Demon In His Soul

A creepy story for Halloween...

It was a sweltering summer night in 1959 when it happened. The place was Hoppy’s Hut, one of dozens of small entertainment venues designed for African American clientele in what was politely known as the “Chitlin’ Circuit”. The attention of the patrons was entirely focused on the bizarre, wiry personage who was now gracing the stage with his presence. His name was Oedipus Rex, and he was, with some justification, known as the “wild man of rock and soul”, for soon to be obvious reasons.

Dressed in a suit of pure white, which served to distract the audience only temporarily from his gesticulations, Oedipus Rex was behaving in a manner that was not customary for the venue. Normally, rhythm and blues singers, his profession, tended to be much more suave and polished, though, due to the intensity of much of the material they performed, they did not always maintain this suavity for long. Rex, however, was trying his best to live up to the insanity which his nickname implied he commonly displayed. He had, in fact, begun his performance by emerging out of a coffin, an unusual act to say the least. And as he performed, singing and dancing, he bellowed with the intensity of a demon from the pits of Hell, while shaking a witch doctor’s shaman stick and bantering with a preserved human skull he dubbed “Richard”, for no particular reason. His frenetic shrieking threatened to destroy the fragile P.A. system, much to the crowd’s delight.

“Baby,” he shouted with deep and troubling intensity as he reached the climax of his trademark song, “I got a DEMON in my soul! And you KNOW you can’t resist me now, can ya?”

Finishing the song, and patently ignoring the frenzied crowd’s demands that he perform one of a number of encores he had already done that evening, Oedipus raised his hands for silence, immediately calming the crowd he had only recently worked into a frenzy with his antics.

“I gotta go- down BELOW!” he said as a way of ending his show. “Hope I don’t run into any of you suckers down in HELL- or you’ll be SORRY!”

And with a flash of light that enveloped the stage, he was gone. The patrons were left to scramble out of the establishment in the darkness, marveling out loud at the spectacle they had just seen.

*

Most of the people who attended the performance that evening held the secure belief that Oedipus Rex and his repertoire of bizarre behaviors and special effects was a simple “act”. Something that the canny performer was simply using to further his show business career by making himself extremely and dangerously different from the rest of the African American show business community, and something he definitely did not practice or advocate in the more sedate world of “real life”.

They were wrong.

True, Oedipus Rex was a showman like any other, and he was someone who knew the advantages of gaining attention through bizarre means. But his connection to the occult was no act.

What few knew was that Oedipus Rex was, in his off hours, an active and conscientious practitioner of the demonic arts. He understood and was willing to apply any and all of the works of the underworld to get what he wanted. He’d already shown this to three former managers, several theatre owners, and numerous women who had attempted to take him off guard and part him from the substantial amounts of money he jealously hid from the world in a small but tightly locked vault which travelled with him everywhere he went. All of the previously mentioned worthies had made the mistake of trying to cross or anger him- and all had promptly disappeared from the Earth without a trace! This was all thanks to the demon who truly lived in his soul, and through whose possession he had achieved his fame.

Yet Oedipus would soon find that even demons have limits to their patience.

*

When he was convinced he was alone, with no one to interrupt or bother him, Oedipus took a deep breath and then exhaled a considerable amount of air. This served to expel the demon from Hell who possessed him, Androchus, one of the Devil’s leading henchmen, who had been “lent” to the singer on the condition that he use him only to practice acts of evil upon the populace of America and lure them ever closer to the brink of corruption.

But, though rock and roll had been repeatedly called “the devil’s music” by those who did not understand it and its ramifications in the few years since it had first emerged in the American zeitgeist, it was hardly what one would call a handy way of enslaving the masses.

Consequently, Androchus had warned Oedipus many times that he needed to ante up his act more if he wanted to retain the services of the people down below, but Oedipus, concerned about maintaining the legitimate end of his career, had steadfastly refused any attempts to make his act more demonic. They were about to undergo another round of this strange debate between the two realms of human existence now.

Androchus, who resembled a ghost with fatter corporeality, stood and faced Oedipus once he had been expelled from his nostrils.

“I suppose you are happy with this routine,” he said to Oedipus contemptuously. “Pretending to appeal to the baser instincts of the masses while taking the name of my Master in vain with your showboating!”

“Man, don’t say that!” Oedipus countered. “I said you’d have a chance to do your thing as soon as I get the right gig! Now ain’t the right time!”

