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A dynamic collection of provocative stories forming a tribute to the work and life of William S. Burroughs. Foreword by novelist Graham Masterton Stories are: PASO ROBLES - BY JOHN PALISANO Inside there's passage to a darker, deeper reality, if you rip off your eyelids to see it. WHAT DO YOU MEAN / WHERE ARE YOU NOW BY EMILE-LOUIS TOMAS JOUVET The boy meant everything, both to the Exterminator and the Insects alike. PRINCE OF MARS - BY SAM RICHARD On the Red Planet, Bill Lee must fight for survival and the hand of the Prince of Mars. AN INSIDER'S SKETCH OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY BY BOSLEY GRAVEL The informed traveller’s guide to the Rio Grande Valley where nothing is true and everything is permitted THE ROUTINE OF A SKINNY JUNKIE- BY ANTHONY SERVANTE A day in the life of a Skinny Junkie: his hallucinatory thoughts and lucid insights CHORUS - BY TRAVIS J. GATES A man, sick with life, contemplates the past and future while his surroundings look on. DROUGHT IN POP UP - BY JØNATHAN LYONS Xanthous is inspired by a patient the author witnessed as a janitor in a hospital, yellow and catheterized. THE TIMER - BY DANIELE SANTAGIULIANA A small rural town, from thousands of years practise a bloody ritual to gain something rare... BURGER EMPIRE - BY TOM LUCAS A walk-through for a seemingly innocent video game reveals a dark truth that lives among us. ORGAN VOID - BY JON PADGETT A commuter's worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign. THE KINGDOM OF GOD - BY KARINA SIMS You may try your very best. But man is flawed and his fate, sealed. THE DUST OF TEN LONG DEAD STARS BY DEAN M. DRINKEL How can one night a year ago still affect these people? It does and with disastrous results.

**********

From The Junk Merchants, presented here for the first time. 

The Routine of a Skinny Junkie

By Anthony Servante

I do not start the day, 

It starts me.

I count my change and the laugh-lines under my eyes.

Then I strut into the ordinary routine of dying.

Los Angeles is a Metropolis of rusty syringes,

Skyscrapers that puncture the arteries

Across the 101 Freeway and the 110,

Connecting the San Pedro Peninsula

To the Hollywood Bowl,

Paths which are varicose and tracked

Like a used up arm.

Right there at the juncture

I enter the perfect little Diner

At Figueroa and Ninth Street.

A chalkboard menu greets me

With meat and potatoes

For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The neon burns bright 24/7.

I float over sawdust floors

and start with a nickel coffee.

Lady in a Cage plays the cash register

Like a piano and makes mourning music

That only the Skinny Junkies can hear.

Santa Anita Racetrack opens the day after Christmas.

A Mugger seated next to me

Reads the racing form

And circles his picks with a yellow hi-liter.

Who’s favored in the fifth? I ask.

We’ll find out together, he answers,

And blesses the cum-soaked wads of bills

In his alligator skin wallet.

But first a trip to the rest room

For the next round of brunch in a spoon,

With candlelight, a homemade tourniquet,

A friendly face that I trust to find the virgin spot

Between my toes on the first try.

I kick off my accessorized cowboy boots

Like a man who is all hat and no cattle.

Then we switch places,

I find a scab-free vessel;

It hungrily swallows the needle.

It blushes and a dot of blood appears.

We nod in unison and pay our bill in unison

And walk out in unison.

Then we can catch the Metro 78

Across Huntington Drive

And tighten up like proper gentlemen,

Alternating nods with bobble-head sobriety.

The bus is filled with hobos, schizoids,

Hollywood starlets, diabetic dreamers.

The Park welcomes us all.

Turkey sandwich, please, and dip it.

Thunder Glue is favored in the fifth.

I box my bet and Mugger passes out.

Photo finish tells me I won nothing.

I slip into a wonderful waking sleep.

The Security Guard wakes us.

A quick trip to the restroom.

This little piggy went to market,

This little piggy went home.

Pop goes the weasel, same spot, same dot.

We walk in unison to our bus ride back

Till we arrive at our destination of detours

To the backstreets of Skid Row;

Three strikes and it’s life in prison, so tighten up,

Roll down your sleeves and button up.

They make movies on Fifth and Main,

Two blocks from the LA Mission,

Where the imps and sailors fuck and eat

And if they’re lucky they find a bed

With ripe bedbugs too plump

To suck another drop of blood.

You can recognize the regulars;

They look like mirrors with strangers in them.

The Chaplain says a prayer from the good book

Of government grants and tax write-offs.

And we say amen to the darkness and hit the hay.

If the ponies pay off the long-shot odds,

It’s a room at the Frontier Hotel on Main Street:

Marble stairs and brass rails

Remind one of the Golden Age of Cinema

When Charlie Chaplin movies premiered

On Broadway and stars like Clark Gable

Stayed at the regal hotels on Main Street;

Today they are Section 8 habitats

Where Strawberries are on the lookout

For Johns lost in the fog of a Noir novel.

Want a date? No? You fag.

Take your STD beaver for a walk.

The Frontier rooms have a hierarchy:

The first five floors are bloated with rats and roaches

For the vagrants without vices,

Working class stiffs on the 9 to 5 treadmill;

Six thru ten are for the lucky scroungers—

They get rooms with a view of Little Tokyo to the left,

Sears Tower to the right,

A bed and bath and TV set with BET and static;

Strangers knock on the door at all hours,

Is Jim home? I owe him some money,

Open the door, I’ll give it to you;

Fuck off! You parasites of parasites,

Jim is dead; I’m his fucken corpse.

The top two floors are for the Fat Junkies;

Room service at their disposal

And angry security protects them:

This is where the baggies are filled,

The rock candy shat out of the mules,

The balloons huff and puff

With race horse precision;

Dime drops and quarter cramps await.

This is the unreachable party

Save for Gumshoes and Beat Boys

Slumming for Beat Girls who haven’t

Tasted the strawberry yet.

