Between Heaven & Hell Part 4

The room wasn’t fancy, in fact he’d seen nicer rooms at the Y than this rolling flop house. Everything vinyl or plastic in shades of gray. Josiah took off his sneaks and lay back, throwing one thin arm over his eyes as he sought to sleep, get away from the voices in his head and the memories.

But sleep never came for Josiah, there was no respite from the voices in his head. Tension thrummed through his body and he knew he’d have to find a release and soon before he lost control. Mayor Jenkins was the last time he’d done that thing that always brought him release. Since winning American Star Josiah had fought to keep his urges under control. He was a celebrity now and well, you know, he couldn’t go around meting out divine punishment willy nilly because all eyes were on him now

But he only hunted predators, those that preyed on the weaker and the smaller. In some ways Josiah Smith felt this was his holiest of missions. His real calling. God knows the music wasn’t his calling.

In the back of his mind Josiah knew that the music he made was meaningless, inconsequential. His singing and guitar playing was no better or worst than that of a million other singer songwriters out there relentlessly plugging away in the bar scene. Just as he’d been during those long years between leaving Mississippi for Los Angeles and winning American Star.

His problem was the same problem of those million others playing the bar scene. They all sounded the same, with their songs of angst and heartbreak and irony. Josiah was painfully aware that the production staff at 7 Entertainment, owners and producers of the show, had forced his musical direction into that most calculated to sell the most records. They’d cared nothing for his own thoughts on the process, the sound he wanted, the image he wanted to project. It had been as cut and dried as turning out sausages or toilet seats.

As a result Josiah was both proud and ashamed of his first CD self titled “Josiah” The CD was filled with pop music, angry white boy music in the vein of every emo band of the last ten years. Now the production values were first rate. 7 Entertainment spared no expense or talent in the recording. The problem was it just wasn’t who he was.

At first management had put the full force of the powerful 7 Entertainment publicity machine behind him. Josiah had done an endless tour of morning shows, entertainment interviews and guest spots. Premieres, happenings. Hell, Josiah had walked the red carpet in a designer suit for the first time in his life. His posters were everywhere. One night the head of 7 Entertainment took him out on the town, turning the powerful sports car they rode in a parking space just so Josiah could gaze rapt at his own self. 7 Entertainment had taken out a huge billboard overlooking Sunset Strip in LA, a huge Josiah holding his Fender guitar over his head in triumph. That night had been even more exciting that the night he won the show. The label gave him his own expensive sports car as a bonus for going multi platinum. He only wished his Momma could have seen his victory.

Josiah‘s mind kept turning back to Mississippi, and his Momma. He loved her, he hated her. He loved nothing about Mississippi. Josiah only held hate for that hellish place he’d grown up in. The social class and monetary distinctions of Mississippi couldn’t have been more divisive and stringent that those of Calcutta or Victorian England. Because his mother was a woman from a good family that had lowered herself to marry someone from the wrong side of the tracks and to then return as she was seemed to be an unforgivable sin in Chattawah.

He’d suffered through the years because his poor Momma couldn’t seem to pull herself together after being abandoned by her Naval Aviator husband. She would only creep from the trailer to get her Tabs and Parliaments or to check on their welfare payments.

It wasn’t like there weren’t others in the community on government assistance, because there were, plenty actually. By the time Josiah started school he knew who in his class was and wasn’t because of the lunches, the free lunches. At least by the time Josiah started public school it didn’t matter so much if Momma was having a spell. He’d get to school in time enough to have breakfast followed by a hearty lunch. Soon enough the lunch ladies caught onto the fact that sometimes Josiah didn’t get much to eat at home and before long he’d started stopping by the cafeteria before getting on the dusty school bus for home. The ladies had packed up enough leftovers in a brown paper bag for him to have for dinner during those times when Momma locked herself into the bedroom with gin, candy and novels.

The reason that others in the town whispered behind lace curtains what a shame it all was about him and his Momma was because of who her family had been. Momma’s granddaddy had once been the richest man in town, richer than Mayor Jenkins. He’d owned a textile factory and other businesses but during the depression he’d lost everything, the factories, the businesses, everything from the farm that their trailer set upon. Even as he’d lost it all and was reduced to farming he still had the respect of the community and the family lived modestly for many years, like everyone else but still traced their lineage back generations. His grandmother was still a member of the Junior League and the Eastern Star. They still held prominent social positions in town.

When his momma, Lillian Smith, returned to town and didn’t settle into the Junior League or even attempt a job working at the five and dime or as a secretary somewhere but moved the dilapidated trailer on the property. Besides throwing aside all social niceties and traditions of her family Lillian had also committed the unpardonable sin of signing her mother into the Mississippi Lunatic Asylum. Her mother had slipped into early dementia but instead of move into the big farmhouse to care for her mother, his Momma had chosen to plead poverty and dump her in the state facility instead.

One of the worst aspects of life in a small southern town was not only did everyone know your business, everyone chose to add colorfully to it, false or true. Whispers went around saying Josiah’s daddy had never married his mother and that made him a bastard. People wouldn’t let their kids near Josiah. When he encountered a child in town their parents would draw them away as if Josiah was contaminated or contagious.

Going to school hadn’t stopped it either. None of the kids in the class would have much to do with him. His teacher was kind but she was the only one. Others would taunt him about his mother and how poor they were. Josiah clearly remembered that first Christmas at school, sitting at his desk wondering how to tell Teacher that he had no present to give for the class gift exchange. His teacher had stopped by his desk, bent down and slipped a small package into his hand with a whispered, “Don’t tell anyone. I knew you haven’t had a chance to buy a gift for the exchange and I happen to haven an extra!” He’d felt hopeful, grateful, ashamed and humiliated all at the same time.

