Hibernation

 

On southwest exposures the icicles weep
Crystal walls to form this winter keep
of snowy caverns for those who sleep

For days that Sol should grace the skies
Cast dancing prisms before their eyes
The light captured in these pillars gleam
and pass unnoticed by those who dream

Within their burrows the hearths still burn
Neither day nor night do they discern
as they await the fertile earth's return

Aching for the comfort of her womb
with fruits of her harvest they entomb
Evade the touch of that frigid breath
and there remain, even unto death

For nights within night the shadow will fall
When earth and sky, in darkness all
Hear the restless breath of snowy squall

Behind glacial windows the flames shine bright
like flickering eyes in the night
The crystal walls of this winter keep
hold their watch in darkness deep
for all of those who choose to sleep

American Century

 

“Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.”

―Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

I can easily reconcile myself to the end of an “American Century”. I suspect that many of my countrymen share this thought. Beyond the tired and dry definitions offered up by academics, what exactly does this term mean? Not to the posterity of weighty tomes, written only to decorate the coffee tables of Georgetown homes; the sorts of books purchased, yet somehow never read. To the real American; the native born Joe Sixpack who lives in flyover country, drives a pickup truck, and only understands vintage by a “best by” date stamped on the bottom of a 12 oz. can. What does an American Century mean to him? The answer to this question is mercifully brief: nothing.

An American Century, a pax Americana, has been the sequel to pax Brittanica. Just as this previous paradigm did little to raise the station of the average Briton, the American Century was of little benefit to the average American. If viewed through the lens of an Anglosphere perspective this may also be understood as merely a transfer of caretakers. Churchill once mused that the United Kingdom and the United States are “two great peoples separated by a common language”. While there is an element of truth contained within that quip, it is only a shade of a much deeper truth. These are two great peoples enslaved by a common banking system. Where the power of these interests was both projected and protected under the guise of the Union Jack and British colonial administration, these were easily perpetuated under the Star Spangled Banner and US corporate administration during the post-war deconstruction of the British Empire. Whether one calls this Empire, or Commonwealth, or Corporate Godhead, the same coffers are being filled. These intangible entities are inserted into our corporeal world, labels made manifest to disguise the gears and pulleys operating behind the curtain.

The Crown had over two-hundred years of pimping their subjects out as the enforcers for these banking cabals. Sometimes under the thinly veiled disguise of the East India Company; sometimes as the blunt force instrument of the Royal Navy. And the famed grenadiers all across the globe; first in red coats with muskets, later in khakis with Enfield rifles. This was all cover from the natives, projected for global consumption, while they sold it to a malnourished and poorly educated populace as all for God, King and Country. They had a good run. One has to at least credit them for one spectacular job of salesmanship. Though only a shadow of their former selves, the Union Jack is still a pretty strong brand. Tarnished as it may be, it still flies in the airports of many Commonwealth nations.

This international banking cabal have long been adept at reading, and where necessary manipulating, the geopolitical landscape. At the end of the second world war a new paradigm had emerged and the days of a crown based empire were numbered. The formula became inverted. Gone were the days of the small, European nation state controlled by hereditary fiat holding vast tracts of land across the planet. This was the age of the super state, one on either side of the globe, established as opposite poles in every sense of the word. Sailors and grenadiers on the spot around the world would still be employed, but to different purposes and under new banners. The pax Americana wielded a nuclear umbrella. With their counterpoint in the USSR, this provided a much more efficient means of maintaining the desired order.

Thus was nearly every other piece of real estate on this planet relegated to the status of lying within one list of vassal states, or the other. Anything in dispute or unclaimed became fertile ground for the dreaded “bush war”, a tired trope of British colonialism dusted off, repackaged and resold to a new generation of gullible drones. Plus ce change, plus c’est la meme chose. They had Uncle Sam to lead the charge now, sometimes with John Bull in tow. And the Russian Bear, with a Chinese Dragon asleep in Stalin’s dacha.

Those strings were not just sewn on to Uncle Sam’s tunic at the end of the war. That bit of tailoring preceded World War, Act 1, courtesy of America’s most esteemed useful idiot, Woodrow Wilson. The banking cartels are in for the long game. Political seasons don’t matter to them; those are only so much background noise to the greater symphony they are conducting. The establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank just a few short years before America’s entrance into WWI was no coincidence. Our late contribution to that conflict was an audition of sorts. Up until that point the banking cartels had a lot of their money riding on the British Empire. Much of their activity was then, as it remains today, conducted in London. The bankers were full aware of America’s latent industrial potential. Just as they were full aware that the war was coming. Getting us bloodied was the real test. How quickly and how good of an army could America muster? The only other piece they needed was a stooge administration in Washington to act as the facilitator. They already had that in the person of the aforementioned Mr. Wilson.

Despite the fact that the domestic political climate trended to isolationism in the years following the end of the “war to end all wars”, US banking and industry alike were fully vested in the coming war economy. The global banks kept a hold on their British Empire stock, while upping their stakes on both US and German options. It’s the “heads I win, tails you lose” formula they have perfected over the centuries. When WWII began the die was cast. America may not have been ready for war, but no matter. American industry was ready and the bankers had all the time in the world. Before the war had concluded they had already changed horses and the American century emerged from awkward adolescence into a self assured adulthood. Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

In just a little more than three decades the seeds sown in American soil had grown to a fruitful harvest. Gone were the pasty legions in pith helmets, drawn from every quarter of the British Empire. These were replaced by the inexhaustible well of freckle faced lads from the new world, clad in olive drab and ready to take manifest destiny global. Where the Brits may have still held the will, they lacked the wherewithal. The Americans held the wherewithal in abundance and will was instilled by the specter of the Bolshevik Bogeyman. While large tracts of the western world lay in ruin, the bankers sat atop a world wherein they could hardly have imagined things working out better. One of the greatest plums to be reaped from that harvest was the OSS, later to become the CIA.

In the thirty plus years since the installment of the Federal Reserve Bank America had grown from a wobbly yearling of questionable pedigree into a three year old ready to leave the rest of the field in the dust. Now we all know that a good race horse needs a good rider if you want to make any money at the track. The bankers had all been duly impressed by the security states assembled by the authoritarian regimes born in the thirties. If only there were some way to harness that rambunctious American mustang with that kind of control! The OSS was the seed, exfiltrated Nazis were the egg and the CIA was born and nurtured in the fertile womb of Washington DC. This bastard child grew and matured at an exponential rate, wrapped in the flag camouflaging it from the view of the American public.

If greed is good, then greed on a global scale is the superlative. If. Is greed good? Greed is neither inherently good, nor is it inherently evil. It just is. It is a vestigial remnant of our animal nature, one which is not easily subjugated by our pretensions of humanity. What is evil is the exploitation of this nature to the exclusive benefit of a select few. This is a pattern which has reliably repeated itself throughout human history. It began with a small group of men who found that horses, though they had been bred for wide benefit, could just as easily be weaponized in order to profit from the labor of others. Why ever should one work for that which may more easily be stolen? The American Century was the vehicle designed to carry this idea to it’s superlative form.

The Federal Reserve was planted in a seed bed prepared by a jealous class of Ivy Leaguers. These were people who could claim to be Americans by birth, but after flaying the first few layers of flesh off their backs one discovers that these are Royalists through and through. Their cloistered realm emulates the peerage system of the old world; the new world’s wannabe nobility, awash in wealth and degrees with no titles to buy. This class finds more kinship with their European peers than with the simple and uncouth sodbusters of the American west. The stench of hubris is common among these peers on either side of the pond. To the banking cabal that is a sweet perfume, like blood in the water for sharks. You may know these people as the 20^th century progressives.

These were the progenitors of a lunacy which has increasingly plagued our institutions for more than a century now, an American century whose course they are largely responsible for charting. Don’t make the error of crediting these people with “vision” or “imagination”. They were tools, some willing and some just simple dupes, but in either case they became the standard bearers for this new century. For the banking cartels it was a new century, a new continent, and… the same old script. Just as the nobility of the old world became such by being purchased with favor, this new aristocracy was bought in like fashion. Peerage and hereditary titles were replaced by a permanent political class cloaked in the legitimacy of federal authority. The courts of Kings and Princes were displaced by the Senate chamber and the corporate boardroom. Whether under the guise of the Crown or a Republic, these are only so many marionettes dancing on the strings of their bloodsucking puppeteers.

