things,” he repeated, then fired up the bowl and took a long deep pull. He handed me the pipe which now contained nothing but pale gray ashes.
“Here take a hit,” he muttered, holding in his toke.
You didn’t get high smoking with Old Dad, but that was okay because usually you didn’t want to be high and hear what he had to say and tonight was definitely no exception.
“Hollywood is a decadent, old whore,” he philosophized, “and there’s only one way to make it in this town and that’s you gotta kiss the old whore’s ass! Yep, kiss it right, dead square in the middle. I told you that years ago but you didn’t listen. Now I’m directing my third feature and you’re still waiting to get paid. Do you know why? ‘Cause you ain’t got down on your knees and puckered up.”
This was Old Dad’s version of a pep talk. If I let him, he would drag on for hours.
“I hate to interrupt you but I’ve heard this speech before and unless you got something you’re building up to …”
“Damn right I’m building up to something! Witchcraft! The Oracula Malefactorum! Right here in the Hollywood Hills!”
The Oracula Malefactorum was the ancient ceremony that sealed the witch’s pact with the devil. It involved kissing the devil’s asshole. The significance of the ritual came from the medieval concept that man was the image of God. Satan, therefore, was God’s excrement, hell was God’s bowels, so the gate of hell – God’s asshole. Hence, the witch’s fascination with the excretory system and its products. Aleister Crowley lived for many months in Mexico on the dung of diseased prostitutes in order to gain the Serpent’s Kiss—a bite so toxic he could cause sickness just by breaking the skin with his sharpened canines. In his letter, Paps had mentioned the children’s peculiar attitude towards feces.
I was adding these things up in my mind while Old Dad, who had stood for his declaration of witchcraft, settled back down to his bed and his pipe. He took another deep pull and handed me the burned out bowl.
“Do you know what evil is?”
He spoke to himself more than to me.
“Evil is a wind, it’s like the jet stream in the atmosphere, the atmost- fear. The human spirit is like a wing set in that stream of power and the tilt of the wing determines its physical manifestation, do you follow me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
“You remember that fat kid down in Miama, now that’s a good example, you see, his wing was tipped up, like this,”
Old Dad held his hand at a forty-five degree angle.
“ …into the stream causing the power to swirl around and around and create this big, fat ball of greed at the lowest possible level of eating and shitting.”
“This IS leading somewhere, right?”
Old Dad chuckled to himself then slowly turned and stared that dead stare of his right into my eyes, as if he were looking for the back of my head.
“I’m about to enter a very powerful part of that jet stream of evil, man, I’ve been invited by people I cannot refuse.”
His lips trembled as he spoke now.
“I want you to go with me. Your wing is set straight, like this.”
He held his hand level.
“Evil flows over and past you, for some reason, like it doesn’t know you’re there. I need you with me, to hold me level.” He turned back to his pipe, “The stream is powerful enough, where we’re going, to flip me over and suck me right down.”
“And where are WE going?”
Old Dad smiled to himself, took another pull and passed me the empty bowl.
“There’s a coven up here in the hills—big time, heavy names, people who run this town—and I’ve been invited to a landmark meeting: THE FEAST OF THE BEAST. Only happens every twenty-eight years. I can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like but I do know that at their regular weekly meetings they have a human sacrifice.”
I knew I didn’t want to be stoned when I heard what he had to say.
“Wait a minute, you’re telling me wealthy, intelligent, highly-placed people, in the show business community, are involved in some crazy Mansonesque rituals up here in the hills?”
“Manson was small potatoes. I told you, this ain’t candles and chanting. This is not a test. I been INVITED.” Old Dad looked at me, slowly smiling that demented Santa Claus smile of his. “Well, can I count on you?”
“What’d they invite you to do—bring the victim?”
Old Dad laughed like a bowl full of jelly, “Nooooo…No…man… They get drifters for that—pretty little teenage runaways, milk carton kids, unwanted babies, nameless, faceless.” He scooted over on the bed and put his arm around my shoulders. “You hurt me by saying that; why you’re family, you damn near raised Stony.” His touch was not comforting. “No—I need an anchor here, that’s all. Here, let me fill that bowl up for ya’ with some of this good-good Highwayman, four-hundred smackers an ounce smoke.” He is planning to kill me, I thought.
“You want a little tootski?”
I wanted a little outski. I began planning a graceful exit as Old Dad produced a mirror, from under the bed, with rows of white powder on it. He did a couple of quick snorts and offered me the mirror.
“Listen man, research Satanic rituals for me and give me some background on this stuff; I can’t afford to look stupid here. Watta’ ya’ say?”
“Not for love or money.”
Old Dad solemnly withdrew the mirror; my answer had offended him. I stood up just as Katey returned—rubbing the radar in her nose that had told her the lines were out again.
“Am I interrupting something?” She purred as she settled down at Old Dad’s feet.
“No, I was just leaving.”
“Do that research for me, man, I’ll pay ya’ good money.”
“Right.”
I kept moving toward the door.
“That party’s coming up real soon.” I turned back to Old Dad, Katey had her nose buried in the white stuff; Old Dad was patting her head gently. He looked up at me and smiled, “Call me.”
The ride back down the hill seemed darker than the ride up. Maybe it should have. I kept hearing moans and wails coming from the black hills, sounds that told me it was time to get out of Dodge. I felt like a magi leaving Herod’s palace with the screams of the slaughtered innocents ringing in his psychic ears, hoping to find another way home.
CHAPTER THREE
IN SEARCH OF ASYLUM
THE SUNRISE WAS GRAY, chilly—almost, almost Fall. I didn’t go home after I left Old
