Not the Philosopher’s Stone
By Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin
Part of the Sinclair Narratives
Three months ago, I, Caroline Sinclair, travelled with Mark Hopkins to this dead sea, hoping he would not offer me up to some Sodomites—like Lot did to protect these angels we were traveling with. I would be lucky if I didn’t turn to a pillar of salt trying to escape this adventure. Hopkins, treasurer of the Central Pacific Railroad, discovered some lost Ute pictographs at Promontory Peak in Utah about giants traveling by serpent ships who had a magic stone that fell from the stars that brings immortality. He just happened to be there to watch the golden spike nailed into the meeting point of the Transcontinental Railroad which would leave his wife, in a few years, the 26th largest estate in history—nothing compared to my Henry’s wealth hidden under the streets of Salem, Ma…
March 28th, 1878
Salton Sea California
We were searching for descendants of the Icelandic-Canadians, well there was no Canada yet… Leif only opened up the trade route, but they kept a coming. As we can see on the Kensington Runestone, which chronicled the Icelandic Civil War in the 14th century, at last one of them might have been able to read and write.
“Caroline, why do you insist on wearing that frilly dress;” Bjorn taunted her. “What if the 7th Calvary came charging, or even Venusians…”
“I can put you on your back in a flash; one toggle and the skirt is off—”
The Ivilyuqaletem tribe has tales of these blue-eyed blonde giants sailing on the Great Horned Serpent’s back. In their myths, they recount how the Serpent has a jewel between its eyes that appears as a red moon at night. When it beached, the tale goes on describing giants encased in steel leaving its belly.
“You’re getting saucy—what would Henry say…”
Most of Iceland was illiterate at the time. So who could chronicle the sea voyages and immigration that might have continued up to the current day with the inrush of Norwegians; besides the runestone author? There were stories of some Vikings who thought they had found a Northwest Passage.
Roald Amundsen of Norway, has many old Viking maps, and any day now plans to make the trip through the Northwest Passage. Well, the original map had them sail south on the Colorado River to the Salton Sea... To be fair, Vikings did make it to China by land, but never found Japan or the Pacific... Achak and his brother Malsumsis (Massachusetts/Agawam descent) were going to handle our introduction to the local tribe. Well, the sea is now a desert. It dried up in 1580.
I toggled the skirt, revealing my pantaloons and leather boots. I slid up and straddled Bjorn’s feet with mine, wrapped an arm around his waist, compressed, and flipped him over my hip onto his back. I then handed him a cup of lapsang souchong; half milk and half agave. He took a sip and placed the saucer on his chest.
Yes, we are going to try to dig up a Viking ship in the middle of the desert. Mark was paying a fortune for the best archaeologists. He enjoyed digging along with the rest of us, telling jokes, and setting up banquets for every meal. He truly was a kind soul.
“You two are quite friendly,” Mark commented. “Just curious, should I have a table set on the floor?”
We weren’t the only ones looking for the ship.
“No, he loves poking me in the ribs,” I chuckled. “He just hates knowing there is something he can’t have…”
Franklin Hamilton Cushing, Smithsonian Institute curator of the ethnological department of the National Museum in Washington, D.C., was also looking. He was coming with a contingent of Zuni warrior magicians of the Priesthood of the Bow, and a small detachment of Pinkerton’s.
“I’m just biding my time.” He knows better; Henry wouldn’t kill him—he would embarrass him for a few lifetimes, drop coconut crabs in his bed randomly for a few more lives, and lock him up in a public bathroom in Oscar Wilde’s neighborhood.
“Cushing’s group is almost here,” Olaf informed us as he came up.
Damn Pinkertons…!!!
Someone on Mark’s archeology team walked up with a silver Thor’s hammer and an almost complete ivory comb. “Thank you—Caroline, what period would you date these?”
My Irish relatives in Pennsylvania gave me firsthand accounts of these blaggards—who killed their sons, brothers, and fathers and blamed it on some Molly Maguires from Éire. They also blamed the murders on the labor union that was meeting at the Ancient Order of Hibernians, calling them some fairy cult.
Olaf grabbed a plate of crostini topped with tenderloin and crème de fresh, and laid down next to Bjorn on the Oriental rug spread across the desert floor. “This is the life,” Olaf said, tilting a straw hat over his eyes.
They were no Maguires!
The stone—you ask! Sorry, I’m easily distracted in the heat.
In 536, the sun disappeared. Some say three volcanos amount of ash erupted. As darkness descended, crops failed from Norway to China. Scandinavia collapsed. The world of Beowulf was in Fimbulvetr, waiting for Ragnarök. The climate changed in the late 8th century, and Norway rose first and began viking.
To this day, they never found what volcanos blew their tops. Some say it was a meteor. An ancestor of Hrafna-Flóki, found the ruby in the heart of the crater within Finnmark, Norway in 540. Family tradition says, it was in the hand of one of many strange and dead Trolls. Throughout the wreckage, what they found, was strange metal scattered everywhere. Soon after, the metal was forged into many famous swords, one plunged into a tree Sigmund found. Some Sámi in the nearest village are rumored to be still alive today who saw the meteor land over the mountain.
“Caroline,” Mark called. “Do you mind placing your skirt on again; I fear my wife more than your Henry—for your sake; she is a good shot!”
We had been camped for four days when Achak and some Ivilyuqaletem came out of the sea into view. They had dug up the serpent prow.
“You two,” I called to the honey bear twins, “time to get up and play.” Olaf finished his sandwiches before getting up, and Bjorn chugged his tea as he rose. Henry forced these two lugs on me; they were to be my bodyguards…
The Ivilyuqaletem had called up their priest to placate the Great Horned Serpent. Bjorn and Olaf followed Achak back, flapping their wings, joking about the Thunderbird as the Native American Thor in Freya’s wings.
Before reaching the sea, the gruesome twosome climbed the bluff to the north and south; four other of Henry’s reincarnated third generation Vikings surrounded the dig team on the flats.
The dig went on for another four days like that. Finally, over the largest bluff to our west, Olaf saw Cushing waiting with his witch-doctors and Pinkertons. I think Olaf wanted to pull them in from that way…which was good.
“Would Henry want any of our finds, beyond the stone?” Mark asked as he studied a bent sword, a carved head of Frey that broke off a pillar, and various metal scraps of kitchen goods.
Cushing had a spy—Thunderchief. Bjorn was fooled right away. He figured anyone named after Thor was A.O.K.
Under the boards where your legs would be stationed when rowing, a young girl found the stone after she dropped her doll. Thunder Chief stole it like candy. He was halfway up the west bluff whooping when Cushing and his troop fled down upon us.
Mark outran Bjorn and caught Thunderchief. He struggled with Mark, almost gaining the upper hand. It was like a young Jones, fighting the Injun above the circus train car. Then Thunderchief saw Bjorn and his axe, dropped the stone, and ran yelping.
Ivilyuqaletem descended from behind Cushing on several horses and counted many coups. Cushing looked like Custer swinging his head like a cat on a pier watching mice disembark a ship while minnows jumped out of the sea as the Ivilyuqaletem encircled him. The four Vikings on the flats tied up those who looked like the leaders and sent the other Zuni on the way.
The Ivilyuqaletem rounded up the Pinkertons. I never found out what happened to them…
March 29th, 1878
North of Yuma on rail
I just said good night to Mark as I left his cabin. I was getting tired, and Bjorn followed me to my room as we left Mark pondering the ruby over a cup of peppermint tea as it glowed on the copper smoking table.
It was the last time any of us saw him.
Unfortunately, he did not spend enough time in the rays of the stone. Rumors said porters saw Black Bart sneaking off. Mark seemed to have been smothered in his sleep, and the ruby was gone.
—
After seeing Mary to her bed, I head to mine within this mansion that most universities would pale in scope to. The grieving widow is my employer and friend. I’m her secretary. She is being hounded by a gold digging son she adopted. He was her cook’s son... If she isn’t careful, he will strip her of her controlling interest in the Central Pacific Railroad. Henry sent me—excuse me, Edward. Everyone’s favorite immortal is now being called, Edward Searles of Methuen, MA. In a past life, two thousand years ago in Canaan, Mary was his grandmother Anne.
Mark. In the past, helped Henry by providing guards on one of his rail services to protect President Arthur. The plan went south, forcing Henry to assume Edward’s life.
The real Edward has been enjoying Barbados for the last three years…
Late 1883
Knobb Hill, San Francisco
I was reading the Boston Globe. Around me, hanging drapes, banging on walls, falling off ladders was my reincarnated third generation Viking crew. I brought them up from Salem to decorate Mary Hopkins mansion. They didn’t mind the white overalls; but some had concerns about picking out color palettes and hanging frilly curtains. I was sort of having fun with these friends of mine, who were all over 6ft and 200lbs, placing doilies on marble topped side boards. Bjorn, though, was having a ball picking out textiles for the Davenports and bedspreads. I think he was very comfortable with any activity that happened on a couch or bed.
“I really enjoy that spread…” Mary smiled. Bjorn was bent over laying the latest textile on her king size bed. “How much would that cost for the night?”
“I don’t think you can rent the fabric, especially after we—oh, you saucy wench!”
“A woman can dream, even if her body hung up the towel.”
“Caroline,” I called her attention to the paper, “that bastard Henry Luce started up a new magazine—Life he calls it; I wonder how many lives he and his friends have taken to start that paper?” I found a second chair to supervise from in her room. “Watch him get Taft’s fat son into the White House…”
“Why do you upset yourself reading those damn papers?”
“Tokyo beat Roselle and Edison to the punch…”
“What—” Caroline snapped as some leather wallpaper fell all over her, knocking her off her stool. Mary was laughing, trying to help free her.
“Tokyo is the first city to be lit at night by electricity—Krakatoa blew its lid again; I bet it will create some earthquakes...” I say looking to the sides. Well we were in San Francisco.
“Wasn’t it the volcano that caused that cold summer in 1816 – ” Bjorn said.
“How do you make snowballs in the middle of summertime —” Mary interjected.
“I remember that July snowball fight you had with Olaf, and you threw him into that eight foot tall snowman you guys built using the fire truck—”
“Epic!”
“That was the summer that Lord Byron bet the Percys he could write a better horror story—”
“Prometheus Unbound, that monster was epic!” I think that was Bjorn’s new word.
Olaf walked in with pink 1,000 count Egyptian sheets, and Bjorn just laughed about the snowman.
“I didn’t pick the color…” Olaf protested.
“Don’t mind him; he’s gone snow blind.” I said.
“Later tonight, we can compare what is pinker, my cat or the sheets…” Mary said.
I think Olaf’s face would have won as he ran out.
Mary just tilted her head lower and watched him leave, smiling.
“I didn’t care for Byron’s vampire; I wish someone would write a better—I think I know him…”
“Who dear?” asked Caroline.
“This guy they are calling Black Bart, I think it is Longinus—I can’t be sure. They say he was caught after robbing the Wells Fargo. A shipment intended for Cushing—”
“You think it was him—” Mary bolted.
“Now, Mary,” Caroline said, “don’t get excited; we won’t know until we visit—does it say where he is?”
“He is in town.”
“He owes me,” Olaf said, returning with a Persian rug sample cut from a private chamber in Hagia Sophia. “I caught him cheating around the time of Captain White’s murder—he was about to take my last dime when he laid down four aces, and the fifth fell out of his sleeve…”
—
I was asleep with Caroline beside me, in this four poster. The headboard almost reached the ceiling with intricate floral carvings as the pillars terminated just before, topped with little pine cones. The footboard was eight inches thick and a foot above the mattress with complementary patterns, and pillars topped with identical pine cones just reaching above it. It was a princess and the pea mattress, and Caroline was sleeping soundly—when a vase overturned downstairs. Probably one of the four Ming vases…
It could be one of my twelve large loafs downstairs—but something was off. It got quiet. Then the old Sufi adage came to mind; when it is quiet in a house, there must always be a thief. Since, thieves are always quiet.
I woke up Caroline. She cracked her neck and sat up with her legs over the side. Her knee-length bloomers were concealing enough, and will provide enough motion in close quarters. I had an old pair of comfy linen trousers on as we left for the hall. Mary was the first to the stairs with her Hotchkiss-Springfield Armory Model 1883 Bolt-Action Tube-Magazine Rifle. Her favorite for shooting black jackrabbits—granted she never hit one yet. Olaf came out after us, and Bjorn was trying to get around Mary. I wouldn’t want to be in front of her, but then again, with her aim, it might be the safest place.
The ten other members of my crew met us at the bottom. The study door was open and the safe was agape. Mary ran to the safe.
“Thank god they didn’t take my licorice and root beer!”
“What!” Olaf said.
“Do you think I would trust 13 large men with enormous appetites—though if any of you have an appetite beyond my lickorice… I can accommodate any size.”
They all just backed out of the room slowly.
We did a thorough search; nobody was to be found.
“I’m guessing,” I said, “they didn’t find the ruby on Bart.”
“So they figured we might have bought it from him when he was in town.” Mary stated.
“That is my guess.”
“Since we’re up, let’s go see how black his mustache really is,” Caroline quipped.
Bart in Norwegian is mustache.
We went down to the Old Mission Police Station on 17th. The chief had received orders from the mayor to empty the cells, besides Bart’s, so we could talk to him in private. The chief let us into the hall and walked back to his desk.
“So, JC—its been awhile.” Longinus said with a grin.
“Forty years or so—it looks like you aged five years; something wrong?”
“I was searching for some Phoenician treasure in the Rockies when I hit my head on a stalactite and woke up surrounded by uranium…”
“So, you need a bit of tonic…” Caroline asked.
“Oh, I got enough,” Longinus continued. “Now it is about another glowing metal. A gold one...”
“I’m guessing you hid it pretty good,” I asked. To this day, I haven’t found his Spear of Destiny he poked me with. My blood on the tip gave him his longevity—or his curse, he says…
“Yup.”
“OK, we are done here,” I said.
“What, you don’t want to buy it!”
“I trust your hiding skills; nobody will be able to do any damage with it. “
“How do you know I won’t tell somebody else?”
“Have you ever listened to yourself give directions—putting a dollhouse together on Christmas is a cakewalk in comparison.”
Inside the precinct, we found this small, barrel-chested fellow in a cowboy hat. He had a Boston accent snapping at some flatfoot. “My boy I didn’t come from the Badlands on my pony for nothing—have you eva tied to get a hose on a tain afta the last time he took a tip he came back missing his balls!” I never understood how Beacon Hill could be so rich they could not afford ‘r’s…
“Harvard man…” I asked.
“Magna Cum Laude 1880.”
“Still a wetback,” Mary said. She stayed in the precinct, hitting on the patrolmen. She was hoping she could get a private detail or details…
“Deputy Sheiff, Teddy Roosevelt, mam,” he said, offering his hand to her. “I’m looking fo some Sioux magical items he might have stolen from the Badlands.”
