The Freewayfayers' Book of the Dead

by John Okas

  “Aah, that’s much better. The picture is coming in now. I can see the colors clearly. Wait—what? It cannot be! But, yes, yes, yes …” Keinar says, addressing a presence Laudette can’t see, “… oh, my dear sweet Lord … tee hee hee …” The medium lies back in her rocker, wiggling and giggling as if something were tickling her. She drops her hands from her head to between her legs, squeezes her thighs together, and pumps her pelvis. Her lumpy body shivers and her head flaps from side to side. She sounds off through her nose with a rip-snorting blare, a noise between a trumpet blast and a wild goose honk. Then she goes limp, twitching, purring with sexual satisfaction. It shocks and embarrasses Laudette that the medium would do such a thing at all, much less with strangers present. The proper sitter is just about to protest when suddenly Keinar sits upright, opens her eyes, and addresses Laudette excitedly, lucidly, soberly.

  “I see Sister Sarah is being haunted, but not by a ghost. We might assume because there were three deaths in the room she sleeps in she is being bothered by ghosts, but to assume makes an ass of you and me. I do see a sailor killed by his wife upon his homecoming. For a long time his ghost wandered, suffering. But, because of just causation, he was released when Sister Sarah’s conjuring drew this Master to her. What’s bugging her is a projection of the Horny God.”

  “Her imagination, you mean.”

  “No, it’s not her imagination. That’s the remarkable part. This type of possession often comes when a person has mixed up internal and external emotions. Of course, in reality everything is mixed up with everything else. We make distinctions to keep from succumbing to the type of confusion that now plagues our Sister. But the uncommon thing about Sister Sarah’s visitation is that—” the medium begins to talk slowly as if she were spelling it out for Laudette—“this—is—an—actual—flesh—and—blood—living—being. Oh yes, Sister Laudette, this Being has the power to ride on radio wavelengths and bring a hard, hot male body with him.”

  Laudette is dismayed to see the medium crack a blanked-out grin just like Sarah’s when she’s just had a lapload of monkey business.

  “Really now? Are you saying he’s a superman who can get lustful parts of himself half-way around this world without a plane?” asks Laudette, her eyes wide in disbelief.

  “Well, from what I understand so far, Sister Sarah’s Visitor has a body, an extensive dream body, that can make it to the fruited plane and back. As a living God, an Incarnation of the Terminator of Death, Lord and Master of all realms of existence, blissful and hellish, he can project multiple visions of himself to extraordinary lengths. He has put a double of himself out on the air to Sister Sarah.”

  A confirmed monotheist, Laudette shakes uneasily. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying some monkey fell out of the trees of the fruity plane and landed smack in Sugar’s terra firma lap?”

  “The character on the air travels in the fourth dimension, Sister,” says Keinar. “We call this extra range ‘the fruited plane’. Before we have had the experience of it, the fruited plane is very difficult for we beings locked in three dimensions to imagine, yet it is more solid than our seeming solid existence. It is the extent that is perpendicular to length, width and depth. It is an up that goes down, an across that stays back, an inside that comes out. The final stage is always the beginning, the outcome is the start. On the seed level maturity grows young again. It is the sphere of potentials and of causes and consequences of our earthly life.”

  “You mean like heaven and hell?” asks Laudette.

  “Relatively, yes; absolutely, no. There are numberless levels between heaven and hell.”

  “Then maybe it’s what the Dipster called purgatory, where you got to go through all those stages to be clean of your sins. Is that what this monkey is, some demon sent to trim Sugar here for the wrong she did?”

  “No, Sister Laudette, I don’t think so. And you can call him a Monkey if you like, but just remember this is a God, not a beast. Not a Holy God as you’re used to, or an all-knowing father figure, distant and threatening, but the type of divine character who likes to let his hair down, become a lower case pronoun, and take you in on the action. What’s coming to our Sister in such a raw meaty way is a Universal Self, a Consciousness who identifies with the self before it said ‘I.’ Perhaps, we might call such a being with an appetite for both carnal and symbolic knowledge a ‘Meataphor’.” The medium smiles subtly but Laudette shows no sign of getting the joke.

