Johnny Wraith Stories

In Chains

Someone was shaking me.

"Wake up! Dude, wake up!" he whispered.

I couldn't open one eye. It was swollen shut. My head throbbed worse than it ever had from any hangover I could remember. My sides ached. Breathing hurt so bad taking an ounce of air felt like being stabbed with a thousand knives. They'd kicked me several times in the ribs. A thousand times. More than a thousand fucking times. That's all I could remember. The boots landing hard. Ribs cracking.  My body bruised throughout. The taste of blood in my mouth; the smell of it in my nose. With the tip of my tongue I felt a front tooth missing. I was lying on a concrete floor, in the dark, my hands cuffed behind my back. Someone was there. Crouching beside me with a hand on my shoulder.

"Uh?"

"Wake up!"

"I'm awake," I pitifully spat back.

"Dude, they messed you up pretty bad. We saw it through the window. This whole place - all of us - we were cheering you on!"

By "place" he meant the jail we were in, an old warehouse with barred windows and two armed guards at the only exit, an impenetrable steel door 1' thick. It only opened once a day, if that. That's when they threw animal feed in at us. We only had one corner to shit and piss in. It had a large, open drain 2' wide with no apparent bottom. It stank. The whole place stank. Swarms of flies filled the air we had to breathe. 6 of us. Two gays, the guy that shook me awake, a lady doctor, me, and an Indian. By Indian, I mean an American one, the kind that rides horses, not elephants, wears feathers, not turbans. I think I remember someone saying he was half Apache. He was at least 400 lbs at 6'4". A huge motherfucker with a hippie pony tail. Bigger than the biggest of Indians I'd ever met. 

The white man really fucked the Indians up. Did you know that a lot of Indians, for generations and generations, were simple hunter-gatherers. They lived on diets of fewer than 500 calories a day. They were lean, fit people. Then the white man came, brought McDonalds and Budweiser. The Indians got really fat really fast. They became diabetic, suicidal, and died young, before their time should have been up. Cortez at least had the decency to kill the Aztecs off fast, with blankets poisoned by Malaria. The American white man has been less kind to the American Indians, for more reasons than one. Have you heard that when Abraham Lincoln was in the U.S. Army his unit murdered a lot of Indian babies and women? The Black Hawk Wars of 1832. The Black Hawk Massacres. I wonder if honest Abe knifed it into some unwilling squaw pussy, mouth, and ass during that eventful year of 1832? An old Indian once told me Abe certainly did. He knew it was true because the truth had been handed down orally to him, not through writing. The old Indian said that the written word is laden with lies, but not the word that is spoken from witness to witness, from father to son, from friend to friend. Is it true? I'd like to think so. But hell, I don't know. Abe Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. I suppose emancipation can come in more than one form. So does History. So do women, jobs, art critics, whores, teachers, politicians, mothers, fathers, brothers, soldiers, thieves, prisoners, worshippers, the old and infirm, the strong, the hopeful, the helpless, bus drivers, masons, landscapers, housewives.

"It took 5 of them to put you down."

"Shit man, I counted 6," I weakly chuckled.

"Only five of them went at you."

"Yeah, I remember that part, vaguely. One of them was a fucking pussy. He just stood there giving orders. Shouting about this and that."

"He's the leader, man. Fucking asshole. Stendhal's his name. He put us all in here."

"Yeah, fucking asshole."

I slowly struggled into a sitting position, and my new friend helped me up. Intense pain shot through every nerve, joint, every muscle.

"I thought I was dead," I said.

"After that beating, we were sure you were dead! I've never seen anything like it. How you lived? It's crazy. A couple of them had baseball bats. The fight lasted for at least 30 minutes. Fuck, there was a lot of blood!"

I couldn't remember all the details. "I hope I hurt a few of them."

"We think you killed 2 of them!"

"Good."

"One guy, Harry, you took his bat away and hit a home run with his head. It was awesome! The other guy - you gouged out his eyes."

"That's a start."

"Not only that, you bit off another guy's ear! It was sooooo awesome! We love you man!"

"Thanks. What's your name?"

"Mic."

"I'm Johnny."

"Glad to meet you Johnny."

"Same here, Mic."

"But... Why did they attack you? That's strange. Usually, they start out nice, at least to newcomers."

"They asked me if I believed in Jesus Christ. That was the first thing they asked, just as I pulled up in my car, or rather, I was forced to stop - you know, at the place where they blocked off the highway."

"Yep. And that IS the first thing they ask. What did you tell them?"

"I said I had coffee with Jesus once."

