The Path (not finished yet)

The Path
         

“When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray”
-          Dante, The Inferno, Canto I, lines 1-3

“Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world”
- Shakespeare

Part One: Halloween

         You may not believe what I am going to tell you, but it is true, and I 
am not crazy. Crazy people can't remember details; I remember all of 
the details of that day. It was such a long time ago, I'm an old man 
now, I can't remember anything lately but I can recall certain images 
in my mind, like a half buried scrapbook. The first thing that comes 
to my mind is that it was a cool autumn day, the trees streaked with 
color and the sun irradiating the beauty of the afternoon. The leaves 
dances slowly in the wind, trailing endlessly around them like crooked 
dancers. It was close to Halloween, at that point in time, it was my 
favorite holiday of the year.
I loved the jack-o-lanterns that lit up the night, their eyes always 
looked so real and animate and they seemed to sneer at me as I walked 
by them. It was magical; it was like the whole world was alive on that 
night, only that night, seeing the little children prance by me, all 
dressed up in their little outfits waiting to be scared. That what 
it’s all about, isn’t it? Just waiting to be scared, and on 
Halloween everyone not only wants to be scared, they want to be 
horrified. That’s what I used to love about it, everyone shared the 
same macabre interests and I did not feel alone in my pursuits of 
darker things.
I was seventeen at the time, and as  always, I was excited at the prospect of entering upon a night of 
endless horrors. At that time, I only had one good friend, Joe 
McAllister, a fellow horror aficionado, who was my age. In the past 
years, we would steal R-rated DVD’s from the local video store (I 
would sneak out with them, there was no equipment available to account 
for the theft, it was a small town) our Halloween night would be 
filled with images from the films we had watched together, John 
Carpenter’s Halloween, The Shining, Carrie, from a very early age I 
was always spoon fed images of horror. But, as I got older, the movies 
did not fill the void that began to grow in me.
I wanted more, craved it, I needed to be frightened down to my bones, 
scared, and the movies simply were not doing the trick anymore. That 
was when something was suggested to me, it didn’t seem like a big 
deal, after all I was getting older and I needed something more. We 
were sitting in Joey’s basement, the pale light from a single lamp 
cast a dim glow within the room, it snaked it way over the furniture 
and supplanted the darkness that was hanging in the room, and it was 
not so much light as it was a thin misty haze that barely enveloped 
the two of us. He was smoking a joint and the smoke seemed to 
intertwine with the lamp’s light, curling and bending around its 
beams, seeming to levitate in the air before it slowly dissipated.

So, he said, what do you want to do, steal a couple of DVD’s again?

No, I said, I want to see something for real, something that will 
really scare the shit out of me

What do you mean; you want to see something for real?

I want to feel fear, taste it, I’m tired of watching bullshit movies 
on the TV

I think I might know somewhere we could go

Where?

Well, there is this path in the woods near here, it’s really 
overgrown but I think we can manage to find it

What’s so scary about that?

No one goes back there anymore, it’s practically abandoned.

I really don’t see the point in doing this, but if you think it’s 
scary I’ll go for it

You never see the point in anything, come on, let’s get going

So I followed him, I realized I would follow him to hell if he wanted 
me to go with him, I was that attached, that dependent. It wasn’t a 
sexual attraction but it might as well have been, it was as if we were 
one being. Our thoughts seemed to be somehow interconnected, our 
beings intertwined and every thought had to pass through each of our 
collective consciousness’s in order to come into fruition.

We walked slowly at first, as if each step was somehow an action that 
demanded an intense amount of concentration, a deliberate process. The 
street we were on was deserted, it was late and the best way I can 
describe it was an absolute stillness. Every atom, every fiber stood 
unmoving on that night. The moon hung pale and full in the sky, the 
leaves rustled quietly with each gust of the cold evening wind and all 
of the houses we past were silent, everyone tucked away for the night. 
The only sounds were our own footprints, echoing through the darkness 
with each step.

So, Joe said, you see that new girl at school

No, what about her?

She’s got nice tits; he was smirking when he said this

What about the rest of her? I asked

Decent, he said, maybe a five or six

So, what is so special about this place you are going to show me?

