Conifer Barnacle had never been to New-New-New York, the city that never sleeps or even comes down from its legalized methamphetamine high, psychedelic daze, phenethylamine blurry love potion haze. Regulation keeps the price of a fix fixed, the man in the street can't afford the rich intellectual's high,"can you spare an X, brother hex; I haven't been above, sister love; Mr. Sandman, synthesize me a dream..." Come to find herself, find a guru, Fodor's guide to the afterlife says find just one, monogamous spiritual adulation, betcha can't eat just one, teacher arrives when the student has money, wallet full of credit cards to help her follow her bliss in 15 easy monthly payments.
Lost her job, mercenary politics ain't what they used to be, now any fool can method act their way into office, she used to be the best and the brightest, nimbly switching party loyalties - answer the listings like personal ads: 36-24-36, blonde, blue-eyed, age range 34 - 42 Democrat, relocation necessary, Bible Belt campaign, residence established in two years, this one will take you all the way to DC. Ten years later, as brunette Connecticut Republican gubernatorial running mate, scandal, law school retroactively loses accreditation, grandfathered out, fly by night, bye bye career, now a television sits in the oval office, re-runs, nothing but re-runs, "One of these days, Saddam, pow! Right in the kisser." Today, though...
Three newspapers with the same headline, one year ago: he died, he died, he died. She can't stand to see his face everywhere, calm up to the very end. She thought he was it, thought he was the end, the prophet, her messiah, her personal jesus. Passion. High risk activity a defiant act of faith. After her career ended and she was wandering through virtual reality for something to read, keep your virtue, sex in the MUD the safest place to be, today a boy, tomorrow a girl, next week a 6 foot anthropomorphic lizard: Conifer Barnacle licks your nipples from 10 feet away with her long, green, forked tongue. You have new mail. 20 lines, no header. From somebody@somewhere.somewhere-else: Hi, you don't know me, (nobody knows anybody) but I read your post to alt.religion.enlightenment.sex.sex.sex. I think you're my soul mate. Let's meet. Do you believe in miracles? What's your sign?
Fly caught in the spider's web page, deceiving ourselves, login as root, finger conifer@fetish.net. Don't hitchhike on the superhighway, there are perverts, dear. On-line Kundalini. Hubble bubble toil and trouble, turn the telescope around. What a gift to see ourselves as others see us. Look me. You see a strikingly attractive petite long legged 24 year old redheaded green-eyed amazon sorceress. She notices you staring and hands you a cookie. My bonnie lies over the ocean, my bonnie lies on IRC. Exit, logout, bye.
No leather products: cruelty-free S&M, politically bisexual but with a strong preference for women. Safe sex, no, safer sex (why don't they call them beaver dams?) fluctuating wildly on the Kinsey scale, baby, ring my bell curve, let's live together. Make an honest woman of her, little Dutch boy, save your country by sticking your finger in a dyke. Tainted love. I need you in my blood. I want a new drug. Wake up from a mushroom dream cloud, they weren't on the same trip -- one side made him larger and the other made her small. Must have been cold there in my shadow. Sitting and watching wide-eyed like Thumbelina while he made the tabloids, then the funny papers, then the talk show circuits. "I believe love can conquer AIDS. I believe in miracles." Stupid human tricks. Live on national television, injected himself with a syringe filled with infected blood. Results came back positive. Bitter fight. "Your claim to fame: you are the stupidest man in the world." Blue eyes in dark face radiating calm. "Love will find a way." Hooked up. Plugged in. Turned on. "Let me make love to you." No. No. Yes. Hold you in his arms so you can feel his disease.
She even believed him for a while. Watched him start to die. Why is he a hero? He only proved there was no cure. "I hate you." They love each other, they do everything together. The perfect couple. The King is in his counting house, counting out his T-cells, the Queen is in the kitchen, eating her AZT. "I can't watch you die." But she did anyway, on a thousand TV screens, on every front page. There's a parade today, in a different city, 3,000 miles away, that's why she's here. They call him a Saint, Saint HIV, Saint Ivy, martyr, sarcoma lesions like a crown of thorns. She's sick with the pain. She wants to believe in reincarnation. "I believe you can make me whole." Biggest rebirth cult on the east coast, here, today, she's coming with all of them. Maybe Ivy was the false prophet, Andy is the true. Switch bitch. Teddy bear turn around. Andy, Ivy, over.
