STORMY FOSTER RETURNS: Chapter One
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CHAPTER ONE: “YOUNG MAN CRIED!” TIME + PLACE: THE YEAR 1992 @ THE OFFICE OF ANSONIA RECORDS, FAIRFIELD, NEW JERSEY.
My name is Stormy Foster. Of the many names I’ve had or will have, among them McKenzie Absalom, Ken Absalom, Jonah Blossom and Don Señorito Cartoon, it’s the one that I prefer. "Stormy" is the first name I can remember anybody calling me. It's also the name that I became famous under - although pretty soon, nobody’s going to remember that. Would you believe my music career is about to be erased from history?
If you could see me right now, I’m sitting behind my desk here at Ansonia Records, grinning like a damn fool. It's because I'm wondering . . . are you ready for this? I'm fixing to lay some hella incredible shit on you. Wait a minute, let me get up and lock my office door. If anybody should wander in here and hear what I’m about to say, they’ll think I’ve gone pazzo. With all the marginally Latin music projects I keep bringing my bosses, they think I’m half-crazy anyhow . . . OK, va bene. Now it’s safe to talk.
Mamma mia! Where should I begin? My early life is like a blackboard with no writing on it. I don’t remember ever being a child, or anybody raising me, or even where I was raised. My earliest memories are of being an adult - voglio dire, an older teenager - playing pick-up basketball at public courts in Riverdale. I can't even tell you who taught me to play basketball! I just knew how.
I had amici, lots of friends, but no living relatives that I knew of; and basically, I was homeless! Now, I never spent even one night in a shelter but sometimes, I would couch-surf. If it was nice outside, I might crash on a rooftop, on the beach or under a shade tree. It was the kind of situation that would freak most people out, but somehow I always felt very secure. Being on my own didn’t bother me, and I was never afraid!
And if I didn't want to sleep outdoors, I didn't have to - I could pay for a room somewhere. My two pet guinea pigs seemed to dig living inside better, so I'd do that most of the time. I never wanted for anything: Food, clothing, money. Somehow, it was kinda always there when I needed it - pretty damn incredible, though somehow I didn't think so at the time. But it got to the point where people assumed that I was somebody’s kept boy! They used to laugh: "Stormy's got himself a sugar daddy!" That was never the case, but I almost started to feel that way.
I wanted to earn my living like everybody else did; that's why I joined up the US Army. Life as an enlisted man has its challenges, but It was mostly a good experience for me; and when I got out after four years, I studied electronics. I became a professional deejay, and then a successful rapper. Now I’m a record company executive working on the east coast. Some kind of a life I’ve had, non lo é? Well, credemi . . . That ain’t the half of it!
STORMY FOSTER’S RECORDING SESSION LOG FOR THE YEARS 1988 + 1989.
Some really crazy shit started happening to me in the late 2020s, back when I was a deejay and podcaster. Una pazza with flaming red hair named Cheryl Blossom came to where I was working. Babe started spinning me this wild story about The Archies. Real wack shit about them being a Black and Latino group that got sidelined by White impostors. Little did I suspect it was just a distraction so that she could get close enough to attack me! That bitch drugged me, took me to some funky old house and stripped my ass butt naked!
Under the influence of whatever she injected me with, I had these wild, X-rated dreams. I won't go into all the raw and nasty details - some of them I don't even remember clearly - but I do recall dreaming about some dude with piercing blue eyes, grabbing hold of my junior partner and jerking me off. It may have been a dream, but let me tell you: That nut was so intense that it hurt!
I spazzed, and then everything went blurry; I couldn't see clearly in any direction. I heard something being poured into a glass. Somebody, I assume it was Cheryl, put the glass to my lips and I tasted this bitter-ass wine. I gagged and spit it out. Then Cheryl started laughing and started talking even more wack - something about harvesting my sperm and using it in a ritual. Some kind of a Voodoo ritual! And the next thing I knew, I was right in the middle of one.