In the hell that his school years were the teachers he had all seemed to conspire to make sure he had extra help. They enlisted the lunch ladies and some of the organizations in town too. Every year he was in school Josiah knew he could count on being called into the office on the last day of school before Christmas break and being handed a paper bag with his name on it. The bag always held a new set of dress up clothes, right down to socks and underwear and shoes in his sizes. There were a few toys and candies as well as a certificate for food at the local Piggly Wiggly. Every Thanksgiving brought a full turkey dinner with all the fixings from the Kiwanis club and every new school year clothes and supplies through a local church. Christmas was the big haul, not only did several local churches give them food but the Lions club, social services and churches gave him presents and clothes. Listening to his classmate brag about what they’d gotten for their Christmas gifts was one of the few times Josiah felt on equal footing with them. Many of the things they bragged of receiving were also part and parcel of his gifts.

Easter brought more food and candy from the civic organizations. There was always a glistening ham and all the side dishes. Momma made an effort to bestir herself and try to act more normal during holidays. Sometimes she even cleaned the trailer spotless instead of the slovenly half assed condition it was usually in. She fixed her hair, she put on a clean house dress and hummed in the kitchen while fixing their feast.

The problem with Josiah’s school years and his Momma and her spells was summer vacation. Summer, no school, just him and Momma. With no school or daily routines Josiah did what he wanted, as long as he didn’t bother Momma when she was watching her stories he was free to do as he liked. It wasn’t unusual for Josiah to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and sleep in well past noon. There was always something to explore or do. The Dark Man showed him a lot those long summers.

Sometimes Josiah hadn’t wanted to do what the Dark Man kept insisting, like the time he’d wanted Josiah to kill baby animals in the woods, smash nests and scatter the peeping baby birds. Josiah would scream at the Dark Man, scream that he didn’t want to play any longer. And just like that, the Dark Man would disappear from his life, for a month, for a week, but eventually he returned.

Summer was a dangerous time for many reasons. It’s the season that copperheads and rattlers would seek shelter from the searing sun in places you were likely to run across without thinking. Many times down by the creek Josiah saw alligators slithering just below the surface of the sun warmed water.

It was a cruel time of the year, turning the air outside into an barely breathable sticky mass of heat. Even the tall canopy of loblolly pines in the deep woods could not hold back the heat. In that heat not only did the poisonous snakes come out but it seemed to bring out every buzzing creepy crawling bug under the sun. Swarms of mosquitoes and flies made life miserable in the back woods of Mississippi. No matter what Josiah tried he still ended up with bug bites over most of the surface of his body. He tried asking his Momma for some insect repellant but she’d just turned from her soap opera, grunted and handed him an ancient gummed up bottle of Avon bath oil. It seemed to attract more bugs than it drove off.

But the bugs and varmints were not the only problems Josiah had with the pervasive heat. The trailer they lived in had no air conditioning beyond a small wheezing window unit in his Momma’s room. On nights when she wasn’t having a spell Josiah would sleep on a made up pallet on the floor of her room. He’d learned to put his bed down near the foot of her bed and not next to the bed because Momma had a habit of getting up in the middle of the night to pee and not watching out for him. Josiah suffered bruises a number of times before he learned it was safer to squeeze between the foot of the bed and the bureau.

During the day Momma refused to run that ac and she would not listen to his pleas to move it to the living room instead. Once Momma was up and had donned a fresh house dress she’s shut off her bedroom to try and preserve the last of the cool air after turning off the unit. That’s another reason why Josiah stayed outside as much as possible. It was boiling inside of the trailer. Once the sun got up and over head the metal of the trailer seemed to magnify and trap the heat.

On those boiling hot days his Momma sat in a webbed lawn chair she’d got at Goodwill outside the door, just under the beginning of the trees and watch her beloved soap operas in the shade. Every day Momma would tote their small tv outside, run an extension cord and watch hours of her stories with a lit Parliament in one hand and a can of Tab in the other.

But if it was raining, and it tended to rain a lot in the summers of Mississippi, both Josiah would be stuck in the living room, sweating, laying around the furniture, drinking soft drinks and putting pots under the worst of the roof leaks. It was a miserable damp way to spend a day.

When Josiah was around eight he signed up for a library card and on those days when the sun shone too hot or the rain turned the world into a steamy sauna he would spend hours in the library. He’d find a book to check out, curl up in one of the many niches of the library and read until the head librarian forced him to go home. Not only was the library cool in the heat of summer, it was clean, smelling of fresh wax and polish. It was quiet and the Dark Man dared not intrude there. But Josiah rapidly learned that to spend more than a three hour stretch there risked the librarians asking him about his Momma and if she knew he was there so often for such long periods of time.

But the biggest danger that summer held was not the heat, not the insects or the snakes, it was Momma herself. It seemed like the more the temperature gauge nailed to the electrical pole outside the trailer climbed, the more likely it was that something would set Momma off on one of her spells.

Her spells in the summer were way worse than any other time. Momma would not only lock herself into her bedroom and stop feeding him, she would crank up her air conditioner and not let Josiah sleep in the room with her. As bad as the heat was on those nights it was nothing compared to what happened when Momma stopped buying food or fixing it.

Summer was always the hungry time for Josiah. He learned quickly how to do for himself when Momma was locked in her bedroom but sometimes he’d get down to saltines, tap water and ketchup before Momma would come to herself and remember he needed food. He didn’t dare go into town and try to cage food off anyone because of what had happened the last time he’d been caught. But he learned to shoplift, just little things, a can of tuna, a pack of cheese, in those times. He’d search behind the sofa cushions for enough change to buy bread and shoplift whatever else he needed. He didn’t know if he never got caught because he was clever and good at lifting the cans or because the men that ran the Piggly Wiggly, the A&P and Winn Dixie seemed to feel sorry for him.

