it would not move,
and when I started it I heard the sound of a chain being dragged under the
car. The police told me that was because there was by that point no more oil
in my car.
I first tried to push it, but it wasn't going anywhere. I got back in
the car. Of course, as soon as I realized I was stopped I had turned it off,
put on the emergency blinkers, and slapped it in park. I tried to put it in
neutral, but that wasn't moving, either. When the sun came up we could see
the tires had been wedged against the backs of the tire wells. The axles were
about eighteen inches further back than they should have been.
When I realized I wasn't moving anywhere, I circled the car to see what
was up. When I saw a black liquid draining from my car, I came to suspect I
should have done that before trying to start it again, and got very worried.
That was when I called home. After I had told my mother, and she said she
would call my father to find out what wrecker to talk to, I hung up, walked
away from the car, had a cigarette, sat on a fire hydrant and wept.
Not long after, the cop showed up. We chatted, and I gave him my
driver's licence and insurance, and he filled out a report. I dipped my
finger into the liquid and saw it was oil, and he talked to Dad on the phone.
In a way, I think it might have been easier if Dad had stayed angry, if
he had hit me or something. He was very relieved I walked away, apparently
utterly unharmed. He is upset about the car, of course. I don't know that we
can possibly afford to repair or replace it, and I feel particularly bad the
family will have to suffer from this -- I was not the only one who used that
car. But he took care of the wrecker and waited with me for hours while it
got taken care of. And I went home and crashed.
I am still processing all this. I tried to talk him into canceling my
tuition for the next semester so we could free up more money and possibly get
the car taken care of. He stuck with education is more important, though, and
that didn't go anywhere. There is, as yet, no closure, and I remain a little
shaken up when I let myself think about it. But it is over now, and I walked
away, so it was a good accident -- the first one that was my fault. And life
goes on.
1958 050298
0319 050498
Before going to sleep tonight I shall finish the last review of The
Double Helix in the Norton edition, and then will -- with the exception of the
second half of The Origin of Species, which I kind of blew off -- have read
everything assigned for my History of Science course. Indeed, slightly more,
since the only section I haven't read yet in The Double Helix is the final
section with the technical papers.
Having already read about a dozen reviews, I have come to think most
people do not write their memoirs out of fear people will read them, whereas I
don't write mine because I'm afraid no one will.
Morrigan is working on her thesis tonight, needing a rough draft by the
morning. I took the opportunity to play around a little more with my Nigeria
paper. I am now dissatisfied with my thesis. The two generation thing seemed
very good when I began, but now it seems a bit more complicated, as if there
were two distinct portions within what I had been calling the First
Generation, and I have begun reworking the paper to indicate this change of
mind. I don't have much time left to flounder, though; I give my presentation
on Friday.
I have been thinking again about happiness. Not much; just for a few
minutes. I have been thinking again that I simply have nothing to put with
the word "happiness." It doesn't mean any more to me than "red" to someone
born blind. It is a word, and I have some vague idea what it is not, but what
it is -- or specifically what it would be to me -- I have simply no idea.
That is very interesting. It seems people take for granted that people know
what "happiness" means, but if they take it for granted it leads me to suspect
there are others who don't have a meaning for "happiness," but use the word
sloppily, without a definition. It is intriguing to wonder how many people
believe they are happy, but only because they never stopped to wonder what
they meant by the word, or think they are unhappy merely because they never
came up with a content for the word, and hence could not achieve it.
I have also been thinking about how my psychology puts me through class.
Here is an example, taken more or less from my Medieval India class. I may
come in to a class, and be utterly bored, because that is virtually always how
I am in lectures. Usually, I will look around the class in the hopes of
finding someone attractive to look at and take my mind off the lecture. In my
Medieval India class, there is a very attractive Indian girl who sits in a
position that I can watch her without seeming like I am watching her, but not
very easily.
Anyway, this will make class bearable for a while, and I will steal
glances or sit staring, depending on how aware I am of myself at the time.
Occasionally, and this happened with her, the girl will catch my eye. She
seemed to smile, and most, I suppose, would take this as a good sign. I did
not. To me, it doesn't matter at all how the girl reacts. Remember: I live
in my head, not the heads of those around me. The minute her eye catches
mine, I think: See, this is a person you have made an object out of. I
become increasingly convinced that I am a bad person, not because this person
is offended or not, and not because this person is harmed or not. Offending
people doesn't bother me, and I don't imagine people are hurt by being the
object of my lectured amusement. I increase my self-hatred merely because it
is *wrong*, and I know it is wrong, and I do it anyway. I have internalized
all my life that people are people, and it is wrong to objectify them, and if
others do not understand why I hate myself for this, that does not bother me.
I know why, and I know it is so, and it makes me hate myself.
Doesn't do wonders for my social life, either.
Anyway, I had a dream last night. It was very lengthy, involved no small
amount of driving, and was set in a composite of Austin, New York, and
Washington, D.C. (Well, an imagined Washington, D.C. It has been so long
since I was there I have no reason to believe it bore any resemblance to the
geographic one.) I am not sure exactly what was going on. I remember I was
working with M.C. in New York, and I remember something about attending
Congress to hear about the War on Drugs. I think I remember either that I was
endangered by or befriended of Senators Foley and Ferraro. (I know Foley is
no longer Senator, and I don't even know if Ferraro was one.) Whether it was
from them or from another person, I know I was advised that if I ever got into
trouble to let this person know, and they would send people to take care of
me. I dimly recall being in a grocery store at one point, and being in M.C.'s
office at another, and driving the highways of this composite city during
many, always at night.
Now, I suppose I'll power down, finish reading, and head to bed. More,
perhaps, tomorrow.
0335 050498
0301 050698
Whatever did they do before they had the net and could watch Indian music
videos in the middle of the night? I've been sitting up learning about Indian
pop music again, and believe it or not found some Indian music videos. I tend
to think India could be an excellent setting for cyberpunk stories with a bit
of a change.
Anyway.
I should be reading Richard II. I meant to have it done today, but
instead I have only read a little more than half. Oh well, the Lord will
provide. I finished my Nigeria paper today, more because I was sick of having
it hanging over my head than anything else. But it is done.
One thing I have been thinking about today is the accident. It occurs to
me that, although the little I had to drink is not enough to generally impair
me, it is enough to loosen me up, especially as I was hanging out with
friends. It further occurs to me that when I get loosened up I tend to act
out and totally lose the memory of it, indicating to me that alcohol is
capable of triggering a dissociative state in me, and that this dissociative
state tends to be self-destructive.
It occurs to me that perhaps my accident was no accident at all, but was
rather my shadow or subconscious or other personality or whatever term one's
psychology uses, attempting to commit suicide. When we looked into the ditch
we could see that I was driving the whole time. When I went into the ditch we
could see that the wheels were inline, and so I was driving straight, but then
there comes a point where I turned, going toward the barricade that blew out
my tires. I remember coming to at one point, and while I thought this was
waking up, it is entirely possible it was switching between personalities.
If this theory be true, it is rather disturbing, not so much because I
didn't know I want to die, but because it shows that if it is given enough
capacity, it will follow through and not just act out. The fact that
previously I did my acting out in secure locations led me to believe that
however destructive it might appear, it was all a release mechanism and
basically harmless, especially as it was confined to safe places. If this was
a suicide attempt, however, I cannot be this complacent.
I might actually have to think whether I want to die or not, lest I wake
up and find I have killed myself.
A. called tonight, just to say she was glad I wasn't dead. She was on
her way to bed, and almost literally wanted only to say that much.
Then I spoke briefly with Morrigan online. Not about much; about the
same as usual. She, too, was on her way to bed.
Which is where I should be.
