Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (75 page)

“They could’ve just done a three-way instead,” D.H. suggests.

“I’m sure that would’ve been agreeable to Oppenheimer,” Lloyd says. “After he became Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project, he tried to make amends by inviting Linus to be in charge of the Chemistry Division of the atomic bomb team. Linus declined Oppenheimer’s offer by saying he was a pacifist, but you have to wonder how much his decision was influenced by jealousy and sexual competitiveness.”

“You’re not going the dime-store Doctor Freud route on us, are you?”

“No, Gordon, that would be beneath me…” Lloyd replies, drawing the words out. “But you have to admit it’s curious that Linus Pauling became the foremost opponent of above-ground nuclear weapons testing after the war. It’s as if he wanted to thwart all of Oppenheimer’s priapic atomic orgasms–or at least keep them hidden from public view.”

“Or maybe he was just worried about the radioactive fallout,” Gordon counters.

“Yes, well, whatever his motives, Linus’ relentless campaigning resulted in the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed into law by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in 1963. On the day the treaty went into force, Linus was awarded a second Nobel Prize for his efforts.”

“What was the first one for?” Twinker asks.

“It was for his work applying the insights of quantum physics to the realm of molecular biology–or, as some would call it,
quantum chemistry
. You should read his magnum opus,
The Nature of the Chemical Bond.
It’s really quite enlightening.”

“Oh, I’ll bet…” says Skip, meaning,
The hell with that….

“And when you and Linus get together you guys just sit around and talk about… what?” Gordon asks. “Egregores and anal probes? Bloodsucking angels?”

“For the most part our talk centers around vitamin C, our failing prostates, and the Holographic Model of the Universe, if you really must know…” Lloyd says with a bored sigh. “I save the bloodsucking angels for my more intimate friends.”

“Lucky us,” says Twinker.

“So we’re just a guinea pig audience that you use to see if your more bullshit theories will fly,” D.H. says, meaning no real disrespect.

“It’s not bullshit!” Jimmy objects with great vehemence.

“No, it’s not.” Lloyd pouts, pretending to be hurt. “It’s no coincidence that Robert Oppenheimer set off the first successful nuclear explosion in a New Mexico desert basin called
Jornada del Muerte
–or ‘Journey of Death’–during what is now called the
Trinity Test
. He knew what he was getting into. His atomic bomb was a fiery fart in the face of God–a triumph for the Dark Brotherhood that mocked the Holy Trinity. Think of all the fear generated by the ensuing Cold War. Think of all those innocent people vaporized into mere shadows on the walls at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all those disfigured by atomic heat and radiation. For the Lam and their ilk, Oppenheimer’s infernal achievement must have come across like an exquisite snifter of brandy at the end of that energy banquet known to us as the Second World War.”

“Jimmy farted on God, too,” D.H. says with a tattletale’s childish whine.

“Only because I ate Jesus,” Jimmy sneers, unrepentant.

Switching to the intonations of a Harlem street preacher, D.H. swats Jimmy on the back of his head and says, “You’re a stench in God’s nostrils, you filthy heretic!”

Jimmy swats D.H. back, saying, “Fuck off and die, you self-righteous puss!”

“Boys! Boys! You see how quickly religion devolves into conflict?” Lloyd says, as if he’s proving some sort of point. “Just the merest mention of God is enough to start a fight. We’re all still spiritual infants, made terrible by religious certainties that cause us to go around like holy hitmen, killing others of different faiths. We have no business fooling around with nuclear weapons that could make the Earth uninhabitable–
especially
when you consider the frighteningly low caliber of the politicians we’ve been electing to office these days.”

“Man, I was just joking around…” D.H. says. “Don’t make a federal case out of it.”

“Yeah, we didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” says Jimmy.

“You have my sincerest apologies if I jumped to the wrong conclusions.”

“That’s okay. Anyway,” D.H. hastens to add, “you’re right about Reagan and his Armageddon Posse.
Muy frightamenté
.”

“Tell us more about the bloodsucking angels, Big Guy,” Jimmy says to get back on Lloyd’s good side. “Was that Oppenheimer dude one of them?”

“I suspect he was just a vehicle for them, no different than Mark David Chapman. You might say he was possessed. He’d convinced himself somehow that he was healing a planet at war, when in actual fact he was part of the disease.”

