This is the second chapter and was published about a year later. At this rate, I expect to finish the novel in 2047 give or take. If you have not read Beltane at Beetlefest, this probably will not make as much sense. Well, maybe it makes about as much sense anyway. In any case, there is a review of the previous story. There is also a Real Audio clip of the Mojo Man's ad jingle.
Last time, Morri goes to his first Pagan festival and meets the girl of his dreams. It was under less than ideal circumstances that it resulted in the festival being visited by a radiation containment team. After the smoke cleared and radiation was found to be safe, alas, the girl was nowhere to be seen. Having lost the girl of his dreams, you may think he was destined to walk the lonely earth, forgotten and resigned to his fate. You should only be so lucky…
She's still in my mind, not muted, not forgotten. It's only happened to me once before. I meet a girl and she's all I can think of. In my mind, endless scripts play where I do something different and I don't loose her after all. I keep wondering if she looks the same. But who knows? It's like that alien invasion story by John W. Campbell Jr. where the aliens from space can so perfectly duplicate a human, that no one can tell the difference. So, the hero of the story locks everyone up in a different cabin so they can't see each other, hoping that the alien will begin to forget what it is supposed to look like. After a few weeks, it looks nothing like a human after all. In my case, hopefully, it is a little different. My mind keeps ending up with the frog she had as a familiar, and even it begins to change. I hope she doesn't though.
My dad always taught me that I should seize the moment and do that in life which has meaning. He said that only by realizing your own true self can you truly reach peace within you. He also used to talk about walking in another's shoes, but since dad was a cross-dresser, it probably meant the same thing to him. But, that was not helping me find my Brunette with the Bright Smile. Frog or no, I was determined to find her, so I returned to that little shop that was in the old part of town, Lady Gato's Botanica. The last time I was there, I found out about Beetlefest, my first festival. The festival where I found the girl of my dreams. Maybe this time I'll be lucky again.
In the thick smell of floral incense, I met Lady Gato. She was about forty or fifty and continually had an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. Every few minutes, she would reach down and grab a cigar that was on an ashtray. Then, she would take a deep breath of smoke and blow it at a large, faded picture of Grocho Marx which by now was covered with a brown haze as she mumbled something about wanting a fast car. She did this several times as I wandered around the store, so I'm sure it was not an accident. Amazingly, she never knocked the unlit cigarette out of her mouth.
First, I asked her if she knew whether there was going to be another Beetlefest. I was sorry I asked, because she started talking about some love-crazed nut who shut down the festival single-handedly. I acted as surprised as I could and lied about having missed that festival. Then, it came to me: If there was to be no festival, then how would I ever find my Brunette with the Bright Smile? First I thought about asking her for a reading. But the emotional tone of her voice when she spat out that comment about "that love-crazed madman" convinced me that letting her know that she was probably referring to me was a dumb idea. Instead, I asked her if she knew someone who could help me find my love.
At first, I thought I had made a mistake anyway because her eyebrows knotted up like dark, fuzzy caterpillars, then she looked both ways as if she expected to be overheard. "Look, there is a guy who helped me by giving me a spell to help me get a car. He fixed me up with a Grocho picture and a dozen cigars. He has done work for me before. He's a little strange, but very effective. Get one of his spells and you will get what you want. I got an advertisement for him going on the TV in the back of the store. He is called Dan, the Mojo Man."
As I wandered around the store, I finally saw the TV with a continuous loop VCR taped commercial. It was an advertisement for someone called the Mojo Man. I had never seen a commercial about someone who sells magical spells and it was a weird feeling to see one. It was a split-screen thing where a person with a worried look was nervously dialing a phone on the left side of the screen as Dan, the Mojo Man stood behind a phone on the right side. He was dressed in a laboratory smock like a doctor or a druggist. He could have passed for either if it were not for the dark glasses and necklace of large beads and skulls from various small animals around his neck. In his hand he had a fist-full of worn Tarot cards. He was selecting one at a time and slapping them on a table with much gusto when a bongo drum began to sound.
The Nervous Person finished dialing the phone and the Mojo Man's phone rings. He picks up the phone and chants to the beat of the bongos:
"Hellooo?"
"I'm Mr. Mojo Man,
But my friends call me Dan,
I got down home hexes,
I get them from Texas,
Uncrossing Spell? I do that well!
So what you got..., that's so bad...,
That you pick up the phone and call this dad?"
As he recited his lines, he began to dance moving his arms stiffly. Then, he would point his fingers down at irregular intervals like a hip-hop singer. Soon, he became even more animated and was really getting into the beat. He dropped the cards, half of which fell silently to the floor. Then the Nervous Person became even more agitated and began to wave his arms about excitedly as he said:
"Mr. Mojo Man? Come as fast as you can!
I got spirits in my parrot and they're talking up a storm,
He's got 50 big ol' demons and they're all getting strong!"
