A PARTICULAR END

“So, wait. The creep realizes he was powerless when confronted by a different terror than his own. But he doesn’t actually redeem himself? So what’s the MOR…”

A whiff of chloroform, it wasn’t much, but the old man had no problem mustering up the strength to tie the young college student after he passed out.

“Write a book about that,” he whispered in a slimey voice.

There would be no further visits. Just another profitable day that ended well: the young man would never leave the retirement home, forever locked away amongst the horrifying visions of Pat Sajak, the poisonous scents of mint candy and the declining sounds of elderly hearts. A real wheel of fortune; this was a great find for the old geezer. He placed the body in the closet and shut the door.

“The moral,” he whispered, “is not every profit can be bought or sold.”

A knock at the door:

“What have you got going on in there, Mo?” asked another geezer.

Mo explained to the second geezer that there was a young man passed out in his closet. He promised to keep him.

“I’ll pay you $50 for him.”

Mo smiled at the thought of an honest day’s work.

Misconceptions Part 7

It was all wrong. Panic had overtaken the October morning. People were calling for the heads of every bank CEO who’d ever cut a cheque since the Mesopotamians financed their first temple. Men were slumped over, their heads buried in paper, and crying could be heard from all corners of the building.

Maurice looked at the security guard who acted like he’s never seen Maurice before – at least, not like this. Maurice knew the man. He knew the scar under his right eye. He knew the look of scaling up a foe. The stooge had once been a petty drug dealer some years ago, but had begun to feel remorse for what he believed was taking advantage of the weak. When his conscience got the better of him, he promptly quit the lucrative drug trade and became a cheap protector of extreme capitalism. Maurice smiled at the thought and then brushed the side of his sports coat as he walked by the man. The guard could do nothing but watch as he passed.

“It’s all gone. The markets have turned to shit!” a trader screamed. “Ink is bleeding everywhere.”

Another man approached Maurice and chucked a pile of papers at him “Here, take them, I don’t want them.”

Yet another man was seen jumping head first off the trade floor balcony; his head made a wooden echo as it hit the ground.

It wasn’t too long that they turned their attention to Maurice. He’d been found out. They must have known how he entered in the room. Of course, it was written all over his black face. And that the man who’s life he taken for money was a friend of theirs. These whities knew. He began to run… but they came running to Maurice asking him to do something. One they surrounded him, they began asking him if he knew what stock was safe; could he give them a tip? Just an old penny in the cap, they joked half-heartedly. Maurice had no idea what they were talking about. But they kept surrounding him and demanding answers. How come the coffee bean traders didn’t march today? Why did the environmental department approve the Appalachian coal mine? Was it safe to buy coke?

“Yes, but only from a trusted dealer,” Maurice responded.

Oh have a heart! One man screamed.

“I’ve had two,” Maurice snorted in slime.

“Come on Jason, come on. Don’t be selfish. We’re all about to get our asses handed to us on a plate in the soup kitchen. Don’t put us in that position.”

They pressed up against Maurice. One man yelled: “Trade – trade –TRADE!” and their transparent eyes went wild, looking at him with desperate hunger, as Maurice searched in to their insides looking for economic opportunity. But there was nothing. It was bankrupt. There was no shame in their hearts. They could have given nothing. And they would have taken everything.

Maurice cowered in the corner of the room. He wanted to slice each one of them. But their organs seemed worthless under this light. There was no market. There was no power in his heart to close the deal.

Misconceptions Part 6

Wiping his face to free himself of the sweet crimson sauce dripping from his chin, Maurice looked at the aorta and could not force himself even if he had to. The day grew in to an old man’s whisper and Maurice wasn’t about to hear its final words before the birth of new born day.

He flicked off the lights…

Saturday… all is well, but Maurice couldn’t be asked to work. He’s couldn’t concentrate. He needed to be on top of all the news. So he read, and read, but only a half story here, a lead there, a stock market graph –

“A stock market graph?” he wondered, flipping the pages of the business section. There were rumours in the Times that the derivatives markets were about to hit a wall and that Sunday night would bring many to the brink of madness. Men would be lost to it all, families destroyed by what bankers were doing. A new term entered Maurice’s lexicon: Credit Default Swap. It was a horrifyingly boring name.

The phone rang for hours. But Maurice would not respond. The collectors would get theirs when he got his. He kept licking his fingers and turning each page as if they had honey and sugar at each corner of the page…

Sunday… Mauice did not sleep a wink. He went back to the fridge and finished the aorta. He had heard of the powerful experience of eating a man’s heart. And he couldn’t argue as he was feeling pretty authoritative on the subject of strength. Maurice had always been very good on this undertaking. But this was different. He was no longer looking to pick up humans in his cab for delivery to slave masters. He couldn’t think of taking someone’s organs at this juncture. No. He heard a different opportunity sing from his heart and bellow out a fine tune.

The phone rang once more…

Monday… the phone continued to ring, but Maurice was too busy getting ready. He wrapped his tie around his neck and threaded a neat Windsor knot. He pulled on his warm ironed pants and shirt and could feel the cool October breeze bounce from the cotton.

He made a coffee. Poured some sugar. Stirred and flipped through the paper once more. Then he admitted, quite proudly, that he was more than prepared.

He took the bus to Wall St. and smiled as he was thinking about all the great things they would say when he told them how he was a real killer on the markets. He would take each of their organs and allow the crimson to bleed all over lower Manhattan.

He couldn’t wait to see their faces as he repeated the horror of East Harlem.

Guilt Laden Intermission

“Wait, wait. So the Wall St. bugger gets his comeuppance. He treated other people like commodities, by trading and selling stock, putting companies out of business on a whim of a trade. So, he gets intercepted on the streets of New York and gets the same treatment by some ghetto-fab mass murderer, who seems to have a conscience,” the Young Man realized.

“You put that lit knowledge to work, my boy,” the old geezer responded.

“Great. There’s ten minutes I won’t have back.”

“Impatience is another result of our cold age,” the old geezer murmured. “But I suppose you’ll be off now. Time to visit another one of us old timers… get through this as quickly as you can. I understand this all too well.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Good. Here’s part two…”

Misconceptions Part 5

The crimson began spilling out of the stomach, the rib cage broken easily. Jason awoke – an unfortunate incident that lead to unnecessary screaming, and a peculiar and deeply moving exchange of looks between Jason and Maurice. The cost of business reasoned Maurice.

A skilled surgeon, it wasn’t long before the screaming was over, the organs out and the deal finished.

“Where did you learn to do that? They don’t teach that kind of art to people of the bush in my country,” said the pirate.

Maurice ignored him and threw the heart on to the operating table, it’s last flutters spewing blood all over the floor.

“Maybe I want that heart. It looks healthy.”

“It’s no good,” said Maurice licking his fingers clean. “You need to move the heart immediately. And since you didn’t want it, I killed it. Now give me my money and get the fuck out of here.”

The sounds of the pipes, taped together with duct tape to keep the water from leaking out, clanked amongst the turbulent silence during the moments just after Asif had left.

There was little left in the dark room except for Maurice and an open body, its foul stench not out of place in this dump; the rotting corpse, already in its silent roar of decomposition, breaking apart at the finger tips.

Maurice arrived at the sink and turned the tap and his mind began flowing consciousness. The hard day had brought its share of work to Maurice. There were drugs to be moved, kids to be fed and men to be picked up. This man who lay before Maurice was a coincidence, just like the unexpected gift of life, his death was a left-field profit. It was his intention to take this man. Killing this man and licking his blood was just the end. Finding him was another matter. Perhaps this man had a wife and children. Perhaps he helped the little ghetto kids of East Harlem get involved in sports. Maybe he was a saint. But to Maurice, he was the next number in his taxi. He was a found cadaver derivative, to be used and discarded as quickly as possible. He was a commodity. He had been used to its full potential. He could have been a pirate’s slave. But there was no interest. There was the party at the East Harlem Hall this weekend. Lots of B-Boys and B-Girls would be breaking dancing to whatever the DJ was sweating out. The car needed to be fixed. And had someone fed the cat? Yes the thoughts kept on coming… until they stopped.

Cool water smothered hands, then soap and a towel. A profitable day had been had.

“All’s well that end’s well,” said Maurice in to the mirror. In the reflection he noticed the heart, and the mirror throbbed. He shook his head. “All’s well.”

Misconceptions Part 4

The guitar played a repetitive riff. It sounded like a broken man on his knees. But Jason was awake on a derelict couch that smelled liked mouldy cheese.

“He ain’t worth shit. I don’t need a white boy. I’ll take the Rolex, the Armani suit and… meh… okay, I’ll even grab the cubic zirconium. But the body you can keep. He can’t work. He soft.”

The man’s voice was deep and gravely tone of African, and sounded like rain on a window pane. It gave the cool and moist air a bite. Jason, unable to grab his bearings, had no idea why he seemed to be sharing a cab. The subject of the discussion was gruesome. And there was a faint scent of scumbaggary in the air. Jason didn't think much of it. This was New York.

“But he’s got organs. Body parts. Things people need on their death bed. Never undervalue what people need the most,” said another voice, this one like the slime you find at the bottom of a toxic barrel.

“I’ll consider it. But the market is flooded with lungs and corneas. You can’t simply flood the market with organs no matter how good their conditions. His heart had better be something. It had better be. But I gots my doubt, naw wa I mean?”

“Yeah, a vrai rico boy.”

“Hey, heard the gov want to make medicare free or some shit. Heard that Obama wanna get that done for da’ people. Some silly Main St. vs. Wall St. mumbo jumbo. That would kill us, homes. Absolutely destroy us. Someone has got to kill that motherfucker.”

Jason heard the conversation and couldn’t have agreed more. Feeling loose, but unable to open his eyes, he murmured a point of view he'd read in the Wall St. Journal:

“Yes, Obama is a commie and he will kill this country. We need a Republican to keep our country going forward: Someone who loves the American dream.”

“Man, I thought you shut him for good,” said the rain voice.

Jason soon felt the sticky texture of duct tape, heard sickly laughter and then the immediate thud of a hammer sticking his temple.

“Hey Maurice, you find that ring attractive?” asked the man with the rainy voice.