“That’s harsh,” Skip comments.

“Not really. At one point I think even Oppenheimer himself might have agreed with my judgement. After all, when he saw the
Trinity
explosion, he said it reminded him of a line from the
Bhagavad-Gita
: ‘I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”

“I am become Bored,” Twinker complains, shifting around on Skip’s lap. “Can we talk about something else?”

“The threat of nuclear annihilation isn’t titillating enough for you, dear?”

“It’s just such a relentless downer…” Twinker explains. “What I’m wondering is: if the world’s really as horrible as you say, then why do most people like living so much?”

“Well, consider the alternative.”

“That’s just it… I don’t know what the alternative is! Do we just click off like a TV set when we die? No sound, no picture, no consciousness–just nothing? I mean, that wouldn’t be so bad. We wouldn’t know what we were missing. But if there’s a heaven and a hell and we all have souls–well, then I guess there’s no way of knowing if things get better or worse.” Twinker looks frustrated enough to cry.

“It gets better,” Gordon tells her. Deep down, he’s sure of that. Of course, he can’t offer her any proof.

“Then why don’t we all just commit suicide?”

“Because then it would be worse,” Lloyd says.

“Demons would eat your soul,” says Jimmy, clacking his teeth for emphasis. “Even if you
don’t
commit suicide, they might eat you, anyway.”

“Don’t listen to him, babe,” says Skip, gently rocking her. “Your soul’s too good to eat. It would be like poison to demons.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“Then I’ll protect you.”

“Skip, I know you’re really big and strong and all, but even
you
can’t protect me from things you can’t see.” Twinker’s voice starts to crack as she adds: “Jesus, what am I saying? This conversation is
so
fucked-up on
so many
different levels.”

She tries to laugh as she wipes away a tear.

□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

Twinker goes on a crying jag for the next several miles. She can’t explain why. By the time she’s done, the Bentley has taken them high into the Santa Lucia Mountains at the southern end of Big Sur country. The air has cooled and condensed into scattered wedding veil wisps of fog. As they drive past an ivy-entwined bishop’s-crook lamppost with a carved wooden sign for the Ragged Point Inn, they get their first real glimpse of the famed Big Sur coastline.

“God, it’s so beautiful here,” Twinker says, sniffling.

“Is your estrogen moment over for now?” D.H. asks her.

“Hey–don’t be a dick,” warns Skip.

“That’s okay,” Twinker says. “I know I must’ve looked pretty out-of-it. I’m sorry. I just get all emotional sometimes–I don’t know why.”

“I think the fault is partly mine,” says Lloyd. “I may have been painting too bleak a picture of our human condition. Demons really
do
exist–I won’t tell you otherwise–but what you have to understand is that demons only have power over us when we refuse to acknowledge them. Most of them are actually quite weak when we combat them from our own higher spiritual levels.”

“How do we do that?” Gordon asks.

“Any number of ways,” Lloyd responds. “In the astral realm, blasting them with rays of Light and Love, or even just standing up to them without fear is usually enough. Demons are like schoolyard bullies in that regard–and just as easily dealt with, in most cases, once you know a little spiritual kung fu. Of course, those kung fu kicks of Light and Love are a little harder to come by when you’re a compromised old buzzard like myself, but I can assure you, a sweet soul such as Twinker’s will face no peril in the afterlife from demons. It’s their
human
emissaries here on Earth that we all have to watch out for.”

“Like Robert Oppenheimer and Mark David Chapman,” D.H. says.

“Among countless others,” says Lloyd. “
Their name is Legion: for they are many
–as the Bible so helpfully tells us.”

“It’d be a lot easier to figure out who they were if they all went around using the same name, like Count Hieronymus von Sküzzbaal or something…” says Gordon.

“Yes, but where’s the fun in that?” Lloyd asks. “You’d never know which particular von Sküzzbaal was being spoken of, whereas we can all differentiate between Rasputin and Charles Manson, even though they might have manifested exactly the same demonic entity.”

“You’ve got a point,” says Gordon. “Hey, by the way, have you ever thought about how Charles Manson, the Beatles, and
Rosemary’s Baby
are all tangled up with a bunch of really strange coincidences?”

“Like what kind of coincidences?” asks Skip.

“Like on the morning after the murders at the Polanski’s house, the maid who found the bodies was named Winifred Chapman.”

