"Brothers in Mischief"

So it went, our plans to take over the world. . . . .

"There is going to be a new order, a new beginning!", Thor pounding his fist through the air. "And an end to all of this 'DECADENCE!'", sweeping his arm through the empty space like a fascist propaganda minister clearing the wreckage of a wasted & foregone society. Then he cackles manically.

Here we are in his ratty south-side apartment, keeping our voices down so we don't disturb the neighboring blacks and Bosnians. That's where he could afford to live on a social security disability check for major depression and nervous problems. But among the inert lump of humanity, particularly the psychotropically-drugged humanity that drifts in & out of social work programs like rainy garbage in a gutter, we have a spark of inspiration.

Why, the idea of a pesky hippie social worker with a guitar herding the mentally ill together in a Native American meditation circle for their own enlightenment, and a Japanese Samurai soldier riding up on a black horse. She tugs at his stirrups, he looks down, and with a grunt he beheads her with his sword.

That was the wavelength we shared, a keen grasp of the cosmic absurd! I started collecting pictures for him, ran off my printer, and we spiced up his drab apartment. A veritable postmodern collage, as it were. There was the one when he bore a remarkable resemblance to the bassist of Samhain, dressed up as "Frankenstein":

But we had a wild imagination. . . . . coming up with outrageous stories and piling on the absurdities until it grew to operatic levels. Like running our own crooked pharmacy! Thor was something of an amateur pharmacologist, with his morbid interest in the history of opiates, and he could don a white lab coat-- preparing concoctions worthy of Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory with his tremors. I could be the brute enforcer of this operation, making the sordid business contacts, and we could make the mentally ill our couriers and dupes to take the fall for us. They'd get their one phone call, we'd assure them that Johnny Cochran and F. Lee Bailey were on the way, then we'd flee the country!

But one of our favorite things to do was to listen to Mötley Crüe on a little stereo I bought him. I dubbed him a whole bunch of tapes, but it always went back to "Wild Side" and "Kickstart my Heart". Here we were, a 23 year-old and a 47 year-old, sitting on the couch and bopping our heads to heavy metal music 15 years out of date. The tour over, the t-shirts sold, all the money made, but this was what rock n' roll was all about.

Thor was in the habit of rooting through the $3.99 DVD bin at Walgreens and coming up with unlikely exploitation/horror movies from the damned that were so bad they were good, they were so god-awful wretched. Notwithstanding the fact that Thor didn't even own a DVD player, they'd sit around in factory-sealed shrink-wrap until he came over to my basement to check 'em out. Ones involving mental illness and hypodermic needles were of particular pointed interest, like when a patient was injected with pure adrenaline and did his best impression of the wolf man-- carrying a resuscitated zombie girl off into the woods for unspeakable purposes. By 1934 standards, it was obscene-- the kind of thing shown in burlesque theaters and road houses. "Mystery Science Theater 3000" wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole!

But our conversation was more seasoned than the geeky entertainment of hip, self-satisfied Central West End liberals, and we scoffed at them to no end.

In the fancy "Chase Park Cinè" with it's glinting mirrors, gold trim, and fancy carpeting, we had visions of high-ranking Nazi officials striding down the hallways with high purpose. We snickered amongst ourselves at the stooped little organist playing with his back to the ascending tiers of seats, if not at the geeky Gore-voting quiche-eating wastrels whom attended this theater and defiled Teddy Roosevelt's manly America.

We lived at the margins, and we were a seeping threat to health, wealth, and right-thinking Barry Manilo morals. Heaven help us if our subversive legions ever get into power. . . . .

I picked up a three hour series on "The Occult History of the Third Reich" one time, just for the sheer glory of it. There Thornton was, doubled over on the couch, balled up and laughing in uncontrollable high-pitched peals of laughter, his mouth open like a circus clown from the '30s. Especially that part about the "Aryan Christ" because he was a nominal Christian. According to this mystic mumbo-jumbo, the Aryan race used to have telepathic powers until they mated with Jewish subhumans whom were descended from the apes.

