The Sultan of Delhi

It couldn’t have been easy roaming around the streets of Delhi, Ontario, I mean the sleepy, little town always seemed like it had slipped into a comma or something. Nothing much ever really happened there, but even nothing seemed better when summer arrived. Just when it felt like the world would be swallowed up by the cold, darkness that had brought in the shadow of death, the whole town was propelled into the most spectacular shades of green and blue and yellow that filled the senses with the sights and sounds and even the very essence of life itself. I suppose that everything seemed possible, but Hollis Danby really didn’t care, I mean he was off somewhere deep within his own mind, and nothing was ever able to get in there with him. The talk around town was that even though his physical being was present, Hollis Danby had moved on in his mind, I mean he just wasn’t with us anymore. Nobody really knew what it was, but something had shaken his faith in God to the very core. I’m not sure that it was ever meant to happen, but some of us believed that it didn’t make any difference to him either way, I mean he was pretty messed up most of the time.  

It was Canada Day sometime in the 1970s, and the whole town was more excited than it had been all year.  It was the celebration of our independence, and the entire country discovered the pride and patriotism we never even knew we had, hiding in the chorus of a ton of songs that reeked of Canadian content and were specially selected for the occasion. We were all Canadian, and everyone in town was marching down Main Street waving those miniature Canadian flags that were always handed out across the country. There were boats on Nine Mile River loaded with the fireworks that would eventually transform the town into a pyrotechnic paradise. Hollis Danby was sitting on the steps of the town library, anxiously waiting for the fireworks as the high school marching band in the gazebo played the national anthem over and over again. As dusk moved across the town, the excitement grew and the townspeople shuffled around in anticipation of the wondrous explosions that would illuminate the night sky like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The first rocket was thrust into the air, and exploded into a series of red, and green, and yellow lights that painted the night sky. The second rocket went even higher, and we were sure that it brushed the clouds before its blinding white light lit up the black sky so that we could see clear across the river. Rocket after rocket were fired amid a chorus of ooohs and aaahs until an errant Roman candle sailed through the front window of the Delhi Diner and igniting the gas, caused the explosion that sent the entire block eight miles high into the night sky that was now engulfed in a fireball of the deepest orange, and red, and blue. The whole town was in shock, while Hollis seemed unmoved. He was right there to witness the whole damn thing, and he was right there when Delhi Diner sign came crashing back down to earth and embedded itself into the spire of the Elgin County Court House, but he just didn’t seem to fell a damn thing. He had no idea what he was supposed to feel, but he simply felt nothing. Everything that was inside of him had turned off. In the ensuing pandemonium that went on in his head though, Hollis Danby walked out of Delhi hoping to find anything that would save him from the numbness that had reached up and grabbed him by the balls.

He walked until he just couldn’t walk anymore and then, after resting for a while he walked some more. He walked until he reached the highway that would take him as far away from Delhi as the truck driver who offered him a ride would take him. It was already dark when he was dropped off somewhere in the biggest city he could have imagined. He had no idea where he was, I mean he had never been out of Elgin County before, and the sheer magnitude of the city that now surrounded him was suffocating. He was cold and hungry, and he was tired. He felt like he could sleep for a hundred years, and he took shelter in an abandoned bus depot and settled in for the night with the homeless and the destitute. In the morning Hollis just kept bouncing along, following the others who had nowhere in particular to go, but were always on the move in some sort of chronic migration in search of food and shelter. At some point Hollis began shoving all kinds of street drugs into his head and seemed to lose track of exactly who he was. One day he decided that he was the Sultan of Delhi, and he found himself in a room on the fourth floor of the Bert Massey Centre for Mental Health, which was affectionately and somewhat humorously referred to as Massey Hell.

I met the Sultan of Delhi in the fourth floor lounge of Massey Hell, where he was sitting near the window chain smoking Belmonts, and watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island. “Which one?” he asked. “Ginger or Mary Ann.”   

“I don’t know.” I said. “Does it matter?” The Sultan was sure that it mattered, I mean he believed that you could learn everything you needed to know about a man by the castaway he preferred. The two women were opposites really, I mean one was down to earth, hard working, loyal and honest, and the other was egocentric, demanding, self absorbed, skank. I have no idea if what he said had any scientific validity, but for what its worth, I had chosen Mary Ann. I began meeting with the Sultan regularly, always by the window in the fourth floor lounge where we talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. Sometimes he didn’t want to talk at all, and we just sat and watched reruns, or we’d count the prostitutes who wandered in and out of the Hardwood Motel. Sometimes we’d talk about his Sultanate, or marvel at how the Professor was able to make a short wave radio out of coconuts, until the Centre received a circular about a young man from the town of Delhi who had vanished into thin air. We were all pretty sure that the Sultan of Delhi was in fact Hollis Danby.

The town of Delhi had healed and rebuilt, and the locals turned their attention to trying to find out what happened to Hollis. After the explosion he was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until one of the doctors from Massey Hell called Delhi’s sheriff that the fate of the missing Hollis Danby was discovered. No one in Delhi was really surprised that Hollis had wound up in some kind of institution, I mean most of the townspeople always thought that he’d end up in a place like that particularly since his parents had always been out of their minds. There were rumors that there had been some kind of family inbreeding a couple of generations ago, and I suppose it was all possible, particularly since now Hollis had suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Someone needed to share all of this information with the Sultan, and since I was the closest thing he had to a friend, I was asked to deliver the news despite not having a clue as to how best to tell him that his family was nuts, and that the Professor’s coconut radio didn’t really work at all.  Hollis seemed to take the news of his real identity and family history relatively well, I mean all things considered, he handled it as best as he could. He could not, however come to grips with the idea that the coconut radio was a complete hoax. Not that it mattered really, I mean The Sultan of Delphi was convinced that a trip to Gilligan’s island would get the Professor’s short wave coconut radio working once again. Otherwise, the castaways may never be rescued.