I had a dream earlier. I don't remember much about it. I remember I was
at someone's house, and it was night. For some reason it was time to go, but
I think I was a little disoriented and didn't know where I was going. In any
case, on my way out I realized that my shoes, socks, and underwear were off
and I had to put them back on before leaving. I was otherwise fully clothed,
and was standing on the porch or something with these items, and trying to
figure out when I had taken them off. Anyway, I am off now to bathe and bed.
0311 050698
0503 050698
Here's a mind game for you, a veritable thought experiment. Assume you
have a young man, hypothetical I assure you. Now this fellow either started
out with a fear of failure and developed a perfectionist personality type, or
perhaps he began as a perfectionist and went on to develop a fear of failure.
As you will, so long as he evidences both. In most things this is easy:
Nothing ventured, nothing lost. In some things, however, one must make a
choice.
One of these things is morality. On one level, this is an easy one. One
sets up insanely high moral standards, such that one is utterly incapable of
being good. This ensures success at failure, in that as no one could ever be
morally perfect, he is ensured not to manage it. One may see here there is no
hypocrisy in my morality. I do set up insanely high moral values, and I do
hold myself to them. I do not pretend I succeed at them, and I do not put
myself above others. Indeed, I tend to be harder on myself than on others.
Some people feel intimidated or -- which is hilarious -- guilty because I have
these standards and they do not, and their defensive mechanism is to lash out
at me, or to try to impeach my moral fiber. This does not work, though. I
consider myself a miserable sinner, too; I do not have a separate set of moral
standards for myself.
But then this hypothetical young man continues to think. Ought he to try
to be bad, or ought he to try to be good. One must choose. Knowing one
cannot be good, it is tempting to be immoral. This also fits in to the
program of setting standards one cannot achieve. However, it occurs to one
that one can also fail at being evil, especially if one tries to get across to
people that one is not good. Then, these people may come to have expectations
of the not-goodness of one, and one may fail to meet these expectations, and
then one has failed again. One cannot succeed at meeting people's
expectations of goodness, which is fine for someone who considers himself
worthy of being despised and hated. But one may not be able to meet others
standards of badness, and so not achieve their hatred. And hence have failed
at one's goal.
Ideally, I know, one should have no dreams or hopes or expectations. One
cannot fail to meet expectations if one makes no expectations. However, I
feel compelled.
It appears I fail if I try to be moral, and I fail if I try to be
immoral. I seem to have a better bet if I remain moderately immoral, as I
have, and I suppose as much as it may bore or guilt me to do so, I will stick
to it. But I will also continue to think and try to find a way out.
0515 050698
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
[=- POETASTRiE -=]
"The poets? They stink. They write badly. They're idiots you see, because
the strong people don't write poetry.... They become hitmen for the Mafia.
The good people do the serious jobs."
--Charles Bukowski
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
UNTiTLED
by Howler in the shadows
Clouds of dust
look like rain
from my window
as they sail by
lightly kissing the
cars below.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
"If sleeping with someone means you have, in a biological sense, slept
with everyone that person has slept with, then how many people has Barbie
slept with if she's been dating an assortment of Kens for forty years? After
thinking about it, do you think this is an appropriate doll to play with at
your age?"
--Sarah Strohmeyer, _Barbie Unbound: A Parody of the Barbie Obsession_
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
DEAD SPAWN ELEMENTALS
by Rudi
Answers cease to exist
on the Dead Spawn Highway.
Curdling bloody fiction,
ain't here, by the way.
A long tailed excuse
for years of abuse
and still we submit
to the crack of the whip.
Mighty is the head
that splits down the middle,
Ida and Pingala,
elevate and settle.
Cold frozen lake
dusted with white,
reflecting off the moon-
Wondrous Sight.
Love is a dismal malady of the soul.
In it I am a helpless infant locked
onto mother's breast-
Only, there's one problem,
Mama is sick and dying,
terminally ill,
AIDS, Cancer, Heart Disease,
you name it, she's got it.
And when she dies,
Ill suck my thumb,
but my thumb has no milk,
just blood.
No holy nectar.
Now I'm a self effective vampire,
that is, until I find a surrogate
Mother.
My cradle rocks from anxiety,
My mouth waters with bile,
I laugh at myself,
just as the Gods, I'm sure, do.
Certainty in Gods,
Gods who have no meaning,
just as we the people
live meaningless lives.
If there was ever a more powerful
indication of divinity,
it surely was a deranged shard of
insanity.
"Multiply, divide, add, subtract and understand..."
...absolutely nothing.
Earth, I ask you one favor:
Please facilitate communication.
America, I have one thing to say to you:
Go fuck yourself, whore!
And he sank deeper into the trance of
the ages,
an infinitesimal diamond fragment in
a crystal ocean,
centerless, without position,
and he spake, making all spirits,
of the firmament,
on dry land,
in the air,
in the sea,
and in the burning fires,
subject unto themselves.
Freedom for the elements.
No longer do you have to
accept the commands
and be subordinate unto
Mankind.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
"Like it or not, a riot is the voice of the unheard."
--Congresswoman Maxine Waters on the L.A. riots
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
THE 11:30 TO CHiCAGO
by Howler in the Shadows
The sun beats down.
The man wipes his brow
and smiles,
as he
steps in front of
the train.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
[=- FiCTiON -=]
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
THE PROFESSOR STRUGGLES WiTH HiS CRAFT
by Rich Logsdon
I. JOHN SHADE RECEIVED A CHALLENGE...
The letter was abrupt and to the point. It began:
My dear Mr. Shade:
This is the fourth short story that you have sent us. While we enjoy your
style, while we would be ecstatic to print one of your pieces, we are
wondering if you can write anything without filling the pages with sex and
violence. Everything you write depends for its effectiveness upon fucking,
decapitation, mutilation, more fucking, occasional prostitution and
still--yes--more fucking. If you write to us again, please, let it be
something truly redeeming; let it speak wonders of the human spirit; let it
avoid the dreadful darkness which you seem to believe influences every facet
of our lives. In short, Mr. Shade, no more fucking around.
Sincerely yours,
Thomas Traherne XXIII, Editor, "The Pedant"
Wounded almost beyond words, the sixty-four year old John Shade decided
that it was indeed time to turn from a career of writing dark fiction that
glamorized werewolves, prostitutes, and college professors and put his mind to
writing something "redeeming," something that did not literally ooze with
those staples of American life, SEX AND ViOLENCE.
Desperately, Shade scanned the bookshelves of his perpetually dark study.
He could just make out the names. Koontz. King. DelLillo. Leonard. Koontz.
Saunders. Pynchon. Leonard. Koontz. Tarantino. Leonard. Shakespeare.
Parker. Ellis. Koontz. Dickens.
Unbelieving, Shade scanned the titles again. What's this shit? he asked
himself. He stopped, reached, and pulled down the worn copy of "The Plays of
William Shakespeare." He had no recollection of wasting even one hour reading
"Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Othello," or "Lear." Even now, he had no desire
whatsoever to read anything by the shoemaker's son. Yet, curious, Shade
opened the old volume at random and came upon the following passage, which
inspired the narrative that follows:
...Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for a time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus....
("Merchant of Venice," V, i)
II. SHADE'S STORY OF REDEMPTiON (as told by CD)
It was evening. A kaleidoscope of blue, red, pink and yellow spread
across the southern Nevada sky as the sun sank behind the huge purple
mountains to our west. A desert breeze blew in from the south, cooling the
desert valley and the City of Lights. It had been a hellishly hot day in late
May.
In the satanic semi-darkness between the Strip and Glitter Gulch, we sat
around a table at Barney's. Named after the cartoon character, Barney's was
an outdoor restaurant encased by flashing purple neon and overlooking Las
Vegas from the thirty-second story of the Babylon Hotel. A monument of old
Vegas, the Babylon was a pink crumbling concrete structure that sat on Las
Vegas Boulevard. Show-Girl Video and Adult Book Store was right next door,
and across the street stood Adult Peek-O-Rama. Two streets to our west were
Las Vegas' famous nude bars.