FDR’s “arsenal for democracy” was a great tag line for what ultimately grew into the military industrial complex. It fed the big war and subsequent conflicts, police actions I think they were called. This was another good tag line and surely more accurate, for America had been purchased to serve as the world’s policeman. Not some benign Bobby with truncheon and whistle, no. No dithering village constable. This copper was going full metal jacket. Not for King and Country any more; the new creed was for truth, justice and the American way. Washington DC devolved into this Potentate of Pimps, surrounded by armies of ass kissing grifters slopping at the public trough. They have been only too happy to whore out the military to serve the moneyed interests upon demand, while selling out the rest of their nation to perpetual serfdom.

This is the legacy of an American century. Just as once it was rightly said that the sun never sets on the British Empire, we may now proclaim with the same verity that no corner of the globe exists which has not seen the spillage of American blood, treasure, and military surplus. America, in theory at least, is We the People. All of this has been done at the behest and to the benefit of others. All in your name, We the People. Are you proud to be an American? Examined within this context one might be inclined to answer no. Therein lies the entire purpose to an “American Century”.

The American Century was created by, for and about the international banking cartels. It has not ended, though it is surely entering it’s death throes. Here is the spoiler alert: the bankers have already written the final chapter. It ends with the crashing of the currency. You will all lose and the bankers still come out on top. This and other poisons have been steadily introduced with the sole purpose of eroding the body politic. If Americans are proud it is not because of whoever is acting in their name in Washington DC. They are proud because of an American ideal. As long as this ideal survives it stands in the way of the international banking cartels. They have already seen the future. The model for the next century, if had as they would have it, will follow the corporate fascist mode of governance as practiced by communist China. They are now, by every means possible, installing this very system on our shores. Anyone who fails to recognize this is either irredeemably stupid or they live on the banks of The Nile.

Hell's Chronicles: The Utah Crisis, episode one

 He absolutely despised lawyers. Were it entirely up to him (sadly it is not) he would never have taken a single one of them. It was a great relief for the overworld that lawyers are mortal, for it is frightful the carnage they can wreak in a mere seventy years. For the Devil, however, this becomes a monumental burden. What to do with them all? He had been quite relieved when priests and priestesses had fallen out of favor, but then that class of professional liars were only supplanted with this new breed. As the father of all lies the Devil understood that the simple lie is best. Those that appeal to the individual's insecurities or vanity are always effective. The sheer volume and needless complexities of Rabbinical law was bad enough, but this? Even he, the Devil, was appalled at the trees slaughtered to print all of those legal registers. He often thought that if it should take so much rigmarole to deceive, then they just were not very good at it. He was not wrong in thinking this. 

He was growing impatient and it was beginning to show. He had grown so exasperated at hearing them prattle on and on for hours about nothing, the Devil began to click his talons rather loudly upon the onyx tabletop. Some of the long time board members grew noticeably unsettled by this, recognizing it as a danger sign. It was not going to take much more for him to decide on abandoning all protocol and simply setting them all aflame. To make matters worse these were not the usual Jew lawyers, oh no! They were Mormons!

The Lord of the Underworld was keenly aware of the paradoxical nature of his realm. It was necessary to maintain certain vital interfaces with the world of mortal man, not the least of which being the steady source of souls to govern. There were, regrettably, now a host of other reasons why this was true. As the overworld had grown so unbelievably complicated, so too had Hell itself been thus compromised. It was thus that the Devil was left to suffer these indignities from time to time; that he should have to play host to these legal teams and their insufferable smugness. The incomprehensible physical laws of the realm would permit the presence of these mortals, as each of them had already surrendered their souls upon passing the bar.

As a point of procedure the Devil would have been entirely in his right to delegate this to the head of Hell's staff legal department, Harry Reid. Reid was certainly qualified, but the Devil did not trust him. Nor should he have. The stakes were too high in this case. Even with the tireless reforms implemented by their latest HR director, Sam Kinison, Hell was growing impossibly overcrowded. The Devil had been working for some time to negotiate a lease for some sort of annex in the overworld to help manage some of the overflow. Utah, with it's predominantly Mormon population, would be the one place in North America where an annex of Hell might be placed right beneath the citizens' noses, and none would be the wiser. They were already storing nuclear waste there! He never imagined this would end up being such a hassle. The annual Halloween Ball was coming up in just a couple of days. And then there was that damned election coming up just a few days after that. There was a lot of preparation still to be done and he was stuck here, dealing with this bull shit!

It had been really refreshing that last election season to be relieved of the onerous duty. The process was so obscenely perverted that it had required no attention from he or any of Hell's staff. The political class were able to completely debase and defile the very notion of a Republic and they had done it all quite brazenly. Somewhat begrudgingly he had to admire their cheek. It was easy for him to have a bit of a chuckle over the entire affair, for the Devil knew something that they did not: they would not, in the end, have the last laugh. For a being who existed only for the purpose of administering eternal damnation, it was most gratifying to see the faces of these types when payment finally comes due. They've always been told they are the smartest person in the room and sadly they believe it. When they discover that the game is up they all wet themselves. Some of them even shit their pants. The Devil was ultimately a patient being. There was a rich harvest coming.

Thus was the urgency of concluding all of these infernal terms! He had Epstein languishing with tug jobs in the Asian section, waiting to assume his duties as the Devil's deputy to run the planned Utah annex. Sort of a Vice...roy? Devil's Viceroy? Vice Devil? The actual title wasn't finalized. The title wasn't really important. 

Hillary had convinced them that his help was no longer needed. Hillary was convinced that she was next in line for his job. Neither of these things were true. They most certainly needed his help now, though none had humbled themselves to ask. Trading up for the younger pant suit may have been a good move, except that there actually had to be something in the pant suit. Something besides excrement. It was highly unlikely that he ever would have helped this crew and it certainly wasn't going to happen now. There were four different camps playing screw your neighbor and no one was getting fucked except for their constituents. The Devil had not made his reputation by backing losers. 

Well, there was the solution, wasn't it? He didn't have to sit through this! Trump was a real estate guy. All the Devil needed to do was wait until January and in five minutes they could have this deal done and put to bed. Then he could tell these Mormons to go fuck themselves. And he would. It would happen soon enough, just not today. To the momentary horror of those present the Devil arose to his full, imposing height to make an announcement.

"Gentlemen! I don't feel we are making any progress here. Due to some... recent developments we have decided to shelve this project until the next fiscal quarter. Why don't you plan on coming back, say... perhaps the end of January? You can get with Ernie, my chief of staff, to secure all the arrangements."

The Utah crisis has not ended. It has only been prolonged. Stay tuned....

 

Twenty-three and the twelfth man

 Once upon a time, in a town of twenty-three

There were folk living there, just like you or me

They came, it seems, to have their druthers

to mind their own lives, not those of others

They enjoyed a boon, though nothing elaborate

They were not a commune, but most things were collaborate

If one decided to opt out of a task

they would just do it, there was no need to ask

No one went hungry, they had very few cares

A quite satisfactory state of affairs

Then strangers came, assuming great powers

with their claim "Now this village is ours"

"We have staked boundaries, formed a glorious State

and like it or not you will participate "

Now these folk were trusting, they saw no need to flee

It would take some adjusting, but how bad could it be?

Well things carried on, mostly same as before

just some minor nuisance one could easily ignore

But some trouble was brewing, it would grow quite acute

when the strangers returned to collect their tribute

The townfolk protested, cried "this isn't fair!"

The head stranger replied "Ha! The State doesn't care!"

"Be thankful we let you live on this land

because every square acre is at our command!

Now bring us our taxes, this very minute!

Frankly you peasants have zero say in it!"

So the townfolk submitted and surrendered their treasure

which the taxmen examined in very precise measure

Thus was it ever for many years hence

They squeezed and squeezed, they milked every pence

The world grew around them as they toiled away

and the State grew apace, to the general dismay

When esteemed institutions produced learned men

they searched for solutions to rein the State in

For Kings and their follies are by fiat decreed

"Something more democratic is just what we need!"

So they conceived a Republic, in which all had a stake

and a written Constitution, for posterity's sake

They made rule of law, to which all were subjected

This ensured all that their rights were protected

Now this was certainly better, but the townfolk soon saw

that this was only as good as those left to write the law

Still they cast their ballots every four years

with every result eliciting tears

For someone's ox is ever gored

when majority's voice goes ignored

We pray that for once, Dear Lord in Heaven

give some result other than twelve to eleven

The first twelve decided that they could choose

when to pick your nose and which hand to use

Then the next twelve had no inhibitions

to issue further prohibitions

Back and forth, this endless game

but every time one thing the same

That twelfth man is the bastard who keeps this fraud afloat

And I swear that when they find him they're gonna slit his throat

End Game, SCIU case number 24/73: Deaf Kids from New Guinea

 "Look man, the whole paradigm has shifted, ya know? I mean, the epicenter is moved...it's further east. They say we're weird, wear weird clothes... weird rituals. Right? What about the Masons? Or the Mormons? Drink the wine, chew the wafer? Which bull shit story are you selling, Wenty? Are you smoke or sand?"