“They found nothing on him, and take it from me, if he took them and hid them, nobody is going to find them,” I said.
“Well, them ed devils, they will find mo shells and attles. I’ll guess I will go take a dip in the Pacific then—it will be weird seeing the sunset on the ocean.”
First impressions can be wrong—I thought he was daft; in time he became one of my closest friends. Even when he would say something completely stupid.
Twain, could never let him get away with his imperialist racism though…
He did make the mold for Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, and Hemingway. Looking back now, it might of not been a good thing; we know how they all turned out…
April 25th, 1887
San Francisco
We had been married now for almost a month. Our marriage wouldn’t hit the social pages till November. Mary was fearful that her cook’s son would contest our marriage to remain in control of the Central Railroad. So we wanted the marriage to be substantiated before he found out.
Caroline suggested that Mary and I could help each other. It was harder for me to bring my money into circulation.
I could not go to the general store for some licorice and a paper and expect change for an emerald. The sources I used to convert bullion and jewels into cash were expecting prime points, and there was the fear they might talk about the little that they could peer into my life.
Mary was the richest woman in America. Upon her death, she would leave me the 26th largest estate in American history. My wealth, alone, was 25 times larger. She knew her adopted son, would contest our marriage, calling me a gold digger.
She should have left him in the kitchen…
“Know I don’t feel so bad gawking at your arse, since legally, on paper, that is, it is mine…” Mary giggled. Caroline just loved watching me squirm.
William Dubois just entered with a Western Union; “Hank, it is for you. It’s from a warden?”
Dubois was born in Great Barrington, MA, in the Berkshires, where Mary grew up. I had built her a castle with Henry Vaughn, who would later build the National Cathedral. William’s mom died the year we began construction. He worked his way through Harvard, working for Mary on his summer breaks. She had become his ward.
She had learned a lot since she had adopted Timothy. She became a better judge of character. Dubois, he was going to lead people to a better life. He had a kind soul.
“So what does it say my smoochy moochy…”
Caroline squeezed my ass, and I jumped a foot.
I felt like one of those Mormons watching Mary’s dead husband try to hammer the golden spike in—especially when Mary was making all of those comments of where she wanted my golden spike to be hammered.
God—she was my grandmother in another life.?!
“Well, cum on what does it say..”
“Longinus wants to bargain for his freedom,” I summarized as my voice cracked.
—
“If…you get me out, the stone is yours.”
“How can you trust this worm!” Bjorn said, lifting him by the throat through the bars.
“He has always been honest,” I said. “If not open. I know you have four other plans in play.”
“Tigers, don’t change their stripes,” Longinus croaked as Bjorn let his throat go. “What do you say?”
“Mary will have the governor grant your pardon.”
“In fact, if you bend over I can shove it—”
“OK, she jumped the gun,” I cut Mary off.
“I want to let you know, madame,” Longinus said, clasping his hands in front of his lap with sloped shoulders, “I didn’t, kill your husband.
“He woke up in his chair as I turned on him from above trying to sneak by, and he began hyperventilating until he turned blue—”
Longinus then snapped back in half, and a green glow and a mucous cloud emitted from his mouth. It coalesced into the shape of Mary’s dead husband.
“Dear, please forgive this man. The effect of the stone was like drinking a gallon of Coca-Cola; all that cocaine. I closed my eyes to try to stop my heart from racing just before he was leering over me. In fact, he tried resuscitating me by holding my hand and patting it—my god Mary, I just want to slap a ball gag in your mouth and ride the Pony Express all night. I want to ride my choo-choo through your tunnels all night!”
It was then Longinus bolted upright; “Yuck, I feel so violated.”
“OK, where is—never-mind, just give me the map!” I said. “William, don’t pull—“
It was too late; he locked himself in an empty cell. “Bjorn, can you find the warden?”
“Hand me the pardon and I’ll hand you the map.”
“On the count of three—one, two—“
“On three or after?”
“Three—”
He just grabbed it from my hand.
Mary, Caroline, and I walked out in a hurry.
“Hank;” yelled Dubois. “You are not going to leave me…”
The pardon was for next month. With red tape, we figured he would be out by November.
—
We followed the map to a one-legged dwarf’s chamber pot, which we had William empty, to find us a clue, pointing to the shed behind the most celebrated brothel in the city. There we found another clue painted on a hinny’s ass—Bjorn got kicked in the ribs. After swimming in the wooden water tower on the tallest building, we had Olaf drink dry the largest vat of bier of Anchor Steam that pointed us to a gull’s nest in the harbor where we found Thunderchief plucking the ruby, with his right hand that said love on the knuckles, from an ass right before he jumped into a Pinkerton’s launch.
Thunderchief got locked up in Longinus’ cell and heard him talk in his sleep, the night before we got to the prison.
May 3rd, 1887
New York City
We just got off one of Mary’s trains. After checking with the Warden, we found out that Thunderchief had replaced Sitting Bull in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Cody got on our train in South Dakota. Soon after boarding, Buffalo Bill opened a window and stuck his rifle out. He was ready to shoot some bison. Mary had paid Olaf and the gang to shift—hard in their seats, or get up and shift to the other side of the train all at once. Maybe bang into him while doing so every time he lifted his gun at a buffalo.
“So, Sinclair, I hear you’re good with the saber,” Cody said. “What about the riffle?” He lifted to take aim, but Olaf spilled his tea on him as he passed.
Caroline was having a ball watching leaning into William.
“No, fraid not,” I said. “It’s a little impersonal and disconnected.
“Looking into a man’s eyes, it is harder to deliver a death blow than offer a scar to one’s ego.”
“Coup!” Achack yelped. “Kwey!”
We had Achak and his brother get hired by the Wild West Show to get close to Thunderchief.
The steamer was going to deliver us to Liverpool in seven days. Cody was going to have to set up in Earls Court overnight after the wagons delivered them to London.
They were the entertainment for Queen Victoria’s 50th year on the throne.
Well, thirty five in truth. Prince Albert knocked her up thirteen times and ruled in her stead during her confinements.
So she called all of her children toads, her grandchildren were going to fight each other in WWI, and Albert died of typhoid thanks to Salem native William Prescott.
Being a famous author, he had the ear of presidents and queens. He got sick delivering the typhoid vial that killed Zachary Taylor from the son of a Harvard professor who was waiting on the gallows who specialized in poison, even though he used an axe on another professor…
The spare he carried with him. After a dinner with Victoria and Albert, in which Albert suggested he wanted another baby, he slipped it to the queen.
Within the week, she dosed his bangers and mash. He lingered on for quite some time, but the typhoid won in the end. Though Prescott didn’t live long enough to hear the news…
Victoria was just coming out of her mourning…
It’s been 19 years since our mutual friend, George Peabody, passed on leaving his bank to the Morgans.
“The Pineapple King dethroned King Kalakaua, and we are setting up a Navy yard in Pearl Harbor,” I said, sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean going by as I read the Globe eating licorice.
“I can see that idea bombing,” Olaf said, walking by.
Dubois was retching over the rails with my Viking crew teasing him without mercy.
“Sinclair,” called Cody. “Have you ever thought of a Kendo exposition—we could always use fresh displays of martial skills?”
“It is not that entertaining; mostly we stand looking at each other a lot—and in a blink of an eye the battle is won and nobody saw it.”
“Ever think of choreography—”
“You mean lying?”
“Well yeah my entire show is a lie married to misdirection and embellishment!”
“No thanks.”
The steamer started lilting to port. My licorice fell off the table and slid under the railing. Some dolphin was going to have fresh breath tonight…
The Pinkertons jumped onto the deck. A white bald Buddhist monk and a bald fat Cockney jumped Dubois. Olaf took four Pinkertons before they could raise their Colts. Not to be outdone, Bjorn took a chez lounge and barreled over eight, yelling ‘epic’! Trygve, Magnus, and Sven went to check on the captain and crew; the rest went to the machine room.
I saw Cushing and rushed in. Cushing threw a right, but I grabbed the outside of his elbow before he could plant his left foot, and pushed him back. He went to swing with the other hand, but I still had his right arm preventing him from pivoting. I lowered his arm backward. He fell on one knee. I kicked him in the chest. He got up and came in. Cushing swung left, and I slammed his right shoulder, increasing his arc of his hook, and he fell short of my face by two inches. I tickled his belly, and he bent over. Then I led him by his head and kicked the back of his knee. Down he went. He went to kick. I grabbed his knee and stepped back, pulling his groin, before he rolled over.
Three Pinkertons helped him up and over the railing, where the rest of them waited on a private launch.
Du Bois was boxing a young Charles Bennet and Alister Crowley. Du Bois puked on Bennet and knocked out Crowley with a left jab, a right hook, and then an uppercut that sent him over the railing. I had William train with Lou Sullivan…Caroline rushed to help him, but got there in time to cut the ropes of a lifeboat for him. Bennet got the hint when the mechanics from the engine room appeared with large steam wrenches and jumped overboard to save Crowley.
Bjorn was running around looking for the stjornborði, or the side rudder. Olaf just laughed. Magnus and Sven and the rest were sailing us on to London.
—
I retired to the bar. I expected the bartender to transform into Albert, my Miskatonic University professor friend. Somehow, he always finds me in the middle of any adventure. As I was sipping my Pernod, a man in tweed waistcoat and jacket checked his Waltham, tipped his bowler up, and clicked his watch closed as he sat on the stool next to me. “Hello Henry,” he said as he took the umbrella off the crook of his elbow and bent forward to hang it on the hook under the bar.
“Hello, Albert,” I acknowledged him.
“How’s the battle with the Miskatonic U against keeping Cthulhu from accidentally inhaling us before his next sneeze?”
“Oh, I saw you on the past Tuesday— have you found Thunderchief?” Albert said, sipping my Pernod. “Do you think he has given the stone to Cushing yet?”
“No, I think Cushing would not have attacked if he had it.”
“Well, he has always been three midgets short of cowardice; How’s Longinus involved?”
“I think he befriended Brigham Young and heard of Mark finding the pictographs. Young was allowing Hopkins to use his archives of Ute and Mormon texts. His longevity is failing and needed a little tonic.”
“Why would he sell it?”
“He just needs a boost, and he could always steal it back when the new owner dies..”
“Is he still in jail?”
“I bet he caught the next steamer a day behind us.”
“What do Thunderchief and he have in common?”
“Nothing, Longinus was only following the stone, and it was dumb luck Thunderchief ended up in the same cell.”
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity—why hasn’t Thunderchief given it to Cushing?”
“I figure Cushing has not agreed to his asking price.”
“So his life could be forfeited in Cushing’s eyes?”
“Afraid so.”
“So England becomes your Treasure Island…”
“I have only read up to the sea voyage—I do like the trust Young Jim has in Long John Silver…”
Mary sits on the other side of the man with the bowler. “Who is your friend? Did I miss anything?”
The man in the bowler looked at me and then her, shrugged, paid for his drink, blowing suds off his mustache, and left. So did Albert.
May 9th, 1883
Earl’s Court London
Queen Victoria sat in her private box in a blue dress, breaking her tradition of black, with a laughing Scotsman next to her. Buffalo Bill is just leaving her to take center ring.
Next to me, an Irishman is sneezing into his popcorn; “Excuse me, I’m afraid I caught a cold from one of my kids.”
“No problem,” I say.
“What do you think of the Irish cause?” the sick, pale father asks, looking a little sanguine.
“I mean, do you think the Brits have bled them long enough—how long can you sink your teeth into a nation before they bleed out?”
“Well—“
“They have drained the spirit from us; they are using the Unionist and their Orangemen as their familiar to feed on us, the blood suckers—oh there is my family, what is your name—we might meet again,” said the devoted Iris father.
“Henr—Edward Searles.”
“Stoker, Bram Stoker. Good talking to you!”
Thunderchief just entered the ring, leading a war party attacking a pioneering cabin. The pioneering father pushing his family into the home, takes a shot, before moving inside to shoot through the window as the house is encircled. The braves now unhorse, and creep in on the house. A bugle blares, the Sixth Calvary rushes in and the Braves depart.
By now I notice Thunderchief has snuck out. I motion to Achak and his brother Malsumsis to leave the show and follow.
Caroline is sitting with Du Bois as he talks to a young pressman. “I was studying to be a priest—my family has avoided the troubles of the Catholics for almost 600 years—an ancestor saved Henry the Second from the battlefield, pulling him into his saddle we still are horsemen, raising them for the track, my father started a publishing dynasty, I’m supposed to inherit—Catholic, I was to be a Catholic priest in Anglican England, but now I have ink on my lapels…”
“I always wanted to start a paper to speak about the struggles of the Negro and one day hope to uplift our souls,” William said with pride.
“Oh, my father started a social movement,” the young man said. “He fired a labor oriented reporter, who founded The Clarion…I could leave my father—”
“Be happy you have one.”
Mary just walked through and had Caroline move over as she handed out the popcorn. William shared his with Edward Hulton the younger. His father owned the second largest newspaper chain in England, with their press and horses in Manchester.
I venture off to meet Arthur Waite. He just recently started a religious, magical society with others from the oldest mystical lodges in London. It was the Golden Dawn. He would know the names of the people who would be bidding on the ruby.
“You know the Indonesian king had a meteor the royal Kris knives been fashioned from for thousands of years the al-Hajar al-Aswad in the corner of the Kaaba, meteors have been revered since they say, since Adam,” Waite went on.
“The ruby made its way to Stavanger, from there the first Vikings sailed. They went as immigrants to a quiet land where they could hide their longevity and not be feared.”
“Within my library I have the Magnus Codex of the Prose Edda it mentions them sailing to a land of volcanoes to throw the ruby in. The Eskimos told them of a land that was once connected to their realm—a land of fire and ice.”
“Yes. They couldn’t throw the stone away. They came to terms with their blessings. They lived in peace with the Eskimos until the Irish Culdee monks arrived. They followed their seal hunt to what is Canada now.”
“Our Templar myths state they met the Mi’kmaq, who confused their path and history from the unworthy who would only seek longevity for their own selfish needs without giving back to society.”
“You said you know someone who knows who would be bidding on it?”
Achak and his brother just got to me.
“I would leave your friends behind; he is a little scared of Asiatics..”
“Where can I meet—”
“Sax Rohmer at Scotland Yard.”
Edward and William left the old ladies to find some younger lasses. Around the popcorn and souvenir counter, they bump into Bennet and Crowley again, but they brought wands and knives.
Edward brandished his cane and disarmed both of them and swiped the back of Bennett’s legs and crowned him as he raised his head off the ground. William strikes the same blows Sullivan used at Ong’s Hat to knock out his rival.
They were walking away when I found them, and I led them back to the gals. Caroline told me later about their adventure.