We felt right at home at Barney's. The only other customers looked like
refugees from concentration camps, drifters without destination, worshipers at
a Black Mass. On the roof of the Babylon, five floors up, stood the oldest
roller-coaster in Nevada. Pulsating red neon tubing ran parallel to and
beneath the track; from a distance, the tubing resembled a line of fire. The
huge blazing blue neon sign towering over the ride read "Last Ride to Hell."
In years past, the four of us always had capped off a day of hustling money
with a roller-coaster ride. But this night we had nothing to celebrate. We
were flat broke and couldn't even afford another night in a cheap dump in
Northtown.
* * * * *
Before I tell you the strange and stirring story about how we edged our
way out of this tight spot, allow me to introduce the four of us.
My name is Seedy Pete, short for Charles Dickens (CD) Petrovich. I picked
up the nick name at the state university where, encouraged by my father (a
Lutheran pastor), I'd gone to study English literature. Uninspired by
academics, I'd spent most of my time in the darkened, dirty, smoke-filled pool
halls, hustling anyone worth a quarter. Once, in desperation, I hustled one of
the college's administrators and took every cent. At the end of my sixth
year, when I gave up on my degree, I had spent so much time in the poolroom
that I resembled a vampire: pasty pale skin, long dark hair swept back,
bloodless lips. I felt dirty all the time: my skin, my heart, my soul. It
took me six months to get used to the sun while working highway construction
outside Bleak, Nevada. I'd worked highway construction throughout the West
ever since. I still felt dirty inside.
Sitting across from me was Pick, a two-hundred forty pound
ex-professional football player with animal tattoos on almost every inch of
his body. The only exception, of course, was the pentagram on his neck.
Pick's real name was James Jordan Picassio. We had given him the nickname in
high school in Mountain Home, Idaho. Picture this: the four of us would be
hanging out at Frosty's Drive-In talking to some beautiful Boise girls, who'd
driven over for a football game, when Pick would start on his nose. One by
one, the girls would excuse themselves to go inside the drive-in or back to
their car, and the four of us were left standing, waiting for the next
car-load of chicks.
While his parents had trained him in ballet, Pick turned to college
football and later went to the NFL. His three years in the pros were cut
short by Saints line-backer Buddy "Midnight" Grim, who'd hated Pick since
they'd played together in college and Pick had cut the toes off Buddy's cleats
just before the biggest game of the season. On national TV, Buddy had put a
vicious tackle on Pick, snapping his leg. Pick then turned to pro wrestling,
took the ring name "The Duster", and after too many pile-drivers and
thunder-drops became prone to black-outs. Presently, he sold vacuum cleaners
in Weiser, Idaho. Discouraged like the rest of us with the day's earnings,
Pick rested his head in his left hand, elbow on the table, while with his
right hand he managed a fork to pick at his apple pie.
Sitting to my right was Bennie the Snitch, or George Bernard
Scheisterwitz. Dressed in a black jacket, red shirt, black pants and
wrap-around sun glasses, long and black greasy hair swept back, Snitch sat
erect, staring straight forward, saying nothing, possibly dozing. On a good
day, Snitch looked like the devil, so people generally steered a path around
him; on a bad day, hung over or strung out, he looked like shit. Snitch is
like a statue, unfeeling, uncaring. He wouldn't offer a helping hand if his
brother were drowning in quicksand two feet in front of him.
Life had been a kick in the ass for Snitch, a high school English teacher
until seven years ago, when he got involved in a series of fraudulent
mob-related Arizona land deals. Suckered by the feds, he spilled his guts in
court. A number of his associates went to prison, among them his
brother-in-law. Friends in the business had threatened to kill him. Once
he'd been tracked to a small cafe in the California desert, where some goon
twice his size had beaten him half to death, thrown him in a lake, and left
him for dead. Snitch had learned not to care and needed his rest.
On my left was Evelyn. Sweet, sweet Evelyn. His real name was William
Handel Waugh. We had ridiculed Evelyn mercilessly in junior high and high
school for taking speech and drama instead of PE, for rarely dating girls, for
being a virgin, for combing his hair differently, and for going out for
orchestra instead of sports. When we were juniors in high school, Snitch,
Pick and I had stripped Evelyn bare and thrown him into the girls' locker
room. We were amused at ourselves until Snitch found him sobbing silent and
alone in one of the drive-ins near the school, talking suicide.
Through high school Evelyn had been a whiz at the violin; he had won
several local and state contests and was eventually given a full-ride to an
Ivy League College. After his mom died of cancer, Evelyn quit college,
briefly dabbled in Satanism, and moved to Mt. Hood, Oregon, where he managed a
music store. In his spare time, he played for the Portland Philharmonic. Now
at Barney's with the rest of us, Evelyn was furiously wolfing his third piece
of bright red cherry pie.
III. SHADE PAUSED....
Shade brought his fist crashing onto the table. Hell's bells, was there
no escaping it? What is "satanic semi-darkness?" And the notion that someone
would have a pentagram tattooed on his neck...? Struggling to write something
noble, something uplifting, he had already created two characters spawned by
Satan himself; one character was a tattooed moron; the other was probably gay
and had likely given his soul to the devil.
Am I, Shade asked himself (emptying the fifth of Kentucky Bourbon with
which he had begun his writing this evening) an evil man? Is my mind a
dwelling place for darkness, devils, and demons? Shade heard the answer to
his questions loudly, clearly, as if spoken by The Good Lord Himself: "Yes,
John Shade, you are an evil man." Grateful for any answer, Shade proceeded.
IV. CD CONTINUES...
"Well, fellas," I began, snapping my fingers at the balding, effeminate
waiter for some more coffee, "what the fuck we gonna do? I mean, the way I
see it, we're fucked. Totally."
Fifteen years ago, four years after high school, I had come up with the
idea of our meeting yearly in Vegas to test our luck. We'd made a game of it:
every year, we'd meet in Vegas in May and have to earn money off the streets
to pay for our night life. We'd mimed, sung, danced, begged, stolen, even
prostituted ourselves -- anything for money. For the past three days, nothing
had worked. I'd spent three days holding a "Will work for food and prayer"
sign on the Flamingo off-ramp. We were broke.
For ten minutes, no one said anything. Snitch stared at the back of his
shades, Evelyn drank his coffee, and Pick scratched his nose. We watched the
sunset, and wished we were somewhere else -- Bombay, Tokyo, or Omaha --
anywhere but here. The balding mustached waiter came prancing over, gave me
an encouraging wink, and refilled our coffee.
Pick suggested that we considered stealing from retired people, arguing
that the elderly welcomed anyone who offered them money. We'd claim to have
some free cash, get invited over, and convince them to turn their life savings
over to us. Snitch told Pick to shut the fuck up and said he didn't want to
spend the next ten years in the pen.
We sat in a somber sepulchral silence, which was finally broken by
Evelyn. "I have an idea," he began quietly, delicately. "A rather good idea,
yes, one perhaps that would allow us to recap our expense and maybe even go
home with a little extra cash."
We all looked at Evelyn. Evelyn rarely came up with a suggestion, but
when he did things happened.
"Let's hear it," I said.
"All right, I do have a very good idea. I could play my violin. On
the corner. In that park next to the Mirage. We'd make money. Easy."
None of us had ever heard Evelyn play the violin, not even in high
school. It had been beneath us. Pick, Snitch, and I looked at each other for
a moment. Snitch shrugged his shoulders; Pick rubbed his nose; I nodded.
Evelyn continued. "I have it in our car, my violin that is, in the
parking garage next to the Babylon." We had rented one car for the four of
us.
"You brought your fuckin' violin?" I asked, puzzled.
"In the trunk. Just left it there."
