Bohemian Rhapsody: Part I: Chapter 12

The next day in court, Baba and I had the privilege of watching William Flanagan plow through Alanna’s testimony like a hot knife through butter.   We had not one but two aces up our metaphorical sleeves: our alibi defense, which hinged upon Alanna’s being in love with me, and my favoring Yael; and the lack of fingerprints on the supposed murder weapon.   We were to make a mockery of justice, and it gave me such a beautiful rush to know this that I could hardly stand to listen to the questioning.   I felt like dancing.1

“Alanna, under what circumstances did you come to know the accused, Mssrs. Rain and Baba?”2

I stifled a giggle at being called monsieur.   Alanna stared back into Flanagan’s eyes defiantly as she answered: “I was living with two of my friends, Elizabeth and Jeanie, in a flat downtown.   Rain and Baba and a girl named Sadie and guy they call Charlie, I don’t know what his real name is—hell I don’t know what any of their real names are.   It’s weird.   Anyway, those four were like wandering around I guess and Elizabeth saw them and saw that they were kind of similar to us, in a way.   Because we were like social outcasts, and so were they.   I was actually trying to get a job as an actress at the time, so was Jeanie, and Elizabeth was my very best friend since grade school.   But that’s not important.   Anyway so Elizabeth invited the four of them up into our flat, which made it incredibly crowded, and Rain, who has never had very good manners, was looking through my things and he found a copy of a play called The Zoo Story by Edward Albee.   And he just started reciting lines from it, and that’s one of my favorite plays, so me and him just clicked, you know, like on an instinctive level.   So he started talking to us about this great group he had, he called it the Orchestra, and he invited us to come join it.   So me and Jeanie did, but Liz thought it was really weird and didn’t.   Well, she did later, but yeah.”3

“You say Rain and yourself had an instant connection?”4

“Well, yeah, in a way.   Like, it feels weird for me to say it now, because now I know what kind of a person he is, but he was just really sweet and laid-back and so intelligent, that’s the other thing.   When they came in I was like, fuck, you know, here’s some bunch of stupid junkies who are gonna want to fuck us, but no, he was really nice and as I said, he knew drama, and that was huge for me.”5

“Would you say you fell in love with him?”6

“Yeah, or at least I had a crush.   I’m not sure if I’d call it love.   I probably would, actually, though.   So for the record or whatever, yes.”7

“I see.   Tell me, when did he give you the name Alanna?”8

“After we went back, me and Jeanie, we went back to what he liked to call the cavern, which is this huge cement place downtown that God knows where it came from or anything, but that’s where we hung out.   Anyway, there were a lot more people there, like fifteen or so, and they were all talking amongst themselves, and Rain sort of took me over in a corner and told me to take off my clothes.   Which wasn’t as weird as it sounds, by the way, since he’d already explained all about the sexual openness and everything in this Orchestra.   But yeah I did and then he saw I was wearing this necklace that my ex-boyfriend gave to me, and he told me that I should sell it, and I said no, I liked it, and he asked me who had given it to me and I said it was my ex-boyfriend Alan.   So then he said: ‘Then I christen you Alanna,’ or something like that, and we made love.   I thought it was just weird that he was calling me Alanna, but then he took me on an acid trip and it sort of, I know it sounds corny, but it opened my mind to what it meant.   Because at the time, anyway, it felt like I had a name that was secret between him and me, and it was kind of special.   He told me I wasn’t Emily Howell anymore, which was kind of weird but also kind of cool, because as an actress I was always trying to become someone who wasn’t myself.”9

“So you felt that the name Alanna created a special bond between you and Rain?”10

“Yeah.   God, I feel silly now, knowing what he is, you know, but then, it was so magical and awesome and it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.”11

I sat and watched in unabashed awe as Flanagan painted in words the portrait of Alanna’s love for me, and the subsequent discovery of Yael, who ‘seemed to be the favorite out of everyone, although I’m not really sure.’   They were not even his words, they were hers, but he shaped them and twisted them and made them his in the way that only lawyers can.   It is a beautiful profession, in its own way, although it is often horrific and ugly in its use against the free-spirited.12

Flanagan then came to the night of the murder.   He chose not to dwell on Alanna’s version of the events but instead concentrated very heavily on what had been done with the murder weapon.   He had explained to me earlier that he could not actually call anyone to testify that the knife had no prints until the prosecution rested their case, but that he could set the framework for this testimony with Alanna.   It was all rather beyond me, but it seemed as though, again, Alanna was playing right into our hands.13

