The Boom that Came to Sarnath, Part 4

Being a Serial in Four Parts

It was, then, with some anxiousness that I set out from my apartment on the following night, with records in hand. Betraying my general custom, I left on time.

My friend met me at his door. Again, this was anomalous behavior, as his customary manner of greeting guests involved wordlessly triggering the electronic buzzing of the intercom device that opened the outer door, before leaving the door to his apartment ajar, whilst he resumed whatever activity he had been enjoying before his visitors arrived. But tonight he cordially said hello, both through his intercom system and at the threshold of his apartment door, where I found him, even paler and sweatier then the last time we had met, waiting for me, as I ascended the aged rattling staircase that lie in his building. When taken in concert, his gasping open-mouthed breathing along with his bulging, unblinking eyes, lent to him a vaguely unpleasant thalassic aspect.

I was ushered into his living room, the familiar untidiness of which was comforting to me. At least that had not changed. I was offered a seat on the very same sofa where the wager, which had seemed to cause so many strange and troubling events to occur, and found it as moth-eaten as ever. I was asked for, and produced, the bootlegged recordings.

“Ah yes… You’ve brought the bootlegs then. Did you make show sure not to tell anyone about this as I asked you? Good. I hope you’ll forgive me foh what might seem like paranoid foibles on my part—and for all off the other weird shite recently. Eet’s been rather a buggah off a time here with all of this. But you’ll understand soon. But first let me put one off these things on. And go get yoself a be-ah. Got some microbrewery swill. ‘Sposed to actually be good. Oh no, I won’t be having any at the moment. Still recovering from last night. Go on and try one of those ‘tho.”

I found the kitchen as grimy as ever, but strangely enough, the refrigerator bore an apparently untouched case of some curiously unfamiliar micro-brew. I found myself fortunate that its label did not say anything about mention the use of extra hops in brewing. While that trend has been interesting and produced some fine libations, it has also led to unfortunate and unimaginative abuses. Here, however, was a stout. I glanced more carefully at the label, trying to remember the name of the brewery for future reference. It contained the word ”mouth” Unfortunately, other more horrific memories seemed to have driven what remains of its name from my memory.

When I returned, I found him huddled over the stack of compact disks I’d brought w/ me. He clutched at one jewel case and then placed the disk carefully in the player, as ‘tho it were of great value, (and I did, in fact, spend more money on it than was warranted). Immediately, shockingly alien droning issued from the speakers of his stereo. He smiled at me with a strange ecstasy.

“There now. Isn’t that nice?”

He motioned for me to sit and then joined me at the other side of the couch.

“Well then, I think you know something of hypnomonotony? Let’s start there… Through the channeling of certain forces facilitated by the use of immensely potent opiates, musical adepts have been able to warp the structure of reality itself—most notably Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. And yet, some listeners still find Spacemen 3 repellent and/or boring, as does the music journalism establishment. But what did Spacemen 3 do that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible … Mouth-breathers, monstrosities, star-spawn—whatever they had been, they were men!

“Of cose sum who pursue musical esoterica, can feel the pull of certain droning gulfs beyond the senses of humankind. (Except, obviously, they can be heard. Guess I fucked up mate harhar har!) Just remember that their chalky pallor and fungoid teeth aren’t really terrible. They only seem that way to us.

Here—light that joint there would you? Quite suspect you’ll enjoy it. No, none for me. I had too much earlier, don’t you know? Gonna wait a lil’ bit)

“What can one say of the majesty of ancient Rugby, the name-giver of The Sport? Or of the wonders of many-terraced Bl’ak-glur’k, where the Ten Thousandth High Priest sacrifices 69 souls each year, by live burning and colostomies, to the Ancient Elder Outer Godlike Ones, where Sonic Boom sometimes hallucinates he is after smoking opium? God! Their grasp of music is infinitely beyond that of most rock bands. Do you know that they came to America before Slowdive? You remember what is said of the split Mudhoney/Spacemen 3 single? Sonic Boom’s rage against Mudhoney’s cover of “Revolution?” (That’s right. Toke away. Don’t be so self-conscious, you git! Alright? Alright.)”

The cannabis to me still tasted somewhat sour, but given my friend’s admonishments for me to enjoy it, I followed the example of our former leader Bill Clinton in only pretending to inhale as he spoke. As such, I noticed few effects, aside from a mild headache and a vague drowsiness.

“I have learned how certain drones, channeled at specific frequencies, thus stirring the pineal gland. It is then touched by cosmotrippyish waves that awaken the third-eye of said brain, allowing its owner to view ineffable visions that can guide he/she to Dream-Gates of Narm-Nark. One must pass certain, charnel pits containing Blekkity-Blook-Blekks. What monstrosities! Wait till you see one… Yes, Steve, I would like you to accompany me on a trip very soon. It is quite safe—the only dangers, really, being less-than-mortal—they are only a threat to the mind, but then I feel you are ready, given you appreciation of Spacemen 3, ‘tho I think you see differently now, when you hear some of their more obscure disks that I have managed to find by searching through the mind-numbing depths of eBay…”

And so he went on, and as we sat, playing those cursed Spacemen 3 bootlegs, for the next 3 hours, I was immersed in a black bog of madness. I learned many secrets that I shall never speak of, though I fear that many of them may be known soon to all. The sciences and record companies each, in their own way, have directed the evolution of sane human civilization toward a lighthouse of oblivion—or worse. But I shall not hasten the progress of humankind along this precipitous ledge, with Stygian abysses all around it. When I complete this log I will bury it, ‘tho not until it is checked for spelling and grammar.

I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But my life may not be long. I know too much, and the cult of Spacemen 3 fans still lives.

But I must continue this narrative to its end. My friend was speaking further of the journey he would make with the guidance of the visionaries Kember and Pierce, and of similar later trips that he hoped I might take part in, when, quite thankfully, the chain of his revelations broke.

“Wait uh sec then. I gotta use the loo. Might be gone a minute. Think a big shite might be cummin’ outta me bum. Right?”

Uncertain if I should assent to such an assertion, I simply nodded with downturned eyes.

