“See?” said Hagbard. “Right out in the open. For anyone who understands to read and know that the hour is at hand. They won’t be hiding much longer.”
“Well,” said Joe, “at least it doesn’t say ‘Arbeit macht frei.’”
Hagbard handed in the orange week-long tickets for his group, and a black-uniformed usher punched them neatly and returned them. They were inside the Ingolstadt Festival. As the sun sank over the far side of Lake Totenkopf, Hagbard and his contingent mounted a hill. A huge sign over the stage announced that the Oklahoma Home Demonstration Club was playing, and the loudspeakers thundered out an old favorite of that group: “Custer Stomp.”
Behind the stage the four members of the American Medical Association stood apart and gazed out at the sunset. They were wearing iridescent black tunics and trousers. Members of other bands stood together and talked, many of the groups happy to be meeting each other for the first time. They even fraternized with a few intrepid kids who managed to infiltrate past the guards and make it to the back side of the stage hill. But white-suited attendants kept the public and fellow performers away from the American Medical Association. This was generally accepted as the AMA’s privilege. They were, after all, universally acclaimed as the greatest rock group in the world. Their records sold the most. Their tours drew audiences that dwarfed even those of the Beatles. Their sound was everywhere. As the Beatles had, for a time, expressed the new freedom of the ’60s, so the AMA seemed to epitomize the repressive spirit of the ’70s. The secret of their popularity was that they were so appalling. They reminded their fans of all the evils that were being daily visited upon them, and thus hearing and seeing them was like scratching a very bad itch. They suggested that perhaps youth had captured its oppressors or identified with them, and they momentarily turned the pain of the whole scene into pleasure. To learn how to enjoy suffering, since suffering was their lot, kids by the millions flocked to hear the AMA.
“Like a radiant heater,” said Wolfgang. “We at the center. Our message projected into a bowl of vibrant young human consciousnesses. Massively reflected by them back across the lake—into the lake to the depth of a mile. There, reaching the sunken army. Raising them, in a sense, from the dead.”
“We are so close to realizing the dream of thirty thousand years,” said Winifred. “Will we be able to do it? Will we be the ones who complete the work begun by great Gruad? And, if not, what will become of us?”
“Doubtless we will scream in hell for all eternity,” said Werner matter-of-factly. “What would you do to us if we failed?”
“We need fear eternity only if the Eater of Souls is on the scene,” said Wilhelm. “And they’ve still got him imprisoned inside the Pentagon.”
“Let no one speak of failure,” said Wolfgang. “It is absolutely impossible for us to fail. The plan is foolproof.”
Winifred shook her head. “Fools are precisely what it is not proof against. And you, Wolfgang, know that best of all.”
It was dark now. The large tent made of cloth-of-gold was sheltered between the fence and a relatively secluded grassy knoll. There was greatest privacy here, because this corner of the festival area was farthest from the stage, and because the area was full of Discordians. Hagbard went into the tent and stayed there awhile. Joe and George stood outside, talking. George was thinking that Hagbard was probably in there with Mavis and he wished he could dash in there and kill the son of a bitch. Joe, agonizingly nervous, suspected that Hagbard was in the tent with a woman, probably Mavis, and he wondered it he should rush in and kill Hagbard while the Discordian leader was occupied. He kept his hand in his pocket, fingers curled around the small pistol.
I circle around, I circle around …
After about half an hour Hagbard emerged from the tent, smiling. “Go on in,” he said to Joe. “You’re needed in there.”
George grabbed Hagbard’s arm, trying to sink his fingers in. But the muscle felt like iron, and Hagbard didn’t seem to notice. “Who’s in there?” he demanded.
“Stella,” said Hagbard, looking down at the stage, where the Plastic Canoe was playing.
“And you were fucking her?” Joe asked. “To release the energies? And now I’m supposed to fuck her too? And George after me? And then everybody else? That’s left-hand magic, and it’s creepy.”