—
Smoking a meerschaum pipe with a drawn serious face, a bit pale, widow’s peaked with hair slicked back, was a man fiddling around outside the precinct. Elementary, it must be the amateur occult detective, Sax Rohmer.
“You must be Henry,” Sax says, shaking my hand. “Who are your lovely companions and this young lad?”
“W.E.B. Du Bois and my benefactors Mary and Miss Caroline.”
“Glad to meet you,” Sax said, shaking William’s hand. “Ladies, charmed.”
He kissed Mary’s hand, and she fingered his palm.
“Well…” he said.
Mary smiled.
Achak and his brother Malsumsis appeared out of the smog of the gaslight. “There is someone watching this door from behind us, behind the curtain on the fourth floor right next to the apothecary sign,” Malsumsis mentioned.
“Two bald lads—what is wrong with your friend?” asked Achak.
“Are…you, Sino..” asked Sax. For a sword, he was a bit short and not that sharp…
“What is with him..” asked Achak. “They had bad Manitou.”
“Ignore them,” William said with glee. “I already laid them flat twice!”
“You two, keep watch as we go in,” I asked.
“Why did you bring us here?” I ask.
“I wanted to introduce you to the highest bidder,” Sax said, holding the door open to the morgue.
Once we got inside, an older gent walked our way. “Henry, this is William Wynn Wescott,” Sax said. “Royal coroner and lodge brother. His compatriot in the autopsy, Arthur Conan Doyle.”
They just nodded.
“I would shake your hands, madams,” Wescott said. “But, my hands have a bit of brains about them.” Doyle shrugged with his hands inside of a corpse.
“For I’m afraid, I’ll need to introduce the highest bidder, for he is just a tad incapacitated,” Sax said, pointing at the man that Doyle had his hands within. “Mr. Right Ho.”
The corpse was viciously lacerated with deep, jagged, angry cuts that left behind not much of its torso’s interior.
“Before I was married,” Mary started. “I met a few men who left me prone, alone, like the corpse there, I wanted to eviscerate….”
“Somebody must have got real mad to want to kill em that way…” William said.
Then the corpse bolted upright, at least his spirit.
Corporeal and mucus green. He spat out a catfish bone. “I kept telling me wife her cooking was going to be the death of me—then again, that fish gave me a hell of a fight, but it would seem he won in the end…”
Another man entered; “My son, didn’t you notice the contortion of the neck muscles, the darkening under his Adam’s apple, and the puckering of the lips; he died trying to expel the bone.” Said another man in apron and gloves.
“This is my mentor,” said Doyle. “Dr. Bell.”
“Glad to meet you,” Bell said, shaking my hand. “He must have been savaged after death; there is very little blood splattered about.”
It reminded me of Captain White’s death, which inspired Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. Poe’s Dupin would inspire Sax’s and Doyle’s detectives in their fiction.
“Crowley and Bennet were seen leaving his brownstone the evening he was found,” said Sax.
William choked.
“I received a scroll from Cushing,” said Wescott. “Cushing is holding the bidding at the old Temple in Paris.”
My family escaped the Templar Temple by boat at La Rochelle when King Philip IV sent out a death warrant for all the Templars in Europe in 1307. He had the pope assassinated and placed a cousin on the papal throne, who pulled a Becket and gave us warning. Jaques de Molay was supposedly sacrificed, their leader. Some say his face is on the Shroud of Turin. He did look, a little like me…
My grandfather, William Sinclair, made a bargain with Robert the Bruce for land outside Edinburgh for some horses to defeat Longshanks. He brought the Templar’s treasures there, and I brought them underneath Salem, MA, into the tunnels first carved out my the thermal vents of its volcano.
“I always wanted to see the old family seat…” I said with glee.
“Sorry, Napoleon tore it down. The tunnels only remain under the current park, where Cushing is holding his little auction,” Sax said.
“What he said,” said the corpse. He looked at Doyle, with his hands inside his prone body beneath him, and then the room. “Well, OK. I guess I have nothing to add.” Then the corpse sank back into ectoplasm, and the body swallowed up his spirit.
“Saints be alive,” Doyle said. “I knew spirits existed—I got these amazing photos of Lady Cottingham’s garden fairies—“
“You should meet my young friend Houdini, he loves ghosts,” said Sax.
Continued on the Last Story...
I love all of these cooky ritual stuff, they might just get my cousin a passport to bring ruin to this world!
Astral
by C. Dumas
O nobly—born (so and so by name), the time hath now come for thee to seek the Path [in reality]. Thy breathing is about to cease. Thy guru hath set thee face to face before with the Clear Light; and now thou art about to experience it in its Reality in the Bardo state, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked, spotless intellect is like unto a transparent vacuum without circumference or centre. At this moment, know thou thyself; and abide in that state. I, too, at this time, am setting thee face to face.
Man, was that jazz great. The mysteries of the soul were revealed. Those cats just laid it all out. It was some form of telepathy, which I could not hear, but feel as the audience in a theater does. But. Tonight. It was a theater for one.
Which is great to have Sonny ask me around to sit in—BUT! I wanted to be part of that conversation. I wanted to be up on that stage and be part of the dialogue. Even though I didn’t know what to say. Man, did I have rhythm! In meter and foot, but not in instrument... I had hands, but not trained on any silver spoons. Though I was one with them all Tonight!
Sort of. Before they began playing, we let ourselves to a night out of laughter. Boy, did we all need it. It was May. 1968. Nineteen days after. Some stores burned, but it was no 1967. I think our hopes and essence were just sucked out of us. As he carried the spirit of many through the world for us, in some ways he sucked that spirit out of us when he left.
I had been writing short stories about resistance versus the mediocrity of just getting along. Stories of standing up against indifference and opposition! Though I did find more fun in the stories of the mythology imported into this land from our ancestors. Those are the ones that made me smIIIlllle!!!
Though now, as I was walking into the 135 Street station to take the A Train, I was thinking about standing up strong, black, and tall. A fleeting thought.
I always did that. That was nothing new. I shook my head with a smile. But how to get others to do so. That was my thought heading down the stairs and in through the turnstile. My head was full of frustration.
Man hears, but he does not listen!!!
It was here, on this platform, I looked up and saw a little black girl. She was giggling and smiling about something, and she was kind enough before boarding her train to look back and share some of that special sauce with me with a smile that felt as she left it just for, me, before the doors closed behind her. She took me back to earlier that night of love.
Sonny had all of them going. It was hard to believe that someone with the ego of Sonny, who others called RA, could let them all play with such freedom without hierarchy and forethought. He actually had his name changed to the Egyptian god of the sun, RA. Though it should have been Thoth, for he was a trickster... He allowed those cats to have a free flow of thought or conversation. There were no leads. No solos. No leader. Just love flowed out of those fingers into their instruments, and we were all taken on a ride beyond our time, our current time! Everyone was in a trance. Even me, as I was tapping away on my Coke bottle. In time, I even got up and danced. Bobby on bass noticed, and he started to change the rhythm. It was Astral in the weeks following our mourning.
“June Bug!”
I looked up from where that little girl and her smile were. I don’t know why my name was not June or Bug. Plus, it was seven more days till the end of the month. I looked up with a smile and saw the light flash on a badge from the spark of a gun before I heard the bullet leave the chamber.
___
I never thought that d’AGO would dare venture into Harlem — Me. I was used to the tougher sides of Belfast. During the beginning of the Troubles no less, but Carmine “Wassel” DeNoia… I mean in NYC we were still thought of green niggers. An Italian out in Harlem after midnight?
But I forgot the Catholic Church has made some strange bedfellas. Being from the Protestant north, you forget what is apparent in Dublin, Boston, and NYC. I heard one guy in a club in the Village mention they grew up fighting the Italian kids to grow up and marry their sisters. Though whiskey makes the memory short…
I’m running down St. Nicholas Ave. running away from this mafioso. I was half deep into a fifth and acting the maggot when this guy, who had thrown Tiny Tim into the Hudson off the boat and proceeded to hit me in the head with my own guitar, was not having any of it tonight.
A bullet pierces the night.
And I’m caught one more time
I realize that was not the son of Brown Bess as I run past the park where these Yanks won their first battle on an open field with those bullocks that are spilling blood on the avenues of my home now. I just keep running.
And I’m caught one more time
We were having a black at the Bark Kettle with whiskey chasers. I got on about me royalties. He was fecked already. I cracked on about it while he wanted me to bunk off. It’s been donkey’s years since I recorded that hit, and I was eating Chef Boyardee. I cracked on. He was real ciotóg about it, and I told him to Feck off. That is when he took his first shot in the bar...no less.
And I’m caught one more time
I left this bar like Thomas Fitzpatrick, hoping I could fly as fast as that good old Irishman to NJ, even though I was on the Old Post Road to Boston.
But my heart keeps beating faster
And my feet can’t keep still
On the way back home from school
As I run past the university, I wish I had learned a bit more in my life, which might be ending soon.
And all the little girls rhyme something
And all the little girls rhyme something
On the way back home from school
One of the girls on the corner recognizes me and begins a caterwauling and silences the next bullet shot.
And the leaves fall one by one by one by one
I think I am next to fall of my friends. A hames and holy show me dying in America and not in the streets of Belfast along with my boyos.
“Fuck’all!” I yell as a bullet skims past my ear and lodges into the dirty porcelain tile going down the stairs before the turnstile. I hop over and head for the A Train. Boy, do I hope it is on time.
And my insides shake just like a leaf on a tree
Then, before me, I see this colored just smile as I run through him. My mind was not perceiving what my body was doing on its own accord as it tried slowing down not to hit him as my mind said faster faster you fool you fool. I slid onto the A Train and heard the man yell, which scared the hell out of the Wassel. I just stared back out of the moving window, watching him freeze in fear and then run back up to see if the saint would preserve him.
___
I was not here nor there. The only person I thought I could reach out to was Sonny. He grew up in an old Masonic Hall library reading all of this esoteric stuff. We got along well with my stories of African and Southern black mythologies. Plus, I had tales from the desert where Abraham had left to search out a new covenant with his God from when I was in the Air Force. Some stories I had were even older than Abraham. He was the only one I knew who would be open to my dropping in.
Hell. I let him go on about his trip to Saturn for years, even though the story always changed. I don’t think out of malice. It is just damn hard to put into words what one sees when one is pulled from one reality into a much larger one. Can you tell me what all of those ‘1’s and ‘0’s mean without their icons on your screen? Never mind trying to understand Cobalt. It is like asking a beetle to explain its venture on the shoulder of a pharaoh into the land of the Hittites to the camel who dropped the dung for him.
His story always changed.
It was only minutes since I had left the station. It was a cool morning in Sweetwater. We were sitting by the edge of the pond as we saw the smoke of the dust of the car miles away ever getting closer. I wanted him to be that witness to run after that car, after it left back to town. I wanted him to take up that flag to continue where I could not. I was angry. I thought about that card game in which the preacher was caught between two men, swapping suits of white for black, and back again, while the dove just shat upon the good book. I didn’t want him to just to be another ‘just’ turning their head in Harlem.
He just smiled at me. “I told you I was from Saturn.” It was then I noticed he had silky thin antennas protruding from his ears and eyelids that only glimmered as he turned for the sun.
Once I noticed them, I forgot about my anger; “You were, no wonder you were so strange…” I stopped and then punched him in the arm; “Why didn’t you tell me? I know you said so, but you never looked me in the eye...and told me!?”
“Ouch! Quit that. How did you like that playing?”
“I wish I could have joined in.”
“But you did.”
“How?”
“You kept time.”
“I was just following.”
“So were we.”
“Yeah, with each other.”
“Not entirely. The bass. Remember his nodding?”
“Yeah, so. We were smiling at each other. I felt what he was saying.”
“Not sure you did.”
“What was he saying then?”
“He liked your rhythm.”
“What rhythm?”
“The one you got up and danced with.”
“That is only a reaction to your action you guys were laying down.”
“No, it was conducting. Not like some stuff Whig putting down Brahms. Like a mediator.”
“Like a meteor? You going on about that space shit again?”
“No, like a mediator. One who hears, connects, listens, and acts the next step. Repeat. He kept looking to you for the next cadence. We all then just followed him. As you got faster or slower to our hidden intentions, you perceived out of time before us, he interpreted for you.”
“What are you going on about!
“Just love. The love you felt for the motion of waves. Some people need Timothy’s acid to interpret one sense into another, but we had you.”
“I ain’t no musician. Yes, a poet and a writer. That has some meter.”
“Meteor?”
“You quit it,” I said, pushing him this time in the shoulder instead of whacking him as before. “I can’t play.”
“Here are 16 pieces of silver to cover the holes in your life.”
“You calling me Judas? I never sold out our brothers...”
“No, that was 30 pieces, you fool! Just take them.”
I watched him spill them out of a purple satchel into my hand, and when I looked back, he was gone and I was left alone by the pond.
I watched him wake up that morning and sob before he got the call telling him about my death in the subway.
___
I moved with my new wife to Cambridge, just shy up that Old Post Road out of Harlem to Boston. I was hanging out with the Whammer Jammer. Spending nights at WBCN yelling at the widow between songs on the only phone I had access to. Now, sharing my can of Chef Boyardee with two others. I began playing with local players. Just brutal cats. Down in the Catacombs. This place was not even the basement, but under the basement.
It felt like the Pale. It had medieval tapestries behind the stage and wainscoting on the walls. It looked like a fecking cave. Behind, the tapestry, I usually hid before the show started. Some waitresses would sneak me back some of that fine cheese and artisan bread they served. I kept expecting Jim Morrison to walk through the tunnel from behind me, just finishing up at the Music Hall, a good half hour walk through the torch-lit catacombs. I ain’t codding ya, it was a real fecking catacomb! Hell, if I had enough, I could almost reckon seeing Poe walk through from the Federal Street Theater.
That other poet.
Peter would be in the audience again. Jay, he mentions he wants this kid on flute to play with us. I’ll ignore him until he is ready to sit in. It is easier to converse with music than with words alone. I don’t know where he will fit on that small riser. I sometimes have to stand on the dance floor.
I have been playing with Jay, Tom, and Joe here for a few weeks now, but jamming into the wee hours back at my place with all the local kids is where it really is at. But that is mine. For this place, I am willing to share the three.
Joe yells for me from his kit over his shoulder, I head out. We start out with Domino. Then we go into some covers and back into Lorna. I don’t think Jay’s friend with the flute knew exactly who I was, but when we went into Brown-Eyed Girl, he lit up with recognition. Then we went into a number I haven’t named yet from my wife’s binder; she collected together of my various song parts. I nodded to the kid to join. He sat back and then stepped his toe into the water. He gave the bass player some space to play between. Tom began to talk back to him, and I just followed along. The kid nodded at me, and I smiled, and we began talking to each other. I liked him. He was a skilled conversationalist. I could tell he thought the same about me.