From the lower floors we hear

The party in full swing;

We silence the joy with a drag

Of home-rolled drop and stems and seeds,

The Skinny Junkie’s green tobacco,

The fortified wine and malt lager by the jar.

The liquor store across the street

Claustrophobic glass enclosed clerk,

A smiling Indian has one hand on the cash register,

The other hand on a Saturday Night Special.

Hello, my friend, no credit,

Get the fuck out. Next.

Tonight we are not lucky.

The cots await at the Mission;

Tie your shoes to your belt,

Place a nylon stocking over your head

So the bugs don’t eat your face.

Mugger’s getting raped.

What you looking at? Wanna be next?

Didn’t think so, bitch.

So I sleep the dreamless sleep of hurt pride.

What was Mugger’s name again?

Where am I? Where is my faceless friend?

Where did the sun come from?

I vomit up sunshine and good mornings

With mud coffee in my belly and cream of wheat.

I make a deal with the bag lady for use of her baby

To take to Broadway during rush hour

Where the robot executives with bulges

In their back pockets that carry payment

For that sour dream I need to buy.

The suits cough up plenty for the stroller kid

And say things like “good luck” and “get a job”.

The baby cries and that is worth gold fillings;

The barren secretaries (call me Administrative Assistant)

Double-down that the money they give me

Will reach the belly of the babe.

The cynics shake their heads

And cell phone the cops who never show,

They never do, and why should they?

It’s not just the paperwork,

It’s the principle of the thing,

Leave the survivors to the task of surviving.

In the heart of the Civic Center.

Even the Mayor and the Council Members

Walk by the beggars holding babies,

Hurried to push that bill or memorandum

To allot the Business Man a tax break

So jobs will trickle down like blood

From the hole of a withdrawn needle.

Instead, it trickles up the nose

Of these well-to-do Elected Officials

With real dope in folded white paper,

Not the ballooned crap from the top floor.

In this moment the rich and the poor snort

From the same powder of the Fat Man.

The baby stops crying on cue

As I split my take with the bag woman

Who fashions a shanty to match her shopping cart;

It is the fashion of disease of street wealth,

The welfare and the EBT

That pays for the fire under the spoon

Or the rock candy in the foil pipe.

She yells, Hello, and waves

To the ventriloquist who drags his dummy

In his rusty red wagon;

His sign reads: GOD TALKS THRU HIM.

And the dummy smiles, for it is true.

He used to be a famous TV star

And hit the talk show circuit:

Johnny Carson and Joey Bishop and Merv Griffin.

His dummy didn’t talk back then;

He did the talking and cashed the checks

And almost became Fat till his first hit

With the movie stars in the green room.

Then another, and another, and his old friends

Shunned him for the new friends;

Eventually they, too, shunned the burden

The ventriloquist became.

He took to the streets to find another and another

And there he found himself at the Frontier Hotel,

A pay-by-the-week guest,

Till all he had left was his dummy and residuals.

And then that dummy sat up one night

All on its own

In the middle of a nod.

So he made his sign to tell the world

Of the miracle of The Dummy.

I take my half of my beggar loot

To watch the street scam quartet:

One man has the cards, two play winners,

And one is the lookout for the Man.

Better not tease these Three-Card Monte tattoo boys

Or they’ll cut off your hands

And put them in your pockets.

Two black cards, one red, he explains;

Pick the red card, double your money.

Everyone can play.

The two “winners” play their role and say,

Can anyone play? Even us poor boys?

Everyone can play and the winners win big

Till the dealer looks like a loser.

Then a brave soul sees how easy it is to win,

And they take him for his whole paycheck.

The lookout shouts, The Man.

They scatter and meet in the alleyway

Behind the Frontier Hotel,

And they split the money

And the brave soul finds them there,

Give me back my money.

They kick his ass and strip him naked

And piss on his tears and drool.

This is the city where we find what we need.

Find the Fat Junkie and break bread with him,

Ones, fives, tens—don’t take no change

From any fucken Skinny Junkie, motherfucker,

Next time iron those bills before you hand them to me.

Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. May I have some, please?

Pick it up, bitch, and come again.

I pick up the yellow balloons and scurry off

Before the magic elixir in the rubber balls

Is stolen like Easter candy by the calloused hands

Of thieves and vultures and hyenas.

What are you looking at?

Eyes follow me as I turn the corner.

I find a shanty box with a friendly face.

The lightning strikes twice.

Time to take a walk and time the nod

To sync with the robot suits.

There’s Mugger with a racing rag;

We catch the 78 bus to the Pony Park.

Order a turkey sandwich, no dip, please.

I pick six and tighten up.

If I win I eat at the 24/7 Diner.

The needle brings me luck today;

After nine races and I collect my wad of winnings;

We take the Metro train to the never-closed diner

And skip the line of tourists

And take a seat at the counter,

Where Rudy Whatshisname who used to make movies

Now waits the counter and pours me hot coffee.

Ponies pay off again, eh, he says, a big tip on his mind.

He waddles over a plate of waffles with karo syrup,

The kind they use for fake blood in B-movies,

He once told me, and the pig in a blanket,

Well, it’s a vegetarian cannibal who eats his own;

He laughs at his own joke in his own world.

I order two and more coffee,

One for me, one for Mugger.

I don’t meet his eye ‘cause he’ll know

I remember the Penis Boys last night

Raping him as he cried for his mommy.

Some things we remember to forget.

The Police Chief and The Sheriff join us.

The Sheriff fornicates a cup of coffee and winces

As his cauliflower ear aches what with rain on the way.

The Chief promises the moon for practice

And laughs into his runny eggs.

A truck driver joins us and nods to the Law Men;

He orders the breakfast special

And eats it with his hands.

Half the food specks his black and grey beard.

The last of the day dies in shadow, he says to us,

Same shadow that followed me here from ‘Frisco.

It’s the sign for the city to change shifts:

The Working Class leaves, the Skinny Class arrives.

Just this morning, Rudy says,

The heat of the sun entered the diner for a drink of water.