Every summer he would beg his Momma to allow him to go to summer school, just knowing that the summer school kids were getting a full breakfast and lunch. But every year Momma said no. So he learned to take what he needed, a skill that would benefit him immensely when he hitchhiked out to Los Angeles. It kept him from starving many a day.

And it wasn’t just the Piggly Wiggly or Winn Dixie that Josiah stole from either. Sometimes he’d sneak over to nearby farms and swipe a tomato or two. Or go into a rustling corn field by the light of the moon to steal a few ears.

Laying back on his bed in the bus Josiah had to smile, remembering those delicious open air meals he’d enjoyed, purloined hot dogs cooked over an outdoor bonfire with a side order of roasted corn, roasted right in the corn shuck. Nothing he’d eaten since tasted as good as that. He’d been constantly hungry as a boy.

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Full darkness fell like a black cloak eased down from on high over the flat plains of Kansas. Josiah stepped outside of the bus and sniffed eagerly, taking in the scents of corn dogs and cotton candy. Foods that he didn’t get much of a chance to eat as a kid. Momma never let him hang around the fair when it came to town.

Multicolored lights played over the midway, lighting up the night like a fantastical imaginary kingdom. Josiah laughed, almost as if he were a boy again, letting the lights play over his face. But as soon as he did a mighty squeal like a thousand hogs in rut went out. His fan base, shiny eyed with flaccid porcine faces, stood just beyond the barricades, making their presence known to him immediately. He ducked back inside the bus, sudden anger flaring that they’d intruded upon him yet again. The Dark Man whispered to him that he should take care of them, flay the lot of them, leave a trail of bloody corpses across the midway. At the same time a calmer voice spoke in his head, soothing and angelic, urging him to be nice to them. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing and they meant well, the voice urged.

If the Dark Man was party to all the blackness in his soul then just as surely the Angel urged Josiah to do what was right. He sighed, giving in to the Angel and trudged back outside, going to the barricade to sign autographs, pose for photographs and receive the gifts of the crowd. There were the usual nuts out there, the ones that followed him from place to place, seeming to have no life other than to trek around the hinterlands of the United States for Josiah’s endless tour of State Fairs and bars. He always wondered how they could afford it all, especially when he looked at the itemized statements from his accountant. The amount of dough it took to run the tour day to day seemed impossibly astronomical sometimes. How did they afford it?

The kids tagging along with their fat mommas made Josiah the saddest. Tiny sad faces peering out at him like hostages to insanity. What type of mother drug their kid to see a rock singer in a bar in the middle of the night? He’d seen kids standing on the bar at venues so they could see, kept up to all hours of the day and night, looking confused, bedraggled and unkempt while the mother shrieked and screamed for his attention.

The worst were the fans, their mothers. They reminded Josiah of his own mother. Corpulent and sweaty. Granted they didn’t run around clad in thin cotton house dresses but most of them weighted well over two hundred pounds, middle aged and jowly. Josiah just did not get it. Why were they all so fixated on him? On rock and roll? He tried to do nothing that encouraged them but he also tried not to piss them off. They’d driven his freshman CD up to platinum sales. Still, it would have been nice to look out over the audience some time and see age appropriate fans, not a see of lardy ladies dressed like their were nineteen again.

Josiah was disturbed to note a rotund mother with three small children smashed against the fencing. The mother stopped in her attention getting tactics to smack the youngest child and shake him hard for crying like that. The crowd surged forward and Josiah could see that the kids were becoming even more frightened so he called out harshly for the crowd to back off, stop mashing the children.

By the time Josiah and one of the security guards made it back to the bus he was exhausted and oh so done, over it all. He wished he could abandon his bus and fly back to his condo in LA. At least he’d scored enough bread from the first tour to buy a decent place to live, no more squatted in abandoned buildings or cheap apartments.

Joe, the burly security guard that traveled with the band asked Josiah, “Hey, what do you want me to do with this load of crap?”

Josiah could see the large stack of things Joe toted, scrapbooks filled with endless photos of himself along with poorly written poetry being the most given item. What use for those things would he ever have? Josiah sighed in frustration and said, “Wait till the fans leave for the stage and toss the whole lot of them in the nearest trash bin.”

Joe nodded, he asked but he knew the drill. Scrapbooks went into the trash along with fan t-shirts and jewelry and other odd bits. Teddy bears and toys were handed over to the local promoter with the instructions that they were to be given to the children’s ward at the local hospital.

The rest of the band reluctantly awoke, in various stages of hangovers and went out to do the sound check. More fan screams met their departing the bus for the stage area. Josiah stayed behind on the bus. He didn’t want to encourage his fans any more than he already had. He sat at his usual seat on the bus and listened to the noise of the midway, the grinding of machine motors powering the Tilt o whirl and the Roller coaster, the musical notes of the calliope, the come on of the carnival barkers and he wished he could be out there, looking at the lights, eating a corn dog. Something normal. Whoever had said be careful what you wish for was absolutely correct.

By the time Josiah and his band hit the stage the crowd surrounding the stage had grown to completely engulf the area. There were heads as far as the eyes could see. As he strapped on his guitar he could see the usual assortment of his most vocal fans pressed up right against the stage. And, Dear God, they were wearing their freakish beaver hats, hats that looked like a disemboweled beaver on their heads. At some point during the “American Star” competition some of his fans had named themselves ‘Josiah’s Eager Beavers’. Now they showed up at each and every show wearing those stupid hats, sometimes with fake beaver teeth. Sometimes they held up obscene signs at the concerts, not caring that the other fans didn’t seem to like it, or that there were children in the crowd.

