by Rob Brezsny
“Here at The Eater of Cruelty Cafe we refer to that particular story as Jill and the Beanstalk, Osiris,” Rapunzel says to me, although I haven’t said what I was thinking.
“How could you have possibly known I was thinking about Jack and the Beanstalk?” I wonder.
“I have a telepathic homing device that turns on whenever I’m in the presence of a person who’s ripe to have her archetypes mutated,” she replies. “And I hope you’ll forgive me if I use the feminine form as the all-purpose pronoun. Of course I mean to imply that my homing device also turns on in the presence of a person who’s ripe to have his archetypes mutated. But you can’t imagine how important it is to use ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to generic humanity. It could literally be a factor in whether or not all human life disappears from this planet in the next thirty years.”
“I’ll buy that,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to save the world.”
“Good, good,” she approves. “I’m always looking for more soldiers to help me kill the apocalypse.”
Rapunzel ushers me to a table in the middle of the room where there’s a woman I recognize. It’s impossible, but I do. She’s Jumbler, the Norse leprechaun androgyne from my superdream. There’s the same thick, flaxen helmet of hair, the pale skin and turquoise eyes.
A Napoleon-style hat made out of aluminum foil wobbles on top of her head. She’s also wearing pointy green velvet shoes and a red leather pouch with a silver buckle cast in the shape of a bull skull. This all contrasts with her sheer black mesh catsuit, which is garlanded by organza ruffles decorated with intricate paintings of red and black vultures.
“Hi, Jumbler,” Rapunzel coos to her, confirming that this person has the same name that she did in my superdream, “you look like you’re in the mood to kick the apocalypse’s butt tonight.”
Jumbler places her two thumbs and two index fingers together, palms held up and spread out, and greets me with a perverse toast: “May Persephone annihilate the rotting patriarchal imprints within you—without killing you. Somewhere over the rainbow, may She inspire you to resurrect the splendorous beauty of poisoned masculinity.”
She reaches into her pouch and produces an egg. I’m too startled to stop her as she reaches over, pulls forward the waistband of my shorts, and breaks the egg against my belly. The oozing slime only enhances the erotic fever I have been nursing steadily since Rapunzel’s arrival.
“And may Persephone dissuade him,” Rapunzel adds with a giggle, “from being just another boring example of the patriarchy’s crowning achievement: the hate-everything-that-doesn’t-adore-me and fuck-everything-that-adores-me hero.”
Jumbler’s greeting is scary. I don’t like her broken egg and I don’t like her violent references—“without killing you” in particular. Better not complain, though. Don’t want to alienate Rapunzel’s buddy on our first meeting.
As soon as we’ve eased into our chairs, a visitor from a nearby table glides over. A handsome, weathered woman with shoulder-length brown hair and a cracked smile, she looks about forty. She’s holding a guitar and wearing a decal-bedecked black leather motorcycle jacket over a hunter-green satin mini-dress. One of the decals says “Menstrual Minstrel,” which she proceeds to illustrate as she sings us a short ditty that consists entirely of variations on the phrase “The penis is just a clitoris suffering from delusions of grandeur.” Rapunzel plucks out the tampon applicator flute that I’d stored in my vest pocket and plays along.
“What’ll it be, televisionaries?” she asks us when she’s done singing, pulling out a pen and notebook. “Breakfast of Amazons cereal? Rosicrucian Coca-Cola? Tender Adrenaline Ice Cream with Ancient Spider Webs?”
“Just the cereal for me, Artemisia,” Jumbler says.
“Do you have the Unicorn Ovaries with Dragon Mucus and Sacred Cow Memories tonight?” Rapunzel says straightfacedly, whereupon Artemisia nods. “Good. And why don’t you bring me a quart of Moon Flower Brine, too, OK?”
An aroma I’d been subliminally aware of before has now crept into my full awareness. How to describe it? Sweet almond blended with musky goat and wet feathers and vinegar mingled with rose. It’s not coming from any particular direction. It’s just in the air.
