The Televisionary Oracle (57 page)

She bent in closer and gave me a juicy kiss on the lips. “Lust globally, make love locally,” she added before stepping away.

The next supplicant, a petite and very attractive black woman with glasses and lots of nervous energy, wanted to lick directly from the source.

“Pull ’em down farther,” she told Rapunzel, pointing to my shorts. Rapunzel peeled the waistband down to my crotch, and the woman pressed her lips against my small but seemingly inexhaustible wound. I relaxed as best I could as she puckered and sucked.

“You can sleep with her most of the time,” she said to me as she finished, pointing at Rapunzel, “but save something for the rest of us, OK? She deserves your best, but we deserve your second-best.” With this she laughed.

Before turning to make way for the next in line, she pointed at her belly and breathed, “Not going to trust anyone but the menstrual king to fertilize this womb. You know what they say: One spoonful contains enough sperm to populate the entire planet.”

The next woman in line looked familiar. Where had I seen her before? On the one hand, her body was that of a well-wrought thirty-five-year-old. She had relatively broad shoulders on a petite form, with narrow hips, low body fat, and sinewy muscles. On the other hand, I guessed her to be in her sixties—possibly older. Besides the grey hair, she had major forehead wrinkles and crow’s feet.

Then I remembered where I had seen her before—twice. The first time was in the picture book titled the
Menstrual Lingerie Fashion Show
. There her name was Vimala. The second time was on a strange TV at the gallery where I heard the Rapunzel lookalike deliver a rap about practicing the art of death.

Now, like the previous supplicant, this curiously young-looking crone bent down to drink directly from what I had finally come around to believe was my “menstrual stigmata.”

“Mmmmm,” she sighed in the direction of Rapunzel. “I love the virgin ooze of a menstrual king. It’s been so long. Too long. I am proud of you, dear. You have conjured up the perfect male consort. Well, maybe not the
perfect
one. But the best that could be expected under the circumstances.”

“Thanks, Vimala,” Rapunzel replied with a chuckle. “Had to start somewhere, I guess, huh?”

As Vimala left, the Norse leprechaun sat down on the bed, taking the side opposite Rapunzel. “Mind if I have seconds?” she asked expectantly.

“He’d be honored, Jumbler,” Rapunzel answered for me.

Jumbler partook of my gift, then snuggled close to me as Rapunzel did the same on my other side. Both had their arms around my shoulder.

“You can have your cake and eat it too,” Jumbler whispered in my ear. “We’ll give you the hand of the queen
and
the hands of all her court as well.”

“Not to mention the key to slipping into Crazyland at will,” Rapunzel breathed into my other ear. “All you have to do is place your creative skills in the service of the Menstrual Temple. What do you say?”

I could feel the soft contour of both their breasts on my upper arms. To my right, Rapunzel’s thigh and navel showed through big holes in her sari. The smell of her smoky velvet musk penetrated me to the bone. To my left, Jumbler’s small but perky breasts were clearly visible as her baggy, low-cut blouse gaped open. I felt my imagination attuning itself to her fragrance of orchids.

I became aware of an emotion trying to form itself in the space between my heart and throat. It was an unfamiliar one, maybe what emptiness would feel like if emptiness were a good and happy thing. I could almost sense the texture of a word echoing out of its midst:
vacate
or
vacancy
or
vacation
or
vacuum
or
evacuate
or the Spanish
vamanos
.

Barrenness but buoyancy. An exhilarating desert. Vacation in the void.

As I bobbed and floated in this desolate yet welcoming white sky, I passed through the ghost of a memory from when I was very young, well before I could talk, maybe just a couple of months old. I was in the lap of a person, my grandmother I think, who over and over again was hiding her face behind her hands and then suddenly peeking out. I was sure of it: This was the moment in my life when I first laughed. Unable to use the sculpting power of language to create my world, barely able even to perceive the boundary between a face and the air
around it, I found something funny; I invoked a gift of pure amusement
ex nihilo
.

