2115 lines
97 KiB
Plaintext
2115 lines
97 KiB
Plaintext
Living in such a state taTestaTesTaTe etats a hcus ni gniviL
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of mind in which time sTATEsTAtEsTaTeStA emit hcihw ni dnim of
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does not pass, space STateSTaTeSTaTeStAtE ecaps ,ssap ton seod
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does not exist, and sTATeSt oFOfOfo dna ,tsixe ton seod
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idea is not there. STatEst ofoFOFo .ereht ton si aedi
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Stuck in a place staTEsT OfOFofo ecalp a ni kcutS
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where movements TATeSTa foFofoF stnemevom erehw
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are impossible fOFoFOf elbissopmi era
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in all forms, UfOFofO ,smrof lla ni
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physical and nbEifof dna lacisyhp
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or mental - uNBeInO - latnem ro
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your mind is UNbeinG si dnim rouy
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focusing on a unBEING a no gnisucof
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lone thing, or NBeINgu ro ,gniht enol
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a lone nothing. bEinGUn .gnihton enol a
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You are numb and EiNguNB dna bmun era ouY
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unaware to events stneve ot erawanu
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taking place - not iSSUE ton - ecalp gnikat
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knowing how or what 5/31/98 tahw ro who gniwonk
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to think. You are in FORTY-SiX ni era uoY .kniht ot
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a state of unbeing.... ....gniebnu fo etats a
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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CONTENTS OF THiS iSSUE
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=----------------------=
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EDiTORiAL Kilgore Trout
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LETTERS TO THE EDiTOR
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STAFF LiSTiNGS
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[=- ARTiCLES -=]
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iCONS FROM THE WATER TABLES Clockwork
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PAGES FROM A DiARY Crux Ansata
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[=- POETASTRiE -=]
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UNTiTLED Howler in the Shadows
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DEAD SPAWN ELEMENTALS Rudi
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THE 11:30 TO CHiCAGO Howler in the Shadows
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[=- FiCTiON -=]
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THE PROFESSOR STRUGGLES WiTH HiS CRAFT Rich Logsdon
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TENDER LOVE Rich Logsdon
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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EDiTORiAL
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by Kilgore Trout
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Geez, is it May already? Not like it was that hard to tell, being in
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Texas and feeling the sun preparing to take vengeance on all of us who are
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spoiled by air conditioning. And we do have that nice little smoke wave
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coming in from the south, which makes smoking cigarettes look like a healthy
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habit. I'm waiting for gas masks and clown wigs to come back in style.
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In interesting personal news, my dreamlife has been so intesne lately
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that I think I've already got enough material to make another article out of.
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The dreams all have plots, are extremely vivid, and are immensely twisted.
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Some people wanted me to relate one of them in this very editorial, saying
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that out of my many dreams it was definitely the strangest one I had ever had,
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and that something that bizarre should be shared with the world.
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So I think you'll have to wait on that one. I guess that's a good side
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effect of taking anti-convulsants. It's a lot more interesting than TV,
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anyway.
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We're still making copies of the audio issues for those of you who can't
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access them, and basically we've come up with the trade of an audio tape for
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you sending us something "strange" or "unique." If you'd like more details
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and/or addresses, email us and we'll be happy to set something up with you.
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Other than that, I don't really know anything right now, especially as
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the whole day I feel like I've been on withdrawal from drugs or something even
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though that's not the case, so I watched a bunch of music documentaries while
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I put the zine together. And I also shook uncontrollably at times as well.
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But that's okay, because the other night when I was trying to sleep I was
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hallucinating the face on Mars in my closet. I'm kinda used to it now.
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Before I make a compleat fool of myself, I'll shut up and let you get on
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with the zine. It's all good (just don't bite it) and keep those submissions
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coming in. Drop by #unbeing on undernet, and until next month, enjoy...
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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LETTERS TO THE EDiTOR
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From: Beattrack
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To: kilgore@sage.net
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Subject: mailing list
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As I sit here, with the Wonder Years blaring in the background and Fred Savage
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whining about his latest plight, I'm thinking 'hmm...why the hell should I be
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added to the mailing list?'. Yes, lame thought, I must say so myself, but the
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first thing that pops into my mind is that this online mag. kicks ass. Then I
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think, 'no, that is really sucking up, I can't say that'. The next thought
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that pops into my head is that I've read every last issue, and then I realize
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that I don't want to tell you that for fear that I'll sound like some sort of
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loser with no life, so I realize that I must resort to the last really dumb
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reason that I can think of, which is that I just really like the mag. and I
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think I'm in love with Nathan, wait, I didn't just think that. So if any of
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these reasons are good enough, add me to the list. If they aren't, feel free
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to write me and tell me that I have no friends.
