A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven (13 page)

I apologize to my ruddy brothers and sisters for perpetuating the stereotype that we are soulless bastards. I look forward to all of your angrily written letters and of course the verbal confrontations at our next secret meeting. Now, moving on . . .

Let’s talk about heaven for a while. Now, different religions have different ideas of what heaven would be or look like. The Christian version has all the trappings of cloudy condominiums guarded by blokes with wings. Muslims have honey and an inordinate amount of virgins. Jews, I believe, have lots of cake and no guilt from their mothers—but I am of course guessing. You would think Jewish heaven would essentially be a bigger chunk of Christian heaven, seeing as the front half of the Bible, the Old Testament, is a version of the Torah that has been revised and rewritten countless times by multiple people. So maybe Heaven is a Christian time-share and the Jews are the landlords. That is, if you believe in the idea of heaven anyway. Where the hell would it be? Would it be up in the rings of Saturn? Or would it be some sort of sideways dimension? Or is heaven a sort of gossamer reality where souls can shift in and out, back onto our side of that fence?

That looks very pretty on a computer screen, but it means fuck all in the real world. Hence all my grammatical babble. The more I wear this itchy skin suit, the more I realize that most humans can talk huge amounts of beautifully sounding bullshit, disguised as expounding on philosophical pontifications. Verbiage is a great way of throwing sawdust on the vomit that so-called intellects secrete in their wake, leaving us stranded on a pub crawl on a dead Saturday. As far as I can make out, the only difference between a scholar and a snake oil salesman is the degree to which they try to sway you to their way of thinking. Be that as it may, I like to subscribe to waxings like those that history has given us over time, but that does not mean I am the DH for either team. So I have made up my own mind, but as legendary New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel pointed out, “I made it up both ways.”

Jumping back on the more thrilling side of the wall, tales of spirits walking among us have been prevalent since print tied remote ends of countries together. Abraham Lincoln, my absolute favorite president, is said to stroll the halls of the White House and visit guests staying in the bedroom that bears his name. Ulysses S. Grant is supposedly “seen” in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C., lounging in his favorite chair and enjoying one of his trademark cigars; people say you can still smell the cigar smoke linger even after he has moved on. On the topic of hotels, the Roosevelt in Los Angeles apparently has several instances of paranormal activity, including but not limited to visits in various rooms from a female specter resembling Marilyn Monroe and the haunting sounds of invisible gala soirees in the spacious ballroom. It sort of begs the question: is it the place that attracts these phantom imprints or is it the “will” of the wraith itself, going where it chooses to create a veritable cycle, like a DVD menu in which no one hits the play button?

Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco has a very popular ghost tour, where they guide you through the mazes that made up that citadel of crime for years. That would be something I would love to do sometime. Your chances are 50/50 either way of seeing something or seeing nothing, but imagine getting away from the tour and looking around without a chaperone. Ooh! That would be some sphincter-tightening shit—wandering around almost exclusively in a rundown old jailhouse, waiting for something to happen. I would be in a fit of heavens. Then again, what are the odds that if there were some residual haunts hanging about, they would keep their hands to themselves? Could you imagine suddenly being assaulted by thieves and murderers from beyond the modern veil of reality? They sure as fuck would be pissed off and ready to shank a motherfucker in the face. Of course, their shanks would probably pass right through you, but my experience has taught me that if the souls of the dearly departed want to move you, they can and will. I will tell you more about that later, but trust me—it will give you pause if you start some shit with Casper the Gnarly Ghost.

