We – the future Imperial Prince and I – stepped up to the microphone, hand in hand, never taking our eyes off the crowd below us. The somnambulant living dead alternately groaned and drooled, but it was the sound of the Cabal officers that terrified me to my core.
With each step we took, we were met with the clomp-clomp sound of the butts of the rifles hitting the ground, like a drum beat, as they recited Emperor’s call to arms, the New Pledge of Allegiance in this new New York – a New York that some of the old-time inhabitants wouldn’t be able to recognize.
“His Word!” Clomp-clomp. “Before All!” Clomp-clomp. “Above All!” Clomp-clomp. “With Liberty!” Clomp-clomp. “And Justice for All!” Clomp-clomp-clomp-clomp-clomp, repeatedly, until the sound of the drum beat resembled the sound of the machine gun.
And maybe that was the point. But it sounded terrifying.
Tommy cringed and pursed his lips into a thin, fine line. “Are they serious with this?” he asked, under his breath. I could feel his hand shaking, slightly, beneath mine.
“Oh yeah,” I muttered back, vainly attempting to comfort him, even though I could barely comfort myself. “These idiots mean every word.” I leaned into Tommy’s ear and whispered, “I’ll make it quick,” before stepping up to the microphone and smiling, broadly and insincerely, as I launched into my brief speech.
“My fellow New Yorkers,” I began, “I want to thank you for joining me here on this momentous day, when I announce my betrothal to my very best friend, Thomas Gendry Sherman. I haven’t known the future Prince Consort for very long, but I can tell you all, that he is someone I trust implicitly, and he feels the same. We both look forward to serving you as your Imperial Prince and Princess.”
I stepped away from the microphone, leaned into Tommy again, and gave him a soft peck on the cheek. “I meant every word,” I whispered to him. “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
Tommy smiled warmly. “Same,” he whispered back. “Shame the Means and Ways couldn’t succeed in ‘converting’ me, dear, because I’d be honored to have you as my wife.”
I rolled my eyes, smirking. “Please. Love and marriage are mutually exclusive,” I whispered. “Look at my mother and step-father. Trust me, that’s the furthest thing from a love affair – they don’t even like each other. So, if I’m going to get forced into marriage, I’d rather it be with you. At least I like you.”
Tommy giggled. “I like you too, Evie. And thank you for letting me be myself. Let me say something right quick, before they get suspicious – if they even have the wherewithal to get suspicious.”
He stepped up to the microphone, cleared his throat quietly, and spoke. “It will be an honor to serve as your Prince Consort, by the side of one of the most wonderful women I’ve ever known, Imperial Princess Evanora Joy Cunningham.”
He stepped away from the microphone. Clomp-clomp. Shouting, whooping, hollering. Clomp-clomp.
My step-father took to the microphone again, basking in the glow of their adulation, however insincere it was. He never seemed to get enough fucking adulation – he was an endless, gaping maw that needed to always be filled with non-stop back-patting. This is so fucking exhausting, I thought to myself. I’ve been out here for the all of 15 minutes and it feels like a lifetime.
I couldn’t deal with it anymore and thought this was as good of a time as any to make our exit. I took Tommy’s hand and motioned towards the balcony door. “Come on, Tommy,” I whispered. “Let’s get inside. We have to find out who else is a part of the Uprising – and where we can find them.”
Tommy hurried behind me. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, sliding open the glass door with a quiet whoosh. “I can’t wait to get out of these ridiculous clothes.”
He looked back at the crowd below us, taking care not to catch the attention of either my mother or my step-father so we could slip by, unnoticed. But he couldn’t help but whisper one more thought in my ear: “we’re doing it for them, right Evie? Those people below us – they need us, don’t they?”
I sighed and lowered my eyes as I stepped into the apartment, sliding the door back into position behind us. “God, Tommy, I hope they do,” I replied as we quickly scurried off to my step-father’s inner sanctum, leaving my step-father to bask in his stolen glory and the accolades of a somnambulant populace kept in line by a rather odious militarized police force.
