The illuminatus! trilogy (91 page)

Pearson stood looking at him for a moment, then said softly, “Wow. Come on, Hagbard. Let’s get you on stage.” They walked out to the microphone together. A few people in the audience had begun clapping rhythmically for more music. Most, though, had been waiting silently, happily, for whatever might happen next.

What happened was that Robert Pearson said to them, “Brothers and sisters, this is Freeman Hagbard Celine, my ace, and the heaviest dude on the planet Earth. Listen while he runs it down to you what’s happening.”

He stepped aside and deferentially ushered Hagbard to the microphone.

Into the silence Hagbard said, “My name, as Clark Kent just told you, is Hagbard Celine …”

(In Mad Dog, Texas, John Dillinger and Jim Cartwright looked up from the chess board as the radio music stopped and an announcer’s voice said, “We interrupt this show to bring you a special message from Washington.” John moved a knight and said softly, “Checkmate. That’ll be the President, I bet. I hope to hell my brother finds that missing pimp before things get much worse.” Cartwright surveyed the board dismally. “Checkmate,” he agreed finally. “I hope your other brother, and Hagbard, are handling things right in Ingolstadt,” he added, as they both turned, with a reflex acquired from TV watching, and looked at the radio …)

Being a woman is bad enough, but being a black woman is even worse. I always feel split in two, a divided lion (I’m
thinking like Simon) with a hole in the middle (and that’s all men are interested in, the hole in the middle), but the acid was making the split into a conscious agony and then was healing it, I was a whole Lion, ready to devour my enemies: I understood my father and why he felt he finally had to stand up to the whites even if it killed him. A knight moved across a wasteland, the desert around Las Vegas, but it was laid out in squares like a chess board; he raised a fiery wand, crying “Black Power,” and it was Hassan i Sabbah, my lover, my enemy, a Black Christ and yet also a baboon with a crazy grin, all blue pearl gray like semen, inside every woman there’s an angry man trying to get out, a man-woman with the eyes of an owl, and the joy came over me as my clit got hot and grew into a penis; I was my father; I was afraid of nothing; I could destroy the world without caring, with one angry flash of my eye, like Shiva, MY PENIS IS THE INVISIBLE STAR RUBY AND MEN CONSPIRE TO MAKE ME HIDE IT; THAT’S WHY I MUST TAKE THEIRS. I am two-faced, always deceiving, like all women; deception is our only defense, I understand it more clearly as the wisdom of my insanity increases, and the musky smell of hashish coming from the Plastic Canoe trailer is like me, a female plant with male strength, they are nailing me to the cross (literally) but the cross is inside a spinning wheel of flame, oh Holy Moses, I’m finding Buddha not Eris in my pineal gland, the third eye is opening, I am the earth beneath your feet, I am Billie Freshette, I am legion, there are millions of me, a plague of locusts to devour your White Male Technology, “My name is Hagbard Celine” he is saying, they sold heroin in my grammar school (that’s the way a Chicago black gets educated), Simon is still trying to bring me through it saying now “Death shall have no dominion,” and I try to believe Love shall have the dominion but first I must spend my hate to the last penny, they made me kill my baby, I really am going to go crazy because I have the hots again and want Simon’s lance in my cup but I also know the real God is beyond God and the real Illuminati is beyond the Illuminati, there’s a secret society behind the secret society: The Illuminati we’re fighting are puppets of another Illuminati and so are we.

MY NAME IS HAGBARD CELINE, AND THE CARNIVAL IS OVER. REMOVE YOUR MASKS ALL PLAYERS.

“That’s a funny thing for Toad of Toad Hall to say,” muttered Fission Chips to nobody in particular. But the voice came booming back
MY NAME IS HAGBARD CELINE. PLEASE DON’T PANIC WHEN YOU HEAR WHAT I’VE GOT TO SAY TO YOU
and Chips saw that it wasn’t Toad of Toad Hall or even the sinister Saint Toad but just a well-dressed wop with two faces, one smiling and one frowning in wrath. “You know,” 00005 said aloud, “I do believe there was a fucking
drug
in that water.”

MY NAME IS HAGBARD CELINE. PLEASE DON’T PANIC WHEN YOU HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY TO YOU. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. I HAVE COME TO TELL YOU THAT YOUR LIVES ARE IN GRAVE DANGER. AT THIS MOMENT AN ARMY IS MARCHING AROUND THE SHORE OF LAKE TOTENKOPF FOR THE PURPOSE OF MASSACRING ALL THE PEOPLE ATTENDING THIS FESTIVAL
.