Then, Mr. Mojo Man pulled the telephone away from his ear and leaned toward the camera in a close nose shot. His eyes became larger than his dark glasses, but not as large as his nose and he chanted:
"Oooo!… Well, that's so bad that I did it for free,
I took five-fingered grass and … patchouli
sandalwood, myrrh and blessed salt,
Mix together like a chocolate malt,
Add ammonia to make it speak,
All kinds of power an' it's good for a week!"
Now, the man on the left side of the screen began to dance as well, although
to an apparently slightly different beat. Mr. Mojo Man continued…
So I took this stuff down to his house,
Snuck up to the parrot as quiet as a mouse.
Sprinkled the stuff all around his cage,
And even...under…the newspaper page!
Well, the parrot went: 'Aaak' and the demons went 'Eeek',
And they fell in a pile in front of his beak.
The parrot looked up and said, "Gee, Dan,
I'm sure glad I called the…Mojo Man!"
So if you gotta spell workin' bad on you,
Listen up, I'll give you a clue,
Pick up the phone, dial as fast as you can,
An' call me…Mr. Mojo Man!
Lady Gato was busily blowing smoke at Grocho Marx and mumbling and the tape went blank and began to rewind. My mind was beginning to churn. Maybe Mr. Mojo Man has an answer to my problems. But then again, maybe not. I saw the commercial again and copied down the telephone number just in case and stuffed it in my pocket. After seeing Mr. Mojo Man on TV, I was not sure that I wanted to be anywhere near him, but I felt that it wouldn't hurt to save the number and decide later.
Just then, Lady Gato looked out the window at a car that had just been parked there. She let out a shriek and ran out to the car saying "Thank you Groucho! ThankyouThankyouThankyou!" Just as she was trying to get the door open with a rock, the car alarm went off and the whole neighborhood came alive. A very large man came out of Ishikawa Sumo Studio running toward Lady Gato yelling something in Japanese. Another large man ran out dialing a cell phone. I decided to duck out the door and get away while the pandemonium grew. Besides. I was getting tired of smelling stale cigar smoke mixed with the floral incense. By the time I got to the next block, two police cars passed with their sirens wailing.
The next day while driving to work, I had all but forgotten about Mr. Mojo Man. I decided that he was either a con man or weirdo or both and probably did not have any magical abilities any way. But then I happened to stop at a light and a car pulled up next to me. Something told me to look over to the next car. There, with the bright morning sun glinting off the large chrome fins, I saw the same car that was parked in front of Lady Gato's Botanica. Even more surprising, the driver was none other than Lady Gato and sitting in the passenger seat next to her was the sumo wrestler from across the street! He sat with a very large arm around her neck as he nuzzled her cheek! Lady Gato got her car - the magic worked!
I dialed Mr. Mojo Man's number and set up an appointment for later that day. I drove following the directions that the efficient, but slightly bored receptionist gave me on the phone. Mr. Mojo Man lived in an apartment that could only be described as a discordant mix of Goth and Art Deco. I stepped into his studio and next to a telephone and a skull sat Mr. Mojo Man. He was mixing herbs while chanting:
"A littl' bit a this, an' a littl' bit a that
Some Unicorn Root and bloomin' Wolf's Hat
Put it inna bag, wear night and day
Keeps th' ol'e werewolf real far away."
Then suddenly, he stopped and began playing a strangely syncopated beat on a djembe drum that seemed to be two different beats played at once. They seemed to go in and out of synchronism all while he chanted something that sounded like Creole French. Then he went back to the herbs.
After a few minutes, he placed the contents into a small black bag, tied a tag with someone's name on it and tossed it into an Out basket. He looked up to me with a wild gleam and began chanting: "I'm-Mr.-Mojo-Man-an'-my-friends-call-me-Dan. How can I help?" A large smile stretched his mouth making the sideburns of his beard seem to stretch to the breaking point. It wasn't a friendly smile, just an exaggerated professional smile. He must do that a lot.
I sat down and told him all about my Brunette with the Bright Smile and how I had to see her again. I told him about the festival where I met her and how I last saw her running from me covered with ketchup and flour. His face changed from that of an interested professional to one that suggested that he was about to show me the door. I guess he had heard about me.
Just when I thought I blew it, he leaned back, stared at the ceiling for a long half-minute, then said, "OK, man, I'll do it. Do you know where she is?" "No", I sighed, "That's what I really need." The Mojo Man closed his eyes for a minute. I began to think he fell asleep, then he asked, "You got a show stone?" I had a blank look. "A black mirror? A scrying mirror? Speculum?" I shook my head no, not knowing exactly what he meant. "OK, you need to go and get one. Then, we will call my main man, Vassago to show us where she is."
