"The Common"
a novel by Joe Hudson
© 1996 / © 2009
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The tale of struggle among the dead
held within these pages, is dedicated to
my mother, Linda
as it pales in comparison to her own...
~
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Book One of Three
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My lullaby
Hung out to dry
What's up with that
It's over
Where are you dad
Mom's looking sad
What's up with that
It's dark in here
Why bleeding is believing
You're hiding, underneath the smoke in the room
Try, bleeding is believing
I used to...
- Natalie Imbruglia, "Smoke"
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Prologue
"If you have never been there, you cannot describe it..."
His words trailed out of my mind, echoing, leaving behind a rancid aftertaste, not unlike a glass of spoiled milk unnoticed before tasting. Each word a lump so sour that by the end of the short sentence, my stomach had turned, and my face, though I could not see its reflection, had a pallid green tint to it, I was sure. The graveled voice, with its odd inflection and withered tone, still hung in my ears (still hung in my soul) while I struggled to wake myself from this tortuous revisitation in time. Slowly, my head lifted itself off its perch on the pillow, though I could not tell you how many minutes had passed in doing so. The cool evening air rushed over me from the open window and at first, my awakening mind could not properly register the fact that I was almost completely wet from head to toe. Several moments later, (again, I could not tell you exactly how many moments) I discovered my sweat-covered body with the wide-eyed surprise a man may have if he woke up to discover his legs were missing.
I was awake now.
I moved quickly, though not altogether steadily, across the bedroom, through moonlight and shadow, taking myself to the bathroom. The nausea came almost at once, it's grip tight in my bowels, deeper within than I had ever felt before. Though I was completely alone in my cabin of solitude, a streak of embarrassment rushed through me, as vigorous and tangible as the contents of my stomach now made their way outside of me. Fool, I thought as the wrenching subsided and I struggled to wash my face in the basin. Fucking idiot! My moment of self-deprecatory indulgence was short-lived, as my cheeks felt the icy cold slap of tap water, and my composure slowly but surely began returning to me. Like a slow moving spider, rational thought
(the sound the sound God I can hear the sound)
crawled its way back to the space above my shoulders, where the numbing terror of recollection had been spun into a silky web of a nest, finally settling in comfortably and without incident.
For what felt like hours, I stood in the doorway of the bathroom looking out onto the bureau, the bed, nightstand, and through the french doors, the black ice of night waiting beyond. What the hell just happened? I asked myself, as the answer slapped back at me loudly and with contempt.
Whaddya think, boy? You don't think you ain't gotta pay for what you done, do ya?
The narrative in my head was loud and abrasive; a fever-pitched, panicked voice that only momentarily drowned out the rustle of the pines and low whistle of the wind. For most of my adult life, this narrative, this conscience spoke to me in a full voice within my head. It came and went at will, having always been a mimic of my long deceased step-father. Chiding me at every turn, it became a regular dialogue of disappointment, disgust; never without harsh judgment, and always forecasting my oncoming penance. The man whose voice ran rampant throughout my childhood and now infected my thoughts as a grown man had a name that I no longer remembered, nor cared to. Unfortunately, every moment his/my words croaked in my ears, so sudden, so jarring, I discovered not having a name to identify it crippled my ability to clasp the reigns within my head, weakening any grip I may have needed to retain my sanity. This deceased voice from decades long ago, its speech almost ancient in tone, was so very constant, that I quickly referred to it as such, thus renaming my thoughts, giving them an identity all their own.
Constant.
An odd, even feminine sounding name, to be sure, but I did not care. With all the ranting and raving and carrying on in my head, heart, and soul, who could tell what voice was whose and so on. But it was, indeed, my stepfathers voice; A twisted version of it, yes, that made the hair on the back of my neck bristle when I heard it.
Reap what ya sow, boy. Reap what you fuckin' sow!