“Glad to see you’ve finished that fag o’ Mary Jane, incidentally. (As we Brits call it! I mean, Brit-o-philes! I mean Anglophiles! Whutta malapropism, right?)”

And then he was gone.

I crushed the roach into the ashtray—having smoked virtually none of it, despite my polite puffing—and shivered—not just at the cosmic weirdness to which I had been made privy, but also to the appearance of another hazily ominous verbal tic exhibited by my friend.

I was stunned, uncertain of the benefit or plausibility of escape. All around me damnable, ineffable dread rose up. I was grateful then for my friend’s momentary departure, as allowed, not just for an of escape from these revelations of horror, but for a chance to plot some sort of leave-taking that would not seem neither frenzied, nor impolite. (‘Tho traditionally rudeness had been a hallmark of our relationship, it seemed now to be proscribed against, except in the lamest of Anglophilliac manners.) And it was then, just as I was plotting my escape that I heard that faint, that damnable sound: a scratching in the hallway.

Something in its nature—and in its location—down the hallway, past the restroom in which my friend now lurked—drew me so that, inexplicably, I found myself wandering in that direction. As I drew closer to the source, a certain scratching element, suggestive of fingernails near the bottom of the door, grew apparent within it. I found myself leaning down to consider it more closely and heard an even more fearsome whimpering.

I hesitated for a moment at the threshold of that bedroom door. An abysmal fear led me to consider leaving without explanation or further discussion. Brushing aside other more trivial concerns, ( e.g. the possibility that a person behind the door might be in need of help,) another part of my mind reasoned that such a course of action would withhold final knowledge of the damnable forces at work in my friend’s life and within the hateful music of Spacemen 3—forces to which I had provided access to the sane world around me. It was clear to me then that I must open the door—to move further into the shrieking gulfs of awareness of what I had conceived of the wager and of my taste in music—in hopes of dispelling the intelligences I had stirred.

Beyond that door I found what the police have chosen to ignore. They have accused me of an unmotivated killing—the killing of a close friend—and yet they cannot explain the abomination found in that accursed bedroom! The payment of my bail has liberated me for the moment from these false charges. Legal threats await me still, but far worse than simple murder are the horrors beyond life’s edge that we do not suspect, and once in a while man’s evil prying calls them just within our range. Kember—Sonic Boom—that devil called them in, and they engulfed my friend as they are engulfing me.

Can I be sure that I am safe? Those powers survive the life of the physical form. Another friend of mine, an attorney, (despite his sorta high character,) has, thus far, used his professional connections to throw suspicion away from me, though it was, of course, my revolver that brought this horror down—for my friend’s sake, and for the world’s sake, but can I be sure till he is cremated? They are keeping his body for some silly autopsies by different doctors—but I say he must be cremated. He must be cremated. I shall go mad if he is not, for I may be the next. But my will is not weak—and I shall not let it be undermined by the terrors I know are seething around it. One life—Pete Kember—Sonic Boom, and my friend—who now? I will not be driven out of my body… I will not change souls with that snaggle-toothed lich in the city morgue!

But let me try to tell coherently of that final horror. I will not speak of what the police persistently ignored—the tales of that grotesque, malodorous, Britannic thing in the bedroom—I will only describe what it, with its tremulous stupefacient hand, analgesically extended from that withered body, left as it had been in opiate befuddlement for untold days or weeks, and bearing that foetid, unspeakable, undulate, sweaty visage known to all of us who have too many Spacemen-3 records!

And yet the evident, monstrous weakness of the figure in front of me, sprawled amongst dirty laundry on the floor, combined with its piteous, imploring expression combined so as to cause me to refrain from retreating, but rather to reach forward and accept what was a grimy scrap of paper. On it, a panicky, almost illegible scrawl read:

“Kill it dude. It’s not me. Exterminate it. It’s got me—it’s Sonic Boom—and his career has been dead for 15 years… …God knows what they—the Spacemen 3 fans—will do.

At first, I just thought my mind had been numbed by all that feedback and endless purposeless droning. But I felt the tugging at my brain. I knew what it was. A soul like Kember’s—or Sonic Boom’s—is half-detached, and keeps right on after people stop buying its new records, as long as the body lasts. The drugs were wearing him out, and he couldn’t go on, but somehow when I began listening to so much Spacemen 3—so damnably much—I gave him a way in. He was getting me—making me change bodies with him—seizing my body and putting me in that horribly pale, clammy corpse body of his.

I knew what was coming—that’s why I snapped and the night you came to pick me up at the Empty Bottle. Then it came—I found myself choked in the dark—in this reeking room in a perpetual opiate daze.

I heard it planning and talking to you on the phone. I know you’re coming over tonight, but it’s no use. It watches me too closely, and I’m too far gone to talk to you anyway—but I can still write and bring you this last word of warning. Kill that fiend if you value the peace and comfort of the world. See that it is cremated. If you don’t, it will live on, body to body forever, despite the horrible somnolence of its musical fortunes.

Keep clear of droning meandery guitar music, Steve, it’s the devil’s business.

Tell the police whatever they’ll believe—and I hope you’re fuckin’ sorry you dragged me into all this. That music—how does it work? It’s crappy, but still you can't git away - draws ya - ya know sumthin’s comin' but tain't no use –But I’ll be at peace before long—this thing won’t hold together much more. Hope you can read this. And kill that thing—kill it.”

It was only when I shudderingly lowered the sheet of paper that I saw that that which had been Sonic Boom, and later my friend, was dead.

What more can I say of my behavior thereafter? The police record states it: I went to my coat and removed the firearm that, as a private investigator, I always bear. Then I waited outside the restroom, while that which appeared to be my friend—all too convincingly as far as the law is concerned—moved its bowels, and then I shot it in its face. Six or seven times. (Did I say only six before? Guess I lost count…) Then I changed clips and blew his head off some more. I blew his head off a lot, going through several clips. I went on for about 3 hours—by this time I was mostly just shooting a puddle of gore that lined some crisp burnt carpet on the hallway floor—and but I woulda kept going anyway, but some asshole had called the cops, who'd actually been there for a while, watching, cuzz, you know, whitish-reddish sludge fulla powdery brain fragments flying into the air and then plopping and running along the floor is sorta compelling somehow, but now it was gettin' sorta played out, and they decided to arrest me for murdering my friend, which I think, was sorta overreacting on their part.