Maurice, the man with the slimey voice, had always wanted to have a little more than he had. The former small shop owner and cab driver was rarely satisfied. Yes, having a little more than the next guy in East Harlem was nice but it left him still feeling utterly worthless. He could feel his neighbourhood fall upon his shoulders each day and the load was always heavy. He wanted out. So, he had moved in to human trafficking. It mostly dealt in women, picked up in his taxi and dragged off to this dank warehouse in the middle of East Harlem where they were bid on. Sometimes he would drag men off. These weren’t as valuable. There was only one buyer for men: Pirates – African pirates. Maurice didn’t know how, but somehow these rogues of the sea entered the New York harbour without being noticed. And when they arrived they wanted men to work and whatever else.

“Sure. But you gonna take him or not?”

“What do you mean by ‘take him’?” the man with the rainy voice asked.

“What the fuck you think I mean? I will not own this man by midnight. That you can be sure of,” Maurice said, tiring of this conversation.

The pirate shook his head and began stripping him of his clothes. He pulled out a bowing knife and kissed the tip. The notion was clear. The organs were what he wanted. And he could have them… for a price.

“I’ll do the work myself, Maurice. So it don’t cost what it normally does,” explained the pirate.

“You sure you don’t want to take him and have him work? He seems like he’s gots some grey matter. Perhaps you wanna rethink this a bit.”

The pirate smiled and moved forward with his knife leading the way. His movement was sudden enough that it took Maurice a few nano-seconds to catch up. But he eventually placed his hand on the pirates chest in order to stop him. Maurice could feel that the pirate’s heart was racing. He was unprepared to cut this man’s body parts loose and dump the rest of what was unneeded. The pirate was going to do this, perhaps to save a buck. This would not do. Mutilating this man was one thing, but to make a hash of it would be bad business and Maurice would not deal with a lost product on his hands.

“No, I’ll carve. Each organ is $20,000, but for the heart which is $100,000.”

The pirate complained that this was highway robbery, which made both men laugh a little. The pirate passed on the heart, but took the rest of the treasure with him.

Jason Phillips, a 36-year old stock trader had never been worth more.

Misconceptions Part 3

Racing through the city, a city block a nano-second, the faces degraded from supreme Yankee nobility to pathetic immigrant beggary. That’s what goes on as you head north in Manhattan: you can literally go rag to riches in a taxi cab.

The cab came to a screeching halt at the corner of Park Ave and 110th St. Jason looked outside and felt that there really wasn’t much to do. East Harlem, the decedents of refugees from Hispaniola, Puerto Ricans and Haitians stocking the streets speaking their New Yorker Franco-Latin, were for whatever reason giving Jason the ‘eye’. He kept to himself and knocked on the plastic window that divided him and the cabbie.

“Let’s go, it’s green.”

The cab took its sweet time, crawling through neighbourhood.

Jason looked out the window, his heart racing. His face was fixated on this alien culture. He couldn’t focus. His eyes were heavy. They were struggling to stay open. He surmised that the trading day had taken more from him than he’d thought. He surmised that he would need that rye and ginger as quick as he could get his hands on it.

The cab stopped again.

Jason began thinking that there wasn’t much to do other than talk.

“It’s really all the same. We are all struggling,” Jason said to the cabbie, who seemed to not notice he was being spoken to.

“Look at that guy – the one in the puffy yellow winter coat,” Jason pointed out in drowsy tones. The cabbie looked to his right. “Yes, the crack dealer slanging cat’s pee to the lost and destroyed. I should hate him. I should think he’s destroying America. But how could he be doing that? It’s all quite a shame. If he hadn’t grown up in this neighbourhood with those parents and this preconceived attitude about him, he damn well would have been a fine trader on the stock exchange floor. But the man is a product of his environment and a product has to be moved before it can be worth anything. The longer he sits on this neighbourhood shelf, the longer he’ll keep on collecting money by spreading dust.”

The cab began rolling again and Jason was happy with this thought. That crack dealer was able to cultivate what you could whenever you could. Perhaps drug trafficking was capitalism’s dirty secret, but the drugs would be there without money. They didn’t ban vodka in Communist Russia even if it were harder to come by. But if you couldn’t eradicate the need for vice, you couldn’t eradicate the want to deal.

Jason’s eyes become even heavier. The cab was going even slower. Jason intended to insist on the cab picking up speed, but he could feel his cheeks fill up with cotton balls. He found it agreeable that he should gain some shut eye before the cab arrived at Merci Diner.

His final thought before he took his nap: upon arrival I’ll make sure this cabbie gets full value -- $60.

Misconception Part 2

The taxi cab pulled over the curb on 34th.The windows at Frugal Feliz were dimmed, just like they always were. It was always hard to see what level of activity happened to be taking part inside. So Jason checked his watch. It was 6:30 pm. Just before the dinner rush, he was sure. He handed the cabbie an extra $20.

“With speed like that, my boy, you could be a winner on the trading floor,” he said.

But it wasn’t right. The restaurant was packed. Face after face illuminated the rather dark restaurant and the smiling waiters were scurrying like rats in a cat chase. It was 6:30 pm, but it was still not soon enough.

Jason immediately ran outside to fetch both the cab and his $20, but they were both lost to the New York evening. Upset, Jason called another cab and one immediately found him – an unusual circumstance for even the whitest of men.

“Battery Park Diner, now,” Jason barked.

The taxi sped off, just like the last one. But it kept picking up speed and was soon slicing through the vegetative traffic like a fine knife. Jason screamed “SLOW DOWN!” but the cab driver refused to heed his call and simply kept going and going, the speedometer likely about to burst. “WATCH OUT!” The cab driver peeked back, his green eyes vacant and his mouth fronting a crooked smile. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The car made a quick left and narrowly avoided a young man selling cheap knock offs to tourists on Canal St. It then made a left on Broadway and was at Battery Park in a lightyear.

“Holy shit, what the fuck do you think you were doing? Did you fail the driver’s exam? Is this even a real cab?

The cab driver, a short man with a weathered brown face and those green eyes, simply looked forward, refusing to look Jason in the eyes. Fed up with awaiting a response, Jason looked at the sky, which had become a malevolent rich shade of plum and shook his head. He then smiled.

“Alright, do that again, but this time get me to Merci Diner just after it opens at 7:30 pm. There is $40 in it for you if I arrive in on piece at that time.”

The chariot was off.

Misconceptions Part 1

“Alls well that begins well,” shouted Mark as the stock exchange bell rang over the trading floor… then the inevitable screaming.

“Trade – Trade – TRADE!” bellowed Mark just as the rush of lookers and losers gathered towards the man.

It was September 28th and the world was doing well, and even better was the New York Stock Exchange, the last bastion of old world capitalism.

Jason Phillips looked on the floor and laughed a little. It was so right. All this activity, all this trading, all this money and all of the world at their disposal.

He opened his hand a let a stock slip right out. It was another failing junior mining stocks slip for a proposed mine that wasn’t going to gain traction. The U.S. Environmental Department wasn’t about to give the mine it’s blessing given that it would once again lead to a political quagmire involving environmentalists, residents, competing mining players and politicians whose wheels needed to be greased. And the discovery wasn’t much to talk about anyhow; just another small coal deposit in the Appalachians that might cost more to develop than the profits it would produce. At least that was the scuttlebutt on the trade floor. And while Jason didn’t put a lot of investment in rumours on the floor, he knew enough about the project that at 48 cents per share, it had hit its peak. Trading activity was low on it and no one was going to buy in. Jason sold the stock for 28 cents, just to get ride of it.

“Hey thanks Jason,” said Mark, who happened to be the purchaser.

The final bell rang to end the trading day.

“Absolutely,” Jason responded joylessly before he threw out his hand for a shake.

“Hey, rumours are flying around right now that the banks are about to fail in a major way. There are big meetings down the street and someone said you could hear the CEO of AIG screaming out his window,” Mark informed Jason.

Jason looked at his watch and asked if there was anyway to get to Frugal Feliz on 34th before the real dinner rush hit.

“This could be bad, Jason. If these banks fail – and they might – we could be looking at catastrophic turmoil of the likes we haven’t seen since… well we haven’t seen it; not at least in our time here at the exchange.”

Jason laughed and shook Mark’s hand. He said there wasn’t much to be done if it were true, which he highly doubted.

“Hey look at this,” he said wryly, throwing his Blackberry in front of Mark’s face.

“Ugh, what is that?”

“Two girls and a cup. Now aren’t you glad you know me?”

It had been a successful two weeks for Jason. He had made play after play with exceptional speed and precise moves: coffee beans prices are about to go down? Sionara before anyone’s awoken. Harder gas emission controls and greater bureaucracy surrounding purchasing a truck? That means truck prices would level off. See ya! Big baby diapers going out of business? Give me some of that Proctor and Gamble stock. And so on.

When Jason wanted to sell, he sold and not only sold but sold well. As a floor trader, you had to be exceptionally coordinated with the people in the trading office down Wall St. Like a good wide receiver, you had to be able to read the trade calls, make the adjustments mid stream and then either catch or release whatever was coming your way.

“What a fucking week, Mark. Made some good money. Bonus city here I come.”

Mark’s face scrunched, as if the bitter pill he swallowed contained a monkey’s anus.

“Yeah, well fuck you Jason. I’ve heard some of those coffee bean plantation owners were none too happy with the stock sell off. They are saying guys like you made their crops worthless. I’ve even heard that they are here in the city and will march on Wall St. on Monday.”

“So, Frugal Feliz or no?”

“I’ll meet you there, Jason. But you’re paying…”

The conversations on the trading floor had themselves worn out. It was Friday and the weekend – the City that Never Sleeps weekend – was about to begin.

Mark’s comments had impacted Jason more than he’d have suspected. At times, he’d thought about the effect his trading activity had on those who relied on strong prices to make a living in far flung places where the actions of Wall St. were as familiar as a conquistador to a Mayan. The more he’d thought about it, the more the sensation grew in his heart. It pulsated through his chest and he walked out of the stock exchange looking like a proud general. He had never felt more powerful.

“Where to?” the Cab driver asked.

“Frugal Feliz. And if you get me there before the dinner rush, there’s an extra $20 in it for ya, my boy.”

The taxi sped towards the causeway.

Yes, thought Jason, never more powerful.

Misconceptions

PROLOGUE TO A SHORT STORY:

The elderly man pulled out his iPhone. He shook it a little and smiled at the young man sitting beside him.

“You ever see the horrors of capitalism?” the elderly man asked.

“Well, of course. We know what just happened on Wall St. Too Big to Fail,” said the young man fixing his green army jacket. “It’s just so... immoral. I’d like to start a revolution and return the world to the people.”

“You fight in a battle?” asked the elderly man earnestly.

