On the drive home, the maladjusted youngster felt like he was riding in the back of a black and white. Reuben had to sit behind his father, in the backseat of the maroon 1946 Ford Sedan, since his father couldn’t stand the sight of him. Though this wounded Reuben’s feelings, he couldn’t entirely blame his Dad. As the coal miner drove them back to the dysfunctional house, Reuben caught his ugly reflection in the window and it honestly made him sicker. Reuben’s father had planned on taking the Misses to a be-bop that night, after getting a sitter for Reuben, but he somehow didn’t feel much like celebrating. The harsh reality that nobody wanted to own up to, was that the team just wasn’t that good at athletics. They never won, with or without Reuben, because they were a bunch of unskilled dingbats. They knew that everyone despised Reuben, and also knew that he wouldn’t fight back, which made him the perfect patsy and ideal target.
The next day, Reuben is barbarically beaten up by the neighborhood kids, in front of his own house. His mother stands by and watches, wearing her giant, extra-thick spectacles. The kids call him every name in the book, blaming him for not only being hideous and useless, but for also being the offspring of whom they considered to be Nazi rejects. Many of the students who attended his Catholic school, lived there on site. Reuben, however, was not welcomed to stay on campus, even if his parents had been willing to fork up the extra costs to make that happen. People either feared Reuben, or were grossed out by him, purely and solely because of the way he looked. Because he was such a fabled, social outcast, kids knew where to find him when they had the sudden and overwhelming urge to punish him for being him.
“That’s what you get, Nazi boy!” one of the Italian kids shouted, as he helped his juvenile posse kick Reuben while he was already down and vulnerable. The kids ganged up on him, forcefully stomping him with all they had, showing neither mercy or restraint.
The majority of the people who lived in or around Johnstown, were of Italian or Polish descent. So, with Reuben being what he was, he would have been fair game anyway, even if he hadn’t been born with a face that the community found repulsive.
“Ve’re not Nazis, itiot,” Reuben calmly but firmly corrected his bullies. “Ve’re just German.”
Reuben stood his ground, even though he knew he didn’t stand a chance. He was the town outsider, but he was no chicken. Reuben got pulverized so badly that morning, that his refugee parents had no choice but to take him to the overpriced dentist afterwards.
“Well,” the orthodontist began, “I’m afraid I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”
“Tock, just giff it to us, vill ya?” Mr. Peterson asked, eager to get back to work, so he could get buzzed at the bar afterwards.
“Well, your son did lose a few of his teeth, which somehow have already begun to grow back. The bad news is that his gums are deteriorating and retracting quite a bit.”
“He has gingifitis?” his father inquired, not even hearing the part about Reuben’s missing teeth being wondrously regenerated.
“No. Whatever this is, it’s far more menacing and damaging than gingivitis,” the exorbitant dentist confirmed.
Later that night, Reuben wakes up at three in the morning, while his parents are still dead asleep. He’s standing in front of the cracked bathroom mirror and is feeling his reborn choppers with his hand. His hijacked teeth had completely grown back, after only one day, and the bottoms were jagged and sharp.
Young Reuben was standing in the doorway again, having one foot in the kitchen and the other in the staircase that led to his bottom dwelling. He just stood there quietly, staring at his mother and hugging the door frame around him. His head was bowed a bit, but his eyes were clearly scoping his maternal guardian.
“Vaht’s eating you?” his mother asked, noticing a scowl on her son’s face, that clearly revealed his inner unhappiness.
“You could haff helped me,” Reuben said, while looking at his mother from out of the corner of his eye, the one that wasn’t swelled up anyway. “I saw you. You just stood zere from a tistance and vatched. You could haff tun somezing or called someone.”
“Vaht tid you say, you little shit?!” his father asked loudly. “You a vise guy now? If I had effah spoken to my parents zat vay, zay vould haff beaten me senseless.”
Insulted and irrational, Gerhard and Helga both met their son at the door. His father angrily picked him up in his arms and hurled Reuben halfway down the stairs. His mother just smiled, and locked the cellar door from the outside. She could tell that her husband was still enraged about Reuben embarrassing him on the baseball field, and decided to calm him down by planting an affectionate smooch on his parched lips.
