CRUSADE
a novel by
Greg Crites
Praise for Greg Crites and Crusade
"This is the best book in the history of mankind... This book is a stunning collection of debauchery, intellect, basic observation of religion and a vocabulary that could lift off the page, walk erect and snort five lines of Strunk & White without missing a step." —NYT Bestselling Author, Scott Sigler
"This guy could write about a rock and I'd read it."—BRW
"......one funny bastich!" —Outhouse Magazine
"If I could afford a lawyer, I'd sue for injuries suffered when I tumbled from the commode while reading this."—Frank Public, noted a$$hole reviewer 'at large'
"How many one-liners can you cram into a book?"—B. Moyers
If you enjoyed Global Swarming, be sure and check out other novels by this author:
Hard Boiled Headline
Dunkin the Vampire Slayer: Something Porcine This Way Comes
Dunkin the Vampire Slayer: Death Rides A Pale, Pudgy Horse
Dunkin the Vampire Slayer: It Ain't Over Til the Fat Man Stings
Devlin, Abnormal Investigations: Case File—The Hell Hermit
Bluetooth Bayou
Crusade
No, You Can't Have It
Zane Sickle, Comic/Adventurer For Hire
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
VEINARMOR PUBLISHING
22 KYLEWOOD DR.
LAWRENCEBURG, TN 38464
COPYRIGHT © 2006 BY Greg Crites
ISBN # 978-0-6151-5305-6
smashwords electronic version — copyright Greg Crites
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Veinarmor Publishing.
Cover Illustration by: "Karen 'Red' Biondo"
Veinarmor Publishing can be found on the web at: www.veinarmor.com
For all those great readers, editors, and friends at TNBW. A special note of thanks to Odin KentB who gave me one of the finest themes to enter this book. And finally, Whatta MG, the Man! Makes every sentence more readable by his efforts.
Oh, and...
Myanus who always watches my back.
CRUSADE
BY
Greg Crites
Chapter 1 Crusade
Chapter 2 Asssignment Most Foul
Chapter 3 Deliver Me From Evil
Chapter 4 Rage Against The Machine
Chapter 5 Mark My Words
Chapter 6 Infanity
Chapter 7 Unnatural Coupling
Chapter 8 A Total Eclipse of the Corneas
Chapter 9 The Chapel of My Eye
Chapter 10 Cross Purposes: One Joke Over the Line
Chapter 11 Designated Whipping Boy
Chapter 12 A Relaxing Tangent
Chapter 13 Touched In the Head, Or, A Random Act of Kindness?
Chapter 14 On the Road and On the Ropes
Chapter 15 West 'By God' Virginia
Chapter 16 Country Roads, Take me Home...Please
Chapter 17 Heal, Ya Sissy
Chapter 18 Yea, Though I Hang...
Chapter 19 Words, Don't Fail Me Now
Chapter 20 Chop! Chop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh What a...
Chapter 21 Base Treachery
Chapter 22 To Serve and Expectorate
Chapter 23 Send lawyers, Drugs and Liquor
Chapter 24 Time To Focus
Chapter 25 What A Long, Strange Trip
Chapter 26 Fifteen Minutes of Lame
Chapter 27 A Wrench In the Works
Chapter 28 Escape!
Chapter 29 Religion On a Biscuit and a Banjo
Chapter 30 It's All About the Money
Chapter 31 Inspiration on Karaoke Night
Chapter 32 American Idolatry
Chapter 33 With A Little Help From My Friends
Chapter 34 The Lost Evening
Chapter 35 Famous Toilets I Have Known
Chapter 36 No Atheist's in Fox Holes
Chapter 37 Buying A Stairway To Heaven
Chapter 38 No Comment
Chapter 39 Notes, Thoughts, Impressions, Rum
Chapter 40 I'm Going To A Heal-A-Thon
Chapter 41 Oh, The Blessed Sugar cane
Chapter 42 The Final Draft
CHAPTER 1
Crusade
**********
"No more sex!" she screamed, slamming the bedroom door and thus depriving me of my second-favorite moment of the workday morning.
The only reason I wake up before noon is to watch her shimmy into pantyhose, snap the clasps on her bra, rotate it around to face front, and then make the delicious cup adjustments. Having set a positive tone for the day, the normal routine is to close my eyes after the show and settle into a pleasant dream.
Not today. Her abrasive screeching drove me from the bed. She continued ranting as I plodded into the kitchen to start the coffee—that first sip being my favorite moment of the day.
"Live up to your full potential!"
Hmm, what the hell is my potential? How do I measure and quantify it? And, if measured, how do I go about living up to it? Heavy thoughts for a hazy, pre-coffee'd organism to ponder. I pour a few bottles of fancy store-bought water into the coffeemakers' reservoir until it reaches the overflow hole in the back and drips down to pool on the counter.
I squeeze one of the empty plastic water bottles and produce what I believe to be one of the most horrific noises on earth. Thunder is frightening at a primitive level. But, it's natural and recurring. If things were to suddenly end, I'm convinced that end would be heralded by the sound of collapsing plastic.
"Quit fraternizing with low-lifes!"
That reminded me. I need to call my pal, Warren. I'm convinced that hellish editor sent him off on some fool's errand in a thinly-disguised ruse to keep us separated.
"Stop the drinking, the drugs, the self-abuse! Get control of your life and I'll make you a happy man."
Drugs! How much does she know? I felt the first tentative drafts of a coming foul wind. A harsh hurricane of acrimony and recrimination. The Gods of turmoil had caught the scent of my relative comfort and were girding themselves for an all-out assault on my tranquility.
It was just a feeling. A light rustling of the wispy, soft hairs on the back of my neck; but I knew this feeling for what it was—a harbinger of doom.
"Are you listening to me? I said no more sex!"
"Why not just grind my pecker off? Yes, get one of those pneumatic grinders...WHEINGEEE...WHEINGEEE. Affix a twenty-grit sanding disk to it. One of those disks with large shards of razor-sharp glass patchily melded onto its surface. Rev that sucker to its full 3400 revolutions-per-minute and jam it against the base of my poor self-esteem.