“No, not as such. I guess you could say my English lit studies are a bit of a battle for a decent grade. And lord knows my arguments with my group for my Collective Creative Writing class is an ongoing war,” said the young man, still trying to make is jacket fit right.

“So no war, eh?”

The elderly man began pushing away on his iPhone, pulling up a recent video he enjoyed. He said that the world was a good deal colder than it was when he was in university. He blamed it on money. The real monsters of the world had always been those who wanted to possess.

The young man approved and added that you could tell, “The corporate world is full of possession obsesses. Fucking Wall St.”

“Wall St. you say,” the elderly man said, placing his iPhone back in to his pocket, “that reminds me of a story.”

“Tell it my friend,” encouraged the young man…

ZERO

THE NOTHING

“The weather this week, fog, Sunday till Sunday. Possibly longer as a warm air system moves through the area.” Announces Tom, the pudgy weatherman with a prop flash light, “…so drive safe!”
RING-RING-RING
“Phil, you have a call.” A pretty blonde girl says handing him the phone.
“Phil here.” He answers
“Hi Phil.” A mousey voice says over the line.
“Sophie?” he says perking up, “How…” he pauses to clear his throat, “How are you?”
“I’m good and you?” Sophia replies.
He turns from the others in the room and leans forward and whispers, “I miss you Sophie, I miss the sound of your voice, your smile, I miss you.”
“I miss you too, Phil, but I don’t miss sitting at home waiting for you.” With a sniffle she raises her voice.
“I know that I work too much and you needed me after what happened.” he says with his hand on his head.
“Don’t bring that up Phil, you don’t know what it’s like to lose a child.” Her voice ever rising with anger.
“Yes, yes I do, she was my baby too!” Phil snaps.
“Then why did you choose your work over me, why did you leave me all alone to deal with it?” sobs Sophia, the quiver in her voice shacks a tear from Phil’s eye.
“I don’t know. I felt so empty. I thought that you blamed me.”
“I didn’t call you to talk about this.” Says Sophia clearing her throat.
“Then what did you call for?” he asks.
“Can we meet?”
“Sure. Where?”
“Come to my office, I have an opening at 5 this afternoon. It’s important.”
“Is this about the man being held there, the man arrested at the town square?”
“Yes, He is here and something is really wrong about him being here. I can’t talk about it over the phone, but I can fill you in when you get here. Bring no one!”

*****

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-
Sophia hangs the phone up and looks at the door, trying to keep her self together. ‘Be professional’ thinks over and over. A few seconds pass, KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-
“Yes?” she barely says.
“Dr. Eastwell, it’s Mina, we have an appointment 4 pm” Mina’s light voice carries through the solid door.
Sophia gets out of her black leather chair and proceeds to the door, unlocking it and then slowly opening the door, “Mina, please come in!” she says rushing the girl in and shutting the door.
“Can I ask you a question?” she says putting on her glasses on.
“Sure Dr. Eastwell.” Smiles Mina.
“The man you helped, you said he sings to you?”
“Ya, at night, he helps me sleep.” She blushes while playing with her hair.
“How did you say you met him?” Sophia sits forward in her chair.
“When I was born, he looked so sad so lonely, I think fell in love with him that day. I knew I would help him one day.”
“Two months, hell two hours ago, I would not have believed you, but I think my mind has changed. The two of you share the same strange symptoms, yet the records show that you’ve had no contact with him as long as you have been here, but....”
“You believe me now? You believe that I am the earth?” Mina interrupts.
“…Well, not that I didn’t believe you, but how is it possible….”
“To be raped by the world? I feel everything, everyone, I’m your mother. I had to fool you I still feel the same way, but I must leave here.” Mina says with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Why must you leave Mina, what is coming?”
Mina looks up at Sophia, her green eye starts to cloud over with blue.“The end”

*****

The white steel door swings open to reveal Zero sitting on the floor with his back to the wall humming with his eyes closed. “General” he says with a sniff to the air. Four soldiers rush in the tiny room with automatic rifles pointed at Zero followed by General Vanoza.
“Col. Lubeck, I see your senses are still intact. Best nose in the business.”
“I’m not in your business any more.” He replies with his eyes still closed.
“Jacob, they will never let you out of here, you know that, right?” grins Vanoza.
“I don’t mind it here. The food is good, the people are nice and I don’t have to hurt nobody to live.”
“You’re an animal, a natural born killer; you can’t be anything else but war machine that I built.” He says stepping forward into the room.
Zero’s eyes open with an icy stare, “No I’m not a warrior. I’m the hunter. I am man.”
“You’re a monster. Just look at the pictures, look at what you’ve done Jacob.” the general throws a stack of photos in front of Zero.
“Stop calling me that, I am Zero the first man, the first human conscience and I don’t need your green vest to hide anymore.”
“Well, now you’re hiding here.” Snickers the general.
“I’m not hiding, I’m waiting.”

I'M ON TO YOU!

Blame it on the fog


there i was walking in the middle of the night through the thickest of all fogs, it reached for the shores to the delta, to the hills and in to the valley. The time was probably 2 am, but the air was still fairly warm, yet cooling g fast, hence the fog. My eye were finding it a hefty task to focus, a blurry vision ride I wish on no person. Just then for the shadows ran a Werewolf, twitching and moaning at a handicapped foot or paw what ever you call it, it was belly aching something fierce and had a way about it that was no good! At this point the beast started to morph into.......you!
I told you to stop being a zombie, don't be an alien,you are a god! you look at me with some discontent in your smile and start to laugh. your chuckle of madness intoxicated me quickly. don't bend over for then, don,t let them bate you.
the gift was huge and at the same time very small, it was a tender kiss of violence that seemed, at the time, to take the wind right out of me. turning in my head; should I accept this gift, this time, this space, this reality? I took the gift! What the hell was I supposed to do?
unwrapping that first bit of paper my mood, my smile changed, and the further i got into it the more my heart started to beat. The mystery started to unravel before my eyes, freedom!
My finger tips began to move in some kind of spastic reaction to my new found treasure. It was great! A new experience, a world of possibility and interest. No one could tell me in that state not even you, of the dangers that lay in wait.
As fast as the feeling came the feeling left again, leaving me sucked dry and washed up, I was an old man, A lesson to be drilled into the students head........THOSE GOD DAMMED VAMPIRES, AND I BLAME IT ALL ON THE FOG!

ZERO

DEAD HAPPY


“Is the patient medicated?” Sophia says.
“Yes Dr. Eastwell, but there is a small problem.” says a large burly black orderly.
“What’s the problem, Ray?” She questioned.
“Well, he seems to have the strongest tolerance to all our sedatives. I’ve dosed him three times with no luck; he’s still wound as tight as a wild baboon.”
The orderly is suddenly cut off in mid breath, “120 mg of lamazipam, and he’s not a vegetable?”
“No doctor he’s in there singing and beating his hands, in rhythm, against his legs and the table.”
Sophia looks up from her clip board, “He’s not restrained?”
“No doctor, when restrained he becomes total catatonic, doesn’t speak, doesn’t blink, hell…… sometimes I have to check if he’s breathing.” Ray says with a hint of concern in his voice.
“I see. Is there anything else I should know about him before I go in to talk to him?” she says in the sternest tone she could muster up.
“Know this…” a ridged voice irrupts from behind the jarred door, “…. His name is Col. Jacob Lubeck, he’s smart, dangerous and has the strongest will I’ve ever encountered in the 23 years I’ve been training special forces personal.” A tall man opens the door, his chest glimmering with meddles. “He’s a professional killer, methodical, ruthless and sadistic, but he grew a conscience so he was pushed out of military and forced to retire his station and command.”
“And you must be Gen. Vanoza?” Sophia says looking back at her notes, “ But , I have all that information here in the file, but the one question I have is, if you let him go then why are you here?”
“He went missing for sometime before the disturbance on the 25th of December where he reappeared and was arrested. I can answer your next question as well….. The military needs information about where he has been and what happened that night? He won’t talk to the military, but he may talk to you.” the general says a matter of fact.
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but I’m not going in there till he is sedated.” Says Sophia
“Your drugs will not work on him; he has built up a tolerance to all forms of sedation and the anti-interrogation training he’s been provided with will stop your questioning dead in it tracks.” He pears out in to the hall and waves, then six soldiers come walking into the room carrying cases of beer and whiskey, then the general bent down and plucked a black suit case from around the doorway. “But we have ways to get him on track.”
“You plan to get him wasted to get information? This is ridicules I don’t have time for this. I’m not helping you suck this man for info by getting him drunk.” Sophia throws her clip board down and starts for the door but is stopped quickly by two of the soldiers.
“Doctor you will be arrested and tried for treason if you don’t play ball.” The general says with a grin on his face, “All you have to do is go in there offer him a drink, a cigarette and talk to him, but do not mention anything about me or the army and you’ll be fine”
“Don’t say anything about the army?” asks Sophia
“Yes, nothing about us. He has a strange form of post traumatic stress disorder that stopped his military career and left him in a child like state removing him farther from reality. So with out any trigger, like a gun, he is harmless and content. But this disorder was starting to change just days before he vanished “
“So, your blackmailing my to be your ginipig?
“No doctor your professional opinion and experience with rare disorders is necessary in our investigation and will be rewarded to the best of the militaries ability.” he says holding the door open for her
“Fine, I’ll do it.” She barks while leaving the room.
A white steel door swings open and shuts just as quick and a young pale man falls back against the door taking a gasp of air “ He wants some pot!” he yelps, “And some Wild Turkey.”
“What?” asks Sophia.
“Pot and Wild Turkey.” Repeats the man, “He kept calling me May, he’s a strange one Doc, real strange.”
No. No pot and what the hell is Wild Turkey? she says
“It’s bourbon...” answers the general as he points to one of the soldiers and snaps his finger send the large camo man off running, “...It’s a type of bourbon and yes we’ll give him some marijuana. It will keep him calm and talkative.”
“This is ludicrous.” Sophia says, shacking her head, “but there is no talking to you, is there? At least the man behind this door is some what ready to fill me in with what is going on here. She finishes grabbing the door handle, turns it and disappears behind the big white door..

