Slowly, we are all becoming Branch Covidians.
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Social Media Prayer
God, grant me the wisdom to not respond,
The courage to look away
Or the ability to laugh that the stupidity. -
The Wrecking-crew
Everybody was off doing their own thing. I sat on the couch, alone, in my usual place, feeling sorry for useless ass, a drink in one hand and my revolver in the other.
As I slowly got drunk, I began hearing voices. These were voices I had know a long time ago and they belonged to people I knew were dead.
One in particular belonged to a guy named Carlos. We’d been tight in the Suck and I was there the day half of his head exploded from the bullet of a Kalashnikov.
“Come on, Tom,” he gently said, “Then we’ll all be together again.”
Slowly, his form moved from the shadows and into the light that slipped through the blinds from the streetlamps outside. In quick succession there was Johnny, Ray-Ray, Olsen, Gonzales, Jonesy-boy, Smitty, Garrison, Ames, Manetti and Metcalf.
They were all there. The old Wrecking-crew as we were known, the one’s given the shit-ass jobs that no one else wanted to do.
“Come on, Doc, don’t be a coward,” Carlos said.
I fingered the revolver that I had resting on the arm of the sofa and took another slug of my drink.
“You ain’t Carlos,” I stated. “Carlos would never called me coward, pussy, maybe but not coward.”
I gulp another mouthful of my liquid courage and closed my eyes.
“You can’t fool a fool,” I chuckled to myself.
Then came the figures from the darkness no man wants to see. The death and the possible dead, that he helped create.
They were there for me. And though I had no idea what these being were saying as they spoke their own tongue and not my native American English, I knew they were urging me to commit the final act.
One figure moved closer than the others. I recognized his face, though it was half-rotted.
He was a Soviet Army officer and he still bore the wound I inflicted on him jus’ to the left of his sternum. His uniform was matted with mud and debris, the wound entrance, though tiny, was stained a greasy, black and the hole in his tunic was rough edged.
“Yбей себя,” he repeated over and over.
Though I speak not Russian, I was certain he was also urging me to kill myself. I picked the revolver up again, followed by more drink.
It was one of two or three word I understood and it startled me. So, I took another long swallow of booze before answering, “Hет!”
With that I popped open the cylinder of the gun and slowly began unloading the cartridges, standing them up, single file a pointer finger width apart on the glass coffee table before me. As I did this the atmosphere in the half-lighted room changed and became chilled.
I picked my glass up and tossed off the last of the liquor.
The many figures, those that appeared as my buddies, those whose memories still torment my sleep and sometimes my waking hours, were gone. In the corner though, half-crouching was a hideous creature, red skin that remained taut across it’s sharp bony features, yellow-green eyes, that did not blink and elongated hands with fingers that bore dull-black dagger like nails.
“You,” I said, as a challenge. “Probably not what you really look like either, you old bastard, trickster!”
He words came to me as a growl, but I could not understand them either. Again, I was certain he was trying to get me to end my life so he could have my soul.
Staring at him, I reached for the bottle at the edge of the table and pour myself another snoot full of alcohol. I downed it and leaned back in the couch.
The thing in the corner growled and hissed some more instructions. Then it fell silent.
Still staring into the malignant eyes of that other-worldly grotesque, I began, “The Lord is my shepherd…”
The table began to shake violently and suddenly shattered as if struck my a baseball bat. My eye’s left the monster to see the table divide into a thousand shards, and when I looked back, the malevolent creature had vanished.
I continued, “I shall not want.”
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Little Sister
“Whose jacket is this?” Mary asked me, as she grabbed her wrap from the coat rack on the wall.
I look at it as she lifts it up, “I don’t know. Maybe it belongs to one of the kids. Could have left it when they were here last week.”
“You’d think one of us would have noticed it before then,” she said.
In a hurry to get to work, she hung it back on the hook and headed out the door. I returned to my keyboard and computer after seeing her off, without giving the jacket another thought.
Around 11 that morning, the doorbell rang and light knocking came at the front door. I had jus’ filed my first article and was needing a break anyway.
I opened the door to a young man of about 15-years.
“Hi,” he choked, obviously shy and uncertain about what he was about to say.
“Hello,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“Umm, I’m here to see Marcy,” he tried smiling.
I must have given him a hard stare, because he stepped back from the doorway as if he thought I was about to punch him or something.
“Are you sure her name is Marcy?” I asked.
“That’s what she told me last night after our walk around the neighborhood,” he said.
“You and Marcy went for a walk? Last night?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
A teenager using the polite word ‘sir,’ turned me. I had been thinking he was there to pull some sort of prank on me and I was trying to decide if I should shew him away or invite him in for a further conversation.
“Come in,” I smiled.
He hesitatingly step in the doorway as I made my way to the kitchen.
“Wanna cup of coffee, a soda, some water?” I asked.
“No thank you,” he answered. “I jus’ wanted to see Marcy again and get my coat from her.”
“Is that your coat then?” I asked, pointing to the one we hadn’t recognized earlier.
“Yes,” he said, adding ‘sir,’ following a pause.
I sighed heavily, then said, “Well, you best come in and sit down. I’ve got somethings to tell you.”
Hesitantly, he walked around and sat on the couch.
“Be right back,” I offered.
With my coffee cup in hand, I walked down the hall to the back room and pulled down a photo album, and returned to the living room. I slid a chair across the floor so we were nearly knee-to-knee and opened the book.
“Is that her, Marcy, I mean?” I asked.
“That is,” he answered.
“I thought so,” I returned.
“She does live here, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“Well,” I stumbled, “Yes and no.”
He knitted his brows as he tried to make sense of this last statement.
“I’m not sure who or what you took a walk with last night,” I began, “But know it wasn’t Marcy – at least in a human form – you see, my youngest sister died over three-years-ago at the age of 47 and you see that redwood box on top the Ethan Allen?”
He looked towards where I was pointing and nodded.
“Those are her earthly cremains,” I continued, “So, yes, she is here and no, she’s not. I’m sorry.”
He sat for a minute, looking stunned before saying, “But she was so real.”
“I honestly don’t know what to tell you,” I replied.
Still in shock, he rose, offered his hand and said, “I’m sorry for your loss and I’m sorry to have bothered you like this.”
We proceeded to the front door as I told him, “Thank you for the condolences and you haven’t bothered me a bit. You see, this isn’t the first time Marcy has done this.”
He looked blankly at me as I nodded my head, before adding, “If you need to talk about this some more or if you happen to see her again, don’t be afraid to drop by as I’m always open to talking about her, it, when ever you would like.”
I handed him his jacket and as he looked down at it, I could tell he wanted to ask how it came to be hanging inside our house, but I answered before he could say a word, “I have no explanation, so your guess is as good as mine.”
I closed the door as soon as he left the porch, side-eyeing the redwood box as I passed by to continue writing up my next news assignment.
The Old Blog in the Desert 