Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys Part 33

"Like brandy and pain pills?"

"Give that man a cigar."

"Can I get you anything else?"

He pointed to something beside the door. "You can bring me my ax, if you don't mind."

Turning, I saw the beat-up guitar case leaning against the wall. I picked up the case, noted that the handle was about to come off (the duct tape used to re-attach was just about shot), and carried it over to Knight. He opened the case and removed the guitar, a gorgeous, new-looking Takamine 12-string with a dreadnought-sized cutaway white-bound body, solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides, a mahogany neck with white-bound rosewood fretboard, a rosewood bridge, and a black pick-guard.

It was one of the most beautiful instruments I'd ever seen.

"Yeah," said Knight, seeing the expression on my face, "she's a beauty. I've had this baby for most of my life. Half the time-s.h.i.+t, most of the time-I took better care of her than I did of myself." He gave it a light strum, and the room filled with that rich, clear sound that only a perfectly-tuned guitar can produce.

"So, Sam...any requests?"

"You should play what you want."

"Hmm." He began playing a series of warm-up riffs, nothing spectacular, then slowly eased into a standard blues riff, then the same with variations, something he described as the Blues Minor Pentatonic Scale, consisting of the root, the minor third, the fourth, the fifth and the minor seventh.

"Something to hear, if you know how to listen," he said. "You know, it never occurred to me before how frighteningly easy it is to re-shape a single note or scale into its own ghost. For example, E-major, C, G, to D will all fit in one scale- the Aeolian minor, or natural minor of a G-major scale. Now, if you add an A-major chord, all you have to do is change the C natural of your scale to a C-sharp for the time you're on the A-major. Music is phrases and feeling, so learning the scales doesn't get you 'Limehouse Blues' any more than buying tubes of oil paints gets you a 'Starry Night,' but you have to respect the craft enough to realize, no matter how good you are, you'll never master it. Music will always have the final word."

And he continued to play.

"Mr. Knight?"

"You can stray here and keep me company, Sam, unless you're gonna call me 'Mr. Knight.' The name is Byron."

"What happened after your solo alb.u.m? I mean, I don't want to pry, but you just disappeared. Everyone thought you were dead."

He stopped playing, flexed his fingers, and adjusted the tuning on the 'E' string. "Seen any other dead rock stars tonight, Sam?"

My mouth went dry. "Yes sir."

"I'm guessing there's more than a few legends milling around out there in the shelter, am I right?"

"Yes."

"Anyone in that crowd seem...I dunno...a little out of place?"

"Billie Holiday."

He looked up at me. "No s.h.i.+t? Wow. She actually showed up this time."

"Why her?"

"because I loved that voice, Sam. Never has there been a sadder voice in music, never."

I finally pulled a chair away from the Reverend's desk and sat across from Knight. "They told us that they weren't ghosts, that they were-"

"-let me guess. They called themselves 'ulcerations'?"

"How did you know?"

"Because I'm the source."

I stared at him.

"I'm guessing that doesn't really tell you anything, does it?"

"Not really."

He downed the rest of the brandy, looked at the empty gla.s.s, and said, "I'll tell you one h.e.l.l of a story, Sam. You'll be the only person I've ever told it to, but it's gonna cost you one more gla.s.s of the good Reverend's hooch."

I poured him one more gla.s.s. He sipped at it, then played a little as he spoke.

True to his word, he told me one h.e.l.l of a story.

7.

"It was right after our second alb.u.m, Redundant Refugee came out. We were doing well enough, opening for bigger bands, being called back for a few encores every night. Things were moving along. We'd recorded maybe half the songs for the Mudman alb.u.m but I still had no idea what we were going to do for the concept piece. We wanted something long, a whole side of record, and we were beating our heads against a wall. We decided to take two weeks off from the project and each other.

"I was involved with a model at the time-you might remember her, Veronique? Very hot at the time. She talked me into going to India with her. She was making her first stab at acting, a cameo in a big-budget art film.

"I hated almost every minute I was there. The humidity was oppressive as h.e.l.l and it seemed that, regardless of how far away from the cities you were, the sewer stink always found you. There were areas near the hotel where we were staying where the garbage and s.h.i.+t-and I'm talking real, honest-to-G.o.d human waste-reached to my knees. But, man, there were places in that country that were so beautiful-the old Hindu temples and shrine, for instance-but I never could decide whether that odd, damaged beauty was a result of my being stoned most of the time or not. But the thing is, there was this one afternoon when I was stone-cold sober that I remember clearer than anything.

