She attempted a weak smile. “Cable…listen…I don’t want you to have brain damage—I want you whole and real when Cronus gives you to me—because your impairment will affect the potency of the purple mists when I breathe you in.”
“Oh, that’s swell—you come rushing in here like on a secret mission to tell me I’d best be in good health so you can kill me tomorrow or the next day as you inhale my essence through your nostrils? Yeah, that makes me feel a whole lot better!”
“I really wish you could be my lover. But Cronus is such a stick-in-the-mud about things like that. The last time I tried with some handsome Urantian, he hung him upside down. His toes stretched until his body reached clear to the floor! And he smelled terrible.”
“You know, Rhea, I kind of like you, but I’m not really interested in your past lovers, the night of the purple mists—and I don’t look forward to being lobotomized tomorrow. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.”
“You can’t. Cronus has ordered me to escort you to an Eve of the Purple Mists so you can see first-hand how wonderful it can be.”
“Wonderful for you. For me, it’s previews of coming attractions, lady. By the way, where in the hell are we? How come one minute I’m in this cozy cottage with you, then we’re walking toward this palace or whatever—and zap! I’m back in L.A. where nothing on the bathroom floor of that Eighth-Street Theatre is the same as I recall it the first time—and now I’m here after getting clubbed by one of your hubby’s goons and tossed into the back end of a garbage truck! And by the way—again—where is here?”
“Induced illusion. Cronus will never tell. You are in Los Angeles in this dimension—the one you’re used to—but Cronus calls his Oculus Order together by summoning them to Fifth Street and Alvarado where they’re picked up and blindfolded until they reach here. I know the way to ‘here,’ but I have to come from the other side to get here. I know it sounds confusing—because it is, even to me…you see, I can flip from dimension to dimension. In fact, I’m going to have to put you to sleep to get you to the Eve of the Purple Mists—because that’s in my dimension, where my cute little cottage with the warm fire is.”
“Look, lady, I don’t want any more shit shot into my veins. And I told you, I don’t give a rat’s ass about your purple mists thing. Leave me alone.” As I said that, I felt a pin-prick stab to the side of my neck and I was out.
Saved By the Bell of Sorrow
Somewhere I was hearing a lonesome sax playing Yesterdays while a church bell rang from a steeple in the distance. The music wound through me like ribbons of color, hitting my heart like the bumpers on a pinball machine. In these semi-conscious minutes between conscious life and oblivion, there is a wisdom that creeps into you like a knowing cipher—singing out its silent song to what’s left of your brain and will—to continue this insane existence we call ‘life’. So, even if you go there involuntarily, it bubbles up from a part of you that must still be alive, maybe part of memory and regret, joy and pleasure, hope and aspiration, dejection and hopelessness.
When I awakened, Saturnalia was looking down on me and smiling while her fingers stroked my cheek. “Whiskers…tactile stimulation, Cable. Feeling your manly growth travels from my fingertips right up my arms to my breasts and down to—to you-know-where.”
Looking at this dish as I awakened by the warm firelight in her cottage, I was thinking how grand it might be to experience another kind of manly growth with this babe. Overlooking her obnoxiousness, there was still a hell of a lot of voluptuous woman there. I was lying prostrate on a comfortable sofa, looking up at her. “Feels good, babe.” I took a deep breath, trying to figure out where I was or what hellish experience I might be in for next. “So, is this my night of ecstasy with you before the axe falls tomorrow?”
“How I wish. I told you I can’t be your lover. Cronus would punish me terribly. So now it’s time to walk the purple rainbow and experience the marvelous mists.”
“So, what about Sarah and Rebecca Mapleton? Will I be breathing them in?”
“That was yesterday. No, a whole new group of essences is in the air tonight. I know that one of them is a famous dancer Cronus personally chose. He wants me to dance. I love the motion, the rhythm. Cable, do you like to dance?”
“Oh, yeah, just regular nightclub stuff—not ballet or anything.”