Too late for the A/C growled the Lady in the Cage,

Sensing Rudy’s hint that he was warm.

Bacchus the short-order cook flips the flapjacks

And tells Rudy to shut the fuck up.

The trucker asks Bacchus for the time

But the hunger in his belly

Drowns out the answer to his question:

Armageddon o’clock, you prick.

The hold-up man in a leather zipper mask changes his mind

And seats himself beside the law men.

You got my vote, he tells them.

Love the mask, they respond, going my way?

Mugger ejaculates at that scene.

We are asked to leave.

Perverts, they called us, even the Lady in the Cage

Who tosses my change on the floor.

I leave it there and the Masked Man dives for it.

All eyes are on us as we depart.

When we return they won’t remember a thing;

This is the city with Dementia:

Some things they remember to forget.

We exit to Ninth Street, heading back to the Mission.

Or maybe The Frontier tonight.

I count what’s left of my winnings;

Mugger and I will be okay, better than okay.

Today I am a winner.

Tonight I will be the friendly face.

Tonight I will party with The Fat Junkie

On the very top floor of the Hotel.

I will roll up my sleeves and follow the tracks home.

No tippy toes tonight.

Rudy and Bacchus got their tip.

Mugger mumbles something about no tomorrow,

And just for a moment, just a moment,

I feel sated and wonder if that’s what Fat feels like.

 

Deadstock by Ian Rogers

Reviewed by Anthony Servante


Welcome, dear readers, to the latest installment into the workings of Horror in literature today. This month we trod the dusty trails of the Weird Western, from Ghost Rider to Samuel Dryden and his sidekick, Raisy. We’ll take a peek at the genre of Western novels and see how the Weird Western tweaks it. Horror fans need not be Western fans to enjoy the supernatural bent of “Deadstock” (2011).

We connote the literature of the Western with Cowboys and Indians (alright, Native American Tribes People), Trailblazers and Gunfighters, Ranchers and Banditos, Wanted Men and Bounty Hunters, a lawless land prospered by Easterners, Children of the Mayflower seeking to expand their colonial roots by ‘Going West’ into the American Frontier; we think of cattle drives, the burgeoning of new towns, shops and saloons, the new Sheriff, pioneers settling down on “Injun” territory, some surviving, others being massacred for pilfering Indian lands, the railroad looming large across the frontier, reaching from coast to coast. The Age of the West marked its turf between 1849, the Gold Rush, and 1886, the surrender of Geronimo, the final and fatal attempt by an Indian to strike back at the White Man, interlopers and squatters on Native American country. With Geronimo’s failure to reclaim Apache soil, the Wild West ended and the Industrial Age began.

We acknowledge authors such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour with Romanticizing the Old West. They give us heroes and villains, damsels in distress, and the anti-hero, an outlaw admired and feared by the law-abiding citizens of the New West. But the Romantic Age is a two-edged sword: Whereas the Wild West deals with good guys and bad, the Weird West breaks new ground by turning to the Supernatural for its villains. While Western literary heroes such as the Lone Ranger, Shane, and Lash Larue kept readers fascinated with the genre, Lon Williams in 1951 introduced Lee Winters, a Marshal’s Deputy who fought demons, ghosts and terrible Greek gods. A few years earlier, the Ghost Rider, created by writer Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers, took on vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night. Ayers revived the character in 1967 for Marvel Comics, who later turned the character into the fiery-skulled anti-hero on a flaming motorcycle, while AC Comics purchased the rights to the original western hero garbed in white, renaming him The Haunted Horseman.

Ian Rogers continues the tradition of the Weird Western in his latest work. Rogers writes, “Stonebunny Press recently published my first foray into the Weird West, a novelette called "Deadstock." No one knows who or what is killing the cattle at Groom ranch, but Sam Dryden, with his supernatural greenwood gun, and Raisy, with her ‘deck’ of knives, are determined to find out. What they discover is more horrifying than either of them ever dreamed, and the secret may be one that takes them to the grave.” As the story unfolds, elements that comprise the mystery can be discerned.

The symbolism of the Weird Western jumps out at the reader from the get-go. The Marshal Jacobs rides out to meet our heroic duo dressed in black, a foreboding sign given that he’s beyond 60 years old, an abnormal age for this period when 50 years was the common life expectancy. Statistically, only 2.5 men reached the age of 65 in the late 1800s. That means 97.5 men didn’t live much longer than their forties on average. In contrast, Dryden has “babyface” looks, signifying an uncanny youthful appearance of innocence to an inward grittiness or hardboiled-ness; Raisy has “flaming red hair”, denoting a temper and an infernal nature (she pack knives as weapons—an ancient armory; note also Dryden’s ancient pistol). And the Marshal seems only interested in checking their weapons, as if he were waiting for a pair of riders carrying such ware. Raisy also carries a cat (August Finch—named for a fortune teller), a ‘familiar’ in the days when the colonists feared witches. Add to this contrast in ages that a man and woman travel together out in the Wild West, and we get a glimmer of Adam and Eve tossed out of Paradise into an unknown world of sin and evil. Even as they approach the mysterious ranch, Dryden points out, “He didn’t understand why anyone would want to settle in such a godforsaken place.” These are foreshadows of evils to come.

Against the naturally torrid and hellish heat of the desert, there are the supernatural elements subtly described, an inversion of Nature. At the ranch, a young girl plays with a scorpion, the symbol for death, and even as Dryden warns her of the danger of such play, she snatches up the insect and tosses it into the water to drown. Whatever evil has infested the ranch, it has had its effect on the child as well as the other children. She loves saying ‘devil’ again and again, while her pa, Chester Groom, refers to Dryden as “a gift from God.” The Groom family also seems to be suffering unnatural aches and pains, and abnormal behavior is displayed. Even though the cattle at the ranch are mutilated, the vultures avoid the carcasses. Nature is unbalanced. As Dryden and Raisy burn the carcass of the steer, “They stood in silence as the steer went up in flames. The heat blanketed them, but they still felt a chill, as if there was a part of themselves that could never be warmed.” Even the term ‘deadstock’ is the antonym of ‘livestock’. Something evil has inverted the natural order. Our heroes, too, are warned of the evils upon them: “[The supernatural threats] have been brought back against the natural laws. They will not rest until order has been restored.”

