The Urban Book of the Dead (4 page)

Next we were both out in the street going towards town, I took to the air with spastic flaps, sailing from side to side my legs dragging, I shouted after him, but he was deaf to me, his ears full of my feathers or the flap of wings mistaken for his heart beat. He could only hear the beat of my wings, the blood in his ears, so I tempered out my flapping, trying to slow them down and the beat of his heart in the process.

I stayed there all night above his head as he wandered; a protective silhouette against the full moon, I flying backwards was like a pastry shaper cutting a hole in it. Then I beat my wings in his ears again, he was oblivious. “Monster” I cried as he entered the streets of town. People who had been drinking looked at his form in a grey t-shirt, grey arms and face, naked or camouflaged, in his gait he walked to be invisible, which made him all the more visible, even as I covered him with my wings. Drunk and unfit themselves, they looked at the man who was having a bad trip contemptuous, cleverly, like they knew better and they didn’t, I wished them all weak livers, a curse that fitted, weak livered they were.

I hovered above him as he made the four mile journey to my Mothers terrace house four times, each time near the door, where his mother and sister lived, Monster balked and walked back, I would shout “Monster, its me, its you.” But he never once heard.

Eventually, in the last hour of night, he knocked on our mother’s door. She let us in. Monster went through the hard unforgiving wood of the hall floor to the living room. I was astounded to be back in this house as it had been. Only the suite was new, with its varnished arms and dizzying floral pattern that danced before my distressed eyes, merging with the like floral pattern of the carpet, Ikea lamps cast sinister shadows to complete the picture. The whole scene was completely reflected in the blank screen of the thirty inch telly. From which my winged form was eerily absent, making me feel even more like I didn’t exist.

“I think I’m burned but I can’t see it” Monster cried out. My sister came down and stood by my mother. Both in gowns, my sister combing her hands through her early morning tangled strawberry blonde hair, nervously; but made serene by her sleepiness. My mother looked strangely tall; the glasses did not hide her fear for Monster, the eyes and their intentions magnified, starring hypnotic, her body made long in the stark lights shadows, my sister hugging her close. Then they were both hugging themselves.

“Why are you hugging yourselves?” asked Monster.

“Its cold!” said my sister.

Then my mum said “Its cold.”

“Am I burnt?” Monster asked.

“No you’re not burnt” said my mother, rubbing Monsters hands, “see”.

She looked intently in his face. The rattle of a milk float could be heard out side. Monster ran to the door and opened it; the milkman was there with a bottle in his hand.

“Tell him he’s not burnt” My mother said

“Your not burnt” said the milkman in surprise, looking wary. To me it seemed the bottle crashed from his hand in astonishment, the shards of glass cutting into the pea soup atmosphere of fear, the milk that so nurtured us, running away as fast as it could, but it was still there in his hand, he proffered it.

Monster ran off down the street, I knew the terror, the LSD exaggerating his emotions, already intently afraid by illusion. That was where I learnt intense fear has a green hue. He screamed “Arghh!” all the way down the street.

From somewhere a police van turned up, he thought they would kill him, he shouted “Help!” The police van stopped and six policemen got out. Monster ran up a drive way and rammed his fist through a window to get attention from the sleeping inhabitants, his arm was wide open and I could see the tendons, as the warm blood flowed down his arm, I knew the idea came to him for a second that he was a robot, but it was fleeting. The police grabbed him to the ground and put a wet cloth that smelt of petrol over his face.

Monster screamed “Its vitriol!”

A police man cursed “Oh shit!”

They cuffed Monster with stiff, plastic joined cuffs, he pulled the cuffs hard apart and there was an audible cracking sound. The police noticed all the blood pouring, one looked down “Oh shit!” He said again. Monster was now in the back of the police van. I got in too “Monster! Monster!” I tried again “Jon; its me, its you” He could notice nothing, I whipped a policeman with my wing, he flinched, ‘good’.