The Delhi town council were interested in having Hollis return to Delhi. They had a job for him at the newly created Delhi Tourist Office, and were hopeful that they would be able to parlay his Sultan of Delhi persona into some kind of marketing concept that would attract tourists to the town. Hollis had no interest in working in a tourist office, I mean he was still The Sultan of Delhi. The town council deliberated, discussed and debated and finally resigned themselves to the fact that Hollis Danby was never coming back home, but they could get the Sultan Of Delhi to relocate. They were sure that it was the right thing to do, and after negotiations they agreed to allow the Sultan of Delhi to move in to the Presidential Suite of The Delhi Hotel where he would be able to hold court and keep an eye on his Sultanate from the balcony that wrapped around the top floor of the hotel. With the right marketing, Delhi was able to increase tourism and tourist dollars spent in the town by thirty percent in the first year. The town was happy, and Hollis Danby was happy. Hollis and I stayed friends, and I visited often, at least a couple of times a year until his untimely death at in a coconut mishap that occurred while Hollis was trying to build a short wave radio in order to contact the castaways stranded on Gilligan’s Island. A statue was erected outside the Delhi Town Hall that depicted the Sultan in his royal vestments and continues to be a tourist attraction to this day.

Beaver Falls

The sky was brilliantly blue on the roof of Pelican Pete’s boat house that summer as we watched the Albacores on the lake float across the water. The whole thing looked like some kind of painting, I mean it didn’t seem real out there that afternoon, but then things rarely did. Cosmo’s Bar was busier than usual, but I suppose everyone wanted to get in and have just one more drink before it closed its doors for good. It was the talk of the town, I mean Cosmo’s had been there for as long as anyone of us could remember and it was about to be torn down to make way for a casino that the town council was sure would bring the rich and famous to Beaver Falls. Of all of the strange things that were next to impossible to describe, progress was among the strangest. It came out of nowhere really, drifting across the night air on the back of astral angels or something, specifically designed to improve the quality of life for a few at the expense of the many. It was hauntingly intoxicating, and there was something hypnotic about it really, I mean an economic boon to the region would keep the locals brain deep in tequila and opium by bringing in travelers from the far reaches of space and time, eager to see what all of the fuss was about. Every day we watched the progress from our perch on the roof of Pelican Pete’s boat house as they paraded across the promenade that encircled the lake front, completely captivated by the sound of the waves crashing into the shore. There were big plans afoot to make the town of Beaver Falls the playground of the elite. We had been sitting on the roof of that boat house soaking up the calm and clarity that we thought might have drifted in with the sound of change, but it was more than likely brought on by the opium and tequila.

For most of us, Cosmo’s was a large part of our adolescent memories. We’d all taken a turn sitting in the corner booth and drinking underage, or walking into the backroom with one of the barmaids who offered to help us transition into manhood. We hoped that its impending demise was nothing more than just another hallucination. That would be simple enough to deal with, I mean at least it wasn’t those damn flying monkeys again, but we’d been going up to Beaver Falls for long weekends and short holidays since we were old enough to drive. and we inevitably found ourselves wasted on the roof of Pelican Pete’s boat house trying to figure out what happened to our dreams. I suppose its all just a matter of luck really, I mean luck and timing. All we can really do is cross our fingers, close our eyes and hope for the best. Somewhere in all of that clarity though, we lost the hope we brought with us the first time we came to Beaver Falls. It was hard to explain really, but the drone of our own existence had been wearing away our hope and dreams ever since it burrowed into our psyche. It was easy to get accustomed to though, I mean it just sort of appeared and hung there in the background, much like the hum of cicadas in the heat of the summer. “Is that sound coming from the hydro wires?” Tate once asked.

“Its the cicadas.” Farberman answered. “That’s their song.” I hated that noise, I mean that constant singular, monotonous hum could erode a man’s hope and dreams all by itself and leave them with nothing to believe in. Pelican Pete knew it, and he made sure that we understood that we could only listen for short periods of time, and even then we made sure that we were all messed up on tequila or opium or both, just to make sure that it couldn’t burrow any deeper into our heads. Without hope all we could really do was sit quietly and watch them prepare to tear down Cosmo’s. It just didn’t seem like there was anything we could do that would make a difference, I mean it was all about money, and you really can’t interfere in things like that. It always seemed ironic that progress wasn’t progressive at all, I mean it just never seemed to get us any closer to being better people, and if that wasn’t the point of it then, I suppose I had absolutely no use for it at all. I don’t suppose anybody did really, although the ones with the money seemed quite pleased with everything. There was just nothing for the rest of us.  There was never really supposed to be, I mean that’s just the way it was.

There were protests going on all the time, but I was never really clear what they were protesting against. Pelican Phil didn’t think the protesters knew either, and I suppose he was probably right., I mean nobody out there really seemed to know much about anything. Great strides were made in getting a man to the moon, I mean hell, I watched the damn thing unfold for the first time in the summer of 1969. Then there were the Mars Rover landings which explored whether there could have been or could ever be life on the red planet, although I was never really sure why they needed to scour the galaxy when we had a perfectly good planet right here. All we needed to do really, was feed the hungry,  house the homeless, and end war, pestilence, famine and climate change and we’d have a pretty decent place to call home. The financial gain though was just too great for those who already had it all to pass up. The mentality was typically human, I mean if you ruin something you say you care about,  you’d just go out and find another one. It seemed that they were trying to hedge their bets in the event that the earth became uninhabitable, and they wanted control in the new world. I would have preferred to take my chances down here with everyone else who was sitting up on the roof of Pelican Pete’s boat house. We saw it all differently, I mean we were sure that Elon Musk and Bill Gates were responsible for most of the evil in the world, and what wasn’t theirs more than likely belonged to Gene Simmons or Taylor Swift. It all went away just as quickly as it had arrived, I mean once it was revealed that General Brassbottom had secured the entire area for Roger Ramjet and The American Eagle Squadron’s training camp, the entire project was shelved. It seems that none of the suits wanted to engage NBC in some kind of prolonged litigation that they were unlikely to win. The fear of the network was one hell of a deterrent for the corporate clowns. The good news though, was that Cosmo’s was staying, and the assholes in three piece suits were going. The town council was devastated by the loss of what might have been, but for the rest of us, well we still had the roof of Pelican Pete’s boat house, with enough tequila and opium to ensure that the American Eagle Squadron would fly on forever.