The last sounds I heard in that hateful, unclean apartment were the thudding footsteps of the police officers and myself as we trod gloomily down the hallway toward the warped, ill-carpeted staircase, and into the Stygian night—that focus of transcosmic horror—amidst the lonely, quiet, and half-gentrified condos—and the nearby, curse-muttering traffic of a spectral street ahead.

I had lost a sorta OK but not esp. good friend, and with an awesome dread, I now understood the horrors encroaching all around us. On the plus side ‘tho, I got to keep my Strat…

The Boom that Came to Sarnath, Part 3

Being a Serial in Four Parts

For some time after that, I heard nothing from my friend. Electronic messages were unanswered and voice mailed greetings were left unreturned. I found myself possessed by a vague implacable fear, such that I could no longer allay by any means. The services of Abe were no longer to be had. It seemed, his somewhat uncouth wife revealed to me in a gummatous accent, that he had fallen very ill. He had drifted out of and into consciousness and had run a high fever for several days. It occurred to me that this was, no doubt, a ploy to avoid repaying the moneys I had given him w/ the agreed-upon-services, but I refrained from pressing the matter, as the relief I felt at the discontinuation of his occasional company would be compensation enough.

It was April 30^th, the night of the dread Roodmas of witches, at which time, it is whispered, hellish rituals are enacted and congress with certain dark intelligences is achieved, when stark, utter horror burst over me and weighted my spirit with a black, clutching panic from which it can never again shake free. I found myself alone at home, nursing a pint of Russian spirits and studying the obscene works of Russ Meyers. I found myself so relaxed by the vodka and so immersed in the unwholesomely suggestive images and stupendously stupid story of the Meyer films that I remained unaware of my telephone’s ringing until the call was repeated for the sixth time—the caller, a bartender at the Empty Bottle saloon, having counted despite the boisterousness of her alcoholic, beer-goggling clientele. She was calling concerning an inebriate who’d stumbled out of the men’s room with delirious ravings and screamed to me for protection. It was my friend, and he had been just able to recall his own name and the number of my cellular telephone set.

The Empty Bottle is close to what used to be some of the most ominous post-industrial territory, that has now been loathsomely transformed by re-gentrification into a even more monstrous landscape of yuppie abominations, and it took three quarters of an hour of feverish across jolting through weird and ominous vistas to get there on the el. I found my friend at an unstable and sticky table where the bartender had reluctantly allowed him to sit until I arrived, vacillating between frenzy and apathy. He knew me at once, and began pouring out a meaningless, half-incoherent torrent of words in my direction.

"Steve, shit! The pit of China Blue! The six thousand EPs... the abomination of abominations: Spiritualized! I never would let you make me a mix-tape, and then I found myself there – Lord take me to the other side! - The shape rose up from the stage and there were five hundred that howled - The Uncombed Thing bleated 'Kember! Kember' - that was Sonic Boom's secret name – They’re coming back once more: a reunion tour! A minute before I was locked in the bathroom, reading The New Yorker on the toilet (because, like, who can stand to read that pompous piece of shit at any other time?) and then I was there where he had gone with my body - in the place of utter blasphemy, the unholy pit where the droning begins and the security guy guards the door - I saw an uncircumcised penis - it changed shape - I can't stand it - I'll kill him if he ever sends me there again - I'll kill that entity -him, it - I'll kill it! "

It took me an hour and several bottles of Huber Bock to quiet him, but he subsided at last, and I set out with him for his apartment. His fury of hysteria was spent, and he was inclined to be silent, though he began muttering darkly to himself when the train passed the when the train passed through Lincoln Square, as if the sight of the neighborhood aroused unpleasant visions within him, but then he always did that.

As the elevated train proceeded through the twilight, however, the muttering grew ever more distinct, and as I listened I caught a stream of utterly insane drivel about Spacemen 3, and in particular about Sonic Boom. The extent to which he had preyed on my friend's nerves was plain, for he had woven a whole set of morbid hallucinations around the reclusive madman. Sonic Boom was getting hold of him, and my friend knew that some day he would never let go. Even now the Englishman probably let him go only when he had to, because he couldn't hold on long at a time.

Sonic Boom constantly took his body and went to nameless places for nameless rock shows, leaving my friend in Sonic Boom’s own fishy pale body and locking him in the bedroom of my friend’s apartment—but sometimes he couldn't hold on, and he would find himself suddenly in his own body again in some far-off, horrible, and perhaps unknown place. Sometimes Sonic Boom get hold of him again and sometimes he couldn't. Often he was left stranded somewhere, disoriented, as I had found him—and really, really high—time and again he had to find his way home from frightful performance venues.

Then the thing happened. My friend’s voice was rising to a thin girly scream as he whined, when suddenly it was snapped off with an almost mechanical click. The face beside me was twisted almost unrecognizably for a moment, while through the whole body there passed a shivering motion—as if all the bones, organs, muscles, nerves, and glands were adjusting themselves to monstrous chemical alterations, radically bad posture, and unpleasant changes in general personality.

Just where the supreme horror lay, I could not for my life tell; yet there swept over me such a swamping wave of sickness and repulsion—such a freezing, petrifying sense of utter alienage and abnormality–that my grasp of the handrail grew feeble and uncertain. I had faltered only a moment, but in that time, my companion had seized an ambiguously vacated seat and forced me to change places with a disoriented bum.

In the lights of Wicker Park I saw his firmly set mouth, and shivered at the blaze of his eyes. Abe was right - he did look damnably like some Saxon scion when in these moods. I did not wonder that the moods were disliked by Abe—there was certainly something unnatural in them, and I felt the sinister element all the more because of the wild ravings I had been hearing. This man, for all my lifelong knowledge of my friend, was a stranger—an intrusion of some sort from the mid-Atlantic abyss.

