Third Eye Innocent and Open Wide
Prompted by my teammate, Satisfied75, I'm dipping into a repressed memory to offer the following story about a weird night we had a few years ago. The details are fuzzy in places, but essentially the following excerpt is a paraphrased transcript of my mind on that fateful day:
We're simply humming up Western Avenue and I'm trying not to think about how bad I have to take a shit. Satisfied75 looks over at me from the sidecar and gives me an air-gun salute. We are tripping our balls off.
Managing not to crash into a Korean barbeque joint, I renegotiate my ’68 Triumph back onto the street and rev the throttle hard. Let's see if we can get this son of a bitch in the air, I'm thinking. At this speed on a warm Hollywood night, it actually feels like we are flying, and I'm looking good in my sleeveless jerkin. Hell, maybe we'll also get new tattoos tonight.
As we get up into the hills, the roads are darker, narrower and more ominous. Shadows bare large teeth and I'm totally wigging out. After lighting up a couple cigs, I pull over and hand one to Satisfied75, who just tilts his head back and stares at the moon for a minute with glazed eyes. I scamper under the cover of a gabled roof to do my business, but have to cut it short as an old man comes running out the front door with a shotgun, repeatedly asking, "Do you have no honor, sir? Do you have no honor" So this situation is kind of a bummer.
We peel the fuck out of there and continue to our destination, a little old house once owned by Anton Szandor LaVey. It’s a creepy looking house, with snake statues in the lawn, but the economy line of modern cars surrounding it give it a touch of normalcy.
I park the bike and look at Satisfied75, who can only muster the following eight words, “Dood, this is going to change our lives.” I find that my thoughts are echoing through my head in a British accent. “Fuckin, ‘ell,” I say.
The guy who answers the door is a tall, long-haired Japanese with a lot of piercings and a sickle in his hand. Nice fucking scythe, I’m thinking. He escorts us into the party proper and our faces are aglow in the blood covered foyer. Several men and women are pacing gingerly about the room holding scarlet soaked towels to their foreheads. There is a dentist chair in the center of the room and an acrimonious smell in the air.
So my buddy, Chud, from sewing class, the host of this soiree, comes weaving through the filth-ridden crowd with a smile the size of Texas. He slaps himself across the face three times, jovial and brimming with excitement. I ask him if I can get a drink. What a freakshow. “I didn’t know you were from England, Marty,” Chud offers. ‘Brighton,” I say and make my way in the direction of his outstretched finger, running my hand through the sweet new nylon wig I just purchased. Satisfied75 starts dancing, sliding really, on the red, soupy tile floor.
I whip up two stiff ones and hand one to my boy, relaxing in the trancing light before letting out a sickened laugh. The room stops its mechanical gyrations and looks at me, people, walls and furniture. “What the fauk are you wankers doin ‘ere?” I’m clearly shouting, spilling whiskey, slobbering and shaking. Only Satisfied75 continues to dance, unconcerned. I head to the john to finish off my well-deserved expunging ritual.
When I come out, four men in clown paint are performing ring-around-the-rosie steps until one of them is pushed out of the circle. He sits in the dentist chair and grins, his eyes are completely black. I am scared of this man, who is built like a pitbull with a green-stained wife-beater. He bellows.
Chud saunters up to him and begins to apply some network of manacles and straps, then he glances at a pocket sized booklet and diagrams some stick figures on the dude’s Cro Magnon skull. Chud looks at me and says, “You’re next bra.”
The Japanese guy with the sickle does a cartwheel and lands on his face, barely avoiding a facial run-in with the razor sharp point which instead nicks his ear lobe and contributes more living stew to the putrid linoleum. Oblivious to his injury, he manages to reach out and touch some buttons on the stereo and a twisted carnival score blares forth from unseen, in-walled speakers. I notice with some surprise that people are bowing deeply and pissing on the floor, and one guy begins to juggle fire with uncanny dexterity. This is a new level of consciousness, surely. Did I just see Satisfied75 swallow an entire torch? Fuck.
The festivus continues as Chud wipes gristle from his chin and produces a leather pouch with ungodly blue blades protruding from the ends. He pulls out a ruthless scalpel and carves a fresh V in his subject’s jutting forehead. The blood drips, drips, drips crimson tinctures onto Pit Bull’s lips, and he obliges it greedily with a yawn, a lapping motion and then a howl. Chud elbows him swiftly in the temple and the man ceases his bloodlust.