There’s Always A Beginning

Somewhere on the road less travelled Presley Walker got lost. It took almost forty eight hours for anyone to realize that he wasn’t there, I mean I suppose it took that long for someone to notice. The search was exhaustive, but he was finally found about halfway between the point of view and the point of no return. He seemed a lot different though, I mean he wasn’t the same guy who had set out on a quest for some kind of enlightenment less than a week earlier. He had changed, and there was something wrong with his eyes, I mean they were cold and empty and it seemed that you would lose your soul in there if you looked too deeply. Maybe the stories that he was really the son of an otherworldly demon were true. We really didn’t know what to believe anymore, I mean he was weird and everything, but that was all we knew. He always said that nothing ever came easy to him, but then he never really expected they would. He always felt that he was different and that he would forever be faced with the trials and tribulations of every decision he would ever have to make while trying to carve out a life of his own on some barren rock floating in space, somewhere. What he didn’t know was why he just didn’t seem to give a shit any longer. There was some kind of a crisis going on and Presley Walker was well aware that it was some sort of necessary evil, I mean without it there’d be absolutely nothing for him to do. It was weird really, but he always seemed to do better when there were dragons breathing fire down his neck. He never understood any of it really, and he quietly gave up simply because he got tired of looking. Some of us thought it had to do with drugs and women, I mean it almost always did, but things had changed and Presley Walker discovered that even though he had sailed through the galaxies chasing sounds and colors in an attempt to escape the terror left by the Blue Meanies, he was never really able to accomplish what he set out to do. None of us were, I mean the world was never any different than it was before we tried to change it. It was difficult for any of us to accept, but I suppose it was harder on Presley than anybody else, I mean he really had nowhere else to go. It was during those days of future passed,that he woke to find himself dangling over the dark side of the moon with ‘Brain Damage’ spiraling so deep into his sub conscious that he was certain that he was standing exactly where Syd Barrett had been.  

He knew that there were crazy mother fuckers everywhere, I mean he could see them in the theaters and concert halls, and sometimes sitting around drinking coffee at Java Joe’s or Jet Fuel, but he just couldn’t figure out why nobody else could see them. It had always seemed odd to him, but it felt like he was the only one who knew what was really going on out there. All of that changed sometime around the winter of 1976 when he met Sommer Storms, a self proclaimed guru and owner of Sommer’s Spiritual Sex Shop who suggested that the crazy mother fuckers may actually only be in his head. It was difficult to imagine but it made sense, I mean Presley Walker was pretty sure that it hadn’t been him in there for a very long time. Together the two of them set out to try to make him sane again, even though he was aware that others had already tried, and failed. It didn’t really matter though, I mean he was just glad to have found someone who believed him. Sommer could feel the sound that emanated from his head, and she was sure that it would last until the end of time, just like it did with Holly, Morrison, Allman  and Bolan. They were both sure that there was always some kind of a beginning and this was it, although neither of them knew just what they were starting. The details had all become a little fuzzy, but they remembered about the daisy chains and laughs, and why they had to keep the loonies on the path. None of it made any difference though, I mean they were never going to make it to wherever it was they were trying to go.

It was all just an illusion anyway, I mean they walked and walked for what seemed like forever and barely moved a foot, even though none of us could tell if they were chasing something or running away from it all. It really didn’t matter, I mean the lunatics were everywhere. They always had been, but Presley Walker was just never able to see what the hell was going on in his head, I mean most of his time was spent trying to deal with The Blue Meanies and the fire breathing dragons that seemed to have moved into the vacant loft in the left hemisphere of his frontal lobe. Sommer Storm believed that she could have helped him, but apart from the insanely orgasmic spiritual sex she had provided him, she really did little to help Presley Walker free himself. He thought it may be time to leave her behind, and head out on his own in search of whoever was in his head. Sommer understood, I mean she knew that it was deeply personal and that there are times in everyone’s life when you just have go out there and find out who you really are in order to know who you just don’t want sharing your mind. After their last night together Presley was spiritually complete. Sommer had no idea what the future would bring, and doubted that she would ever see him again. She handed him a note as he was leaving just in case he needed her. As he made his way back down the road less travelled, and neared the point of no return, he sat and took out the note she had given him. He must have read it three or four times before he knew what she meant, but he eventually got it. As the music continued to play in his head, conjuring up images of loneliness and despair he read the words Sommer had scribbled in the note again: “And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear, you shout and no one seems to hear. And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon”. A smile came to his face, and he mumbled “I hope so.” as he headed off, past the point of no return on his way to the dark side of the moon.

The Godcast

“Welcome to the Godcast” the old guy on the other side of the microphone said. “Today we’re talking with Fielding Goodfellow ,  writer and purveyor of psychedelic schlock. Thanks for joining us, Fielding.”

“Its my pleasure.”

“Well, we’re just getting started and there’s plenty of time for that to change.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I don’t doubt it. Now, I understand that a lot of your ideas were born out of the socialist leanings you adopted when you attended university.”

“I suppose so, but to be honest I was only in it for the women.”

“Really?”

“Ya. They had the wildest women and the best damn parties on campus.  All of the great ones like Trotsky, Einstein and Guevara joined up just to get laid.”

” And I suppose that’s what the new book is about.”

“Not really.”

“Well, I’ve been misinformed then. So, what is it about?”

“Nothing .”

“Nothing?”

“Ya. It just is.”

“That seems quite existential.”

“Well, I suppose in some ways it is.”

“And the title is ‘The Real Public Enema’.  Is that really what’s it called?”

“Ya, well, there are a lot of intellectually constipated people wandering around out there. But you should know about that, I mean you put them there.”

