The Vampyres Of New York, Vol. I, Clip 7

The Vampyres Of New York

Vol.1, Clip 7

A Novel

by

R.E. Prindle

 

Expecting Lessing to get busy organizing legal defenses I more confidently approached Ragnar.  As he would be on the line, that is more open to suspicion, I decided to drive over to Newport to view the site of the famous Folk Festival.  Newport was a big event in younger days, the site where Dylan went electric shocking the Village folk crowd.

A few years back in twenty-fifteen or so a lot of video stuff was released covering those several years along with a bunch of CDs of Dylan’s nightclub appearances, Carnegie Hall and things.  What shows up visually and aurally is quite different from the written accounts.  Anyway I wanted to walk over the grounds.

Clearly we were being tailed so we took a couple of evasive measures just to let them know we knew they were there and then I forgot about them.  There was a nice breeze in from the sea so Ragnar and I walked into it; I hoped the wind might muffle any microphones directed at us and at any rate they would be directed at our backs.

Me:  So, Ragnar, I had a talk with Lessing.  He definitely wants to do something to address the racial imbalance.  He’s actively working to organize some lawyers and judges who sympathize with our plight.  They intend to protect any Whites arrested as ‘domestic terrorists’ or whatever; either get the cases dismissed outright or delay them or if possible have them fall through the cracks as they say.

Ragnar:  That’s interesting.  So?

Me:  Well, maybe I’m wrong Ragnar, but I have the feeling that your gym group might be grumpy about the race war and the lack of affirmative action against it.

Ragnar:  We’re not happy with what’s going on, that’s for sure.

Me:  Yeah.  This might be the right time to get something going.

Ragnar:  Like what?

Me:  Oh, you know, securing the streets so they’re safe for wife and family.  A little neighborhood ethnic cleansing to clear out unwanted elements and replace them with suitable people for instance.  Kind of a White no-go area to match that of Harlem and the Moslems surrounding Wall Street, for instance.

Ragnar:  You know how far that would get.

Me:  That’s what I’m saying Ragnar.  No charges would be filed or if they were they would be nullified by legal procedures.  A certain care would have to be taken but action could be pretty well denied.  Intimidation rather than actual violence just as with the Mexicans, Syrians and Negroes.  We all know who to get rid of unwanted Whites, don’t we?

Ragnar:  Farquhar would cover our backs?

Me:  That’s what I’m saying.  And if any of you know policeman, which I’m sure you do, they can take their time arriving, if they leave the station.  They know how to obfuscate procedures.  I’m sure they would appreciate safe neighborhoods for their families, cleansed schools without racial terrorism.

You’re all body builders so put on a scowl and terrify intruders into cleansed neighborhoods.  Levey donations on business owners who will no longer be bothered by roving groups of thieves.  They’re all losing ten or fifteen percent minimum to those guys and maybe paying protection.  Guarantee them no shop lifting, no gay activists and it should be worth a few hundred dollars a month plus the ability to relax a little.  Chat them up, see what racial discord is costing them and strike a deal.  That way you’ll cover your expenses with a little over.

As front line freedom fighters that would be only fair.  Talk to your buddies Ragnar.  See where they stand.  Let me know and we’ll get some effective offensive moves going.  Reclaim the streets and then move on from there.

Ragnar:  You’re sure Farquhar will perform?’

Me.  Well, Ragnar, your gym is public, why don’t Lessing and I come down on some Saturday and chat while you’re pumping iron.  You have ten pound weights for the amateurs don’t you?

Ragnar:  Ten pound weights?  Yeah, for the kids.  OK, great.  You two are the leaders?

Me:  No, Ragnar.  We’re both down the list a ways.  We’re just organizers.  The big guys prefer to be incognito.

That was a little white lie but I and I’m sure Lessing wanted to stay in the background as far as possible.  It would be best to organize on standard conspiratorial lines.

I relaxed on the drive back to Manhattan but my brain was working.  Little did I suspect but the next day would be a life enhancing experience.  Nordstrom’s Department Store was beginning its grand opening for its first Manhattan store so I decided to go up and see how things were working out.  Nordstrom’s was a Northwest chain that began in Seattle so I thought I’d see if they could handle the Big Bagel.

The outside of the store was magnificent while crowds of people pressed through the banks of doors.  It seemed likely that more people would want in than the store could handle.  Amazingly the limousine seemed to announce that an important personage was within so that when I stepped out the crowd parted to let me in.  Smiling benignly left and right I strode to the doors as though by divine right.  Once inside though I became common place jostling and forcing my way through the crowd.

It may not be true but it seemed like the retail store was the church of the age.  While people seemed to be buying, for myself, I couldn’t see how they could examine the merchandise so quickly.  Pushed hither and thither I was scarcely aware of what department I was in.  And then…I saw her standing there.  She was tall and willowy, probably seventy years of age, right for me and deep chested, always a top criterion.

Her head was lowered as though her gaze was fixed steadfastly on something on the floor.  She seemed oblivious to all around her, one could almost mistake her for a manikin.  Then it occurred to me that she was catatonic, devoid of volition.  She was mine for the taking.

I walked over, slipped my arm around her waist and said:  Come Darling, you are found.  She was lost inside but made no resistance as I applied a slight pressure allowing me to guide her through the crowd.  Ragnar concealed his surprise at my appearance with her but leading us to the Limo, I put the woman inside following her.

I studied her intently as Ragnar threaded through the dense traffic.  I thought I recognized her problem.  When I was in the Orphanage I had withdrawn into myself at one point.  Unable to resist or change the intolerable conditions I was facing I shrunk down against the wall of the dormitory withdrawing inside my mind with no intent of ever coming out.

The house mother pleaded with me and I heard her but gave no outward indication of hearing.  I don’t know exactly what caused me to relinquish my attitude, perhaps the thought of being transferred to another institution and that might clearly be worse than the one I was in.  At any rate I came out and resumed my life.

