The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

All that was missing was the sound of an explosion and a puff of smoke. He wore a black sailor’s cap, a tailored black suit and dark sunglasses, even though he was indoors at 2:30 A.M. He moved toward me, shook my hand and said right off the bat in his rasping voice, “I appreciate the name Marilyn Manson because it’s about putting different extremes together, which is what Satanism is about. But I can’t call you Marilyn. Can I call you Brian?”
    â€œSure, whatever you feel comfortable with,” I replied.
    â€œBecause of my relationship with Marilyn in the sixties, I feel uncomfortable because she has a special place in my heart,” LaVey said, closing his eyes gently as he spoke. He went on to talk about a sexual relationship he had with Monroe that began when he was the organist in a club where she was a stripper. In our conversation, he planted the seed that his association with her made her career flower. Taking credit for such things was part of LaVey’s style, but he never did it arrogantly. It was always done naturally, as if it were a well-known fact.
    He removed the sunglasses from his goateed gargoyle head, familiar to thousands of teen dabblers from the back cover of The Satanic Bible , and instantly we were enmeshed in an intense conversation. I had just met Traci Lords backstage after a show at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, and she had invited me to a party with her the next night. Nothing sexual happened, but it was an overwhelming experience because she was like a girl version of me—very bossy and constantly playing mind games. Since LaVey had a relationship with another sex symbol, I thought that maybe he could give me some advice on what to do about Traci, whom I was both confused and captivated by.
    The advice that ensued was very cryptic, which was no doubt another way for him to maintain power. The less people understand you, the smarter they think you are. “I feel like you both belong together, and I think something very important is going to happen with your relationship,” he concluded. It sounded more like the result of fifty dollars and five minutes spent calling the Psychic Friends Network than something I expected LaVey to say. But I pretended like I was grateful and impressed, because LaVey was not someone you could criticize.

    He continued by sharing sordid details about his sex life with Jayne Mansfield and said that after all this time he still felt responsible for her death in a car crash because he had put a curse on her manager and boyfriend, Sam Brody, after a dispute with him. Unfortunately for Jayne Mansfield, she happened to be with him that night in New Orleans when a mosquito-spray tanker crashed into his car, brutally killing them both. Although I was suspicious about some of LaVey’s claims, his rhetoric and confidence were convincing. He had a mesmerizing voice, perhaps from his experience as a hypnotist. The most valuable thing he did that day was to help me understand and come to terms with the deadness, hardness and apathy I was feeling about myself and the world around me, explaining that it was all necessary, a middle step in an evolution from an innocent child to an intelligent, powerful being capable of making a mark on the world.
    One aspect of LaVey’s carny personality was that he liked to align himself with stars like Jayne Mansfield, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tina Louise of Gilligan’s Island , who were all members of the Church of Satan. So it wasn’t surprising that as I left he encouraged me to bring Traci to visit him.
    The next day, Traci happened to be flying in from Los Angeles for our show in Oakland. I was badly bruised and banged up after the concert, so she came back to the hotel, where she bathed and mothered me. But, once again, I didn’t sleep with her because I was still determined to remain faithful to Missi, though Traci was the first person I had met who seemed capable of melting my resolve. I told her about my meeting with LaVey, and she gave me the whole Deepak Chopra, Celestine Prophecy , healing crystal, New Age rap about destiny, resurrection and the afterlife. She didn’t seem to understand what he was about, so I tried to clue her in as I sunk into restless sleep: “This guy’s got an interesting point of view. You should listen to him.”
    When I brought her to his house the next day, she was a lot more cynical and self-righteous than I had