It took us a minute to respond. Carrying around a Stradivarius was like
going into a nude bar with $10,000 stuffed in your shirt pocket.
"What ya got in mind, kid?" Snitch asked, taking a loud sip of coffee.
What Evelyn had in mind was playing the violin for the tourists of this
fair city. It was a cool beautiful evening, one with a slight breeze, a
perfect night for an outpouring of tourists onto the sidewalks and streets.
No one had a better idea. Besides, most tourists in this town were loaded
with money and alcohol.
* * * * *
We returned to our rental, a battered red and black '82 Oldsmobile. Burn
marks indicated that the back seat had been set on fire at least twice, we
figured. The radio and air didn't work, and the interior stank of cigarettes
and stale fast food.
Evelyn took the keys from me, opened the trunk, and took out an oversized
violin case. Without saying a word, Evelyn took off on a fast walk, almost
running, headed we knew for a small park that stood right in the middle of the
Strip.
When we arrived at the park forty minutes later Evelyn removed his red
and black felt stove-pipe hat and placed it in front of him on the grass that
just came up to the sidewalk. The two elderly couples sitting on the two
benches eyed us with suspicion.
After Evelyn adjusted his violin, he began with two Rumanian folk dances
by Bartok. These were pieces my father used to play on his violin. Amused,
then stirred by the dances' lively rhythm, I watched Evelyn's fingers dance on
the strings, and during the second piece, half in jest, Pick and Snitch linked
arms and danced in a circle. At one point, three old ladies stopped, stared,
shook their heads, and walked on. Another time, a man with his dog on a leash
walked by, the dog smelling Evelyn's hat as if he were considering pissing on
it. A group of drunk high school girls came by, stopped, clapped along, and
then put some money in the hat. When Evelyn finished, we had accumulated a
grand total of $2.43.
"Uh, that's fuckin' great, man," said Pick, placing one finger on the
side of his nose, blowing suddenly, and clearing his head of snot. "Let's
go."
Snitch followed with, "Hey, Maestro, got another jewel of the night?"
Then he added, "Let's get outta here."
But I wanted to give Evelyn a chance. I had enjoyed the Bartok,
whom I remembered from my youth. So, the leader of the group, I said,
"No, I got a hunch. We're gonna stay. What's next, Evelyn?"
Encouraged, Evelyn moved onto his next selection -- a solo piece by
Mendelssohn, he later told me. This time, some people actually stopped long
enough to listen as Evelyn played, running his fingers dexterously on the
strings, his music piercing the night, briefly drowning out the sounds of cars
passing on the strip, temporarily stripping us of anxiety.
As Evelyn played, memories -- images -- that I had pushed into the far
corners of my mind began to emerge. I remembered trout fishing in a Montana
stream with my father, mother, and brother. The memory was as vivid as a
photograph. I was twelve, the year before mom died of cancer. In the memory,
huge torrents of glacial water pounded down the mountain side, the water
exploding on rocks and boulders; I smelled the icy mountain freshness of the
pristine stream, saw my mother and my little brother Davie throwing their
lines upstream. It would be the first fish my brother Davie had ever caught.
When I opened my eyes, I didn't feel as dirty anymore. I felt like a
child in spring time. And I noticed that a crowd of around one hundred people
had gathered around the sidewalk and in the grass.
Evelyn's performance had been nearly perfect, and after he ended this
second piece we counted up something like $49.53 cents. This was some
success. I looked at Pick and Snitch, telling them with my expression that I
wanted to stay. I placed my hat, an old gray bowler, next to Evelyn's hat.
It had been many, many years since I had heard Paganini, known as "the
devil priest." I still can't remember the name of the piece. Occasionally,
before Mom died of cancer in the winter of '63, Dad had played this particular
work by Paganini while he and mom had just sat in the dimly lit living room of
an evening and listened, sitting together, sometimes holding hands on the
couch. Even at the time, I had found this music exhilarating. However, I
didn't realize that Evelyn had chosen a composer that most concert masters
avoid. Paganini is the impossible standard against which all violinists
measure themselves.
Just as Evelyn began, I looked at Pick; his eyes were closed. Snitch had
removed his sunglasses. His eyes were still the deep blue I remembered from
high school. Well over a hundred people milled about, drawn by the classical
musician in an environment dedicated to spectacular shows, spectacular people,
spectacular sex.
Evelyn began softy, gradually, sending clear, crisp notes into the night
air. Building in intensity, he made a couple of runs, his dexterous fingers
dancing up and down the neck of the violin, making the strings do what he
commanded.
The crowd had increased to nearly two hundred. Some were sitting on the
grass and sidewalks.
The music built, faster and faster, moving to crescendo after crescendo,
rending the night sky, Evelyn throwing out more notes and harmony than I had
thought possible from a violin. Its music seemed to hang magically suspended
in the gloriously cool spring night, like the moon and stars overhead, and
became one with the breeze. Evelyn played furiously, like one possessed, and
I suddenly saw who this musician was.
It was probably the most incredible experience of my life. Like Christ
feeding the five thousand. Like the parting of the Red Sea. Like witnessing
the exorcism of the demoniac of the Gadarenes. Deeply moved, as the notes
swam around me, I saw Mom asleep in her coffin, face white and expressionless,
and wondered how this could be the woman who had given me birth. Dad stood
next to me, a weakened, trembling man fighting tears. He held Davie by the
hand; Davie was sobbing uncontrollably, and it was then that I, hating my
mother and father and God for this death, had bolted from the church.
Still locked in my memory, still studying my mother's body, I let Bill's
music empower me and looked at my mother. Kneeling to kiss my mother on the
cheek and bid her goodbye, I felt a warm wind wrap itself around me and felt
transported beyond myself. Now, as my father had done, I fought back tears.
V. JOHN SHADE ANGRiLY REFLECTED....
"...fought back tears." Where, Shade asked himself, is this shit coming
from? Have I fucking flipped my lid? It was at this point that Shade angrily
stood, pushed his chair to the side and, grabbing the great oaken cane that he
had hung to the back of the chair, made his way to the liquor cabinet, where
he kept another fifth of Kentucky Bourbon. If he had been a younger man,
Shade would likely have smashed something. He hated Thomas Traherne XXIII.
He hated himself for having given in to the pedantic editor's demands.
Shade opened the cabinet, took out the bottle, and if he could have he
would have drained it. After three giant gulps, Shade staggered back to his
chair, bottle in hand, and continued the narrative:
VI. CD's NARRATiVE CONTiNUES....
This was the "music of the spheres." I recalled that years ago I had
actually sat through a college course in Renaissance Literature in which the
professor had explained the music of the spheres, that divine harmony
resulting from the perfect ordering, the perfect movement of the angels,
planets, and stars around the Creator. According to the literature of the
period, one could attune to this divine harmony only in a moment of perfect
romantic love.
The violin music, intense, powerful, rich, reached the heights and the
depths and seemed to fill the city. Looking around me, I saw my friends, the
spectators, the buildings and the neon lights of this darkened place
temporarily transformed into, what can I say, a vision of paradise,
reminiscent of something I had once imaginatively constructed of St.
Augustine's Heavenly City, which I had read about when I was thirteen to try
to get an image of where my mother had gone. The city lights seemed almost
celestial, and I felt at that moment washed clean of bitterness, hatred,
triviality, ready to begin anew. I could have howled.
The music ended, the final note hanging in the air. I stood, my
head filled with a kaleidoscope of music. I looked around and saw
that Ben's eyes glistened with moisture. The stunned crowd stood and
watched and waited. I guess they half expected Bill, now drenched in his
own sweat, to begin again. Realizing Bill had finished, I began
clapping.
My action was greeted by applause and cheers. Then, slowly, one by one,
the onlookers walked up to our hats, gave their money, and walked away.
