And he continued to play.

“Mr. Knight?”

“You can stray here and keep me company, Sam, unless you’re gonna call me ‘Mr. Knight.’ The name is Byron.” “What happened after your solo album? I mean, I don’t want to pry, but you just disappeared. Everyone thought you were dead.” He stopped playing, flexed his fingers, and adjusted the tuning on the ‘E’ string. “Seen any other dead rock stars tonight, Sam?” My mouth went dry. “Yes sir.” “I’m guessing there’s more than a few legends milling around out there in the shelter, am I right?” “Yes.” “Anyone in that crowd seem…I dunno…a little out of place?” “Billie Holiday.” He looked up at me. “No shit? Wow. She actually showed up this time.” “Why her?” “because I loved that voice, Sam. Never has there been a sadder voice in music, never.”

I finally pulled a chair away from the Reverend’s desk and sat across from Knight. “They told us that they weren’t ghosts, that they were—” “—let me guess. They called themselves ‘ulcerations’?” “How did you know?” “Because I’m the source.” I stared at him. “I’m guessing that doesn’t really tell you anything, does it?” “Not really.”

He downed the rest of the brandy, looked at the empty glass, and said, “I’ll tell you one hell of a story, Sam. You’ll be the only person I’ve ever told it to, but it’s gonna cost you one more glass of the good Reverend’s hooch.”

I poured him one more glass. He sipped at it, then played a little as he spoke.

True to his word, he told me one hell of a story.

7

“It was right after our second album, Redundant Refugee came out. We were doing well enough, opening for bigger bands, being called back for a few encores every night. Things were moving along. We’d recorded maybe half the songs for the Mudman album but I still had no idea what we were going to do for the concept piece. We wanted something long, a whole side of record, and we were beating our heads against a wall. We decided to take two weeks off from the project and each other.

“I was involved with a model at the time—you might remember her, Veronique? Very hot at the time. She talked me into going to India with her. She was making her first stab at acting, a cameo in a big-budget art film.

“I hated almost every minute I was there. The humidity was oppressive as hell and it seemed that, regardless of how far away from the cities you were, the sewer stink always found you. There were areas near the hotel where we were staying where the garbage and shit—and I’m talking real, honest-to-God human waste—reached to my knees. But, man, there were places in that country that were so beautiful—the old Hindu temples and shrine, for instance—but I never could decide whether that odd, damaged beauty was a result of my being stoned most of the time or not. But the thing is, there was this one afternoon when I was stone-cold sober that I remember clearer than anything.

“I wandered away from the movie set and walked to a nearby village. I passed a Hindi temple and saw peacocks flying, men squatting in fields as the sun was setting behind them, a woman making dung patties as she watched an oxen pulling a plow toward the squatting men, all of them turning into shadows against the setting sun; unreal, y’know… holy things. Young boys with sweat- and ash-streaked faces rode past on bicycles with cans of milk rattling in their baskets. I could hear the echo of a lone, powerful, ghostly voice singing the Moslem call to prayer. I closed my eyes and simply followed the echo, breathing in the dust from the road as a pony cart filled with people came by, feeling the warmth of the evening breeze caress my face, and when the singing stopped I opened my eyes and found myself before the iron gates of the cemetery of Bodhgaya.

“I remember how still everything was. It was as if that ragged, lilting voice had guided me into another, secret world.” He fired up the joint once more, took a hit, slowly releasing the smoke. It drifted into the cloud and remained.

“I started walking around the graves until I came this big-ass statue of Kshetrapala, the Guardian of the Dead.”

For a few moments I thought maybe I was getting a contact high from the smoke, because the room began yawing in front of me, expanding to make room for the smoke from Knight’s joint that hung churning in the air.

“You should have seen him,” whispered Knight. “A demon with blue skin, a yellow face, bristling orange hair, three bulging red eyes, and a four-fanged grin. He was draped in corpse skin and a tiger-skin loincloth and was riding a huge black bear. He carried an axe in one hand and a skullcap of blood in the other.”

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, then blinked again.

I wasn’t imagining things.

While Knight had been describing his encounter with Kshetrapala, the smoke from his joint had churned itself into the shape of the demon.

Another hit, another dragon’s-breath of smoke, and more figures took form around the Guardian of the Dead, acting out Knight’s story as he continued.

“There was a group of people standing around the Guardian’s base, all of them looking down at something. None of them were making a sound. I made my way up to them and worked toward the front for a better look.”

I watched as the Knight smoke-player moved through the other shapes to stand at the base of the statue.

“An old beggar woman in shit-stained rags, was kneeling in front of Kshetrapala holding a baby above her head like she was making some kinda offering. Flowers had been carefully placed around the base of the statue, as well as bowls of burning incense, small cakes wrapped in colorful paper, framed photographs, dolls made from dried reeds and string, pieces of candy, a violin with a broken neck...it was fucking unbelievable. I don’t remember what kind of sound I made, only that I did make a noise and it drew the old woman’s attention. Without lowering her arms, she turned her head and looked directly into my eyes.” He shook his head and—it seemed to me—shuddered.

“Man, I’m telling you, Sam, I have never before or since seen such pure madness in a someone’s eyes. For a moment, as she stared at me, I could feel her despair and insanity seeping into my pores. She was emaciated from starvation and had been severely burned at some time—the left half of her face was fused to her shoulder by greasy wattles of pinkish-gray scar tissue. She was trying to form words but all that emerged were these…guttural animal sounds.

“The baby she was holding, it was dead. Not only that, but it had been dead for quite some time because it was partially decomposed. It looked like a small mummy.”

I could clearly see the baby take shape from a few stray strands of smoke.

“The old beggar woman lowered her arms, laid the baby’s corpse on the ground, and began keening—that’s the only word for it. She sang her grief. I looked at the others and saw these placid expressions on their faces…they seemed almost distracted.” He looked at me for a moment, then directed his gaze to the shadowy smoke-play unfolding in the air between us.

The figure of the beggar woman thrust one of its hands under its shawl and pulled out something that could only have been a knife; a very, very long knife.

“She began hacking away at her own chest, ripping out sections of muscle and bone until this bloody cavity was there,” said Knight, his eyes glazing over. “I backed away but I couldn’t stop looking. I mean, I’d read all the stories of Yukio Mishima’s committing public hara-kiri as a way of merging life with art but I never tried to picture something like that in my mind—and now, right here in front of me, this poor, crazy woman was disemboweling herself in an apparent act of worship, and the ‘congregation’ looked like a bunch of disinterested Broadway producers forced to watch a cattle-call audition.”