The next thought that sprouted from the emptiness had no obvious connection to the previous impression. I found myself mulling over the fantasy of writing a story about the adventures I’d had since meeting Rapunzel—possibly borrowing from the manuscript I’d read earlier. The first scene would take place in the Catalyst bathroom. The second would be the vision I had while sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the Catalyst. Maybe. I didn’t know the sequence exactly. The story was shaping itself in me; I could feel it. I imagined that my work would be like that of an amanuensis, a transcriptionist.

Would I really do such a thing as I was imagining? In many ways it went against my artistic instincts. If there has been one constant in my highly miscellaneous career as a creator, it’s my allergy to the personal and the emotional and the intimate. Narcissism and egocentricity have been my taboos. Confessionalism repels me. I’ve been secretly proud of how steadfastly I’ve avoided mining even the most interesting events of my idiosyncratic history. Instead, politics and myth and dream have fueled my art. I’ve been like a surrealist anthropologist from Mars throwing out jokey analyses about the weird customs I observe.

And now this: an inspiration to indulge in the most excruciatingly personal narrative imaginable. I was embarrassed even to contemplate the shameless images that were already welling up. And that was exactly what was so exciting about it.

The superdream ended there. Long after I awoke, I lay in bed reliving every detail. Eventually my thoughts turned to a meditation on whether Rapunzel was really responsible for delivering this wonder to me, and by what mechanism she could have done it. That’s a crucial question, after all, in deciding how to respond to the deals she proposed during her invasion of my home.

This I know for certain: The superdream was the Grail I’ve been stalking all these years. It allowed me to inhabit the other side of the veil with a piercing lucidity that I have not been able to muster since I gave up drugs.

There is also another delightful prospect the superdream has inspired
me to fantasize about: What if it is a prophecy, or at least a foreshadowing, of an encounter with the Menstrual Temple that will actually happen in my waking life? What if Rapunzel transmitted or incited this scenario as a way to dramatize what awaits me when I receive the “menarche for men” she promised?

When I finally ended my ruminations on the dream and got out of bed, it was to find William Blake’s
A Vision of the Last Judgment
on my bookshelf and reread one of my favorite passages.

In the wake of my landmark incursion into the paradisiacal enclave of the Dreamtime, greedy fantasies have been welling up in me. Do I dare imagine it’s possible to drench myself in this deliverance at will? That I might gorge on this orgiastic catechism nightly? Could it be Rapunzel has established some telepathic link to my subconscious mind—a link that will allow me to drink deep draughts of this rapture again and again?

I am achingly tempted to do the unthinkable—if that’s what it would take to earn this gift. Not to sell my soul, which is too expensive even for the devil to buy, but to sell my
ego
. To unload a big chunk of my megalomania. To dissolve my band World Entertainment War and quit the rock music business.

The joyous feast of the superdream, after all, is not the only offer on the table. How did Rapunzel put it when she made her visitation to my abode? She implied that my romance with World Entertainment War would seem like a crush in kindergarten compared to the mysterious love that awaits me if I renounce my precious band. “It would not be a lie,” were her exact words as she shimmered like a vestal virgin
next to my Wailing Wall, “to say that you have been freshly delivered into the presence of a watered-down version of the majestic gift.” What else could that mean besides a relationship with Rapunzel herself, which was also strongly implied in the superdream? At the moment she spoke those words, nothing new besides her auroral splendor and its cathartic effect on me had freshly penetrated my sanctuary.

Take the promise of regular dips in the enchanted precincts of the Dreamtime, and add to it the hope of becoming betrothed to the embodiment of beauty and truth who has already broken my heart open with scary blessings, and there’s a temptation so blindingly irresistible that I can’t possibly indulge any fears that it would destroy me.

That last thing I said is oozing so much childlike idealism and romantic bombast—typical, typical—that I’m blushing. If I ever stage another “Lousy Poetry Reading,” as I did once in my bad-boy days as a performance artist, it’ll be statements like that which will deserve the spotlight.

