The Creep (14 page)

He went round the back of the station and fucked her. Then he went down on her, and as he did
caught
the odor of oily sardines and thought, I can smell it from here.

She gave him a blow job. "Try sucking instead of blowing," said Bishman, "I don't want to end up with a permanent hump in my back!" Then he fucked her again. When he'd finished, he strangled her. He was hungry and went off to look for a McDonald's. He never found one.

On the drive back from Santa Barbara Harvey gave Bishman detailed feedback on the events to date, but when Harvey actually looked at Bishman he noted he was sound asleep and in the
fetal
position.

"Dr. Bill, I'd really like to see some more hypnotic phenomena. Can you oblige?" The question had
been asked by Patricia, an extremely attractive woman of about thirty-five.

"Why sure, I suppose you'd like me to get you to do all sorts of naughty things." Harvey laughed and came over to her with a warm smile.

"No, I want to see some more of the funny stuff. You know, like you did a few weeks back."

After a short induction and inserting a quick suggestive program into selected subjects, Harvey stood back and looked at his students, then casually walked to the back of the room. He unexpectedly turned back and touched each of the volunteers' shoulders one after another. As he did, all hell broke loose.

Tom and Carol started shouting at each other, a major argument about something trivial like where they would eat lunch. David gave his rendition of
Blue Suede Shoes
and although he didn't know all the words, what he sang of it was pretty realistic. He sang it over and over again, even strumming an imaginary guitar.

Patricia was getting wolf whistles as she slowly and sexily lifted her skirt up, giving the guys a pretty sexy eyeful of wonderful long thigh. She had legs that went all the way up to her ass. Harold was punching an imaginary George Foreman and shouting that he was the greatest. It was pandemonium and the class loved every minute of it.

All except Tom.
Everybody had forgotten about him - until he stood up and they could see he was trying intensely hard to prise his
eyes apart to see what the hell was going on, but to no avail.

Harvey
found himself listening patiently to the hours and hours of regressions that were often ramblings and bits and pieces of shattered lives that all had to be pieced together, and because of the severity of many of Bishman's tales he felt he couldn't tell Anita too much, even though he would have liked to unburden his own heavy heart.

At a kiddie's park in Topeka, Kansas, one
bright July morning at about 11am
, a group of about a dozen youngsters were playing. Some were on creaky metal swing sets; two were running up and down a slide the wrong way. A number were chasing each other through a tunnel made from lumber. Two young lads were having a friendly argument.

A few dogs ran around, sniffing each other's asses and trying to hump one another. Two obese women stood talking, a man sat on an oak bench smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. The sky was a pleasant shade of deep blue; birds sang in the trees and occasionally came and had a dust bath in the playground. Every now and then a lively squirrel would chase the birds off.

A woman was ordering her husband around. "Little Eddie wants to go to the bathroom, take him over to those bushes."

The man did as he was told and lifted little Eddie into the clump of bushes. When the little lad had finished defecating he came out and said to his father, "I hope some dog treads in it." His dad missed the humor.

A police car pulled in and the cop, who was wearing Ray-Bans, started looking around for someone in particular. A woman walked towards the car.

"Ma'am, is the fella still around? Tell us about it." The cop lent out of the car, sucking hard on his cigarette.

"Well, like I said over the 'phone, I've been here over three hours, watching my kids play in the park. That's them over on the swings.

"As I was watching them I thought I saw a man in the bushes over there, but thought to myself it couldn't possibly be, because no-one's come into the park since I arrived. It must have been a tree or something.
A branch maybe.

"Anyway, my curiosity got the better of me, and I eventually walked right over there, to that clump of trees, and sure enough, it was a guy, like a
statue, still as a tree, just staring at the kids in the park. Even when he saw me he never moved. He must have been there three hours at least. He had light-blue death eyes. He wasn't jerking off or exposing himself or anything. He just stared at me, it was really cre
..." The cop interrupted her.

"Well ma'am, you did the right thing to call us. We'll drive through the neighborhood to
see if we can find anyone. What we need is a
description,
tell us what he looked like." The cop tossed the cigarette out of the car.