“Jesus,” said George, “this is never going to work. He’s putting it so badly. They’ll never believe him. They’ll laugh at him. Three-quarters of them don’t even understand English.”

“Is that how it sounds to you?” said Malaclypse. “As if he’s speaking in English? It also sounds to me as if he’s saying everything in a flat, direct way. But I hear him speaking in the Greek dialect of Athens in the fifth century B.C.E.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s actually talking in Norwegian or Italian, whichever language he knows best. He’s using what I call the Pentecost Gimmick. It’s described in the Acts of the Apostles as the gift of tongues. After the death of Jesus the Apostles were sitting together on the feast of Pentecost, when tongues of fire appeared over their heads. Then they went out and preached to a crowd of people from many different countries, and each person heard the sermons in his own language and in the form most likely to persuade him. They made tens of thousands of converts to Christianity that way. I was the one who laid the trick on them, though they never knew that.”

“Speaking in tongues!” said George in wonderment. “They used to preach about it in Bible class: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.’”

(“Don’t play games with yourself, George. You know perfectly well that a moment ago I
was
Mavis.”)

“It’s a giant black woman…it’s Goethe’s Mother Night,” somebody was saying, but I was thinking of 69ing with Simon oh the tricks that cat knows to please a woman to make you feel like a queen on a throne and I don’t care if he knows I’m a cop there’s always a sorrow after a joy on this plane yes I will always be split in two the void will always be there at the center God yes the mask of night is on my face like I read in Shakespeare in school I am the river yellow with sewage and cocksucker is a dirty word but what else is the sign of cancer or that yin-yang all about Christ I loved doing it women who claim they don’t are just liars I hate him and I love him the ambiguity is always there that detective who wanted to praise me that time said “You’ve got balls for a woman” but how would it sound if I said to him “You’ve got tits for a man” throne after throne cast down into the void and yet I have the power all they’re worshipping in their trinities and pyramids are symbols of the cunt and it’s hot again but I just want him to hold me I can’t ball now I can’t speak I see my father’s face but it’s silver instead of black and all of a sudden I knew Joe Malik had a gun and even that he had a silver bullet in it Mother of God does he think Hagbard is something inhuman and I smelled opium mixed with the hash those are heavy cats in the Plastic Canoe I could feel the energy surging through me I’m in the tent and I’m being fucked by all the men I’m Mavis and Stella and I’m the mother of all of them I am Demeter and Frigga and Cybelle as well as Eris and I am Napthys the Black Sister of Isis of whom none dare speak and I can even see why Joe Malik blew up his own office it was a trap and Hagbard fell into it Joe knows his secret now

“They used to preach about it in Bible class: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.’ And ‘All flesh will see it in one instant.’”

Malaclypse smiled. “‘To conceive of pentecostal training it is necessary to die. These are the words of the first, last,
and between, Kallisti.’ You must have won the prize for memorizing verse in that Bible class, George.”

“I would have, only the teacher didn’t like my attitude.” “Good,” said Malaclypse. “I also taught the Pentecost Gimmick to Hagbard. What he’s saying sounds flat to you, because you don’t need to be persuaded. Everybody else is hearing as much emotion and rhetoric as is needed to motivate them. It’s a good gimmick, the Pentecost Gimmick.” It all came in solid and three-dimensional and I felt mercy flowing from me like some psychological monthly with water instead of blood I even forgave the American Medical Association all four of them separately and distinctly I was Isis all purple and blue and veiled and even if Poseidon was rising in that lake I could forgive him too He was covered with olives and shamrocks a green water god glistening like amethyst with one huge unicorn horn and then he was Indra the rainmaker whose voice of thunder was only a disguised blessing I obeyed him and put the doll in the tetrahedron there was nothing to fear for all that would happen were blessings and good things as the Brilliant Ones descended bringing their white fire to the red earth the work would be perfected in pleasure not pain for I even knew that Joe found out Pat Walsh’s memos were misleading because Hagbard wanted him to find out and wanted him to plant the bomb and even wanted him to come here tonight with the gun so it all makes sense if you had a model of the globe with a black light flashing for every death and a white light for everytime somebody comes it would seem to be glowing all the time that’s what’s so good about being a woman I can come and come and come oh God as many times as I want and men even Simon hardly ever come more than once in a night that mean Miss Forbes in first grade she needed a good lay but I can even forgive her

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“Everyone must leave the festival area,” Hagbard was saying. “The resurrected Nazis intend to slaughter all of you. Fortunately, we have had time to build you a pathway to safety. Behold!” He stretched out his arm and the spotlight moved beyond him to the lake, illuminating a great pontoon bridge stretching from the festival area on the eastern shore diagonally to the lake’s northwest corner. It had been silently erected by Hagbard’s crew, with the indispensable
help of Howard and the dolphins, during the last hour.