The symbolism and supernatural elements come to a head as the mystery of the deadstock becomes clearer to our heroes and they understand what must be done to put nature back in balance. Horror fans will not be disappointed with the final battle.

The novella captures the West with descriptive details of the desert, the small town, and the Groom ranch. The dialog also echoes what we have come to expect from western-speak without relying on clichés. Because the visage of the old west looms so large and accurate, the sci-fi and horror elements work within the framework to create a good counter-balance between the normal west and the weird west. Deadstock is a welcome addition to the Weird Western tradition. Dryden and Raisy can be placed with confidence alongside Joe R. Lansdale’s Jonah Hex, Ray Krank’s Ghost Rider, and Lon Williams’ Lee Winters. I look forward to further rides into the Weird West with Ian Rogers.

 

OFF KILTER TV: 

Where Horror Rears its Ugly Head on Family Television

The Weird Western* Lassos the Rawhide TV Show

Reviewed by

Anthony Servante

When we watch family television, we have certain expectations about the plots and the behavior of the characters. We expect Lucille Ball to get into and out of trouble; we expect Scully and Mulder to encounter supernatural phenomena. What we don’t expect is Lucy taking on monsters or Mulder stealing John Wayne’s cement footprints from the Grauman’s Chinese Theater. When the unexpected happens on our favorite shows, I call them Off Kilter TV.

In today’s column we will take a look at the 60s TV Western, RAWHIDE and an episode called, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, written by Charles Larson, who wrote for the TV show, One Step Beyond, and directed by Thomas Carr, who directed for Adventures of Superman and Dick Tracy.

What I like about Rawhide is that the stories are always on the verge of the supernatural: a mysterious figure in black follows the drovers, killing them off one by one, the Murder Steer (a bull with the word ‘murder’ branded on its side) appears and whoever sees it soon after dies; there’s the rolling wagon with no driver, a supposedly haunted Indian Burial Ground, and a zombie Indian, but the episodes always end with an explanation: the figure in black is a man who murdered his wife and child and seeks his own death by killing others; the Murder Steer is planted by a corrupt judge who plans a crime; the zombie Indian was just very ill and never really died as his tribe believed. However, in the episode, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, it turns out to be a true supernatural tale, an Off Kilter TV yarn closer to weird than western.

Let’s first refresh our memories as Rawhide is over 50 years old. The western TV show revolves around a cattle drive of about 3000 head of steer, the trail boss, Gil Favor (Eric Fleming), the second in command, ramrod Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood), Wishbone, the cook (Paul Brinegar), and the 20 or so drovers played by regular and guest actors from week to week.

Clint Eastwood (left), Eric Fleming (right)

In the Four Horsemen episode, the drive is stalled between two feuding families, and in Romeo and Juliet-style, a young man from one family, Louden, and a young woman from the other, Galt, marry, triggering a murder and fueling the feud toward a full-scale war. One by one, each of the horsemen arrive as the war nears. Here we need to get a little biblical guidance before we resume the episode analysis. The coming of the horsemen heralds the Apocalypse, that is, the final battle between Christ and the Antichrist for the souls of mankind, and these riders are known traditionally as Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. The head of one family is Galt (God?), and the other is Louden (Lucifer?); it is difficult to say who is the good one and the evil one in that their names are interchangeable with double meaning: for instance, Galt can be gaunt or god, while Louden can be Lucifer or Lord. This ambiguity causes us to focus on the horsemen rather than the families, just as in the biblical Apocalypse there will be false prophets and one will not be able to tell the rise of the antichrist from the second coming of Christ. Many souls will be lost as they choose the wrong side.

 Roberto Contreras, John Dehner, Claude Akins, and James Griffith in Rawhide (1959)

So, in the Rawhide episode, the family feud on the brink of battle represents the coming Apocalypse. Thus, the first horseman to appear is War: Initially, we meet Gus Marsden (Claude Atkins); get it, Mars, Roman god of war? The den of war. Nudge, nudge. His first act is to instigate the murder of Carl Galt (Edward Faulkner) right after the marriage between Amy Galt and Frank Louden. Next we meet Ben Kerran (carrion?) (John Dehner) who plays the horseman Death. We can tell he’s Death because Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) finds him dead and buries him, and a few seconds later, he rises from the grave. Of course, Favor hires him immediately. When Marsden and Kerran meet, they get on like old acquaintances, for what is war without death?

The horsemen, Famine and Pestilence, are found in a ghost town. They are called Hombre and White. Hombre represents famine as he eerily eats nonstop for the rest of the episode. White is pestilence as he coughs nonstop, a cough deep inside where no medicine can reach, as he points out. Soon, the two horsemen join the others and the four are now together, ready for the families to begin their bloodshed so they can thrive. Only Gil Favor stands between the four men and their goal. Favor must drive the cattle across the river, preventing any of the armies from using the steer to feed their warfare. But the Four Horsemen are not going to make it easy for him.




As Kerran reminds Favor that he’s driving the herd straight into a brewing war, the trail boss points out that he makes his own fate, thus alluding to free will and that the outcome is not predetermined. He tries to convince Louden not to go to war, but Galt and Kerran barge in on them. Kerran (Death) pushes the newlywed groom to make it seem like he’s reaching for a gun and Galt shoots him. The horseman tells Favor that he was trying to push him out of harm’s way, the same lie Marsden used to trigger the first murder, of Carl Galt, that brought them to the brink of battle.




Favor is not deterred and plans to cross the river. Marsden, Kerran, White and Hombre sit atop their horses on the other side of the river, spooking the herd who refuse to cross. It is then that someone says that the four men are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and call Kerran by the name Death. Favor insists that the sun is in the cows’ eyes and they just need to wait a few hours for the sun to be overhead. But war threatens. Marsden and Kerran are steely-eyed, White coughs away, and Hombre continues to eat. The trail boss challenges Kerran to a fight, winner takes all; if Kerran wins, he claims the lives of everyone, including the cattle’s, but if Favor wins, war will be averted and the cattle can cross the river.