Then he spoke, and his voice seemed utterly unfamiliar. It was mush-mouthed but firmer, and more decisive than I had ever known it to be; while its accent and pronunciation were altogether changed. There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine indolence in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly druggy pseudo-shiftlessness of the callow Anglo-"slacker," which my friend had been affecting, but something assured, basic, pervasive, and potentially high. I was dumbfounded by this self-possession coming so soon after the bout of terrified maundering.

"I hope you'll forget my attack back there, Forceman," he was saying. "You know how fried my nerves are, and I guess you can excuse such things. I'm enormously grateful, of course, for this help home.

"And you must forget, too, any crazy things I may have been saying about Sonic Boom—and about Spacemen 3 in general. Those records are full of bizarre concepts, and when the mind gets worn out it cooks up all sorts of imaginary concrete applications. (Or would that be concrete imaginary applications? Seems to be a bit o’ a oxymoron, it does. Hurm har har.) I shall take a rest from now on—you probably won't see me for some time, and you needn't blame yourself for it.

I do not recall how I responded, for the stupefying alienage of my seatmate commandeered all of my awareness. With every moment my feeling of elusive cosmic horror increased, till at length I was in a virtual delirium of longing for the end of the ride.

My friend left the train turnstile with a brisk repetition of his thanks, and I headed home alone with a curious feeling of relief. It had been a horrible ride—all the more horrible because I could not quite tell why it was horrible—horrifically enough—and I did not regret my friend's forecast of a long absence from my company.

Some weeks passed, and again I found myself consumed by occupational activities. A difficult theft investigation was carried off satisfactorily, while a seemingly routine missing person case slipped away into frustration. I couldn’t help but wonder if this last engagement had been a victim of a growing distraction on my part. Although there was no discernable reason to do so, I found myself preoccupied by a growing sense of faint, infinitely deep horror which I could not explain.

Despite his silence, my friend’s presence haunted my thoughts. The image of him as I had last seen him, in that strangely Saxon energized state would not be pried from my mind’s eye. It was almost without surprise then that his electronic message was received by me. I shall quote it in full, as I feel that last weird communiqué is far too important to be abbreviated in any way:

Steven Forceman, Private Investigator

55 E Washington Avenue

Suite 69

Chicago, Illinois 60602

My ol’ mate Steve Forceman, P.I.,

Yull be happy to know that I’m awn th’ mend. Astoundin’ what uh bit o’ tea and crumpets’ll do for yeh, roit? (And heroin, natchrilly. Ho ho ho—I do say, that’s jolly good).

Anyway, yuh sod. Way yeh been lurtly? Doin’ a bunk? Getting ‘bout ready to tell yeh to shagg oaf.

Seein’ as I’m feelin’ like I’m back in my lorries, how ‘bout you come by then? Still nout quite up to snuff, (‘tho I woont say no to a good snort. Hyow hurm hug huh, jolly good, what,) or I’d come to yo flat. We cood listen to Spacemen 3 ahnd maybe smoke a bowl and like that. I wuzz completely wrong about Spacemen 3, by the way. The wager’s awf, ez fah ez I can see et. You can keep yo Feender.

Mattah o’ fact, I’ve gaught some things to tell you about Spacemen 3 that will explain my recent nervousness—arising as it did, from a glimpse of enlightenment—one that I have only now digested, leading to vistas of cosmic wonder that I cannot express, but hope to reveal to you as they have been revealed to me.

By listening to the music Spacemen 3, I’ve discovered certain energies in it. As I know you have read the some of the most truly blasphemous esoteric literature like the mad rock critic Lester Bangs’s unspeakable “A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise,” I suspect you are capable of grasping certain concepts that are vastly outside the radius of our common knowledge and belief, ideas for instance, relating to the precepts of hypnomonotony.

Have you ever considered what bizarre pharmaceutical concepts guided the recording and mixing of An Evening of Sitar Music, what alien amplifiers Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce used on the version of “Losing Touch with My Mind” that appears on Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to? I’ve found it Steve! I’ve found all of it.

So let’s hang out then, mate. Whatta bout tomorrow night, say 8 or so? Lemme know if the time’s bad. Otherwise, I’ll see you then.

Oh and one last thing, could you bring all yo Spacemen 3 bootlegs with you? Et wuzz real good uh you to leave them out uf th’ wager…

The admixture of emotions I experienced on reading this correspondence is difficult to describe. To mention awe and foreboding would fall hopelessly short of the true feelings I experienced. There was, of course, a vague sense of vast wonder, as an intellect such as my own, ever in seek of the esoteric truths to be found in annoying music, was powerfully drawn to the visions—or rather the squeals and drones and mumbling—that my friend promised—so potent that they had led to his recent mental breakdown and subsequent aberrant behavior.

Only then was I able to see that the frenzied behavior exhibited by my friend at the Empty Bottle, while peculiarly nervous in nature, had been the only time when he had seemed “normal” to me for some time, perhaps since we had undertaken our newly dismissed wager. In my other dealings with him, for reasons lurking behind his new awkwardly embarrassing “accent,” he’d filled me not just with perplexity, but with a subtly vague sense of morbid alienage and a dim if potent feeling of lurking dread.

But what fears should my friend’s difference stir in me? The passion for the unknown that drives me flared up to meet his, and I sensed I was being touched by the infection of the psychedelic barrier-breaking. Shaking, like Sonic Boom, so that the dull gray limits of time and space and narcotic law were sloughed off- taking it to the ineffable Other Side—of course such a thing was worth almost any hazard!

The Boom that Came to Sarnath, Part 2

Being a Serial in Four Parts

In the time I had known him, my friend’s night-blooming disposition had been quite reliable. Quite often had we indulged in lengthy telephoned conversational analyses of syndicated episodes of Gilligan’s Island or Good Times, (including erotic speculations concerning Thelma, Ginger, Maryanne, and, in our most morbid moments, Lovey Howell,) the broadcasted declaiming of televangelists, or the live sales of such product as knick knacks, starter coin collections, and, of course, sets of kitchen knives. Thus I found it quite strange, one witching hour, when I telephoned my friend, only to find him asleep! And if that were not sufficiently outlandish, his manner of speaking seemed to reprise the caricatures he had left on my answering machine, as previously mentioned.

“’Allo, then? Now ‘oo thee ‘ell is this?”

