u/fartangle

The beach was so hot he could see it dancing off the horizon in little waves that seemed to disappear as soon as you looked at them.  It had been an unseasonably chilly May which always led to a hellish August.  But, as the natives say, it wasn’t the heat; it was the humidity.   A humidity that braised you slow and low until it felt like the meat would just slough off of your bones.  The breeze from the ocean did little to mitigate the situation, only adding salt to the stew.  What he needed was a drink.  

But Kevin Gliebowitz, or Kevin G., as he introduced himself once a week, should not be around drinks, and he knew it.  He didn’t trust himself, didn’t want to fuck this one up.  Mia was a nice girl.  They met at the animal shelter where they both volunteered.  She was pre-vet med; he was on a pre-trial diversion.  So far, his glamour had held up.

 
At first, it just looked like a trick of the heat, like those puddles that shrink over the horizon the closer you get until you realize they were never really there.  But as he approached, it grew larger, more solid, more real. 

 
He had lost track of how long he had been walking; didn’t notice the voices taper off into silence.  Mia was tanning on the beach when he told her he was going to take a walk.  And so, he walked until he was alone with the sand and the sea and his thoughts.  And when those thoughts fell into a familiar rut in his mind, he was suddenly not alone with the sand and the sea, but face to face with a Tiki bar, the last thing he needed to stumble upon at that moment.  

It wasn’t a big bar, little more than a glorified shed, but it had stools and glasses and a bright red canopy to block the sun.  But most importantly, it had bottles, short, squat little bottles and big, heavy bottles filled with bad ideas.   

A tall green bottle with a label that read “Jameson’s” locked Kevin’s eye in a vice.  He had been drinking Jameson’s on the night of the accident.  Not the accident that had provided the material conditions necessary to create his current relationship, the other accident, the one that he had to go to that unlicensed mechanic for.  

“Where’s the bartender?” he thought.  “Must be a camera somewhere... They wouldn’t just leave all this liquor unattended...”   

He looked North in the direction he was headed, but the beach was oddly deserted.  When he looked back to the South where he had been lying with Mia, he could just barely make out the people on the beach.  They were like ants crawling on a dirt mound that stretched to the end of the world.  

The red canopy blunted the teeth of the sun’s rays but did nothing for the humidity.  The heat was burrowing into his pores.  His eyes kept getting snagged by that bottle.  That bottle with the red circle that read JJ & S.

 
Kevin had a red circle like that in the hotel room.  He left it there so he wouldn't lose it on the beach, but normally it lived in his front right pocket; his thirty-day chip. Whenever he got too thirsty, he’d take it out and try to remember how far he had come and how easy it would be to throw it all away.  

Mia knew a little bit about his past.  She saw the director sign his paperwork one day and had flat out asked him about it.  He told her he was there for reckless driving, which was technically true but only because his dad’s lawyer had managed to knock it down to a reckless with suspicion of alcohol; what’s known in the business as a “wet reckless”.   

She knew he liked to drink and that he was working on it.  She drove him every week to the meetings so he wouldn't have to ride his bike.  Then afterwards they'd get Blizzards from DQ; his M&M's and hers Oreo.   

It was the first time he had been in an actual relationship, the first time he hung out with a girl during daylight.  They spent time together because they actually enjoyed each other's company and not just each other's bodies.  They texted all the time instead of just at the end of the night.   

Kevin was all too familiar with those witching hour drives; palms sweating, vision blurred, the beat in his neck in synch with the throb in his loins.  Three sheets to the wind and letting his dick take the wheel; that was what led to the accident; and the dent in his hood that he couldn’t get fixed at the dealership.  Why was that guy walking in the middle of the road?  

He didn’t hear the girl when she sat next to him at the bar, only caught a blur of red and blush in his periphery.  He was so deep in thought that even after he noticed her there, it took a minute for it to register that he was no longer by himself.  She was a young girl; pretty, with a spray of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.  Her hair matched the canopy... and her lips.  

She was topless, although Kevin was unaware of any topless beaches in this part of the state; Miami maybe.  His eyes danced between the green of the bottle and the green of her eyes.  He thought about that red circle that read JJ & S and wished he had brought his own red circle.  Red circles were good at dispelling red circles.  And now there were two more red circles that dared him to look.  He should have brought his chip.  

“Uh-...I guess... they, just run on the honor system?” said Kevin.  Just dipping a toe... testing the water.  The girl smiled and gave a knowing wink but said nothing.  The glasses sat stacked behind the bar, spotless and pristine.  “When were their hours of operation?” he thought as he looked out over the skyline of bottles to the endless sea behind.  The bar obscured the beach behind it, making it almost appear to be floating on the water.   

But when he looked down, he could see that the bar was in fact a lot closer to the water than he had first believed; so close that it looked like the bottles would wash out to sea during high tide.  His confusion must have been all over his face, because the redhead let out a giggle.  He turned towards the sound instinctively and had to avert his eyes from her nudity at the last second.  He still caught a glimpse.  His pulse went a flutter as she preened for his attention, miming for him to go behind the bar.   

“Look... as much as I would like to...  I can’t.  Believe me I want to... But I can’t.” said Kevin.  Kevin G.  It was important to remember that; important to remember how far he had come.  How easy it would be to throw it all away...  

She reached her hands over her head before clasping them behind the back of it, stretching in a pose both prurient and bored.  She blew a raspberry at Kevin and turned towards the South where the people looked like ants.  She sucked her teeth and turned back around with her hands in a pleading posture.  She was nudging him backward with her presence, coaxing him on with little cooing sounds and chirps of pleasure. 

 
He looked to the ant people in the South and tried to determine which one was Mia.  They all looked the same from this distance.  When you put enough distance between an object and yourself, you lose all perspective.  A human life can be reduced to the size of an ant.   

He still met up with the girl that night that it happened.  So obliterated he blew right through the light.  Barely looked back in the rear view.  Can't stop for every little bump in the road; he had a date.   

What was her name?  Hannah?  Helen?  Something with an H. Had a body that wouldn't quit whatever her name was.  A body...  that body...

 
His hands shook as he measured and poured first the double shots of whiskey, then the questionable sour mix.  He poured two more straight shots of Jameson’s, then turned to his new drinking buddy.  

“Well... We’re already at the party…. Might as well dance!” he said before downing the shot, but the girl did not follow suit.  She just smiled and kept making those cooing sounds.   

“If she was going to lay it on this thick...” he thought.  He gestured to the waiting shot, but she just sighed and gave him another wink.   

All of a sudden, his legs felt like rubber.  His pulse was racing, but it wasn’t just from the girl and her aggressive flirtation, the red circles that teased at the bottom of his periphery.  There was something else that raised the hair on his arms, a primal dread.  But for what reason he could not fathom.  

It was probably just the ocean.  

It always made him feel so insignificant, looking out over the water, knowing a whole world lies on the other side of it.  Somewhere so far away he couldn’t even see it.  If Mia was an ant, what did that make the people on the other side of the ocean?   

He downed the girl’s shot and refilled the glasses.  She gave an approving sigh and twirled her red hair around her finger.  Her nails were painted to match her lips, bright red and filed to stilettos. 

 
She kept using her body language to draw attention to her chest, to those forbidden red circles.  Kevin didn’t know if Mia was “the one”, but she was a good girl.  Maybe it was time to start heading back to the ant people.  The whole thing was starting to feel like amateur porn.

 
The little red circle with the JJ & S glared at Kevin like a bloodshot eye.  Out of habit, he found himself fishing around in his empty right pocket for a chip that was no longer there.  It was still in the drawer at the hotel, next to the Gideon’s bible, in the land of the ant people, which might as well have been on the other side of the ocean.  How he needed it now, a sigil to ward off the spirits that tempted him from the inside of those bottles, to ward off the circles.   

The whiskey felt hot in his throat, dredging up fragmented memories of pathetic nights and miserable mornings.  Mornings that had made him question what it was inside of him that was so horrible that he had to drown it in ethanol like an infected insect. 

 
Liquid courage and lines he cribbed from pick-up artist forums.  It was always a mask; a lure to get them to let their guard down.  But was it for their sake or his?  

He wouldn't need any lines to seduce his new drinking buddy, though that was a misnomer since she had yet to sip a drop.  Why was she acting so flirtatious?  Before Mia, he had always had to put in a little effort; had even grown to enjoy it, the thrill of the chase.  Not that he would need to chase this one.

 
Her hips traced figure eights as she danced to a song that only she could hear.  Her red hair reminded him of a night he wished he could forget.  She had red hair too, although he had long forgotten her name, something with an H. 

 
Red hair, red light, red circles in the night.  A man's life reduced to a red puddle in the road.  He should have stopped; should have called 911.  But he was a red-blooded man, and his redheaded paramour was waiting.   

 
He downed another shot, then turned his attention to his teetotaling drinking buddy cooing and contorting her body, daring him to look.  When he finally gave in to temptation, he was mesmerized by her sacred geometry.  Her anatomy was a sigil that sent commands to the reptilian structures of his brain, the parts that drove him to feast and fuck.   

He looked back to the ant people, to Mia and his chip; the chip that meant nothing now.  He looked out at the inky waters of the sea.   

She danced back into his sightline, miming him to join her in the sand.  Kevin wasn't much of a dancer, but he always had a weakness for redheads.  This girl didn't seem like much of a dancer either, and that miming would get annoying pretty quick.  Not that Kevin would have to stick around for all that.  Already at the party...  

She was colder than he expected, cold and oddly damp.  Her breath reeked of fish, but the Jameson's dulled the edges of the odor.  He could feel her bare chest on his; the little red circles of her nipples.  His pulse ran wild in his neck as the anticipation reached a fever pitch.  But even as his blood was redirected to the lower half of his body, an odd thought still ping-ponged around his mind.  This was too easy... What's the catch?  

But when the girl closed her eyes in that tell-tale way and lunged in lips first at Kevin, he wasn't thinking about how easy it had all been.  He wasn't thinking about Mia or the chip; the meetings, and how far he had come.  When she closed her eyes, he knew that he had her; and in that moment, that was all that mattered to him. 

 
Her lips were not soft like Mia's but scaly and filmed with slime.  Her breath was not sweet like Mia's but fetid and foul, like a chum bucket baking  in the sun.  Her teeth were still white like Mia's, but there were so many more of them in her mouth.  They hooked into the fleshy red swell of his tongue, locking them mouth-to-mouth.  He screamed but it sounded like a drowning man, gurgling and whimpering for help.   

Her eyes didn't look like eyes anymore.  They looked painted on, just another part, no soul underneath.  He wrestled with the girl, but her grip was intractable.  As he clawed and gouged at her clammy wet skin, the sand under her feet started to quake.  

He could see now that they were connected to something under the beach.  Something was rising from the sand; something big, something black.  The redhead was pulled feet first by the thing, hanging upside down her arms flopping limply on his chest.  He felt his own body start to come off the ground as he was lifted tongue-first into the air.  The sky went dark, and Kevin broke his attention away from the girl just long enough to see the source of the shade.   

Towering overhead, its shadow swallowing the beach whole, was the spade-shaped head of a great black serpent.  Its eyes were red as blood.  Two red circles that pierced through his soul.   

He was an insect in the presence of a god.  He hung for what felt like an eternity, being weighed, being judged by an ebony leviathan.  Kevin spared one last glance at his would-be lover, her artifice so apparent to him now.  

Then he came crashing to the sand and a chorus of agonies sang out through his body.  He was still awake when it lifted him again, but on the second slam the world went black.  

It was careful not to bite its own tail, when it took Kevin in its powerful jaws.  A lure was only effective when it was believable.  When it was done, it basked in the fading sunlight for a while before returning headfirst to the sea.  Its tail lingered for a moment, dancing alone in the deserted dunes.  The eyespots pointed back to the ant people, not seeing them.  Not seeing anything at all.

 
Eventually, Mia would come to look for Kevin.  She’d follow his footprints all the way to the oddly vacant Tiki bar and the bright red canopy that hung overhead.  But there would be no strange redhead to greet her, nor any sign of Kevin G.  All she would find would be a big red circle in the sand.        

"Oh, for fuck's sake!  Now?"
 
He assessed the meager contents of his medicine cabinet, hoping against reason that his mother had through some miracle of precognition, thought to buy some sort of acne medication.  She hadn't. 
 
"Back on the old benzoyl peroxide train"
 
He could still take a selfie; he'd just have to edit out the angry red bump that had decided to stake its claim in the middle of his forehead. 
 
It took fifteen attempts before he finally found the right angle, the one that was all jawline and lips.  Then he realized the bathroom was probably not the best setting for a profile pic on a dating app. So, he went to his bedroom, blocked out a corner that hid the mess, found his angle again, and finally took the damn picture.
 
Face looked fat.  Do it again.  Suck in those cheeks this time.
 
He was still revising the About Me section of his profile when his mother called him for dinner.
 
"Elliot!  I made macaroni with ground beef!  Come make a plate before it gets cold!"
 
"I can't eat that stuff, Ma!  I told you.  It doesn't fit my macros!"
 
"What?!  I thought you said you were maxing?  Isn't that like carbo-loading?"
 
"What?  Carbo-loading?  What year do you think it is?  I'm not maxing, whatever that is, I'm looksmaxxing.  Part of that is not eating junk, hence watching my macros.  You get it?"
 
"No...  No, I don't understand any of that.  What do you want for dinner then?"
 
"Just... don't worry about it.  I'll figure something out."
 
"Well, there's frozen pizzas in the freezer if you get hungry later."
 
"Jesus Christ, Ma."
 
After a week, his profile had failed to gain any significant traction.  The bump on the other hand was thriving.  It had grown to the size of a pinky toe, and the tip had taken on a dark grey-green hue.
 
He matched with a petite brunette who liked the show Yellowstone, which he had to get the Cliffsnotes summary of from a YouTube video because he put that show as one of his interests too. 
 
They met for coffee, but the vibe was not ideal.  She was looking everywhere but his forehead and it was obvious.  Elliot didn't make it easy on himself either; kept picking at it.  It was revolting and he knew it, but he just couldn't stop doing it.  It was so itchy.
 
As the bump grew more prominent, so too did his thoughts of the opposite sex.  Sex.  It was all he could think about these days.  At 23, he knew enough about biology to know that men don't have a "biological clock"; but the "virginity clock" sure felt real to Elliot; and the daily erection that he awoke to was as good an alarm clock as any.
 
By the time his mother decided to take him to the doctor, the skin had started to peel away from the underlying structure of the bump.  The itch made him feel like a rabid animal.
 
"It looks like some sort of ossification... Hmm...  How long has this been bothering you?"
 
"I don't know.  A couple of weeks?"
 
"Weeks?  Oh, Ellie you have to tell me when things are bothering you.  Otherwise, I can't help.  And that's a mom's job, isn't it?"
 
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Ma...  I'm a grown man."
 
They left with a prescription for an ointment for the itching and a date for a follow-up.  He passed the time waiting for script by alternating between dating apps and Insta.  He got so worked up; he had to tuck it into the waistband of his jeans, so his mom wouldn't see the bulge.
 
The ointment did nothing for the itch, and as the bump grew, the skin around it dried up and flaked off.  By the end of the week, he had started to call it his horn. 
 
He saw specialists, dermatologists mostly.  There was a terrifying trip to the oncologist.  She found nothing. 
 
The plastic surgeon said he could probably remove it, but he'd have to consult with his friend, the orthopedist.  By that point, Elliot didn't care what they did; as long as they got it off his head.  The thing was killing his love life.
 
He could barely get anyone to match with him, even with the photoshopped pictures.  And once they caught a glimpse of the six-inch ochre-colored spike sticking out of his forehead, they would excuse themselves to the ladies room and never return. 
 
Sometimes, they'd sneak out before he even noticed they were there, leaving him standing around scratching his forehead like an idiot; not knowing if they stood him up or got lost or what.
 
"You just have to keep looking honey... There's plenty of fish in the sea "
 
"I already tried that one, Ma.  I even went on ChristianMingle. "
 
"Oh, Ellie, why would you do a thing like that?  We've never been to church a day in your life.  We stopped after your daddy...  Your daddy...  Daddy..."
 
"Ma!"
 
"What?"
 
"What?!  You just spaced out is what.  Right when you started talking about my dad....   He wasn't a... I don't know... a creep or something?  Was he?"
 
"Your father... was a wonderful man.  I had never met anyone else like him.  He was handsome, like you, and he was funny like you too.  And he... he..."
 
"Ma!"
 
"HE WAS A SON OF A BITCH!!"
 
"..."
 
"..."
 
"Mo-mom?  Momma... it's ok momma.  It's ok."
By the time he swiped right on Hope’s profile, he wasn't even reading them anymore.  Wasn't really looking at the pictures either; just playing the numbers game.  He swiped left every once in a while, just to appease the algorithm; but he was just putting in reps. Eventually it had to pay off.
 
She wasn't really his type, but with a six-inch horn growing from the middle of his forehead, Elliot couldn't really afford to have a "type."
 
She was not ugly, just... plain; and with a Boho aesthetic that he hoped would not be the pillar around which she constructed her personality.
 
"... and that's when I decided to switch majors..."
 
Was she talking this whole time?
 
"...You know?  Really make a difference in the world..."
 
Oh no...
 
"My dad hates the idea of me joining the Peace Corps."
 
There it is.
 
"But I don't care.  Money isn't everything you know.  We waste so much of it on things we don't even need.  Like deodorant."
 
"Deodorant?  I don't know.  I think you'd be pretty disgusted right now if I wasn't wearing deodorant"
 
She looked at it.  Right when he said the word "disgusted".  She looked right back at his eyes, but he still saw it happen.
 
"No...  I don't mean we shouldn't use deodorant.  I mean we should make deodorant at home.  It's so easy and it's all-natural so it's way better for your body and it doesn't even leave that gross chalky residue.  See?"
 
When she lifted her arm, he could indeed see no residue.  It was what he did see that bothered him.  It really was her whole personality.
 
So, she had a little hair in a place he wasn't expecting.  Big deal.  Her profile said she does yoga.  I wonder if she could do a split.
 
"...always been into them, ever since I was a little girl..."
 
"Ohhh, yeah?" 
 
Definitely not wearing a bra.  I wonder if she even owns one?
 
"...and I was always into mythology and like dragons and princesses, so...."
 
What is she talking about?
 
"Well?  Can I?"
 
"I'm sorry, what?"
 
"Can I touch it?"
 
Holy shit, it's happening!
 
"I... excuse me... I... You want to touch it?  Like now?"
 
"Sure now.  Now's good... We can do it later if you're self-conscious..."
 
"Now's great!"
 
That was too enthusiastic.  Act like you've been here before.
 
"Ok... Cool...  I'll just go ahead and... Wow!  It's so much harder than I thought it would be!"
 
Then Elliot did feel self-conscious.  His mind had been so preoccupied with creating a mental blueprint of Hope's naked body that he had almost forgotten about the six-inch bony protrusion growing from the middle of his forehead.
 
How could he have been such an idiot.  She wasn't into him.  She was one of those girls; a hippie of a different color.  She probably had a pair of Ren-fair elf ears hanging in her closet.
 
"Alright... Got it out of your system?"
 
"Oooooh!  It feels... so...."
 
"I said alright!  Please...  It makes me feel uncomfortable."
 
"Oh no! No! Don't take it away!  Please, I... I... I'm sorry.  That was inappropriate.  I crossed a boundary with your body and that is not cool...  It's just... well I've never seen anything like that.  And as an anthropology major, it's fascinating.  I mean, that's kind of why I got into the field in the first place..."
 
"You switched majors so you could study guys with horns growing out of their heads?  I thought it was about saving the children."
 
"Who says I can't do both?  All the interesting archaeological sites are in war zones."
 
"Soo, you want to look for the missing link while setting up Wi-Fi for orphans?  Something like that?  You think he's out there?  I don't hear too many bigfoot sightings coming from the Middle East..."
 
"Stranger things have happened.  I think I just found a unicorn in Gainesville."
 
It's a good thing that the table was there.  He pre-tucked just in case, but still...  This was it.  He was so close, he could smell it.
 
Hope had Ubered to the coffee shop, but Elliot had had the foresight to borrow his mother's Honda.  It was a tip that he learned from a now defunct subreddit devoted to gamifying your own love life. 
 
The logic was sound: always control the exits; for you and your opponent/date.  It was the Prisoner's Dilemma put to practice. 
 
You're both going to meet there, and you're both going to leave.  If you arrive in your own vehicle and your date does not, it would be impolite not to offer a ride. 
 
And if the date went well, what reason would she have to say no?  It would be just as impolite to decline... if the date went well that was.  If she declined the offer, it  could give a guy a complex; make him think he did something wrong.
 
“You want a ride home?  I mean… uh, that way you don’t have to Uber…. You never know with those Uber drivers, right?”
 
“Right.  Right…. Look, Elliot… I think you’re really… fascinating, but I don’t want to lead you on.”
 
Fascinating?
 
“I’ll let you drive me home, but that’s it.  I want to see you again, but I’m an old-fashioned kind of girl.  I hope you understand…”
 
“Sooo, do you want the ride or not?”
 
“I do.  I do.  Thank you.  I’m just saying don’t expect me to sleep with you just because you gave me a ride.”
 
“Why would I?  I wasn’t even..  And even if I was… I mean…”
 
She didn’t live far but the silence in the car made it feel like an eternity.  The tension was so thick he had to lower the windows.  He knew that she was thinking about what he was thinking about.  They were locked in a psychic ouroboros.
 
"This is it on the left... building J."
 
"Is there a visitor's area or can I park anywhere?"
 
"You can park anywhere.  It's after 6.  It's officially the weekend."
 
He pulled into a spot just to the left of the beige building, identical to all the others but for the giant letter J on the front of it. 
 
"Well..."
 
"Well..."
 
"I should... walk you to your door....  I mean, it's what a gentleman would do, right?"
 
"Sure.  That would be sweet."
 
Her apartment was on the first floor, so his escort service was completely unnecessary.  Escorts.  Sex.  What was this girl's problem?  She was liberal in every way but the one that mattered; conservative below the belt.
 
"I had such a nice night, Elliot.  Can we... do it again?"
 
We should be doing it right now.
 
"Sure."
 
"Ok... Good... Well.... Bye"
 
Hope turned to open her front door, but before she could go inside, Elliot said:
 
"Wait!  I-I-I... Can I give you a hug at least?"
 
"Oh, Ellie, of course you can have a hug."
 
Why did she use that name?  The only person that called him that name was his mother.  It made the hug awkward.  Or rather, it made the hug more awkward. 
 
It was too long and he knew it, but her tits felt amazing against his chest and he couldn't help himself.  He had to be careful to avoid skewering her with the bony growth on his forehead, but when it made incidental contact with her head, she didn't pull away in disgust.  Instead, her body kind of went limp, and her eyes looked like they were searching for something that wasn't there.
 
"You smell so good"
 
It was a lie, but she seemed receptive.
 
"Ooooo"
 
"I wish we could...  You know.  But I want to respect your boundaries."
 
No, he didn't.
 
"Aaaahhh"
 
Not exactly the response he was expecting, but not a no in the strict sense either.  It was now or never.  He licked his lips in anticipation.  She was smiling, but it didn't look like the smile she had at the coffee shop.  It was toothy and artificial. 
 
He went for the kiss anyway.  She wasn't an enthusiastic kisser.  Maybe it was first date nerves.  His own heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest like the gingerbread man and take a lap around the complex.
 
After a minute and a half of one-sided making out, Elliot decided to shoot his shot one last time.
 
"Soooo, you going to invite me in or what?"
 
"Mmmm"
 
He took that as a yes and followed her inside.  She still had that faraway look in her eyes, but Elliot pushed it to the back of his mind.  She was just nervous was all.
 
"Nice place you got here.  You all alone or do you have roommates?"
 
Hope just grinned back at him with that smile that was all teeth and no eyes.
 
"You want to listen to some music or.... We could do other things... If you would like to that is...."
 
"Aaaahhhh"
 
Her voice was soft and childlike.  Before the horn, it would have been a turnoff, but now?  Game on.
 
He took her by the wrist and led her to the first doorway he found in the small hall of the apartment.  Bathroom.  You would think she would have said something.
 
The second door he tried was a bedroom, and from the Free Palestine poster on the wall and the faint smell of incense, he could reasonably assume it was hers.
 
They both just stood there.  He was too shy to make the first move, and she seemed agreeably indifferent.  It was a stalemate.  Mate.  Sex.  It always came back to that with Elliot. 
 
She kept cooing like she was into it.  Why wouldn't she just give him a signal?  Something he could use as justification for doing what he wanted to do anyway.
 
He kissed her again and again, she did not stop him.  Emboldened, he took it a step further and let his hands explore the contours of her chest.  She said nothing.
 
He didn't really know what he was supposed to do.  He had never gotten this far before.  The forums said that women like foreplay, so he extended it for as long as he could hold out, about two and half minutes.  By that point he felt like he was growing another protrusion a couple of feet south of his horn.
 
Elliot's first sexual experience was a brief but noteworthy affair.  It hurt more than he expected it to.  It wasn't supposed to hurt at all, right?  At least not for the guy.  But there was so much friction he felt like he must not have done it right. 
 
He couldn't read Hope's expression.  It was all oooo's and aaaahhh's from her, but not in a pleasurable tone.  It still looked like she was looking for something that wasn't there.
 
It bothered him, but he didn't let it get in the way.  For forty-five seconds, Elliot felt like a man.  He knew he should have withdrawn, calmed down, savored the moment, but by the time he made up his mind, it was too late.  Waves of a pleasure he had never known pulsed through his body.
 
"Ugghhh, uhh, Oh, FUCK!  Fuck, I didn't... Please tell me you're on birth control."
 
But if Hope responded, Elliot never heard it.  At that moment, with a sound like a green tree branch snapping, his horn broke free from his head.  Sleep swallowed him whole. 
 
He awoke the next morning in an empty and unfamiliar bed.  His face was hot and sweaty and it took a minute for him to notice that he had been sleeping on his belly.  He had been a side-sleeper ever since the bump started growing, but he really preferred to sleep face-down.
 
"It's gone.  Halle-fuckin-lujah!  It's really gone!"  
 
He quickly composed himself, not wanting to draw the attention in case Hope really did have a roommate.  Where was that girl?  For that matter, where was the horn?  It may have been a hideously disfiguring growth, but it was his hideously disfiguring growth.
 
He helped himself to a K-cup in the kitchen.  Hope was still nowhere to be seen.  He worried that he had done something to offend her, but not for very long. The world felt different to him now somehow.  Or maybe he was the one that was different, like he had crossed a point of no return.
 
He waited three days before texting her; that was industry standard, according to all the forums.  On the third day, he had his openers narrowed down to "Good morning, beautiful", "Hey baby girl," and simply "Sup?"  He went with "Sup?"
 
She never responded.  He tried again with "Hi, Hope.  Hope all is going well with you, lol" Again, there was no response. 
 
So, he addressed the elephant in the room: "Listen, if I crossed a boundary the other night, I'm sorry.  I know you said you were saving yourself for marriage, but then after we hugged it was like you were a different person."
 
No, not after they hugged.  It was after the horn touched her head.  Only then did she start acting so strangely, the same way she did when she touched it in the restaurant.  It had been like she was high on something, all giggles and dilated pupils.
 
One last text.  If she didn't respond to that one, he'd go back to the apps.  "I just don't want to leave things this way.  If I offended you, I am sorry.  But it takes two to tango and if you didn't like it, you should have said something.  You girls think you can just wave it in our faces, and we have to pretend like we don't want it.  It's such a stupid game.  You're not even my type.  I like girls that wear makeup and shave their body hair.  Call me old-fashioned too, I guess.  Anyway, if you're not going to see me again, can I at least have my horn back?  I know you took it.  I don't know why.  Maybe your daddy never bought you a pony, so you became fixated on unicorns.  Whatever the reason, I would like to have it back.  My doctor wants to do a biopsy on it."
 
It was the last message he ever exchanged with Hope, but not the last time that he saw her.  Within a week of losing his virginity, the horn had started to grow again.  Elliot hit the apps with a vengeance, driven by a near-constant state of lust.
 
It was even worse than before.  Even though he had optimized his profile to appeal to the widest swathe of potential dates as he could, he was receiving absolutely no matches. 
 
He tried his luck at the bars and nightclubs, to the extent that they would even let him in. Most nights, he didn't even talk to anyone, just nursed his cheap beer in the back of the room. 
 
The first time he saw another guy with a horn was outside the Orbit Lounge.  The bouncer assumed they were together.
 
"Nope!  Sorry fellas, but the boss man says no horns allowed.  Too many complaints about you guys from the ladies."
 
"Ladies?  What ladies?  You think a lady would give me the time of day looking like this?"
 
"Look man, boss man says no horns, that means no horns.  Simple.  Take your asses to the Palomino.  Them hipsters don't care what you look like."
 
Elliot power-walked to the Palomino since it was only a few blocks South and he didn't want to risk getting his mom's Honda towed if he tried to find a closer spot. 
 
He stopped at the intersection of main and 13th st and waited for the signal.  Across the street he could see the open-air patio of the Palomino.  It was indeed populated mostly with curly cue mustaches and septum piercings.  But amid the band tees and thrifted ensembles was a familiar face.  She wasn't ugly, just plain, but even from this distance, he could see she had an audience. 

Hope looked different than the last time he saw her.  She was in a form-fitting red dress that showed off her legs.  Legs that as he got closer, he could see she had freshly shaven. 
 
She was playing a musical instrument, some kind of flute or recorder and the men that surrounded her hung on every note.  The melody was seductive, but sad.
 
Not all the guys had horns.  Some had just a little bump on their heads.  But they all had one thing in common; she was their queen. 

Chief Osceola gazed at the couple with an expression of eternal appraisal.  Features that were weary of a traitorous world and the pale devils that inhabited it.  The look made the man’s heart flutter, and he squeezed his date’s arm subconsciously.   

The effigy that stood before them seemed to pulse with a nervous energy that resonated in the man like a tuning fork. 

It was a feeling not unlike the one he felt holding baby chicks on his grandparents’ farm.  So fragile they were, their budding souls in his little hands.  He could feel their fear, and he would become fixated on his hand suddenly clenching in disobedience, extinguishing their light like candles.  

The chief was flanked by two Seminole warriors.  They stared unblinking with glass eyes so black you could see your own reflection in them, if you could bear to maintain eye contact with their waxen faces so alien and full of hate. 

 
Effigies made not just of wax and cloth, but of time and tension.  Cramped fingers and long nights; the blood and sweat needed to capture the essence of a man, and in so doing capture the essence of the maker himself.  They had the innate hostility of all things born in the uncanny valley; an aura of otherworldly strangeness, of pale imitation.    

The wax museum had been the lady’s idea.  Naturally anxious, Manuel felt particularly uncomfortable in that place full of eyes, so glassy and dead. 

 
If he was more assertive, they would be at a bar, and not this anachronistic novelty that he thought would be kitschy and camp but was sad and old instead.   

If he was more assertive, Manuel would have asked Quinn out six months ago instead of applying for a job at A Discount Beverages, the ridiculously-named gas station/smoke shop where they both were employed.  But Manuel was not a man of decisive action, more a supporting character in the cast of the lives of everyone around him.   

Despite the dark corners and uncanny stares, Manuel preferred the wax museum to a bar or heaven forbid, a night club.  His anxiety was so acute in crowds that he would often freeze up like a new driver waiting for an opening in traffic during rush hour.

 
Quinn was worth waiting for.  He had long admired her in silence as a customer; her straight black hair, her pouty red lips, the way she always looked so put together, so perfect.  What was she doing at a dump like A Discount Beverages?  It was like finding a  mermaid swimming in a sewer.  

He waited patiently, kept making his presence known.  And when she asked him if he wanted to check out the wax museum, he finally saw his opportunity.  

They saw founding fathers that looked like melting grandmothers.  Groucho debated Marxism with Karl; Einstein blew a raspberry in the background.  Eastwood and Wayne were locked in an eternal Mexican standoff with what could have been real pistols in their belts.   

“Oh look,  Robin Williams!” said Quinn.  

The likeness was remarkable; almost shamefully realistic, as if it had captured a piece of the man’s soul.  His eyes were so heavy, so human; wells of despair.   

“The hair must have taken forever,” said Manuel, instantly regretting it.  Of all the stupid, tasteless, low-hanging fruit...  

“They could have used a Neanderthal body and just swapped out the head,” said Quinn.  

What an odd couple they made, fitting for the setting.  She vamped.  He shrank. The high heels of her patent leather boots clacked sharply across the tiled floor of the ill-attended attraction.  He felt like he was in the presence of a wild animal, some skittish, beautiful creature that didn’t realize he was there yet. 

 
The place was arranged in small galleries of gangsters and cowboys, movie stars and musicians.  There was a tribute to the Universal monsters, but the Dracula looked like Jack Palance.  The Lugosi estate is notoriously protective of the likeness of the legendary actor.  