So, it’s mano a mano with Gil Favor versus Death. Since we can’t have the hero of the show get killed, Favor wins, and Kerran admits that his timing was off, that it was not yet Favor’s time, but that he’ll be back. War is averted, the cattle cross, the family feud is settled, and the Four Horsemen ride off.

Much of the fun of this supernatural episode is the weak attempt to explain away the strange behavior of the drovers (some come down with a bad cough, similar to White’s, others choose sides for or against Galt and Louden, and many are driven to drink to handle the pressure of impending war), but the best they could come up with is the sun got in the cow’s eyes. Throughout the episode there is talk of devils and demons, god and man’s place in a godless land. Through it all, as Favor tries to talk sense to his men, we as viewers cannot ignore all that has transpired, the deviousness of Marsden and Kerran, the insatiable appetite of Hombre, and that wicked cough deep in White. Still, “Incident of the Four Horsemen” can be added to the list of Weird Westerns and to the list of Off Kilter TV shows brought to you by yours truly.


Until next we meet with another Off Kilter TV program, keep the TV on in the darkness.

 

Religion and Horror: Heaven, Hell, and Earth, Part Two

By Anthony Servante

Research by William Cook

Michael casts out rebel angels. 

Illustration by Gustave Doré for John Milton's Paradise Lost (1866)

An Expansion on the Definition of Evil

In Religion and Horror, Part One, we tried to gauge a commonality in the definition of Evil in essays written by authors in the Horror genre. In some cases, they spoke from personal experience; in others, they spoke through their stories. Evil came down to choice. Because we have free will, we can decide to commit unholy acts of horror, just as we can choose to benefit our brethren with benevolent acts of selflessness. While I maintain that God’s Providence is already in motion, the beginning, middle, and end already predetermined, so it doesn’t matter what we choose; our choices have already been determined. What seems like free will is a stacked deck of decision-making.

In Part Two, we will expand on the definition of Evil with three essays: First, we have RESIDENT EVIL by Paul Teusner, NUMINOSITIES: ‘Things That Should Not Be — The Uncanny Convergence of Religion and Horror by Matt Cardin, and The Genre of Horror by Mgr. Viktória Prohászková.

Paul Teusner, in his work, RESIDENT EVIL, says, “Mythic stories point to the origins of life and offer a world-order that gives importance and function to human life.” For Teusner, Evil is the errors of our becoming civilized. We learn by trial and mistake, and adjust our individual life in conjunction with the lives of our community to make rules so these mistakes are not repeated. Before there were rules, there were stories passed from one generation to the next. Teusner further states,

“The act of religion is the act of constructing and maintaining a

set of beliefs and material practices which provide meaning to

one’s life amidst the universe of known experience. This set of

beliefs offers more than a way of answering the question, “Why

am I here?”. It provides a framework by which one sets oneself

among others, identifies a purpose in life, hope for the future: a

pathway along which to course the rest of one’s life.”

From Resident Evil

The rules and stories become our culture, our religion, and our obedience to the law of experience. But as Teusner shows in his discussion of “horror”, the law does not extend beyond this experience. So, how do we deal with that which exceeds our rules? We create monsters. Or “myths”, as Teusner prefers: “Myths endeavour to frame the reality beyond known human experience in language of symbols known in human experience.”

Let’s keep in mind that there are the monsters of the supernatural, those beyond our experience, and there are human monsters, those who choose to ignore the rules and repeat the errors of the past, that time of savagery.

In Matt Cardin’s NUMINOSITIES: ‘Things That Should Not Be — The

Uncanny Convergence of Religion and Horror’, he states right off: “…horror and religion have always been bound together in the most intimate of entanglements.” He turns to the stories of the “Ancient Sumerians”, “Ancient Greeks”, and “Hebrew scripture”, to name a few, to illustrate the connection. This binding of horror and religion, Cardin discusses in the stories of old, as Teusner alluded to earlier. Furthermore, Cardin notes that the horror and religion connection reached the colonies of the New World via the witch trials and life under the constant fear of demon possession or becoming spellbound by the wiccans’ sorcery. So, as religion began making the rules of the new civilizations, and began telling its stories (e.g., the Bible), it included a punishment for breaking the rules. The crime of witches, for instance, is cavorting with the Devil, and their sentence for such unholy behavior was in itself pretty horrific: drowning, hanging, stoning, and in Europe, burning and torture (think Iron Maiden—the device, not the band). So, not only did the religious fear the Devil, they feared God’s wrath as well, perhaps more so: Cardin explains,

“…perhaps it has to do with an unconscious recognition that only a few have ever named aloud, a recognition that is simultaneously implicit and

explicit in all of those great biblical images of a wrathful God whose transcendent nature is categorically other than the natural world, so that, even though this nature is technically termed “holiness,” it emerges in human experience more as a tremendous, awe-and-dread-inspiring eruption of supernatural nightmarishness that is fundamentally corrosive both to the world at large and to the human sensibility in particular.”

(From NUMINOSITIES).

Thus, the horrors in the stories of the Bible attest to God’s Predetermined outcome for man being both a blessing (The Rapture, for instance) and a curse (Think Left Behind—with the Antichrist, the Leviathan, and so on).

Cardin sums it up, “In other words, perhaps it has to do with a psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement at the notion that the divine itself, not just in its conventionally demonic aspects but in its intrinsic essence, may be fundamentally menacing.” Religion deems man doomed unless he meets certain criteria, obeys certain laws, but the multitude of interpretations of God’s Providence has man wondering if he has chosen the path to Heaven or Hell. The uncertainty is its own form or horror, the “psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement”, as Cardin explains.