Located in the room that joined City Water Tunnels 1 and 3 and layered on all sides by Manhattan Schist rock formations, First Nations graves, and hollowed-out hulls of countless city buildings that came – and went – before it, my step-father’s inner sanctum served as both his repository for knowledge and an underground bunker. It was modeled after the Great Library of Alexandria, the hull of the Starship Enterprise, and St. Peter’s Basilica. It was all those things, and at the same time, none of those things – because it was so much more.
Sometimes, the man’s delusions of grandeur came in handy, because if it was knowledge you wanted, anything and everything you could ever want an answer to could be found in this sanctum.
Like everything else he owned, my step-father’s inner sanctum was all in white. There were white Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns all around us (because of course there were), each standing a monstrous ten feet tall – maybe higher – and the floor was made of a pure, glossy white marble with no grout lines. Shelf after shelf was lined with books of all sizes, from all eras, and a bright white hologram was at the end of each shelf, alerting the visitor to the subject matter on its shelf – science, mathematics, engineering, world history, mysticism.
Emperor’s inner sanctum was nothing short of massive. If someone was to dig a hole anywhere in what was once known as Central Park (but was, now, known as Emperor’s Park, since he felt the need to have his name plastered on everything throughout this goddamn city, whether or not he owned it – if he owned it, he needed to see his name on the building, and if he didn’t, the owner of the building would have to pay him a licensing fee for using the word “Emperor,” because apparently, never in the history of the universe, like ever, had someone gone by the name of “Emperor”), they would only have to go down about three feet or so to be caught in the labyrinth known as the Emperor’s inner sanctum.
I suppose, then, it was for the best that the psied populace lacked the most basic of intellectual curiosity, and didn’t think to dig anywhere for anything, let alone look for knowledge. Still, it pained me that there was knowledge – literally – about anything and anything, all available at the tips of their fingers, and they had no desire to get to it thanks to their unfortunate circumstances.
But Tommy and I were there for knowledge and wisdom…or, at least I was, because Tommy was too flabbergasted, at first, to pay attention.
“So many books,” he said, breathlessly, “and so many different things to learn.”
“Exactly,” I said, smirking. “If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to know, no matter the topic, you can find it here.”
We were back in the all-black garb we’d pinched from our newfound friends to avoid anyone taking unnecessary notice of us. Tommy ran his fingers over a book shelf, the pads of his fingers dusting a series of woven cloth spines with gold-leaf lettering, and I couldn’t help but recite the titles in my head as his fingers brushed past: A Plague of Pythons, by Frederik Pohl. Virtual Government, by Alex Constantine. Freedom of Mind, by Stephen Hassan. The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon.
He paused, then picked up the weather-beaten copy of A Plague of Pythons and absently flipped through the pages. “I see where he got some of his ideas,” he said, nodding. “What section are we in?”
I checked the hologram at the end of the shelf – it was of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the founder of “modern” psychology as we knew it. “Psychology, of course,” I said, pointing to Virtual Reality Sigmund.
Tommy shrugged. “This is a sci-fi book,” he said, holding up Pohl’s masterpiece. “But he put it in psychology. Did you e
ver read this book? In the story, the main character, named Chandler, encounters people who are ‘possessed,’ so to speak, and these people always do what the ‘execs’ tell them to do for fear of the repercussions of disobedience. Christ, this guy thought this book was a goddamn how-to manual.” He shook his head, snapped the book closed, and returned it to its rightful place on the shelf. “If he wants to tell himself that he can wage psychological warfare thanks to a classic sci-fi book, hey…entire religions were founded on that idea.”
My face was asking the question before my mouth was. “They were?”
Tommy laughed dryly, then kept walking down the aisle with me trailing slightly behind him. “Yes, yes they were. Just head down the mysticism aisle and look up this religion called Scientology – they were founded by a man called L. Ron Hubbard, whose previous claim to fame was as a failed sci-fi writer. The Scientologist’s religious text is one of his books – about an alien race that conquers Earth, or some such nonsense.” He rolled his eyes.
“Sounds a little ridiculous to me,” I volunteered.