It is rare when fortune favors one with an up close, face to face encounter with a psychopath. It is often unpleasant, rarely instructive in any way, and yet it is irresistible.  Kevin Crabtree is a different kind of psychopath. I'm certain that he is not the first or the only of his kind, but he's the first of his kind I've ever encountered. I have known a number of psychopaths over the years, some of them former business associates. Psychopaths perform remarkably well in the business world.

Kevin is not about the business world. He's never been part of it, doesn't care about it, has no clue what any of that is about. If I were to be more circumspect in my choice of wording I might better describe Kevin Crabtree as a sociopath. Either tag fits, really. He is a sociopath who is currently engaged in post grad studies in psychopathology. There might well have been a doctoral thesis at some point, but Kevin and the mania of the Deaf Kids from New Guinea have been mercifully brought to an end. The world will never learn the full details of their malign purpose; they will never realize their sinister aims. They do leave a trail of carnage. And a manifesto, of sorts.

I got lucky. I played a hunch and it paid off. I cornered them behind a garage on the outskirts of the town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. If one lives long enough one acquires knowledge of certain things which are often better left unknown. I'm old enough to have a few of those things in my deck and it was one of those cards I played to finally corner my quarry.

He was sweaty, greasy and even at a distance of ten feet smelled like balls. His little cosplay ensemble was threadbare at the elbows and stained throughout with ketchup, mayo and Taco Bell hot sauce. I noted for the first time the sparse patches of facial hair and a Fred Savage sized mole between his left ear and cheekbone. This was not the face of some nineteen to twenty-four year old. He was probably in his mid thirties. When he caught sight of me his face did not exhibit any sense of surprise, yet I sensed that he relaxed, somehow knowing that this was the end of the line. His pupils were dilated like saucers. I figured he was on acid. Maybe mushrooms.

"I'm not selling anything, Kev. Who's your friend here? I mean, were here. Deaf Kid 2 seems a little insulting at this point, don't you think?"

"This is Gleeb, man. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. That girl isn't under age, is she?"

"It's not a girl! Gleeb is non-binary. Zey/zem!"

"Yeah, and a pile of shit by any other name..."

"What?"

"Never mind. Not important." Once one has engaged with a psychopath it is good to keep them talking. Just mind where you tread.

"You sayin' I'm not important? You sayin' we're not important?"

"No no! On the contrary, Kev... if you weren't important I wouldn't be here now. I believe in what you're doing, Kev. The world needs to hear what the Deaf Kids from New Guinea have to say."

"Uh-huh. So what do the Deaf Kids from New Guinea say to you?"

"Gotta be honest with ya, Kev. I'm not really sure. I'm still trying to understand." This was a crucial juncture in our rendezvous off of US 68. It would be a crucial juncture with any psychopath. It stated plainly that there was no understanding, though understanding was still desired, and... please tell me more.

Readers at Midnight and other beasts know some of the exploits of the Deaf Kids' reign of terror. I am a Special Investigator for SCIU, the Stoner Crimes Investigative Unit. It's my job, and my nature, to burrow deep into the details. To find out where a story really begins and where it all turned south. Before I share with all of you what Kevin had to say, I believe it is only fair that I should share with you what I know of Kevin Crabtree's history.

To begin with... Kevin Crabtree was conceived via turkey baster, the father an anonymous donor. Kevin's mother was Jezebel. No, I am not shitting you. That was her actual name. Jezebel was a bit ahead of the curve and had come out full time butch in the early eighties. By 1988 she was already half coated in tats and took up with a live in gal pal named Bonnie. Same sex unions were not officially recognized by the state in those years, but the two of them nonetheless felt committed to one another for the long haul. In the summer of '89 the artificial insemination was scheduled and the following April Jezebel gave birth to a bouncing, baby Kevin.

It was all shits and giggles for a few years. They were a mostly happy little family, like any other. Struggling with the proper installation of government mandated car restraint systems for infants; discovering that formula, though less taxing upon one's teats, is no less of a pain in the ass; finding that formula and diapers combined seriously cut into available funds for cigarettes, booze, or other vices. At least they were compensated with a lot of nice family walks in the local park. And a dog.

When 1995 rolled around Bonnie decided that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was her new Gospel. For Christmas that year she announced to Jezebel and Kevin that she was off to her new life as a full time disciple of Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins. The boy with two moms was reduced to a boy with only one, which made his introduction to public school at least a little easier to navigate.  Actually Kevin was doing just fine with Bonnie's departure. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Kevin's mother.

The ensuing four years of young Kevin's life were a tumultuous time. Jezebel descended from your garden variety minor depression to a full blown clinical variety within eight months of the split. This naturally led to the prescription of a cocktail of anti-depressants. These, combined with further self medicating efforts through illegally obtained pain killers, sent her into a prolonged dive. She could not hold down steady work. They moved five times in a span of four years. It was a rough life for Kevin in his budding youth.

On the eve of the new millennium Jezebel leveled out of her long decline and entered into the first stability they had known since Bonnie had left her. This did not, however, come without some price. Jezebel hitched her wagon to an Amazon of a woman named Liz. Short for Elizabeth. Elizabeth was wealthy and quite gainfully employed as a successful surgeon. For the first thirty-three years of her life Liz had been known as Eddy, from her birth name Edward. Jezebel was fully aware of this. I don't know if either of them ever informed Kevin.

A couple of years passed as a household. To the casual observer they were a small, quiet family. Dr. Liz was well respected in the community and as Kevin prepared to enter the sixth grade his life was radically altered. He had bounced from one public school to another since the first grade. Now he was enrolled in the private Windemere Academy. For his first day of school, for the first time in his life, he was not waiting at a dirty bus stop in ill fitting hand me downs. This year he was chauffeured in a BMW with his neatly tailored school uniform, complete with the tacky penny loafers.

Dr. Liz doted upon the both of them lavishly at every opportunity. You would not be wrong if you are thinking that this sounds at least mildly creepy. It was. And it would get much worse. Kevin had always been below percentile, lagging behind his peers in size and maturity. He entered the sixth grade at the age of eleven, right on the cusp of puberty, and this was when Dr. Liz began to take an unnaturally keen interest in the lad's development, subjecting the boy to frequent physical examinations. Sometimes this was done with Jezebel's knowledge and without objection. Other times it was done without her knowledge because she was unconscious. That may or may not have been by design.

These examinations became increasingly focused upon his sexual development. At the age of eleven years and six months Dr. Liz noted that, although the testicles had descended, there were still no signs of pubic hair. Despite this overall lack of development Dr. Liz remained fascinated with the boy's genitalia. While Kevin was well behind his peers in physical development, it seems that there was at least one area where this did not hold true. Dr. Liz had discovered that Kevin Crabtree was blessed with an impressive member. Where most boys at such an age were still at little more than the "nub" stage, this boy was sporting a true hose.

Now it may have been nothing more than simply being impressed by such endowment. I don't know for certain, but I suspect that there was a vein of jealousy in this obsession. Perhaps Eddy/Liz had not been so blessed and this may have been what ultimately led to the decision to become a "woman". Or perhaps it was remorse. It may just be that Dr. Liz was bat shit crazy. We may never know for sure what drove her actions, but given that we are talking about an individual who was a graduate of med school, and certainly should have known better, I'm going to come down in the camp of bat shit crazy.

There are a few theories that have been floated about what ultimately happened. Some suggest that Dr. Liz meant to resume life as Dr. Eddy via organ donation. Some would suggest that the good doctor intended to fully realize the illusion of womanhood by giving birth via Jezebel's surrogate womb. Whichever case it may be, Dr. Liz began to elicit Jezebel's support for her schemes by once again plying her with prescription pain killers, easily facilitated with a prescription pad. 

On Valentine's Day 2002, just a few months shy of Kevin's twelfth birthday, Dr. Liz performed a full (and unauthorized) orchidectomy on him. Jezebel may or may not have been consulted. It's doubtful that she was in any state to give consent anyway. Kevin was not consulted in any way, merely drugged and subjected to the radical surgery. This all came crashing down within a week. Dr. Liz and Jezebel were both arrested and Kevin was whisked away by Child Protective Services.