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Becky
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[those are all good reasons for wanting to be added to the mailing list, to
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which you've been added. we don't really mind sucking up too much since we
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really don't get a lot of it, and i've read every issue as well, and i don't
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think i'm a loser, so don't be so hard on yourself. heh. woof.]
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--SoB--
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From: Tae Moon
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To: kilgore@sage.net
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Subject: Subscription
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Dear Kilgore,
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Please add me to your list. Why? Because, just because. Really, I am
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trying to learn about postmodernism and I think I will enjoy your ezine.
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thank you,
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Tae Moon
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[postmodernism, you say? sometimes we serve it on toothpicks as an
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afterdinner snack. enjoy! slurp.]
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--SoB--
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To: kilgoret@geocities.com
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From: Bircham
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Subject: deserving titles
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Hello,
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Yes, I am still alive. It's amazing what a weekend in a psychiatric
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hospital can do for you. All the orange jello and carrots you want for not
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stabbing yourself in the neck.
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I too, noticed I was not under the correct categorie in last month's
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issue. I knew the problem would be fixed, so I didn't worry. As for
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Crackmonkey, what makes you think I don't deserve to be a groupie for Sob?
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Why is it that you are? I figured, since two heads are better than one, we
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could really do some amazing things TOGETHER, that would show our
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appreciation for the writers of this zine. We could make up t-shirts with
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SoB on it and wear them in wet t-shirt contests. Summer is just around the
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corner. We could get matching tattoos or even bake together. The
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possibilities are endless. Let's not ruin this relationship between the
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only two Official Groupies of SoB, before we give it a chance to bloom and
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become something beautiful.
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Oxide de Carbone
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[i think i'll let the intergroupie dialogue take off on its own accord. it
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seems to me to be the right thing to do, anyway. prozac.]
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--SoB--
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From: "j"
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To: <kilgore@sage.net>
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Subject: i wanna be a member of the Mailing List!
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because i am a proponent of the
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'take-off-and-nuke-'em-from-orbit' theory of advancing the
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Cause of intelligent evolution on Earth!
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[i prefer the crashing asteroid hypothesis. more time for lots of really bad
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drama. with nukes, you only have like 30 minutes at the most. with
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asteroids, you have years in which to overact and flub your lines, but it's
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still okay because you know you're going to die anyway. squish.]
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--SoB--
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From: Mark McHugh
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To: kilgore@sage.net
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Subject: State of unBeing Mailing List
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Please add me to your list!
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I can Be and unBe, there is no question!
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Plus I'm a big RAW and Vonnegut lover. I once paid $74 to my college
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library because, due to a night of wandering drunken in the tunnels
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below the college, lost a 5-novel Vonnegut collection. I woke up inside
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a vast darkness. Once I found some light, I was horrified to find that
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I had slept the night away in one of the lecture halls connected to the
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tunnels (Thank God for a prof forgetful or lazy who left the backdoor
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unlocked). Here's the kicker. I went through my pockets to make sure I
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hadn't been mugged and found one of those goofy and divinely mad Jack
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Chick comics! I wonder if I met a wandering Baptist that night? I
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guess I'll never know...
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--
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Mark McHugh
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Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. E=mc2
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[ahh, nothing like jack t. chick to brighten up your day, especially after
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losing a whole set of vonnegut novels. lake of fire, evil catholics, gays
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trying to contaminate the national blood supply, demonic role playing
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games... i could go on forever, and apparently so can jack. i'll let him
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keep making his little pamphlets. after all, if he stopped, i wouldn't be
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able to collect them anymore.]
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--SoB--
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From: "Sweater Girl"
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To: kilgoret@geocities.com
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Subject: Fan mail, assurance, etc.
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I was re-reading some old issues of SoB and came across an editorial
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you wrote (issue #29). I was a little struck: you said the real
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reason that the August issue was late that year was prolly because
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you wanted to see if anyone beyond the writers care about the zine...