Though through the night at the next table from Peter, I thought I saw that colored guy. He was jamming along in his seat. Peter got up and did his usual dance, but when that guy got up to dance, Peter just sat down and watched. Tom was the first to talk to him. The kid followed next, before I could. Looking back, I recall the guy only dancing to the tunes from the notebook, which was confusing, since none of them were hammered out as of yet. They were raw. But then again. So were his moves.
I later asked Peter about him. He didn’t know who I was talking about. I asked him then why he sat down every time he went to dance. He said he didn’t see no one. He just sprained his ankle earlier and was trying not to push it too far. The music was just too good for him not to try.
Now, for those weeks and months in Cambridge, I was working out the songs which would become Astral. A name out of nowhere. A gift from the heavens. I was playing with those just into college and those just graduating high school. The kid got me to jam with some of the drummers at the pit he had been playing a flute with. Every night we had an impromptu symphony. Mostly fusion jazz players. Jazz players here with this Limey from Belfast. A rock crooner.
Around midnight, I would see that guy quietly sitting in the living room as we played. Whenever he got up to dance, others followed. He was always our conductor. He had this meteoristic meter to him his cadence was something. He also brought space between his steps and movements. He never came out of his stillness the same, always from varying degrees of speed and softness to punctuate his inner quiet. When he was on, we were on.
When I asked about the guy later that night or the next morning, others vaguely thought they had seen him, but there was so much of the black stuff, whiskey, and acid nobody could be for sure if they ever talked to him or if he was really there or some forced memory.
___
I had been floating around Boston. Not sure why I ended up here, Sonny. I was just learning to loosen up like him and his orchestra. Those nights watching him put together his latest works with those kids brought me back a few months to that night and the great conversation. I was dancing more than I ever did during life. But, I was still mad. It just crept up within me. On the night Mr. King died, Boston was silent. The indifference I felt toward the city. In NYC, there was an audible hush that was so strong it lit a few fires out of sheer instant combustion. In comparison to 67, it was only a campfire granted, but in Boston there was not even a spark from a match head!
They played without me for, a while. I just ventured through those tunnels under the city. Met this ghost of this guy Bulfinch. We got along fine. He would read to his son about the ancient myths of the Norse, Greek, and Roman gods he recounted about his life. His son favored the tales of Thor venturing into the realm of the giants the most. He said his son wrote one of the most famous books on mythology later. I told him it was one of my favorites, and it gave him a huge smile. As we walked through the catacombs, he told me how he gave President Monroe a tour through them when he visited and it got him a job digging the tunnels in Washington and rebuilding the capital dome after the British burned the old one down. I even met the ghost of John Wilkes Booth walking with Robert Tod Lincoln to the theater John’s brother owned. I even saw a raven fly by once.
One night, or day (you never can tell which in the tunnels) I ran into Sonny down here while he was dreaming.
“Have you made anything of that silver I gave you yet?”
“What am I going to buy on this side of life?”
“They aren’t made for buying?”
“What are they for?”
“Silver.”
“Yes, silver?”
“Silver is the color of transformations during life. Little deaths before you take the enormous leap of change. The golden sun leap”
“Well, I think I took the enormous leap. I’m dead.”
“Little leap. You’re dead, but you haven’t moved on to no heaven, hell, or earth yet.”
“What are you going on about again? Some Saturnian stuff…”
“No, you need some schoolin’, teach!” he always loved to remind me I was a professor at Rutgers University whenever he felt I was being ignorant of some truth. “Man, you are dense. I can feel your recent disgust with this city. You think they did nothing when the great one had died for them!” He paused to stick his finger in my face. I almost said something about his condition from childhood, but I refrained.
But I had that look, and he knew what I was going to say: “Boy, these folks here didn’t sit idly by. That new mayor of theirs paid top dollar to bribe the ‘King of Soul’ to walk back out on that stage that night and tell the city not to burn it down. He played with love that night. Love of each other, Love of his race, Love of humanity. Love of one another. Love for the man that the Man was going to blame this murder on. And even Love for Hoover, who pointed the gun. Just like we did the night before you died.
“The mayor, Jack White, had the local PBS station playing it with him and James telling the city not to spread anymore hate that night. It was the night James Brown saved Boston, but those crackers will only hear the White man saved them. Geeeezzz!” he said, laughing. “So don’t be so hard on this city. Go play with that Irishman and those kids. Go conversate!”
___
I was Delira and excira, Warner Brothers had just signed a contract with us after a friend met some mobsters in some dark hole and paid them off. The Wassel agreed to leave me alone.
We had to travel back to New York to record. The feckin record company would not let me record my band and the kids, but I told them dossers they best pay for their flight to sit in. Tom was telling the bassist what to play, though to this day he refuses he did. The kid came up with his silver. It was eating me alive to see him sit there, jumping in his seat to jump in and play.
Even though my orchestra was in the bullpen, I could hear the conversation. They brought that spirit from the Lord above with them. Mary, Joseph, and Christ. Davis on Bass was the first to be touched. Then this guy on flute fell in on the songs. And things began to smoke. It was not long till we were following the guy’s cadence and meter. He was just playing one or two notes over and over again, giving a lot of space for Davis to play his simple rhythm in between his notes with others running flourishes on them. There was no engineer in the engine, but we stayed on track. Nothing written to guide us. I had rough lyrics that fell to rhythmic repetitions until it felt right to move on.
I wrote my revenge album for Bang Bang Records and got my anger out over all those cans of Chef Boyardee. Now I just didn’t care. This one was for us, and it was taking us somewhere upon high. We were all straight and sober, but we could never be any higher. Up and onward we went. My group in the bullpen were playing air cymbals, triangles, flute, bass, vibraphone, and more, and the paid help followed along with their beats. They had christened these newcomers. Saints Dominic and Nicholas gave way to Divine, who baptized them. It was love.
Then, on the last song of the first day, the kid could not sit any longer. The guy knew it was his turn, but the kid was just bursting in and didn’t notice he was sidestepped and he fell into the chair with the guy’s flute in his mouth. He was so full of himself; he waited for his spot in the song, and could only find one note to fill the space. He waited a few bars to find the second. Then he came in with some Berklee forced line, but the guy looked at him and he breathed and stood him in the eye with a smile. The kid fell in with simple notes on meter with cadence on the next bar. The kid began to lead us as he followed the guy’s gaze. The guy began to dance once more. Davis followed and came in too. That would become the alpha to our omega. It was called Astral for the weeks we spent in Boston, higher than those boyos in Harvard’s experiments that year. It was spiritual.
The kid played on the rest of the album and gave redemption to my band I brought from Boston.
One of theirs made it.
The love was spread, and it has spread slowly over the years. It was not an instant hit. Those meant to find it find it. Like those tunnels from behind the stage, some believe and walk in them others leave it to stories better left in the dark.
Christ said The Kingdom of man is on earth, but men do not see it. Only those called find it. It is not hidden. It is on the shelves for everyone. It was never promoted well externally, but it called and still calls internally in time to a huge throng. Maybe it is the best kept secret, but once found, it transports you.
Glory be to him
Glory be to him
Glory be to him
____
Sonny was right. Damn him. I did put those sixteen pieces of silver to use to cover the holes left in my soul. The hardest was the three bullet holes: Martin’s, the Irish Man’s, and mine. Then, the remaining 13 were easy. I just put it up to my lip, and the embouchure came easy as my spirit flowed down that river. I learned to play, and I joined the band. I moved from off the stage and onto it. My meter and cadence found a way to spread love. The love of that conversation. The circumpunct. To know there is no leader or follower, we are all God, and we flow like the universe.
If Ra could hear me now…
I learned I did more for the world when I was alive through my tales of those myths that fascinated and brought smiles. Like, that smile of that little girl walking onto the subway that day. No psychology ever cured the heart more than a smile and a hug ever did. The power of my dance, it was always part of that conversation of the smile. My stories of indifference and oppression got me shot. Not the stories that could’ve bonded us together.
Who is the slayer
Who is the victim
Speak.
That is when you live your life on the outside of the circle, waiting for the other to push you off. Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to fall in. Fall into the center where it is one for all, all for one.
It is a hard road. To be oppressed for so long, to stay in the center with love. Who is it to say we need one to bring us forward and show us where change is desperately needed? Was Martin running on the outside of the circle, or was he inside? There is a thought that Christ reached the circumpunct only when he hung on the cross. I beg to differ that it was with him all the time.
Now, James Brown on the same night a black man was killed was in a hall filled with white policemen with guns. He stepped into the circle of love. No message. No call to action, but dance. He had a conversation with Boston.
Man, he was no saint, but that night he was touched by the Astral plane. Shit, that boy ran 6 states with the man on his heels in a high-speed chase after he beat his woman, and we only got OJ on film doing 20 mph….He was no saint, but he spread the love that night.
Love. There was a book in which an elder was teaching a student to move clouds. The student focused bazookas, cannons, and machine guns on the clouds; they did not move. The teacher taught them to give the clouds a better alternative. He told the clouds there was a fine valley to the east next to a lovely lake; the clouds left to see.
Indifference is only not being told about the lake.
Well, I stayed in heaven for four years before I was called back to earth. I grew up to write with not much cadence or meter, but I have plenty in my flute, feet, and brush. Plus, I have walked in tunnels everywhere, but the Catacombs. One day, though.
I did make the same mistake running on the outside, but I returned to running on the inside like I did as a child.
Dance like there is no one watching
Be loved even when you do not know who from
And always join the conversation
It has always been addressing you!
~ The Man from Across the Lake
Not Again...
the second installment of
Into the Wood at Night
by Michelle LeBlanc
Surprises
Me and my brothers, Randy and Robbie, and I were following our cousins, Oakley and Stetson, back to Uncle Gunner’s Jeep in the hospital parking lot when he got a phone call. I’m Ruby Wolf and I’m just leaving the hospital after we faced down a bigfoot. I thought I was just visiting family for the summer, but boy was I surprised!
“Strainer?” Uncle Gunner yelled into the cell phone.
“It’s back?” Strainer responded.
“We are going to pick up some supplies and will be on our way!” Uncle Gunner said. We were staying at Uncle Gunner’s friend’s farm.
“Are you ready for another adventure?” Uncle Gunner asked us. The boys were all rowdy and excited.
Me? Not as much.
“Why are you such a downer?” Randy teased.
“Have you seen what happened to Dwayne?” I cried. “Do you see my face?” I straightened the face mask on my broken nose, from when I got hit in the head by that enormous cow leg.
“Boy, you’re just as hideous as ever.” Randy teased. Uncle Gunner nudged Randy hard enough for him to realize he should shut his mouth.
“What do you suggest for inventory?” Stetson asked Uncle Gunner.
“You kids are going with me to Van’s Gun World for tranquilizer bullets, tracers, and other larger capacity ammo,” Uncle Gunner stated. He always brags about Van’s for all his hunting supplies, since he has a huge discount on whatever he buys. His discount is because he saved Van Parker, the owner, from a Bigfoot and two coyotes. He always stated that it was a story for another time when we were not actively working on a Bigfoot case for a client.
We got to Van’s, and this place was huge! It was two full floors, which seemed like the length of a football field. I stopped myself from saying allowed “People actually use all this junk?” They had 10 types of fish bait, which we weren’t even looking for. The knife display impressed me. They were so pretty and shiny…
“We are not here for toys! We are here for ammo, and that’s about it.” Oakley stated.
“I’m just looking. Do I look like I have any idea how to pick out ammo? I mean, really. I wouldn’t mind a new camouflage hoodie. Better than ruining another outfit of mine.” I stated.
“You have money for that?” Robbie asked, without letting me answer. “Of course you don’t. Knock it off!” Robbie snapped, snatching it out of my hand.
“Is that your size?” Uncle Gunner asked. I nodded, and he snatched it from Robbie and put the hoodie in his order. Robbie gave me a dirty look. Uncle Gunner made his purchases and then said we had 45 minutes for the gun range. He had all kinds of Bigfoot targets, which, when the boys hit them, exploded green glow-in-the-dark smoke, which looked pretty cool. I waited in the area that I was told, with my hands folded in front of me.
“Your turn, Ruby. Make it quick! We gotta head back to Strainer’s farm.” Uncle Gunner stated. He showed me where to put my hands on the right parts of the rifle. He then helped me aim. I shot my first bullet. The recoil scared me. I jumped, and I knocked down the target by hitting the stand of the target and not the actual target. My brother laughed at me. I got to shoot three more bullets, and we packed up and left. That was so cool!
We got back to Stainer’s farm. Since I still had a concussion, I was told I had to sit out this round with Robbie and Oakley at Strainer’s cabin. They were pissed they had to babysit. We were listening to music on my old boombox radio while the older guys in the Bigfoot group were searching the perimeter for the monster. I couldn’t believe Mr. Strainer didn’t even have a TV!
It was about 8:30 pm.
The lights randomly went out. We all put our cellphones’ flashlights on.
What? This guy can’t pay his electricity bill? Damn!
I saw that this night was about to get so much worse.
“Strainer’s cabin is probably on a generator. We’ll check the basement for it,” Oakley stated. Good thing he knew about generators. I was completely clueless. I used my cellphone’s flashlight to get to the guest bedroom. My head was bothering me. Earlier, Uncle Gunner said we could meet up with the rest of the Bigfoot investigation group as of tomorrow—if my head was better.
I didn’t even have to wear the stupid brace for my broken nose, unless I was sleeping. I actually hated wearing the thing; it was so uncomfortable. I seemed to fall asleep. A little while later, I was up again. I took the stupid brace off. There was only silence, which was odd with the boys around... The light didn’t work. I leaned over to the nightstand. I fumbled around, dropped my cell phone, and almost smacked my head on the nightstand getting it. That would have been horrible! I turned on the flashlight. Robbie and Oakley were not in the other bed or the sleeping bags on the floor.
“Guys?” I heard something from the main living room area of the cabin. “Guys? This isn’t funny.” The front door was swinging back and forth. I leaned over and I saw a figure in the corner. “Don’t try to even scare me! It’s not funny—what happened to the lights?”
“We just found the generator! Be up in a minute!” Oakley yelled.
“If you’re in that creepy hole that goes into the basement, then who is messing with me in the living room?” I gasped. Peering into the room, I saw two large dark eyes looking straight at me. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. The body was large and furry. It towered over me as it let out a loud growl.
It was The Bigfoot!!
I screamed at the top of my lungs. It stood
up and jetted out of the corner and across the
room. It tripped over the couch, still growling,
as it ran out the front door. Tomorrow, I’m
going to have to rehang the door—what
remains of it, that is.
“Ruby!” Oakley screamed. As he
raced out of the small wooden staircase.
I heard the noise of the generator starting. Randy went up the small rickety staircase that went down to the basement. It looked like a tornado had hit the living room. A broken and splintered rocking chair, which was older than I was, possibly most of the boys, and maybe even Gunner. Bigfoot broke an end table behind the couch, and some plant pots. He broke my stereo… Holding back from crying, I was so freaked out by what had just happened. I was shaking. I was having an asthma attack.