“I’d like to do ballet as well. I love the fresh, free motion of moving every part of my body to its maximum pleasure expression. During your nineteenth century, I would swirl and twirl around the back of the theatre in Russia while the orchestra played Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I have always seen myself as the poor, ill-fated swan.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know…just a silly feeling.”
“Alright, kid, take me to the celebration of the purple mists. I’m sure there’s no way out of it.”
Then she bent over and kissed me on the lips. “I can’t let you perish, Cable.” Then her expression and voice grew serious. “Listen carefully. Cronus can hear our thoughts if he chooses to. He sees them as mental pictures, our own visualizations. So, when I tell you what we’re going to do, please try not to visualize it. It would jeopardize everything. Think of something or someone else.”
“How about seducing you?” I kidded her.
“That would be worse. Think of some happy childhood memories, a forest, the sea. Anything but what I tell you, okay?”
“Okay…I’ll do my best.”
She pulled me up until I was sitting. Then she sat next to me. “We will experience the purple mists. Then on the way out of the rainbow, I will take your hand to a dimensional exit I know about. You must trust me and walk through it, no matter what. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, babe, thanks, I do….but what about you? Are you coming?”
“I can’t. It would be too obvious to Cronus. He’s a lot smarter than both of us put together.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Every creature has its flaws…there’s a weak crack in everyone, Saturnalia. I suspect your abductor-husband-lover is no exception. You know, a lot of guys I’ve known put up a pretty good smokescreen, but once you penetrate it, you get to see the chinks in the armor.”
“I hope you’re right, Cable. We must go now.”
We walked out of her cottage. There was what looked like a stone outhouse with a door. We entered into it and descended a bunch of stairs. At the bottom, we were suddenly in the company of many of the titans, gods and goddesses privy to this experience. It was a puzzle why I was allowed to experience it. But I guessed old Gor thought this was my last night—and it had been his wife’s wish. A deep purple glow filled a large chamber as we entered. In front of us, the participants were suddenly sprayed or coated somehow with a purple substance that seemed to glow from their bodies. As crazy as it seems, we then actually walked up a purple rainbow that was as solid as the earth. We crested the arch and descended into a large theatre-like room with very comfortable seats. Each seat contained a pair of goggles and, as Saturnalia explained to me, was to be used as enhancers so we could see the essences in the mists more clearly. We were silent as she helped me mount my goggles. Then the room went dark and a wonderful music began, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Then the auditorium began to fill with glowing purple mists. They whirled and swirled slowly from what seemed the floor of the edifice. The area of my solar plexus began to vibrate and my temples began to throb. I found myself breathing hard and fighting myself to inhale. My body was not taking to the experience too well. My instinct told me to breathe minimally, but I could still feel the essences of other beings floating around in confusion, lost from the bodies they so recently had inhabited. Somehow I knew it when the essence of the dancer Saturnalia had told me about appeared. She seemed to recognize me and wished to enter my solar plexus, as if she felt it the only safe haven. I let her in, but refused all others consciously.
Saturnalia seemed to be enjoying the experience immensel
y. She rocked back and forth slowly and at one point took her hand and grabbed my crotch, as if she was having some kind of very sexual fantasy with whoever was entering her at the time. This whole process lasted for about a half-hour or so and then the soft lights came up. We took off the goggles and waited until all others had exited the auditorium. Then Saturnalia led me to a pitch-black panel in the wall near the beginning of the purple rainbow ascent. It measured maybe ten feet tall by three or four feet wide. “Click your golden slipper heels together twice and walk through it, Cable, now—and whatever you do, don’t visualize it and…good luck.”
Crap! So L. Frank Baum’s ruby slippers trick wasn’t original! I wondered if he had gotten a glimpse of other dimensions in order to write such fantasies as the Oz books. I turned to look at her and whispered. “I can’t leave here in a purple robe and golden slippers, lady—can you do something about that?”
“Oh,” she said and waved a hand over me and my original Cable Denning clothes, fedora and all, appeared on my body. Except for the golden slippers, that is.
“You’re not coming?” I asked.