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and while this may be obsolete, I'm following an impulse and morphing
|
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back into that caring, sensitive girl I once was and uhhh.. noting
|
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that I love the zine and read and reread the issues regularly. So,
|
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anyways, bask in the glow of fan mail and disregard any fleeting
|
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thoughts that people don't appreciate you or any of the writers <they're
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just spiffy too>.
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YEah.
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SweaterGirl
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[well, thank you very much. i was trying to remember the last time i was a
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caring, sensitive girl and think that maybe -- possibly -- that would have to
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be in 1979. i would have been only four then, but there is a chance that
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during that time period i might have actually been a caring, sensitive girl
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for a while. if at all.]
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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STAFF LiSTiNG
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EDiTOR
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Kilgore Trout
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CONTRiBUTORS
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Clockwork
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Crux Ansata
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Howler in the Shadows
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Rich Logsdon
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Rudi
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GUESSED STARS
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Beattrack
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j
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Mark McHugh
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SweaterGirl
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Tae Moon
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SoB OFFiCiAL GROUPiES
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crackmonkey
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Oxyde de Carbone
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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|
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[=- ARTiCLES -=]
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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iCONS FROM THE WATER TABLES
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edited by Clockwork
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Session Start: Thu Apr 02 22:11:58 1998
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[22:11] *** Now talking in #unbeing
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[22:11] *** Topic is 'State of unBeing e-zine -- and you look at it and say,
|
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'that's no aircraft.'' [22:11] *** Set by kilgore on Thu Apr 02 21:45:23
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<clock_> that's no aircraft.
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<kilgore> hey, clocky.
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<clock_> hey, freak nut.
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<kilgore> did you see that special?
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<clock_> yeppers.
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<kilgore> i'd seen it before. last summer.
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<clock_> really, the same show?
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<kilgore> yup. cuz i remembered all the stuff... cuz it happened like three
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or four months after the phoenix sights of march 13, 1997, and i was following
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all those shows since i didn't have a job then.
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<clock_> well, that's lame.
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<kilgore> the upn shows i don't recognize, though.
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<clock_> yeah, supposedly the upn show is new.
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<clock_> at least that is what i am told. by them.
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<morrigan> but of course, i will. i wouldn't want to let you down, kilgore..
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;)
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<morrigan> hey clock
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<kilgore> every time i watch springer, the violence escalates dramatically
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from the last show. pretty soon, it's just going to be a continous
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high-pitched tone and an hour of fisticuffs.
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<clock_> howdy.
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<clock_> i want them to have two minor league baseball teams on springer, all
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decked out with bats and cleats...
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<kilgore> that mexican guy is gonna be on the upn stuff, i think. one of the
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mexican universities even has a ufology department.
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<clock_> that would be fun.
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<kilgore> i always like that shot out of the space shuttle window of the "ice
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particles" dodging that streaking flash... that one really impresses me for
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some reason.
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<clock_> i keep hearing about some recent ufo sighting in mexico... art bell
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mentions it all the time. i don't have any clue what it is, tho. yes. i
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really enjoy that one also. good stuff.
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<kilgore> um, i'm not sure if they're the old ones from 1995-96 or newer.
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mexico has been getting a bunch of stuff flying around, and they publicize the
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hell out of it. ithink it might be smog monsters, tho.;)
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<kilgore> i would also suggest digging around ftp.rutgers.edu /pub/ufo for a
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TON of textfiles.
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<clock_> alien dust bunnies.
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<kilgore> i thought i saw a tooth fly across the screen in that last
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interchange.
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<clock_> a tooth?
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[22:20] *** LeighDe (LeighDe@152.orlando-06.fl.dial-access.att.net) has joined
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#unbeing
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<kilgore> i don't think it was, but it would have been cool. "i'm angry at
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the bitch cuz the bitch is angry at me!"
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<LeighDe> hi
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<kilgore> hello
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[22:20] *** kilgore sets mode: +o clock_
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<clock_> hello...
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<clock_> tank you master sir.
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<LeighDe> hi
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<morrigan> hello.
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<LeighDe> i was confused about channel name; am glad to see my perception was
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wrong
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<clock_> what was your perception?
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<LeighDe> was worried about suicide is all
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<clock_> worried that we would all be suicidal?
