Hellucination (Wrath Limited Edition)

by Stephen Biro

  I pulled onto the Ybor City exit and found the main street, Seventh. I began looking into each space to see if anything was for rent. Nothing was. But I was going to find something. I felt it. Just as I felt in my heart I had done something spectacular the night before. Not many people find God, commune with Him, or live His lessons without stopping or walking away from a challenge.

  I came to the actual end of Ybor City. Nothing was for rent or sale. I stopped at the red light and was just about to feel dejected when I saw it: An empty storefront, right on the corner of Seventh and Twenty Second Street. It was right at the end of the party zone. There was a huge parking lot in front of it for a Cuban restaurant. I pulled in and was still in a daze as I approached the door. A sign indicated the number to call, and I took out my cell phone and gave it a ring.

  The landlord answered and told me he would be there in 30. It was more like two. Before I knew it, I was signing a contract in less than an hour. No deposit, no upfront. Just $725 a month. A thousand square feet of retail space was mine. I had the keys that day.

  I called my friends to see who would help. One very special friend—let’s call him “The Man”—helped me immeasurably. He had a side business (it’s where I got my acid, if you catch my drift) so he could keep his own hours. He helped, not for money and not for promises, but because he thought that the store should be built. The Man loved gore films and he wanted to share the love of gore, death, murder and fucked-up shit. He loved to find lost, banned gore films like I did. It was always a kick to show something that has been much-rumored but rarely seen. The Man was my right-hand man. Even his girlfriend came, helping more than she should have.

  It was a ton of work. We bought particleboard for the plastic shelf units I found for ten cents apiece. I bought lasers, strobe lights, and a fog machine to make the store an “experience.” I decided to make the place R-rated and not admit kids under 17 without a parent. That was a bit of a gimmick, but then again, the crap I was renting and selling was brutal, and the DVD and VCR boxes showed it. So I didn’t want to fuck up a good thing with Johnny Law, much less fuck up an innocent soul.

  So I had stencils made to put a big “Rated R” on the front door. It was menacing and exactly how I wanted it: A retail store with teeth.

  A funny thing happened on the way to building that store. When I was being issued a phone number, I asked my phone provider if the number 666 was available. The phone guy laughed and said, “Any and all numbers with 666 are available. No one wants them. You actually want one?”

  “Yeah. I’m opening a cult video store specializing in horror films. I think it would be a kick and easy for my customers to remember.”

  My number became 246-4666. I couldn’t get 666-4666 because there isn’t exchange with “666” anywhere in the United States. So I got the next best thing. I put a huge sign with the numbers in the front windows. It read:

  Video Mayhem! Cult, Gore, Anime and Kung Fu flicks for the Criminally Insane! Phone Number 246-4666.

  I was still making money from bootlegs on the web, and it almost gave me enough for the store, but I needed more cash. My Mom came into the picture and lent me some of her inheritance from my Uncle John. It was actually from my grandfather but he took my mother out of the will for some stupid reason. My uncle was gracious and Christian enough to give her half. My Mom turned around and gave me a third of it, about $10,000 to help. And it did. I could buy plenty of new DVDs for the store. I slowly paid back my Mom as the years went by. Since Mom was pretty poor, the loan was a big deal for her and me.

  The Man and I built the store from a dream to a reality. When it was finished, we decided to celebrate. I thanked God for the help and for the initiative.

  The Man broke out a bag of hydro, and I wanted to celebrate. I’d smoked only a tiny bit of pot while working on the store, so I was ready to relax and get fucked up. The Man broke out a full bowl of crippy. We smoked it and then did a couple of more.

  As I took the last hit of pot, holding it in my lungs to get everything from it, it hit me like a ton of fucking bricks: Shame, guilt, sin, lust, Hell. My Id, my personal Devil was screaming in my ear. I couldn’t enjoy the buzz, because my own mind was trying to destroy me.

  “What’s wrong dude?” The Man asked.

  “It feels like I am going out of my fucking mind!”

  “Don’t worry. It’s crippy, dude. You’ll calm down.”

  “No, this is different. I’ve never had a problem with pot before”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve never see you freak out no matter what kind of drug it is.”

  Now, The Man knew I’d met God. I’d told everyone by that time. I had a lot of friends dismiss me as a fool. Some listened, then found it too heavy to continue. Others? Well, I’ve saved a soul here and there.

  “I hear voices, dude, and they’re fucking me up!” I told The Man.

  “I’m going to take off. If you’re actually having a fit inside, it might be better for me to not be here. I’ll see you tomorrow in the morning. If you’re not here, I will open the store and try to finish this place up.” The Man grabbed his jacket off the counter and headed for the door.

  I said, “Man, thanks.”

  “No worries, just get your head together before tomorrow.”

  With that, he left. The Man didn’t laugh at me or do any of the usual stoner-type of funniness everyone does to each other. He took it at face value and left without making a big deal out of it. The front door closed and I sprang into action.

  I jumped up and locked the door. I wrestled with my personal demons for the rest of the night in my brand new store. As the buzz wore off, so did my internal struggle. I thank God it did.