Well, he said, a couple of years ago a group of young kids, ya know, 
local school children decided it would be interesting to go explore 
this particular forest. And they went running along together in a big 
group prancing and laughing like children do. They ran holding their 
plastic pumpkin trick-or-treat bowls, dressed up as little red riding 
hood or whatever. They ran into the woods, ya see, and they were 
excited at first because they thought it was cool and scary. Well, 
after a while they got lost and obviously they were beginning to get 
pretty scared. Some of the real the real little ones were probably 
crying at that point. Well, at that point something must have 
happened, they must have found something or whatever, no is sure of 
exactly what went down but it is common knowledge that our group of 
school children never returned home. Then, as you can guess, the 
parents began to worry, mothers with tears running down their faces 
picked up a phone with trembling hands to call the police. They 
probably talked in a hushed panicked tone demanding to know where 
their babies were. Well, the police eventually launched a search party 
to look for the missing children and they ventured into the forest and 
found absolutely nothing. No sign of the children anywhere, until one 
officer found something he found to be curious, a small trail, like an 
indentation in the ground, ya know grass pressed down, branches 
snapped in nearby trees, kinda liked something had been dragged a 
considerable distance. Well, he followed said trail and found, get 
this, a plastic pumpkin bowl, the one the kids were using to trick or 
treat with. Naturally he went over to pick it up, ya know, investigate 
it. And he picked it up, gingerly at first, kinda stroking it with his 
fingers, he picked it up and it was really fucking heavy. Well, 
naturally he looked inside and it was filled to the top with blood, 
dark red, a thick sticky mass of it. The poor guy dropped
  the blood-filled bucket and ran like a fucking girl. He ran and told 
the rest of his cop buddies and they went to investigate it next. They 
found the bucket and the first thing they realized was that their was 
a shitload of blood on the ground from the bucket being dropped and 
the next instant one cop shouted hey look over here! And they all ran 
over and they found a finger, a fucking finger, pale as marble just 
laying there. And on it was a purple plastic ring, the kind you get 
from a gumball machine. Later, one of the mother's identified it as 
her little girls, i think her name was Annie or something and that was 
that. No further investigation it just ended, they held a memorial 
service for the missing children, some people cried and hugged each 
other, some even cursed God. The point is nothing else happened, the 
cops won't talk about it, almost as if they are scared to or 
something. Anyways, that’s where we're going to explore tonight, the 
path in the woods where all those little kids went missing.

That's pretty fucked up

Yeah, no shit, that’s why were going there, isn't that what you wanted to be scared?

Yeah, but if that really happened, its nothing I want to be a part of

Don't be such a pussy he said, you've watched all those scary movies and you've been fine, there's probably nothing there anyways

Still, I said, it just doesn't seem right

We continued walking until the edge of a thick woods, trees densely packed together, some bare branches exposed to the moonlight, which only seemed to emphasize their cold, dead appearance. I looked at Joe, trembling slightly, for a cold breeze rustled the leaves and slowly moved the branches of the trees. Looking at that forest, I could not help but think of The Inferno, "abandon all hope ye who enter here." It was like I was entering the first circle of Dante's hell, the trees yawned and gaped at me, smirking as I went by, I could feel there cold branches lightly caressing my back. All I could hear was the crunch of dry twigs and damp leaves beneath my feet, click, clack, click, clack. I looked at Joe, at that moment, seeing his face streaked with the blackness of night, his tense features, I felt in love with him. Maybe it was blind fear, maybe it was something else, to this day I don't know, whatever it was, it felt very good.

It seemed as if we passed an endless amount of trees, it was as if we had been walking for miles aimlessly, I had this persistent image that we would become completely lost, trailing endlessly in circles until we slowly died of starvation. We eventually stopped because I had the overwhelming urge to piss, I stood urinating while Joe stood a considerable distance away, I heard a noise, it was like a faint scratching accompanied with ragged breathing. Something was watching us, salivating, licking its lips, waiting to devour us. It reminded me of a story my father told me when I was little, about Hansel and Grettle, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to mark their path, only to discover a candy house and a witch that wanted to eat the two of them. That is how I felt, except we had no trail of breadcrumbs, and I feared that something worse than a witch was following us. Something dark, slimy, something that skulked along the sewers, the only noise its slow deliberate breathing. It would hide in your closet, or under your bed, waiting until your parents went to bed and the lights were turned off, covering you in blackness. Then it would crawl close to your face, so you could smell its breath, the odor of shit and rotting lettuce, then it would sink its teeth into your neck, laughing as you screamed and screamed, until there was nothing left of you, until you were inside of it completely.

