Inside his grandparents house is pretty cozy, like a schizophrenic architect wanted to make a hippie version of the Winchester Mystery House. Every possible nook and alcove is stuffed with lofts, ladders, cabinets and secret passage ways. In the morning sunroom grandma likes to meditate in she is braiding his sister Callisto’s hair. While Callisto is drawing some crayon epic picture of the solar system with every imaginable detail. Grandma always wants a long hug while mumbling about psychic cats or adventures with her yoga teacher in Seattle.
Beyond their little glass bubble is his uncle Mad-god... who was a pro surfer in graduate school in Oregon until the cops gave him brain damage. Now he spends his SSI checks on video games and LSD. Always in a good mood but with an intense look like a caged bear with a bee up its nose. Mad-god has a Fu Manchu mustache and perpetual odor of strong marijauna and cherry ice cream. He looks like a henchmen in an action movie but he is actually somewhat of a scientist, album cover painter and part time outlaw biker. He lowers his shades and whispers, “That acid you gave me is bunk but i got some window pane that will take you over the Moon.” Grandmas Boyfriend says, “I heard that, keep moving hoodlum.” In a joking and friendly manner.
Beyond where Mad-god sits intently playing Super Mario Brothers 3, is the den where Grandmas boyfriend has his shrine to Surfing, the 60s revolution and psychedelic rock. Where most old guys have hunting taxidermy and their gun collection, this guy has crystal skulls, glass sculptures, turquoise aztec replicas, elaborate multi chambered bongs. Crazy furniture from Tibet and Nepal, Indian rugs and original pressing SF Fillmore Concert posters. Salvaged stained glass windows and skylights from a sunken ship, every kind of bizarre tribal mask and totem you could imagine nailed to every surface. Its kind of like the Vatican of druggy activism and tantric wizardry.
Any time you are feeling down or stressed this place with its incense, Dr Who or Outer Limits theme music and strange stained glass reflections on the ceiling will take you to a dream world of good vibrations and trippy thoughts about space and random science facts. Despite living in abject poverty you could imagine this was a super hero’s domain of solitude. A safe corner of the universe where it is always warm and feels like memories come to life. If ET had to die and spend eternity somewhere it would probably be here is this house built like a Tetris stack gone wrong. While his Grandmothers boyfriend picks glass and gravel out of wounds in his hands ET tries to read a 50’s post war pulp from his Grandma’s priceless mid century comic collection that was probably fished out of a dumpster or sunken boat on a sandbar.
As they sit down to dig crud from the wounds, Mad-god joins them. “So what happened to you creep?” ET recounts the story about the shrooms, the road, the derelict freighter and the uneasy feeling he had coming back. Mad-god thinks about this and in a split second is on another tangent. He asks, “Do you know the real story of Super Mario?” ET doesn’t really care but this is his favorite uncle so he is always open to the raving lunatics wild conspiracy stories.
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Mad-god takes his silence as interest. “There was this Japanese guy who was skateboarding around Vancouver in the early 80’s. His name was Mayamoto Musashi aka Super Mario. Well any way he was hitting a trick on his skateboard and killed an old lady by accident. This got him in trouble, so because he was on something, PCP or something he got sent to the loony bin. Unfortunately this was an MKULTRA hospital. They tied him to his electric chair and cut open the top of his skull off, filled his brain with electrodes and circuits, so he could control cockroaches and other insects with his mind like dragonflies, beetles, grasshoppers and butterflies. Then sat him in front of a snowy tv screen 24 hours a day, with no bathroom breaks or food…
Everything was intravenous. After a while he started screaming about being lost in an abandoned underground city. The crazy thing is they were able to rip what he was seeing from his mind, endless waking dreams into a computer program and thats how the CIA created video games. This guy swore he was saving the world but really they were cooking his brain with shrooms, and the interesting thing is the shrooms they used came from here. Thats why you shouldn’t do drugs, your brain isn’t fully formed and you might lose it, end up homeless living in sewers eating out of trashcans. They still do this shit with subliminal on the news and commercials. Its true, look up Project Artichoke and Wandering Spirit…”
With out a pause or time to take questions Mad-god walks off. Grandma’s boyfriend says, “My bullshit alarm is going off. How is school?” ET just gives the standard lies about really being interested in classes, taking notes and reading. Once the standard BS is done. The subject of the phantom thread on his toe comes up and this causes some concern. Grandmas boyfriends stands up and screams for Grandma, pointing with an intensity he never saw from either of them he hears them both agree. “That’s Morgellons.”
ET hadn’t heard of it so they explain what it means. “Morgellons is an inorganic parasite that grows plastic and metal from the human body. Its like an alien cancer that highjacks your immune system. People don’t know if its from UFOs or military testing or pollution. But i have it too, see these green and red threads in between my fingers and the palm of my hand? Your grandma grows itchy metal splinters from the bottoms of her feet. We have to dig these plastic threads out of the corners of our eyes. Its like the Techno-organic virus that infected Cyclops and Madyline Pryor’s baby Nathan, when they sent him to the future.”
This was too much for ET, he went from alarmed and tripping out on the way the rain collects on the stained glass skylight, making the room flicker golden light with double shadows of red and blue making the whole conversation and moment feel eerie. He is too drained to stay awake and dozes off to the sounds of conspiracy theories, pseudo science and how their lives are just like an episode of the twilight zone. Last thing he remembers hearing is, “We are gonna need to cut off the big toe.” He didn’t know if that was a mirthful joke or serious but his battery needs recharging and in moments he is off to the world of sleep.