  I was so grateful for all that had happened to me in my God quest that I bought a Bible that night. I’d only heard stories that The Bible was His book, dictated to others throughout the ages. I didn’t want to die and meet God and have him ask me, “So Stephen, you found me and changed your life. How did you like the only book I ever wrote? Was there anything more I could have done with it? Give me your honest review.”

  There was no way in Hell that I wanted to tell my Creator that I didn’t read His book. So I bought one at the local Wal-Mart. It was a King James Edition with a leather bound cover and gilded gold pages. I don’t know what the clerk thought about a man buying a Bible at 3 a.m., and I didn’t care. I just needed the Book in my possession. I had experienced God on a personal level, and I had heard His voice, and I’d done what I was supposed to. Now, I needed His words. I took it home and plopped it down on my desk, to read later.

  I’m still surprised I didn’t pick it up and read it then. A personal encounter with God changes me to an unrecognizable new person, and I don’t read it? I personally think I was supposed to have that Bible for when the exact time came. The time came, but it took its slow, sweet time.

  I haven’t mentioned my change in behavior yet. After my first experience, and especially after later ones, I had many people comment and say I was like a new human being. And I was; I listened to everyone with a new heart, and I never judged anyone but tried to give them guidance as I now saw it. If they didn’t understand, I didn’t judge them for that. It felt wonderful to talk to everyone on every level, no matter where they were in life. I guess that’s when I noticed I could move up and down the levels of humanity with ease.

  The Man and I were finishing the store, and it was a big undertaking. I set up all of the bootleg equipment in the back so we could still take orders until the store got on its feet. I placed ads in the cool independent newspapers around town. I had membership cards made up. I bought the software to track everything. I was labeling and categorizing the whole library and all of the DVDs. The sign was put up, and stickers went on the door. A rubber corpse and a huge alien (in a hibernation tube!) hung high on the wall, looking down at us. I bought lava lamps, black lights and a huge TV. We had it all set up for the opening weekend.

  I even paid a couple of chicks to dress up in la
tex outfits to walk around Ybor with signs, advertising it. One of them dressed as a devil and the other as a nun. One of their friends showed up just wearing a skanky latex dress. They went out with their signs. I opened the door to the store.

  People scurried in and scurried out. Members joined, and others just bought DVDs or videos. It was a great night. The Man and I talked up our gore and cult films to no end. I had kung fu aficionados coming in to check my Hong Kong selection, and the indie film crowd were looking for certain long-lost gems. It felt great, and I was really happy.

  As I was ready to lock the doors after the last customer, I realized the girls I hired to parade around Ybor were long overdue. I locked up the shop and went looking for them.

  I walked down Main Street and found them halfway down. They were actually in a dark alley. One was puking on herself. One had a guy wrapped around her. And the other was just trashed, trying not to fall down. The signs were broken and covered with mud and dirt.

  “What’s going on? Are you guys okay?”

  “Stephen! We walked down the street, and every bar and club pulled us in and made us dance on the bar and gave us free drinks!”

  “So, how much advertising did you guys do with the signs?”

  “We didn’t do anything,” the one said in between puking. “I need to go home.”

  I got the guy in the alley to agree to drive them home, and I followed in my car to make sure everyone made it safely. It was a really nice drive home, very satisfying.

  A week after the opening, things went well. The Man and I were having fun. I tried to smoke occasionally with The Man, but I ended up paranoid and out of my mind. I’d never had this problem until after the night I met God. So I stopped smoking pot altogether. I missed it because I used to love to get baked and watch underground movies. It was a part of who I was. On the other hand, the experience of meeting God made me realize there is more to life. It also seemed that God had reprogrammed me to be a different person. Part of that reprogramming was that I couldn’t smoke pot without getting paranoid.

  Around this time, a good friend named Rhett came to my house. I knew him since the comic book store, and he’s probably my best friend.

  Rhett walked in and sat down on the same love seat Morpheus had used. It was normal bullshit talk at first: Work, girlfriends, and good times past.

  Then he asked me a question that blew my mind.

  “So, Steve, what made you listen to different songs, repeatedly, with the same visuals over and over again?”

  I looked at Rhett. I had never told anyone that I would listen and watch the same music video—or the same movies—repeatedly in my quest to find the answers, then to find God.

  “Wait! How do you know this?”

  I’m used to going with the flow of things, but this came from left field. Rhett is a straight shooter, gave up drugs a long time ago. And I hadn’t touched any LSD and/or nitrous for months (and it had been over a month since I’d used pot), so I’m as straight as can be.

  I felt a door open. Slowly, but it opened all the same.

  “I know, Rhett said. “And to be honest, a lot of people know what you did. You can’t just go to the other side without certain people and entities finding out or even just feeling it.”

  I was dumbfounded.

  “How do you know about the repeated—?”

  “Because that’s how you do it. The music and visual stimuli repeated over and over puts the mind into a hypnotic state. Since the mind isn’t trying to find a new note or a new visual, it can take it all in by memory while you’re experiencing it. It puts the user into a deep trance so his mind can pierce the actual fabric of this reality.”

  I didn’t know what was going on since this was real, coming from a trusted (and straight) friend.