“Just go in,” Hagbard said. “You’ll be surprised. I wasn’t fucking Stella. Stella wasn’t in there when I was.”
“Who was?” George asked, thoroughly confused.
“My mother,” said Hagbard happily.
Joe turned toward the tent. He would make one more effort to trust Celine, but then…Suddenly the hawk face leaned close to him and Hagbard whispered, “I know what you’re planning for afterwards. Do it quickly.”
SHE’LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS WHEN SHE COMES
On February 2 Robert Putney Drake received a book in the mail. The return address, he noted, was Gold & Appel Transfers on Canal Street, one of the corporations owned by that intriguing Celine fellow who had kept appearing at the best parties for the last year or so. It was titled Never Whistle While You’re Pissing, and the flyleaf had a bold scrawl saying, “Best regards from the author,” followed by a gigantic C like a crescent moon. The publisher was Green and Pleasant Publications, P.O. Box 359, Glencoe, Illinois 60022.
Drake opened it and read a few pages. To his astonishment, several Illuminati secrets were spelled out rather clearly, although in a hostile and sarcastic tone. He flipped the pages, looking for other interesting tidbits. Toward the middle of the book he found:
DEFINITIONS AND DISTINCTIONS
FREE MARKET: That condition of society in which all economic transactions result from voluntary choice without coercion.
THE STATE: That institution which interferes with the Free Market through the direct exercise of coercion or the granting of privileges (backed by coercion).
TAX: That form of coercion or interference with the Free Market in which the State collects tribute (the tax), allowing it to hire armed forces to practice coercion in defense of privilege, and also to engage in such wars, adventures, experiments, “reforms,” etc., as it pleases, not at its own cost, but at the cost of “its” subjects.
PRIVILEGE: From the Latin privi, private, and lege, law. An advantage granted by the State and protected by its powers of coercion. A law for private benefit.
USURY: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group monopolizes the coinage and thereby takes tribute (interest), direct or indirect, on all or most economic transactions.
LANDLORDISM: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which one State-supported group “owns” the land and thereby takes tribute (rent) from those who live, work, or produce on the land.
TARIFF: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in which commodities produced outside the State are not allowed to compete equally with those produced inside the State.
CAPITALISM: That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it.
CONSERVATISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which claims allegiance to the Free Market while actually supporting usury, landlordism, tariff, and sometimes taxation.
LIBERALISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which attempts to correct the injustices of capitalism by adding new laws to the existing laws. Each time conservatives pass a law creating privilege, liberals pass another law modifying privilege, leading conservatives to pass a more subtle law recreating privilege, etc., until “everything not forbidden is compulsory” and “everything not compulsory is forbidden.”
SOCIALISM: The attempted abolition of all privilege by restoring power entirely to the coercive agent behind privilege, the State, thereby converting capitalist oligarchy into Statist monopoly. Whitewashing a wall by painting it black.
ANARCHISM: That organization of society in whic
h the Free Market operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other forms of coercion or privilege. RIGHT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than to cooperate, LEFT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.
Drake, now totally absorbed, turned the page. What he found seemed to be an anthropological report on an obscure tribe he had never heard of; he quickly recognized it as a satire and a parable. Putting it aside for a moment, he buzzed his secretary and asked to be connected with Gold and Appel Transfers.
In a moment a voice said, “G and A T. Miss Maris.”
“Mr. Drake calling Mr. Celine,” Drake’s secretary said.
“Mr. Celine is on an extended voyage,” Miss Maris replied, “but he left a message in case Mr. Drake called.”
“I’ll take it,” Drake said quickly. There was a click as his secretary went off the line.
“Mr. Celine will send an emissary to you at the appropriate time,” Miss Maris said. “He says that you will recognize the emissary because he will bring with him certain artworks of the Gruad era. I’m afraid that is all, sir.”
“Thank you,” Drake said hollowly, hanging up. He knew the technique: he had used it himself in moving in on the Syndicate back in 1936.
“You were fucking Stella?”