“Wow,” George said to Malaclypse. “I suppose you’d call that the Red Sea Gimmick.”

Hagbard lifted his hands. “I name that the Adam Weishaupt Bridge. Everyone will now rise and proceed in an orderly fashion to walk across the lake.”

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, IT IS WITH A HEAVY HEART THAT I COME BEFORE YOU FOR THE SECOND TIME TODAY. MANY IRRESPONSIBLE ELEMENTS HAVE REACTED TO THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH MAD, ANIMAL PANIC, AND THEY ARE ENDANGERING ALL THE REST OF US. I ASSURE YOU AGAIN, IN THE WORDS OF A GREAT FORMER LEADER, THAT WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF
.

The face on the TV screen expressed absolute confidence, and many citizens felt a slight upsurge in hope; actually, he was totally around the bend on Demerol, and when the White House had burned earlier in the day his most constructive suggestion had been “Let’s toast some marshmallows before we leave.”

EVEN AS I SPEAK TO YOU THE DIRECTOR OF THE FBI HAS ASSURED ME THAT HIS MEN ARE CLOSING IN ON THE ONE SINGLE PLAGUE-CARRIER WHO HAS CAUSED ALL THIS HYSTERIA. IF YOU STAY IN YOUR HOMES, YOU WILL BE SAFE, AND THE EMERGENCY WILL SOON BE OVER
.

“We can send the army to the west side of the lake to intercept them,” said Wilhelm.

(“Rosebuds,” cried John Dillinger. “Why the hell would he bring a suitcase full of rosebuds down here?”)

Suddenly everybody was aroused and moving Simon was leading me gently along I was back in Time again there was a real fight going on between Hagbard and the American Medical Association and a fight means that somebody is going to lose the Gates of Hell were opening and I could hardly move my feet Daddy’s head on the floor of that Memphis police station and those cops stomping him and stomping him why didn’t they put a spear through his side while they were at it and how can I really forgive that’s just the drug and underneath I’ll always hate white men even Simon if this is the Last Judgment I know what Christ will do with every blue-eyed bastard among them they own all the power and make all the wars they’ve fucked the planet their only god is Death they destroy everything living a giant blond god Thor swinging his hammer and smashing
all the colored races red scarlet red blood on that hammer black blood especially but Hagbard is Horus this is the way it will always be fighting and killing to the end of time and women and children the chief victims only the flesh is holy and men are killers of the flesh cannibals.

“How many do you think there are?” the leader of the Closed Corporation asked dreamily.

“Six hundred and sixty-six,” one of his group answered. “When you sacrifice a rooster in a pentagram on Walpurgis Night, you always get six sixty-six.”

“And they’re coming right toward us,” the leader went on in his dreamy voice. “To bow down and serve us.”

The Closed Corporation sat perfectly still, in silent ecstasy, awaiting the arrival of the 666 horned-and-tailed demons they saw approaching them…Outside Lehman Cave, Saul loads the antidote needle. “I’ll go first,” says John Herbert Dillinger, rolling up his sleeve … AT THIS HOUR WHEN YOUR GOVERNMENT NEEDS YOUR FAITH … In a fusilade of bullets, the President sank beneath the podium, leaving only the Seal of the Chief Executive on the TV screens. The viewers saw the same confident expression on his face as he floated in Demerol tranquility toward death.
“Oh my God!”
said an announcer’s voice off screen … In Mad Dog, John Hoover Dillinger looks at Jim Cart-wright quizzically. “Whose conspiracy was behind that?” he asks as the announcer gibbers hysterically. “There seem to have been five people shooting from five different parts of the press corps, but the President may not be dead—” “They blew his fucking head to pulp,” another voice near the microphone said, distinctly and hopelessly … In New York, August Personage, one of the few people neither rioting nor listening to TV, reads
Atlas Shrugged
with total absorption, getting Religion …