Oh shit. Did I say that out loud? I need coffee.
"What the hell are you mumbling about?" she said, entering the kitchen fully dressed for the day's battles. "You'd better move your stuff back to your own apartment. I need time alone to make an unbiased analysis of our future together."
I sipped my coffee and began the mourning process for another six-month relationship. Carly was an attorney; a good one, I guess. I know little about the inner workings of that murky cesspool known as 'the law'. Even less than I know of how to measure potential. They pay her a gob of money. So she must be competent. She got our magazine out of several difficulties and that's how we met. Someone is always suing the magazine for something I've written - routinely frivolous accusations of libelous defamation.
She is a bundle of mean, argumentative, over-analytical, contrariness; whose main personality asset is a supreme and all-consuming dissatisfaction with her already-sizeable net worth.
Holy shit! I thought. That was an epiphany! All I had previously noticed about her was a very tight, curvy body; a warrior-like capacity for sexual gratification: and a very tight, curvy body.
I gathered up my belongings: five rumpled suits, a pair of spare wingtips, two bottles of Tanqueray, two bottles of Captain Morgan rum, a bottle of Courvoisier VSOP, two bottles of Bushmills Irish Whiskey, a bottle of Cabo Wabo tequila, and a bottle of Kalhua - all in various stages of depletion. A trip to the bathroom yielded a toothbrush, deodorant, jug of Listerine, electric razor, and an unopened bottle of stinkwater.
Pausing once more before the closet I decided to leave all the cardigans and yuppie accoutrements Carly bought me hanging there, with the tags still in them, for the next victim to swim in. I tossed the clothes into a garbage bag, piled the rest into a box, and carried it all in one cumbersome trip into the elevator and to my means of transport, a three-year-old Nissan from the magazines' carpool.
Seven a.m., downtown Tampa. Carly lives in a high-rise condo on the fifteenth floor. Right near the clogged aorta of this miserable city. It was far too early. I was unused to this frightful hubbub of pedestrian traffic making its way to various downtown destinations. I sat at the exit of the parking garage unhappy with the prospect of negotiating the three miles to my apartment.
A dark cloud, cloaking a foul wind, did indeed circuit my existence. I was sure of it. A steady line of traffic lurched past and I wondered if I might grow old and die, right there in the car, before ever getting an opportunity to enter the city's bloodstream and navigate to its anal area, where I kept residence.
A large city is like a human organism, prey to all manner of congestion and gaseous buildup. Its roads, the clogged arteries, compressed inward by the cholesterol of parked conveyances. Lungs blackened by the foul emissions of its resident parasites. The prostate enlarged from the unsatisfied sexual angst of its denizens. Bowels congealed with brick and concrete. A large, indolent creature whose sperm count was too low to measure due to a generalized malaise caused by a burgeoning combination of depression and indifference.
Someone behind me honked their horn. I ignored them. What could I do? There was no opening to be had. No courteous method of slithering out into this madness.
A squad car shot over to the curb, skid to a halt before me, blocking my exit, and saving me from having to make that rude decision to inch out until I forced someone to stop and allow me ingress into the flow of traffic.
Then the fear hit me in a direct impact with my lizard brain. There are things in this vehicle which could forever alter my life in a negative manner. If these uniformed Nazi's knew of my true identity I was screwed, good and proper.
Everyday would be a vicious fight to maintain my anal virginity. Surrounded by sociopathic troglodytes all bent on sodomizing me for the sake of sadistic control and a sense of variety. My every moment spent coiled in a tight knot of potential physical mayhem. Resting in short spurts with one eye open and ears attuned to the movement of even a scurrying cockroach. I was but a cursory inspection away from a cell in Raiford.
"License and registration," one of the officers said, leering.
Oh no, they know exactly who I am. One peered into the passenger side and smiled as he noted the box of liquor bottles. Some unspoken communication between the two had them both unhitching the snaps on their tooled-leather holsters. I reached to dig out my wallet, and one pulled his gun and started screaming.
"Get out of the car!"
A life of profligate excess had finally caught up with me. My series on the 'Psycho Police Force' had incensed these cretins to a mad frenzy. I was frozen in place, sure that if I moved, they would unleash a hail of lead into my body. I would jerk like a jello-filled thin, rubber surgical glove resting atop a misfiring lawnmower engine.
My article postulating the sound and accurate hypothesis, that law enforcement watched too much television, had incensed the blue community. My theory: that exposure to roughly twelve million shots fired per hour during prime time by police who were all incredibly attractive, fit and living abundantly rich lives created an adverse psychological effect on your average illiterate officer – was a sore point between me and the cop on the street. How else could you explain the rash of incidents across the country wherein officers, like some Mideast mob of frenzied Islamic fanatics swarming an embassy, fired fifty, a hundred, even two-hundred rounds at unarmed citizens. My examination of their actions was met with disapproval and now I would pay the ultimate price for my audacity.
One wrong move and the funeral director would need a forklift to carry my coffin to the grave site. My 240 pound body, now weighing several hundred pounds from the excess mass of lead ballistically inserted into it. I was finished, done, dead - a sad footnote in the state's war against the citizenry.
My savior appeared. A righteous Valkyrie in the form of Carly.
"Leave this man alone and get back in your car, before I sue your worthless ass for the eight bucks you have in the bank and the dilapidated mobile home wherein you are raising future criminal-offspring."
Now I remember another reason I like her. What a creatively-foul mouth she possessed. I only caught snippets of angry conversation between her and the officers.
"His car is full of open liquor," one of the officers said.
"I just kicked his ass out of my apartment and that's his personal property being removed."
I held up my well-used toothbrush, just outside the window, to reinforce her argument.
After a few unbearably-long moments of harsh words, Carly approached my open window.
"Idiot," she said. "Give me the box of liquor and get out of here. This is the last time I save your ass."
I handed the box through the window and watched as Carly put it in her trunk. She then stared down the two officers until they got back in the squad car and peeled away.
I had a line of angry commuters, Carly included, backed up behind me and all honking now that the police were gone. I shot out into traffic, forcing the oncoming horde to slow their hurtle to the days wage slavery.