  “If you ask me, thinking about this monkey is nothing but trouble, ma’am. Look at what it did to Mrs Swan here.”

  But Keinar puts her hands back to her temples, and rolls her eyes up in her head, as if she were leaving this plane once again. “I can see where he comes from,” she says. “He lives on a remote mountain in the land of Poong …”

  Then she falls into a fervent silence, not unlike Sarah’s. Her white eyeballs seem to glow with an eerie light. The chill gleam of death in life makes Laudette squirm, giving her gooseflesh.

  Laudette has heard of Poong. When she was a young girl growing up in Kingsborough, her minister, the Reverend Dipster Jambalaya Jackson, said that if you were to dig down deep enough under the swampy earth around Louisport, the Dipster’s home town, you would come out on the other side of the earth, high, remote and rocky, in Sham’balaya, the Poongi holy city in the Pu Mountains.

  Laudette mulls over her geography, wondering, if that’s where you get from Louisport, where you would get digging under Sharpwood Avenue, or the museum, or the Bay Area? Keinar floats quietly in a light trance. Neither notices at first that Sarah has become conscious. The ghastly little woman facing her with white eyeballs and her hands held like six guns on each side of her head provides the burned-out bombshell with a real eye-opener. She scans the store of psychic charms. Puzzled, nervous, she turns around looking for an explanation and sees a glint of gold-toothed Laudette also trying to avoid the medium’s eyes. Ah, at least she knows who’s behind this.

  “Miss Lord, what’s going on here? Where am I and how did I get here? And who is this strange woman?”

  “Uh? Are you back, Sugaree? You see! I’ve been telling you, you got the blankouts. You don’t remember riding here on the subway, do you? Do you believe me now?”

  Sarah remembers her afternoon nap, the restless dreams, the purple haze, being taken hold of by something strong and creamy, and the sex bolts from the blue that boiled her blood and laid her out. Other than that she is a blank. “Did I really get up, get dressed, and come here in the underground with you?”

  Laudette wouldn’t tell a lie, but she does hide her doubts about the medium from Sarah. She knows that the patient has to believe in the healer. “Now, Sugar, this here is Madam Klare Keinar, and she’s amazing. She’s in some kind of trance state now, but she can be clear as day, believe me. She’s going to help us find out why you have these spells.” The big woman drops her voice to a soft, sympathetic whisper, “She already said it’s not Mister Corn Dog or any other dead dog that’s so sweet on you. You got a live one on your tail now, Sugar, coming from halfway around the world in Ping Pong Land! Just like the Dipster used to say, ‘The dead ones can’t hurt you the way the live ones can.’ Now just sit back and listen to what this smart lady has to tell you!”

  In the alternating currents of the moon there is light and dark. When Sarah comes into the light and talks to Laudette the dark side of the page that the clairvoyant is reading becomes obscure. The medium clicks her tongue switches off, comes out of her reverie, unrolls her eyes, and greets Sarah on the surface with self-assured cordiality.

  “Welcome, Sister Sarah, to this waking plane. No doubt Sister Laudette has given you the news. I’ve just been tracking the Source of the signal that’s been coming to you. It’s a male body, isn’t it? Literally, not a figure of speech or a delusion of your mind.”

  Sarah whimpers noncommittally.

  “The love you lost, the mixed-breed, is gone to eternal life. But I suspect you know that. Accept it. T
o be with him you must go on living yourself, and learn to handle this new love in your life.”

  Spook-ridden Sarah refuses to hear what she thinks she hears. “Mixed-breed? What are you talking about? Miss Lord! I’ve just been a bit nervous and distracted lately, and that’s all. I never gave you permission to drag me off to see a witch doctor.” She tries to go, but Laudette grabs her shoulders from behind and won’t let her. “We already paid twenty dollars consolation fee to this lady and heck if we’re not going to get an explanation of this business as she sees it.”