As Josiah strode forward, to the edge of the stage to greet the crowd the voices in his head raged again. The Dark Man demanded he step on their fingers that were eagerly gripping the stage edge or that he spit in their faces. The Angel counseled grace, grace and gentleness as the band launched into their first song.

The vibe from the crowd was good and Josiah and the band plowed through their nightly repertory of songs like the only world that existed was right there on the stage. Sometimes when the music was right, everything clicked together like a well oiled machine. That feeling was what Josiah lived for, that feeling of ultimate bliss where nothing else existed. That was Josiah’s drug, no alcohol, no narcotic could come close. This is why he did it.

The problem was that when it was good, that good, it took Josiah and some of his band mates a long time to come down from it. Adrenaline pumping, energy shooting arcs throughout your central nervous system, raring to go again. On those nights coming down wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Josiah could fully understand why great classic rock bands made trashing hotel rooms an art form back in the sixties and seventies when most towns rolled up their sidewalks at six pm. There was nothing open after the gig and all this excess energy to burn off. Which lead to drinking, drugs and groupie banging.

Most of the guys in the band slipped out to the late night carnival, knowing that they could ride the bumper cars and roller coasters mostly unaccosted by the fans. He knew that his bassist Alex would get drunk on the cheap beer and maybe demand a blow job or two from what ever lurking fans there were nearby.

Instead of heading back to his room on the bus, Josiah made the snap decision to swipe Mo’s jacket and hat. With the much bigger man’s long jacket and fedora it wasn’t likely that any of the lurking Beavers would know who he was.

‘Let them find you and then just mete out exactly what those cunts deserve..” the Dark Man whispered as Josiah bounded down the metal steps of the bus. Josiah shook his head, it wouldn’t do to follow what the Dark Man said and end up in prison even if he also knew that the pressure inside was getting too intense. He’d have to do something soon to shut it down for awhile.
For a long time no one approached Josiah. He was able to get a corn dog and candy apple without anyone recognizing him as tonight’s headliner. He rode various rides, even taking a turn under the brightly lit canopy of the bumper cars. No one suspected. It was the most fun he’d had since those long ago days playing in the forests of Mississippi. He whooped and yelled as the roller coaster cut magic manic circles through the chilly air, laughing like a child.

It was only when Josiah made his way over to a deserted set of portajohns that someone intruded on his evening. He had just barely entered the farthest portable toilet, lowered his pants and started to take a dump with the door popped open and one of his more vocal fans entered, closing the door behind her. It was just the two of them in this tiny fetid box of a rest room. “Lady, what are you doing?” Josiah growled menacingly as the Dark Man put evil thoughts in his head.

She jumped up and down, the floor shaking and rattling, from all that blubber bouncing up and down. “It’s you! It’s YOU! IT’S YOU!!”

But the Angel whispered calmly, lovingly in the back of his mind, “Peace, she just wants a few moments of your time.”

The Dark Man shouted over top of the Angel’s words, “Kill the bitch!”

Josiah tried to remain calm in being interrupted at this most intimate of moments, “Look, please, please, wait outside and I’ll talk to you, sign anything you want.. Alright?” he wheedled in his charming of voices.

Her spandex leggings and home made t-shirt proclaiming all her love for Josiah strained to the limit as she shouted anew, “It’s You!”

He stared in horrified fascination at her mountainous belly and straining breasts the size of cantaloupes. Her hair was a mess and she wore no makeup on her mottled skin. Middle aged sag head to toe with a moon like face.

Suddenly Josiah remembered seeing this lady earlier in the day, seeing three small children, aged perhaps nine, seven and five or under, being pressed up against the barricade as this woman shouted out at him. He could not help but ask, “Where are your children?”

She squealed again and replied, “They’re sleeping in the van.” and with that this mystery woman reached for his exposed crotch.

Josiah jumped backwards rapidly, avoiding her touch and what happened next occurred as crazy feelings surged over him. It was the culmination of months of being stalked by freaks and weirdoes without any outlet to deal with these pressures. He whipped around behind this nameless Beaver, grabbed her with one hard muscle laden arm while he wiped his bare hand over his still dirty ass. Forcing her towards the gaping hole of the portable bathroom towards the stench of a million pieces of shit floating in gallons of strangers piss he wiped his shit laden hand over her mouth and nose.

He whispered into her ear, not in his usual soft voice, or the voice of authority he sang with, but with a voice that sounded like it was from the pit of hell. “Is this what you wanted? To be up my ass? How do you like the way my shit smells? Stinks, doesn’t it?”

She may have outweighed him by a good one hundred pounds or more but his insane rage gave Josiah the strength of a mad man. As she started to weep and struggle Josiah held her even more tightly, clamping one large hand over her mouth and nose, forcing her ever closer to the stench filled hole. A loud buzzing of a million angry voices swarmed through his mind and Josiah felt the woman start to retch but he held her fast, not allowing her to take a breath or puke. She shook fiercely until suddenly going slack from inhaling her own vomit. His glee grew as she neared death. By the time Josiah lowered her body over the toilet seat she was already dead.

He stood straighter and smiled. All the tension that had been pulsing through his body was gone, just like that. A new lightness was there and he sighed contentedly. Josiah left the portalet, taking a paper towel to wipe down any handle he might have touched. He took the time to jerry rig the door to the occupied position. He walked out into the fields and wiped the excrement from his hands on the grass before heading back to the bus.

Killing the bitch had birthed a new type of excitement in the marrow of his bones, akin to how some people described their orgasms or reaching the summit of a tall mountain. That hag would be missed by no one and her children better off in foster care than being drug everywhere like dogs.

Back at the hotel watching the midnight local news there had been a report of the mysterious abandonment of three young children in a van once the fair closed and the parking lot emptied. Police were asking anyone with information on who the children were and where they were from to come forward and reported the three had been placed together in an emergency foster care family. Josiah smiled, yes, yes, he’d done the right thing and rescued those kids from their evil neglectful grasping cunt mother.