Apparently, I didn’t hear Robbie and Oakley yelling at me to see if I was ok. I fell onto them as I felt my ears ringing, and I was about to faint.
“Ruby! Are you OK? Say something!” Robbie yelled.
“Inhaler,” I whispered, as I was so winded, I over-stated each syllable. Robbie nodded. I was in so much shock. How did it get in the cabin undetected in the first place? Robbie helped me locate my inhaler under all the rubble and broken wood chips.
“I’ll call Gunner,” Oakley said. I always think it’s weird Uncle Gunner doesn’t have Oakley and Stetson call him Dad. It was also weird how they called him “Sir” all the time. “Sir! A Bigfoot breached the cabin. It was inside the living room. It is now out in the yard. We need to secure the door before it tries to come back… Yes, sir, we will get her back to bed and have one person at the door.” Oakley stated.
Wow, I am 15, but these guys had a way of treating me like I was a little kid. I would not argue with them, mainly because my head hurt, and after the two encounters with Bigfoot, I had no interest whatsoever in going to look for the damn thing, unarmed! They refuse to let me carry a rifle, AK-47, handgun, or any gun or weapon for that matter. Boy, I thought that us having almost all the adults in Uncle Gunner’s Bigfoot group—expert huntsman, military, and camping, would have made this quicker. This Bigfoot was sneaky. It must be smart to last all these years. Robbie handed me my inhaler and tried to comfort me. He then went to tuck me back to bed.
“Maybe tomorrow is too soon. I’ll tell Uncle Gunner, it’s too soon for you to get back into this! After tonight, Randy will agree.” Robbie said.
Outside of the cabin, there were gunshots. I found out later that Uncle Gunner’s Bigfoot team converged on the farm to chase Bigfoot off the property. On the way back to the cabin, they found footprints that were the size of my head! They called us from outside to look. The prints had a stride length up to 50” between tracks. While I was too busy trying to catch my breath to care about footprints. I used my inhaler a second time.
The boys were obsessed with these footprints. Since the Bigfoot had left the farm again, they made some foot castings of the prints. They were all excited about there being a presence of dermal ridges and a midtarsal break in the middle of the footprint. Apparently, according to the Bigfoot community, the indentation being present meant that it was harder to prove that it was a fake casting. I did not know how they could see all this at night.
There was no sign of the Bigfoot on the land, but we could still hear howls and whooping, vocalizations, and tree knocks from the Bigfoot. It sounded like there could possibly be more than one.
“Boy! Look at that Grouchy walk!” Doc said with a cackle. He was a member of Uncle Gunner’s team and an old, mysterious friend. A grouchy walk is what Bigfoot investors, or at least the ones in Uncle Gunner’s group, would call the size of their gate and feet
“That’s one long ass gate, dude!” Oakley said, laughing, as he tried to duplicate the footprint length beside the drying castings.
“This will definitely get me a front cover on Natural Geographic!” Steven gasped, with a huge, proud grin, as if he were the only person in the group. I hated how arrogant and cocky this dude was. Not that I was responsible for any of this, I wasn’t.
Uncle Gunner delegated cleaning duties to Stetson, Oakley, and Robbie. Doc stayed with us, in case Bigfoot came back. The boys made castings of the bigfoot prints as I went back to go to bed.
Doc was a pretty large man. So, for him to tell you that what he had encountered back in 1976 in the October Mountains was completely horrifying, you better believe it. He was 6’ 2”, a decorated ex-military official who was in the army with Gunner. Every night, before we went to bed, if there wasn’t any Bigfoot activity or other predators’ activity, he would sit us down by the fire and share his tales of the local Bigfoot clan, which owned these woods. When you don’t want to go into the woods at night, and you don’t take his stories lightly, especially since we knew and respected these gigantic beasts. There were a few laws we had to keep. We had to keep the humans safe. We had to hide the existence of these creatures, and by all means, if they became violent, “The Cause” would put a death wish order into effect to kill the alpha Bigfoot. An alpha Bigfoot is a large male who will challenge other Bigfoot or animals for dominance.
The boys came to the living room, and we sat on the floor…so much for me going to bed. I rolled my eyes. Doc had a story for us to listen to about his first Bigfoot encounter. We gathered in what was left of the living room—us on the floor, and Doc in a folding chair. He started a small fire.
“Did I ever tell you about this sliver of a Bigfoot tooth on my rope here? It’s 1/6th of a full-sized Bigfoot molar,” Doc stated. We shook our heads and eagerly leaned forward to listen.
1976 Bigfoot Tooth:
“Through the last military draft of 1972, I was called back into service until the summer of 1975,” Doc stated. “In 1976, Uncle ‘Trapper’ and your uncle Gunner, who had been in the service together, would meet up to go camping and hunting at our usual campground. We would hunt for game such as deer, bear, etc., for our yearly trip. We had invited our new friend, Frank.
We went to October Mountain, a few miles from a farm owned by the Stainer Family. Strainer didn’t go with us this time. We had fished for trout, but to our surprise, there weren’t many. We took turns that day with the video camera. Frank held onto the video camera. We set a campfire, a few yards from our usual place, as the sun set and it got dark. It was quiet, too quiet. The usual hoot owl or coyote in the distance may usually give us a holler, but not tonight. Something was watching us. It turned out we had been in a Bigfoot nest. The dogs ran off as we called after them. This was going to be our first encounter with these creatures. So we were completely clueless that we had made our campfire on or in a flattened-out Bigfoot nest.
I do not know if the bigfoot is the same bigfoot as we are encountering now, or a descendant. There was a bloodcurdling roar in the distance that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. We heard the dogs whimpering, a crunching noise, liquid dripping, and then silence. Going back to where we heard the dogs last with our rifles, we found a decapitated dog and the bloody collars of the other dogs. Looking down, we saw there was a blood trail heading back to the woods. Grabbing the dog tags, we ran back to camp. Picking up our things, we hauled ass back to the beat-up Chevy. I tripped over something in the grass. We then noticed that there were these huge tree branches being broken and thrown in our direction. The creature growled again as I ran. I twist my ankle and land on what seemed like a large, sharp rock embedded in my knee. Unintentionally, I grabbed the rock to throw at it, as if a last resort, knowing if I did, he would surely kill us.
Trapper and Gunner helped me up as the bigfoot grabbed Frank by the head and flung him like a rag doll, flinging the video camera. We couldn’t tell if he was just unconscious or dead! The Bigfoot dragged him back to the nest. We heard a pack of smoke wolves! Smoke wolves are ginormous wolf-like cryptids, monsters that hunt their prey hidden mostly in the night fog. Those monster-like creatures were so much bigger and terrifying than your typical wolves. They also have a habit of creeping up on you in the darkness. We heard the bigfoot growl again, as the smoke wolves pounced on the Bigfoot. We took that as our cue to skedaddle.
As we ran off, leaving our belongings. We ran to Strainer’s Farm and waited there until morning. I finally looked at the stone. It was a fragment of a Bigfoot tooth.” Doc said as he pulled on the string under his grungy overalls.
“Did you guys realize that the whole tooth is actually six to eight times bigger?” Uncle Gunner stated as he came back in.
We gasped and looked in awe of the Bigfoot sliver of a molar tooth. To me, in what seemed like 10-15 minutes, Gunner decided it was time for me, Oak, and Robbie to go to bed with Stetson, as the adults worked on making the cabin safe in case Bigfoot came back. The boys moaned in protest, but we walked to the spare bedroom. I, for one, couldn’t sleep. I was mystified, impressed, and most of all afraid that we’re now going after this thing with this ginormous mouth and all these humongous teeth. We finally went to bed.
Tomorrow, in the daylight, we’ll be investigating the area where Doc’s friends left their gear. I was horrified that I might find his friend’s decaying, dead body. I am not good at getting rid of a dead spider, so I don’t want to be rude or disrespectful. It’s going to be a long night. Hopefully, his friend escaped.
The next morning, we went hiking. We seemed to walk in circles for what seemed like hours in the blistering sun. After what seemed like forever, and me asking, almost begging for a quick rest break, we stumbled upon a bigfoot nest. I did not know what this place was; I only knew I didn’t want to be there. An eerie feeling crept over me. It felt like we were being watched, but by who, or what—I didn’t know.
Oakley, Stetson, and I stumbled upon this massive structure. It’s Ginormous! The structure was made of large tree branches and bushes, which kind of made a hollow ball shape. It stunk more than anything I had ever smelled before. It was a mix between skunk, wet dog, and a porta-potty. There was no way I’d go into the nest.
The boys took pictures and went inside.
If they expected me to go into this thing, they were nuts! Well, I knew they were nuts, but that is besides the point…I stayed at the entrance.
They found an old-fashioned 8mm camera with two large film wells on top and a smashed lens. Oakley picked up the camera and wondered if he could still develop the film. The boys intended to sneak a skull back to the cabin, so hey had to distract me. They asked me to go find Gunner and wait with him. I said alright since I knew Uncle Gunner and everyone else wanted to go back to town before nightfall, and the sun was setting. I left, afraid that I might bump into Bigfoot.
What’s in the Box?
We got back to the cabin. The boys were going to go to the shooting range down the street, and I was staying behind. I was supposed to go to the shooting range tomorrow night. Tonight was their turn to go by themselves, which made me happy. I could finally do a makeshift spa day in the room I shared with my brothers room, without the boys making fun of me or staring at me. I got my nail clippers, nail polish, makeup headband, and face masks out on the table. I opened my face mask and placed it on my face. Doc knocked and came in from the room next door.
“Oh My God! I didn’t know you could turn yourself into a unicorn?” He cackled at the face mask since it had a unicorn print on it. I took it off.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Oak and Stetson left two boxes in the back of my truck. Can you please grab the boxes? If the big one is too heavy, one of the boys can get it later. The boys have already left for the shooting range. I’ll leave pizza money for you for doing it.” Doc stated.
“Yes, of course I’ll be right there,” I said. Because I’m a girl, they think I can’t do anything… I went to the parking lot and opened the back of the truck. I grabbed the smaller box first because he asked me to take two trips. I came back into the cabin and placed a small box on the table. I then went back to the truck to get the ginormous box, which was in the back of the truck as well. The old and withered box was so heavy, and it looked like there was possibly mold from moisture or rain. Just as I placed the box over the table, the bottom fell through. I gasped as I saw it; it looked like a large white ball falling onto the counter of the table. It did not chip or break, so I was relieved. Then I saw what it really was.
I screamed as loud as I could. I was so petrified. It looked like a giant ape’s head! With everything going on, I knew it was a bigfoot skull. Doc ran into the room.
“What the hell did you guys bring back from the woods!?” Doc demanded. I shook my head. “Answer me!” he roared.
“I honestly didn’t know the boys brought that back,” I answered with my teeth chattering. “I did not know they went back for the bigfoot skull, I promise you. I walked back to find Uncle Gunner alone.”
“Put it flat on the table. Go take a shower now. When we go back, we do not want Bigfoot to sense you. I could kill those kids!” Doc yelled, exasperated. That was the end of my spa day…
“Yes, sir,” I said as I started to grab my things to leave the room.
“Gunner! We have a problem. Your boys stupidly brought back Bigfoot remains! It looks like we will go back to the nest.” Doc said. He stopped and looked at me. “What are you still doing here? GET!” I brought with me my toiletries and a change of clothes for after my shower. What was taking Uncle Gunner and the boys so long?
There was yelling and banging from outside my room. Uncle Gunner was yelling at the boys for bringing bigfoot remains back from a nest. It was a huge, huge problem because most likely one of the living bigfoots can sense it and go on a rampage. Thirty minutes later, there was silence. I thought he could have killed them—it was that quiet. The door opened, and I jumped. My brothers came in aghast at the tirade our Uncle had let loose on our cousins. “Whoa!” Randy exclaimed. Robbie was concerned that the bigfoot would return looking for his friend’s head.
“Get to bed! Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” Randy yelled at me. I nodded and layed down, and pulled the blanket over me. The lights went out, and the boys went to bed. I could still hear my brothers shaking, momentarily.
Stay tooned for the next addition of
Into The Woods at Night
I wonder if this footprint will get me more dates...
Fasten your Seat belts, It’s Going to be a Bumpy Carriage Ride...
A Trollheim Tale
by Jonathan Hulton
“Why are you so high?”(Angrboda)
“Why are you so down?”(Bosco)
“Join Me!”(Angrboda)
Angrboda, Angrboda, when you are sleeping, you might be flying about with me, saying funny things to the stars.” (Bosco)
“...and then thy dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”
“...People say nothing is
impossible, but I do
nothing every day.” (Bosco)
“The more you reason,
“...the less you create.” (Bosco)
“Looking at the cookie is like looking at the future, until you’ve tasted it, what do you really know?
“...And then, of course, it’s too late” (Angrboda)
“There’s a bustle in your
hedgerow; don’t be
alarmed now...” (Bosco)
“....the May queen.” (Angrboda)
“...there is emptiness!”
“Still I can’t find my home
“...And I ain’t done nothing wrong
“But I can’t find my way home.”(Angrboda)
“I’m not crazy about reality, but it is the only place to get something to eat.” (Bosco)
“We are the music makers...”(Angrboda)
“we are the dreamers of dreams.” (Bosco)
“A little nonsense, now and then... “ (Angrboda)
“...is relished by the wisest men,”(not your average bear)
“There are two paths you can go by...” (Angrboda)
“There’s still time to change the road...”(Bosco)
“There are things known and there are things unknown,
“and in between are the doors of perception.”
“...knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives;
“...the one who seeks finds;
“...the one who seeks finds;
“and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
When the Census Man Cometh
By Lisa Deschenes
The knock at the door was ominous, echoing through the small apartment. Brad, aka Back Alley Brad, held completely still, so whoever was out there wouldn’t know he was at home. He couldn’t tell for sure who was on the other side; this dump of an apartment building was too much of a slum to have security peep-holes installed in the doors, but Brad still had a pretty good idea of who was doing the knocking. He was late on the rent. Again. That lazy slob of a maintenance man, Ralph, was most likely the knocking culprit.
While there was no peep-hole, the cheap-ass hollow doors had a gap at the bottom, so he could see the shadow of whoever was standing out in the hall creeping in underneath. He tried to wait it out, but the bastard wasn’t moving off and Brad needed a smoke, not a cigarette, but a joint. So he crept over to his window quietly as he could manage and slipped out onto the fire escape. There was no screen in the window, so he didn’t need to contend with that at least. It was funny though, because he could have sworn there had been one there when he first moved in. Oh well. He jogged down the four flights of metal stairs to the sidewalk below.
Just as he hit the ground, he saw the boiler room door open on the side of the building. Damn, it was Ralph. How could that out-of-shape jerk have gotten down here so quick? Brad thought to himself. He ducked around the back of the building before the super could catch him.