“Tuz zat make it all bettuh?” she asked.
“Is zat all I get?” Gerhard asked back.
“Not necessarily. Zere might be uhzuh zings up for grabs,” she said, chuckling, as she stuck her ass out and wiggled it for him, reaching back and spreading her bare butt cheeks. The Petersons were assholes, and Reuben had haplessly and regretfully gotten acquainted with his mother’s anus. He just hadn’t scrutinized or penetrated it, the way his father had so many times.
Reuben’s health gradually and progressively continued to get worse, eventually being diagnosed with a peculiar strain of the rare blood disorder, porphyria. After spending six straight nights lurking and locked away in the cold cellar, Reuben spotted a big rat scampering across the chilled, concrete floor. He instinctively pounced on it without thinking, grabbed it firmly with his clammy hands, and bit into it as if it were a fried chicken leg. Reuben didn’t unlatch his jaw from the squealing rodent until he had drained most of its blood. After awhile, the red-haired boy grew to hate his roots, and began to train himself to speak without his German accent. He developed an insatiable craving for sucking and drinking blood, as if it were sweet nectar from a ripe peach. From then on out, Reuben would be homeschooled, self-learned, and as isolated as possible from the public eye.
The years went by slowly but surely, and Reuben’s despair became more and more grim. One night, Reuben couldn’t sleep. He felt seasick, as if he was suffering from severe motion sickness, yet he had been lying still and idle for hours. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t need to be loved, but he was only lying to himself. Though it killed him to admit it, it did bother him that he was unwanted. He contemplated suicide regularly and even scripted detailed plans on how to go about it, but an unseen influence stopped him every time. As miserable and meaningless as his existence was, something inside of him motivated him to live on. He knew that something…or someone…special was waiting for him, he just wasn’t prepared for how brief and fleeting his time with her would be.
APRIL 13, 1976
GOOD FRIDAY
RITE OF LUNA
Revelation 22:18-19 (as well as Deuteronomy 4:2 & 12:32) states that a cult is a warped corruption of fundamental Christian doctrine, where elements of the Holy Gospel are added to or subtracted from, to suit and justify a selfish and malevolent agenda (like Mormonism, Islam, or basically any Christian minister who asks for generous donations to support his First-Class lifestyle and stock his mansion with assault rifles). By this definition, Satanism is not a cult, but a religion. Jeremiah 23:11 tells us that pastors and prophets are wicked. Not every prophet is wicked, but just about every minister out there (if not all) is a phony and a prick. As unscrupulous as Satanists are, they are nowhere near as Machiavellian as the so-called Christian church. By definition, Christians are the examples of Christ, but this is only in theory. If Christ were to return to Earth, in physical form, he would cringe at how many of his alleged followers and spokespeople were shrouded in bigotry, hypocrisy, and shameless cruelty.
Three years ago, in Umatilla County, nestled in the Blue Mountain Range of Northeast Oregon, something very sinister was afoot and about to embark. It was almost the stroke of midnight, and the last of the attendees finished parking at the 64,497-acre ranch. As the celebrants entered the makeshift venue, they were handed f
ree LSD at the door, as well as strong hallucinogens mixed with heavy aphrodisiacs. This was an annual gathering of witches, wizards, and warlocks who worshipped the moon deities and corresponding serpents. Those invited had only been notified of the precise location thirteen hours prior, yet some had traveled there from outside that region. They hadn’t gathered there for a country getaway or leisure holiday, but an annual ritual that was unlike any other and unspeakable to anyone who would listen or believe.
This Black Mass was designed to be the ultimate way to ridicule and blaspheme both Christ himself and the faith of Christianity. It is, in many ways, a twisted perversion of the Roman Catholic Mass. The first Black Mass occurred in the 17th Century, initiated by a drug peddling abortionist, named Catherine Deshayes. This month also celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Church of Satan being established in San Francisco by carnival showman, Anton LaVey, on April 30, 1966 (aka: The Witch’s Sabbat). Those attending, as always, were secretly terrified of being chosen, uninformed that a human sacrifice had already been picked and prepared ahead of time. This Black Mass was themed, catering to those sectional Satanists who worshipped the moon and all its phases and forms.