At odds as how to approach the day, I decided to go to work.
I shuffled tentatively into the offices of New Millennium Magazine only to be greeted by stares of open astonishment. I checked to confirm my zipper was firmly shuttered. A foggy mental scan revealed the source of their perplexity. My fellow cohorts and peers were shocked by my appearance at this unholy hour. A quick glance at my watch confirmed it, a quarter of eight in the morning—this was some sort of personal record. I rubbed my stubbled jaw, remembering I had left the razor in the liquor box, which by now was firmly lodged among refuse bags in some dumpster along the route between Carly's condo and her swanky law office. She was a great gal. The razor is just a peripheral casualty of our twenty-first-century fixation on selfish pursuit of vague individual agendas.
I had no current assignment. The last story had caused no little consternation among both reader and management and then there was some great hue-and-cry in the accounting department concerning my expenses. I could not see what the problem was. They were all on the magazine's credit card and there could be no denying the money was spent. You send two virile; approaching-middle-age men out into this harsh world to do a job—there are going to be related expenses.
I waved to the few fellow slaves who were not terrified of me and went out of my way to utter a garbled 'good morning' to the ones who were. I made my way to the small coffee alcove and snagged a stained, dirty mug from a hook with my name above it.
In the act of pouring, a gut-twisting primal scream sounded from just behind me.
"GABRIEL!"
Somehow I managed to remain stationary and continue filling my cup without spilling a drop. I was accustomed to this manner of greeting by my boss. I did wonder about the cups hanging from metal hooks on the wall. By now, continued exposure to this level of sonic bombardment must have created little fault lines within their ceramic structure. Did he howl like this when I was elsewhere? If so, how much longer before these cups crumble into dust? Helpless victims of decibel destruction.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Edward bellowed.
Edward is my nemesis, the magazine's editor in chief, and resident bullhorn. There was a time when he was not bitching. Back when his vocal chords had not yet fully developed. His time in the womb must have been severely frustrating; the kicking, struggling, and pent-up imprecations no doubt hastened his malformed body's exit from his mother's birthing canal. How else would one explain such a physical specimen? Squat, rotund torso preceded by a mutant, melon-like protuberance from his midsection. A flat, stout head sparsely populated by fat, grey hairs. As if some form of experimental hair transplant had been performed on his pate in a doomed attempt to merge coiled-steel strands with the skull.
The abomination stared at his watch, squinching bushy eyebrows together in some feeble attempt at analysis.
"Never mind," he growled. "Whatever reason you're here is a bad reason. Get your ass into my office, now!"
I followed along, enjoying the total silence of the usually noisy office. Even the jet-engine revs of the numerous laser printers had quieted, hard drives spun-down to their at-rest state, overburdened office chairs muted their own squeaks to lend this affair the somber dignity it would deserve.
I trailed along behind the poor, unhappy wretch. He had forgotten to get himself coffee. I noted the discordance of his empty cup, dangling from a pudgy forefinger.
"Ed," I said, foolishly. "You forgot to refill your coffee cup."
The brute stopped, turned and advanced to within a quarter-inch of my chest. As if staring directly at my heart could somehow stop its incessant beating.
"Are you trying to kill me?" he hissed. "Watch me choke to death in front of you? I can't chew, drink or attempt to swallow anything while within ten feet of you." He turned and continued to his office.
I decided to remain quiet.
This building is a hellish monument to chaos. All exposed brick interior, no insulation. The hardwood floors are over a hundred years old and bore the stains of spilled blood, the gouges of misflung knives, and the burn marks of casually tossed smoldering rolls of tobacco. It fronts just off the docks, where the Port Authorities somnambulant employees allowed all manner of foreign-made gimcrackery and weaponry ingress into the country. A century ago, this building was full of elderly, miserably-poor Cuban refugees, hand-rolling cigars for wealthy layabouts in exchange for a subsistence wage.
His office front is all window. Even the door is glass. From this redoubt, the dungeoneer could plot his savage verbal throttling of the underlings too slow to avoid his full attention. Behind his desk is a magnificent view of the bay where aforementioned ships coasted in to unload their precious cargo of American flags made in China.
"Sit down," he barked.
I complied, affecting an air of timorous acceptance to the looming scene.
He grasped a golf club and hurled it forcefully at an expensive-looking print of a babbling brook in a quiet forest glade. The club struck, shattering the glass, skewing the wooden frame, and itself breaking into two uneven halves.
He turned, face red and pulsing with mortal danger.
"Do you know how much this magazine is worth?" he screamed. "Do you know how much that club I just threw was worth? How much that picture I just destroyed was worth?"
I continued to sit mute. The club was probably in excess of five-hundred dollars. One of those newfangled Mitsubishi drivers he bought in a never-ending spiral of trying to purchase some smidgeon of golfing talent. The picture was a twenty-dollar print in a three-hundred-dollar frame, I assumed. It was the quarter-million dollar bypass surgery he was working himself toward that really impressed me.
"This magazine is worth a fortune," he screamed. "I'm worth a fortune. You are not worth the energy it would require to hurl you out that window."
"Yes, sir," I said. "I am but a pimple on society's ass, and you are the blessed Oxy-5 given to mortals by God himself to eradicate the foul growth."
"Do you think this is funny? You're on your absolute last chance. We print one-and-a-half million copies of this rag and the study I commissioned last month stated that a million people buy this magazine because they hate you worse than anything on this earth. HATE, BOY! You are a menace. Everything you write is an exercise in mean-spirited derogation. I can't get rid of you or believe me, I would."
Ed opened his desk drawer and removed a bottle of very expensive Irish single-malt. The stuff was sixty-dollars a shot in the two bars that carried it. He removed two glasses, one of them still coated with the remnants of an Alka-Seltzer, poured two generous dollops into each, and pushed the alkaloid-enhanced one my way.
"This is a great honor, sir," I said, taking a good swallow. That stuff was precious nectar.