“Oh, don’t worry, it absolutely is,” he replied. “But I’ve learned over the years to never underestimate the depths of human stupidity. Come, now, Evie, we need to head to the history aisle and find something that was written about the old New York. Your step-father can’t have destroyed it all, right?”
It took us more than a few hours to find what it was that we were looking for – a book about the old New York, and specifically, one that mentioned The Uprising – but when we finally found it, it was like discovering the Ark of the Covenant.
The book that held the proverbial secrets of the universe had, literally, all the answers we ever could have hoped for.
And the shame of it all was, we almost missed it.
It looked like a pamphlet more than a book. It had a nondescript white paper cover that was yellowing thanks to the natural course of time. It had only four words, scrawled in barely-legible and smudging black ink, on the cover: “trash,” “vaudeville,” “Jimmy,” and “Webb.” We figured that the name of the book was Vaudeville Trash, or Trash Vaudeville, and the author was named Webb Jimmy or Jimmy Webb – we weren’t sure about those details.
But Tommy and I knew, in the pit of our souls, that Emperor did this on purpose – he made it, so the average person would pass by this pamphlet with the strange name without a second look, because it didn’t look like the rest of the books in this pure-white-with-gold-leaf-lettering establishment. Some might say that the pamphlet got here by accident, thus giving them even less of a reason to find out what “Jimmy Webb” had to say about “Vaudeville Trash.”
And giving us even more reason, then, to find out exactly what the hell this man had to say.
Tommy peeled through the slightly-crumbling pages gingerly, taking care to lay each leaf down gently as he pored over the details. “Looks like lots of band names, with photographs,” he said.
I smirked, then carefully turned the page.
But I must have been possessed by something before I could turn the page, because apropos of nothing, I began preaching. “You know, in the Christian religion, Satan wasn’t always Satan. He, in fact, was God’s favorite angel – and he went by the name of Lucifer, or “the morning star,” which, incidentally, was also used to describe the planet Venus. And did you know Lucifer was the angel of art and music, before his fall from grace?”
I stopped myself. Where the hell did that all come from? I wondered.
“Ah, so that’s why this damn Emperor thinks music and art are the shepherds of the Devil. It all makes sense now,” Tommy said, matching my smirk. “Most impressive knowledge, by the way.” He looked at the page before us. “Well, well, well! If it isn’t our boys in Faust!”
My mouth dropped open. Could it be? I thought to myself. Would I finally see my father’s face for the first time?
I quickly grabbed the pamphlet, hoping to look upon my father’s face – but, alas, it was not meant to be, as my father and the rest of the members of Faust were looking off into the distance, trying to wax pensive as Jamie Ryan/Ivan Sapphire stared intently into the camera in a Jesus Christ pose.
And, to top it off, my father wore thick sunglasses that covered the entire top of his face, so I couldn’t even make out any identifying features except by process of elimination – Mr. Jesus Christ Pose is obviously Jamie, the one with the bangs in his face is Willie, Tom is built like a brick shithouse, and that…that one’s my father…
I suddenly saw drops of water hit the paper, and that’s when I realized I was crying despite myself. Tommy, seeing my troubles, placed his hand on my shoulder and kissed it lightly.
“It’s okay, Evie,” he said, quietly. “Maybe it’s better you don’t read this – I don’t want to upset you.”
I took his hand, kissed his knuckles, then wiped the tears from my face hurriedly. “No. No, that’s okay Tommy. I just – I wish I knew him. I wish he was here. I wish someone – anyone – would answer some questions about him.”
“Well,” Tommy began, “maybe, when this is all settled, Jamie can answer some questions for you.” He picked up the pamphlet. “Let’s read about our boys and see if we can’t figure out where we’ve gotta go.”
And together, we read the brief, abbreviated history of the ultimate bad boys of New York City rock’n’roll.