The fact is, though, when you take into consideration the disenfranchised part of myself the Jungians call the “shadow,” I’m too complex a schemer to actually live up to my childlike idealism and romantic bombast. That’s why I’ve decided to be realistic in my response to Rapunzel’s challenge.

I’ve concocted a covert strategy that I believe will allow me to gobble up my cake and maybe possibly hopefully have it too.

At the very least, it’s such an evocative prank that it’ll no doubt inspire an entire album’s worth of songs.

It wasn’t easy to convince the band we should risk my scheme. In fact, when I called them all together at my house last night, they were initially aghast. They gave me the same kind of mushy resistance I’ve met in the past when I’ve proposed other radical experiments designed to mutate our course. But in the end they bought it. Did they have a choice? My mind was made up. And besides, they’ve seen ample examples of the successful outcome of other loony inspirations of mine.

This is what I proposed. We’ll carry out an extended performance art experiment which will appear to signal the demise of World Entertainment War, but which will ultimately multiply our mystique a thousand-fold—and pave the way for an explosive rebirth.

The first step is for the five of them to send a press release to all the newspapers.

“World Entertainment War’s lead singer and conceptual mastermind,” the blurb’ll say, “has announced he’s leaving the band in order to devote himself full-time to his role as a member of a radical feminist religious cult.

“Though he has indicated he’s not at liberty to reveal the complete picture of his new mission, he has allowed us to divulge these facts: 1) The name of the cult is the Yo Mama Brigade. 2) His work there will consist of mastering the arts of the ‘Lesbian Man’ through ascetic service to the neo-matriarchy and by pursuing a hands-on study of the tantric version of chaos theory. 3) His ‘ascetic service’ will consist mostly of cleaning the toilets and washing the dishes of Goddess-worshipers, as well as a host of other janitorial tasks. 4) He has renounced all further contact with the media, which he dismisses as ‘universally infected by the entertainment criminals’ conspiracy to genocide the global imagination.’

“We regret that this transition means,” the press release will go on to say, “we must abandon World Entertainment War’s good fight. As of today, the band is no more. Its founder’s departure breaks our hearts too badly to try to salvage a wounded version of our former selves.

“Perhaps when the dust clears and the rest of us have had some time to think, we’ll formulate a new cadre of musical freedom fighters and return to the battle. But for now we must grieve the decision of our inspirational leader, and hope that this difficult and courageous move brings him closer to the core of his quest to become the ultimate prayer warrior. It has always been his unflinching devotion to his soul’s truth that has fueled World Entertainment War’s mission, and we can only admire him for upholding his tradition, even if in the short run it derails our highest ambitions.

“On the other hand, having whispered all those sweet nothings, we now have to be honest and confess the rest of what we feel. Goddamn him. Goddamn that moody, whimsical narcissist. How dare he fling himself off our muscular young stallion in mid-race? Is there something we’re missing here? Some essential fact he’s not telling us? Far be it from us to question His Worshipfulness’ inscrutable fate, but what the hell is he thinking? We can’t believe his new friends are so eager
to psychically castrate a masculine role model who does so much good for the world. And we cannot fathom how this proudly independent thinker could have been so utterly brainwashed as to go along with their program for his life.

“To our fans—our extended family—we apologize with the biggest shit-eating mournful frown we can summon. We hope to hold a wake for World Entertainment War in the near future. Stay tuned for an announcement.”

In my heart of hearts, of course, I have no intention of euthanizing my beautiful offspring, World Entertainment War. Just the opposite. I intend for this maneuver to up the ante of our fans’ emotional investment in our fate, and to seduce thousands of new melodrama addicts into our sphere. A couple of months down the line, when I come out of retirement and reconvene the band, newly invigorated by my sojourn with the Menstrual Temple, World Entertainment War’s Mythic Quotient will have skyrocketed. If I know the way my creative process works, I’ll also have conjured a whole rock opera’s worth of new material based on the twisty tales I’ve just lived through. We’ll go into the studio and record an irresistible new CD.