"Holy shit! Shit man, that explains it! They're fucking radical Christians. That's why we're all in here. What you said is sooooo hilarious!" laughed Mic into his muffling hand, in an effort to avoid waking the others. But I don't think the others were asleep. They were just lying there, listening in.

"Yeah, my first answer didn't go over too well. They immediately got defensive and took me - dragged me - to see this Stendhal guy."

"Only HE gets to see Jesus."

"I figured. That's the way these fucking cults usually go."

"You got that right."

"I bet he gets to fuck all the teenage girls."

"Man, you nailed it on the head! How did you know? He has like a dozen wives, all under 18. I think one is barely 13. He's always getting married, and whenever one of his wives gets pregnant, they are remarried to one of the single guys in the church. He chooses all the marriages."

"That sucks. He knocks ‘em up and then lets somebody else deal with the rug rats and the nagging, all the bullshit."

"Stendhal says it strengthens the Church Family."

"Yeah. Keeps him in power. He gets to be the Big Daddy. Gets all the pussy he wants, but doesn't have to change the diapers."

"No kidding!"

"So what is this Stendhal guy's claim to fame?"

"He says he is a direct descendant of Jesus. That he is the only one left."

"He must have read The Da Vinci Code."

"Yeah, I know what you mean!" Mic giggled, his hand cupping his mouth yet again. "And the movie wasn't nearly as good as the book. He may have just watched the movie."

I finally found the strength to break a bloody, toothless smile. "I agree with that. And I miss going to the movies."

"Me too," said Mic. "Me too."

"So, tell me. How did this little community come together? The Disease and all?"

"I think it was the highway. Stendhal set up camp here, alongside the road. As the survivors drove through, some stopped and listened to his sermons. Some stayed. Some left and drove on. When we reached about 50 members, we started forcing new arrivals to either accept The Gospel or go to prison, which means get locked up in here. Most went along with it and chose The Gospel."

"Stendhal's Gospel."

"Yeah."

"So how did you end up in here?"

"I got caught drunk."

"That was it?"

"Yep. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but at first, I thought Stendhal was Christ on earth. I don't want to go into it now, but, I really believed. Unfortunately, believing wasn't always enough. These times are hard. Nothing is like it used to be. So many of us have died. Long story short, I found a large stash of Jack Daniels in what at first appeared to be the burned-down, totally destroyed, remains of a Circle K store. From the ashes I must have pulled out 5 dozen fifths of untarnished Jack. All it took was one drink, and I was hooked. The warmth and the hope just a sip offered overtook any of the spiritual revelations or inspirations I'd felt at any of Stendhal's sermons."

"A good drink can be hard to match."

"YES," said a heavy voice from the shadows. I squinted in the direction of the sound and could see the shadow of a very large man had joined in the conversation. It was the Indian, sitting in the dark, Indian style and listening. "YES" was all he ever said, nothing else. Laconic at best. He was all action and few words. Like a truly wise man, he used his ears a lot and his mouth very little.

Mic shot a glance to the Indian and nodded. The Indian nodded back.

Mic continued. "So, I piled up all the Jack I'd found in an abandoned house. I went there every night, after tiptoeing out from Stendhal's commune - a bunch of us lived in an abandoned apartment complex not far from here. I'd drink until I passed out, then return to the commune early in the morning. Little did I know, the commune was not as open-door as I'd then been led to believe. One night, Stendhal's men arrived at my door, kicked it down, and dragged me here. That was about 3 weeks ago."

"I take it having a drink can get you in trouble."

"Yeah," answered Mic. "But I'd take a Jack shooter over that Stendhal's bullshit any day now. I used to think he had it all down, but once I put an end to my sobriety, I found that the religious life didn't match the drunk life. Being drunk was more meaningful, more spiritual than going to church. Jack killed all the immediate pain. Going to church only prolonged the pain. With church I had to wait until I died before I touched heaven... not with Jack... ...does that make any sense?"

"That makes all the sense in the world, Mic," I said. "I think that in another life we were brothers."

Three new shadows suddenly appeared. They stood there, close to the Indian.

"In a former life, we were lovers," spoke a soft-voiced man.

"Don't be silly. We still are," said another man.

Then the two spoken shadows melted together in a silent embrace.

"Johnny?" said a female voice.

"Yes?" I replied.

"I'm a doctor. Can I take a look at you?"

"Please do. I'm in a lot of pain."

"No need to worry, Johnny, Stendhal plans to execute you in a few days. Your pain will be gone soon enough," said Mic.

"Please," said the doctor.

"YES," said the Indian.

"Please!"