"I wandered away from the movie set and walked to a nearby village. I pa.s.sed a Hindi temple and saw peac.o.c.ks flying, men squatting in fields as the sun was setting behind them, a woman making dung patties as she watched an oxen pulling a plow toward the squatting men, all of them turning into shadows against the setting sun; unreal, y'know... holy things. Young boys with sweat- and ash-streaked faces rode past on bicycles with cans of milk rattling in their baskets. I could hear the echo of a lone, powerful, ghostly voice singing the Moslem call to prayer. I closed my eyes and simply followed the echo, breathing in the dust from the road as a pony cart filled with people came by, feeling the warmth of the evening breeze caress my face, and when the singing stopped I opened my eyes and found myself before the iron gates of the cemetery of Bodhgaya.

"I remember how still everything was. It was as if that ragged, lilting voice had guided me into another, secret world." He fired up the joint once more, took a hit, slowly releasing the smoke. It drifted into the cloud and remained.

"I started walking around the graves until I came this big-a.s.s statue of Kshetrapala, the Guardian of the Dead."

For a few moments I thought maybe I was getting a contact high from the smoke, because the room began yawing in front of me, expanding to make room for the smoke from Knight's joint that hung churning in the air.

"You should have seen him," whispered Knight. "A demon with blue skin, a yellow face, bristling orange hair, three bulging red eyes, and a four-fanged grin. He was draped in corpse skin and a tiger-skin loincloth and was riding a huge black bear. He carried an axe in one hand and a skullcap of blood in the other."

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, then blinked again.

I wasn't imagining things.

While Knight had been describing his encounter with Kshetrapala, the smoke from his joint had churned itself into the shape of the demon.

Another hit, another dragon's-breath of smoke, and more figures took form around the Guardian of the Dead, acting out Knight's story as he continued.

"There was a group of people standing around the Guardian's base, all of them looking down at something. None of them were making a sound. I made my way up to them and worked toward the front for a better look."

I watched as the Knight smoke-player moved through the other shapes to stand at the base of the statue.

"An old beggar woman in s.h.i.+t-stained rags, was kneeling in front of Kshetrapala holding a baby above her head like she was making some kinda offering. Flowers had been carefully placed around the base of the statue, as well as bowls of burning incense, small cakes wrapped in colorful paper, framed photographs, dolls made from dried reeds and string, pieces of candy, a violin with a broken neck...it was f.u.c.king unbelievable. I don't remember what kind of sound I made, only that I did make a noise and it drew the old woman's attention. Without lowering her arms, she turned her head and looked directly into my eyes." He shook his head and-it seemed to me-shuddered.

"Man, I'm telling you, Sam, I have never before or since seen such pure madness in a someone's eyes. For a moment, as she stared at me, I could feel her despair and insanity seeping into my pores. She was emaciated from starvation and had been severely burned at some time-the left half of her face was fused to her shoulder by greasy wattles of pinkish-gray scar tissue. She was trying to form words but all that emerged were these...guttural animal sounds.

"The baby she was holding, it was dead. Not only that, but it had been dead for quite some time because it was partially decomposed. It looked like a small mummy."

I could clearly see the baby take shape from a few stray strands of smoke.

"The old beggar woman lowered her arms, laid the baby's corpse on the ground, and began keening-that's the only word for it. She sang her grief. I looked at the others and saw these placid expressions on their faces...they seemed almost distracted." He looked at me for a moment, then directed his gaze to the shadowy smoke-play unfolding in the air between us.

The figure of the beggar woman thrust one of its hands under its shawl and pulled out something that could only have been a knife; a very, very long knife.

"She began hacking away at her own chest, ripping out sections of muscle and bone until this b.l.o.o.d.y cavity was there," said Knight, his eyes glazing over. "I backed away but I couldn't stop looking. I mean, I'd read all the stories of Yukio Mis.h.i.+ma's committing public hara-kiri as a way of merging life with art but I never tried to picture something like that in my mind-and now, right here in front of me, this poor, crazy woman was disemboweling herself in an apparent act of wors.h.i.+p, and the 'congregation' looked like a bunch of disinterested Broadway producers forced to watch a cattle-call audition."

The woman collapsed, took the dead infant, and shoved it into the cavity, then lay there sputtering smoke-blood from her mouth.

"I was transfixed...but unmoved, y'know? The image of that dead child floating in the gore of the beggar woman's chest fascinated me on an artistic level, so I stood there and watched her dying, searing the image into my brain. And then I heard the music."

Instruments appeared in the hands of the smoke-crowd; drums, a flute, something that could only have beer a sitar.

