Again, Dangerous Visions Part 52

"No, no, they would have killed me..."

"Not at all. We had decided that you could act as a kind of living fetish for them, provided that they did you no harm. That way they would have been satisfied, you would have been accounted for. We decided that it was not your fault for being so d.a.m.nably healthy, but your mother's."

The dew was falling, making everything damp and chill.

"What shall I do now? I am so lonely, there is no place for me."

"I suppose you feel like a special case," said Poppy-head, rising from the ground, fingering his damp backside dubiously.

"But I am, I am, I'm different..."

He turned away silently, making it plain he thought that no excuse for what she had shown herself capable of; self-betrayal, ma.s.s murder.

"But they were so disgusting," she murmured, knowing now that whatever she said was irrelevant.

She slept the night on the cold ground, disturbed by coughing and vomiting and dreams that she could not recall when she opened her eyes on the dawn. Her body was racked with sensations that she guessed to be pneumonia. She pressed her hot forehead into the cool herbs and then pa.s.sed time watching a poppy unfold in the rising sun. She did not pick it but simply watched it.

"I only wanted to be free. I never meant to hurt anyone."

Her words were blown away on the airs of Pergamon.

Afterword.

1 Four fifths of human nature is submerged. It is time we discovered what it is that keeps us afloat and what it is drags us under.

2 All you need is Love.

3 Great ideologies are ma.s.s psychoses. To depart from the true Self brings disaster.

4 Firstly I should say that I find it almost impossible to write about my writing, feeling that if there is anything needs saying about a story, then the story is a failure. But. This story was one of those that worked from the outside, in. The t.i.tle came first, one morning I found myself saying it aloud, apropos nothing. Then episodes rose to mind, and were written down, I knew only that there was a story, not what it was, or why. I sorted from my thoughts those things I sensed to be part of the Elouise Elouise pattern, and when there were enough I rewrote, cut, expanded, put it away awhile, then rewrote again. The thing was then divorced from its origins in the unconscious mind, and had become discussable from a literary point of view. It was finally made into itself through the perspicacious promptings of an editor who knows about writing stories. It is only now that I can say I have written a story about the struggle for personal freedom, with a moral to the effect that pattern, and when there were enough I rewrote, cut, expanded, put it away awhile, then rewrote again. The thing was then divorced from its origins in the unconscious mind, and had become discussable from a literary point of view. It was finally made into itself through the perspicacious promptings of an editor who knows about writing stories. It is only now that I can say I have written a story about the struggle for personal freedom, with a moral to the effect that anything anything gained at the expense of other people's discomfort will be invalid. On one level gained at the expense of other people's discomfort will be invalid. On one level Elouise Elouise is the n.a.z.i ideal of superman, and how that experiment went wrong by confusing politics with the means to freedom, which it can never be. It is also about acceptance of Self and the dangers both of egotism and identifying with any ma.s.s of people. But if that was what I had wanted to say, only, is the n.a.z.i ideal of superman, and how that experiment went wrong by confusing politics with the means to freedom, which it can never be. It is also about acceptance of Self and the dangers both of egotism and identifying with any ma.s.s of people. But if that was what I had wanted to say, only, per se per se, I could perhaps have written a straight story on those lines. There is always something, which can not be said in any other way, by me, except in the story as it comes. The images are not symbols only of something else, they are symbols period. Which brings me much nearer to painting than writing, for this story. The words of a Sufi Master put very neatly what I always hope to achieve with this kind of work: "Some of the stories are mere wonder-tales, but others...are of the strange type known by the Sufis as 'ill.u.s.trative history': that is to say, a series of events are concocted to point a meaning connected with psychological processes."

If there is anything worth knowing in a story like Elouise Elouise, it will go straight into the reader's mind without necessarily being understood or a.n.a.lyzed in an intellectual manner.

Introduction to CHUCK BERRY, WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME.

For those too square to have any roots in American music, Chuck Berry was one of the germinal influences who, between 1955 and 1960, set the tone and meter for the rhythm & blues idiom. It is fairly safe to say that no one playing today-and that includes The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and whoever comes next this week-got to his sound without going by way of Chuck Berry. Blues were (and still are are, but most importantly were were) Chuck Berry's ultimate bag, and putting him alongside B. B. King, Otis Redding, Big Miller, Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins should draw nothing but nods of approval from students of the Greats. But it was with his upbeat compositions that he made his biggest splash. "Maybellene," "Johnny B. Goode," "Memphis," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Reelin' and Rockin'" and "Sweet Little Sixteen" created a Berry sound that between '55 and '58 made him the single biggest name in R&B. Even today Berry is fine to hear. Not just my opinion: when the Stones go on tour and take along music for their own pleasure, everything Chuck Berry ever recorded goes with them.

