Multiplex Fandango (10 page)

"In just a moment, we will be passing out lighters.
Please take your time and enjoy the product.
Thank you for your cooperation."

The addicts fumbled with the lighters when they came, their excitement making the simple procedure complex beyond quantum physical standards.
Still, they managed to light their pipes, the flare of red, then blue, then acrid smoke shot through their lungs.
Almost as quickly they sagged in their desks, legs askew, backs arching and relaxing as the drug pumped through their systems.
Eyes rolled madly, sometimes nothing but white.

When it became Jethro's turn, he couldn't contain his desperation as he grabbed the blue plastic lighter and snapped it once, twice, then sizzle, snap, crackle, pop goes the weasel, the sweet mad taste of chemical that took him to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, traded for a memory of his mother's first smile that split to infinity.
He sagged as his muscles jumped and twitched.
He let his hand rest on the desk, the pipe loosely grasped in case there might be another welfare rock on the way.
His mind drifted through fields of cigarette trees, soda water fountains and lemonade springs.
He soared above a lake of stew and streams of alcohol.
His skin felt both hot and cold as his blood sizzled through his veins.

His head lolled on his neck.
He felt drool trickle free, but didn't have the will to control it.
He allowed his gaze to coast across the room.
This time when he looked at the chair in the front, it wasn't empty.

Sitting with its hands clasped on its n
aked lap was a gaunt creature
—
part man, part something indescribable.
White skin was blotched with grays, greens and blues, cancerous and tumorous as they bulged and sank with disease.
Breasts sagged, brown chewed nipples folding upon themselves.
Knobbed legs crossed beneath the chair at the ankles, long clawed feet kept carefully inside the circle.
The skin of the face was pulled so tight that the cheekbones and the brow ridges seeming ready to tear through.
Yellow cataract eyes glared back at him as a mouth of pustulent gums and slimy teeth opened.

"Will you die for my sins?" it asked.

Jethro jerked back in his desk, his legs scrambling beneath as they fought for purchase.
He slammed his eyes shut and brought the pipe up to his mouth once more and inhaled.
Please make it go away.
Please make it go
.
But instead, the view shifted as his mind snap, crackle, popped the last of the crack taking him to his Big Rock Candy Mountain.
But instead of the peaceful sounds of the brooks and the birds and the bees, a great voice boomed across the land causing crevices to wrench open and rocks to avalanche down the faces of the cliffs.
Water boiled and forests burst into flame.
Even the air became so oppressive and heavy that the creatures of the mountain fell where they stood.

Lift up your banner upon the high mountain.
I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have called my mighty ones for my anger.
They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, with my weapons of indignation, to destroy the whole land
.

Jethro scrambled to his feet, breaking the desk apart.
He backed away, his arms in front of his eyes, terrified at what he might further see.
But the creature merely grinned as it stood to its full height, easily that of the tallest man.

"Will you die for my sins?" it asked again.

Jethro fell to the ground, his head slamming hard against the tile.
Volcanoes erupted along the spine of his
Big
Rock
Candy
Mountain
, spewing effluvium into the air.
Screams of animals and insects joined with his own as his heaven was destroyed.

Howl ye for the day of the
LORD
is at hand.
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt, and they shall be afraid.
Pangs and sorrows shall take hold o
f them and they shall
be amazed one at another as their faces turn to flame
.

***

Three days passed before he was allowed to leave his hospital bed.
Nothing was physically wrong with him.
Only his mind had been affected, and even now, after a dozen therapeutic doses of crack and some minor explanations, his imagination felt scoured and raw.
Finally he'd been able to return to his Big Rock Candy Mountain and it showed none of the devastation that the creature had heaped upon it.

They didn't go into great detail, but it seemed that he'd been the only one to pass the test.
The others were released.
He w
as given a new set of clothes
—
jeans, shirt and shoes
—
then they took him into a conference room where two men waited.
His mouth felt sandblasted.
His body had spent time rammed in a compactor on the back of a trash truck.
He really didn't feel much like talking to anyone.
All he wanted was to get back in bed and smoke a little more.

"This is Mr. La Chance.
He's a cosmologist."
The government man was the same one who'd spoken to him before and was straight out of a B-movie.
All that was missing were the dark glasses.

"He sells make-up?"

"No.
That's a cosmetologist.
A cosmologist studies the physical universe as it relates to time and space."

"And associated phenomenon," Mr. La Chance added.
He wore jeans, loafers and a tweed jacket over a t-shirt with the words
I Honk for Angels.
"Some of us study planets, some study the relativity of distorted space, others, like me, discourse in celestial existence as outlined in certain historical texts."

"What?"

"Part of my studies involves angelic transmigration, in this case, cherubim and nephilim."

"Wait.
You study angels?
As in white robes, flaming swords and booming voices?"
Big Rock Candy Mountain turning Vesuvius
?
He shook the memory away and reminded himself that it had never happened; could never have happened.
Turning to Mr. Jones, "Has this guy been smoking my crack?"