“Was she Mark David Chapman’s mom?” Jimmy asks facetiously.

Gordon ignores him. “And obviously there’s the Dakota building, where Roman Polanski shot
Rosemary’s Baby
and Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon.”

“That poor baby…” Lloyd says again with his now-familiar smirk.

“And isn’t it weird how the Beatles took Mia Farrow along with them on their trip to India to visit the Maharishi just after she’d starred in
Rosemary’s Baby
?”

“John Lennon wrote the song, ‘Dear Prudence’ on that trip for Mia Farrow’s little sister, Prudence,” D.H. contributes. “Basically, the whole
White Album
was written while they were in India. The song ‘Sexy Sadie’ was supposed to be about the Maharishi, but what’s weird is that even before it was recorded, Manson had already given the nickname ‘Sadie Mae Glutz’ to Susan Atkins. And when that psycho bitch Susan–or
Sadie
–stabbed Sharon Tate to death and wrote the word PIG on the wall with her blood, she was probably thinking about the George Harrison song, ‘Piggies,’ off the
White Album
.”

“That’s some freaky-ass shit,” says Skip.

D.H. isn’t done yet: “The
White Album
connection got even more obvious when they wrote HEALTER SKELTER in blood after the murders at the La Bianca house. They also wrote the word RISE, which is from the song ‘Revolution #9’–which, I guess, Manson took as a reference to
Revelation 9
, which is about being handed the keys to the Abyss and all that other end-of-the-world crapola.”

“It’s interesting how pop music and movies are usurping the traditional place of literature and organized religion in our culture, isn’t it?” Lloyd comments.

“Like John Lennon said, the Beatles are bigger than Jesus.” D.H. is still on a roll. He adds: “Did you guys know that the Beach Boys recorded one of Manson’s songs? Or that he tried out for a part on
The Monkees,
but didn’t get it? Just think: if madcap Charlie Manson had been one of the Monkees, none of this other stuff would’ve happened.”

“Just like World War Two never would’ve happened if Hitler had been a better painter,” Twinker says with a roll of her eyes.

“
Hey, hey, we’re the Mansons
,” Jimmy sings. “
And people say we’re murderin’ clowns. But we’re too busy singin’… to put anybody down.”

“I’m pretty sure that Monkees story is just an urban legend,” Gordon comments. “Manson was still in prison in 1965 or ‘66, when they were casting for
The Monkees
. He practically begged the prison guards not to let him out.”

“Shades of Donald DeFreeze at Vacaville,” Lloyd says ominously.

“Do you think the CIA did a number on Manson’s head, too?” Gordon asks him.

“I think it’s a possibility,” Lloyd says. “He certainly fulfilled all the prerequisites. But what I find interesting about Manson is that he was the first person to be sentenced to death for mind control–or, as he put it: ‘For practicing witchcraft in the twentieth-century.’ It was clearly established that Manson didn’t physically commit any of the crimes he was on trial for. He didn’t
kill
anyone. But the prosecution argued that he was so in control of the minds of Susan Atkins, ‘Tex’ Watson, and the other Manson Family members that they had no choice but to commit the murders on his behalf. If that were true, then logic would dictate that the other defendants were guilty of a lesser crime than murder in the first degree–by reason of their compromised mental faculties–but apparently that was too subtle a point for the jury to grasp. So they were all sentenced to death, too.”

“Good riddance,” says Twinker, no bleeding-heart liberal when it comes to the fate of deranged killers who attack pregnant women, coffee heiresses, and famous hairdressers.

“So if Charles Manson was controlling the minds of the other Family members, then who was controlling Charles Manson?” Gordon asks.

“The CIA, of course, would protest that they know so little about mind control that they’re unable to override the will of anyone,” says Lloyd. “All those MKULTRA experiments went absolutely nowhere, if you believe Richard Helms. Funny that a homegrown white trash messiah like Manson could succeed where all the sociopathic brainpower, decades of research, and limitless funding of the CIA failed, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, right…” scoffs Skip.

“On the other hand, what if it
wasn’t
the CIA,” Lloyd continues. “What if Charles Manson was in truth a victim of powerful demonic forces that overwhelmed him? What if he was a guileless host for some parasitic entity that caused him to do evil? Could such a thing actually be possible in this world?”