There was one gallery that was closed.  Linen was draped over the figures in that exhibit, but some of the details of the scene could be intuited.  There was a large wooden table covered in cruel instruments of metal and leather.  Along the back wall, barely visible in the dark, stood an iron maiden.   

The silence grew thick as they both stared at the shrouded figures, neither noticed the young men that had entered the room behind them.  

“Oooh damn, Jay!  Look at the legs on that one.  Fishnets!  Wish I caught me something that pretty in my fishnet!” said the man, gawking at Quinn’s legs as if Manuel was invisible.  

“The only thing you catching is crabs with your nasty ass,”

 
They both kept joking, kept laughing.  But the worst was the staring; it was so bold, so flagrant.  Quinn was staring too.  Staring at Manuel, a silent plea for help.  A plea for Manuel to live up to the first three letters of his namesake.   

He was a statue.   

He workshopped witticisms and retorts, but a simple “fuck you” would have sufficed.  But it was rush hour in his own mind, and he felt glued to the spot.  Their jeering and leering ran its course and they moved on to a different wing of the museum.  

In an admirable show of self-respect, Manuel asked the proprietor for a refund.  The man was dressed in an odd vest and tie, but his eyebrows and mustache were bushy and unkempt.  

“My lady friend was accosted by another customer back there...” said Manuel.  “I-... that is...  We would like our money back... I think it’s only fair.”  

As he said this, a fly landed on the proprietor’s forehead.  The man didn’t seem to notice, didn’t even flinch.  It crawled down the bridge of his nose, pausing at the tip as he stared slack-jawed at Manuel.  The man snorted, sucking the fly into his lungs.  He smiled at Manuel, then shook his head, the finality of his decision apparent.

 
“Only fair...” said the man, chuckling under his breath.  “Life isn’t fair... Haven’t you figured that out yet, Pinocchio?”  

“There’s no call for rudeness, sir.  I am simply asking for a refund due to some unpleasantness.... It doesn't even make sense... Pinocchio?  That's a new one,” said Manuel.  

“You have no strings?  Huh?...  You really think you’re a real boy?”  said the man, before smiling his carnivorous grin.  “Go home, Pinocchio.  We’re closed!”  

The fly re-emerged from the opposite nostril.  It scouted the ridge of the man’s mustache before crawling up his cheek and onto his eye.  Manuel waited for a blink that never came, just like his refund.   

He met Quinn outside; the impotence of his failure tattooed on his face.  As he walked with her to the car, he felt his hand simultaneously drawn to and repelled by hers.  He tried to open her door, but realized the geometry was impossible from their current orientation and had to do a lap of shame before entering his vehicle.   

His broken radio made the ride home awkward, but the trip was not silent for Manuel.  A gnat was doggedly exploring the contours of his ear canal.  His futile shooing did nothing to discourage the relentless buzzing.   

It was all he could do to keep focused on the road ahead; and tortuous as it was, it kept him from thinking about his night of emasculation.  Quinn was impossible to read; her eyes lightly unfocused as if puzzling out the answer to a riddle.   

“I’m sorry those young men were so boorish back there.  Some people seem so hell-bent on announcing their intellectual deficits to the world.  I would have liked to tell them as much but I... Well, you see, I...” said Manuel.  

“Oh, Manny.... You’re so old-fashioned.  It’s so sweet, but boys will be boys.  Right?  That’s what I like about you.  You’re harmless.  You wouldn’t even hurt a fly,” said Quinn.  

The gnat redoubled its efforts as if to challenge him to prove her wrong.  He could feel his milquetoast image materialize in her mind like a polaroid slowly developing.  In her eyes, he had all the virility of a plush toy, something to have tea parties with and gossip about other girls.   

He could see the trajectory of their relationship going forward.  He would become an accessory; a 5’8” purse that could scare the meatheads away.  Only he’d already failed at that task, having proven to be more cowardly lion than scarecrow.  

Manuel somehow overcame that strange repulsive force long enough to give Quinn a hug; although the force was clearly still active in their hips, through which you could have easily passed a basketball.   

By the time he got home, he had replayed the highlights of the evening in his mind a dozen times.  He was fixated on those guys, so crass, so stupid.  He didn’t even feel like he belonged to the same species as men like that. 

How could they appreciate a woman like Quinn, the divinity of her form?  They were like chimps viewing the Venus de Milo.
 
Saturated with thoughts of Quinn and Neanderthal men, his mind was fertile ground for nightmares.  A Discount Beverages was unusually busy in his dream. 

There must have been a costume party nearby with all the colorful customers that kept coming through the front door.   

Sherlock Holmes bought pipe tobacco; then Dracula bought some wine.  Some guy dressed up as Groucho needed a cigar to complete his ensemble, but he kept getting distracted by Marilyn Monroe.   

People just kept piling into the store.  The noise was grating even before Osceola and his boys started making a racquet in the fire water aisle.  All the ambient clamor reverberated and ricocheted throughout the cramped bodega until it became a singular buzzing sound, not unlike the flutter of the wings of a small insect. 

 
Then Robin Williams appeared out of nowhere and the room fell suddenly silent.  He was smiling that familiar smile, but his eyes looked like they’d been crying.

 
“You know Manny, it’s ok to be sad sometimes.  It’s a sad life...” said Robin.  “At least you got to be a real boy for a little while.”  

Manuel tried to run away, but his feet would not budge; like they had been melted to the floor.  His arms were welded in place.  He stood there like a scarecrow, staring at a sad ghost for what could have been an instant or an eternity.  Time is meaningless in a dream.   

That Saturday Manuel worked the closing shift at A Discount Beverages.  It was uncharacteristically quiet for a weekend leaving too much negative space in his mind for doubt. 

 
He hadn’t talked to Quinn since the wax museum, and he kept replaying the tape from that incident in his memory.  In the moment, he had been so mortified; he assumed she had been as disgusted as he was by their behavior.  But now he wasn’t so sure. 

 
There was a fleeting look that she gave, no more than a micro-expression; that was not contemptuous, but conspiratorial.  She had blushed.  He had been too enraged to notice at the time, but now he was sure of it.  She had blushed and even smiled; not with her mouth, but with her eyes. 

 
His mind was on Quinn when Big Bill walked through the door.  Big Bill didn’t have an address, but he lived in the area.  He was a regular A Discount Beverages, and one of the more successful members of the homeless community as evidenced by his ample frame and cheerful disposition.   

Manuel liked Bill and would generally make eye contact with him, a courtesy he reserved for a select few.  So engrossed in his inner drama, Manuel only noticed Bill’s nose in his periphery; or rather the lack thereof.   

He had already dispensed Bill’s change when he turned for the door, so Manuel barely caught a glimpse of that odd black void in the middle of his face.  Only met his eyes for an instant; just long enough to watch them sinking into his skull as if there was nothing behind it to hold them in place.  

He tried to call out to Bill, but his larynx was a rock in his throat.  His feet felt nailed to the floor as once again he was overcome with a paralytic horror.  When A Discount Beverages was empty again, Manuel felt his legs loosen up; but he paced for the rest of the night. 

 
The next morning was a Sunday and A Discount Beverages was closed.  It would have been the perfect opportunity to follow up with Quinn on their date.  But Manuel spent the day pacing; miles deep in his own thoughts.     

It felt like a python was mating with his intestines, but Manuel’s attention was focused on a spot just above that in his chest, and the strange hollowness that he now felt there.  He spent the whole day in his head and when he finally succumbed to sleep, it was an experience as hollow as that feeling in his chest.  It was a sleep that provided no rest, only stillness, like an inanimate object lying on a slab.

 
When he awoke the next morning, not rested but feeling worse than the previous day, he decided to go back to the wax museum. 

 
He didn’t know that they were closed on Mondays, and as he drew closer to read the sign in the window that advertised their hours of operation, he glimpsed something impossible.  In the large bay window that fronted the museum stood a wax figure of an organ grinder complete with a taxidermized monkey.  The monkey was wearing a red vest... just like his master.  The organ grinder’s thick eyebrows matched his mustache, and the likeness was unmistakable.   

Manuel couldn’t remember the drive to A Discount Beverages.  He had spent the trip contemplating how much of his own psychosis he wished to reveal to Quinn.  And though he feared that it would mean losing her.  She was the only person he could talk to; the only other person that mattered in his world.   

Which is why that little laugh hurt him so badly; a laugh and a lingering smile that she didn’t know he saw.  A clear sign of the lack of space he occupied in her thoughts. 

 
“Quinn... I, I... I just...” said Manuel.

 
“Oh, Manny...  Are you ok?  You’re so pale...” said Quinn.   

Her black bra just barely peeked out past the hem of her low-cut white button-down, and her lips were a shade of red he had never seen her wear before.  She was flirty and a little high, and it made the python in Manuel’s gut wriggle and constrict in a way that hunched his posture and caused his head to sink.  

Just then, a man walked through the door.  He was tall and thickly muscled like a work animal.  His black leather boots clomped heavy on the tile like horse hooves.  His vest could have been biker, but his aesthetic was decidedly more bdsm than outlaw.   

Hanging from his back pocket was a cat o’nine tails.  Braided into the leather were a medley of screws, nails, and shards of glass, a horse tail from hell.  Dread washed over Manuel as he watched the man walk into the public restroom.

 
“Quinn... Have you seen anything... strange... since our date?” said Manuel.  

“Date?” said Quinn, her single word landing like a bullet.   

But before he could even absorb the impact of that word, they were interrupted.  

“Excuse me miss.  Hate to bother you, but there’s no hand soap in the restroom,” said the leather-clad man.  

“Oh, no problem... I’ll just get some from the back,” said Quinn, before disappearing through the crash door that separated the sales floor from the stockroom. 

 
To his horror, Manuel watched in disbelief as the giant of a man in the leather vest and boots followed Quinn through that flimsy swinging door.   

Time seemed to stop.  He strained his ears for a clue but kept having to shoo away a gnat that had been relentlessly pursuing the holes on his face since arriving at A Discount Beverages.   

It was buzzing then silence for what felt like an eternity.  But eventually, he heard a medley of noises, sharp slapping sounds and muted moans.  The sounds of pain... or pleasure; he knew not which.

 
 THWACK!  

“aahh~...”  

THWACK!  

“ohh!~...”  

THWACK!  

He couldn’t take it anymore.  Every cell of his body was telling him to run, but he felt drawn to the door like a magnet.  He didn’t push the door open so much as let it collide with his frame.  He was a marionette on strings.  He felt like he couldn’t even blink, and his lungs sat frozen in his chest.   

At first, he could only see the man, all muscle and leather and sweat.  As he raised that wicked instrument behind his head, Manuel noticed how wet the thing was now. 

 
For a moment, he glimpsed bare flesh in the red light of the EXIT sign.  He took a step closer; the man seeming not to notice nor care.   

He saw the woman he so longed for in a posture of feline prurience.  Her bare bottom was flayed raw from the rhythmic lashings, but as the man persisted, Manuel noticed an odd fissure forming.  It was just a faint black line at first.  But as the man kept whipping, it grew larger and splintered; until with a dull snap, a piece of Quinn came flying off.   

“Oooohhhh!!” she cooed, her voice an emulsion of agony and ecstasy.

 
“Qu-” said Manuel, for that was all he could muster before he felt his body systematically locking down.  If only he could lock his eyes.   

The man made eye contact with Manuel, for the first time acknowledging his presence.  He smiled and licked his lips before donning a black leather hood.  When he resumed his whipping, more pieces of Quinn started to fall off.  Every time they did, it would leave a black void in her body, as if she was as hollow as a blow-mold decoration.  Her moans grew deeper, more guttural, until they ceased entirely.  

Manuel felt his attention drawn to his chest, desperately willing it to move.  His body felt like ill-fitting clothes; like a kid in his father’s coat.  The buzzing in his ears was ceaseless, broken only by the rhythmic wet slap of leather on strange flesh.  He couldn’t pull his eyes away from Quinn, her body twisted and broken in a permanent rictus of pain and pleasure.

 
He was never meant to be with her.  It was so obvious to him now.  She belonged to men like this man.  A strong man that sees what he wants and takes it; a man that doesn't freeze when the moment's right. 

She was never his to have.  

Sometime later, a woman lodged a full-throated complaint at the thickly mustachioed proprietor of the local wax museum.  And while he didn’t believe there was anything wrong with the new exhibit, he gave her the refund to save himself from the sound of her voice. 

 
A woman’s voice could be like a nagging insect, when she doesn’t get what she wants.  Besides, she had her child with her, and the new display was certainly more risqué than the other figures in the wax museum.  

The scene depicted a torture chamber from the Spanish Inquisition, though the cat o’nine tails was not historically accurate.  A beautiful, raven-haired figure stood with her hands bound above her head in a state of partial undress.  Her tormentor was a towering brute of a figure that had recently been out for repairs.   

The other two figures had been covered in linens:  the raven-haired temptress tied to a stake, and her helpless would-be lover, shackled to a table.  His longing forever hopeless, forever frozen.              

Chief Osceola gazed at the couple with an expression of eternal appraisal.  Features that were weary of a traitorous world and the pale devils that inhabited it.  The look made the man’s heart flutter, and he squeezed his date’s arm subconsciously.   

The effigy that stood before them seemed to pulse with a nervous energy that resonated in the man like a tuning fork. 

It was a feeling not unlike the one he felt holding baby chicks on his grandparents’ farm.  So fragile they were, their budding souls in his little hands.  He could feel their fear, and he would become fixated on his hand suddenly clenching in disobedience, extinguishing their light like candles.  

The chief was flanked by two Seminole warriors.  They stared unblinking with glass eyes so black you could see your own reflection in them, if you could bear to maintain eye contact with their waxen faces so alien and full of hate. 

 
Effigies made not just of wax and cloth, but of time and tension.  Cramped fingers and long nights; the blood and sweat needed to capture the essence of a man, and in so doing capture the essence of the maker himself.  They had the innate hostility of all things born in the uncanny valley; an aura of otherworldly strangeness, of pale imitation.    

The wax museum had been the lady’s idea.  Naturally anxious, Manuel felt particularly uncomfortable in that place full of eyes, so glassy and dead. 

 
If he was more assertive, they would be at a bar, and not this anachronistic novelty that he thought would be kitschy and camp but was sad and old instead.   

If he was more assertive, Manuel would have asked Quinn out six months ago instead of applying for a job at A Discount Beverages, the ridiculously-named gas station/smoke shop where they both were employed.  But Manuel was not a man of decisive action, more a supporting character in the cast of the lives of everyone around him.   

Despite the dark corners and uncanny stares, Manuel preferred the wax museum to a bar or heaven forbid, a night club.  His anxiety was so acute in crowds that he would often freeze up like a new driver waiting for an opening in traffic during rush hour.

 
Quinn was worth waiting for.  He had long admired her in silence as a customer; her straight black hair, her pouty red lips, the way she always looked so put together, so perfect.  What was she doing at a dump like A Discount Beverages?  It was like finding a  mermaid swimming in a sewer.  

He waited patiently, kept making his presence known.  And when she asked him if he wanted to check out the wax museum, he finally saw his opportunity.  

They saw founding fathers that looked like melting grandmothers.  Groucho debated Marxism with Karl; Einstein blew a raspberry in the background.  Eastwood and Wayne were locked in an eternal Mexican standoff with what could have been real pistols in their belts.   

“Oh look,  Robin Williams!” said Quinn.  

The likeness was remarkable; almost shamefully realistic, as if it had captured a piece of the man’s soul.  His eyes were so heavy, so human; wells of despair.   

“The hair must have taken forever,” said Manuel, instantly regretting it.  Of all the stupid, tasteless, low-hanging fruit...  

“They could have used a Neanderthal body and just swapped out the head,” said Quinn.  

What an odd couple they made, fitting for the setting.  She vamped.  He shrank. The high heels of her patent leather boots clacked sharply across the tiled floor of the ill-attended attraction.  He felt like he was in the presence of a wild animal, some skittish, beautiful creature that didn’t realize he was there yet. 

 
The place was arranged in small galleries of gangsters and cowboys, movie stars and musicians.  There was a tribute to the Universal monsters, but the Dracula looked like Jack Palance.  The Lugosi estate is notoriously protective of the likeness of the legendary actor.  

There was one gallery that was closed.  Linen was draped over the figures in that exhibit, but some of the details of the scene could be intuited.  There was a large wooden table covered in cruel instruments of metal and leather.  Along the back wall, barely visible in the dark, stood an iron maiden.   

The silence grew thick as they both stared at the shrouded figures, neither noticed the young men that had entered the room behind them.  

“Oooh damn, Jay!  Look at the legs on that one.  Fishnets!  Wish I caught me something that pretty in my fishnet!” said the man, gawking at Quinn’s legs as if Manuel was invisible.  

“The only thing you catching is crabs with your nasty ass,”

 
They both kept joking, kept laughing.  But the worst was the staring; it was so bold, so flagrant.  Quinn was staring too.  Staring at Manuel, a silent plea for help.  A plea for Manuel to live up to the first three letters of his namesake.   

He was a statue.   

He workshopped witticisms and retorts, but a simple “fuck you” would have sufficed.  But it was rush hour in his own mind, and he felt glued to the spot.  Their jeering and leering ran its course and they moved on to a different wing of the museum.  

In an admirable show of self-respect, Manuel asked the proprietor for a refund.  The man was dressed in an odd vest and tie, but his eyebrows and mustache were bushy and unkempt.  

“My lady friend was accosted by another customer back there...” said Manuel.  “I-... that is...  We would like our money back... I think it’s only fair.”  

As he said this, a fly landed on the proprietor’s forehead.  The man didn’t seem to notice, didn’t even flinch.  It crawled down the bridge of his nose, pausing at the tip as he stared slack-jawed at Manuel.  The man snorted, sucking the fly into his lungs.  He smiled at Manuel, then shook his head, the finality of his decision apparent.

 
“Only fair...” said the man, chuckling under his breath.  “Life isn’t fair... Haven’t you figured that out yet, Pinocchio?”  

“There’s no call for rudeness, sir.  I am simply asking for a refund due to some unpleasantness.... It doesn't even make sense... Pinocchio?  That's a new one,” said Manuel.  

“You have no strings?  Huh?...  You really think you’re a real boy?”  said the man, before smiling his carnivorous grin.  “Go home, Pinocchio.  We’re closed!”  

The fly re-emerged from the opposite nostril.  It scouted the ridge of the man’s mustache before crawling up his cheek and onto his eye.  Manuel waited for a blink that never came, just like his refund.   

He met Quinn outside; the impotence of his failure tattooed on his face.  As he walked with her to the car, he felt his hand simultaneously drawn to and repelled by hers.  He tried to open her door, but realized the geometry was impossible from their current orientation and had to do a lap of shame before entering his vehicle.   

His broken radio made the ride home awkward, but the trip was not silent for Manuel.  A gnat was doggedly exploring the contours of his ear canal.  His futile shooing did nothing to discourage the relentless buzzing.   

It was all he could do to keep focused on the road ahead; and tortuous as it was, it kept him from thinking about his night of emasculation.  Quinn was impossible to read; her eyes lightly unfocused as if puzzling out the answer to a riddle.   

“I’m sorry those young men were so boorish back there.  Some people seem so hell-bent on announcing their intellectual deficits to the world.  I would have liked to tell them as much but I... Well, you see, I...” said Manuel.  

“Oh, Manny.... You’re so old-fashioned.  It’s so sweet, but boys will be boys.  Right?  That’s what I like about you.  You’re harmless.  You wouldn’t even hurt a fly,” said Quinn.  

The gnat redoubled its efforts as if to challenge him to prove her wrong.  He could feel his milquetoast image materialize in her mind like a polaroid slowly developing.  In her eyes, he had all the virility of a plush toy, something to have tea parties with and gossip about other girls.   

He could see the trajectory of their relationship going forward.  He would become an accessory; a 5’8” purse that could scare the meatheads away.  Only he’d already failed at that task, having proven to be more cowardly lion than scarecrow.  

Manuel somehow overcame that strange repulsive force long enough to give Quinn a hug; although the force was clearly still active in their hips, through which you could have easily passed a basketball.   

By the time he got home, he had replayed the highlights of the evening in his mind a dozen times.  He was fixated on those guys, so crass, so stupid.  He didn’t even feel like he belonged to the same species as men like that. 

How could they appreciate a woman like Quinn, the divinity of her form?  They were like chimps viewing the Venus de Milo.
 
Saturated with thoughts of Quinn and Neanderthal men, his mind was fertile ground for nightmares.  A Discount Beverages was unusually busy in his dream. 

There must have been a costume party nearby with all the colorful customers that kept coming through the front door.   

Sherlock Holmes bought pipe tobacco; then Dracula bought some wine.  Some guy dressed up as Groucho needed a cigar to complete his ensemble, but he kept getting distracted by Marilyn Monroe.   

People just kept piling into the store.  The noise was grating even before Osceola and his boys started making a racquet in the fire water aisle.  All the ambient clamor reverberated and ricocheted throughout the cramped bodega until it became a singular buzzing sound, not unlike the flutter of the wings of a small insect. 

 
Then Robin Williams appeared out of nowhere and the room fell suddenly silent.  He was smiling that familiar smile, but his eyes looked like they’d been crying.

 
“You know Manny, it’s ok to be sad sometimes.  It’s a sad life...” said Robin.  “At least you got to be a real boy for a little while.”  

Manuel tried to run away, but his feet would not budge; like they had been melted to the floor.  His arms were welded in place.  He stood there like a scarecrow, staring at a sad ghost for what could have been an instant or an eternity.  Time is meaningless in a dream.   

That Saturday Manuel worked the closing shift at A Discount Beverages.  It was uncharacteristically quiet for a weekend leaving too much negative space in his mind for doubt. 

 
He hadn’t talked to Quinn since the wax museum, and he kept replaying the tape from that incident in his memory.  In the moment, he had been so mortified; he assumed she had been as disgusted as he was by their behavior.  But now he wasn’t so sure. 

 
There was a fleeting look that she gave, no more than a micro-expression; that was not contemptuous, but conspiratorial.  She had blushed.  He had been too enraged to notice at the time, but now he was sure of it.  She had blushed and even smiled; not with her mouth, but with her eyes. 

 
His mind was on Quinn when Big Bill walked through the door.  Big Bill didn’t have an address, but he lived in the area.  He was a regular A Discount Beverages, and one of the more successful members of the homeless community as evidenced by his ample frame and cheerful disposition.   

Manuel liked Bill and would generally make eye contact with him, a courtesy he reserved for a select few.  So engrossed in his inner drama, Manuel only noticed Bill’s nose in his periphery; or rather the lack thereof.   

He had already dispensed Bill’s change when he turned for the door, so Manuel barely caught a glimpse of that odd black void in the middle of his face.  Only met his eyes for an instant; just long enough to watch them sinking into his skull as if there was nothing behind it to hold them in place.  

He tried to call out to Bill, but his larynx was a rock in his throat.  His feet felt nailed to the floor as once again he was overcome with a paralytic horror.  When A Discount Beverages was empty again, Manuel felt his legs loosen up; but he paced for the rest of the night. 

 
The next morning was a Sunday and A Discount Beverages was closed.  It would have been the perfect opportunity to follow up with Quinn on their date.  But Manuel spent the day pacing; miles deep in his own thoughts.     

It felt like a python was mating with his intestines, but Manuel’s attention was focused on a spot just above that in his chest, and the strange hollowness that he now felt there.  He spent the whole day in his head and when he finally succumbed to sleep, it was an experience as hollow as that feeling in his chest.  It was a sleep that provided no rest, only stillness, like an inanimate object lying on a slab.

 
When he awoke the next morning, not rested but feeling worse than the previous day, he decided to go back to the wax museum. 

 
He didn’t know that they were closed on Mondays, and as he drew closer to read the sign in the window that advertised their hours of operation, he glimpsed something impossible.  In the large bay window that fronted the museum stood a wax figure of an organ grinder complete with a taxidermized monkey.  The monkey was wearing a red vest... just like his master.  The organ grinder’s thick eyebrows matched his mustache, and the likeness was unmistakable.   

Manuel couldn’t remember the drive to A Discount Beverages.  He had spent the trip contemplating how much of his own psychosis he wished to reveal to Quinn.  And though he feared that it would mean losing her.  She was the only person he could talk to; the only other person that mattered in his world.   

Which is why that little laugh hurt him so badly; a laugh and a lingering smile that she didn’t know he saw.  A clear sign of the lack of space he occupied in her thoughts. 

 
“Quinn... I, I... I just...” said Manuel.

 
“Oh, Manny...  Are you ok?  You’re so pale...” said Quinn.   

Her black bra just barely peeked out past the hem of her low-cut white button-down, and her lips were a shade of red he had never seen her wear before.  She was flirty and a little high, and it made the python in Manuel’s gut wriggle and constrict in a way that hunched his posture and caused his head to sink.  

Just then, a man walked through the door.  He was tall and thickly muscled like a work animal.  His black leather boots clomped heavy on the tile like horse hooves.  His vest could have been biker, but his aesthetic was decidedly more bdsm than outlaw.   

Hanging from his back pocket was a cat o’nine tails.  Braided into the leather were a medley of screws, nails, and shards of glass, a horse tail from hell.  Dread washed over Manuel as he watched the man walk into the public restroom.

 
“Quinn... Have you seen anything... strange... since our date?” said Manuel.  

“Date?” said Quinn, her single word landing like a bullet.   

But before he could even absorb the impact of that word, they were interrupted.  

“Excuse me miss.  Hate to bother you, but there’s no hand soap in the restroom,” said the leather-clad man.  

“Oh, no problem... I’ll just get some from the back,” said Quinn, before disappearing through the crash door that separated the sales floor from the stockroom. 

 
To his horror, Manuel watched in disbelief as the giant of a man in the leather vest and boots followed Quinn through that flimsy swinging door.   

Time seemed to stop.  He strained his ears for a clue but kept having to shoo away a gnat that had been relentlessly pursuing the holes on his face since arriving at A Discount Beverages.   

It was buzzing then silence for what felt like an eternity.  But eventually, he heard a medley of noises, sharp slapping sounds and muted moans.  The sounds of pain... or pleasure; he knew not which.

 
 THWACK!  

“aahh~...”  

THWACK!  

“ohh!~...”  

THWACK!  

He couldn’t take it anymore.  Every cell of his body was telling him to run, but he felt drawn to the door like a magnet.  He didn’t push the door open so much as let it collide with his frame.  He was a marionette on strings.  He felt like he couldn’t even blink, and his lungs sat frozen in his chest.   

At first, he could only see the man, all muscle and leather and sweat.  As he raised that wicked instrument behind his head, Manuel noticed how wet the thing was now. 

 
For a moment, he glimpsed bare flesh in the red light of the EXIT sign.  He took a step closer; the man seeming not to notice nor care.   

He saw the woman he so longed for in a posture of feline prurience.  Her bare bottom was flayed raw from the rhythmic lashings, but as the man persisted, Manuel noticed an odd fissure forming.  It was just a faint black line at first.  But as the man kept whipping, it grew larger and splintered; until with a dull snap, a piece of Quinn came flying off.   

“Oooohhhh!!” she cooed, her voice an emulsion of agony and ecstasy.

 
“Qu-” said Manuel, for that was all he could muster before he felt his body systematically locking down.  If only he could lock his eyes.   

The man made eye contact with Manuel, for the first time acknowledging his presence.  He smiled and licked his lips before donning a black leather hood.  When he resumed his whipping, more pieces of Quinn started to fall off.  Every time they did, it would leave a black void in her body, as if she was as hollow as a blow-mold decoration.  Her moans grew deeper, more guttural, until they ceased entirely.  

Manuel felt his attention drawn to his chest, desperately willing it to move.  His body felt like ill-fitting clothes; like a kid in his father’s coat.  The buzzing in his ears was ceaseless, broken only by the rhythmic wet slap of leather on strange flesh.  He couldn’t pull his eyes away from Quinn, her body twisted and broken in a permanent rictus of pain and pleasure.

 
He was never meant to be with her.  It was so obvious to him now.  She belonged to men like this man.  A strong man that sees what he wants and takes it; a man that doesn't freeze when the moment's right. 

She was never his to have.  

Sometime later, a woman lodged a full-throated complaint at the thickly mustachioed proprietor of the local wax museum.  And while he didn’t believe there was anything wrong with the new exhibit, he gave her the refund to save himself from the sound of her voice. 

 
A woman’s voice could be like a nagging insect, when she doesn’t get what she wants.  Besides, she had her child with her, and the new display was certainly more risqué than the other figures in the wax museum.  

The scene depicted a torture chamber from the Spanish Inquisition, though the cat o’nine tails was not historically accurate.  A beautiful, raven-haired figure stood with her hands bound above her head in a state of partial undress.  Her tormentor was a towering brute of a figure that had recently been out for repairs.   

The other two figures had been covered in linens:  the raven-haired temptress tied to a stake, and her helpless would-be lover, shackled to a table.  His longing forever hopeless, forever frozen.              

I bought the game at a thrift store, along with Vice City, Shadow of the Colossus, and what I thought was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but was actually disc 2 of Spongebob season 3.  It featured the episode "Mid-Life Crustacean", which hit different now than it did when I watched it as a kid.  

The game looked cool.  I remember playing other wrestling games from the PS2 era in high school.  They were always more fun than watching the actual shows.

 
When I went to check out, the clerk had this shit-eating grin on his face.  His "mystery game" is what he called it; said it just showed up outside the front door one day.  He seemed very happy to be getting rid of it; so happy that it made me suspicious.  

"There anything wrong with it?" I asked.  

"Who knows?  For $2 does it really matter?" was what he told me.

 
I'd pay him a thousand to take it back now, a million if I had it.  I'd give anything to back to before I picked up that copy of WCW Mayhem.

 
My wife had taken our son to visit her sister in Boca.  They'd be spending the night, so I had the house to myself.

 
After dinner, frozen pizza and a C4, I loaded the game into the PS2 that I had recently rediscovered while retrieving the suitcase from the attic.  It was actually a PS1 game, but it was still backwards compatible.   

As I scrolled through the wrestlers, nostalgia washed over me.  They had all the guys I remembered: Sting and the NWO, Goldberg at his peak.  Some of those guys I hadn't thought about in 20 years.  Raven, Kanyon, Kidman; I forgot the Flock ever existed.  

Then I got to the Horseman.  You had to unlock Ric Flair in career mode, but that wasn't the jarring part.  As I scrolled through the names, one stuck out like a splinter: Chris Benoit... the Canadian Crippler.   

The startup screen had said 1999; of course he'd be in it.  If this was a new game, that would be a different story; but in '99 he was a rising superstar.  

I picked him.  I know it's morbid, but I liked him as a kid.  What he would go on to do in his personal life notwithstanding, he was an amazing in-ring technician.  The developers must have thought so too, because I was kicking ass.  

It felt like easy mode.  I'd hit a couple moves, throw in a taunt to get the crowd popping, then my finisher was ready.  I hit it, the crippler crossface, a classic.  Only, the animation didn't look quite right.   

Maybe it was the limitations of the graphics of the time; or maybe because I was playing on a modern TV.  It looked like he was twisting his opponent's neck past the point where it would break.   

Then, instead of the normal tap out animation, the opponent just went limp and fell face first into the mat.  During the cut scene that followed, where the winner usually raised his arms triumphantly, Benoit just stood there with his head down and his shoulders bobbing up and down like he was weeping.  He put his hands over his face and the game froze.  

That was weird.  Old games froze up all the time, but was that really his victory animation?  And what was up with that finisher?  I swear I heard a crack.  It was in the background, but I had definitely heard it.   

I restarted the game, but this time it loaded directly into a match.  I was playing as Benoit again, but instead of my previous opponent, Scott Norton... it was Nancy.  

That was fucked up.  I didn't even know she was in this game.  Maybe she was unlockable like Flair, but I had never played this before.  It was a brand new memory card, mint-in-box off of Ebay.   

I paused the game.  It was just a game after all.  But I was still hesitant.  Just the knowledge of what he would go on to do to her... to that little boy....  

I was going to eject it and play something else when the game unpaused itself.  The controller was on the coffee table; I wasn't even touching it.  Then, the characters started wrestling on their own.  Only, they weren't really wrestling.  

He was beating the shit out of her.  Were the animations different when it was male versus female?  I had never seen any of these moves, they looked meaner, and they left marks on her character model.   

Nancy had a black eye, and she slumped motionless in the rear turnbuckle.  Benoit retrieved a steel chair from under the ring, but instead of hitting her with it, he partially unfolded it and positioned it over her head so that the seat covered her face.  He sprinted across the ring and springboarded back at her, drop-kicking the chair.

 
This time, the crack was unmistakable.  I know what I heard.  Nancy dropped face first to the mat.  It didn't even say that the match was over, but it went to the victory cutscene.  His head slumped and his shoulders bobbed up and down again, but when it cut to a close-up, I wasn't prepared for what I would see.   

