Cape Fear Alligator Cult & Yacht Club

Praise Gator!, Butch raises his shot. The glass contains the answer to my question of the bartender, “what’s the funkiest agave spirit you have on shelf?” Praise Gator!, I raise my shot. And we sip. Subtly. Civilly. Like songbirds at a birdbath, we sip our tequila. But we’re not songbirds, are we? Nope. If we appear patient, it is a cold-blooded & calculated reptilian patience. Yeah. We’re here to eat. 

Look at all the greedy little piggies, Butch says with a casual glance around the yacht club. The interior of the bar embodies southern gothic nautical chic. With a pool table. These are bog-people, yes… but bog-people with backwater MBAs. Trust-funds. Summer homes in the foothills. Attorneys on retainer. Etcetera. Bankers getting high off their own supply, says Butch. Jesus, he says, the Christ would be flipping the shit out of these billiard tables. Yeah, I say, but we’re no Jesuses. No, Butch agrees. We have more John the Revelator vibes. 

Revelators. Yeah. Two prophets-in-the-making. The Book of Revelations: Part II. This time with more harlots & dragons…

Our banker arrives. Wife at his side. She gives us a half-hearted flutter of a wave and finds a place at the bar. Alejandro McAllister orders a Negroni, sets an elbow on the oak bar and turns to us. Welcome to the yacht club, he says. You might think the elite of this town only buzz about the garden parties and azalea festivals, he says, and you wouldn’t be fools to think so. But the beast, Alejandro says while lifting his crimson cocktail in the direction of the cypress-stumped bogs out the front window, the beast feeds at the swamp. At least, that’s what I always say. 

You have never said that, says his wife, Fantasia. Her back is to us, but her face is turned halfway to give her husband a raised eyebrow of scrutiny. Well, I am going to start saying it now!, Alejandro says with a triumphant smile. He is smartly dressed. Not in the seersucker threads of the good ol’boy bourbon-belching town elites, but his hair is trim and he’s got nice loafers. He’s accessorized. & shit. Alejandro is financier to the finest tobacco farmers & hog butchers in East Carolina. Which is why Butch & I are here. We need start-up cash. 

Alejandro doesn’t need to introduce Fantasia. You know it is a small town when your banker’s wife also happens to be your dentist. And she doubles as the dental expert for the coroner’s office. She is not your typical southern socialite gossip monger, but through her various roles Fantasia does hear all of Cape Fear’s filthiest secrets. Presently, she turns from the bar, a glass of house white in her hands, and she says to me, it is no surprise you’ve got a keen interest in alligators, Mister Neverman. You yourself have a very particular set of chompers. If I ever find a Jane Doe down at the shipyard with fetish marks matching your bite, I’d recognize them immediately.

Shaman Butch Sevens is the first to speak in my defense, saying, Vic Neverman never leaves his Jane Does down at the shipyard. He Ubers them home. 

Butch is slighty stoned. & angsty. The dude comes from home on the range origins. He’s a plains state desperado. Bald headed with orange-tinted sunglasses, he could be the bastard son of Hunter S. Thompson seeded during some Gonzo mad dash between Aspen and Lexington. A few years back, Butch left the prairies, heading east, fueled on bad omens and a Choctaw medicine woman recommendation. He kept heading east until he ran into the ocean. This is the end of the line for him. He says to Alejandro, on the subject of bite marks, should we get on with it and discuss our designs on a cult? Vic & I are calling it the Cape Fear Alligator Cult. C’FAC for short. 

Alejandro McAllister asks, are you sure you want to openly call it a cult? Why not “Alligator Church” instead? It would be more subversive that way. Less polarizing. Butch counters Alejandro by saying, if you’re going to be a cult, you cannot worry about being polarizing. Besides, Butch says, if we call ourselves a cult then no one can accuse us of being a cult. They’d look silly. Wouldn’t they?

They wouldn’t be the only ones looking like fools, Fantasia says and drawls out the double-o of “fools” twice as far as she needs to. She turns to the shaman and says, Butch, when are you going to let me at those crowded teeth? I bet I could chisel Rushmore out of the plaque on your inside bottom row. Butch is quick to decline the offer. He says to Fantasia, you’re not getting your little corpse-picking hands anywhere near this mouth, Sawbones! Go perpetrate your root canals on one of these unsuspecting LaCosta visor bros.