Speaking of strange happenings in jails, when I was a teenager I spent a lot of my summer nights in a town called Indianola, Iowa, which is about fifteen minutes from Des Moines. It is where most of my close cousins grew up, so, hanging out there, I made a lot of friends. It is not a big town; you can get from one end to the other in about ten minutes, and that is being generous. The center of town was a one-block-by-one-block concoction of one-story buildings and shops that were dominated by the courthouse/jail right in the middle of it all. We called it the Square, and even though the cop shop was there, that was where we all hung out, either cruising in a constant combo of left turns or parking and sitting on car trunks. In another example of not really giving a flat shit whether or not the police seemed to be nearby, we also either got high or drunk or both, depending on what was what from who and where. I spent a lot of nights, head spinning and laughing uncontrollably, sitting with my friends on the Square. This was where I discovered, much to my chagrin, that you could be arrested for pretending to be a blind person. Then again, maybe it was more about the fact that I was mocking with an attitude the policeman who tried to make us disperse, calling us a “gang.” I think you can understand by now that I have no time for small-minded people with silly hang-ups.

Anyway, there was a legend in Indianola about one of the jailhouse windows. It was said that long ago a man was murdered in one of the cells with his face pushed up against the window, screaming in agony and fighting to get the window open, maybe to get help or get out. The story goes that because he met his end in such a violent way, that window was impressed with the scene and the spirit of the doomed man. If I am quoting this right, “to this day, at the right time day or night, you could see the man with his face plastered to the glass, silently trying to fight off his unseen assailant.” As local legends go, you have to admit that is a pretty decent juicy one. It has action, drama, gore, and a hint of unnerving imagery. I have no idea if it is true or not, but I can tell you on good authority that my friends and I stared at every window on that building nearly every night for a whole summer trying to get a glimpse of this crazy ghostly attack. Sure, we were high and drunk. But what the hell else are you going to do on a Friday during the summer in a town where the dominant landmarks are fucking cornfields? I can safely say I never saw anything happen in the jailhouse window . . . although I did witness a girl in a skirt pick up a beer can without using her hands. You all have sufficiently dirty minds—you do the math.

Then one night something happened to me while I was hanging out in Indianola.

Surrounding this little town were suburbs, the aforementioned cornfields, and hundreds of gravel roads that seemingly led to the edges of nowhere. When we were not camped out on the Square getting our jollies on, we were out in the darkened country speeding into the pitch black, doing things like handstands in truck beds and playing Mailbox Baseball, which is exactly what it sounds like. If I had any misconceptions about how crazy certain people in Des Moines were, the kids I hung out with in Indianola made them all look like fucking amateurs. People fought and fucked freely, sometimes all at once. It was the spirit of the caged animal trying desperately to feel the sting of freedom on its dry and cracking lips. You can cover a lot of ground with complete abandon—you just need the right set of car keys. Our lives would have given Grant Wood an all-American Gothic hard-on, complete with pitchforks and dour sex in parking lots.

One very eventful night my friends and I were out amongst the livestock and misty rural terrain, getting fucked up and thereby fucking up everything around us. We had pulled up just off of a crazy abandoned road fairly removed from 65–69, which was the main interstate artery that ran through the town. A few pathetic streetlights spilled a pinch of illumination around us, giving our maladjusted eyes views of the corn, the trees, the road, and each other. We had pulled off slightly, because to pull all the way over would have meant driving into a drainage ditch. The moon was soft and subliminal. We all sat around our parked cars, drinking beer and Schnapps and whatever else. Thankfully it was not a Scotchgard night: I tended to go mental when I huffed that shit. For a full week I was convinced I could see the future after a nightmare of an evening spent inhaling that bastard stuff. But that is another story for another book. Back to the action . . .

I was taking a swig from a whiskey bottle when I saw the black shape in the corn.

I damn near spit it out—I had not heard any movement or seen any car lights. As far as I was concerned we were the only people out there. Then, before I could bring it to anyone else’s attention, one of my friends saw it as well. It looked like a naked man, a living silhouette blending in with the cornstalks yet sticking out like a sore throbbing thumb. It was perhaps ten yards away from us, but we saw it clear as day. Then we blinked and it was gone. It freaked us out so bad that we had to laugh. Someone thought it was some kind of undercover cop. That little tidbit made us laugh even fucking harder. The laughter died abruptly, however, when we saw the same black shape on the road behind us.