However, these alien inflections were seemingly different than those he had used previously. They were damnably suggestive of an authentic Anglican accent.

I was on the verge of identifying myself, but, before my vocal mechanisms could be put into motion, found myself the target of a stern rebuke.

I was asked whether I was aware of the time of day, or if, in fact, the employment of a clock had ever been taught me. An inquiry was made as to my potential “’alf-witted” nature. Assessments of the various uses I put my “bum” to, as well as of my presumed affection for bulls’ testicles were carefully outlined. It was only a mouth-breathing intake of air on his part that allowed me to assert who I was. I was comforted by the fact that no warm greeting was offered. That, at least, had not changed.

I asked my friend if he had been sleeping.

“Of course I been sleepin’? ‘Ave you looked at the clock? Shagass!”

‘Tho this last word seemed curiously out of place, I focused on the clockface found on the center of my video disk player, useless for two months prior, as a movie had become wedged inside it. A cruel turn of fate had it that the film in question was Grumpier Old Men, which, in the sort of herbal-smoking haze often conjured in the poetry of Lord Dunsany, I had ordered from Netflix. By a unhappy chance, I would be stuck looking at Jack Lemon’s disturbingly flabby ass on any occasion that nothing could be discovered in the labyrinth of late night television, which was, essentially, always.

Studying the digital clock display, I saw that it was 1:46 a.m. Puzzled, I asked my friend how this time, so within the traditional temporal boundaries of our evening communiqués, was inappropriate.

“’Ess the middle of the afternoon, Stave! You fuckin’ sow!”

I had lost my patience. I admitted that it was true that his normal insomniacal regimen was mirrored by the kind of daylight sleeping routines so (very very) horrifically depicted in John Carpenter’s Vampires. Nevertheless, I quite sternly argued, that his sense of the hour was wholly removed from the clear mandate of the clock upon my DVD player. (Itself governed by the sane laws of established physics.) I maintained, however, that his chronological awareness seemed to have suffered some sort of twelve-hour upset.

“Thee only thing thatss opset is my fuckin’ bowels, yeh poof. Eh thets yore fault, innet?”

With a shriveling of my scrotum, an unidentifiable feeling of dread gripped me. Something was wrong here besides my friend’s unprecedented late-night slumbering. His clumsy but whimsical fumblings after a British accent were sounding… well, still pretty, fake… but it seemed, nevertheless, as ‘tho my friend was speaking in these stereotypal Anglican tones without consciously trying to.

“Nyow. I’m going to go back to sleep, with yo leave of cause. Oll cawl you aht a maw sane hour. Arright?”

I was struck dumb by what he said, and so acquiesced without demanding an explanation of this strange soporific alteration, nor of what a “sane hour” might be, seeing as its nature seemed to’ve changed.

I sat there with my mouth agape and my open cellular phone in my hand. What had unsettled me so greatly—more than these other matters—was again that blasted accent, and how in the second sentence of the last paragraph of his speech that I have transcribed here, it had led my friend to avoid dropping a ‘g’ from one of his present participles for the first time since I had known him.

What’s more, it occurred to me that my friend’s affectations might’ve contributed toward his chronological disorientation, though the idea seemed outside the confines of rational thinking. What if his apparent obsession w/ all things English permeated more deeply than the depths at which one might find linguistic capabilities? What if my friend were experiencing reality through some monstrous British kaleidoscope? Clearly, it might be deduced, that my friend had not actually become British. One need only consider his “accent”—not to mention the limitations of known reality—to find that such a transformation was impossible. The idea of such Anglicization was touched on in monstrous and nearly unreadable texts that had been shuddered and yawned over by only a very few students of musical esoterica. Accursed volumes, such as the frightful Dreamweapon of Eric Morse, Michael Bonner’s monograph “Interstellar Overdrive,” and the American translations of the abhorred magazines 3 AM, Melody Maker and the NME offered vague hints of certain survivals of Anglophilliac worship. However their ideas were considered to be so blasphemous as to have been exiled from the sane confines of contemporary musical journalism.

Most disturbing was this concept of hypnomonotony. It was said that this force could lead one through endless, twisting chasms of protean feedback to the very center of the universe where a mindless idiot blob writhes amidst a circle of daemon guitar players, whose horrific insectivally droning music and really bitchin’ effects pedals might allow them to achieve incarnation as misshapen alien things, each inspiring a zealous mania amongst both critics and fans of guitar-based rock n’ roll music.

These beings, however, could only achieve this incarnation under certain conditions of popular taste. Otherwise they fell into a necrotic, and perhaps narcotic, sleep. But when musical styles shifted, and the stimulants were right, they might walk the earth again. And puke in the backstage catering plate. I found myself haunted by these and certain other morbid thoughts, as I reclined on my sofa, fading, in front of the TV eye, into a most uneasy sleep.

In looking back, I find it odd that I found it odd that my friend did not return my call as he had asserted he would. It was not uncommon for our conversations to encounter breaks that might last for several days—weeks, even, in cases where dander had been raised by an all too common and all too obviously earnest “fuck you.”

Notwithstanding the previous night’s forebodings, what might have triggered such disquiet was the electronic mail my friend sent me in lieu of a call. This message contained an apology for the demeanor with which he had greeted my call. This expression was not only coherent, but was also damnably suggestive of actual remorse.

He went on to offer regrets that we might be unable to resume our conversation for some days. It seemed that he had developed a bronchial ailment that had wholly weakened him to a point where he found even focusing on a simple discussion to be quite difficult. No doubt, he added, it had been this very assault that had led him to become confused about the hour last night. He would, though, he assured me, contact me as soon as he was well. He had discovered certain aspects of the music of Spacemen 3, and he was quite eager to seek my learned opinion on them as soon as he was “on the mend.”