The Genre of Horror by Mgr. Viktória Prohászková expands on this “unsettlement”, or “fear”, instilled in us by the stories of old and the religious rules that will determine our fate. She writes,

“The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear. It is embedded in people since time began. It was fear that initiated the establishment of faith and religion. It was the fear of unknown and mysterious phenomena, which people could not explain otherwise than via impersonating a high power, which decides their fates. To every unexplainable phenomenon they attributed a character, human or inhuman, which they associated with supernatural skills and invincible power. And since the human imagination knows no limits, a wide scale of archetypal characters have been created, such as gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, freaks, monsters or villains. Stories and legends describing their insurmountable power started to spread about them.”

(From The Genre of Horror)

And here we reach the monsters that connect Religion and Horror: “demons, ghosts, spirits [think poltergeists], freaks…” Because we cannot fathom a God that is Evil, we create monsters; our fear manifests itself as the creatures responsible for our uncertain fates. But we must not forget the concept of free will and predetermination. We must simply add the “fear” of God to the discussion.

And now we can turn to the works by our authors for this piece. We shall examine them for the three possibilities for Evil to exist: man’s choice to disobey the rules, God’s cruel punishments, and unnatural monsters. The authors and the works at hand include: John Milton, Paradise Lost; William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist; Billie Sue Mosiman, Banished; Lisa Lane, Myth of Gods; Hank Schwaeble, Diabolical; Kat Yares, Vengeance is Mine; and Elizabeth Massie, Sineater.

Stay tuned for Religion and Horror, Part Three.

 

Religion and Horror: Between Heaven, Hell, and Earth.
Part One: The Question of Evil.

Introduction written by and Essays compiled by Anthony Servante

Homer has a Choice to Make

Introduction:

Oft-times, the definition of “evil” comes down to angels and demons. We imagine an angel on our right shoulder and a devil on the left. Note: the right side is where our heart is and “right” is “good”, while “left” in Latin means “sinister”. These creatures whisper advice in our ears, convincing us to make a decision when we are at a crossroads between choosing a good or bad action (e.g., when we want to shoplift a candy bar). When we choose the bad decision, we did something bad, and when we choose the good, we did something good. We choose between good and bad as if they existed outside ourselves in a tangible form, because if our action had no definition, our decisions would have no meaning and that existence outside ourselves would simply be “chaos” and anarchy. So, where does our definition of “evil” come from, if not from ourselves or “something” outside ourselves? That’s where religion comes in.

Religion gives us boundaries so we know the limits and consequences of our actions. We have Heaven and Hell. We have Karma. We have Reincarnation. We have a set of rules. But, as we have seen since time in memoriam, these rules often have various interpretations. This variance exists because science and philosophy give us so many options. Evolution versus Creation, for one. Free Will versus Predetermination, for another. Let’s look at the definition of “evil” through the eyes of William James to start things off.

For James, Evil is the absence of order. Without rules, there can only be evil actions. Consider that the universe is part of a divine plan, a perfect unity; then evil and good would play opposing roles but fall under the same umbrella, thereby rendering them both equally “good” under God’s divinity. James believed evil could not exist in a perfect or divine order. Therefore, evil had to be the opposite of order: chaos. Good is defined by our following the divine plan, while evil is defined by our following no plan. For instance, a perfect person who obeys all the laws can do no evil; if he accidentally kills a person while obeying a law, then he did no evil. Maybe he was wrong, but wrong is not evil, no more than guessing the wrong answer on a test is evil. But if a perfect person intentionally kills a person, he is disobeying the law and doing evil and wrong. While the former person committed “manslaughter”, unintentional murder, the latter person committed first degree murder, intentional murder (premeditated). For James, the former person is called “healthy-minded”, happy within the rules of divinity, while the latter is called a “sick soul”, happy outside the rules of divinity. Think Hannibal Lecter happy. James sums it up: “Evil is empirically there for them [evil doers] as it is for everybody” (Varieties of Religious Experience). In other words, we can choose evil; we can disobey the divine rules as easily as we can the legal rules of civilization.

Similarly, CS Lewis believed that there exists a “dualism”, good and evil forces fighting for the decisions of man, much as our devil and angel sitting on our shoulders. Our conscience is constantly at odds to make the right choice, but often mislead by bad advice. The divine plan is still in motion, regardless of the choice one makes; the choice was always God’s will. Thus CS Lewis argues, “The moral difficulty is that Dualism gives evil a positive, substantive, self-consistent nature, like that of good.” The contradiction here is then that the Devil, Satan himself, is part of the plan, a predetermined agent of free will, leaning toward evil, just as Christ is a predetermined agent for good. Still, as with William James, we have a person willing to choose evil for its own sake. How often have we heard after a great disaster of death, an earthquake or hurricane that takes many lives, or a small tragedy where one innocent child is killed, “It is God’s will” or “God works in mysterious ways” or “God wanted these victims now rather than later”?

Kevin Bufton on evil

Untitled

When I was a boy, I always felt that I understood the nature of Evil.

That’s Evil with a capital ‘E’, of course. Born and raised a Catholic, it all seemed so much easier in those days. Before I continue, I must point out that I am, in no sense, a theologian, or an expert on Catholic dogma, and that the views I present here are not the Church’s official stance on evil, as a living breathing entity. Rather, it represents how I felt about it at the time, those feelings being viewed (and, if I’m honest, distorted) through two decades’ worth of staunch atheism.

But there I was, altar boy and Boy Scout, and I understood what Evil was. It was always something that came from outside. The Church had a name for it, of course – it used to call the phenomenon The Devil. Oh sure, your average man or woman was capable of acts of astonishing cruelty, but only because they allowed Satan to corrupt them. The love of God was being pushed from their hearts, because they had been tempted by the Dark One.

You remember that line from the Lord’s Prayer, right? “Lead us not into temptation.” As a good Catholic boy that was the Golden Rule, the one that stood above an beyond even the Ten Commandments, as it was proclaimed at every Mass, every school assembly and…well…pretty much the whole time, now I come to think of it.

