Finding myself swept forward by the rush to the stage, I clutched for support at the nearest thing to hand, which just happened to be the bosom of the young mother who in turn had been pushed in front of me. Reluctantly I prepared to apologize and disengage my hands, but as the woman then started to rub my groin with her tail – as though she had been waiting for me to make the first move all along – I decided instead to keep them where they were. Comfy beyond belief, I scrutinized from between the baby’s dangling legs the scruffy, bearded figure that had shambled on stage.
It was Dick all right, immediately identifiable in spite of his beard and Messianic garb of smock and sandals. As he raised his arms in benediction, I wanted to shout out joyously obscene catcalls to him, and give everyone a good laugh. Fearing a lynching if I did, however, I solaced my existence by giving the bosom a lusty squeeze, and rutting at the warm poop with shameless vigour. Quite contented, I waited for the words of inspiration that would lift me to a higher spiritual plane.
Motioning us all to silence with his hands, Dick climbed into the pulpit, raised his face to the heavens, and suddenly wailed in a strangely sepulchral voice:
‘I have stopped the rain!’
A huge cheer went up. I squeezed again. My groin was rubbed harder. This was heaven. Dick requested silence again. He got it immediately.
‘Sisters! Brothers! Last night…I had a Vision!’
‘Praise be!’ I heard a voice murmur. ‘Thank God!’ sobbed another. A young girl diagonally in front of me began to shake. I squeezed again for comfort.
‘I SAY A VISION!!’
‘No! No!’ cried some, as if pleading for mercy.
‘And in this vision I saw great and terrible armies clashing in the night. They tore mercilessly at each other until there was just one clear victor in possession of the field. And then the men, nay the devils of that army, turned their hard glittering eyes to the spoils of war. They looked upon the corn safely stored for the winter; they looked upon the warm well-built homesteads; they looked upon the fresh innocent faces of the women and children, and they thought YES!’
This was similar to what I was thinking, as my rutting reached explosive levels.
‘As they went about their evil business, destroying everything in their sight, and taking their pleasure in the foulest of ways, I saw other visions, visions of terrible terrible depravity.’
‘Tell us what they were, Gad! Tell us what they were. Oh, please, please, please, Gad, tell us!’
‘At first I saw hot stallions riding mares in their stables…then I was forced to see things no man should have to see….I saw mothers being ridden by sons…I saw daughters being enjoyed by fathers…..I saw blood spraying from soft bellies that had been penetrated by instruments of war….I saw the whole sexual anarchy of the smoking earth…’
‘Oh God, Gad!’ went up a few desperate pants. ‘God!’
Dick’s weird sing-song delivery now became even more urgent.
‘Then I saw a scroll flying over the battlefield…and on the scroll were the names of many people…at first I wondered who these people were, and why their names were being given to me…but then a new vision came along and I knew instantly….these were the names of the people in Hell, and I saw them….I SAY I SAW THEM!!…writhing in agony, full of the seed of lustful Devils, being tortured hideously and forever…’
Gasps of horror emanated from all corners of the clearing. Dick paused to survey his trembling audience with soul-penetrating sweeps of his eyes, and then added in a slow, deep, menacing voice:
‘I took note of the names on the scroll.’
‘Was I on it, Gad?’ screamed a few despairing souls.
‘I cannot reveal the names now…you must come and see me in person if you want to know them, in case I spread alarm unnecessarily…but I can reveal that the Lord was very angry with the people named…and that makes me very angry with you, because some of those names were YOURS…YES, YOURS!…and so you have displeased ME!…You have committed evil behind my back…’
‘Oh Gad, Gad! Save us! We didn’t mean it!’
‘But do not despair. I love you. I alone love you, though to the rest of the world you are irredeemably evil at heart. You will be prosperous again…but only if you follow me…follow ME, unto the ends of the earth!!’
‘We will follow you, Gad! We will, we will! Take us. Take us anywhere!’