Come on, Joe said, stop pissing and lets go

All right, just wait a second, I zipped up and joined him. He was standing, looking at something that I couldn't quite see.

Check this out, he said

Check what out?

Look, and he held it up in the light for me to see, it was one of those police barriers. The bright yellow kinds that are used to cordon off crime scenes. In bold lettering you could still make out the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.

Shit, Joe said, this must be where those kids were found

I'm not really comfortable with this, I said; let’s get the hell out of here

No, he said you wanted to see this place and that’s what were going to do

I don't know man it just doesn't feel right, when I said I wanted to be scared I didn't mean like this

I couldn't say anything else, I simply stood there, looking at confines of the trees twisting and bending around me in some sort of macabre dance, constricting me, suffocating me, I couldn't move.

I stood there, taking in the darkness that surrounded me, feeling it pulsating, the inner spirit of Halloween, the dark, the unknown, the mysterious presences that surrounded me. I slowly began to look around, noticing the thick roots of the trees bursting out of the ground like ragged firehouses.

I began to walk

I heard the same incessant tapping as before, except it was growing louder, swelling and bursting the confines of the fragile forest with its increasing intensity.

Taptaptaptaptaptap

I felt hot breath on the side of my face, it smelled dark and rotting, like something left in the darkest corner of your cellar for months to fester and mold.

I lost sight of Joe; at one moment I saw him directly in front of me, and the next the darkness seemed to envelope like a black shroud. I began to shout his name and all I heard was my own echo bouncing back at me. I was gradually increasing my speed until I broke into a full sprint. I screamed his name, over and over again. I was running so fast that the trees were nothing more than shapeless blurs.

I fell

I fell right on my face, my foot caught in a thick root and my mouth tasting a combination of thick dirt and dry twigs. I scrambled to my feet and looked around

I saw Joe

He was standing several feet in front of me, he was facing the opposite direction and all I could see was the outline of his small frame. I ran over to him

Joe I said, Joe what the hell are you doing?

I grabbed his shoulder and quickly turned him around

Joe what are you doing?

He didn’t respond he simply held up his arm for me

I had eyes but I did not see

It took a few crucial seconds for my brain to register what I was seeing, Joe was holding up his arm, or what was left of it. His hand was missing; it was as if someone had wrenched it free of his arm. A pale and jagged piece of bone was jutting out and a thin jet of blood squirted onto my shirt, dampening it slightly.

I must have lost it on the way here he said, it just fell off or something

Whoops!!! Clumsy me! he said

Man, what the hell are you doing, I shrieked

It was then he began to smile, it was a twisted sneer, as if all of the humanity had been sapped out of him. He started to laugh, it was a low devilish chuckle;

Ha ha, you know I can put it back on right?

Joe, I said, what the fuck-

I started hearing the tapping again, only now it sounded more like footsteps, a slow laboring walk. It wanted me to know that it was coming; it wanted me to hear it. As the sound grew closer, I could hear the distinctive sound of claws scraping against the nearby trees, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Joe collapsed into my arms, and I held him, hugged him, a dead weight supported by trembling hands. His blood began to seep further onto my shirt and pants; it was wet and dark, and slightly sticky. It warmed me slightly as more of his fluid poured itself out onto me. I was scared beyond any reasonable description, the thin walls of sanity that supported my psyche began to crumble at that point, I just couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. My friend, my one true friend, was lying in my arms slowly bleeding out and laughing throughout the entire process.

I began to drag him, the footsteps grew even closer, perhaps teen feet from me and I could make out was a faint shape silhouetted against the blackness of night. It was wide and tall, taller than anything I’ve ever seen and it looked as if it was staring directly at me, through me.