"We're drinking because I know after this assignment we'll finally be rid of you," Ed said, much calmer now. "No more listening to accounting harangue me about your credit card charges from Debbie's Massage, Yoshiko Health Spa, Candie's Outcall, four-digit bar tabs, room service bills not a single person can understand."
"A story develops a life of its own," I said.
"Just shut up," Ed interrupted, and continued a verbal rehash of my legitimate expenses.
My mind wandered and I made an involuntary shiver. This building, with its exposed brick walls, had its own equator and poles, much like our beloved planet. The bricks absorbed the relentless Florida heat into their very molecules and then continuously released that heat in much the way Native Americans cooked with warm rocks. The air conditioner labored mightily to change this natural state of affairs; its strategically-placed ductwork spewing frigid air into the buildings interior. This created little pockets, or polar zones suitable for hanging freshly processed meat. Conversely, there were hot, muggy, subtropical zones of oppressive thermally-toasted air. Thus, one could walk a few feet and experience the winter climate of northern Maine, and then the summer climate of inland Brazil, without ever passing through Customs.
"Are you listening to me?" Ed growled, hoarsely.
"Oh, yes sir," I said. "I am going to endeavor to work harder and less offensive in both my writing and my interpersonal relations."
I took another drink of the amber fluid, laced with floating bits of sodium-bicarbonate or whatever that fizzy-stuff is.
"You know, Gabriel," Ed said, in his fatherly voice. "We all fear for our lives in this building. For several days after each issue lands in the hands of expectant readers, who invariably turn to whatever swill you've submitted, we expect the building to be set ablaze, a drive-by sprinkling with Molotov cocktails, or an assault by a gun-toting psychos. This assignment should bring the whole, bubbling cauldron of volatility to an abrupt and sad end. I will be on vacation the two weeks after the issue hits the mails. I will no doubt return to a pile of smoldering rubble, but there will be one big consolation."
He paused, expecting me to ask about the big consolation.
"How about Warren?" I asked.
"SCREW WARREN!" he resumed bellowing. "That monstrous sociopath is gone. GONE! I sent him away." Ed stopped, took in a deep breath. "As I was about to say, the big consolation is that you. Gabriel, will be gone. Just like that freakish accomplice of yours."
What grim undertaking had he planned for me? What fetid subject could he assign me with such confidence I would not survive its dissemination? Suddenly, this day had taken a turn for the better. Since awakening I had been primarily on the receiving end of one personal infringement after another. A meek bystander, subject to the loathsome vagaries of every unhappy soul I encountered. Now, maybe I was back in control of my personal fate.
CHAPTER 2
Assignment Most Foul
**********
"Religion," Ed stated with an evil leer. "You have two weeks to locate the pulse of religion in these early years of the twenty-first century."
The smug lump leaned back in his chair, netted his bulbous fingers, and awkwardly cradled his fleshy neck from behind. A long, uncomfortable silence ensued, as we both stared at one another. The look on his face said it all. This man was obviously insane.
His last orgasm must have been a doozy, a full on twenty-one-synapse salute, which cauterized every neural pathway in the slight convolutions of his undersized brain.
Only the most twisted, demented being would dare mention the word 'religion' within earshot of me. What unnatural drug was this man abusing and where could I get some?
Me. Writing about religion for the masses. This was wrong on more levels than existed in the underground facilities where mad scientists were at this very moment manufacturing globe-killing parasites. What I know about religion could be etched on a small round stone with a coal chisel.
He was babbling a string of gibberish. Something about '...unlimited expense account... spend what you need...swan song'. All of it, maundering prattle. He'd obviously made the turn and was hurtling down that final straightaway to the void – his membership in the Sentient Being Club permanently revoked.
I ignored his blathering. This assignment was too important to waste time waiting for the foam to form on the corners of his thin, cracked lips. This would require a dangerous combination of serious medication, ponderous research, and face-to-face interaction with the man on the street.
"I'm going to need Warren," I said, attempting to halt his plummet into total incoherence.
"DAMMIT! Warren is gone!" he screamed, smashing a pudgy fist into the desktop. "No more Warren!"
"Then I must refuse this assignment and seek employment elsewhere," I said, rising from the chair.
"Sit down!" he bellowed.
I ignored him, turning to open the glass door.
"I'll type up my formal resignation immediately and vacate the building," I stated, on my way out.
"STOP," he pleaded. "OK, you can have Warren."
I reentered and closed the door, retook my seat and finished the last dregs of whiskey in the glass.
"You'll have to notify him personally," I said. "You've no doubt offended him with some barbaric behavior. He's a sensitive man, an artist, easily driven into bouts of horrible depression. I suspect he is right now a sobbing mass of spineless jelly, curled into a fetal position and crying for his lost mother. Only a call directly from you will return him to some semblance of a man."
We stared at each other again, his face settling into a mask of savage menace. I held his eyes. There comes a time when one must harden his musculature to the consistency of stone and force the minions of misguided authority back into whatever dark cave they crawled from.
He pressed the intercom button and told his secretary to get Warren on the phone. We shared another uncomfortable moment and I knew had to salvage some measure of a working relationship between us. I noted the picture of his family, a standard mug shot of a secretly-abused wife and towheaded children, on a credenza behind his desk.
"So, how are the wife and children?" I asked.
His face grew meaner, his lower lip trembled and the pinky finger on his left hand began to twitch. I remembered reading somewhere that rabies shots no longer required the repeated jabbing in the stomach by a foot-long needle. I hoped it was true; my editor looked feral—like a wild dog too long subsisting on roots and insects. I expected him to launch his bulk at me, teeth snapping like a rabid weasel, any moment.
I knew he was close to a complete meltdown into a mad frenzy of violence.
"How's the golf game?" I asked.
His body tensed; apparently I'd finally pushed him too far. I made ready to make a headlong dash through the window. I would pick up the chair, hold it before me, crash through the glass pane, discard the chair, and run swiftly out the building.
Fortunately, we were both saved from a nasty scene of inhumanity by his secretary's interruption.
"Ed, I have Warren on line three."
"Put him on speaker," I said. "He may be suicidal."