After the last had left, I walked over to the two hats. The hats were
filled to their brims. We were to count out something like $700 from that
performance alone. When we left the park and headed back to Barney's, a
couple curious things happened: Mike asked if he could carry Bill's violin,
case and instrument, and Bill consented; Ben gathered the money together, gave
it to Bill -- "This belong to you, pal," Ben said, his voiced cracking as he
placed the earnings at Bill's feet -- and then walked next to Bill all the way
back to the Babylon.
VII. "HOW MUCH OF THiS CAN ONE MAN TAKE?" SHADE ASKED HiMSELF....
Maybe, Shade thought to himself, I should have turned them all into
seagulls or butterflies. Maybe I should have sent them to therapy and given
them all teddy bears.
Rereading his manuscript, Shade knew that he had lost it. At sixty-four,
if he were in Las Vegas, Shade realized that the last thing he'd do is waste a
half hour listening to classical music; God willing, he'd be in one of Las
Vegas' nude bars, letting some young beautiful thing restore his manhood for,
perhaps, the last time.
The image of letting some tall, thin raven-haired beauty ride his bone,
of the same beauty allowing him to kiss her nipples and touch her pussy,
nearly drove the man to distraction. He had to finish the story.
Perhaps, he should allow his three characters the pleasure of one female
among the three or four of them. Smiling, for one moment, he thought of
bringing a vampire into the story. Shade loved vampires (and vampires
loved Shade), and so did his thousands of fans.
Suddenly, in a burst of enlightenment, Shade knew what he must do.
VIII. CD's NARRATiVE CONCLUDES....
That night, compliments of Bill, we stayed in the Mirage, a magnificent
hotel whose artificial and paradisial jungle beauty had always attracted us.
It was like a return to the Garden of Eden. We went out to eat at a fancy
seafood restaurant, classical music in the background, but didn't pick up any
hookers, male or female, this night. We didn't hit the tables. We wanted to
savor Bill's performance.
So we stayed in our room, overlooking the pulsating and vibrant neon
jungle of Las Vegas, and talked like we hadn't talked for years. We talked
about art, life, God, the after-life, girls, literature, and philosophy. We
praised Bill's genius and asked ourselves why we had never heard him play
before. When Ben asked about the composers, Bill spent the rest of the
evening explaining to him the intricacies of the devil priest.
As I lay in bed that night, smoking furiously on my final cigarette,
looking out our window, I could see the blue-red-purple neon of the Babylon in
the distance. We'd probably go back there next year. I realized as well that
we'd needed Bill all along. Bill had touched something of inestimable worth
inside us all, and I vowed never to put my friend down again.
I knew that in a year things might change. One of us could be dead and
damned for eternity. Or rich and famous. Chances were excellent, however,
that nothing really would change. For now, Bill would go back to Oregon, Mike
would return to Weiser, and Ben -- Ben would probably continue to run from his
pursuers. As for me, driving a grader for a highway construction was no
longer the worst job in the world. I could bring a Walkman and listen to
Mozart, Bach, and Paganini and shovel dirt to the classics. Besides, next
year we'd all be together again in Las Vegas. I was counting on it.
IX. "FUCK POINT OF VIEW," SHADE MUTTERED....
How they loved Bill, or Billy, as Snitch now called him as in "Hey,
Billy, that was fuckin' great, man." Bill just smiled at his three
companions, who had been taken in by a performance any self-respecting high
school orchestra director would see as mediocre. Jesus H. Christ, thought
Billy Busby to himself, these guys really are stupid....
It was approaching the hour of Billy's redemption. Preparing for the
surprise, Billy suggested that they spend the night at Desert Rest, a seedy
motel on the outskirts of town. Desert Rest was where you took a prostitute
for a one-night stand. It was known as a place where one could do a drug deal
without getting pressure by the cops, who knew about the place.
The group agreed. Anything would be better than a night in the rental
car. So, after returning to the parking garage, Billy drove the four of them
to the Desert Rest and checked them all in room 66.
The room was old but large and spacious, with two king-size beds. Billy
knew that his three friends probably wanted to fuck him that night. That's
often how these trips ended. But this night, he would make sure to fuck them.
He had waited for this for years.
As CD, Pick, and Snitch got comfortable around the television, watching
Tarantino's "True Romance" and beginning a case of just purchased Coors, Billy
excused himself, picked up his violin case, and headed for the bathroom.
Inside the bathroom, door locked, Billy opened the huge case. He removed the
Stradivarius and then removed the cover to a second compartment. Embedded in
the second compartment were two pieces of a twelve-gauge sawed-off shot gun.
Billy assembled the death weapon, put enough shells in the chamber,
opened the door and walked into the next room.
""Hello, chums," said Billy, a huge sardonic smile on his face. He
pointed the twelve-gauge right at them.
The three stooges were struck silent. A church bell tolled in the
distance. These guys are done, Billy thought.
The tattooed Pick was the first to react. Jumping to his feet, Pick
charged for Billy. Aiming for the belly, Billy fired once, saw the bloodied
Pick stop and stagger, and then fired again, this time for the head. The
second blast blew Pick's head off.
The other two were on their feet. There was no plate glass door leading
to the back in this dump.
"Now, pal," Snitch began, one hand out in an effort to cool Billy down,
"let's fuckin' think about this. Let's...."
KABOOM!!! Billy fired, the force of the explosion throwing the smaller
Snitch across the room. Snitch landed against the wall, his chest a bloody
cavity, and slid to the floor.
That left CD.
"Hey, hey, hey," said CD, sounding a bit like Fat Albert from the Bill
Cosby days, "old buddy, old friend, old pal, Evelyn, my sweet...."
KABOOM!! Billy fired just as CD dodged to the right. The last shell in
the chamber hit CD's left arm, reducing it to a bloody dangling mess as CD
fell to the floor five feet from Billy. Billy pumped the gun and fired
again... Click.
Taking the shotgun by the barrel, Billy brought the shoulder piece
crashing onto CD's head. Head split, CD dropped flat to the carpet, now
a sea of red. As CD, struggling for survival, tried to push himself
up, Billy struck again and again and again.
When Billy had finished, CD's face and skull were no longer recognizable,
a mushy mass of broken bloody pulp. (CD always had been a softy, thought
Billy.) Blood was on the walls, on the TV, on the bed, on the ceiling,
everywhere. He was reminded of the cherry pie he had eaten earlier that
evening.
His three companions dead, Billy looked at himself in the mirror next to
the TV. He was soaked in blood. But Billy was proud; he remembered when the
three of them had humiliated him by taking off his clothes and throwing him
into the girls' locker room. Now things were even....
It had been a hard three days' work. Billy removed his clothes
and headed for the shower. Just outside the bathroom door, Billy flipped
on the radio that began playing his favorite tape, Led Zep's "Stairway
to Heaven." "Now, that's some fuckin' music," said Billy aloud. Tonight,
Billy would really paint this town red.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
"The end of all things is near."
--I Peter 4:7
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
TENDER LOVE
by Rich Logsdon
I.
Nearing the end of life, I glance out the window of my sixty-forth flour
apartment and search for the sun. Though it has not set, it is a darkening
ball of fire, obscured by filthy air. Tonight, the moon will be blood red, a
perfect opportunity for telling a tale of true romance.
In writing the following narrative, I admit to caving in to commercial
demands for the "true" account of the infamous, possibly vampirish duo,
Professor Antonio Z and the stunning Juliana Delanoir, and the
murder-execution they committed on Halloween of 1984 in the Southern
California desert. What else can one do besides cave in? However, to redeem
the story, aesthetically, from the dark pit of sensationalized fiction, I have
embellished, adding a metaphor here, a dialogue there, creating a narrative
voice that (inspired by Borges) occasionally looses itself in labyrinth of
contradictions, contributing symbols whose obscurity may render the narrative
meaningless and inaccessible. The characters, however, are real; I have
failed to provide the Professor's name because I have forgotten it. I hope
you will forgive a dope-smoking old man, who is writing to buy an airplane
ticket to Bangladesh, where the lovely Juliana and Professor Z were spotted.