“I can’t. I have to go back. When Cronus discovers you missing tomorrow, there will be all Hades to pay. And I’m sure he’ll summon Thantos to hunt you down. Go now, quickly!” she said. She pushed me and I went through the wall like a hot knife through cotton candy.
I found myself in the middle of traffic in downtown L.A. with sirens wailing, horns blowing and people on the sidewalks. It was business as usual, shopping, eating, selling something or pandering on a busy street corner. I shook my head back and forth to clear the cobwebs from my brain. I was relieved to find that my golden slippers were once again my Thom McCann's and I set off to get home to my pale little señorita!
I took the yellow and green streetcar and got off near Franklin and Argyle. Elisa, my lover’s mother, was sitting in a comfy chair reading the newspaper when I entered. “Hello, Elisa. Sorry I took so long. Got into more than I expected—same old story, I know—"
“—why did you not call, Cable? Two days we worry. Adora is getting weaker. You must stay with her. She needs you.”
“Yeah, you’re right—and I intend to do just that. But still have to make a living, so can you come over when I need you to cover for me?”
“Of course, Cable, sin duda. But now, go to her. She cries for you. Never has my niña been so in love.”
I thanked Elisa, gave her carfare and she left. I tip-toed into the bedroom where my reclining little señorita lay quietly. I approached the bed. She looked so pale, wasted, as if all life was draining from her. I wanted to cry because it hurt so much, but I knew I had to keep it together. She opened her eyes to half-mast and looked up at me, a faint smile coming across her lips. And so I smiled down at her. “Sorry I was gone so long, my beautiful lady, but you know this old gumshoe life—"
“—where have you been, mi precioso?”
“Well, I went on an unexpected trip, babe. Anyway, I’m back and what can I get you?”
She smiled again. “You…just you, Cable. You are all—todo y todo—I ever wanted en mi vida, querido…” Then her voice trailed off as she coughed and covered her mouth with a weak hand. “Ay, salud! When I get well…yo no escondo mis deseos femeninos! My lusty woman…will have you…pronto, mi amor.”
I sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “T’amo, Adora,” I said as I held her hand and tucked it into my chest. I was exhausted. I undressed, took a shower and quietly slid into bed with my beloved Latina. She awakened long enough to put her arm around my waist and her head on my chest. In that position I fell asleep secretly praying that my healthy energies would siphon off into her as we slept and she would awaken in the morning, fresh and horny as hell, like my old Adora.
Two days later I was knocking on the door of Crazy Jack’s dilapidated apartment house, marked #408. It was in the worst part of town at the Panama Hotel, on the 4th floor—a rundown four-story dump located in Hell’s Half Acre, the center of skid row, near the corner of 5th and San Julian Streets. He was the only one I trusted with the prophecy stuff. Jack never wanted money, just cigarettes and had come by his gift naturally and probably in his less than “normal” mental state had little awareness of it.
He wasn’t home and I wandered the streets looking for him. Often he hung out in the neighborhood where the down and out, forgotten souls of humanity dwelled. There was the smell of cigarettes, booze and urine all mixed together as I walked down Los Angeles Street. I cut through an alley to intersect with San Pedro when my eye caught something vaguely familiar. There, leaning up against a wall, looking completely spent and deteriorating, sat an old lady. But it wasn’t just any old lady. Her fading reddish long hair and torn golden dress clued me in. I went up to the elderly woman. “Saturnalia?” I gasped. How could this be? Just three days ago she was this devastating dish, the goddess Rhea-Saturnalia, wife of the head of the Oculus Pyramis Mandatum, Cronus-Gor!
She looked at me. Her face was covered with boils but there was no mistaking those red-amber eyes of a once magnificent and beautiful Titan of Saturn, her native planet. “Cable…Cable…” she whispered. “I've been talking to you…silently…I have wished for you to—"
“—how in the hell did you end up here—looking like that?” I inquired, staring at her in total disbelief.