Once having been with Chuck Berry, it is impossible to give any credence to Bobby Sherman. Red beans and rice is a diet in no way enhanced by bubble gum.

But I digress.

The Chuck Berry of the story that follows is in no way related to the Chuck Berry of the amplified guitar. But the latter inspired the former in a deranged way that could only have been chronicled by a madman. Segue to Ken McCullough, on a rising note of hysteria.

McCullough I found at the University of Colorado in 1969. Poet, roust-about, esthete, musicologist, writer, madman. He came into my cla.s.s and I made the error of quoting Herman Melville: "No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."

Madman went back to his cubby and set out to prove me wrong. Well, Chuck Berry ain't a flea, but close enough. Herman may have been wrong.

McCullough, madman, strikes me as a likely bet for stardom. If he ever gets his head straight. He has a sense for fiction that is platinum-bound by the rigors of poetry; good poetry, muscular poetry. He turns the phrases just so, and his mind wanders down the metaphorical byways with considerable style and grace. The way McCullough treats prose reminds me of a meaningful quotation from an otherwise undistinguished and fearsomely ponderous essay by Graham Greene on the work of Fielding and Sterne: "...prose used in fiction as Webster and other Jacobean playwrights used it, as a medium of equal dignity and intensity to poetry, indeed as poetry with the rhythm of ordinary speech."

As this will he McCullough's first wide-circulation publication, I suspect it would be presumptuous of me to gambol on through fields of verbiage, proclaiming his wondrousness. Rather would I back off and let you hear McCullough in his own voice, first as autobiographer, then as writer of cunning fixated fictions. I will merely add that if you savor this first taste of his work, that you somehow scrounge a copy of the Winter 1971 issue of The Iowa Review The Iowa Review, wherein a delight t.i.tled "His Loneliness, the Winner" lies waiting for your attention. But till you can, or until McCullough shucks off the lamebrain dreams of Hollywood playacting and gets down to what he does fantastically well-writing mad things with the pen of a poet-here is a complete bio and biblio, and a creature named Chuck Berry.

"Born Staten Island, N.Y., July 18, 1943 at 9:38 A.M., the first of five children to a marathon runner father from Derma, Mississippi, and a Canadian mother from a long line of centenarians. My father was in the USAF during my formative years so travelled frequently to many podunk sooty places-the best of which was Newfoundland where we spent six years-maggoty folk songs, drunks p.i.s.sing on your tricycle, the Portuguese fleet, icebergs, horsedrawn funerals, school blazers and school ties and a free bottle of codliveroil from the govt. each month. From this island in the past we returned to the U.S. of A. where there was the television we had missed and Elvis was at his peak. I went off to prep school (St. Andrew's) to get an education. During the year previous I had pa.s.sed through the p.u.b.erty rite of being saved, as a Southern Baptist. St. Andrew's is an Episcopal school. After initial hysteria, I was able to fuse these two styles in my peabrain in the best of all possible ways (?). At St. Andrew's I was one of the 'peasants', and had to cop labels from my father's suits during vacations to sew into my Robt. Hall threads. About the only way I could make my dent in this Frank Merriwell-fairytale scene was via athletics since I am no scholar. I became captain of the football and baseball teams. The peak of my career in prep school (except for losing a no-hitter) came when I got a ruptured kidney in a football scrimmage after our second game during the year of my captaincy, and I wrote the team a Win One For The Gipper' letter from my infirmary bed. It worked and those sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes went on to a fantastic season inspired by my absence. They lost the conference championship game, however, because the coach didn't put me in as a punter (doctor's orders). I was all set to run for the winning touchdown instead of punting. I was also active in plays-winning the Drama Award for my portrayal of the angriest man in Twelve Angry Men', and also active in pseudo-piety-punching out our best hitter for smoking during baseball season. I was also Warden of the Student Vestry. Don't get me wrong-I was very much a wisea.s.s. Oh, I won the MVP Award in baseball, and the Eddie Stanky s.h.i.tty Award. My height went from 5'8" to 5'7" and I became asthmatic.

"This is the beginning of a new paragraph. Went to the University of Delaware, that bastion of softsqueeze lobotomy, where I addled my brain through more football and baseball (I once hit Floyd Little head-on in a scrimmage against Bordentown Friends as a Freshman), and acted in many of the dramatic productions-my favorite role being Dylan Thomas, eating up the vicarious notoriety and expecting a similar end. Oh, in the summers of all these years (except one when I worked as the social director of a resort hotel in Lake George, N.Y.-a glorious erotic fantasy from which I've never recovered) I worked construction and played semi-pro ball. The scouts always told me I was too short despite feats like striking out 17 batters in the first game of a twinbill and collecting five hits in the second game. At Delaware I compounded my nonessential dilemma by majoring in pre-Med, and by doing innocent cartoons for the school paper for which I got called into the Dean of Students office every week. But with the pre-Med, for a person who is so scared of numbers that a license number freaks him out, I had my difficulties. I say without reservation that I sincerely regret and am heartily sorry for every hour I spent in stinking Chemistry labs with all those pimpled slide-rule weirdos. All that formaldehyde and butyric acid did serve to aggravate my asthma, giving me an eventual 1-Y.