"He had death eyes, he must have been about thirty-five years old, he wore corduroy slacks, a white sweatshirt and sneakers, and he had death eyes. I felt a shiver go down my spine. What could he
be wanting
here - none of these kids are over ten? He has a neatly trimmed moustache. Yes, that's right.
A small moustache and death eyes."

"
Ma'am, that description fits just about everyone on the block,
you must be able to give us some distinguishing marks or something. Not only that, he hasn't done anything yet. Even if he was standing in the bushes and staring at the kids playing on the slides, that isn't exactly a crime." The cop took a few notes in a little black pad. He lit another cigarette and looked over the top of his Ray-Bans.

The woman stepped back. "I'm telling you this man had death eyes, he's dangerous, I just know it. I just feel it. The thing was, when I looked up the next time, he'd vanished. Then I thought I'd better call the cops. You know how it is, right?" The woman turned to look at her kids who were clambering over some climbing apparatus by a rusty merry-go-round.

"Thanks for calling us, ma'am.
You keep a good lookout for your kids, ya' hear. If we find anything we'll let ya know." The cop was already driving out of the park. He felt good in his Ray-Bans.

Harvey was feeling good and when Bishman eventually came round he took him to dinner at a Greek restaurant in Westwood Village, where they talked volubly for over three hours.

Harvey was enjoying his talk as much as the franchisees. He edged his gold-rimmed spectacles up a fraction, pushed back his prematurely gray hair, took a sip of water, and the forty-five-year-old genius began:

"In the last ten weeks you've gone through a whole variety of learning experiences. Today I just want to consolidate a few of the concepts that I and the other hypnotherapists have told you about.

"Today, I'll be touching on rapport, trances, alcohol abuse and reframing. If there's enough time at the end of the session we can bat around a few questions and answers. I'll ask the questions, you give me the answers."

The room filled with spontaneous laughter. They'd grown used to Dr. Bill's humor. Although Bill Harvey was not actually a doctor, over twenty-five years as a
practicing
hypnotherapist, the title had been endowed and stuck. He'd even given up telling clients and students that he wasn't a doctor. He had, however, probably cured more people of cancer, alcoholism and phobias than anyone else in the world.

"What have you learnt from that last story?" asked Harvey, markedly slowly and deliberately.

A well-dressed man of about forty put up his hand. "I think the most important thing I got out of it, was that when you carry on in that monotone voice I can hardly keep my eyes open. But other than that, yes, I understand fully what you say about reframing." He put his hand down.

"EXACTLY!!!"
s
houted Harvey, clapping his hands at the same time, and shaking the audience out of their relaxed state, "EXACTLY!!! Half of you have gone into an altered state by listening to that hypnotic
drone -
and it was my
tone of voice
that did it, not the actual words I used.

"You can sit here on the rocks as long as you like, feeling the emotions, listening to the voices and looking at the pictures. See if your mind wants to tell you something. Have a look. You can do that now or in your own time. No biggie."

Harvey pressed the 'on' button of his Panasonic cassette recorder as Bishman started his dialogue:

Central Park during the day is one of the most pleasant spots in the world where one finds respite from an incredibly fast-moving city. You go there
to get away from the hubbub and anxiety that city life causes.

Lovers stroll hand in hand, tourists gawk, executives and secretaries jog and old people feed pigeons and ducks. People from all walks of life, from all over the world, are drawn there. They eat ice cream, munch trail mix and pistachio nuts, and drink sodas and beers from cans in brown paper-bags.

You can even go for a delightful ride through the park on an old-fashioned horse and carriage. Mind you, if you have romance in mind, make sure you tell the coach driver before you start that you don't want his long-drawn-out verbals about Manhattan, Central Park, the IRA, the IRS, the Dow Jones, the release of Mafeking and the release of hostage Jesse Turner from Lebanon, whose home town is Boise, Idaho.
Well it would be, wouldn't it!
Some of those Irishmen who drive the carriages have more mouth than a cow's got
... but that's another story.