Okay, so…, the banker says to steer us back on course. What is it C’FAC is offering that I can’t get from the Sunday morning baptists & papists? Glad you asked, Butch says. We offer fear primeval. Alejandro raises one curious eyebrow, lowers a skeptical one. Enter Phobos…, I say to Alejandro, the Greek god of fear. And moussaka, Butch adds. The Greeks, I say, knew it was an important element of society. Fear, I mean. Not moussaka. Though spinach pie certainly has it’s place. We want to summon Phobos. We want the return of our ancestral boogeyman. 

Monster Fear, says Butch.

You see, I say to Alejandro while his wife pretends to ignore us, with the Agricultural Revolution, the nomadic life ended. We stopped living off what the land provided. Instead, we bent the land to our will. Fixed settlements then gave birth to institutions. Government, academic, military, financial, corporate institutions and massage parlors. And these institutions began bending us to their will, more than we ever bent the land ourselves. We’ve now outsourced Phobos, the boogeyman, to external influences. The human body has the same fear receptors we had 100,000 years ago, but because all of our dragons are slayed, we have a surplus of fear juice. Which is how these corporations and foreign bad actors have such an easy time juicing us, squeezing & manipulating us. Why they do it is simple. The thing about the Establishment is they always want to remain established. And they do this through control and they control us by dictating who we should fear. Who is it they want us to fear? Each other. 

What we need, Butch says, is to pivot back to primeval fear. It is the only thing which will heal society. Fuck anxiety, the Sunday Scaries, being nervous about the ROI on your IRA. First world fake fear bullshit, Butch says. Bring us back together with a true common enemy. We need apex predators. What we need is saber-toothed tigers & death-cuddling giant sloths. Velociraptors and pterodactyls. We need to bring dragons back. Fear waking up in a nightmare, your legs clamped in ancient stone jaws as the Gator cyclones you down into the dark depths because you offered a less-than-earnest sacrifice and He’s come to collect his due.

Jesus, says Alejandro. 

GATOR, Butch says to correct him.

Ergo: Cape Fear Alligator Cult, I say. C’FAC for short. 

Is Phobos really the Greek god of moussaka?, Alejandro asks. Sure, Butch says with a shrug, why not? Okay, who is the cult leader then?, is it you?, Alejandro asks Butch. No, I am just the behind-the-scenes spiritual advisor, Shaman Butch Sevens says. And Vic has been studying, what?, herpes? No!, no no, I respond. Herpetology. There’s a difference, I say. Yeah, Butch says, Vic has been studying the herp-, uhh, lizard science his whole life. Ever since he was raised by a pack of raccoons in the Everglades. Vic’s gone to Australia’s NeverNever to learn about the crocodiles of the Aboriginal Dream Time. Vic has steam-boated down the Amazon to learn of the demons who ride the backs of caimans. And Vic has sailed up the Nile in search of Nubian women and mummified crocodiles. But Vic is no messiah. He may know herpetology, Butch says, and he may have been sucked-off by the finest mosquitoes in the world, but he’s not our messiah. 

Who then?, Alejandro asks. Before Butch can respond, Alejandro suggests, if you haven’t picked out your figurehead yet, might I suggest the Corkscrew King of Castle Street. He’s got the charisma, a full bar and a ready-bake community of followers. Butch grimaces and gives a head-shake. He says, the Corkscrew King of Castle Street has an aversion to bullshit. Or, I should clarify, Butch says, the Corkscrew King of Castle Street only likes the smell of his own bull’s shit. We require someone who can both stir the kool-aid and drink it. The Corkscrew King of Castle Street would stir the kool-aid, let it breath, give it a sniff, take a sip and then spit it out saying the vintage is bad. No, we need a proper maniac. We need someone like Brother Aubrey Bones. 

Alejandro, who is familiar with every scoundrel on this coast, crosses his arms with reluctance. His wife is first to speak. Aubrey?, Fantasia asks, spinning back around from the bar. She knows Aubrey. There is little she doesn’t hasn’t learned from the gaping mouths in her dentist chair. Not to mention, Fantasia’s family has been here for all of the long history of charlatans making their way through this town. Alejandro often boasts his in-laws are 47th generation Wilmingtonian. Not just antebellum, her family has been here since before Jesus taught the Indians how to plant corn, Alejandro has said. And Fantasia shares Alejandro’s skepticism. She asks from the bar, you want Aubrey to be your cult leader?