Satisfied75 is now shadowboxing a fat women, who cackles and then executes a roundhouse that lands her ungainly ass on a large cactus. Agonized, she runs out of the room, falls once, then crawls to a door, descending into darkness and shame. Satisfied75 makes us two more drinks and says, “DOOD!”
Up next is the power drill, and Chud gives it a test whirl amidst a crowd of lobotomized mimes. Chants of “the THIRD EYE” are thrown out liberally, and it’s at this moment that I decide to shotgun a Tecate, like we used to do back at the King’s Head when times were simpler. I offer one to my experimental comrade, and he blurts, “Yar,” crushing the can on his forehead after a record breaking pull.
Now Chud goes to work with meticulous precision and focus, drilling a ceremonious hole in this warped guinea pig’s mind. Blood sprays our faces and gear, as the roar of an auger wails its grinding joy. There is a clear energy explosion in the room, and two people pass out in pools of their elation-induced vomit. I give Satisfied75 a high five and we both pump fists like little leaguers. This is some shit, I think, and I watch with sociopathic distance as the patient coughs up allegiant thanks and praise. A flap of skin hangs lazily on his brow, and a clean-cut, fancy dress type walks up and offers a direct blessing on this unspeakable flesh button.
Finished and sated, Chud stitches up the wound, applying alcohol and ink, then cauterizes the man’s head with a makeshift, bitesized branding iron. The sizzle and smell of cooking skin unleashes a new wave of spiritual exuberance, and two prancing douche rockets with fresh holes in their heads begin to grapple, in joy or jealousy I cannot tell. One goes through the front window with a clatter, and the other one follows him out with a dive and a death knell.
Chud says, “Hey buddy, I know you’re not getting cold feet on me.” Chud has no wound on his bald head. No tats, no piercings either. He looks at me with an inviting sigh, and Satisfied75 goes into a deep Dark Side of the Moon lunatic laugh. It echoes from the vaulted ceilings and the room swirls. I stutter, then force out, “LMAO.” A couple of giant people, both over seven feet tall, cease making out in the corner and walk in my direction. They stop, kiss again, swallow a hand full of pills and then put their ape-ish hands on my shoulders. The female of the two, bearded and cute, grunts. Satisfied75 smiles and looks at his hand, searching for something that plainly isn’t there. Chud’s quiet. All’s quiet. I’m being led to the dentist chair. It’s my turn, after all.
We're simply humming up Western Avenue and I'm trying not to think about how bad I have to take a shit. Satisfied75 looks over at me from the sidecar and gives me an air-gun salute. We are tripping our balls off.
Managing not to crash into a Korean barbeque joint, I renegotiate my ’68 Triumph back onto the street and rev the throttle hard. Let's see if we can get this son of a bitch in the air, I'm thinking. At this speed on a warm Hollywood night, it actually feels like we are flying, and I'm looking good in my sleeveless jerkin. Hell, maybe we'll also get new tattoos tonight.
As we get up into the hills, the roads are darker, narrower and more ominous. Shadows bare large teeth and I'm totally wigging out. After lighting up a couple cigs, I pull over and hand one to Satisfied75, who just tilts his head back and stares at the moon for a minute with glazed eyes. I scamper under the cover of a gabled roof to do my business, but have to cut it short as an old man comes running out the front door with a shotgun, repeatedly asking, "Do you have no honor, sir? Do you have no honor" So this situation is kind of a bummer.
We peel the fuck out of there and continue to our destination, a little old house once owned by Anton Szandor LaVey. It’s a creepy looking house, with snake statues in the lawn, but the economy line of modern cars surrounding it give it a touch of normalcy.
I park the bike and look at Satisfied75, who can only muster the following eight words, “Dood, this is going to change our lives.” I find that my thoughts are echoing through my head in a British accent. “Fuckin, ‘ell,” I say.
The guy who answers the door is a tall, long-haired Japanese with a lot of piercings and a sickle in his hand. Nice fucking scythe, I’m thinking. He escorts us into the party proper and our faces are aglow in the blood covered foyer. Several men and women are pacing gingerly about the room holding scarlet soaked towels to their foreheads. There is a dentist chair in the center of the room and an acrimonious smell in the air.
So my buddy, Chud, from sewing class, the host of this soiree, comes weaving through the filth-ridden crowd with a smile the size of Texas. He slaps himself across the face three times, jovial and brimming with excitement. I ask him if I can get a drink. What a freakshow. “I didn’t know you were from England, Marty,” Chud offers. ‘Brighton,” I say and make my way in the direction of his outstretched finger, running my hand through the sweet new nylon wig I just purchased. Satisfied75 starts dancing, sliding really, on the red, soupy tile floor.