*****

“Hello! I’m Dr. Easrwell.” Says Sophia as she closes the door.
“Zero” he says saluting her with a half empty beer bottle.
“Zero, is that your given name?” she asks
“The one given to Me.” answers the lighting a cigarette.
“By who Zero?” asks the doctor
“Not who? What?” he says with a hint of sarcasm.
“What, then, gave you that name?” she fishes.
“The universe.” Zero exhales with smoke.
“Really?”
Zero rubs his head and face with his free hand, “Well, I’m not sure what I’m called now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m the first human conscience, that made me Zero, but the others are all dead now.”
Now sitting forward in her seat, “Who, who is dead?”
“One through nine Sophia” he grins
“How did you know my name?” questions the doctor.
“Jesus was the ninth human conscience, there only nine like a count down. He was destroyed by god, the number one,”
“Wait, let’s slow down. What count down?”
“I was visited by Jesus one night and he told me that I was the beginning and end of the human cycle of conscience. He told me to brake the cycle and end the dogma and old way of soul oppression.” He says butting out his cigarette and lighting another right away.
“God killed him for it?”
“It was horrible; I could feel him being ripped to pieces. He told me before he died that god was trying to take the reins of time and space for another term.” Zero says opening a beer with lighter shooting the cap across the room.
“God killed Jesus? I’m finding this a bit hard to swallow.” Sophia challenges.
“What do you think I’m here for? I killed god!” yells Zero now rolling a joint and shaking his head.
“So if you are the last one left, why do we still exist?”
He licks the glue on the rolling paper, “I don’t know, but it’s my time now. I have to find her.”
“Find who?” she asks as he is lighting up his joint.
“The Earth, she saved me for some thing. The end is coming and I think she needs my help.” He answers with strain trying to hold the pot smoke.
Waving the smoke from her face, she asks “The Earth, who is the Earth?”
He closes his eyes, “I’ll never forget her golden hair, windy smile and those eyes one ocean blue and the other tree green.”
“When did you meet her?” she leans in.
“That night when I killed God, she breathed life back into me. I will never forget her.” he says with a smile.
“Can you tell me about before your visit from Jesus?”
He sits forward, his elbows on the table, as his voice and domineer change drastically, “The darkness? Sure I can tell you a tale of total loneliness and fear, the hours and days of dull pain, or maybe something more along the lines of mental anguish. You want to know about the Demon?”
“The Demon?”
“The Demon is in all of us; it will force a man into a monster in seconds. I was an obedient monster, could kill with out a thought, with out a whimper. That sour apple jolly rancher was my last chance at child hood.”“I’m not following, a candy? How is a jolly rancher with the Demon?”
“When I was seven years old, I was sitting in class playing bingo, thinking about how poor and hungry I was. Thinking about my missing father, my mad sister and tired mother, in wonder of tomorrow knowing that today like every other day, I was a loser. So I sold my soul for that jolly rancher candy and from that day forward I was winning but the world around me was losing out. With in 40 days and 40 nights my life turned upside down.” a tear rolls down his cheek, “Then it happened when my little brother was hit by that station wagon, I saw death come for him. Everyone on the street that day released their demon and since I had no soul I was filled with the human nothing.”
“So, you believe that you have a demon inside you right now?”
With a sip of bourbon he clears his throat, “No, I lost it in an African village 18 months ago on assignment. The brass wanted the place wiped off the face of the planet, but finally, I couldn’t do it. I had been a hired murderer for so long, killing people I didn’t know for reasons that I didn’t care about. That was the day when the only feeling or soul I ever felt in me vanished into the rain.”
“What was the difference in your state of mind at this time; do you remember how you felt?” asks Sophia.
“I could see again, the scum, the whores, the demons they call people and worst of all the army of dead that I was working for. When I enlisted in the army I thought that maybe I could use the demon to help but those vampires sucked me for all of my humanity leaving me a ravenous beast ready to do their bidding. The warrior is dead, no more then a myth of a man without love in his heart. That’s the difference between the hunter and the warrior, love. There is no rage in hunting, that’s what they infected me with, rage.”
“And now, do you feel that same rage?”
“Of course, that blood drinking beast is in the next room, listening, waiting for a good time to test my will.” He says tapping S.O.S. on the wall with a boyish smile.
“Your will?” she squints.
Zero stops his tapping, “He’ll probably cut my balls off, or maybe my tongue, no matter this is my time. I have to find the Earth, before they take her. They know that she is dangerous.”
“Why is she a treat to the military?”
He looks up to the air vent, “She’ll decide by her company who survives the end of the world.”

Food for thought

Now here’s something for you to sink your teeth in to:

Those juicy thighs leading to that sweet fruit; from the appetizing arms to the scrumptious shoulders, her cocoa skin and enchanting lips, dimly aware of the starving eyes which stalk her now, leave us all to know not what waits for her in the shadows.

Her body is a buffet of delight.

I cannot ask for more my dear waiter, perhaps some wine and cheese. As forever I have ate her and done so as I please.

She shall not return the favour, for the favour is all my own to give. Now that she is food, she is about to truly live.

So, let this Dracula eat. And do not stop me now. The dark love that surrounds her, endears my hungry prowl.

10 DOLLAR DAYS

FREEDOM, ITS GOT CHARACTER,
NO CHILDISH BULLSHIT OUT FROM HER WHIPS.
SHE'S A FEVER, A SICKNESS,
YANKING THE MONEY FROM OUR NATION'S POCKETS.
YOU CASHED IN/CASHED OUT,
WISH YOU COULD HAVE SAVED IT?
YOU CASHED IN/CASHED OUT,
THINK OF WHO HAVE TO LIVE WITH YOUR CUT BACKS
AND FORCE FED HEART ATTACKS

IT'S FUNNY, LIFE IS SIMPLER,
OUT SIDE OF THE WALLS OF NORTH AMERICA.
PEOPLE ARE HAPPIER AND HEALTHIER,
MOST ARE PLAIN GLAD TO MEET YOU.
YOU CASHED IN/CASHED OUT,
WISH YOU COULD HAVE SAVED IT?
CASHED IN/CASHED OUT,
THINK OF WHO HAS TO LIVE IN YOUR CUT BACKS,
THOSE ULTRAVIOLET CANCER KIDS.

WHEN KARMA CASHES YOU OUT
BE SURE TO DROP A LINE.
MOST OF US HAVE BEEN POOR
EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES.

STRUGGLE, IT BUILDS CHARACTER
LAST SUPPER, PAN CAKES FROM THE FOOD BANK.
WE'RE HOMELESS, WITH OUT SHELTER,
LEAVING WITH ALL OUR MONEY IN THE GAS TANK.

I'D RATHER 10 DOLLAR DAYS.

ZERO

PRETTY PLANET

Police took a man into custody after Christmas Eve chaos in the city square. Police have not released the man’s name, but witnesses claimed that the man looked a lot like Col. Jacob Lubeck, a missing person from September. Bystander Lou Johns said, “When I asked his name all he said was ‘Zero’ he lost consciousness for a moment then started screaming ‘where is she?’. The cops got there at that point.”
Lubeck’s disappearance was not the only happening of September 9th if any of you recall the “Jesus Mystery” which has taken the world by storm. These occurrences have a lot of people fearing what the future will hold. This is Phillip Watts at CTRNOS NEWS.
“That’s great Phil, looked good, sounded better!” said a small stocky man from behind a T.V. camera.
“Do you understand what we just broke?” Phil asked the camera, “We have to get an interview with this man; we could have the story of the millennium. This could be bigger then Jesus him self.” scratching his chin Phil turned from his co-worker and said, “I need an interview.

*****

“Dr. Eastwell?” says a young girl with golden brown hair covering the left side of her face.
“Yes Jasmina” the doctor answers while fixing her glasses.
“Well…”
“Yes.”
“Well do you think I could go outside for my birthday?”
The doctor looks down the long sterile hallway and shakes her head “ Mina, there is nothing I’d like to do more, but you taking off from the group when we were caroling on Christmas Eve, is not going to let that happen. I’m sorry but your birthday will be spent here with the people you know, all of your friends.”
The girls young face began to twitch as though she were about to cry.
The doctor’s heart sank, “That man you helped could have hurt you, could have hurt us all. We don’t want you to get hurt Mina, it would break our hearts.” she said as her voice begins to crack “Your so close Mina, by this time next year you’ll have a job, a home, and maybe a boy-friend!” Dr. Eastwell says touching the young girls face.
“WOULD DR.EASTWELL PLEASE COME TO DIRECTOR TELLARS OFFICE.” The intercom barks frightening Mina and the doctor a little.
“Well Mina can we continue this conversation during tomorrows one on one session?” asks the doctor. The girl nods and hangs her head.
“I think that I remember that man I helped he looked so familiar...” Mina says quietly.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, O.K.? I have to go to the director’s office before I get in trouble.”
The girl looks up with a smile and asks, “11 am, Right?”
Dr. Eastwell smiles back and then walks down that sterile off white hallway to a door where she swipes her I.D. card opening the door. With one more look back at Mina she exits the ward.

*****

RING-RING “Watts” answers the man into his cell phone
“Jude, its Phil, how’s things.” the voice asks
“Shitty, all the crazies are out tonight, I just got off a call to an apartment building, where a guy ate his girlfriend’s throat… Now that’s a story for you, bro.” he states as turn a corner in his unmarked police car.
“Funny you say that, I need your help.” Phil says
“Yes?”
“I need to know the name of the man arrested in the city square Christmas Eve.”
“I can’t tell you his name Phil, they won’t tell us his name.” answers Jude.
“Who?” asks Phil.
“The Army, they’re all over this thing” Jude says pulling his car over to the side of the street. “I can tell you where he is.”
“I’m listening”
“River view, they’re holding him for a psychological evaluation” says Jude, “There’s no way to get in there, and not even I have clearance. But doesn’t Sophia work at Riverview now?”

*****

Dr. Eastwell walks up to a large oak door and raps at it twice.
“Yes?” a voice answers from the other side.
She opens the door and peaks her head around it saying, “Director Tellars, you called to see me?” she sees the director, a tall balding man in his 50’s, sitting at the large oak desk peering up at her.
“Come in, come in Sophia…” he waves her in, “... I have something very important to ask you. Please have a seat.” he points to a chair and asks, “How long have you been here at Riverview?”
“18 Months director.”
“Please call me Peter.”
“Peter,” she says with smile, “what is this all about?”
He sits back in his chair taking his glasses off and putting them on his desk, “Well, as you know we are holding that man from the city square incident here at Riverview.”
“I’ve heard that rumor” she says.
“Those rumors are true Sophia,” he says sitting forward with hushed voice, “and the military are breathing down my neck to release him.”
“Why is the army involved?” asks Sophia.
Peter takes a deep breath and rubs the top of his balding head, “do you remember the ex-special force officer that went missing in the beginning of September?” she nods “Its him he has been missing for almost 4 months now and they want to know where he’s been and what the hell happened at the city square on Christmas eve?”
“What does this have to do with me?” Sophia asks
“You have done great things with Mina. You know how long we tried to break her amnesia; she no longer has the delusions of being the earth and being raped by the entire world. In 6 months you have, on paper turned her into a well adjusted 17 year old girl. We are hoping you can do the same for Col. Lubeck.” He answers and slides a folder across the oak finish.
“When do you want me to talk to him?” she asks browsing through the file folder an inch thick, stamped “Top Secret”.
“4 o’clock tomorrow afternoon when,” he looks down at a post-it note, “General Vanoza, your military liaison arrives from Ottawa.”