  “I’ve never told you or anybody about what I was doing,” I said.

  “Stephen, I’m God!” he said, laughing and standing.

  I was overjoyed. I stood up, and we hugged like long-lost brothers. I almost began to cry. In fact, I think I did.

  Again, my mind was open to all possibilities, and here was one. My best friend turns out to be God, masquerading as a human. Nothing could be better.

  I ran with the idea like a child with a brand new pair of sneakers.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said. “You can’t imagine…”

  “I think I can,” he says laughingly.

  We sit back down, and I said, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

  “Go ahead. I wouldn’t have revealed myself to you if I wasn’t ready to answer.”

  “What is going on?”

  “I’m testing you.”

  “Why did you create us?”

  “Boredom, experimenting, loneliness, fun.”

  “But there isn’t much fun,” I said. “War, poverty, desperation and sadness. I can go on.”

  “But there’s also joy, happiness, peace, sex and love.”

  “But why the insanity of it all? Why aren’t you here on earth?”

  He said, “Because how can I really test souls? The mystery shows one’s true character. I left laws behind that everyone knows.”

  “Like in the Bible. I just bought one to read.”

  “Oh? Why would you do that?”

  I was perplexed. “To read the book you wrote?”

  He said, “No, I didn’t write that. Men wrote that using me as inspiration.”

  “So what are you trying to say?”

  “You don’t have to read it. It has good stuff in it, but view it more like Aesop’s Fables or a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Cautionary tales. Do you think Noah actually saved two of every creature and put them all on one continent and that the continents split less than 10,000 years ago and it wasn’t written about? Do you think Jonah actually sat in the belly of a whale for three days? If the deadly plagues of Egypt actually happened with Moses, don’t you think the Egyptians would have recorded such a massive event on the walls of the pyramids? Um, dinosaurs—hello?”

  I said, “Well, I can agree, but…”

  “No buts. It never says in the Bible you must believe it all.”

  “Okay. So what, then?”

  “Everyone has a path in life, and if you don’t choose to accept it, you won’t move forward until your next life. And if you choose that path and stick to your virtues without falling into the abyss— which, by the way is way too easy, the longer your life goes on—you will be rewarded in the next life and move up to the next level.”

  “So you’re saying reincarnation is real.”

  “You did experience that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes? But you should know that.”

  “So why doubt what I am saying?”

  “It’s more Hindu-based, even though everyone believes in a type of reincarnation.”

  “Exactly my point. Every Christian believes in reincarnation, otherwise you wouldn’t be reborn into Heaven. There wouldn’t be a second death and a second life. You took a lot of LSD and mixed it with nitrous and you went into a different reality while looking for God, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve gone places only the holiest of people have even gone, and they have all reported back to those around them. Shame of it is, not many go as far as you have. You actually broke out of this reality and into the next. You reached the level of atrocity, the level of despair, and you pulled yourself up into the level of exhilaration. You found yourself with the powers of a god, and then you plunged into total isolation from humanity on the psychic plane of existence between life and death. You’ve been to the realms of the ether, and you’re probably the most fucked-up of them all.”

  He continues, “It’s usually holy men or women who stay away from society to cleanse themselves for such an adventure. Not you. I have to hand it to you: You shocked us all.”

  “So tell me something I need to know.”

  “Look at it this way, Stephen. If I close my eyes, I can see where everyone will
be in 30 seconds from now. I can also see them ten years from now. I can even see them at the end of their life at the same time.”

  “So there is no free will?”

  “I never said that. I just know where they will be. Look at it this way: If I throw up a deck of cards, I know where they will all land, and I know where every card will be.”

  “Well, if you know that, why have us live these lives all the way through? When babies are born, why not send them straight to their ultimate destinations right at that moment?”

  “You’re quick. But who says I’m not doing that already? You’re going by your clock and the rotation of the sun and moon as your guide. That’s not how I keep track of time. My time is limitless, and thirty seconds to me is a lifetime to all. Can you understand that?”

  “Yeah, I can understand that.”

  “Good, now let me tell you what I want you to do: I want you to make a movie of this. Maybe even a book. A book to start and then a movie afterwards. That sounds good. I want you to lay off the drugs, quit smoking and be a better person. Learn to be humble, kind and understanding. And I want you to remember this always. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha were all sons of God, and you are now too.”

  I was a little confused but listening to every word. It’s not often you hear the secrets to the universe. Feeling comfortable, I began to ask other questions.

  “What about black people? Why did you create them?”

  “That was a mistake.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t know that racism would cause such harm. The whole race thing was a total fuck up. I didn’t think everyone would be so afraid of another skin color or attribute—or that people would blame whole societies for the woes of themselves for so long.”

  “Well, that’s fucked up.” I said. Then I asked, “What about avocados? Why are the pits so big?”

  “Ah, another fuck up. But you knew that from George Burns’ answer in Oh God!”

  I laughed because he figured out my ruse. Before I could ask any more, God spasmed, and His eyes became glossy. Then one eye twitched, and suddenly my friend Rhett was back. He jumped up and said, “Dude! I gotta fucking leave!”