I whip up two stiff ones and hand one to my boy, relaxing in the trancing light before letting out a sickened laugh. The room stops its mechanical gyrations and looks at me, people, walls and furniture. “What the fauk are you wankers doin ‘ere?” I’m clearly shouting, spilling whiskey, slobbering and shaking. Only Satisfied75 continues to dance, unconcerned. I head to the john to finish off my well-deserved expunging ritual.
When I come out, four men in clown paint are performing ring-around-the-rosie steps until one of them is pushed out of the circle. He sits in the dentist chair and grins, his eyes are completely black. I am scared of this man, who is built like a pitbull with a green-stained wife-beater. He bellows.
Chud saunters up to him and begins to apply some network of manacles and straps, then he glances at a pocket sized booklet and diagrams some stick figures on the dude’s Cro Magnon skull. Chud looks at me and says, “You’re next bra.”
The Japanese guy with the sickle does a cartwheel and lands on his face, barely avoiding a facial run-in with the razor sharp point which instead nicks his ear lobe and contributes more living stew to the putrid linoleum. Oblivious to his injury, he manages to reach out and touch some buttons on the stereo and a twisted carnival score blares forth from unseen, in-walled speakers. I notice with some surprise that people are bowing deeply and pissing on the floor, and one guy begins to juggle fire with uncanny dexterity. This is a new level of consciousness, surely. Did I just see Satisfied75 swallow an entire torch? Fuck.
The festivus continues as Chud wipes gristle from his chin and produces a leather pouch with ungodly blue blades protruding from the ends. He pulls out a ruthless scalpel and carves a fresh V in his subject’s jutting forehead. The blood drips, drips, drips crimson tinctures onto Pit Bull’s lips, and he obliges it greedily with a yawn, a lapping motion and then a howl. Chud elbows him swiftly in the temple and the man ceases his bloodlust.
Satisfied75 is now shadowboxing a fat women, who cackles and then executes a roundhouse that lands her ungainly ass on a large cactus. Agonized, she runs out of the room, falls once, then crawls to a door, descending into darkness and shame. Satisfied75 makes us two more drinks and says, “DOOD!”
Up next is the power drill, and Chud gives it a test whirl amidst a crowd of lobotomized mimes. Chants of “the THIRD EYE” are thrown out liberally, and it’s at this moment that I decide to shotgun a Tecate, like we used to do back at the King’s Head when times were simpler. I offer one to my experimental comrade, and he blurts, “Yar,” crushing the can on his forehead after a record breaking pull.
Now Chud goes to work with meticulous precision and focus, drilling a ceremonious hole in this warped guinea pig’s mind. Blood sprays our faces and gear, as the roar of an auger wails its grinding joy. There is a clear energy explosion in the room, and two people pass out in pools of their elation-induced vomit. I give Satisfied75 a high five and we both pump fists like little leaguers. This is some shit, I think, and I watch with sociopathic distance as the patient coughs up allegiant thanks and praise. A flap of skin hangs lazily on his brow, and a clean-cut, fancy dress type walks up and offers a direct blessing on this unspeakable flesh button.
Finished and sated, Chud stitches up the wound, applying alcohol and ink, then cauterizes the man’s head with a makeshift, bitesized branding iron. The sizzle and smell of cooking skin unleashes a new wave of spiritual exuberance, and two prancing douche rockets with fresh holes in their heads begin to grapple, in joy or jealousy I cannot tell. One goes through the front window with a clatter, and the other one follows him out with a dive and a death knell.
Chud says, “Hey buddy, I know you’re not getting cold feet on me.” Chud has no wound on his bald head. No tats, no piercings either. He looks at me with an inviting sigh, and Satisfied75 goes into a deep Dark Side of the Moon lunatic laugh. It echoes from the vaulted ceilings and the room swirls. I stutter, then force out, “LMAO.” A couple of giant people, both over seven feet tall, cease making out in the corner and walk in my direction. They stop, kiss again, swallow a hand full of pills and then put their ape-ish hands on my shoulders. The female of the two, bearded and cute, grunts. Satisfied75 smiles and looks at his hand, searching for something that plainly isn’t there. Chud’s quiet. All’s quiet. I’m being led to the dentist chair. It’s my turn, after all.