“Punishment, Cable, punishment…Cronus discovered my—my complicity in helping you escape—so he took away my goddess status, ripped away my Titanic powers and reduced me to this common mortal woman…rife with misery, disease and old age. Cronus said he read my thoughts—that I wanted to be with you—so he granted me my wish, but not as the beautiful goddess you knew and desired, but this rotting old hag.”
I bent down and got on my knees in front of her. “Oh, God, Saturnalia. I’m so sorry…it was me—my fault, if it weren’t for—"
“—no, Cable. We all make decisions for ourselves…” She snickered an ironic laugh. “Besides, it was pretty boring…being…being an immortal. Too many lies inside of me, things I concealed, other things I tolerated—just to be an immortal goddess. But…do you know…what I learned from…from all of this, Cable?”
“No, babe, tell me…what did you learn—maybe it’ll teach me a thing or two about this insane universe.”
“You’ve got to stick to who you’re born with—that person. I wasted nearly a half-million years to discover that. So, don’t—"
“Cigarette! Cigarette!” a voice called out behind me. I spun around to find Crazy Jack looking down at us.
“Hello, Jack, I was looking for you…went to your place…do you, uh, do you know this woman?” I asked him.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! Cigarette!” I straightened myself, took out a Lucky Strike from my pack, gave one to Crazy Jack, lit it up for him and put the rest of the pack in his dirty topcoat jacket. It was a ritual I always performed for him. He smiled nervously, which was his way of saying ‘thanks’ and then looked down at Saturnalia. “Not human…strange lady…not human—but I don’t know! I don’t know! Confuse Jack!”
“Yeah, I—I understand, Jack. I’ve known her from—from another dimension. We had a couple of adventures together—are you sure you haven’t seen her before?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” He started to tremble a little, as he always did when he was the least bit distressed. He puffed away almost angrily on his cigarette. “Satin Latin lady…gone…Cable…you love satin Latin lady…she goes whoosh! Away! But I don’t know! I don’t know!”
That statement of Jack’s hit my heart like a sledgehammer hitting a cow’s skull at the slaughterhouse. I knew it was true. But not until now did I confess it to myself that my Adora was not destined to remain in this world too much longer. Crazy Jack knew it—and somehow I knew it. “You always come up with the doozies, Jack.” I looked back down at Saturnalia. “What about this lady—what can we do for her?”
“Not real…not real lady!” he stammered. “Come—come—come from up there
!” he said, pointing to the sky. “You must leave—leave her—but I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“He’s right, Cable. Cronus is using me as a tracer…to find you. He can see through my eyes if he wants to. Go, good mortal, it’s okay….but there is one more thing I want to say to you…” Again I bent down as the ugly old lady whispered in my ear. “I wish I had taken the risk to be…be your lover, Cable. If I was to be…demoted and perish…then I would have preferred that—that ecstasy…with you…”
“But I thought you told me once you were made a goddess you couldn’t die….that you’re an immortal…”
“We are all immortal, silly man. I lied…because it was good to feel…different. Cronus’ punishment is to this body I inhabited for so long—perhaps too long…..go now, don’t worry about me…see you again sometime… some other life, perhaps….”
I looked sadly at the unique lady who had befriended me and saved my butt from a terrible fate at the hands of her ego-mad lover. “Maybe…Rhea-Saturnalia, you never know…even if I believed in it, I wouldn’t know where to find you.”
“Oh, don’t worry…I’d—I’d find you…” Then she summoned me close to her and she took my arm. “Will you please check on…on my daughter now and then, Cable?…I’ve had to transmigrate her…to Earth…to keep her safe…from her father…”
“Daughter…? Oh, yeah, the one you told me you sneaked by Old Mean Puss, your god-husband, or whatever. She’s where?”
“She’s safe…for now…in a little town called Cambria Pines…here in California. It’s—it’s up the coast—"
“—yeah, I know where it is. I had cause to visit William Randolph Hearst’s mighty Moorish castle in San Simeon not too long ago. We passed through Cambria on the way.”
Love Me or Kill Me (The Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 2) Page 16