"During my last two years as an undergraduate I was an alcoholic, I think, killing a fifth of County Fair Bourbon a day. My twenty-first birthday, which I know about only second-hand because I was blacked out throughout the escapade, has become a legend with the Jet Set around D.C., a place through which I cut a swath like the time Sherman played Georgia. Speaking of the Jet Set, my prep school background did give me an opportunity of being 'in' with these people while still being 'out' in reality-like being a Roman citizen and a Christian, too. I wasted at the cotillion while inbred DuPont seedlings talked of F. Scott and the good life. I became inward, melancholic, misanthropic.

"After being suspended for a semester for swiping a library book (some s.h.i.t by Kierkegaard I never read), and working a strange holy gig as a social worker during the interim, I came back and finished a B.A. because what else was there to do? During my last semester I tried my hands and feet at poetry and won the Academy of American Poets Award, my creditors making short work of the prize money. Knowing I would last about a week at Med School I said well what now. Iowa they said. So in Iowa I lived in a $4/month sackcloth-panelled cave on a cliff overlooking the Iowa River with no plumbing no running water (except me off the back porch) and a Warm Morning No. 530 for heat. After two years of peace, more-or-less, in the woods, my melancholia tempered by bucolia. I got an M.F.A. in Poetry, equipping me to do exactly nothing. Worked construction for awhile as I am wont to do, and was ready to sail for the Far East (the Lord Jim trip) after getting my Z Card for the Merchant Marine, when I met Lady Kathryn, the Poet. She said stay so I did. That was two years ago. Under the Harrow. I have been a vegetable since then but am rapidly rehabilitating. Am presently sojourning in Bozeman, Montana with Lady K. and son Galway Django Ari Kamal Krishna-where I am poet-in-residence at Montana State University, hating (nearly) every minute of it, longing for the good life of wild irresponsibility. Re: the future-took a stab at filmmaking, but after two brilliant though abortive attempts I gave up the ghost, realizing that my ambition was not to make but to be in movies-as the star of Spaghetti Westerns. The character will be a hybrid of Paladin, Peter Sellers and Lon, Jr. all rolled into the form of a quart-size Haystacks Calhoun. If I can't do this, I'll have to write, I guess. But s.h.i.t, Alan Ladd was short.

"Have published poems in thirty-five-or so magazines and anthologies of varying repute, and my first collection of poetry t.i.tled The Easy Wreckage The Easy Wreckage came out in April of '71. Ill.u.s.trated a book of Gary Snyder's poetry, came out in April of '71. Ill.u.s.trated a book of Gary Snyder's poetry, Three Worlds, Three Realms, Six Roads Three Worlds, Three Realms, Six Roads (Griffin Press, Marlboro, Vt.), and am now working on drawings for a concoction of W. S. Merwin. Have just gotten my head above the uterine waters of speculative fiction, but, being a Cancer, have always been fatally attracted to said. (Griffin Press, Marlboro, Vt.), and am now working on drawings for a concoction of W. S. Merwin. Have just gotten my head above the uterine waters of speculative fiction, but, being a Cancer, have always been fatally attracted to said.

"My lucky number is 38, I am left-handed, and my favorite color is green. I have a distinguished scar on my forehead where I was bricked by vigilantes."