Now Monster was on a hospital bed, two policemen watched as four held him down, he was so full of adrenalin he rose up, again and again, the police kept pushing him down “I want to see Jane before I die!” He cried out, “Get Jane.”

“We can’t!” the police shouted.

“Please get me a cup of tea” Shouted Monster, pleading.

“We can’t” They said.

“You’re not real policemen” Monster shouted again.

The police looked grateful, I nearly cringed. The nurses were there, they pulled Monsters trousers down, making his anxiety worse, then they injected him, he realised the injection was not fatal and started to calm down, a drip was put in his arm that he kept pulling out, and they started to take the glass out of his arm. There was no more to see, I went back.

I was weary and depressed. The exploit had failed tragically, if anything I was weakened by what I had seen. I needed a familiar face, if that’s all it was, a face, the most familiar. She could help me and tell me where it had all gone wrong, what I needed now more than ever was a strong ally.

I felt self destructive, and the magic I chose reflected that. I sat down in my armchair and rolled a cigarette and lit it, then; putting it in the ashtray I pulled off my left hand with my right. Picking up the cigarette I burned two eyes on it. They wriggled at me shifting from side to side. The ligaments of the join to my arm moved, feeling to rejoin. I turned the hand palm upwards and opened it up, reattaching all the ligaments to different parts of the hand, a clumsy process with only one hand, even harder was turning it over and moulding it into a crab. Now with a mind of its own I threw it on the floor and it scurried around and hid under the sofa, the only available ‘rock’.

I went to the kitchen and got a can of beer from the fridge, pulling the ring pull off with my teeth. I whistled for the crab and it scurried obediently into the circle that the Judith or the Scarlet Whore had left. I scattered the contents of the beer on top of it. The Scarlet Whore grew out of the crab form, in the crab shape she had left in, then she transformed back into her real ‘Judith’ image, but she was now the bright red of oxygenated blood, and naked she stood before me with nipples of gold and a head dress of skulls of vanquished lover kings, and two golden rams horns. Her cheeks bulged and she spat the beer back in my face, then she laughed heartily and came over and wiped my face clean with her fingers, as though I was a small child, She spoke to me in a tone of voice that matched the action as she shook me fondly.

“Hey soldier! Legionnaire! God slayer! You called me back!” Judith said jovially.

She held my stump in her hands and then she was holding my new hand in her hands in a slight of magic. I lay back in the chair and sighed deeply, my words came out with my breath. “You are right. I need help desperately, I can’t do it, I can’t”

“Yes you can” She smiled rubbing my hand “Only you can do it.” She nodded her head reassuringly. “Let me show you how it’s done and put you on the right track.”

She continued “Here do you remember this?” I was suddenly back at my old flat in Avenham, I recognised the scene. Judith was still hold of my hand and we stood unseen in the background.

Monster was sitting in a chair smoking a cannabis pipe, Monster looked very ill; I had not been well at the time. Across from me on the sofa was the girl Alex and her boy friend Karl the busker, he was playing his guitar and Alex was smiling. Monster’s face looked suddenly drawn, he was shaking almost uncontrollably as though green with fear, his face trembled trying to maintain a smile, the pipe held in his arm in a complicit gesture fell to the floor, and he looked even more terrified as though going paler with the embers spilled from the pipe on it’s side on the floor. A magical connection. Even the chair trembled and Karl stopped playing, a smile froze on his face. Alex face was also trembling concerned with me. Monster said “Excuse me! I have to do something a second.” With a controlled effort he smiled and left the room. I followed him into the bedroom with sympathy. He put his hand on the wall and shaking and agonised with fear put his face against the wall opening his mouth, gasping, the eyes wide, he knocked his head against the wall. He looked down and saw his guitar on the bed, and, still shaking picked it up and took it into the other room, smiled and sat down.