“Who says I was fucking anybody?”
Joe went in. The tent was as richly hung as that o any Moorish chieftain. At one end was a diaphanous veil, behind it a figure on a pile of cushions. The figure was light-skinned, so Hagbard had been lying about being in here with Stella. Joe went over and pulled the veil aside.
It was Mavis, all right, just as Joe had guessed. She was wearing harem pajamas, red but translucent, through which he could see her dark nipples and the full bush of hair between her legs. At the expectation of making love to her, Joe could feel his cock begin to swell. But he was determined to impose his head trip on this scene.
“Why am I here?” he said, still holding the curtain back with one hand, trying to assume a casual pose. Mavis smiled faintly and motioned him to sit down on the cushions beside her. He did so, and found himself automatically sliding to a half-reclining position. There was a faint suggestion of perfume from Mavis, and he felt the tension in his loins build up a little more.
“I need all the energies we can set in motion to defeat the Illuminati,” said Mavis. “Help me, Joe.” She held out her arms.
“Were you fucking Hagbard? I never did like sloppy seconds.”
Mavis gave a little snarl and threw herself on him. She slathered her drooling lips over his and plunged her tongue deep into his mouth, at the same time pressing her thigh between his legs. Joe fell back and gave up struggling against her. She was just too goddamned attractive. In a minute she had his pants open and his stiff hot prick throbbing in her hand. She lowered her head over it and began sucking it rhythmically.
“Wait,” said Joe. “I’m going to go off in your mouth. It’s been a week since I got laid, and I’m on a hair trigger.”
She looked up at him with a smile. “Eat me, then. I hear you’re good at that.”
“Who’d you hear that from?” asked Joe.
“A gay priest friend of mine,” she said with a laugh as she undid the drawstring of her red trousers.
Joe explored the lips of her vulva with his tongue, reveling in the acrid, musky odor of her bush. He began a businesslike up-and-down, up-and-down motion with his tongue over her clitoris. After a moment he felt her body tensing. It grew more and more rigid. Her pelvis began to buck, and he clamped both hands on her hips and lapped away inexorably. At last she gave a small shriek and tried to drive her whole mons veneris into his mouth.
“Now fuck me, quickly, quickly,” she said, and Joe, his pants pulled down and his shirttail flapping, mounted her. He came in a series of exquisite spasms and dropped his head to the pillow, beside hers. She let him rest that way for a few minutes, then gently nudged him to pull out and rolled to her side to face him.
“Am I dismissed?” Joe said. “Have I done my job? Released the energies, or whatever?”
“You sound bitter,” said Mavis, “and sad. I’d like you to stay with me a while longer. What’s bothering you?”
“A lot of things. I feel like I did the wrong thing. George is obviously in love with you, and you and Hagbard treat it as a joke. And Hagbard treats me as a joke. And both of you are quite obviously using me. You’re using me sexually, and I’m beginning to think Hagbard is using me in other ways. And I think you know about it.”
“You didn’t take the acid, did you?” she said, looking at him sadly.
“No. I knew what Hagbard was doing. This is too serious a moment to play games about the Passion of Christ.”
Mavis smiled. She pressed her body closer to him and began playing with his limp penis, rubbing the head gently into her bush. “Joe, you were raised as a Catholic. Catholics have a finer appreciation of blasphemy than anybody. That’s why Hagbard chose you. How’s your passion, Joe? Is it mounting?” Pressing her naked body against his, she whispered, “How’d you like to fuck the Virgin Mary?”
Joe saw his mother’s face, and he felt the blood throbbing in his penis. Now he thought perhaps he knew what Hagbard meant when he said his mother was in the tent.
A little later, when he was in her, she said, “I am a perpetual virgin, Joe. And every woman is, if only you have eyes to see. We wanted to give you eyes tonight. But you refused the Sacrament. You’ve chosen the hardest way of all, Joe. If you’re going to make it through this night you’re going to have to find a way to see for yourself. By other means than the one Hagbard provided. You’ll have to find your own Sacrament.”