I thought that probably was the woman’s situation.  Something about the Nordstrom situation catalyzed past influences in her life causing her to give up.  I thought possibly I could bring her back especially as I knew she could hear me.  I had a plan I had been nursing for a long time; this would be a good time to try it.  It was a dream come true.

I knew what she represented to me.  She was the living image of the Anima I desired.  Recent developments had left me Anima voided causing me psychological discomfort.  Now I had found her, she who I needed, she was mine and I was determined she wouldn’t get away.  I watched her quietly working out my method.  I believed I had to be successful within three days or she would probably be beyond reach forever.  And then what could I do with her.

I escorted her past Ottmar and into the elevator.  She wasn’t difficult to steer but she stopped in her tracks when the forward pressure was removed.  Thus she stopped in her tracks without lifting her her gaze from the floor as I worked through the first set of keys.  Opening the entry door I moved her into the little vestibule while I manipulated the keys for the inner door.

That done I moved her into the living room and left her staring out toward the Staten Island view.  Coming back, I placed a chair behind her and invited her to sit down.  I knew she could hear but she was incapable of responding so I backed her into the chair, took her purse from her and seated myself on the couch facing her.

I wasn’t clear what to do next.  Finally I said:  Darling, you were lost but now you are found.  I have rescued you.  As I expected, this elicited no response.  As it was now well after lunch I decided she needed a bite of something.  As loving care might be as useful as anything else I led her into the dining room telling her I was going to make her some soup.  Sitting her down I had no qualms about leaving her as I knew she was incapable of moving.  Cooking up some Cream of Squash which was a nice bland soup I next faced the dilemma of how to get her to ingest it as she refused to or was unable to grasp the spoon.

Filling the spoon halfway I pried her lips open and slipped the spoon into her mouth tipping her head back so that she involuntarily swallowed as she was apparently hungry.  As I fed her I began to speak soothingly to her using ideas I had developed earlier.  I still had no idea of who she was but…

Me:  Al right, Darling Girl, I think I know what the matter is and I was sent to rescue you.  The great goddess Hera saw that you were in danger.  She sent me to save you before the authorities picked you up and took you to Bellevue.  Once in there the gods only know what would have happened to you.  They would have injected you with horrible drugs or even subjected you to electro-shock therapy.  You would have been destroyed.  Once you’re in the hands of the authorities you’re lost but you were fortunate that Hera was watching over you and I found you.

I am a priest of the cult of Hera.  My name is Partly Wright.  Hera has invested me with the power to restore you to health.  I love you and you’re safe in good hands but you will have to follow the cleansing and purification ritual.  In your condition it may take three days but perhaps less depending on how injured your mind is. 

As I hope you know, but if you don’t I’ll tell you:  Hera is the goddess who protects and aids women.  She has a long history.  Her home was in the Greek city of Argos.  For a great period she reigned there with her consort Heracles, this was in the days before the Patriarchy.  In her period, the Matriarchy, she reigned with her consort Heracles.  Their relationship was known as the marriage between the Sun, Heracles and the Moon, She.  Her name meant She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.  In point of fact I was deputized by that earlier Sun God Heracles as male administering to Hera’s daughters of which you are one. 

When the Great Cataclysm came, the arrival of the Patriarchy, the ancient harmony was shattered.  Unable to resist the warriors of the Patriarchy Hera lost her place and freedom becoming subordinated to the Patriarchic great god Zeus.  You may be sure she made a troublesome wife for him.

Heracles was torn from her side and cast down from the abode of the gods to become a mere human while others squabbled for his place as avatar of the Sun.  He was subordinated to the role of a mere human while being given onerous tasks that were thought impossible to achieve in the hopes of dishonoring him forever.  Heracles with the covert aid of his former wife was made of sterner stuff fulfilling all the tasks.

To make the story shorter after a lifetime of trials and tribulations he died but with an enormous reputation that had to be taken into account.  More from shame and embarrassment than from desire Heracles Patriarchic gods made him a demi-god and gave him the role of doorman for the godly abode of Olympus.  But, let the dead past bury its dead.  For you and me here that has no effect, but you should know.

I will now give you a small glass of wine as a symbol of the power of the Sun and then we will begin the cleansing and purifying lustration.

I looked for any signs of recognition concerning my account but could notice only a slight relaxing in the tension she was under.  I deemed that a positive sign indicating that with care she could be reached and rescued.

I thought her problem was obvious.  As she appeared to be about seventy when the mind begins to go through changes becoming a little less elastic that her defenses against all the abuses we endure got in the way and she failed to make a small transition at which time she sank into a serious depression which is what this catalepsy is, at least mine was.  Somehow the joyous ecstatic atmosphere at Nordstrom’s opening contrasted too strongly perhaps with her growing depression and she sank into catalepsy on the spot.  This was serious but early enough so that I was positive she could be saved.  I would have to be at a peak of form I have never attained before however.

I gave her a couple sips of the wine, a mere sip actually given more as a form of ritual, a suggestion, to hopefully gain her confidence.  Then I raised her from the chair leading her to the shower in the bathroom.  In the modern taste the bathroom was a little temple in green marble perhaps three hundred square feet.  Why the modern mind has made so much of the bathroom is unclear to me.  Along the way I began to explain to her the necessary legend or myth of Hera that gave the lustration sense.

‘Listen carefully, Darling Girl, for this is how you will be saved.  In those days our patroness Lady, Hera, was as well as the protector of women the goddess of life, as you may know.  This was represented by the annual cycle of birth in Spring and the death of vegetation in Fall.  Of course, the earth is revived by the rains bursting forth once more in the virgin Spring.  This is symbolized in Astrology when Ganymede as Aquarius pours forth the water from his urn on Hera characterized as Virgo the Virgin.

