In Search of the Incorporeal Handjob, or
My Night with the Huntsville Paranormal Investigators
I don’t always have money.
I know you see the pimp cane I carry and think, now here’s a man who lives a life dedicated to leisurely pursuits. Looks can certainly be deceiving. The big ass diamond on the end of my pimp cane, for instance. Cubic zirconia. It’s not really a doorknob sized diamond. I couldn’t tell you for sure if the shaft is actually gold plated. There’s a chance it could just be sparkly spray paint. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make, if I were truly a man possessing unlimited funds, I’d be at Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow all day, every day, using my pimp cane to weave sexual magic at the middle-aged erotic dancers instead of what I was actually doing, loitering at The Deep, the premiere comic book shop nestled in the heart of Huntsville.
Unless Mark Spears has a new issue of Monsters out with its eighty-three fucking variant covers, it doesn’t cost much money to lurk among the long boxes, the peg warmer Marvel Legends, and the dusty stacks of Funko Pops where I utilize my pimp cane to emphasize my unpopular points of view to my comic book aficionado friends, chief among them, Rockin Robbie Billz who manages the day-to-day business of slinging funny books, and Trevor, glorified register jockey and Elvira obsessive.
“All I’m saying,” I was saying, “is that Rob Liefield was the best comic book artist to come out of the nineties. And his writing…” I made a chef’s kiss.
“Man,” Trevor could hardly keep his composure. “He’s not even top ten. There’s literally nothing good I can say about him.”
“Well, young Trevor, your lack of knowledge, taste even,” I jutted the tip of my pimp cane in the air twice, “is sad, but understandable since you weren’t even born yet in the golden age of comic books back in the early nineties,”
“Golden age…?” He sputtered.
“Honestly, it’s one of the reasons why I find it so goddam difficult to talk to you. You missed the best comics. The best music. The best times. All the classic comic book characters and teams created. WildCATS, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, Supreme, Deathblow. The music… Whale, Chumba Whumba. James…”
Rockin Robbie stood three feet away from us and opted not to chime in though I knew he harbored opinions. He stared at his computer screen beside Scott, his second-in-charge. Finally, he nodded sagely at Scott, slapped him on the back.
“That looks damn near professional, homie.”
“Whatcha got going on there?”
“We just cut together the intro for our first episode of Huntsville Paranormal Investigations. Soon to be released on YouTube.”
“Cool. I didn’t know you guys were ghost hunters.”
“Paranormal investigators based out of Huntsville,” Scott corrected. “There are trademark laws I do not wish to litigate.”
“Righty-O, then. Can I see?”
What they screened for me basically aped the opening for the original SciFi Channel’s Ghosthunters almost shot for shot. The majority of it, smash cut scenes of these clowns running down darkened hallways, eyes glowing in the infrared lights, mouths open in expressions of abject horror. Instead of the plumbers by day, intrepid investigators by night trope, they leaned heavily into their roles as purveyors of comic books and all things groovy before donning the black T-shirts of spirit inconveniencing.
Scott billed himself as chief investigator. Young Trevor acted as senior investigator, and Rockin Robbie’s title was “occult specialist.”
“What makes you an occult specialist? Because you’ve read more Doctor Strange comic books than any man alive? You know that shit’s made up, right? The cock of Dormammu or whatever he puts in his mouth to teleport dimensions, none of that really exists.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’ve read the collected works of John Dee. I’m familiar with Ed and Lorraine Warren’s catalogue. I’ve delved into Crowley and have a pretty good understanding of Enochian magic. I mean, c’mon, you walk into a building and there’s a pentagram painted on the wall, you know something’s up, right?”
“Well, you got me there,” I said. “You know, I got this column thing I write weekly that’s well-loved, well-regarded, though not necessarily well-read, but I’m always looking for interesting topics. Mind if I tag along on your next investigation? I’m tired of writing about how my eighty-year-old, live-in, father-in-law is too damn lazy to mow four acres of yard and give me a little break cause I’m having to work sixty fucking hours a week in the factory.”
“As long as you don’t interfere or make a mockery of our investigation,” Scott said. “I don’t see a problem. This Saturday, so long as it doesn’t get too hot, we’re pulling an all-nighter at the Flying Monkey artist commune across the way.”
“It’s supposed to have all kinds of paranormal activity,” Trevor added.
“The art studios? Wasn’t that an old paper mill once? What’s it supposed to be haunted by? The spirit of dead spruces? All the artists crawling around that place, I’m sure it’s loaded with the remnants of a thousand lost and crushed hopes and the mutilated and murdered dreams of half the creatives in Huntsville.”
“We might want to tone down the sarcasm,” Scott warned.
“There’s been some deaths on the premises,” Robbie said mysteriously weaving his fingers in the air in a vaguely mystical way.
Three nights later, I met the HPI boys outside the Flying Monkey. They were already pulling their cameras and equipment out of the trunk of Scott’s Taurus.
“Hey, you guys ever hear of Cracker McCracken?” I asked.