And after she came, and he came, she whispered, “Was that the Sacrament?”
He pushed himself up and looked down at the triangular red tattoo between her breasts. “No. You’re not the Virgin Mary. You’re still Mavis.”
“And you still have to make the decision,” she said. “Good-bye, Joe. Send George to me.”
As Joe was dressing, feeling the weight of the pistol in his trouser pocket, Mavis rolled over so that she was lying on her stomach, not looking at him. Her naked buttocks seemed utterly defenseless. He looked at the pillow on which her bottom had been resting during their lovemaking. It was a cloth-of-gold pillow, and embroidered on it in swirling letters was the word KALLISTI. Joe shook his head and left the tent.
As he emerged, Hagbard was saying in a low voice to Otto Waterhouse, “… would have been up your alley if we hadn’t had other work for you. Anthrax Leprosy Pi can wipe out the whole population of the earth in a matter of days.”
Suddenly, the white of Hagbard’s shirt, the gold of the tent cloth, the blazing spotlights of the festival, all were coming in super-bright. That was adrenalin. My mouth was dry—dehydration. All the classic flight-fight symptoms. The activation syndrome, Skinner calls it. I was so keyed up that it was a trip.
“Hello, Joe,” said Hagbard softly. Joe suddenly realized that his hand was clenched around the pistol. Hagbard smiled at him, and Joe felt like a little boy caught playing with himself, with his hand in his pocket. He took his hand out quickly.
“She wants George,” Joe said weakly. He turned his back on Hagbard to look down at the stage, where the sign, glowing in the darkness, said LOAF AND THE FISHES. They were singing, “I circle around, I circle around, the borders of the earth…”
On a pile of cushions behind a diaphanous veil at one end of the tent lay Stella, wearing nothing but a red chiffon pajama top.
“Were you letting Joe fuck you?” George said.
“Joe has never fucked me” Stella replied. “You’ll be the first person to do that tonight. Look, George, we’ve got to get every bit of available energy flowing to combat the Illuminati Come over here and get the energies going with me.”
“This is Danny Pricefixer” Doris Horus said. “I
met him on the plane coming over.”
(“Holy Jesus,” said Maria Imbrium, vocalist with the Sicilian Dragon Defense, “there are angels coming out of the lake. Angels in golden robes. Look!”
(“You’re tripping on that Kabouter Kool-Aid, baby,” a much-bandaged Hun told her. “There’s nothing coming out of the lake.”
(“Something is coming out of the lake,” the drummer with the Sicilian Dragons said, “and you’re so stoned you don’t see it.”
(“And what is it, if it isn’t angels?” Maria demanded.
(“Christ, I don’t know. But whoever they are, they’re walking on the water.”)
Wearing my long green feathers, as I fly,
I circle around, I circle around …
(“Jesus. Walking on the water. You people are zonked out of your skulls.”
(“It’s just a bunch of surfers, wearing green capes for some crazy reason.”
(“Surfers? My ass! That’s some kind of gang of Bavarian demons. They all look like the Frankenstein monster wrapped up in seaweed.”)
“Pricefixer?” said Kent, “Didn’t I meet you five or six years ago in Arkham? Aren’t you a cop?”
(“It’s a gigantic green egg…and it loves me …”)
John Dillinger muttered to Hagbard, “That red-headed guy over there—the one with the black musician and the girl with the fantastic boobs. He’s a cop on the New York Bomb Squad. Wanta bet he’s here investigating the Confrontation bombing?”
“He must have been talking to Mama Sutra,” Hagbard said thoughtfully.
SHE’LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS SHE’LL BE WEARING RED PAJAMAS
WHEN SHE COMES
When Otto Waterhouse entered the tent, it was Miss Mao who was waiting for him. “I never fucked a Chinese broad,” said Otto, stripping off his clothing. “I don’t think Stella is going to like this.”
The illuminatus! trilogy Page 68