He scowled. “What? Don’t bother me, kid.”
I walked on my way, feeling good about smiling.
He yelled after me, “You stink, kid. You smell like you’ve been dancing with the devil all night.”
I went in search of the pigeon.
In the park, I sat quietly reflecting on what had happened when Greg asked for my help. Had I reached inside what normally is seen as physical matter? LSD was new to me, but it had felt like the trip had been swept away by incredible energies that were realized at the moment the shadowy creature had spoken, only to return after the feather had dispersed the mass that had flown from Greg’s heart.
A purple pigeon pecked near my bench. Unquestionably, it was the same bird who had followed us home. Its head bobbed up and down, twisting inquisitively at different angles as it maneuvered through the scattered leaves on the ground. Flipping open my sketchbook, I shaped a drawing of a pigeon whose feathers were surrounded by fiery, bursting patterns of starlight.
“Okay, bird, I’ve got to go find something to eat. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”
As I got up, it scampered off to one side, stopping to pick at a group of splotchy leaf debris. Transfixed by the actions of the winged creature, I watched as the pigeon uncovered a small bright white feather in the mix of ground litter. Carrying it in its beak, the bird dropped its find at my feet, then wandered off warbling and cooing.
Spearhead shaped, the feather curved gently to one side at its point before spreading to about a half-inch wide body, then tapered back to a short bare stem. The entire quill was about two inches long. Picking it up and studying it, the plume was definitely hand-crafted, but I couldn’t identify what material it was. A soft, hypnotic brilliance shone from the satiny surface. Enthralled by its beauty, I felt cleansed as I held it. My emotions were overpowered by an astonishing revelation. It looked exactly like the feather that had swooped away the mess from Greg’s clogged soul.
The universe seemed to rearrange itself in that moment. Something in my life, some path I had stepped on, felt right on target.
Leaving the park, I passed the man with the long white hair and beard. Holding up the feather I said, “Thanks, Santa.”
He laughed. “Early Christmas, I see.”
Greg and I ate from a plate of sliced apples, bagels, and cream cheese. Red tear trails that had etched and burned themselves into his skin spider-webbed out from beneath his eyes. Devastation lingered in his every move.
“CIA’s been operating a secret ground war with squads like ours. When the brass figured out what happened at that village, they quarantined us, then eventually shipped us all back stateside.”
I remembered his comment a few night’s earlier about people dying when there’s no discipline.
“It’s bizarre they have rules on proper killing. I guess bombers blowing villages to shit with some fat-ass general pushing the buttons all according to plan is perfectly fine.”
Greg hung his head, didn’t look me in the eye. “Deets, man, I have to report back in a few days. I don’t think I can go on the same.” He shrugged, looked up, held my eyes with a confused look. “I’ve been thinking, after what happened last night, I might ask for training as a medic. I think you revealed something inside me I didn’t know existed.”
I held the feather out to him. “I don’t think you should credit me for whatever you discovered. Here, take this. Keep it.” I didn’t know where the words came from as I said, “Wear it next to your heart. It’s part of some kind of miracle.”
He held it, spinning it slowly between thumb and finger. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. Looks like it might have fallen off an angel’s wing.”
I reached across the table and touched Greg’s hand. This time the tears were in my eyes. “Take care of yourself, Greg.”
When I woke up in the late afternoon, Greg was gone. I found a packet of tinfoil placed alongside a small sketchbook on the bedside table. The wrapping contained the four remaining cubes of LSD. The pad of paper was open to a note Greg had written.
Deets, thanks. You saved my life. Hope I can do the same for others now. Keep the cubes!
I spent the next few days watching and drawing people in Washington Square. Lovers held hands, young mothers pushed strollers, kids played tag, guitarists strummed, students threw Frisbees, beggars looked dreary. As I drew them, I wondered what secrets each held. Did any hide a story as terrifying as Greg’s? Did the power of an ancient shadow visit them?
Obsessively, two questions wracked my brain when I lay down at the end of each day. How did that pigeon know where to find the sculpted feather, and why did it drop it at my feet?
Chapter 8
I unwrapped the foil and studied one of the little cubes. The effects from my first trip had worn off, but the powerful chemical had changed my perception of everything. Absolutely everything. Hearing the universe calling, and curious to open myself fully to the visions and insights the sugar cube promised, I placed it on my tongue and let it melt.
Dreaming of spinning slowly near two large planets, I had the sensation of floating above the chair I sat in. Nearby, galaxies of stars resonated symphonically and erupted into a myriad of colors.
My front door began talking to me.
“Deets.”
It seemed natural that it knew my name. After all, we shared the same apartment.
“Deets, are you there? Deets.”
“There? Wow.” Odd, how my mouth opened and sound came out.
“Are you all right? Open up.”
“My chair’s near Saturn.”
“Deets, it’s me. Open the door.”
Ah, Maureen. Delightful, beautiful, creamy Maureen.
I turned the doorknob, and there she was.
She had a natural way of seeming to bounce without any perceptible physical movement. The air around her body rippled, and an intoxicating energy emanated from her smile.