In keeping with what had already been a very unorthodox childhood Kevin was ultimately placed with a great uncle, a brother to his maternal grandmother, for the balance of his teenage years. Kevin's uncle Garth was a bit of an eccentric character also. Garth was fifty-eight and lived on a remote farm of a few hundred acres in northern Wisconsin. He was one of those people who could tick off quite an eclectic selection of boxes on a demographics survey. He was a Vietnam War veteran. He was nominally a Buddhist, though some of his other traits would seem at odds with this. He was a proud anarchist and an arms enthusiast. The property was paid for and Garth was able to maintain it and cover the property taxes by growing Christmas trees and marijuana. Until Kevin arrived Garth's typical day would entail riding about his property on horseback while blaring Dead Kennedys over the multiple speakers he had wired about the forest.

This was a safe refuge and Garth was able to provide well for his young charge. Twice divorced, Garth was sympathetic to Kevin's injury, feeling likewise castrated if only in the euphemistic sense. At the same time, however, he also felt seriously creeped out by the kid. By the time Kevin had turned sixteen Garth felt that it was time to introduce the boy to marijuana. He was almost certain that the lad must have already indulged, but he was disappointed to find that Kevin had no interest whatsoever. He considered that this might well be due to the mother's substance abuse issues.

Garth had no children of his own as a matter of choice. Taking Kevin in was also a matter of choice, albeit one heavily tempered by a sense of obligation. No parties concerned with this arrangement were under any illusions; Garth understood, as did Kevin and the officers of the court, that he was not going to be a source of nurturing. His role was as caretaker. As Kevin matured Garth was able to look upon him with the eyes and wisdom of an old man, while also drawing comparison  to his own youth and the many of his peers who never came home from the jungles of Vietnam. He developed the same sense of duty to the young man as he had for the new, green draftees that just kept coming for the entire twenty-two months that he was in country. There was that duty that every swinging dick has to prepare boys to become the next generation of men.

Well Garth did his best. He did not have the benefit of the normal eighteen to twenty-one years one is given to complete the task. He had instead only seven. And really not a lot of good material to work with. Someone else's damaged goods. How to relate to a young man who had an empty sack before his first hard on? That is where the Buddhism kicked in. As much as possible Garth zenned his way through the experience. Of course it also bears mentioning that Garth instilled in Kevin his considerable knowledge of firearms and explosives. For all of his effort he was always left befuddled at Kevin's utter disinterest in any of the typical masculine pursuits. Instead the boy's world was filled with Pokemon figures, anime comics and TV shows. Garth was convinced that this was just unnatural. He expressed concern to Kevin's doctors, who had prescribed testosterone supplements to compensate for the absent testes, but Kevin was not consistent in taking them. Alas, Garth was no more diligent in ensuring compliance.

At the age of seventeen Garth saw to it that Kevin got a driver's license and he provided the young man with an old Ford Econoline Van. It was a late eighties vintage, in shades of white and primer. Soon after Kevin took a job at a Taco Bell in a town about twenty-five miles from home. For the next two years Kevin and his uncle lived more as roommates than as charge and guardian. Kevin did really little of anything else but go to school, work, then home. Every bit of free time he had was spent absorbed in some form of anime. Then, abruptly in June of 2009, Kevin just left. It was one year after his high school graduation and two months after his nineteenth birthday. That is the last time that Garth ever saw him.

From there everything seems to go black on this kid. For an entire decade there is absolutely zero public record for Kevin Crabtree. No license renewal, no vehicle registration. No moving violations nor parking tickets. No medical records, voter registration, library card, credit cards or bank accounts. No tax returns. Zip, zero, nada! The dude was completely invisible for a solid ten years. I know with some certainty that this can in fact be done. But not by Kevin Crabtree. Not without some outside help.

Our Kevin's return to public life came with the auspicious arrest on multiple charges in rural Iowa, around the time of the 2020 Hawkeye Cauci. Someone posted bail for him. I could never discover who. The charges included drug and drug paraphernalia possession, among others. Garth might be gratified to learn that this at least rubbed off. It was some months later that a preliminary hearing was held via zoom (during pandemic protocols). Attorneys for Kevin entered a plea bargain on lesser charges and paid the attached fines by wire transfer the same day.

For the next four years Kevin bounced around the upper Midwest, taking one fast food job after another. He managed to avoid any further brushes with the law and evidently left most of his gigs on good terms. He was able to be rehired numerous times at a string of Burger Kings and Taco Bells throughout Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Finally, in February of this year, Kevin arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, where he landed a job as a shift manager at a local Burger King. 

Madison, Wisconsin is the home of the University of Wisconsin. I imagine that most of you knew this. Long a liberal or "blue" bastion, U of W has grown in the last four years to one of those places where the woke monster is completely unchained from it's moorings. Thus the management of those fast food establishments in proximity of the university are no strangers to odd ducks in their work force. Kevin's job performance was without issue, though there were a few complaints that arose a couple of months after he started there. It was at that time that Kevin grew very vocal about the rainbow trans rights group he'd become involved with. He also chose this time to introduce his "Fursona". For those unfamiliar with the etiquette this is how one "comes out" as a "furry". The HR kommissars insisted that Kevin had the right to "express" his "true identity". He was hence known as Shift Manager Kevin Cocoa-Bear. 

This was the beginning of the reign of terror. Little by little as the weeks passed Kevin was able to edge out employees who fell out of his favor. He replaced these with other furries, members of a new band he had formed called The Deaf Kids from New Guinea. It was weird, but it was working. It met the standards of depravity that the citizens of Madison are accustomed to. Everything was going fine until one day in early September. It was only a couple of weeks after the latest crop of freshmen had arrived. A customer was served a Whopper with cheese that was contaminated by an errant fire retardant tag, escaped from one of the furries' fursona's. It escaped notice at the time, but within days was brought to the attention of a BK district manager.

This was a serious incident, a severe breach of the company's brand. Both the store manager and Kevin were called out in front of the crew when that district manager came around. We'll call him Dick, because as anyone who ever worked for more than fifteen minutes in fast food knows, all DMs should be named Dick. Dick was not pleased and was making no secret of it. I believe part of his exact words were, "I don't give a fuck what HR said, you're not wearing those gay assed costumes to work any more! And that.....IS....FINAL!".  Among other things. He really carried on for a while. Dick fired the store manager, a forty-something single mother of some Latin extraction (maybe Honduran?). She just bailed in tears. Dick seemed to take some measure of satisfaction from this, but only for a moment. Kevin knew that Dick was preparing to turn his wrath upon him.

He gave the silent signal to his fellow furries, who then discreetly acted in unison. They shut off the exterior lights, shut off the drive thru microphones, locked the doors and cranked up the fryer as high as it could go. I mentioned earlier that part of my investigations are aimed at determining just where a story goes south. For those of you who have stuck with me so far you probably think that the "going south" part came and went some pages ago. You would be wrong. It is here, right here, that this tragic tale turned south. Terminally south.

They fell upon poor Dick before he could begin to understand what was happening. He was rapidly chloroformed then dragged back to a prep table in the rear of the kitchen. Everything was swept from the table and the unconscious Dick was laid upon it. Kevin was forming a plan in motion and gave his command to the other furries.

"Wrap his head tight in cling wrap and hold him down until he's suffocated. I'm gonna round up all the cash. Check his pockets and wallet and get his car keys."

Dick was dead inside of five minutes. Between the store bank, cash proceeds and cash from Dick's pockets they had $276. They took Dick's body and somehow were able to lift him up in a manner to insert him headfirst into the bubbling fryer. That did not go well. At the deepest point the body would only sink to a point a few inches below the shoulders. It was too late to correct the error and the entire fryer, fried dick and all, toppled over. Kevin and Gleeb miraculously escaped any injury. The other two furries were not so fortunate. They both had been entirely doused in boiling oil and were almost immediately engulfed in flames. Even in the remote possibility that they might have survived those injuries they'd wish they hadn't. The two of them fled the scene driving separate vehicles, Kevin his van and Gleeb behind the wheel of Dick's Nissan Maxima.

This audience has some idea where it all went from there. At least the worst of it. There is more that none of us will ever know, and that is just as well. This pair of fuzznuts have a laundry list of state and federal charges to rival the hanging scene in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Despite this fact I have found no law enforcement agencies at any level to be in hot pursuit. Not even lukewarm pursuit. Although I am not certain why this is the case, I do understand this is the reason why SCIU was called. We are a non-government agency and we are renowned for handling matters like this in very discreet fashion.