Between Heaven & Hell Part 3

The room wasn’t fancy, in fact he’d seen nicer rooms at the Y than this rolling flop house. Everything vinyl or plastic in shades of gray. Josiah took off his sneaks and lay back, throwing one thin arm over his eyes as he sought to sleep, get away from the voices in his head and the memories.

But sleep never came for Josiah, there was no respite from the voices in his head. Tension thrummed through his body and he knew he’d have to find a release and soon before he lost control. Mayor Jenkins was the last time he’d done that thing that always brought him release. Since winning American Star Josiah had fought to keep his urges under control. He was a celebrity now and well, you know, he couldn’t go around meting out divine punishment willy nilly because all eyes were on him now

But he only hunted predators, those that preyed on the weaker and the smaller. In some ways Josiah Smith felt this was his holiest of missions. His real calling. God knows the music wasn’t his calling.

In the back of his mind Josiah knew that the music he made was meaningless, inconsequential. His singing and guitar playing was no better or worst than that of a million other singer songwriters out there relentlessly plugging away in the bar scene. Just as he’d been during those long years between leaving Mississippi for Los Angeles and winning American Star.

His problem was the same problem of those million others playing the bar scene. They all sounded the same, with their songs of angst and heartbreak and irony. Josiah was painfully aware that the production staff at 7 Entertainment, owners and producers of the show, had forced his musical direction into that most calculated to sell the most records. They’d cared nothing for his own thoughts on the process, the sound he wanted, the image he wanted to project. It had been as cut and dried as turning out sausages or toilet seats.

As a result Josiah was both proud and ashamed of his first CD self titled “Josiah” The CD was filled with pop music, angry white boy music in the vein of every emo band of the last ten years. Now the production values were first rate. 7 Entertainment spared no expense or talent in the recording. The problem was it just wasn’t who he was.

At first management had put the full force of the powerful 7 Entertainment publicity machine behind him. Josiah had done an endless tour of morning shows, entertainment interviews and guest spots. Premieres, happenings. Hell, Josiah had walked the red carpet in a designer suit for the first time in his life. His posters were everywhere. One night the head of 7 Entertainment took him out on the town, turning the powerful sports car they rode in a parking space just so Josiah could gaze rapt at his own self. 7 Entertainment had taken out a huge billboard overlooking Sunset Strip in LA, a huge Josiah holding his Fender guitar over his head in triumph. That night had been even more exciting that the night he won the show. The label gave him his own expensive sports car as a bonus for going multi platinum. He only wished his Momma could have seen his victory.

Josiah‘s mind kept turning back to Mississippi, and his Momma. He loved her, he hated her. He loved nothing about Mississippi. Josiah only held hate for that hellish place he’d grown up in. The social class and monetary distinctions of Mississippi couldn’t have been more divisive and stringent that those of Calcutta or Victorian England. Because his mother was a woman from a good family that had lowered herself to marry someone from the wrong side of the tracks and to then return as she was seemed to be an unforgivable sin in Chattawah.

He’d suffered through the years because his poor Momma couldn’t seem to pull herself together after being abandoned by her Naval Aviator husband. She would only creep from the trailer to get her Tabs and Parliaments or to check on their welfare payments.

It wasn’t like there weren’t others in the community on government assistance, because there were, plenty actually. By the time Josiah started school he knew who in his class was and wasn’t because of the lunches, the free lunches. At least by the time Josiah started public school it didn’t matter so much if Momma was having a spell. He’d get to school in time enough to have breakfast followed by a hearty lunch. Soon enough the lunch ladies caught onto the fact that sometimes Josiah didn’t get much to eat at home and before long he’d started stopping by the cafeteria before getting on the dusty school bus for home. The ladies had packed up enough leftovers in a brown paper bag for him to have for dinner during those times when Momma locked herself into the bedroom with gin, candy and novels.

The reason that others in the town whispered behind lace curtains what a shame it all was about him and his Momma was because of who her family had been. Momma’s granddaddy had once been the richest man in town, richer than Mayor Jenkins. He’d owned a textile factory and other businesses but during the depression he’d lost everything, the factories, the businesses, everything from the farm that their trailer set upon. Even as he’d lost it all and was reduced to farming he still had the respect of the community and the family lived modestly for many years, like everyone else but still traced their lineage back generations. His grandmother was still a member of the Junior League and the Eastern Star. They still held prominent social positions in town.

When his momma, Lillian Smith, returned to town and didn’t settle into the Junion League or even attempt a job working at the five and dime or as a secretary somewhere but moved the dilapidated trailer on the property. Besides throwing aside all social niceties and traditions of her family Lillian had also committed the unpardonable sin of signing her mother into the Mississippi Lunatic Asylum. Her mother had slipped into early dementia but instead of move into the big farmhouse to care for her mother, his Momma had chosen to plead poverty and dump her in the state facility instead.

One of the worst aspects of life in a small southern town was not only did everyone know your business, everyone chose to add colorfully to it, false or true. Whispers went around saying Josiah’s daddy had never married his mother and that made him a bastard. People wouldn’t let their kids near Josiah. When he encountered a child in town their parents would draw them away as if Josiah was contaminated or contagious.

Going to school hadn’t stopped it either. None of the kids in the class would have much to do with him. His teacher was kind but she was the only one. Others would taunt him about his mother and how poor they were. Josiah clearly remembered that first Christmas at school, sitting at his desk wondering how to tell Teacher that he had no present to give for the class gift exchange. His teacher had stopped by his desk, bent down and slipped a small package into his hand with a whispered, “Don’t tell anyone. I knew you haven’t had a chance to buy a gift for the exchange and I happen to haven an extra!” He’d felt hopeful, grateful, ashamed and humiliated all at the same time.