I never heard of anyone called Vassago, so I asked who he was. "He ain't a man, he's a spirit. An ancient and powerful one. He one of the Nephelim and goes back to before the Chaldeans. We're going to conjure him to bring the future to your show stone, but you have to do the work. I'm here to enable your inner power" I told Mojo Man that I would go to Lady Gato's and pick up a show stone. He then told me how I was to consecrate it. Then, he looked at me with a sudden sternness and said: "Don't do this at home!"
I left Mr. Mojo Man's apartment office and went on to Lady Gato's Botanica. When I got there, the pictures of Grocho Marx were taken down and replaced with pictures of Elvis. There was a small picture of the sumo wrestler next to the cash register. Each picture seemed to have some liquid sprayed onto them that smelled a little like asafetida oil. I did not ask what it meant. Besides, I was on a roll! Soon, I would find my Brunette with the Bright Smile and I was ready for love!
I got the show stone, but when I called, I found that Mr. Mojo Man was called out of town to do an exorcism and would not be back for a day. I could not wait. The thought of finding the girl of my dreams overwhelmed me, so I asked Lady Gato if she had the ingredients to do a conjuration of Vassago. It seemed to mean something to her, because she mumbled something to Elvis and then turned to me and said. "You know what you're doin'?" "Sure! …I think!" "OK, here's the stuff, but you'll have to make the sigil yourself. You can use the store grimoire in the back room or get one yourself." Lady Gato pulled out a wand with strange writing on it, a black handled knife, two candles in bases, also having some writing on them, and a thin book called Cliff's Notes on the Lemegeton and other items. She also had a letter sized envelope labeled "Avery Parchment". I quickly paid her and took the stuff to the back of the store. I did not want to think how much it all cost!
I lit the incense and the smell of frankincense and cedarwood filled the room. Then, the grimoire had me drawing a strange symbol on one of the sheets of parchment. There were a lot of steps and I had to read very carefully. Then, I began chanting "Creature of paper, I name thee Vassago. Thou art Vassago!" Just as I got into the major part of the spell, the sumo wrestler burst into the doorway yelling something about someone messing with his blue suede shoes and came storming toward me. Lady Gato was obviously surprised and came running after him yelling something about the wrong song when the wrestler burst into the back room where I was.
But, just then, there was a swirling of darkness in the corner of the room. It was not dust or anything physical. It seemed to be darkness itself churning into itself! Different shades of black folded in upon itself and swirled. Each shade seemed to have even a different texture! At one time or another I thought I could see a man, then a dragon, then a man on a dragon. Then, there was a sound of exhaling and a sudden stench filled the room! The sumo wrestler stopped, suddenly alert, eyes wide like a cat.
I backed up and tried to be invisible. Lady Gato saw the presence and asked, "Vassago?" Again the exhale, "Noooohhh". Again, the stench. "Who are you?" she asked. "Aaastarothhhh". Lady Gato's eyes opened wide and she looked down at the parchment and said to me very loudly and fearfully, "You drew the wrong sigil, you idiot!"
She was right. I guess I was thinking about the girl with the wide smile and I drew the sigil on the next page instead. I really didn't think it was such a big deal, after all. At this point, the wrestler yelled something in Japanese and began to press his enormous bulk against the shadow as if he could push it into the wall. Suddenly, the room filled with the most awful stench I have ever smelled. I staggered back toward the front of the store, gasping. Lady Gato fainted in a heap. The wrestler seemed at first unaffected, then he too fell, but he fell on top of the spirit in the shadow. "Get oooffa me or I ssshall sssummon 40 legionsss of demonsss!" Then, from the demon came a whoosh that sounded like a large gas bag releasing gas. "Sssssarrgghh!", it exhaled.
At the last sudden exhale, a green mist rose up from beneath the sumo wrestler. It seemed to have a form that, were it not for the unimaginable stench, it would be almost beautiful in both shape and texture. It undulated and grew like large, green snakes blossoming in all directions. I was running out of the store by that time. As I drove away, I could see the mist rise above the store and large numbers of people leaving surrounding stores, staggering with handkerchiefs over their noses. I did not know much about spirits, but that one had the nastiest case of halitosis I had ever heard of.
I decided not to try that spell again and was happy to let Lady Gato keep what was left. I hope she was OK. She was very helpful, but she needs to choose her boyfriends more carefully. I looked in the papers the next day and saw a small mention in the local edition about a suspected chemical spill on the same street. It quoted some expert talking about a possible release of methylene butyl something-or-other.
I guess I learned my lesson! I'm going to leave the conjuration to Mr. Mojo Man. He's back in town and I made an appointment. I was able to get an early one since he had a cancellation from Lady Gato who was under observation in a local hospital.
I picked up another show stone at a different metaphysical store and it's back to Mr. Mojo's apartment! I carefully consecrated it and even built a nice little stand for it. Yes, I have love in my heart and I'm ready to meet the girl of my dreams!