“After Mr. Henderson was dead, Baba and I left, because Rain, as I said, seemed to be impossibly heavy and we didn’t think we could move him.   So we just left.   I was already completely freaked out by what we had just done, wondering why the fuck I’d gotten myself into this, so I figured that since it was night and we were sort of running through traffic and all helter-skelter, all over the place, I figured it’d be easy for me to get away from him and find a phone to call 911.   But then I realized I should try to get the knife from Baba, since it’d probably be important evidence.   So I asked him if I could keep it and he was like Yeah, sure, wasn’t that the greatest experience ever? and I sort of smiled and whatever and said Yeah, sure it was, and he give me the knife.   Then I had to concentrate on getting away.”14

“How did you accomplish this?”15

“There was one place where we had to like run across the street, through a lot of moving cars.   We didn’t really have to, but Baba was completely stoked and energetic and I would’ve had to to keep up with him.   So I just stopped, and he ran through and didn’t seem to notice at all that I wasn’t with him.   So then I went into the first house I saw and I was like, you know, Please let me in, I’ve just witnessed a murder! and they were all OK, sweetie, just come inside, here’s the phone, whatever.   So I called the police and they picked me up and when we got to the police station I told them everything.”16

“How, exactly, did you handle the knife?”17

“Very carefully.   I get to sound all smart now, because I knew that Baba’s fingerprints were probably all over it, so I only held it by the blade so the handle wouldn’t get all smeared.   I didn’t let go of it at all until the police came, and I told them it had fingerprints on it so they put it in a bag to keep it safe.”18

I chuckled.   Everything was working out absolutely perfectly.   As Flanagan asked a few last questions, and Alanna stepped down from the stand, I could almost feel the shivering warmth of the gods filling every drop of my blood with relaxation and love.   I almost cried, I needed it so badly.   The voice of the judge echoed.19

“Mr. Thornhill, you may call your next witness.”20

“Thank you, Your Honor.   I now call myself, Henry Arthur Thornhill, to the stand.”21

Flanagan and the Honorable Etcetera both started.   “He hasn’t been subpoenaed, Your Honor!” Flanagan protested.   I hadn’t the slightest inkling as to what that meant, but it seemed to mean something to the judge, because he called the attorneys to ‘the bench’ to discuss things.   While they did so, I wondered what Thornhill’s testimony would be.   It couldn’t possibly be that the knife had no prints—Thornhill had kept up his guard very well, and (I assumed) everyone in the jury thought that he was thoroughly committed to convicting me.   Flanagan was convinced as well; I told him that Thornhill had graciously allowed me the use of a CD player and a place to listen to music, which is why I accompanied him every day after court was adjourned.22

Thornhill’s testimony could be concerning his meeting Alanna, but I didn’t see what this had to do with the case directly, unless perhaps he saw the knife or made some insight into Alanna’s character that he wanted to testify to.   I couldn’t think of anything specific, however.   After a while the three men at the altar ceased their muttering.   Flanagan returned to my side, whispering to Baba and I that this would be a dangerous piece of testimony, he was sure of it; Thornhill stepped up onto the witness stand.23

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” the judge asked him.   I smiled.   Thornhill was the only person in the courtroom so far who would have the help of God, since he was so steadily working for His gain.24

“I do.”   Thornhill bowed, licked his lips, glanced at me, swallowed, and addressed the courtroom at large.   “Your Honor, and all assembled here, I feel I owe you an apology.   Through this past week or so, I have been conducting a series of informal interviews with the defendant known as Rain.   I have lied to him time and time again, and I wish to come clean now, so that what I have to say may hold some import.   It is true that perhaps morally my actions were not sanctioned; legally, however, they are.   And I think that my actions are also morally justifiable, if the end justifies the means, because I have now exposed the defendant—both of the defendants, actually—for what they are: fiendish, psychopathic killers.25

“At the start of each of my interviews with the accused, I told him of his Constitutional right to remain silent.   I also told him that if he did not do so, anything he said can and would be used against him in a court of law.   I told him this every time he came to see me, to make it part of a routine.   Finally he did not even listen.   This was essential, you see, because in order for me to use what he said in court, he must have been ‘Mirandized’ first.26

“I could tell you what he said, but if I did so, the defense could accuse me of fabrication.   I have therefore a recorded version of the most important of these interviews: that in which the accused confesses not only to the brutality of the killing, but to the twisted and demented motives behind it.27