It was laughing too

It was an inhuman chuckle, slow and deliberate, sounding as if it was choked with rotting seaweed. It grew closer and I could make out the ragged and stinking clothes that it was wearing, all gray and discolored, clothing left in a cellar full of moths to rot and decay. Its legs were rotted and strand of dark flesh were straddling bleach white bones.

Your friend is going to taste good tonight it crooned, I already took part of him and he didn’t seem to mind

It was then that it stepped into the pale glow of the moon directly in front of me, the sight of its face broke the fear induced trance I was in and I began to drag Joe in backwards, my feet scraping against the wet ground, my bare arms were being scratched by the many branches that were prodding and tearing at me. The forest was growing closer in an attempt to block my escape. Branches were intertwining with the thick trunks of the trees and as hard as I tried, as hard as I screamed, I couldn’t move any further.

I looked into its face, it was a bottomless black pit, and everything terrible that ever occurred in the universe was reflected in that moving mass of dark and putrid flesh. It did not have eyes, or any facial features that I could recognize. It was undulating mass with a single opening filled with a litany of sharp and tiny teeth and that was all I could make out. Something like the thing I saw that day, defied explanation. It went against the natural order of things; my world up to that point had been neatly organized into rows. What I saw that day killed a part of me. Half of my mind collapsed, imploding in on itself in one swift blow. It reminded me of a story I had seen on the news, a man, middle class and church going, murdered his two neighbors and buried them under his skating rink in his backyard. A few weeks later, as the ice began to melt, someone noticed a sharp foul smelling odor coming from this man’s house. The authorities were eventually called, and one of them went out back and noticed two dark shapes underneath the melting ice. He called some of his fellow officers over and the group of them began to dig, clawing away at the chunks of melting ice and snow until their hands fell on something that felt cold and stiff, two dead bodies. The reporter said they were perfectly preserved, like two eternal dolls. Reports also indicated that the man brought his daughter out to skate over the corpses when winter was still in full swing. How someone who appeared perfectly sane, someone who seemed to be an essentially good person, could do this to a fellow human being confounded me. It did not make any sense, just as what I was seeing now defied explanation. It disrupted the natural order of things, turned the world upside down. God made the world so everything was interconnected, but this creature I was seeing now, it was as if He had forgotten something. He fucked up because what I was seeing in front of me insulted everything that He had ever created.

Do you know what he tasted like? It said

I bet you’d like to know

(it licked)
  (its lips)

He’s so warm and sweet, so crunchy and tender

I was still staring in that black pit of nothingness when Joe muttered to me

Leave me, he said, run

No, I said, surprised by my sudden courage and resolve

I will never leave you

Don’t be stupid, he said, you have a better chance of getting out of here (cough) than me

I gripped his hand, and I looked into his pale face, beautifully symmetry like the crest of a marvelous bird. Tears were streaming down both of our faces, and that which represented our sorrow slowly traversed its way down my cheek and landed onto his face. We were one. I hoisted Joe to his feet yet again and proceeded to continue dragging him backwards.

LEAVE ME he shouted

No, I responded I (love) need you and can’t afford to leave you behind

I was basically hugging him at that point, dragging him away from the terrible fate that awaited us, prolonging the inevitable. I was holding him and everything was frozen in time at that moment. A clawed hand, cold and scaly, burst through my world and shattered what was left of my fragile existence.

Its sharp curled claws burst through Joe’s chest; blood oozed and seeped onto my clothing, a scarlet explosion. Some of his guts landed onto me, they were dark and wet, like raw meat or chicken and I was covered in it. His once beautiful chest, a gaping hole, the clawed hand was intertwined with the now visible organs in Joe’s torn open abdomen. The thing was gripping my chest as well and I ran.

This time I did not stop; I did look back, however.

