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becomes astronomical cubed. So how s a person going to outmaneuver a universe that finds it easier to
drill a man through the head that way rather than postpone the date of his death?
A Deskful of Girls
YES, I SATO ghostgirls, sexy ones. Personally I never in my life saw any ghosts except the sexy kind,
though I saw enough of those I ll tell you, but only for one evening, in the dark of course, with the
assistance of an eminent (I should also say notorious) psychologist It was an interesting experience, to
put it mildly, and it introduced me to an unknown field of psycho-physiology, but under no
circumstances would I want to repeat it.
But ghosts are supposed to be frightening? Well, who ever said that sex isn t? It is to the neophyte,
female or male, and don t let any of the latter try to kid you. For one thing, sex opens up the unconscious
mind, which isn t exactly a picnic area. Sex is a force and rite that is basic, primal; and the caveman or
cavewoman in each of us is a truth bigger than the jokes and cartoons about it. Sex was behind the
witchcraft religion, the sabbats were sexual orgies. The witch was a sexual creature. So is the ghost.
After all, what is a ghost, according to all traditional views, but the shell of a human being an animated
skin? And the skin is all sex it s touch, the boundary, the mask of flesh.
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I got that notion about skin from my eminent-notorious psychologist, Dr. Emil Slyker, the first and the
last evening I met him, at the Countersign Club, though he wasn t talking about ghosts to begin with. He
was pretty drunk and drawing signs in the puddle spilled from his triple martini.
He grinned at me and said, Look here, What s-Your-Name oh yes, Carr Mackay, Mister Justine
himself. Well, look here, Carr, I got a deskful of girls at my office in this building and they re needing
attention. Let s shoot up and have a look.
Right away my hopelessly naive imagination flashed me a vivid picture of a desk swarming inside with
girls about five or six inches high. They weren t dressed my imagination never dresses girls except for
special effects after long thought but these looked as if they had been modeled from the drawings of
Heinrich Kley or Mahlon Elaine. Literal vest-pocket Venuses, saucy and active. Right now they were
attempting a mass escape from the desk, using a couple of nail files for saws, and they d already cut
some trap doors between the drawers so they could circulate around. One group was improvising a
blowtorch from an atomizer and lighter fluid. Another was trying to turn a key from the inside, using
tweezers for a wrench. And they were tearing down and defacing small signs, big to them, which read
YOU BELONG TO DR. EMIL SLYKER.
My mind, which looks down at my imagination and refuses to associate with it, was studying Dr. Slyker
and also making sure that I behaved outwardly like a worshipful fan, a would-be Devil s apprentice.
This approach, helped by the alcohol, seemed to be relaxing him into the frame of mind I wanted him to
have one of boastful condescension. Slyker was a plump gut of a man with a perpetually sucking
mouth, in his early fifties, fair-complexioned, blond, balding, with the power-lines around his eyes and
at the corners of the nostrils. Over it all he wore the ready-for-photographers mask that is a sure sign its
wearer is on the Big Time. Eyes weak, as shown by the dark glasses, but forever peering for someone to
strip or cow. His hearing bad too, for that matter, as he didn t catch the barman approaching and started
a little when he saw the white rag reaching out toward the spill from his drink. Emil Slyker, doctor
courtesy of some European universities and a crust like blued steel, movie columnist, pumper of the last
ounce of prestige out of that ashcan word psychologist, psychic researcher several mysterious rumored
jumps ahead of Wilhelm Reich with his orgone and Rhine with his ESP, psychological consultant to
starlets blazing into stars and other ladies in the bucks, and a particularly expert disher-out of that
goulash of psychoanalysis, mysticism and magic that is the chef-d oeuvre of our era. And, I was
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