"I have no idea where the instruments came from. To this day I swear that the others were empty-handed when I got there but now, suddenly, all of them had instruments and were playing them with astonis.h.i.+ng skill-ghatams, tablas, mridangams, a recorder and sitar-and the sound was so rich, so spiraling and glad! I could feel it wrap itself around me and bid 'Sing!' I couldn't find my voice-believe me, if I could have, I would've sung my heart out-so one of the women in the group began to sing for me: 'I am struck by a greater and greater wonder, and I rejoice again and again!' She was singing in Hindu-Hindu, a language I don't know, yet I understood every word in her song. 'Oh, see him in the burdened, In hearts o'erturned with grief, The lips that mutter mercy, The tears that never cease,' and the others responded in voices a hundred times fuller than any human's voice should be: 'I AM, I AM, I AM the light; I live, I live, I live in light,' and now I'm shaking not only from the d.a.m.ned weirdness of it all but because the music, this pulsing, swirling, pure crystal rain sound is inside me-I know how that must seem to you, but I swear I felt it a.s.sume physical dimensions deep in my gut. It shook me.

"I went down on one knee because I thought I was going to be sick but the sound kept growing without and within me, and I was aware not only of the music and the people playing it and the dying woman in front of me, but of every living thing surrounding us; every weed, every insect, every animal in distant fields, the birds flying overhead...it was...I'm not quite sure how to-oh, hang on.

"I once met a schizophrenic who described what it felt like when he wasn't on his medication. He said it was as if all of his nerves had been plugged into every electrical appliance in the house and someone had set those appliances to run full-blast. That's what it was like for me that day in the graveyard. For one moment all life everywhere was functioning at its peak and I was 'plugged into' everything-but only as long as this music deemed me worthy of possession."

I began shaking my head; slowly, at first, then with more determination, in order to rid my ears-both my ears-of a buzzing pressure that was growing inside my skull.

Knight continued: "I managed to pull my head up and look at the beggar woman. She had reached over and taken the violin with the broken neck and was holding it against the baby-both the dead infant and the instrument were slick with her blood-and she made the smallest movement with her head, a quick, sharp, sideways jerk that I knew meant 'Come closer.' I leaned over until my ear was nearly touching her lips and I heard her whisper three words: 'Shakti. Kichar admi.' It wasn't until later, when I'd gotten back to the set and asked one of the Indian crew members about it, that I found out what 'Shakti' meant: Creative intelligence, beauty & power. The cosmic energies as perceived in Hindu mysticism, given to mankind by Brahma, Vishnu, and s.h.i.+va so it might know some small part of what it feels like to be a G.o.d.

"Then she pushed me away with surprising strength. I fell backwards onto my a.s.s and felt the music wrenched from my chest. I was suddenly separate from all of them, from the earth, my own flesh, the glow of the setting sun; the surrounding life had withdrawn from me, unplugged itself. I was being asked to leave, so I did. With their glorious music still spinning in the air behind me, I moved toward the road and did not look back until I was well past the gates."

The smoke-players began to reverently s.h.i.+ft their positions. I rubbed my temples and turned my head to the side; not only was I hearing the song Knight had described, but underneath it was the c.u.mulative babble of a million whispering voices speaking in as many different languages.

"As soon as I stepped from the cemetery I heard a new sound join the music, a lone, sustained note that floated above everything, a mournful cry that sang of ill-founded dreams and sorrowful partings and dusty myths from ages long gone by, then progressively rose in pitch to soften this extraordinary melancholy with promises of joy and wonder-'I AM light's fullest dimension, I AM light's richest intention, I AM, I AM, I AM the light!'-and I turned for one more look, one last drinking in of this gloriously odd, golden moment, and I saw the child standing in the midst of the musicians, such a beautiful child, the violin tucked firmly under his chin. He looked at me and smiled a smile unlike any that had been smiled before, full of riddles and mischief and answers and glee, and in that smile I knew his name: Shakti. He was giving me a final chord, a last bit of the music to remember for the rest of my life, and in that last moment he opened me up to the majestic cacophony to such a degree that I heard...Jesus Christ, I heard everything.

"I ran. It was the only thing I could think to do to break this hold on me. I turned and ran back toward the film set. And even though it seemed that every person I pa.s.sed on the road wore the beggar woman's face or was clutching a dead infant to their chest or was in some way sick or damaged, I felt...elated. I know that must sound crazier than a soup sandwich, but I knew all of these people, with their lips that muttered mercy and their tears that never ceased, were walking toward the cemetery where the pain and sadness would be lifted from their eyes, and that I was being watched over by a child of wonder who would always be waiting at the entrance to my secret world.

