All American Horror of the 21st Century

Big Rock Candy Mountain. Weston Ochse-3

The interior glimmered with golden rays that seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere, dulling the outlines of objects and rendering them to blur. He couldn’t discern distance, objective relevance skewed by the warping of space, straight lines curving to abstract. His eyes began to burn, unable to withstand the constant assault of color. His gut twisted. His equilibrium faltered sending him tripping into the top of a railing that followed a set of stairs into the basement. He felt like he was in a fun house without the fun.

Comet trails of color shot away from objects as his gaze moved on, searching for the Cherub, for the figure of pure golden light, for Nephilim or any sign of a hive. Instead, blue men and women huddled against the walls whispering and firing neon green liquids into their veins, becoming purple as the liquid transformed them. The farther into the building he went, the more purple people he saw, and the more able he was to digest the colors. In the center of the room hidden by a low row of boxes lay a criss-cross of purple bodies, helter-skelter pick-up-sticks of the drugged.

“J-dog come in,” the voice hissed in his ear.

Jethro spied stairs rising to the second floor against the back wall. Should he take them or return to the front and go down? Before he could decide, a yellow man skipped down the stairs and stopped in front of him. Lanky blond hair with a bodybuilder’s bare chest, he leaned in and kissed Jethro on the cheek, then whispered, “Would you die for our sins?” Then he was gone, hopscotch skipping across the bodies and out the front door. The smell of crack and his body odor lingered around Jethro, then fell away.

Would you die for our sins? There it was again? Like the Nephilim at the Skunkworks. Whose sins? Then he remembered the guy from his direct to video days before the porn market completely capitulated to the internet. Rod. That was his name. Just Rod. Like Shaq or Cher. And for him, Rod fit perfectly—thirteen inches of pure stud. Was Jethro to save all the out of work porn stars? From the fluffers to the grips, was he to be their savior? Jesus died for the world’s sins, whose sins was Jethro James supposed to die for?

“J-dog? Are you there? Come in J-dog.”

Jethro ascended. The top of the stairs opened into a room that took up the entire second story. Light from floor to ceiling windows cascaded through the shadows and the floating motes enough for him to see that the floor was empty. But the room wasn’t. His breath caught as the enormity of the vision crystallized. “In the name of God,” he cried.

“J-dog? Is that you? What’s going on?”

“I told you we couldn’t trust him.”

“Shut it. He’s doing fine.”

Jethro ignored the voices and let his gaze sweep past the dozens of hanging bodies. All yellow like Rod, these men had been hung by the neck and were dead. Evenly spaced around the room, the bodies swung gently in different directions, the ropes tied to pipes running along the ceiling, the combined weight of the bodies causing the bodies to bob. The ropes dug wickedly into the flesh around the dead mean’s necks, stretching them to almost twice their length. Eyes stared blank and bulging. Some had vomited. Others had bit their tongues. Jethro began making his way through the bodies, sidestepping rather than touching as they bobbed and swayed across his path. He stopped at a hanged man near the middle of the room. He knew this one. They’d shared a pipe once behind the 7-11 on Fourth Street. As he gazed at the yellow face, the yellow lips began to move as the body twisted to face him. “Would you die for our sins, Jethro?”

He leaped backwards, intersecting several bodies, sending them spinning violently away in pendulum arcs. He fell, landing on his back, cracking his elbows on the hard wood floor. When he looked again at the face it was composed in death, yellow lips pressed together with grim rictus. There’s no way he could have spoken. Jethro giggled. He scooted away from, the spinning bodies and found a place to stand.

At the far edge of the room was a step ladder and an empty space. Side-stepping the bodies, he managed to make it there without touching any of them. Above the ladder was an empty hangman’s noose. Jethro didn’t need to be a genius to figure out what was expected of him. His left hand went to his neck as he backed away. They wanted him, but they couldn’t have him. Now unconcerned about touching the bodies, he ran to the stairs. Looking back, among the bodies swaying back and forth, rebounding off each other, was Snake Foreskin. “Would you die for my sins?”

“No!” shouted Jethro. “No way in hell!”

He hustled down the stairs, ran across the room, and found the stairs to the basement. Looking back, he saw nothing but purple people. No yellow men. No Nephilim. So why was he so scared? Suddenly a shadow flew across the room and enveloped one of the purple people. Seconds later, the shadow returned to a space near the ceiling, the purple person gone.

“J-dog. Come in.”

Jethro peered down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. “This is J-dog.” He couldn’t keep his voice from trembling.

“J-dog, where have you been?”

“Thing’s are a little weird in here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yellow men and flying purple people eaters. Bobbing for crackheads on the second floor. Snake Foreskin wants me to bob.”

“What the hell is he saying?”

“J-dog. You okay?”

Jethro gulped. “Okay as a crackhead savior ought to be, I think.”

“I told you we shouldn’t have—”

“Shut up, Bill. I don’t want to hear it.” Then to Jethro, “J-dog keep in touch. We’re counting on you.”

I bet you are. With that he descended the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he had no choice but to turn left, then a short hallway and a metal door. He grasped the knob, hesitated and asked himself if he really believed in angels. Then he asked himself if he really believed in bad ass angels that wanted all humanity to be dead. He popped one last rock into his crack pipe and smoked it. As the acrid smoke coursed through his lungs, the memory of a car wreck at age twenty and a romantic dinner with Stephanie at The Eldorado Steakhouse zapped from existence. Which was okay. It was a fair trade for bravery. He never really liked Stephanie anyway.

The knob turned easily, so he opened the door and stepped through. Light blinded him as at least a hundred Nephilim stood around the walls of the immense room, each glowing impossible white. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and made out a great mound of boxes in the center of an otherwise empty floor. Atop this darkness reigned, blotting out the ceiling in a roiling cloud of blacks and grays. He let the door shut behind him. The click echoed in the room. He winced, ready for an attack, but none came. Then he noticed that the Nephilim were facing the walls like bad children being punished.