In another telling the great goddess Hera every Spring bathed in the waters of the spring of Kanathos thus restoring her virginity.  We are now going to replicate that ritual using the water of this shower.  Water, as is well known, is a purifying agent.  Thus as a priest of Hera I through She will restore you to a state as of virginity.’

While speaking I had been disrobing the woman to reveal a gorgeous well formed figure with stunning breasts.  The ravages of time could not be fully resisted but she was a perfect example of what a woman of seventy should be.  I adjusted the shower just above warm verging into hot then, as the woman still had no volition I had to lift her legs over the lip of the shower.  It may have been my imagination but I thought she responded to the water.

Taking the bar of Creed soap, Creed is among the finest made and my favorite, I began to lave her neck, massaging carefully, moving down her body at the same time intoning:  By the power invested in me by Our Lady Hera the crimes, indignities, insults and injuries this lovely woman has endured in life are washed away.  Any guilt she mistakenly carries is cleansed from her soul, mind and body.  She is returned to her original virginal state.’

As my hands caressed her lovely curves I thought I felt a relaxation of the muscle tension.  As she had not yet raised her head I ventured further telling her that she could see the soiling made from her body go down the drain, a pale grey color.  Her eyes did seem to focus.

Then lifting her head, I concentrated my gaze into her lovely golden eyes, a golden green, to see that they were clear exhibiting no trace, as far as I could see, of her temporary insanity.  Using my soaped finger I caressed her cheeks washing away the makeup, although expertly applied, to reveal a clear vibrant complexion.  She had apparently, curiously, avoided the sun as there was little damage to her face and her exquisite body.

Amazingly there was little wrinkling other than the slight sagging of her cheeks from the pull of gravity.  Her mouth was neither small nor large, although for my tastes it could have been a little larger, while her lips retained almost youthful form while beginning to narrow.

Having completed the conjurations and lustration I led her from the shower as she still lacked volition, to carefully pat her down with a snow white towel.

That completed I led her back to the bedroom.  I put her in the shirt I had worn the day before then lay her down on the bed.  Speaking softly I said:  Darling Girl you will now sleep a deep and dreamless sleep until the morning sun comes up.  Your sleep will be dreamless but your unconscious mind will absorb the ritual of Hera you have just performed while your mind will repair and reorder any injuries you may have received leading to your catalepsy.

You will wake refreshed and be able to resume your active life.  Now, close your eyes Darling Girl and sleep.  Sleep the all healing sleep.’

At this point she visibly relaxed with closing eyes, ‘Sleep , Darling Child of Hera, sleep.

As she appeared to be asleep I closed the door leaving it slightly open.  I then went to get her purse to see who I was dealing with.

Being a New Yorker she had no driver’s license but she did have a medical insurance card.  You can imagine how stunned I was to learn her name was Angeline Gower.  I had once been rescued by a woman named Angeline Gower.  After high school when I was in emotional shell shock from my rotten childhood I took to the highway ending up in the Grand Traverse where I blanked out in a coffee shop only to return to consciousness ten days later in Angeline’s magnificent bed in a shack out in the woods.  Angeline was almost in the condition I was from an equally rotten childhood still she managed to nurse me to health and save my life.  I’ll add to the details when Ange (short for Angeline) wakes up tomorrow.

So, she was Angeline Gower II whose life I was now saving.  She wasn’t broke, her billfold contained six hundred fifty-two dollars with a checking account balance of near one hundred thousand dollars so it wasn’t ticket price shock at Nordstrom’s that put her into catatonic shock.

Looking further I found a Bar Association card so she either was or had been a lawyer.  From that I deduced her catatonia was sexually related probably from a too casual attitude from her fellow lawyers or perhaps worse.  After all, the sixties, seventies and eighties had been very degrading for women, not that they didn’t embrace the period calling it freedom.  She must have numerous stories of legal sexual misconduct.  I could have obtained a force with which to control lawyers and judges in Angeline.  She must know dozens of women in her situation and they would know hundreds of lawyers and judges.

Otherwise her bag was an eight thousand dollar Chanel with all accoutrements equally expensive.  Heck, the crappy short haircut probably cost five hundred a session not to mention the makeup brands most of which I had never heard of and I follow the fashion magazines.

Alright.  I would have to see if she was with the living on the morrow or still one of the walking dead.  It was getting late and I hadn’t eaten so I made up a pastrami, corned beef and ham sandwich, emptied out a can of Campbell’s Chunky Potato and Bacon soup that I ate at a leisured pace.  I had come across a nice Chateau Ste. Madeline, Cassis appellation, that proved a pleasant complement to my, well, repast.

Angeline seemed to sleeping peacefully or perhaps she was comatose.  Anyway, I crawled in beside her, overwhelmed by her beauty.  Don’t get any idea I took advantage of her because I intended her for my Anima and to violate my Anima would be to violate myself.  I’m no masochist.  I did however fold the cover back to gaze for a few moments at her magnificent breasts and wild strawberries.  I’m only human as the weasels say.

True to my suggestion her eyes opened with the sunrise but she didn’t seem to be aware so I got up to make some poached eggs and toast to supplement my meager takings of last night.

I had just sat down at table when I looked up to see Ange standing there in the nude.  It was going to be a good breakfast.  She stood there with one hand on her hip the other extended above her leaning on the door jamb, or arch way rather.  My eggs tasted great.  A slight smile appeared on her lips as she studied me attentively.

Then she said:  May I have some eggs too?

Nice voice, lovely voice, cultivated but not ostentatiously so, no Eleanor Roosevelt.

‘Sure Angeline, sit down.  How many would you like, two or three?’

‘Three.’  She sighed languorously.

‘I’ll be three minutes, the water’s already boiled.’

‘Thank-you.  Is your name really Partly Wright?’

‘You think that’s funny, Ange?  Yes it is.  Mother had a sense of humor as I never tire of saying.  You’ve been going through my pockets?

‘I took that liberty.’

‘Yes, well, and is your name really Angeline Gower?’

