The Illuminatus! Trilogy

For the front line, clear as claritas, was Mescalito from my peyote visions and Osiris with enormous female breasts and Spider Man and the Tarot Magus and Good Old Charlie Brown and Bugs Bunny with a Tommy gun and Jughead and Archie and Captain America and Hermes Thrice-Blessed and Zeus and Athene and Zagreus with his lynxes and panthers and Micky Mouse and Superman and Santa Claus and Laughing Buddha Jesus and a million million birds, canaries and budgies and, gaunt herons and holy crows and crowly hose and eagles and hawks and mourning doves (for mourning never ends), and they'd all been stoned since the late Devonian period, when they first started eating hemp seeds, no wonder Huxley found birds "the most emotional class of life," singing all the time, stoned out of their bird-brained skulls, all singing "I circle around, I circle around," except the mynah Birds squawking "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!" and I remembered again that existence isn't sensible any more than it's hot or red or high or sour, only parts of existence have those qualities, and then there was the Zig-Zag man and my God my god my father leading them in singing

SOLIDARITY FOREVER

SOLIDARITY FOREVERRRR

THE UNION MAKES US STRONG

"I say," said an Englishman, "I thought he was a monster, and he's only Toad of Toad Hall… with Rat… and Tinker Bell… and Wendy… and Bottom…"

"That's who you are," said Hagbard, "if you can call that any kind of a fucking identity."

"I think it's time you went up on stage and made our little announcement," said the woman. "I think everyone is ready for that."

"I'll send Dillinger in to you."

"Goody!"

"It's not true, you know. That was the other guy, Sullivan."

"I wasn't thinking about that. I don't care if it's no bigger than my little finger. It's just the idea of fucking with John Dillinger. If that doesn't put me over, nothing will."

Hagbard stood up and laughed. "You're starting to look and sound like Mavis again. I think you're slipping, Super-bitch."

The American Medical Association had left the stage, and Clark Kent and His Supermen were playing as Hag-bard, accompanied by George, Harry, Otto, and Malaclypse, made his way down their own hill and up to the crest of the hill where the stage was erected. The journey took a half-hour as they picked their way through groups of people engaged in Mongolian clusterfuck, sitting Za-Zen, or just listening to the music. At the stage Hagbard took out a gold card, which he showed to a group of marshals guarding the area from intrusion. "I have an announcement to make," he said firmly. The marshals allowed him to climb on stage, and told him to wait till the Supermen had finished their set.

As soon as Pearson saw Hagbard he motioned his men to stop playing. A murmur arose from the audience. "Well, all right, Hagbard," said Robert Pearson, "I was wondering if you were ever going to show up." He walked over to the side of the stage where Hagbard and his group were standing.

"Good evening, Waterhouse," said Pearson. "How's my gal, Stella?"

"Where the fuck do you get off calling her your girl?" said Waterhouse, his tone containing nothing but menace.

"The acid only opens your eyes, George. It doesn't work miracles."

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

"Wonder what the hell is in that suitcase," Dillinger murmured.

"I'll open it," Saul said. "We'll all have to take the antidote anyway, after this. I have a supply out in the car." And he leaned forward, parted Carmel's stiff blue hands, and tugged the suitcase free. Barney, Dillinger, and Markoff Chancy crowded close to look as he snapped the lock and lifted the top.

"I'll be damned and double damned," Barney Muldoon said in a small, hollow voice.

"Hagbard has been putting us on all along," Simon says dreamily. (It doesn't matter in the First Bardo.) "Those Nazis have been dead for thirty years, period. He just brought us here to put us on a Trip. Nothing is coming out of the lake. I'm hallucinating everything."

"Something is happening," Mary Lou insisted vehemently. "It's got nothing to do with the lake- that's a red herring to distract us from the real battle between your Hagbard and those crazy musicians up there. If I wasn't tripping my head would work better, damn it. It's got something to do with sound waves. The sound waves are turning solid in the air. Whatever it is, the rest of us aren't supposed to understand it. This lake thing is just to give us something we can understand, or almost understand." Her black face was intense with intelligence battling against the ocean of undigestible information pouring in through all of her senses.

"Dad!" Simon cried, weeping happily. "Tell me the Word. You must know now. What is the Word?"

"Kether," said Tim Moon blissfully.

"Kether? That's all? Just Cabalism?" Simon shook his head. "It can't be that simple."