Just over twenty-four hours ago the Deaf Kids' six week reign of terror was brought to a discreet and quiet end. I had cornered them when they had no cards left to play. There was no one else to witness this encounter, by design. Gleeb was still recovering from a recent tongue piercing and could only manage an unintelligible "Nngnng-guk!" Kevin, on the other hand was a bit more verbose and I allowed him time to deliver his swan song:

It's all about minor chords and darkness. Anti-matter and the ice cold clarity of the void. The Zoroastrians were right, man. And the Gnostics too. Coulda been a Basilidian brainchild, but they handed it over to those thugs in Rome. Wanna know the truth about empires?The longer they live, the longer we all gotta pay for 'em, man. 

You think you live in a world of light. You don't. There is light, but there is also darkness. It's all around you. It's in you. It's everything. But the world is blinded. The people can't see it. They have to know. That is why I have to return to the light. To release the light of darkness upon the world. It's gonna be beautiful, man. It's gonna be para....

That's where I shut him down. I didn't need to hear more. I darted them both with cyanide. They were both dead before they hit the ground. The bodies were discreetly disposed, no remains will be found.

I should feel bad for Kevin Crabtree. His is indeed a tragic tale, from his unlikely birth to his bitter end. But I don't feel bad. I can only feel nothing. That may be due to some failing on my part, but I'm not too sure about that. Upon further reflection I find Kevin Crabtree to be emblematic of an entire generation of boys who never grew into manhood. They have remained forever stunted at that pre-pubescent level, effeminate, preening and utterly castrated in every sense of the word. They are the progeny of every shrieking harridan who ever berated them for their toxic masculinity. They are the whipped pups upon whom a class of harpies have vented their spleen for every ill they believe to have been visited upon womankind. It is convenient to blame men for what nature hath wrought; for what revenge may be exacted from nature?

 

 

Crisis of the Proletarian Art Threat

The credentialist wing would like to say

a few wise words about art today

There is this new sensation

(it seems overblown)

Proles succumbed to temptation

to make art of their own

Their pathetic attempt to enter the stage

is a threat, I tell you; a moral outrage

You'll come to rue the day 

that you let this stand

Because then the proles can say

they have the right to demand

a voice in matters they can't understand

We alone are the arbiters of good taste

We can not allow art to be debased

by the soiled and rutting working stiffs

offering their voices

Then they could start to act as if

they actually have these choices

It just won't do

I'm telling you

They'll start making other noises

There is no art that we don't approve first

Our sense of fashion is needed

lest they be encouraged, or even worse,

our wisdom should go unheeded

We must now do our vital part

before exhibits are empty shelves

For if we let them discover art

what else will they think for themselves?

The Gopher

 Conflating tumors out of cysts

Debating rumors with ready lists

Its all the truth, he still insists

Tired tropes in yellowed incisors

he burrows through the earth

No need of counsel or advisors

he's quite certain of his worth

Parchments declare he is ever right

and in that subterranean light

never dissected to see what they mean

or measured to any expectation

Answers only with empty recitation

somehow never quite what they seem

Some litany chanted, given by rote

as he shakes off the dirt from his coat

Smugly he retreats to his lair

to the comfort of his own fume

Hes sucking up all the air

of a stale and stifling room

He will never capitulate

'cause now hes a Yorkshire Puddin'

and I will firmly stipulate

Aye, hes for sure a Goodwin

A Solstice

These wooded ridges and valleys are old. They are old in a sense generally understood in common conversation; old relative to known historical events; old in terms of their first recorded settlement. Yet these shrouded peaks and vales are far, far older than most can imagine. Secrets sleep here that are best left uncovered.

My very first introduction to the Woolly Booger "legend" came in the course of casual conversation. I heard some older teens talking about going to park "up at Woolly Booger". I'd never heard of it and I wasn't supposed to be listening in on their conversation, so I didn't ask them. Later I asked someone else that I already knew if they knew what Woolly Booger was. "Thats the cursed pond over on the old Taylor place. People go out there to party or make out, or... whatever. Not at the pond, but there's a lane out there where the house used to be." In the years since I still have to consider this as the simplest and most honest answer to the question.

Little by little over time I heard more details, all of them vague, but sharing a theme of foreboding. There were never specifics, but always an air of something sinister underlying. Someone had died there. Numerous people had died there. The place was haunted by Maidred's Ghost. These were the exchange of urban, or in this instance rural legends, common among young people in every age. Among young people of that day a trip to park up at Woolly Booger overnight was akin to accepting a dare to spend the night in a haunted house. Thus was the limit of my understanding of Woolly Booger in the summer of '76.

It was a busy summer. There was an election campaign, the looming bi-centennial celebration, and the summer Olympics. But those came later. There was something bigger than all of these things that was going to happen first. You've just never heard about it.

After that first weekend on the bridge we had excitedly shared the news of the National Guard maneuvers. During the week that followed  a scheme was hatched to hold a bonfire party at the old Taylor place the coming weekend. Saturday the 19th was proposed first, but then it was noted that moon rise on Sunday the 20th actually occurred after midnight, at 12:39 AM on the 21st. Which also happened to be the arrival of the Summer Solstice. To be held on an abandoned estate, which was supposedly haunted. I didn't need to hear more. I was in.

Preparations were started on Thursday and by Sunday afternoon a site had been prepared in what had been the front yard of the old Taylor house. The house had finally been demolished six years earlier, but remnants still cast their shadows. There were bits of the foundation, crumbling and grown over, but showing very plainly where the house had been. At the edge of some brush, maybe thirty feet from our fire circle, there was still a cluster of rhododendrons growing. As one headed further away from the road the land takes a steady rise, up toward the orchards which had been been planted upon a ridge above the home. In those years one could wander about the grounds of the old estate and see all the vestiges of what had once been. The errant lily or iris was common. A lone cheery tree or yew would stand out of place and these may be found still.

The entry lane from the road had never been paved, but the original circle was laid with stone in the 1890s. It had been a lane approximately twelve feet wide, traversing a distance of two-hundred feet and looping back in a circle half that distance. At one time a small carriage house had stood at the far side of the loop; a structure removed years before the house. It was all grown over with grass and weeds by then, but it still provided a clear gravel pathway. There was another lane on the old property, one that went away from the house and parallel with the road. I don't think it was part of the original design. It was a mowed path at the edge of a tree line, heading up onto another ridge. There were ruts worn with the large tracks of tractor tires. It was some path that had been cleared by the Park Service, for reasons unknown, though it did show that it was still in regular use.

Early that afternoon I was informed by a couple of older boys that this lane would take you to the top of the ridge. From there was to be found the "easiest" access down to the dreaded Woolly Booger. Eventually I was goaded into hiking up that trail, accompanied by the two older boys and Becky, a tomboyish girl of 15 who was notorious for her exploits on a dirtbike. It was a spectacularly beautiful  day. Seventy-seven degrees, low humidity and sunny blue skies with loose cumulus cloud. 

When we got to the top of the ridge there was a small opening in the tree line. It looked like a deer trail. It was the termination of this ridge and it's intersection with the orchard ridge which created the steep pocket where the "pond" was nestled. Exiting the mowed path I ducked my head beneath the arch of tangled greenery and into the gloom beyond. I could see that there was a rim of earth for only a few feet ahead and beyond a very steep drop. Becky edged in through the opening behind me and I stepped over to the edge. I grabbed hold of a grapevine and leaned over to look down. I could see that although the path was very steep, it was crossed throughout with roots and stones that formed a sort of natural staircase down to the bottom. I struggled against a wave of vertigo as Becky came to my side. As we looked down together we were both left momentarily breathless by what we saw.

I reckoned it to be a drop of one-hundred to one-hundred-twenty feet down to the water's surface. The water was glowing. I don't know how else to describe it. There was a light from under the water's surface, an intense white light. But that was not all. There were soldiers down there in masks and weird suits. There was a cable fixed down the slope, like a zip line. Maybe for ease of getting down there? Or to bring something up? Becky and I looked at each other and she had already decided she had seen enough. "Unh-uh! Fuck that! I ain't going down there!" We were able to slink away unseen.

Back out at the path we told the two other boys what we had seen. They both called bull shit and we each challenged them to look for themselves. The two of them could not agree on looking, but when the one who was for it ducked into the brush the other then followed. We spent a tense few minutes waiting on them. Becky didn't want to hang around any longer. I let her get started back down to the circle. I remember feeling kind of chicken shit for not going with her, but I wanted to be sure those boys came out of there. I didn't have much longer to wait.

That was Mark and James, both a couple of years older than I. When they came back out into the full light you could see their faces were ashen. I immediately wondered if they had seen anything different.

"Did ya see the light? Did ya see those suits?"