‘What’s funny about that?’

‘Nothing, only a while back, a long time now I knew an Angeline Gower up in the Grand Traverse.’

‘Grand Traverse, Michigan?’  Angeline said freezing in her tracks as I had on looking at her medical card.

‘Um hm, yes, many years ago, back in nineteen fifty six but you can’t be her, she was several years older than me so you’d have to closing in on ninety.’

Ange: My mother was in Grand Traverse, working at a restaurant at that time.  She used to tell me of an ungrateful boy she rescued at that time but his name wasn’t Partly Wright.’

Me:  ‘No.  I was in my Dewey Trueman phase at that time.’

Ange:  ‘That’s the name!  You’re Dewey Trueman?’

Me:  ‘No.  I’m Partly Wright.  Dewey Trueman died on the Grand Traverse.’

Ange:  ‘Mother used to say that she woke up one morning and you, or this Dewey Trueman, was gone.’

Me:  ‘Yes, that’s true.  But that Angeline Gower didn’t have a daughter and she wouldn’t have been your age, Ange.’

Ange:  ‘She never mentioned me to you.’

Me:  No.  She never talked about her past life at all and I really wasn’t in any kind of mental condition to be overly curious.’

Ange:  ‘Hmm.  Mother was in pain herself when you knew her.  I’ll tell you her story if you like.’

I signified yes but I was getting very uncomfortable myself feeling like I would go into shock.  It was déjà vu flickering past like film frames in very slow motion, I thought I might lose it.  Suddenly I could pick my old Angeline’s features in my new Angeline’s face.  Synchronicity bulbs kept flashing in my mind mentally blinding me.  I put my head down dug into my eggs.  Ange said nothing watching me, when I put my head up I had tears in my eyes that I couldn’t conceal. I guess that softened my new Angeline.

But Ange had brought up the memories of my old Angeline for which I had always harbored guilt.  As had happened to me before while writing old memories had called up only what I can call a mental rash that is so overwhelming I had to take to bed, so now this rash arose and I had to go to bed until it passed which if the past was any guide might be one or two days.  I explained my situation to Ange that only caused her to giggle as she followed me into the bedroom seizing my hand on the way.

Removing my clothes I crawled into bed.  Ange watched me giggling away then after I got into bed hopping up on it sitting on her heels still coyly giggling.  But it wasn’t the giggling of a grown woman but more of a ten or eleven year old girl.  Then I realized that she hadn’t fully recovered but though retaining her mental attributes of her age she had slipped into the emotional state of a child, as I was to learn, before she had surrendered her virginity, that had happened as I was to learn when she was sixteen.

Apparently in my cleansing ritual of the previous evening when I returned her to a mental virginity she had interpreted it as one level of consciousness literally; thus she was of two minds.  Now she set about to seduce me as an eleven year old would do but her mind was shadowed by her current age and experience.

I was reluctant to engage as I wasn’t sure Ange was competent, on the other hand I couldn’t refuse without fear of offending her and perhaps losing her.  After all I had joined her in marriage as the Sun and Moon.  I don’t live in quandaries so we consummated our marriage.  The combination of an eleven year old and post-menopause woman was a strange experience that I will never forget or regret.

At any rate we were now one.  And then a strange thing happened.  Relaxing in the glow Ange suddenly said to me in a sort of eleven year old baby talk:  you remember you said your goddess had sent you to cherish and protect me?

Now I was frightened; what was coming next?

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to revenge me on a man who hurt me.’

Ooh, what had I gotten myself into:  Yes, Angeline, who is he and what did he do?

‘He’s Judge Merivale Adelstein and he raped me more than once.’

‘What kind of judge, Ange?’

‘He’s a federal judge and he’s a horrible man.  He treats us women like we are his sex slaves.  He has to be punished.’

I quickly agreed, I even had formulated a plan in an instant.  Angeline had said ‘us girls’, that meant several and if he used his position to compel sexual favors he was in very deep doo-doo, no statute of limitations, instant destruction.  And if he was doing it very likely other judges were while it might be possible to uncover a system of abuse among the legal firms.  Depending on things this knowledge could give us, the Serapion Order, nearly complete control over the legal establishment.

‘You said ‘us girls’ Angeline.  Do you know the names of the other women?’

‘Of course, we used to get together and compare notes.  What are you going to do to him, walk up and punch him in the nose?’

‘First I have to find out who he is but then I’m not sure punching him in the nose is a suitable punishment, he merits more than that.’

‘I’ll say he does.  What are you going to do?’

‘Well, I won’t be doing anything in the next couple of days Ange but I might be able to get him by the short hairs within a week to ten days.’

‘Pooh, short hairs, how’s that going to hurt him?’

‘Short hairs is just a saying Ange, meaning causing him great pain as in saying ‘cut him a new asshole.’

‘Oh, I don’t know that one either.’

‘I’m surprised, but, Ange, can you draw me up a list of these other women, addresses  and phone numbers if possible.?

‘I thought you said you loved me, that I was your Anima.’

‘Nothing has changed Cara Mia.  I’m not going to make passes at them.  Lessing and I have an operation going and this information clinches it for us.’

‘Lessing?  Lessing who?’

It occurred to me then that as both Ange and Lessing were lawyers she might know him.  ‘Lessing Farquhar.  Miles and Lady’s friend.’

‘Lessing Farquhar is a lawyer.  How do you know him?  And Lady and Miles sound like the Carmichaels.’

I forgot I had never mentioned the Carmichaels.  ‘Lessing is a friend of Lady and Miles, so I met him through them.’

‘How do you know the Carmichaels?’

‘I guess I haven’t had time to tell you.  This is the Carmichael’s condo.  I’m house sitting for them while they’re in Europe for a year.  Ange, now you’re a lawyer so you don’t betray confidences do you?’

‘No. You aren’t in trouble are you, Partly?’

