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.