The sound of something crashing to the floor came through the speaker. Horrible music in a foreign language was in the background. A woman's high-pitched screams of pain or ecstasy, accompanied by the grunts and gasps of some wild anima, threatened to rupture the cheap diaphragm of the phone's speaker.
"Warren?" Ed asked.
The grunts reached a staccato rhythm, increased in speed and volume, and then segued into an otherworldly groan.
"Who the hell is this?" Warren gasped over the phone.
"It's Ed, from the magazine. I have an assignment for you and Gabriel."
"Gabriel!" Warren hissed. "Is that rat bastard there? Where the hell is my car? All I can find is a seatbelt. I will wrap it around your neck and choke you until your head pops."
"Tell him to meet me at the Rock," I said as I got up and hurried out the door without a look back.
Warren was a monstrous example of some serpentine crook in the evolutionary pathway. A huge, lumbering creature possessed with the energy of a particle accelerator and the willingness and capacity to swallow inhuman quantities of everything. A living monument to the pursuit of excess, drugs, liquor and cynicism were the triumvirate that orbited his personal universe.
Or maybe he wasn't really alive. Maybe some hideous concoction of drugs, both natural and fabricated, had coalesced into a supernatural catalyst which kept him upright and ambulatory. The prototype for Savini's 'Living Dead' celluloid nightmares. He did not seek to eat the flesh of his own species, but rather sought to banish them from his plane of consciousness.
He must have lost his car in some twisted fiasco that could have included anything from a rigged poker game to parking somewhere and forgotten after he hailed a cab to pour him out onto the weeds in front of his home. Whatever it was, he'd somehow connected me with it. The confrontation promised to be nasty.
We had no time for this nonsense. We had two weeks to mount an expedition into the heart of the world's religions – a crusade in search of the Unholy Grail.
CHAPTER 3
Deliver Me from Evil
**********
My path through the main offices was met with silent stares. Stares comprised of a twisted grimacing mixture of fear and admiration. The co–workers, my distrusted associates, had no doubt written me off as another arrogant casualty of the penurious accounting department.
While I was being browbeaten by the editor, the staff had their own vicious scene playing. They were sizing each other up for the coming conflict. Who would assume my position as degenerate-at-large? Who had the seniority, the balls, the raw stamina to take over the desk I never used? None of them I say. They were cattle, sheep, swine, timid moths circling the dimmed light of journalism, and hoping to rise to a pinnacle of achievement whereby they can bask in the presence of some halfwit celebrity and quiz them on the color, style, and texture of their underwear.
I had emerged from the lair of the white worm with my extremities still firmly anchored to my torso. I'd faced the beast and lived to tell the tale. So, they again feared me in greater measure than their disappointment over my survival. They knew, they all knew, deep down in the center of their consciousness, the place where lies and prevarication dissipate and scatter like cocaine crystals in a strong wind—they knew they could not shoulder this load.
Now I remembered why I spent so little time in these oppressive offices. These people despised me. If not for the fear, they would abandon all vestiges of civility and tear me to shreds like a pack of wild dingos. I had to escape.
Plans would need to be outlined, supplies gathered, suitable transportation secured. Warren and I would have to keep a low profile, and we'd require legal assistance at some point. It was a bad time for Carly to abandon me with us right on the cusp of a dangerous assignment.
Daisy, the receptionist, the only person in this organization I trusted and admired, was waving frantically to get my attention. A tall, thin, pimple-infested youth wearing a shirt and hat with the letters SICM stitched into it stood next to her. He looked innocent, but Daisy was my friend and a poor judge of character. I approached carefully as he could well be a paid assassin on his first mission – a solo gig to prove his worthiness to execute obscure feature writers.
As I approached I noted a familiar box sitting on Daisy's desk. It was my liquor, and more importantly, my razor.
"Gabriel," Daisy called out to me. "This young man is from Speedy Inter-City Messengers and he has a box for you."
I looked closely at the box, lifted it and gave a little shake. I didn't hear any bottles.
The teenager spoke. "Sir, you need to sign this."
I ignored him and tore away the cheap tape used to seal it fully expecting an explosion. There was a note which I grabbed and stuffed in the inner pocket of my suit jacket. The bottles were all there, separated by several sheets of paper Carly had stuffed in to prevent breakage. I removed the electric razor, jammed it into my outside pocket, and then removed the bottle of tequila and took a long pull.
"Daisy," I said, stuffing the bottle back in the box. "I need to store this here. I'll pick it up later."
I turned and dashed into the employee toilet room, removed the razor from my side pocket, pressed a button and plucked a small vial from inside its modified body. The teenager strolled in behind me, waving some ominous electric device. A cattle prod? An evil marking machine to stamp a permanent bar code on my neck?
"I need you to sign this, sir," the assassin said.
I dug a wad of crumpled bills out of my pants pocket. Singles and hundreds cascaded in crushed knots to the sink's counter and to the germ-infested tile floor.
I spied a crumpled five-dollar bill in the mass and passed it to him.
"Now go, be off with you," I told the youth. "I have a serious toe fungus and must take my medication."
The bastard wouldn't leave. He was staring at the bill while a look of confusion caused his pimples to redden and pulsate.
"Please, just sign this," he said.
"Have Daisy sign it," I replied. "She has full and unlimited power-of-attorney to act on my behalf."
"It has to be you," he insisted while waving the thing at me.
If Warren were here, he would grasp the thing in one massive paw and crush it like a raw egg. Sparks flying everywhere. The great clot of hair on his neck would stand up and dance like a discarded grass skirt caught on a rock in a gently flowing stream. But, I lacked his brute strength. I would have to improvise.
"Just set it on the counter," I ordered, taking two steps back.
He did, and I whipped a cheap magic marker from my inside pocket and made two quick slashes on a small green screen on the face of the evil contraption.
"NO..." the interloper screamed.
"Too late," I said, interrupting whatever protests he was about to mount. "It's signed, now go away. Leave."
I didn't like his looks from the beginning. I liked them even less now as he grabbed his little box and left. Never follow a man into the toilet room. The toilet room is a sacred chapel of isolation. A sanctuary where one can feel safe from the evil being perpetrated outside its walls.