Jumbler chooses this moment to pinch me hard on the arm as she makes a throaty aside close to my ear. “Everyone in this place happens to be menstruating at the moment. Except you and me, of course. I’m a hermaphrodite. Don’t know what your excuse is.” She cackles at this comment.
“You know how it is,” she adds. “Women who spend a lot of time together get their periods synchronized.”
“What should I bring for the sperm pod?” Artemisia asks Rapunzel sardonically, ignoring me. “Is he in the mood to eat?”
“Let’s not call him any bad names tonight, sweety,” Rapunzel says, sticking up for me. “He needs our love and support. Besides, he deserves a little credit. He did read The White Goddess long before it was hip. He has Marija Gimbutas’ photo in his wallet, and I dreamed that he once had a sexual fantasy about Gertrude Stein. I even heard he’s got ‘Listen to Women for a Change’ tattooed in a very private place. This one’s special. He’s ripe. Maybe even a true Lesbian Man.”
“Woooooooo! You gonna give him the full treatment?” Artemisia whistles. “Persephone-style immersion? The Honest-to-Goddess eucharist?”
“Could very well be,” Rapunzel replies. “I’m proceeding with the Rowdy Ruby Glissando of the Silk Lotus spell.”
“Yow! He must be a hardy one if that’s his starter plan. Guess you don’t want me to bring him any appetizers that might spoil his appetite, then.”
“Yup.”
I assume this exchange has been scripted ahead of time. It’s flattering to contemplate the possibility that all these women have plotted and rehearsed tonight’s festivities solely for my benefit. Though I’m also daunted by the responsibility of having to live up to such an immense gift.
As Rapunzel and Jumbler have a whispered exchange that is not meant for my ears, I examine the Tarot deck on our table. It’s a bizarre hybrid. One side of each card has a mutated replica of an old baseball card with categories of statistics unlike what usually appears: “Ecstatic Prayers” instead of “At Bats”; “Sacred Pranks” instead of “Runs Batted In.” My childhood hero, Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers, appears in one image, except that here he’s wearing a helmet with the horns of a bull protruding and a necklace of vulture figurines. Looks like he has amassed a good number of Ecstatic Prayers, but has been less prolific in the Sacred Pranks department.
On the other side of each Tarot card is a surrealistic photo collage of a female deity garbed in lingerie, below which is a written text. Al Kaline, for instance, is paired with Medusa. Though she has her usual writhing green snakes for hair, she’s portrayed as a smiling, pregnant fashion model striding down a runway. The title at the top of the card is “Medusa the Sexy Mama,” and an accompanying text, credited to Joseph Campbell, reads, “She is Black Time, both the life and death of all beings, the womb and tomb of the world; the primal, one and only, ultimate reality of nature, of whom the gods themselves are but functioning agents.”
I’ve become aware of a twinge in my lower belly. It comes and goes, throbbing in a slow rhythm. I can’t imagine the cause. No food has gone down my gullet for hours.
“So,” Jumbler says to me, “would you like a Tarot reading?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Jumbler shuffles the deck several times, then has me draw a card. It’s the old shortstop for the Washington Senators, Rocky Bridges. He’s dressed in a loincloth and is depicted leaping over a bull in the manner of the athletic maidens of ancient Minoan culture.
“Ah yes,” she sighs knowingly. “You are now on a rocky bridge between your old life and the new. You are perhaps leaving behind your role as rockstar and crossing over to the other side of the abyss. I say perhaps. There seems to be some doubt. The going may be rocky. Here, draw another card.”
This time I get Early
Wynn, a pitcher in the 1950s.
“Yes. I see the problem. You are unfortunately seeking an ‘early win,’ a premature victory. Something about cheating. Fraudulence. You’re trying to skip some steps. Cross the bridge without really crossing it.”
I freeze. Could Jumbler have sensed that I’m being less than honest and complete in carrying out the program Rapunzel designed for me when she invaded my house? That though I’ve suspended the band’s operations in order to take on the job as janitor, I’m not really planning to make it permanent?
“Take two more cards,” she demands.
I draw Hall-of-Famer Nap Lajoie and an obscure old-time player I never heard of named Kid Maddox.
