“No, I said I would pay for college, Cam,” his dad said and picked up the envelope from the coffee table. “This is not college!” Cameron’s dad flung the envelope from the Ringling School of the Arts at him.
“It’s a four year degree. A bachelor’s of the arts from an accredited school. This isn’t the fucking Everest Institute!”
“No, the Everest Institute teaches you skills that you could use in a job,” his dad said while scratching his auburn beard. “I’m not asking you to follow in my footsteps. I want you to go to a real accredited college and learn real skills as well. I want you to end up better than I did, but I don’t want to pay for the art school because there is no money in that. I’m not asking you to give up art what I’m asking is that you pick a field that makes money like your sister and engineering.”
“Well, I’m sorry that my interests can’t be clear cut enough for you!” Cameron yelled. “That I’m not as marketable so you’ve given up on me!”
“That’s not the point. I was just using her as an example. She’s just sixteen…”
“Oh fuck you both!” young Cam yelled and flipped the bird. He turned and grabbed the handle of the door.
“I know you don’t mean that, but… where are you going?”
“Out!” young Cam barked. The Pirate King moved to stop him, but his arms passed right through his younger self. He pulled the revolver, drew back the hammer with his thumb, and fired. He found the possible time paradox worth it – had it worked. When the smoke from the blast had cleared Cameron was standing on the street again.
“Do you have the answer now?” the Urban Shaman asked.
“I want to be powerful, because I never went to Art School?” the Dread Pirate answered.
“No.”
“I’m really glad, because that would be too Hitlery for my comfort.”
“You went to art school anyway.”
“No, I went to local college. Got a degree in graphic design. That’s not art. So oversaturated that companies prefer kids that played around with Photoshop for four years. Market savvy isn’t that hard to come up with, because we’re so enriched in marketing since the day we are born.”
“You are missing the answer and it is right in front of your eye,” the Urban Shaman said, “Why don’t you step ahead nine and a half steps? I bet you’ll see another hint.” The Urban Shaman had vanished again. Cameron sighed and stepped forward nine steps. Before him Lafayette Street stretched out for what seemed like forever. Then he jumped. With a precision that he did not possess yesterday, Cameron twisted at his waist, and rolled into standing again.
He found himself standing in a busy intersection. The cars passed harmlessly through him. Cameron grumbled under his breath and relaxed. The light turned red, and the walk sign flashed on. Pedestrians began crossing the street in both directions in front of the Inner Harbor. He turned around once again sick and tired of the Urban Shaman’s crap.
He recognized a face in the crowd. His shoulders bunched up, his fists clenched, and his jaw went taunt like a bowstring. He tried to grab her shoulders, but she passed right through him. God, why are you making me watch this! I don’t want to see this! The girl was lithe with short red hair. She wore a green t-shirt with hardly any sleeves and low v-cut in an attempt to show her nonexistent cleavage. She wore daisy-dukes, which did show off her legs that stretched to heaven. One of her only hints at adulthood.
Why was she even out here? Why was she not at school? I wasn’t even here to see this! Cameron sprung into action; he drew the revolver from his waistband and fired it into the oncoming traffic. The explosion was brilliant, but did nothing. Still he drew the hammer back and fired again.
A ’98 Chevy Malibu darted out of the cloud like a burgundy bullet. Somehow it had weaved through the gridlock and sped through the red light. The red head tried to dart out of the way, and the Chevy swerved with a squeal of the tires.
They only succeeded in crossing paths.
He turned sharply, covered his eyes, and screamed, “I don’t want to see! Oh God, I don’t want to see!” However, he still saw. He saw through his eyelids, he saw through his hands, and he saw out the back of his head. It was only a second, but he saw it all in bullet time clarity. The red head’s long legs snapped at the kneecap where the bumper of the Chevy struck her. She snapped forward with break neck speed (which it did), and bounced off the hood of the car. She was flung over the windshield and tumbled behind.
The Chevy Malibu did not stop or even stall. The driver was reeking drunk from an all night bender and was terrified. Cameron glanced at the driver, but not for any incredible revelation on the driver’s identity. He already knew the answer to that question already.
Behind the wheel was an eighteen-year-old man with closely trimmed red hair who was angry at the world for not letting him go to art school.
11
Cameron didn’t need to be shown the next part of what happened. Our mind is only capable of holding a couple truly accurate memories. Memories may as well be stored in a vat of acid. They slowly dissolve over time, or become changed by our opinions and point of view (usually in an attempt to shift blame to someone else). For Cameron, this was a true memory.
He parked his Chevy by the docks where the tourists paddled around in bright pastel boats. He sat in the car for five hours until night fell. He did leave the car briefly to check for damage to his car. His Chevy was lucky the girl had done very little damage. He noticed that girl at the last moment and swerved, but he could barely see as it was and didn’t recognize her.
He was deathly sober now. There were scratches on the hood, but he was always missing a big chunk of topcoat. He spotted three dried droplets of blood spattered on the passenger side windshield.