Both of them nodded, seeming reluctant to say more. I never learned whether or not either of them had seen anything more. It was Mark then that said "Let's get the fuck away from here and don't say anything to the others!" 

We set off on a brisk pace down the trail and caught up with Becky just before she had returned to the circle. Mark gave a shrill, sharp whistle to catch her attention. When she whirled around to look he motioned urgently for her to wait for us. We met up and for a few minutes we remained huddled there in our own little conference, about twenty-five yards from the circle. Mark had kind of taken charge of the situation.

"You can't say anything about what you saw..."

Becky interrupted, "I ain't sayin' shit, jack! Who is gonna believe that shit!?"

Mark seized upon this and continued, "...exactly! If you go saying anything people are just gonna say you're crazy."

Then James chimed in, finally. He had remained stoically silent throughout. "Its Woolly Booger, man. Everybody is already creeped out over the place. She's right. If we try to tell 'em all what we saw down there they'll think we're makin' shit up."

Mark went on, looking to close any argument. "The other thing, guys, is what if somebody says I call bull shit? You want anyone else going up there so they can say I told you so?" Becky didn't seem impressed, but she didn't need any persuading. I thought that what Mark had said was true. It had certainly been true with he and James after we had first related what we had seen down there. I had to say what I was thinking.

"Maybe we oughtta just get out of here. I don't think we were supposed to see... that, whatever it was. We might get into trouble with those army guys..."

"Ah come on, man! Don't be such a pussy!", Mark fired back. And then our little meet up in the lane was concluded. There was no further challenge to Mark's position on the subject and we all just filtered back into the larger group. But you just knew someone would tell somebody. Mark would certainly tell his older brother Alan about it. Becky would certainly tell her little sister Debbie about it, and Debbie couldn't keep a secret to save her life. I didn't really have anyone to tell and I really didn't want to. Events would unfold such that none of us had to.

There were a number of hours of daylight still, only a little past four in the afternoon. At that hour there were probably twelve of us there, all neighborhood kids that I recognized at least by their faces if not by name. In the hours before dusk there were three or four who left the party, but another half dozen or so turned up. Around 6:00 there was a rusty, green Chevy pickup arrived. This was a group I was not familiar with. There were five altogether, two brothers I could recognize as being from a nearby village. There was another boy and two girls in the bed of the truck when they pulled up, none of them I knew. Becky had left for a time, but then returned a couple of hours later with her younger sister, Debbie. 

By 8:00 that evening the sun had fallen below the last spiny ridge to the west, it's last rays flickering in the treeline. Our little fold upon the Taylor's lawn was cast into the veil of dusk. It was time to light the fire. In just over an hour the sun would be fully set and the country all around would be plunged into the dark of night. The moon would rise in her last quarter, providing minimal light. From sunset to midnight were the darkest hours before the dawn of the longest day of the year. Just as planned our flames lit the night.

The only true advantage in youth is the boundless capacity for the abuse of one's body. As one ages this capacity survives; regrettably a like capacity for recovery does not. Speaking from my own experience I believe that this is a skill that is honed to a fine point in those crucial years between fifteen and twenty-five. If you succeed in finding a way to pace yourself during these years it is quite possible to go on to a life of continued substance abuse with little or no consequence. I'd say it is possible, though that is for only a select few. You all know who you are.

I had been among the first of those to arrive that day. It had probably been some time around 1:00 in the afternoon, right after lunch. Throughout that day there had been a steady diet of beer and weed. Not the good kind of weed, as one may find today. No. This was that rank, nasty, dried out brown weed from the seventies. The kind of stuff that yielded three to four grams of stems and seeds in every half bag. By the time the flames were lit I was afloat on a cloud of five plus hours in sustained inebriation. Thats when the party really got started. 

After dark fell it was like being within this warm coccoon. The entire world existed within this ball of light surrounding our pyre. There was a whirl of young faces, giddy and laughing. Firelight distorted  faces and movement. There was music playing, but sound was distorted too. And there was beer after beer, somehow still preserved ice cold as they bobbed in pools of water and ice slush in styrofoam coolers. Tall cans, Stroh's 16 oz aluminum. Time seemed to stand still. 

I remember at one point there was an older boy I did not know. I later learned his name was Jay. He came from a good ways north, an exclusive community built surrounding a golf course. Jay was a pretty boy. He was seventeen, but he had the soft face of a thirteen year old, with very straight, shoulder length black hair. Every girl there was enthralled with him. From the other side of the fire he held court, surrounded with them all starry eyed as they hung on his every word. He was imagining out loud for all to hear how he imagined we must look from space. A black sea of wood, with specks of water like glass; where swarms of fireflies sail, and then our orb of warm yellow light shining like a candle flame..., or words to that effect. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to which one, but I'm fairly certain that Jay got him some that night. He was probably the only one that did.

Things were still rocking around the fire when around 10:00 we were momentarily panicked when headlights turned in from the road. It was only one vehicle and pulled up at the bottom of the gravel loop. Once the headlights were extinguished we were relieved to see that it was only one of the National Guard jeeps. Most were relieved. I felt a jolt of panic that froze me in place. The driver of the jeep got out and ambled over to us. It was our red-headed corporal again! He was loose and jocular. It seemed he may have been enjoying a few brews of his own.

"Hey! I ain't gonna rat none of ya's out, but you kids ain't s'posed to be here, ya know. Ha-ha-ha... look like y'all havin' a good time." He nodded, amused as he looked around our circle. Everybody hushed to hear what he had to say. I think he was amused by letting us twist in the wind for minute. He was saying one thing, but he was hanging around. It suddenly dawned on me what he was doing. He was looking around that circle to see if he could spot any of us who had been above Woolly Booger that afternoon! We'd been made! At least that what my drunk and stoned, teen-aged, paranoid mind had concluded. But then it seems I was wrong, when the corporal loped back toward his jeep and called back to us, "We's settin' a bivouac up the top of this ridge. Y'all best not be wanderin' up there!"

And that was the end of it. The corporal didn't say another word, didn't look back and drove away up the tractor trail in the jeep that was packed solid with crates in the rear. To nearly everyone else there his departure was shrugged off and the party resumed. For myself and at least three others present there was the wonder of what was in those crates and what the hell were they doing up there at the end of that ridge? By that hour I was far too intoxicated to do a thing about it. Whatever "it" was. The debauchery continued apace...

Then came the much awaited midnight hour and the vigil for the moon rise. We were a bunch of stupid, drunken kids who didn't know from shit. And yet somehow here we all were together awaiting the dawn of the solstice in a bacchanalia to make the Greeks proud. We had tapped into something primal, ancient. Jay could wax poetic for pussy any night of the week, but Jay was no poet. Jay couldn't capture this. 

Alan shut off the stereo that had been playing from his car for the entire evening. At first the silence was unsettling. One became aware of the pop and crackle of the fire first, but then the symphony of cicada and crickets; the distant, gentle hoots of owls; thousands of frogs all peeping in unison at water's edge. Fireflies danced throughout the thick forests surrounding us. For forty minutes, defying all prior experience, a collection of eighteen teenagers were able to remain silent. Mostly. The minutes ticked by and the tension of anticipation was electric. Becky weaved around the circle to take a seat next to me. Rather surreptitiously she grabbed hold of my left hand and held it tight between our sides. It wasn't weird. It didn't mean anything at all, but it was okay. She was scared and so was I. And neither one of us could explain why.

At 12:40 AM we all stared, mouths agape, to the southeastern sky as the waning quarter moon rose into the night. A muted cheer arose from a few as it first nudged over the horizon. At this stage it had grown mostly anticlimactic. Beer was running low and with the weed available it was impossible to get any higher than any of us were. There were a few, maybe four, who had already chosen their spot on the lawn, curled up and crashed. A core of die hards held on, but the steam had mostly escaped this kettle. The Solstice had come, not much else to see. I still had Becky clutching my hand and I could only wonder what would happen next.

It happened at 1:00 AM. A blinding flash of white light erupted from behind the ridge in our foreground, from the ravines where Woolly Booger is nestled. It did not make a sound, but the light was sustained. Up in the skies above, at least a few thousand feet up, static crackled and lightning flicked across the heavens. A vortex slowly formed and a similar light began to glow from above until two very focused beams of light converged. When the beams met there was an even brighter flash of light, illuminating everything around us like it was high noon. And then the lights just vanished. Except for the nature surrounding us it was dead silent. For only about a minute it was difficult to breath, like the air had suddenly grown thin. There was a negative pressure and I think that oxygen had been drawn from the very air. Some complained that their ears had popped and there was a faint scent of burning ozone in the air. After about a full minute of absorbing the shock of it all there was a mad scramble to every vehicle available and we all hauled ass out of that place.