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<LeighDe> if that makes me sick i will leave channel; i m sorry
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<clock_> no. that doesn't make you sick. and if you are sick, hey, that's
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fine. we have no problem with that.
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<LeighDe> no clock;' on other occasions only saw one nick here; thought was
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call for help; i was wrong
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<kilgore> and do you, leighde, read our little zine? or are you just browsing
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channels?
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<LeighDe> kilgore, neither, long story
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<kilgore> rutgers has a pretty big archive that runs up to files like 1996...
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i like it a lot.
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<kilgore> there's even a database of sightings that you can download, i
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think... never played with it too much, tho...
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<LeighDe> im only lovesick but i care about pe0ople
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<clock_> up to 1996? does that include 1996 and after...or everything before
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1996?
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<clock_> it's a damn good thing to care about people... unfortunately not
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everyone does.
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Session Close: Thu Apr 02 22:28:57 1998
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Session Start: Thu Apr 02 22:33:45 1998
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[22:33] *** Now talking in #unbeing
|
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[22:33] *** Topic is 'State of unBeing e-zine -- and you look at it and say,
|
|
'that's no aircraft.''
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[22:33] *** Set by kilgore on Thu Apr 02 21:45:24
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<clock_> aha.
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<clock_> where'd everybody go?
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[22:34] *** kilgore sets mode: +o clock_
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<kilgore> everybody keeps leaving me. mommy.
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<kilgore> leighde left. you left. morrigan left. morrigan came back,
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confused. she left again. you came on.
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[22:34] *** clock_ changes topic to 'State of unBeing e-zine -- we're one of
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those internally lit blimps. really.'
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[22:34] *** morrigan_ (morrigan@204.250.51.134) has joined #unbeing
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<morrigan_> well then.
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[22:34] *** morrigan_ is now known as morrigan
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<clock_> wacky.
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[22:35] *** clock_ sets mode: +o morrigan
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<clock_> so what was up with leihde?
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<clock_> or leighde
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<kilgore> um, i just went to the rutgers site, and the latest files looked to
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be from late 95...
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<kilgore> she said she was being a bummer and left.
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<clock_> man. she was depressed.
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<clock_> late 95...hmm. well. hmm.
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<kilgore> and we were being extra nice. no talk of rubber suits and gas mask
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sex or anything like that radley guy when he came in last night.
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<morrigan> seriously.
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<clock_> did she get scared?
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<morrigan> yes. poor gal.
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<morrigan> heh.
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<clock_> oh yes. that should happen sometime. i feel bad about leighde. she
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needs some zucchini.
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<morrigan> sounds like an excellent plan...
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<kilgore> um, he was pretty quiet, and he left. he was from my provider.
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which is probably why he came in, to see if he knew me.
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<clock_> did you hit on him?
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<clock_> ha. Dr. Douglas Richards is on art bell fri night...talking about
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atlantis ruins.
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Session Close: Thu Apr 02 22:50:00 1998
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Session Start: Wed Apr 08 23:50:18 1998
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[23:50] *** Now talking in #unbeing
|
|
[23:50] *** morrigan sets mode: +o clock_
|
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|
|
<morrigan> hey there...
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<clock_> hello...how's life?
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<morrigan> good enough...
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<clock_> that's good.
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<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
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|
[0:26] *** morrigan sets mode: +o Alcibiadz
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|
|
|
<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/
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|
<Alcibiadz> thanks, brb.
|
|
|
|
[0:31] *** Alcibiadz has quit IRC (Leaving)
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|
<clock_> sure...
|
|
|
|
[0:33] *** kilgore (kilgore@ppp-13.sage.net) has joined #unbeing
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[0:33] *** clock_ sets mode: +o kilgore
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|
|
|
<kilgore> i am not dead.
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|
|
|
<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
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|
#unbeing
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|
[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.
|
|
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The Professor's Narrative
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i.
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Who darkly calls from within, crying for blood? A lizard? A snake? A
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little boy crying for attention? No matter. The call echoes from the abyss,
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region of eternal night, my own dead soul. It is a lair of demons that twist
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me, turn me, sing to me, the source of rage, my strength, the ability to tear
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limb by bloody limb.
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In vivid recollection, running feet pound through this dark region, my
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own beating heart. Juliana runs eternally in my memory from a wolf pack,
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screaming uncontrollably, screaming to me through the darkening forest, huge
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panting beasts steps behind her. She had gone one evening -- All Hallows Eve,
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to be exact -- to pick berries with her parents, ordinary church-going folks
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who knew no harm could come to their darling little crucifix-bearing daughter.
