Here you go Malcolm

“The One Eyed Union”

I suppose I had managed to get a little bit too much attention from the occult circles in my neighborhood. Ike and company were about to play an elaborate prank on me.

Ike and I both had arrived at Rex’s house and the three of us decided to take a good long drive for no good reason. We seemed to navigate aimlessly with Ike suggesting routes to take. Things were pleasant and I was in the back seat just riding along while Rex and Ike held up the bulk of conversation up front. Rex suddenly held up a cigar and said in a buoyant tone, “Hey Bryson! Have a cigar!” as if it was all in great fun. Ike just laughed about it. I decided I may as well have a cigar just for kicks, though I really had no affinity for tobacco in any form. I took the offer and lit that cigar and puffed it lightly and slowly now and then. Honestly I doubt I got much more than a bad taste in my mouth from that thing. I didn’t realize at the time, that cigar was a device provided most likely by Ike. But maybe Rex actually got the cigar. I don’t know.

Every once in a while Ike would nonchalantly point out something to me, some feature of the land, some object or some reason for me to look in some direction. But what I was actually intended to see were certain individuals prominently positioned in proximity of the area I was to be looking. Above that, the actual thing I was intended to notice was how the people were looking my way with a big one eyed stare. The people had their other eye squinted shut, covered by a patch, or covered with a hand or what ever. But the idea was that time and again there would be some person looking strangely at us, me, or at the car as we drove by, with this one eyed gaze. It started near our usual haunts and concluded far out into the next county, which was Wilson County.

Then Ike pointed out this farm area to me. I looked into this area just in time to see this old man standing close to the road as we passed. This old man was giving me the all time googleyest one pop eyed glare of them all! It was ugly! Then just as we had passed the googley eyed old man, we drove by the purest white goat just standing right by the road as if begging to be seen. This goat was a classic! This completely white, fat goat had two long horns and its clean bright whiteness stood out sharply against the lush green background of the countryside. The creature actually looked comical in its extreme goatishness.

I contemplated all this, and figured some pranksters had purposefully placed the goat there so conspicuously, to suggest some kind of goat devil occult thing. All the one eyed stares I had gotten that day certainly didn’t strike me as just coincidence either. But I was cool and was just riding it out. But right after seeing the old man and then the goat, I happened to notice a little twinge in my stomach. It was very small and nothing at all. I figured it was just one of those little stomach things that anyone gets once in a while. It lasted about two seconds.

But for the fun of it I decided to correlate my small stomach twitch to all those one pop eyed looks I was getting from so many strangers. So for amusement I said, “All those one eyed looks are about to kill me.” Ike jerked his head toward Rex and looked at Rex with growing mirth until he burst out laughing! As far as he was concerned I had fallen for the prank completely. He believed I actually thought I was being killed by the one eyed looks of his confederates. The cigar was the device to induce feelings of discomfort in the tummy, like tobacco does for many. I was supposed to believe getting ill from the cigar, was the beginning of my own death throes from the curse spell of those one eyed stares.

Of course I didn’t believe any such a thing. But the correlation was handy and amusing, until I realized this is exactly what Ike wanted me to believe. I kept quiet about what I really thought, and my opinion of the whole scheme. But the most mind bending thing to me was how many people were actually involved. It reinforced strongly the idea that a lot people were involved in this occult underground. I was beginning to think at that point, the occultist were a little sick minded as a group. My interest was in having a firm grasp of who they were and what they were about; never in being one of them.

Shortly, fooling occultist into thinking I was among them became a mode of interaction so that I could learn more about what was going on. The one eyed thing did a lot to turn me off concerning them, and I smelled manipulation and exploitation. That was a crime against the cause of love, peace and harmony.

Later on, Rex mentioned to me, that the crux of the prank was that the cigar was supposed to make the person feel a bit ill and cause him to think he was dying. So now for Rex it was just a silly prank and he seemed to see nothing deeper about it. I extended the benefit of a doubt in my mind concerning Rex. But in Ike, I sensed the prank was purposeful and directed. It had made a larger statement about the group as a whole. Was I supposed to conclude they were lethal spell binders? Was I supposed to fear them, or lust for a position of mutual ability to induce fear in the naive?

What could be the motive for wanting to induce fear in others? I could only come up with one answer: Servitude and exploitation. This motive did a lot to explain a strange companion who often spent time with Ike, named Kerry Legion. This strange little man was a social misfit who spoke in almost inaudible tones, and who seemed to have an unlimited amount of time, money and transportation to spend kicking around with Ike. I had often thought he seemed a lot like a slave to Ike. The more I discovered or was shown concerning this occult subculture, the more I was repulsed, yet intrigued. I was enjoying the hunt at least, even if I was becoming the bait.