Two wiped away with a single swipe of his thumb. The third had to be scrapped away with his thumbnail. There was a strand of red hair in the grill that he didn’t notice, but no one ever did. A shoe was wrapped around the axel of the rear right wheel. He chucked the shoe into the harbor.
He drove home with the lights outs, which really made him all that more suspicious. He stepped through the door and instead of finding an angry father who then notices the paranoid expression on his son’s face or the aura of beer and smoke that hung on his clothes. His father embraced a bewildered son.
“Kristina’s dead…I’m so sorry.”
“How?” He told Cameron every grisly detail so that one day if Cameron was facing his horrible memories in a realm of his own creation he could see them. The true gravity of what he had done dropped into the pit of his stomach and sank all the way to his testicles. His dad didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with Cameron’s horrible reaction; it would only have been out of the ordinary if he hadn’t reacted at all.
No one ever found out what Cameron had done, and that was worse than any punishment he would receive. While he never even told his father, deep down Cameron was sure on that on some level - he knew.
Now what happened for the next couple of weeks was a blur to Cameron. There was a wake. Followed by a funeral. Followed by a burial. When his father finally started going back to work again was the second truly clear memory for Cameron. This was the chance for which Cameron was waiting. He crept into his father’s room and pulled the shotgun from the gun cabinet.
He loaded a shell and cocked it into the chamber with a loud chu-klick. He sat in the bed with the barrel inserted into his mouth. His toes had always been rather dexterous, and the big one was wrapped around the trigger. One quick tug it would all be over.
He tugged, but nothing happened. At least not the nothing he was expecting. The safety! Cameron pulled the gun from his mouth and checked the safety. It was indeed on and with a soft click that was rectified. The gun was reinserted. There was no hesitation this time and his big toe pressed down on the trigger with the same sureness as if he kicked down a kickstand.
There was a flash and a boom.
Cameron found himself sprawled on the booger ca
rpet of his father’s bedroom. The shotgun lay out of reach. Standing in front of him was a man or at least it was man shaped. The man shaped thing was merely a white outline and white light spilled forth from him. The white light burned Cameron’s eyes and obscured the rest of the room from him.
“Are you here to take me…?” Cameron asked. But the outline merely shook his head. Cameron would later recognize this shape as his guide Noremac. Then it was gone just as suddenly as it had appeared.
Cameron was still alive and a rational thought finally came to him that resembled self-preservation. Nothing like his death would be meaningless or that he would leave his father with two dead children and a wife five years dead. The shotgun remained out of his reach and unfired. He cocked the gun again and the cartridge fell to the floor never to be seen again. The reason Cameron changed his mind from killing himself is that he was afraid he could be punished for it.
Thus started the life long trend in Cameron’s life of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
12
The Pirate King was now standing in the series of caves near the Inner Harbor. The monument known as the hobo jungle. The only hobo present though was the Urban Shaman.
“And the answer is?”
“I sought power to have solid evidence that there is a life after this one.”
“That is correct.”
“And the gate?”
“You have found the Sephirot Yesod, but there is a price to pass through each gate,” the Urban Shaman said. “Are you prepared to pay the price?”
“Name it,” the Dread Pirate said as if he had any chance of negotiation or any option of turning back.
“Your memories.”
“Fuck yes, take them!” He closed his eye. The eyelid cracked back open a sliver. “Did you take them yet?”
“Yes,” the Urban Shaman said. “What is your name?”
“Cameron Styles, the Pirate King,” Cameron said. “Wait why do I know that? I gave up both my name and my memories. Didn’t I?”
“Those are not your memories,” the Urban Shaman said. “You’re pulling those memories from the Akashic records. There is a difference. Why don’t you run over the events that happened the day your sister died again?” Cameron glared at him. “Sorry, poor choice of wording.”
Cameron reflected on what happened that day and the memory was different. He saw all the events in perfect clarity not through the clouded looking glass of times passed. But the tinge of guilt was not as bitter as he remembered. He knew that he felt guilty, but the emotion wasn’t attached anymore. He noticed another force at work too – destiny. There were forces behind this event that made it unavoidable.
“I’m not nearly as upset as I thought I would be looking at this again,” Cameron said with a sullen drop in his tone.
“Well they are not you’re memories anymore,” the Urban Shaman said, “Just because you give something up doesn’t mean you can’t get something great in return.”
“Then what is the point of me giving up my memories?”
“Well you didn’t give them up exactly. When H.P. Lovecraft died he left his stories in public domain. They are still his stories, yes?” Cameron nodded. “But they are not exclusive to him now.”
“So my memories are public domain?”
“Pretty much,” the Urban Shaman replied. “Oh by the way. Here’s this.”
Only a single card this time. There was no semblance of choice.
Cameron flicked the card into one of the empty caves and stepped through the door.
14 (13 skipped for posterity)
Cameron slide precariously on a tight rope. He didn’t look down, but he didn’t have to in order to know there was no net under him. He was also sure that somewhere on the rope the Hebrew letter Peh was branded, but that would violate his policy against looking down. He kicked his sandals over the edge and gripped the rope with his toes.