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Wandering off alone, beckoned by the misty river's song, she found herself
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lost, in another world, and stumbled through thickening brush and trees
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towards the trail no longer there, calling mother and father, finally
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encountering the beasts. She ran like the wind. When she tripped, they fell
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upon her, tearing flesh as I suddenly came upon them.
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Recognizing me, their master, they stopped, cowered, cringed, whined as
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she lay bloodied from head to foot, clothes ripped from her. And one by one,
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I cracked each great beast in two, breaking its neck, severing its spine with
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my great blade. I then carried the girl home, drank her blood, and gave her a
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transfusion guaranteeing a shadowy eternity with me. After forty years of
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happiness together, she disappeared, and I wandered, looking through the
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centuries for my mistress of my soul. Only years later, traveling with
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Scottish friends, I came upon her again, dancing drugged and deliriously in a
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delightful den of decadence in the city of lights. Immediately, she
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recognized me and together, in the moonlit parking lot behind the Club and
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over the body of a now bloodless security guard, she pledged herself eternally
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to me.
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ii.
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Enough poeticizing. Now on to the guts of the matter. I met Dr. Martin
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Feinstein at a faculty party one month before the date of his execution at the
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college president's grand old house out on Darkpost Lane in northwest Las
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Vegas. He came lumbering up, a circus bear walking on two legs, shook my
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hand, and then told us how important he was. He knew Senator Black and
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Congressman White; he was a personal friend of Mayor Steed; he sat on the town
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zoning board; he had been past president of some big physician's group in
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southern Nevada; he.... Well, you get the idea.
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A four hundred pound balding Jewish physician from New Jersey, Marty was
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repulsive even to a vampire. At fifty five and five feet ten inches tall, his
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face was pock-marked from years and years of acne. He wore big thick
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black-rimmed glasses, had a huge nose, and talked in a nasal whine. Folds of
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fat draped around his neck and jaw, and his fingers were so fat that his
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wedding ring threatened to cut the circulation. His hands were perpetually
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greasy, like train oil. He claimed to know the Encyclopedia Britainnica
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backward and forwards, and probably did, and he enjoyed talking about the
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college courses he'd taken.
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When we sat down together at a dinner table, Marty tirelessly railed
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against Christians (probably assuming Juliana and I were true believers) and
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used his napkin to blow his nose and the table cloth for a napkin. Juliana, a
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stickler about table manners, couldn't finish her meal, silently vowing to
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teach this glob some manners. As he talked, stopping long enough every five
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minutes to empty snot into his napkin (he had suffered a bloody nose earlier
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that night), gulping glass after glass of burgundy wine between enormous bites
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of his rhubarb pie, which he somehow smeared on his yellow blue-polka-dotted
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shirt, Juliana and I looked at each other and smiled. This schmuck, we
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silently agreed, would be the perfect meal.
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We courted his friendship for a month, asking him and his scrawny whining
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wife Martha out to dinner, going to movies with them, calling them every other
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night on the phone, even going once to Temple with them one Saturday evening.
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A very thin, tiny, and bloodless women who would barely provide dinner for
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one, Martha liked to drone on about the night she had heard angels sing and
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had seen the Virgin Mary. Juliana and I decided to focus our attention upon
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her blithering, his arrogance drove people away. He was the sort of person no
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one would really miss.
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His wife and daughter were flying out to visit an ailing relative, a nun,
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in Baltimore the day before Halloween 1984. Thus, we invited Marty to a huge
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Halloween bash we claimed we were attending on the Southern Californian coast.
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"It's called 'Beelzebub's Annual Bloody Bash,'" we told him. "Bands will
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play, animals will be sacrificed, a human baby eaten, and everyone will end
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the evening by fucking the person of his or her choice." Marty agreed to tag
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along. So now it was Halloween, around 9:30 on a night of the full-moon, which
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was to bathe us in glory like a shower of blood.... Driving her rebuilt Black
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1948 Packard from Las Vegas to LA, Juliana sat behind the wheel, feeding on
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AC/DC tapes and stuffing her mouth with Fritos; because she wanted to hear no
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more about bloody Scottish football grudge matches ("Hey, fuck your Glasgow
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Rangers," she had barked at me moments before), I sat in the passenger seat,
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lost in dark thought, wishing I had something round to kick, brooding over our
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next deadly move, hungrily fingering the sharp twelve inch stainless steel
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blade I had wrapped to my left leg; the passenger sitting directly behind me
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was a hitchhiker we had picked up out of Vegas, a good looking blonde boy with
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baby-blue eyes, who claimed to write for Occult Hysteria magazine and carried
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with him a weathered hard back version of Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus;"
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finally Marty Feinstein, Shylock himself, sat directly behind Juliana, droning
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on about what Jews do on Halloween.
