I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.
– Aleister Crowley
There are three reasons I am leaving here.
One is a god’s boredom, but I have told of that.
The second is I cannot help myself from joining in, for this might be that final victory for Thelema and the truly rebellious. Paris, 1968, Woodstock, the Isle of Wight, the American campuses were all mere apprenticeships. If we do not take victory AND NOW here early in this third decade of the twenty-first century, then Mankind shall undoubtedly lose all freedom. For ever. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of movement shall soon be gone, if I do not move NOW. Is this why we fought Adolf? And so, I stir for all those lads and lasses who perished because of him.
The Thelemites left in Winston’s immediate slipstream are naturally a theatrical and melodramatic lot with a sense of occasion. They seem to demand the flick of a Messiah’s wrist to light the blue touchpaper, and of course, my ego and I are thrilled to accept. Think of Zapata and Pancho Villa liberating Mexico City to cheering hordes, or an aged Spartacus taking Rome – if they were to sit back and be carried in in a sedan chair as all the young guns brawled and windmilled their fists ahead of them in their name.
I receive regular communications from my chaps, a process made all the simpler now that the mountain trail thaws to brown earth at fourteen thousand feet, and consignments are dropped from the air with ease. It seems these renegades have a plan in place, and they assure me that I need not concern myself with details right now. Yes, they can instigate it all themselves, but they know of my life’s work, and think it only right I lead the charge. I suspect they really just want to meet me. They regularly quote the Book of Revelations, knowing that this will poke and stir me. They rant about the fall of empires and the end of civilisation. ‘Fuck it,’ I say. ‘I’m in. I am not going to waste a century of graft for nothing.’
And as much as our Thelemites seem to yearn, like adolescents, for a figurehead, I now take great comfort in telling myself, I want to be there in London. I actually want to see it when it happens. Surely I have earned my front-row seat? In the spirit of the old actor who gets an Oscar for the direst and sloppiest movie he makes as a ninety-year-old, for the award really honours a lifetime of sheer magnificence, I now shall take the plaudits for my canon.
And anyway, I have a plan to help me should I get confused like a normal old man. I shall stop by a Ceylon jungle, where I aim to restock, reacquaint myself with those monks, and have a proper peek into the future; the kind that only a five-day jag can inspire. Then I shall start to concern myself with details of this technological fight we are to enter. But what are these hacks and viruses I hear of, if not twenty-first-century versions of hexes, spells and invocations? And I am happy to be schooled by these sharp, young buggers, especially, of course, if I get to breathe in the rafts from their fresh necks and sniff their adolescent slipstreams. I feel momentary shame that conflict and war brings arousal.
There is a third reason. The persistent drone of Violet urging me to ‘Fight, Papa. Fight’ was a feature of her years here. When this voice was an almost precise copy of Winston’s in that cinema, I began to realise my true destiny. It was always just a matter of time before my moment approached.
I am seen off by dear friends, in a manner that reminds me of how some other old pals once said goodbye to a fading prime minister.
To the eye, Orr still shows signs of a boxing champion’s physique, and his grip around me confirms this.
Zealand stands forth next, and says nothing. He holds my shoulders, looks deep into my eyes, and we implore each other in silence to continue to shield our son from harm.
Leah and La Gitana step forward together, holding hands, as we form a small circle and acknowledge a true bond.
They stand back, as Marlene, Orson and Hitch did in that old Waterloo fleapit, to allow the main event.
Edward stands and with the look of a proud son, who shields no one from harm.
I move close to him. There is little need to speak.
‘Do you wish me to say anything?’ he says.
We are silent. He knows.
‘Very well. Then claim your righteous place, Father. And tell Violet I love her when you see her.’
He speaks as if there is no chance of my demise. He touches my hand thus.
‘We shall be here for when your mission is over. Violet must come to stay this time.’
And so to self-slaughter I shall stride, but not before an almighty brawl in an unseen sphere.