I don't know where everyone ended up that night. I rode with Alan, Mark, Becky and Debbie up to their corner. I can account for every person that made it out of there that night. Except for one. I never saw pretty boy Jay leave with anyone. I never saw him again, which at the time maybe didn't seem so strange. We didn't attend the same school and I certainly didn't hang out at the country club where he lived. I never had learned of his last name so I've had very little to go on in any attempt to look him up. In the few, and they very few, conversations that I have ever had with anyone who witnessed that night, no one has been able to say that they knew Jay, who had invited him, his last name. Really nothing, other than "that long haired dude with the chics" who was there.

This was like having a UFO experience. Things are certainly different today, but back then one was careful about how much to say about such experiences. In that era the people with these tales to tell would end up on camera somewhere and nearly always end up being mocked and/or discredited. I'm not going to try to tell you that there has been some sort of code of silence among the witnesses. People have certainly talked and the Woolly Booger legend has been further embellished, yet it has remained only a local legend, without being painted broadly in the pantheon of what are often called conspiracy theories. I think that this is mostly because among those of us who were there we do not have one single piece of evidence that would support what we witnessed.

Now here is a strange thing I can tell you. About six months after this event, shortly after New Years, there was a news story on the CBS Evening News about a helicopter crash during a training exercise in North Carolina. Three servicemen were killed in this accident, all of whom were named and their pictures shown on screen. Staring at me from the old Zenith console was the smiling, freckled face of our red headed corporal. Lieutenant Benjamin Higbee, aged 24, of Slippery Rock, PA. Regular Army, not National Guard. I don't think that Mr. Higbee, or whatever his name was, died in that training exercise. I think he died at Woolly Booger and the accident is just cover. Why six months later? I don't know. Time warp?

I may refer to Woolly Booger as one thing or another. An inter-dimensional portal? Could be. A link up to some alien intelligence? Maybe. A gateway to something demonic? Yeah, I wouldn't rule that one out either. I don't really know what Woolly Booger is, but I can tell you what I suspect.

I accept that there are things in the world which we are simply not meant to know. I suspect that Woolly Booger is one of those things. I suspect that it is a gateway of sorts to a different realm, whatever form that may be. It is easy to latch on to the notion of it being something demonic. Whatever forces are there they are certainly malign. I suspect that they are behind Maidred Taylor's hanging, and many others at the same location. In addition to these there have likewise been an inordinate amount of suicides in the general vicinity, not only at the bridge. I suspect that whatever it is it is best left alone and is not something that anyone should be fucking with. Least of all our federal government. Whatever was there before was bad enough. After the feds started poking around they just pissed it off. And now they don't know what to do about it. That is what I suspect, not what I can prove.

So now I hope that you may all understand the urgency of this mission. I shudder to think what should become of us all if Kevin Crabtree and the Deaf Kids should somehow harness the dread power of Woolly Booger. If Crazy Jay is who I believe he is then Crabtree may possess the ability to do just that. While there are rumblings of nuclear war around the Ukraine or the Middle East, there is indeed a far greater peril at hand should I fail. 

Mineral springs... and stranger things

 This is a primer. For some of you this will certainly be necessary to follow the continuing saga of the Deaf Kids from New Guinea (hereafter referred to simply as Deaf Kids). In our last installment the enigmatic spectre of Woolly Booger was introduced. It may very well figure more prominently in this tale than any of us can know. For those of you who pray, pray that I am wrong. I will still take some care that the location is not revealed, yet I must elaborate further that our audience may understand the significance of this fearsome place.

In the physical sense Woolly Booger is a pond. At least that is what it appears to be on it's dark and murky surface. The surface at least is a pond. It is not very large; not even as large as a football field. It's shores are mucky and filled with reeds, nettles and moss. It is only upon one small corner, a length of no more than twenty yards, that there is any solid and open shore upon which one can stand. It's approach is heavily cloaked on all sides by steep, rocky ravines, centuries old trees and wild, forbidding thickets. It's the sort of place that you don't find if you're not looking for it. It's the sort of place that if one were to have, quite literally, fallen into it by accident this would be certain to entail gross bodily injury. Likely even death.

Despite the outward appearance, Woolly Booger is something more than just a tiny, isolated pond. It is in fact a geological anomaly; a bizarre remnant of a great glacial retreat occurring between ten and eleven thousand years ago. The pond surface is merely the tip of a deep, deep fissure into the rock. Though it may have assumed a bog like identity at the top, the water source below is fed from a mineral spring. It is very heavy in iron, as betrayed by the orange hue found at water's edge.

It is believed that the Shawnee people may have stumbled upon this place some time around five-hundred years ago during their southwestern migration. There are some who hold to the notion that the Shawnee, as well as the Creek, Cherokee and Mingo, shared in an oral tradition of it being a sacred place. I've never been able to obtain a qualified confirmation of this. It is simply one of many legends that form from the mists of time. At it's root I can believe that place might well have been noted simply for it's oddity, but the ensuing legend is much embellished. Part of the alleged oral tradition is to have described an older race of peoples inhabiting the land surrounding. It was from those people that the history was preserved to tell of what can only be understood as an active geyser. They considered it to be the wrath of an angry spirit; the waters only calmed by an appeasing sacrifice. Maybe there is some kernel of truth in it, but as I have said, this is only legend. There has never been any archaeological evidence uncovered to support this.

The Woolly Booger site and the lands surrounding it went largely ignored through the age of America's westward expansion. In the late 1800s the site was surveyed as part of a large tract of property sold to a man by the name of Taylor. Mr. Taylor was apparently of some considerable means by way of inheritance. He acquired the property, built a large home approximately two miles from the site, and by all accounts lived the leisurely life of a country squire. There does not seem to be any evidence to indicate that Mr. Taylor ever visited, indeed, was ever even aware of the Woolly Booger pond on his property. 

It was a quiet life, with time spent gardening, tending many flowers, shrubs and ornamental trees, and cultivating a small orchard of fruit trees. After a little over a decade tending his idyllic niche Mr. Taylor grew restless. He was a bachelor in his early forties, but apparently something still stirred in his loins, when at the tender age of forty-four Mr. Taylor took a bride. He was a full quarter century her senior; indeed, old enough to be her father. The age difference, though not so uncommon as one might think for that period, was certain to foster some gossip. It does not help that there are no concrete details as to how the two ever met. We do know that the young lady, Maidred, was a Welsh immigrant and that she had previously served as an au pair for a wealthy Philadelphia family. Beyond this, her marriage to Mr. Taylor and her subsequent death, we know very little.

In June of 1888 a brand new iron bridge was officially opened a short distance up the road from the Taylor estate. The Taylors had been wed for just short of eighteen months and the fruit of that union was six weeks in the oven. Unbeknownst to Mr. Taylor at the time. Maidred showed a peculiar interest in this bridge. She confided in her husband that the span made her homesick, a reminder of a place from her Welsh childhood where she had sometimes fished with her father.  

On several occasions in the weeks that followed Mr. Taylor happily obliged his young wife with frequent visits to the bridge. He had noted a recent melancholy, not even suspecting the likely cause, and was eager to return some cheer to their life. It was a very dry summer and the waters of the creek beneath the bridge grew quite low. The creek's banks were not especially steep at the site and on sunny afternoons the shallow waters were an invitation to explore.  After a number of visits Maidred began to bring a small galvanized pail along and would dash into the tall grasses to the rocky shore. Mr. Taylor was amused by her girlish enthusiasm and happily indulged her as he watched from the bridge railing above.

When the early afternoon sunlight was full upon these waters it was dazzling. The light was filtered through the treetops, preventing it from making a blinding reflection. Multi colored and shining stones glistened from the creek bed, captured and magnified through the clear water. She would leave her shoes and stockings upon the grassy shore, hike up her skirts and wade out with her pail to gather the stones that appealed to her. This happy state of affairs continued through July and well into August, all while Mr. Taylor was blissfully unaware of the pregnancy.

On the night of August 21, 1888 there was a full moon. Two youths from a neighboring village took advantage of the light to go gigging for frogs along the creek banks. About an hour before dawn they came upon the iron bridge and found a woman hanging by the neck under it. The two young men spent the next few hours trying to get to authorities to report what they had found. It was just after 8:30 the morning of the 22nd when local sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene.

Meanwhile there was a bewildered Mr. Taylor wondering where his wife had got to at this early hour on a Wednesday morning. He searched about the house to no avail. He did not note any of her things missing. He went to the stable and found the carriage and horses still present. He then made a pass through the grounds, calling out for her, but still there was no reply and no sign of her anywhere on the property. 