Couched as it was a storm of perplexity and uneasiness, it was only later that the fact that he had written the message in a strange approximation of his new manner of speech seemed curious to me. Anglicisms such as “colour” appeared far too often to be mere typographical errors, specifically British verbiages, such as “loan us h’appence quid when we next see you” were employed—giving me cause to wonder whether anyone, in fact, says “h’appence” anymore, or if he was spelling it right—but worst of all, he had written many of the words out in a loathsome approximation of how that might be pronounced if rendered verbally. “Whatta yoo thenk then?,” he wrote near the end of his note, and then went on to conclude, embarrassingly, by actually signing the message, “Evah yo mate, (despite th’ fact that you are a fuggin’ shagasss,”) and then supplying his name as though it were a charmingly archaic epistolatory letter.

As my friend’s behavior was otherwise conforming to certain established standards, I gave it little thought, until a peculiar anecdote was relayed to me by Abe. As the tale emerged, it became clear that the “super” was possessed by the unmistakable fear experienced by one who is trapped in the most shrouded territories of nightmare.

Hidden in the stygian depths of the cellar of my friend’s apartment building lies an improbably luminescent chamber. Contained as it is underground, its light seems particularly unnatural—like that of some monstrous phosphorescent fungus. In it rest 3 laundry washing machines and 2 companion drying units. (These proportions had always struck me as particularly perverse, as dryers always require more time to fulfill their function than do washers in the first place. Here, it seemed inevitable that the most maddening of delays must follow if one party has its articles of clothing placed within the dryer when another shows up to begin the laundering of its own.)

It was in this unpleasant locale, Abe said, that he found himself one Friday night.

“I vuss fixin’ day lentrap.” He seemed to think for a very long time, producing, after a moment, a pint of Stoli from one grimy trouser pocket. “Hutt do people doo to datt ting? I min, what de Sem Hell day be pootin’ true day-uh-er? Men, I tell yer. Pipple bay pootin’ they are noot sax in they-ah-em-er.” A nod or two at the bottle convinced him to drink. Such imbibing seemed to be the only way to encourage the fellow to go on w/ his story in a more expedient manner. Unfortunately, it also had the effect of slurring speech made already nearly indecipherable by virtue of its foreign inflections.

“Anna who. Em pooling a frekken par-uht flegg outta they-ah-em-huh-are, uh sway are. Nah. Relllly. Like a fool July Rogger. Yah noo: Deffy Jonze en da Moonkeys en You set of Me Sim en Junnee Dipp.” Another nod at the bottle prodded him onward. “Weel dut’s ven yore frennt com en wit hiss berskett off loonydree. Issa wekker berskett ya new? Don’ see dat wan too mooch dees daze, duh yuh?”

I nodded, eagerly, in hopes that this charmingly antique vessel might be a concrete detail that might anchor his rememberances in a more coherent narrative.

“Cha see? Dare voos onnly uz down day-er, en de light, doo nose who itt kin gut. Ahn he beerly sed hooloo, zo I vander whuss de fekk isk rung. Ess uh lootle creppy, yooo no? Iss ice iss zo derk zo coold—effen fer hee-yem—uhn he yeahs hair much stringier uhn greezier. Allsoo toe he semmtimes hass a widdle body order preblem, dis time ee like relly smules lekk shut.

“Ann eye Luke eddem rill cloose

“En det’s vinn I azathoth.”

“You what?”

“I azathoth!”

“Sorry… one more time, please.”

“Azathoth! I Azathoth! Iä! Azathoth! Wooder chew, deff?”

I had no mortal idea how to respond to his demand, and so, probably, did appear to be deaf. Or catatonic.

“I hazza thougthth.”

“Oh! You had a thought!”

“Hey doobie meggin foolk ub me eye ex-aunt?”

“Um. Of course not. I think”

“Whale too bitter knobby.”

“Hemingway, detroit det ih hed voose dert jer frinn luke lekk shut, smills lekk shet, moosa beeya shutt.”

His coarse laughter was cut mercifully short by the encouragement I gave to him to drink.

“Cum on, men, weight cha Levin? Wart boot jer frane? Mennet goo I warse de foony van. Sooks to bijuou. Knob, boot surrealiously… Yer otter be waried bootcher frung. ‘E ‘s fugged ob. Ern yuk kook kwame edit.”

As can be seen, his articulative faculties were decaying by the moment—at least when it came to the English language. It became clear that I would have to prod him more forcefully and rapidly if I was going to receive the material I most desperately wanted.

I tugged gently but firmly at the stained button down shirt he wore, and he leapt from the chair where he had begun nodding off, nearly splashing his libations across the room.

“Vet?” He was pissy, as any inebriate tends to be at this point in a cycle of drinking, and went so far as to bat at phantoms with one flaccid arm—as one so often finds television drunkards doing. Then he looked about himself, scratched at the belly of his soiled shirt and sniffed.

“Yog, sothiss frune effyern… Welsey turt egghead wurf det ee utmost dern’t leg leg eemself. Dern’t joos menn dat in der colloquial menner ider. Ee relly leg leg soon won elf. Leg, ee were de sem cloose. Unt F chew leg rooly cloose, jerp cud sea das et vare M. Butt duh looner use bead leggin et hurm, chew stutt ta noodliss det hiss teep curder ned blushing, N den chew nudist det abby mirror den snatt. Es teep er relly duty. Leg dare freggin derk grain. N plooze vern yug leg clooder, yurp sea dettert ain choos der culler eff dem teep, es det ders diss earful chenge ter der shabe. Leg durm utmost wassail hew mean.

“Gnaw, Ivan Herbivore—toejam times—lutting ass oil vase bun ‘lil crepe pay. Desi oonly too burbs—en, vel, ‘ope juice dome B dune hair wind at hup’pence. Curse Y Ono, Mine stutts two plate Trix ona ewe. Burt, ernie won Ken go true dat. All un lekk dert, derek-lee-one legg det. Kent see zoe git. And debasmement yam Wanda Yoplaitess—yap nose—were alla debt giz wars.

“Soup, dizz dime d’oh—wuzz lake, yerp notes, Jage offs Letter, wizz Thames Rubbins, fur Annie Wan news her heeee wads. Erp okk.“

Clearly his inebriation was about to render him noncommunicative. I felt ready to shake or nudge him more forcefully, but he continued to mummble.