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Both Juliana and I loathed this slug. Knowing that I could trace my
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ancestry back to the packs of roving bandits from twelfth century Scotland,
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for instance, he rarely missed an opportunity that night to tell a lengthy
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anecdote about cowardly and stupid Scots. Knowing Juliana supposedly came
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from rich Irish blood, he became nearly uncontrollable, unleashing a barrage
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of jokes pushing Irish to the bottom of the ethnic barrel. Marty, of course,
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thought that we were stupid. But we understood everything this dull-witted
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glob of flesh said. My window open, I sniffed the air occasionally, sensing
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the immanence of blood.
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As we approached Baker, an ugly little desert town fit for grasshoppers,
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lizards, and real estate salesmen, I looked at Juliana and gave her the
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signal. She interrupted Marty with, "Y'know, honey, I hate fat people, and I
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can't stand Jews. How about you, love punkin?" Her Irish accent thick as
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blood tonight, she turned her sweet malevolent eyes towards me and bared her
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fangs, ready for the feast. Watching everything, the kid in back said
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nothing.
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Marty grew silent. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see Marty's eyes
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open wide, two enormous white planets; beads of sweat glistened on his creased
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forehead. He was fighting Poe's grim phantasm FEAR, an incubus which had
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chosen that moment to seize his shriveling soul.
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"Naw," I began, in a low growl, my Scottish accent thick as blood, "I
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can't much stand the Jew. How about you, Marty, you like the Jew?" I turned
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full around in my seat so I could face my obese prey.
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"Z," he said (Z is short for Zoroaster), "I thought you knew I was
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Jewish. I mean, what have I been talking about for the past two hours? Hasn't
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anyone been listening in this fucking piece-of-shit automobile? And what the
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fuck's with the accents?" Marty was trying his best to act tough, to be a
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man.
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"I been listening, Martin. You talk way, way too much," I assured him,
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emitting a low growl, then reaching back and patting him on the leg. "I just
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want to know how you feel about them. Jews, I mean. How about you, kid?" I
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asked our other passenger, who remained expressionless and, while taking
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something out of his jacket pocket, whispered, "Jews? Exterminate the
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brutes!" This kid had a heart of darkness.
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At this, Juliana took a sharp right turn down a dirt road, hit the gas,
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and sped hell bent for leather towards the desert mountains just north of
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Baker. The Packard, the death car, seemingly careened out of control as it
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lumbered under the clear but bloody autumn sky.
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Thrown backwards by the acceleration, Marty angrily exclaimed, "Hey, this
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isn't the way to LA. I know the way to LA. This is not it. This is not it.
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Where in the fucking hell are you taking us, you stupid bitch?!!!" He was
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bellowing, confused, sickening. He definitely deserved to die. Marty looked
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to the boy sitting next to him. In the process of rolling a joint, the kid
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didn't even look at Marty, who likely recognized the lad as an eternal symbol
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of Aryan supremacy.
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"Marty," Juliana began in a low soothing tone, her beautiful mouth
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stuffed with chips, "we're taking you to a special place, where we can get to
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the guts of the affair, so to speak."
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Marty looked at me, fear slowly taking control. I was enjoying this.
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"Z, my good friend, what the fucking hell does the bitch mean?" His voice
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shook, and I could smell the stench of shit and urine.
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"You're going to die, Marty," I said, looking him square in the eyes,
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mesmerizing him with my own vampirish facial transformations. He saw my
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teeth, my glowing yellow eyes, the gleaming silver blade. "Fat guts, my
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friend," I rasped, "we're going to cut you open, eat your flesh and drink your
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blood." I looked at the kid for an instant. Puffing a joint, smiling,
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laughing to himself, he was taking it all in. As for Dr. Martin Feinstein,
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barely breathing, visibly trembling, he was on the death-train to Dachau.