"You hear that Thor? The reason why I can't levitate that television is because my Dad mated with my Jewish mother!". More peals of explosive laughter.

"Hey Mike, Winona sure doesn't look like a monkey, does she?", Thornton sniggering into the repulsive idea.

"No, I think she was aiming more for that 'fine-boned, Martian-headed' look!"

We took a moment to conceive of Larry George in a pith helmet taking up the cause of "Little Brown Brother" because he was quite the Britishman, tracing back his ancestry to the 11th century. Growling, mean-tempered, he would have looked the part in a Puritan's outfit! (-- That is, when he wasn't psychotic and listening to his voices!)

But back to "Mother India"-- he's beating along some elephant with a goad and stops to scold a little brown beggar boy. We slip out of the bushes and shoot up the elephant with pure adrenaline! The next thing you know, Larry's struggling not to get trampled, caught between the elephant's tusks & stamping feet in a yellow cloud of dust, murmuring "GAWD DAMN IT!" as the beast trumpets bloody murder.

We were originals.

Then there was the time Thor called me on the spur of the moment, on the verge of a panic attack, wondering if I could swing by with my car to pick up a rented steam-cleaner. His Austro-Hungarian friend, George, a blinking lizard of a misfit, had a compulsive fixation on cleaning Thornton's carpet.

So it was. . . . . driving through south St. Louis on the hunt for the rental place that closed at 8:00 PM on the dot SHARP. There it it was, no less a filthy little dump. Two freaks attended to the register. One, a bald man with a beard and an aloof inflection who looked like he could have been shoveling lion shit with a push-broom for a 1930's circus. And his little helper, a hunched-over paunchy pale man who breathed heavily and shallowly like a diseased bat.

Compared to these poor souls, I felt fortunate.

While the taller repeatedly tried to explain the operation to an addled George, Thor and myself had a vision of the contraption malfunctioning-- those flailing hoses spitting up suds everywhere and soaking his pictures-- and keeled over at the waist laughing. Then the flower of St. Louis Catholicism came up to the register, and we imagined her sending out her two helpers to kidnap little boys and press them into duty of the circus.

How she could be left in the company alone with these two obviously sex-starved fiends defied the imagination, but perhaps she used some form of hypnosis or other variety of mind control.

"They brought it back a day late! Attack them!"

"Yes, mistress. . . . ." as they pick up mop handles and wield a mean pair of cash register keys. Thornton and I would have the good sense to run, but they would surely fall upon George!

And poor George didn't know what to say, as the trunk lid refused to slam shut over this most bulky miscalculation. Feeling like the boys of Metallica in their shiftless long-haired early days of actually loading up the gear themselves, I pushed at the thing with my foot. . . . . hard.

"Hey! I got a security desposit on that thing!" from George.

"Hey, it's not my problem!" I shrugged like a "Merry Vulgarian".

Well, it got loaded up somehow-- Thor contorted in the backseat like a sideshow contortionist-- and I pretended that I was going to swing by Dairy Queen first to pick up some burgers & fries. George did his magic with the rented steamer, then he got tired and went home. But Thor and I had a vast project in the works. . . . . to attempt to paper every square inch of his wall space with a conversation starter.

"School's out. . . . . FOREVER!" we chanted the Alice Cooper lyrics as we worked into the night like a stunt from "Animal House".

"School's out for SUMMER!" It was that eight years of formal Country Day preparatory school with a jacket & a tie that turned him into such a blacksheep, a rebel bordering on the poverty line.

And then his aged mother from hoity-toity Ladue came inside a week later and freaked out. George helped take down the clippings and Elvira: "She-Cat From Hell" was stashed behind the couch. But slowly. . . . . ever so slowly. . . . . it began to creep back!

      

Car-rollin', Boat-flippin'
Mötley Mischièf here

*******************

"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Rheeee of Crickets)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

("I heard that, Missy!")

© 2010 by Insufferable Industries

Drop "The Bard" a line at
michaeladams_s@yahoo.com

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