Of course!, I say. Think about it. He’s got the hair of Jim Morrison, the sunglasses of Jim Jones and the Big Dick Energy of Rasputin. 

Besides!, Shaman Butch Sevens says. We’ve already piloted it. We sent Vic and Aubrey to a honkey rave in the deep woods of Castle-Hayne. Results are promising, Butch says. Vic?, I believe you put some slides together?

Indeed.

If you look at this chart, I think the data is very clear. Upon arrival at the Gator Burn… 

Wait!, Alejandro puts a hand-up. What the hell is a “Gator Burn”? Think Burning Man, Butch tells him, meets Wicker Man. A rave in the woods. Bored hippie shit. A lot of drugs. And drums. Fire-dancing, camping out, more drugs, more drums, hot cocoa, strange sex with warm bodies, strange sex with cold bodies, strange sex with one’s self, spiritual exploration, spiritual cleansing, spiritual rinsing & repeating. You know, a gathering of people most susceptible to joining a cult. This was our test drive of Aubrey as an influencer. 

And if you look at the data, I say to my audience, you’ll see that upon arrival, Aubrey initially received a lot of hospitality. His charisma, however, was not enough to hold the interest of the crowd as the night wore on, especially once the gator effigy was ignited and the fire-dancing performances began…

Gator effigy?, Alejandro asks. Oh…, he says as I share additional slides of a giant wooden alligator which was set alight at the rave. Jesus, he says. No, Butch says. Gator. 

What you’ll see though, when you look back at the chart, I say, is in the mid-morning hours Aubrey begins receiving more favors. Charisma is the most important feature in a cult leader, of course, but what is equally significant is persistence. Aubrey has that in droves. As dawn approached, he had a retinue of camp followers who wouldn’t let him light his own cigarette or open his own beer. They called him “beautiful girl” which was most unexpected, y’know… given his feral drunk uncle aesthetic, but perhaps this turnaround is the direct or indirect effects of the rampant drug-use. I, of course, declined the offers of drugs & sex. I am a scientist damn it!, I say to Alejandro, and must remain objective and clear-headed! I only consumed mescal & micro-doses of psilocybin. Which… naturally, only heightened my observational capabilities.

Alejandro McAllister sits upon a stool with his back against the bar. He folds one arm across his chest and rests his other elbow upon that arm with his raised knuckles propped under his nose. Deep in thought. Eventually, he asks, how soon are we expecting a return on investment? What are the revenue drivers? Initiation fees? Are you going to be selling t-shirts, swag? What sort of overhead can we expect? What does a sacrificial virgin cost these days? Will there be snake-handling? I have kin back in Appalachia, Alejandro says, who might be able to help. 

We’re not going to lead with snake-handling, Butch says, but if we do incorporate serpents, I have a snake-guy in Tulsa I can bring out. Bulldinger. We’d have to pick him up. He doesn’t fly and his driver’s license is suspended. Too many DUIs. Last time he was arrested, he attempted to fight off the state trooper by taking a rattlesnake out of the back of the truck. But when Bulldinger attempted to whip the snake at the officer, the rattler bit his ass during the backswing. He’s cool now though. He was charged with assault with a deadly vermin, pled guilty and served his time. We might have to clear travel with his parole officer.

And if a straight-up cult is too public for your taste, I say to Alejandro, we could make it a secret society. Charge subscription fees. Have meetings up in the Penthouse Club downtown. Secret society?, Alejandro chuckles, what, like the Alluminati? Ha!, he laughs and turns towards Fantasia. Get it? Illuminati, but with alligators? Fantasia shakes her head and rolls her eyes, saying, I stopped paying attention to you idiots once you started talking about going to Castle-Hayne for a honkey rave. 

Alejandro McCallister is nodding in thought. Alright, he says. I like the idea of the Alluminati. Invitation only. Different venues. Secret handshakes. Encrypted messages hidden in local advertisements. We’ll need decoder rings. We could setup a pop-up kitchen. Experiment with swamp cuisine. Gator tail, rattlesnake, maybe small tapas-style plates, Cape Fear fusion cuisine. Ibis, I say, is called swamp-chicken down in Everglades City. Alligators snack on ibis. And the ibis represents Thoth, the Ancient Egyptian god of knowledge. We could add that to the menu, I suggest. Alejandro asks, is it legal to hunt ibis? Butch says, well, that is the thing, right?… if we’re a secret society, nobody has to know…

Yeah, Alejandro says, until Vic writes a fucking blog about it.