On my first foray into the sandy plains of southern Delaware, I observed the following:
There was a circle on the ground in the center of which was drawn a pentagram. On the west side of the circle was a huge movie screen which must have been at least four feet high and six feet wide. Directly in the center of the circle was a reel to reel movie projector, behind which were two chairs. Behind the chairs was a small silver colored CD player which was plugged into a Honda generator, which was outside the circle. Apparently generators are not sacred equipment, and so could not be included in sacred space or the ceremony at all.
Soon, Art Linkletter and a short bald man who kept saying, "Keep still, motherfuckers! Y'all are fuckin, wit my motherfucking bonus!", entered the circle. Both Art and the unidentified man were pushing men toward the center of the circle and eventually they were tied to the two chairs facing the movie screen. Linkletter and the other man hunched over the two men for a minute, and I couldn't see what they were doing, but when they moved away I could see that there were stainless steel instruments holding their eyelids open. The men were now revealed to be David Icke, his mohawk ruffled, a broken gold chain hanging down into the empty cups of his Warner bra inside his ripped in gown, and Bill Cooper, who desperately clutched his Casper the friendly ghost mask in his tied hand, and whenever Linkletter and the other man approached he would scream "Booo!" at the top of his lungs. Soon, the short, unidentified, bald, old man entered the center of the circle and began to call out ritual chants. "I did all that sacred shit y'all told me to do! I have performed the sacred duties, motherfucker! I walk in a sacred way, and I speak in sacred tones, y'all!" Upon completing his chant, he opened a Heineken, offered it to the six powers, and then took a long drink. He then began to pour Heineken over Icke, who complained that his gown was dry clean only, and Cooper who simply said, "Boo! Boo!". The short man then produced from his pocket a gold watch, which he began to swing back and forth in front of the tied men, who were now strangely silent. The short man kept swinging the watch back and forth, and began to speak in soothing tones. "Shut up, y'all. Y'all don't hear nothin' but the sound of my voice, and y'all don't see nothin' but this here watch, y'all. Fuck y'all. Fuck y'all." Then he began to scream, "Fuck y'all! Fuck y'all!" Linkletter stepped forward, saying "This will never work if you can't control your anger." "I'm sorry," the short man said, and continued to speak in soothing tones, "Y'all are feeling very sleepy, y'all. Y'all are tired as hell. Y'all's eyes are closin', and y'all's eyelids are heavy. Y'all are completely relaxed." Icke and Cooper appeared to be in a trance, and the short man continued. "Lizards are good, y'all, lizards are good. Y'all like lizards. Y'all don't fear 'em or nothin'. And y'all are gonna stop fuckin' wit my motherfuckin' bonus or I'ma kick y'all's motherfuckin, asses." Icke and Cooper repeated, "We like lizards. Lizards are good. We don't fear 'em or nothin'. We'll stop fuckin' wit your motherfuckin' bonus or you're gonna kick our motherfuckin' asses." Linkletter was behind them, setting up eleborate medical equipment - intravenous bags and tubes.
The short man then woke them from their trance. "You'll never brain wash me! I pity the fool try to brain wash Mr. T!" Icke screamed. Cooper said, "Boo! Lizards are good. I like lizards. Boo! I'm dead. Boo! Lizards kick ass." Then he said, "I'm the friendliest ghost you know!" The short man then said something to the effect that Icke was putting up a lot of resistance, so they'd better make his IV stronger. They then began to fill the IV bags. They opened can after can of Heineken, and poured them slowly into the bags, so that there was a good head on them. And then, the short man produced and purple velvet bag from which he took a bottle of Crown Royal, which he then used to spike Icke's IV bag. Cooper said, "My eyes are getting dry. Does anyone have any Visine?" Icke then began to tell a story about how when he was still in school he used to keep a bottle of Visine with him so no one could tell when he was high. He and Cooper snickered. Linkletter and the short Winston smoking man inserted the IV needles. Icke said, "Ouch, not so rough!" Cooper cried like a little girl, and only stopped when Linkletter began to make shadow puppets on the movie screen. He said, "You see it Billy? You see the little bunny rabbit? Look! Now it's a fox! Hello, I'm Mr. Fox." He said in a falsetto. "Now look, Bill! It's a goose! Hi, I'm Mr. Goose," and so on. Cooper shouted, "Yay! Do it again!" The short Winston smoking man said, "Fuck y'all," and began to lick the dirt where some Heineken had been spilled. Linkletter said, "Quit that! You're licking the pentagram right off the ground! Do you know how long it took me to get the lines straight on that pentagram? Damn, now it's all messed up." He then got on his knees, and tried to redraw it with a stick. "See what you did? I'm not brainwashing with you anymore." "I'm sorry, motherfucker. Don't be upset with me, man," the Winston smoking short man said. They hugged, and agreed not to fight anymore.