To distract this sad Beast, Zealand appears at my side, and ushers me away off the lea side and the slightest chance of sentimentality. He tells me how he adores my determination to find and to scrap my old foe tonight. This is odd talk for a High Lama, but the circumstances justify the bullish tone. He is stirred, and twitches with excitement and pride. I am very high right now. I am waving farewell to those I love. I am on the move.
‘You shall go with two Sherpas who are waiting for you at the exit of the city,’ Zealand says. ‘If you see your foe, Death, you have my permission to bring him down.’ He laughs.
I speak of fear, the impact of true fear, as we walk. Is the High Lama shooing me out like a tired pub landlord wanting to get to bed but for the gobby and gushing straggler?
‘You know, old friend. My enemies were never really afraid of Crowley the ogre, of Aleister the brute. I never gave them any firm justification for this. They only ever feared the public or private exposure of their own cretinism, such was the flimsiness of their spirit. So, who was I to deny them this?’
He snorts.
I tickle the wattle of a spry young kid. It feels more velvety and youthful than anything I have ever encountered. This goat is quite likely to outlive me, I tell myself. I do not care right now. I am ready.
I have swallowed enough jungle goo to make this an easier, perhaps even a more fun, task. Conscience shall not make a coward of me.
We pass the goats. At least, I think we do, for my narcotic is spiky, nicely charged and potent. We seem to move in synchronicity past the ivied cherub, who now has rich greenery all across his torso. Was he grinning so yesterday? I see Zealand’s hammering heart in his skeleton. And he is now gone too.
My robes fall open, and those nearby shy away, concerned for their well-being, it seems. I attempt to assuage and to calm them, but they scatter.
I am alone. Into the mazy passageways, I shall walk. As long as I head uphill, I shall reach the exit of the city. So, this is how it ends. I suppose. Quickly.
‘Oh! balls.’
I am barefoot. I hear Christ. How could I not, as, like he did, I prepare to perish on a hillside, shove myself towards doom and summon a steely will to die.
I shall be forced to walk the narrow passages and steep alleys until I too am abandoned on a slope. The dark shall come quickly. I shall soon wish the end to come. I am flanked now by my Sherpas. They hold me on the high gradient and force me into suitable protective clothing, goggles, fur hat, gloves and warm boots onto my feet.
The pass into oblivion is revealed around the next corner. Enough is now enough. The Old Boy is near, I sense him. I know the tang of that fucking Thug.
I ask for my friends. They have forsaken me. I forgive them before it even becomes a question.
At least Christ suspected or pretended he was going somewhere, to another realm. It is gloried dust for me. I laugh and then turn to the pass. And I walk out to die. But I do so with a walk that suggests I shall win.
‘Come on! Where are you? Show your shuddersome face! If you dare. Fight a real god for once.’
His first blow must come soon, but he is a mauve one, we know that.
In my goo haze, I discard my coats and the chill is intense, and I am not dressed for such natural viciousness. I was not expecting to be flesh at this point. I should be dust, and therefore apparel had appeared to be an irrelevance to me. He is going to make me suffer. I move away from the arch that signals the border between there and here. I put yards between us, tens of yards. I lose my sight. Here we go.
Another step barely made, as the boots I wear find no traction on the ice. I stumble onto my backside within a second, knowing I shall rise.
I sit out in the pass, and my body allows me to fight. I am stronger than I thought. I cannot bear this cold for long though. Deep within lies the rampant pervert, high on goo, who wishes to be reminded of the absolutes sensations of the groin; I laugh when I think of this being the final part of me to perish. And perish I soon shall. My laugh echoes in the pass, and this reverberation forces a sheet of ice from above to land on my neck and shoulder, slicing me viciously. I feel as if my head is half off.
Yet I stand and force one partially blinded eye open, for appearances, in the sight of the enemy, might still be pivotal. The wind knocks my head backwards and my robes open again. With this bitter temperature and an exposed nether, I cannot appear too impressive a foe. I’m fully aware of my cinematic bluster as I speak to Him, that slack and effete cad, Death, without the courage or decency to come.