  “Thank you, Sister Laudette,” says the medium. “Try to relax, Sister Sarah. We are all haunted, some more than others. We must use this visitation to remind ourselves that we are Horny Goddesses, each with the power to get over her own hump, whatever that may be. For each of us the Presence is something different.

  “In the Eternal City they call bewitchment from without ‘obsession,’ from within ‘possession.’ A devil is a ‘fallen angel,’ a demon is ‘a soul in hell.’ A female spirit that descends on a man and has sex with him is called a ‘succubus,’ a male spirit that comes on a woman is known as an ‘incubus.’ Incubi do not come along every day, but a living man who has conquered death and can send a charismatic body to such holy ghostly wavelengths is so rare that even the Patriano Church has no word for him. We who connect with the Mother Goddess hold that the men of our dreams are inside of us, as the fruit of our wombs. It’s very rare for one of these soul-mates to exist in objective reality.

  “Yes, you’ve got a Divine Body on you, Sister Sarah. And he comes to you not only because he doesn’t have a voice, but because he doesn’t have a choice. He is addicted to you, as you are addicted to him. He has spent a good deal of his time lost, alone, confused and sick at heart.”

  Laudette snorts and worms in her seat. She is sure that a lost god is a false one. “And why do you think this whatchamacallit is so interested in Sugar?” she asks.

  “That I’m not totally sure about that yet, Sisters,” Keinar continues. “But my feelings tell me that he was desperately looking for companionship. Sister Sarah has saved him. But whatever, this is a matter of great moment, a rare experience to be contacted thus, Sister Sarah, and an honor for me to be on this case. Oh yes, it’s very exciting!”

  The split pea fidgets but Laudette keeps her pinned to the chair while Keinar briefs them on metaphysics.

  “Each and every one of us produces an electromagnetic charge that creates a force field around us made up of our inner thoughts and emotions. This field is positive or negative, depending on our individual net psychic self-worth. Opposites attract. Contrast exists so we can know ourselves. Like male and female, night and day, and all other polar opposites, positive and negative are each aspects of the other. For the average person, health is the happy medium, the golden mean, somewhere between half empty and half full. But there are a few who try to find the middle by burning the candle at both ends, one way on the outside, and quite another within. Haven’t both extremes been your norm, Sister Sarah? I can see! Very good and very bad. All in all you’re a very negative person. You’re a person without a center, a nothing, a black hole, a cipher. In fact if you were evil you’d have been a lot better off, but your fault was not rooted in malice, rather in stupidity, a worse, more primal and dangerous sin.”

  “Did you hear the things she called me, Miss Lord? And we’re paying for this? You’re fired!”

  “Sir Harry will say otherwise, now shush and listen.”

  “There, there, Sister Sarah, everything passes, but the first cuts in the personality are the deepest, and the last to heal. We’re saved by our own faults, Sisters, damned only by our own damning. A woman without a center is prime to be a center herself. By being so empty inside you’ve left your field open to the reception of the most powerful of positive signals. I get the picture of a red hot pole, just the kind of counterpoint your dead black hole was after. You bask in your visitor’s rash violet glow. Does that sound like what comes over you? Am I getting warm?”

  Sarah won’t answer.

  “Sister Laudette showed me the burns on your back. She didn’t have to! I can see from reading your electromagnetic record the grilling you’ve subjected yourself to. You have no idea how dangerous what you’re doing is. Look at you! A charred wreck and still going back for more. Turning yourself inside out for the male principle will never do, even if he is divine. That is the hole in your womanhood thinking for you: you imagine a male’s love, approval, and constant attention holds the key to your treasures, and you will disappear if you show yourself in any way other than model. In the Craft we highlight our shortcomings rather than try to hide them. Now, the remarkable thing here is that, regardless of his power, this visitor of yours is as flesh and blood as you or I. He has a body in this world, and he’s putting his life and member at risk to be with you. Fortunately Sister Laudette here has brought you to me before it was too late. No serious damage has been done, and great good may come of it. But we must put things right quickly. This Presence must be given the opportunity to come through a neutral professional medium.”