There stood Chris Benoit, not the pixelly flat plane art that the rest of the game was rendered in, but a hyper-realistic rendition.  It was like archival footage.  I could see his veins, his sweat.  He was crying, but with this level of detail, I could also see that he was smiling.  Not just smiling, but laughing.  Laughing like a madman while tears poured down his face.

 
Fuck that game.  I popped in Shadows of the Colossus instead.  I went to the kitchen to make white people nachos in the air fryer, but when I came back into the living room, I dropped the whole damn plate.  WCW Mayhem was loading on my television screen.  

I checked the case for Shadow of the Colossus.  Empty.  Before I could even rationalize what I was looking at, I saw the ring.  In the center was Chris Benoit as he had originally appeared in the game.  But instead of an opponent, there was an inanimate object.  It took me a minute to recognize what I was looking at, but when I did, I couldn't unsee it.  It was a piece of gym equipment, a lat-pulldown machine to be precise.  

I watched in horror as the character approached it, and with that awkward '90's video game animation style, wrapped the cable around his neck.  He then looked at the camera... looked at me... and dragged his thumb across his throat, his signature taunt.

 
He pulled the pin holding the weight up, the cable tightened and his neck broke.  The screen faded to black.  I unplugged the PS2, but the screen changed again. 

 
When it came back on, it wasn't the game anymore.  It was Benoit himself.  He sat slumped on the bench of the pulldown machine, the cable bit deeply into his neck.  It was like crime scene footage, though even that is understating the effect.  No footage of this scene ever existed.  It was like the TV was a window to the act itself.

 
I splintered the disc into dozens of little pieces, collected them in a bag, and burned the whole thing in my backyard.  I'd like to think that the experience is in my rear-view but I can't affort to be so optimistic.   

If I was a single man, it would be different.  But I have a wife and a son that I love with every fiber of my being.  I know there's no power on Earth that could compel me to harm them.  

But from everything I've heard, Chris Benoit loved his wife and son too.  He just took too many blows to the head and lost control.  CTE is the prevailing explanation for his crimes.  

Brain damage had turned him into a shell of his former self.  An avatar, like someone else was controlling his body... like a character in a video game.  

 I love my wife and son, but I'm afraid.  I could never explain to her what happened with the game.  Not that she'd believe me anyway.  She'd just think it was some sick joke.   

But it doesn't really matter if I have an explanation for all the odd animations and that hyper-realistic window to a crime scene.  She won't be able to see those things.  What she will be able to see... what I desperately need to be able to explain... is how this lat-pulldown machine ended up in my living room.

I bought the game at a thrift store, along with Vice City, Shadow of the Colossus, and what I thought was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but was actually disc 2 of Spongebob season 3.  It featured the episode "Mid-Life Crustacean", which hit different now than it did when I watched it as a kid.  

The game looked cool.  I remember playing other wrestling games from the PS2 era in high school.  They were always more fun than watching the actual shows.

 
When I went to check out, the clerk had this shit-eating grin on his face.  His "mystery game" is what he called it; said it just showed up outside the front door one day.  He seemed very happy to be getting rid of it; so happy that it made me suspicious.  

"There anything wrong with it?" I asked.  

"Who knows?  For $2 does it really matter?" was what he told me.

 
I'd pay him a thousand to take it back now, a million if I had it.  I'd give anything to back to before I picked up that copy of WCW Mayhem.

 
My wife had taken our son to visit her sister in Boca.  They'd be spending the night, so I had the house to myself.

 
After dinner, frozen pizza and a C4, I loaded the game into the PS2 that I had recently rediscovered while retrieving the suitcase from the attic.  It was actually a PS1 game, but it was still backwards compatible.   

As I scrolled through the wrestlers, nostalgia washed over me.  They had all the guys I remembered: Sting and the NWO, Goldberg at his peak.  Some of those guys I hadn't thought about in 20 years.  Raven, Kanyon, Kidman; I forgot the Flock ever existed.  

Then I got to the Horseman.  You had to unlock Ric Flair in career mode, but that wasn't the jarring part.  As I scrolled through the names, one stuck out like a splinter: Chris Benoit... the Canadian Crippler.   

The startup screen had said 1999; of course he'd be in it.  If this was a new game, that would be a different story; but in '99 he was a rising superstar.  

I picked him.  I know it's morbid, but I liked him as a kid.  What he would go on to do in his personal life notwithstanding, he was an amazing in-ring technician.  The developers must have thought so too, because I was kicking ass.  

It felt like easy mode.  I'd hit a couple moves, throw in a taunt to get the crowd popping, then my finisher was ready.  I hit it, the crippler crossface, a classic.  Only, the animation didn't look quite right.   

Maybe it was the limitations of the graphics of the time; or maybe because I was playing on a modern TV.  It looked like he was twisting his opponent's neck past the point where it would break.   

Then, instead of the normal tap out animation, the opponent just went limp and fell face first into the mat.  During the cut scene that followed, where the winner usually raised his arms triumphantly, Benoit just stood there with his head down and his shoulders bobbing up and down like he was weeping.  He put his hands over his face and the game froze.  

That was weird.  Old games froze up all the time, but was that really his victory animation?  And what was up with that finisher?  I swear I heard a crack.  It was in the background, but I had definitely heard it.   

I restarted the game, but this time it loaded directly into a match.  I was playing as Benoit again, but instead of my previous opponent, Scott Norton... it was Nancy.  

That was fucked up.  I didn't even know she was in this game.  Maybe she was unlockable like Flair, but I had never played this before.  It was a brand new memory card, mint-in-box off of Ebay.   

I paused the game.  It was just a game after all.  But I was still hesitant.  Just the knowledge of what he would go on to do to her... to that little boy....  

I was going to eject it and play something else when the game unpaused itself.  The controller was on the coffee table; I wasn't even touching it.  Then, the characters started wrestling on their own.  Only, they weren't really wrestling.  

He was beating the shit out of her.  Were the animations different when it was male versus female?  I had never seen any of these moves, they looked meaner, and they left marks on her character model.   

Nancy had a black eye, and she slumped motionless in the rear turnbuckle.  Benoit retrieved a steel chair from under the ring, but instead of hitting her with it, he partially unfolded it and positioned it over her head so that the seat covered her face.  He sprinted across the ring and springboarded back at her, drop-kicking the chair.

 
This time, the crack was unmistakable.  I know what I heard.  Nancy dropped face first to the mat.  It didn't even say that the match was over, but it went to the victory cutscene.  His head slumped and his shoulders bobbed up and down again, but when it cut to a close-up, I wasn't prepared for what I would see.   

There stood Chris Benoit, not the pixelly flat plane art that the rest of the game was rendered in, but a hyper-realistic rendition.  It was like archival footage.  I could see his veins, his sweat.  He was crying, but with this level of detail, I could also see that he was smiling.  Not just smiling, but laughing.  Laughing like a madman while tears poured down his face.

 
Fuck that game.  I popped in Shadows of the Colossus instead.  I went to the kitchen to make white people nachos in the air fryer, but when I came back into the living room, I dropped the whole damn plate.  WCW Mayhem was loading on my television screen.  

I checked the case for Shadow of the Colossus.  Empty.  Before I could even rationalize what I was looking at, I saw the ring.  In the center was Chris Benoit as he had originally appeared in the game.  But instead of an opponent, there was an inanimate object.  It took me a minute to recognize what I was looking at, but when I did, I couldn't unsee it.  It was a piece of gym equipment, a lat-pulldown machine to be precise.  

I watched in horror as the character approached it, and with that awkward '90's video game animation style, wrapped the cable around his neck.  He then looked at the camera... looked at me... and dragged his thumb across his throat, his signature taunt.

 
He pulled the pin holding the weight up, the cable tightened and his neck broke.  The screen faded to black.  I unplugged the PS2, but the screen changed again. 

 
When it came back on, it wasn't the game anymore.  It was Benoit himself.  He sat slumped on the bench of the pulldown machine, the cable bit deeply into his neck.  It was like crime scene footage, though even that is understating the effect.  No footage of this scene ever existed.  It was like the TV was a window to the act itself.

 
I splintered the disc into dozens of little pieces, collected them in a bag, and burned the whole thing in my backyard.  I'd like to think that the experience is in my rear-view but I can't affort to be so optimistic.   

If I was a single man, it would be different.  But I have a wife and a son that I love with every fiber of my being.  I know there's no power on Earth that could compel me to harm them.  

But from everything I've heard, Chris Benoit loved his wife and son too.  He just took too many blows to the head and lost control.  CTE is the prevailing explanation for his crimes.  

Brain damage had turned him into a shell of his former self.  An avatar, like someone else was controlling his body... like a character in a video game.  

 I love my wife and son, but I'm afraid.  I could never explain to her what happened with the game.  Not that she'd believe me anyway.  She'd just think it was some sick joke.   

But it doesn't really matter if I have an explanation for all the odd animations and that hyper-realistic window to a crime scene.  She won't be able to see those things.  What she will be able to see... what I desperately need to be able to explain... is how this lat-pulldown machine ended up in my living room.

I bought the game at a thrift store, along with Vice City, Shadow of the Colossus, and what I thought was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but was actually disc 2 of Spongebob season 3.  It featured the episode "Mid-Life Crustacean", which hit different now than it did when I watched it as a kid.  

The game looked cool.  I remember playing other wrestling games from the PS2 era in high school.  They were always more fun than watching the actual shows.

 
When I went to check out, the clerk had this shit-eating grin on his face.  His "mystery game" is what he called it; said it just showed up outside the front door one day.  He seemed very happy to be getting rid of it; so happy that it made me suspicious.  

"There anything wrong with it?" I asked.  

"Who knows?  For $2 does it really matter?" was what he told me.

 
I'd pay him a thousand to take it back now, a million if I had it.  I'd give anything to back to before I picked up that copy of WCW Mayhem.

 
My wife had taken our son to visit her sister in Boca.  They'd be spending the night, so I had the house to myself.

 
After dinner, frozen pizza and a C4, I loaded the game into the PS2 that I had recently rediscovered while retrieving the suitcase from the attic.  It was actually a PS1 game, but it was still backwards compatible.   

As I scrolled through the wrestlers, nostalgia washed over me.  They had all the guys I remembered: Sting and the NWO, Goldberg at his peak.  Some of those guys I hadn't thought about in 20 years.  Raven, Kanyon, Kidman; I forgot the Flock ever existed.  

Then I got to the Horseman.  You had to unlock Ric Flair in career mode, but that wasn't the jarring part.  As I scrolled through the names, one stuck out like a splinter: Chris Benoit... the Canadian Crippler.   

The startup screen had said 1999; of course he'd be in it.  If this was a new game, that would be a different story; but in '99 he was a rising superstar.  

I picked him.  I know it's morbid, but I liked him as a kid.  What he would go on to do in his personal life notwithstanding, he was an amazing in-ring technician.  The developers must have thought so too, because I was kicking ass.  

It felt like easy mode.  I'd hit a couple moves, throw in a taunt to get the crowd popping, then my finisher was ready.  I hit it, the crippler crossface, a classic.  Only, the animation didn't look quite right.   

Maybe it was the limitations of the graphics of the time; or maybe because I was playing on a modern TV.  It looked like he was twisting his opponent's neck past the point where it would break.   

Then, instead of the normal tap out animation, the opponent just went limp and fell face first into the mat.  During the cut scene that followed, where the winner usually raised his arms triumphantly, Benoit just stood there with his head down and his shoulders bobbing up and down like he was weeping.  He put his hands over his face and the game froze.  

That was weird.  Old games froze up all the time, but was that really his victory animation?  And what was up with that finisher?  I swear I heard a crack.  It was in the background, but I had definitely heard it.   

I restarted the game, but this time it loaded directly into a match.  I was playing as Benoit again, but instead of my previous opponent, Scott Norton... it was Nancy.  

That was fucked up.  I didn't even know she was in this game.  Maybe she was unlockable like Flair, but I had never played this before.  It was a brand new memory card, mint-in-box off of Ebay.   

I paused the game.  It was just a game after all.  But I was still hesitant.  Just the knowledge of what he would go on to do to her... to that little boy....  

I was going to eject it and play something else when the game unpaused itself.  The controller was on the coffee table; I wasn't even touching it.  Then, the characters started wrestling on their own.  Only, they weren't really wrestling.  

He was beating the shit out of her.  Were the animations different when it was male versus female?  I had never seen any of these moves, they looked meaner, and they left marks on her character model.   

Nancy had a black eye, and she slumped motionless in the rear turnbuckle.  Benoit retrieved a steel chair from under the ring, but instead of hitting her with it, he partially unfolded it and positioned it over her head so that the seat covered her face.  He sprinted across the ring and springboarded back at her, drop-kicking the chair.

 
This time, the crack was unmistakable.  I know what I heard.  Nancy dropped face first to the mat.  It didn't even say that the match was over, but it went to the victory cutscene.  His head slumped and his shoulders bobbed up and down again, but when it cut to a close-up, I wasn't prepared for what I would see.   

There stood Chris Benoit, not the pixelly flat plane art that the rest of the game was rendered in, but a hyper-realistic rendition.  It was like archival footage.  I could see his veins, his sweat.  He was crying, but with this level of detail, I could also see that he was smiling.  Not just smiling, but laughing.  Laughing like a madman while tears poured down his face.

 
Fuck that game.  I popped in Shadows of the Colossus instead.  I went to the kitchen to make white people nachos in the air fryer, but when I came back into the living room, I dropped the whole damn plate.  WCW Mayhem was loading on my television screen.  

I checked the case for Shadow of the Colossus.  Empty.  Before I could even rationalize what I was looking at, I saw the ring.  In the center was Chris Benoit as he had originally appeared in the game.  But instead of an opponent, there was an inanimate object.  It took me a minute to recognize what I was looking at, but when I did, I couldn't unsee it.  It was a piece of gym equipment, a lat-pulldown machine to be precise.  

I watched in horror as the character approached it, and with that awkward '90's video game animation style, wrapped the cable around his neck.  He then looked at the camera... looked at me... and dragged his thumb across his throat, his signature taunt.

 
He pulled the pin holding the weight up, the cable tightened and his neck broke.  The screen faded to black.  I unplugged the PS2, but the screen changed again. 

 
When it came back on, it wasn't the game anymore.  It was Benoit himself.  He sat slumped on the bench of the pulldown machine, the cable bit deeply into his neck.  It was like crime scene footage, though even that is understating the effect.  No footage of this scene ever existed.  It was like the TV was a window to the act itself.

 
I splintered the disc into dozens of little pieces, collected them in a bag, and burned the whole thing in my backyard.  I'd like to think that the experience is in my rear-view but I can't affort to be so optimistic.   

If I was a single man, it would be different.  But I have a wife and a son that I love with every fiber of my being.  I know there's no power on Earth that could compel me to harm them.  

But from everything I've heard, Chris Benoit loved his wife and son too.  He just took too many blows to the head and lost control.  CTE is the prevailing explanation for his crimes.  

Brain damage had turned him into a shell of his former self.  An avatar, like someone else was controlling his body... like a character in a video game.  

 I love my wife and son, but I'm afraid.  I could never explain to her what happened with the game.  Not that she'd believe me anyway.  She'd just think it was some sick joke.   

But it doesn't really matter if I have an explanation for all the odd animations and that hyper-realistic window to a crime scene.  She won't be able to see those things.  What she will be able to see... what I desperately need to be able to explain... is how this lat-pulldown machine ended up in my living room.

I bought the game at a thrift store, along with Vice City, Shadow of the Colossus, and what I thought was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but was actually disc 2 of Spongebob season 3.  It featured the episode "Mid-Life Crustacean", which hit different now than it did when I watched it as a kid.  

The game looked cool.  I remember playing other wrestling games from the PS2 era in high school.  They were always more fun than watching the actual shows.

 
When I went to check out, the clerk had this shit-eating grin on his face.  His "mystery game" is what he called it; said it just showed up outside the front door one day.  He seemed very happy to be getting rid of it; so happy that it made me suspicious.  

"There anything wrong with it?" I asked.  

"Who knows?  For $2 does it really matter?" was what he told me.

 
I'd pay him a thousand to take it back now, a million if I had it.  I'd give anything to back to before I picked up that copy of WCW Mayhem.

 
My wife had taken our son to visit her sister in Boca.  They'd be spending the night, so I had the house to myself.

 
After dinner, frozen pizza and a C4, I loaded the game into the PS2 that I had recently rediscovered while retrieving the suitcase from the attic.  It was actually a PS1 game, but it was still backwards compatible.   

As I scrolled through the wrestlers, nostalgia washed over me.  They had all the guys I remembered: Sting and the NWO, Goldberg at his peak.  Some of those guys I hadn't thought about in 20 years.  Raven, Kanyon, Kidman; I forgot the Flock ever existed.  

Then I got to the Horseman.  You had to unlock Ric Flair in career mode, but that wasn't the jarring part.  As I scrolled through the names, one stuck out like a splinter: Chris Benoit... the Canadian Crippler.   

The startup screen had said 1999; of course he'd be in it.  If this was a new game, that would be a different story; but in '99 he was a rising superstar.  

I picked him.  I know it's morbid, but I liked him as a kid.  What he would go on to do in his personal life notwithstanding, he was an amazing in-ring technician.  The developers must have thought so too, because I was kicking ass.  

It felt like easy mode.  I'd hit a couple moves, throw in a taunt to get the crowd popping, then my finisher was ready.  I hit it, the crippler crossface, a classic.  Only, the animation didn't look quite right.   

Maybe it was the limitations of the graphics of the time; or maybe because I was playing on a modern TV.  It looked like he was twisting his opponent's neck past the point where it would break.   

Then, instead of the normal tap out animation, the opponent just went limp and fell face first into the mat.  During the cut scene that followed, where the winner usually raised his arms triumphantly, Benoit just stood there with his head down and his shoulders bobbing up and down like he was weeping.  He put his hands over his face and the game froze.  

That was weird.  Old games froze up all the time, but was that really his victory animation?  And what was up with that finisher?  I swear I heard a crack.  It was in the background, but I had definitely heard it.   

I restarted the game, but this time it loaded directly into a match.  I was playing as Benoit again, but instead of my previous opponent, Scott Norton... it was Nancy.  

That was fucked up.  I didn't even know she was in this game.  Maybe she was unlockable like Flair, but I had never played this before.  It was a brand new memory card, mint-in-box off of Ebay.   

I paused the game.  It was just a game after all.  But I was still hesitant.  Just the knowledge of what he would go on to do to her... to that little boy....  

I was going to eject it and play something else when the game unpaused itself.  The controller was on the coffee table; I wasn't even touching it.  Then, the characters started wrestling on their own.  Only, they weren't really wrestling.  

He was beating the shit out of her.  Were the animations different when it was male versus female?  I had never seen any of these moves, they looked meaner, and they left marks on her character model.   

Nancy had a black eye, and she slumped motionless in the rear turnbuckle.  Benoit retrieved a steel chair from under the ring, but instead of hitting her with it, he partially unfolded it and positioned it over her head so that the seat covered her face.  He sprinted across the ring and springboarded back at her, drop-kicking the chair.

 
This time, the crack was unmistakable.  I know what I heard.  Nancy dropped face first to the mat.  It didn't even say that the match was over, but it went to the victory cutscene.  His head slumped and his shoulders bobbed up and down again, but when it cut to a close-up, I wasn't prepared for what I would see.   

There stood Chris Benoit, not the pixelly flat plane art that the rest of the game was rendered in, but a hyper-realistic rendition.  It was like archival footage.  I could see his veins, his sweat.  He was crying, but with this level of detail, I could also see that he was smiling.  Not just smiling, but laughing.  Laughing like a madman while tears poured down his face.

 
Fuck that game.  I popped in Shadows of the Colossus instead.  I went to the kitchen to make white people nachos in the air fryer, but when I came back into the living room, I dropped the whole damn plate.  WCW Mayhem was loading on my television screen.  

I checked the case for Shadow of the Colossus.  Empty.  Before I could even rationalize what I was looking at, I saw the ring.  In the center was Chris Benoit as he had originally appeared in the game.  But instead of an opponent, there was an inanimate object.  It took me a minute to recognize what I was looking at, but when I did, I couldn't unsee it.  It was a piece of gym equipment, a lat-pulldown machine to be precise.  

I watched in horror as the character approached it, and with that awkward '90's video game animation style, wrapped the cable around his neck.  He then looked at the camera... looked at me... and dragged his thumb across his throat, his signature taunt.

 
He pulled the pin holding the weight up, the cable tightened and his neck broke.  The screen faded to black.  I unplugged the PS2, but the screen changed again. 

 
When it came back on, it wasn't the game anymore.  It was Benoit himself.  He sat slumped on the bench of the pulldown machine, the cable bit deeply into his neck.  It was like crime scene footage, though even that is understating the effect.  No footage of this scene ever existed.  It was like the TV was a window to the act itself.

 
I splintered the disc into dozens of little pieces, collected them in a bag, and burned the whole thing in my backyard.  I'd like to think that the experience is in my rear-view but I can't affort to be so optimistic.   

If I was a single man, it would be different.  But I have a wife and a son that I love with every fiber of my being.  I know there's no power on Earth that could compel me to harm them.  

But from everything I've heard, Chris Benoit loved his wife and son too.  He just took too many blows to the head and lost control.  CTE is the prevailing explanation for his crimes.  

Brain damage had turned him into a shell of his former self.  An avatar, like someone else was controlling his body... like a character in a video game.  

 I love my wife and son, but I'm afraid.  I could never explain to her what happened with the game.  Not that she'd believe me anyway.  She'd just think it was some sick joke.   

But it doesn't really matter if I have an explanation for all the odd animations and that hyper-realistic window to a crime scene.  She won't be able to see those things.  What she will be able to see... what I desperately need to be able to explain... is how this lat-pulldown machine ended up in my living room.

“Where was it you said he's taking you again?"

 
"Sit + Stay...  It just opened last week in that new development out past the interstate."

 
"It's your second date and he's taking you to a puppy cafe?  What a creep!"  

"Come on Molly, don't be so uptight; lots of people drink rivina.  My dad drinks rivina.  Does that make him a creep?"

 
"Maybe it does, Chelle.  How many brothers and sisters do you have?"  

"Oh, fuck you!"

 
"Ooooh, I hit a nerve.  Must have been the runt of the litter..."

 
"Fuck off, Molly!  Anyway, I better let you go.  Gotta get ready for my date, you know,"  

"Wait, Michelle....  Look, Rex seems like a nice guy and all, but those places give me the creeps.  Promise me if the vibe is off, you'll leave."  

The vibe at Sit + Stay puppy cafe was, in fact, off; but no more so than at any other establishment of its ilk.  Underneath the topcoat aroma of freshly brewed coffee was a base layer of dog piss that would never truly leave the place. 

The next tenant would probably get a deal on the rent.  They always did when the puppy cafes inevitably went under.  Not enough demand for rivina these days and the overhead was ridiculous; licensing fees, certification requirements, inspections, insurance.   

But Sit + Stay was riding a wave of new interest in puppy cafes.  Even the president, notorious germaphobe that he was, had enjoyed a venti rivina at the Sit + Stay in downtown DC. 

Drinking rivina had become something of a political statement in the last year, a token of status.  The drink itself was a luxury, but the lifestyle that it entailed could be a life-altering expense.  

"I'll have a venti iced pistachio rivina with cold foam and she'll have a..."  

"Grande iced matcha... please."  

He paid and Michelle took their number to the table while Rex went to the enclosure to select a puppy.  She scrolled through her socials, not really paying attention to the images on her screen, while her date eyed the assortment of puppies, yipping and nipping at each other.   

"How about that black one?  He's so chonky... Look at this little chubster, Michelle."

 
Michelle spared a glance at the puppy and flashed a courtesy smile at Rex.  It was the same look she used at the bank when she was helping her aging clientele perform transactions that anyone under the age of 60 already did online.  Michelle didn't mind though.  She thought old people were cute, and if they stopped coming in to do their banking, she'd be out of a job.   

Rex joined her at the two-top in the corner of the cafe that she had selected for them.  Soon, the barista brought her matcha as well as the cart for the rivina.  The chubby black puppy that Rex picked out barked incessantly in a falsetto register from a cage on the bottom of the cart.   

The barista unfolded the assembly on the top of the cart, tightening the wing nuts that secured the funnel in place.  He checked the ticket one last time before filling the shaker with ice.  As he bent to unlatch the cage, Rex stopped him.  

"I want to do it... Is that allowed?"  

The barista applied a look not unlike the one that Michelle used at the bank.   

"Apologies sir, but for liability reasons, only Sit + Stay employees are permitted to prepare our beverages, especially rivina.  You understand, of course...."

 
"Regulations... Fucking typical.  Leave it to liberals to suck all the joy out of life"

 
And there it was.  "Just keep looking at your phone," she thought.  "Don't give him an opening"

 
The barista removed the puppy from the cage and cradled it in the crook of his left elbow.  He stroked the top of its head, scratching gently in the space between its ears.  In his right hand, he held a small tool that looked like a dremel without a bit attached.  He pressed the end of the tool flush with the top of the puppy's head and inhaled sharply. 

 
He depressed a button on the opposite end of the tool, and there was a sharp hiss of air.  The puppy yelped once, and then it was done.  The barista used a special tool not unlike a wine key to cut the puppy's throat.  Then he quickly placed its body in the funnel so that Rex could watch the pull.  

"Why'd you guys stop using the hammer?  Let me guess, the snowflakes complained..."  

Michelle remembered watching her daddy make rivina after the neighbor's dog had puppies when she was nine.  He would just stun them with an open-handed slap before he pulled the rivina into a pitcher that her mom used to make sun tea in the summer.  She'd beg and plead with her daddy to let her try just one sip of the thick, rich brew, but he always refused.

 
"Rivina's a man's drink, Chelle..."  

 It was quite forward of Rex, ordering rivina on a second date.  The fact that he had invited her to a puppy cafe at all should have been a clear indication of his intentions.  Everyone knew how guys got when they drank that stuff.  Sure, it could be a fun night until they're howling at the moon and pawing at your panties.  

"How's your matcha?"

 
"Good.... How's your drink?"  

Rex took a long sip from his venti rivina, the foam sticking to the whiskers of his mustache.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and examined the creamy pink residue before wiping it on his napkin.

 
"This is really good...  I don't remember it being this thick the last time.  I knew I picked a good one.  The black ones are always a little sweeter."

 
"My daddy had a taste for it.  He always wanted to try a pure breed, but all he could afford was mutts..."  

There was a glint in Rex’s eye when Michelle mentioned her "daddy."  He could feel the effects of the rivina starting; his nose was already tingling.  The dog piss base layer became more pronounced, but so did his tolerance for stench. 

He closed his eyes and mapped the cafe by scent alone; the puppies in the enclosure waiting to be pulled for their rivina, the baristas behind the counter blending and shaking their brews, the mouth-breathing loner in the corner who was slow-sipping his rivina so he could watch the other puppies get pulled.  

But above all the other scents and signals, he could smell his date.  Her perfume was floral, her makeup, a powdery wax.  He could smell the heat from her seat and the signature scent of her womanhood.  It felt like the world had been turned to 11, and he struggled to keep up with the conversation.

 
"You said your daddy drank rivina?  I like that.  Shows you were raised right."

 
"Well, I don't know about all that.  It was hard for my momma and daddy raising all us kids.  When Daddy hurt his back, we even went on assistance for a while..."

 
"Well...  I'm sure he had his reasons.  Not my place to judge."

 
Now she'd done it.  "He probably thinks I'm a climber now," thought Michelle.  But that was just the runt in her kicking in again.  When you spent your life fighting for scraps, when you finally get something nice, you don't think you deserve it.  And Rex was nice, even though he was a little old-fashioned.   

Rex was suddenly overcome with the urge to leave.  His foot was tapping Morse code gibberish under the table.  This was part of it, part of the ride.  Forget about coffee, if you really want some pep in your step, pull a double shot of rivina.   

"You want to get out of here?  Maybe go to a park or something?  I need to stretch my legs."  

"Sure... I mean, yes... That sounds nice."  

They met again at the Hilcrest municipal park, driving separately so as not to send the wrong signal.  She liked Rex, but she didn't want to seem too desperate.   

As they walked the trail, his hand brushed against hers.  They locked eyes and Michelle could feel a cool tickling sensation in her stomach, a little flutter, a little spark.  The moment was just that, a moment. 

Just as they were starting to enjoy each other's company, an old woman approached with her poodle from behind.  She was out walking her dog when it started snarling and barking like crazy at Rex.  The woman tried to get it to keep moving, but it dug its heels in and barked even louder.

 
"You better shut that dog up, lady!  Can't you see I was having a moment with my lady friend?"  

"Well I never..."  

"And you never will.  Now get moving.  If that dog bites me, I'm biting it back."

 
Michelle was mortified, but a part of her was excited in a way that she wasn't sure she liked.  He was so mean to that woman, but he was so confident too.  Sure, some of that was just the rivina talking; but some of it was him.  The kind of man that could drink that stuff didn't really need it to work up the courage to talk to a lady. 

 
They tried to enjoy the rest of their walk, but it was obvious that Rex was distracted.   

"I just keep thinking about that damn dog"  

"Oh, Rex.  Let it go.  We were having such a nice night."  

"I know, I know.  I just...  I just...   just forget about it.  I wish you could understand what it's doing to me right now, the rivina.  Honestly, I don't think it even works on females.  I'm sure someone's tried it, but it's different for guys, you know.  We're wired different from you ladies."  

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That's what they all say"  

"All say?  How many men have you heard that from?"  

Don't take the bait.  

"None of your, business young man.  Besides, I could just as easily ask you how many girls you gave the "wired different" speech to"  

"None as pretty as you look right now...."  

She rolled her eyes but smiled, nonetheless. With his mustache and neatly combed black hair slick with pomade, he reminded her of her daddy.  Daddy wouldn't be caught dead behind a desk like Rex though.  But Rex made more money last year than Daddy did in the last ten.

 
"You want to get out of here... again?  I don't mean to sound too forward, but the view of the lake at sunset from my deck is just... Well, it's just gorgeous.  The sky looks like cotton candy."

 
Rex undersold the view, which was absolutely breathtaking until Michelle looked at the houses on either side; which all looked identical to his own.  Magnolia Heights was the type of community that valued status over self-expression.   

"Can I get you something to drink?  I'm going to have one of these Dewclaws, but I have some ciders in the back of the fridge and I think I still have that Malbec from Christmas..."  

"I'll take a cider I guess... Why not?  It's the weekend!"  

Rex poured Michelle's cider into a chilled pilsner glass, then followed suit with his rivina seltzer.  Dewclaws had just recently been released to market thanks in large part to the current administration, whose regulatory reforms had laid the foundation for more large-scale bottlers to step into the rivina space.  

"Another rivina?"

 
"It's the weekend, right?"  

"To the weekend!"  

"Cheers!  To the weekend!"  

They both sat silent for a while, taking in the sunset, letting the weight of implication settle in.  She knew all too well what could happen if Rex kept going the way he was going.  Dewclaws were pasteurized.  Some people said that made the rivina less potent, but Michelle wasn't so sure.  She dared a glance below his belt.  The bulge was obvious already.  

"So.... You want to watch a movie or something?"  

"Actually, I did want to check out that new documentary on Netflix about that human trafficking ring..."

 
"Human trafficking?!  I thought this was a date!"

 
"Whaaat?!  It looks good.  Why?  What do you want to watch?"  

"There's a new season of Love Island...."  

"Oh my God!  You watch that?  That’s a girl show!”  

They settled on something scary, one of those Mike Flanagan adaptations, but neither one could really get into it.  Michelle babysat her seltzer while Rex downed his Dewclaw before the first episode ended.  When he returned from the kitchen, fresh Dewclaw in hand, he put his arm around her shoulders on the couch.  She didn’t move it away.  

Michelle became fixated on the drops of condensation on the surface of her chilled glass.  The weight of Rex’s arm hung heavy on her shoulders.  She thought about her momma and all her brothers and sisters.  Oats in the hamburger and pasta every other night because daddy refused to eat rice and beans.  “We ain’t a bunch of wetbacks, Chelle”.  

Rex leaned in, his eyes trained on her lips.  His mustache was like a fat caterpillar lying atop his freshly wet lips.  His breath stunk of Dewclaw.  She closed her eyes and let it happen.  It was not unpleasant, but it left a coppery aftertaste in her mouth.  So that’s what all the fuss was about.  

He kissed her again and again and again, each one more passionate and lingering.  He probed his tongue into her mouth and she probed his with hers.  She pressed him back to catch her breath and saw something she had hoped she wouldn’t see.   

"Oh my God, Rex!  What are you doing?"  

"What?  I just...  What's the big deal?  I thought that was where this was going."  

"So, you just pulled it out?  How did you think I was going to react?  It's so... red...."  

"It's the rivina, Chelle.  Got me so worked up, my bulb's almost out of the sheath...."  

She couldn't break her eyes away from the fleshy red thing that seemed to be growing out of Rex's pants.  It was slick with that discharge that always comes when the bulbus peeked through its protective sheath.   

