The Redemption of Judas Ray

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                              The Redemption of Judas Ray

                                A Short Story by Z.Dawson



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That shaggy mutt behind the wooden gate kept barking, and I was becoming less sure that I wanted to go through with this. I figured I should just turn tail and run my scrawny ass out of there, but Jimmy was waiting for me, and I didn't want to piss Jimmy off. I was feeling “the sickness” coming on. That churning in my stomach, the sweat beads building up on my forehead, it was just a warning of things to come.

  “Fuck it.”

  I decided to just do it and get out quicklike. Just ripping off a band-aid. It'll hurt for a second, but that relief comes afterward, aw yes, that relief is what I wanted.

  I kicked open the door, sending ugly green paint chips flying all over. It had been a while since I set foot here. My memory still held though, and I made my way to the kitchen. It reeked of garbage, and broken dishes and filth were scattered all over the checkered floor. This place had been spotless when I was a growing up.

  I found the drawer where all the silverware was kept and dumped everything into the yellow pillowcase that I was using as a loot sack. I was pretty experienced with thievery, and I knew I needed to be quick, so as soon as I was done, I made my way to the stairs. The nice shit is always in the bedroom.

  As I glanced around, I noticed that these new people seemed to have the same taste in furniture that my Momma used to. There were old brown photos in wooden frames hanging by silver hooks on the wall, and I felt like I should recognize the faces in them, but they were all strangers to me now.

  My blood was pumping, and I barreled into the master bedroom. A queen sized bed sat in the middle of the room, clothes and sheets were piled high on it. The rest of the room was littered with ash trays, moldy food, and things that I couldn't quite recognize.

  “My God,” I thought to myself, “whoever lives here now is one helluva slob.”

  Not that I could say much. I had been wearing the same old flannel shirt and blue jeans for about three weeks now. I made a mental note to get a shower after my next fix. I damn sure wanted a fix right now...

  A wooden jewelry box sat on an antique vanity in the corner. I grabbed it and tossed it in my pillowcase. I saw my reflection in the foggy mirror. My clothes were stained and torn, my shit brown hair was thick with grease and sweat, and curly red fuzz covered my pointed chin and hollowed out cheeks. My eyes had sank into the deep dark holes surrounding them. My pupils were large and glossy.

  I ran out of the room, leaving a trail of spit running down that looking glass where my reflection had been. I headed for the front door, but a nagging feeling made me turn around. That's when I saw her.

  She was wearing a floral print nightgown that came to her knees. Her skin peeked out from underneath the folds of it, saggy and pale. Her face, wrinkled from years of stress, emanated a sadness that pierced my heart like a knife. It was my Momma.

  She was not the woman of my childhood. Back then she would have taken off her worn out slippers and beaten me mercilessly with them. Now she only stared in silence. She had became an empty shell, just like me. She opened her mouth to speak, teeth yellowing and rotten from tobacco.

  “Judas Ray...is that you? I done gave you up for dead, I thought you'd be burning in the deepest pit of hell right now.”

  I couldn't bear to look, much less speak to her, so I hauled ass out the door and jumped in the old blue pick-up truck that sat waiting for me in the gravel drive way.

  As I hopped in, I looked at the pudgy piece of shit behind the wheel.

  “You son of a bitch! You told me that the cancer killed my Momma! You said my cousin Joe was living here now!"

  Jimmy raised his furry black eyebrows in confusion.

  “She was diagnosed like a year ago, I reckoned she'd be gone by now!” he said in fake surprise, making my blood boil.

  “Everybody knows you's a damn liar Jimmy, I'm an idiot for listenin' to you, just get us the hell outta here!”

  I held back the urge to slap the stupid look right off of his fat face. He cranked the ignition and we squealed out on to the dirt road. We headed toward I-59.

  The red sun was coming up over the pines, and I watched the scene zoom past the cracked glass window in a blur. We were one of three vehicles on the interstate this morning. I stayed alert for the sound of sirens, or the flash of blue lights, but none came.

  Normally, I'd be sifting through the loot, tossing out anything that could be traced. I couldn't stop thinking about my childhood. One particular memory kept coming back. I was six years old, and came home crying from school one day, after being teased about my name.

  “Momma!” I said with tears streaming down my dirty little face, “Why did you name me Judas? The other kids keep sayin' I killed Jesus and they won't play football with me!”

  She gave me a big yellow grin and replied, “Son,the reason I named you Judas was because I knowed you was the devil's child from the moment you was conceived in my womb, and that's the honest truth.”

  I snapped back into reality when I heard Jimmy's gruff voice.

  “Ray, what the hell is wrong with you, man, go through that shit and see what we got.” He took his eyes completely off the road as he spoke to me, putting our lives in God's hands, and I barely noticed.