The urgency was now at fever pitch. Dick’s voice was getting louder and faster; girls were screaming and shouting their heads off all around me; I was grasping hold of the baby-wielding mother like a randy dog on the back of a bucking horse.
‘Heaven, as I have told you before, lies six miles vertically upwards. Six miles! Some of you have travelled further than that today to get here. So close, if you would only see the error of your ways. So far, if you persist in your sin! And ‘tis sin, believe me, to repress the natural desires that God has put in you. ‘Tis sin to feel guilty. ‘Tis sin to feel fear. ‘Tis sin to feel hope. But worst of all, ‘tis sin to feel sin!’
‘Then what are we to feel, Gad? Tell us!’ cried one addled soul in absolute anguish. ‘Tell us, for Christ’s sake!’
Dick, by now gesticulating and sweating like a Bedlamite, obliged.
‘Just feel, sister. Feel each other. Forget the future, forget the past, live now, for the present. Live for your neighbour. Love giving. Live for love. Give love. Give it openly and selflessly and joyously. And most of all, give it to the last disciples of the Lost Tribe of Walthamstow. Only by spreading the seed of the Walthamstowians can the line be perpetuated till Judgement Day. Remember, O my sisters, there is no greater glory ON THIS EARTH than being a handmaiden to a Walthamstowian. For only they, and they alone, can show you how to keep on giving love till the end of your days. They, and only they, can get you into Heaven. They, and only they, have a lineage that can be traced back directly to Christ. Only they know exactly what He said, and only they have carried that information down through the centuries without spilling a drop. So give us your love, Sisters, give it to us till you can give no more!!’
And with that injunction ringing in our ears, Dick was down from the pulpit and tearing off his smock to wild screams of abandon. Hairy bollocks aswing, he danced around the stage like a drunken monkey for several seconds, before blessing us one final time and diving behind the canvas sacking, leaving two hundred or so agitated worshippers in his wake. ‘Twas utter chaos. The stage was besieged with young girls shouting obscenities and trying to clamber up, but burly henchmen had suddenly appeared to hold them back. Nearer me, several girls were lying supine, shaking and twitching, and looking through spyglasses at the sky. Others gabbled utter nonsense, or foamed at the mouth, while some openly used dildoes to relieve the tension. I, meanwhile, coming to my senses, found myself rutting to a climax as the baby above me kicked and screamed to be let down. Soon, we had all tumbled down into the mud together, where my temporary mate turned and started to rip my clothes off for a real session. Spent, however, I was having none of it, so I pushed her off and staggered and slid gasping to my feet.
‘No, madam. No more. I am not an exhibitionist, and besides, I am afraid I have already shot my stuff.’
‘What!’ shrieked the woman, who, I now noticed with horror, had the most disturbingly wild eyes I had ever seen, ‘You have committed the Sin of Onan on me?’
‘Now, remember, sister,’ I said, starting to back away, ‘anger is a sin too, according to Gad.’
‘I don’t care! I have allowed you to handle me all through the sermon on the tacit understanding that your seed will mine when I ask for it. And I am asking for it now. I want your seed and I intend to have it!’
Reduced to the level of a mechanical seed sower, I turned my back and ran. I kept running, elbowing my way past the maddened shriekers and jumping over prostrate bodies, until I felt ‘twas safe to stop and look behind. Panting, I saw that the woman had run into one of the few other males in the audi
ence, and was busy draining him of seed while other women held him down. Mightily relieved, I made what repairs I could to my sorry jelly-and-mud-splattered state, and went in search of the initiator of all this mayhem.
I found him, after outflanking the toughs who were trying to hold back the horde of demented girls, reclining on a pallet in the back of a wagon, smoking a pipe and swigging from a bottle of brandy. His body was robed once more, and he was gazing vacantly at a map of New Jersey that was spread out over his knees. He jumped up when he saw me.
‘Harry!’ he spluttered, wide-eyed with surprise. ‘I am truly astonished to see you.’
‘Not half as astonished as I am to see you!’
We laughed, shook hands and embraced warmly. He offered me a swig of his bottle, which I accepted.