‘No, no, no, no.  Lessing and I belong to an Order.  The New Serapion Order.  We’re a kind of a revolutionary group.  You’re not an Obamite are you?’

‘I’m whatever you are Partly.  I am your woman, you can’t get away.’

‘Oh good, that’s the way I feel about you too Ange.  So, anyway your revenge on Judge Adelstein will come through his subordination to our uses.  If you were his sex slave he’s now going to be your slave.  He will jump when you say jump.  He’s the guy that’s angling for the Supreme Court isn’t he?  You must be aware of dirty work he’s involved in.  Probably bought stock using insider information?   The guy’s walking on gilded splinters.’

‘Oh sure, that’s the least of it.’

Me:  ‘Great.  Listen Ange I want you to get some rest.  You’re still a little wired from your catatonia.  And tomorrow I want you to draw up the list.  We have to move fast.  Helzapoppin’, as they say.’

‘You rest.  I’m going to go up to your place and pack some clothes for you, get your makeup.  Is there anything else you need Darling.’

Ange:  ‘I’m happy here with you Partly, I don’t need any clothes.  I don’t want to leave.’

Me:  ‘I know Darling Girl.  I’d like this to go on forever too but reality will intrude soon enough.  We may have to go out together, clothes will be more important then.  I won’t be gone very long.  Just long enough to get some things for you.  I never have anyone come up here, there will be no deliveries, no reason for anyone to come up so, in on the off chance someone knocks, don’t even get up.  You’ve got a phone, my number is at the top so if you feel any anxiety, call.  This won’t take long.  Fifty-Sixth Street is your address, right?  OK Honey, rest for a while, let your mind heal.’

Ragnar had the limo ready.  Not too many minutes later I was in front of Angeline’s building.

‘Come on up Ragnar.  I’m sure I’ll need help carrying.’

Angeline was only on the eighth floor.  Ange only had double locks, thank goodness, and only one door.  The condo was surprisingly large, tastefully if sparsely decorated.  Showed a clear mind or a capable decorator.  There was a feeling of longing about the place, a picture with a far away horizon over the couch.

‘Better take her computer down Ragnar, that will probably be needed.’

Bagging her makeup wasn’t a problem, at least I didn’t think it was but stuffing a couple suitcases with clothes was more difficult than I thought.  I didn’t know anything about mixing and matching and those feminine things.  I made sure she had enough underwear then stuffed a bunch of skirts, slacks, blouses and sweaters into the suitcase thinking Ange was right, I was out of my depth.

I snapped the suitcases shut as Ragnar returned.  He took one and I took the other.  As I was locking up one of those booming voices of authority growled:  Who the hell are you?

I turned to see a vision from my childhood.  A hated one.  The fellow wasn’t big, only about five-five but he stood tall, occupying his space securely.  He looked like one of these world war posters where Uncle Sam is rolling up his sleeves for a fight.  He had on a pair of those massive wing tips that look like you’re trying to leave a big foot print.  New too, minimal creases.  The guy probably threw them away before they looked even a little worn.  The green plaid sport coat over a pair of black pants was atypical.  Hadn’t seen that one before.  I didn’t know his name but then he didn’t need one.  As I said:  I knew the type.

He glared at me too proud in his inner powers to ask me twice.

I had to choose the right personality to gain the upper hand.  I chose to be confident, cool and distant, a quieter tough:  ‘What business is it of yours?  Who are you?

‘Don’t get wise with me.”

‘I think you’re talking to the wrong man Friend.  Move aside.’

‘This isn’t your apartment; I know the woman who lives here.’

I looked at his face more closely.  He was Jewish.  Then it hit me.  This was Judge Marivale Adelstein.

‘So do I.  Come on, let’s go Ragnar.’

‘Ragnar?  Lady Carmichael’s chauffer?’

Good god, he knew the Carmichaels.  Christ.  I was going to have to talk to him.  Ragnar looked my way for directions.

‘Yes it is, Judge Adelstein.  Hello, I’m Partly Wright.  I’m house sitting for the Carmichaels.  Nice to have met you.  We have to go now.  I’ll talk to you later.’

While he stood staggered that I knew his name Ragnar and I walked away quickly.  Behind me I could her him snort:  Which part?  I really hate that stale joke.

I dragged the suitcases into the apartment.  I looked up to see Angeline, back to me, looking over her shoulder smiling.  She wasn’t nude anymore, she had put on a pair of Lady’s four inch spikes.  Not unattractive but disconcerting.

‘I got up to look out the window.’

‘Oh.  You’ll never guess who I met at your apartment Angeline.’

‘Merivale Adelstein.’

I was wrong on that one.  ‘My, you’re prescient.  How’d you get it first try?’

‘He always comes over and bugs me about this time.  I don’t know how to dump the guy.  I’ve insulted him, called him names, the guy’s impervious.’

‘It will work this time.  Nice shoes.  Shall we have a glass of wine my lovely?,

‘OK.  I’ll get it.’

I sat down on the divan, accepted the glass of wine Ange offered and sat back as she cuddled up close to me.  I almost fainted.

‘You know what I can’t understand Partly dear?’

‘How you got here?’

‘No.  Second chance.  You keep saying that I’m your Anima.  I don’t know what that means.  Is that like sweetheart or something?’

‘Oh, no, Ange.  It’s much more intimate than that.  Have you read any psychology?  Freud or Jung?’

‘Not much psychology and I’ve heard the names but I don’t know much about them.’

‘OK.  I’m sure you’ve heard chat about a man’s feminine side?’

‘You’re not bi-sexual Partly?  I couldn’t stand that.’

‘No, not at all, wholly male.  The way you’ve heard it is a misunderstanding of the right side of the brain.  A man’s feminine side as I understand it is the right side of his brain that carries the Anima.  It comes from the ovum, a man’s X chromosome.  The left side come from his y chromosome.  A woman has two X chromosomes so she doesn’t have a masculine side, just what Freud in his crude way called penis envy, in other words, a longing for what is missing, that is, the y chromosome’

‘Well, I do understand penis envy.’