In the hell that his school years were the teachers he had all seemed to conspire to make sure he had extra help. They enlisted the lunch ladies and some of the organizations in town too. Every year he was in school Josiah knew he could count on being called into the office on the last day of school before Christmas break and being handed a paper bag with his name on it. The bag always held a new set of dress up clothes, right down to socks and underwear and shoes in his sizes. There were a few toys and candies as well as a certificate for food at the local Piggly Wiggly. Every Thanksgiving brought a full turkey dinner with all the fixings from the Kiwanis club and every new school year clothes and supplies through a local church. Christmas was the big haul, not only did several local churches give them food but the Lions club, social services and churches gave him presents and clothes. Listening to his classmate brag about what they’d gotten for their Christmas gifts was one of the few times Josiah felt on equal footing with them. Many of the things they bragged of receiving were also part and parcel of his gifts.

Easter brought more food and candy from the civic organizations. There was always a glistening ham and all the side dishes. Momma made an effort to bestir herself and try to act more normal during holidays. Sometimes she even cleaned the trailer spotless instead of the slovenly half assed condition it was usually in. She fixed her hair, she put on a clean house dress and hummed in the kitchen while fixing their feast.

The problem with Josiah’s school years and his Momma and her spells was summer vacation.

Part 2

Scary looking men had hissed from dark shadows and somewhere in the distance someone moaned and someone else shrieked. Rubber wheels squeaked and nurses attired all in white like ghosts silently padded up and down the halls. People sat still with dead eyes like zombies on the nearby benches. A very frightening place, with one exception.

He’d gotten a glimpse of the kids that made it their home. Josiah had spied a parched grassy square just outside of the glass paned doors opening out to the back of the massive building. There, beneath the Gothic arched overhangs of the immense granite building there’d been a playground enclosed with a rusting sagging chain length fence.

He’d not known at the time that the playground wasn’t much, a dilapidated swing set, a bent slide and a deflated tether ball at the end of a rope. Josiah had only seen playgrounds and hordes of playing children on television. Momma kept him at her side as much as she could, complaining copiously when he’d befriended the sharecroppers boy down the dirt track from their trailer. She’d walloped Josiah with an electrical cord and ranted loudly about the evils of race mixing, calling his new friend a ‘neeg-grah’ and ‘pick-a-ninny’, both words Josiah had never heard before. After that whipped Josiah learned to keep his companionship at playtime with The Dark Man.

But the sight of all those children playing tether ball, running, laughing, playing on the battered old seesaw and swings had thrilled Josiah to no end. And from the depths of his loneliness he dared give voice to his desires for friends. He turned to his Momma and begged, “Momma, please, please, can I go play wit’ those kids?”

His mother paused in her task of clumsily applying her new tube of lipstick before a cracked mirror in the lobby and turned to him, puzzled, “Whatever for, sugah?”

Josiah didn’t know exactly what was wrong with his question, with what he wanted but he could feel his mother’s disapproval already. He muttered out, “Because I want to..” looking miserable at the scuffed too big tennis shoes his Momma bought at the Salvation Army store.

“Iffen you wanted te go hop off the top of the Empire State Buildin’ do you think I oughta let you?” Momma had queried, a deep frown forming on the puffy surface of her moon shaped face.

He couldn’t speak, looking from his second hand shoes to the kids still capering about joyously just outside the doors.

Momma stood up straight, and placed her fisted hands on her hips before thundering, “You think I’ma gonna let you ass-so-cee-ate with a loada crack pot offspring and mental dee-feck-tiffs you gotta another thing comin’! You know why they put those kids ina here? They bad! They bad little kids nobody ever wanted. You wanna be like them? They evil rubs off on you, like cooties and the next thin’ you knows I’ll havta sign you in here for the rest of your LIFE! You wanna live here?”

People were starting to stare now. The snooty looking lady at the reception desk paused, telephone receiver forgotten in her hand, while still others visibly drew back from Josiah and his Momma. “No, Momma, No!” he whispered forcefully, silent tears sliding down his cheeks.

Caught in his long ago memories Josiah muttered, “No Momma, No!”

The elderly bus driver Mo turned around and gruffly barked, “What? What?? Do you need something Mr. Smith?” before snapping back forward, eyes to the road.

For one long moment Josiah Smith stared at the back of the bus driver, taking in the grizzled grey hair sheared Marine short. The more Josiah looked the more fixated he became with the pulsing vein on the side of Mo’s neck. Oh how easy it would be to reach over with an iron grip and squeeze, squeeze all the life of out Mo, watch as his face purpled and horror entered his dying eyes at the knowledge that this smiling genial younger man was robbing him of his very life.

“Do it, do it now. The bus will go out of control and kill all of them..” came from inside Josiah, whispers from The Dark Man. Equally quick came the calming voice calling, “This man only wants to help you. Don’t end his life, you’re better than that Josiah.”

Josiah sighed, giving in to his angel and he muttered, “No Mo.. Nothings wrong.. I was just napping and having a weird dream.. That’s all.”

Mo looked at him like he was insane before turning back to the road and lighting up another Marlboro, hacking a big nasty smokers cough. The cough of a lifetime sucking down filtered cigs.

It seemed like much of Josiah’s life had been spent in a haze of cigarette smoke that was not his own. Sometimes, like now, the smell became overwhelming, reminding him of the years he spent in that stinking cramped mobile home with his grotesque mother. He remembered how it had permeated all of his clothing and books. Sometimes the kids at school had teased him, called him the Marlboro Man. He bet they were all sorry now, sorry they’d been so mean to him through the years now that he was a tv star and musical artist. How many of them had purchased his freshman CD after he won the American Star competition and bragged that they went to school with him? How many pretended to strangers to be best buds with him? Fuckin’ Marlboro Man.

