Chapter 28--"The Gauntlet- (The Preacher)"

I can truly say that I don't fully remember the proceeding moments, but far more strange things have occurred since beginning this letter to you my dear reader that I am now far more inclined to trust my first instincts so my recollection, after much personal deliberation, and straining to remember and interviewing the folks who saw me in the height of my amazing 3 day semi-blackout is this:

We walked through a bar. The lights were red and deceiving. Every tattoo was black; every bruise had a chance to disappear into the flesh by pulling the light from the deadly edges of a purple contusion. Oh man, but the flesh was on display. Half naked people made out and outright fucked and copulated in every single way in every single shadowy corner. You could hear cries of ecstasy and grunts of passion from every dark part of this bar. Belle was unaffected, but Nelson cast eyes about the room as if he was trying to catch someone, or maybe just a glance from a horny girl. We stopped to take a piss and there was this girl. She told me that I was in danger. I laughed and blithely said, "You have no idea." We kissed and grinded.

Nelson, Belle and I tried to stop for a quick drink before we entered that smaller room, at the end of the bar. The drink orders were taken, but they didn't arrive. We waited, but then were ushered by three very half-naked girls; drinkless, into this little room filled with cushions and half naked Abercrombie and Fitch models. At the end of the room was a man, sitting on a throne of pillows of sorts. Unlike everyone else in the room, he was alone, fully clothed in more flowy white linens, and untouched.

He introduced himself to me. I didn’t care to give him my name, partly because I was so distracted by euphoria and my surroundings. He asked me questions. Chunks of our conversation are hazy details. Even to this day, his first memory is a bit of a blur, but we did talk a lot, he was very interested in me.

A silver fox of a man, shining grey hair and the jaw line of a fit and thin young man, he regarded me with old eyes. He had very old, wrinkled and wise eyes. Some snippets:

"How do you feel?"

"Amazing." I was reeling.

"Why?"

"Well, if you don't know, than you don't, right?" I wasn't sure if he was privy to my drug use.

"I'm not sure I do, then."

"You look like a square, so why should I care?" I said this like a lyrical Shakespeare stanza, and traced a box in the air. God, I'm fuckin funny.

"Aren't you amazed?"

"Maybe." I said glancing about the room. "Maybe I'm just not amazed by you."

"Well, you should be. Didn't you just say you felt amazing?"

"Yes."

"That's probably a proper description of your current ecstasy, from a person such as yourself."

"Humph. A person such as myself? Wow. You may be kind of an amazing sociopathic asshole
then? Since you seem to be able to ask people to grope each other on command, half naked in your bar, I'm supposed to be like: Oh wow dude, you're so awesome and shit. Cool! Your awesome weird drug makes underage models come into your fucked ass little bar and hang in your chill room? I mean...like...wow."

"Heh. Who is this asshole, Belle?"

"Joe," She said.

"What is so great about him, besides the fact that he has amazing tolerance for absinthe?" He was addressing Belle.

"Don't you judge, Preacher! He thought the floor was grape jelly and that Ito was Sulu from Star Trek, earlier. So what if everyone doesn't have that same awe for you. Perhaps you are losing your gravitas."

"Shut up, witch. If you remember properly, your tree is from 8 as well, or have you forgotten that?"

"No."

"Well then, Joseph? Is that your name? I always prefer calling people by their given name."

"No. Nice try. My given name is Jehosiphat. My friends call me Fat Joe or Fatty Joe Bang McGruffrin. You can call me Phatty J..B...M....Swizz." I crunked out my fingers in a ghetto pose.

"Oh. You are quite hilarious."

"Maybe. I noticed I may be a bit quicker-on-the-uptake than you."

"The scars that are evident on your body do not indicate that, Joseph. Funnier, but not quicker."