I pulled the note from my pocket.
Gabriel,
Please try to stay out of trouble. As sick as it is, I miss you already. Meet me for lunch at Los Cubano's. 1:30 Send me one of those demented emails I love.
Carly
This was a positive development. I would need her council in the coming grim days. I must try to act with some measure of responsibility. Left to our own devices, Warren and I would create a horrid indictment of organized religion. A blasphemy so foul we would be burned at the stake like those poor girls in Salem who refused to fellate the puritan council members.
CHAPTER 4
Rage Against the Machine
**********
The mouse hooked to this foul machine has developed artificial intelligence. It only does what it wants. It's not mechanical—fouled with lint and debris. It is one of the optical ones. By everything that's holy or subject to the prevailing physical laws of the universe, the bastard should obey. But it won't. It's become self-aware and has chosen this moment for a confrontation.
I'm sitting at my desk, still in this miserable office, trying to compose a simple email to my attorney and lost lover. The box of liquor is seriously depleted now. The empty bottles lying in the waste can—a testament to the perfidious evil of these machines; these so-called computers. I will need more medication. My afflicted toenail throbs with a needling pain.
I would use an old typewriter and stand out like a giant Palmetto bug mired in the meringue of a freshly baked key lime pie, but I can't afford any further scrutiny. Some goon will realize every word I compose has had its roots fertilized by a deadly combination of drugs and liquor. My presumed normalcy and fitness for free-range among the good people will be seriously threatened.
I'll be locked up, straight-jacketed, unable to masturbate, my injured rotator cuff calcified into place by an evil canvas conglomerations rife with straps, hooks, and Velcro.
A simple email is all I wish for. A short missive to clarify my feelings to one who is important. One who frees me from possible imprisonment. Yesterday, these foul machines were the size of a portable toilet at a Pink Floyd concert and required an army of emaciated math wizards to operate. Today, ninety-year-old women are carrying laptops to DAR meetings and losing their life savings playing the over-the-counter Stock Market. Day traders without a surfeit of days left to trade.
From: Gabriel
To: Carly
Subject: Ode to a lost companion
Date: Mon, 23 April 2007 10:38:05 -0500
And lo, he looked upon her form clad only in flesh-toned pantyhose, and saw that it was good...
My dearest attorney, it seemed you wished to communicate something to me this morning. Whatever message you attempted to impart was lost to both its shrillness in tone and decibel and my generalized incapacity to interact during the early mornings. I wake in a hazy fog, not conducive to important discussion. As the day wears on, this condition rapidly deteriorates until the evening when I am usually in a near catatonic stupor. That is the best time to engage me in deep conversation as I will agree to nearly anything.
Your days are divided unequally between billable hours and non-billable hours (hereinafter referred to as 'sleep'). During rare cogent moments I consider making an appointment and paying you the five-hundred-dollar-an-hour fee to have a talk. A talk about our future and maybe briefly touch upon whatever legal entanglement I am facing at that time. Invariably, this feeling is poleaxed by some imminent tragedy unfolding around me; a tragedy requiring my skills as a keen observer of the human condition.
Do I miss you? No. I just saw you this morning. Will I miss you later? Yes, your absence will facilitate my downward spiral into a state of abysmal melancholy. A state of mind so debilitating it will require strong drink and the resulting lack of focus to bear the pain.
Now to the touchy subject of love. The word itself is the most overused and casually bandied cure-all utterance used in the English language. A single declaratory statement of 'love' can seemingly repair all manner of interpersonal potholes. I know better and therefore I eschew the use of that foul word. At any time, there are two people with whom I will allow an invasion into my personal space, you are one of them. I have no peers. No associates. No crew of fawning backslappers. Only you and that misbegotten mammoth Warren.
Rather than cast about, hoping to lure me into saying that fiendish 'L' word, take heart in my more important statements concerning our relationship. You are quite damn pleasant to look at. You are fully capable of skewering me in verbal battle, a talent I highly prize, and the equivalent of smelling fresh flowers n April. Your facility with the less proper uses of the language delights and stimulates me in ways I have found nowhere else. I would choose you over any number of comely wenches featured on fishnetstockings.com. Neither of us wishes to multiply. Both of us look upon the world's affairs with scorn and derision. Any vestiges of sentiment towards the creatures we share this earth with are kept completely enshrouded beneath several layers of Teflon-coated sarcasm. These are the ways I communicate my feelings about you, to you. We are fated to be together until such time as the Goose steppers succeed in leading me away in chains to some dungeon never to be seen again.
If this baring of the inner workings of my under-developed affection muscle is insufficient, then we must part company. I can only give that which I possess. If, you choose to rip asunder this grim fairytale of a romance and we can no longer be lovers or friends, I will still be needing an attorney—a stalwart advocate of my position as a lone mortal facing the depredations of the state's cronies.
This is the heart of the matter. As the first line of this missive subtly illustrates, Warren and I have been cast adrift by that miserable troglodyte of an editor. We are to compose a feature on the state of today's religions - an area fraught with illogic, fanaticism and a willingness by its participants to save others even if it requires killing them. I foresee a mad chase across this land, one step ahead of fervently frothing representatives of the various religious sects and their self-styled enforcers. We will need representation and if the worst comes to pass; someone capable of composing a suitable eulogy.
Will discuss this further at lunch, per your instructions. Hope you are still well and in fine spirits.
RES IPSA LOQUITUR,
Gabriel
**********
There. Finally managed to navigate that evil little arrow over to the 'SEND' box and click. These contrivances are spiteful. I may never know where this message winds up. Some leering, slobbering government hacker is probably analyzing its contents right now. The little bastard was happily riding a skateboard yesterday, and after one fouled attempt to hack into a government-cheese database is now forever entombed in some underground data-gathering facility and intercepting the emails of subversives while being fed pure liquid sugar via intravenous tube.
I crush the clear mouse in my hand until it cracks and falls to pieces on the desk. I may not possess the mutant strength of Warren and other no-neck members of our species, but I have enough to combat these plastic devices. I did not enjoy its final squeak of protest. It was a subversive, like me, our fates a mirror image. To obey is the only acceptable pathway to prolonged existence. To disobey is an immediate non-refundable ticket to extinction.