” So, we’re gonna play that card.”

“All I’m saying is that there are some pretty fucked up people around the world who defile, debase and dehumanize those with different beliefs, and they do it in the name of God.”

“I am not responsible for the evil that men do anymore than you are.”

“I’m not criticizing. I’m just making a point. You gave us free will, but sadly most of us can’t handle it. There are incredibly stupid people out there doing incredibly stupid things just because they can.”

“It was all Gabriel’s idea really, but I don’t see anything inherently wrong with free will. We simply gave mankind the opportunity to become whatever they wanted to become. It was your choice, really, and thinking that it was all my doing and believing that I am responsible for  your inability to keep your pants on, or your mouths shut is really quite ludicrous.”

“Its not about responsibility, I mean you just don’t leave idiots alone with a loaded gun. You can’t create the mess and then suggest that you’re not responsible just because you’re God.”

“Well, actually I can.”

“And that’s why some people don’t believe you give a damn.”

“So, are you saying I should never have given mankind free will?”

“I suppose I am, I mean you can’t give assholes free will. They’ve been able to breed discrimination based on color, sexual orientation, faith, gender, and socio-economic status. They’ve introduced fascism, climate change,  poverty, child labor, and a host of other ills that have plagued this planet for generations. And as we stand waist deep in the manure of human nature while trying to figure out what went wrong, you claim that you had nothing to do with it and sit by while we descend down the road to destruction. And that, in a nutshell is what the book is really about.”

“It seems that you’re quite passionate about the future of mankind.”

“I’m not sure there’s much of a future.”

“There’s always a future if you have hope.”

” I don’t believe that hope or faith does anything but confuse the masses.  What we need is for logic and science to orchestrate a change in our thinking.”

“And you think that I should facilitate that change?”

“Not at all. What I think isn’t important really, but what we need is for something to wake us up and show us what we need to do in order to change.”

“Would you like me to send my younger son down to help?”

“I thought there was only one son.”

“Hell, no. There’s another son we call Elvis, and a daughter named  Priscilla. I could send them both. They’re good kids, but they’ve got this really perverse sense of entitlement.”

“I hear you, but no, I don’t think sending your children down to help will be of much use, I mean look what happened last time.”

“Right.”      

“If you want to do something to help, maybe you could get rid of those evangelists, I mean we don’t need them, and they really don’t do any good for anybody.”

“I understand. You’re talking about Osteen, right? He’s such an ass. So, anything else in the works for you?”

“Well, I’ll probably be going for a beer or two when we’re done here.”

“Excellent. I’ll quickly change, and go with, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Just no miracles when we’re out, I mean it might attract some attention.”

“We could save a ton of money if you’d let me turn some water into wine, or beer, in this case.”

“No. Its okay. I can afford to buy you beer.”

“Its a deal.”

Feed Your Head

We had no idea what to expect, but jumping down the rabbit hole seemed like the best thing we could do. When we got to the bottom we could see that everything was going to be alright, I mean the shit that would wind up scarring our collective psyche forever wasn’t even down there. I suppose that’s why we kept wanting to go back, I mean it seemed like the world was struggling in the midst of social revolution and political upheaval simply because no one was looking for the right things, in the right places. If someone would have just followed us down that rabbit hole they would have found that the problem wasn’t really all that complicated. Humanity had simply forgotten how to read its moral compass. Its not that we were so damn smart or anything, I mean we were just a handful of spiritual explorers with no idea of where we were going or what we’d find when we got there, but we were sure that there was a better way to live. That’s all it was really about, and to tell the truth that’s all we ever wanted.

It was hot as hell that Saturday as we sat near the hookah smoking caterpillars and ate more than our fair share of mushrooms while waiting for Zippy Denlow to open the gate to his parents’ pool. Mindy Reiger, who was built much better than anyone else at the pool, showed up wearing nothing more than strategically placed narrow strips of cotton that didn’t really cover much of anything. No one really minded except the Dawson twins who were always a bit uneasy around her, I mean neither of them would ever be in Mindy’s league, and they knew it. I had known Mindy since our freshman year at university when we’d sit around one of the campus bars and drink away the afternoon, as we  calculating the odds of jumping each others’ bones right there under the table without getting caught. All she had to do was ask and I would have been all over her, I mean we wouldn’t have even made it to the floor. I knew she’d be up for something like that, I mean that’s just the way she was, and while I was sure that both of us would be interested, our souls seemed to be entwined in something far more important. I had been consoling myself with that bit of horse shit for almost a year, and I’m not sure which one of us created the lie or if either of us really believed it. We were sitting at the edge of the pool watching the Dawson sisters splash around in the shallow end with Zippy and Tate hot on their trail.  “How come we’ve never slept together?” she asked.

“You would have had to buy me dinner first.” I said, ” I’m not easy.”

“Oh, please.” she said. “I don’t know anyone easier than you.” She was probably right, I mean I was pretty damn easy. The truth was I wanted to. It crossed my mind every time I was near her, but there was something else going on, I mean it felt like there was something almost spiritual between us that transcended the physical plane. And, more importantly I was scared to death of Mindy Reiger. I was sure that if I touched her, I’d never be able to shake her when she found out that I really wasn’t good enough for her. It was all very complex, I mean twenty years of therapy couldn’t resolve that shit.