Publications (Poetry) "Garden Song," The Defender (Iowa City), vol. 15, no. 2, p. 12, 10/4/68 "My Father: A Preface," The Defender The Defender, vol. 15, no. 10, p. 19, 12/16/68 "The Way It Was At Queen Jane Of Iowa's Wedding As Sung To The Tune Rendel Moulbauer's Codliverolive Phantalia Codliverolive Phantalia," Ghost Dance Ghost Dance (E. Lansing), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 67, Winter 1968 (E. Lansing), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 67, Winter 1968 "Boot Camp Nocturne, Nineteen Sixty-Eight," TriQuarterly TriQuarterly (Evanston), no. 15, pp. 175176, Spring 1969 (Evanston), no. 15, pp. 175176, Spring 1969 "Naughty Petey," Saltlick Saltlick (Quincy, Ill.), vol. 1, no. 2, p. 7,6/69 (Quincy, Ill.), vol. 1, no. 2, p. 7,6/69 "Georgian Reception," Suction Suction (Hayward, Calif.), vol. 1, no. 2, 10/69 (Hayward, Calif.), vol. 1, no. 2, 10/69 "Langdon's Lament," "Custody," Doones Doones (Bowling Green), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3031, 10/69 (Bowling Green), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3031, 10/69 "there are two of us where there is only one," New Voices in the Wind New Voices in the Wind (anthology), ed. Jeanne Hollyfield, Young Publications, Appalachia, Va., p. 255, 11/69 (anthology), ed. Jeanne Hollyfield, Young Publications, Appalachia, Va., p. 255, 11/69 "March Letter to Chuna," Doones Doones, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 2425, 1/70 "Opening Day," Trace Trace (Hollywood), no. 71, p. 296, Spring 1970 (Hollywood), no. 71, p. 296, Spring 1970 "My Brother's Garden," "A Winter Espousal," Red Clay Reader Red Clay Reader (Charlotte, N.C.), no. 7, p. 83, Spring 1970 (Charlotte, N.C.), no. 7, p. 83, Spring 1970 "Confession in October," Jeopardy Jeopardy (Bellingham), vol. 6, p. 103, 4/70 (Bellingham), vol. 6, p. 103, 4/70 "Derailment," South Florida Poetry Journal (Tampa), nos. 4/5, pp. 197198, Spring 1970 "Sabbatical Syllabus," "In Orion's Chamber," "The Installment Plan," "In the Year of Steel Vegetation," Wisconsin Review Wisconsin Review (Oshkosh), vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 2425, Fall 1970 (Oshkosh), vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 2425, Fall 1970 "Estranged From," "Anti-Elegy for Father and Son," "Over Small Beers," Quetzal Quetzal (Abilene, Texas), vol. 1, no. 2, Spring 1970 (Abilene, Texas), vol. 1, no. 2, Spring 1970 "1968," Gum Gum (Iowa City), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 256, 3/70 (Iowa City), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 256, 3/70 "Blues Project," (broadside), Seamark Press, Iowa City, 4/70 "Falling Into Place," "Matins: :Iowa River," "For Baum, The Departed/In Red Moustache and Fedora," The Back Door The Back Door (Poquoson, Va.), vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1923, 7/70 (Poquoson, Va.), vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1923, 7/70 "Last Will and Testament," I LOVE YOU ALL DAY/IT IS THAT SIMPLE-Modern Poems on Love and Marriage I LOVE YOU ALL DAY/IT IS THAT SIMPLE-Modern Poems on Love and Marriage (anthology), eds. Philip Dacey and Gerald Knoll, Abbey Press, St. Meinrad, Ind., p. III, 9/70 (anthology), eds. Philip Dacey and Gerald Knoll, Abbey Press, St. Meinrad, Ind., p. III, 9/70 "A Sketch in Bird's Wing," Dance of the Muses Dance of the Muses (anthology), ed. Jeanne Hollyfield, Young Publications, Appalachia, Va., 11/70 (anthology), ed. Jeanne Hollyfield, Young Publications, Appalachia, Va., 11/70 "On a Scaffold North Bank/Stinking Water, Nebraska 1872," Hea.r.s.e Hea.r.s.e (Eureka, Calif.), no. 13, 12/70 (Eureka, Calif.), no. 13, 12/70 "Old Skin Cantata," "The Installment Plan," (reprint), "In the Year of Steel Vegetation," (reprint), Bones Bones (N.Y.C.), Spring 1971 (N.Y.C.), Spring 1971 "Boot Camp Nocturne," (reprint), "Falling Into Place," (reprint), Apropos Apropos (Bozeman), 11/70 (Bozeman), 11/70 "Amish Summer," december december (Western Springs, III), Spring 1971 (Western Springs, III), Spring 1971 The Easy Wreckage (collection), ill.u.s.trated by Donna Violetti, Seamark Press, Iowa City, 1/71 (collection), ill.u.s.trated by Donna Violetti, Seamark Press, Iowa City, 1/71 (Short Stories) "Chuck Berry, Won't You Please Come Home," Again, Dangerous Visions Again, Dangerous Visions (anthology), Doubleday, ed. Harlan Ellison, 1972 (anthology), Doubleday, ed. Harlan Ellison, 1972 "His Loneliness, The Winner," The Iowa Review The Iowa Review, vol. 2, no. 1, Spring 1971 "The Legend of Wick Higgins," Larger Than Life Larger Than Life (anthology), Scribner's, ed. Richard Gehman, Summer 1972 (anthology), Scribner's, ed. Richard Gehman, Summer 1972 (Ill.u.s.trations) Three Worlds, Three Realms, Six Roads, a sequence of poems by Gary Snyder, Griffin Press, Marlboro, Vt, Spring 1968

CHUCK BERRY, WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME.