I realized at this point that I was only wearing my shitty wife-beater t-shirt and my caterpillar pink scars were absolutely out. What happened to my shirt? At Johnny's house, I changed into a less revealing black t-shirt, with the white wife-beater underneath. The t-shirt under t-shirt thing was a weird habit that I had obtained from Wyatt. He told me that his grandfather had always done it, and fuck all if my memories don't include my grandfather in two t-shirts as well...Anyway, my top t-shirt was gone and my wife beater was in full effect, giving the t-shirt on t-shirt habit an interesting hint of practical legitimacy... My Grandfather must have been a wily bastard.

There was a slight remembrance of pinning that one girl up against the wall near the bathroom? She said I was in danger; she stripped off my shirt and cut fingernail scratches into my back that reeked of jasmine as I grinded into her. Did she cut me? This black-eyed girl, she told me her name was Kudra. I could still smell essential oils ground into my skin. She reminded me of a book I read once. Kudra. Hm.

"Just Joe, please. I said to the Preacher."

"Okay, Joseph. Let's take a walk," The Preacher said.

"My tree is from 8, mystical man, dude."

"Indeed it is. I am 8. Let me show you something."
I shrugged. For some reason I kind of liked the weird old fart. Belle gestured for me to go with him, and I shot her a "No duh" look and followed him through a hallway at the end of the room away from the writhing Abercrombie and Fitch convention.

"Love and lust are interesting things. They are symbiotic, how one can spark the other. Some would argue that they are polar opposites. I would say they are base instinct. People are fond of saying that humans have no instincts, that we have lost them and it is what separates us from animals, but I believe what we so often mistake for feelings, we should call instinct. For what is a feeling but an uncontrollable urge?"

"Heh." I scoffed. "Okay, I get it. You're a super deep dude."

"No. Sorry. I felt like I should explain my voyeurism. My interest in that room back there."

"No need to explain that...You could load the spank bank for years in that room."

"Spank bank?" He stopped walking for a second and peered at me with those icy blue craggily eyes. His jaw tightened, and he continued. "Love and lust are both signs of a healthy human existence. They are instincts that are to be obeyed in varying degrees as we make our way across this planet. They...these instincts, spawn children and progress the species. That room is a celebration...of life.

"Yeah it's pretty hot." I said dead pan as we strolled further down the long dark hallway.
He turned to me again as the hallway opened up into an outdoor atrium, a courtyard in the middle of the building. He said, "I know that you are far more interested in what I say than you are letting on." He grabbed my shoulders jovially. I don't care to be touched very much in a paternal way, but the Preacher somehow did it without making me flinch. "Your walls are so tall, but such walls tumble over easily." He even shook me a bit as he said this, and I smiled weakly and shied away from his gaze. This guy was smushy love.

The Preacher put his arm around me again and ushered me forth as we walked through an open archway and onto a wrought iron balcony that looked out over an impressive courtyard that was somehow nestled between the buildings surrounding us. There was a fountain in the center made of large straight planes of slate and lush gardens with little benches and places to sit. Even though it was night, and I was seeing incredible things, the gardens glowed with their own ethereal aura and there were large floodlights on the roofs of the buildings surrounding that casted a purple tinted light over the whole affair. The floodlights cast a cool light making the interior of the atrium look like evening or dawn without the sun cresting the horizon. I wasn't expecting to walk into to this scene and was surprised.

My jaw just hung open, as the preacher finally approved of my awe. There was a slight mist hovering over the ground. Ivy grew on the walls of this perfectly square atrium in the middle of these buildings giving you the impression that you were surrounded by a verdant forest. As we walked down the iron stairway that clung to the far wall, the air got heavier and denser with each step downward. The humidity was probably three times as dense at the bottom as it was at the top of the stairway. We reached the soft grass and stone paths below. The air smelled of fresh flowers and earth.

I turned to the preacher and said, "Now THIS room is a celebration of life."

He laughed heartily. "Indeed it is, but as it has no ceiling, it is clearly not a room."

We both walked towards the fountain and I sat on a stone bench in front of it. The fountain was a 20 foot tall tiered slate geometric marvel that looked like steps from the side I viewed it and had another kind of waterfall splashing from the other side. The water was held in a rectangular slate cauldron that had to be at least three feet deep. The trickling water reverberated off of the walls surrounding us giving the water a much amplified sound.