“Never heard of him,” Trevor said.
“Well, he hunts cryptids. Bigfoots and such. He’s got a YouTube channel, too.”
“We don’t mess with that fantasy shit, man,” Rockin Robbie said. “We’re ghost–. We’re paranormal investigators based out of Huntsville. We rely on science and technology for irrefutable proof of the existence of the paranormal and the spirit world as a concrete, though, you know, spectral reality.”
“So, you got proof?”
“We have recorded some very convincing EVPs,” Scott said.
“I just thought it’d be cool to do a crossover with Cracker; Maybe search for the disembodied spirits of long dead bigfoots haunting the foliage along Cry Baby Hollow.”
“Trevor,” Scott said. “Why don’t you procure an infrared camera, a white noise generator, an EMF detector, and a couple GoPros, and take the Polish Hammer inside and start investigating. Start on the third floor back and work your way down.”
“Anything I need to know before hand?”
“No smoking,” Scott said. “No vaping.”
“Well, I can get behind that. Vaping is gay.”
“If you’re using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘stupid,’ then I rebuke you and you can fuck right off,” Scott said. “I will not tolerate homophobic slanders. However, if you’re suggesting the act of vaping itself is a habit predominantly pursued by the homosexual community, then I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“What ended up happening,” Trevor said, “we thought we were being pursued by a free floating vapor with a hint of lavender perfume for its previous incarnation, but we debunked that when Scott determined Rockin Robbie kept sneaking puffs off his black currant/bergamot and lemon vape pen.”
“It became a bit of a controversy,” Robbie conceded.
“You don’t have a problem with my pimp cane, do you?” I poked him in the chest with the supposedly mink tipped point.
“Aesthetically, I just don’t get it. But if you need it to walk…”
“I absolutely do.” Walk stylishly, that is.
“Then I don’t have a problem with it.”
I was familiar with the Flying Monkey lay-out. I once dabbled in oils, though I never thought to rent a studio for a grand a month just to have a space to sling paint to canvas. But I’d been through the colony many, many times for art shows, comic book conventions, and one wild as fuck furry convention.
“Okay,” Trevor said. “Everything’s set, everything’s recording. Now we just have to engage with our environment and see what happens.”
“Well, if we happen across a Kandarian dagger, we’ll know Rockin Robbie will be able to identify it because he studied Evil Dead 2.”
“Hmph. Let me ask you something, Polish Hammer. We must’ve talked comic books a hundred times over the past year.”
I allowed this was probably true. I rarely had cash for Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow.
“And, no offense, I’m still not entirely sure you’ve read a comic book. Ever.”
“I’ve read lots,” I assured him. “I just have no memory retention. Not for comics anyway. Or anything that has anything to do with my job, Or anything people tell me. Or anything to do with poetry.”
“Huh.”
“I remember Shirtless Bear Fighter,” I said. “That was about a dude. Without a shirt. Who went around fighting bears.”
“I liked both those mini-series. Jody Leheup.”
“I guess.”
We walked the dark hallways since we weren’t allowed in the studios. There was a few exit lights casting minute illumination. A few emergency lights, just enough to make the silhouettes of all the artwork even scarier than in the harsh art critic of daylight. The whole time young Trevor asked jackassy questions like
“Is there anyone here with us tonight?”
“Would anyone like to communicate with us?”
“Are you angry you’ve transitioned to the other side?”
“These ghosts ever get frisky with you?” I asked.
“What the hell you mean by that?”
“Frisky, man. Handsy. Ghosts gotta get horny, too, right? You said you’ve had some unexplained contact with the spirit world. They ever try to grab your junk?”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Polish Hammer?”
“It’s a legitimate question, young Trevor. Mine, not yours. Why can’t spirits be horny? If I were a ghost in Huntsville, I’d be furious. Just a bunch of dudes, comic book nerds at that, trying to razz me all the time. I’m gonna try to die at Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow if I can.” I stabbed the air with my pimp cane for emphasis.
We stood in the darkness in silence a moment before Trevor continued.
“Are there any entities present tonight who’d like to relay any messages to the living?”
“If there’s any ghosts in this artist commune, and you want to play with my junk a little bit, you’re welcome to it.”
“Goddammit, man.”
The five minutes we stood in near darkness stretched on and on.
“They’re not grabbing my cock,” I whispered.
“Okay,” Trevor sighed.
“I touched it a little bit,” I admitted.
“I know. I can see.”
We stood there another minute.
“You’re still touching it,” Trevor said. “And, now, it’s starting to get strange.”
“Look, man, I think I’ve investigated about all the paranormal I need to see. Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow is still open for a few more hours, and I know Hydie Lyrie is up there dancing and she likes to dance in Wicca shit. I gonna see if our Occult Specialist is down to go and discuss some Hermeticism with her. Maybe I’ll get lucky and die there tonight.”
“Can I go, too. I like titties.”
“Not if you’re gonna get all uncomfortable every time you see me touching myself, you can’t…”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