Ken McCullough June morning 5 A.M. Orpheus comes wimping boing sp.r.o.ng onto the bed-me still drunk p.i.s.sing Li Po fashion out the back window onto the feeding bullheads. Sweet Kate the possum and the false dawn. Behind him Morpheus ("Fatso") mudcaked carpstink and justplainfat. The usual-Orpheus luxurious sensual and stupid, Morpheus fat and guilty. But like the man said: "This day was to change my life"-Orpheus has this big gray tick on his ear twice the size of an M&M. Usually I'd ease the f.u.c.kers out and grind them into the floor, but I held back, watching. The Tick. He fell off and was crawling just as my chick Nancy came back from working the grave shift at the paraplegic ward of U. Hospital.

"Hey, Nano, what do we do with that that, baby?"

"Feed it, ya douchebag, or it'll die die!"

If ever there was a witch's t.i.t, she was it. She always got me off my a.s.s, tho. I'd been finished school a year and on the lam until she picked me up and decided to straighten out my head. Got me a job as a panhandler and everything. Thanks, Nan. Well, this tick. Late to work myself. Threw him into my patching kit and split to work on my ten-geared Raleigh. On the way, thot "Lightbulb! The Stiff The Stiff, in Serology." Almost creaming the Chairman of Otolaryngology I bashed into the cycle rack, grabbed the container and jugged into the Lab. "Stiff...I need some blood."

The Stiff-6'2", 113 Ibs, olivedrab skin and eyes as big and bad as oysters. The Stiff The Stiff reaches slow like a robot turns with a test tube, slips it to me and sort of winks. Now what. Methinks "He needs skin thruwhich to drink this s.h.i.t." So into the lab of my sometime chick, Large Marge. Pour the blood into evaporating dish, grab a surgical glove and stretch. Tight over the dish. The tick was getting kind of wrinkling-looking so I thot he might be getting ready to o.d. But I set him over the reservoir. And sat. After ten minutes I noticed he was pumping, eversoslightly, the way a cat nurses. And now he was back to his turgid self. "Wow, success!" I put him in an empty aquarium at the back of the lab and went to work really flying. He had enough to last him til lunch at least. reaches slow like a robot turns with a test tube, slips it to me and sort of winks. Now what. Methinks "He needs skin thruwhich to drink this s.h.i.t." So into the lab of my sometime chick, Large Marge. Pour the blood into evaporating dish, grab a surgical glove and stretch. Tight over the dish. The tick was getting kind of wrinkling-looking so I thot he might be getting ready to o.d. But I set him over the reservoir. And sat. After ten minutes I noticed he was pumping, eversoslightly, the way a cat nurses. And now he was back to his turgid self. "Wow, success!" I put him in an empty aquarium at the back of the lab and went to work really flying. He had enough to last him til lunch at least.

At lunchtime I checked on him. Unk! Bigger and better. I called home, my head wackoed with the possibilities...how big could he go, would The Stiff The Stiff keep supplying...Johnny Carson, keep supplying...Johnny Carson, Scientific America... Scientific America... and strange bad fantasy flashes of and strange bad fantasy flashes of Them, The Beginning of the End, The Tick Who Sucked-Off Brooklyn Them, The Beginning of the End, The Tick Who Sucked-Off Brooklyn, Tomorrow the World!

Now it may sound weird that I'd go for a thing like this but it was nothing new to me. I started as a prepster. The first thing I got into was raising a herd of jumping spiders-that busted out one day in Bio Lab. "Bugeye" reaching and swatting and nothing there. Everyone reaching and swatting. Ten demerits. Then the wasps. They get so hard-up for grins around an all-male boarding school that when the other dudes saw me flying a wasp with a piece of thread around his thorax it became the thing to do. People nodding to each other in the hall, their wasps on leashes tugging them gently along. Wasps in guys' rooms at desklamp hitching-posts. After several accidents the school nurse ratted on me to "Cretin" the Headmaster. More demerits. In college, tho, I had privacy. Had a single in the dorm where I worked and finally got to the point where I successfully swapped left rear legs on two mice and the legs worked-on one of them. So I knew what I was doing; what I was up against.

After a few days of just freaking and watching the b.u.g.g.e.r I checked in the Med Library and found out what I suspected-that judging by his coloration he had only three more months before he'd croak of old age, and that he could only grow so big before he either exploded or o.d.'d from a coronary or something. Ticks have what they call chitinous exoskeletons-no bones on the inside, just a sh.e.l.l of sorts holding them in, like crabs have, for instance. There is a law which states that an animal with an exoskeleton can have a surface area equal to no more than the cube of his volume. So this tick, Dermacentor reticulates Dermacentor reticulates, a male, I named him Chuck Berry, could could grow as big as a small dog, but he wouldn't be able to get around at all at that size. Like Haystacks Calhoun times three, frothing at the hypostome. grow as big as a small dog, but he wouldn't be able to get around at all at that size. Like Haystacks Calhoun times three, frothing at the hypostome.