I vaguely remember being tied down, spread-eagled between four wooden stakes, and sprinkled with something that smelled like sandalwood; it made my skin tingle. A dream with flavors, smells and sensations in it - man, that really freaked me out. Suddenly, I could see around me again, but still not very clearly. A bunch of people were there, all naked like me. They started dancing. There was smoke, drums, chanting - the whole yinyang! I think an animal may have been sacrificed, too, but I’m not sure. It was dark and hazy inside that house.
When I finally came to my senses, Cheryl Blossom was gone and I was back in my deejay’s booth - fully clothed again. The only proof I had that she'd even been there was that sandlewood aroma, the rope burn around my wrists and ankles and a stack of bootleg Archies records that she must have left behind. Like I said . . . she was una pazza! Either she was or I was.
That wasn’t the last I saw of Cheryl. She began haunting my sogni on a regular basis. These were what they call “waking dreams” - so real that they frightened the shit out of me! In some of them, I saw the bitch standing over my bed, glaring at me with her spooky green eyes. In others, I’d see those hands of hers with long, blood-red nails, reaching out of the darkness to grab me. Just before she appeared, there’d always be that strong smell of sandalwood - so strong and thick, it would make me gag!
Every time this happened, I would wake up and . . . cazzo! How do I say this? I’d wake up and find myself living in a different time period: The Sixties, the Eighties, the mid-2000s! Sometimes in a different place, too, hundreds of miles from where I was when I fell asleep. What the actual fuck?
At first, I thought I’d lost my mind - I mean, wouldn't you? But I gradually realized that I was sane, which was even more frightening. What should I do? What could I do? I had no choice but to somehow adjust to this new reality, but that was all but impossible. It kept happening over and over again! As soon as I got used to being wherever I was, I'd dream about Cheryl and off I'd go into the future or the past.
STORMY FOSTER: TIME JUMPER!
So . . . I “bounced” through the years that way about a dozen times. Believe it or not, I’ve lived in several different decades, ranging from the mid 20th century to the late 21st. The last time that it happened, I landed in Italy during the late 1980s. That’s when and where I finally found out the reason for all of this Twilight Zone shit: How and why I started time-traveling, and who initiated it! As my story unfolds, you’ll find out, too.
The past, the present, the future - o dio mio. Sometimes, they're still hella hard for me to distinguish. Compared to shifting back and forth in time, jet lag feels no more disorienting than riding a kid’s merry-go-round. It didn’t unbalance my mind - and I guess you’ll have to take my word for that - but it made me feel like a fucking cosmic nomad. I desperately wanted to set down roots in a specific time and place. Where or when, non mi interessa!
I still want that, more than anything; and I want a childhood, too. One that I can remember, with parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts and uncles, too. I'm in the process of making a decision that could open a door to all of that. It's unbelievable, but no more than what's already happened to me.
What I’m telling you might make more sense if you know that I’m a Wiccan . . . uno stregone, but one whose magic powers are dormant. This is something that I just recently found out, and I’m still coming to grips with what it means. Everything that I’ve recently discovered about myself is surprising . . . even shocking sometimes . . . frequently confusing . . . but hella exciting, too. It sure as shit puts having no childhood, wild voodoo dreams and remote-control time travel in context!
THE GREAT DEFENDER: HAS HE RETURNED FROM THE DEAD?
Va bene, I’m done talking. Come closer, y'all. What's a matter, does my breath stink or something? Vieni qui. Can you see this round glassy thing on my desk that looks like a fortune teller's crystal ball? That’s exactly what it is. So far, I’ve done a piss poor job of explaining my crazy life to you, so I’m going to try showing it to you instead. Be patient with me, people - Stormy Foster is a novice stregone, and dude is still learning how all this supernatural shit works!
Look right into the center of the crystal, and soon you’ll begin to see faces and hear voices. My story will be told to you by various people who’ve played a part in my life - some of whom I've never even met. It’s gonna be like that old Japanese movie called Rashomon: The same story, but told from different vantage points. Little pieces that fit together like a puzzle! And sometimes, it’s as much their own story as it is mine.