  The idea of her secret admirer going into this toad of a woman seems laughable to Sarah. What charm does Keinar have? The goddess has not looked into a mirror lately to see how gaunt she’s gotten. Laudette can see; Keinar is right. Sarah, who cared more to make a showy appearance than to tell the inner truth, has had to let her looks slide to demonstrate her honesty. Split to the core, the pea doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.

  “Of course, you are not very keen on giving up the meaty stuffing,” says Keinar. “Usually clients with spooky houses come to me and beg me to clear them, but since you’ve picked up this haunt on yourself and have become devoted to its overly friendly ways with your person, it’s natural you will be threatened by any attempt to drive him out. But rest assured, we are not going to drive him out, but get you two synched, working with one another.”

  What is this sinked stuff? Laudette is rather disappointed that Keinar does not recommend a good old-fashioned exorcism. “Send the devil packing, that’s what I say.”

  “No, that will never do.” Keinar explains, “The depths of our souls are not all sweetness and light. The darkness is an essential part of our being. It cannot be annihilated. When it is not acknowledged it becomes unknown, when it is unknown it becomes evil. So long as it is denied, it will come between us and the things we see, and our vision will be distorted, and much that is good in the world will seem dark and monstrous. Clear vision is what’s necessary, my Sisters, to free ourselves. And we won’t have that until we can face ourselves in our darkest parts. Cooperation, union, that’s the key to the power, and adulteration will tone this God down to a figure of speech and raise the woman consciousness in us, to give our flesh the dignity and divinity it deserves. Oh, Sister Sarah, don’t fear. The most frightening thing we all have to face is ourselves. I’m going to help you get on top of this thing, or die trying.”

  Laudette does not like all this talk about the dark. But for lack of a better plan of her own she remains silent and listens.

  “I will need your cooperation, Sister Sarah. You must invite me to your home tomorrow so I can raise this Horny God, and let him broadcast through me. You’ll be able to face him and communicate.”

  Sarah says, “Go fuck yourself with the broom you came in on, you old witch.”

  “Watch your mouth, Sugar,” Laudette says, surprised at Sarah’s profanity. “Of course, Madam Keinar, we’ll be waiting for you tomorrow.”

  “At three. The cost for a house call is forty.”

  Laudette doesn’t think that the fee for clearing the air will be a problem. “We’ll be there. Come now, Sugar, let’s go.”

  Sarah succumbs once more to a bleary fatigue. She shivers, shakes, and grumbles while the baby-sitter wraps her in her coat, hustles her out onto Nussbaum Street and back down into the subway.

  The Cold Turkey Curses

  When the women come
home, Harry is curious. He waits for Sarah to say, “Excuse me” so she can drift off and kiss the sky and then goes to get the lowdown from Laudette. “So, Miss Lord, will I still have to compete with ghosts?”

  “I beg your pardon, Sir Harry, but it’s not exactly a ghost you’re up against. I found out today that it’s a purple people-eater from Ping Pong land.”

  “You mean Pingp’yangpoong? Go on, Miss Lord.”

  Harry listens to the story Laudette tells him a dozen times, but no matter how often he hears the tale Madam Keinar sold her, he does not believe a word of it.

  “It’s not exactly a monster either, Sir, it’s what you call an inkubust, only worse. The medium says this monkey on Sugar’s back is more than her imagination. Something really does come on the air riding in on some kind of radio program that’s got body waves, not just voices and music. But don’t you worry, this Madam Keinar is an expert and she’s coming tomorrow to find out what she has to do to get it to behave itself.”

  Fearing husbandly jealousy, Laudette hesitates to say more. She makes no direct mention of the intimate nature of the visits. Of course, Harry understands what she is driving at, but it does nothing to change his opinion that whatever demon is ravaging his wife comes from her mind and nowhere else. “I still think Mrs Swan would be better off seeing a psychotherapist,” he says.

  “But you would rather she not, right, Sir Harry? You need say no more. Let’s give this a try. Something in my old bones tells me it just might do something. Now Sugar fired me …”

  “Consider yourself rehired.”

  “Thank you, Sir. One more thing I have to tell you though, there’s a forty-dollar house call charge.”