Nano and I started staying in alot, and keeping the dogs outside. The Stiff The Stiff kept the blood coming. Quiet evenings at home-I'd get out the slide rule and work out the dose of whatever Nano and I were dropping or shooting and slip it to him. It was really a strange trip trying to pick up vibes from a beast like that, a real Charley Gordon gig, but he was ours to turn on with and we dug him. kept the blood coming. Quiet evenings at home-I'd get out the slide rule and work out the dose of whatever Nano and I were dropping or shooting and slip it to him. It was really a strange trip trying to pick up vibes from a beast like that, a real Charley Gordon gig, but he was ours to turn on with and we dug him.

After about a month it got to the point where there was a real rapport between us and Chuckbear. We'd sit with him between us on a stool-him as big as a pincushion now-and that feeling at the back of our necks would spread, grow into a diaphanous caul that hugged our heads, our arms, our chests...our fingers just touching, hovering over the beast, and something seemed to lock our elbows, our wrists, the joints of our fingers, and our eyes-as his body started to quaver-drifting, drifting-something out of him, felt it leaving him-felt it wisping in through the sutures of our skulls-spinning into the gunk of our brains and arching both our bodies off the floor. Something oppressive, but then my sight left me and I could feel only my body spiraling upwards through clouds of woolen light. And it still leaving him, but now soughing back...and leaving again: systole-diastole-systole...

There was no fear. I felt the rapport. And it was the time when I stood with a candle looking at the shadows on my face in the mirror, drunk, squinting my eyes and trying inside behind the eyes to change the features into some shrieking lupine monster and had to force myself to stop because it was not far away, because it started and was happening.

Now, my inner earbones jangled in a wind which knifed from out of nowhere. The air was filled with odors, heavy swamp odors, and huge shadows that made no sense at all. I fuzzed my vision but he brushed against my hand forcing a ringing through all my organs. It would go on-the ebb and flood-the shadows of the trees-the lakes of boiling muck-the thunder-wracks and the wails-the earth shifting-the rain-the crawling-the cacophony of wings in the lightning-the beaks splitting the eyes-and it was all happening. Swam in itchy waves of lava and my skin kept growing, growing and I spoke in words that I had never heard before. No eye games. No touching. It was like rapping with someone or something that had been around when there were still birds the size of DC-3's in the sky and like way hack in what there was of that brain was something he knew and would somehow pa.s.s between him and us. With Chuck Berry we were into something...precivilized-something we could lay on the world that would maybe straighten out some of the ugly machine s.h.i.t that was coming down. No more bulls.h.i.t-no more preachers teachers Indian chiefs-just cats sitting around vibrating with their eyes closed. And whatta gas to be tight with such a deep spiritual cat as Chuck Berry. Of course, he'd need bodyguards and a vet of his own. There'd be a fund to keep him going-h.e.l.l with that- that-we'd start a clinic run off of subscriptions, with him in center ring. Man! it would be the New Religion- New Religion-it would be quiet for once. And we'd be the ones back there calling the shots-or so we'd hope. (Trails of puckered white bodies in the gutters-break out the 6o-foot bloodhounds, bring in the jr. birdmen with their napalm.) But s.h.i.t, when you're messing in such heavy stuff you gotta take the chance of getting wiped out by what you done done.

Problems-The Stiff decided to take a job at the V.A. hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. What a b.u.mmer! Not only that but I realized that in grooving on Chuckbear I'd forgotten we only had a red c.u.n.t-hair more than a month, by the book, before he croaked. We had to get the stud mated with something else big and keep working up. Nano, you hunk of vision! In she walks with decided to take a job at the V.A. hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. What a b.u.mmer! Not only that but I realized that in grooving on Chuckbear I'd forgotten we only had a red c.u.n.t-hair more than a month, by the book, before he croaked. We had to get the stud mated with something else big and keep working up. Nano, you hunk of vision! In she walks with The Stiff The Stiff and says "Screw it, man...I've clued and says "Screw it, man...I've clued The Stiff The Stiff in, and we need a vacation anyway." in, and we need a vacation anyway." The Stiff The Stiff floats over to Chuckbear. "Draw out some bread and let's head south." So we did. The four of us (Orph and Morph with the landlord). floats over to Chuckbear. "Draw out some bread and let's head south." So we did. The four of us (Orph and Morph with the landlord). The Stiff The Stiff with his blackened egg yolks bathing in the essence of Chuck Berry. with his blackened egg yolks bathing in the essence of Chuck Berry.

My Uncle Clifton had this place over in Mississippi just north of Varda-man about 50 miles from Tuscaloosa. He was senile-the tobacco oozing out the corners of his mouth, and his dog Twister bringing him the paper he couldn't or just never bothered to even look down at. Copping the place at the back of the property was nothing. The biggest cop of all-that I must've known all along-was Uncle C's pack of big beautiful tick-infested c.o.o.n hounds.