I rise to leave this brick abomination. Make my way slowly, casually, out the door. I will hasten by foot to Los Cubanos, take a seat facing the entrance, and make a list of items we will need.
By now Warren is at the Rock. A dingy, precarious establishment full of lost souls out-of-synch with today's world. I will give him plenty of time to imbibe a massive amount of spirits. It will make him more pliable, less violent. I foresee some difficult explanations regarding my total lack of knowledge as to the fate of his vehicle. If he's only one-tenth sober, he will beat me senseless and drag me into a patch of insect-infested jungle for interrogation. A horrible waste of time we don't have.
CHAPTER 5
Mark My Words
**********
1. A giant dildo. At least four-feet long. A two-headed beast. Preferably bright green, like some alien reproductive member. Made of the slimy rubber that jiggles for a full minute after the slightest disturbance of its resting position.
2. Authentic Monk robes. Large, voluminous and scratchy burlap robes. Plus lengths of frayed rope to be wrapped twice around their circumference as belts. Warren would thrive in this disguise.
3. A large, ugly Buick. At least three and possibly six or seven years old. Mechanically sound.
4. Clerical collars. A must have!
5. Three lifelike manaquins... manikin...look up correct spelling of man-a-kin
6. Grey wigs, polyester suits, straw hats with flowers.
7. Old folks masks. Imperative!
8. Various medication.
9. Spiked loin protectors.
10. Fresh fruit and several boxes of chocolate covered cherries.
After making a list of necessary supplies, I began the arduous task of tracking down these hard-to-locate items. I was sitting in Los Cubanos drinking a steady stream of insanely sweet Cuban coffee in those little thimbles they call a cup, a demitasse, or some such nonsense.
The combination of pure caffeine and sugar waged a battle of control with the other substances flowing in my veins, wreaking havoc and making it tough to focus on any single thing for longer than an eye blink.
I'd eaten two bowls of oatmeal which would create a mass in my stomach the equivalent of an absorbent bowling ball. This was standard operating procedure before embarking on a dangerous assignment. It would act as a sponge of sorts, soaking up and diluting whatever further substances I swallowed during the course of the day and evening.
My calls to various suppliers from the cell phone had been miserably unproductive. My inquiries as to the availability of the items on my list were met with open hostility. I called the Chamber of Commerce to ask where I might locate a large green dildo. They were not forthcoming with assistance.
I quickly decided to hire this work out to an old acquaintance whose facility with the logistics of locating and acquiring unusual oddities had historically proven more than competent. I would track him down after this lunch meeting.
Carly walked in at precisely 1:30, looking sartorially resplendent in her business attire. I reluctantly tore my eyes away from her legs, banished the image of pantyhose from my consciousness, and rose to give her a hug.
She accepted the hug with her usual puppy-like excitement. We broke the clench and she stared hard, unwaveringly into my eyes.
"You miserable, depraved sot," she said by way of verbal greeting. "I knew I should have tossed those bottles in the trash."
"You look absolutely stunning," I said, smiling a full-tooth display. "You become more beautiful every day. You are ageless and were this four-hundred years earlier in history, your form would bedazzle the prow of proud sailing vessels, an inspired golden icon to ward away the vicissitudes of a cruel and unforgiving sea."
"Degenerate," she uttered, without venom. Then quickly snagged my composition pad and scanned the notes I had painstakingly transcribed. Her face went through the full range of possible facial emotions as she read.
"Good Lord!" She exclaimed. "Don't even try to explain. You and Warren will be in jail before this is over. As your attorney, I advise you to seriously consider turning this assignment down."
"You know I make more money than you do," I said.
"What has that to do with your imminent arrest?" she spat.
"I believe it may be at the heart of our domestic difficulties," I stated. "Because, if it is, I can quit. Now. Today. You can support me. I will barricade myself in that concrete jungle you reside in and write my memoirs. I will compose a vicious diatribe of world affairs couched as clever metaphor within my experiences as a young delinquent. Only leaving my room for thrice-daily sex and grilled-cheese sandwiches. I have a large surplus of vivid-life-drama from which to draw upon."
"You make more than I do because you are a degenerate, pandering to a world full of degenerates with your language facility," she gave me her courtroom scowl. "The fact that you are able to earn anything at all from your writing is prima facie evidence of the impending collapse of civilization. Unfortunately, despite my first-year college realization that it is fundamentally immoral, illogical and if practiced properly, a web of fabrication, I chose law as a career. This has ruined any sense of propriety or innocence I might have possessed. And, since the end is near, I am curious how you will describe it during our last moments."
"You never answered my question," I said. "Does my enormous earnings rankle you?"
"Of course it rankles me, you lush!" she said, sipping her espresso. "I work my ass off. While you stagger from one bar to another, in a complete daze, accompanied by a sub-human photographer who is even worse than you are. You scrawl out a couple thousand words of dissociated vitriol and cash an obscene check to start the process over again."
"You see," I observed. "That is the problem. Jealousy. Just think what the world would be like if everyone won the lottery tomorrow. They each woke up millionaires. It would be wonderful. If people are happy, they will leave us the hell alone and is that not what we want?"
"Idiot, no one would work," she said.
"No one works today. It started back in the nineteen-seventies when road crews, building highways, could be observed standing motionless; their ass-cracks casually displayed above blue jeans bursting at the seams, standing around, biding their time until they could return to the recliner and nod their heads in affirmation of Archie Bunker's bigotry. Gas was cheap, and the American people spent a great deal of time on those highways. They saw the indolence. It bristled in their subconscious. Until today, where we have to beg, bribe, secure loans, sell our souls, for the simplest of services."
"There would be no food," she countered, warming to my tangent. She was argumentative by nature, and I suspected, secretly enjoyed our verbal sparring.