There were 33 members in total, who had been asked to come, not including the hosting Priest and Priestess or other appointed speakers. Those who were already there sat around a 9-ft. pentagram that was salted on the floor. This assembly had gathered at a damp, isolated barn, in the remote country, which had been watered down and smelled of mildew. As usual, most of the patrons were in their mid-teens to late-twenties, but there was always a guest politician, corporate head, or respected clergyman represented. There was one defense attorney, one medical doctor, and even a court judge among this year’s participants. Joy and Mathias had traveled there as well, bringing their little slice of Hell to this heinous and blasphemous occasion.
The setting of this infernal shindig was never held in the same place twice, as the weekend activities and festivities were highly immoral and even more illegal. The entrance was heavily guarded with armed security, by a crooked police officer who was equipped with the means to indicate and intervene any potential interference. A male hitchhiker had earlier been abducted and crucified on a crude 9-foot cross, to further mock the good Lord Jesus. Before being dragged onto the stage, the victim had been muzzled and shackled. He kicked and screamed in resistance, though he had been starved for several weeks prior. He had been brutally beaten and mercilessly tortured in the same methods that the Gospel describes Jesus’s savage suffering.
“Merry meet,” the witches said to one another, greeting those they knew and didn’t know, making them feel welcome at this unsettling and unfathomable ceremony.
Mathias was wearing special FX contact lenses, which were solid white with no pupils. They are rigid, uncomfortable, fragile, expensive, and non-disposable, but they definitely brought the effect that he was looking to portray. He and Joy knew how to make an entrance, as all eyes turned toward them as they stepped through the doorway. Mathias and Joy wore long, black dusters that were considerably gothic in design, unlike the rest of their sensuously uniformed coven whom they had temporarily left behind. Everyone there was creepy in their own way, but Mathias and Joy seemed to be the only ones who were eye catching, at least for that moment. The two leaders of The Golden Veil were also the only ones at this Black Mass who weren’t wearing Druid-like robes and cheap, plastic, animal masks. Mathias despised the Satanic Order, feeling that he should be the lone hierarchy within the organization, but it was time now to represent his Crowleyan family.
The hosting priest stood on the platform, which laid across one end of the barnacle-covered barn, and initiated the Satanic celebration. The High Priest wore a costume that resembled a toad, which had a wide opening at the mouth. He was the disowned stepbrother of USAR General, Dr. Michael Aquino. Michael was the highest initiate in The Church of Satan the year before, who would abandon LaVey’s church near the close of 1975 and found The Temple of Set. The thirty-year-old Michael was revered and respected in the United States Army, and had rapidly climbed the ladder and breezed through the ranks, in spite of the criminal investigation that proved (but never prosecuted for) the brutal rape of a four-year-old girl. Nikolas Schreck would later convince Zeena LaVey to renounce her father’s San Francisco church and join the ranks of Aquino’s sect, where she would quickly advance to the esteemed position of High Priestess.
“Come forth and shower us with your wicked blessings,” he said, holding a small blade in his hand, as if he saw himself as a medieval knight from 5th Century Camelot. “I invoke and conjure thee, by the unholy name of the golden goddess, Isis, who erases light and produces darkness! Protect us from forces both seen and unseen!”
“Isn’t he supposed to be using a wand?” Joy whispered in Mathias’s left ear, poking fun at the priest’s little dagger, while they sat together amongst the rest of the congregants.
“I got your wand right here, bitch,” Mathias replied, grabbing his crotch over his khaki slacks, “and it’s bigger than that knife.” Joy hastily covered her mouth, trying to suppress a snicker.
“Quench our dehydration with the ice that burns!”
The head priest rings a little bell, which is the congregation’s cue to stand up.