“It is never the right time with you!” the demon responded. “It wasn’t the right time at the Apollo, it wasn’t the right time when you were recording those vinyl records at Okeydokey, and it is apparently not the right time, now that your career has suffered an inopportune reversal of fortune, to unleash the forces of Hell upon the Earth! When will that time EVER come, Oedipus Rex?”

“Look, man!” Oedipus countered angrily. “It ain’t my fault that a brother like me can’t get the best gigs in show biz right now! The black man gets his ass handed to him all the time by the white folks that run things, and they always fix it so we can’t get the opportunities we need! But just you wait! One of those days Sullivan’s gonna find a hole in his schedule for me, and then you can do your thing in front of a national TV audience, dig?”

“But that has not yet happened!” the demon shouted angrily. “My patience, and that of my master, grows thin with you! Night after night I am forced to watch as you use my demonic powers in the services of recreating your inane recordings in front of a hooting and hollering and condescending audience! I have no idea what this “Porcupine Champagne” you keep singing about is, and I also have no idea what in the world it has to do with my master conquering this realm!”

“Man, don’t be insulting my people!” Oedipus retorted. “They keep me working solid- so that you at least have a chance to expose what you can do in my body every night! Be thankful for that, ‘cause it’s all you’re gettin’ right now regardin’ exposure! And, as for that “Porcupine Champagne”, don’t be puttin’ it down! It’s a solid tune! Leiber and Stoller wrote that one just for me!”

“Regardless, you have offended my master greatly!” said Androchus as a way of ending the argument. “One of these days, I warn you, he will call on me to extract vengeance upon you for profaning his….”

“Oedipus! Open the damn door, man! We gotta talk, quick!”

“Get back inside me, man!” Oedipus ordered the demon. “Nobody can see you outside me, remember?”

“Yes,” the demon responded, in a rare show of obedience to the singer. “It was all part of the deal. But remember…”

“I don’t forget nothin’!” responded Oedipus Rex. “Remember that!”

The demon re-entered Oedipus through his nostrils and then the singer marched towards the door of his dressing room and unfastened the deadbolt he had locked when he entered. Standing there, looking angry, was Arbee Feboldson, one of Oedipus’ fellow performers, a rhythm and blues singer of some skill, though he was not yet the star Oedipus was- or had once been, to be more precise.

“What you say, Arbee?” Oedipus said. “You upset I upstaged you again, huh? Sorry, man- but you know what kind of show I got!”

“It ain’t that, Oedipus!” said Arbee. “The promoter’s bailed on us. We ain’t gonna get paid if we can’t find him!”

“WHAT? How did he get out without none of us seein’ him go?”

“I don’t know, man! But he got the money, and ain’t none of us gettin’ our money for the gig if we don’t find him!”

“Whup his whitey ass!” Oedipus cursed. “Come on. Let’s run out here and find the sum-bitch and then kick him back to Assholeland if he don’t produce our money quick! We don’t work for free, y’know?”

“I know that,” said Arbee as he watched Oedipus exit the dressing room and lock it. “All us black folks know that! But WHITEY don’t know it!”

“That’s why we gotta make him know it!” said Oedipus. “Come on! He ain’t gotten far yet, has he?”

“Just saw his car go out of the lot,” said Arbee.

“Fine,” Oedipus said. “Won’t be too long now before he gets his!”

*

Indeed, as Oedipus suggested, it was not long before the unscrupulous promoter got “his”. It was commonplace at this time in the rhythm and blues industry for promoters, black and white alike, to prey on the ignorance of the performers, who, being mostly from the rural South, had little if anything related to business acumen in their genetic makeup. Urban born performers like Oedipus and Arbee were used to these shenanigans, and therefore were able to keep their fellow performers in the loop about such dangers to protect them from same. As a consequence, it was not long before the entire package of performers had surrounded the unfortunate promoter, whose car had gotten stuck in a convenient mud puddle from a recent rainstorm, and proceeded to beat the hell out of him for attempting to abscond with their money. When all had had their turn at attacking the man, Oedipus called upon “his” demonic powers to finish the man off for good, sending a strong shock of electricity through his head with a mere touch that left the man dead on the road. Another touch turned the dead body to a crispy pile of ashes, leaving absolutely nothing for the police to investigate. This was a security action on Oedipus’ part, for, as an African American, he was very much vulnerable to being arrested-or worse- for a mere altercation with a white man in this part of the South.

