Book details

  • Genre:fiction
  • Sub-genre:Thrillers / Military
  • Language:English
  • Pages:184
  • Paperback ISBN:9780971055254

Commando X

By Poke Runyon

Overview

As soon as NIGHT JUMP – CUBA was sold, I started working on the sequel. Tony Cuesta's Alpha 66 and Commando L were making news fighting Castro's commies, so I decided on COMMANDO X as the title for my second novel. I created a new character, Captain Rufus "Roof" Bruckman. I based him on myself, Rufus was as clumsy a first name as Carroll, and gave him the Viet Nam War background I missed when I went on sick call at Ranger School. I gathered material from Special Forces buddies who had served there and exaggerated the character of Air America's living legend, "Shower Shoes" Wilson, who originally threatened to sue me when the book reached Viet Nam PXs. We later became pen pals, and I discovered he was a science-fiction fan, excluding Lovecraft. The flamboyant commander of Commando X, Pepe Gordinez, was not based on Cuban resistance hero Tony Cuesta but on my high-school and college friend Sonny Marius Cruz, a Spanish fencing master, raconteur and living image of a romantic-age swashbuckler. Sonny later became an officer in the United States Coast Guard. COMMANDO X was also my debut in the occult. Voodoo had fascinated me since my teenage sailing days, when an old yachtsman told me of landing on a Caribbean island and discovering a French-run asylum for zombies. I later read Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse, collected a Voodoo student's textbook in Panama and used its original sigils for the deities mentioned in the novel. While doing fieldwork in Wizardry in Hollywood in the late 1960s, I was asked by a local necromancer to escort one of his students to a Cuban Voodoo ceremony in an old Los Angeles mansion. To my surprise, the student was Hedy Lamarr—a bit aged but still beautiful. I discreetly referred to her only as "the Princess."
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Description

As soon as NIGHT JUMP – CUBA was sold I started working on the sequel. Tony Cuesta's Alpha 96 and Commando L were making news fighting Castro's commies, so I decided on COMMANDO X as the title for my second novel. Since then, the title COMMANDO X" has been adopted by a Black Supremacist Comic book character. But you can't copyright a title, and I beat him to it in 1967, so COMMANDO X has been returned to me and the Cuban Freedom Fighters. I created a new character, Captain Rufus "Roof" Bruckman. I based him on myself (Rufus was as clumsy a first name as Carroll) and gave him the Viet Nam war background I missed when I went on sick call at Ranger School. I got a lot of Viet Nam background material from my Special Forces buddies who'd done tours there and I exaggerated the character of Air America's living legend "Shower Shoes" Wilson (see photo) who originally threatened to sue me when the book reached Viet Nam PXs (CIA suppressed NIGHT JUMP, but allowed COMMANDO X to sell in Viet Nam). I started a pen pal relationship with "Shower Shoes" finding out that he was a science fiction fan (excluding Lovecraft). My C-46 Brahma bull adventure was actually based on the account of a Caribbean non sked Cargo pilot. More importantly the character of Pepe Gordinez, the Flamboyant commander of COMMANDO X was not based on Cuban resistance hero Tony Cuesta (1926 - 1992) but rather on a high school and college friend of mine, Spanish fencing master and raconteur, Sonny Marius Cruz, the originator of "The Gentlemen of the old-school" credo "who fight duels at dawn, ride to the hounds in the morning, Fight wars or paint masterpieces in the afternoon. Dine at Nine, make love to beautiful women until after midnight and wake before dawn to resume the round." Sonny went on to become an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. He was a wonderful friend and my living image of a romantic age swashbuckler. COMMANDO X was my debut in the occult. Voodoo had always interested me since as a teenage sailing student, I had listened to an old yachtsman tell of landing at a Caribbean island for water and finding a French run asylum for zombies. This was before Wade Davis' Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) came out. Those of us in the Florida yachting community knew zombies were a reality. I had avidly read Zora Hurston's Tell My Horse (1938) and later, Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen (1970). I also collected a Voodoo student's textbook in Panama. The sigils of the deities mentioned in COMMANDO X are from this original source. When I was doing my fieldwork in Wizardry in Hollywood in the late 1960s, I was asked by a local necromancer to escort one of his students to a Voodoo ceremony being held at an old mansion on Union Street in downtown Los Angeles. To my surprise the student turned out to be Hedy Lamarr. A bit aged but still beautiful. It was 1969. I was discreet and referred to her only as "the Princess." The Voodoo was Cuban and they made their gods, or ogouns, in pots filled with plants and other objects. The Boco Carlos took me to his workshop and showed me a Baron Samedi Pot he was making for a client. It was a conglomeration of old rusty swords, rifles, and farm tools. But it needed a human skull to be complete. The client was paying Carlos over a thousand dollars for the pot and he offered to split the proceeds with me if I could provide the skull. I explained that I was a ceremonial magician, not a necromancer, and that the man who had sent us (me and the Princess) was a necromancer who had a connection with the County Coroner and might be able to do the deal. Carlos was satisfied. I never found out the outcome. Neither did I want to. But I also lost touch with The Princess. Ah well, it was an exciting interlude in an urban adventure.
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About The Author

CARROLL R. RUNYON, JR. "Poke Runyon" was thirty years old when he wrote COMMANDO X, the sequel to his first novel NIGHT JUMP – CUBA. He was still active in the U.S. Army Reserve Special Forces, Airborne in St. Petersburg, Florida. He lived in St. Petersburg Beach where he finished the second novel. He moved to California in early 1966 and COMMANDO X was published in September of 1967. Poke signed on with the Swanson Agency in Hollywood and began generating treatments for screenplays while working for a prop-shop as a designer and fabricator (he cleaned out the bubble-making machine for Lawrence Welk). He finally was hired by Carroll Shelby as an automotive industrial artist. Meanwhile COMMANDO X was selling in Viet Nam, but like its predecessor NIGHT JUMP – CUBA, it was suppressed in the U.S. Shelby left California and Poke shifted his industrial art to aerospace, staying with Swanson's. Poke came down with an illness misdiagnosed as an ulcer, and learned self-hypnosis in an attempt to cure it. It was an atrophied gall-bladder from years of eating food cooked in bacon-grease and totally unrelieved by hypnosis. But the self-hypnosis experiments led him into the occult and he began studying Tibetan Tantra; he had already made a study of Voodoo for COMMANDO X, and was aware that hypnosis played a large role in witchcraft and magick. Before he had surgery to remove the diseased gall bladder, which was as big as his fist, he had a vision. He discovered how to conjure spirits to visible appearance and have conversations with them. After he recovered from surgery, he discovered that his method still worked. He decided to establish an occult order, The Order of the Temple of Astarte, to perfect and teach his method. This led him into the study of cultural anthropology. He received his Master's degree from California State University in 1980. He then took all the degrees of Freemasonry attaining the rank of Knight Commander of the Court of Honor in Scottish Rite. He studied the Vajrayogini tantric system under H. E. Luding Khen Rinpoche of the Sakya tradition and received six other Tibetan tantric initiations, culminating in a Kalachakra initiation from His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1985. He has gone on to write and publish numerous books and produce a series of documentary films on Magick and the occult.
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