I took in the sheer floral beauty of the place inwardly thinking that with all the chemicals floating around in my body right now that if I strode too close to the flowers they may instantly wilt at my presence and die. I felt like a tumor in this place, filled with poison. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath feeling as if I could expel it all with a sigh. My head flopped over into my chest as I gave way to euphoric feeling that I hadn't felt yet. Spinning.

The preacher sat down next to me and again put his arm around me. "Tut tut. Be careful. You'll hyperventilate."

"Whoa."

"You don't realize it, but you're breathing rather deeply. Slow down."

"Ok."

"Joseph. Why are you here?"

"Nelson gave me a card, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"Yes. Nelson. No....the card is really...sort of a litmus test."

"Hm."

"Do you doubt it? What type of person follows tiny print on a card to a website then follows a website to a clandestine meeting?" I smirked at his words. My first thought was a person who is a tad desperate and just a little sad. "Ah, a glimmer of understanding there? Yes, you are a person who deciphers a bit of a puzzle, and despite the fact that the meaning of the puzzle could be dangerous or strange, you still came to meet your destiny, and now you are here with me. Tell me, did you read the rules and regulations that our website offered to you?"

"No, but I printed them."

"I'm assuming you never read it."

"Preacher, it was like 20 pages long, in really, really tiny type!" I protested.

He started laughing at me, "I'm not judging you."

"So what? Did I sign away my first born?"

"Technically, I don't believe that you can do that by checking a box on the internet. No, but you did agree to do some rather silly things." He proffered with a slight chortle.

"Great." I said bleakly.

"So. Why are you here?"

"You tell me, mystic answer man. Furthermore, how bout you tell me why you gotta toy with people like that?" I leveled my eyes at him, trying to look menacing, but the Preacher was glowing. His features seemed chiseled out of stone and ancient, the wisps of hair that had come out of his pony tail danced around his head like white delicate flower tendrils. Any menacing that I was to be doing was for the future, away from the effects of this terrible and amazing drug.

"Oh. Joseph. You are smarter than this, but I'll humor you because you do not currently look to be in a very healthy state." My head drooped back to my chest. No, indeed I felt very intoxicated. "Well. Think about it, Joseph. You are interested enough to decipher the card, compelled enough by the message on the website to meet strangers at a strange location, and, how shall I say...reckless enough not to read the rules and regulations. Pretty simple. You are our kind of people. You fit a certain type of personality profile that we as an organization are trying to attract."

"Organizthathion?" My words were slurring. "Oh man! Are you guyths a cult!? Are you going to ritualisthicly eat me err sun fin!?"

"HA HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Joseph! You ARE a catch! You're just so yummy! OH! HAH HAH AH AHAHA. I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT! OHHH HOHOHOHOHO!" He got serious and took my head in his hands and looked into my eyes deeply. My head wobbled about and the vision of his face was too much to look at. It filled me with horror. "Tut tut tut...it's okay. What you are about to go through is much like someone who takes peyote. They get very sick before the trip begins."

I squeaked, "Trip...hasn't...begun!?" I was spinning in fractal kaleidoscopes.

"No, my boy. The absinthe helps with the nausea that the drug creates, but never does anyone any favors. This being your first time, without the absinthe your insides would roil and burn. Now you are about vomit and hallucinate most terribly. It is why I brought you here. To this place of beauty. Don't worry. You will survive, and this will be your most serious reaction to this drug. After subsequent doses, you will fare much better."

"WHAT?!"

"You will need this." From his hippie robe he produced a large bottle of water and set it on the bench as he walked away towards the stairs. I spun around to try and catch him, but he was already at the base of the stairs looking blissfully towards me.

"Don't leave me here!" I pulled up my trouser leg and pulled out my .25. While sitting on the bench I braced myself and aimed down the barrel at the Preacher.