  "Well... Can you... I mean I... was... but then."  

Rex started kissing her again and for a moment she allowed herself to carried away in the moment, but when she opened her eyes again, it had grown even larger.  Her disgust was reflexive, and she pushed him back on the couch.  

"I-I'm sorry, Rex.  I just need to get some air."  

He gave his date her privacy, though only to refresh his drink.  The moon lit the deck like a spotlight.  It reminded Michelle of her daddy.  He liked to drink the stuff when the moon was full and howl till the neighbors complained.  She looked out to the line of houses all virtually identical to the one she was standing in.   

She thought about the people in those houses.  How many of them were watching Love Island?  How many were drinking Rivina?   

"Daddy would hate it here..."  

"What?"  

"Oh... I thought I was alone.  I was just saying... This view!"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

"Yeah, I know right?  Fucking gorgeous... "  

He wasn't looking at the lake.  

"You, uh... you like your neighbors?"  

"My neighbor's a cuck."  

"..."  

"I'm not joking.  They got a back door brother that they let in the front door if you know what I mean."  

Time to leave.  

But before Michelle could formulate a graceful exit strategy, Rex put his hands on her shoulders.  She felt his lips on her neck with their fleshy wetness, sucking until it started to hurt.  She smelled the bitter fermented stink of the rivina on his breath when he periodically came up for air.  She wanted to tell him to stop but it was like her mouth refused to obey her brain.  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

His hands were savage cartographers mapping the curves of her body.  She felt the cool night air on her backside.  

"Wait, I..."  

"Oh, come on Chelle!  It's dangerous for guys if we don't... after we... When it gets this big, it won't go back in on its own.  I mean... You like me, don't you?"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

There was a little friction at first, but she relaxed as much as she could.  He panted and barked and after a minute and a half of concerted effort, Rex was howling with pleasure.  Michelle felt like vomiting.  

"That was amaaaazing, Chelle... wasn't it?"  

"What?  Oh yeah baby... real nice... Hey, Rex honey, you think you could... get off of me now?  Not that this isn't nice, it's just that I'd like to use the ladies' room"  

"I'm trying sweetheart; believe me I am."  

"Well, try harder!"  

"Ouh! Ow! Owww!  Fuck!  I just can't get it out.  I think we're stuck in a tie."  

A tie?  What was this a game to him?  

"What the hell is a tie?"  

"A tie you know?  A fucking knot.  Didn't you say your neighbors had dogs?  Surely, you've seen them get stuck when they..."  

"Oh my God...."  

"Come on..."  

"Oh my God..."  

"You're being a little bit..."  

"Oh my fucking God, Rex..."  

"What?"  

"I gotta get out of here."  

"Jesus!  So dramatic!  Would it really be so bad?  Huh?  This nice big house... plenty of room for young'uns..."

 
Michelle could taste the bile and matcha as it splashed across the back of her throat.  She waged war with her gag reflex out of necessity.  She couldn't go anywhere until Rex's bulb calmed down enough to retract.  The way he had been hitting the rivina, they could be there all night.

 
The tie was mother nature's meet-cute from hell, making fertilization a certainty.  The first step on her path to motherhood.  Michelle couldn't help but think of her own mother as she laid under the moonlight.  How she had nursed half a dozen babies on half a dozen breasts.  How she always wore baggy clothes to hide them.  How she walked like a hunchback now because daddy refused to get the surgery.  Not that he could afford it if he had wanted to.  

Rex would be able to afford the surgery.  But would he?  Maybe not.  There'd be a half dozen mouths to feed either way.  She'd have help of course.  Certainly they weren't the only couple tied in a knot that evening. 

Maybe she'd make friends with the other mothers in the neighborhood; shop for bras together and try to keep track of whose kid was whose.  God help them if they ever got a dog.

 
Whatever happened, this much was clear; she would never be alone again.  She was part of a pack now, whether it was one she wanted to run with or not.

“Where was it you said he's taking you again?"

 
"Sit + Stay...  It just opened last week in that new development out past the interstate."

 
"It's your second date and he's taking you to a puppy cafe?  What a creep!"  

"Come on Molly, don't be so uptight; lots of people drink rivina.  My dad drinks rivina.  Does that make him a creep?"

 
"Maybe it does, Chelle.  How many brothers and sisters do you have?"  

"Oh, fuck you!"

 
"Ooooh, I hit a nerve.  Must have been the runt of the litter..."

 
"Fuck off, Molly!  Anyway, I better let you go.  Gotta get ready for my date, you know,"  

"Wait, Michelle....  Look, Rex seems like a nice guy and all, but those places give me the creeps.  Promise me if the vibe is off, you'll leave."  

The vibe at Sit + Stay puppy cafe was, in fact, off; but no more so than at any other establishment of its ilk.  Underneath the topcoat aroma of freshly brewed coffee was a base layer of dog piss that would never truly leave the place. 

The next tenant would probably get a deal on the rent.  They always did when the puppy cafes inevitably went under.  Not enough demand for rivina these days and the overhead was ridiculous; licensing fees, certification requirements, inspections, insurance.   

But Sit + Stay was riding a wave of new interest in puppy cafes.  Even the president, notorious germaphobe that he was, had enjoyed a venti rivina at the Sit + Stay in downtown DC. 

Drinking rivina had become something of a political statement in the last year, a token of status.  The drink itself was a luxury, but the lifestyle that it entailed could be a life-altering expense.  

"I'll have a venti iced pistachio rivina with cold foam and she'll have a..."  

"Grande iced matcha... please."  

He paid and Michelle took their number to the table while Rex went to the enclosure to select a puppy.  She scrolled through her socials, not really paying attention to the images on her screen, while her date eyed the assortment of puppies, yipping and nipping at each other.   

"How about that black one?  He's so chonky... Look at this little chubster, Michelle."

 
Michelle spared a glance at the puppy and flashed a courtesy smile at Rex.  It was the same look she used at the bank when she was helping her aging clientele perform transactions that anyone under the age of 60 already did online.  Michelle didn't mind though.  She thought old people were cute, and if they stopped coming in to do their banking, she'd be out of a job.   

Rex joined her at the two-top in the corner of the cafe that she had selected for them.  Soon, the barista brought her matcha as well as the cart for the rivina.  The chubby black puppy that Rex picked out barked incessantly in a falsetto register from a cage on the bottom of the cart.   

The barista unfolded the assembly on the top of the cart, tightening the wing nuts that secured the funnel in place.  He checked the ticket one last time before filling the shaker with ice.  As he bent to unlatch the cage, Rex stopped him.  

"I want to do it... Is that allowed?"  

The barista applied a look not unlike the one that Michelle used at the bank.   

"Apologies sir, but for liability reasons, only Sit + Stay employees are permitted to prepare our beverages, especially rivina.  You understand, of course...."

 
"Regulations... Fucking typical.  Leave it to liberals to suck all the joy out of life"

 
And there it was.  "Just keep looking at your phone," she thought.  "Don't give him an opening"

 
The barista removed the puppy from the cage and cradled it in the crook of his left elbow.  He stroked the top of its head, scratching gently in the space between its ears.  In his right hand, he held a small tool that looked like a dremel without a bit attached.  He pressed the end of the tool flush with the top of the puppy's head and inhaled sharply. 

 
He depressed a button on the opposite end of the tool, and there was a sharp hiss of air.  The puppy yelped once, and then it was done.  The barista used a special tool not unlike a wine key to cut the puppy's throat.  Then he quickly placed its body in the funnel so that Rex could watch the pull.  

"Why'd you guys stop using the hammer?  Let me guess, the snowflakes complained..."  

Michelle remembered watching her daddy make rivina after the neighbor's dog had puppies when she was nine.  He would just stun them with an open-handed slap before he pulled the rivina into a pitcher that her mom used to make sun tea in the summer.  She'd beg and plead with her daddy to let her try just one sip of the thick, rich brew, but he always refused.

 
"Rivina's a man's drink, Chelle..."  

 It was quite forward of Rex, ordering rivina on a second date.  The fact that he had invited her to a puppy cafe at all should have been a clear indication of his intentions.  Everyone knew how guys got when they drank that stuff.  Sure, it could be a fun night until they're howling at the moon and pawing at your panties.  

"How's your matcha?"

 
"Good.... How's your drink?"  

Rex took a long sip from his venti rivina, the foam sticking to the whiskers of his mustache.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and examined the creamy pink residue before wiping it on his napkin.

 
"This is really good...  I don't remember it being this thick the last time.  I knew I picked a good one.  The black ones are always a little sweeter."

 
"My daddy had a taste for it.  He always wanted to try a pure breed, but all he could afford was mutts..."  

There was a glint in Rex’s eye when Michelle mentioned her "daddy."  He could feel the effects of the rivina starting; his nose was already tingling.  The dog piss base layer became more pronounced, but so did his tolerance for stench. 

He closed his eyes and mapped the cafe by scent alone; the puppies in the enclosure waiting to be pulled for their rivina, the baristas behind the counter blending and shaking their brews, the mouth-breathing loner in the corner who was slow-sipping his rivina so he could watch the other puppies get pulled.  

But above all the other scents and signals, he could smell his date.  Her perfume was floral, her makeup, a powdery wax.  He could smell the heat from her seat and the signature scent of her womanhood.  It felt like the world had been turned to 11, and he struggled to keep up with the conversation.

 
"You said your daddy drank rivina?  I like that.  Shows you were raised right."

 
"Well, I don't know about all that.  It was hard for my momma and daddy raising all us kids.  When Daddy hurt his back, we even went on assistance for a while..."

 
"Well...  I'm sure he had his reasons.  Not my place to judge."

 
Now she'd done it.  "He probably thinks I'm a climber now," thought Michelle.  But that was just the runt in her kicking in again.  When you spent your life fighting for scraps, when you finally get something nice, you don't think you deserve it.  And Rex was nice, even though he was a little old-fashioned.   

Rex was suddenly overcome with the urge to leave.  His foot was tapping Morse code gibberish under the table.  This was part of it, part of the ride.  Forget about coffee, if you really want some pep in your step, pull a double shot of rivina.   

"You want to get out of here?  Maybe go to a park or something?  I need to stretch my legs."  

"Sure... I mean, yes... That sounds nice."  

They met again at the Hilcrest municipal park, driving separately so as not to send the wrong signal.  She liked Rex, but she didn't want to seem too desperate.   

As they walked the trail, his hand brushed against hers.  They locked eyes and Michelle could feel a cool tickling sensation in her stomach, a little flutter, a little spark.  The moment was just that, a moment. 

Just as they were starting to enjoy each other's company, an old woman approached with her poodle from behind.  She was out walking her dog when it started snarling and barking like crazy at Rex.  The woman tried to get it to keep moving, but it dug its heels in and barked even louder.

 
"You better shut that dog up, lady!  Can't you see I was having a moment with my lady friend?"  

"Well I never..."  

"And you never will.  Now get moving.  If that dog bites me, I'm biting it back."

 
Michelle was mortified, but a part of her was excited in a way that she wasn't sure she liked.  He was so mean to that woman, but he was so confident too.  Sure, some of that was just the rivina talking; but some of it was him.  The kind of man that could drink that stuff didn't really need it to work up the courage to talk to a lady. 

 
They tried to enjoy the rest of their walk, but it was obvious that Rex was distracted.   

"I just keep thinking about that damn dog"  

"Oh, Rex.  Let it go.  We were having such a nice night."  

"I know, I know.  I just...  I just...   just forget about it.  I wish you could understand what it's doing to me right now, the rivina.  Honestly, I don't think it even works on females.  I'm sure someone's tried it, but it's different for guys, you know.  We're wired different from you ladies."  

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That's what they all say"  

"All say?  How many men have you heard that from?"  

Don't take the bait.  

"None of your, business young man.  Besides, I could just as easily ask you how many girls you gave the "wired different" speech to"  

"None as pretty as you look right now...."  

She rolled her eyes but smiled, nonetheless. With his mustache and neatly combed black hair slick with pomade, he reminded her of her daddy.  Daddy wouldn't be caught dead behind a desk like Rex though.  But Rex made more money last year than Daddy did in the last ten.

 
"You want to get out of here... again?  I don't mean to sound too forward, but the view of the lake at sunset from my deck is just... Well, it's just gorgeous.  The sky looks like cotton candy."

 
Rex undersold the view, which was absolutely breathtaking until Michelle looked at the houses on either side; which all looked identical to his own.  Magnolia Heights was the type of community that valued status over self-expression.   

"Can I get you something to drink?  I'm going to have one of these Dewclaws, but I have some ciders in the back of the fridge and I think I still have that Malbec from Christmas..."  

"I'll take a cider I guess... Why not?  It's the weekend!"  

Rex poured Michelle's cider into a chilled pilsner glass, then followed suit with his rivina seltzer.  Dewclaws had just recently been released to market thanks in large part to the current administration, whose regulatory reforms had laid the foundation for more large-scale bottlers to step into the rivina space.  

"Another rivina?"

 
"It's the weekend, right?"  

"To the weekend!"  

"Cheers!  To the weekend!"  

They both sat silent for a while, taking in the sunset, letting the weight of implication settle in.  She knew all too well what could happen if Rex kept going the way he was going.  Dewclaws were pasteurized.  Some people said that made the rivina less potent, but Michelle wasn't so sure.  She dared a glance below his belt.  The bulge was obvious already.  

"So.... You want to watch a movie or something?"  

"Actually, I did want to check out that new documentary on Netflix about that human trafficking ring..."

 
"Human trafficking?!  I thought this was a date!"

 
"Whaaat?!  It looks good.  Why?  What do you want to watch?"  

"There's a new season of Love Island...."  

"Oh my God!  You watch that?  That’s a girl show!”  

They settled on something scary, one of those Mike Flanagan adaptations, but neither one could really get into it.  Michelle babysat her seltzer while Rex downed his Dewclaw before the first episode ended.  When he returned from the kitchen, fresh Dewclaw in hand, he put his arm around her shoulders on the couch.  She didn’t move it away.  

Michelle became fixated on the drops of condensation on the surface of her chilled glass.  The weight of Rex’s arm hung heavy on her shoulders.  She thought about her momma and all her brothers and sisters.  Oats in the hamburger and pasta every other night because daddy refused to eat rice and beans.  “We ain’t a bunch of wetbacks, Chelle”.  

Rex leaned in, his eyes trained on her lips.  His mustache was like a fat caterpillar lying atop his freshly wet lips.  His breath stunk of Dewclaw.  She closed her eyes and let it happen.  It was not unpleasant, but it left a coppery aftertaste in her mouth.  So that’s what all the fuss was about.  

He kissed her again and again and again, each one more passionate and lingering.  He probed his tongue into her mouth and she probed his with hers.  She pressed him back to catch her breath and saw something she had hoped she wouldn’t see.   

"Oh my God, Rex!  What are you doing?"  

"What?  I just...  What's the big deal?  I thought that was where this was going."  

"So, you just pulled it out?  How did you think I was going to react?  It's so... red...."  

"It's the rivina, Chelle.  Got me so worked up, my bulb's almost out of the sheath...."  

She couldn't break her eyes away from the fleshy red thing that seemed to be growing out of Rex's pants.  It was slick with that discharge that always comes when the bulbus peeked through its protective sheath.   

  "Well... Can you... I mean I... was... but then."  

Rex started kissing her again and for a moment she allowed herself to carried away in the moment, but when she opened her eyes again, it had grown even larger.  Her disgust was reflexive, and she pushed him back on the couch.  

"I-I'm sorry, Rex.  I just need to get some air."  

He gave his date her privacy, though only to refresh his drink.  The moon lit the deck like a spotlight.  It reminded Michelle of her daddy.  He liked to drink the stuff when the moon was full and howl till the neighbors complained.  She looked out to the line of houses all virtually identical to the one she was standing in.   

She thought about the people in those houses.  How many of them were watching Love Island?  How many were drinking Rivina?   

"Daddy would hate it here..."  

"What?"  

"Oh... I thought I was alone.  I was just saying... This view!"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

"Yeah, I know right?  Fucking gorgeous... "  

He wasn't looking at the lake.  

"You, uh... you like your neighbors?"  

"My neighbor's a cuck."  

"..."  

"I'm not joking.  They got a back door brother that they let in the front door if you know what I mean."  

Time to leave.  

But before Michelle could formulate a graceful exit strategy, Rex put his hands on her shoulders.  She felt his lips on her neck with their fleshy wetness, sucking until it started to hurt.  She smelled the bitter fermented stink of the rivina on his breath when he periodically came up for air.  She wanted to tell him to stop but it was like her mouth refused to obey her brain.  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

His hands were savage cartographers mapping the curves of her body.  She felt the cool night air on her backside.  

"Wait, I..."  

"Oh, come on Chelle!  It's dangerous for guys if we don't... after we... When it gets this big, it won't go back in on its own.  I mean... You like me, don't you?"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

There was a little friction at first, but she relaxed as much as she could.  He panted and barked and after a minute and a half of concerted effort, Rex was howling with pleasure.  Michelle felt like vomiting.  

"That was amaaaazing, Chelle... wasn't it?"  

"What?  Oh yeah baby... real nice... Hey, Rex honey, you think you could... get off of me now?  Not that this isn't nice, it's just that I'd like to use the ladies' room"  

"I'm trying sweetheart; believe me I am."  

"Well, try harder!"  

"Ouh! Ow! Owww!  Fuck!  I just can't get it out.  I think we're stuck in a tie."  

A tie?  What was this a game to him?  

"What the hell is a tie?"  

"A tie you know?  A fucking knot.  Didn't you say your neighbors had dogs?  Surely, you've seen them get stuck when they..."  

"Oh my God...."  

"Come on..."  

"Oh my God..."  

"You're being a little bit..."  

"Oh my fucking God, Rex..."  

"What?"  

"I gotta get out of here."  

"Jesus!  So dramatic!  Would it really be so bad?  Huh?  This nice big house... plenty of room for young'uns..."

 
Michelle could taste the bile and matcha as it splashed across the back of her throat.  She waged war with her gag reflex out of necessity.  She couldn't go anywhere until Rex's bulb calmed down enough to retract.  The way he had been hitting the rivina, they could be there all night.

 
The tie was mother nature's meet-cute from hell, making fertilization a certainty.  The first step on her path to motherhood.  Michelle couldn't help but think of her own mother as she laid under the moonlight.  How she had nursed half a dozen babies on half a dozen breasts.  How she always wore baggy clothes to hide them.  How she walked like a hunchback now because daddy refused to get the surgery.  Not that he could afford it if he had wanted to.  

Rex would be able to afford the surgery.  But would he?  Maybe not.  There'd be a half dozen mouths to feed either way.  She'd have help of course.  Certainly they weren't the only couple tied in a knot that evening. 

Maybe she'd make friends with the other mothers in the neighborhood; shop for bras together and try to keep track of whose kid was whose.  God help them if they ever got a dog.

 
Whatever happened, this much was clear; she would never be alone again.  She was part of a pack now, whether it was one she wanted to run with or not.

“Where was it you said he's taking you again?"

 
"Sit + Stay...  It just opened last week in that new development out past the interstate."

 
"It's your second date and he's taking you to a puppy cafe?  What a creep!"  

"Come on Molly, don't be so uptight; lots of people drink rivina.  My dad drinks rivina.  Does that make him a creep?"

 
"Maybe it does, Chelle.  How many brothers and sisters do you have?"  

"Oh, fuck you!"

 
"Ooooh, I hit a nerve.  Must have been the runt of the litter..."

 
"Fuck off, Molly!  Anyway, I better let you go.  Gotta get ready for my date, you know,"  

"Wait, Michelle....  Look, Rex seems like a nice guy and all, but those places give me the creeps.  Promise me if the vibe is off, you'll leave."  

The vibe at Sit + Stay puppy cafe was, in fact, off; but no more so than at any other establishment of its ilk.  Underneath the topcoat aroma of freshly brewed coffee was a base layer of dog piss that would never truly leave the place. 

The next tenant would probably get a deal on the rent.  They always did when the puppy cafes inevitably went under.  Not enough demand for rivina these days and the overhead was ridiculous; licensing fees, certification requirements, inspections, insurance.   

But Sit + Stay was riding a wave of new interest in puppy cafes.  Even the president, notorious germaphobe that he was, had enjoyed a venti rivina at the Sit + Stay in downtown DC. 

Drinking rivina had become something of a political statement in the last year, a token of status.  The drink itself was a luxury, but the lifestyle that it entailed could be a life-altering expense.  

"I'll have a venti iced pistachio rivina with cold foam and she'll have a..."  

"Grande iced matcha... please."  

He paid and Michelle took their number to the table while Rex went to the enclosure to select a puppy.  She scrolled through her socials, not really paying attention to the images on her screen, while her date eyed the assortment of puppies, yipping and nipping at each other.   

"How about that black one?  He's so chonky... Look at this little chubster, Michelle."

 
Michelle spared a glance at the puppy and flashed a courtesy smile at Rex.  It was the same look she used at the bank when she was helping her aging clientele perform transactions that anyone under the age of 60 already did online.  Michelle didn't mind though.  She thought old people were cute, and if they stopped coming in to do their banking, she'd be out of a job.   

Rex joined her at the two-top in the corner of the cafe that she had selected for them.  Soon, the barista brought her matcha as well as the cart for the rivina.  The chubby black puppy that Rex picked out barked incessantly in a falsetto register from a cage on the bottom of the cart.   

The barista unfolded the assembly on the top of the cart, tightening the wing nuts that secured the funnel in place.  He checked the ticket one last time before filling the shaker with ice.  As he bent to unlatch the cage, Rex stopped him.  

"I want to do it... Is that allowed?"  

The barista applied a look not unlike the one that Michelle used at the bank.   

"Apologies sir, but for liability reasons, only Sit + Stay employees are permitted to prepare our beverages, especially rivina.  You understand, of course...."

 
"Regulations... Fucking typical.  Leave it to liberals to suck all the joy out of life"

 
And there it was.  "Just keep looking at your phone," she thought.  "Don't give him an opening"

 
The barista removed the puppy from the cage and cradled it in the crook of his left elbow.  He stroked the top of its head, scratching gently in the space between its ears.  In his right hand, he held a small tool that looked like a dremel without a bit attached.  He pressed the end of the tool flush with the top of the puppy's head and inhaled sharply. 

 
He depressed a button on the opposite end of the tool, and there was a sharp hiss of air.  The puppy yelped once, and then it was done.  The barista used a special tool not unlike a wine key to cut the puppy's throat.  Then he quickly placed its body in the funnel so that Rex could watch the pull.  

"Why'd you guys stop using the hammer?  Let me guess, the snowflakes complained..."  

Michelle remembered watching her daddy make rivina after the neighbor's dog had puppies when she was nine.  He would just stun them with an open-handed slap before he pulled the rivina into a pitcher that her mom used to make sun tea in the summer.  She'd beg and plead with her daddy to let her try just one sip of the thick, rich brew, but he always refused.

 
"Rivina's a man's drink, Chelle..."  

 It was quite forward of Rex, ordering rivina on a second date.  The fact that he had invited her to a puppy cafe at all should have been a clear indication of his intentions.  Everyone knew how guys got when they drank that stuff.  Sure, it could be a fun night until they're howling at the moon and pawing at your panties.  

"How's your matcha?"

 
"Good.... How's your drink?"  

Rex took a long sip from his venti rivina, the foam sticking to the whiskers of his mustache.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and examined the creamy pink residue before wiping it on his napkin.

 
"This is really good...  I don't remember it being this thick the last time.  I knew I picked a good one.  The black ones are always a little sweeter."

 
"My daddy had a taste for it.  He always wanted to try a pure breed, but all he could afford was mutts..."  

There was a glint in Rex’s eye when Michelle mentioned her "daddy."  He could feel the effects of the rivina starting; his nose was already tingling.  The dog piss base layer became more pronounced, but so did his tolerance for stench. 

He closed his eyes and mapped the cafe by scent alone; the puppies in the enclosure waiting to be pulled for their rivina, the baristas behind the counter blending and shaking their brews, the mouth-breathing loner in the corner who was slow-sipping his rivina so he could watch the other puppies get pulled.  

But above all the other scents and signals, he could smell his date.  Her perfume was floral, her makeup, a powdery wax.  He could smell the heat from her seat and the signature scent of her womanhood.  It felt like the world had been turned to 11, and he struggled to keep up with the conversation.

 
"You said your daddy drank rivina?  I like that.  Shows you were raised right."

 
"Well, I don't know about all that.  It was hard for my momma and daddy raising all us kids.  When Daddy hurt his back, we even went on assistance for a while..."

 
"Well...  I'm sure he had his reasons.  Not my place to judge."

 
Now she'd done it.  "He probably thinks I'm a climber now," thought Michelle.  But that was just the runt in her kicking in again.  When you spent your life fighting for scraps, when you finally get something nice, you don't think you deserve it.  And Rex was nice, even though he was a little old-fashioned.   

Rex was suddenly overcome with the urge to leave.  His foot was tapping Morse code gibberish under the table.  This was part of it, part of the ride.  Forget about coffee, if you really want some pep in your step, pull a double shot of rivina.   

"You want to get out of here?  Maybe go to a park or something?  I need to stretch my legs."  

"Sure... I mean, yes... That sounds nice."  

They met again at the Hilcrest municipal park, driving separately so as not to send the wrong signal.  She liked Rex, but she didn't want to seem too desperate.   

As they walked the trail, his hand brushed against hers.  They locked eyes and Michelle could feel a cool tickling sensation in her stomach, a little flutter, a little spark.  The moment was just that, a moment. 

Just as they were starting to enjoy each other's company, an old woman approached with her poodle from behind.  She was out walking her dog when it started snarling and barking like crazy at Rex.  The woman tried to get it to keep moving, but it dug its heels in and barked even louder.

 
"You better shut that dog up, lady!  Can't you see I was having a moment with my lady friend?"  

"Well I never..."  

"And you never will.  Now get moving.  If that dog bites me, I'm biting it back."

 
Michelle was mortified, but a part of her was excited in a way that she wasn't sure she liked.  He was so mean to that woman, but he was so confident too.  Sure, some of that was just the rivina talking; but some of it was him.  The kind of man that could drink that stuff didn't really need it to work up the courage to talk to a lady. 

 
They tried to enjoy the rest of their walk, but it was obvious that Rex was distracted.   

"I just keep thinking about that damn dog"  

"Oh, Rex.  Let it go.  We were having such a nice night."  

"I know, I know.  I just...  I just...   just forget about it.  I wish you could understand what it's doing to me right now, the rivina.  Honestly, I don't think it even works on females.  I'm sure someone's tried it, but it's different for guys, you know.  We're wired different from you ladies."  

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That's what they all say"  

"All say?  How many men have you heard that from?"  

Don't take the bait.  

"None of your, business young man.  Besides, I could just as easily ask you how many girls you gave the "wired different" speech to"  

"None as pretty as you look right now...."  

She rolled her eyes but smiled, nonetheless. With his mustache and neatly combed black hair slick with pomade, he reminded her of her daddy.  Daddy wouldn't be caught dead behind a desk like Rex though.  But Rex made more money last year than Daddy did in the last ten.

 
"You want to get out of here... again?  I don't mean to sound too forward, but the view of the lake at sunset from my deck is just... Well, it's just gorgeous.  The sky looks like cotton candy."

 
Rex undersold the view, which was absolutely breathtaking until Michelle looked at the houses on either side; which all looked identical to his own.  Magnolia Heights was the type of community that valued status over self-expression.   

"Can I get you something to drink?  I'm going to have one of these Dewclaws, but I have some ciders in the back of the fridge and I think I still have that Malbec from Christmas..."  

"I'll take a cider I guess... Why not?  It's the weekend!"  

Rex poured Michelle's cider into a chilled pilsner glass, then followed suit with his rivina seltzer.  Dewclaws had just recently been released to market thanks in large part to the current administration, whose regulatory reforms had laid the foundation for more large-scale bottlers to step into the rivina space.  

"Another rivina?"

 
"It's the weekend, right?"  

"To the weekend!"  

"Cheers!  To the weekend!"  

They both sat silent for a while, taking in the sunset, letting the weight of implication settle in.  She knew all too well what could happen if Rex kept going the way he was going.  Dewclaws were pasteurized.  Some people said that made the rivina less potent, but Michelle wasn't so sure.  She dared a glance below his belt.  The bulge was obvious already.  

"So.... You want to watch a movie or something?"  

"Actually, I did want to check out that new documentary on Netflix about that human trafficking ring..."

 
"Human trafficking?!  I thought this was a date!"

 
"Whaaat?!  It looks good.  Why?  What do you want to watch?"  

"There's a new season of Love Island...."  

"Oh my God!  You watch that?  That’s a girl show!”  

They settled on something scary, one of those Mike Flanagan adaptations, but neither one could really get into it.  Michelle babysat her seltzer while Rex downed his Dewclaw before the first episode ended.  When he returned from the kitchen, fresh Dewclaw in hand, he put his arm around her shoulders on the couch.  She didn’t move it away.  

Michelle became fixated on the drops of condensation on the surface of her chilled glass.  The weight of Rex’s arm hung heavy on her shoulders.  She thought about her momma and all her brothers and sisters.  Oats in the hamburger and pasta every other night because daddy refused to eat rice and beans.  “We ain’t a bunch of wetbacks, Chelle”.  

Rex leaned in, his eyes trained on her lips.  His mustache was like a fat caterpillar lying atop his freshly wet lips.  His breath stunk of Dewclaw.  She closed her eyes and let it happen.  It was not unpleasant, but it left a coppery aftertaste in her mouth.  So that’s what all the fuss was about.  

He kissed her again and again and again, each one more passionate and lingering.  He probed his tongue into her mouth and she probed his with hers.  She pressed him back to catch her breath and saw something she had hoped she wouldn’t see.   

"Oh my God, Rex!  What are you doing?"  

"What?  I just...  What's the big deal?  I thought that was where this was going."  

"So, you just pulled it out?  How did you think I was going to react?  It's so... red...."  

"It's the rivina, Chelle.  Got me so worked up, my bulb's almost out of the sheath...."  

She couldn't break her eyes away from the fleshy red thing that seemed to be growing out of Rex's pants.  It was slick with that discharge that always comes when the bulbus peeked through its protective sheath.   

  "Well... Can you... I mean I... was... but then."  

Rex started kissing her again and for a moment she allowed herself to carried away in the moment, but when she opened her eyes again, it had grown even larger.  Her disgust was reflexive, and she pushed him back on the couch.  

"I-I'm sorry, Rex.  I just need to get some air."  

He gave his date her privacy, though only to refresh his drink.  The moon lit the deck like a spotlight.  It reminded Michelle of her daddy.  He liked to drink the stuff when the moon was full and howl till the neighbors complained.  She looked out to the line of houses all virtually identical to the one she was standing in.   

She thought about the people in those houses.  How many of them were watching Love Island?  How many were drinking Rivina?   

"Daddy would hate it here..."  

"What?"  

"Oh... I thought I was alone.  I was just saying... This view!"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

"Yeah, I know right?  Fucking gorgeous... "  

He wasn't looking at the lake.  

"You, uh... you like your neighbors?"  

"My neighbor's a cuck."  

"..."  

"I'm not joking.  They got a back door brother that they let in the front door if you know what I mean."  

Time to leave.  

But before Michelle could formulate a graceful exit strategy, Rex put his hands on her shoulders.  She felt his lips on her neck with their fleshy wetness, sucking until it started to hurt.  She smelled the bitter fermented stink of the rivina on his breath when he periodically came up for air.  She wanted to tell him to stop but it was like her mouth refused to obey her brain.  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

His hands were savage cartographers mapping the curves of her body.  She felt the cool night air on her backside.  

"Wait, I..."  

"Oh, come on Chelle!  It's dangerous for guys if we don't... after we... When it gets this big, it won't go back in on its own.  I mean... You like me, don't you?"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

There was a little friction at first, but she relaxed as much as she could.  He panted and barked and after a minute and a half of concerted effort, Rex was howling with pleasure.  Michelle felt like vomiting.  

"That was amaaaazing, Chelle... wasn't it?"  

"What?  Oh yeah baby... real nice... Hey, Rex honey, you think you could... get off of me now?  Not that this isn't nice, it's just that I'd like to use the ladies' room"  

"I'm trying sweetheart; believe me I am."  

"Well, try harder!"  

"Ouh! Ow! Owww!  Fuck!  I just can't get it out.  I think we're stuck in a tie."  

A tie?  What was this a game to him?  

"What the hell is a tie?"  

"A tie you know?  A fucking knot.  Didn't you say your neighbors had dogs?  Surely, you've seen them get stuck when they..."  

"Oh my God...."  

"Come on..."  

"Oh my God..."  

"You're being a little bit..."  

"Oh my fucking God, Rex..."  

"What?"  

"I gotta get out of here."  

"Jesus!  So dramatic!  Would it really be so bad?  Huh?  This nice big house... plenty of room for young'uns..."