"No, Mr. James.
He's very serious.
You should listen to him."
The government man knocked on the table.
"You know what he's talking about."

Jethro glared at him a moment, wondering exactly how much the
“
you know
”
meant.
"Fine.
But look at it from my point of view.
You pick me up, put me in a roomful of addicts, feed me crack with enough kick to break my teeth, then reward me like a lucky monkey for being the only one to see a special kind of pink elephant
;
in this case, some shriveled and dying thing.
Only he wasn't my pink elephant
;
instead he was some angel you'd captured and managed to hold in a circle of brimstone.
Angels?
Are you kidding me?"

The government man shook his head, knocked on the table to get Jethro's attention, then pointed to some words he'd written on a piece of paper.
Isaiah 13
.
As if Jethro knew what that meant.

La Chance cleared his throat and frowned down his nose.
"Not mere angels, but nephilim and cherubim."

"Whatever," Jethro cursed, tearing his gaze away from the paper.

"Is he always this belligerent?" La Chance asked.

"We don't know.
This is the first time he's been sober since after the test."

"This is the real me."
Jethro stood and postured, pumping his pelvis towards them.
"This is me in all my faded glory.
And to think that women used to beg me to fuck them."

"Thankfully we don't want the real you.
We like you just fine on crack."
Mr. La Chance lowered his glasses and peered over the tops of them.
"You're very special, Mr. James.
We've only found sixteen others like you in twenty years of testing."

"If I'm so special where's my fix?"

The government man knocked on the table once more, bringing Jethro's attention back to the paper.
Isaiah 13
.

"You'll get that soon enough," Mr. La Chance said.
"We just want you to understand
why we’re doing this.”

"Why?
Do I have to sign something?"

"Well, yes, actually.
A non-disclosure agreement and a release for death or damage.
Standard stuff."

"These might be standard for you, Sparky, but not for me.
So you want me to sign papers stating that I'll never talk about it, and if I die, I'll never expect you to pay me, and if I live but am just a little fucked up, I'll not come to you for a little fix up.
Does that about cover it?"

"Yep."

"What do I get out of it?"

"All the crack you want.
Free of charge," the government man said.
"For the rest of your life."

A thousand smart-assed responses crystallized into an explosion of pure joy as Jethro's
need overwhelmed his concern.
He swooned at the possibility of not having to
panhandle
, crying as each quarter and dime propelled him towards his salvation wonderland.
Not having to dumpster dive.
Not having to steal food because the money was already spent on a r
ock.
God how far he'd fallen.
Free crack was like free sex.
He'd had the latter, now they wanted to supply the former

"Free of charge?" He couldn't keep the shake from his voice.

"USDA Prime Choice crack cocaine."

Jethro gritted his teeth and fought the urge to giggle.
He dug his nails into the palms of his hands to keep them from shaking.
He needed to concentrate.
He needed a few minutes of clarity, because part of him was reminded that there were no free lunches.
He might be getting free drugs, but there'd be a price to pay down the line.

"What do I have to do for this?"
He licked his lips and pushed his greasy bangs out of his eyes.
"I mean, I know you want me to see things for you, but it would help if I understood the big picture."

Mr. La Chance glanced at Jones who shrugged and looked away.
"He'll be stoned anyway.
Not that it will matter."

"Maybe it'll help," La Chance offered.

This was an opportunity for Jethro.
He'd been locked in his crack spiral for nearly a decade with no possibilities past the next fix.
Now he had a horizon.
Something to look forward to.
Something to look past.
Not that he knew what was on the other side, but he at least knew that he could get close enough to look.
And then a small part of him hoped that he'd find a way back to
Iowa
where he could once again walk through the fields of golden corn and smell his mother's rhubarb pie.

So he listened as the government doctor explained about the nephilim that had been chained to the chair, invisible to all but him.
About the nephilim who'd been creating hives across
America
.
F
or what purpose, no one really knew for sure, but the government treated it like a military maneuver.
Pre-positioning was the word La Chance used over and over.
Creating hives of humans to serve each cherub, the nephilim were biblical royalty.

La Chance had quoted Genesis.
"The Nephilim were upon the Earth in those days and thereafter too.
Those sons of the gods who cohabited with the daughters of the Adam, and they bore children into them.
They were the Mighty Ones of Eternity, the People of the Shem.
"No one ever really paid attention to that particular part of the bible, because it didn't fit neatly into Adam and Eve being the first.
But the Bible says specifically that these creatures were on the earth before Adam, before Eve."

Before crack
, Jethro couldn't help but think.

La Chance explained about the cherubs.
Not the fat little babies of television, but powerful celestial beings who'd been in the presence of God.
Cherubs like the angel who prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son, Isaac.
Or the angel that wrestled with Jacob.
Or the angel who led the Israelites under Moses out of the wilderness.