II.
Aside from the fact that Juliana was a nude dancer, an occasional
prostitute, an all-around slut and that no event or person in the Professor
Z's past explains his plunge into the world of murder, one could notice
nothing unusual about this beautiful couple until they put their sick, twisted
minds together and executed one of their friends, a pillar of the community of
Las Vegas. The murder -- involving disembowelment, decapitation, and
blood-sucking -- shocked the community and the world. The corpse (scattered
in bits and pieces) was found in a cave just north of Baker, California.
"Just for kicks we did the murder, and maybe to celebrate Juliana's
birthday," the Professor told the aging blonde interviewer with baby-blue
eyes, who found Professor Z three years ago jogging one night on a forest path
in, where, Tibet? South America? Canada? Greenland? Australia? No one
knows, for the professor and Juliana managed a masterful escape, gliding
effortlessly, invisibly into an eternal twilight zone, forever changing shapes
like clouds, shifting locations at will, making it impossible for anyone,
ever, to apprehend them.
Wherever they allow themselves to be discovered, the Professor and
Juliana live in a castle of the Udolpho variety, a big gothic thing with
darkened skies, lightening, enormous towers, a drawbridge, vampire bats,
hidden skeletons, a dungeon, blood on the walls, spirits of the dead, and a
moat. Attempts to record, photograph, or film this shadowy couple have
failed, lending credence to one of the following theories: that they do not
exist, that they have never existed and are literary fabrications, or that
they are flesh-eating, blood-sucking vampires who did what the reports from
Person magazine claim they did, even to the point of partially devouring his
corpse, a humanitarian gesture since they left enough of the face for police
identification.
"It was kinda fun, slicing and dicing that fat slug," Juliana will add
when asked about the killing of Dr. Martin Feinstein, long-time resident of
Las Vegas, former mob physician. "It was a real scream, but I wouldn't do it
again for ten million bucks." When she interviews, Juliana -- who looks as
she did twenty, thirty, forty, one hundred years before -- always sits
partially or completely nude, sipping bitter black coffee, furiously smoking
cigarettes. A tall beauty with haunting eyes, long raven hair, and large
breasts, Juliana is gorgeous, a regular La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
III.
The professor was re-united with Juliana -- after more than two centuries
of separation? -- in the mid-'70s in Orpheus' Den of Vice, a nude bar located
in the darkest, most dangerous area in West Las Vegas, known for drug deals,
gang fights, pimps, prostitutes, and bail bondsmen. Having little regard for
safety or reputation, the professor always came during the evening, dressed in
his New Jersey Devils hockey sweater, faded dark green shorts, and sandals and
spent two or three hours drinking El Diablo beer, watching the dancers,
talking to girls who had taken his night classes.
Occasional arrests or busts in the Club never bothered him. The
Professor may have enjoyed them, getting a grim rush from the promise of blood
and violence. One night, he was seated just beneath the center stage, feeding
dollar bills to a dancer, when Metro entered and apprehended three dark,
swarthy men -- their arms covered with Satanic tattoos -- who had been
cowering in a corner of the bar for three days, hoping that authorities would
not trace their escape from a Georgia pen to a Las Vegas bar. Guns were
pulled, one of the escapees knocked to the floor and beaten bloody in front of
everyone, the professor calmly observing the proceeding, as if he were
watching a church service.
Once, as the dark duo told the same blue-eyed interviewer, the Professor
broke up a fight, in front of everyone, between the tiny cross-wearing Bangkok
Annie and the large tall evil Magic Wonder. Before anyone could say boo, the
Professor intervened, for Annie had the large blonde in a choke hold and
would, in all likelihood, have bitten into her foe's jugular, creating one
bloody, stinking mess for the bouncers to clean up. The action was considered
quite out of character for the professor, who never minded a little
blood-letting.
Juliana and the Professor hit it off from the start, as if they were made
for each other, the Romeo and Juliet of Las Vegas nude bars, and when he
visited Orpheus', she danced only for him. They even got married, in a manner
of speaking. Rumor in the dark streets has it that one Christmas at the club,
following a round of "Silent Night," Juliana gave the Professor a golden cock
ring, her initials and a little verse inscribed on the inside, and the
Professor wore the ring with pride. He, on the other hand, gave her two pussy
rings, one for each lip, which she proudly wore when she danced, showing her
customers the lock that bound the rings and indicated that she was off bounds
to all but the Professor. It was touching.
Juliana's occasional prostitution never bothered the Professor; it may
have fascinated him. For instance, there was one older man from New Jersey --
a wealthy CEO type -- who paid her a thousand two times a year if she would
defecate in his bed and mouth. Twice, hungry for money, Juliana even agreed
to have intercourse with him one dark night in his hotel bed while wallowing
in her own mire. She said she didn't mind. Finally, of course, the old fart
was found in his room, the headless victim of gruesome bludgeoning murder, all
blood having been drained from his body.
Juliana discovered that the Professor had two all-consuming passions:
soccer and sex, in that order. He liked to remind others that Charles II of
England had once outlawed soccer as a form of witchcraft. Rumor had it that
he had played professionally in Scotland with DarkHearts, a team of traveling
Satanic soccer players. In the Club, at the height of the European soccer
season, he enjoyed holding Juliana on his lap while watching some team like
the Glasgow Rangers administering an international blood-letting to Ireland's
best club team on one of the TVs situated in the corners of the bar.
Sometimes, the Professor got so carried away when the Rangers scored a goal
that she would not dance for him. "When you get over your fuckin' football
frenzy, you horny blood-suckin' son-of-a-bitch, I'll be ready. Until then,"
she'd say, looking around the room in an aloof manner, "I'll be with that
guy." And she'd point to some aging, doddering Oriental or Mexican and then,
in a fury, stomp off. "And by the way," she'd spit, feelings genuinely hurt,
"fuck the Rangers and fuck Scottish football." After such a scene, the
Professor refused to speak to Juliana for days.
IV.
The execution that made Juliana and the Professor household names came
out of the blue. They had seemed perfectly content with each other, she
a dancer and he a college professor. Then, slice, slice: Dr. Martin
Feinstein was dead, cut like a cucumber into little pieces in the
Southern California desert, and Juliana and the Professor were suddenly
skyrocketed to mythic status. The following account, given to me
years ago one dark and stormy night by the notorious one-eyed Dr. Johnny
Darkshade, whom I met in a Nevada brothel, very likely belongs to the
professor. It can best tell the story.
The Professor's Narrative
i.
Who darkly calls from within, crying for blood? A lizard? A snake? A
little boy crying for attention? No matter. The call echoes from the abyss,
region of eternal night, my own dead soul. It is a lair of demons that twist
me, turn me, sing to me, the source of rage, my strength, the ability to tear
limb by bloody limb.
In vivid recollection, running feet pound through this dark region, my
own beating heart. Juliana runs eternally in my memory from a wolf pack,
screaming uncontrollably, screaming to me through the darkening forest, huge
panting beasts steps behind her. She had gone one evening -- All Hallows Eve,
to be exact -- to pick berries with her parents, ordinary church-going folks
who knew no harm could come to their darling little crucifix-bearing daughter.
Wandering off alone, beckoned by the misty river's song, she found herself
lost, in another world, and stumbled through thickening brush and trees
towards the trail no longer there, calling mother and father, finally
encountering the beasts. She ran like the wind. When she tripped, they fell
upon her, tearing flesh as I suddenly came upon them.