The creature was holding Joe in such a position that his face was turned towards me, his eyes, once aqua blue pools of vitality were now rolled up in his head all I could see were the whites of them in the pale moonlight. One ragged claw was clamped around the cusp of Joe’s ear while the other was gripping and tearing at his auburn hair. The veins in his pale neck began to tear, and blood seeped out of the open wounds. There was a dry ripping sound as Joe’s head was slowly separated from his body in one swift pull. The creature was holding it and leering at me. Blood dripped from the severed neck and I turned away and sprinted, the trees seemed to let me pass, as if they enjoyed watching the gruesome spectacle and wanted me to be a part of it too. The bare branches of the trees scraped and clawed against me as I ran by them, no stay don't leave, they seemed to be saying to me, we'll miss you. It was then I saw a thin pulsating sliver of light at the far ends of the woods. It was merely a dim yellow crevice but I galloped towards the warms radiations and I was quickly engulfed in its pale glow. I burst past the branches that I was once intertwined in and I stood in the middle of the gravel road that I had entered in what seemed like decades earlier with my friend who was now (dead) lost to me forever.

My world was spinning and spinning and I could do nothing to stop it. The edge of the woods and the trees that encompassed it contorted and cavorted in a rapid cycle that did not seem to end. I put my left hand to my temple and cried silently to myself, choked sobs that could not adequately express the unfathomable amount of pain I was in. I then wrapped my arms around myself and curled up on the ground like a babe in a mother’s womb. The wind whistled softly, it was the only thing that seemed to comfort me that night.








“Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”
- Plato, The Laws

Part two: The Awakening

I saw tiny specks of light first, dancing, twisting, and bending before my eyes. They were thin pulsating crystals, the light that encompassed them seemed to vibrate, slowly at first but it gradually increased in intensity. There were four of these glowing beams and as they were vibrating they began to dance around one another in a rapid seemingly never-ending cycle. They spun faster and faster until the crystals became nothing more than yellow blurs, putrid puddles of sickly light that stung my eyes and caused thin trickles of tears to traverse their way down my cheeks. The light grew brighter, like hot sheets of metal, I could feel my eyes melting and I clawed desperately at my face. I tried futilely to shield myself but I felt warm liquid bubbling and stinging my hands. Black specks gradually encompassed my vision; multiplying rapidly they combined with the pale glow of the yellow light and formed a sickly canvas of alternating color. I screamed and screamed but it was as if I had no voice, it was lost in the multitude of flashing colors that lay before me. I writhed, twisting and turning but I just couldn’t save myself. When I smelled the sweet aroma of burning flesh, and my eyes were nothing more than bleeding, and burned out cores, I

Woke up (!)

Kid, what the hell are you doing? You’re not supposed to be back here.

I could hear what was being said to me but only vaguely. It was as if I were separated from the rest of the world by a fathomless amount of miles.

Yo kid, don’t worry everything is going to be fine.

Who are you? I thought to myself, and why are you here?

The face that was hovering directly above me was a myriad of multicolored blurs, after a period of time roughly consisting of about two minutes the jagged lines and crevices that made up the individuals face coalesced into being. It was a grim looking face; a man’s who looked at me with an increasing amount of concern and sympathy. You‘re gonna be all right, he kept repeating to me over and over again. However, I did not agree with his assumption, my insides were burning, it was like someone had plunged a hot butter knife into my abdomen and tore out a chunk of my hot and steaming guts.

Do you know who I am? The man said, I’m a police officer and I’m here to help you.

The officer lifted me to my feet, my legs were wobbly and I felt extremely nauseous.

I found you here kid, I was patrolling a nearby street and I heard someone screaming their fucking head off and it sounded like it was coming form the woods. So I got out of my car and ran back here and I followed this path until I found…found you passed out like you were drinking all goddamn night.

I thought I recognized this man from somewhere, but I just couldn’t put my finger on the strange feeling that grew inside of me when I stared into his concerned gaze. It was as if I was vaguely remembering someone with which I once shared a very close relationship. It dawned on me then, like the stories in the Bible where God revealed himself in a blinding flash of light.

I know who you are I whispered to him as he began to lift me off my feet

He was Officer Peterson and it was his daughter whose finger they found lying in the tall grass several hundred feet from where I lay. A few drops of blood littered the ground where they found the pale finger and that was it. But I knew what happened to her now, she was eaten alive, screaming and writhing, as that thing I saw with Joe slowly consumed her. I imagined that little girl, tears streaming down her petite face as she tried desperately to run. She must have tripped over something like I did or maybe she simply ran out of breath. She must have resigned herself to her fate and curled up in a ball crying to her mother. Oh God, I bet she fucking cried as that abomination skulked towards her, laid it filthy claws on her and lifted her slowly into the air. Yummy yummy yummy it must have muttered to her in its clotted voice. Then the thing opened its cavernous  void, saliva trailing from its mouth and landing on the little girl, Annie’s face. She was then slowly torn limb from limb and the creature, being too full and bloated by that point with the taste of her flesh, left the little finger as some sort of perverse clue for someone to find.