One of the later episodes of “American Star” had been filmed in his home town of Chattawah, Mississippi. Cheering crowds with signs greeted him and for one small instant Josiah knew something of what the Beatles must have felt when they first deplaned in New York city for their first American Tour. No one called him any of the names they’d have for him through the years, no shouts of Freak, no gibes about his mother being fatter than Elvis, no reminders of his years being tormented by the town bullies. For once he was the returning prodigal son arriving in triumph. Josiah didn’t know if he should laugh or rale at these freaking hypocrites. Instead he’d simply smiled and waved for the crowds and the cameras of “American Star”

Even Josie Tutwiler, the prom queen who’d laughed in his face the one time he’d dared to speak to her, was gushing about how great he was. The moronic cretins on the football squad were filmed telling all of America that Josiah Smith was their best friend and the pride of Chattawah, a favorite son.

The mayor presented him with a key to this shit hole burg before giving a speech expressing civic pride in Josiah. The same mayor who’d called him a ‘snot nosed punk’ back when he was working at the local barbeque juke joint bussing tables. Another hypocrite.

That night as the mayor slept Josiah had done a very bad thing. But he’d done it so skillfully that the local cops and coroner ruled that the mayor had died of cardiac arrest in the night.

It wasn’t the first time Josiah had given in to the voice of The Dark Man in his mind and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But he had to admit the little episode had been vastly satisfying, powerful even. Certainly he’d felt powerful when he’d been astride the mayor’s prone body as the older heavier man had been bucking like a sunfish on a lure. As Josiah pressed the feather pillow over the other man’s face he’d felt like God. It was the ultimate high he felt when suddenly the large man stopped fighting and went utterly limp.

Afterward he’d lifted a beer from the fridge of his victim and he’d savored his payback. Josiah sat across the room from the bed in a floral sprigged wingback chair, drinking in not just the beer but all that he’d done that night.

He never could sleep after gigs and sometimes this was the perfect nightcap. As Josiah slipped out of the back door he could feel tiredness starting to overtake him. He’d sleep well for the first time in months tonight. Evading his handlers and keepers for a final visit with an old enemy was the tricky part.

Josiah chuckled at the look of surprise on the mayor’s face when he’d tickled the other man awake with a feather under his nose before proceeding to kill him. The man’s last words had been a surprised, “You!” Laughing Josiah had lowered his handsome face even closer to Mayor Jenkins and said, “Surprised? Payback is a big dirty bitch.”

The truth was that during his late high school years when Josiah had been bussing tables Mayor Jenkins had made The Squeal his regular stop. Jenkins been sleeping with one of the waitresses, smutty and middle aged Bernice, since before he’d placed his long suffering wife Millie in a rest home. Jenkins would show up at The Squeal and hang around man handling the waitresses, pinching butts and lording it over everyone there that he was the richest guy in town and the mayor. Josiah had been on the receiving end of Mayor Jenkin’s jokes and rants too many times as the only son of the town’s poorest oddballs. Many, many times Josiah had dreamed of what it would be like to choke the life out of Mayor Jenkins.

A methodic search of the late mayor’s home had only turned up some ancient porn and worthless mementos of a life lived in this tiny burg. It was one of the few times Josiah took no souvenir of his kill. He laughed at the thought of the silly looking Playboys from the 1960s he’d found in the mayor’s closet.

Mo turned back again and said to Josiah, “You oughtta try to hit the rack for awhile. You’re in for a long drive today.”

Nodding his agreement Josiah got up and made his way back to the small private bedroom in the very back of the bus. His privileged status as the headliner earned him his own tiny room instead of a single bunk with only a curtain separating him from the drummers farts and the snores of the others.

Another Year, Another Nano - Between Heaven & Hell

The road unwound like a silver grey ribbon in front of the tour bus. Mile after mile of flat landscape, towns that looked almost abandoned, like prosperity had never graced these parts. Houses, churches, stores with the patina of poverty slid by in a haze of sameness. The customized bus flew through this depressing landscape like an ocean liner parting the fetid waters of a blighted and polluted sea.

Inside the bus there was no real distractions from the road. A number of young men with long hair and unkempt appearances played a raucous game of cards over beer and chips. Of their number only one sat alone near a bus window and stared morosely at the world outside.

That lone man sighed and closed his eyes, leaning further back remembering that not too long ago he headlined in good-sized arenas. None of this county fair bar scene crap. Sometimes it seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d won the competition and started this endless round of recording music and then touring to promote the music.

Anyone looking through the window of the bus would have noticed immediately that Josiah Smith was handsome, attractive in a very middle American corn-fed every man way. His jaw line was rugged and shaggy dark brown hair exploded in a shoulder length cascade of waves and the occasional ringlet. A masculine face with a cherubic cloud of hair. Josiah was average height, average build and his brown eyes looked like those of a million others Through the years he’d carefully cultivated his every man appearance, seeking to hide what was within him. The daily internal struggles at great odds with his harmless countenance.

To his adoring fans Josiah was like a God. He could do no wrong and at every stop on the tour he was greeted by a die hard cadre of the most fanatical. Too bad most of them were fat old hags that not even his ever horny drummer wouldn’t tool even when stoned out of his gourd.

But Josiah knew he wasn’t a God. If anything Josiah knew he was a demon, or had a demon and an angel constantly grappling for control of his mind. On days like today, quiet days rolling down the road to the next gig on this never ending tour, his thoughts took him places he didn’t want to go, down into Hell.