From there it was a short walk to Greenlawn Cemetery, Brad’s favorite spot for tea time. He crossed under the arched wrought iron gate and made the quick jog to the stairs that led down to Fountain Pond, the smaller of two bodies of water on the graveyard grounds. He pulled his joint out of his pocket, a little wrinkled for wear, but still delectable, he was sure, and flared it up with his throwback flip-top Zippo. He had left his apartment at about ten past four, so he was guessing it was right about four-twenty now. Perfect timing, he laughed to himself.
Brad liked this place because the stone steps were tucked away and mostly hidden, disappearing into the wall of brush that grew on either side. With his gray sweats and brown hoodie, he blended right into the background.
Not that smoking weed was such a big deal nowadays with recreational marijuana being legalized in the state, but old habits die hard, so Brad preferred to smoke in seclusion. This was probably a throwback to his not-so-distant heroin-smoking days, a drug that was most certainly not legal. He had had a legitimate reason to hide back then.
He was not always Back Alley Brad. This was a moniker he had earned during his worst days from his willingness to get down on his knees in back alleys in trade for money to feed his heroin addiction. He had an admirable supply of equally willing customers, if that was something for which to be admired. He wasn’t bad-looking, despite the wear and tear from smoking the drug. He was tall and slim with sandy blond hair and amber-brown eyes. He had been told that he had a pretty mouth, which he supposed was a commodity in his line of work. He wasn’t gay, but he did what he had to do to get his next fix.
He was actually born Bradley Thornton Winchester. Yes, that same Winchester family, known for their contribution to the manufacture of firearms. He wasn’t an heir apparent or anything of the like, but he had been born into privilege. He had grown up in an actual mansion in the McIntire District in Salem, and not one of the ostentatious McMansions so common to New England, but a genuine, bonafide mansion that only the rich can truly possess. He had the finest clothes and the most enviable toys as a child. As an adolescent, he had been sent to one of the higher regarded boarding schools in the area, the Governor Dummer Academy, a name that was a never-ending source of humor for Bradley and his cronies(if only he knew his future nickname at the time).
Sadly, like any number of indulged children, Bradley had no appreciation or gratitude for his advantages in life. Early on, he was merely a spoiled brat, but later as a teenager, he became rebellious. He was escorted home by the local police after being caught smoking pot. He was banned from a nearby mall after security observed him shoplifting. They were all petty acts, but his penchant for getting into trouble culminated at the Governor Dummer Academy. He had punched another student in the stomach in the locker rooms after PE class one day.
When called before the Head Master to answer for his transgression, he stated that “The nerd had it coming. He flipped me the bird. He tried to pretend he was just pushing up his glasses.”
This unapologetic defiance resulted in Bradley’s ultimate and permanent expulsion from the Governor Dummer Academy. It was the last straw in his parents’ accounting of growing offenses.
At first, Bradley thought they would enroll him in public school, have him go to classes with the riff-raff and all as kind of a punishment. But from that point on they didn’t push him to go to school, they didn’t push him to meet curfew, hell, come to think of it, they didn’t push him to do anything at all anymore. Thinking back on it now, he figured it may have been a form of tough love, hoping that if he saw how hard life could be without privileges, he would straighten his act out. Too bad the plan hadn’t succeeded.
He had been sixteen at the time he had stopped going to school, only a year or so before he would have graduated. His newfound freedom led to other delinquent behaviors, hanging out with a bad crowd, smoking more pot. And whoever said that pot was a gateway drug was full of shit. You either had an addictive personality or you didn’t. He knew plenty of kids who had smoked weed and never ventured further; unfortunately, that had not been in the cards for him. His grandfather had been an alcoholic. Brad was a heroin user. Oh, he never shot it up. He had had a fear of needles since he had been a child, but that didn’t mean he was above smoking it. But dammit, it wasn’t the pot that made him do it; it was the hereditary genes. He was convinced.
Well bad had gone to worse and by the time Brad turned seventeen, he had bounced. He was couch surfing for a while and then eventually just became straight-up homeless, living on the streets. Occasionally if the weather was too unbearable, he would duck into the Life Bridge Shelter for a night or two. By that time he was too proud or stubborn or maybe just plain stupid to go back home and make amends.
From time to time Brad was able to make a legitimate living, if that’s what you could call it, doing odd jobs here and there, nothing to give him a roof over his head, but enough to keep him smoking. He never held a job for long though; he had places to be and heroin to smoke. Most of his earnings came from being down on his knees.
A few years into the street life, Brad had secured a job just over the bridge at a restaurant in Beverly bussing tables. The pay was minimum wage, but the servers had to pool their tips at the end of the night with the bussers and hostess, so there was that. He had managed to keep the job probably longer than most. A counselor at the shelter, seeing his newfound dedication to work even got him on a list for low-income housing. When his name came up, he had to submit to a drug test to prove he was clean to qualify. For twenty-five hard-earned bucks, a co-worker sold him his urine. Brad passed with flying colors and was given a room. He bitched about the flophouse or SRO (Single Room Occupancy), if he wanted to be politically correct, being a dump, but it was his dump and a damn shade better than being on the streets.
Alas, all good things come to an end. He was bussing tables at the restaurant one night when the owner came in to have dinner with his wife. Brad had never met him before, but Back Alley Brad had had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Brad could tell, when the guy’s disconcerted look turned to one of mortified recognition, that his time as an employed citizen was about to be over. Sure enough, he saw the owner pull the manager aside before he headed out the door with his wife. At the end of his shift, Brad was informed that his services would no longer be needed.
It was too bad, because the combination of having an apartment and a legitimate job had been a good move for him. He had been able to take a more serious look at his life and decided that he wanted to do better. If he was being completely truthful, he also kind of missed his family. At first, it might have been his pride that had kept him away, but more recently it was the shame. He knew he wasn’t somebody his parents could be proud to call “son”.
His newfound desire to do right by his folks may have been what had given him the fortitude to quit doing smack. He couldn’t recall there coming a time when he actually consciously decided to stop smoking heroin; he just did. He hadn’t gone through a twelve-step program or checked into a rehab or found Jesus or anything like that. He had just stopped. He went to sleep one night nodding off on a heroin high and the next day he was done. Quit cold turkey and never looked back. Hell, he hadn’t even had any withdrawal symptoms. No shakes, no nausea, no overwhelming cravings. Easy Peasy. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
Well if he wanted to keep walking the straight and narrow, Brad knew he had to get another job and fast. It wouldn’t be long before the powers that be got sick of him dodging them and just evicted his ass. He might buy another few months of squatting time by dragging it through the courts for a bit, but the end result was inevitable; he would be back on the streets and after that, it wouldn’t be long before he was back on his knees chasing the next fix.
Some type of flying insect fluttered out of the brush and past Brad’s face bringing him back to the present. He blinked, thinking for a brief moment that he had just been buzzed by a fairy. Then he laughed thinking, Man, this is some killer weed. I must be stoned out of my gourd. He stubbed out the stub of his joint, putting the roach in an Altoids tin he kept in his hoodie pocket for just this purpose. If he saved up his roaches then when cash was tight and the green was light, he could scrape out enough weed to roll another bone.
For now, it was time to truck on back to his apartment and hope he didn’t run into Ralph. He didn’t have a computer or anything, so maybe he could snag a newspaper out of the convenience store at the Citgo near his apartment building, go old school, and see if he could find any gigs in the help wanted section.
Brad jogged down the remainder of the steps and crossed the stone bridge over Fountain Pond. He gave a little snicker as he did, remembering how as a teen he and his friends thought it was cool to call the bridge stoner bridge, since it’s where they would get high passing a blunt around their small circle.
He wasn’t in a hurry to get back now; having smoked his joint he was more chill. He decided to take the long route back out of the cemetery. He found the place peaceful, somewhere he could gather his thoughts when he was stressed. He passed by a group of bird watchers too engaged in their hobby to take notice of him. They were some kind of club; he had seen them in here before a few times. He was pretty sure they were part of some organization. They all had a little rainbow logo on their sleeves with LBGTQ printed underneath. In his teen years, Brad would have taken the opportunity to throw some anti-gay slur at them, but who was he to judge? His motto nowadays was to each his own, live and let live and all that.
He had to laugh to himself again as he walked the gravel path past the graves. It was almost Valentine’s Day and there were foil heart-shaped balloons tied to some of the headstones. Birthday balloons on others. He found it pretty stupid; it wasn’t like whoever was lying six feet under in these plots would ever be celebrating any of those superfluous occasions again, yet people were still spending money on them as if they would.
He shook his head as he continued walking, when another balloon on a small hillside grave some distance from the path caught his attention. It was a shiny black balloon with silver metallic print across its mylar surface tied to the headstone that was perched over an expectant freshly dug hole. He laughed out loud this time as he read the message on its round surface. ‘Welcome Home’ it declared. Now that was more appropriate, he thought with a chuckle.
Brad slipped in the front door of the apartment building’s lobby then took a quick left ducking into the stairwell. Even though he lived on the fourth floor, he avoided the elevator whenever he could. It gave him the heebie-jeebies, thinking about the possibility of getting stuck in it between floors someday. It wasn’t like the thing was in great shape either; he didn’t care what the certificate of inspection proclaimed. But the other reason he preferred to trot up the four flights was the awkwardness factor. Nobody in this building was super social, given their past histories, but riding up in the elevator in dead silence without even a hello was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Just the other day he had been feeling a bit lazy so taking the elevator had overruled his better judgment and he had suffered the consequences. The guy on the next floor up had already jumped in and the door was just squealing closed when Brad had to squeeze in. The jerk hadn’t held it for him. Still, Brad gave him a nod and a “Wassup?” as he got in, but he didn’t get an acknowledgment back, not even a return nod. The dude acted like he didn’t exist. Then he had to ask him to press four because he was standing right in front of the floor panel, but he had completely ignored Brad and only pressed his own floor. They rode up to the fifth in total silence and once the guy had exited, Brad moved forward and slapped the four while adding “Thanks for nothing, asshole!” flipping him his middle digit as the door squealed shut again.
Today he decided to just skip any chance of another such experience. Slightly out of breath, he pushed the heavy steel door open on his floor and walked down the hallway to his apartment. Three doors down he saw his neighbor Felix standing outside of his own apartment on his phone. Brad put his key in his lock but then hesitated as he caught a snippet of Felix’s conversation.
“Yeah, Bro. ICE came right into the kitchen and got him. Didn’t even give a shit that he had three kids and an old lady at home. Deported his ass today, I heard. The boss is looking for a new dishwasher now. Let me know if you hear of anyone looking, ?”
Brad smiled as he opened the door to his apartment. Maybe he was in for some good fortune after all.
That night, Brad had just popped some Stouffer’s mac and cheese in his microwave for his dinner when another rap sounded on his door. Brad looked at the time on the clock hanging on his kitchenette wall. Seven o’clock. Too late for the super to still be on duty; that lazy lump of human waste beat a path to the door at five every day.
Brad shuffled quietly over to his door and listened with his ear against the wood. He could see the shadow from the hallway that had slipped under once more. He waited, breathing as quietly as he could manage; he knew how thin these doors were in this place. He hadn’t heard anything on the other side for a few minutes and was about to move away when his microwave beeped loudly signaling his mac and cheese was done.
Shit, he thought to himself. There was no way whoever was on the other side was going to believe he wasn’t home at this point. As if in response to that thought, another knock came.
Brad sighed, resigned, and asked, “Who is it?”
A one-word answer came back in reply, “Census.”
“I’m busy, man. Eating my supper. Come back some other time.”
He started to move away from the door, believing that was the end of it, when he heard a small rustling sound behind him. He turned to look back at the door and saw a postcard-sized piece of paper had been slipped through the gap on the floor. Brad waited until he saw the shadow move away before he went back to stoop and pick up the delivery. The rectangular card stock had one word emblazoned in bold across its surface all in capitals, CENSUS. No return website, no email, no phone number, no return contact whatsoever. Brad crumpled it up and tossed it in the small trash can in his kitchenette before he took out his mac and cheese, quickly shoveling the piping hot cheesy goodness in his mouth before he even got to his couch. Smoking a doobie certainly did wonders for the appetite.
The next morning, Brad was just polishing off a mini box of Froot Loops with the milk right out of the box when another knock came at his door. It was only eight o’clock. Ralph the super wouldn’t be dragging his ass in for at least another hour.
This time Brad didn’t even bother to go to the door; he just yelled from his couch, “What do you want?”
There was a pause and then the one-word answer again, “Census,” his visitor said in a flat voice.
Jesus, can’t they even get anyone with a personality to do this job? Brad thought. “Not interested. Go away,” he yelled back, refocusing on his fast-sogging cereal. Damn, he hated soggy cereal.
But apparently, his rejection was not heeded, as another knock sounded at the door. Disgusted, Brad stood up and tossed his remaining cereal in the trash can, and headed to the fire escape. He had planned to hit up his neighbor Felix about the job at the restaurant. Brad knew that the place was right in downtown Salem. Since Brad had no means of transportation, this would be perfect. It was just a short walk from where he lived now. He hadn’t wanted it to seem like he had been eavesdropping on his phone conversation the day before, so he had waited till today, thinking maybe he would just knock on his door and ask if he knew of any openings. But that would have to wait till later now. He didn’t want to go out into the hallway and run into that Census dude. Or better yet, maybe he would just drop by the restaurant in person when they opened for the supper seating and apply for the position. That wouldn’t be until four o’clock, so for now he was just going to go mow the old grass at Greenlawn.
As Brad dropped to the ground off the last rung, he spotted a sleek car parked in a spot out front of the building. Classic El Camino. Looked to be about a seventy-two or maybe seventy-three. His dad had had one. He was an old car collector. His dad’s was white with red trim, but this one was solid black with a high shine and tinted windows. His dad’s was in pretty decent shape, but this one was badass. He walked over to it to take an appreciative stroll around and as he was rounding the rear end he caught a look at the plate mounted just under the bumper. CENSUS. Seriously? You have got to be kidding me, Brad thought. What the hell were they paying these guys anyway?
About twenty minutes later, Brad sat on the granite steps in Greenlawn Cemetery taking a deep toke of his joint. He looked down at the pond. It was still only mid-February, but March would be coming soon and that meant spring. This made Brad think back to how he used to come here with his dad every year as a child. They would watch as the polliwogs in the murky water of the banks would hatch from their eggs. His dad would let him catch some with a small fish net and put them in a jar. He could remember with a laugh how his mom would freak out when they came home with the live jar.
“Get those things out of the house!” she would yell.
But Brad knew she was only putting on a show. He would bring them up to his room and watch every day as they would go through the rest of their metamorphosis from polliwog to tadpole to frog, at which point Brad and his father would return them to the cemetery.