But it still did not endear him any further to the resident of Hell who dwell within him. And that resident was, even now, plotting independently against Oedipus inside his own body, readying what he hoped would be a suitable- and ghastly- form of revenge.

*

The revenge came in its final form a few nights later, just after Oedipus took the stage for what would be his final performance. Or, at least, he tried to.

The reason this is said needs to be explained, but there is little complexity involved. Oedipus was simply the victim of a practical joke.

On the same bill as Oedipus that evening was a vocal quartet known as the Grifters. These men had had a few hits earlier in the decade, but, like Oedipus himself, their career had hit a downward slide. The decrepit state of their career was best evident by the fact that they spent much of the time they were not performing drinking profusely and consequently making themselves nuisances to the other performers, Oedipus included.

In any event, these gentlemen got it into their heads one evening, just before Oedipus was to go onstage and perform, that it would be absolutely hilarious if the old boy couldn’t open his coffin just before he made his grand entrance in the swirls of Rosco fog that was used to introduce him. So, with a little skill and ingenuity, and in the shortest time available, they found Oedipus’ trick coffin, wheeled out for its owner’s use that evening, and fixed it up so that, rather than being flung open easily to shock the audience, as was the normal case, Oedipus would be locked inside and be unable to escape!

The Grifters vanished from the scene as soon as Oedipus appeared in his white cape and coat. He got down into the coffin, and two stagehands placed the lid obediently on top of him. With a dramatic flourish, the coffin was wheeled in and brought on stage.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the P.A. announcement crackled, “here he is for your spooky enjoyment, the WILD MAN OF ROCK AND SOUL HIMSELF, OEDIPUS REX!”

This was typically Oedipus’ cue to fling the top of the coffin, growl savagely at the audience, and launch himself into performing his first tune with the assistance of the house band. But that did not happen. Indeed, he was unable to open the top of the coffin thanks to the machinations of the Grifters, who were laughing their fool heads off in the aisles.

Oedipus cursed fiercely but inaudibly as he tried and failed to open the coffin lid. He could hear the Grifters laughing, and he positively knew those suckers were responsible for humiliating him! As soon as he got out…

However, Androchus was also angered. This was the last of the many humiliations he would suffer at the hands of this ungrateful mortal!

“THIS ENDS NOW,” he bellowed to Oedipus. “YOUR DAYS OF ABUSING THE PRIVILEGES OF HELL END NOW, OEDIPUS REX! I RISE NOW FROM YOUR CONFINEMENT TO WREAK MY VENGEANCE UPON YOUR LAND!”

“No, man!” Oedipus protested weakly. “NO!”

But he could not stop the being from escaping out of his nostrils, nor emerging in his full form in front of the audience. They cheered and applauded, thinking it to be part of the show. But what happened next was definitely not part of it….

Androchus escaped out of Oedipus’ mouth and fiercely bellowed in the faces of the patrons of the club. All screamed loudly, especially the women, who were the first to make for the exits. The Grifters, hearing the noise, knew that their efforts to flimflam Oedipus had somehow backfired in spectacular fashion.

As the patrons scattered out the doors- and the windows- of the club, and Oedipus tried to free himself from the coffin in vain, Grifters lead singer Clod McPhathead tried to distract Androchus’ attention away from Oedipus by making a particularly insinuating comment about the demon’s mother. It worked all too well. Within seconds, Androchus had grabbed McPhathead by the leg and thrown him against the wall, shattering him into a bloody pulp. Each of the other four members got their turn being broken by Androchus against the wall.

Finally, Androchus was able to turn back to his “master” Oedipus. He shook the coffin violently, making Oedipus scream and swear in protest. At last, he finally grasped the coffin and squeezed it like an accordion. Once again within seconds, what had once been Oedipus Rex had become a pile of broken bones, blood and organs smashed within four pieces of ruined wood.

Then Androchus really got started…

*

The truth about that evening at the Fifty Grand Club will never truly be known. All the eye witnesses who survived the initial onslaught of Hell’s minions were too scarred by the events to ever tell the whole truth, and all of their accounts contradicted each other when they did attempt such a description. But it can be clearly stated that three things resulted from the final carnage:

The club was completely destroyed.

The land around it, and the few people still remaining in its vicinity, were sucked down below, beneath any civilized area on the face of the Earth.

And no word nor trace was seen of the demon who once lived in Oedipus Rex’s soul- ever again.