“Empower and enable us, Lady Isis, also known as, goddess Diana! Harm all those who oppose us!” they all shout in unison, as if in a synergy prayer.
It was here that the 33 celebrants disrobed. Everyone undressed and threw their eclectic threads outside of the magic circle, so not to get ruined or stained. A scary woman then entered the Mass, holding a sterling silver chalice with both hands. She stepped off the stage and weaved through the crowd, pouring the gruesome contents over the heads and bodies of the naked parishioners. Even though there was no realistic way for this one cup to hold enough fluid to cover every person in that barn, the chalice seemed to never run dry. What came out of the goblet was sacrificial lamb’s blood, mixed with the blood of the human sacrifice and other ingredients that were unspeakable. This process was referred to as a purification bath. They allowed this blood to dry and crust on their skin, while the bile priest continued with his offensive sermon and spoke from an obscene pulpit that had hieroglyphic images engraved into the cedar, all of which symbolized either Isis or Baphomet.
The inside of the barn was decorated with lit blue, green, and black candles that were all made from sacrificial baby fat interweaved with wax. A bell was rung, again by the hosting priest. He held it above his head and rung it hard four times, as he acknowledged the four directions and elements. He then spoke, but this time in a foreign tongue, which sounded like ancient Hebrew. There was a subtle echo, which if you listened closely, sounded as if he had a few different voices spewing from his mouth. Though the words he was saying were clear, it sounded as if he was gargling liquid while he was talking.
“O mighty crystal ball filled with silvery water, I command that the forces of darkness bestow their infernal power upon us, this night. Open wide the Bottomless Pit!” he says, as he holds the athame dagger out in front of him, while throwing out tiny gifts at the crowd. “Rise from the river Styx, and greet us as your brothers and sisters. We favor the just and curse the rotten, given to us the authority by the Voodoo sun god of vengeance, Shango, to deem both as we see fit. By Kun, and all the other hermaphrodite deities of the Pit, I command the things that I speak to pass. Come forth and answer to your countless names, as you are Isis to us, but known as otherwise around the planet. O, hear the names I call. Hilda and Diiwica,”
“Hilda and Diiwica, the white ladies, black earth mothers, and bloodthirsty goddesses of the hunt!” the congregation shouts, as they begin stabbing themselves with what they referred to as stangs, but were basically shoplifted thumb tacks.
“Asmodeus, Choronzon, Azazel, Hina, Belial, Akuaba, Amon, Bel, Beelzebub, Lupa, Tython, Megalodon, Feronia, Abaddon, Amaterasu, Samael, Poseidon, Mephisto, Leviathan, Baphomet, Baal, Neptune, Set, Trunko, A
staroth,” he continued to name the laundry list of nauseating aliases, while the crowd shouted and repeated each putrid pseudonym as it was said by their deranged and designated priest. “I summon the sentinels of the Bermuda Triangle, to embrace this Eve’s chamber and kindle the cold flame of the incarnate divinity, Isis,” the atrocious priest said as he continued reading from the Book of Shadows.
The sacrilegious priest says something else in a strange dialect, which sounds to be incoherent mumbo jumbo. He then picks up a severed hand from off the fleshy altar, which he is standing behind. As he lifts this stuffed hand in front of his complacent face, the preserved fingertips are somehow ignited with flame, as if the stiff fingers were suddenly candle sticks. The dead hand has a human eye embedded into the center of the palm. The eye is open, as if watching everyone in the wet barn. This morbid hand had been resting on the bare ass of the human altar, which was a nude girl laying flat on her stomach, on a tabletop made of moss-covered red brick. The little bell that the priest had been ringing, sat on the small of her nubile back. When he had removed the Hand of Glory from her adolescent butt, she farted in respect, as if she had been holding it in until the moment called for her to release. The bloodcurdling priest frees the eerie hand, and as he removes his hands from it, the disembodied appendage floats on its own will. As this macabre Hand of Glory continues to levitate in the air, the High Priest hands a nude boy a pendulum incense holder that had been sitting hidden on the dirty floor.
Moon River Page 4