The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesdays happen, buddy.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Already this week have I described to you my plan to line the banks of Dutch Kills with carnivore vegetables and a squirming menagerie of giant spiders, bats, and a truly diverse group of reptiles. Additionally, my plans to acquire and live within a massive battle tank called the “Mobile Oppression Platform” have been discussed.

All of this walking around at night over the last year in particular got me curious about all of these empty “not in service” buses I saw roaming around and inquiries were made. These buses, as it turns out, ain’t empty.

Today, I will reveal a deeply concealed municipal secret – the fact that the MTA provides late night bus service for ghosts, phantoms, and spectral entities. They don’t discriminate based on what sort of disembodied intelligence you might manifest as, the MTA doesn’t, in accordance with NYS law.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The route starts in Brooklyn, at the Cemetery of the Evergreens, and it stops nearby each and every one of the green islands that compose the “Cemetery Belt.” Last stop and turnaround occurs at St. Michael’s in Astoria. It’s a strictly dusk to dawn route, naturally. It seems that the newly minted MTA, shortly after it was created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller back in 1965, discovered that one of the private several bus companies it absorbed was a charter service employed by a Brownsville based Theosophical Society. The line is funded by a covenanted trust fund which this organization had set up back in the mid 1920’s. Contractually speaking, whomsoever the owners of this bus route end up being at any time in the future, they are obliged to run nocturnal service between the various polyandrions of Brooklyn and Queens if they desire access to the surprisingly large amount of money managed by this trust. NYS Law respects covenants and contracts deeply, and financial covenants are virtually immortal. So too, are certain commuters.

As to the veiled purpose, intent, or goals of the Brownsville Theosophical Society or the identity of its mysterious acolytes – that’s lost to time. A century later, MTA is still shuttling the spirits of our ancestors about at night, doing the bidding of the long disbanded BTS. Internally, MTA drops the “Theosophical” from BTS’s Brownsville Theosophical Society designation, and they refer to the line as the “Q-BS.”

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The “not in service” banner on the bus route display screens are just there to keep the living from getting too interested, and the last thing you’d want to do is ride the haunted bus anyway. Haven’t you heard that demon possession is way up since the pandemic hit? I have. Word has it that the driver’s Union demands hazard pay for their members assigned to this route, and that the operator’s booth is armored with medallions, amulets, holy symbols, even garlands of garlic.

Now… the real question is why you would want to create easy egress for the tomb legions to communicate with each other. What benefits are arrived at from this ghastly congress? Where does the bus go for maintenance and how can they know whether or not some distaff spirit hasn’t decided to just stay onboard? How do you handle fare control and ticketing? Who were the BTS?

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.