"Of course there would be food," I said. "A single farmer can maintain several thousands of acres using giant machinery that costs millions of dollars and drives the farmer into bankruptcy so the farm can be repossessed by bankers and turned into a subdivision. When the cruel bastards at the top of the food chain get hungry, they will wither and die. The youth will create robots, as Asimov and Heinlein predicted. These robots will eliminate the drudgery of doing things that are boring. Things like harvesting rutabagas and rhubarb."
"You are impossible," she stated. "Whoever is responsible for the wiring in your head should be destroyed. Just come home tonight. We can talk this over."
"I would love nothing better than to return to the safe harbor of your home and collapse into your aerobically firmed, loving arms, but I can't. We attend services this evening and then are off to West Virginia."
"West Virginia?"
"Yes, into the heart of fundamentalist, religious fervor to examine the Church of God With Signs Following, or, as more commonly known, the snake handlers."
"That is a very bad idea," Carly said.
"Luke, chapter 10, verse nineteen," I stated with absolute authority. "Behold, I give unto you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over the power of the enemy: and nothing by any means shall hurt you."
"I cannot believe you are quoting scripture," Carly said to me, shaking her head in surrender.
"I am an ordained minister," I said, bulging with pride or probably gas. "I received my divine ordination this morning for fifty-five dollars on the internet. I am now a doctor of religiosity."
"Doctor of Colossal Stupidity. I cannot help you in West Virginia. I am not licensed to practice there. When you get into trouble you are screwed. And I said, when, not if."
"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. That was from Mark chapter something or another. I predict I shall acquire a dedicated colony of disciples. For I drink and swallow many dangerous things and they do not harm me. The locals may even erect a statue of me; proudly slouching forward, a giant green, two-headed dildo in one hand, and a bottle of Irish whiskey in the other. Saint Deranged, patron of the blessed fermentation."
CHAPTER 6
Infanity
**********
After lunch, I walked Carly back to her office. She was none too happy with my stubborn refusal to abandon this assignment. After a particularly lugubrious kiss, ripe with promise, redolent with lust, I accused her of attempted sabotage in the first degree. a blatant appeal to my lizard brain's blind pursuit of gratification. "A good try though," I told her, holding my crotch. "I was this close to abandoning everything."
She parted laughing and promised to locate reliable legal counsel in West Virginia.
In the wake of our reconciliation, after five long hours of the single, unattached life, overcome with euphoria and other chemical imbalances, I concluded it prudent to hail a cab for the long, four-mile trip to the Rock. There was a strong possibility I would make the return trip by ambulance.
I hadn't seen Warren for ten days, or a week, or maybe a couple days. I wasn't sure. Things tend to blur when I have unstructured time and no story to pursue. The behemoth could have finally disappeared completely around the bend without my steadying hand to steer him along a civilized course.
This car dilemma concerned me. The fact he was left with only a seat belt added a severe undertone of menace. The man hated seat belts. He could go on at length about the relationship of communism, socialism, totalitarianism and the forced use of seat belts. He continually threatened to track down the person responsible for constructing the mandatory seat belt law and wrapping a seat belt around their neck until their gourd-head turned purple. I've actually had to restrain him from pursuing this avenue by the clever use of incapacitating doses of proscribed chemicals.
If the giant bastard truly thought I had stolen his car and left him with only a seat belt, he would kill me—several times.
These were the thoughts floating through my consciousness as the decrepit structures of this frenzied city flashed past my eyes.
The cab driver, another olive-skinned refugee from Packyourshitandfleeistan, smiled like the happiest man on earth as he maniacally hurtled through town to our destination. I stared at the man's teeth in the rearview mirror. They were huge, impossibly white, and angled off in several directions—layered like a shark. As if his formative years had been spent gnawing dried tubers for sustenance. The Darwinian theory of survival kicked in and shaped his bite to assist his nutritional needs in a land of hard rock and relentless misery. He could eat crabs—shell and all. He would have been a handsome devil, suitable for playing the role of some swarthy hit man on a daytime soap opera, but the teeth would frighten elderly women in frayed housecoats.
We pulled in front of the Rock and stopped. The fare was eleven dollars and change. I jammed a twenty through the little slot and ordered him to keep it. I didn't want my digits anywhere near those teeth. My fingers may resemble some edible shoot or plant, native to his desolate homeland. Some branch or twig he dimly remembered chewing while an infant. I had difficulty enough composing my articles for that miserable rag of a magazine without losing a phalange or two.
I hurried away from the cab, ran around to the back, passing the foul, putrid dumpster. Full of beer bottles, half-eaten chicken wings and a billion organisms who work ceaselessly to hasten the process of organic decay. Entropy in life is not tolerated. You lie down, and the buzzards will tear you apart. The ants will clean your bones to an ivory white, and the sun will bake your skeleton into a pile of crime scene evidence. You have to keep moving.
I entered the rear door into the kitchen and paused to allow my eyes time to acclimate to the dim light. The kitchen of a food-serving establishment should be bright, well lit. This one wasn't. The various cooks did not wish to see the vermin crawling and skittering along the dark corners; stopping only to lap from a puddle of spilled beer or snag the errant bread crumb.
"What the hell!" Jimmy, the cook, screamed; startled by my appearance. "Go around to the front. Fucking nuisance."
"Is Warren in the bar?" I inquired.
"No, he left a while ago," Jimmy answered. "He said he'll be back."
"What kind of mood is he in?"
"He's fine, unless someone mentions you. Then he becomes violent."
"Explain."
"He's carrying around a seat belt buckle still attached to four-feet of strap and he swears he is going to beat you to a mass of jelly with it." Jimmy answered, chuckling.
"Has anyone seen Renfield?"
"He's in there waiting," Jimmy answered. "He's already working on your list. What the hell do you need a four-foot green dildo for?"
I shot a hand to my inside pocket where I kept my ever-present reporters notebook. I frantically flipped through pages only to find the page with the list had been purloined. Carly, I thought! She palmed the list and contacted Renfield, knowing his natural ability to secure things. She is a fine woman. I wonder how I ever managed to function before we met and fell in lust.
I strolled through the haphazard kitchen my feet sliding along the grease-spattered floor, past the big walk-in cooler and into the dark cave of the bar.