"Go back to bed," I said aloud, ignoring Constant. You need the rest, after what you've been through, I then thought silently. Of course, my feet didn't move for several minutes and I remained in the bathroom doorway. It seemed silly of me to return to bed with visions of The Fallen One still fresh in my mind...Right? Maybe sleep was the last thing I needed. Maybe I needed to stay awake. Wide awake.
Boy, ya need to stop yer hidin' like the fool pussy mutherfuck dat ya are!
"Watch your language," I said aloud. Constants words ripped at me unexpectedly while another brief moment of turmoil entered my stomach. Then it was gone. Constant was silent. A miracle.
With thoughts of, at least, making my way to the bed and sitting up for a while, I surveyed the room again, catching half of my reflection the bureau mirror. In the dim light, I saw not myself, but a sad, frightened figure before me. The face resembled a childs (a rather old and whithered child of the world), its pale expression that of guilt and terror. The hair was a thinning mass of, what appeared to be dead, black spiders, wrestling and tearing their way at one another, set precariously atop a worn and sallow face. The eyes were dark in the moonlight, though I thought I knew them to be a vibrant green. In this messy, sloppy lost wreck of a child-man-creature, they were no more than thunderhead marbles, stuck aimlessly and deep into their sockets. The pitiful creatures shoulders were slumped forward, giving it an almost monkey-like appearance, the stomach jutting outward slightly with bowed legs as the finishing touches. It's shrunken privates, forgotten for the most part, were not even worth noticing. The unflinching mix of sadness and anger that I felt at the very sight of it, made me take notice of its physical details all the more. They were etched into my mind. Burning there intensely. And if its mere shape and contour held such loathing for me, what I knew of its insides made me want to burst.
As my disgust and sadness were reaching their peak, I noticed something in this disturbing reflection that toppled my emotions...It's nipples. They were round and dark and smooth, each the size of a quarter. Their points were firm and erect, like pencil erasers, commanding attention at some time in their existence, but now just barely noticeable dots seemingly sinking into a doughy, pale chest. it seemed. The entire torso was feminine in its softness, striking injustice to the recollection of its former state. The swiftly changing shadow patters tore across this torso and its unpleasant attributes, as the moonlight, pine branches, and wind created their audible visual dance piece.The sight and sound of it stopped my disgust for just a moment, breaking the spell, and appealed - oh, so sickeningly - to my deep sadness. It took but a fraction of a moment
(Forgive me Father, for I have sinned)
and I was on my knees, collapsing into a fit of tears.
Constant wasted little time in returning to chastise me. Such a pussy fool! Git up off yer damn knees and stop that cat-wailin' bullshit this very Goddamn-fucking minute! Boy, you got bettah things to do with yer time!...Though I was on my knees for the first time in a long time, I was not praying. The weight of witnessing my transformed self had hit me like a bat to a ball, my heart and mind flying (whizzing!) out of the park, outside the world, gone, gone, gone.
Remaining on my knees (and knowing, in the raw, dark recesses of my mind that Constant would have my ass for it), my thoughts were consumed by memories, both long past and very recent. I doubled over in pain, tangible emotions made physical, while love, loss, pride, pain, joy and life itself passed through me. Was there truly nothing more I could have done than what I did? Could I have done anything different than what I had been asked - no, begged - to do? I knew my solitude was a facade and deceiving, most of all to myself, and I realized that at any moment the rambling, icy fingers of the damned were sure to rap upon my door
(know who you are)
if anything so courteous was to be exhibited. Contrary to what Constant may have believed, I knew that much. To Constant, I was the eternal fool, and that may very well be true. Fool? Probably. Stupid? Hell, no.
With the nation of horror, twisted love, and unnatural insight exposed to me over the last few years (its unthinkable, yet inevitable consequences beckoning), the cabin was the only haven I had, or knew. I was running out of options. And it wasn't much of a shelter, but when I arrived the week before I thought to myself, Well, this will have to do. My mind was such that, if only to convince myself I could be safe amongst its comforting surroundings, it was one of the few things left untouched by the evil I had come to know and, knowingly, embrace. Whether or not this was true, I could not say, but instinct guided me, wholeheartedly, if not wearily.