I understand religion using an outside force as the source of all Evil – it is in the nature of religion to cultivate an Us vs. Them mentality. It seemed to me, even as a kid, that it was too easy an explanation for the very real horrors the world seemed to dole out on a daily basis. Starving children in Africa, earthquakes in Armenia, tsunamis and landslides, war crimes and murder – this was not the behaviour of a kind and loving God.

As I grew older, my faith waned. I didn’t set out to become an atheist, nor did anybody try to persuade me to. Over the course of many years I found that too many of my questions were not being answered to my satisfaction. We had a number of excellent priests both at Sacred Heart Church and at St Mary’s Catholic College – all good, godly folk, for whom I had nothing but respect. It wasn’t their fault that the Good Book was inadequately prepared to fend off my youthful curiosity.

Over the years, that curiosity hardened itself into something akin to cynicism. Actually, scratch that – I’m not a cynic. It’s true that I think humanity is capable of inflicting unspeakable atrocities on one another, but it is also capable of extraordinary kindness and generosity. I guess I like to think of myself as a realist, and the reality is this – evil comes from within.

As an atheist, this has to be the case, and that’s horrifying. If there is no God, then there is no excuse for evil. This is something that I believe in my heart of hearts. I don’t want to hear about upbringing, social division, peer pressure, privilege (or the lack thereof) – those are excuses. You may as well say that the Devil made you do it. Evil is really easy to define, if you’re a secular chap like myself. If you know that something is morally wrong, and you choose to do it anyway, for no material gain, then you are evil – you have committed an evil act. I’m prepared to hear any retorts to this definition, but you’ll be hard pressed to sway me from my position.

Murder, rape, bullying, child abuse, bigotry, torture – we know that these things are unacceptable, and yet they happen every day, all over the world. As you’re reading these words, somewhere on this planet, a wife is being beaten black and blue by a husband who made a solemn vow to honour and to protect her; a teenager is being bullied to the point of suicide by his own schoolmates; dogs are being forced to fight one another before a crowd of cheering spectators in some dodgy underground car park; a mother is letting her baby starve to death, because she has grown to hate the thing she brought into this world.

Every single one of those perpetrators is evil, and if you’re a psychiatrist or a psychologist and you fancy defending them because they operate under different societal norms than most of us – fuck you. “The Devil made me do it” is not an acceptable defence these days, and putting a different hat on the Great Horned One doesn’t alter that fact.

I’m a horror writer – I write about monsters, which are examples of evil coming from without, and they are breezy things to write, despite the gore, because there is little in the way of a moral quandary for the protagonists. This evil that is set against them is not of their doing, so they cannot be blamed. There again, I sometimes write about human beings, who know exactly what they’re doing when they commit their vile acts. Writing such characters can be emotionally draining, because I have to switch my mindset to that of a guy, just like me, but without any restraints.

Even then, I can pick up a newspaper on any given day of the week, and see more evil committed than I could ever set down in a novel and then, to make matters worse, I guarantee I can find at least one comment, on one message board defending, or justifying the most abhorrent acts imaginable.

Lead us not into temptation, that old prayer goes.

Deliver us from Evil.

Amen.

Mark Parker: on Evil

ON THE NATURE OF EVIL

Evil: The Result of Freedom Put to the Test?

by

Mark Parker

For as long as human kind has been in existence, the question of evil, and its nature, has been on the minds, and in the hearts, of those in the natural order, created with intellect and the power to reason. From the beginning of humanity’s inception, the struggle between good and evil—to find an apt correlation between the two—has been wrestled with by men and women, in hopes of finding some semblance of what the actual meaning of evil is. But, more importantly, what it might mean to our lives; the import and impact it might have on us, both physically and spiritually.

One might ask, how could any of us rightly know what evil is—or what it isn’t? As is the same when attempting to define a universal concept such as love, try as we might, none of us really come close to defining what we’re attempting to, in considering such a thing. Rather, in attempting to do so, we primarily point to the attributes a thing like evil is imbued with—as if doing so might sufficiently explain what our mere vocabulary cannot.

When asked to define evil, we mostly speak around the topic; talking of ghosts and goblins, demons and devils, possession and the possessed, as if each of these things might substantially offer some sort of true meaning to what it is that we’re questioning. But, of course, to some extent even that fails—or at least falls short. Humanity’s ongoing struggle to give definition to a concept like evil, only serves to produce a kind of existential, metaphysical tension in our hearts, minds, and souls, causing us to remain frustrated at still having no further clarity on the topic, despite how far we’ve managed to get in our discussions. Why must it all be so difficult, we ask? Can’t the meaning of evil really be as simple or un-convoluted as the playground assertion that evil is merely the word live spelled backwards?

In some ways, perhaps it can be—at least in rudimentary ways. More often than not, the direst truths are based on a simple crux, inverted or otherwise. In speaking of evil as the word live spelled backwards, we point to a simplistic rationale that in some ways makes perfect sense when we think about it. And, why wouldn’t it? Surely it can be said that evil is the counterpart or opposite of what is termed to be ‘good.’ The contrast to that which is, at the very least, life-giving.

Following St. Augustine and scholastics such as St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas, it is suggested that in our attempt to define evil, we must not attribute to evil what is not proper to it, namely a nature or substantial existence of its own. “Evil has no existence in itself, for it is merely a privation of good in some being, and not a positive being [in itself]. Evil is an absence, defect, a negation, a privation. Evil is a lack of something in a good which is proper to it and which it ought to possess.”

When we consider what the origin of evil might be, most of us only have what generations of religious teachings or posited moral constructs have taught us. And naturally so. Scripture asserts that evil was the natural consequence of man choosing to “eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 3), when he was specifically instructed not to. That, in fact, evil was the rightful result of man choosing disobedience over fidelity to his creator. Disobedience inasmuch as our first parents chose to act in a way that was out of accord with what was intended, therefore relinquishing paradise in favor of subjugation. The moral prison created through their act of betrayal.

In most Western religious teachings—Christianity, most specifically—the time of man’s fall from grace created a path of diversion for the rest of humanity to follow—or at least, a move from man’s original innocence, to a state of original sin.