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"Z, please," Marty whined, "you don't want to kill me. I can see you and
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Juliana are just plain honest down-home folk. Why, you wouldn't hurt a fly --
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would you?"
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"Yep," Juliana responded, taking a gulp of Dr. Pepper, turning down the
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stereo, now playing Van Halen's "Running with the Devil". "You're right there.
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We really are good ordinary folk. But it's time to slice you up like a
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carrot. Chop, chop, chop."
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"Oh, God," wailed the fat man, looking squarely at me, "oh my dear God, I
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just know you wouldn't hurt me. Z, I know you're good honest folk. Heheheh,
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I grew up around the salt-of-the-earth people just like you and Juliana. You
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wouldn't kill anyone. Uh, would you?"
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Marty could really lay it on. I looked at the kid, whose blue eyes
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blazed for a split second at me. "You know, you unbearably overweight sweat
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gland," I responded, "I'd hate to have to kill anyone. I'd just hate to do
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it. But sometimes things have to be done, and this is one of those things.
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It's like taking out the garbage. It is time for you to go, fat bat."
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The kid actually laughed at this. Marty began sobbing, sounded like a
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barking seal, and put his head into his hands, imploring, "Please, please,
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please. Oh my God, my God, my God, please, please, please. I know you had
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good parents, Z. I'll give you whatever you want. Just don't, please don't,
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kill me."
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"You're right there," I agreed. "I had the finest parents in the world,
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Martin. Good God-fearing people from Scotland who believed in never hurting
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anyone. But we gotta do what we gotta do, my blubbering friend," I hissed,
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fiendishly. "Besides, as they say, 'nobody never gave the undertaker a tip.'
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It is time, fat worm, for you to dance the dance of death."
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The fat worm made one more plea: "I am a Jew, Z! Like you, I have two
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eyes, two hands, the same feelings. I piss and shit just like you and
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Juliana. My God, if you cut me, like you, I bleed and bleed and bleed�."
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Here, fat guts wept.
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At this last remark, I laughed and smiled at Juliana. "That's just the
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point, fat old rat," I commented, smacking my lips, "you bleed."
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After taking several more dirt roads, Juliana came barreling into the
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Canyon, an isolated spot about as large as a soccer field surrounded by the
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enormous desert mountains. Encircled by thin wisps of clouds, the moon shone
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brilliantly overhead. When she braked, the fat grotesque meal bolted from the
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car and began lumbering through sand and sagebrush toward an opening on the
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far side of the canyon. As usual, wind blasted the canyon walls, sand cutting
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my face as I jumped out of the car and began pursuit. The kid in the back was
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stoned to the gills. None of this seemed to matter to him.
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For an instant, stunned, amused, I watched the huge man run. Marty was
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like a giant pig, plodding against the wind, moving forward ten feet for every
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ten steps, like a character in a slow-motion cartoon. At one with the
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darkness, breaking time and space barriers, I shifted in front of him like a
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thief in the night. I stood my ground, arms crossed over my chest, threw my
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head back, began to howl to the moon when this fleshy tank lumbered right over
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me and into a small crevice that cut a path into one of the huge sandstone
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mountains.
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Cursing aloud, picking myself out of a thorny tumble weed, I saw Juliana,
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completely nude, standing next to me, long dark hair blowing wildly in the
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wind, lips red and moist, eyes aglow with bestial glory. She was absolutely
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stunning. Bathed in sublunary glory, she looked good enough to fuck. For
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sacrifices, she always removes her clothes to bathe herself in the victim's
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blood.
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I turned and we sprinted into the winding crevice. I looked down the
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trail and couldn't see Marty, who had to be near, hiding, a frightened
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oversized mouse just waiting to be devoured by two vampire rats.
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Wind lashing my face, sand stinging my eyes, I lunged forward, Juliana
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behind me, both of us yelling in guttural tones, "Here, Marty. Come to papa,
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you fat shite. That's right. Make a tasty tidbit for Z and J."
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We had gone about seventy-five feet when the trail curved up and to the
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right. Making the turn, I saw the cave mouth, an entrance of four feet,
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portal to someone's grisly death.