‘Sure, Well Gloria Steinem was wrong when she said a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.  She was way out of her depth; a woman needs a man like a fish needs water is more correct.  Gloria almost made a Freudian slip.’

‘Ooh, that’s good.  I understand that now that I’ve found you, Partly.’

Flattered?  Wow!  I didn’t know who was writing this script but I was sure glad I was the star of the movie.

Me: ‘Steinem’s remark reminds me of the old poem called Evolution by Langdon Smith.  It begins:

When you were a tadpole

And I was a fish

And side by side on the ebbing tide

We sprawled through the ooze and slime,

Or skittered with many a caudal flip

Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,

My heart was rife with the joy of life

For I loved you even then.

After a few eons and transmogrifications the pair are sitting in New York at Delmonico’s, more or less like here Ange, high above the vulgar streets of New York.  The poem goes on:

…here tonight in the mellow light

We sit at Delmonico’s

Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,

Your hair is dark as jet,

Your years are few, your life is new,

Your soul untried and yet,

God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds

And furnished them wings to fly;

He sowed our spawn in the world’s dim dawn;

And I know that I shall not die,

Though cities have sprung above the graves

Where the crook-bone men make war

And the oxwain creaks over the buried caves

Where the mummied mammoths are.

Thus we linger at luncheon here

Over many a dainty dish,

Let us drink anew to the time when you

Were a tadpole and I was a fish.

‘Oh, that’s a lively thought Partly but tell me about how I’m your Anima.’

Well, Darling, this is a story not unlike Smith’s poem of Evolution.  It requires    some imagination to put things into the perspective I’m going to give.

Biologically it is a fact that you and I as individuals are the result of the union of an ovum and a sperm.  They come from two different individuals and though united in what becomes a new individual contribute separate identities.  The ovum ends in the Anima and sperm in the Animus.

Now, this may be controversial but both the sperm and the ovum have intelligence and a primitive form of consciousness.’

‘Really, Partly, I’ve never heard that before.’

‘If you think about it Ange Darling it must be true.  No organism can move without some form of intelligence or consciousness.  Otherwise no organism could identify and find food.  And yet the sperm released into the vagina can locate the ovum in complete darkness and finding the ovum violently and savagely attacks it forcing its way in against what must be formidable resistance.  Hence in remembrance of which sexual union itself is a violent act by the male against the passive female.  Once inside the sperm losing its tail occupies the ovum expelling everything except the mitochondrial DNA.  I’ve seen a picture of the result and what you have is a sun nestled up against a quarter new moon.  This is strangely replicated by the Sun and Moon once every nineteen years hence the marriage of the sun and moon of folklore or myth.  That marriage is an obvious replica of the union of the sperm and ovum.  There will be those who will laugh but I maintain the myth of the marriage of the sun and moon is a remembrance of the union of the sperm and ovum.’

Ange:   ‘I’m not laughing Partly dear, but honestly, I’ve never heard that before, I’ve never even imagined it but that would mean the sperm had consciousness before it was ejected.’

Me:  Remembrance comes from the union combined with the fact of the marriage of the Sun and Moon.  But intelligence and consciousness begins with the creation of the sperm obviously before it is ejected which means that the parent organism must program it to do what it has to do hence the sperm knows beforehand and follows directions.  Furthermore it had to be lucky to have the closest proximity to the ovum while amidst an intense competition for the prize.  You can see pictures of the ovum surrounded by sperm burrowing away.  Does the female select from her suitors which to embrace or let in?  These are serious questions.

Obviously the fittest doesn’t always win the prize as fully one fifth of the zygotes self-abort while some real monsters reach fruition.  Few are ever as physically perfect and as beautiful as you are Ange and fewer still are endowed with intelligence of the kind you have.  And look at us, eighty and seventy years old and we’ve found each other.  A miracle of miracles.

Two different strands of DNA bond together with the ovate side taking its position on the left side of the body while the spermate takes the right.  The union is seldom perfect, differences in hands and feet, left and right side of the face betray the past of the ovum and sperm.

To bond the two sides together the left half of the brain migrates to the right hemisphere of the brain while the spermatic hemisphere assumes a position on the left.

Now, as to the Anima Angeline:

When Freud and Jung examined the problem each came to the conclusion that men had an Anima, that is a female side, and women had an Animus or male side.  I have come to the conclusion that they were only half right.  As I see it the sperm is the Animus and each sex has one while each has an ovate Anima.  If you think about it this has to be true because each contributor has a separate identity.  It is the ‘marriage’ that makes them one.  This is also reflected in the old marriage ceremony of man and woman where the two are declared one.

At the lower end of the system it terminates in the gonads while at the upper end, or the brain, I can only explain it by saying that there are loose ends that make up the Animus or Ego as the psychiatrists explain it and on the ovate hemisphere the Anima- that is in both men and women.  In women the spermatic X is still the Animus.  The female also has a left side but it is a X and not a y hence she has the equivalent of two Animas only one is active and the other passive.

Now, don’t laugh at me, but in the horned animals such as bull and ram the loose ends manifest themselves in horns.  Man subconsciously recognized this when he chose bulls and rams to symbolize the male.  The goddess was always personified as a woman but the god as a bull or ram.  In many representations certain gods are portrayed with horns while Dionysus may have horns or show the bull’s hoof.

As the child develops he adopts characteristics of male and female models, these clothe the Anima and Animus. If your models are good I suppose your outlook is bright or brighter than if they aren’t.  In my case my Anima models were terrible.  They were formed by my mother and Gaines.  Thus I had to dig myself out from under a load of feces to be as balanced as I am now while I have never been able to shed my negative outlook completely.  There is still the touch of the sad sack about me that at my age I will never be able to shed.