James Randall Ryan IV, William Lynn, Jordan Barker and Reverend Tom Newman – separately, they were just the names of four wealthy boys of old New York money and privilege who had access to the best of everything from the day they were born. Together, however, they formed the rock’n’roll collective known as Faust, consisting of two sets of friends (Jamie and Jordan were friends from high school, and Willie and Tom were roommates in college) that joined forces one fateful night to create music, make money, and get laid.
Legend had it that Jamie and Jordan were playing in a band that was going nowhere fast, and one night, said going-nowhere-fast band performed at a bar called Crash Mansion.
The bar was, by all accounts, a nice bar – another Bowery staple – that came complete with top-shelf liquor and beautiful bartenders that would spit actual fire from their mouths as they served you a shot of Three Wise Men (or whatever your poison of choice may be). The bar, which was only considered a bar because it served liquor, was clean and classy (by both old New York standards in general, and Bowery standards in particular), with exposed brick walls and strategically placed neon lights, and had an enviably-sized, spectacular stage with a multi-million-dollar sound and light system that could make any local bar band sound like the Rolling Stones.
And it was here that Willie and Tom – looking “ironically disheveled,” as the fashion of the time dictated – were drowning their sorrows about the demise of their erstwhile band, which was another going-nowhere-fast collective of barely-talented musicians who had little more in common than their shared love of bottle blondes with big tits and $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon at CBGB. In both Jamie and Jordan’s, and Willie and Tom’s, cases, their respective erstwhile bands were so terrible that their names were thankfully lost to the annals of time.
On a fateful February night – the Kalends of February, no less, as a band like Faust was wont to do – Willie and Tom caught this going-nowhere band of Jamie and Jordan’s at Crash Mansion. Jamie was caterwauling a lyric that went, in part, “I want to be adorned in sapphire” (which they misheard, in their inebriated state, as “Ivan Sapphire,” which is where Jamie earned the stage name that would bless and curse him in equal measure) and they were all-but-determined to whisk this talented, energetic, gorgeous supernova away from the madness of this failing band and into a band of their own that just had to be better than the shit they were currently hearing.
Jamie, for his part, was game for a new musical adventure, but he made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere without Jordan, who was just as proficient on the bass in this band as he would become in his next – and, ultimately, last – one. Tom, who didn�
�t like Jordan at first but who ultimately grew to love him as a brother, called the unexpected inheritance of a bass player that they didn’t know they needed a “Faustian bargain,” and thus, Faust was born.
I read off the names of their songs, smiling broader with each title, as the tune to each one came into my mind: “Bend Over Backwards,” “Hillbilly Heroin,” “Kalifornia,” “Tell Me,” “Water to Wine,” “Tuxedo,” “Home Again”…all of them on a set list, written by Jamie Ryan in an all-caps, compressed handwriting…the paper, an obnoxious shade of yellow so that there was no way any of the boys could miss it while standing on the stage…I got chills just looking at it.
Then came a very brief history of their musical tour, all to support their first, and what would turn out to be their only, album, entitled Twilight. Many of the tales of the tape were stuff of legend – levels of drinking and drugs that could tranquilize a bear, groupies by the shoal, mile after mile logged on the road as if they were re-enacting scenes from Easy Rider – but overall, Faust didn’t go through anything more spectacular than the typical rock band in the old New York would go through, even though they touted it as a carnival of rock’n’roll pillory, as bands of that time were wont to do.
Their final performance at CBGB – the last performance that CBGB would ever host – was heralded as the death of the modern era, and as the subsequent demise of CBGB and the old New York would prove, it was indeed the death of the modern era.
But it was the ultimate fates of the Faust boys, as told by Jimmy Webb of Trash and Vaudeville (that’s what I thought the cover was saying, and that’s what I was sticking to), that left me wondering, because Jimmy only knew – or was willing to share – detailed information about Jamie and Jordan’s fates. Jamie, he wrote, was in training to join the Cabal, and he’d married the “love of this, and every other, lifetime, Angelique Denham, and they were eagerly awaiting the birth of their son – rumored to be named Joseph Angelo, after Ms. Denham’s father, who died when Ms. Denham was a baby.”
The Gathering: Book One of The Uprising Series Page 12