He was dragging me towards his cruiser and I cannot begin to describe to you the intense amount of relief I felt when Officer Peterson gently placed me in the back of his police car. He got into the front of the car, started it up and we drove off. I was watching the trees and the moon move quickly by me as Officer Peterson began asking me questions:

Why were you out there by yourself? You…you (his voice slightly quavering) shouldn’t be back there.

I was just exploring I said

Were you with anything else?

Yeah, my friend, Joe.

Where is he? He said

He’s, ah, (eaten) I lost track of him and he must have found his own way home or something.

Kid, be straight with me, what happened to him.

You’re going to think I’m nuts, but we were both pretty loaded and uh, we were both pretty horny and uh, we started to fu-

I don’t need to hear any more he snapped at me so you both wanted to screw each other, what the hell happened to your friend?

As I said, we were both pretty drunk and he passed out after we were done he actually passed out so I left him there.

You left your best friend passed out in the middle of the woods?

I was scared I said and I didn’t know what to do I said

You’d better hope your friend is ok, or you’re going to be in a world of shit, he muttered do you want to head back to the station to talk more?

No, just take me home

I looked out the window again; I saw two kids, a boy and a girl who were probably fourteen. We were near my house and the young kids were holding hands under the watchful eye of the full moon. They were both dressed up for the Halloween festivities that were not quite over yet.

They were holding hands and laughing.





Part Three: Remembrance of Things Past

"So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate." ~ Mark 10:8-9

"I found the one my heart loves." ~ Song of Solomon 3:4

“I am the love that dare not speak its name.”
-Lord Alfred Douglas

Seeing those two young children awakened some deep, all-seeing part of me. I started to remember my somewhat turbulent past, and how much Joe had actually meant to me. I didn't realize until that very moment, staring out of the back of a cop car that I had lost the only individual in my life who really gave a fuck about me. I could remember with an intense amount of clarity the aroma of his skin and I imagined myself sliding my thin fingers through his auburn hair. It was as if his death was the only thing that made me realize how much I really wanted him. The car eventually came to a stop, I stepped out into the frigid air and Officer Peterson got out and stood beside me. We both slowly approached the door of my house and I hesitantly rang the doorbell.

         The house itself was old, it weathered many New England storms and the chipped paint and overall beaten and submissive appearance of the structure itself was evidence of this. It was what my father might call a Cape Cod style house, the house had two windows located on the second floor and they jutted out about four feet and overlooked the deserted street below. Officer Peterson knocked roughly on the door four times and eventually my mother opened the door, clad in a loose-fitting nightgown, her hair disheveled and poking out at various different angles. She looked at me and smiled.

So, she said, it seems you’ve gotten into some trouble tonight

Not exactly ma’m Officer Peterson said, I actually found your son passed out on the old Ahab and Jezebel’s path. You know, the one that was officially closed to the public (slight hesitation again) after those grisly murders a few years back.

Jesus Christ she muttered, you know I have to say it doesn’t surprise me ever since he started hanging out with that, what’s his name, Joe, he’s been getting into a lot of trouble lately.

Is that so officer Peterson said, well he says here that this Joe passed out after the two had been drinking and, um, doing other things and like a good friend, he simply left him there in the middle of the woods.

No! I almost shouted, he (is in pieces) can find his own way home, I’m sure of it. Officer Peterson eyed me with growing suspicion and he looked at my mother smiled and said well, I think we’re done here it seems like a simple case of two youths having too much to drink.