 
Michelle could taste the bile and matcha as it splashed across the back of her throat.  She waged war with her gag reflex out of necessity.  She couldn't go anywhere until Rex's bulb calmed down enough to retract.  The way he had been hitting the rivina, they could be there all night.

 
The tie was mother nature's meet-cute from hell, making fertilization a certainty.  The first step on her path to motherhood.  Michelle couldn't help but think of her own mother as she laid under the moonlight.  How she had nursed half a dozen babies on half a dozen breasts.  How she always wore baggy clothes to hide them.  How she walked like a hunchback now because daddy refused to get the surgery.  Not that he could afford it if he had wanted to.  

Rex would be able to afford the surgery.  But would he?  Maybe not.  There'd be a half dozen mouths to feed either way.  She'd have help of course.  Certainly they weren't the only couple tied in a knot that evening. 

Maybe she'd make friends with the other mothers in the neighborhood; shop for bras together and try to keep track of whose kid was whose.  God help them if they ever got a dog.

 
Whatever happened, this much was clear; she would never be alone again.  She was part of a pack now, whether it was one she wanted to run with or not.

“Where was it you said he's taking you again?"

 
"Sit + Stay...  It just opened last week in that new development out past the interstate."

 
"It's your second date and he's taking you to a puppy cafe?  What a creep!"  

"Come on Molly, don't be so uptight; lots of people drink rivina.  My dad drinks rivina.  Does that make him a creep?"

 
"Maybe it does, Chelle.  How many brothers and sisters do you have?"  

"Oh, fuck you!"

 
"Ooooh, I hit a nerve.  Must have been the runt of the litter..."

 
"Fuck off, Molly!  Anyway, I better let you go.  Gotta get ready for my date, you know,"  

"Wait, Michelle....  Look, Rex seems like a nice guy and all, but those places give me the creeps.  Promise me if the vibe is off, you'll leave."  

The vibe at Sit + Stay puppy cafe was, in fact, off; but no more so than at any other establishment of its ilk.  Underneath the topcoat aroma of freshly brewed coffee was a base layer of dog piss that would never truly leave the place. 

The next tenant would probably get a deal on the rent.  They always did when the puppy cafes inevitably went under.  Not enough demand for rivina these days and the overhead was ridiculous; licensing fees, certification requirements, inspections, insurance.   

But Sit + Stay was riding a wave of new interest in puppy cafes.  Even the president, notorious germaphobe that he was, had enjoyed a venti rivina at the Sit + Stay in downtown DC. 

Drinking rivina had become something of a political statement in the last year, a token of status.  The drink itself was a luxury, but the lifestyle that it entailed could be a life-altering expense.  

"I'll have a venti iced pistachio rivina with cold foam and she'll have a..."  

"Grande iced matcha... please."  

He paid and Michelle took their number to the table while Rex went to the enclosure to select a puppy.  She scrolled through her socials, not really paying attention to the images on her screen, while her date eyed the assortment of puppies, yipping and nipping at each other.   

"How about that black one?  He's so chonky... Look at this little chubster, Michelle."

 
Michelle spared a glance at the puppy and flashed a courtesy smile at Rex.  It was the same look she used at the bank when she was helping her aging clientele perform transactions that anyone under the age of 60 already did online.  Michelle didn't mind though.  She thought old people were cute, and if they stopped coming in to do their banking, she'd be out of a job.   

Rex joined her at the two-top in the corner of the cafe that she had selected for them.  Soon, the barista brought her matcha as well as the cart for the rivina.  The chubby black puppy that Rex picked out barked incessantly in a falsetto register from a cage on the bottom of the cart.   

The barista unfolded the assembly on the top of the cart, tightening the wing nuts that secured the funnel in place.  He checked the ticket one last time before filling the shaker with ice.  As he bent to unlatch the cage, Rex stopped him.  

"I want to do it... Is that allowed?"  

The barista applied a look not unlike the one that Michelle used at the bank.   

"Apologies sir, but for liability reasons, only Sit + Stay employees are permitted to prepare our beverages, especially rivina.  You understand, of course...."

 
"Regulations... Fucking typical.  Leave it to liberals to suck all the joy out of life"

 
And there it was.  "Just keep looking at your phone," she thought.  "Don't give him an opening"

 
The barista removed the puppy from the cage and cradled it in the crook of his left elbow.  He stroked the top of its head, scratching gently in the space between its ears.  In his right hand, he held a small tool that looked like a dremel without a bit attached.  He pressed the end of the tool flush with the top of the puppy's head and inhaled sharply. 

 
He depressed a button on the opposite end of the tool, and there was a sharp hiss of air.  The puppy yelped once, and then it was done.  The barista used a special tool not unlike a wine key to cut the puppy's throat.  Then he quickly placed its body in the funnel so that Rex could watch the pull.  

"Why'd you guys stop using the hammer?  Let me guess, the snowflakes complained..."  

Michelle remembered watching her daddy make rivina after the neighbor's dog had puppies when she was nine.  He would just stun them with an open-handed slap before he pulled the rivina into a pitcher that her mom used to make sun tea in the summer.  She'd beg and plead with her daddy to let her try just one sip of the thick, rich brew, but he always refused.

 
"Rivina's a man's drink, Chelle..."  

 It was quite forward of Rex, ordering rivina on a second date.  The fact that he had invited her to a puppy cafe at all should have been a clear indication of his intentions.  Everyone knew how guys got when they drank that stuff.  Sure, it could be a fun night until they're howling at the moon and pawing at your panties.  

"How's your matcha?"

 
"Good.... How's your drink?"  

Rex took a long sip from his venti rivina, the foam sticking to the whiskers of his mustache.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and examined the creamy pink residue before wiping it on his napkin.

 
"This is really good...  I don't remember it being this thick the last time.  I knew I picked a good one.  The black ones are always a little sweeter."

 
"My daddy had a taste for it.  He always wanted to try a pure breed, but all he could afford was mutts..."  

There was a glint in Rex’s eye when Michelle mentioned her "daddy."  He could feel the effects of the rivina starting; his nose was already tingling.  The dog piss base layer became more pronounced, but so did his tolerance for stench. 

He closed his eyes and mapped the cafe by scent alone; the puppies in the enclosure waiting to be pulled for their rivina, the baristas behind the counter blending and shaking their brews, the mouth-breathing loner in the corner who was slow-sipping his rivina so he could watch the other puppies get pulled.  

But above all the other scents and signals, he could smell his date.  Her perfume was floral, her makeup, a powdery wax.  He could smell the heat from her seat and the signature scent of her womanhood.  It felt like the world had been turned to 11, and he struggled to keep up with the conversation.

 
"You said your daddy drank rivina?  I like that.  Shows you were raised right."

 
"Well, I don't know about all that.  It was hard for my momma and daddy raising all us kids.  When Daddy hurt his back, we even went on assistance for a while..."

 
"Well...  I'm sure he had his reasons.  Not my place to judge."

 
Now she'd done it.  "He probably thinks I'm a climber now," thought Michelle.  But that was just the runt in her kicking in again.  When you spent your life fighting for scraps, when you finally get something nice, you don't think you deserve it.  And Rex was nice, even though he was a little old-fashioned.   

Rex was suddenly overcome with the urge to leave.  His foot was tapping Morse code gibberish under the table.  This was part of it, part of the ride.  Forget about coffee, if you really want some pep in your step, pull a double shot of rivina.   

"You want to get out of here?  Maybe go to a park or something?  I need to stretch my legs."  

"Sure... I mean, yes... That sounds nice."  

They met again at the Hilcrest municipal park, driving separately so as not to send the wrong signal.  She liked Rex, but she didn't want to seem too desperate.   

As they walked the trail, his hand brushed against hers.  They locked eyes and Michelle could feel a cool tickling sensation in her stomach, a little flutter, a little spark.  The moment was just that, a moment. 

Just as they were starting to enjoy each other's company, an old woman approached with her poodle from behind.  She was out walking her dog when it started snarling and barking like crazy at Rex.  The woman tried to get it to keep moving, but it dug its heels in and barked even louder.

 
"You better shut that dog up, lady!  Can't you see I was having a moment with my lady friend?"  

"Well I never..."  

"And you never will.  Now get moving.  If that dog bites me, I'm biting it back."

 
Michelle was mortified, but a part of her was excited in a way that she wasn't sure she liked.  He was so mean to that woman, but he was so confident too.  Sure, some of that was just the rivina talking; but some of it was him.  The kind of man that could drink that stuff didn't really need it to work up the courage to talk to a lady. 

 
They tried to enjoy the rest of their walk, but it was obvious that Rex was distracted.   

"I just keep thinking about that damn dog"  

"Oh, Rex.  Let it go.  We were having such a nice night."  

"I know, I know.  I just...  I just...   just forget about it.  I wish you could understand what it's doing to me right now, the rivina.  Honestly, I don't think it even works on females.  I'm sure someone's tried it, but it's different for guys, you know.  We're wired different from you ladies."  

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That's what they all say"  

"All say?  How many men have you heard that from?"  

Don't take the bait.  

"None of your, business young man.  Besides, I could just as easily ask you how many girls you gave the "wired different" speech to"  

"None as pretty as you look right now...."  

She rolled her eyes but smiled, nonetheless. With his mustache and neatly combed black hair slick with pomade, he reminded her of her daddy.  Daddy wouldn't be caught dead behind a desk like Rex though.  But Rex made more money last year than Daddy did in the last ten.

 
"You want to get out of here... again?  I don't mean to sound too forward, but the view of the lake at sunset from my deck is just... Well, it's just gorgeous.  The sky looks like cotton candy."

 
Rex undersold the view, which was absolutely breathtaking until Michelle looked at the houses on either side; which all looked identical to his own.  Magnolia Heights was the type of community that valued status over self-expression.   

"Can I get you something to drink?  I'm going to have one of these Dewclaws, but I have some ciders in the back of the fridge and I think I still have that Malbec from Christmas..."  

"I'll take a cider I guess... Why not?  It's the weekend!"  

Rex poured Michelle's cider into a chilled pilsner glass, then followed suit with his rivina seltzer.  Dewclaws had just recently been released to market thanks in large part to the current administration, whose regulatory reforms had laid the foundation for more large-scale bottlers to step into the rivina space.  

"Another rivina?"

 
"It's the weekend, right?"  

"To the weekend!"  

"Cheers!  To the weekend!"  

They both sat silent for a while, taking in the sunset, letting the weight of implication settle in.  She knew all too well what could happen if Rex kept going the way he was going.  Dewclaws were pasteurized.  Some people said that made the rivina less potent, but Michelle wasn't so sure.  She dared a glance below his belt.  The bulge was obvious already.  

"So.... You want to watch a movie or something?"  

"Actually, I did want to check out that new documentary on Netflix about that human trafficking ring..."

 
"Human trafficking?!  I thought this was a date!"

 
"Whaaat?!  It looks good.  Why?  What do you want to watch?"  

"There's a new season of Love Island...."  

"Oh my God!  You watch that?  That’s a girl show!”  

They settled on something scary, one of those Mike Flanagan adaptations, but neither one could really get into it.  Michelle babysat her seltzer while Rex downed his Dewclaw before the first episode ended.  When he returned from the kitchen, fresh Dewclaw in hand, he put his arm around her shoulders on the couch.  She didn’t move it away.  

Michelle became fixated on the drops of condensation on the surface of her chilled glass.  The weight of Rex’s arm hung heavy on her shoulders.  She thought about her momma and all her brothers and sisters.  Oats in the hamburger and pasta every other night because daddy refused to eat rice and beans.  “We ain’t a bunch of wetbacks, Chelle”.  

Rex leaned in, his eyes trained on her lips.  His mustache was like a fat caterpillar lying atop his freshly wet lips.  His breath stunk of Dewclaw.  She closed her eyes and let it happen.  It was not unpleasant, but it left a coppery aftertaste in her mouth.  So that’s what all the fuss was about.  

He kissed her again and again and again, each one more passionate and lingering.  He probed his tongue into her mouth and she probed his with hers.  She pressed him back to catch her breath and saw something she had hoped she wouldn’t see.   

"Oh my God, Rex!  What are you doing?"  

"What?  I just...  What's the big deal?  I thought that was where this was going."  

"So, you just pulled it out?  How did you think I was going to react?  It's so... red...."  

"It's the rivina, Chelle.  Got me so worked up, my bulb's almost out of the sheath...."  

She couldn't break her eyes away from the fleshy red thing that seemed to be growing out of Rex's pants.  It was slick with that discharge that always comes when the bulbus peeked through its protective sheath.   

  "Well... Can you... I mean I... was... but then."  

Rex started kissing her again and for a moment she allowed herself to carried away in the moment, but when she opened her eyes again, it had grown even larger.  Her disgust was reflexive, and she pushed him back on the couch.  

"I-I'm sorry, Rex.  I just need to get some air."  

He gave his date her privacy, though only to refresh his drink.  The moon lit the deck like a spotlight.  It reminded Michelle of her daddy.  He liked to drink the stuff when the moon was full and howl till the neighbors complained.  She looked out to the line of houses all virtually identical to the one she was standing in.   

She thought about the people in those houses.  How many of them were watching Love Island?  How many were drinking Rivina?   

"Daddy would hate it here..."  

"What?"  

"Oh... I thought I was alone.  I was just saying... This view!"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

"Yeah, I know right?  Fucking gorgeous... "  

He wasn't looking at the lake.  

"You, uh... you like your neighbors?"  

"My neighbor's a cuck."  

"..."  

"I'm not joking.  They got a back door brother that they let in the front door if you know what I mean."  

Time to leave.  

But before Michelle could formulate a graceful exit strategy, Rex put his hands on her shoulders.  She felt his lips on her neck with their fleshy wetness, sucking until it started to hurt.  She smelled the bitter fermented stink of the rivina on his breath when he periodically came up for air.  She wanted to tell him to stop but it was like her mouth refused to obey her brain.  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

His hands were savage cartographers mapping the curves of her body.  She felt the cool night air on her backside.  

"Wait, I..."  

"Oh, come on Chelle!  It's dangerous for guys if we don't... after we... When it gets this big, it won't go back in on its own.  I mean... You like me, don't you?"  

Just keep your eyes on the lake.  

There was a little friction at first, but she relaxed as much as she could.  He panted and barked and after a minute and a half of concerted effort, Rex was howling with pleasure.  Michelle felt like vomiting.  

"That was amaaaazing, Chelle... wasn't it?"  

"What?  Oh yeah baby... real nice... Hey, Rex honey, you think you could... get off of me now?  Not that this isn't nice, it's just that I'd like to use the ladies' room"  

"I'm trying sweetheart; believe me I am."  

"Well, try harder!"  

"Ouh! Ow! Owww!  Fuck!  I just can't get it out.  I think we're stuck in a tie."  

A tie?  What was this a game to him?  

"What the hell is a tie?"  

"A tie you know?  A fucking knot.  Didn't you say your neighbors had dogs?  Surely, you've seen them get stuck when they..."  

"Oh my God...."  

"Come on..."  

"Oh my God..."  

"You're being a little bit..."  

"Oh my fucking God, Rex..."  

"What?"  

"I gotta get out of here."  

"Jesus!  So dramatic!  Would it really be so bad?  Huh?  This nice big house... plenty of room for young'uns..."

 
Michelle could taste the bile and matcha as it splashed across the back of her throat.  She waged war with her gag reflex out of necessity.  She couldn't go anywhere until Rex's bulb calmed down enough to retract.  The way he had been hitting the rivina, they could be there all night.

 
The tie was mother nature's meet-cute from hell, making fertilization a certainty.  The first step on her path to motherhood.  Michelle couldn't help but think of her own mother as she laid under the moonlight.  How she had nursed half a dozen babies on half a dozen breasts.  How she always wore baggy clothes to hide them.  How she walked like a hunchback now because daddy refused to get the surgery.  Not that he could afford it if he had wanted to.  

Rex would be able to afford the surgery.  But would he?  Maybe not.  There'd be a half dozen mouths to feed either way.  She'd have help of course.  Certainly they weren't the only couple tied in a knot that evening. 

Maybe she'd make friends with the other mothers in the neighborhood; shop for bras together and try to keep track of whose kid was whose.  God help them if they ever got a dog.

 
Whatever happened, this much was clear; she would never be alone again.  She was part of a pack now, whether it was one she wanted to run with or not.

I hit a possum driving home from my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.  Rachel saw it, but at least the kids were asleep.  Merry Christmas, right?  

I’ll admit I probably would have failed a field sobriety test, but that thing had plenty of time to move too.  It just looked at me; like it had no idea that it was in danger.  

Sometimes people are like that too.  

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when I looked in that possum’s eyes; that I saw not terror, but peace. It was a look I had seen before; a look I wish I could forget.

 
Now I sit in the comfort of my overpriced home, in the gated community that I chose for status, not security. And while my expensive electronics and German car might make me a target for thieves, the gate gives me no comfort.  

I may not know the hour of my death, but I know where I’m headed.  I started walking that path decades ago, when I followed Nick down that old limestone road behind the church.  

It was the summer of ‘99 and my burgeoning atheism was oddly stifled by my other primary interest: punk rock.  There was a surprisingly thriving punk and hardcore scene in my small southern hometown.  There was a catch though; all the bands were Christian; at least that’s what they said.  

Most of the venues were rec rooms and other buildings owned by the church.  I say “the church” because I had no clue what any of that stuff meant.  It always seemed so strange to me.  What does a mosh pit have to do with Jesus?   

There were always a couple of older guys in the crowd that would find the connection.  At some point of every show, there would be an intermission of sorts, and those guys would engage in weirdly aggressive impromptu sermons.  Some had done time (if you believed them); as if that was somehow a badge of honor and not a strike against them.  With those tattoos that looked cool until you got close enough to realize they were all praying hands and bible verses.  Badasses for Christ...  What a joke.  

I had probably already smacked into him in a mosh pit or two before, but I didn’t formally meet Nick until I started working at the movie theater.  It was a business model built around teen labor.  I tore tickets and popped popcorn for a whopping $4.40 per hour.  I didn't mind as long as I got my employee passes; it was a big summer for movies.  Nick was one of the lead ushers and he played The Blair Witch Project for some of the employees the night before it released. 

 
After the movie, Nick asked me what I thought about it.  I told him I didn’t really get the ending, but I liked it.  He said he thought it would be bloodier.  ‘Aren’t horrors supposed to be bloody?’ was what he said.  
And it was that word “horrors” that sounded so odd that it kept looping in my ears. 

It was the first time I realized Nick might be more Christian than punk.   I don't know how he had me pegged for a horror fan, but after that night it was all he wanted to talk about.  Apparently, his parents were so strict that the only way he could watch R-rated movies was to sneak a peek at work.   

I let him borrow some staples from my VHS collection, stuff he wouldn’t be able to see at work like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He made quick work of the American catalogue, so I started introducing him to the Italian stuff: Argento, Fulci, the Bavas...  I used to joke that I was corrupting him.  That joke doesn’t seem very funny to me now.  

I knew he didn’t work on Sundays, but I figured his parents just forced church on him.  I didn’t realize he was a true believer until he asked me to pray with him on our lunch break one night.  Godless heathen that I was, I had no idea what to expect.  I don’t remember everything he said; a lot of it was super-repetitive.  But I remember it was more selfish than I thought it would be.  

Nick asked God for a new truck.  Could you pray for that?  How would I know?  I’d only been inside the rec rooms and banquet halls of churches, half-listening to scared-straight sermons from middle-aged men that wore hoodies to hide their paunches and died their roots.  It was only a matter of time before Nick asked me to attend a proper service.  

I sandbagged him for a couple weeks, but he was buddy-buddy with the GM so eventually I had a Sunday off and no excuse to get out of it.
I thought the holy water was going to boil when I walked through the door, but they didn’t even have any.  No one spoke in tongues or handled snakes, but what I did see was worse in its own way.   

The pastor, or reverend or whoever he was started talking about the rapture and how when it happens, it will be the most amazing sight you could ever see.  All the dead Christians would be resurrected and blessed with divine power like an army of zombie fundamentalist superheroes.  

To see a grown man say such ridiculous things with such earnest conviction in his eyes was terrifying.  What was worse were the reactions of the starry-eyed crowd, nodding in agreement, hanging on his every word; as if what they were hearing wasn’t laughably absurd. 

 
After the service, we were supposed to go to Sunday school.  As a sixteen-year-old non-believer, it sounded like the lamest thing I had ever heard.  Miraculously, Nick asked me if I wanted to ditch.  He said he had something he wanted to show me.  Of course I wanted to ditch, but it seemed so weird that he was asking.  He actually believed all that shit.  What could he possibly have that would be worth skipping Sunday school?

 
Behind the church there was this old limestone road.  I never saw any cars on that road; not that day, not ever.  The woods on either side were so thick; it looked like dusk instead of ten in the morning.  Nick kept talking about the sermon and the second coming of Christ.  In hindsight I wish I had been paying more attention, but it was a little hard to keep up with. 

 
He kept bringing up David Koresh and how obvious it was that he was a fraud.  Koresh thought he could sire the vessel for Jesus’s return, but Nick said that was just pride.  The real Jesus wouldn’t even realize he was divine.  He would just be some normal person; maybe even a kid in a mosh pit.  Then one day when the world got too sick and darkness reigned in men’s hearts, he would wake up and fulfill his divine destiny.

 
As the road twisted, we lost sight of the church.  We came to a plot of land encircled by a barbed-wire fence.  Nick lifted the wire that ran across the top while pressing the middle wire down with the heel of his boot.  I climbed through the opening and repeated the courtesy for him.  I remember feeling the pulse in my neck just then, as if marking a point of no return. 

 
I knew Nick liked good music and had a taste for splatter flicks, but this was the first time I had seen him outside of work.  My sense of who I thought he was... was colliding with who he actually was.  The way he rattled off all those biblical details, citing scripture as if I had any clue what he was talking about.  It was like talking to a stranger. 

 
He led me through a dense thicket of trees until we came upon an old barn.  It was red with white trim, but the white had faded to a flaky yellow.  Nick slid the 2x4 that hasped the two doors of the barn shut until the left door creaked open under its own weight.  

It was so dark in that doorway; it reminded me of any number of scenes from the movies I had lent Nick that summer.  A chainsaw revved in my mind.  I hesitated, but Nick went right in, and then I was all alone in front of that quiet old barn in the middle of nowhere.

 
Windows on either end of the barn were the only source of light inside.  There were several stalls, but they were all long vacant.  The walls were lined with rusted antique farming implements; cast iron crescent blades and wide forked rakes.  A brush hook jutted ominously from a vertical beam.  I didn’t think to ask who the barn belonged to; I was too distracted by whatever was under the giant tarp in the middle of the place. 

 
How could I not be? It was the only thing you could look at in that place; easily ten feet tall and almost as wide.  From the corner of my eye, I could just see Nick’s self-satisfied grin as he noticed me noticing.  But he didn’t pull the tarp away just yet.  Instead, he selected  a pitchfork from the implements that lined the wall.  The tips of the prongs were darker than the rest of the fork.  At the time, I thought it was rust.  

He asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior.  I lied and said yes.  He was so manic just then; it was like he was possessed.  He asked me if I knew the meaning of grace.  I told him it was something like being humble, which I now believe betrayed my true godlessness.  He frowned and for a second it looked like he wanted to put that fork in my chest. 

 
He said grace was when God gave you a taste of the sweet life.  It was like a parent favoring one child over all the others.  A gift from God just to show his love.  Nick said that’s how he knew he found the right one.

 
Right one?  Was he talking about me?  He waited for some sign of understanding on my face, but I know my confusion was betraying me.  I had no idea what he was talking about; the whole morning felt like a dream.  I kept looking away, but the only other thing to look at was the tarp looming tall over the two of us, swallowing us in its shadow. 

 
Nick said he had been at a Plea for Purging show.  During their song, Grace for Blood, he blindsided some kid in the mosh pit.  Total accident, but he caught the guy hard in the eye with his elbow.  

His eye swelled up immediately, and the kid started crying and freaking out because he thought his dad wouldn't let him go to shows anymore.  Nick felt so bad; he got the kid’s name and number, but when he met up with him a few days later, his eye was fine.  Like it never happened.  He told me the kid was named Mateo, which was Spanish for "gift from God".

 
Nick’s eyes went unfocused when he said that, like he was looking straight through me; like he was looking through the world itself.  Then his eyes focused on mine, and for a minute it was like when we used to shoot the shit on our lunch break at the theater.  A nervous chuckle crept its way from my throat.   

Then he released a bombshell I didn't know he was holding.  He told me that he knew I was an atheist.  My eyes were locked on those dark rusty prongs as he gestured wildly in his fervor.

My fear was not lessened by his assurance that it was a good thing that I was a non-believer, for that was another element of God’s plan for him.  I was to be the objective witness to the divine grace that had been revealed to Nick.  I was still in shock from his revelation when he finally removed the tarp.

 
Under the tarp was an enormous cross.  It was made from the same beams that held up the barn.  Hanging from the cross was a young boy. 

Nick said he was fifteen but there wasn’t a hair on his body, just a camouflage of black and blue, a topographical map of pain.  His eyes were just swollen slits in his face.  Barbed wire was wrapped tightly around his forehead in a crude crown; the same wire I had so naively held open for Nick. Wrapped around limbs pinned crudely in place with heavy nails. 

 
Mateo... a gift from God.

 
Perhaps if I had believed in an afterlife... if I thought I had a soul that could be saved... but I was too scared.  Nick had the fervor of a zealot.  His eyes were so wide... He kept moving around, talking with his hands, talking with that pitchfork...  

He was jumping from point to point, drawing connections out of thin air.  None of it made sense.   

When he finally stopped, I had no idea how to respond.  The silence was unbearable, so I muttered an “Amen”... 

I immediately regretted it.  Not because it was the wrong thing to say, which it objectively was, but because he thought it was right. It was what he wanted to hear.  

I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Mateo, who groaned in pain in time with my “Amen”.  He kept looking at me, looking with those puffy wet eyes.  Judging me; lumping me in with that maniac.  And why not?  If we keep company with monsters, are we not monsters too?  Isn’t that what Nick would call fellowship?  And what difference did it make when you were nailed to a cross in a barn in the middle of nowhere?

 
Mateo must have sensed what was coming before I did; sensed my inherent threat.  Nick’s plans for me involved more than just witnessing.  Through all his incoherent ramblings, he was clear about that much at least.  It wasn’t enough for me to see the new vessel.  Knowing, Nick explained, did not always accompany witnessing.  In order to know that Mateo was divine, I was going to have to participate. 

 
He said that Mateo had a kind of amnesia.  This body had none of the memories of when he was Jesus, so Mateo had no idea what he was.  We had to remind the body of its previous life... 

And death.  That was the most important part, Nick explained.  Mateo’s body had to remember how it died.

 
Nick had already done most of the work.  After he saw how Mateo’s shiner heal so completely, he knew he had found the right vessel.  Recreating the scourging was no problem for such a biblical scholar as Nick but convincing him to come to the barn was a challenge.  He said he told him he had a box of old Playboys in there.  Nick of all people.  

He had already taken Mateo’s body to the threshold of death’s door, but when he pointed the handle of that pitchfork towards me, my heart sunk as I realized he wanted me to push him through it.

He called me Longinus, whoever the fuck that was, and said that it would save my soul.  Giggling... He was giggling when he told me how happy he was that I would finally see with my own eyes.

 
But I didn’t see... not what he thought I would see.  I wish I could tell you that I saw horns in Nick’s shadow, a forked tongue, or his head spinning 180 degrees.  I wish I could tell you that I saw something, anything that would explain the evil that went on in that barn.  But the only evil I saw that day was born of misguided faith; that and greed.  Because had it not been for Nick’s misapplication of the meaning of God’s “grace”, Mateo would still be alive.   

While Nick’s actions were unforgivable, they still followed a sick logic.  It was my own behavior that even now I struggle to explain.  When I had it in my hand, for a second, I considered putting it in Nick’s chest.  I could have stopped him right then, but I didn’t.  Just like that possum; I had my out and I just...

 
When the tips of the prongs touched Mateo’s mottled ribs, his eyes opened wide.  He stared right at me as I did it and what I saw was not fear.  Not hate.  Not righteous rage at being brutalized, beaten, and tortured.    

No, the look in his eyes, like the look in that possum’s right before it played chicken with two and a half tons of Japanese steel, was the look of someone that knew that their end was imminent and had let go of all of their earthly burdens.  What did Mateo have to fear as that pitchfork sunk past the bony plate of ribs into the vital workings of the boy as he hung.  What good would that hate do his soul, if he carried it with him into the afterlife?

 
The look on Mateo’s face, as he took his final breaths, was grace.  Not this prosperity gospel revisionist bullshit that Nick had warped to suit his own desires, but real grace.  The kind that even a godless heathen like me could understand and recognize instinctively.   

I've thought about what we did in that barn every day since.  It follows me like a shadow.  But it’s not the fear of what Nick would have done to me, or the memories of my own acts that haunt my dreams.  It was the look in Mateo’s eyes.  All the blood and the bruises, the nails, the barbed wire, even that pitchfork.  The brutality we inflicted on Mateo’s body only illuminated that horrible light in his eyes; a light that in that moment I knew I would never know.   

And then... the light went out.

 
On the way back to the church, Nick gave me so many attaboys I thought I would puke.  Then we went our separate ways and I did.  I called in an anonymous tip immediately, but there was never anything about Mateo in the papers.  I went back a couple of days later and somehow managed to find the barn.  The cross, and Mateo along with it, was gone, like it had never existed, like it had been raptured into thin air.  

I never showed up for my next shift at the theater.  I just no-called until they fired me; they were used to kids flaking out on them.  It didn’t make me comfortable knowing that Nick was out there, but he only knew me through work and the music scene.  As long as I was a hermit, our orbits would never intersect. 

 
I wish I could tell you that the guilt of what we did to Mateo was punishment in and of itself, but that is a lie that we tell ourselves because the truth is too horrible to face.  That we do horrible things to each other and then we move on with our lives.  That we can excuse the most loathsome of acts as long as we believe that we are in God’s good graces.  That we are somehow special and not replaceable pieces in a machine that we were never meant to understand. 

 
But I was not destroyed by what I had witnessed in that barn, what I had participated in. It loomed large in my mind in the beginning, but eventually it became a dull background hum.  I can’t say exactly when I started to live my life again, but I can say when I went back to the movie theater.  It was May 5th, 2001; opening weekend of The Mummy Returns.  The first one came out when I still worked there.   

By that point, I had already completed my first semester at the University of Florida.  I was in town for the weekend feeling like the cock of the walk.  Part of me was hoping to run into an old coworker that I could beguile with one of my newly-acquired college life anecdotes.  Maybe I’d see one of the girls I never had the confidence to ask out.

 
There were no girls, unless you count Pat the 70-year-old lesbian that worked the box office.  I recognized a couple of the guys sweeping popcorn, but I had already forgotten their names.  The one person I did recognize was the new GM. He had put on a little weight since the last time I saw him, and he had a new haircut as well.  Spiked fade, frosted tips; all the rage amongst douchebags back then.

 
We didn’t talk, but he made eye contact and smiled.  Then he nodded his head, as if such a gesture could carry the weight of what hung between the two of us.  Nodded.  Like we were at a punk show or something.   

After the movie, I drove up to the front row of spaces.  Next to the handicap spots, there was a spot designated for the GM. Parked in that spot was a brand-new red Toyota Tundra.  The license plate holder read “Saved by Grace”. 

 
I’m not ashamed to admit that I keyed the fucker. 

 
He should have been in jail.  We should have been in jail.  But it was like he was being rewarded, like he was living the good life.   

I drank a lot in college.  Maybe it was the guilt.  Maybe that was just what I told myself.  But it didn’t really feel like I earned that MBA, since I barely remembered my nights.  And when I landed my first job, I called it beginner’s luck.   

But a part of me knows, it has never been luck.  I’m a skeptic.  I dismiss the concept at its face.  I believe what I have reason to believe, what I have seen, what I have witnessed.  And what I have witnessed -what I have participated in- makes me believe in an afterlife.  I saw it in that possum’s eyes, the same light that was in Mateo’s.  That was grace, true divine grace.

 
But I also know that the grace that Nick preached about is real too.  My whole life is proof of its existence.  What we did in that barn got us in someone's good graces, but I don’t think that it was God.

 

I hit a possum driving home from my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.  Rachel saw it, but at least the kids were asleep.  Merry Christmas, right?  

I’ll admit I probably would have failed a field sobriety test, but that thing had plenty of time to move too.  It just looked at me; like it had no idea that it was in danger.  

Sometimes people are like that too.  

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when I looked in that possum’s eyes; that I saw not terror, but peace. It was a look I had seen before; a look I wish I could forget.

 
Now I sit in the comfort of my overpriced home, in the gated community that I chose for status, not security. And while my expensive electronics and German car might make me a target for thieves, the gate gives me no comfort.  