Monster looked across at Alex and started playing like he had never played before, so fast on the acoustic guitar, almost superhuman, the fingers moved and the eye watched them fascinated, he forgot his fear and played and played what ever came into his head. To me it was like Dylan strummed and slapped his guitar then standing up and with a shunt of it on a bent leg, I was Hendrix in glorious psychedelic apparel, playing with his teeth and filling the room with bright musical colours over the mushy pea atmosphere of fear. To every one else I was playing fast and improvising basic guitar sounds.

I said to Judith “that’s the only time I ever played well.”

“Shush! Watch.” Judith said.

The playing continued for ten minutes, and then Monster stopped and smiled at Alex having forgotten his fear in his amazement and curiosity. Judith pointed at Alex with her finger, concentration on her face.

Alex’s face changed, transformed, the eyes were fixed and looked like an owl bird mask, except written on human flesh, the bottom jaw shook in a quizzical excitement. Then she shook her head in amazement, her mouth in a wide “O”. She looked beautiful.

“It was you who did that!” I exclaimed at Judith.

Judith smiled widely, looking me in the eyes, “Yes I’ve been here in the time line from time to time. I always kept my eye on you after you met Jane. I kept my eye on my biological duplicate, my genetic reincarnation.”

Looking majestic but playful and down to earth at the same time, very Jane, she informally scratched an itch on her bum, bending her legs; and said “Now you’ve seen you’re self in a stronger light, are you ready to go back and play a trick on God? Are you? Eh?” She tickled my chin with her finger.

The tickle carried on back into the spirit world, at my spirit flat. I asked a question of Judith. “If Jane is the same as you, except for her experiences, how is it she has a physical existence separate from her reincarnation?”

“The after life is a world of imagination, to imagine something successfully is to make it true, whilst in the concrete world, we imagine everything we see but it is tied in physically, we can not alter anything. Except for one magical thing, magic has its counterparts, what humans need and have imagined to be true, their deepest magical dreams, have their physical equivalent. A man wanting power through magic, to make his will real, can achieve nothing on Earth through conventional magic, but if he keeps imposing his will, the essence of magic, tied in to real methods and aims perfected, then he can achieve power or almost anything he wants, the great dictators of human history achieved power this way. Likewise on Earth it would be impossible to predict the future by means of a crystal ball or any other sort of supernatural clairvoyance, but events are the predictable outcome of material forces, so with the correct scientific method, an understanding of mass psychology, he could predict the future. Finally, reincarnation is a human dream, but accidental repetition or race memory makes it a reality, with Jane history accidentally repeated me, so I have an interest in her, but of that I will tell you nothing.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to know.” I lied.

“That’s a lie” Judith stated, “Now drink this” She said, producing a bottle of wine from behind her back and presenting it with a smile of triumph and knowing. She always made me feel like I wasn’t quite grown up, with out having any deep maturity herself. We were vital, which is; well vital. To be grown up is to lack vitality. May be since it comes from the id, and this world was all ids. To lack imagination and impulsiveness here, I already knew; could mean the certainty of the second death. The super ego destroys the person; a society controlled by the super ego with no persons will be stale and unproductive. Here it just all happened that bit faster.

I took a swig from the bottle, the wine was good, but dryer than I had ever tasted.

“Drink it all! Be a man eh?” She said with authority and a smile that appealed to the child in me.

“Why do you want me to drink it to myself? It’s very dry.” I asked this with a kind of macho inquisitiveness that was complicit, if I was to self analyse, which seems appropriate after discussing Freud.

“Why I want you to drink it all is a secret, there is an ingredient not very magical that will soon have an effect and not the alcohol, though that will give you a bullish strength. As for being dry I baked you some biscuits that I want you to eat that will make it even dryer.”

She produced some biscuits in a paper bag from behind her back again. “Here!”

I ate a biscuit, I felt like I was in some kind communion, a giving of love, that I was eating something she had baked herself. “That’s nice, what’s in it?” I asked energetically.

“Meal, honey, leavings of red wine, Abremaline and olive oil and the rich freshest blood from my moon cycle.”