*****

“Nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can that can’t be sung, nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game, it’s easy!” a voice sings out from room 143-1111.
A over weight orderly stomps up to the room looking through the small glass window on the door, “Ha! Quiet in there it’s 3 in the morning the ward is trying to sleep!” He says spotting Zero singing into the air vent. “What are trying to wake up the entire hospital pal?”
“No” he answers, “Just Singing a song, is there something wrong with that/”
“Save it till the morning and you can sing to your hearts content, but right now you have to be quiet, O.k.”
“Right” Zero says then sits on his bare cot and looks to the floor whispering, “All you need is love, all you need is love.”
The orderly struts down the hall humming the same tune only stopping to mutter, “I love that song.”

*****

“Mina, come on in.” Sophia says. The young girl walks in closing the door behind her and sitting down in the chair in front of her desk.
“Hi Dr. Eastwell, sorry I’m a little early.” Mina says looking at her feet.
The doctor shuts the military file she was reading and tucks it under some other folders, “Be sorry for nothing Mina, I was awaiting your arrival”
“Really?” asks Mina with a smile.
“Of course, I promised that we would talk today, and I have good news for you.” Sophia says with a giggle, “But first, I have some questions, you said you remembered the man you helped on Christmas Eve, where is it you believe you have met him before?”
“From long before I got here.” She answers
“Mina you’ve been here since you were 5 years old, so you mean you remember your life before the amnesia?”
“No, this is going to sound strange, but I think I met him when I was born.” She replies in a mousey voice.
“What do you mean when you where born? That doesn’t make any sense you couldn’t remember anything before you arrived here, you have never mentioned this, at all.” Sophia starts off raising her voice in the grips of frustration and bewilderment.
“He sings to me at night.” Mina smiles and touches her cheek with the back of her hand.
“WHAT?” Sophia belts out, then pauses to compose herself. “I Was going to let you have a day pass for your birthday, but this kind of talk has moved you back months in progress, maybe years. I just don’t understand why you’re destroying your chances at freedom Mina?”
“Something is happening to me, I feel the pains again, but when I think of him and hear him singing to me that pain goes away. I don’t want to leave now, not if he is here.” Mina says comb and strong.

TO COME IN FEBURAY............... THE FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ZERO.

The Intervenation of Micheal Johnson

I was doing time in the universal mind.
I was doing fine.
I was turning keys,
I was setting people free.
I was doing alright.
And then you came along,
With a suit case and a song,
Turned my head around.
Now I’m so alone,
Just looking for a home
In every face I see.
I’m the freedom man.
That’s how lucky I am.
-The Lizard King-
I woke up with a terrible taste in my mouth. I think I’ve fallen asleep with a joint tucked tight between my lips like wisdom whispered....I’m on the toilet? it became suddenly clear I had been up for a few days and my poor body gave out under the strain of madness. The clock on the wall reads 7 o’clock. am or pm? and why am I holding a half bottle of wild turkey and razor sharp combat knife(Spanish steel)?I couldn't tell you what drove terror through heart, not knowing where I was or how long I had been here? But just then a tune irrupted waking my nerves......"pleease allow me to introduce myself I’m a man of wealth and taste..........'' I explode, naked, off the toilet like an r.p.g. (rocket propelled grenade) I have to be ready to leave by 8 o’clock! Under an hour! When the intervention of Micheal Johnson kicks off........... The elephant army will take to the roads and fight to forget.
See the art of things is not a talent, trick or skill, if one looks back at the furthest reaches of art, it's as an entity has been an expression of personal growth through love, pain, guilt, ect......but one thing remains true, one MUST drag him/her self upon that trapezoid mistaken blade of life to honestly create a tangible scare......whether paintings or children, all the same! What art? There’s an art to anything (killers, mechanics, babysitters, low-lives......but what, my estranged everyday heroes, makes an artist? 20 mins till my lift drops in, and hope private parts and major jennirator are in driving condition....I start back throw the war room and into the house to fix another round, then a person appears out of the water closet....a young lady.....the bottle drops from her hands and foamishly shattering before she could scream...who is she?....why this reaction?..Then I realize that I’m still in my birthday suit.........
She must be one of the numerous people i offered a couch to last night. ''go ahead, crash here !'' the back yard must be filled with what, at first, would look like partied out hippies ,vets, cops,.........and Richard Millhouse Nixon.....for one night my generation ,the wasted youth, ... generation hang over got to live life as if they had no idea....no aids, no bad trips, no repercussions for there actions and with Vietnam in our minds ......no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no north Korea ..........for one night we lived it, April 27th 1968........and we were safe ........this was my only birthday wish.....peace and understanding for the whole night........12-14 hours of acting as our parents did but knowing full well that the next day we’d have buck up and deal with the mess that we made.....yet the generation of the sixties and seventies never cleaned up. Never said ''sorry''..
Her scream was so loud it even woke the village of tenters in the back yard, not to mention the five or six slumbering souls right in front of me. The horror filled the air like a thick, and in this moment, transparent fog.
…….Nothing strikes terror into the heart of a person more then the sight of a naked man with a firearm….. For instance, the head line “A man held a group of nuns at gun point.” Isn’t so bad…It's rational, almost understandable, but throw the verb “nude’ in there and the stakes just got higher, but no one can fathom why one must be nude to brandish a hand grenade...How could this kind of misunderstanding happen? Why is this spotlight always reserved for me? Or those like me? Choice…… Free will, if you will, one has the choice to be what ever they feel they are, if no one gets hurt. Or do they, do I? This is pushing the fence a little, even for me; some one could get psychologically maimed, but the good doctor once said that the edge is out there and the only those who go over know where it is….. I found it!
“Well’ I said pulling the pistol from its holster with great awe of the on lookers and fired three shots out the nearest window “Time to go.” The shook of the situation glued their feet to the floor.
With not quiet a smile I bark “NOW!” That was the trigger friends, not the gun, no……. my wild smile. With in 15 seconds the room, let alone the house, was empty.
Now I can properly round up my supplies for this mission. Got to have the Chivas and Wild ale ginger turkey, the salvia, mushrooms, a body bag, ski goggles, tape recorder, hash, oil, an oz. of pot, compass, 7 apples, 12 cantaloupe, L.S.D., riddalin, codeine, 6 pens, 2 notebooks, some homemade opium, maps, 3 cases of Budweiser, 24 bear bangers, 28 feet of electrical wire, a 9 volt battery, ¾ of a lb of black powder and enough D.M.T. to get you to heaven.
I throw a pair of pants on in the nick of time, the major is here, and mad as hell.
“What the fuck is going on here?” she’s 6 mins early and heard the shots-saw the stampede-caught a ricochet in tire……Like I said mad as hell.
“Crowd control” I say with a smile.
“Stop being cute, those poor souls are probably calling the cops as we speak. I can’t afford this kind of bullshit.”
“Relax. It had to be done the fate of the mission depended on it. They were all traders any way.” I call off putting on my boots. “I had no choice.”
“No, you have to understand, your not working alone on this one.” she says holding her hips.
“Lets change that tire before the general, captain Benzo and private parts get here. Agreed?” she nods and we exit closing the light out of my basement suit.
Unfortunately the bullet lodged itself in the brake disk, rendering the golf city useless. So we formulated a plan to cover ourselves, legally, for what has happened and all that waits.
We dosed the car in gasoline, motor oil, toilet paper, old clothes, 2x4’s, paint, and everything illegal in the house, made a trail of equal parts gas, oil and sawdust. Good thing I live so close to Surrey the police will be looking for some meth-crazed rapist that showed up at the party last night. A naked lunatic with a gun not the 20 something that lives there for all that the people there last night knows we where taking off the next morning for “Victoria”, code for Kelowna.
Just as the trap is set the General pulls in, we load the car and the Major climbs in with a smirk on her face. I bend down, light the fuse and fall into the car laughing, “Go, go”……….Pulling on to River road a grand sexplostion. One for the books……it was history and took almost to Hope to explain.

*****

“Put that out you freak!” the General calls back at me over the music.
“Why? I’ll take full responsibility for everything in this vehicle just as long as you say I kidnapped you guys and that I’ve been talking to myself the hole way….” I pause, “… and crying, tell’em I’ve been sobbing and sweating.”
“Fine, smoke your dope, just keep it down.” General Peabody is the rational, the reason of the Elephant Army, providing the best intelligence and mission planning in our line of work. Private parts is a hidden gem, willing to serve as transport on these dangerous trips to the other side of reality, the gritty trail of truth and mania. She is a very small figure like the Major, but not as loud. The only way to explain Major Jennirator is to pack as much c-4 and napalm into a tube about 5 feet tall, light it and run like hell. Besides the General, I’ve known our communications officer since it was only your narrator holding the Elephant Army flag. She a spy, the best of the best, her beauty and intelligence can get her almost anywhere.
“So, Benzo is meeting us where?” says the Major
“Elk Heart lodge.” Answers Peabody.
“Why?”
“He’s covering the soup cooking competition held there every year”
I take 4 T3s and wash it down with some beer and say" I love soup, it's easy to digest."
Then at the same time the entire car irrupts in laughter" Gable, are you even conscience?" the Major giggles.



EAT THIS! ELK HEART


“O.K., Sir. Your out of here!” a burly man in a smock said pulling my face out of a bowl of chicken minestronni soup. Coming to like this is an awakening I don’t even wish upon my mortal enemies, clowns, apes, dolls and this big middle classed redneck oaf. The codeine effect had been elevated by my blood-alcohol level forcing my limp soul to watch in terror being “handled” like this over grown toddlers’ security blanket, hugged, pulled and thrown about the room. The unholy bastard probably had it out for me the moment I walked in the joint, reeking of bourbon and dope, images of me putting a cigarette out on his teenaged daughter’s nipple while taking a shit-piss on his wife’s naked chest most likely made him pull me, violently mind you, from my soupy slumber. And out the door, head over heels, I left Elk Heart lodge and met the warm morning pavement, and loathed my ejector with every morsel of my being. I knew his paranoia; I’ve seen it many times before, the savage mind state of Mr. Everyone, all sexually despicable dreams of things he wants to do only he is afraid of the act. So afraid that the act becomes erotic and at this point he has given his ego my face, because lets face it, the human animal wants power… and nothing more.