I may not know the hour of my death, but I know where I’m headed.  I started walking that path decades ago, when I followed Nick down that old limestone road behind the church.  

It was the summer of ‘99 and my burgeoning atheism was oddly stifled by my other primary interest: punk rock.  There was a surprisingly thriving punk and hardcore scene in my small southern hometown.  There was a catch though; all the bands were Christian; at least that’s what they said.  

Most of the venues were rec rooms and other buildings owned by the church.  I say “the church” because I had no clue what any of that stuff meant.  It always seemed so strange to me.  What does a mosh pit have to do with Jesus?   

There were always a couple of older guys in the crowd that would find the connection.  At some point of every show, there would be an intermission of sorts, and those guys would engage in weirdly aggressive impromptu sermons.  Some had done time (if you believed them); as if that was somehow a badge of honor and not a strike against them.  With those tattoos that looked cool until you got close enough to realize they were all praying hands and bible verses.  Badasses for Christ...  What a joke.  

I had probably already smacked into him in a mosh pit or two before, but I didn’t formally meet Nick until I started working at the movie theater.  It was a business model built around teen labor.  I tore tickets and popped popcorn for a whopping $4.40 per hour.  I didn't mind as long as I got my employee passes; it was a big summer for movies.  Nick was one of the lead ushers and he played The Blair Witch Project for some of the employees the night before it released. 

 
After the movie, Nick asked me what I thought about it.  I told him I didn’t really get the ending, but I liked it.  He said he thought it would be bloodier.  ‘Aren’t horrors supposed to be bloody?’ was what he said.  
And it was that word “horrors” that sounded so odd that it kept looping in my ears. 

It was the first time I realized Nick might be more Christian than punk.   I don't know how he had me pegged for a horror fan, but after that night it was all he wanted to talk about.  Apparently, his parents were so strict that the only way he could watch R-rated movies was to sneak a peek at work.   

I let him borrow some staples from my VHS collection, stuff he wouldn’t be able to see at work like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He made quick work of the American catalogue, so I started introducing him to the Italian stuff: Argento, Fulci, the Bavas...  I used to joke that I was corrupting him.  That joke doesn’t seem very funny to me now.  

I knew he didn’t work on Sundays, but I figured his parents just forced church on him.  I didn’t realize he was a true believer until he asked me to pray with him on our lunch break one night.  Godless heathen that I was, I had no idea what to expect.  I don’t remember everything he said; a lot of it was super-repetitive.  But I remember it was more selfish than I thought it would be.  

Nick asked God for a new truck.  Could you pray for that?  How would I know?  I’d only been inside the rec rooms and banquet halls of churches, half-listening to scared-straight sermons from middle-aged men that wore hoodies to hide their paunches and died their roots.  It was only a matter of time before Nick asked me to attend a proper service.  

I sandbagged him for a couple weeks, but he was buddy-buddy with the GM so eventually I had a Sunday off and no excuse to get out of it.
I thought the holy water was going to boil when I walked through the door, but they didn’t even have any.  No one spoke in tongues or handled snakes, but what I did see was worse in its own way.   

The pastor, or reverend or whoever he was started talking about the rapture and how when it happens, it will be the most amazing sight you could ever see.  All the dead Christians would be resurrected and blessed with divine power like an army of zombie fundamentalist superheroes.  

To see a grown man say such ridiculous things with such earnest conviction in his eyes was terrifying.  What was worse were the reactions of the starry-eyed crowd, nodding in agreement, hanging on his every word; as if what they were hearing wasn’t laughably absurd. 

 
After the service, we were supposed to go to Sunday school.  As a sixteen-year-old non-believer, it sounded like the lamest thing I had ever heard.  Miraculously, Nick asked me if I wanted to ditch.  He said he had something he wanted to show me.  Of course I wanted to ditch, but it seemed so weird that he was asking.  He actually believed all that shit.  What could he possibly have that would be worth skipping Sunday school?

 
Behind the church there was this old limestone road.  I never saw any cars on that road; not that day, not ever.  The woods on either side were so thick; it looked like dusk instead of ten in the morning.  Nick kept talking about the sermon and the second coming of Christ.  In hindsight I wish I had been paying more attention, but it was a little hard to keep up with. 

 
He kept bringing up David Koresh and how obvious it was that he was a fraud.  Koresh thought he could sire the vessel for Jesus’s return, but Nick said that was just pride.  The real Jesus wouldn’t even realize he was divine.  He would just be some normal person; maybe even a kid in a mosh pit.  Then one day when the world got too sick and darkness reigned in men’s hearts, he would wake up and fulfill his divine destiny.

 
As the road twisted, we lost sight of the church.  We came to a plot of land encircled by a barbed-wire fence.  Nick lifted the wire that ran across the top while pressing the middle wire down with the heel of his boot.  I climbed through the opening and repeated the courtesy for him.  I remember feeling the pulse in my neck just then, as if marking a point of no return. 

 
I knew Nick liked good music and had a taste for splatter flicks, but this was the first time I had seen him outside of work.  My sense of who I thought he was... was colliding with who he actually was.  The way he rattled off all those biblical details, citing scripture as if I had any clue what he was talking about.  It was like talking to a stranger. 

 
He led me through a dense thicket of trees until we came upon an old barn.  It was red with white trim, but the white had faded to a flaky yellow.  Nick slid the 2x4 that hasped the two doors of the barn shut until the left door creaked open under its own weight.  

It was so dark in that doorway; it reminded me of any number of scenes from the movies I had lent Nick that summer.  A chainsaw revved in my mind.  I hesitated, but Nick went right in, and then I was all alone in front of that quiet old barn in the middle of nowhere.

 
Windows on either end of the barn were the only source of light inside.  There were several stalls, but they were all long vacant.  The walls were lined with rusted antique farming implements; cast iron crescent blades and wide forked rakes.  A brush hook jutted ominously from a vertical beam.  I didn’t think to ask who the barn belonged to; I was too distracted by whatever was under the giant tarp in the middle of the place. 

 
How could I not be? It was the only thing you could look at in that place; easily ten feet tall and almost as wide.  From the corner of my eye, I could just see Nick’s self-satisfied grin as he noticed me noticing.  But he didn’t pull the tarp away just yet.  Instead, he selected  a pitchfork from the implements that lined the wall.  The tips of the prongs were darker than the rest of the fork.  At the time, I thought it was rust.  

He asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior.  I lied and said yes.  He was so manic just then; it was like he was possessed.  He asked me if I knew the meaning of grace.  I told him it was something like being humble, which I now believe betrayed my true godlessness.  He frowned and for a second it looked like he wanted to put that fork in my chest. 

 
He said grace was when God gave you a taste of the sweet life.  It was like a parent favoring one child over all the others.  A gift from God just to show his love.  Nick said that’s how he knew he found the right one.

 
Right one?  Was he talking about me?  He waited for some sign of understanding on my face, but I know my confusion was betraying me.  I had no idea what he was talking about; the whole morning felt like a dream.  I kept looking away, but the only other thing to look at was the tarp looming tall over the two of us, swallowing us in its shadow. 

 
Nick said he had been at a Plea for Purging show.  During their song, Grace for Blood, he blindsided some kid in the mosh pit.  Total accident, but he caught the guy hard in the eye with his elbow.  

His eye swelled up immediately, and the kid started crying and freaking out because he thought his dad wouldn't let him go to shows anymore.  Nick felt so bad; he got the kid’s name and number, but when he met up with him a few days later, his eye was fine.  Like it never happened.  He told me the kid was named Mateo, which was Spanish for "gift from God".

 
Nick’s eyes went unfocused when he said that, like he was looking straight through me; like he was looking through the world itself.  Then his eyes focused on mine, and for a minute it was like when we used to shoot the shit on our lunch break at the theater.  A nervous chuckle crept its way from my throat.   

Then he released a bombshell I didn't know he was holding.  He told me that he knew I was an atheist.  My eyes were locked on those dark rusty prongs as he gestured wildly in his fervor.

My fear was not lessened by his assurance that it was a good thing that I was a non-believer, for that was another element of God’s plan for him.  I was to be the objective witness to the divine grace that had been revealed to Nick.  I was still in shock from his revelation when he finally removed the tarp.

 
Under the tarp was an enormous cross.  It was made from the same beams that held up the barn.  Hanging from the cross was a young boy. 

Nick said he was fifteen but there wasn’t a hair on his body, just a camouflage of black and blue, a topographical map of pain.  His eyes were just swollen slits in his face.  Barbed wire was wrapped tightly around his forehead in a crude crown; the same wire I had so naively held open for Nick. Wrapped around limbs pinned crudely in place with heavy nails. 

 
Mateo... a gift from God.

 
Perhaps if I had believed in an afterlife... if I thought I had a soul that could be saved... but I was too scared.  Nick had the fervor of a zealot.  His eyes were so wide... He kept moving around, talking with his hands, talking with that pitchfork...  

He was jumping from point to point, drawing connections out of thin air.  None of it made sense.   

When he finally stopped, I had no idea how to respond.  The silence was unbearable, so I muttered an “Amen”... 

I immediately regretted it.  Not because it was the wrong thing to say, which it objectively was, but because he thought it was right. It was what he wanted to hear.  

I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Mateo, who groaned in pain in time with my “Amen”.  He kept looking at me, looking with those puffy wet eyes.  Judging me; lumping me in with that maniac.  And why not?  If we keep company with monsters, are we not monsters too?  Isn’t that what Nick would call fellowship?  And what difference did it make when you were nailed to a cross in a barn in the middle of nowhere?

 
Mateo must have sensed what was coming before I did; sensed my inherent threat.  Nick’s plans for me involved more than just witnessing.  Through all his incoherent ramblings, he was clear about that much at least.  It wasn’t enough for me to see the new vessel.  Knowing, Nick explained, did not always accompany witnessing.  In order to know that Mateo was divine, I was going to have to participate. 

 
He said that Mateo had a kind of amnesia.  This body had none of the memories of when he was Jesus, so Mateo had no idea what he was.  We had to remind the body of its previous life... 

And death.  That was the most important part, Nick explained.  Mateo’s body had to remember how it died.

 
Nick had already done most of the work.  After he saw how Mateo’s shiner heal so completely, he knew he had found the right vessel.  Recreating the scourging was no problem for such a biblical scholar as Nick but convincing him to come to the barn was a challenge.  He said he told him he had a box of old Playboys in there.  Nick of all people.  

He had already taken Mateo’s body to the threshold of death’s door, but when he pointed the handle of that pitchfork towards me, my heart sunk as I realized he wanted me to push him through it.

He called me Longinus, whoever the fuck that was, and said that it would save my soul.  Giggling... He was giggling when he told me how happy he was that I would finally see with my own eyes.

 
But I didn’t see... not what he thought I would see.  I wish I could tell you that I saw horns in Nick’s shadow, a forked tongue, or his head spinning 180 degrees.  I wish I could tell you that I saw something, anything that would explain the evil that went on in that barn.  But the only evil I saw that day was born of misguided faith; that and greed.  Because had it not been for Nick’s misapplication of the meaning of God’s “grace”, Mateo would still be alive.   

While Nick’s actions were unforgivable, they still followed a sick logic.  It was my own behavior that even now I struggle to explain.  When I had it in my hand, for a second, I considered putting it in Nick’s chest.  I could have stopped him right then, but I didn’t.  Just like that possum; I had my out and I just...

 
When the tips of the prongs touched Mateo’s mottled ribs, his eyes opened wide.  He stared right at me as I did it and what I saw was not fear.  Not hate.  Not righteous rage at being brutalized, beaten, and tortured.    

No, the look in his eyes, like the look in that possum’s right before it played chicken with two and a half tons of Japanese steel, was the look of someone that knew that their end was imminent and had let go of all of their earthly burdens.  What did Mateo have to fear as that pitchfork sunk past the bony plate of ribs into the vital workings of the boy as he hung.  What good would that hate do his soul, if he carried it with him into the afterlife?

 
The look on Mateo’s face, as he took his final breaths, was grace.  Not this prosperity gospel revisionist bullshit that Nick had warped to suit his own desires, but real grace.  The kind that even a godless heathen like me could understand and recognize instinctively.   

I've thought about what we did in that barn every day since.  It follows me like a shadow.  But it’s not the fear of what Nick would have done to me, or the memories of my own acts that haunt my dreams.  It was the look in Mateo’s eyes.  All the blood and the bruises, the nails, the barbed wire, even that pitchfork.  The brutality we inflicted on Mateo’s body only illuminated that horrible light in his eyes; a light that in that moment I knew I would never know.   

And then... the light went out.

 
On the way back to the church, Nick gave me so many attaboys I thought I would puke.  Then we went our separate ways and I did.  I called in an anonymous tip immediately, but there was never anything about Mateo in the papers.  I went back a couple of days later and somehow managed to find the barn.  The cross, and Mateo along with it, was gone, like it had never existed, like it had been raptured into thin air.  

I never showed up for my next shift at the theater.  I just no-called until they fired me; they were used to kids flaking out on them.  It didn’t make me comfortable knowing that Nick was out there, but he only knew me through work and the music scene.  As long as I was a hermit, our orbits would never intersect. 

 
I wish I could tell you that the guilt of what we did to Mateo was punishment in and of itself, but that is a lie that we tell ourselves because the truth is too horrible to face.  That we do horrible things to each other and then we move on with our lives.  That we can excuse the most loathsome of acts as long as we believe that we are in God’s good graces.  That we are somehow special and not replaceable pieces in a machine that we were never meant to understand. 

 
But I was not destroyed by what I had witnessed in that barn, what I had participated in. It loomed large in my mind in the beginning, but eventually it became a dull background hum.  I can’t say exactly when I started to live my life again, but I can say when I went back to the movie theater.  It was May 5th, 2001; opening weekend of The Mummy Returns.  The first one came out when I still worked there.   

By that point, I had already completed my first semester at the University of Florida.  I was in town for the weekend feeling like the cock of the walk.  Part of me was hoping to run into an old coworker that I could beguile with one of my newly-acquired college life anecdotes.  Maybe I’d see one of the girls I never had the confidence to ask out.

 
There were no girls, unless you count Pat the 70-year-old lesbian that worked the box office.  I recognized a couple of the guys sweeping popcorn, but I had already forgotten their names.  The one person I did recognize was the new GM. He had put on a little weight since the last time I saw him, and he had a new haircut as well.  Spiked fade, frosted tips; all the rage amongst douchebags back then.

 
We didn’t talk, but he made eye contact and smiled.  Then he nodded his head, as if such a gesture could carry the weight of what hung between the two of us.  Nodded.  Like we were at a punk show or something.   

After the movie, I drove up to the front row of spaces.  Next to the handicap spots, there was a spot designated for the GM. Parked in that spot was a brand-new red Toyota Tundra.  The license plate holder read “Saved by Grace”. 

 
I’m not ashamed to admit that I keyed the fucker. 

 
He should have been in jail.  We should have been in jail.  But it was like he was being rewarded, like he was living the good life.   

I drank a lot in college.  Maybe it was the guilt.  Maybe that was just what I told myself.  But it didn’t really feel like I earned that MBA, since I barely remembered my nights.  And when I landed my first job, I called it beginner’s luck.   

But a part of me knows, it has never been luck.  I’m a skeptic.  I dismiss the concept at its face.  I believe what I have reason to believe, what I have seen, what I have witnessed.  And what I have witnessed -what I have participated in- makes me believe in an afterlife.  I saw it in that possum’s eyes, the same light that was in Mateo’s.  That was grace, true divine grace.

 
But I also know that the grace that Nick preached about is real too.  My whole life is proof of its existence.  What we did in that barn got us in someone's good graces, but I don’t think that it was God.

 

I hit a possum driving home from my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.  Rachel saw it, but at least the kids were asleep.  Merry Christmas, right?  

I’ll admit I probably would have failed a field sobriety test, but that thing had plenty of time to move too.  It just looked at me; like it had no idea that it was in danger.  

Sometimes people are like that too.  

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when I looked in that possum’s eyes; that I saw not terror, but peace. It was a look I had seen before; a look I wish I could forget.

 
Now I sit in the comfort of my overpriced home, in the gated community that I chose for status, not security. And while my expensive electronics and German car might make me a target for thieves, the gate gives me no comfort.  

I may not know the hour of my death, but I know where I’m headed.  I started walking that path decades ago, when I followed Nick down that old limestone road behind the church.  

It was the summer of ‘99 and my burgeoning atheism was oddly stifled by my other primary interest: punk rock.  There was a surprisingly thriving punk and hardcore scene in my small southern hometown.  There was a catch though; all the bands were Christian; at least that’s what they said.  

Most of the venues were rec rooms and other buildings owned by the church.  I say “the church” because I had no clue what any of that stuff meant.  It always seemed so strange to me.  What does a mosh pit have to do with Jesus?   

There were always a couple of older guys in the crowd that would find the connection.  At some point of every show, there would be an intermission of sorts, and those guys would engage in weirdly aggressive impromptu sermons.  Some had done time (if you believed them); as if that was somehow a badge of honor and not a strike against them.  With those tattoos that looked cool until you got close enough to realize they were all praying hands and bible verses.  Badasses for Christ...  What a joke.  

I had probably already smacked into him in a mosh pit or two before, but I didn’t formally meet Nick until I started working at the movie theater.  It was a business model built around teen labor.  I tore tickets and popped popcorn for a whopping $4.40 per hour.  I didn't mind as long as I got my employee passes; it was a big summer for movies.  Nick was one of the lead ushers and he played The Blair Witch Project for some of the employees the night before it released. 

 
After the movie, Nick asked me what I thought about it.  I told him I didn’t really get the ending, but I liked it.  He said he thought it would be bloodier.  ‘Aren’t horrors supposed to be bloody?’ was what he said.  
And it was that word “horrors” that sounded so odd that it kept looping in my ears. 

It was the first time I realized Nick might be more Christian than punk.   I don't know how he had me pegged for a horror fan, but after that night it was all he wanted to talk about.  Apparently, his parents were so strict that the only way he could watch R-rated movies was to sneak a peek at work.   

I let him borrow some staples from my VHS collection, stuff he wouldn’t be able to see at work like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He made quick work of the American catalogue, so I started introducing him to the Italian stuff: Argento, Fulci, the Bavas...  I used to joke that I was corrupting him.  That joke doesn’t seem very funny to me now.  

I knew he didn’t work on Sundays, but I figured his parents just forced church on him.  I didn’t realize he was a true believer until he asked me to pray with him on our lunch break one night.  Godless heathen that I was, I had no idea what to expect.  I don’t remember everything he said; a lot of it was super-repetitive.  But I remember it was more selfish than I thought it would be.  

Nick asked God for a new truck.  Could you pray for that?  How would I know?  I’d only been inside the rec rooms and banquet halls of churches, half-listening to scared-straight sermons from middle-aged men that wore hoodies to hide their paunches and died their roots.  It was only a matter of time before Nick asked me to attend a proper service.  

I sandbagged him for a couple weeks, but he was buddy-buddy with the GM so eventually I had a Sunday off and no excuse to get out of it.
I thought the holy water was going to boil when I walked through the door, but they didn’t even have any.  No one spoke in tongues or handled snakes, but what I did see was worse in its own way.   

The pastor, or reverend or whoever he was started talking about the rapture and how when it happens, it will be the most amazing sight you could ever see.  All the dead Christians would be resurrected and blessed with divine power like an army of zombie fundamentalist superheroes.  

To see a grown man say such ridiculous things with such earnest conviction in his eyes was terrifying.  What was worse were the reactions of the starry-eyed crowd, nodding in agreement, hanging on his every word; as if what they were hearing wasn’t laughably absurd. 

 
After the service, we were supposed to go to Sunday school.  As a sixteen-year-old non-believer, it sounded like the lamest thing I had ever heard.  Miraculously, Nick asked me if I wanted to ditch.  He said he had something he wanted to show me.  Of course I wanted to ditch, but it seemed so weird that he was asking.  He actually believed all that shit.  What could he possibly have that would be worth skipping Sunday school?

 
Behind the church there was this old limestone road.  I never saw any cars on that road; not that day, not ever.  The woods on either side were so thick; it looked like dusk instead of ten in the morning.  Nick kept talking about the sermon and the second coming of Christ.  In hindsight I wish I had been paying more attention, but it was a little hard to keep up with. 

 
He kept bringing up David Koresh and how obvious it was that he was a fraud.  Koresh thought he could sire the vessel for Jesus’s return, but Nick said that was just pride.  The real Jesus wouldn’t even realize he was divine.  He would just be some normal person; maybe even a kid in a mosh pit.  Then one day when the world got too sick and darkness reigned in men’s hearts, he would wake up and fulfill his divine destiny.

 
As the road twisted, we lost sight of the church.  We came to a plot of land encircled by a barbed-wire fence.  Nick lifted the wire that ran across the top while pressing the middle wire down with the heel of his boot.  I climbed through the opening and repeated the courtesy for him.  I remember feeling the pulse in my neck just then, as if marking a point of no return. 

 
I knew Nick liked good music and had a taste for splatter flicks, but this was the first time I had seen him outside of work.  My sense of who I thought he was... was colliding with who he actually was.  The way he rattled off all those biblical details, citing scripture as if I had any clue what he was talking about.  It was like talking to a stranger. 

 
He led me through a dense thicket of trees until we came upon an old barn.  It was red with white trim, but the white had faded to a flaky yellow.  Nick slid the 2x4 that hasped the two doors of the barn shut until the left door creaked open under its own weight.  

It was so dark in that doorway; it reminded me of any number of scenes from the movies I had lent Nick that summer.  A chainsaw revved in my mind.  I hesitated, but Nick went right in, and then I was all alone in front of that quiet old barn in the middle of nowhere.

 
Windows on either end of the barn were the only source of light inside.  There were several stalls, but they were all long vacant.  The walls were lined with rusted antique farming implements; cast iron crescent blades and wide forked rakes.  A brush hook jutted ominously from a vertical beam.  I didn’t think to ask who the barn belonged to; I was too distracted by whatever was under the giant tarp in the middle of the place. 

 
How could I not be? It was the only thing you could look at in that place; easily ten feet tall and almost as wide.  From the corner of my eye, I could just see Nick’s self-satisfied grin as he noticed me noticing.  But he didn’t pull the tarp away just yet.  Instead, he selected  a pitchfork from the implements that lined the wall.  The tips of the prongs were darker than the rest of the fork.  At the time, I thought it was rust.  

He asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior.  I lied and said yes.  He was so manic just then; it was like he was possessed.  He asked me if I knew the meaning of grace.  I told him it was something like being humble, which I now believe betrayed my true godlessness.  He frowned and for a second it looked like he wanted to put that fork in my chest. 

 
He said grace was when God gave you a taste of the sweet life.  It was like a parent favoring one child over all the others.  A gift from God just to show his love.  Nick said that’s how he knew he found the right one.

 
Right one?  Was he talking about me?  He waited for some sign of understanding on my face, but I know my confusion was betraying me.  I had no idea what he was talking about; the whole morning felt like a dream.  I kept looking away, but the only other thing to look at was the tarp looming tall over the two of us, swallowing us in its shadow. 

 
Nick said he had been at a Plea for Purging show.  During their song, Grace for Blood, he blindsided some kid in the mosh pit.  Total accident, but he caught the guy hard in the eye with his elbow.  

His eye swelled up immediately, and the kid started crying and freaking out because he thought his dad wouldn't let him go to shows anymore.  Nick felt so bad; he got the kid’s name and number, but when he met up with him a few days later, his eye was fine.  Like it never happened.  He told me the kid was named Mateo, which was Spanish for "gift from God".

 
Nick’s eyes went unfocused when he said that, like he was looking straight through me; like he was looking through the world itself.  Then his eyes focused on mine, and for a minute it was like when we used to shoot the shit on our lunch break at the theater.  A nervous chuckle crept its way from my throat.   

Then he released a bombshell I didn't know he was holding.  He told me that he knew I was an atheist.  My eyes were locked on those dark rusty prongs as he gestured wildly in his fervor.

My fear was not lessened by his assurance that it was a good thing that I was a non-believer, for that was another element of God’s plan for him.  I was to be the objective witness to the divine grace that had been revealed to Nick.  I was still in shock from his revelation when he finally removed the tarp.

 
Under the tarp was an enormous cross.  It was made from the same beams that held up the barn.  Hanging from the cross was a young boy. 

Nick said he was fifteen but there wasn’t a hair on his body, just a camouflage of black and blue, a topographical map of pain.  His eyes were just swollen slits in his face.  Barbed wire was wrapped tightly around his forehead in a crude crown; the same wire I had so naively held open for Nick. Wrapped around limbs pinned crudely in place with heavy nails. 

 
Mateo... a gift from God.

 
Perhaps if I had believed in an afterlife... if I thought I had a soul that could be saved... but I was too scared.  Nick had the fervor of a zealot.  His eyes were so wide... He kept moving around, talking with his hands, talking with that pitchfork...  

He was jumping from point to point, drawing connections out of thin air.  None of it made sense.   

When he finally stopped, I had no idea how to respond.  The silence was unbearable, so I muttered an “Amen”... 

I immediately regretted it.  Not because it was the wrong thing to say, which it objectively was, but because he thought it was right. It was what he wanted to hear.  

I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Mateo, who groaned in pain in time with my “Amen”.  He kept looking at me, looking with those puffy wet eyes.  Judging me; lumping me in with that maniac.  And why not?  If we keep company with monsters, are we not monsters too?  Isn’t that what Nick would call fellowship?  And what difference did it make when you were nailed to a cross in a barn in the middle of nowhere?

 
Mateo must have sensed what was coming before I did; sensed my inherent threat.  Nick’s plans for me involved more than just witnessing.  Through all his incoherent ramblings, he was clear about that much at least.  It wasn’t enough for me to see the new vessel.  Knowing, Nick explained, did not always accompany witnessing.  In order to know that Mateo was divine, I was going to have to participate. 

 
He said that Mateo had a kind of amnesia.  This body had none of the memories of when he was Jesus, so Mateo had no idea what he was.  We had to remind the body of its previous life... 

And death.  That was the most important part, Nick explained.  Mateo’s body had to remember how it died.

 
Nick had already done most of the work.  After he saw how Mateo’s shiner heal so completely, he knew he had found the right vessel.  Recreating the scourging was no problem for such a biblical scholar as Nick but convincing him to come to the barn was a challenge.  He said he told him he had a box of old Playboys in there.  Nick of all people.  

He had already taken Mateo’s body to the threshold of death’s door, but when he pointed the handle of that pitchfork towards me, my heart sunk as I realized he wanted me to push him through it.

He called me Longinus, whoever the fuck that was, and said that it would save my soul.  Giggling... He was giggling when he told me how happy he was that I would finally see with my own eyes.

 
But I didn’t see... not what he thought I would see.  I wish I could tell you that I saw horns in Nick’s shadow, a forked tongue, or his head spinning 180 degrees.  I wish I could tell you that I saw something, anything that would explain the evil that went on in that barn.  But the only evil I saw that day was born of misguided faith; that and greed.  Because had it not been for Nick’s misapplication of the meaning of God’s “grace”, Mateo would still be alive.   

While Nick’s actions were unforgivable, they still followed a sick logic.  It was my own behavior that even now I struggle to explain.  When I had it in my hand, for a second, I considered putting it in Nick’s chest.  I could have stopped him right then, but I didn’t.  Just like that possum; I had my out and I just...

 
When the tips of the prongs touched Mateo’s mottled ribs, his eyes opened wide.  He stared right at me as I did it and what I saw was not fear.  Not hate.  Not righteous rage at being brutalized, beaten, and tortured.    

No, the look in his eyes, like the look in that possum’s right before it played chicken with two and a half tons of Japanese steel, was the look of someone that knew that their end was imminent and had let go of all of their earthly burdens.  What did Mateo have to fear as that pitchfork sunk past the bony plate of ribs into the vital workings of the boy as he hung.  What good would that hate do his soul, if he carried it with him into the afterlife?

 
The look on Mateo’s face, as he took his final breaths, was grace.  Not this prosperity gospel revisionist bullshit that Nick had warped to suit his own desires, but real grace.  The kind that even a godless heathen like me could understand and recognize instinctively.   

I've thought about what we did in that barn every day since.  It follows me like a shadow.  But it’s not the fear of what Nick would have done to me, or the memories of my own acts that haunt my dreams.  It was the look in Mateo’s eyes.  All the blood and the bruises, the nails, the barbed wire, even that pitchfork.  The brutality we inflicted on Mateo’s body only illuminated that horrible light in his eyes; a light that in that moment I knew I would never know.   

And then... the light went out.

 
On the way back to the church, Nick gave me so many attaboys I thought I would puke.  Then we went our separate ways and I did.  I called in an anonymous tip immediately, but there was never anything about Mateo in the papers.  I went back a couple of days later and somehow managed to find the barn.  The cross, and Mateo along with it, was gone, like it had never existed, like it had been raptured into thin air.  

I never showed up for my next shift at the theater.  I just no-called until they fired me; they were used to kids flaking out on them.  It didn’t make me comfortable knowing that Nick was out there, but he only knew me through work and the music scene.  As long as I was a hermit, our orbits would never intersect. 

 
I wish I could tell you that the guilt of what we did to Mateo was punishment in and of itself, but that is a lie that we tell ourselves because the truth is too horrible to face.  That we do horrible things to each other and then we move on with our lives.  That we can excuse the most loathsome of acts as long as we believe that we are in God’s good graces.  That we are somehow special and not replaceable pieces in a machine that we were never meant to understand. 

 
But I was not destroyed by what I had witnessed in that barn, what I had participated in. It loomed large in my mind in the beginning, but eventually it became a dull background hum.  I can’t say exactly when I started to live my life again, but I can say when I went back to the movie theater.  It was May 5th, 2001; opening weekend of The Mummy Returns.  The first one came out when I still worked there.   

By that point, I had already completed my first semester at the University of Florida.  I was in town for the weekend feeling like the cock of the walk.  Part of me was hoping to run into an old coworker that I could beguile with one of my newly-acquired college life anecdotes.  Maybe I’d see one of the girls I never had the confidence to ask out.

 
There were no girls, unless you count Pat the 70-year-old lesbian that worked the box office.  I recognized a couple of the guys sweeping popcorn, but I had already forgotten their names.  The one person I did recognize was the new GM. He had put on a little weight since the last time I saw him, and he had a new haircut as well.  Spiked fade, frosted tips; all the rage amongst douchebags back then.

 
We didn’t talk, but he made eye contact and smiled.  Then he nodded his head, as if such a gesture could carry the weight of what hung between the two of us.  Nodded.  Like we were at a punk show or something.   

After the movie, I drove up to the front row of spaces.  Next to the handicap spots, there was a spot designated for the GM. Parked in that spot was a brand-new red Toyota Tundra.  The license plate holder read “Saved by Grace”. 

 
I’m not ashamed to admit that I keyed the fucker. 

 
He should have been in jail.  We should have been in jail.  But it was like he was being rewarded, like he was living the good life.   

I drank a lot in college.  Maybe it was the guilt.  Maybe that was just what I told myself.  But it didn’t really feel like I earned that MBA, since I barely remembered my nights.  And when I landed my first job, I called it beginner’s luck.   

But a part of me knows, it has never been luck.  I’m a skeptic.  I dismiss the concept at its face.  I believe what I have reason to believe, what I have seen, what I have witnessed.  And what I have witnessed -what I have participated in- makes me believe in an afterlife.  I saw it in that possum’s eyes, the same light that was in Mateo’s.  That was grace, true divine grace.

 
But I also know that the grace that Nick preached about is real too.  My whole life is proof of its existence.  What we did in that barn got us in someone's good graces, but I don’t think that it was God.

 

I hit a possum driving home from my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.  Rachel saw it, but at least the kids were asleep.  Merry Christmas, right?  

I’ll admit I probably would have failed a field sobriety test, but that thing had plenty of time to move too.  It just looked at me; like it had no idea that it was in danger.  

Sometimes people are like that too.  

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when I looked in that possum’s eyes; that I saw not terror, but peace. It was a look I had seen before; a look I wish I could forget.

 
Now I sit in the comfort of my overpriced home, in the gated community that I chose for status, not security. And while my expensive electronics and German car might make me a target for thieves, the gate gives me no comfort.  

I may not know the hour of my death, but I know where I’m headed.  I started walking that path decades ago, when I followed Nick down that old limestone road behind the church.  

It was the summer of ‘99 and my burgeoning atheism was oddly stifled by my other primary interest: punk rock.  There was a surprisingly thriving punk and hardcore scene in my small southern hometown.  There was a catch though; all the bands were Christian; at least that’s what they said.  

Most of the venues were rec rooms and other buildings owned by the church.  I say “the church” because I had no clue what any of that stuff meant.  It always seemed so strange to me.  What does a mosh pit have to do with Jesus?   