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Beast-quick, I entered the cave, smelling shit, spotting immediately the
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huge black mass, sitting in the sand, back against the wall, legs spread,
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gasping for oxygen. Approaching, I withdrew my blade, now quivering and
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singing in my hand. Behind me, Juliana knelt in front of our flabby
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sacrifice, hands on her knees, in predatorial bliss, hissed at her next meal,
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and howled. I had never heard a howl rend the night air before, echo from the
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pit. Joining her, inspired, my soul intertwined with hers, I let out a
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guttural shriek that silenced the wind and raised the dead.
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Then, in one giant stride, I lunged forward and kicked Martin, screaming,
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"GOOOOAAALLL!" I felt his ribs crack, and Juliana laughed savagely. (She, at
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least, has always appreciated my twisted sense of humor; I think it's helped
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keep us together.) Marty whimpered, blood spurting from his mouth, and he
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fell on his left side holding his right ribs. I reached down, put my hairy
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clawed hand around his fat and fleshy neck, squeezed to draw blood, and
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summoning dark strength oozing into me from the abyss, I lifted him two feet
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off the ground. This overweight Shylock was speechless, fat arms and legs
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waving slowly and helplessly, reminding of Kafka's giant dung beetle. I stuck
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my blade between his legs next to his scrotum, asked, "Having fun, fat ball of
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flesh?" and, with a hellishly loud and low howling, thrust violently upward.
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The blade went in easily, smoothly, warm liquid draining onto my hand. This
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would be a blood feast.
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V.
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An astute reader may question the credibility of the preceding narrative,
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raising a number of objections. Yet, we can dispense with the theory, now
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popular, that the characters are fabrications. The Professor's students'
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accounts of this man, of his incredible ability as a teacher of literature, of
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his unflagging kindness to his colleagues -- along with documents
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substantiating that the Professor had, at one time, given himself over to
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volunteer church work at night, even assisting for a period the chaplain in
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one of the local hospitals -- are quite sufficient to substantiate the
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probable existence of this fine man.
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In response to the theory that Juliana never existed, this interviewer,
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at this writing, has in his possession a dark painting, dated 1714, that
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Juliana kept hidden among her belongings. Her picture, that of a strikingly
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beautiful creature with raven hair, matches other descriptions given of her by
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dancers at the Club, who claim that Juliana, princess of dancers, always
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showed up for work, treated everyone with the utmost in courtesy and respect,
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and even went to evening service on Christmas.
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This leaves us with the theory that Juliana and Z were either vampires,
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surely an absurd plausibility, or just plain ordinary salt-of-the-earth people
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-- like a small-town couple from the Midwest, the Griswalds, perhaps? --
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acting out grisly, psychotic vampire fantasies. Ladies and gentlemen, we live
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in a civilized age, an enlightened century, and era of science, reason, and
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pornography. Certainly, this is not Medieval Europe. However, our own base
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superstitions control us to a great degree, substantiating the claim that
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Juliana and the Professor were, in reality, vampires, step children of the
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devil himself. The vampire theory would certainly explain the nature of the
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brutal murder these two committed in the canyon just north of Baker,
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California in 1984.
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As for the traditionalist argument that the Professor and Juliana
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embody evil, holding such a view is equivalent to maintaining that
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the world is still flat, that there is a man in the moon, that Santa
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Claus and his reindeer have an actual flesh-and-blood existence, or that
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Christ rose from the dead. No one takes these things seriously any
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more.
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So let us take our leave of Juliana and Professor Z. Imagine them, if
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you will, in a gigantic water bed, furiously fucking away like a couple of
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minks, having already plotted out their next blood feast.
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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State of unBeing is copyrighted (c) 1998 by Kilgore Trout and Apocalypse
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Culture Publications. All rights are reserved to cover, format, editorials,
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and all incidental material. All individual items are copyrighted (c) 1998
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by the individual author, unless otherwise stated. This file may be
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disseminated without restriction for nonprofit purposes so long as it is
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preserved complete and unmodified. Quotes and ideas not already in the
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public domain may be freely used so long as due recognition is provided.
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State of unBeing is available at the following places:
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ftp to ftp.io.com /pub/SoB
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World Wide Web http://www.io.com/~hagbard/sob.html
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irc the #unbeing channel on UnderNet
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Submissions may also be sent to Kilgore Trout at <kilgoret@geocities.com>.
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The SoB distribution list may also be joined by sending email to Kilgore
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Trout.
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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