On the landing behind her, a Chinese guy who lived upstairs was grinning at me. He was laughing as he asked me, “Hey, man, you sure you’re there?”
“In bits and pieces, but yeah.” I felt the top of my head, my legs and arms, patted down my chest, and looked at my hands. “Seems to have reassembled correctly.”
Maureen gave me a questioning look. “You’re weird.”
She checked out my apartment as I sat back in the chair. When she reappeared and climbed onto my lap, my hand worked its way under her blouse and cupped her bra. She rose. Leading me into the bedroom, she closed the curtains and draped a red silky cloth over the lamp.
We took each other’s clothes off and lay next to each other, stroking, rubbing, kissing. I marveled and licked at the perfumed juices between her legs, sucked delicious heat from her nipples. Globes of multicolored dew covered her body as she gently spread her invitation to me.
I climbed between the cradle of her thighs.
Buttery flesh melted around my cock. I pushed and rocked, sliding back and forth in her slippery smoothness. My mind had never been touched by such pleasure. Throbbing, enthralled, I pumped faster and faster in delirious wonder.
Maureen placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed at me.
“You’re not even in me.”
There was a tone of disdain to her voice, not spiteful, but incredulous. She pushed again, a bit more persistent. The immediacy of her touch was clear. She wanted me off her. I rolled away.
Confusion spun, planets wobbled. Where had I been? Wasn’t all that flesh wrapped around me and that wetness, her cunt? It had felt so good. What was she saying? I wasn’t even in her. What did that mean?
Her message echoed through my groaning disbelief. She didn’t explain or try to continue making love. All that beauty, that heat, that sex—gone as she moved from the bed and put on her bra and underwear, blouse and skirt.
> Hadn’t she been turned on? Was I a simpleton? An inexperienced buffoon?
I was still lying in bed naked when the front door slammed.
But then the drug kicked into high gear.
My ego didn’t stay bruised for very long as I lost myself to an hallucinatory cornucopia in the air around me.
Cartoon knights, dancing pirates, a bear with neon teeth, along with a horde of bumblebee people and giant raspberries cavorted—whirling, howling, changing shape. A large red frog sat on the bed, smiling alongside me as we watched the show together.
Somewhere in the craze, I realized LSD trips were not all the same.
A good time was had by all the guests in the room despite that bizarre sexual hiccup a few hours earlier in the trip.
Chapter 9
I continued to spend my days and nights drawing. Besides working on a large illustration of a red frog, I lettered a series of anti-war placards.
Get Out of Vietnam
It ain’t my war
Peace Now
Stop The War
Stop The Bombing
After placing the signs in the storeroom at the student union building, I headed towards the HooDoo Gallery to catch the opening exhibition of an artist I knew by the name of Ham Sherwin.
The HooDoo also handled my work. Daisy, the owner, had given me my first break into the art world in New York after I had placed first in a regional juried show. My piece was sent on tour with the other finalists over to Europe but had disappeared in Paris. Daisy, who had organized the tour, had called to inform me that my drawing had been stolen. In recompense, she offered to show my work in her gallery. I was only fifteen at the time.
After I graduated from high school back home in Yardley, Pennsylvania, Daisy drove down from the city to convince my parents to let me hone my skills in the Village. She pointed out that I had already been selling successfully for three years, and the contacts in the creative community would be of tremendous benefit. When Mom and Dad still hesitated, she had pulled out a check and told them I had just sold a drawing to a famous rock and roll star.
“I don’t care for that noise. It’s not music.”
“C’mon Dad, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like rock. This guy likes my illustrations.”
My mother voiced her opinion. “Think about it, Honey. It would be quite an opportunity for Deets to meet people in the art world. With this sale, he’s already made inroads into a group of influential people.”
“Influential. Ha, he’s a musician. He’s not one of those English hipsters with long hair, is he?”
I scratched at my sideburns. My father was always grumbling for me to get my hair cut.
“Mister Parker, many people from the business community visit my gallery. Your son won a very prestigious art show at a very young age. We organize that contest yearly to find promising talent that we believe can be developed. He’s more than proven himself.”
“Dad, I’ve already had a piece stolen.” I laughed. “I mean, c’mon, an international art theft. That would look great on my resume.”
My father chuckled, took a sip of his martini.
Mom placed her hand on his. “Bill, he can always get into college in a year if it doesn’t work out.” Mom was on my side, Dad was caving.
“All right, we’ll see. One year, Deets. Daisy, keep him away from those beatniks.”
The first day in the Village, Daisy’s assistant, Julie, had taken me to an apartment they had found for me. She lit a joint, said she liked my artwork, then stripped off her clothes, and we fucked on the bare floor. In the three months since, she had been totally business, making my frames, hanging my work, handing me a check when I made a sale. Sometimes she talked with me about my art but never hinted at our afternoon together. I learned she was married and kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself.
Ham’s show had plenty of food, carafes of wine, and a crowd of people socializing and meandering casually while commenting and theorizing about his work. Daisy mingled, resplendent in her trademark yellow scarf, turquoise rings, and black beret. Julie was expounding on Ham’s use of color to a well-dressed bald man who never removed his sunglasses.