Looking back, Brad realized that his parents hadn’t been that awful after all. And his little sister Madison had been a hoot, always cracking up with her antics. No, it hadn’t been so bad. He had just been an entitled punk.
Brad started to feel nostalgic and homesick. He decided that maybe he wouldn’t wait any longer to see his family again. Maybe after he went to see about that job later that day, he could walk over to his old house; the McIntire District was right off of downtown anyway, so it wouldn’t be a far walk out of the way. His dad got home from work around five, so the timing would be good too. He had initially wanted to wait until he had his shit together to a better degree, but he figured he’d see how it went with the job and if he got that at least he would have accomplished enough to feel good about going to see them.
Satisfied with his decision, Brad stubbed out his roach and popped it in his tin. He was just getting ready to stand up when he saw it. On the other side of Fountain Pond, the sleek, black El Camino had just cruised up and stopped right at the end of the stone bridge. Brad watched as it sat there idling. He couldn’t see the driver through the tinted windows. Wasn’t that shit illegal? All the same, he knew it was the bastard from the Census. Fuck if he wasn’t stalking him now.
Brad sat for a few minutes contemplating what to do? He didn’t think that the dude could actually see him, what with the brush and his attire he was pretty camouflaged. Maybe he should confront him. Or maybe he should just dip out back up the steps instead. He decided on the latter and inconspicuously as possible, trotted up the steps taking the short way out of the cemetery this time.
Getting back to the apartment building, Brad saw that the car was parked out front once more. This asshole is really determined, Brad thought. Dude’s earning his pay scale.
Brad went around the back and with a jump pulled down the fire escape. He quickly climbed up to his floor and slipped back into his window. He wanted to get cleaned up before he went down to the restaurant that afternoon, maybe catch a few z’s, eat some grub.
At around three-thirty, Brad decided it was time to head downtown. He figured the walk would take twenty minutes, give or take, and he wanted to be early to catch the manager. Just as he was about to head out the door, he was startled by another knock. Damn, this guy was persistent.
“What?!” Brad yelled, knowing full well who waited on the other side.
“Census,” came the disembodied voice again.
“Listen, Dude, I ain’t interested. My business is none of your business. Now just beat it and don’t come back, cause I ain’t giving you no info.”
No reply. Brad waited, waiting for the shadow to disappear. When it didn’t, he went back out onto the fire escape again and after climbing down, headed downtown, walking past the now familiar El Camino sitting at the curb.
Precisely eighteen minutes later, Brad stood in front of the restaurant reading the sign posted on its locked door. Closed for Death in the family. Will re-open on Friday. Crap. It was Wednesday. That meant he would have to come back in two days. He should have just talked to Felix and he could have saved himself a wasted trip. Oh well, he thought, can’t change what I can’t change now.
He looked around. The Front Street Cafe was still open and he had just enough change for a coffee. He avoided the coffee chains; their coffee sucked. He needed a nice strong brew. Probably a leftover from his years in a posh upbringing. He was still a yuppie at heart.
While Brad sipped his coffee, he pondered what to do next, Head back home and zap some ramen or still head over to his folks’ house? As he left the cafe and started to slowly walk, he still hadn’t quite decided, as he thought over the pros and cons of each. Before he knew it, he found himself standing at the gate to his parent’s mansion on Chestnut Street. It looked like his feet had made the decision for him.
It was just a bit after five o’clock. Brad stood outside it in the twilight as he looked through the windows of his family home. He could see his mom placing a big platter of food on the dining room table. His little sister Madison, now seventeen years old, sat laughing at something their father had just said to her. Brad’s stomach growled, triggered by the food he could see but not smell from outside. He debated. It would be so easy to just walk up to the front door. Maybe he would walk right in. Maybe he would knock first. Finally, as his hunger and trepidation grew, he lost his nerve and turned away. As he walked back to his apartment, the entirety of which was probably the size of his family home’s bathroom, Brad convinced himself that it would be best to just come back once he had accomplished his goal of securing a job.
Brad was just slurping down his last ramen noodle out of the cardboard container when the knock came again. He tried the silence trick again hoping he would just go away. When he saw the shadow move off under the door, he crept up and listened a moment more before quietly turning the knob. He peaked out into the corridor in the direction he had seen the shadow move off in and just caught a dark hooded figure go through the door at the end of the hall to the stairwell.
Curious now as to what his nemesis looked like, Brad padded down the hall in his stocking feed. A single light bulb dangling from a swinging chain flickered, providing a dismal source of light. He looked through the small rectangular window of the steel door to ensure that the census taker was not on the other side before he cautiously opened it. He heard the door above on the next floor swing shut. Brad quickly jogged up the flight of stairs and again peered through the small glass panel. He just caught the figure as he turned into one of the apartments halfway down the fifth floor.
Seriously? he thought, the dick was actually living in his building.
Brad pushed the door open and silently walked to the door in question. It was marked 13. Brad lifted his arm to hammer on the door, but then just froze. For some reason, his heated desire to tell this guy off face to face just fizzled, as a chill went down his spine. Brad turned and beat a quick retreat back to his apartment.
The next day flew by without incident. No visits from the super and most thankfully, no visits from the Census. Brad followed his normal routine, a box of Froot Loops cereal, this time without the dreaded sog, and then out for his daily jaunt to Greenlawn Cemetery to hit the hay. He had another day before the restaurant reopened, so this day would be best suited to chilling and slacking or maybe just chillaxing. Brad let out a little chuckle at that one.
It wasn’t a very productive day, but it wasn’t a stressful one either. Despite it still being officially winter, spring was in the air, as they say, with the temperature warm and the sun shining. Brad even spent some time looking in Fountain Pond for frog eggs, but with the pond scum heavy, he couldn’t find any. Looked like the groundsman was tending to clearing up the green sludge on the opposite side of the pond though, an annual ritual Brad could remember. The same guy had been here since Brad was a kid. Ronald or maybe Donald, Brad seemed to recall. He had talked to him and his dad sometimes. But he just ignored Brad now. Brad couldn’t say he blamed him.
He headed home around noon, taking the long route this fine day and after scoffing down a fat PB&J, he took an afternoon siesta without interruption. No knocks at the door all day.
When he awakened from his snooze it was late in the day. The sun was moving low in the sky and the shadows it caused on its journey slid across the couch. He had awoken from a dream where his mom, dad, little sister and he were all together on some sailboat out in the harbor watching fireworks. He tried to remember if that had actually ever happened in real life, but couldn’t recall.
Stretching with a big yawn, Brad got up from his napping spot and went to check out what he had available in the fridge for supper. There was a lone piece of pepperoni pizza from about a week ago sitting on a paper plate. It did not hold much of an appetizing appeal, but Brad shrugged. It was better than nothing and beggars couldn’t be choosers. He was going to put it in the microwave when he decided it would be better cold instead. Delayed gratification was never his thing.
Brad plopped back down on the sofa and flicked on the small, outdated square box of a boobtube that sat on a dilapidated wooden TV stand he had found at the Salvation Army shop. He got exactly three stations without cable, four, five, and seven. Right now the Family Feud was on. Actually, when wasn’t it?
He mindlessly ate his pizza, occasionally laughing at some of the contestants’ ridiculous answers and Steve Harvey’s returning wisecracks. That’s when the knock came again. Brad glanced at his clock. It was almost ten o’clock. Shit, where had the time gone? He thought. How long had he been sitting here?
“Who is it?” he called, not thinking that it could possibly be the same harassing visitor.
Then the one-word answer came, “Census,” and Brad snapped.
He jumped up from the couch and stomped to the door. Who did this asshole think he was showing up at this hour? Brad intended to confront him and ream him out. But just as he was about to take hold of the doorknob, he heard a crunch under his bare feet.
Brad looked down and saw that he was standing on a broken picture frame. Strange, his feet were bare, but he was sure he hadn’t cut himself. He would feel it or see the blood. He stooped down and picked up the frame. The wood was burnt black and the picture was water damaged, but even in its mangled state, he could still make out the image. It was a photograph of his mother, father, little sister Madison, and himself standing at the rail of a sailboat. They were all smiling, posing with their arms draped on each other’s shoulders in their summer clothes. The boat appeared to be docked at a wharf. Brad vaguely remembered the occasion now. It was a long time ago. They were all so happy.
Brad looked up at his walls. They too were charred black with soot. He looked around his apartment now, all dark and ruined from fire damage. He saw the mesh of the fire escape window screen torn apart. And then Brad recalled another occasion and his shoulders slumped. It was the night he had sat on his couch and lit up his glass pipe of heroin. He had taken a few deep drags and then as he felt the euphoria settle in, he started to nod off in a drugged induced sleep. The pipe, still glowing hot, had dropped from his hands, sparking on the cheap couch too old to be flame retardant and slowly flared back to life igniting the piece of furniture and eventually consuming everything in the apartment in its blaze before the fire department had arrived to contain it. He had never even woken up as the flames had enveloped him. No wonder it had been so easy to kick a killer habit, he thought. He had already been dead and hadn’t even realized it.
Brad now looked up at the door, and although he knew the answer, he asked anyway, “Who is it?”
“Census,” came the one-word reply and Brad opened the door.
Standing out in the hall a faceless shape stood in a hooded black cloak that reached the floor shrouded in shadow. As Brad looked out expectantly, the grim figure turned and walked down the corridor towards the stairwell and once again Brad followed behind him as the single hall bulb hanging from its chain created an eerie light as it slowly swung back and forth in the figure’s wake. This time they went down instead of up.
As they exited the door at the bottom of the stairs, Brad saw the shiny black El Camino waiting at the curb in front of the building. It now reminded him of the flower car in a funeral procession. He stepped into the vehicle as his host held the door for him and sat himself in the passenger seat.
He looked straight forward as the car started up and pulled away, not daring to turn, not wanting to see the dreadful darkness beneath the cloak’s hood again. There was no small talk. He sat in silence and asked no questions as they drove through the deserted night streets, but that was OK, because Brad knew where they were going anyway.
The El Camino passed under the arched scrollwork of the entrance gate at Greenlawn Cemetery and rounded the meandering pathways of the graveyard. Brad was not surprised when the car stopped. He looked up at the hilltop grave he had noticed just two days ago. He could see in the light of the moon that the earth at the top was still open in anticipation of its new tenant, although he suspected it wouldn’t be for long. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh, knowing this was his final stop.
It didn’t look like he was going to receive chauffeur door service on this end of his trip, so he took hold of the handle and opened the car door. He didn’t know exactly what to say to his host. “Catch ya later” or “Thanks for the ride, dude” didn’t seem to be appropriate, so he just gave him a head nod as he stepped out of the idling vehicle. He started up the hill where at the top waited the still bobbing mylar balloon tied to the grave’s headstone welcoming him home.
The End
Not the Philosopher’s Stone
Continued...
May 10th, 1887
Dover
We took the train to Dover, where we needed to catch the steamer to Paris. Mary was terrible to the conductors, complaining about keeping to the timetable—she grabbed the engineers’ ass, how she got to the engine?!
Outside the station we caught a cab—a young cabbie stepped out, shook his head, “I know this dance, you are Henry, an immortal…and I have been your cabbie for four hundred years, every time I’m reincarnated…—toke it up to evolution, no more ‘no it can’t be’; ‘ oh pull the other’—just get in,” said an exasperated Louie.
“Good to see you too,” I said.
“Caroline,” Louie nodded and helped her in. “I never forget a pretty lady, who is the young woman next to you?”
“I’m sitting up front with him,” Mary said as she got up front.
The rest hired a hay wagon that was riding past.
Waiting to board the steamer, Mary pinches the ass of a young, distinguished, meek gentleman.
“Woah...” the man shrieks.
“Sorry for my wife,” I say, which adds equal discomfort. “May I get your name?”
“Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll, I’m taking a trip to the Rivera to calm my nerves.”
“Wasn’t there an earthquake there recently?” asks William.
“Well, the worst all ready happened,” he answered.
We met Doyle and Sax on board.
Rushing up the gangplank, leaving his family behind, was Bram; “I wanted to take my family on a truly adventurous journey—and I know we shall find one now with you, Mr. Searles. I heard about your and your wife’s honeymoon adventure, all that money and what be...”
“Well, yes—”
“Young William there, his fight I watched at the Wild West show—it’s all in the Sunday Chronicle!” went on Stoker. “I can really sink my teeth into your tales.”
His family gathered him, and we made it to our quarters.
I was sitting on the deck, having some licorice. I noticed the Irish woman next to me just put down a paper. “Do you mind?”
“No, I’m done;”
“The Sunday Chronicle—I’m Edward;”
“Com, and this little one is Gerald;”
“You have a beautiful young tyke;”
“Oh he’s not mine; I work for the Gardners;”
“My wife is having some trouble with her Cook’s son—”
“No, that is their surname—he is a magical little one…”
“Are they on board—”
“No, wealthy folks, they travel one way, us the other. You know the type.”
“Mary speaks about it in her relations.”
I began reading about Mary and mine European Honeymoon Adventure. How Timothy thinks I took her out of the country to manipulate her, how he struggles to keep control of her railroad, the battle on the ship coming over, William’s and Edward’s fist to cuff victory, and some other embellishments Edward must have heard from William.
To my surprise, Du Bois walks up with Edward.
“I was just reading your article;”
“I hope you didn’t mind some of the details; it is my first article—it did so well my father paid for my ticket to shadow you.”
“Was that you in the window above Scotland Yard?”
“Yes, I was hoping your Agawam friends wouldn’t say anything.”
“They tend to be quiet; they only pass on what is important—sorry, I mean in those circumstances, that is a threat, well—”
“No offense taken.”
“Hank—Edward, we are going to get some hot dogs, do you want any?”
“I like them, but they don’t like me..”
They rounded inside and went up a floor and met Crowley and the mad monk again.
William choked and sank back; Edward was confused. William had remembered what he had seen in the morgue. Edward shook his head and leveled his cane. Bennet came in, and Edward sidestepped to his left and struck his elbow with the stick, then placing it on the other side in its nook and with a twist he brought his arm high behind him and ringed his head with a bell on the wall.
Crowley jumped toward William with knife drawn. Edward stumbled backward, and Olaf appeared and smacked him with a turkey leg and kept eating. Bjorn walked out of the galley with the rest of the turkey; “What is going on?”
Bjorn and Olaf hanged the two on a meat hook upside down. Edward and William got hot dogs fresh off the grill from the pretty Irish cooks the two were chatting up. Olaf and Bjorn were throwing eggs at them, egging the girls to do the same.
“Quit it!” Crowley pleaded.
“We normally throw axes after a few rounds, at your pigtails, but you two are bald…we could try axes instead for hair growing out of your ears…”
“Eggs are—” Bennet paused as he got hit by an egg from one of the gals. “Fine.”