In fact, up until that evening, I had begun to feel an almost twisted, laughable sense of mock victory. As if I had never really lost the surreal conflict at all. There had almost (almost) been a sick sense of something like "hope"; a feeling not unlike that of a child in the midst of a great test, finding the answers coming swiftly, easily from pen to exam paper...But this, this evening of that face, his voice, and the total recall of what had transpired (of what I allowed to transpire) was proof that I had received a failing grade. Was confirmation of oncoming doom.
Something wicked this way comes, I suddenly thought. Something very, very wicked, methinks.
Sitting there on the edge of the bed, my knees (and Constant) screaming, it slowly began to dawn on me just how ruthless, foolish, and blind I had truly been. To kick oneself at a moment such as this was nothing more than petty self-indulgence, lending much weight to the rhetoric of my still-snapping conscience. To partake in this pity party - this too little, too late hindsight - was useless, cowardly, and a complete waste of my time, but I was unable to stop myself. The tears seemed to flow endlessly, while the heaviness of my stomach drew me closer to the floor, and my mind began to display vivid reenactments of my not-so-distant past. Much like the vision that had awoken me earlier. I witnessed every moment I could have made different, I saw every decision, every action I never should have made, all the while thinking (screaming) not to do it, don't go there. The fire and the rage felt by every force involved in this debacle were seething inside my head, fiery bursts mixing and churning with the stale acids of a beloved, but decimated (for lack of a better word) innocence.
This inferno of memories rose up and down quickly, its flashback of flames stinging my eyes, driving more tears out of me. But that was not all that was being driven out. My soul, its confidence and light barely intact as it was, felt wrung dry and fiercely shaken, like a soiled washcloth. I was strangely unaware of precisely what the feeling was at the time, but I know now. When evil truly grabs hold of your soul and squeezes tightly with its bony fingers, it is not a moment you will soon forget.
Wussa matter, boy? Can't take the truth, ya piss-ant? Can't take the sight of your own yellowy, coward-of -a-mutha-fucken self? Can't take what ya done?!
Constant spat his venom, and while I hadn't noticed at first, I suddenly realized his voice seemed a little stranger than usual. Only slightly, but noticeable enough for me to stop and frown. I had barely been listening, in truth, with the roar in my head and the sound of my own sobs surrounding me, and after a brief moment I was again consumed by the holocaust in my mind. Vomiting a stream of ghastly images, my thoughts enveloped me with their pain and torment, became a part of me physically, then swam viciously throughout my entire body, causing me to cry out and double over for a moment. A flash of Rainey's beautiful face appeared then, his sweet lips on my mind, his heart racing. The pain of my twisted soul, was reflected in his expression, his sweaty, dirt-stained face appearing deeply saddened and concerned. Flashes of fire, searing pain and
(promise me you will promise me you will promise me you will)
death permeated the stale air, myself no longer in the room, but sinking deeper into the depths of my cavernous, collapsing mind. A calliope of hellish morose rose up with renewed vigor, advancing at an alarmingly rapid rate, sending more and more blackened shockwaves into my heart and the part of your mind that registers what is real and what is not. With incredible speed, I witnessed what appeared to be the rise and fall of the powers of Heaven and Earth, and the dismal aftermath that was a direct result of it.
War. Famine. Murder. Betrayal.
In some desperate, odd way I hoped that the almost mystical images of time and space would somehow morph themselves into some miraculous, beautiful, positive sight, only briefly forgetting the twisted origins from which these images obviously came. But no such lovely transformation occurred as the horror, bloody and painful, ran rampant as a shattered visual, as if viewed through an immense pane of broken glass and quickly becoming unmistakably clear as a rabid vengeance. The breaking point was close at hand, I feared.
(know who you are)
And then I saw something:
Rainey stood before me.