However with the aid of Dr. Anton I have been able to deconstruct both my mother’s and Gaines baleful influence returning to a simulacrum of childhood innocence. 

Angeline:  Is Dr. Anton your psycho-analyst?

Me:  So to speak Ange.  He’s actually an alter ego existing only in my own mind.  The great Dr. Anton Polarion.

Ange: (muffling a giggle)  You talk to yourself?

Me:  Yes, of course. How else can you integrate knowledge or solve problems?  Dreams are just a form of talking to yourself.  If you learn to dream properly you can resolve all kinds of problems.  In terms of memory method I assigned my psychological studies to an imaginary person named Dr. Anton Polarion to work out my problems subconsciously and then notify me of the results.

Once again, if you think about it Ange, you will find subconscious projections of that sort are quite common.  The Confessions of St. Augustine is a much revered book; it only makes sense if you believe a human can talk to an imaginary god and get answers.  In point of fact Augustine was talking to himself much as I do with Dr. Anton except that I’ve always gotten better answers than Augustine ever got.  Writing is talking to yourself and working out problems.  That’s really the only way it can be done. 

Of course if you walk down the street babbling out loud people are going to think you’re nuts.  Don’t do that.

Still, Charles Dickens was frequently seen by his wife gesticulating as one of his imaginary characters and voicing his thoughts out loud to get them right on paper.  So, as I say Dr. Anton extrapolated my Mother Constellation and separated it from Gaines and then separated both from my Anima while elucidating it so that I can understand my past correctly.  Would you like to hear what my mother did to me, her own child?

Ange:  Yes. But first who is Gaines and what does he have to do with your mother.

Me:  William C. Gaines published comic books like Tales From The Crypt.  His relationship to my mother comes from the way his comics portrayed women.  His comics were quite misogynistic but very sexually stimulating.  When my mother put me in the Orphanage it created a reaction such as that women could not be trusted.   My mind combined that with Gaines misogynism thus the two were twined on my Anima.

  OK Ange?  But bear in mind that a woman is only a woman who becomes a mother through necessity.  Not all women are cut out to be mothers, mine wasn’t.  Mine dealt me the kind of poker hand that a player looks at once and folds but I couldn’t fold, I had to play that crummy hand.

I know nothing of my mother’s girlhood.  As I was born in May when she was twenty she must have been nineteen when I was conceived.  I have seen a picture of her when she was eighteen; in that picture she looks grim and troubled.  I suspect she was pregnant with me when she married.  If so this would have been the first of the grievances she assigned me.

She must have graduated high school in nineteen thirty-six thus her girlhood was lived during the Depression.  She never spoke of the period but she and that whole age cohort lived in almost a paralyzing fear that it would return all their lives.  My father must have had a terrible time finding a job as in his desperate need to provide for us both he joined Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps.  Thus, at work in the forests he was gone for long periods however sending most of his wages home.  My mother was not wise in her use of them.

Rather than remain idle she dated at least one man who impregnated her in the back seat of a Chevy in the parking lot of a grocery store.  My father came home to find her in that state.  As you can imagine he was crushed when he got the news.  He insisted she tell him who the guilty party was but in the way of women she refused to name his name.  My father then began slapping her around but she still refused.

As I was standing against the wall watching I became distressed finally jumping on his back as he stood over her when she lay after having been knocked down.  My father was at a loss of what to do.  My mother warned me to run.  My father said that no, he would never hurt his son.

I had stopped the beating but my mother got up and placed me against the wall telling me not to interfere and then lay back down to resume the beating.

Her astonishing reaction had a profound effect on my personality.  Her action was totally incomprehensible to me.  As my mother developed my father became more distraught.  And then the little bastard was dropped.  I presume my father walked out at that time because he was not around anymore and shortly thereafter my mother, myself and the little bastard moved out of our house and in with her parents.

Ange:  Why do you call your brother ‘the little bastard’ Partly?  That seems harsh.

Me:  Perhaps it is Ange but he is not my brother, he is an, what you might call, Illegal immigrant.  You have to consider the psychology of my mother.  She was one of that lot that thinks the woman can do no wrong.  Therefore she laid the blame for her infidelity on my father.  Then his treatment of her, hitting her and then leaving, was an unreasonable response in her mind so she transferred  her resentment of my father on to me, a constant reminder, not of her shame, but his unreasonableness.    She did whatever her female wiles permitted to injure my psyche, twist it, pervert it, thus becoming an evil presence on my Anima that over the years nearly completely debilitated me.  From my experience my Anima had completely failed me leaving me distraught and incapable of responding properly.

From the time the little bastard was born she showed him preference over me, her first born.  That is an unforgiveable sin.  You can see that, can’t you Angeline?

Ange:  I can certainly understand how you feel.

Me:  I hope so.  I only saw my father once after that.  When he called at my grandparents.  In the interim my mother had done everything to make me hate and fear my father.  He must have found a good job, this last meeting must have been sometime in nineteen forty-one because he brought me this wonderful green corduroy suit with a stoplight badge on the pocket.  I was apparently psychologically affected because in later years I wore a lot of corduroy and I still own a green corduroy sport jacket; it’s in the closet if you want to look at it.

Ange:  How can you remember so precisely Partly?  How old were you in nineteen forty-one, two or three?

Me:  I’m two and half years older than the little bastard and while I remember the incidents dating it is merely a matter of reconstruction beginning from nineteen thirty-eight.  I did have a lot of trouble disentangling the incidents and putting them in order but auto-suggestion and dreaming cleared that up.  Took a while though.

Anyway, my father called me to him and I wanted to go but my mother had a hypnotizing threatening gaze fixed on me and I didn’t know what she would do if I disobeyed her so I didn’t go to him.

‘Oh, you’ve made him hate me.’  My father said.

Then my mother astonished me:  she lied straight out.  She said she hadn’t.  First she refused to allow me to rescue her from a beating and now she told a bare faced criminal lie.  My father turned, crushed, and walked out much to my mother’s satisfaction.  I never forgave her of ever trusted her again.