"Oh. I rather don't like guns." He was glowing and churning as if he was suspended in water. The ivy behind him climbed the walls and flexed and twisted. He disappeared and appeared up on the balcony. My gun was ripped from my hand. It was just gone. "Let it be." He said from the iron balcony and he flicked a lever on his way through the archway and into the dark recesses of that sexy nightclub. A counterweight was unfurled and the stairway lifted into the air on a pivot and I was trapped in the atrium garden.

Alone.

Strange, moments like these are. This lonely drug blaze. People I don't know. Places I don't know. Will I die here? He said I would not.

I tried to be my father's son. Intuitive, smart and capable. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my father would never have found himself in a situation like this, because he probably had more of that smart and capable thing going for him. Nonetheless, I began to track back through the Preacher's and my conversation, trying to piece together what had just happened. My mind was spinning as was my head, body and inner ear. My nausea was ever-present and my ass felt like it was melding into the stone of the bench that I was sitting on. If I moved too much, or breathed too deeply, it made me feel sicker and sicker. I just held my head in my hands and tried to think. I clamped my eyes shut and began to drool from my mouth uncontrollably. The barf was close.

My eventual theory was this: The Preacher, Belle, and Nelson did not want to hurt me. This would be a really elaborate way to kill and eat me if they wanted to, and most likely this is not the case, even though this was my current paranoia.

Belle and the Preacher had both spoke of my promise or interest.

So maybe this is the worse part of the experience. Why would the Preacher stick me in a pristine garden to contemplate if I was just meant for ritual sacrifice?

I began to think of my father and what amazing gifts that he had given me. He had paid a lot of attention to me as a child. He taught me to play chess and fix things, use tools and to lust after women and talk to them gruffly. He taught me how to cook, fight, eat and run fast and hit a hanging curve ball. He taught me things that were important and as I became more intelligent and capable, he began to drift away. Why would I hate a father for doing that? A terrible question, but I did begin to hate him for not paying attention and moving in with his new family.

What a terrible son I was. What terrible things had I held him accountable for when he truly performed in all aspects of fatherhood? What a scared little boy I was. And now I still am. Do I get a lifeline call-a-friend right now? I reached into my pocket and pulled out Belle's cell phone and flipped it open, but to my horror the thing was a mismotch of alien looking symbols and lights. It tumbled from my hands.

I felt as if I could be on the edge of death, and how I wished, at this point, that I could be in the basement of my father's house, the one with his new wife and kids, raiding the fridge and silently tiptoeing downstairs to sleep in a warm bed, accidentally dosed by this strange drug. He would know what to do. He could nurse me back to health.

My parents. Oh how if they only knew what terrible things I've done. I have earned their slow disavowment. Yes I have. Perhaps they sense the evil in me to spite their best work.
The insides of my eyelids were a firework explosion of fractals, a rollercoaster ride through my digestive tract. This is the path of your food. It was going the wrong way.

I vomited black bile. It was an explosion of tar colored sludge. I could hear it splatter all over the slate paver stones beneath me. The puke was an impossible amount, as I vomited I felt as if I was in danger of puking my soul into this garden. As I did this I was impressed about how puking could make me feel so light and refreshed and so frightened at the same time. Was I dying? Would I die here without family or friends to know?

What would become of me? The memory of who I am, would it be just an empty casket somewhere? Would I disappear? It was clear to me at this point that I could completely vomit my entire being, turn inside out and end up as a piece of human sludge-matter, scattered on the stones in front of me, to be power washed away by some morning gardener into the streets. The crows would have me then.

The crows.

These terrible and beautiful creatures.

I began to see giant flocks of them above me. I knew they were waiting to come take me out, swarm me and pluck and peck me to death because I was weak and dying. I stood up, to hide underneath the retracted iron staircase, vomited some more and began to walk towards it. I fell over, completely spinning as if in the worst drunken state and smacked my cheek against the grass. It was wet and soft. Possibly with my own vomit. I was so alone and grasped for the last word that I could think of that seemed human and real at this point. I knew I was going to be eaten by the wraiths of my transgressions, I screamed out, "JAIME!!"

I lost consciousness.