In an effort to illustrate this, if we consider a vessel carrying crude oil, should that vessel run aground—through the fault of the one operating it—therefore bleeding a hull of crude into an ecosystem that was pure prior to the vessel’s wreckage—it is clear to see how such an incident of the crude comingling with the system around it, forever tainted all that it came in contact with, thereby irreversibly altering the balanced purity of what existed before.

Scripture would hold that, similarly, when our first parents chose to act in a way that was deigned to be out of accord with what their creator had provided for their sufficient good, they were left to live the result of their action; the same action that altered what was to follow in man’s continuing story. This assertion speaks to the consequential breach that was formed, between who we were created to be…and who we’ve become through our oftentimes wrong exercising of the gift of our Free Will.

In studying the Spanish language, one quickly learns the word sin in Spanish translates to mean without, which is both interesting and telling in this instance. Perhaps it could then be said that “evil” defines those times when humans act in ways contrary to their nature, or the will of the one who created us—outside the embrace of providential love.

Scripture would go on to suggest that in man’s fallen state, we have become consciously aware of our own propensity to choose evil, act in evil ways, or do evil things, and therefore are made all the more desperate for it. While Christianity would assert that humanity was created with the gift of Free Will in order to choose freely to love our Creator, and love one another. Simply put . . . when we live separate from this truth—this gift—we are living ‘in sin,’ or under the burden (or problem) of evil. So in attempting to determine just what evil is, or what its nature is—whether it is cause or consequence—perhaps we might conclude it’s a bit of both.

In Clive Barker’s novel, The Damnation Game, the following quote opens the book, and aptly so:

“Hell is the place of those who have denied;

They find there what they planted and what dug,

A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing,

And wander there and drift, and never cease

Wailing for substance.”

—W. B. Yeats, The Hour Glass

Jeff Parish on evil.

CHASING “EVIL”

By Jeff Parish

On the cartoon Spongebob, the geriatric Mermaid Man is famous for shouting “Evil!” and running off in some random direction. The evil may be a true villain, a tree or a water fountain. Some, like the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, would have us believe the notions of “good” and “evil” are just as silly, mere abstract terms that have no real meaning. Among the more religious-minded, however, evil is a very real problem.

But what is “evil”?

In English, the word has two basic meanings. One is something that causes injury or harm. This is an archaic usage frequently found in the Bible. After Moses led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he spent forty days on Mount Sinai talking with God and receiving the Commandments. In that time period, the Israelites decided to make a golden calf and worship it. Which understandably made the Lord angry. He decided He would wipe out the nation and start over with Moses (Exodus 32:10). But thanks to Moses’ intercession, “the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people” (Exodus 32:14). Or as the New American Standard puts it: “So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

The more prevalent meaning of “evil” and the we understand it is as a force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin. This definition is even more common in Scripture. The account of the Flood begins with, “GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Judges 2:11 echoes a common refrain found throughout the book: “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.” In 2 Samuel 12:9, Nathan asks King David, “Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.”

But where does this wickedness come from? Some argue that it must be God since He is the primum movens. Except Scripture says otherwise. Psalm 5:4 tells us the Lord is “not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Neither shall evil dwell with thee.” The New Testament takes it a step further with James 1:13 -- “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” The apostle John perhaps summed it up best in 3 John 11: “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.”

God does not create evil. In fact, evil is the antithesis of God. Genesis tells us what the Lord creates is good. C.S. Lewis notes in the ninth letter of The Screwtape Letters that evil lacks the power of creation. It can twist and distort that which God has provided, but it cannot truly make something new. Anything good can be warped and perverted. Take the desire to provide for a family or oneself. Push it a little further, and you get Ebenezer Scrooge. Patriotism and love of one’s country can drive men to perform great, selfless deeds. They can also be used as an excuse for atrocities and give rise to men like Adolf Hitler. These are not things God created; they are what man has accomplished with what God has given him -- namely, free will.

As far back as the Garden, God has always given the human race a choice as to whether or not to follow His instructions. Life is a pass/fail, sink-or-swim kind of test, but the decisions are ours. We are not robots receiving instructions and mindlessly repeating a task over and over again. We are free moral agents. And that is something we should all embrace. Far from being cruel, God’s gift of free will is the ultimate display of love. As parents, we teach our children and send them out into the world with the ability to make their own decisions. We hope they choose good. We train them to do so, but that does not mean they will not stumble. Even with the best upbringing, a child may well make bad decisions and have to live with the consequences, be they personal, financial, or even criminal. Does that mean we hate our children? Of course not. Any parent who has to deal with a wayward child grieves and hurts like no other, but neither generation has a claim on the sins of the other, whether they were sins of omission or commission. We certainly have plenty of both.

History shows us that evil comes in two forms: Passive and active. In fact, they often go hand-in-hand. Names scream of cruelty and mass murder from the annals of time: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge, the Inquisition. There is no doubt that these people and more did horrible things -- often in the name of helping their fellow man -- but how many of them could have climbed to such horrific heights without the broader population’s help? And how often did that aid come in the form of apathy or a blind eye? As John Stuart Mill said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” God does not come into this picture, except as an absence.

Mankind has no one to blame but himself if his time on this earth is more Hell than Paradise. And that is evil, indeed.

Thank you to our authors for enlightening us on the subject of Evil. In Part Two of Religion and Horror, we will look at seven novels exemplifying the various views on religious evil as discussed in our introduction and in our essays. Here is a list of the works that will be analyzed:

Milton: Paradise Lost

William Peter Blatty The Exorcist

Billie Sue Mosiman Banished

Lisa Lane Myths of Gods

Hank Schwaeble Diabolical

Kat Yares Vengeance is Mine

Elizabeth Massie Sineater.

We will announce when Part Two will go live on Facebook. Check Anthony Servante’s timeline for updates. Thank you for visiting the Dark Entertainment Trends Blog on this Sunday.

(Edited June 2nd, 2024, from the Servante of Darkness Blog Archives.)