Recognizing me, their master, they stopped, cowered, cringed, whined as
she lay bloodied from head to foot, clothes ripped from her. And one by one,
I cracked each great beast in two, breaking its neck, severing its spine with
my great blade. I then carried the girl home, drank her blood, and gave her a
transfusion guaranteeing a shadowy eternity with me. After forty years of
happiness together, she disappeared, and I wandered, looking through the
centuries for my mistress of my soul. Only years later, traveling with
Scottish friends, I came upon her again, dancing drugged and deliriously in a
delightful den of decadence in the city of lights. Immediately, she
recognized me and together, in the moonlit parking lot behind the Club and
over the body of a now bloodless security guard, she pledged herself eternally
to me.
ii.
Enough poeticizing. Now on to the guts of the matter. I met Dr. Martin
Feinstein at a faculty party one month before the date of his execution at the
college president's grand old house out on Darkpost Lane in northwest Las
Vegas. He came lumbering up, a circus bear walking on two legs, shook my
hand, and then told us how important he was. He knew Senator Black and
Congressman White; he was a personal friend of Mayor Steed; he sat on the town
zoning board; he had been past president of some big physician's group in
southern Nevada; he.... Well, you get the idea.
A four hundred pound balding Jewish physician from New Jersey, Marty was
repulsive even to a vampire. At fifty five and five feet ten inches tall, his
face was pock-marked from years and years of acne. He wore big thick
black-rimmed glasses, had a huge nose, and talked in a nasal whine. Folds of
fat draped around his neck and jaw, and his fingers were so fat that his
wedding ring threatened to cut the circulation. His hands were perpetually
greasy, like train oil. He claimed to know the Encyclopedia Britainnica
backward and forwards, and probably did, and he enjoyed talking about the
college courses he'd taken.
When we sat down together at a dinner table, Marty tirelessly railed
against Christians (probably assuming Juliana and I were true believers) and
used his napkin to blow his nose and the table cloth for a napkin. Juliana, a
stickler about table manners, couldn't finish her meal, silently vowing to
teach this glob some manners. As he talked, stopping long enough every five
minutes to empty snot into his napkin (he had suffered a bloody nose earlier
that night), gulping glass after glass of burgundy wine between enormous bites
of his rhubarb pie, which he somehow smeared on his yellow blue-polka-dotted
shirt, Juliana and I looked at each other and smiled. This schmuck, we
silently agreed, would be the perfect meal.
We courted his friendship for a month, asking him and his scrawny whining
wife Martha out to dinner, going to movies with them, calling them every other
night on the phone, even going once to Temple with them one Saturday evening.
A very thin, tiny, and bloodless women who would barely provide dinner for
one, Martha liked to drone on about the night she had heard angels sing and
had seen the Virgin Mary. Juliana and I decided to focus our attention upon
her blithering, his arrogance drove people away. He was the sort of person no
one would really miss.
His wife and daughter were flying out to visit an ailing relative, a nun,
in Baltimore the day before Halloween 1984. Thus, we invited Marty to a huge
Halloween bash we claimed we were attending on the Southern Californian coast.
"It's called 'Beelzebub's Annual Bloody Bash,'" we told him. "Bands will
play, animals will be sacrificed, a human baby eaten, and everyone will end
the evening by fucking the person of his or her choice." Marty agreed to tag
along. So now it was Halloween, around 9:30 on a night of the full-moon, which
was to bathe us in glory like a shower of blood.... Driving her rebuilt Black
1948 Packard from Las Vegas to LA, Juliana sat behind the wheel, feeding on
AC/DC tapes and stuffing her mouth with Fritos; because she wanted to hear no
more about bloody Scottish football grudge matches ("Hey, fuck your Glasgow
Rangers," she had barked at me moments before), I sat in the passenger seat,
lost in dark thought, wishing I had something round to kick, brooding over our
next deadly move, hungrily fingering the sharp twelve inch stainless steel
blade I had wrapped to my left leg; the passenger sitting directly behind me
was a hitchhiker we had picked up out of Vegas, a good looking blonde boy with
baby-blue eyes, who claimed to write for Occult Hysteria magazine and carried
with him a weathered hard back version of Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus;"
finally Marty Feinstein, Shylock himself, sat directly behind Juliana, droning
on about what Jews do on Halloween.
Both Juliana and I loathed this slug. Knowing that I could trace my
ancestry back to the packs of roving bandits from twelfth century Scotland,
for instance, he rarely missed an opportunity that night to tell a lengthy
anecdote about cowardly and stupid Scots. Knowing Juliana supposedly came
from rich Irish blood, he became nearly uncontrollable, unleashing a barrage
of jokes pushing Irish to the bottom of the ethnic barrel. Marty, of course,
thought that we were stupid. But we understood everything this dull-witted
glob of flesh said. My window open, I sniffed the air occasionally, sensing
the immanence of blood.
As we approached Baker, an ugly little desert town fit for grasshoppers,
lizards, and real estate salesmen, I looked at Juliana and gave her the
signal. She interrupted Marty with, "Y'know, honey, I hate fat people, and I
can't stand Jews. How about you, love punkin?" Her Irish accent thick as
blood tonight, she turned her sweet malevolent eyes towards me and bared her
fangs, ready for the feast. Watching everything, the kid in back said
nothing.
Marty grew silent. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Marty's eyes
open wide, two enormous white planets; beads of sweat glistened on his creased
forehead. He was fighting Poe's grim phantasm FEAR, an incubus which had
chosen that moment to seize his shriveling soul.
"Naw," I began, in a low growl, my Scottish accent thick as blood, "I
can't much stand the Jew. How about you, Marty, you like the Jew?" I turned
full around in my seat so I could face my obese prey.
"Z," he said (Z is short for Zoroaster), "I thought you knew I was
Jewish. I mean, what have I been talking about for the past two hours? Hasn't
anyone been listening in this fucking piece-of-shit automobile? And what the
fuck's with the accents?" Marty was trying his best to act tough, to be a
man.
"I been listening, Martin. You talk way, way too much," I assured him,
emitting a low growl, then reaching back and patting him on the leg. "I just
want to know how you feel about them. Jews, I mean. How about you, kid?" I
asked our other passenger, who remained expressionless and, while taking
something out of his jacket pocket, whispered, "Jews? Exterminate the
brutes!" This kid had a heart of darkness.
At this, Juliana took a sharp right turn down a dirt road, hit the gas,
and sped hell bent for leather towards the desert mountains just north of
Baker. The Packard, the death car, seemingly careened out of control as it
lumbered under the clear but bloody autumn sky.
Thrown backwards by the acceleration, Marty angrily exclaimed, "Hey, this
isn't the way to LA. I know the way to LA. This is not it. This is not it.
Where in the fucking hell are you taking us, you stupid bitch?!!!" He was
bellowing, confused, sickening. He definitely deserved to die. Marty looked
to the boy sitting next to him. In the process of rolling a joint, the kid
didn't even look at Marty, who likely recognized the lad as an eternal symbol
of Aryan supremacy.
"Marty," Juliana began in a low soothing tone, her beautiful mouth
stuffed with chips, "we're taking you to a special place, where we can get to
the guts of the affair, so to speak."
Marty looked at me, fear slowly taking control. I was enjoying this.
"Z, my good friend, what the fucking hell does the bitch mean?" His voice
shook, and I could smell the stench of shit and urine.
"You're going to die, Marty," I said, looking him square in the eyes,
mesmerizing him with my own vampirish facial transformations. He saw my
teeth, my glowing yellow eyes, the gleaming silver blade. "Fat guts, my
friend," I rasped, "we're going to cut you open, eat your flesh and drink your
blood." I looked at the kid for an instant. Puffing a joint, smiling,
laughing to himself, he was taking it all in. As for Dr. Martin Feinstein,
barely breathing, visibly trembling, he was on the death-train to Dachau.
"Z, please," Marty whined, "you don't want to kill me. I can see you and
Juliana are just plain honest down-home folk. Why, you wouldn't hurt a fly --
would you?"