At first he was concerned, though not panicked. He had come to learn that his child bride had some quirks about her. He put a kettle on for tea and prepared a modest breakfast, which he then took out on the wide front porch. At about the hour that deputies were cutting Maidred down from the bridge Mr. Taylor was eating muffins with apple butter, fully expecting her to appear across the lawn with a bunny or a clutch of wildflowers. She was still possessed of the childlike innocence that would draw her to the pursuit of such things. This was not the first time that she had wandered away unannounced, though it was peculiar for the early hour. As wonder slowly crept into his mind he began to realize that he was uncertain when she had left their bed. 

By the late afternoon Mr. Taylor had spent restless hours anguishing over what might have become of his wife. As the hours of the day progressed his imagination lurched towards ever darker conclusions, until he could bear it no longer. Around 3:45 he took his carriage off to the county sheriff's office, some five miles distant. By 5:00 he was speaking with the duty sergeant at the courthouse, pleading for their assistance in locating his missing wife. Once the officer began to request some specifics in order to file an official report, it became apparent that the woman being described matched the description of an yet unidentified woman in the county morgue. When the two deputies came and requested that Mr. Taylor accompany them he was quite bewildered. He had no suspicion that he was being taken to identify the remains of his missing wife.

Mr.Taylor was a broken man after that. The shock of discovering that he had lost both a wife and child in such a brutal fashion was crippling. And never any understanding as to why. Why had she hung herself? Was it because of the child? She had to know. The coroner said that she was likely at three months. Mr. Taylor was left to wrestle with these questions for the next thirty-eight years, until his passing at the ripe old age of eighty-three in November, 1926.

During those years the estate had slowly deteriorated. For the first twenty years after her passing it seemed that Mr. Taylor was determined to memorialize her in every act. The many plants and trees flourished, and in late summers at their full maturity his gardens were a true splendor. He could carry this on until the age of sixty-five. After 1908 nothing new was planted, no trees were tended and the plants of the wild slowly reclaimed their space. Upon his death there was simply abandonment. There were no heirs, no living relatives, no will left to express any wishes he may have had.

It was nearly another full decade before any question of the property was even raised, after which the estate spent another thirty years in a legal limbo. It remained in a state of neglect for all that time. Locals would venture onto the grounds to gather apples, pears or walnuts, all of which survived in abundance. The country throughout was filled with wild berries and mushrooms when in season and the Taylor estate was no exception. It was inevitable that some would wander onto the property in pursuit of these morsels. One of these cases occurred in May of 1959, another tragedy which may or may not be the cause of events soon to follow.

The early Spring of 1959 had been very wet. Consequently the wooded slopes of the area grew thick with the annual seekers of the prized morrel mushroom. The pickings were quite good this year and word spread. On a Saturday morning, May 16, a young couple from a town twenty-five miles away drove to the area to try their luck. They parked the family sedan in the old entry lane to the Taylor estate, then set off on the grounds in search of the mushrooms; a husband, wife and their nine year old son. As they waded deeper into the woods they frequently became entangled in the growing thicket. It was upon one such occasion that they were atop a slope with a northwest face, above the Woolly Booger pond. The husband had been snared by a blackberry briar and in his effort to free himself he tumbled over the rim and down the slope.

Initially this spurred some celebration as the slide had put him atop an impressive trove of morrels. As the man eagerly gathered up this prize he was also looking about to see where he might best get back up the slope. He eventually spotted the surface of the water below. Quite surprised at this he called out this discovery to his wife and son, announcing that he was going down for a closer look. 

No one can say for certain exactly what happened next. We only have the account from the wife and son. They both reported that they had remained at the top of the slope, peering down through the thicket as best they could. They were able to hear, but not see to the bottom. Just a few minutes after he had told them that he was climbing to the bottom there was a sudden flash of blinding light from below, followed by the sound of a loud splash into the water. No body was ever recovered.

In the course of investigating this case divers were brought in from State authorities. They could find no body, nor could they find the bottom. Eventually this information reached some parties with the US Geological Survey. Teams from this agency made a number of visits to the site during 1962 and early 1963. I can not say with certainty that the sequence of events are all related, but the following year the Taylor estate was incorporated into a larger tract of land acquired by the Army Corps of Engineers. This was ostensibly for the purpose of a dam project. A dam which, to this day, remains unbuilt. Though it is now administered under the Park Service, the land remains under control of the feds. Officially the Woolly Booger site is off limits. Officially.

Fifty years ago that is a rule that supposedly applied, though it surely was not enforced in any way. By the early seventies it was more or less accepted that there would be no dam. The original area that had been zoned for the purpose had been divvied up for multi purposes, administered by a combination of state and federal authorities. For the most part the area remained one of those blessed plots of earth that pass unnoticed. This was true, but for a small group of youths who came from farm lands adjacent to "government land", as it came to be known. 

In 1975 I became one of those youths. My family moved into a farmhouse that sat upon what had once been a dairy farm, bordered on one side by a zone designated as State property. The Woolly Booger pond was only a little over a mile from our home, as the crow flies, but required some more travel than that to arrive there. I was informed within a very short time of moving there about Woolly Booger and it's mysterious past. I found that most were aware of it's existence, though few could say that they had been there and seen it themselves. This area was heavily steeped in superstitions and legend. In addition to Woolly Booger's creepy history, there was also the legend of Maidred's ghost haunting the old Taylor orchards. The bridge where she had hung herself had come to be known locally as "the hangin' bridge". In the eighty plus years since her tragic end there were ten other deaths by hanging recorded at the span. The year that we arrived was the last year that the bridge was open for vehicle traffic. It stood for another two years after that, before it's final destruction. 

It was late summer when we arrived that year, so it was not until the following summer that I had opportunity to fully explore the new neighborhood. By that time I had grown well acquainted with my peers who lived along our ridge. There were a dozen of us all told, ten boys and two girls, all within a three year span of age. The eldest was Alan who was seventeen. We were not always assembled as a full group, but in summer it was not unusual for four or five of us boys to ride together. There was fishing, canoeing, biking, hiking...sometimes just hiding someplace to sneak some cigarettes. Or something better. Sometimes there was beer, which in those years still held that mythical quality. It was the summer I was first introduced to Little King's Cream Ale.

The first weekend after the end of the school year there were six of us who rode over on our bikes to meet at the hangin' bridge. It was already closed for traffic at this point, so we felt quite at ease congregating on the bridge with a cooler of canned beer. Our little party went on for nearly two hours and the beer had run out. We were just getting ready to leave when two army jeeps came up the road toward the bridge. This didn't worry us at all, in fact most of us were keen to get an up close look. For most of us the only jeeps we'd ever seen in our lives were on the TV program MASH.

The first jeep rolled to a stop just before the gate and a lanky corporal with red hair and freckles bounded from the passenger seat. He briefly tipped his helmet to us and then went directly to the other end of the gate. He had the keys to open it and in less than a minute was swinging the gate open towards us.

"Y'all gotta move boys. We got some traffic coming through." He had a slow drawl and a genial manner. We weren't told to clear off, just move out of the way. The corporal remained there at the end of the gate as the second jeep drove on to open the gate at the opposite end of the bridge. Once that gate had been opened the jeep pulled through to park at the opposite end and another soldier took post at the gate. A short time later a caravan of deuce and half rolled across that bridge. There were six of them, all fully loaded, and they had to cross one at a time. Soldiers called and waved from the backs of the trucks as they rolled through. A few of them tossed out some olive drab box kits of field rations. This was long before MREs. I think they were called k-rations in those years. 

Once all six of the trucks had crossed our red headed corporal closed and locked the gate, as his counterpart at the other end did the same. He hopped into his jeep and called out to us as they prepared to drive off, "National Guard unit, boys. We gonna be out here a couple weeks on maneuvers. Y'all be careful crawling around these woods, ya hear?"

I think the universal reaction within our little squad was "Well hot damn!" The field rations provided enough additional amusement to remain on the bridge for a while longer. The highlight of this kit had nothing to do with any of it's foodstuffs. Inside of every box there was a mini pack of four cigarettes and a book of humidity resistant matches. This was the beginning of our bi-centennial summer. We all sensed it was going to be something special. If only we had known why.

There is more to this tale, but I will conclude here for now. As I write the Deaf Kids are still at large. The sanctum of Woolly Booger has not yet been breached. We remain relatively safe for now. Remain vigilant! 

This is Special Investigator Ford Wenty, SCIU....signing off until next time...