“Before I begin, I feel I should explain some things.   First, I will be heard to agree to and support the defendant’s mad notions.   This was necessary in order to obtain the interviews and the frankness with which they are conducted.   Secondly, there may be—I don’t recall—a mention of destruction of evidence; specifically, the fingerprints on the murder weapon.   I wiped the knife clean before handing it to the forensics squad, because I conceived of this plan to ensnare the defendant as soon as I heard of his claim that one of the members of his group had entered into the service of the gods.   It was absolutely necessary, for me to convince Rain that I was on his side, to have a forensics report in the case files saying that the knife was clean.   Tampering with evidence, while usually prohibited, is permissible in this instance, because it was committed by the prosecution and, in fact, would have acted in favor of the defense.   The case of People v. Pauline Davies acts as a precedent in this instance.28

“Please listen.   What you will hear is horrifying, but afterwards I am confident that you will be sure, beyond any semblance of reasonable doubt, that the defendants are guilty of murder in the worst degree.”29

He produced a small black box and set it on the stand before him.   He pushed a button.30

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”31

“This I know, and what’s more, I have the right to remain silent.”32

“Exactly.   Now, Rain, what do you think of what’s going on in court?”33

“It’s annoying as fuck, is what it is.   Alanna’s telling all the truth but telling it slant, you know?   She just doesn’t get it.”34

Words that I vividly remembered, these were; words that I could still feel the shape of in my lips.   Thornhill’s tone was crisp and businesslike; his voice did not hiss and crackle like the voice on the tape but spoke clearly into my very brain.   It should have been obvious that he was doing this, from the very beginning, or at least from that last day.   He had been so nervous.   He had phrased everything so much more formally, knowing he was being recorded.   I saw myself in his office as the tape played on, saw myself from outside my body.   I tried to see where he had hidden the recording device.   It could have been anywhere.35

Some part of me said to exhale, but I did not even know whether or not I was holding my breath.   I continued my futile, belated, exhaustive search of Thornhill’s office, still from outside, still looking as if from the ceiling.   I realized I was seeing as the gods would see.   The gods.   I would never again hear their voices, never again feel the thrill of Lucifer’s violence or the warmth of Jehovah’s natural embrace.   I would never journey to Golgotha, never see Christ rise again.   I would never feel Yael’s soothing kiss on my neck, never loosen my body to Nicole’s soaring voice.   Never again would Baba hold me and caress me and tell me how much he loved me and how everything I needed would come to pass, no matter how far away it seemed.   Now it never would, any of it.   I wanted to cry, but I could not.36

The jury was reacting—I could see their hazy forms recoiling, whispering, muttering incomprehensible things to each other—so much reaction to such a small thing, the little black box on the witness stand, the waves of sound that were wearing me into the ground.   I could not make anything of the words.   I needed some kind of a hook, something to key me into the words from the box, words that I knew but that I could not separate, devious words, lying words—Baba.   Baba, the box uttered, and like that night some millennia ago in the cavern I connected to the stream of sound on the strength of that one word, and followed it to its conclusion.37

“Baba was the one who wanted to take Alanna.   I knew it was a bad idea, but I wasn’t thinking.   I was so eager.   And I had just given Baba the ability to see and to hear the gods, at least so I thought, so I thought, you know, Who am I to doubt what the gods have to say? so I accepted it, and we took her.38

“So then the three of us went out, and the rest of the Orchestra was all stoned or asleep so nobody really noticed when we left.   It was dark.   We went out and I remember thinking, this could be a film, you know, a horror movie.   The three of us going out to kill someone we’d never met, never even heard of.   Made me think about horror movies, and whether or not they were actually made in service to the gods.   But yeah, so we went out and we went to the park because we figured, or at least I figured, why not do it in the Grove, since there’s never anyone there.39

“So, I mean, Alanna’s said all this, but fuck her.   We left her in the Grove, and me and Baba went out to look.   Now, I knew what I wanted, see, and I still know, but I don’t know if I can describe it.   I wanted someone who was really the Man, someone totally godless, you know.   Someone who we could never in a million years convert.   But at the same time, not someone important, because then we’d be fucked.   That’s still what burns, you know.   That we can’t do our duty without having to be all fucking secretive about it.   Really, we can’t have the willingness to do all things, because if we did anything the gods wanted, we’d get locked up.   Blow up the police station, something good, you know, but we’d never get away.   But I’m getting off topic.40

“So anyway there were a bunch of guys in the park.   There was a bunch of hippies, and of course over on the Hotel Street side there were a bunch of whores.   Both of these groups, you see, they’re not that far from the gods.   I mean, they are, because they don’t have a clue about them, but in terms of doing what the gods say to do, they’re doing it.   You see?   The whores, they’re fucking like rabbits and getting paid for it, which I love, because they’re screwing the Man over by performing the beauty of the gods.   Screwing the Man in his ass and making him pay for it.   Anyway, then the hippies, they’re even closer, because they don’t live the so-called normal way, they live like we do.   Without the gods, without the Sacrifice, but otherwise pretty much the same.41