Before I could speak, or even react to this sight before me, Constant raised his voice: Indeed, there is a time and place for all things, and surely you must know, that this is neither...
Constant? "Indeed"? It took but a moment to realize that this voice, now speaking aloud, was not Constant. In fact, it was not inside my head at all. It was low, deliberate, and seemed to be calling from somewhere inside the cabin. Not too far away, but definitely not in the room, either. It was alive, in this life, and it was breathing. Had the very fiber of my being not just been practically torn to ribbons, my instincts may have come up with the answer from the moment the torment began. But the trials of the past two years had affected me in more ways than I cared to admit.
Peter...He speaks to me, Rainey's hollowed voice said. Stop whipping your own heart. It speaks to him.
It took no more than one second to realize that my self-inflicted torment at the hands of my own reflection was all The Fallen One had needed to enter me and hone in on my whereabouts, a kind of supernatural GPS. A surprisingly little amount of terror entered me then, its claws dull and lifeless, but feeling an uneasy pressure, all the same. Rainey's unexplained and ghostly appearance may have been the reason behind its lack of affect, but as the situation became more and more apparent
(each dawn must come to us all)
the creeping sense and meaning behind it all grew steadily. I didn't need Constant to tell me what a fool I was now, for my own heart felt it then, its reproach surely deserved and long overdue.
I was all that I witnessed in the mirror, wasn't I? The shell of a fallen man, left behind to be disposed of? An adult lifetime of servitude, as best as his heart and soul knew how, despite its sins born out of this predicament, was still a lifetime of servitude, wasn't it? To help another, to love another, to forgive another. And I knew, deep within myself that everything I had done, and all that I had chosen was in the name of peace and love. The opposite of what was headed towards me now. This thought enraged me.
"What does this mean? Am I not understood?!" I screamed to the room. Rainey remained motionless, seemingly knowing I was not addressing him. His face then seemed to register alarm and concern. Another low calling came suddenly from The Fallen One.
Salvation is a bold, mythic lie, created for times such as these...
" I DO NOT SPEEK TO THEE!" My voice was harsh, my throat dry, as my vocal chords tore from sheer vibration and force. I resumed my interrogation of the heavens. "Is this what I'm meant to witness? Am I here to see what I've seen and done all that I've done, in the face of true evil, only to be punished and perish in its depths because of it?!" At this, what appeared to be the End of It All, I lashed out at the Lord, my savior, my mentor. While recent events had changed the very essence of who I was and what I believed, it had not erased where I'd been and who I had spent most of my adult life serving. Throughout my life, from childhood until now, I had resisted the urge to falter in my faith. I'd wrapped it around myself like a shield, and as amazing as it seemed, for all that I had lost, for all that I had been forced to witness, I truly believed in who I was and what I represented. For all the good it was to do me now.
Then Rainey spoke.
Take what has been given you, Peter. I knew who I was. Know who you are.
Know
Who
You
Are.
Rainey's words sailed into me, one by one, and for a moment, I hadn't realized I was crying again. His message opened a flood of truth within me, it's honesty pouring over, cascading, flooding. And with only moments left, I knew, there was no more time to fight it. No more time.
At that moment, I felt the burning in my skin, and I came to the realization of exactly who I was and what I had to do.
I thought I saw Rainey smile then.
My face wet and weary, I glanced at the nightstand. My white collar lay undisturbed where I had placed it the day before. I dressed hastily, the wind picking up outside and the color of night morphing into the dull glow of evil as it approached the cabin. Its stench was foul, and soon the room was thick with it. Shadowy figures approached the french doors while sounds of movement seemed to envelope the cabin entirely. Dancing demons of light descended into the billowing mist as it now engulfed the structure, ending my quest for solitude. As I wrapped my collar around my neck, and the world around me became busy with movement and sound, the ground beneath me shaking, I caught the eyes of creatures I had hoped to never again come face to face with, as they came to life before me. I took a deep breath and realized that the mirror had, indeed, served its purpose:
Reflection...