What she did to my father next I have no memory of and can only guess.  In Michigan during my entire childhood and youth people constantly threatened to put someone they didn’t like in the insane asylum.  Apparently all a family member had to do was make a complaint and have the unfortunate committed.  Once in you never got out.  Of course it was more difficult for strangers to do that but still possible.

I have no idea what my father did, perhaps he was in despair at losing his son, whatever he did his mother had him committed, I’m assuming for being violent and was probably put down as criminally insane.  My mother took great pleasure in testifying against him citing the beating he gave her but probably not the cause.  He spent the rest of his life in Traverse City.  One day decades later I got a call from her saying significantly:  He’s dead.  He’s dead, just like I was a fellow conspirator.  ‘Who’s dead?’  I demanded.  ‘Him.’ Came back the reply.  ‘Your father.’  Lord.  I’d forgotten all about him but that is a woman’s violence and vengeance.  I learned a lot about women from mom.

Ange:  All women aren’t like that Partly.’

Me:  Perhaps not Ange but that doesn’t change my situation but that notion of responsibility is part and parcel of every woman.  The man is always guilty.  Besides when she had my father put away I remained as a living reminder of her guilt, or his, if she maintained that point of view.  She somehow transferred her feeling of virtue to the little bastard while quietly punishing me.

As I say the last time I saw my father was in nineteen forty-one.  I don’t know when my father was committed to Traverse City but in late 1943 she placed me with foster parents or rather perhaps as a boarder with a family named Smith where I remained until shortly after VE day in May of nineteen forty-five.  Then I was transferred to a woman named Johnson not very far from my grandmother’s.

Ange:  Where was your little brother at the time?

Me:  Oh he came along to disrupt my life, the little prick, as a part of, I guess, collateral damage.

Ange:  Did she ever visit you?

Me:  I don’t ever remember seeing her at Mrs. Johnson’s but she came by maybe two or three times at the Smiths.  She always wore real nice clothes.  I could never understand why she didn’t have a little more in clothes money for me.  Anyway, suffering rejection at the Smith’s just when I was beginning to trust them unsettled my mind and with problems caused by entering a new school a month or so from year’s end I began to become very morose.  I suppose it was then that I acquired a depressed state of mind.

Mrs. Johnson could only take so much.  She asked my mother to remove me.  It was then that the horror of horrors struck.  She put me away in the orphanage.  I could never really place where the orphanage was in later years but it was only three or four blocks from my grandmother’s. 

Ange:  That’s close.  Did she ever visit you?  Take you overnight or anything?

Me:  No.  I didn’t see her for several years.  She was always the hardest of hard hearted women.  I used to roam all over in those years but it never occurred to me to go in that direction.

I was there in the orphanage for two years, nineteen forty-six to nineteen forty-eight.  I don’t know if you understand what it means to be in an orphanage but it completely declasses you, places you lower than the Negroes in the social scale, you become a non-person, invisible.  Carry the scars for the rest of your life in one way or another.  A real soul shattering experience.

According to orphanage policy they farmed you out to foster homes at the age of ten, another really horrible experience I escaped because my mother remarried in nineteen forty-eight.  I was pretty independent by that time so I knew I was in for it but I thought it was only eight years so I could manage it.  As I look back I’d have to say I didn’t.  By graduation time I was a basket case unable to function.

My mother’s method to torment me was to frustrate and deny me, to prevent me from enjoying my life at all.  I have no idea how she talked about me but I was amazed when just before graduation a bunch of us were talking about what we were going to do.  I mentioned I wanted to go on to college when a girl I hardly knew scornfully told me that I was not that I was going into the Navy for twenty years and could come back as a Chief Petty Officer.  I asked her where she got that and she said my mother told her.  I don’t know how she knew my mother but sure enough within a matter of days my mother took me to the recruiting office and signed me up.  A couple weeks later and I was gone.

Thus she had me safely stowed away in the equivalent of the insane asylum for life just like my father.  I might as well have gone to foster parents, it couldn’t have been any worse.

The problem with the Mother Constellation was I couldn’t find the motive for her hatred but as she and Gaines occupied my Anima I had no control of the right hemisphere, my Anima had completely failed me.  Fortunately Dr.  Anton was able to untangle the two stands of Gaines and my mother so that my Anima was freed.  The final reckoning occurred just a couple weeks before I saw you standing there in Nordstrom’s and I recognized you as what my Anima should have been all along.  In conventional terms:  Love at first sight.

Ange:  I don’t remember that Partly.  I only have vague memories of you taking to me in the shower.  How did I get there?

Me:  Well, I came up for the Nordstrom’s grand opening and wandering through the high fashion department I saw you standing there almost as though you had a sign around your neck reading Rescue Me.  When I got closer I realized that you must be catatonic.  I put my arm around your waist and said:  Come with me, Darling Girl.  Gave you a little tug and led you to the limo.

Fortunately you were not yet beyond the range of contact so I was able to bring you back to consciousness.  Since then you’ve been recovering well.  Do you remember anything about the Sun and Moon?

Ange:  Yes.  There was a god and goddess and they married us.  Is it true then that you are my husband and I’m your wife.

Me:  Yes, it is Darling.  You might say a marriage made in heaven.  I’ve got you babe in my heart and on my mind and here beside me.

Ange:  Alright.  I don’t know how it happened but you have been in my dreams Love.

Me:  And you mine.  Now Sweetheart would you take the time to tell me your story.  How did you get into that catatonic state?

Ange:  I don’t know if I should.  You might not like me so much then.

Me:  Oh nonsense, Angeline, life is difficult at best.  Let the dead past bury its dead.  The way is forward.  Let’s make our future the best years of our lives.  You can’t make me stop loving you.  You are part of me.

Ange:  Well, alright.

 

Continue to Clip 8.