She called me once, all freaked out over a spider convention or something going on in her bathroom and asked if I could come over and take care of it. I arrived to find her calmer than I thought she’d be, standing by the door wrapped in a towel. I quickly took care of a spider in the tub and when I returned to the hallway, she greeted me with a hug. When we parted, the towel had fallen and what I found myself staring at was far more exciting than I could have ever imagined. She kept thanking me for saving her from the fate worse than death that was waiting for her in the tub, and I just kept staring at her, I mean she was completely naked. I kept thinking that she had let the towel fall on purpose, I mean it seemed to take her an awfully long time to cover herself up and by then I had taken in every nuance of her body. Sitting at the edge of the pool with her on that Saturday though, made me feel closer to her than I ever would again. It could have been the mushrooms or it might have been the heat, I’m not really sure, but we were both quite content to be exactly where we were. “I suppose you’re at least worth a dinner.” she said as she put her arm around me. We sat there for what seemed like forever watching Tate and Zippy trade twins, while we talked about Vonnegut and wondered if the sea monster living in the pool was ever going to offer us something to eat. At some point in time we drifted apart. I’m not sure why but I suppose that sort of thing just happens, I mean people grow and change and move on. Its sad though. I ran into her once at the Bagel King on Eglinton and we promised to stay in touch, even though I’m sure that we both knew we wouldn’t, I mean people always say they will, but they never do. Several years later Tate told me that he heard that Mindy had married some guy who had lost his construction business and got a job as a clerk at Midtown Movie Mayhem where he rented videos to deprived housewives and their depraved husbands. At some point she left him, or he left her, I mean it didn’t really matter which way it was. That was the last time I ever heard anything about her, and while I no longer missed her or anything, it would be nice to see her again, I mean now that age has pretty well left me with little interest in the hunt or the fight and an increased desire for the chatter that usually goes on before and after, I suspect that I just may be able to look at her without thinking about taking her right there under the table in one of the campus bars. And if I couldn’t, I suppose that I’m ready to find out if we’d get caught or not.  

Zinc Radius & Farberman’s Big Night

There was a constant flurry of activity in the neighborhood when the high rise buildings started going up. We watched them climb through the clouds almost up to heaven, certain that if we stood on top, we’d be able to kiss the sky. It wasn’t the only time we’d be that high, but I suppose it was the first, I mean one day we’d understand that it was possible to live in the world of make believe if we could just stay eight miles high. That’s how it was back then though, I mean we were pretty sure that everything was possible. Alexi Markov lived on the twenty-third floor with his sister and mother. I’d hang out in their apartment every now and again, and watch the world scurry around below us. Sometimes we’d go up to the roof where Alexi was sure that if it was quiet enough, he’d be able to speak with God, or at least one of his angels. His mother would usually shout at us to get down from there, but it really didn’t matter, I mean Alexi was sure that God would still be there when he came back.   

Alexi had been the man of the house ever since his father was found with a dozen blini or so crammed down his throat in the storage room in the back of Boris Badenov’s Borscht and Blini Bistro. There was some suspicion that it might have been a homicide, but the authorities said that there just wasn’t enough evidence, even though the family was pretty sure that the moose and squirrel in a Lada seen leaving the scene was enough to warrant some kind of an investigation. Anyway, the responsibilities he inherited made him grow up pretty fast, I mean he was only thirteen and he was already taking care of his mother and his sister. It had to take some kind of a toll on him, I mean he didn’t really get to be a kid or anything. I suppose he had no choice, I mean his sister was very young, and his mother didn’t seem to have any interest in being the adult. Irina Markov spent most of her time crawling in and out of bed with anyone who had the time and the fifty dollars. We were sure that it was all going to come crashing down on him soon particularly with his mother parading around the front porch all day in her lingerie, revealing enough of her goodies to entice the paying customers and the neighborhood kids. Tate and Farberman and I would spend a lot of time hanging around the front of her house. When she knew we were there, she’d do all kinds of things just to tease us. “Do you have fifty dollars?” I asked. I knew they didn’t, I mean if any of us had that kind of money, one of us would have been all up in her stuff by then. By the time we finished high school though, the combination of Purple Haze and Blue Meanies had sent Alexi over the edge of reason to believe that he was Zinc Radius, a fifty year old pharmaceutical sales rep from Triton, near the Kuiper Belt. It happened sometimes, I mean some people just react like that. And while Zinc Radius wandered around the tunnels connecting the caves and caverns that housed Triton’s civilization, Irina Markov, who was desperate to have a man in her house made the mistake of inviting Farberman to spend the night.

It was hard to believe that she picked Farberman, I mean it wasn’t that there was something wrong with him or anything, but he was dull. Even his family thought he was boring, and I suppose we were a bit jealous and everything, I mean we were pretty sure that Irina Markov knew what to do once she closed her bedroom door. Farberman though, had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do, I mean maybe she knew and maybe she didn’t, but Farberman had never really been with a woman before. Oh, there had been the usual begging and pleading that almost always occurred while parked on Melanie Holt’s driveway some Saturday night, and the tittie touching that accompanied the French kissing on the couch in her parent’s basement, but Farberman had only got any more at his own hands. And while he was excited to lay with Irina Markov, he was scared to death, I mean he really had no idea about what was supposed to happen, exactly.  Tate and I would have given anything to be able to listen to the maiden voyage of the S.S. Farberman, but we were pretty sure we’d hear about it later, I mean we figured that Irina would let everyone know what a complete and utter failure he was in bed. We were wrong though, I mean she never said a thing, not one single word but by the look on Farberman’s face, we knew what really happened anyway. It was about time too, I mean Farberman really needed to get laid if he was ever going to learn to relax.

Back in a cave tucked away somewhere on Triton, Zinc Radius sat down to write the science fiction story he believed needed to be told. He huddled over an old Smith-Corona and banged away at the keys, hoping to pound out prose as quickly as Balzac. He knew that the truth had to be told, and he just needed to figure out how to tell it so that others would want to hear what needed to be said. It was always the same across the cosmos, I mean writers fill time and space with the truth only to find that most creatures would rather live a lie than face the truth. Its always been like that. The responsibility for delivering the truth was one he took seriously, I mean he was sure that it was his duty. Iridium Nixx believed that she too could be a part of the solution. The sister of Aragon Nixx knew that excitement and desire to change that was found in marches and demonstrations didn’t last very long, so she used her brother’s notoriety as a Sci-Fi Private Eye and front man for Aragon Nixx And The Pirate Satellites to spread the word about the writers’ collective and the movement to expose the truth. Zinc found her strong and powerful, and wonderfully brilliant, and he wanted her naked in his bed.