  “She looked right in my eyes..”

  “What are you so worried about? It ain't like she's gonna call the PoPo on her own flesh and blood,” Jimmy said as he checked the rear view mirror.

  I looked at the dirt caked underneath my brittle yellow fingernails and felt the churning in my stomach again. I pushed my thoughts way down inside. I had more important things to worry about right now. I needed a shot of some speed. It was the only thing that could put the monster to sleep..

  I emptied the pillowcase on the ripped leather seat beside me. A tiny silver spoon tumbled out. The letters J-U-D-A-S were engraved on it. I quickly tossed it in the discard pile.

  “Hey man! That thing looked like pure silver, why'd you toss it?” Jimmy exclaimed.

  “It has a name on it.” I kept sorting through the pile.

  “Can't you scratch it out or somethin'?”

  “No, I can't, now shut the fuck up,” I said, losing my temper, then quickly apologized. I was stronger than Jimmy, but I had seen him rip a guy's eye right out of the socket in a fight once, and I didn't want to get on his bad side.

  “Sorry, let's just get this stuff pawned and get our shit. You better not rip me off either.”



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  That night, I finally got my fix, and I was hyped up. I was sitting in a shiny plastic lawn chair on the front porch of a house that belonged to someone I had just met, and I could hear Jimmy's voice coming from inside the house. He was telling them that he thought I was going cuckoo, and that I had seen my Momma's ghost in my old house this very morning. Lying out his teeth again..that fat bastard. I still had fifteen bucks in my pocket, so I decided to take a walk to the liquor store.

  The moon looked like a shit eating grin in the sky, and I was feeling pretty good myself. I walked for a while, and then I heard a commotion. Near the end of the street, I noticed a long brown tent where it seemed to be coming from. I decided to take myself a look.

  When I got closer, a saw a cardboard sign and it had a message scribbled sloppily with a black marker.

 

“TENT REVIVAL : Cum Out Tonite at 730 and Hear Reverend Jeffrey Horton speak on the Trials and Tribulations of OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST! Cum out and git SAVED tonite!”



  Well, the Reverend's name struck a chord with me. I started remembering my childhood again, this time I was with my MawMaw. God rest her soul. She took me to Sunday School with her one morning, even though my Momma kept telling her that God would smite her down for taking the devil's child to a holy place.

  My teacher was none other than a Mr. Jeffrey Horton. There I sat, looking out of place in my hand me down dress clothes that were two sizes too big, and my hair in an unmanageable rat's nest. Everyone in the class announced their name and how much they loved Jesus. When it was my turn, I stood up and said,

“My name is Judas Ray Nelson and my Momma says I'm the Anti-Christ!”

  Not missing a beat, Mr. Horton looked at me and said, “Son, you know there are some good men in the Bible named Judas too, and I'm sure your Momma meant to name you after one of them. Sometimes adults say things that they don't mean.” Then he just moved right on to the next person, who was still looking at me with wide eyes. I remembered my teacher as a man of great faith.

  The sound of singing and tambourines filled my ears, and I followed it through the tent flaps. I sat down in one of the cold metal chairs and looked around for the man now known as Reverend Jeffrey Horton.

  I spotted him in a crowd of elderly women. They were cooling off with paint stick fans, the round pieces of cardboard painted with the face of Jesus. Horton's face was a bright shade of red, surrounded by wild silver whiskers, above and below.

  He motioned for a young girl to get up, and the music lowered as she started singing “Amazing Grace.”

  The Reverend stood beside her on the stage, and he preached a moving sermon, ended with an altar call.

  “God loves all his children, and he's telling me that there's somebody here tonight that's suffering, and they need God's hand to touch them, and take away their pain!”

The sobbing from the crowd just kept getting louder, and I was getting mighty uncomfortable.

  “If you're uncomfortable, then you know I'm talking to you, you've been living a life of sin, and God wants you to come into his kingdom and leave all that behind! Halleluigha!”

  I felt like a fire had been lit under my pants and I leapt up.

  “I am not the devil's child, I am not the devil's child! I am a child of God! I want to go to God's Kingdom!”

  I had never had such an overwhelming feeling in my life, I thought I'd gone crazy for sure. The Reverend seemed to be thrilled.

  “Amen!What is your name, son?” He smiled at me, and for once in my life, I wanted to believe it was genuine, I wanted to believe that this man cared about my soul.

  “My name is Judas Ray, and I AM NOT the Anti-Christ!”

  “Well, Halleluigha! Folks did you hear that? Even a man named JUDAS can be saved by the divine power of Jesus Christ. Ain't God wonderful? Ain't he?”



Word Count: 1993