There were always a couple of older guys in the crowd that would find the connection.  At some point of every show, there would be an intermission of sorts, and those guys would engage in weirdly aggressive impromptu sermons.  Some had done time (if you believed them); as if that was somehow a badge of honor and not a strike against them.  With those tattoos that looked cool until you got close enough to realize they were all praying hands and bible verses.  Badasses for Christ...  What a joke.  

I had probably already smacked into him in a mosh pit or two before, but I didn’t formally meet Nick until I started working at the movie theater.  It was a business model built around teen labor.  I tore tickets and popped popcorn for a whopping $4.40 per hour.  I didn't mind as long as I got my employee passes; it was a big summer for movies.  Nick was one of the lead ushers and he played The Blair Witch Project for some of the employees the night before it released. 

 
After the movie, Nick asked me what I thought about it.  I told him I didn’t really get the ending, but I liked it.  He said he thought it would be bloodier.  ‘Aren’t horrors supposed to be bloody?’ was what he said.  
And it was that word “horrors” that sounded so odd that it kept looping in my ears. 

It was the first time I realized Nick might be more Christian than punk.   I don't know how he had me pegged for a horror fan, but after that night it was all he wanted to talk about.  Apparently, his parents were so strict that the only way he could watch R-rated movies was to sneak a peek at work.   

I let him borrow some staples from my VHS collection, stuff he wouldn’t be able to see at work like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He made quick work of the American catalogue, so I started introducing him to the Italian stuff: Argento, Fulci, the Bavas...  I used to joke that I was corrupting him.  That joke doesn’t seem very funny to me now.  

I knew he didn’t work on Sundays, but I figured his parents just forced church on him.  I didn’t realize he was a true believer until he asked me to pray with him on our lunch break one night.  Godless heathen that I was, I had no idea what to expect.  I don’t remember everything he said; a lot of it was super-repetitive.  But I remember it was more selfish than I thought it would be.  

Nick asked God for a new truck.  Could you pray for that?  How would I know?  I’d only been inside the rec rooms and banquet halls of churches, half-listening to scared-straight sermons from middle-aged men that wore hoodies to hide their paunches and died their roots.  It was only a matter of time before Nick asked me to attend a proper service.  

I sandbagged him for a couple weeks, but he was buddy-buddy with the GM so eventually I had a Sunday off and no excuse to get out of it.
I thought the holy water was going to boil when I walked through the door, but they didn’t even have any.  No one spoke in tongues or handled snakes, but what I did see was worse in its own way.   

The pastor, or reverend or whoever he was started talking about the rapture and how when it happens, it will be the most amazing sight you could ever see.  All the dead Christians would be resurrected and blessed with divine power like an army of zombie fundamentalist superheroes.  

To see a grown man say such ridiculous things with such earnest conviction in his eyes was terrifying.  What was worse were the reactions of the starry-eyed crowd, nodding in agreement, hanging on his every word; as if what they were hearing wasn’t laughably absurd. 

 
After the service, we were supposed to go to Sunday school.  As a sixteen-year-old non-believer, it sounded like the lamest thing I had ever heard.  Miraculously, Nick asked me if I wanted to ditch.  He said he had something he wanted to show me.  Of course I wanted to ditch, but it seemed so weird that he was asking.  He actually believed all that shit.  What could he possibly have that would be worth skipping Sunday school?

 
Behind the church there was this old limestone road.  I never saw any cars on that road; not that day, not ever.  The woods on either side were so thick; it looked like dusk instead of ten in the morning.  Nick kept talking about the sermon and the second coming of Christ.  In hindsight I wish I had been paying more attention, but it was a little hard to keep up with. 

 
He kept bringing up David Koresh and how obvious it was that he was a fraud.  Koresh thought he could sire the vessel for Jesus’s return, but Nick said that was just pride.  The real Jesus wouldn’t even realize he was divine.  He would just be some normal person; maybe even a kid in a mosh pit.  Then one day when the world got too sick and darkness reigned in men’s hearts, he would wake up and fulfill his divine destiny.

 
As the road twisted, we lost sight of the church.  We came to a plot of land encircled by a barbed-wire fence.  Nick lifted the wire that ran across the top while pressing the middle wire down with the heel of his boot.  I climbed through the opening and repeated the courtesy for him.  I remember feeling the pulse in my neck just then, as if marking a point of no return. 

 
I knew Nick liked good music and had a taste for splatter flicks, but this was the first time I had seen him outside of work.  My sense of who I thought he was... was colliding with who he actually was.  The way he rattled off all those biblical details, citing scripture as if I had any clue what he was talking about.  It was like talking to a stranger. 

 
He led me through a dense thicket of trees until we came upon an old barn.  It was red with white trim, but the white had faded to a flaky yellow.  Nick slid the 2x4 that hasped the two doors of the barn shut until the left door creaked open under its own weight.  

It was so dark in that doorway; it reminded me of any number of scenes from the movies I had lent Nick that summer.  A chainsaw revved in my mind.  I hesitated, but Nick went right in, and then I was all alone in front of that quiet old barn in the middle of nowhere.

 
Windows on either end of the barn were the only source of light inside.  There were several stalls, but they were all long vacant.  The walls were lined with rusted antique farming implements; cast iron crescent blades and wide forked rakes.  A brush hook jutted ominously from a vertical beam.  I didn’t think to ask who the barn belonged to; I was too distracted by whatever was under the giant tarp in the middle of the place. 

 
How could I not be? It was the only thing you could look at in that place; easily ten feet tall and almost as wide.  From the corner of my eye, I could just see Nick’s self-satisfied grin as he noticed me noticing.  But he didn’t pull the tarp away just yet.  Instead, he selected  a pitchfork from the implements that lined the wall.  The tips of the prongs were darker than the rest of the fork.  At the time, I thought it was rust.  

He asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior.  I lied and said yes.  He was so manic just then; it was like he was possessed.  He asked me if I knew the meaning of grace.  I told him it was something like being humble, which I now believe betrayed my true godlessness.  He frowned and for a second it looked like he wanted to put that fork in my chest. 

 
He said grace was when God gave you a taste of the sweet life.  It was like a parent favoring one child over all the others.  A gift from God just to show his love.  Nick said that’s how he knew he found the right one.

 
Right one?  Was he talking about me?  He waited for some sign of understanding on my face, but I know my confusion was betraying me.  I had no idea what he was talking about; the whole morning felt like a dream.  I kept looking away, but the only other thing to look at was the tarp looming tall over the two of us, swallowing us in its shadow. 

 
Nick said he had been at a Plea for Purging show.  During their song, Grace for Blood, he blindsided some kid in the mosh pit.  Total accident, but he caught the guy hard in the eye with his elbow.  

His eye swelled up immediately, and the kid started crying and freaking out because he thought his dad wouldn't let him go to shows anymore.  Nick felt so bad; he got the kid’s name and number, but when he met up with him a few days later, his eye was fine.  Like it never happened.  He told me the kid was named Mateo, which was Spanish for "gift from God".

 
Nick’s eyes went unfocused when he said that, like he was looking straight through me; like he was looking through the world itself.  Then his eyes focused on mine, and for a minute it was like when we used to shoot the shit on our lunch break at the theater.  A nervous chuckle crept its way from my throat.   

Then he released a bombshell I didn't know he was holding.  He told me that he knew I was an atheist.  My eyes were locked on those dark rusty prongs as he gestured wildly in his fervor.

My fear was not lessened by his assurance that it was a good thing that I was a non-believer, for that was another element of God’s plan for him.  I was to be the objective witness to the divine grace that had been revealed to Nick.  I was still in shock from his revelation when he finally removed the tarp.

 
Under the tarp was an enormous cross.  It was made from the same beams that held up the barn.  Hanging from the cross was a young boy. 

Nick said he was fifteen but there wasn’t a hair on his body, just a camouflage of black and blue, a topographical map of pain.  His eyes were just swollen slits in his face.  Barbed wire was wrapped tightly around his forehead in a crude crown; the same wire I had so naively held open for Nick. Wrapped around limbs pinned crudely in place with heavy nails. 

 
Mateo... a gift from God.

 
Perhaps if I had believed in an afterlife... if I thought I had a soul that could be saved... but I was too scared.  Nick had the fervor of a zealot.  His eyes were so wide... He kept moving around, talking with his hands, talking with that pitchfork...  

He was jumping from point to point, drawing connections out of thin air.  None of it made sense.   

When he finally stopped, I had no idea how to respond.  The silence was unbearable, so I muttered an “Amen”... 

I immediately regretted it.  Not because it was the wrong thing to say, which it objectively was, but because he thought it was right. It was what he wanted to hear.  

I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Mateo, who groaned in pain in time with my “Amen”.  He kept looking at me, looking with those puffy wet eyes.  Judging me; lumping me in with that maniac.  And why not?  If we keep company with monsters, are we not monsters too?  Isn’t that what Nick would call fellowship?  And what difference did it make when you were nailed to a cross in a barn in the middle of nowhere?

 
Mateo must have sensed what was coming before I did; sensed my inherent threat.  Nick’s plans for me involved more than just witnessing.  Through all his incoherent ramblings, he was clear about that much at least.  It wasn’t enough for me to see the new vessel.  Knowing, Nick explained, did not always accompany witnessing.  In order to know that Mateo was divine, I was going to have to participate. 

 
He said that Mateo had a kind of amnesia.  This body had none of the memories of when he was Jesus, so Mateo had no idea what he was.  We had to remind the body of its previous life... 

And death.  That was the most important part, Nick explained.  Mateo’s body had to remember how it died.

 
Nick had already done most of the work.  After he saw how Mateo’s shiner heal so completely, he knew he had found the right vessel.  Recreating the scourging was no problem for such a biblical scholar as Nick but convincing him to come to the barn was a challenge.  He said he told him he had a box of old Playboys in there.  Nick of all people.  

He had already taken Mateo’s body to the threshold of death’s door, but when he pointed the handle of that pitchfork towards me, my heart sunk as I realized he wanted me to push him through it.

He called me Longinus, whoever the fuck that was, and said that it would save my soul.  Giggling... He was giggling when he told me how happy he was that I would finally see with my own eyes.

 
But I didn’t see... not what he thought I would see.  I wish I could tell you that I saw horns in Nick’s shadow, a forked tongue, or his head spinning 180 degrees.  I wish I could tell you that I saw something, anything that would explain the evil that went on in that barn.  But the only evil I saw that day was born of misguided faith; that and greed.  Because had it not been for Nick’s misapplication of the meaning of God’s “grace”, Mateo would still be alive.   

While Nick’s actions were unforgivable, they still followed a sick logic.  It was my own behavior that even now I struggle to explain.  When I had it in my hand, for a second, I considered putting it in Nick’s chest.  I could have stopped him right then, but I didn’t.  Just like that possum; I had my out and I just...

 
When the tips of the prongs touched Mateo’s mottled ribs, his eyes opened wide.  He stared right at me as I did it and what I saw was not fear.  Not hate.  Not righteous rage at being brutalized, beaten, and tortured.    

No, the look in his eyes, like the look in that possum’s right before it played chicken with two and a half tons of Japanese steel, was the look of someone that knew that their end was imminent and had let go of all of their earthly burdens.  What did Mateo have to fear as that pitchfork sunk past the bony plate of ribs into the vital workings of the boy as he hung.  What good would that hate do his soul, if he carried it with him into the afterlife?

 
The look on Mateo’s face, as he took his final breaths, was grace.  Not this prosperity gospel revisionist bullshit that Nick had warped to suit his own desires, but real grace.  The kind that even a godless heathen like me could understand and recognize instinctively.   

I've thought about what we did in that barn every day since.  It follows me like a shadow.  But it’s not the fear of what Nick would have done to me, or the memories of my own acts that haunt my dreams.  It was the look in Mateo’s eyes.  All the blood and the bruises, the nails, the barbed wire, even that pitchfork.  The brutality we inflicted on Mateo’s body only illuminated that horrible light in his eyes; a light that in that moment I knew I would never know.   

And then... the light went out.

 
On the way back to the church, Nick gave me so many attaboys I thought I would puke.  Then we went our separate ways and I did.  I called in an anonymous tip immediately, but there was never anything about Mateo in the papers.  I went back a couple of days later and somehow managed to find the barn.  The cross, and Mateo along with it, was gone, like it had never existed, like it had been raptured into thin air.  

I never showed up for my next shift at the theater.  I just no-called until they fired me; they were used to kids flaking out on them.  It didn’t make me comfortable knowing that Nick was out there, but he only knew me through work and the music scene.  As long as I was a hermit, our orbits would never intersect. 

 
I wish I could tell you that the guilt of what we did to Mateo was punishment in and of itself, but that is a lie that we tell ourselves because the truth is too horrible to face.  That we do horrible things to each other and then we move on with our lives.  That we can excuse the most loathsome of acts as long as we believe that we are in God’s good graces.  That we are somehow special and not replaceable pieces in a machine that we were never meant to understand. 

 
But I was not destroyed by what I had witnessed in that barn, what I had participated in. It loomed large in my mind in the beginning, but eventually it became a dull background hum.  I can’t say exactly when I started to live my life again, but I can say when I went back to the movie theater.  It was May 5th, 2001; opening weekend of The Mummy Returns.  The first one came out when I still worked there.   

By that point, I had already completed my first semester at the University of Florida.  I was in town for the weekend feeling like the cock of the walk.  Part of me was hoping to run into an old coworker that I could beguile with one of my newly-acquired college life anecdotes.  Maybe I’d see one of the girls I never had the confidence to ask out.

 
There were no girls, unless you count Pat the 70-year-old lesbian that worked the box office.  I recognized a couple of the guys sweeping popcorn, but I had already forgotten their names.  The one person I did recognize was the new GM. He had put on a little weight since the last time I saw him, and he had a new haircut as well.  Spiked fade, frosted tips; all the rage amongst douchebags back then.

 
We didn’t talk, but he made eye contact and smiled.  Then he nodded his head, as if such a gesture could carry the weight of what hung between the two of us.  Nodded.  Like we were at a punk show or something.   

After the movie, I drove up to the front row of spaces.  Next to the handicap spots, there was a spot designated for the GM. Parked in that spot was a brand-new red Toyota Tundra.  The license plate holder read “Saved by Grace”. 

 
I’m not ashamed to admit that I keyed the fucker. 

 
He should have been in jail.  We should have been in jail.  But it was like he was being rewarded, like he was living the good life.   

I drank a lot in college.  Maybe it was the guilt.  Maybe that was just what I told myself.  But it didn’t really feel like I earned that MBA, since I barely remembered my nights.  And when I landed my first job, I called it beginner’s luck.   

But a part of me knows, it has never been luck.  I’m a skeptic.  I dismiss the concept at its face.  I believe what I have reason to believe, what I have seen, what I have witnessed.  And what I have witnessed -what I have participated in- makes me believe in an afterlife.  I saw it in that possum’s eyes, the same light that was in Mateo’s.  That was grace, true divine grace.

 
But I also know that the grace that Nick preached about is real too.  My whole life is proof of its existence.  What we did in that barn got us in someone's good graces, but I don’t think that it was God.

 

I hit a possum driving home from my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.  Rachel saw it, but at least the kids were asleep.  Merry Christmas, right?  

I’ll admit I probably would have failed a field sobriety test, but that thing had plenty of time to move too.  It just looked at me; like it had no idea that it was in danger.  

Sometimes people are like that too.  

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when I looked in that possum’s eyes; that I saw not terror, but peace. It was a look I had seen before; a look I wish I could forget.

 
Now I sit in the comfort of my overpriced home, in the gated community that I chose for status, not security. And while my expensive electronics and German car might make me a target for thieves, the gate gives me no comfort.  

I may not know the hour of my death, but I know where I’m headed.  I started walking that path decades ago, when I followed Nick down that old limestone road behind the church.  

It was the summer of ‘99 and my burgeoning atheism was oddly stifled by my other primary interest: punk rock.  There was a surprisingly thriving punk and hardcore scene in my small southern hometown.  There was a catch though; all the bands were Christian; at least that’s what they said.  

Most of the venues were rec rooms and other buildings owned by the church.  I say “the church” because I had no clue what any of that stuff meant.  It always seemed so strange to me.  What does a mosh pit have to do with Jesus?   

There were always a couple of older guys in the crowd that would find the connection.  At some point of every show, there would be an intermission of sorts, and those guys would engage in weirdly aggressive impromptu sermons.  Some had done time (if you believed them); as if that was somehow a badge of honor and not a strike against them.  With those tattoos that looked cool until you got close enough to realize they were all praying hands and bible verses.  Badasses for Christ...  What a joke.  

I had probably already smacked into him in a mosh pit or two before, but I didn’t formally meet Nick until I started working at the movie theater.  It was a business model built around teen labor.  I tore tickets and popped popcorn for a whopping $4.40 per hour.  I didn't mind as long as I got my employee passes; it was a big summer for movies.  Nick was one of the lead ushers and he played The Blair Witch Project for some of the employees the night before it released. 

 
After the movie, Nick asked me what I thought about it.  I told him I didn’t really get the ending, but I liked it.  He said he thought it would be bloodier.  ‘Aren’t horrors supposed to be bloody?’ was what he said.  
And it was that word “horrors” that sounded so odd that it kept looping in my ears. 

It was the first time I realized Nick might be more Christian than punk.   I don't know how he had me pegged for a horror fan, but after that night it was all he wanted to talk about.  Apparently, his parents were so strict that the only way he could watch R-rated movies was to sneak a peek at work.   

I let him borrow some staples from my VHS collection, stuff he wouldn’t be able to see at work like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He made quick work of the American catalogue, so I started introducing him to the Italian stuff: Argento, Fulci, the Bavas...  I used to joke that I was corrupting him.  That joke doesn’t seem very funny to me now.  

I knew he didn’t work on Sundays, but I figured his parents just forced church on him.  I didn’t realize he was a true believer until he asked me to pray with him on our lunch break one night.  Godless heathen that I was, I had no idea what to expect.  I don’t remember everything he said; a lot of it was super-repetitive.  But I remember it was more selfish than I thought it would be.  

Nick asked God for a new truck.  Could you pray for that?  How would I know?  I’d only been inside the rec rooms and banquet halls of churches, half-listening to scared-straight sermons from middle-aged men that wore hoodies to hide their paunches and died their roots.  It was only a matter of time before Nick asked me to attend a proper service.  

I sandbagged him for a couple weeks, but he was buddy-buddy with the GM so eventually I had a Sunday off and no excuse to get out of it.
I thought the holy water was going to boil when I walked through the door, but they didn’t even have any.  No one spoke in tongues or handled snakes, but what I did see was worse in its own way.   

The pastor, or reverend or whoever he was started talking about the rapture and how when it happens, it will be the most amazing sight you could ever see.  All the dead Christians would be resurrected and blessed with divine power like an army of zombie fundamentalist superheroes.  

To see a grown man say such ridiculous things with such earnest conviction in his eyes was terrifying.  What was worse were the reactions of the starry-eyed crowd, nodding in agreement, hanging on his every word; as if what they were hearing wasn’t laughably absurd. 

 
After the service, we were supposed to go to Sunday school.  As a sixteen-year-old non-believer, it sounded like the lamest thing I had ever heard.  Miraculously, Nick asked me if I wanted to ditch.  He said he had something he wanted to show me.  Of course I wanted to ditch, but it seemed so weird that he was asking.  He actually believed all that shit.  What could he possibly have that would be worth skipping Sunday school?

 
Behind the church there was this old limestone road.  I never saw any cars on that road; not that day, not ever.  The woods on either side were so thick; it looked like dusk instead of ten in the morning.  Nick kept talking about the sermon and the second coming of Christ.  In hindsight I wish I had been paying more attention, but it was a little hard to keep up with. 

 
He kept bringing up David Koresh and how obvious it was that he was a fraud.  Koresh thought he could sire the vessel for Jesus’s return, but Nick said that was just pride.  The real Jesus wouldn’t even realize he was divine.  He would just be some normal person; maybe even a kid in a mosh pit.  Then one day when the world got too sick and darkness reigned in men’s hearts, he would wake up and fulfill his divine destiny.

 
As the road twisted, we lost sight of the church.  We came to a plot of land encircled by a barbed-wire fence.  Nick lifted the wire that ran across the top while pressing the middle wire down with the heel of his boot.  I climbed through the opening and repeated the courtesy for him.  I remember feeling the pulse in my neck just then, as if marking a point of no return. 

 
I knew Nick liked good music and had a taste for splatter flicks, but this was the first time I had seen him outside of work.  My sense of who I thought he was... was colliding with who he actually was.  The way he rattled off all those biblical details, citing scripture as if I had any clue what he was talking about.  It was like talking to a stranger. 

 
He led me through a dense thicket of trees until we came upon an old barn.  It was red with white trim, but the white had faded to a flaky yellow.  Nick slid the 2x4 that hasped the two doors of the barn shut until the left door creaked open under its own weight.  

It was so dark in that doorway; it reminded me of any number of scenes from the movies I had lent Nick that summer.  A chainsaw revved in my mind.  I hesitated, but Nick went right in, and then I was all alone in front of that quiet old barn in the middle of nowhere.

 
Windows on either end of the barn were the only source of light inside.  There were several stalls, but they were all long vacant.  The walls were lined with rusted antique farming implements; cast iron crescent blades and wide forked rakes.  A brush hook jutted ominously from a vertical beam.  I didn’t think to ask who the barn belonged to; I was too distracted by whatever was under the giant tarp in the middle of the place. 

 
How could I not be? It was the only thing you could look at in that place; easily ten feet tall and almost as wide.  From the corner of my eye, I could just see Nick’s self-satisfied grin as he noticed me noticing.  But he didn’t pull the tarp away just yet.  Instead, he selected  a pitchfork from the implements that lined the wall.  The tips of the prongs were darker than the rest of the fork.  At the time, I thought it was rust.  

He asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior.  I lied and said yes.  He was so manic just then; it was like he was possessed.  He asked me if I knew the meaning of grace.  I told him it was something like being humble, which I now believe betrayed my true godlessness.  He frowned and for a second it looked like he wanted to put that fork in my chest. 

 
He said grace was when God gave you a taste of the sweet life.  It was like a parent favoring one child over all the others.  A gift from God just to show his love.  Nick said that’s how he knew he found the right one.

 
Right one?  Was he talking about me?  He waited for some sign of understanding on my face, but I know my confusion was betraying me.  I had no idea what he was talking about; the whole morning felt like a dream.  I kept looking away, but the only other thing to look at was the tarp looming tall over the two of us, swallowing us in its shadow. 

 
Nick said he had been at a Plea for Purging show.  During their song, Grace for Blood, he blindsided some kid in the mosh pit.  Total accident, but he caught the guy hard in the eye with his elbow.  

His eye swelled up immediately, and the kid started crying and freaking out because he thought his dad wouldn't let him go to shows anymore.  Nick felt so bad; he got the kid’s name and number, but when he met up with him a few days later, his eye was fine.  Like it never happened.  He told me the kid was named Mateo, which was Spanish for "gift from God".

 
Nick’s eyes went unfocused when he said that, like he was looking straight through me; like he was looking through the world itself.  Then his eyes focused on mine, and for a minute it was like when we used to shoot the shit on our lunch break at the theater.  A nervous chuckle crept its way from my throat.   

Then he released a bombshell I didn't know he was holding.  He told me that he knew I was an atheist.  My eyes were locked on those dark rusty prongs as he gestured wildly in his fervor.

My fear was not lessened by his assurance that it was a good thing that I was a non-believer, for that was another element of God’s plan for him.  I was to be the objective witness to the divine grace that had been revealed to Nick.  I was still in shock from his revelation when he finally removed the tarp.

 
Under the tarp was an enormous cross.  It was made from the same beams that held up the barn.  Hanging from the cross was a young boy. 

Nick said he was fifteen but there wasn’t a hair on his body, just a camouflage of black and blue, a topographical map of pain.  His eyes were just swollen slits in his face.  Barbed wire was wrapped tightly around his forehead in a crude crown; the same wire I had so naively held open for Nick. Wrapped around limbs pinned crudely in place with heavy nails. 

 
Mateo... a gift from God.

 
Perhaps if I had believed in an afterlife... if I thought I had a soul that could be saved... but I was too scared.  Nick had the fervor of a zealot.  His eyes were so wide... He kept moving around, talking with his hands, talking with that pitchfork...  

He was jumping from point to point, drawing connections out of thin air.  None of it made sense.   

When he finally stopped, I had no idea how to respond.  The silence was unbearable, so I muttered an “Amen”... 

I immediately regretted it.  Not because it was the wrong thing to say, which it objectively was, but because he thought it was right. It was what he wanted to hear.  

I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Mateo, who groaned in pain in time with my “Amen”.  He kept looking at me, looking with those puffy wet eyes.  Judging me; lumping me in with that maniac.  And why not?  If we keep company with monsters, are we not monsters too?  Isn’t that what Nick would call fellowship?  And what difference did it make when you were nailed to a cross in a barn in the middle of nowhere?

 
Mateo must have sensed what was coming before I did; sensed my inherent threat.  Nick’s plans for me involved more than just witnessing.  Through all his incoherent ramblings, he was clear about that much at least.  It wasn’t enough for me to see the new vessel.  Knowing, Nick explained, did not always accompany witnessing.  In order to know that Mateo was divine, I was going to have to participate. 

 
He said that Mateo had a kind of amnesia.  This body had none of the memories of when he was Jesus, so Mateo had no idea what he was.  We had to remind the body of its previous life... 

And death.  That was the most important part, Nick explained.  Mateo’s body had to remember how it died.

 
Nick had already done most of the work.  After he saw how Mateo’s shiner heal so completely, he knew he had found the right vessel.  Recreating the scourging was no problem for such a biblical scholar as Nick but convincing him to come to the barn was a challenge.  He said he told him he had a box of old Playboys in there.  Nick of all people.  

He had already taken Mateo’s body to the threshold of death’s door, but when he pointed the handle of that pitchfork towards me, my heart sunk as I realized he wanted me to push him through it.

He called me Longinus, whoever the fuck that was, and said that it would save my soul.  Giggling... He was giggling when he told me how happy he was that I would finally see with my own eyes.

 
But I didn’t see... not what he thought I would see.  I wish I could tell you that I saw horns in Nick’s shadow, a forked tongue, or his head spinning 180 degrees.  I wish I could tell you that I saw something, anything that would explain the evil that went on in that barn.  But the only evil I saw that day was born of misguided faith; that and greed.  Because had it not been for Nick’s misapplication of the meaning of God’s “grace”, Mateo would still be alive.   

While Nick’s actions were unforgivable, they still followed a sick logic.  It was my own behavior that even now I struggle to explain.  When I had it in my hand, for a second, I considered putting it in Nick’s chest.  I could have stopped him right then, but I didn’t.  Just like that possum; I had my out and I just...

 
When the tips of the prongs touched Mateo’s mottled ribs, his eyes opened wide.  He stared right at me as I did it and what I saw was not fear.  Not hate.  Not righteous rage at being brutalized, beaten, and tortured.    

No, the look in his eyes, like the look in that possum’s right before it played chicken with two and a half tons of Japanese steel, was the look of someone that knew that their end was imminent and had let go of all of their earthly burdens.  What did Mateo have to fear as that pitchfork sunk past the bony plate of ribs into the vital workings of the boy as he hung.  What good would that hate do his soul, if he carried it with him into the afterlife?

 
The look on Mateo’s face, as he took his final breaths, was grace.  Not this prosperity gospel revisionist bullshit that Nick had warped to suit his own desires, but real grace.  The kind that even a godless heathen like me could understand and recognize instinctively.   

I've thought about what we did in that barn every day since.  It follows me like a shadow.  But it’s not the fear of what Nick would have done to me, or the memories of my own acts that haunt my dreams.  It was the look in Mateo’s eyes.  All the blood and the bruises, the nails, the barbed wire, even that pitchfork.  The brutality we inflicted on Mateo’s body only illuminated that horrible light in his eyes; a light that in that moment I knew I would never know.   

And then... the light went out.

 
On the way back to the church, Nick gave me so many attaboys I thought I would puke.  Then we went our separate ways and I did.  I called in an anonymous tip immediately, but there was never anything about Mateo in the papers.  I went back a couple of days later and somehow managed to find the barn.  The cross, and Mateo along with it, was gone, like it had never existed, like it had been raptured into thin air.  

I never showed up for my next shift at the theater.  I just no-called until they fired me; they were used to kids flaking out on them.  It didn’t make me comfortable knowing that Nick was out there, but he only knew me through work and the music scene.  As long as I was a hermit, our orbits would never intersect. 

 
I wish I could tell you that the guilt of what we did to Mateo was punishment in and of itself, but that is a lie that we tell ourselves because the truth is too horrible to face.  That we do horrible things to each other and then we move on with our lives.  That we can excuse the most loathsome of acts as long as we believe that we are in God’s good graces.  That we are somehow special and not replaceable pieces in a machine that we were never meant to understand. 

 
But I was not destroyed by what I had witnessed in that barn, what I had participated in. It loomed large in my mind in the beginning, but eventually it became a dull background hum.  I can’t say exactly when I started to live my life again, but I can say when I went back to the movie theater.  It was May 5th, 2001; opening weekend of The Mummy Returns.  The first one came out when I still worked there.   

By that point, I had already completed my first semester at the University of Florida.  I was in town for the weekend feeling like the cock of the walk.  Part of me was hoping to run into an old coworker that I could beguile with one of my newly-acquired college life anecdotes.  Maybe I’d see one of the girls I never had the confidence to ask out.

 
There were no girls, unless you count Pat the 70-year-old lesbian that worked the box office.  I recognized a couple of the guys sweeping popcorn, but I had already forgotten their names.  The one person I did recognize was the new GM. He had put on a little weight since the last time I saw him, and he had a new haircut as well.  Spiked fade, frosted tips; all the rage amongst douchebags back then.

 
We didn’t talk, but he made eye contact and smiled.  Then he nodded his head, as if such a gesture could carry the weight of what hung between the two of us.  Nodded.  Like we were at a punk show or something.   

After the movie, I drove up to the front row of spaces.  Next to the handicap spots, there was a spot designated for the GM. Parked in that spot was a brand-new red Toyota Tundra.  The license plate holder read “Saved by Grace”. 

 
I’m not ashamed to admit that I keyed the fucker. 

 
He should have been in jail.  We should have been in jail.  But it was like he was being rewarded, like he was living the good life.   

I drank a lot in college.  Maybe it was the guilt.  Maybe that was just what I told myself.  But it didn’t really feel like I earned that MBA, since I barely remembered my nights.  And when I landed my first job, I called it beginner’s luck.   

But a part of me knows, it has never been luck.  I’m a skeptic.  I dismiss the concept at its face.  I believe what I have reason to believe, what I have seen, what I have witnessed.  And what I have witnessed -what I have participated in- makes me believe in an afterlife.  I saw it in that possum’s eyes, the same light that was in Mateo’s.  That was grace, true divine grace.

 
But I also know that the grace that Nick preached about is real too.  My whole life is proof of its existence.  What we did in that barn got us in someone's good graces, but I don’t think that it was God.

 

When people bury bodies in movies, it never looks quite right.  Those Hollywood guys just show dirt. No rocks, no sticks, no roots even though there isn’t a tree or bush in sight.  Krystin’s grandma had a little bulldog.  When it died, it took me three tries before I found a patch of earth that was just earth. 

Some asshole that lived on that lot before her must have tore up the old driveway and just buried all the pieces instead of getting a dumpster.  As if any of us could afford to get a dumpster.  Still, I got it done.  I always get it done when it’s a job that only a man could do.  It’s not like Krystin would ever do it.  I don’t think she ever could.

 
Sometimes, I get a tickle of nostalgia, and I can almost convince myself that she wasn’t always this bad.  And then I think about the rabbit.  If two male rabbits share the same space, they will fight to the death.  You’d think that would be something they tell you when they sell you a male rabbit.  They’re so docile and cute and then... 

 
So, that’s how Disco ended up outside.  Bebop had tenure, and besides, he’d come from a pet store and not the flea market.  She talked me into it really.  ‘We have that fence’  ‘He’s from the flea market’  ‘Probably half wild anyway’   I nodded along, but I’m not an idiot.  I know where rabbits sit on the food chain.  And a couple times I almost got her to talk about a better solution, but when the sunlight hit a certain spot on the living room floor, the bottle came out and the conversation was over.   

I remember thinking that it had been a while since I last saw Disco, though now I think I already knew what I’d find, just not where.  He was just a couple of feet in front of the window by the kitchen sink.  He always used to kind of freeze up when you got close to him, so at first, I indulged in the delusion that he was still alive.  Just a little puffy.  Just a little stiff. 

I don’t know what got him.  I can still remember how white his skull was, how his floppy brown ears just sloughed off along with chunks of his little face.  The bugs are so bad in this part of the state.  There were a lot of rocks in the ground that day.  It was a miserable job even before the rain started.  That night she brought home Sake and we watched Howl’s Moving Castle.  I can’t tell you how it ended.  

Then there was the time I had to use up my pto.  I got really good at digging holes during that “staycation”.  It would have been nice if we started a garden.  Maybe Krystin could have had another project.   