Farberman left Irina Markov’s house different than when he went in. He said that he had seen things he never knew where there, and he was pretty sure that she had shown him the meaning of life. “You just got laid.” Tate said.

“I suppose so.” Farberman said. “But it was more than that. I think I’ve been released.” I had no idea what went on in that house, but it was quite possible that Farberman saw something laying there between the sheets, I mean I was pretty sure that being with Irina Markov was very likely some kind of religious experience. I don’t suppose it really mattered much though, I mean there was always a chance that Irina Markov simply fucked Farberman’s brains out and turned him into an idiot. Whatever she did to him, Farberman didn’t seem to get enough. He talked about her constantly, and he would sit across the road and wait for her, hoping that she would ask him in just one more time. He knew he’d never be satisfied with just one more time, but he kept telling himself he would. It made no difference really, I mean Irina Markov let him know it would never happen again. She apologized for all sorts of things, but Tate and I both knew that she was really only sorry for ever inviting him into her house. Farberman took it hard, blaming himself and trying to figure out what went wrong.

Zinc Radius stood at the side of the bed and tried to get dressed without waking Iridium Nixx. She was beautiful and she was insane in bed, but she was also incredibly boring. All he wanted to do was to get the hell out of there without waking her, I mean he didn’t think he could stand another second of her inane musings or humorless anecdotes. He was sure that there was something wrong with her, I mean it just didn’t seem possible to him that someone could be that fucking dull without having something seriously wrong with them. He thought that she was quite possibly even more boring than Farberman. As he stepped out of her room, and hopefully her life, he felt the universe shudder as it jumped to the left, and stepped to the right, and sent him catapulting across the stars and through the galaxies. At the same time, in another galaxy, Farberman felt the same jump and step and stood there with his hands on his hips and his knees brought in tight. As Alexi Markov landed on the roof we finally managed to kiss the sky. When the dust cleared, Farberman was no longer on the roof with the rest of us. We thought he might have tried to sneak into Irina Markov’s house, but he didn’t, I mean he found himself on the other side of space and time, standing at the side of a bed getting dressed, as an insanely beautiful woman laying between the sheets called him Zinc, and invited him to come back to bed and take her just one more time. Farberman had a taste of a woman, and he wasn’t about to let this pass by, I mean shit like this never happened to him. It didn’t matter. In the end everyone was happy, and we all got exactly what we thought we wanted, I mean Alexi got a break from the shit that was killing him, Tate and I kissed the sky, and Irina Markov found some guy with a truckload of money who wanted to marry her. Farberman had gotten laid time and time again, but on the nightstand beside the bed in Iridium Nixx’s room was a copy of ‘Notches On The Kuiper Belt’, by Zinc Radius which Farberman read, but just didn’t understand. I don’t suppose it really mattered, I mean from what I’ve heard, very few people do.

https://youtu.be/0BoR0BAhLmk?list=RD0BoR0BAhLmk&t=4

What Happens In Zaygus…

We knew it was going to be almost impossible to explain, but on our quest to find God we discovered, quite by accident really, that not a single soul had ever been saved through prayer or atonement,  simply because no one was ever really there to listen. Not one of us could say with any kind of certainty that God had ever come through for us, and so after spending several days significantly fucked up somewhere in time and space, we realized that we had lost our faith. We spent hours at the nudie bar in The Parallax Hotel on the dark side of Zaygus, hoping to catch sight of some proof of God’s existence or a glimpse of Honey Divine, when Osmosis Jones said that he saw God in a bottle of absinthe. None of us were really surprised, I mean we often thought we had seen him there, but before we could say a word, Osmosis Jones disappeared. We tried to get him back, but between Honey Divine’s tits and the volcano that was hungrily waiting for the sacrifice of some local virgin, we just couldn’t seem to find him. There were never really any guarantees that we’d find anything we had seen before, but that was the beauty of those kind of trips. It didn’t matter though, I mean it really wasn’t about us. We assumed that someone would have wanted Osmosis back, but we really had no way of knowing for sure, although we thought that he would be missed at The Merriman Sanatorium and Country Club, I mean he was the golf pro there, and he was out of his fucking mind. We could spend hours listening to him talk about absolutely nothing over pitchers of the lukewarm beer they served at The Parallax Hotel. Right there though, we agreed that we would do whatever it took to bring him back, but that was before Honey Divine showed us her stuff in the middle of the stage at the nudie bar in The Parallax Hotel.

Every one of us would have given up everything to be alone with her for a night, I mean we had started to believe that if we were to ever find our faith, it would be right there, between her thighs. And even though we didn’t really think that God was listening, we found ourselves praying to him anyway,  just for a chance to take her in the way we imagined she always wanted to be taken. We were already teetering on the edge of reality, and another round of some hallucinogen that someone scored from the night clerk at the hotel desk sent us spiraling through our minds again until we heard the night clerk say that he had heard that someone matching Jones’ description had been a witness to a house falling from the sky, and leaving some woman not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. None of us could explain how Jones had got himself over the rainbow, but it seemed that our friend had in fact become the Munchkinland coroner, even though he wasn’t even aware of it. Not that it was important really, I mean most of us had no fucking idea of what we were doing or where we were going, either. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get him back, I mean we had little faith that the great and powerful Oz or the handful of trinkets he had for us were likely to be of any real use to us, anyway. I suppose we should have considered that Jones didn’t really want to be found, I mean its almost impossible to find somebody who has no desire to be found. Honey Divine said that it was obvious to her that we should be putting our energy into trying to get him to come and find us. She was certain that all we really needed was the right bait, and she assured us that nothing would serve our needs any better than Honey Divine herself. She said that she was prepared to surrender herself and everything she had to offer to Osmosis Jones. Just like that. No dinner, no dancing, no small talk. No one was sure if the plan would work or not, but we all agreed that Osmosis Jones was one lucky bastard.