‘’Tis a rich vein of madness I see you have tapped here, you rogue.’
‘Aye, and the rich vein of cunnikin that goes with it. Not bad for five minutes’ work.’
‘And are you the next Messiah?’
‘Yes, I am the next one, but not the one. These fools know no difference.’
Dick beckoned me to sit down with him on the well-used pallet. I did so, and we managed to talk civilly in spite of the pandemonium going on outside.
‘But how did the transformation from spy to charlatan come about?’
‘It is not such a big leap, as you should know yourself, Harry. After I left you in – what was that place called?’
‘Hackensack.’
‘Aye, Hackensack. After I left you there I wandered about aimlessly for a while, doing a bit of this and a bit of that – anything really rather than return to New York and army discipline again. But nothing of note happened until I fell in with an itinerant preacher by the name of Blaze Crabtree. I’d watched him one afternoon, preaching to three old women and a couple of dogs, and noted that two of the women and even one of the dogs seemed immensely excited and grateful that a man – any man – appeared to be talking exclusively to them about matters of cosmic importance. And when Blaze told me that he had slept with several of these women over his ten-year career at it – even though he was the ugliest man and the worst public speaker you could ever imagine – then that was the cue for me to move in and redevelop the whole business.’
I suddenly jumped up from my seat, as someone pounded desperately with their fists on the side of the wagon. Dick laughed and continued.
‘So the Lost Tribe of Walthamstow was born that afternoon. We agreed there and then that I should do the speaking and the acting, while he, having some knowledge of the Bible, should tell me what to say. We have picked up a few acolytes along the way – men and women who act as bodyguards and plants, etcetera – but essentially it is the same small operation as when we started out. All gifts of money, food, drink and women are divided equally between us, and these things amount to a lot, as our followers are increasing in number all the time. In fact, hark! That is one of the boys starting on his share of the takings at this very moment…’
I listened, and in the next wagon I could hear a rough-sounding sexual encounter in progress, all moans, groans, grunts, squeals, oaths and imprecations. It ended, as these things do, in the silence of the grave.
‘He prefers to take them straight away,’ explained Dick. ‘Some primitive notion of getting it while he can, in case it is taken off him. Me, I prefer to wait twenty minutes until the little beauties are at room temperature, and their shells open widest.’
‘Entertaining for you, Sir, I see that. But are you not appalled at the cynicism of it all?’
‘’Tis cynical, I agree, but perhaps a bit of cynicism is what this country needs; idealism leads to war. Cynical or not, though, what man does not envy us? I cannot believe that you do not.’
‘I did at first perhaps, when I saw the beauty of some of the girls in the crowd. But surely after the first spattering the full horror of what you are doing is evident.’
‘There is no horror in what I am doing,’ retorted hardened Dick. ‘Abandonment is needed at frequent intervals by everyone in order to blast out the accumulated dross of the world.’
‘But what about the damage you are doing to these impressionable young girls?’
‘I am doing them no damage at all as far as I can see. They love it; they go away with relief on their faces and a nice warm glow in their bellies. Only Puritans deny people the things that give them pleasure. And who is servicing who? Are they fulfilling our needs or are we fulfilling theirs? We are all helping each other on the road to self-knowledge. Besides, if it were not us administering to them, ‘twould only be another bunch of scoundrels. As for the consequences, only God – and perhaps not even Him – knows how things will turn out. The experience may even improve them, because let’s face it, they’re as mad as hatters now, and who knows what damage they might do to themselves and their families if the pressure is left unpricked. Though of course, they may have another sort of pressure building up inside them once they have been to one of our meetings.’
‘Babies?’ I ventured.
‘Babies,’ Dick confirmed. ‘Believe me, there are plenty of them on the way in 1777. They will calm the girls down on their own, and force them to confront the realities of life.’
I sighed, desperately disappointed in my former bully-companion.
‘You have changed a lot since we shared billets at the Forgotten Martyr, Dick.’
