I WASN'T FREAKEDOUT OR EVEN SCARED--except maybe by how weird Mia Farrow looked. How didit happen to Rosemary's Baby? Minnie and Abe laid Thalidomide in hermilk shakes to make sure the kid would come out with cloven hands andfeet, absent eyes.
The motive? Roman makes millions byputting the fear of the devil in his batty widow neighbors and a selectfew foreign shmucks. Like a little congregation, but with bigger tithes,less overhead, and a hell of a lot less administrative headache.
"The Greek hasn't coughed up in a while--neither has the Jap. What're we gonna do?"
"I've got an idea! Let's make'm a Satanbaby!"
Doc Abe's in on it all as the necessary pharmacologicalevil in the equation, and decoys like tanas root just add color to theceremony. If god is in the details, Satan's in the centrifuge. Mix itall in with a lot of chanted mumbo jumbo and you've got yourself arock-solid collective hallucination.
"Have you got what ittakes to make a Satan baby?"
"Oh, sure. I'll personallyengineer the diabolical feat."
The demonic apparition in theconception ritual? A man in a gorilla suit. Maybe an old friend ofRoman got the whole mojo started: like the landlord wanted to fuck Rosethe moment he laid eyes on her, didn't care if he had to wear a hairshirt.