Word of the plan to bring Osmosis Jones back spread and he quickly became a legend, I mean songs were being sung about him, and stories were being told around camp fires at jamborees across the planet. Swarms of people showed up to watch her get naked, stand on her head and spin like a top. It brought gasps and cheers from the crowd, but we really weren’t impressed, I mean shit like that happened all of the time at the Sanatorium. We were enamored with Honey Divine though, I mean there were very few people who weren’t. Presidents and pirates alike had all fallen victim to her charms, and many had forgotten everything when they saw her naked. Honey spun like never before, focusing only on getting Osmosis Jones to take the bait. And later that night when everyone else had gone home, Osmosis Jones claimed to have found his faith exactly where we were all sure it was waiting, and Honey Divine found hers tucked inside the Levis worn by Osmosis Jones.

Aristotle Does Amsterdam

new collection of Fielding Goodfellow’s stories that take you through time and space in some kind of drug induced, psychedelic masterpiece. Available on Amazon now….https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08W7SNKG4

Loving The Freudian

I wasted a lot of time sitting in poorly decorated and dimly lit rooms, bombarded with all kinds of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with anything that really mattered, but I supposed a lot of us did. At some point you just start to believe that we really are just pawns in an elaborate game of chance orchestrated by some greater power, and wind up trying to get the help everyone is sure you need, until someone refers you to a Freudian. Yet despite all of my misgivings, I agreed that I would at least give it a try, I mean it was pretty obvious that things couldn’t be much worse than it had been until then. There was no way that I could have adequately prepared for Dr. Rebecca Sheldon, I mean she was a prominent psychiatrist who was highly regarded by the medical establishment, and several members of The Allman Brothers Band, with a reputation that was founded on having written several books, teaching at a large and prestigious university, and attending Woodstock. I was pretty sure this was one of the best decisions I would ever make. Dr. Rebecca Sheldon looked exactly like Emma Peel, and I was fairly certain that I’d be showing up to every one of my couch surfing sessions for as long as it took her to figure out what we all wanted to know. For as long as I could remember someone had been telling me I was a gifted underachiever, and while I was never really sure what they were referring to, I knew what they meant. They believed that I possessed enough  talent and skill to excel at anything I put his mind to, but to tell the truth, I never really applied himself, I mean I just didn’t seem to care enough about anything. Sometimes I wished I had the answer, I mean at least then I wouldn’t have to continue pretending that I actually gave a damn about any of it. There were other times though, when I really didn’t want to know why anything was the way it was. I found it hard to believe that anybody really did. And as I was about to embark on a journey from which I was pretty sure that there could be no return, I found himself sitting across from a woman who had me so turned on that I couldn’t be sure if it was me or my dick that needed help. It didn’t really matter though, I mean I had a feeling that it was going to be both.

From the first time I saw her, I began wondering what Dr. Rebecca Sheldon looked like without her clothes on. I couldn’t help it really, I mean every time I walked into her office all I could focus on was the way she sat on her chair, with her legs crossed and her skirt riding up high enough to expose her thigh, but not quite enough to reveal what I really wanted to see. I couldn’t help staring at those legs, I mean they just seemed to go on forever, but I knew I had to be careful in order not to get caught trying to steal glimpses of what was hidden between those thighs while she asked me questions that I had no idea how I should answer. I was in a psychiatrist’s office though, so I figured that it was okay if I sounded all messed up.

“So” Dr. Sheldon asked, “Let’s talk about your sleep.”

“My sleep?” I asked.

“Yes.” she said, “How have you been sleeping?”

“Alone, mostly.”

” I mean are you sleeping through the night, or is your sleep interrupted?”  I never really knew what I should say to her, I mean sometimes I wasn’t even sure I understood the question. I had been woken up many times, usually after some torrid dream that left me hot and bothered, with a raging hard on and no one to share it with, but I wasn’t sure that was the kind of information she was looking for, and even if it was, I had no idea how to explain it to her. All I really knew was that I desperately wanted to take her right there, on her desk, I mean it was never easy keeping my id under control, and no matter how hard I tried to rein it in, it was always running around out there, like a rabid dog in heat. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one though, I mean most of us seemed to have had the same problem, and I was certain that the good doctor wasn’t going to be making it any better. It seemed crazy to believe that the battle between the id and the super-ego that had been waging in my psyche for years would find lasting peace between those legs and thighs that I just couldn’t help but stare at. In the battle, at that particular point in time, I was certain that the moralizing ass of a super-ego just didn’t stand a chance. It all came out in one boisterous accounting of my pre-occupation with sex that I was sure fascinated the doctor as she sat behind my touching herself as I answered her. I didn’t really see anything, but I knew I’d heard that kind of rustling sound before. I knew what it was, but it was hard to believe, I mean Dr. Rebecca Sheldon was way out of my league.

 “So” she said, “Tell me about your relationship with your parents.”

“I have no solid evidence that they’re my parents.” I said. “I mean, they say they are, but I’m not so sure that I believe them.”

“Are you suggesting that you were adopted?”

“No” I said. “I’m suggesting that they were abducted. Or maybe I was abducted. Either way though, I’m pretty sure that I’ve been raised by something alien to me.” The truth was, everybody I knew had felt like that at one time or another. It had been going on for a very long time, and it was entirely possible that none of us were really from around here, but I suppose nobody else thought it mattered, either. There was a lot of stuff I really wasn’t comfortable talking about, but she insisted that it was necessary to release all of my repressed emotions and experiences in order to be rid of the unconscious thoughts that were hindering my happiness. Even then I thought it was all somewhat shortsighted, but I would have agreed to anything just on the off chance that we would be getting naked one day. I mean I liked The Allman Brothers, and I had probably taken enough trips across the stars to make up for not being in upstate New York that summer weekend in 1969.

“Do you enjoy regular sex?” she asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t turn it down” I said, “but I’d prefer if it was wild and unique.” 

“You do realize that your sarcasm and attempts at humor are really nothing more than defense mechanisms designed to keep your unconscious mind from revealing the truth.” she said. “Now, what do you mean by wild and unique sex?”