‘How dare you not show?’ I yell. ‘Perhaps you recoil at what I know of you. I recall you unfondly, and you seem insistent on maintaining my disdain.’
He has centuries of practice in sending a proxy, which right now appears to be this incessant and pre-eminent glacial inclemency.
There is no answer. I breathe. I shout, studied and annunciated. I picture my words, forcing their print into history, memory and snow. I know that I am really doped up.
‘Yes, you. I remember your awkward walk, and your expertise in pioneering unimpressive sexual lows.
‘At least my nadirs were spoken of in high regard. Come and get me, you sloppy pest. You think you’re in my league? Yours is a daily, if not hourly shame.
‘You are a limp clod, who cannot even claim to possess the fanaticism of a neophyte nor the brackishness of an ex-wife. If you are watching as a coward watches, then you will see my auras scarlet and cerulean, and those are the shades of victory. This is my naked testimony to you, you prancing and farcical Vengefulist. Moriarty be damned.
‘Let the record show that The Great Beast stands in the mountain pass alone on this night, does not turn to dust and might only be taken by the ice of my own nature. My Own Nature! I shall end my life, not you. That is unless I decide to skip on to Darjeeling and dine belligerently with your most putrid sister, before landing on her and improving vastly her mangy mood as only I know how. Now for the final time, where is this Troublesome Grip of yours that I am supposed to fear? WHERE?’
My heart stops.
I am on my back. And then I hear a voice that seems to answer me.
It is not the voice I expect. Silence leads to a soft whistle that holds its pitch. There is no white light as they say there is. A final imprint on a dead brain.
La Gitana and Leah come to me first. I see them as a vision in front of me, cursing me, telling me to rise. I am not sure if my eyesight has returned or whether I hallucinate. They light a candle, their small hands robust enough to fend off the cutting sheets of wind. And then, my sight blurs to see two, three, six lights. They multiply, as my eyes for a second time seem to be the first part of me to feel a looming defeat.
‘Stand, Old Man. And walk on.’
The ferocity within this scream is felt in the wounded neck of the faded Beast. I am helpless not against the cold or the onset of Dust, but against the desire of these women.
‘Stand, Old Man. And walk on.’ This time from my son.
My senses are sharp enough to know that this is a crowd that urges me; its tone is juvenile and whistley, but steely and stronger than I. I stand and see a hundred candles, a hundred shaved heads, a hundred children in robes. I tingle. They all speak, as a hundred turns to thousands. The ageing air affects them not. They make elevated their hero, form an unbreachable mass around me and shove me further from the citadel. This throbbing agent of rough and tumble is still with them.
They lead me to a cave, where we shall rest, take cover, breathe, take strength from the knowledge that I might live beyond the mountain pass, and then sit out the night as they hold me a grinning captive.
‘At dawn, we shall lead you from here.’
We sit and they ask me to tell tales of olden days, while Leah, La Gitana and Edward flank me.
And we laugh.
I appear to be back.
I am heard to gasp, ‘You cursed, astonishing world, you!’
The children giggle and explain it to the smaller ones, who also chuckle. And nod.
‘This is for you, Robbie my love. You would delight at this evening. Christ resurrected by his acolytes. Recall, they that sup with the Devil must own a long spoon. It takes the wickedest man in the world to be sound pals with both Jesus and Satan.’
I reach into my pocket and eat some more toffee’d resin from a jungle floor, somewhere in my past.
I stand and speak of my thanks to my saviours, my head still spinning with my overwrought bravado.
‘Shamed was the Dark Fool. While blessed were the children. You shall always own a deep blue in your skies.’
I am very high, as they all stare, tilt their heads, shuffle, but do not blink, as they listen to my unnecessarily boisterous crowing. I’m not going to change for anyone now.