We scrambled into our cars and trucks, people screaming and yelling. The thing was getting closer. I threw myself into one of the truck beds and demanded the driver hit the fucking gas pedal and get us the hell out of there. As bad luck would have it, the truck I had escaped to ended up being the last vehicle in our terrified convoy. So for all intents and purposes, I was face to fucking face with this thing. It chased us for a while, keeping up even as we ramped up the speeds. I did not know it, but I found myself screaming at it—“FUCK YOU! LEAVE US ALONE!” The scene had triggered something in my head, taking me back to that night in Cold House. I was a ten-year-old kid again, trying to get my leg unstuck from rotting wood and cursing myself for having this stupid idea in the first place. Thankfully my buddy was steady on the wheel, and as we swung our ass ends out onto the pavement of the interstate, the black shape vanished without a trace.

When we got back to the Square, it was my childhood all over again: some of us wanted to talk about it, and others refused to say anything. I was one of those silent few. I was shaking like a dog shitting cockle burrs. I wanted to go home and hide under my bed. I never wanted to hear another thing about ghosts and shapes and evil ever again. I sat quietly, even when a sort of “ghost posse” formed in the wake of those events and several people from the Square went off to try to find the thing again, including people who were not there the first time. For me, I had seen enough. I crashed at a friend’s house, and the next morning I went back to Des Moines. It was a while before I made it back to the Square in Indianola again. By then people were tired of talking about the Thing in the Corn, as they called it. They were back to Wake & Bakes and beer bongs, and this put me back at ease. Since that day, though, I have always been on guard. I never truly relax. I am always waiting, ready for that darkness to come running out of the corn for me.

Do I unconsciously draw this nonsense to me? Or is this stuff naturally attracted to me? After everything I have seen, I am not so sure. Honestly I am inclined to look at myself as some freaky conduit. Between Cold House and the Kids on the Circle, which we will get to soon enough, the argument can be made that there is something about me that stirs the vibrations in all kinds of crazy shit. But I have refused to give in to anything in me that wants to straight split and run away. I carry on with the avenues of life. Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant; what matters is that I have not and will not let these things control how I spend my time, love my people, or live my life. This is the hand I have been dealt. I hope you are ready to go all in, because I could double down at any moment. Never bet on the flop or the river; set your lot on the cards in front of you. The more I look at things on a level plain, the more those simple things that matter the most carry on being your foundation. My backstory may be set, but I will never shit-can the plot just because it begins to thicken.

I say this not to brag on myself, but maybe these strong personalities are attracted to other strong personalities. Anyone who knows me is thoroughly aware that I am a boisterous blowhard with a propensity for cracking off at the mouth and laughing out loud even when it is inappropriate. In other words, I bow my head for the National Anthem but I am not afraid to tell a dirty joke at a funeral. The funny thing is electricity and magnetism have the same properties—we will talk more about that in another chapter. But assume for a second there is a magnetic attraction between two sets of energy. Who is to say one large bundle of energy cannot become attracted to another and follow it to where it resides? Would that explain something like spirits clinging to a living person and taking up in each home the living person chooses to live? Maybe. Then again, maybe I am mad as a hatter and I have no muzzle for the crazy shit that comes out of my mouth. Only time will tell.

So to sum up this chapter, between reality and madness lies the world we all call home. I have a foot in both of those pies, and no matter how hectic it gets in here, my reason keeps me swinging. All I need is a minute or two to work it all out. If I can get my head around it, I will find a way to understand it, even if it does not make sense to everyone else right away—or ever for that matter. It is like my own personal Kobayashi Maru and I am James Tiberius Kirk, cheating my way to a way out. Seeing as the captain and I are both from Iowa, I think that parallel will work just fine. That is because as long as there is hope, life will always go on. It could be the darkest side of hell you have ever witnessed—if you hang on long enough to carry on, you will. With these strange equations and unsettling stories both creating surplus in my head, I have a way to broker a modest ceasefire between my fear and my understanding. It gives me sure footing when I walk out into those cold nights, when something in the air threatens to wreak a bit of havoc on your good vibes. Bring it on—I have enough experience to know how to handle it.