“Which one of us knows how to tightrope walk?” Cameron inquired to the thin air.
I’m not sure either of us knows Ryoma said in Cameron’s head with the voice of Cameron’s conscience.
“I was afraid of that,” Cameron replied. “I’m not fond of heights.”
So why a tightrope, exactly?
“Represents the fine line we walk between our intellect and our emotions...”
Oh, clever.
Someone whistled from below. Cameron lost his precarious footing and spun 180 degrees. He imagined that the rope was the handle of the Smith and Wesson revolver and his trained hands slipped into reflex. Both hands grabbed hold of the rope before his toes, which were now somewhat rope burned in between and had to support his entire bulk. His head hung behind his shoulders and Cameron could see the ground below him. The stone floor was visible, but certainly far enough below to maim him. Not maim him in the illusionary way that the stairs to the Underworld did, but he felt that this floor could actually hurt him. This was part of the test.
Also the floor was on fire. Someone or something had spread gasoline it over the floor. Though Cameron was sure that this gasoline would never burn out. Overhead the fire formed the Hebrew letter Peh. His legs lashed the rope more tightly than they had ever been around a lover. Cameron gulped and hand over hand he began to pull himself forward.
Fear is more of an emotion than a defense mechanism. It shows up mostly when an element of a past traumatic event shows up in the present. Or by something we do not know or understand. Like when a black man locks his car doors when a white woman approaches. However, there is genuine fear that is an alert from the pit of your stomach saying, “Something bad is going to happen.” Like when said white woman breaks into the car anyway and steals the man’s stereo to fuel her addiction to caffeine.
It is a common misconception that all intuition is whispers from your higher self, angels dancing upon your crown, or demons shitting in your brain. While these are factors the majority of intuition comes from the subconscious collective or otherwise. A scent of pheromone or a conversation behind your back that your senses caught at the time, but the conscious mind was far too busy calculating carbs and South Beaches for lunch that it was missed.
In the time it took to explain the true nature of fear Cameron crossed the tight rope without further incident.
15
On the other side of the tight rope Cameron approached a wall made of green stone and invisible wall of sandalwood incense. Cameron gagged on it. He recognized the wall as the gate of Ishtar, but there was no gate to it at all. Here the wall seemed to rival the Great Wall of China, and by rival I mean “beats it hands down – you could see it from Jupiter”. He assumed correctly that the woman standing in front of it was named Ishtar.
Her skin was the tone of a cup of coffee and if he had any luck she would smell like coffee too. Her green robes were albeit see through, and Cameron was filled with lust at first sight. A feeling that Cameron until this moment was sure that Lilith had robbed from him. Now that’s a cup of coffee I’d love to get my lips on. Maybe I should consider the pagan Goddess dating scene if I get through this. Cameron pondered for a moment if this might have been a side effect of Ryoma’s taste in women merging with his.
Her full purple lips locked with his and he felt the firmness of her breasts against his chest. “Is the price of this gate? My virginity? Because I may have lost that a while back,” Cameron said when he came back up for air. Not that he actually needed air, but it was a human habit to breath if they remember that they breathe. “But I am perfectly willing to give it a try anyway.”
“No,” Ishtar pressed an index finger against his lips. “The price is your heart.”
“My heart? I’m afraid I’ve lost that too.”
“Not a problem,” Ishtar whispered then kissed him again. This time she tasted like Lilith and smelled like Lilith. He ran his hand through her glossy black hair, and pulled Lilith on top of him.
16
“Welcome to the Netzache Sephirot,” Ishtar no longer wore Lilith
’s appearance and lay nude upon her pile of robes.
“That was a hell of a welcome,” Cameron said and pulled back on his socks. The revolver was returned next, but it never left his reach even for an instant. If it was actually Lilith he probably would have never let it out of his hand. “But I don’t understand the need for the deception. I was just as willing to lay you.”
“Because that was not the purpose,” Ishtar replied and stretched her dark arms over her head. “My job was to steal your heart.”
Cameron leaned in. “And how exactly were you supposed to do that by reminding me of Lilith?”
Ishtar grabbed Cameron by the collar of his kimono and pulled his face into her’s. “So it would hurt all the more when I tell you what she’s been keeping from you,” Ishtar whispered each syllable dripped with a mixture of arsenic and cyanide. “Your son.” Cameron’s arms and jaw went slack. Ishtar completed the transaction by reaching into Cameron’s chest and ripping his heart out, but by then it had already stopped beating.
She picked up Cameron’s limp arm and pressed a Thoth tarot card in his palm. He looked at it and walked up to the wall. The card stuck like a Shinto priest’s rice paper talisman. The card widened and Cameron stepped through the Ishtar gate.
17
The door painted with the Grim Reaper by Lady Frieda Harris snapped shut behind him.
Cameron’s feet met the squishy surface of the next path’s floor. He kneeled to get a better look at it. The way was dark, but between his fingers the surface felt like silk. He pulled on it and the whole thing came up like a sheet. He looked at his end of the sheet and the corner was embroidered with a monogram of the Hebrew letter Nun. He cast the sheet aside.
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