Sloughing Off the Rot (7 page)

Throws-Like-Girl, sitting beside Crazy Talk, laughed and shook his long blond hair out of his eyes. He chewed on some words but decided to swallow them before they could escape his silently moving mouth. Instead, he laughed and bopped his head to a beat that only he could hear. From a full wineskin hanging around his neck, Throws-Like-Girl took a large drink and then almost coughed all of the liquid out, barely managing to stifle the geyser building in his throat. And he choked and gagged and fought the foul brew’s attempt to exit his mouth. Just like with his words, Throws-Like-Girl managed to swallow the liquid before it could escape. Shaking off the contractions of his body’s rebellion against the drink, Throws-Like-Girl passed the wineskin to his right. The libation made its way around the men, causing them to choke and convulse, their bodies shaking and shuddering as they fought to keep the fluid down.

And the goatskin sack reached John. He sniffed at the opening gagged. The fetid halitosis funk curdled the dirt-rat chymus gurgling in his stomach.

“It’s chicha. Drink from the bag and I will explain,” said Three Tooth. “It smells like death, and tastes twice as bad, but you learn to love it.”

John closed his nasal passage to his throat, steeled himself, and tossed back a solid snort of the tonic. With all of the power he could muster, John pushed the shot down his gullet and told it to stay. His eyes bulged and his chest heaved in an effort to spew the drink. His cheeks sucked in and his mouth puckered like an asshole. But the drink, although bold, obeyed and stayed as it was told. The putrid morning breath stench wafted away, leaving a burning in John’s throat and a warmth in his belly. His lips and teeth numbed and some slight emotion stirred in his chest. The river of fire flowed slowly in the sky above the red brick road.

“It’s awful at first, isn’t it?” said Three Tooth. John nodded and passed the chicha to Santiago. Three Tooth continued, “That is chicha, our traditional drink. We drink it as an offering to the Great Spirit. Chicha is strong and sudden. It makes a man brave and confident, long and strong. Drink a little bit more. You might think it’s not working. But just wait until you stand. It will smack you in the forehead like the hammer of the gods.”

“I can already feel the effects a little,” said John. “And, it’s kind of nice. But what’s with the smell? I mean, we could probably dump that stuff around our camp to keep the lunkheads away.” Santiago continued to swig at the leather bag, not passing it, and drawing irritated looks from the rest of the men.

“The smell is our saliva,” answered Three Tooth. “We chew the purple maize and spit it in a pot. We seal the pot, bury it in the ground and allow it to ferment. When it is ripe and ready, we dig up the pot and celebrate.”

A spray of chicha spewed from Santiago’s mouth. Unlike the others around the circle, he made no effort to hold in the fermented spit. And he passed the wineskin to Two-Dogs-Fucking. And when the leather bag was empty, Three Tooth produced another one full of chicha. When the beverage made its way around the circle and back to Santiago, he changed his attitude and tossed back a good slug, gagging and holding it down.

A sweet and mellow glaze settled on the men. They stared into the flickering flames. Like a contortionist dislocating his shoulder, John easily disconnected from his brain, making no efforts at thought. He stared forward and allowed his mind to creep about here and there as it saw fit. Crazy Talk placed the donkey bezoar on a rock and smashed it with a smaller stone. He placed the broken fragments in the bowl of an ornately carved ebony pipe and took a pull. Without needing to be lit, the bezoar bits glowed red-hot. Like a hound pup chasing a cat, the pipe dogged the chicha in a circle around the fire, never catching up. And John looked down and found the pipe in his hand. Without a thought, his hand brought the stem of the pipe to his lips and he pulled deeply, inhaling the fruitlike and not unpleasant smoke. His mouth opened and allowed the fog to creep out. The smoke continued to roll from his lips with each exhalation, until finally it all cleared his lungs and took with it all ability to formulate thought, leaving his head empty but for the buzzing of the munkle flies resonating in his skull.

Three Tooth’s hand fell on John’s shoulder and nudged him back to a slight awareness. “It is time for you to get up now,” said Three Tooth.

And John listened. “Okay,” he said. When he stood, his legs slowly marched in place. Three Tooth turned him toward the still-flaming thorn bush and gently pushed on his back. John’s sluggish marching legs carried him to the thorn bush where he sat down, cross-legged, and stared into the flames.

The crucifixion thorn lashed out at John with a fiery tongue and its words boomed over the land. The voice was loud and distorted, incomprehensible, like a blown public address speaker. The sound waves blew back John’s longish hair and slammed his ears. The deep bass of the voice registered as a physical assault on John’s belly and balls.

“I cannot understand,” yelled John, his hands clamped to his throbbing ears and his knees ground solidly into the red sand. “It’s too loud! It hurts.”

And the voice softened. The roar of the flames subsided to a low burn. “It has been many moons now,” said the burning bush. “I have gone with you and ahead of you, as a trail of clouds by day and a river or fire by night. You have stayed true to the path. And that is the way. Follow the trail and stay with the trail. To do not is to fail, and all will be lost.”

“But what is the point?” asked John. He stared into the blaze and was blinded by its brilliance. His face burned and sweat poured from his pores. “I’ve been walking. I’ve followed the path. All that I’ve seen is misery and suffering. I’m ignorant and tired. I don’t know who I am or why I’m bothering with this. I don’t even know what I should feel or if I even feel anything. I’m traveling with a madman and trailed by brain-dead monsters. And I’m following a road that, for all I know, leads to nowhere. I need answers or I’m just going to stay right here on my knees and wait for them until I die.”