“Kleeze dorf. Banana wades, En dupp moofie, hay stutts ter see chit dup gooze un too lungs fur et toobie yust hiss Margorine Nation ruining ofay widda hem. (Durt’s dez besst soong, men. Ur swayer. Tops es wade butter den Temps. Scepter Vader suckin’… voss det de Tops er de Temps? Shutt, datas Reel E gunner bugger minnow.)

“Enya way, lurk Jager’s letter? De moofay eh voss telkin’ butt? Wart hoppin’ tube Tem Rubbins? Das esk S vault hip end two me. Eye serr thes chench urn hem. Ee wuss nut yer frond. Is glessy stairs. Is early herr—bote wade beyunt Annie Ding es slubbiness lead too inna p-ass-tit. Chaw cut C debt upfrog, butt yer mind mutt stall igloo wet yoooo. De Cungoo ain’t jest ur river in Eeee-gipped, yug no. Bert de teef…

“Sweet Matre! Who ken I meg yupe udder stan? How could those teeth change like that? Debt’s de quay-shun I poot to you, Jung Certs! Tail me! How could those Cyclopean grey snaggled horrors spring into existance, seemingly overnight?!!!??!”

He was becoming quite overexcited, with his earlier furtive glances now growing into rabid staring, first in one direction, then in another, as though he felt that, at any moment, some unimaginable cosmic malevolence would grasp him from some hidden corner. I thought it most expedient to end our interview. I patted the poor trembling fellow on one shoulder, pressing his bottle at him as I implored him to call me at any further manifestations of the abnormal. Vague fears had arisen in me from the “super’s” brief anecdote, but for the moment, I was distracted by visions of the Elizabethan popsicle my friend held, and was so, uh, eager to return to my apartment to relieve certain ineffable forces that were building up within me.

The Boom that Came to Sarnath, Part 1

Being a Serial in Four Parts

To the readers of this chronicle I must apologize for my recent silence, but if they have perused the headlines, I suspect they have some knowledge of my misfortunes; and if retellings of the horrors that have beset me have, somehow escaped them--I hope that the following document will enlighten them whilst providing some clarification to those who have studied the relevant recent events as well.

It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my old friend, and yet I hope to shew by this statement that I am not his murderer. At first I shall be called a madman—or a burn-out. Later some of my readers will weigh each statement, correlate it with the known facts, and ask themselves how I could have believed otherwise than I did after facing the evidence of that final horror…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here is how it all began:

We were sitting on a dilapidated sofa that had been manufactured in the mid-70s, in the light of a TV screen, on which an episode of Cheaters oozed, and speculating about the role of feedback. Looking around the giant, pock-marked coffee table in the centre of my friend’s living room, whose legs engulfed stacks of dog-eared, long-abandoned vinyl records, I had made a made a strange and vaguely incoherent remark about how cool those albums might sound if you played them now, scratched, long ago, as they were, not to mention weirdly warped and dirtied in their trackless somnolence. And now my friend chided me for such bullshit, since jacketed as they were, the albums could have been brushed only with the most ethereal coating of dust, and further, since they were stacked in a perfectly straight vertical manner, only the minute and inescapable warping caused by climactic shifting could have influenced their enduring disc-like shape.

“Besides,” he added, “you’re always talking about ‘noise’ and how cool it is. It’s really lame. What ever happened to music?”

“I’m talking about music. Noisy music. I mean, usually it’s music. With noise in it.”

“See, you just prefer noise because you can’t appreciate well-written, well-played music. I’d say you were tone deaf, but you do have a lotta decent records. Not that you ever play ‘em.”

“Sometimes I do!”

“Nope. You don’t listen to anything that’s got a discernable melody or lyrics.”

“Yeah I do!”

“If it’s Elizabeth Elmore.”

“Pant pant. No wait, I listen to other stuff sometimes—like Scratch Perry or Iggy or Mingus.”

“Not much you don’t. Not these days. And but the thing is that that’s all there is in good music: melody, harmony, rhythm, and how you put ‘em together through performance. I mean, you know me—I’m not a pop music fan or classical music fan or whatever. I’m a rockist. Diehard.”

“Yeah—I know—and Skynyrd is cool and alla that—and Drive-by Truckers are even better. But I’m tellin’ ya. You gotta embrace the noise. It’s part of where all that classic rock came from.”

“The fuck it is. At least Skynyrd could play their instruments. Take those jerkoffs you’re always goin’ on and on about. Whass their faces? Spaceship Z?”

“Spacemen 3.”

“Right. Those assholes can’t even play their instruments—beyond the most rudimentary 4 or 5 notes.”

“I know. Isn’t it cool?”

“Gaah. And since they can’t play or sing, they have to rely on squealing feedback, tinny little 3 note riffs, fuzz pedals and long droning instrumentals to make themselves seem like a real band.”

“But feedback, 3 note riffs, fuzz pedals and long droning instrumentals do make them a band. One of the coolest bands ever.”

“They suck.”

“No. They don’t.”

“No. They do.”

“Know what yer problem is? You just don’t give ‘em a chance. Five seconds and you turn the shit off. I bet if you listened to them enough, you’d see how much ass they kicked.”

“Bullshit. I could listen to them for a month straight—if I could stand it—and I’d still think they sucked.”

“Wanna bet?”

“OK asshole. Let’s do this. If I listen to ‘em every day for a month… you gotta give me your Stratocaster.”

“My strat?”

“It’s a fair deal. And besides, I’ll be rescuing it from your cheap amp, shitty effects pedals and general ineptitude.”

“It’s not a fair, fucking deal.”

“OK. How ‘bout this? I’ll listen to every Spacemen 3 album once a day for a month and I won’t listen to anything else. No music, no radio, muted TV. Whadda ya say?”

“Hmmm. Ida know.”

“I’ll throw in an Elizabeth Elmore flavored popsicle.”

“An Elizabeth Elmore flavored popsicle. That’s fuckin’ stupid. They don’t exist.”

“Look in the freezer.”

I wandered through hallways damnably suggestive of nighted caverns and finally crossed the threshold of a walnut arch that had stood since long before the previous tenants’ habitation. Within the cool air of the freezer lay a popsicle draped in a flimsy paper wrapper that bore the enchanting form of Elizabeth Elmore.