THE HAND OF GOD

“Let us pray,” said the Preacher.

“Amen,” shouted everybody in the known universe.

“Children of God,” he continued, “only the righteous shall be chosen by Him, to do His Great Work in the Other World.”

“Amen.”

“Only he or she who is clean in mind and body and spirit shall be chosen by Him, to do His Great Work in the Other World.”

“Amen.”

“His Divine Hand shall pluck only those whose spiritual path has led to great righteousness. He will only deem worthy the good sheep from the flock. So, the time a-comes when every human being in the face of the known universe must ask themselves: am I a-ready for the plucking? Can I get a hallelujah?”

“Hallelujah.”

The great lid of the known universe was lifted then, exposing the dark world beyond. The inhabitants of the known universe were whipped into a zealous frenzy, running on their treadmills, pacing, collapsing, speaking in tongues.

The Preacher fell to his knees, kissing rosary beads, whispering, eyes closed, clutching a hand-written bible. He could barely hear himself shouting over the din, “take me, oh Lord, take me.”

The mighty Hand of God reached into the known universe from out of the blackness and scooped up a particularly righteous soul whose eyes streamed tears of joy for being chosen and tears of pity for everyone who wasn’t.

In a moment, the parishioner and the Hand of God, were gone, and the lid was put back on the known universe.

The Preacher also wept, tears of self-pity.

***

“Won’t you join us for feeding time, Minister,” asked Tippy, one of the Preacher’s favored disciples.

“No,” the Preacher said, “I’d like to do a little bible study today. I’ll feed later.”

Tippy bowed respectfully, but with unreserved disappointment.

“May the Hand of God bless you, child,” the Preacher said, and escaped into the quiet of his personal corner of the known universe.

Two weeks had gone by, and in that time the Preacher seethed internally. His mind burned and his soul became wintry. The Preacher was unquestionably a most pious man, the most pious of men, in fact, in the known universe. Yet, he had not been chosen.

He seethed.

He was older than most and had written the bible, by hand, spread the Good Word, and still he was ignored. He had always gotten by on the belief that he was spared because he was needed to do God’s Good Work, spreading the Message, preparing the souls of his parishioners as the mortician prepares the body for interment. But now he questioned his beliefs.

He was jealous. Secretly, he was beginning to hate the Chosen for the less than convincing ways in which they showed their faith, and for their role in his personal torment.

The Hand of God would descend from the heavens the very next day, so the Preacher made a vow:

“If I am not chosen tomorrow, I renounce my faith.”

***

Feverish rapture and glossolalia gripped the inhabitants of the known universe, everybody running pointlessly around the inner courtyard, falling over, hands raised to the sky. The Preacher tried something new.

He had always fell reverently to his knees, when the Hand of God appeared. This time, he would allow the joy of exultation to flow rapidly through him, starting in his toes and overflowing from his reaching fingers. He had nothing to lose this time. He stood in the center of the courtyard and raised his arms up to the sky, believed like he never believed before that his faith was a magnet. His heart swelled, the tears streamed down his face, his legs worked, jogging knee-high steps in place, he twirled around and cried out, really letting go. Certainly, the most pious man in the known universe was never more pious at any time than he was now.

The Hand of God reached down and gently scooped him up and raised him up, up toward the dark mysteries of the heavens, the unknown universe beyond.

He waved goodbye and called out to those below as was raised up, weeping uncontrollably, blowing respectful kisses.

“Thank God. Thank God, thank God.”

***

The Hand of God placed him inside another world, another universe, not dissimilar to his own.

It was the same size roughly, but mostly barren and rocky, with no treadmills or living quarters. Just different kinds of rocks, large gray ones, and small red ones.

He wandered about for a frenzied moment, wiping tears away, thinking. Another world, he thought, this must be the afterlife. Perhaps it’s a world all for me, to sit and ponder the mysteries of life and God for eternity. Or maybe it’s heaven’s waiting room. I must wait, while God looks into my soul and does a righteousness inventory.

He smiled, and sat down on the rocks, calmly.

The red rocky floor shuffled around one of large gray rocks. He sat up, and went to investigate. This must be it, he thought, God’s messengers come to take me to heaven.

He felt the tears of joy well up in his eyes again. He got half way over to the rock and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh no,” he heard himself say. “Oh dear God, no. It can‘t be. I have been forsaken!”

From behind the large gray rock, a gigantic creature, not found in the known universe, slithered hungrily toward him.

The short history of Captain benzo369 part 2

The Colonel said the bazooka didn’t happen and that it was up to me to fight false memories of things that never happened. I wasn’t so convinced. The words he used for those made no sense at all. “Nope. No bazooka. That was yesterday and today is today.”

The way he said it and the way his wild saffron eyes were so confident about what he was saying… it left me so that I really couldn’t say whether or not the old man died or if he was shot at all. And apparently we never did run.

“Psycho,” I whispered, afraid of the results.

The Colonel responded by describing a very semantic story of how many people had called him many things in his life. He said in school he had been called Gearzo the Weirdo. In High School he had been called a Gearzo the Menace. As an adult he had at first been called a Criminal Gearzo but he then upgraded it to be known as a Terror Gearzo.

“While all those names are flattering I am now the only Cooolllnell Gear-Zo,” he said in such a voice it almost made him seem feminine. But I wouldn’t go further than that idea for he told me that he expected to be treated with the respect a man with such a title deserves.

I was just glad to be in such illustrious company.

Saturday was over. It was now Unday, not Sunday – that was the old name not the real name. Today, he said, was the day we bring it back to scratch. And he was now in pair of ski goggles that sat oddly on the crown of his bald head, and he wore black track pants and a white dress shirt and… well the rest was just as ridiculous as the first.

He began leading me down Main Street, running people over rather than making way for them. He didn’t say sorry and he didn’t say “excuse me” but he said absolutely nothing at all, like it was normal to bowl people over.

“You must forget everything you were ever taught about yourself and the world around you.”

“Oh so this is some self-help s…”

“NO!” he interrupted before he began to speak in tongues of which man is not receptive to hear, in which perhaps the pitch is meant for dogs or some other form of higher specie. “This is not what you think it is and it is what you think it is but you need to understand it yourself by forgetting it yourself, that my good recruit is the reason you are here and not pouring yet another Mocha-Cocoa-Chocolate-Ice-Cream-Soy-Latte, hold the foam on a weekend morning.”

The Colonel then pulled out a long white joint and sparked it right on Main St. – right in front of a gaggle of lost women, who for one reason or another, thought it a good idea to ask The Colonel for directions.

The Colonel looked at his watch and then took a puff…

“You ladies need to find your own way. I’m not recruiting tourists right now. Not that I wouldn’t. I would. It’s that you don’t seem to know where we are headed.”

The women numbered three and all six eyes seemed to do a loop-dee-loop then made like a roller coaster out of there.

“Did I ever tell you the story about Crabmonster?”

“Well, no, we just met.”

“Listen here, everyone has heard of General Crabmonster.”

But of course no one had heard of General Crabmonster, much like no one had heard of The Colonel, and much like I still had no answer for the pink boa and Titillating, but now no answer for the ski goggles and black track pants, and there was no reason to answer this rhetorical question either.

“The story of General Crabmonster goes like this … puff … the General wasn’t always a General but instead was general like you, very generic and not too sure of himself. Oh there were times when it all came together and the whole village would gladly share in their glee for him, but on the whole he sucked … puff … Then one day he woke to see his stomach four feet from his chest and his moustache crawling under his chin. It was then he realized he could no longer rise himself from bed – not that there was much for him to rise to. I mean if you had seen his Dad, a mullet wearing, “’Sup bitch” saying, no good welfare cheque cashing, redneck you would remain in bed too.”

“And then you burst in?”

“No…puff… I wasn’t stalking him. The point is the lowest of the lows were hitting, Dad had put ‘Highway to Hell’ on its fourth spin and you just can’t put up with that crap even when you are convinced that you would never move again. Eventually his Dad opened the door and laid down the law on the grey inside of a cereal box, “I’m go to C Henry band COVER BLacK n Black at Johnny Bs. Be up and out when’s I’m back or that it.”

“It was as if the law had come from the inbred bastard son of stupidity himself. It was written and now it gon’ be. That was how much the power of words had liquidated, just like the stock market in two years, sure bet. And the embarrassment was too much for the General – he began to cry. After an hour more of self-pity, he took a peak at the letter and read it over, six, no two hundred times.”

“Two hundred times? You’re exaggerating.”

“Hey, who was there, me or you?

I looked at him like a monkey looks at car keys and wondered what strange place he came from. I hadn’t noticed until I was standing right there, but we were in a vacant lot that was surrounded by four buildings, which had been built with different material – concrete, brick, wood and one that looked like it was made of slime.

“… each time he read the note, it made him angrier. I’m go. C. BLacK n Black. Through the absence of grammar he knew those words should have never had strong control over him. What had he been doing? He had acquired a new found energy, as if an angel of hate had come down from Viagra heaven and spiked his dink with truth. His Dad’s words were no more full of truth than a hound playing dead. Crabmonster had had an epiphany. That son of a bitch got out of bed ran across the street naked and kicked the crap out of his Dad in the bar with a million people watching.”

“A million people saw his testies?”

“…puff…Yup and the band was playing a Whole Lot of Rosie, not bad timing if you think about it.”

As the day progressed I soon came to realise we had reached our destination. We weren’t going anywhere. Spending more time with the Colonel, I became convinced that even if this man was odd, he was odd in a motivating way – like a kick to the balls. To be sure, I had found a man who would challenge every belief I held. And I wanted to hear more. I had time, he said.

“You no longer have a job.”

The short history of Captain benzo369 part 1

“Well ain’t that a blast!!!!” The Colonel screamed over at me. “Just like me and the General used to do back in ‘Naaaa’mmmmmmmmm.”