A stabbing pain jabbed at John’s side, and blood soaked his white robe from the injury. John did not scream or run. He genuflected before the bush and pressed his hands to his side. Then, as if stained with disappearing ink, the blood evaporated and his robe turned white again. And the sharp pain ceased. He tore back the robe and saw no wound, just a white raised scar in the shape of an X.

“You are on the right path,” boomed the voice. “And though you may not realize it, I do. I know you and you know me. One thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be free. And, the red brick road, or El Camino de la Muerte if you will, is the way and the truth and the life. And there is no conclusion to your journey without the path.”

“But what is the conclusion? What is the goal?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” said the thorn bush.

“That is,” said John. “So what is the answer?”

“I will lead you to that answer in due time. I will show you things. Now, close your eyes to be better in tune with the infinite.”

The bush erupted into a pillar of fire. John closed his eyes as he had been told. The smell of his singed hair filled the air and the fire scorched his face. The fury and flicker of the eruption played out on the inside of John’s eyelids as a stroboscopic picture show of shifting images. “This,” boomed the voice, “is the effect you had on those who you came in contact with in your other life.” A parade of horrid faces flashed on the inside of his eyelids, not horrid because of deformities or mutations, and not infected with a defiling mold, but horrid in the emotions they conveyed. An elderly blue haired woman sneered in disgust. A motherly type shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, her shame and sadness stabbing John worse than the prick of the scar on his side. A man, eyes burning with hatred, stared down at John. Images of children crying and running away. A dead cat on the side of a road.

“These are the women who loved you,” said the burning bush. There appeared a row of naked women’s bodies, some trim, others pudgy, with all shapes and sizes of breasts and buttocks, and some with large pubic shrubbery and others shaved bald and glistening. And their faces – instead of faces, taut drumheads of skin stretched tight over the places where eyes and noses and mouths should have been. Even in the absence of facial features, John sensed a disgust and shame and rage and hurt, and the emotions were all sharpened darts, heaved at and sticking into him. Clouds of grey, purple, dark green, and brown hovered around and about their heads. Jagged scars of crude stitching gashed their chests and ran the length from the jugular notch of their necks to the bottoms of the sternums. The scars, red and feverish with infections, stood out in contrast to the purple bruising around them. John understood that he was responsible for the women’s anger. He understood he caused their injuries. The urge to jump up and flee flooded him, but his body refused to cooperate and remained immobile, glued to the spot in front of the burning bush.

And he shook his head to clear the images. The naked, faceless, scarred females backed away from him slowly, shaking their heads back and forth, and a new scene in the eyelid-picture-show replaced them. More faces, tinted in greens and blues and oranges from the flames beating against his eyelids. Faces tainted with desperation and resentment and bitterness. Grudges and repulsion dripped from the slobbering mouths of those rabid with hostility at John. And then the face of Three Tooth, a tear rolling down his cheek, appeared before John. “This is your influence. These are the people you drained and used. These are your family, friends, and acquaintances. Some of them were poisoned by simple contact with you and nothing more. You made them into this. These are your sins.”

The blaze of the thorn bush flared and erased the images from the backs of John’s eyes. “Those were your people. And these are the feelings you felt in your other life.” A lava flow of despair rushed toward and buried John. His gut cramped. The scar on his side screamed. The thumping of his heart in his head felt like it would blow off the top of his skull and spew out the blood and the evil and a torrent of anguish. He welcomed the possibility of a cranial blowout to purge himself of the creeping rot that he felt inside. He welcomed the cleansing. He embraced the possibility of death because he could bear the agony no longer.

John screamed, “Stop it! Stop this madness or I will end it myself.” He struggled to get to his feet but his strength failed him.

His eyelids cleared of the images and all he saw was the flicker of the flames. His pains waned and the psychic wounds quickly healed themselves, returning John to the bland feeling of confusion and emptiness. His eyes opened. He stared into the flames, feeling his skin tighten on his cheeks and around his eyes. “What does this all mean?” he asked the bush. “It’s awful and utterly depressing. And if that is what I felt before, then I’d rather be here. What could I have done to those people to cause such hate? I don’t feel like I’m that despicable.”

“The specifics of your life are irrelevant at this time. It is the feeling, the sense of your self that is important. What you are is what’s important. What you can do about it, that’s what is important.”

“I still don’t get it,” said John. “I do want to know why I felt the way I just did. You need to tell me…”

“Silence!” boomed the voice. “You do not order me to do anything.” A neon red halo flashed above them in the sky, and preceded a cluster of reddish-orange lightning, its tendrils shooting down and surrounding John and the burning bush. The flashes of the lightning and the flare of the fire forced John to close his eyes again.

“Keep your eyes closed,” ordered the bush. “I have much more to show you.”

The stroboscopic eyelid-movie resumed. John saw himself lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and emaciated. A nurse changed bandages on his side. She pulled away the dressing and uncovered a gangrenous wound. The nurse looked away from the injury and buried her face in the crook of her arm, seeking shelter from the stench of the infected flesh. A man in a uniform stuck his head in the door and asked the nurse something. She waved him away and returned to tending the wound. The pain in John’s side lit up briefly and excruciatingly.

“That is now,” said the bush. “That is you. You are there. You are here. And you are split. Your experiences and habits, your likes and dislikes, your knowledge, your history, and every thing that made you repugnant, that’s all you and it’s all there in that bed with you, fouling up that hospital room. The man sitting before me now, is John. You are John. And you are the same man, but you, here and now, are not twisted and poisoned by the experiences of your other half. You are an uncarved stone that is slowly developing its own markings. Tabula rasa. This is a different place. And, you have the chance to become something better and new. The path is the way. Follow the road to the end. Stay true and don’t let your path stray.”