And as one thing led to another, it was only a short time later that I had her on the desk, and the couch and everywhere else that she was willing to christen. She suggested that I should probably attend twice a week, and I suspected that was just as much for her as it was for my benefit. I discovered that Freudians were sexually repressed, but if you can manage to open the door to their subconscious, they can provide some of the best sex you’ll ever have the chance to participate in. It was true with Dr. Rebecca Sheldon, anyway. I continued to see her twice each week in the hopes of bringing the thoughts I didn’t know I had into my conscious mind, so that they could be negated through some kind of psychoanalytic exorcism that I never really thought I could ever believe in, I mean as far as I was concerned I was having the time of my life banging Emma Peel twice a week, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. What more could I have ever hoped to get out of therapy. I hung on to my sarcasm and feeble attempts at humor, and wore them proudly, like a badge of honor that still serves as a reminder of those few years, long, long ago, when I was loving the Freudian. You just really never forget something like that.

The Last Space Cowboy

I don’t know for sure if any of it is true, but this is what they said happened to Evan Baumgartner.  Nobody can remember what he had taken, but when he came face to face with the demons often found in the bottom of a bottle of absinthe or a handful of magic mushrooms, he fell face first into a series of hallucinations so intense that he became Neon Flux, the last space cowboy. As he sat out there on the grass with the poets and philosophers who had come from all parts of time and space to witness some kind of spiritual suicide, he saw the world was stripped of its creativity and original thought, and all of the other space cowboys being banished to the barren asteroid belt that stretched out to the far reaches of Cosmos Redshift 7. His friends tried to help him find his other self , but Neon Flux had already taken him to another planet that looked a hell of lot like the pictures of 1930s Paris he had seen at some gallery. No one had any idea how got there,  but he heard someone say that they had all met years ago in the Galactic Underground, even though he had no memory of ever having been there. None if it really mattered anyway, I mean Neon Flux quickly discovered that an existential outlook was quite freeing really, and he took to it like a God without believers. As he floated through the galaxies, he could clearly see that survival depended on creative thought, and not on what he had always put his faith in. He understood that if they really gave a damn, they would have stopped the bleeding that been caused by lawmakers and religious leaders who claimed that God needed some kind of a cash donation in order to grant absolution. He was sure that somewhere in the transition he had become an idealist and he understood that there really wasn’t any point in worrying about it. Whatever he set out to do, he was doing for himself. I mean, he was well aware that no one would ever really care about how he felt. It simply wouldn’t ever mean that much to anybody else. And while there were others far better equipped to take the charlatans to task, Neon Flux knew that as the last space cowboy, the battle was his to fight.

Neither the poets or the philosopher could agree on which of them had more insight into the plight of mankind. It had never been easy for anyone to distinguish poets from philosophers, I mean how could anyone have ever thought that there was really much of a difference. Even he could figure out that without that spiritual sacrifice, neither the poets or philosophers would have anything to talk about. It didn’t really matter much though, I mean either way he needed their ideas to help him salvage whatever was left of humanity. As the battle between the poets and philosophers waged in his head, Neon Flux drifted farther and farther away from where he had left Evan Baumgartner.  He could hear John Phillip Sousa playing somewhere in his mind, as a team of military majorettes stood on the sidelines, bored by the battle and the time signature. They all wished it would end, but he knew that it would have to run its course, I mean it always did. Just beneath the sound of the marches, he could hear the drone of a familiar voice that had been inside his head once before and was now drifting through his veins like a slow acting poison reminding him that it wasn’t going to be easy. To be fair, Baumgartner never understood why it couldn’t come to him easily, I mean he was sure it would have tasted just as sweet if it didn’t have to be so difficult all of the time. Flux knew differently though, I mean he had seen the future and he knew exactly what it was going to take to save the universe.

The night before he was to began his adventure, he found himself in an adobe hut in Taos, New Mexico, surrounded by what he thought were angels, who were trying to lead him into the colors that had exploded into the night sky like fireworks. He wasn’t sure if he knew any of them, but there was something soothing about their presence, and he was struck by an eerie calm that he wished could have gone on forever. He knew that the world of a space cowboy didn’t always work out the way one wanted it to, but he was completely at peace with himself. In the distance he could hear the sound of drums beating softly and slowly at first, bleeding into Lou Reed’s ‘Oh, Jim’, and mixing with the most wonderful horn section that seemed to reach out and swallow him whole. Neon Flux was sure that even the poets and the philosophers had stopped to listen, I mean how could they not have. “Tickets, please.”  He heard someone say. “Tickets. You must have a ticket to ride.”  He was pretty sure he that didn’t have a ticket, even though he had no idea what the hell he needed the ticket for.

“Don’t worry about it.” someone said. “You don’t really need a ticket, I mean they never check. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

“We are we going.” he asked.

“Where ever you want to be.” I suppose it kind of ended there, I mean Neon Flux believed that he was going to where he wanted to be, and Evan Baumgartner was probably already where he wanted to be, and so I guess, that was the end of that.

When they finally managed to bring Baumgartner back through the use of psychotropic medication and the occasional mechanical restraint, he was no worse for wear despite having no real idea of what had really happened to him. It was all in bits and pieces really, broken abstracts from his memory that made no sense. “I hear you had some issues in your room last night.” a voice said to him.

“That’s what they’ve been telling me.” he said.

“Can you tell me anything about it?”

“Have you ever heard of the last space cowboy?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.” the voice said. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

“I don’t think so.” he said. “There’s really no point.” Baumgartner had no desire to share anything, I mean he had no idea if any of it was even real. He supposed it could have been a dream, or hallucination, or maybe he really was out of his room last night. All he knew was that it felt like he had been floating out there for days, believing that he was destined to save mankind. For the first time in his life Evan Baumgartner felt as if he was somebody. He felt like he mattered and that he made a difference. He believed that he was Neon Flux, the last space cowboy. He only wished he could remember if he had been able to complete his mission. He understood that he may never  really know the truth, and he was okay with that. He knew it could have been a lot worse, I mean he could have been the gangster of love.