‘Aye, well,’ was Dick’s disappointing answer, ‘we must all move on.’
‘I still think there is a price to be paid for all this. What if the girls don’t go away with a nice warm glow, as you call it? What if they go away with a sense of emptiness and despair at being horribly used? I can foresee descents into prostitution, penury and suicide.’ This was familiar territory to a Night Poet, and I continued to rattle off a whole list of miseries as if by instinct. ‘And what about their fathers, husbands and brothers?’
‘They are either engaged in the war or busy making money. They could not care less about their womenfolk, which is why we get all this attention. We learned that with the militiamen at Hackensack, when we pretended to sell those books to them.’
‘I cannot believe that to be true in every case,’ I said. ‘And even if it were, there is still no reason to prey on the vulnerable outcasts of society. You are deceiving yourself, Sir, if you think you are doing otherwise.’
Dick, realizing his self-serving prattle was not working with me, turned the tables and put me under the microscope.
‘Look, Harry, there is a price to be paid however you live your life, and from the look of you and the bags under your eyes, you are paying that price now. How do you come to be here, and what have you been up to? You went off with that crippled wench in Hackensack, the last I remember. You had your way with her I trust?’
‘Aye, and we got married in New York a month later.’
Dick was aghast, and spluttered on his brandy.
‘Tragedy! No wonder you look so terrible. What on earth made you do that?’
‘Love.’
Dick laughed out loud, and clapped me on the shoulder.
‘Love! Good man! And where might the lovely Lady Oysterman be at this moment?’
‘She is minding our wagon a couple of miles away,’ I lied, remaining calm despite Dick’s goading and the terrible thought that suddenly struck me: what if she were one of the women being administered to by the Walthamstow Boys? Just in time, I remembered my vow to kill my imagination. ‘We are on our way to Philadelphia to start a new life.’
Dick laughed again.
‘Just like General Howe then. I, on the other hand, am moving as far away as possible in the opposite direction. My game will be up one day, but I would rather it not be just yet.’
‘I thought Howe had stopped at Fort Lee for the winter.’
‘He was going to, but he intercepted one of Washington’s runners, and found out that all the American enlistments expire on the thirty-f
irst of December, and that after that there will be no Continental Army. Even Howe thought that piece of information was worth acting upon, and so he is at this very minute chasing Washington towards Philadelphia, and running him to ground. Another six weeks, Harry, and they will start coming after us, the deserters.’
A shudder went through me at this troubling news, and I felt the need to discuss it with Sophie as soon as possible. Fortunately, Dick was now getting as restless as me; optimum cooking time was almost up, and the girls who were now banging on the wagon crying ‘Gad, Gad, I want your children!’ would not have much longer to wait. I got up and made my excuses.
‘Anyway, Dick, I must be getting back; Sophie will be waiting for me. Perhaps we can meet up again when this war is over and analyze our experiences with the benefit of hindsight.’
‘Ah, don’t go, Harry. Stay with us and become a Walthamstow Boy. Forget about your wife; she was just a port in a storm. We may be immoral, but we have fun, and the ogre of death will get us all in the end, whether we have fun or not.’
‘No, we are different characters, Dick, with different constitutions. I fear I am subject to frequent bouts of melancholia, which drain words like fun of all meaning for me. Also, for whatever reason, I am burdened with morals, so I am not equipped for such a life as this. I have made a commitment to stay with Sophie and I must stick by that. And then there’s my poetry.’
Dick sighed.
‘There’s more poetry in a young girl’s body than in all of Shakespeare.’
I pondered this remark for a few moments, then played a straight literal bat.
‘The two are not comparable, Dick. One is flesh, one is spirit. The two never meet.’
‘So be it, Harry. But I think you have been led up one of Christianity’s many garden paths, just as surely as these girls are being led up another. You have become a grim Wesleyan.’
This dig spurred me on to a fit of righteousness.
‘And you, Dick, have become a sensualist, a hedonist, and a corrupter of youth.’
Infernal Revolutions Page 55