Ham was looking surly. We stood in front of a painting of an alley, sipping wine. It had been executed in dark shades of blues with fathomless black silhouettes hinting of trash cans, boxes, and bottles. A dumpster.
I noticed a red speck surrounded by a vaguely humanoid shape hidden in the details of the canvas.
“Oh, man, I don’t believe this.”
“What?”
“That figure, the one smoking, creeps me out.”
“Ahh. You noticed.”
“I had an experience last week that scared the crap out of me. About eight, nine blocks from here. This is exactly what I saw.”
“No shit. I woke up one night, felt I had to paint and started it at three in the morning. Kind of weirded me out working on it. Not my usual palette.”
“Strange. You stayed in your studio, though?”
“Since when do I go out in the middle of the night? Of course.”
We stepped over to a brighter, livelier oil color, but I kept looking back at the red dot, drawn to it by an uncomfortable fascination of Ham’s accurate reproduction of my experience.
Daisy came by and grabbed Ham by the elbow, guiding him away. “Hamilton, I want you to meet some dear friends of mine.” Whispering sternly, she added, “And keep your usual rude behavior under check. These are important clients.”
I wandered around, appreciating Ham’s technique. He was an exacting realist who then overlaid every detail with a translucent layer of bright colors, giving even the drabbest scenes the feel of impressionistic color exploding from a photograph.
The show was a good representation of life in the Village. With its monotone pallet, the dark alleyway painting stood out, challenging everyone to explain its presence in the room. As I was leaving, I took one last look at it and leaned in to read its title card. I reeled, feeling entrapped once again by the laughter and voice that had emanated from that darkest of all alleys. Printed in bold lettering on the card were the words, The Monster Beckons.
I cut northwards, east of the square, backtracking the route I had run in terror some nights earlier, past a dozen small side lanes until I found the one I was looking for. Ham had depicted it perfectly.
Though the sun had not set, the alley cast its own shadows as if permanent night existed in the farthest recesses of the narrow passageway. With no cigarette glow visible, my curiosity worked itself into the courage I needed to investigate.
Broken glass crunched as I stepped slowly between the walls. Garbage lay scattered near trash bins. A smell that held itself above the stench of the rubbish grew more bitter and distinctly stronger the further I proceeded. White scratchings of numerals and lines and doodles along one section of dark-stained brick wall seemed to have a purpose, but I couldn’t ascertain what it could be. The scribbles reminded me of a chemical or high mathematical formula mixed with oddball hieroglyphics. A dog yipped far away, the sound muffled, but insistent. I paused to listen, the bark resonating as a message of warning. Proceeding on, carefully checking each step’s placement and surroundings, I imagined Greg on some jungle path, walking point, aware of every movement or out-of-place object.
Approaching the end of the alley, the stink became recognizable. Death. I wiped at my watering eyes, noticing a space that had been cleared of the glass, metal, wooden crates, and slimy vegetables littering the area. I knew this was where the glowing red light had emanated from. The cement was scorched in a circle about a yard in diameter. In the soot lay an assortment of dark objects. I kneeled down for a closer look.
“Jesus, what the...?”
There, framing roughly the shape it had been when alive, were burned bones, fire-shriveled threads of flesh, and the st
ill smoldering purple feathers of a bird.
The air around me crackled, splintering my view of the alley. From within the sudden flash and spark of light surrounding me, I made out the sound of voices murmuring unintelligibly. I scrambled in reverse a step, my heart pounding chaotically, spasmodic shivers running the length of my body. Spinning around, fearing an attack by something, I readied myself but saw no one. In the small space of sky above, lightning flashed, and the accompanying rumble of thunder shook through me. An icy humidity pricked at my skin as I back-stepped slowly towards the open street.
The rain was coming down hard when I reached the little park where I had first encountered the pigeon. Standing above the area where the white feather had been found, I had no doubts the bird that lay dead back in the alley was the same one who had gifted the sculptured quill to me.
Cold drops pelted my face, blurring my vision as I tried to put the past week into perspective. I didn’t believe the bird being burned in that specific alley was coincidence. Numbly, I realized I wasn’t an accidental bystander in a bizarre series of events, but the intended recipient of an invitation to step into a mystery. And this mystery seemed determined to scramble my perception of the world.
Awe and fear, loss and discovery, beat at me as I found my way home.
Chapter 10
The amount of people at the anti-war rally helped lift the disturbing funk I had been in. There were thousands filling Whitehall Street for blocks, overcrowding the sidewalks, spilling into plazas. Protest signs bobbed and waved above the crowd.
Stokely Carmichael stood on a flatbed truck speaking into a microphone. The sound system was fuzzy, making it hard to understand what he was saying, so I worked my way through the crowd towards him.
“This government is a totalitarian regime pretending to be a democracy for the people and by the people. None of us here consented to this war. Nor did congress. It is the president’s war. Are we to kill and die for a system that uses racism and the draft to subjugate our freedoms? We shall bear these yokes no longer.”
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 5