It was that goddamned cat; a skanky little calico that was always getting out.  We said we would get her fixed, but it always seemed to be five o’clock when we remembered we had to do it.  I didn’t have any plans for my time off from work, but I sure as hell didn’t plan on burying a litter of kittens.  I read somewhere that the first litter usually doesn’t make it anyway, but I don’t think it’s supposed to go the way it did. 

Momma had fleas.  We tried to get rid of them.  We scrubbed and combed, but they were infested.  For every kitten, there were hundreds of swarming bloodsuckers.  They were crawling under their eyelids, in their nostrils. 

 
We did what we could, but it became immediately apparent that the baths were a bad idea.  We didn’t really get the fleas off them anyway, and we couldn’t get them dry fast enough.  Sometimes, I try to imagine what it must have felt like; all those little mouths draining them.  They were so cold.   

I dug a hole every day that week, one for each fading kitten.  Each morning, before Krystin could see them, I’d check the litter and see which kittens had ceased being living things and had become simply things in the night.  The holes didn’t have to be deep, for their ephemeral remains, but it was a job that had to be done by someone.   

It’s funny how people just sort of naturally divide labor when they live together.  Laundry was her job, the dishes mine.  Taking the trash out was obviously a man’s job, though I had no idea that job included monitoring the lid.  She kept leaving it open.  Stashing the evidence.  Like I wouldn’t see it when I took it out. 

 
I didn’t even blame the opossum really; it was just doing what an opossum does.  If we got trash service in the park, I wouldn’t have had to do it.  But I had to haul that shit bag by bag in the bed of my Dodge.  When my nocturnal raider tore through the bags, all the trash would combine in the bottom of the can and just cook.  By the time I had a day off and could make a dump trip, it was just this maggoty mound of slimy gray filth.  It smelled like I was robbing a grave.  Krystin would never understand.  She was always a little queasy.  I couldn’t get her within 50 feet of that thing even if I wanted to.   

I remember expecting the can to be empty.  I jumped when I heard the little claws scrambling for purchase.  He couldn’t get out with all the trash gone.  I tried to get him to run away, but they don’t do that when they’re scared.  I just kept thinking of the smell.  I didn’t think I could take it anymore, but the goddamn thing wouldn’t just go away.  Pretending to be dead.  It was like it was mocking me.  How did that strategy ever work in nature?  But I guess a man is not the natural enemy of an opossum.  Man’s the only animal cruel enough to kill something that’s already dead.  

It sounded like cracking a giant knuckle.  Then it was swiping at its head, like it could push away the source of its blind panic.  One more solid pop put him out of his misery, and then I hosed off the aluminum bat and put it back behind the door where we kept it.  I had to dig another hole, but by that point I was a pro. After that night, it didn’t really matter if she left the lid open.  My job was done.  

Maybe I should be fairer about her... though, considering recent events...  But I love her, I wouldn’t be down here if I didn’t.  It wasn’t all bad.  St. Augustine was a highlight, even if it had been too cold to get in the water.  We found other ways to keep warm.  A few weeks later, we had to make a doctor’s appointment, and then it was the happiest nine months of our relationship.

 
She didn’t stop entirely.  She kept finding ways to work it into conversation.  ‘Actually, now they say it’s ok to have one drink’... ‘One little glass of red wine is good for you’ But I could tell the difference.  All of a sudden, we had all this money left in the bank account.  Even if I ignored how cranky she was now, the statement said it all.  Neither one of us dared broach the subject for fear of jynxing it.  I even allowed myself to fantasize about what our new life might be like.  But a new life with old habits could never last.

 
We named her Krystal, spelled with a K to honor her mother.  An apt name for a soul that sparkled as bright as my baby’s did.  If only I could have invoked her namesake; seen how it all would end, I would have named her after anyone else...

 
She was a Valentine’s baby... the thirteenth, but I still thought she was a gift from cupid.  With good reason too; it was the best it had ever been with me and Krystin.  I had paternity leave and for four weeks we were just... normal.  I felt like I had been holding my breath since I met her and I could finally breathe easy.

 
When the paychecks started getting thin, I assumed it was just diapers and formula.  But after she applied for WIC and I still ended up in line at Amscot, I started paying attention again.    

 
I should have been off the day it happened.  I was off until they called me.  All I could make out was ‘mouse’ and ‘office’ through the din of squeals and shrieks.  It was a job only I could handle.  I wouldn’t say I relished my duty, but I did what had to be done.  After I had him trapped in the dustpan, I tried to imagine I was churning butter.  It didn’t really work.  In the quiet of an alley, a mouse can be surprisingly loud... when it’s the last sound it makes.

 
I don’t know what Krystal’s last sound was, but I think it probably was a lot like that sound.
While I was doing a job that only a man could do, Krystin went out to get diapers.  The sports bar was a new tenant in the plaza, only a couple months into their lease.  She’d probably been eyeing it the whole time, just lying in wait.  

She told me she left the air on... and I believe her, but not for romantic reasons.  Certainly not for love.  I believe her because she didn’t know about the shut off.  The key was in her purse the whole time.  It was supposed to be a safety feature, for carbon monoxide.  It was supposed to save lives.

 
When I got home and they were gone, I just assumed she’d gone thrifting.  I tried to will my delusion into existence.   I expected the old kind of bad... but we had a new life now.  I could smell the booze through the phone.  I thought she was asking me to cook for the baby, but a part of me knew I was willing that ‘for’ into existence just as badly.
I can only see fragments.  Eyes that would never close.  A fly taking liberties with a tiny nostril.  A once living thing that was now simply a thing.  

It would be easy to hate her, and a part of me does.  But she wasn’t the only thing lying in wait.  

So, it would appear that I have another hole to dig.  It doesn’t have to be a big hole; the remains of angels are small and ephemeral.  But maybe I’ll make this hole just a little bit longer, and a little bit wider.  Maybe I’ll find a patch of earth that’s just earth.  Maybe my work isn’t over.  Maybe... there’s one more job to do.    

The first time that the man saw the night manager, with his silver dollar eyes and chicken bone teeth, he thought he had seen the face of the reaper himself.  That bony bastard had taken his wife from him already, and now he had come for the man himself.  But by the light of day, he could see that the night manager was not a man. 
 
Not a man at all. 
 
The man’s neighbor was a farmer.  People came from miles around to buy his sweet musk melons, which were the envy of all the other farmers in their humble hamlet.  The neighbor worked hard to keep up with the demand for his melons, which perfumed the air and drew the attention of pedestrians and drivers alike to his roadside melon stand. 
 
The man thought that his neighbor worked too hard and should take more time to relax.  This was because he was an old man now; and he was all alone.  His son would soon be an old man too and had long ago learned to live without the man in his life.  When the man’s wife died, he moved from the home they had made together.  That house was too much house for him now that he was all alone.  So, he moved to a place that was barely a place and a house that didn’t deserve to be called a house.
 
When his neighbor let him try his “famous” musk melon, the man had to admit that it was the sweetest fruit he had ever tasted.  But afterwards, it made his lips tingle, and his tongue tripped over his words. 
 
“Wh-what’s the secret?” asked the man.  “Wh-why’s it so sweet?”.  But the neighbor just smiled and cut into another musk melon with his knife.  The seeds burst forth in a slow ooze as the air filled with an intoxicating honey sweet funk.  After slicing it into wedges, he thrust his sharp knife into the table with a THWUNK...
 
“I want to introduce you to someone,” said the neighbor, after they’d eaten their fill of that strange, sweet melon.  The man watched as his neighbor went to the shed on the side of his house.  When the neighbor was inside the shed, the man thought he heard him talking to someone.  When he returned, he was carrying what could only be an enormous doll.  But when the neighbor sat the night manager on the table, he finally understood what he truly was. 
 
“You like him?  This here’s my night manager.  He watches the stand at night...,” said the neighbor. 
 
The night manager stared at the man with those silver dollar eyes of his, grinning a toothy, chicken bone smile.  His eyes were sunk very deep into that red clay face of his; right down to the still-wet clay of his brain.  Bones jauntily jutting from crude clay gums, smiling that crooked forced smile. 
 
“Normally I don’t make 'em this scary,” said the neighbor.  “Scarin’ birds is easy, but scarin’ a man?  That’s a sonofabitch, I’ll tell you what....”
 
The man looked at the night manager’s chest, which seemed much fuller than that of a normal scarecrow. 
 
“What’s in his chest?” asked the man, but he suddenly did not want to know the answer. 
 
“Rose bush,” said the neighbor.  “I built his bones from branches and filled his heart with thorns.  That way, if anyone tries to steal the money bowl, the night manager will stick ‘em...  Stick ‘em real good....”
 
“Oh...” said the man, but he didn’t understand how a scarecrow was supposed to prevent a thief in the night from stealing the money bowl and eating their fill of musk melons.  The man also did not believe his neighbor when he insisted that he needed to stay open all night for his “late night regulars”, which the man feared were figments of his neighbor’s imagination.
 
“I get plenty of folks at night...  Plenty...” said the neighbor.  “Certainly enough hungry fools wandering this lonely road day and night to warrant putting the night manager in charge once the sun goes down,”
 
As the sky took on a lavender hue, the night manager’s red clay features seemed to darken, and his chicken bone smile looked forced.  It was almost time for the neighbor to go to bed, almost time for the night manager to do his job. 
 
“Now look here... You’re going to have to know how to do this when I’m in Loozyanner,” said the neighbor.  And the neighbor positioned the night manager on the table and put the money bowl in his lap. 
 
“All the folks who come at night are regulars,” said the neighbor.  “They already know how much I charge.”  The farmer smiled at the night manager and said: “Those hungry fools are just following their noses.  They’re too scared of the night manager to steal from me.  As long as they get their melons, they won’t give you no problems...”
 
Then the man and his neighbor left the night manager to watch the melon stand while they ate a hearty supper.  The neighbor made cornbread, but it wasn’t sweet like the cornbread that the man’s wife used to make.  It was smoky and tasted like the grease that the neighbor seasoned his cast iron skillet with.  The man washed it down with the sour buttermilk that his neighbor seemed so fond of and ate what he could of the bland beans and greens.  His neighbor lived alone like he did, but he had a son that still talked to him and a new granddaughter that he needed to go see in person.
 
The man did not want to watch his neighbor’s melon stand while he was gone, but he felt like he owed him because it was the best meal he had eaten since his wife died.  The man didn’t do much anyway and at least he would have people to talk to.  The job was not difficult because his neighbor had already harvested a surplus of melons.  All the man needed to do was collect the money from the customers and put the night manager out before he left for the day.  If he needed to dispose of any rotten melons, the neighbor told him to bring them to the back edge of the property, so as not to attract pests.
 
The first day was quieter than the man had expected.  Maybe his neighbor had been over-inflating the fame of his fruit.  But the man had tasted the melon, and it had been the sweetest he had ever known.  By the end of the day, he only sold three melons.  He worried his neighbor would think that he shirked his responsibility.  A man was only as good as his word after all.
 
“Hope you have better luck than I did,” said the man to the night manager.  Then he retired to his barely a house to sleep.
 
When he returned in the morning, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  The melon pile was nearly empty, and the money bowl was overflowing.  In his haste to secure the funds inside his neighbor’s safe, he forgot to put the night manager away.  When he returned, he left the night manager on the table.  If there weren’t going to be any customers, at least he could keep the man company.
 
“I can’t believe he makes all that money while he sleeps,” said the man. 
 
“...lots of people walk down this road at night...” whispered the night manager.
 
The man refused to believe what his ears had just relayed to his mind.  “It’s this godawful heat,” thought the man, but he put the night manager back in the shed either way.  He stopped by his neighbor’s house and helped himself to some iced tea.  While he was gone, a family of four pulled over by the stand, but with no one attending it, they just drove away.  Nobody else stopped for the rest of the day and when the sky turned from blue to lavender and the air cooled just the slightest bit, the man knew it was time to get the night manager again. 
 
This time he was sure not to speak a word to the night manager.  He would just keep his opinions to himself.  Even though he felt the branches and clay with his own two hands, the man kept looking over his shoulder at the night manager, as if he was going to follow him home.
 
There wasn’t any money in the money bowl the next day; and the melon pile was a lot lighter too.  The man didn’t understand what he had done wrong.
 
“What happened?” cried the man in frustration.
 
“...you kept me up all day...” whispered the night manager through his boney teeth.  “...those hungry fools are going to eat either way...”
 
Once again, the man put the night manager in the shed and tried to pretend he had not heard what he heard; tried not to think of those shiny silver dollar eyes.  “It must be hotter than it feels” thought the man.  
 
When he returned to the stand, he noticed there were several melons that had sprouted moldy patches and would need to be taken to the edge of his neighbor’s property so as not to attract pests.  Once he had finished culling the pile of rotten fruit, he realized he had to harvest more melons.  So, he trudged up and down through the rows of his neighbor's melon patch, slicing the vines with his neighbor’s knife, the same knife that was used to feed him that heavenly fruit just days before.  The man moved slowly and the melons made his old joints pop and creak.  The mosquitoes made a meal out of the salty blood that ran just beneath the skin in the creases on the back of his neck.  By the time he refilled the melon pile, the man’s shadow was long on the ground. 
 
Despite the late hour, the man felt good, proud of the fruits of his labor.  He sold three melons to a mechanic going home to his family and another two to some children pulling a red wagon.   Emboldened by this late-day sales rush, he decided to stay a bit longer and see these “hungry fools” that his neighbor insisted were his most loyal customers.
 
For a while, the man heard nothing.  Once again, he felt like he had done something wrong, and he worried that he was going to run his neighbor’s business into the ground.  Finally, when he was about to take the night manager out and call it a night, a young man walked up to the stand.
 
“Are you the new night manager?” asked the young man, moonlight reflecting from his pale blue eyes, making them shimmer like silver.
 
“I-I-I...I’m the new manager,” said the man, his words abandoning him mid- sentence. 
 
“Can I have a discount?” asked the young man, his voice filling the spaces that the older man’s had left vacant.  “The night manager usually gives me a discount,” he said.  “Because I’m such a loyal customer.”
 
The man didn’t know what to do.  They had already lost a full night of sales.  He couldn’t afford to give people discounts, no matter how loyal they were.  Think of the precedent that would set.  This young man could tell his friends.
 
“It’s full price or nothing my friend.  Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”  said the man.
 
“But aren’t you the manager?” said the young man.
 
“Well... Yes... but my neighbor is the owner of the business and pricing is at his discretion,” said the man. 
 
“Sounds like a cop out to me.  What’s the point in being the manager if you can’t make decisions?  If all they wanted you to do was collect money for the melons, they could just put a dummy out here with a bowl for the cash,” said the young man.  The young man looked into the older man’s eyes, but it was too dark to make out their features.  All they could see of each other in the pale moonlight were the whites of their eyes and teeth. 
 
“I’ll pay the full price,” said the young man, “But I'm not afraid of you, you know?”  He dropped a fistful of crumpled bills into the money bowl and selected a fragrant musk melon from the pile.  As he walked down the lonely black road, the young man cracked the melon in two with his bare hands, loudly slurping the sweet juicy flesh of the ripe melon.  The man attempted to retrieve the night manager, but without any light, he feared he would cut himself on the night manager’s thorny limbs and jagged teeth. 
 
When his neighbor told him it would be another week before he returned home, the man worried he would not be able to leave long enough to buy groceries.
 
“But how will I buy groceries?” said the man.  “I need to be here in case somebody wants to buy a musk melon.”
 
“I made an extra skillet of cornbread and stuck it in the freezer for when I got back.  It’s got your name on it.  And drink the rest of that buttermilk before it goes bad.  I won’t be that much longer.” said the neighbor.
 
The man almost choked on that dry smoky cornbread. Almost gagged on that thick sour buttermilk.  He wished he would have watched his wife do it, make cornbread that was sweet and moist, but he never needed to know how to cook.  Never that is, until now.
 
“If my neighbor's going to be longer,” the man thought, “I’ll have to pick more melons.”  But the prospect of it made his old joints despair.  “How does he do it?” he wondered, “His belly’s much bigger than mine.”
 
The task loomed ominously like a storm cloud in his mind.  By the time it fell dark, it was all he could think about.  He didn’t even seem to notice the night manager, as he adjusted his thorny limbs on the table. 
 
“He can’t really expect me to do that, can he?” said the man.
 
“...do what?...” whispered the night manager.
 
Before he could register the source of the question, he replied: “Harvest all those melons!”  Then he was silent.  They both were, not for a long time, but just long enough for the hairs on the back of the man’s bug-bitten neck to stand at attention.
 
“...I can do it...” said the night manager; his voice was a gravelly hiss.  “...your neighbor taught me how... all I need... is a knife...”
 
He felt like a fool when he nestled his neighbor’s knife in the night manager’s thorny fingers.  But, as he attended to the needs of the hungry regulars in the night, the night manager worked diligently slicing those vines with speed and precision.  It sounded like the wind to hear him at work, like a great twisting and snapping of limbs, a forest at war with a cyclone.
 
By sunrise, there was a huge surplus of melons, far more than the man could have harvested himself. 
 
“Great job!” said the man, “But now it’s time to sleep.”  He picked up the night manager to carry him to the shed.  But as he was carrying him the night manager whispered: “… you can’t go to sleep… you have to watch the stand…”.
 
“Ohhh, leave me alone,” said the man.  “You’re not my boss!”
 
But after tossing and turning and struggling with the light that kept creeping into his house that almost wasn’t even a house, the man walked back to his neighbor’s melon stand and waited for someone to come by. 
 
He didn’t have to wait long, because the sun burned bright in the cloudless Sunday sky, and the breeze carried the aroma of the honey sweet melons all over that place that barely deserved to be called a place.  At first, it was just a few people at a time, and the man would smile and have a little chat with each one.  He’d let them take their time with the melons, let them smell them and poke at the rind. 
 
But the people just kept coming.  “Doesn’t anyone work around here?” thought the man as he exchanged money for melon, money for melon, money for melon.  It felt like his brain had the hiccups, and he had to focus to keep the smile on his face.  By midday, his stomach was rumbling and by dusk it was a full-on roar.  The man had been bathing in melon musk all day; the temptation was indescribable.  
 
“Where is that knife?” said the man before taking out a humble pen knife of his own.  “This will have to do.” he said, and he used his own knife to slice open a musk melon, sticky and oozing with seeds.   He was so hungry, he bit straight into the melon slurping noisily as he sucked down its flesh.  He ate every bit of it, hollowing it to the rind.
 
When he set the night manager up for the night, he still stunk of the sweet juicy melon.  The night manager could smell the stinking musk on him, could see the stinking rind. 
 
“...you shouldn’t have done that...” whispered the night manager.
 
“D-done w-what?” slurred the man, his words seeming to get snagged in the sticky sweet juice that was solidifying into a pale film on his lips. 
 
“...he doesn’t like when you eat them...  I... don’t like when you eat them...” whispered the night manager.  “...those melons make men into fools... hungry fools that will never be satisfied...”
 
“J-just d-do y-your j-job n-night m-m-manager... a-a-a-anndd I’ll d-do mine.” slurred the man. 
 
The man slept well that night but found waking difficult the next day and his stomach screamed at him to be fed.  He ate the last of his neighbor’s cornbread, choked down with that sour white buttermilk, and set out to relieve the night manager for the day.  It had been a good night, as evidenced by the money in the money bowl and the rinds that littered the road. 

“Good job, night manager,” said the man as he gazed into those silver dollar eyes.  The chicken bones seemed to smile even wider when the man put the night manager in the shed.  And when the man closed the door, his silver eyes stayed open in the dark.
 
Time took its time that morning, and the work seemed like it would never come to an end.  The man knew he needed to do something about all the discarded rinds that now littered the shoulders of the lonely road that he lived on.  But he didn’t feel like doing that, didn’t feel like doing anything at all.  “Why doesn’t he just eat the melons?” thought the man.  “I’d keep them all to myself.”
 
His customers didn’t talk much, but they all left happy.  Most of them couldn’t wait to cut open their melons, and he left his own pen knife on the table for the customer’s convenience.  But, as the crowd started to thin and the sky took on a darker hue, he noticed that his knife had gone missing and his mood took a darker hue too.
 
“It was one of those damn hungry fools!” cried the man to the night manager, who had just taken over for the night.  

“...I told you they’ll never be satisfied...” whispered the night manager.  “...their hunger makes them witless... mindless gnawing fools...”
 
That night, the man resolved to call his neighbor in the morning and give him a piece of his mind.  But when he collected the money the next day and compared it to the pile of melons they had left, he noticed a significant discrepancy. 
 
“What happened, night manager?  Did those fools try to rip us off?”  asked the man.
 
“...the moon was thin and the clouds were thick... my silvery eyes could not see in the dark... perhaps if I had glasses like yours...” whispered the night manager with his chicken bone teeth.
 
The man called his neighbor and gave him the bad news.  The business was bleeding money, and his night manager couldn’t see at night.
 
“Hell, son... just give him yours.  You ain’t usin’ ‘em at night.” said the neighbor.  “He’s all borrowed pieces.  Where d’you think he got that hat of his?”
 
“Y-you I g-guess,” slurred the man.
 
“You alright there, neighbor?” asked the neighbor.  “You ain’t gettin’ into my patch now, are ya?  They sweet, but they’ll never fill you up.  The cravings... liable to turn a man into a dumb animal... a hungry fool roaming the night.”
 
“Th-they’re qu-quite good,” said the man
 
“Incidentally, I’m going to be staying just the teensiest bit longer,” said the neighbor.  “This baby girl just doesn't want to let me go... Ain’t that right baby doll?” and then the conversation, for all practical purposes, was over.  That night he let the night manager wear his glasses; he didn’t need them at night after all.
 
When the man made his way to the stand, tripping and stumbling the whole time, he expected to see a big pile of money in the money bowl.  But after retrieving his glasses from the night manager and performing some ad hoc accounting, he could see that the stand was still bleeding money. 
 
“What’s your excuse this time, night manager?” said the man, wearing his feelings on his sleeve.  The heat was making everyone miserable.
 
The night manager stared with that same blank expression of his, silver eyes reflecting the bright morning sun.  A fat black fly slalomed drunkenly through his chicken bone teeth.   Then the fly landed and started crawling around the red clay mouth and into the wet clay brain of the night manager.  The fly was not alone, the man noticed, as the rinds left behind by their idiot clientele had attracted pests in the night. 
 
The man felt let down by the night manager, especially after lending him his glasses.  He was revolted by his neighbor’s rude regulars and their boorish behavior.  The night manager had allowed this to go on during his watch.  What good was he if he couldn’t scare a few hungry fools?
 
“Clean up this mess!” said the man and refused to put the night manager away until it was done.  The inventory was picked over, and many of the melons wept juice where the night manager’s thorny fingers had pierced the rind.  By the time the rinds had been moved to the back of the neighbor’s property, the night manager’s shadow was long on the ground. 
 
“…please… let me rest…” whispered the night manager.  “… I was not built for this type of labor…”
 
The man looked at the night manager, with his eyes that shined so much less brightly now.  He could see the dead fly stuck in the back of his throat.  In this piteous state, all the man could think about was his neighbor and the hopeless position he had put him in.  Why should he stay up for that man’s benefit?  He didn’t even know how to make his cornbread taste sweet.
 
So, he put the night manager in his shed and retired to his house, even if it didn’t deserve the title.  He thought he’d get a good night’s sleep and start afresh in the morning.  It was important to get your rest after all.
 
But the man found sleep difficult; there was such a commotion outside.  He thought it was a pack of coyotes, growling and barking at something.  They weren’t quite in his yard, but they were close.  The sound was so close, but it wasn’t coming from where the man expected it to.  It wasn’t to the south, near the edge of the neighbor’s property that was just raw woods.  It was coming from the north; coming from that road.
 
The man knew he needed to harvest more melons, but the sight of that patch filled him with dread.  Even though his joints would be screaming, he kept thinking of the night manager with his dumb smile choked with dead flies.  He had to pull his weight.  And though his knees bulged with fluid, and his hands hung vestigial in arthritic agony; as his shadow grew long, the melon pile grew fat.  He left everything he had in the melon patch, every last effort he could muster, every last drop of sweat.
 
He turned over a fully stocked stand to the night manager, along with a pair of sweat-stained specs.  Every muscle in his body wanted him to grimace, but his smile just couldn’t take the hint.
 
“Give ‘em hell, night manager,” said the man.  Then he retired for a well-deserved rest, taking a musk melon home for dinner.  He had watched several people examine that melon before selecting another.  It looked lonely to him, so he decided to take it to his house, where they could be lonely together. 
 
With fresh inventory and a well-rested night manager, the man felt confident when he checked the money bowl the next day.  But once again, the numbers didn’t add up.  Those fools were taking liberties.  The man was fed up with their nonsense, fed up with his night manager and his buffoonish bony grin.
 
“What gives, night manager?” said the man.  “You giving those fools a discount?”
 
“…no, sir… you misunderstand…” whispered the night manager.  “…those fools get so loud when they’re hungry…they cannot hear me… my chicken bone teeth are only built for whispers…”. The night manager stared at the man, his silver eyes gleaming in the new morning light.  “…perhaps if I had teeth like yours…”
 
“Surely, the night manager was joking” thought the man.  And though, like his glasses, the man didn’t really need his dentures at the end of the night, he still liked the idea of them being in a cup better than them being in the night manager; even if he was using them to tell those fools who was the boss.
 
“…give me your teeth… and get what is owed for our efforts…” whispered the night manager.  “…or don’t… and don’t… those fools are going to eat either way…”.
 
The man had all day to consider the night manager’s proposal and few customers to interrupt his thoughts.  As the day wore on, he kept finding his eyes drawn to the money bowl, its lightness weighing heavy in his mind.  “These melons are so tender and juicy...” thought the man.  “Don’t even need teeth to eat ‘em...”.
 
The night manager looked very professional with his new teeth and glasses; not that the man could tell.  To him, he was a man-shaped outline, just another shadow in the night.  “Give ‘em hell, night manager!” cried the manager, but without teeth his attaboy fell mute.  He almost choked gumming down his dinner melon that night, but if it was good for the stand, it would be worth it. 
 
As he approached the stand the next morning, he didn’t need glasses to see the night had not gone well.  He stepped on a rind in the road; one of many.  Crumpled bills littered the table, and the money bowl was knocked on the ground.  As he retrieved his glasses, reality came into focus.  Someone, one of those damn fools, had unbuttoned the night manager’s flannel work shirt, exposing his thorny heart and bushy body. 
 
The man didn’t know what to do.  Even after stuffing the night manager back into his shirt, he still wouldn’t say a word.  The place was a mess and the man was overwhelmed.  Those damn hungry fools just kept walking all over them.  He was out of ideas, so he called his neighbor who informed him he would still be a while longer.
 
“Gonna be a lil’ longer, ol’ buddy... you understand, right?” said the neighbor.  The man’s heart sank.  He could hear the high-pitched giggles of his neighbor’s granddaughter; hear her happiness, so light and pure.  When would it be his turn to relax?  When would he be free of this endless cycle of melons and money and fools.
 
“It’s those damn fools!” shouted the man.
 
The neighbor guffawed like he just heard the world’s best stag party joke and for a minute, the man thought that his neighbor forgot he was on the phone with him.  After a long sigh, he said:  “Boy, you lettin’ them fools run all over you!  Man up!  You gotta show ‘em who’s boss, you hear?”
 
“Yes... I guess.”  said the man.
 
“Look,” said the neighbor, “I know how that place can get.  It’s hard work and those fools will try to eat you alive if you let them.  But you have help... Use it.”.
 
“The night manager?” asked the man.
 
“Hell yeah!  You got him sitting around wearing your teeth and glasses!  No wonder them fools tried to mess with him.  They thought it was you!” said the neighbor.  “Now I see what your problem is...  You got too close to the help,”
 
The neighbor continued: “He’s supposed to be scary.  He ain’t scarin’ no one looking like a sad old man.  You gotta be mean to him.  Spit in those stupid silver eyes.  He ain’t gonna like it, but you’ll get better work out of him that way.”
 
So, from then on, the man was mean to the night manager.  He slapped his stupid clay face until his bony teeth wore a scowl.  He pushed his silver dollar eyes even further into his wet clay brain.  He mocked his whispery voice and made fun of his bushy belly.   His tactics were brutally effective.  The man watched the money bowl grow heavy as the weight on his shoulders grew lighter.
 
“I need you to work a double, night manager”
 
“Those melons aren’t going to harvest themselves, night manager”
 
“Clean up these rinds!  This place is disgusting!  You call yourself a manager!”
 
And so on, and so forth; motivation mutating into malice.  The man shifted more and more of the responsibility to the night manager, whose thorny limbs seemed too frail and brittle to support such a heavy burden.  It got to the point that the only thing the man did each day was collect the money from the money bowl, eating melon in his not even a house day and night. 
 
The night manager couldn’t keep the rinds out of the road.  He couldn’t keep up with the culling, couldn’t even deal with the flies.  He tried to replenish the pile, but pests found their way to the patch.   Musk melons lay disemboweled in the dirt; honey sweet rot in the sun.  The funk took on a new character, attracting exotic new insects as well; new hungry fools to buzz around his bushy belly and climb in the clay of his brain.  “...no more...” thought the night manager. 
 
As the old man slept in his barely a bed in his house that could hardly be called a house, the night manager paid him a visit. 
 
“Get up old man!” shouted the night manager, his chicken bone teeth rattling from the effort.  “It’s time to go to work!” 
 
The night manager held the man’s wrists in his thorny grasp as he dragged him like a toddler throwing a tantrum.  The melon stand was invisible in the dark of the night, but the musk of the melon guts was unmistakable.  That honey sweet stench smelled like carrion now.  As the man’s eyes adjusted to the scraps of what was left of the light, he could see that the melon pile was empty.  He could see that their job was done.
 
“No more melons...” said the man.  “Can’t sell what you don’t have, right, night manager?” 
 
But the night manager said nothing at first.  No acknowledgment of the obvious truth.  No sign of solidarity or sanity.  For a minute, he was just clay and coins, bones and branches; a thing made of other things, the borrowed bits of anyone that came near that cursed ground.  For a minute, he didn’t say anything, and the man just gazed into those silver dollar eyes and toothy chicken bone smile, and then the night manager spoke.
 
“...you know, that’s really the wrong type of attitude to have about this place...  it’s not about money... your neighbor knew that...” hissed the night manager.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked the man, indignant at the sudden reminder of the person that had gotten him into this mess in the first place, this endless cycle of labor and abuse, of madness. 
 
“It’s fruit, how hard could it be?  If a good ol’ boy like him can do it, anyone can,” said the man.
 
Suddenly, and with a speed that defied comprehension, the night manager lifted the man onto the table with his unforgiving arms.  He slammed the money bowl into the man’s lap and stared sternly with those blank silver eyes.
 
“B-b-but I don’t have any m-melons..” whimpered the man.
 
The night manager reached into his branchy, bushy chest, deep past his thorny heart and drew something forth from the depths of his borrowed body.  It was a knife; his neighbor’s trusty melon knife, which he thrust into the table with a THWUNK!
 
“...I tried to tell you before... those fools will never be satisfied... they’re going to eat either way...”
 
The night manager didn’t hear anything when he walked down the path in the dark.  It was silent when he got to that house that wasn’t really a house, still silent when he closed the tiny door.  When he got to that bed that could barely be called a bed, it was the most comfortable thing he had ever felt.  The night manager thought he could get used to this place even though it wasn’t much of a place at all. 
 
It wasn’t quiet when the night manager fell asleep, wasn’t quiet at all.  Those fools were hooting and hollering, gnashing and gnawing in the night.  But the night manager was tired, and his branchy bones ached.  He thought he could sleep through the hollering, sleep through the screams in the dark.  He deserved a break from the madness, even if it was just for one night.
 
When the neighbor finally returned, he was crestfallen by the state of his farm.  His melon patch was in ruins and the place stunk of honey sweet decay.  His business was at a standstill, and his old night manager had retired without notice.  Worst of all, his new night manager was in way over his head.
 
“Damn fools ain’t scared of nothin’,” said the neighbor, before spitting into the dirt.  “Gotta toughen you up, night manager,”  he said before hoisting the new night manager onto his broad country shoulders and carrying him into the shed. 
 
In the shed he removed the man’s dentures, shoving chicken bones in the gaps of his gums.  Then the neighbor reached into an old rusty coffee can and produced two shiny silver dollars from inside.  His grandfather gave him those dollars; they were the first the stand had ever made. 
 
“Time for your new eyes, night manager,” said the neighbor, “Don’t want you fallin’ asleep on the job...” He pressed the silver dollars into the man’s eye sockets until the wet flesh gave way underneath.  Then he kept pressing into the soft wet clay of the man’s brain.  When he was done, he looked at the night manager, with his silver dollar eyes and chicken bone teeth, and for just a moment, he thought he had seen the face of the reaper himself.