Harlan Ellison: Spider Kiss

He is something larger than life when he sings.

Even standing in front of a brain-dead, rowdy, inattentive, hungover derelict crowd in a shitty strip joint, in front of the roughest audience imaginable—make-out artists, hookers, tourists, winos, psychos, perverts, Shriners, screamers, loud old ladies, deadbeats without honor and drenched in boredom and cynicism—a Roman Coliseum crowd that wanted bare tits, bear-baiting, and disembowelments—he had a potent holding power with his voice. How he had done it, slashed that way, Shelly could not imagine. But he had done it. He had trained himself to sing around the broken areas. He commanded, he ruled, he subjugated that rabble.

Shelly felt his mouth beginning to water. There it was, the power, the inarticulate monarchial power that Stag had always possessed. The rabble listened . No matter how stupid or blasé or tone-deaf, they heard him. Not just between their ears, but in the marrow, in the DNA of dead fingernails, to the roots of their pubic hair. Like a prime number, Stag Preston’s necromancy stood alone, undimmed by space or time or previous condition of servitude. There it was, that damned talent, ability, artistry, conjuration … whatever the hell it was, there it was . And Shelly felt his mouth actually begin to water.

Somehow, by dint of work and sweat and naked rage at having his kingship wrested from him, the naked hunger for revenge, for the sweetness that came only with getting back everything taken from him … and more … a bit more than the best, the top, the ultimate, a bit of lagniappe … Stag Preston had done what legions of Olympic athletes could not do, what armies of showbiz-hungry starlets could not do, what pantheons of rejected gods could not do: he had managed to transcend disaster, had bared his fangs and chewed his way out of defeat, had clubbed and eviscerated and smashed in the skull of the Just Desserts life had visited on him. He had pissed on the floor of Heaven. He had beaten God. He had throttled Justice and all those concepts of evil-gets-its-comeuppance. Stag Preston had managed to train his damaged vocal cords. He had screwed the odds and transcended disaster, had shaped his own destiny once again.

He wasn’t as wildly infectious as before, but he wasn’t a kid any more. Shelly watched as that rabble in the strip joint became one with Stag, watched as they paid the price and he owned them.

There wasn’t a sliver of doubt in Shelly’s mind that Stag could be huge again, bigger than before, because not only did he have that genuine magic not even pukey music critics could attack, but now he had the potential for being the Very Essence of The Comeback Kid. His story was sensational. Down, all the way down. Cut and sliced and flushed. But back! Back again and better than before, more mature than before, stronger than before because of his travail, his tragedy, his pitiful fall and determined, anguished rise. Not a sliver of doubt: Stag Preston could be on top again, more powerful and important than before … and all he needed was that one tiny break. That gimme-a-shot that he wanted more than his soul, or his posterity, or a light to guide him through the darkness.

Not a sliver, shard, scintilla of doubt, because Shelly was there seeing how the rabble listened, absorbed, just purely dug it. Fingernails, palates, to the roots of their hair.

Stag could be back … and Shelly could go all the way.

He was one with the rabble, he was part of that single giant ear that was tuned only to Stag Preston, part of that gestalt the singer created when he worked a crowd. Shelly was one with him again, once more in the bear-pit, down there with the rabble that loved Stag, wanted only to be ear-fucked by him till the end of eternity…

And then the Angel of Truth touched Shelly Morgenstern with her magic wand. In a heartbeat, the Good Blue Fairy sprinkled him with mind-awakening dream-dust, and he knew in that instant the true nature of the epiphany he had been seeking.

The rabble.

He had thought of them as the rabble . The herd. The pig crowd that could be bought with a song. He had become one with Stag Preston, indeed. He had thought through Stag’s mind, had seen through Stag’s eyes, had reviled the rest of humanity as the rabble, just as Stag did.

In that Angel of Truth, Blue Fairy, Delphic Oracle clarity Shelly understood exactly how dangerous Stag really was. Because Stag owned him , had always owned a piece of him, the best piece of him. He despised what he had done, what he had become in Stag’s service, because he was no better than the monster he had served.

His mouth stopped watering at the potentiality of success greater than before. His mouth went dry.

He gulped at the Tornado that had sat unnoticed on the table, but the dryness in his mouth remained. He sat there ashamed to his soul, frightened of his thoughts and desires, petrified with horror at how close he had come, how easy it would have been, how much he wanted it.

Stag was that part of him that had succeeded, that had transcended life and capacity and insecurity and even tragedy and the hot blood of his own destiny. Stag was that part of the failure named Morgenstern that could not be intimidated. And he wanted that Mr. Hyde to rule, to subjugate the rabble.

If he could have cried, if he’d known where to search inside himself for the purity that would permit tears, he would have dropped his face onto his forearms and cried like a coward.

But he was trapped inside Shelly Morgenstern and didn’t know where to find the key to let himself out of solitary, to find that purity that permits absolution.

And Stag was riding out the end of his song. He chorded a finish and left the small stage with the audience of drunks and slatterns and boastful bullies and insipid tourists banging glasses, tapping swizzle sticks, clapping hands, whistling with little fingers in the corners of mouths, cheering and hooting and begging to be allowed to rejoin the great meat gestalt again!

Stag had intended a demonstration. He had provided the parting of the Red Sea during the Second Coming as a prelude to The Rapture and Armageddon.

Stag plowed through the hands trying to touch and congratulate him and made it to Shelly’s table. He leaned the Gibson against the wall and sat down. Looking smug. Stag ruled. He hunched toward Shelly and the smile of power, of satisfaction was there, just the way it had been so long ago. He wasn’t a shadow, nervous, unsure, unable to gain the right feeling for the situation. Stag ruled. He had done the one thing in this life he was able to do better than anyone else, and now he wanted to throw it at Shelly.

Just as he had, almost ten years before, in a hotel room in Louisville, Kentucky. He was older; he was wearier; but he was still Stag Preston.

“Well … ?” He grinned imperiously. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Shelly smiled and felt his gut constricting; the kid was going to say it. Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it, I may not be strong enough, it’s been a hard fight, I don’t want to re-enter that arena. I’m not strong enough to fight them off any more. The animals still prowl, they just don’t like my brand of flesh. Please…

“You gonna help me, Shelly?”

He had asked, was asking again:

“You gonna help me get outta here, get back on the track? We can make a mint, Shel baby. I know I got it again. I’ve been workin’ the toilets for about eight months now, just seeing if I could put myself in shape, and I’m ready. I’m really ready. Whaddaya think?”

Answering was difficult, he was so frightened. It would be so easy. So terrifyingly easy. Was this the way the bombardier had felt as he sighted on Hiroshima in his Norden, got ready to send that first hell bomb on its way? Was this the feeling: