Robert Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"It's alive, baby," Simon repeated, "it's alive. And I love you, baby, even if you are a cop."

("The whole lake is alive," the vibe man with the Fillet of Soul was trying to explain to the rest of that group, "one big spiral rising and turning, like the DNA molecule, but with a hawk's head at the top…")

"Good evening, Waterhouse," said Pearson. "How's my gal, Stella?"

"Where the fuck do you get off calling her your girl?" said Waterhouse, his tone containing nothing but menace.

"Cool it brother," said Pearson reasonably.

"Don't hand me that brother shit. I asked you a question."

"You and your question come out of a weak, limp bag," said Pearson.

Hagbard said, "Robert only fucks white women, Otto. I'm sure he's never laid Stella Maris."

"Don't be too sure," said Pearson.

"Don't play with Otto, Robert," said Hagbard. "He specializes in killing black men. In fact, he's only just killed his first white man, and he's not at all sure he enjoyed it."

"I never knew what killing was before," said Waterhouse. "I was crazy all those years, and I enjoyed what I did because I didn't know what I was doing. After I killed Flanagan I understood what I'd been doing all along, and it was like I killed all the others all over again." His cheeks were wet, and he turned away.

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 tlack 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.