Thank you my mother said, now I think its time I had a talk with my son. Yes ma’m he said, Officer Peterson glanced at me one more time and departed to his cruiser. My mother looked at me and waves of anger radiated off of her, I had gotten used to that look, most of her anger was directed towards me after her husband, my father, had killed himself.
         I was fourteen at the time and I was sitting in school when one of my teachers called me out of class. At the time, and this is something I regret to this day, I felt a profound sense of relief because I was leaving algebra class and I hated math. However, I knew something was amiss when I was brought into the office and my mother was talking to the school psychologist. My mother looked distraught, no, not distraught she looked devastated. Black mascara cascaded down her smooth cheeks in thick tendrils and she was talking in a quick, hushed whisper. I approached her and she flung her arms around me. Honey, she said, barely controlling her sobs, your father, he’s…he’s dead. He killed himself she screamed in a cry of agony, ten fucking years of marriage and he killed himself! I couldn’t understand what she was saying, my father, my savior and protector was gone. Ashes to ashes dust to dust. I understood at that very moment, how Job must have felt with God and Satan having a pissing contest and good old innocent Job bearing the brunt of it. He lost his fucking family, his house, and he was stricken with various afflictions and what did God say? Don’t question me, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? My life up to that point had been fairly idyllic, with lemonade in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. My father guided me, as I have said I had few friends and my father helped me to overcome my various social challenges. Lighten up sport, he used to say, everything will work out in the end. Now he was dead and I later learned that he hanged himself with an extension cord, the one we used to use to set up the outside lights for Christmas. He wrapped it around his neck, found a small stepladder and jumped off it into oblivion. My mother was grocery shopping and came home to find him hanging in the garage. The smell of shit permeated the room and my mother dropped the groceries she had been holding, eggs broke and milk spilled on the cement floor. She had found a note as well, this was not something she had told me but something I overheard one Sunday afternoon when she was talking with a friend of hers. Torn from one of his notebooks and written in with a red pen in jerky handwriting it read I can’t explain the things that I have seen, I will never be able to. When she found him he was swaying back and forth, his eyes bulging from his head, his tongue swollen and dark red. I learned all of this gradually from various sources, not immediately but over time. I felt like some of the details I learned were unnecessary but I could see him swinging to and fro like a pendulum. I wondered if he had gotten a boner after he died, I had read that it wasn’t unnatural with rigor mortis and all. The void, the reason I met Joe in the first place, was created that day. Part of my soul was eviscerated in the blinding heat of tragedy. My father, my only companion up to that point was dead. I loved him and I still do, but I will never forget the image I had of him that day, swinging in my garage with an erection in his pants.

         

         Get inside my mother hissed at me, and I had no choice but to acquiesce to her request. Who the hell was that Officer Peterson and what were you doing with that punk friend of yours! She was nearly screaming at me at that point and all I could do was stare at her in complete and utter bewilderment. I wasn’t quite sure what to think, I had never really seen her like this before. It was as if something had changed inside of her, altered her circuitry slightly. She had always suspected I was gay but we never actually had any conversations about it. Maybe it was the sudden realization that I was interested in men, specifically Joe, and she couldn’t cope with it. I have always thought of her as a fairly tolerant woman but she was certainly giving me mixed signals that night.

         We both swiftly stepped inside, the moonlight filtered in thin hazy waves through the red curtains and the grandfather clock which was located directly near the stairs leading upstairs, was rotating swiftly on its pendulum. It would rise to the right then the bronze pendulum would reach the apex of its height and fall once again in a never-ending cycle. She looked at me, a woman racked by tragedy, someone that persevered through her husband’s death and worked two jobs to support me. She was sending me to an excellent private school and although many pf my peers considered me to be intelligent and vibrant student, I had a hard time focusing on subjects that were of little interest to me. So, she said, her voicing lowering slightly, what exactly happened between you and what’s his name, Joe? You know, despite everything that has happened, that I do care about you and your well being. Now, please, just tell me the truth. I know you weren’t drinking because you’ve always expressed a disinterest in alcohol and I certainly know you weren’t having sex because your not the type of kid who acts irrationally without assessing the situation first. What happened dear? You know you can always be honest with me.