Decisions decisions, here she is, swimming from the subway in a school of fish, salmon swimming upstream to spawn, look out for the sharks, lawyers everywhere, careful where you step, on their way to start their own political party, how to nominate yourself using only your home computer and a modem, internet campaigning reaching its ultimate conclusion, interactive CD-rom winning presidential candidate who doesn't actually exist, FBI didn't notice, from their trenches hurling bug bombs at NSA secret police, at last government tied in a Gordian knot, keeps 'em busy, let my people go, get some real work done.
So horny even the businessmen whizzing by in pint-size easy to park electric compactable foldable disposable cars look good, mmm, pluck them out of their one piece zip up suits, snug as a bug in a telephone, toss away the latex reality for a skin on skin fantasy, melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
Conifer Barnacle lifts her skirt to stop traffic, no petticoat etiquette, taxi dancing downtown, you'll never walk alone. Heard the man was there every one is coming Central Park just big enough to hold 5,000 port-a-johns don't leave home without it. There it is, the biggest sound system since the Berlin wall, a Stonehenge of amps, it's not New Year's Day but it's a new day, watch the apple come down anyway, what did they have to pay to get that effect? Wade through the crowd just to see him: one L lama - he's a priest; two L llama - he's the beast. Entourage painted and decked out like the apostles: Ultra Violet washing his feet. Everybody knows. Everybody saw him. 5th incarnation, news announcement, film at 11. Three tow-headed almost autistic bugged out Crayola artists, monkey boys, showing preference for Campbell's from early age, "Darling! His first word! He said Da-da!" up all night 7 year old itchy twitchy quotable, but only one needed glasses, he's it! Isn't it special to be the chosen one? In the future everyone will be Warhol for 15 years, hired assassin takes them out like clockwork, orange silk-screen flag over coffin, mournful parade and fifteen years later, happy birthday, Dalai Andy, he's ba-ack. Why? Because we like you! Dead at 30, keep polishing the urn, here comes the ashes, need another seven astronauts, sleep is good food.
Connie Barney down by the stage, thrilled by the electric risk, live wires, looks into his eyes, knows he's not the teacher for her. You just know.
Find a hotel, OK, Father Divine still the cheapest dive, have to wear a skirt, duck into a phone booth - yeah, they still have them, but it's a crisp new dollar or just slide your card with the striped side up - long skirt no ankles exposed, like a nun slips by the concierge, "no, I have no bags, I'm learning to live without worldly possessions" up the spiral staircase, lie like a naked frog on the smooth sheets, no cable TV, just the major networks. Newsflash: Andy Warhol has been shot again! The port-a-johns are burning. Rains of frogs and locusts. Environmental impact. Miniseries starts tomorrow night.
Welcome to the Real World. Am I famous yet? Awful to see your former lover's face everywhere you turn. What it's like to be Sean Penn. St. Ivy's day parade. Everybody gets to march. Everybody's in a high risk group. Conifer Barnacle watches the parade in San Francisco. "We love you, Ivy." The young people ask "what are they marching for?" The emperor has no immune system. Andy, Ivy, over. Done and gone. Dead again. Clap your hands if you believe. All that falls shall rise again. Old Deuteronomy. Out of the Black Plague came the Inquisition. I'm glad I'm not the cabin boy aboard the Man o' War. When Tinkerbell rings her little bell like this, turn the page.
Conifer Barnacle prays. Poison Ivy growing in the grave. Maybe the miracles will begin soon. Every talk show gives beatification tips. Funeral attendees riot, just to touch his coffin. I do believe in ghosts, I do I do I do I do I do. Take this crucified corpse to be your lawfully wedded husband.
Whosoever-shall-believe-in-him-will-not-die-but-will-have-everlasting-life. The son will come out, tomorrow. Not all rats will leave a sinking ship.
©copyright 1995 the spelunkers of the collective unconscious