Every three days I'd make a run to Tuscaloosa and The Stiff The Stiff would lay some more blood on me and a few fresh gloves. would lay some more blood on me and a few fresh gloves. The Stiff The Stiff would come on weekends-he'd always bring a bag of the latest goodies from Pharmacy to keep Chuckbear fat and happy. The cat would just sit with his index finger on Chuckbear's back and nod. would come on weekends-he'd always bring a bag of the latest goodies from Pharmacy to keep Chuckbear fat and happy. The cat would just sit with his index finger on Chuckbear's back and nod. The Stiff The Stiff had a pretty fierce smack habit. Well, one day he ups and says the only thing I can ever remember him saying. Looks at me and nods one eye and says "Like a rainbow p.u.s.s.y for a coffin." Everyone grooving. had a pretty fierce smack habit. Well, one day he ups and says the only thing I can ever remember him saying. Looks at me and nods one eye and says "Like a rainbow p.u.s.s.y for a coffin." Everyone grooving.

But I just couldn't find a mate for Chuckbear-big enough, or even anything he seemed to go for much, and I'd make the rounds of all the hounds twice a day. Spring-it was breeding season OK, and he seemed to be fairly h.o.r.n.y, but he wrecked anything he mounted. We had a stable of about ten prime b.i.t.c.hes we were fattening for him but we were running out of time. And then that motherf.u.c.king s.h.i.teating scrawny snailbrain Stiff Stiff goes and blows the whole scene. goes and blows the whole scene.

Nan and me get back from the County Fair one Sat.u.r.day just about sundown, and there they are in the bedroom like Dracula and his gay bride; Chuckbear, his stinking bulk bloated to the size of a gray flattened watermelon, with his mouth clapped to The Stiff's The Stiff's arm. I knew that was it for him. I kicked that c.o.c.ksucking arm. I knew that was it for him. I kicked that c.o.c.ksucking Stiff Stiff right in the head. right in the head.

Chuck Berry died about two hours later. It could have been nothing but that bad blood running in The Stiff's The Stiff's veins that did it. I took him and the other ten one by one out to the funeral pyre I'd thrown together about a mile from the house, doused the lot of them with gasoline and made a trail of gas away from the scene, lit the stuff and ran like h.e.l.l before the explosions started. I won't go into that. Man, when I got back to the house I just bawled my a.s.s off. Yeah, over a tick. veins that did it. I took him and the other ten one by one out to the funeral pyre I'd thrown together about a mile from the house, doused the lot of them with gasoline and made a trail of gas away from the scene, lit the stuff and ran like h.e.l.l before the explosions started. I won't go into that. Man, when I got back to the house I just bawled my a.s.s off. Yeah, over a tick.

We hung around for about a week, moping. I just sort of looked at the cows, listened to the sounds and thot about how short the whole thing was and whether anything had really happened at all. But things have been so much deeper for me since Chuck Berry. For Nano too. I heard from somebody, I don't remember who, that they put The Stiff The Stiff away. He did nothing but sit around and laugh a low wheezing laugh. Never said another word. away. He did nothing but sit around and laugh a low wheezing laugh. Never said another word.

I think it was Melville who said somewhere that n.o.body would ever write a decent story about a flea. Well, a tick is hardly better than a flea, and I know no one who reads this story would believe it, but sometimes you tell people things like this because, well, whattheh.e.l.l else can you do?

Afterword.

This is the first story I've ever completed. I wrote it in one sitting, but I would never have written any of it at all if I hadn't been kicked in the a.s.s by Harlan Ellison's story A Boy and His Dog A Boy and His Dog. Thank the G.o.ds for stories like that-story vs. what they call with pursed lips and corncobs up their b.u.t.ts-"littriture." If more people could get it out of their literary pants the way Ellison and William Price Fox do, and tell a story the way it is, they would have fewer problems in writing what they consider to be high art (artifice?).

This particular story is not meant to have any moral or message-if it's relevant to anything, that's incidental. The story comes out of a riff I hit people with when they are ripe for it. It turns out that a lot of people believe the story, the same way they get caught up in tall tales-so why not try it in print? The reason you can con your audience with a tall tale, "suspend their disbelief," is that there is quite a bit of fact via details woven in with the fantasy. I once heard Gore Vidal say that you can usually spot the successful novelist as a kid-he is such a pathological liar. If you're a good storyteller, a good sci-fi or fantasy writer, or a good poet or novelist, you're supernaturally gifted. Putting the spell on them is what counts, not the technique you use. THE FORM IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT, says Robert Creeley. Without the story you're dead. Once the story starts to come, IT takes over for you and fills in the refinements that you'd never be hip to on an off day. The Greeks called this force "The Muse."