“Ah. I see. Kid and Nap are telling me that you are not performing your kidnap with a pure heart. I think you know what I am talking about—the self-abduction the avatar suggested you undertake. Do you see? Your kidnap must be done with ‘la joie’—for joy alone. Not with covert agendas. Not with an acquisitive eye. And it must be done as ‘mad docs’ would do it—crazy doctors. The cards are advising you to trust the inscrutable wisdom of the wacky healer. Do not imagine that you know better than she who was born to administer the sacred prank medicine.”
I look at Rapunzel, the most interesting beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Along with her pregnant silence, her amused but intense gaze tells me that she ratifies her friend’s oracle. Guilt descends upon me, and worse, fear that I’ve irrevocably messed up. If she really knows that I’ve only been pretending to execute my self-abduction, will she cancel delivery of what she called, back in my bedroom a few days ago, “the majestic gift beyond my ability to conceive”?
How could she not be peeved to the point of ending it all right here? Look at the lengths to which she has gone to stage this evening’s performance art event for my entertainment. There can be no question that she takes my “menarche” very seriously.
I am filled with the desire to atone.
I promise myself that if she forgives me for my deception, I will do what I should have done right from the start. I will completely, not halfheartedly, die to my old life. I will unconditionally quit the music business. I will renounce my quixotic but ultimately futile efforts to maintain my purity in an institution that makes it impossible. If nothing else, this will ensure that I’m in line to have more of the superdreams Rapunzel somehow delivered to me a few nights ago.
“Now pick one last card,” Jumbler adjures. “This will be a picture of your soul’s purpose. Of the glory you might possibly attain should you make it to the other side of the rocky bridge.”
I draw Chick King, outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
“Chick King,” she intones tentatively. “King Chick. Chick King. King Chick.”
She closes her eyes and pouts in concentration. Her eyelids quiver.
“I’ve got it,” she beams finally. “It seems your new career as a tantric janitor is ultimately destined to be in the service of King Chick. Notice it’s not Queen Chick, but King Chick. King Chick means, I think, that you are destined to help chicks overthrow this overly manly world. Ever hear that expression, ‘Behind every great man is a woman?’ You’re going to be a man behind a great woman.”
“So, like, I’m going to marry a woman who becomes President of the United States?” I ask.
“More like you’ll be a muse for a woman who becomes President of the United Snakes. Now why don’t you read the texts on the backs of your cards. They will provide additional oracular insight.”
On the reverse of the Rocky Bridges card is a picture of a goddess who resembles the Hindu Shakti. She’s dancing on top of an altar whose central feature is a large silver bowl. The title of the card is “Shakti Mutates the Blood Archetype,” and the text, credited to Vicki Noble, reads: “In the real old-time religion, the sacrificial altar was graced with an offering of menstrual blood, gift of the priestess. It was understood to have special power to propitiate divine contact. Later patriarchal religions preserved the idea that blood is charged with sacred potency, but replaced the menstrual offering with the shed blood of a murdered animal or human.”
Artemisia arrives and pours red wine from a carafe into the goblet on our table. She also leaves a bowl of cereal and pitcher of milk for Jumbler, and a big mess of purplish green blobs and reddish brown gravy for Rapunzel. There’s nothing for me. Despite my desire to improvise within the framework Rapunzel and company are providing, I consider speaking up and placing an order. Hunger is beginning to assail me. I wonder if the aches I feel in my belly are hunger pangs?
“So King Chick, tell me true,” Rapunzel says, interrupting my meditations. She picks up my right hand and places two popsicle sticks in it. Half of each stick is stained blue. “What exactly are you doing to kill the apocalypse?”
I don’t know what to say.
“Huh? Huh?” she probes playfully when nothing flies from my lips. “Have you got any bright ideas about how to liquidate armageddon? Try rubbing those popsicle sticks together. They’re my special magic wands. They could help.” She shows me the proper motion.
Not too long ago, in the days before I met Rapunzel, my answer to her question might have been something like “I’m making subversive music that undercuts the ability of the entertainment criminals to genocide our imaginations.” But in the wake of my apparent resolve to renounce the music business for good, I’m stumped.
