unfolded it. He pressed it to the wall. Elvis saw that it was covered with the same sort of figures that were on the wall of the stall.
“I copied this down yesterday. I came in here to shit because they hadn’t cleaned up my bathroom. I saw this on the wall, went back to my room and looked it up in my books and wrote it all down. The top line translates something like:
Pharaoh gobbles donkey goober
. And the bottom line is:
Cleopatra does the dirty.”
“What?”
“Well, pretty much,” Jack said.
Elvis was mystified. “All right,” he said. “One of the nuts here, present company excluded, thinks he’s Tutankhamun or something, and he writes on the wall in hieroglyphics. So what? I mean, what’s the connection? Why are we hanging out in a toilet?”
“I don’t know how they connect exactly,” Jack said. “Not yet. But this… thing, it caught me asleep last night, and I came awake just in time to…well, he had me on the floor and had his mouth over my asshole.”
“A shit eater?” Elvis said.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “He was after my soul. You can get that out of any of the major orifices in a person’s body. I’ve read about it.”
“Where?” Elvis asked.
“Hustler?”
“The Everyday Man or Woman’s Book of the Soul
by David Webb. It has some pretty good movie reviews about stolen soul movies in the back, too.”
“Oh, that sounds trustworthy,” Elvis said.
They went back to Jack’s room and sat on his bed and looked through his many books on astrology, the Kennedy assassination, and a number of esoteric tomes, including the philosophy book,
The Everyday Man or Woman’s Book of the Soul
.
Elvis found that book fascinating in particular; it indicated that not only did humans have a soul, but that the soul could be stolen, and there was a section concerning vampires and ghouls and incubi and succubi, as well as related soul suckers. Bottom line was, one of those dudes was around, you had to watch your holes. Mouth hole. Nose hole. Asshole. If you were a woman, you needed to watch a different hole. Dick pee-holes and ear holes — male or female — didn’t matter. The soul didn’t hang out there. They weren’t considered major orifices for some reason.
In the back of the book was a list of items, related and not related to the book, that you could buy. Little plastic pyramids. Hats you could wear while channeling. Subliminal tapes that would help you learn Arabic. Postage was paid.
“Every kind of soul eater is in that book except politicians and science fiction fans,” Jack said. “And I think that’s what we got here in Shady Grove. A soul eater. Turn to the Egyptian section.”
Elvis did. The chapter was prefaced by a movie still from
The Ten Commandments
with Yul Brynner playing Pharaoh. He was standing up in his chariot looking serious, which seemed a fair enough expression, considering the Red Sea, which had been parted by Moses, was about to come back together and drown him and his army.
Elvis read the article slowly while Jack heated water with his plug-in heater and made cups of instant coffee. “I get my niece to smuggle this stuff in,” said Jack. “Or she claims to be my niece. She’s a black woman. I never saw her before I was shot that day in Dallas and they took my brain out. She’s part of the new identity they’ve given me. She’s got a great ass.”
“Damn,” said Elvis. “What it says here, is that you can bury some dude, and if he gets the right tanna leaves and spells said over him and such bullshit, he can come back to life some thousands of years later, and to stay alive, he has to suck on the souls of the living, and that if the souls are small, his life force doesn’t last long. Small. What’s that mean?”
“Read on… No, never mind, I’ll tell you.” Jack handed Elvis his cup of coffee and sat down on the bed next to him. “Before I do, want a Ding Dong? Not mine. The chocolate kind. Well, I guess mine is chocolate,
“I copied this down yesterday. I came in here to shit because they hadn’t cleaned up my bathroom. I saw this on the wall, went back to my room and looked it up in my books and wrote it all down. The top line translates something like:
Pharaoh gobbles donkey goober
. And the bottom line is:
Cleopatra does the dirty.”
“What?”
“Well, pretty much,” Jack said.
Elvis was mystified. “All right,” he said. “One of the nuts here, present company excluded, thinks he’s Tutankhamun or something, and he writes on the wall in hieroglyphics. So what? I mean, what’s the connection? Why are we hanging out in a toilet?”
“I don’t know how they connect exactly,” Jack said. “Not yet. But this… thing, it caught me asleep last night, and I came awake just in time to…well, he had me on the floor and had his mouth over my asshole.”
“A shit eater?” Elvis said.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “He was after my soul. You can get that out of any of the major orifices in a person’s body. I’ve read about it.”
“Where?” Elvis asked.
“Hustler?”
“The Everyday Man or Woman’s Book of the Soul
by David Webb. It has some pretty good movie reviews about stolen soul movies in the back, too.”
“Oh, that sounds trustworthy,” Elvis said.
They went back to Jack’s room and sat on his bed and looked through his many books on astrology, the Kennedy assassination, and a number of esoteric tomes, including the philosophy book,
The Everyday Man or Woman’s Book of the Soul
.
Elvis found that book fascinating in particular; it indicated that not only did humans have a soul, but that the soul could be stolen, and there was a section concerning vampires and ghouls and incubi and succubi, as well as related soul suckers. Bottom line was, one of those dudes was around, you had to watch your holes. Mouth hole. Nose hole. Asshole. If you were a woman, you needed to watch a different hole. Dick pee-holes and ear holes — male or female — didn’t matter. The soul didn’t hang out there. They weren’t considered major orifices for some reason.
In the back of the book was a list of items, related and not related to the book, that you could buy. Little plastic pyramids. Hats you could wear while channeling. Subliminal tapes that would help you learn Arabic. Postage was paid.
“Every kind of soul eater is in that book except politicians and science fiction fans,” Jack said. “And I think that’s what we got here in Shady Grove. A soul eater. Turn to the Egyptian section.”
Elvis did. The chapter was prefaced by a movie still from
The Ten Commandments
with Yul Brynner playing Pharaoh. He was standing up in his chariot looking serious, which seemed a fair enough expression, considering the Red Sea, which had been parted by Moses, was about to come back together and drown him and his army.
Elvis read the article slowly while Jack heated water with his plug-in heater and made cups of instant coffee. “I get my niece to smuggle this stuff in,” said Jack. “Or she claims to be my niece. She’s a black woman. I never saw her before I was shot that day in Dallas and they took my brain out. She’s part of the new identity they’ve given me. She’s got a great ass.”
“Damn,” said Elvis. “What it says here, is that you can bury some dude, and if he gets the right tanna leaves and spells said over him and such bullshit, he can come back to life some thousands of years later, and to stay alive, he has to suck on the souls of the living, and that if the souls are small, his life force doesn’t last long. Small. What’s that mean?”
“Read on… No, never mind, I’ll tell you.” Jack handed Elvis his cup of coffee and sat down on the bed next to him. “Before I do, want a Ding Dong? Not mine. The chocolate kind. Well, I guess mine is chocolate,
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