“Anyway.   I keep getting fucking sidetracked.   You have to understand I saw all these groups, these people, in my mind.   I didn’t go jogging all over the park, I just sort of scanned, and then over yonder, I don’t know where, but I saw it, there’s Paul Henderson, who’s exactly what I wanted.   He was rich, but not super-rich, and he wanted sex but he never got any, which serves two purposes.   First, it shows he definitely did not have the willingness to do all things.   Second, it made him more open to Alanna, easier to work.42

“So Baba and I, we jogged over to this guy and knocked him out, carried him into the Grove, stripped his ass, and then I’m like fuck, right, because we completely forgot to bring a rope because we were so rushed.   Come to think of it, I don’t even know if there’s a rope in the cavern.   But that’s not the point.   This is my favorite bit, because Baba had to sit on his head so he didn’t make noise.   Nearly made me laugh.   But then so we got him up, after he woke up, Baba held him and we told him we’d do his ass in if he made any noise while Alanna did her shit.   So he’s a good boy, and Alanna sucks him off, real good, real slow, all that shit.   You know, I know I’m going on a million tangents, but I have to say, giving head is like the ultimate act.   Ultimate act of God, I mean.   Whether it’s sucking a guy off or eating a girl out.   Because what you’re doing, you’re giving of yourself, and you get nothing back.   I mean, it’s fun to listen to them moan, but really, they get all the pleasure, right?   All the sexual pleasure.   But isn’t it fun?   It is for me.   Either one, guy or girl, it’s so beautiful to do.   To give.   And to receive, but that’s not the point, the point is when you give, it’s fun.   Because that’s with the gods, it’s the same thing.   You’re giving them devotion, you’re doing their works or whatever, but here’s the thing, it’s even deeper, because as I said, what the gods want is what you want.   You see?   Not what society or whatever wants of you, but what you yourself want.   So when you do what the gods want, you’re satisfied too, because your wants are satisfied in the same instant.   So, to me, this is an interesting theory which I’m just expounding for the first time, actually, but living is like giving head to the gods.43

“OK.   Done with the tangents.   But so Paul, he was rock-hard, right, so I get this idea and I’m like Alanna, bite his dick off.   Because isn’t that the purest way to do it?   It’s the most violent and anti-societal.   But she couldn’t do it, so whatever.   I grabbed the knife and slashed it off.44

“Now is the trippy bit, see.   I don’t think I’ve told you this before.   I mean, I haven’t told you any of it, but I haven’t even mentioned this.   As soon as I split the stick, Baba and Alanna seemed to just vanish.   And the whole world—all right.   Have you ever stood up really really fast, and you get really dizzy, right.   Well, if you do it fast enough, there’s this like ripple effect, where this white light flashes through everything you see, for like a split second, and then it’s gone.   That’s exactly what it was like, except the whiteness stayed, and then faded to black, I guess.45

Then there was this heartbeat.   It was crazy.   Can you imagine putting your head in a vice, and then having like Arnold Schwarzeneggar twisting this vice, really steadily, but crushing your skull tighter and tighter?   That’s what this heartbeat was like, it was that loud.   So what it was, see, it was Beelzebub forcing me to abandon all my thoughts.   Because everywhere, even in me, there’s doubts about what it’s all about, and there’s weakness, and there’s a tremendous ego, and all the rest of it.   So I guess He was squeezing all the thoughts out of my head, or at least He was making it so painful to think that I didn’t even try.46

“Then—the beauty of this is impossible to describe, the grandeur, the momentousness of it—then I was in the Throne Room of the Gods.   And there they were: Jehovah, Lucifer, and Jesus Christ.   And all of them looked to me, and I beheld them in their splendor.   The room—it is so hard for me to remember physical details.   It was all of mahogany, I think.   Something like mahogany.   And the chairs were just incredibly ornate.   It was the archetypical throne room, I suppose, but it was filled with such vibrancy.   It felt like I could only possibly be observing it from a distance, like I could not be there in the room because I would be destroyed by the energy there.   But somehow I was.47

“Beelzebub was formed from the gods.   And He was so radiant, so utterly beyond beauty, so unspeakably the God.   He told me that the End was nigh, that the Fandango was coming.   He told me that we—the Orchestra—must be ready for it.   He said that to split the stick is right, that we must do it again and again on our way to Golgotha for the Resurrection.   Then, as I’ve said, the gods will pass the final judgment upon the world, and we shall reign supreme.”48