“Would you like some clues?” Rapunzel teases.
“Just get me started,” I plead, rubbing the sticks diligently.
“How about if you said, ‘I’m resurrecting the splendorous beauty of poisoned masculinity’?”
“I’m resurrecting the splendorous beauty of poisoned masculinity,” I repeat, injecting mock histrionics.
“And how specifically are you doing that?” Rapunzel quizzes.
I decide to risk a daring move. I’m going to be vulnerable and humble, but with a feisty edge. What I mean is that I’ll really try to inhabit a state of humble vulnerability, not merely perform it as I have so often done in the past. My earliest insight about the seduction game was that women are attracted to men who confess weakness, but all these years I’ve used that as a crafty technique without actually doing it with complete sincerity. Back in the women’s bathroom at the Catalyst, when I first met Rapunzel, was a perfect example. I pretended to be a self-effacing sensitive man even as I secretly billowed with pride.
In my defense, I should note that there has been a good reason for me to keep an ironic distance from the “sensitive man” act. The only version of it I’ve ever seen in other men is the one motivated by a frowning, judgmental radical feminist in their superegos. It’s a whiny form of humble vulnerability, in other words, enforced by shame and guilt. But in the breakthrough I’m having here with Rapunzel, I can envision a spunky, truly masculine kind of humble vulnerability. It would emerge from my lust for life, not my fear of being a bad boy in the eyes of my inner matriarch.
Fascinating to contemplate the possibility that only by being more of a real man can I incorporate a healthy form of feminine behavior.
“One way I’ll resurrect the splendorous beauty of poisoned masculinity,” I respond finally, “is by admitting how terrified I am of receiving big beautiful gifts from amazing women like you. Not just terrified. Embarrassed. Deathly worried I don’t deserve them. Am not worthy of them.
“Then there’s the part about how weak and needy the big beautiful gifts make me feel. Not my usual self-sufficient self. And maybe the worst burden of all is the responsibility of having to give in return. I’m always convinced I can’t possibly match the blessing.”
“You fantasize that you’re inferior to me,” Rapunzel says understandingly. “You’re afraid I’ll think you’re a stingy narcissist. In your eyes, I seem to have almost too much to give, much more than you, and you subconsciously resent it.” She says this with sympathy, as if she’s sorry, not angry.
“And yet to your credit,” she continues, “you refuse to imi
tate the billions of men whose masculinity has been poisoned. You don’t blame me for your fear and resentment. You don’t withdraw into numb aloofness and try to punish me with mysterious silence. Instead, you struggle to change your feelings, to be a real magician. The problem isn’t with me, after all, and you recognize that. You don’t want to bully me into giving less.”
“Yes, exactly.” I feel like she’s reading my mind again.
“And I can’t think of anything that is a more potent weapon in our war against the apocalypse,” she concludes.
“Thank you. I’m honored by your recognition.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word “honor” non-ironically before now. It stings a little to be so sincere. Besides which, as if to prove my confession, I’ve been pinched with the discomfort of receiving the enormous gift of Rapunzel’s approval.
Momentarily unable to deal with my feelings, I turn my gaze to the rest of the dining room. Two women at one of the tables are peering intently at me, while the others seem occupied in playing cards with the Tarot decks. I’m surprised to see that a large but rather lovely shamanatrix in her twenties, a lesbian if I know my physiognomy, has doffed most of her costume. All she has on is a “skirt” that’s nothing more than shreds of newspaper hanging from a belt, and a makeshift bra composed of two sewn-together floral shower caps. No undies! Two other women, including a fiftyish pixie with very pale skin as well as an exotic-looking mix of maybe Eskimo and African, have also lost their shirts. One reveals another strange “bra” made of two small gargoyle masks connected with a rubber band and the other a “teddy” that seems to be made of round slabs of baloney sewn together.
“I can think of another way I am resurrecting the splendorous beauty of poisoned masculinity,” I bubble.
“She’s taking notes,” Rapunzel smiles, pointing to Jumbler, who pulled out a notebook a while back and is scribbling intently.
“I’m a good listener, but with an edge,” I begin.