The words of Col. Gearzo rang through my ears like an unrelenting choir, whose teacher had drank far too much Bacardi 151 until the choir knew, like we knew, that there was no end to the note. The Colonel was joking of course. He’d never been to ‘Nam. He was born twenty years too late to get involved. Heck, he’d never left the country. But when you make your own history, memories tend to go this way and that way on the turn of a dime.

The Colonel was at the top of the food chain and it was his lead that we followed unquestionably. The thing about making it to the top of the food chain is you got to keep eating, lest you get replaced by the bigger, chunkier animals waiting in the wings. And those suckers ain’t no elephants neither, as the Colonel likes to say safely behind his desk as he cuts up our organs like they are no more than Papier Marché , grinding and cussin’ and sweating and busting… our… balls…

We we’re hunkered down behind the science shelves. The Colonel had thought this was the best place to start, to burn every single page. Perhaps he was right but he had forgotten one little detail, which was just like him. He had forgotten the fake soldiers.

The door swung wide open and the first fake soldier to burst through came at us like Indian from one of them old western movies, his eyes slanted and his nightstick about to swing down on us like a tomahawk.

“Ah ged doWn, yoU. Dis if a wobbery!!!” Gearzo had slipped his grammar into some sort maddening, fucked-tooth soliloquy that had me thinking this man was nuts, fucked up, insane, more loco than a runaway train… he was the man who might save the whole world but he wasn’t going save us with a poem.

That’s when the fake soldiers came at us one by one, their shimmering badges hanging on the winter afternoon white shirts they were clad in. These men were ready to break our balls in fours and “sUUU, gid damn it,” we were ready to do the same, one-by-one, we were ready to do the same……………………………………………………………………..

It was a Saturday but it was a work day and you got to keep working hard amongst the curious unless you like being asked why you hate your job, why you got to cop that attitude, why you didn’t buy that alarm clock, why for god’s sake –why-why-WHY? There were no answers to the thoughtless questions and so instead you had to keep working through every one of them even though it was Saturday.

The first set of customers came rolling in at 8 am searching desperately for a hot espresso with proper crème, a thick yellow film that sat like foam on top of thin black shits-inducing caffeine motor oil to get their pretentious engine roaring. Then, once the rrrrrrRRRRusshhh was over, the not-so golden oldies crept in looking for peace and quite to go with their pea soup.

“Ummm…uuhhh…ERHUGH! Where do you keep your breakfast sandwiches?” an old Enlgisman asked me, the brush growing out of his ears would have made a deer feel at home.

“Right in front of you, there is a whole…”

“Oh… k… I’ll ERRHUGH...” Don’t die on me today old man, please don’t you expire here, just slowly turn the starter and we’ll be ok… gently…“have… ERRHUGH…” I didn’t know how long we had or if he would ever get to order that breakfast sandwich, and I was about to slowly dial my manager to come help out, when the colonel walked in wearing a pink boa and a name tag below his belt buckle that read Titillating.

“A sandwich is the last thing you need,” he said looking at me, meaning only me, “what you need is an escape clause.”

“Pardon me?” asked the old man, glancing slowly over at the colonel.

“Your Alive! You almost gave ME a seizure but yes an escape clause, Suuu, gid damn it! He needs to get out of this place hard like a lead-coated parachute.”

The thing about the colonel is he don’t hold back for nobody. He will let you know right there and then that he plans to tell you something real important, so you, you old Englishman, you better open your hairy ears.

The colonel stood on the counter and looked down at the old man with wild saffron eyes. He then looked at me with those same eyes. He then looked at the ridiculously long horizontal mirror that stretched 3,000 light years down the room and saw those very same crazy wild saffron eyes in the future, the past and the next dimension and began to murmur and then stutter that this was it, me and the old man had to see him at work… we had to use our escape clause now.

“Now just you wait… ERRHUGH!!...”

“My gid man, you can’t wait that long. Gid your ass out that door.

“You too let’s get a moving,” he said pointing his right index finger straight at my nose.

He was a soldier, of this I had no doubt. Sure he might have worn bell-bottom jeans and a orange dress shirt.He was the 70s. That's how you knew he was a real elephant. You can’t fake being that crazy, fighting against the winds of progress. But the Colonel was pro at it. He could summon his powerful mind to stop time and live like it were 1993 if he wanted. Sometimes he was crazy enough to put on his walkman and drink a clear Pepsi and could you blame him? What did 2007 have to offer? The year of the dolphin was a runaway train of economic deceit, Internet porn and little thing called Virginia Tech massacre. You got to be able to beat that, and lets face it kids, that was not a hard thing to do.

“I don’t know if I heard you right,” I said.

“WELL OF COURSE YOU DIDN’T HEAR ME, YOU TAINT,” he yelled. “YOU… you got to join the army before you can really hear anything at all.”

“Well we moving it or not old boy?” he said to the old man.

“Now, now just you listen… ERRHUGH!... I remember you.”

That was when the Colonel shot the old man with a bazooka. It seemed completely unnecessary for him to do that. But my reaction to it was equally unnecessary – if not emasculating.

“Run!”

PENNYFARTHING

Marvin Allison could channel surf from ten yards away. Christ, he could do it with his eyes closed. Beer in the cup holder of his folding canvas lawn chair, bag of pretzels propped up against one of the legs, this was his battleground. The battle against boredom. And it was no match for him and his TV.

He surfed through all the channels, even the highly specialized ones, only stopping briefly on those with a greater chance of nudity. And through all the clicking, he managed to predict the plotlines of all the shows with amazing accuracy.

The only programs he didn’t enjoy were sports related. They were harder to predict by their nature. His accuracy fell to about sixty percent when deciding the outcomes of sporting events. Not a high enough accuracy level to lay money down, and the dialogue was mostly incidental, with none of the glimpses of real life conversation captured in scripted television.

Marvin sat back in his seat, sifting backwards through the thirties, Showcase, MMM, TLC, CNN, A&E, when he caught out of the corner of his eye a distracting flash of white light beaming from his brick fireplace.

The phenomenon lasted for perhaps less than a second, but it was enough to mess up his whole surfing timetable. When the light hit its apex, a mustachioed man in a dull gray suit on a pennyfarthing, crashed violently in his palm-smeared far wall.

Marvin was stuck on channel 31 for almost as many seconds. It was all in all, one big unscheduled disaster. He'd get back to surfing, he decided, after this short break. He promised himself he wouldn't go anywhere.

***

“I already know how this is going to end,” Marvin said, tending the bewildered man’s head wounds, “just put a cold beer on that bump, there. It’s going to end in one of two ways.

“Obviously, what's happened here is you've traveled through some sort of rip in the very fabric of time." He belched great ripples up his esophagus, then continued, "Something has wrenched you from your rightful and natural home. From the look of your style of dress and mode of transportation, I'd say you come from some time around the turn of the last century. Some powerful force was at work here, and I've got no idea how to send you back. I've got a pretty strong link-up to my satellite provider, so that may have something to do with what brought you here, but I'm not a scientist," he rested his beer on the shag carpet, "so I won't speculate on such matters. But my calculation for the outcome of this program is as follows: There’s a twenty percent chance you’re going to go to some kind of historical society, a museum, or university or whatever that specializes in your time period, and be ridiculed as a hoaxer or crazy nut after which you will die most likely either in a ..." he stretched out this bit really emphasizing his mental prowess in the field of prognostication, "... mental hospital or in some back alley, penniless.”

“My, oh my," the man with the pennyfarthing said.

“Yeah, but, I’d say there’s an eighty percent chance you’ll catch some new disease that you have no natural defense against and die within 48 hours.”

“Oh dear.”

“You haven’t even been hit with the influenza epidemic where you came from, have you?”

“Epidemic?” the man from the rip in time said groggily, "I don't remember that."

“You would, pal. Face it, one way or another, you’re history.”

And now, Marvin thought, back to my regular scheduled programs. He settled back into his lawnchair with his remote. Marvin was nothing if not a good adjuster.

***

Alfred (the man’s name was), had struck a deal with Marvin. Marvin dusted off his matching lawn chair from the back of the crawl space and now had a TV companion. Alfred was endlessly fascinated by the pictures, but endlessly baffled by the unrealistic situations blaring at him from the set. Also, it was impossible to follow the programs blazing by. But, he was a good student, and put his astonishment aside, for his true purpose was to study the ways of men of the future.

As a man of honor and some good-standing where he had come from, Alfred wanted to pay Marvin back for his hospitality, despite the fact that the food from the future was largely unfit to eat. Even the vegetables had given him terrifying bouts of diarrhea at first. But, Alfred was a good adapter too and after a short time, feeling slightly acclimatized, found a job as an actor at Fort Michlin, which had been turned into a kind of museum. Though the air still made him cough until he was hoarse in the throat, it wasn’t enough to hold back his charm during the interview.

***

The thing that struck Marvin as most strange, while he was out on his daily chores, was how he had been wrong about what was coming. Were his instincts not as sharply attuned as they once were? Maybe he wasn’t paying enough attention. No. He decided that the thing was, he had a routine going, a damn fine routine and that blinding white flash was the thing what ended it.

So, that’s all it takes to ruin a good routine, he thought. That’s it, just a millisecond. From now on, I’m doubling my effort. I’m sleeping on the chair. I want to know what happens, goddammit, I want to be sure.

The strain of mental ranting made Marvin cough violently. He was feverish, delirious. Why hadn’t he noticed until just now? He noticed he had been coughing when he visited his mother and went to the bank, the supermarket, but it hadn’t been that bad. When he got his coughing under control, he went to the bathroom mirror and found his palm was covered in thick dark red mucuous, his face was covered in bumps.

***

When Alfred came home from work, he found Marvin curled up in his chair, huddled in a blanket. Only his head and right hand, with the remote control were visible.

“Alfred,” he said, “what’s happened to me? I’m sick as a dog. I can’t stop coughing and I’ve got the worst case of the shits.”

“Hm,” Alfred said, “that’s funny. I was just getting over that. But, they were working on a cure for the Dennison virus when I left the 24th Century for the future, they must have found a cure for that by now.”