         Do you remember when I met Joe? I asked her, I must have never told you the story. Can’t say that you have she said. Well, I was a freshman at St. Francis, right after dad died, and I felt a part of me was dead, dad yanked a part out of me that day when he jumped from that stepladder. I had, you know, some sort of void inside of me, something that I felt no one could fill not even you. I know you tried to comfort me, you really did but I just loved him so much and I had virtually no friends in a freshman class of about three hundred. I would walk down the hall in my tan kaki’s, black shoes, and grey collared shirt and I swear I could hear some of the girls chuckle as I walked by. When we played dodge ball in gym I was always the one that the jocks targeted, they often hit me squarely in the face and I had to hold back tears. The tears came because I felt so screwed up, why didn’t anybody like me mom, why? I never did anything or hurt anyone, I would sit in class in my own little world wondering and hoping for something to change, for someone to take eliminate the feeling of isolation that clung to my skin like a shroud. Well, after a long day of school I was sitting on the on the front steps of the school, it was a beautiful spring day and I was reading Stephen King’s Carrie. I was trying to enjoy the beauty of the afternoon when I heard someone approach me from behind. Startled and thinking it was someone with dubious intent, I quickly turned around. Hey, the boy said, you like King, I have pretty much all of his books, I’m a pretty big horror fan. The boy looked about my age with dark brown hair that cascaded behind his ears and neck. He was wearing a similar outfit to what I was and was holding several books, cradling them like a baby in his arms. I noticed one of them, it was Fredrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist. They let you read that here? I asked him, the incredulity apparent in my voice. Yeah, he said, taking a seat next to me. I find Nietzsche’s ideas to be extraordinarily relevant to our current time period. His statement that God is dead is painstakingly apparent in our current materialistic and vapid society. I began to smile at this I had never been to fond of religion myself, my mother used to take me to Church. I was raised Catholic, but seeing a nearly naked and emaciated individual nailed to a piece of wood never did that much for me. How do you feel about Camus? I said shutting my book and turning to face him directly. I’ve always found him to be of the same vein as Nietzsche I said. Well, he said Camus was similar to Nietzsche in many ways, he certainly had similar feelings about religion which can be seen in his novel The Plague. Are you an atheist? I asked him. Yeah, he said. Does anyone  ever give you any shit for it? Especially here, your surrounded by Catholicism. I’ve never been ashamed about being different he said. I’m not one to go along with the crowd. I respect that I said. What’s your name I asked him. Joe he said, Joe McAllister. Where you from Joe? I asked. Well, I’m actually from Maine but I moved down here with my family a couple of months ago, I’ve had a really hard time meeting new people no one really feels…right around here. Maybe its because your surrounded by Catholics I said. We both laughed at this. Hey, your pretty cool he said. Would you want to, uh, hang out sometime? Sure I said, where do you live, I just started taking driving lessons so I don’t have a license yet. I live on the corner of Jackson and Witcham, it’s the white house with the light blue shudders. Oh, I live right down the street I said, right on Heath circle after the four-way intersection. That’s like five minutes from my house he said. Cool, he said, well I’ve got to go because I have to help my mother with some chores, so I’ll see you later he said. He picked up his books, I caught a glimpse at another one of them and it was Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil. I eventually lost site of him as he was slowly walking away from the school, but I felt like he was still sitting right next to me.

Joe was in my science class, freshman biology with a certain Mr. Billings, a rather portly man with a few tufts of white hair on his otherwise bald head who had a condescending manner that radiated off of him in palpable waves. To him, the most important thing next to Jesus was the structure of DNA and the complex intricacies of single-celled organisms. Joe was the type of kid who would often sleep in class and on this particular day Mr. Billings would have none of that. McAllister! He bellowed, what is the typical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid? Joe, his auburn hair falling in front of his face simply said, do you really think the world is ruled entirely by logic? We create this society and live by rules composed by people who are as corrupt as ourselves. Can’t you see, nothing has any meaning, we simply create what is valuable. I don’t know what the answer is and I don’t really care either. Detention! Mr. Billings shouted. I’ll see you at 2:30 Joe. Whatever he said, and promptly fell back asleep.

         It wasn’t that Joe was a poor student because he didn’t understand the material that was being presented to him, it simply didn’t interest him. He was one of the most articulate and outright intelligent individuals that I had ever met, but he seemed to be satisfied with C’S and D’s on his report card.