"Yep," Juliana responded, taking a gulp of Dr. Pepper, turning down the
stereo, now playing Van Halen's "Running with the Devil". "You're right there.
We really are good ordinary folk. But it's time to slice you up like a
carrot. Chop, chop, chop."
"Oh, God," wailed the fat man, looking squarely at me, "oh my dear God, I
just know you wouldn't hurt me. Z, I know you're good honest folk. Heheheh,
I grew up around the salt-of-the-earth people just like you and Juliana. You
wouldn't kill anyone. Uh, would you?"
Marty could really lay it on. I looked at the kid, whose blue eyes
blazed for a split second at me. "You know, you unbearably overweight sweat
gland," I responded, "I'd hate to have to kill anyone. I'd just hate to do
it. But sometimes things have to be done, and this is one of those things.
It's like taking out the garbage. It is time for you to go, fat bat."
The kid actually laughed at this. Marty began sobbing, sounded like a
barking seal, and put his head into his hands, imploring, "Please, please,
please. Oh my God, my God, my God, please, please, please. I know you had
good parents, Z. I'll give you whatever you want. Just don't, please don't,
kill me."
"You're right there," I agreed. "I had the finest parents in the world,
Martin. Good God-fearing people from Scotland who believed in never hurting
anyone. But we gotta do what we gotta do, my blubbering friend," I hissed,
fiendishly. "Besides, as they say, 'nobody never gave the undertaker a tip.'
It is time, fat worm, for you to dance the dance of death."
The fat worm made one more plea: "I am a Jew, Z! Like you, I have two
eyes, two hands, the same feelings. I piss and shit just like you and
Juliana. My God, if you cut me, like you, I bleed and bleed and bleed
."
Here, fat guts wept.
At this last remark, I laughed and smiled at Juliana. "That's just the
point, fat old rat," I commented, smacking my lips, "you bleed."
After taking several more dirt roads, Juliana came barreling into the
Canyon, an isolated spot about as large as a soccer field surrounded by the
enormous desert mountains. Encircled by thin wisps of clouds, the moon shone
brilliantly overhead. When she braked, the fat grotesque meal bolted from the
car and began lumbering through sand and sagebrush toward an opening on the
far side of the canyon. As usual, wind blasted the canyon walls, sand cutting
my face as I jumped out of the car and began pursuit. The kid in the back was
stoned to the gills. None of this seemed to matter to him.
For an instant, stunned, amused, I watched the huge man run. Marty was
like a giant pig, plodding against the wind, moving forward ten feet for every
ten steps, like a character in a slow-motion cartoon. At one with the
darkness, breaking time and space barriers, I shifted in front of him like a
thief in the night. I stood my ground, arms crossed over my chest, threw my
head back, began to howl to the moon when this fleshy tank lumbered right over
me and into a small crevice that cut a path into one of the huge sandstone
mountains.
Cursing aloud, picking myself out of a thorny tumble weed, I saw Juliana,
completely nude, standing next to me, long dark hair blowing wildly in the
wind, lips red and moist, eyes aglow with bestial glory. She was absolutely
stunning. Bathed in sublunary glory, she looked good enough to fuck. For
sacrifices, she always removes her clothes to bathe herself in the victim's
blood.
I turned and we sprinted into the winding crevice. I looked down the
trail and couldn't see Marty, who had to be near, hiding, a frightened
oversized mouse just waiting to be devoured by two vampire rats.
Wind lashing my face, sand stinging my eyes, I lunged forward, Juliana
behind me, both of us yelling in guttural tones, "Here, Marty. Come to papa,
you fat shite. That's right. Make a tasty tidbit for Z and J."
We had gone about seventy-five feet when the trail curved up and to the
right. Making the turn, I saw the cave mouth, an entrance of four feet,
portal to someone's grisly death.
Beast-quick, I entered the cave, smelling shit, spotting immediately the
huge black mass, sitting in the sand, back against the wall, legs spread,
gasping for oxygen. Approaching, I withdrew my blade, now quivering and
singing in my hand. Behind me, Juliana knelt in front of our flabby
sacrifice, hands on her knees, in predatorial bliss, hissed at her next meal,
and howled. I had never heard a howl rend the night air before, echo from the
pit. Joining her, inspired, my soul intertwined with hers, I let out a
guttural shriek that silenced the wind and raised the dead.
Then, in one giant stride, I lunged forward and kicked Martin, screaming,
"GOOOOAAALLL!" I felt his ribs crack, and Juliana laughed savagely. (She, at
least, has always appreciated my twisted sense of humor; I think it's helped
keep us together.) Marty whimpered, blood spurting from his mouth, and he
fell on his left side holding his right ribs. I reached down, put my hairy
clawed hand around his fat and fleshy neck, squeezed to draw blood, and
summoning dark strength oozing into me from the abyss, I lifted him two feet
off the ground. This overweight Shylock was speechless, fat arms and legs
waving slowly and helplessly, reminding of Kafka's giant dung beetle. I stuck
my blade between his legs next to his scrotum, asked, "Having fun, fat ball of
flesh?" and, with a hellishly loud and low howling, thrust violently upward.
The blade went in easily, smoothly, warm liquid draining onto my hand. This
would be a blood feast.
V.
An astute reader may question the credibility of the preceding narrative,
raising a number of objections. Yet, we can dispense with the theory, now
popular, that the characters are fabrications. The Professor's students'
accounts of this man, of his incredible ability as a teacher of literature, of
his unflagging kindness to his colleagues -- along with documents
substantiating that the Professor had, at one time, given himself over to
volunteer church work at night, even assisting for a period the chaplain in
one of the local hospitals -- are quite sufficient to substantiate the
probable existence of this fine man.
In response to the theory that Juliana never existed, this interviewer,
at this writing, has in his possession a dark painting, dated 1714, that
Juliana kept hidden among her belongings. Her picture, that of a strikingly
beautiful creature with raven hair, matches other descriptions given of her by
dancers at the Club, who claim that Juliana, princess of dancers, always
showed up for work, treated everyone with the utmost in courtesy and respect,
and even went to evening service on Christmas.
This leaves us with the theory that Juliana and Z were either vampires,
surely an absurd plausibility, or just plain ordinary salt-of-the-earth people
-- like a small-town couple from the Midwest, the Griswalds, perhaps? --
acting out grisly, psychotic vampire fantasies. Ladies and gentlemen, we live
in a civilized age, an enlightened century, and era of science, reason, and
pornography. Certainly, this is not Medieval Europe. However, our own base
superstitions control us to a great degree, substantiating the claim that
Juliana and the Professor were, in reality, vampires, step children of the
devil himself. The vampire theory would certainly explain the nature of the
brutal murder these two committed in the canyon just north of Baker,
California in 1984.
As for the traditionalist argument that the Professor and Juliana
embody evil, holding such a view is equivalent to maintaining that
the world is still flat, that there is a man in the moon, that Santa
Claus and his reindeer have an actual flesh-and-blood existence, or that
Christ rose from the dead. No one takes these things seriously any
more.
So let us take our leave of Juliana and Professor Z. Imagine them, if
you will, in a gigantic water bed, furiously fucking away like a couple of
minks, having already plotted out their next blood feast.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
State of unBeing is copyrighted (c) 1998 by Kilgore Trout and Apocalypse
Culture Publications. All rights are reserved to cover, format, editorials,
and all incidental material. All individual items are copyrighted (c) 1998
by the individual author, unless otherwise stated. This file may be
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preserved complete and unmodified. Quotes and ideas not already in the
public domain may be freely used so long as due recognition is provided.
State of unBeing is available at the following places:
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Submissions may also be sent to Kilgore Trout at <kilgoret@geocities.com>.
The SoB distribution list may also be joined by sending email to Kilgore
Trout.
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