ZERO

HAPPY X-MAS, SON



The trip to the market, hours later, was shear madness. Our time together has opened Zero’s eyes. We started out the door and were met by his landlord, a thin elderly man named Jim Bone. But, to Zero, yesterday Jim was 25 not 70, this was just the start. Jim didn’t bat a lash at Zero scaring him to the soul.
“I went to school with him, what year is it?” he asked.
I told him, “Years don’t matter anymore. The composition of your spirit has changed, your not like them any more.”, and maybe I didn’t come across the way I intended.
“So I’m invisible to every one?”
“No, we move faster then a new soul. You have moving and living faster for years. You thought you were trying to die young, but you’ve been running backwards. The truth is that you, like all immortal spirits, are able to live in the moment. The moment is yours Zero!”
He pauses, “Wait, wait, wait…. Sssooo, your saying that if I stop and live somewhere, as long as I live in the moment, I can be normal again, but I would live forever?” he smiles.
“Well, Jesus, it’s settled! We are going drinking….. And, mercy on this city.” Zero belts.
“Remember that when places and people begin to feel and look out of sorts, be afraid. I do not know how your mind will take it.”, he didn’t knew how far that bar would be.
The two made their way down the street, a small town type of street. For Zero, reality was setting in, and coming fast.
“The season is changing every block?” he asked almost as a statement. “Time really is relative. This is splendid!” He threw his hands up in the air reaching for snow flakes like a 165 lbs toddler. Showing signs of delirium and laughing in hysteric he sat right there in the snow. His laughter then turned to sobbing as he began to break down before me.
“It’s painful, isn’t it, feeling everyone in the moment?” I say downwards to him in a mocking way.
“No... It feels great I feel like everyone else. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything but terror.” his eyes filled with tears and a weakened smile upon his jaw, he looked up and said “I’m a monster. I’m the end of all this.”
After picking him up and brushing the snow off him, we walked season by season, block by block, talking about all forms of things. Mostly about love and the life we have had, or the lack there of. Five or six years latter we arrived at the bar of choice. A dark little hole in the world, the resting place of the most terrible demons, in one dimension of time, it was likely to have been the trendiest of dives, but today, in the moment violence, tyranny, rage vibrate from the establishment.
“It might be a little rough in here…” he says pulling me behind him, “…let me do the talking and don’t show any fear.”
I nod as he pushes the door open to his own personal bliss. The room is filled with beautiful women and the whiskey is flowing like mountain creeks, ice cold. The Animals on stage, playing “Don’t let me be misunderstood”, flashing lights and pure and joyful craziness, I could tell that Zero felt at home. Yet every set included a newer band or singer, time grew that fast, and within an hour he and were sitting basically alone. He was slumped in his seat pouting a little, when his head rose slowly.
“We,” he said kind of smiling, “I got to see the best of ‘em, Janis, Jimi, The Doors, more music then I could ever imagine.”
“Yes, you really got to see the life you thought was yours, but what happened to the fans?” I ask pointing a finger to the empty stage “They became politicians, lawyers and tyrants. That ‘love’ was cheap and self involved, with nothing behind it!” The patrons stare spitefully.
“All you need is love….” he answered with a twinkle in his eye. “……did you ever fall in love?” The question raised the drink in me. I couldn’t help it, his face was so understanding and full of help, and he could see and feel the torment of my soul.
He asked, “Please tell me about that real love….”he paused and looked into my eyes “I know you have loved… I can see it in your eyes?”
With out lying I said “She was everything. After all these years I’ve always loved her.” His face dipped as he looked to the floor. He looked up and said “Mary?”
Holding back tears I answered “That’s mine!” I sat in silence for a moment “You’ll know Zero, when it happens, you’ll know.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’ll know’” a small pause “How do you know how lonely a man can be? People like me can find someone.” He took a strong pull off his Wild Turkey and Ginger Ale and with a quick snifter of Budweiser he concluded, “Tell me, how dose someone like me find love?”
At this point I couldn’t stand anymore maybe the drink, maybe the scene, “YOU…. DON’T DISERVE LOVE?”
“Then who dose?”
“When you “people” realize what love is…….” I pause.
“What’s love, Jesus?” he says in a mocking voice.
“LOVE IS SOMETHING GREAT! IT”S SOMETHING TO CHARISH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS, DO YOU? YOU’RE AN ANIMAL WITH NO SOUL!”
“HA HA HA HA !Calm down. Have a drink.” Zero says pushing a glass of whiskey my way. “The universes problems will be there when you sober up. You know, if you didn’t worry so much immortality could almost be fun. Just watch it like a movie, you’re the director.”
“Maybe your right, that cross really took the humanity out of me.I spent a lot of time thinking.” I take sip of the whiskey and grimes.
“Not bad, eh?” Zero chuckles finishing his then lighting a cigarette “It’ll get you right there.” He bellows pointing to his chest.” Don’t worry there’s more of that coming our way…” he nods his to my right where a large woman, with the largest breasts I’ve ever seen, stood with a full bottle of Wild Turkey, 5 cans of Budweiser and an ashtray on her service dish. He nodded again, this time at her, and smiled a little.
“Gearzo you know that there’s no smoking in here!” she yelps.
“Then point me and my comp padre here to the war room or back off Sissy.” He answered with a hardened glare.
With a tiny stroke of fear in her lashes she bats off his stare and points Zero‘s attention to me,” Your friend is cute, so I’ll let you slide for now, but that couple over there..” she nods her head to the left, “… they keep asking me to come talk to you.”
“So, tell them I’m a raving lunatic or mentally disabled… I don’t care. I’m in here every day, I pay the bills around here even yours! So go tell them to go fuck them selves…….. I just found out I’ve got cancer.”
Everything in Zero’s life was always a drama or a complete fabrication and blown way out of proportion. As a child he would act out and come up with all kinds of stories about where he was from and what he had seen. A liar’s sport immortality is. Not that any of it was a lie, rather a dream of sorts. Unaware of time in its true form, a pool vs. a stream, he often made things seem unreal to fit his interpretation of the event. But now, he was just trying to say goodbye.
“Oh! I didn’t know.” She says while eyeing her feet. “Don’t worry Col. your secret is safe with me.” She leans in resting her breast on my face,” I’ll just tell them you’re the owner.” She winks, puts the drinks on the table and shuffles away.
“How can you say those things?”
He sits back and lights another cigarette, “Easy man, it’s the truth. See, everything can happen the only thing is, it hasn’t! I take care of that.” He smiles leaning dangerously on his chair.
“That’s why you’re in Hell. You don’t want out. You don’t want help!” I sit forward “Do you?”
He takes a mouthful of whiskey tips and his chair forward with a boyish grin yells,” Jesus Christ, will you shut the fuck up?”
Just then a voice echoed throw the place like…… It couldn’t be? The boy of the heavens, calling out” BULLSHIT!” from that table over yonder.
Zero’s ears perk up like a cat’s and stands to confront the statement upon his character. The old man stands at withered attention screaming something about, “You let me down, your complete let down.. You loser!” Zero screamed. “I can take it all away, you nothing!”
“Hahahahaho” Zero laughed.
“No, Zero.” I urged.
“Who is this asshole?”
“God!”
“This oolldd man, he doesn’t scar me.”
“Well he should.”
I could tell that the drink had taken Zero’s tact. “….He could take all of this away.” As the old man came closer his age, his demeanor, changed, first from a belligerent, frail and pathetic man, but with every step, he became more and more obtuse. By the time he was steps before use Zero had started to crack up a bit, ranting about baboons and Hitler. Trying to keep my head space right I looked up to see………. Hitler walking towards use with two baboons, leash bound, coming right for us, screaming and swatting.
“What the hell is this?” Zero yells at what he must have thought was a bad hallucination “What do we do?” he asks me
“It’s my time Zero. He’s here for me, don’t be afraid.” I say to him “Break the cycle… and remember,” God snitches his hands around my soul “All you need is love, she is out there and together you can start it all over, the right way.” Just then God ripped my soul into four pieces and throw them into the furthest reaches of the universe. While flying through time’s chapters I wished Zero the best of luck and the strength to do the right thing, to fight God like none of the other numbers could.
Now I, like those before me, must watch Zero in his trials taking on this universe of energy. We watch in anticipation.
“That’s it you asshole…” Zero says to God “I’m going to tare your heart out and show it to you.” But God grabs Zero by the throat and threw him through a wall of the bar outside into the snow, evergreens covered in lights and people singing Christmas carols, it’s the 24th of December 1981, Zero’s first Christmas. He lands face down in the snow look up and says, “Shit!” he looks back at the bar and sees God, now a huge menacing shadow, coming towards him and the snow begins to blow hard upon his face. The singing got louder as the wind howled “Silent night”. Now all the other numbers and I watched in dread for Zero’s soul and our own salvation, as God stood over him. With great speed he bolts away from the tyrant and picks up a chair striking the dark demon with a force that woke all the people in the town square from their ignorant slumber, yet they kept singing. The chair shattered into the snow and Zero paused in disbelief. His moment of awe was broken by a devastating blow dealt by God. The strike sent him like a rag doll closer to the carolers. Brushing him self off he struggled to get back to his feet, Zero looks as if he was finally ready to end it and let God, the spoiled child that he is, have his way. My heart with every other spectator’s sank in the apparent demise of our only hope, his face was beaten and that strength that could save us all from another round of God’s game looked gone. The demon approached Zero, still struggling to his knees, with an apocalyptic demeanor and kicked him back into the snow hold him down with a heel on his chest.
“No my son, you belong to me and now I’m taking your soul back so we can start my game again….” Said the dark being then sitting on Zero’s chest “….ready for reincarnation?” The snow then turned to ran quickly melting the ice and snow on the ground to a lake of water. Gasping for air Zero starts to struggle for his life for the first time in his life, knowing now, that every living things happiness depends on his death. Head under fidget water his vision becomes blurred as his lungs fill with fluid and his arms and legs flopping madly his right hand felt a warm object in the cold pool. His grip wrapped tight around it as he turned his head to spot the devise, a small gold hammer. With all the power he had Zero swung the hammer striking God in the forehead, the blow sent God’s head snapping back and a small crack of light flickered from the wound. Terrified the carolers began to sing louder and louder as that crack turned to a hole lighting up Zero’s face and then joy erupted through out the universe as from that hole, on this Christmas morning the sun was born destroying God and drying the waters from streets in the town square. The carolers stood around Zero’s lifeless body whispering in disbelief about the events they had seen. His face was blue as the water in his lungs then, beautiful young women, with one blue eye and one green, stepped over him. She began to whale upon his chest trying to force the fluid from him she then leaned in and pressed her lips to his filling him with wind. She took her lips away and placed a hand on his chest “You fought bravely” she whispered in his ear. Standing up the mysterious girl turned and walked away as he smiled turning his head coughing up water. All of us in the universe began to cry tears of joy for our savior, our friend, our father, Zero.