"And all of them said the same thing to me as they pa.s.sed by. 'Kichar admi.'"

"Did you ever find out what that meant?"

He nodded, then strummed the guitar once again. "'Mudman.'"

"Holy s.h.i.+t."

"Yeah." He began playing the opening to "Kiss of the Mudman", that almost-traditional 12-bar blues riff where you can tell something is just a bit off but can't put your finger on it.

"What is the Mudman supposed to be?" I asked him.

"I always figured it was just another name for Kshetrapala, but later, when I woke up in the middle of the night after me and Veronique had practically went through the floor with our f.u.c.king, I thought...man, I thought, what better way to describe what it feels like after you wake up from a night of excess. The taste of booze in your mouth, maybe a little puke-burp rolling around in the back of your throat, your body aching, your head splitting, your face feeling like a glazed donut from going down on wet p.u.s.s.y...excess. You wake feeling like you got kissed by the Mudman."

He stopped playing. "I was still hearing that song they had been singing, so I picked up my guitar and started fooling around with it, and I realized that what they'd been singing was...I don't know if this'll make sense...but they'd been singing something like an inverted traditional blues riff."

He played it again, and this time I heard it, the off-thing, a single note in the middle of the riff that didn't seem to fit.

"The progression seemed so logical," said Knight. "Leave the G string alone-tuned to G, of course-so the high and low E strings go down a half step to E flat. The B string goes down a half step to B flat, the A and D go up a half step, to B flat and E flat. The result was an open E flat major chord, which made easy work of the central riff. For the intro, I started on the 12th fret, pressing the 1st and 3rd strings down, dropped down to the 7th and 8th fret on those same strings for the next chord, and continued down the neck...as the progression moved to the 4th string, more and more notes were left out and it became a disguised version of a typical blues riff. The idea was to have a rush of notes to sort of clear the palette, not open the back door to h.e.l.l...but that's a road paved with good intentions, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, open the back door to h.e.l.l?"

"The Mudman, dude. Whatever name you wanna give him, he's real. He is Shakti's shadow. He feeds on creative energy, and when that energy runs out, he feeds on the person who used to carry it. And this series of notes-" He played the opening again, only much slower. "-is his invitation to enter this world. Not at this tempo, it's got to be a little faster."

"How do you know this?"

He grinned. "Because I called him up by accident one night. I'd just finished the first leg of my solo tour, and I was bored out of my skull at the hotel at three in the morning, so I started fiddling with the riff, and I increased its tempo and...there he was." He set aside his guitar and opened his s.h.i.+rt. The middle of chest was a ma.s.s of scar tissue.

"f.u.c.ker tried to take a piece out of me, Sam. That's why the police found all the blood and that section of my flesh in the hotel room. The Mudman demanded a sacrifice from me, and I wasn't ready to make it." He b.u.t.toned up his s.h.i.+rt and picked up his guitar once again.

"I've been running away from him ever since. But I'm too sick now. I can't run any more."

I scratched at my dead ear. "So why are...why are the others out there looking for you?"

"Because they've been kissed by him. He devoured all their creative energies, then chewed up what was left. That's how he works, Sam. He finds someone who's really creative, and he feeds on their energy, all the while giving them too many temptations, access to too many excesses, because that way, their energies will be spent faster. He gorges himself on their energy, then eats them for the dessert. What you've got out there, those are the ulcerations that remain, the aftertastes, the memories of the legends."

"The icons, not the people."

He nodded. "You might buy the farm, but your legend never does...and as long as the legend remains, even if it's just in the mind of one person, then you're tied to him and his desires. It sucks. If you're born with any kind of creative talent, you're on his. .h.i.t list from the beginning. They're all here because I dug their music. I'm one of the ulcerations that keeps them alive."

"So why not...why not just not play the notes?"

"You think it's just as simple as that? Dude, it doesn't have to be me who plays them. The notes, they're out there. They're everywhere. A bird, the sound of the wind, a car backfiring...the notes are all over the place. And every so often, enough of them come together in the same place, at the same, and in the right tempo, that the doorway opens and he comes shambling in. And there's not a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing you can do to stop it."

There was a knock on the door and I rose to see who it was.

"It's me," said the Reverend.

I let him in. He took one look at Knight, sniffed the air, and said, "Hawaiian seedless?"

"A man of the cloth who knows his weed," replied Knight. "Will wonders never cease?"

"Not anytime soon, from the looks of thing."

Knight stared at him. "Please don't tell me Elvis just showed up."

"I think he'd feel a little out of place with this crowd."