From the lugubrious shadows behind my shoulder, my friend spoke: “Found that on eBay. Been waiting to use it on you for a while.”

“That’s so hot. I’m gonna suck on Elizabeth Elmore. Finally.” Thus it became vitally imperative that I win this wager.

He smiled—sardonically it seemed—and said, “Don’t count yer Elmores till they’re hatched.”

The terms of the wager were soon agreed upon. As stated, my friend would expose himself daily to the alien strains of the group Spacemen 3, whose airs had opened awesome cosmic vistas before me in the past—though I wondered what effect listening to all of their albums daily for a month would have—even I had never done that. Should 30 days pass for him without a glimpse of such wonders, then my beloved Stratocaster, itself a more constant companion to me than any of flesh and blood, would be forfeit. It would be a heavy price to pay, if my luck should fail me, but it seemed necessary to assert this truth—that Spacemen 3 kick ass—once and for all.

Of course, an impartial third party would have to be commissioned. At first, it seemed that this might be difficult, as we suspected that very few would agree to expose themselves to such arguable “crap.” In the end, however, procuring the services of such a party proved rather easy. So easy, in fact, that I remember wondering if this was a sign that certain outside forces might be providing a positive momentum to our undertaking. At the time this was sheer whimsy, almost without a trace of ominousness. Now I fear that this accursed thought was all too accurate.

The maintenance supervisor for my friend’s apartment building lived on site. He was of Slavic extraction, though from which specific nation he hailed was impossible to guess, due to my lack of familiarity with Eastern European accents. A grizzled man of many years, he was perpetually unshaved and the dim white shirt he wore, which bore a cloth patch, reading “Abe,” highlighted his morose obsequiousness. Though he was always courteous, I found his watery eyes and satyr-like face to be vaguely unpleasant.

It so happened that on this ill-starred day—would that I could drive the memory from my mind—I left my friend’s apartment briefly to purchase a six-pack of beer. We had, it seems, run out of alcoholic beverages and had a craving for a little more. When I returned, I encountered the slouched, wheezing form of the “super” on the building staircase. It was an ancient tottering structure with rotten red carpet lining its hallways, and this gloomy fellow was often found poking at this stuff with a similarly aged vacuum that, sadly, seemed to do little good.

Abe was known to be ever interested in acquiring more money. In addition to the duties his occupation demanded of him, he could often be found walking the dogs owned by working tenants, watering the plants of vacationeers, or running small errands for the building’s invalids. (Once or twice we’d sent him for beer because we were too intoxicated to want to go ourselves. We quickly let discontinued this practice when he started demanding additional payment in beer—20% of whatever variety we were drinking.) He seemed to be a fine candidate for moderator of our wager.

Once I had attracted his attention—not an easy task given the damnable whirring of that blasted machine—a wage and a description of the requisite tasks were put into place. Abe was surprisingly astute when it came to negotiations—so much so that one wondered how he could still be merely a building “super.”

Abe would visit my friend six times daily—at unspecified hours. He would check first to make sure that he heard Spacemen 3 playing by listening at the door. In order for it to be audible in this way, my friend would have to play the music at cyclopean decibel levels, but this would only work in my favor, I reasoned, since Spacemen 3 really kick ass when they are loud. Then Abe would knock at the door to visibly establish my friend’s presence and verify that the daily circulation all of the Spacemen 3 albums.

I myself, of course, could visit as I liked, though my friend expected, he said with more than a little sarcasm, to be so deeply transfixed by his immersion into the group’s weird cacophony as to be unable to recognize me if I appeared at his door.

“My consciousness will be so altered that I, like, probably won’t even realize you’re there. Wait…” He extended the palm of his hand in front of me. His eyes stared as though blind. “Are you there?”

“Fuck off.”

“You are. Though I guess that doesn’t prove that you exist.”

“Blow me.”

“Now that ya mention it, you seem kinda cheaply theatrical.”

“Cheaply? Is that even a word?”

Without a glance, he pointed to a bookshelf, where many a moldering paperback lay. Amongst these ancient volumes rested an even more antiquated dictionary. I flipped open its threadbare clothbound cover and read.

“See,” my friend said, “there’s a lot more of grave than gravy to you.”

“It’s the other way around.”

“Cheaply? What do you mean?”

“No. Scrooge.”

“Oh.”

“And you were right.”

“Wait. But you said I was wrong.”

“About cheaply. It’s a word.”

“Told ya. Not that any of this dialogue proves that you’re real. ‘Cuz like methinks I see you Horatio. In my mind’s eye. Come to think of it ‘tho, you’re about dull enough to be real.”

Which remark led me to improvise a series of poetical images all centering upon the allure of his mother. Then I took my leave of him.

3 days passed, in which certain professional obligations claimed the bulk of my attention. The practice that I maintain as a private detective had been profusely busy, making it difficult for me to meet with my friend. I did, however, receive a number of e- and voice mails, the latter of which were often marked by a wholly unconvincing cockney accent, that purported to be communiqués left by either, or both, though always in identical tones of voice, “Sonic Boom” or Jason Pierce, the mad visionaries behind the shrieking gulf of sound that is the music of Spacemen 3. (Even more distressing were certain messages left by former Spacemen 3 drummer, Stewart “Rosco” Roswell, which scarcely deserve mention due to their utter silliness.) All of these missives concerned purported amorous habits of the group that are (and were) so obscene as to be best left undescribed.

In the 5 days that followed, my workload was lightened, however I saw little of my friend. My calls to him went unanswered. E-mailed messages were more successful, but the replies I received were strangely terse. Any invitations to visit or otherwise get together were politely declined, which I found quite strange, as my friend was never, ordinarily, polite. Through Abe, I was able to stay apprised of the status of our wager. The elder Slav proved surprisingly conscientious, though I still could not bring myself to enjoy his company. Daily he would call me from his cell phone to inform me of the influence of Spacemen 3 upon my friend. Doubtlessly the glee that I felt on hearing of the groanings, kicking of the walls that heralded my friend’s distress prior to Abe’s admittance as a visitor to the apartment discomfited Abe. Yet while these signs did not herald success in the current wager, they were, nevertheless, pretty fuckin’ funny.