By the way, "Chuck Berry" is a true story.

Introduction to EPIPHANY FOR ALIENS.

Though your editor has met ninety per cent of the writers he has included in this volume (and can call about sixty per cent of that ninety "friends"), there are those few whose stories came in unsolicited and with whom the editor has had only postal acquaintance. One of these is David Kerr.

However, even if I can't lay out deep and meaningful comments about the writers I haven't grown to know, I always try to say something deep and meaningful about the story appearing under that writer's name. Occasionally I'm stumped on even that that approach. As George Ernsberger (a very fine editor) once pointed out, there is not something to be said for approach. As George Ernsberger (a very fine editor) once pointed out, there is not something to be said for every every story, and frequently not for the very best. I think that's the case for "Epiphany for Aliens." Save to note that of all the stories I've read for A,DV and story, and frequently not for the very best. I think that's the case for "Epiphany for Aliens." Save to note that of all the stories I've read for A,DV and The Last Dangerous Visions The Last Dangerous Visions, accepted and rejected alike, this one touched me the most profoundly. I have a great warmth for this tale; it seems to have a quality that makes one's empathy flare up. I cannot explain it, nor do I care to try. I simply mention it by way of giving Mr. Kerr his due, and I look forward more to meeting him than any of the others I've never known.

I think "Epiphany for Aliens" is an extraordinarily fine piece of writing.

And, as has grown our custom through these pages, here is Mr. Kerr's statement of credentials and background:

"Born in Carlisle England (near the Scottish border) in 1942, the only son of a motor mechanic.

"I was educated in the State system until the age of n, when I transferred to a Roman Catholic seminary, Ushaw College, Durham, considerably less horrifying than Joyce's but similarly traumatic. At the age of 18 I became disillusioned with the seminary, left it and shortly afterward the Catholic Church.

"At about this time I started writing poetry, infrequently but intensely.

"I read English at Newcastle University and took a B.A. degree. After graduation I travelled in Southern Europe in France, Spain, Italy, Egypt and Greece, mostly living rough. I was able to follow up an interest in archeology and antiquities. On my return to England I took odd labouring jobs for a time before settling down as a teacher at West Ham College of Further Education, a Technical College in East London; I taught English and Liberal Studies.

"At about this time I started getting poetry published in small magazines.

"I became a.s.sistant editor of an East London Arts magazine called Elam Elam and wrote editorials, reviews and poetry for the magazine, and helped organise the local arts festival a.s.sociated with it. In 1968 and wrote editorials, reviews and poetry for the magazine, and helped organise the local arts festival a.s.sociated with it. In 1968 Elam Elam published a paperback collection of my poetry called FIRSTPRINT. published a paperback collection of my poetry called FIRSTPRINT.

"During this period I have also given several readings of poetry in pubs and colleges in London.

"I have spent the last year doing a postgraduate course in social and cultural studies. At present I have just taken up the post of lecturer in English at the University of Malawi in East Africa."

EPIPHANY FOR ALIENS.

David Kerr .

Gavino offered them homemade wine in his cool stone hovel, and they looked out at the mountains, arid and dazzling in the sunlight. They listened to Gavino rambling about the attacks.

"Everybody's got theories about them. That reporter thinks they're brigands. D'y'ever hear of brigands stealing hens when there's all these tourists camping around with fat wallets and bare a.r.s.es? Beg your pardon, marm. In St. Florent they think they're bears come down from the mountains. The police think they're Arab fanatics from Porto Vecchio."

"I still think they're wogs."

"Racist pig," Denise said, goading Piron, as she had all morning.

"The professor here thinks they're human beings. But I know the truth. They're ghosts, ghosts of the Muroni family, wiped out by my great grandfather in Buonoparte's time. They come from h.e.l.l through a hole in Monte Robbia smelling of sulphur..."

Eventually Morrisot got Gavino to show them from the window, the direction to take to find the caves. They decided it would be better to observe from the mountain opposite before they approached the caves.

Sliding down steep screes, staggering along the dried-up Fiume Zente-the whole gorge a lake of trapped heat-they realized it was a mistake in full daylight. Piron was no mountain guide and they feared starting a landslide. Morrisot thought of tourists at lie Rousse, only 15 kilometres away sipping chilled anisette under cool shades.

They didn't need to reach the summit of Monte Geneva. From the northeast slope they could see the signs of human habitation they were seeking, but hardly dared hope to find. Two-thirds up the mountain, beneath the steep cliff of the summit, there were three black holes, discernible through the binoculars as the entrances to caves. There was a rough track leading down to the Fiume Zente, and another spiraling round Monte Robbia to the summit. Slight wisps of smoke from a dead fire were the only signs of life.