The card players hooted as someone made a big bet and someone else challenged during the daily poker game. Every day it was the same, drinking, eating, poker playing degenerating into teasing and laughter. The noise of it all grated on Josiah’s brain. He never participated in the game and on days like today he could imagine gleefully slitting the throats of the players, imagine their lifeless forms dripping with coagulating blood.

Immediately Josiah tried to push that tempting thought away, shooting a quick glance over to the players to see if anyone picked up on his very thoughts. But none of them seemed to realize only a moment before that Josiah, the singer they’d all been hired to back, had momentarily harbored murderous thoughts towards them.

As the bassist, a tall lanky blonde of about twenty five years old named Alex, started to fall out of his chair Josiah realized that half his band was drunk again. He sighed loudly in irritation. Great, just great, he thought. Any minute the guys would start to stagger off drunkenly to their bunks in the bus and futilely try to sleep off the boozing. They’ll get a few hours of shut eye, awaken half wasted and confused and awkwardly lope through a half assed performance, all the while blaming it on feeling unwell for no reason. Another fucked up part of Josiah’s life.

And they’d leave Josiah alone with his angel and his demon. The worst torment of all.

Eventually all seven of the guys filed back to the bunks. Josiah closed his eyes as they passed, feigning sleep just so he didn’t have to make small talk. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the guys in his band, It was more that it just simply took too much energy for him to make the effort. Plus sometimes when the angel and the demon started battling in his mind he wasn’t always sure what was real or unreal, appropriate or wrong. Like the time he’d been five and didn’t yet self censor, thinking all he experienced was alright.

Josiah remembered a bright sunny morning in the woods of his boyhood home in Chattawah, Mississippi. He’d been in the forest playing with the dark shadowy man in the shadows of the tall loblolly pines.

His mother and he had lived in an ancient mobile home a few miles outside the city limits of Chattawah. The trailer the only thing that survived the long ago wreckage of his parent’s short lived marriage. He’d seen the photos of his mother Delta, a slim and beautiful young woman, with that of his father. Josiah had no memories of his father beyond those lone photographs. His momma told him that his father had been an airman at the near by Naval Air Station who’d left for advanced training on the Puget Sound and had never returned to Mississippi.

Now as an adult he realized his mother had hidden her frustrations and her sadness, stuffed them down with food. Josiah could not remember a time when his mother weighed below four hundred pounds. She shuffled around the turquoise sided trailer in a cheap floral print house dress and flip flops from Kmart, collecting welfare checks and food stamps and SSI.

That day Josiah had lost track of time, he’d gone farther and farther into the pine scented woods, laughing and chasing that elusive dark man who’d been with him as far back as he could remember. Momma had told him to come back to the trailer for his mid morning snack of Twinkles and cola before they left for town. Momma was out of diet drinks and cigarettes again. She always had a Tab in one hand and a Parliament cigarette in the other.

But in the forest there was no sense of time under the soaring canopy of the loblollies. There were places of shadow, of deep darkness where the sun of late spring never penetrated. He’d chased The Dark Man and then the man had chased him. They played hide and seek for a long time. But Josiah had forgotten he was supposed to be home quickly. By the time he looked up and squinted at the few shafts of light penetrating the long deep green needles of the pines it was late, maybe as late as noon. The Dark Man tried to persuade him to stay and play but Josiah knew he had to head home before his momma had one of her spells.

Momma in a spell wasn’t a good thing, she’d take to her bed, staying locked in there for days on end. She’d eat boxes of candy, weep, read romance novels and drink some funny smell clear liquid called Gin. When she got like that Josiah had to fend for himself, living on whatever food he could scrounge up. The last time his Momma had a spell he’d ended up digging through the trash behind the Piggly Wiggly and Johnsons Rexall for thrown away food. One of the local deputies caught him and took him back to the trailer, telling his Momma she had to pull herself together or they’d take him off to foster care or to the Mississippi Lunatic Home. That threat had jolted Momma out of her stupor. She took more care after that to at least emerge a couple of times a day to make sure Josiah was alright.

Josiah ran as fast as he could, speeding up as he neared the trailer, ignoring the calls of The Dark Man. As he stepped into the clearing he could see that Momma was waiting for him, wearing a clean house dress with fancy town shoes, her hair trimmed with fake for get me nots, white gloves on her hands as she primly clutched her pocketbook. That old peahen from down the road at the big white house, Mrs. Jackson, sat in her car. Josiah could see the pursed frowns on both womens faces. The set look on his Momma’s rouged lips scared him as he ran up panting and shouted out, “Momma.. I’m sorry, I lost track of time.”

Momma glared at him and said tersely, “Get in the car”

As they’d driven away in the old rattletrap Lincoln Josiah had said to the adults, “I was playing with the Dark Man and forgot we had to get to the store.”

Mrs Jackson’s lined face took on a whole new set of wrinkles as she frowned in confusion before snapping at his Momma, “Delta, are you still entertaining this boy’s nonsense about haints and spooks?”

Momma’s face had taken on a dark color, like a bruised plum and she’d grabbed his arm and squeezed as hard as she could, nails painted bright red and cutting a line of bleeding half moons into his flesh as she hissed, “Boy, you ever talk about that ridiculous crap again and I’ll leave you at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum myself. Do you understand?”

As she spoke those final words she’d increased the pressure of her nails until Josiah thought he might black out. He didn’t trust his voice because the pain was so intense if he opened his mouth he would shriek. So he nodded yes to his Momma until she let go.

They’d once gone to see Momma’s own mother, his grandmother, at the asylum and Josiah still had nightmares about the place. A large crumbling edifice near Jackson, Mississippi. It looked like something out of a monster movie, one of those movies that starred a haunted house in the rain. And it wasn’t much better inside, long gray corridors smelling like pee and disinfectant and tiny rooms without air conditioning only holding a small hospital bed. He’d gotten a glimpse of the kids that made it their home.