The short man then loaded a reel onto the projector, whose single beam was the only light but for the stars above. "I pity the fool try to make me watch a movie. Unless it's Rocky III. Mr. T only watches Rocky III." The short man then said, "All of y'all lizards and little short motherfuckers of the sky, I invoke thee motherfuckers!" With this, all the crickets of the forest went silent. There was no sound but for low rolling thunder. The movie began, and Linkletter started the CD player, which blasted out the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; you know, the cool choral part with the Friedrich Schiller poem. The movie was bright, and the music pulsed loudly, "Freude schoner Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, Was die Mode streng geteilt; Alle Menschen werden Bruder, Wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt!" On the movie screen there was nothing but lizards: chameleons eating flies in slow then fast motion, crocodiles eating birds on the surface of the water, snakes striking rats, that kind of weird looking lizard called a collared lizard that runs real fast with that weird thing around its neck, iguanas eating roaches, all of this over and over while the music pulsed through the dense night air. While this went on, Linkletter and the Winston smoking man put Visine in their eyes which began to bleed from the steel apparatus clamped on their eyelids, and Riley Martin appeared from the sky with a spotted girl whose arms were around his waist. He was covered in thick green scales, and he began to say, "This isn't right! It must be a moral choice!" But then the spotted chick stuck her tongue in his ear and he tapped the Winston smoking man on the shoulder and said, "I'll be in the space ship. Give me at least three or four minutes." Then he and the spotted girl disappeared.
As the symphony came to a close there were tears falling from the eyes of Icke and Cooper, and at the very last moment, when the music got really fast, on every beat there was a lizard's mouth closing over some prey, and the IV bags were almost empty and there was a triumphant climax! In the silent night air, Cooper and Icke whistled and tapped their hands against their chairs in a muted applause saying, "Whooo! That kicked ass, dude. That was like watching Star Wars on acid." Icke began to explain that if one watched the Wizard of Oz while listening to Dark Side of the Moon it was really trippy, and then said if you looked really closely at the background you could see the midget who hung himself. Cooper related that he once played Black Sabbath at 78 speed and saw God. The IV bags were now empty, and the short man took the steel instruments from their bleeding eyes and said, "How do you feel?" Icke stood, seemingly indignant, looked the Winston smoking man straight in his eye and said, "I love you man, seriously. Hey Cooper, look at this guy, I love this guy, man. I mean, I ain't gay or nothing, but for real. Clubber Lang ain't gay, but Clubber Lang loves you, man. Clubber Lang loves you." He then fell down. Cooper was singing, "Cooper the friendly ghost, friendliest ghost you know. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? Running over the same old ground, and have you found, the same old fear, wish you were here." Cooper then fell to his knees and tapped the passed out Icke on his shoulder. Icke didn't respond. "Dude, for real, you know what my favorite part was? My favorite part was when the lizards were there, you know?" He then passed out also. The Winston smoking man and Linkletter then dragged the unconscious Icke and Cooper into the short man's garage. The door closed.
After they were gone, I scoured the area for clues. I found a receipt from Wal Mart for the generator, and the thingies to keep their eyes open, and for the Visine. I also found several Winston cigarette butts, Heineken cans, and the velvet bag from the Crown Royal.
- The Shadow