“I was wondering if any leftovers” asked Dr. Jekyll as he walked in and was cut short by an egg in the face. “That will suffice my hunger—be careful, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…”
Then the ship violently tipped and rocked back and down. Water rushed in. Olaf and Bjorn told them to hang in the kitchen. Crowley said he guessed he had no choice.
An aftershock of the Rivera volcano has rocked the ship. Little Gerald slid off the bench in his cradle. I leapt for him, almost sliding under the railing. I caught my feet on the railing’s base and stood up with the deck in my face and cradle in hand. Com held onto her bench. The ship slammed back down with a wave taking the Chronicle overboard. I looked up and saw Bram’s face smashed against the window. He was yelling something about the Dimitry…Then the window was a mess of pea soup that was on today’s menu. Trygve and Magnus ran to the helm again. As Magnus passed, he loomed at me and said, “Ufda.”
Oh, shit in Norwegian.
They righted the ship and sailed us out.
Com was just sitting well poised, dress straight, and dry on the bench I first met her. Gerald was in his cradle next to her. My hand was empty?
I looked at her.
“It must be magic,” she said.
Upon disembarking, Bram was leaving with his family; he slammed his copy of the Sunday Chronicle into young Edward’s chest, looked at me and said, “Adventures you can keep them.”
His wife huffed at me as she rushed the kids past us.
“Adventures really suck the life out of your veins!” I heard Bram say as he got to the dock.
Calais, France
Mary went straight for the engineer, she decided it was about time she learned to drive a train.
I sat in my compartment with Caroline and William across from us when Louie came in.
“Nasty ferry, 1.5hrs became a 3hr cruise, a 3hr cruise…”
“Yup,” I said, looking up from my copy of Pinocchio. I bought it at the station. It was a latest bestseller. I also picked up The Strand with Doyle’s Study in Scarlet about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It looked like the illustrator depicted Sax as the detective.
Then came in the porter with a food cart outside of the compartment.
“Louie!”
“My cousin Pierre,” Louie said, looking at William. He is always related to folks working in kitchens. He always said they make the best spies, because nobody pays attention to the caterers…
He got us a free breakfast of fruit, tea, and Norwegian pancakes. Just a little twist on crepes.
When we got to Paris. Mary joined us, and the engineer was smiling when he waved at her and noticed his fly was down. Mary adjusted her lipstick.
Louie found us an electric car, and my reincarnated third generation Vikings found a few electric trucks. Doyle and Sax rode in front of us in their own car.
On the way, we saw them building the Eiffel Tower. We stopped to take a look. Achak and his brother jumped on our running boards. They had went ahead to scout out the Temple Park.
“Pinkertons,” Malsumsis said.
“There was a stranger ordering Cushing around, some dignified bloke with a silver tipped cane,” Achak added.
“It had a goat head,” his brother continued.
“How many?” I asked.
“Twenty five in the park, forty one below,” Achak counted.
“Sixty Six six feet below in the crypts,” Malsumsis continued.
“The bidders are all inside as well,” Achak confirmed.
“Zuni witches too,” Malsumsis said with concern. “Dark magic.”
In a quarter hour, we arrived. The Vikings got out first with axes and spread out from the center. The Pinkertons just waited, cocky like...
Two whoops could be heard from opposite sides behind hedges. The brothers found the snipers. Hearing where the whoops came from and facing the axes alone, they all ran. They knew they were dealing with more than some poor overworked factory worker.
Sax pulled out a key. Mine was bigger.
“I always knew you had a large key,” Mary quipped. “Do you want to see if it fits my chastity belt, it might creak from rust though.”
Caroline laughed, hugging her arm.
I opened the portal under the gazebo.
Mary went first, like the dowager empress of Russia.
Louie goosed her, and Mary took his arm.
We walked into an enormous cavern with Egyptian, Phoenician, and Sumerian themes. The appropriate number of columns for your basic Freemason lodge. Its ceiling had gold stars on burgundy. The floor was black and white squares. The center of the room was raised by four steps that surrounded it. On it was an acacia wood table that fit 13. At its head were two thrones.
Cushing occupied one; the other was empty. Pinkertons surround. Rudolph Steiner is representing Madame Blavatsky. Across from him is Gurdjieff, playing with his mustache. Alan Quartermain and Zulu chief Umslopogaas stands behind him. Hagard killed him off in the novel to allow him anonymity. Howard Taft in place of his father and the Illuminati. Henry Luce reading his magazine. Cecil Rhodes playing with a diamond. Rockefeller carving some scrimshaw out of a whalebone. That strange little doctor from the ship was fidgeting up a storm. Plus a few I didn’t recognize. They all were bored out of their minds waiting for the second throne to be filled.
Bjorn and Olaf led the Vikings to stand in front of the Pinkertons. Doyle and Sax pulled Colts. Louie walked up the stairs, plucked the whale bone out of his hand, and smacked him in the head. He circled the lot and dismissed them. Caroline and Mary sat down. They would have pulled out some popcorn if they had any. They were busy whispering. I was cleaning my nails.
Then, a mysterious Norman French gentleman appeared in tux with a red lined cape. His walking stick was topped with a Nordic head with one eye. He smacked Cushing, who sat up right. “Gentlemen,” he said, placing the glowing stone on the table taking his cape off. “The bidding starts at $369,963.”
I ran toward Olaf; he had his hands out, and I leapt into them before he tossed me. Head over heels, I flipped over my crew and grabbed the ruby as I passed over it and landed at the end of the table and ran.
“Moriarty!” yelled Cushing. “You dolt!” He whistled twice, and his Zuni friends gave chase after me. As I went by, I was distracted noticing the several artifacts Napoleon brought back from the pyramid—next to Benjamin Crowninshield’s boots…The Crowninshields built the Cleopatra’s Barge, America’s first pleasure yacht, to free Napoleon from his island prison. As I was taking it all in, a large Zuni priest close lined me.
I woke up on cloud nine. My friend Harvey, the Pookah, was waiting for me. “Henry, how’s the Mormon life?”
“You know better—do I need to send Caroline up here again…”
“No, I’m still waiting for my cottontail to grow back, at least I don’t have to worry about your other wife she is a horrible shot, I hear from my little cousins…”
“Can you shoot the seeds off a sedge?”
“Oh…”
“You do understand why we led you to Europe.”
“Led me?”
“The ruby was only the bait; a world war or two is coming. We need you to gather some, antiquities, before Victoria’s grandkids can find them. Also watch out for the little man Nostradamus predicted—it won’t be who the world thinks, but the other whose name rhymes with his.”
“What treasures—I got my fill of treasures”
“Henry, just shut up—overtime I will drop in with requests—“
“Orders—“
“If you want to say, well yes. There is a second in the room.”
“What?”
“Let your cousin tell you,” Harvey said as he rabbit-punched me off cloud nine.
“I woke up and found the ruby flying, and I caught it.
It was then that the little, funny doctor did the strangest thing.
He took five avocados out of his back pocket, fed them to three sardines, lit them all a cigar (including the avocados), and played Brahms’ latest piece on a mouth harp no, he turned into a giant. An angry giant with horrible teeth and breath to match. When he huffed, and he puffed, he blew Trygve right down. He wretched worse than William crossing the Atlantic. Only if he could see this, we left him above with my Agawam friends. Trygve teased him the worse.
The doctor came right for me. It was kill the man with the ruby…
I slid between his legs, but he was so tall I couldn’t get any leverage on the back of his knee to take him down. He swiped, and I shifted my hips. The only crease on his body I could manipulate was ineffective. I doubted I could snap any of his joints with my bare hands. He landed a kick in my jaw as if he were stamping on an ant. On my back, I looked up.
There was a large bronze incense burner. It was round, terminating in a point, hanging from three chains that merged into one. I pointed Bjorn to it, and he ran with Magnus.
First, they dropped it on his head before he could step on me. Then they lowered it to his shoulder. Trygve woke up to hoist his grapple into the censor; don’t all third generation reincarnated Vikings carry grapple hooks?
When the doctor swung his left at me, they slammed the censor into his right shoulder, making him swing narrower, missing me.
Then I grabbed a broad candle pillar and nodded. Magnus lowered the censor and Magnus pulled it into his waist. The giant bent over and smashed his head into the pillar. Steiner and Moe took another pillar horizontally at the back of his knees. He caught himself on his palms. Here, it was easy to manipulate his head and torso. He swiped, and I rolled outside, grabbing the inside of his forearm and kicked with both legs his elbow. Crunch! It dislocated. He went to swing his other fist, but I locked his torso with the dislocated arm. I slammed his head down onto the floor, and he passed out. Louie, who was hiding somewhere protecting Mary, like she needed any help, came up and sat on his head like the victor. Then he shrunk back to the funny little Dr. Jekyll with his fine suit in tatters, revealing he was wearing women’s pantaloons with a frilly bow. Louie stumbled off, but kept his balance.
Cushing tried to snatch the ruby from me, but Quartermain shot him in the ass.
The Zulu, Umslopogaas, went to stop Moriarty, but he pulled out the head of John the Baptist. Umslopogaas pulled out a shrunken talking head that only said, “Shitttt!!!” as green light beamed from John’s eyes, knocking them over.
Doyle tried stopping him, but was smacked brutally with his cane. Rohmer shot twice and missed. Moriarty escaped through the catacombs with the Pinkertons protecting his rear.
We let them go. We had the Ruby, but I knew what our next mission was. To get my cousin’s head back.
I wondered where Caroline was. She was sitting comfortably on top of a pile of Pinkertons, eating my licorice. If I brought a paper, she would probably be through section one by now.
As I entered into the light, I saw William talking to Rudolph Steiner, encouraging him to study in Berlin. A very open city. Mary followed me, pawing over Louie. Caroline checked on William. The park was safe now.
The Agawams came over and said they saw them leaving toward the new iron tower.
Mary suggested we all attend Brahms’ presentation of his new piece for violin. Louie said he loved classical; I swear his nose grew a little like Pinocchio in my new book. Achak said he saw Thunderchief in the electric wagon with them.
The Wild West show was heading to Manchester next. William liked that idea. He could hang out with Edward again and watch the new canal being built. I thought it would be a good time to dig some new tunnels in England and hide the dirt within the canal project like Bulfinch did in DC.
In France, the tunnels under the Temple would be our new home. The complex of dwellings and rooms below were always larger than the castle above. Plus,we could furnish them with all of our artistic and magical finds. Maybe even build a few castles back home to keep it all in when we are done…
Doyle and his teacher Bell are heading back to Salem with the ruby. Professor Albert from the Miskatonic University will hide it safely in my safe in my tunnels. Plus, Doyle is meeting a spiritualist in the Oddfellows building in Beverly. She is introducing him to a woman from Lime Street in Boston.
Alan and his friend will be staying with us in tunnels and journeying to Manchester. Rohmer will be going ahead.
Louie and Mary seemed to have disappeared.
This was truly going to be a strange honeymoon.
Epilogue:
Mark Hopkins was treasurer of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was the eastern bound train when they nailed the golden spike. He left his wife, Mary, the 26th largest estate in American history, worth $40 million. After Mary’s death, Edward Francis Searle received the fortune, and in 42 years, supposedly there was only $1 million in his estate. They never found the rest; some say he hid it on his property in Methuen, MA. Searle worked with Henry Vaughn to build many castles throughout New England. Frank Hamilton Cushing was an archeologist working for the Smithsonian who led archeological digs into Arizona made for by Mary Tileston Hemenway who had a mansion in Manchester-By-the-Sea on Lobster Cove where Cushing was her neighbor and in Salem where Forest River Park is now. Cushing was in magical society within the Zuni. He also researched the Tuckerton Giant in Tuckerton, NJ and its large clam midden near where a meteor landed.
The Salton Sea was filled with water, and at other times not. They did some nuclear tests there, and one scientist was also researching if the Dead Sea had any similarities to it after it was nuked. Now very toxic. One had many resorts on it. In earlier times, it was connected to a large river.
Thunderchief replaced Sitting Bull when Buffalo Bill brought his Wild West show to London for Queen Victoria’s 50th anniversary on the throne. Bram Stoker was in attendance. Stoker would also be in a great storm crossing the sea to France. Thunderchief would stay in Manchester after finishing its shows there. Edward Hulton was the son of Edward Hulton Sr. who owned the 2nd largest newspaper chain in England. After an argument with his father who refused him from entering the priesthood, and appearing in court testifying his father was not a bookie, he might have assumed the identity of another Edward Hulton in Jersey City, NJ who in the same month was accused with killing his wife who was a fruit merchant. In NYC he became the boss printer for J.H. Tooker and printed movie posters like Gone with the Wind. In England, his father picked a Mr. Lytham from the track to replace him. His son was Lord Hulton in All Creatures Great and Small. Edward Hulton Jr. was my great-grandfather.
Teddy Roosevelt was a deputy sheriff in the Badlands.
William Prescott traveled from a dinner with the son of John White Webster’s son to Washington, DC, to meet Senator Henry Clay. Webster was on death row for killing another Harvard professor; he specialized in poison. Prescott complained of stomach trouble on his journey. Clay gave the poison to Thomas Ewing Jr. who was President Taylor’s manservant. The next morning, Taylor was dead of typhoid. Ewing’s father was present when presidents Polk and Harrison caught typhoid. Prescott had dinner with Albert and Victoria. Albert died of typhoid.
Benjamin Crowninshield built Cleopatra’s Barge to free Napoleon. In the PEM museum, in the restored dining room of the ship were Napoleon’s snuff box and boots. Crowninshield would also visit Napoleon’s brother at his estate in NJ. A royal Hawaiian family will die on Cleopatra’s Barge.
W.E. Dubois did work for Edward Searle and his wife in Great Barrington, MA, building a castle. He would later study in Berlin.
Also in 1833, the Golden Dawn was founded, and the Wiccan Gerald Gardner was traveling with his Irish nurse. Sax Rohmer was a popular detective story writer, who looked like Sherlock Holmes, and in 1833 Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his first story in The Strand.
OK, did you find all the connections? For one, Angrboda and Bosco ended up in Snoopy’s French town that Henry and gang passed through. In one story, they went into a basement, and the monster was upstairs, and in another, they went downstairs, and the monster met them below. When Bosco fell, the story really got strange. So strange that Brad could not do enough drugs to see what the Trolls had seen. For Henry, it is just a matter of course.
~Professor Wilmarth
This is Professor Wilmarth and your friendly neighborhood Cthulhu welcoming you to another journey within the world of the macabre and the strange. In this season’s issue, we have several tales filled with some religious trinkets, giant feet in the woods, some delirious Trolls, and astral projections you can dance to.
Find out all of the secrets that lie under your feet in Salem MA. Learn about the tunnels that were started in 1670’s and were still being used through Prohibition. The tunnels that created America’s first millionaires and the 1% that took over the country. New edition with extra tunnels from Salem and around the nation! Look for it on Barnes & Noble and Salem House Press.