The sound of a bell striking reverberated through the room causing Jethro to cover his ears. The sound came again and drove him to his knees. The sound came once more and the Nephilim began swaying back and forth, moaning in a monotone dissonance. The cloud of blackness melted away revealing a golden figure resting upon a throne pieced-together from s****l devices.

Jethro could not move. The power of the Cherub’s presence was so great that he couldn’t even take his eyes off the angelic creature. The Cherub had the face and body of a baby but was as large as a grown man. It shimmered with golden light. The eyes shown red and glared at him with what he could only describe as a loving fascination. Whatever courage the crack had granted fled in the face of this Old Testament being. Jethro tried to look away, he tried to avert his gaze, but he was completely powerless. A thin scream escaped his mouth.

The Cherub spoke, its alien voice almost out of octave range. The man-sized hand rose and a chubby finger pointed at him. The Cherub spoke again, this time screeching like an owl. The hundred Nephilim spun on their heels. Each now faced Jethro, their moaning ceased.

Goosebumps exploded across his arms like an archipelago being born in the Sea of What-The-f**k. He trembled uncontrollably. He wanted to run. He didn’t want to be here anymore. Who cared about Iowa? Who cared about the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

“J-dog, can you read—ssst—come in—ssst.”

The transmission could barely make it through, but that wireless connection to reality helped him as much as a platoon of infantry. He managed to avert his eyes, at once lessening the power of the Cherub.

“Asylum.” He could barely control the giggles in his voice. “Asylum this is J-dog. I have the target in sight.”

“J-dog, say again last—ssst.”

The Cherub spoke again, the sound like glass grinding in an open wound. Jethro gritted his teeth. Dear God. How could this be an angel? How could this represent the hope of a benign God?

“Would you die for our sins?” asked the hundred Nephilim with one voice.

He couldn’t take it any longer. What had been held at bay burst through the paralysis.

“Why?” he screamed. “Why do you ask me this? Why is everyone f*****g asking me this?”

“Because you have a choice. Die for our sins, or be punished for your own.” The words came from the mouths of the Nephilim as one voice. Clearly the Cherub’s voice wasn’t meant for human ears.

“What are your sins?”

“We didn’t care enough.” The statement trailed off into sadness.

“I don’t understand?”

“We let you do what you wanted to do. We were negligent.”

“What are our sins?”

“You forgot grace.”

“Grace?”

“The bond between the creator and the created.”

Jethro had never thought about it before, and in that realization understood the problem.

“Respect,” the Nephilim said.

Something he’d rarely cared about. Who respected a porn star? Who respected a crackhead? He didn’t, so why should anyone else. “What about it?”

“You have none.”

“Yeah.” He lowered his head. “So.”

“J-dog, give us a sign—ssst.”

“You’ve come to kill us.”

Jethro looked up at the mischievous smile on the Cherub’s face. There were no secrets here.

“We know,” the Nephilim continued. “The choice is yours. It always has been.”

“What choice do I have?” he asked spreading his arms.

“The choice between Hell on Earth or the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

“But what about—”

“—Iowa? What about those you left behind?”

“Yes. I owe them.”

“You owe them nothing. Your sugar-coated memory conveniently forgot the reasons you’d left. Your father. Uncle Jerry. Billy Jimmison. You’ve turned it into a Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

Uncle Jerry. A memory of alcohol, hurried breathing, a struggle and the roughness of denim against Jethro’s naked buttocks. Billy Jimmison who’d waited for him behind the mailboxes with a two-by-four. And his father who’d—

“Nothing that was is as it was.”

“How could I have forgotten?” he gasped. Why’d I have to remember? A small tired part of him pointed out that the memories had been hidden for a reason. Another tired part of him pointed out how long and how dedicated it had been to allow him to forget.

“Snap crackle pop,” mimicked all hundred Nephilim like a hopped up glee club.

Jethro wiped tears away from his cheeks with his palms. “Yeah. That’s it. Snap crackle pop.”

“The choice is yours.”

“Why do I have to choose?”

“Respect. Grace.”

It took a moment, but Jethro finally nodded, and as he did, his shoulders sagged in defeat. “Yeah, I understand.” He turned his back on the Cherub and the Nephilim. He trudged up the stairs, past the purple people, past the pick-up-stick bodies, up the next flight of stairs and through the hanging yellow men. The stepladder was where he’d left it. He climbed up the bottom two rungs, draped the noose around his neck and tightened it. The yellow man nearest him opened his eyes. Blackened rotting orbs appraised him. “Would you die for our sins?”

“J-dog. Where the f**k are you? Is it in there?”

“Yes,” he said to both the Nephilim and the government man. Jethro stepped up one more rung, then shoved off. The stepladder fell one way, and his body the other. When he reached the end of the rope his neck snapped, the crack followed by hundreds of automatic weapons as they opened fire on the floor below.

A second, a minute, an hour, or an epoch later, Jethro found himself standing in the open door of a train, chug-chugging towards an immense purple candy mountain. Lemonade springs bubbled through the rocks. Streams of alcohol meandered into a lake of ginger ale. Birds and bees buzzed the lollipop trees.

Respect. Grace. Yeah. He’d finally understood. The government men wanted to kill the Cherub to save the earth. The Cherubs wanted humanity to die to save themselves. Everyone had their own reasons to kill everyone else. What they’d all forgotten was selflessness.

The train slowed as it came to the last stop. Looking at the Big Rock Candy Mountain before him, Jethro knew he’d made the right decision. After all, if he hadn’t, he’d never have ended up at the heaven he’d created for himself so long ago. He stepped off the train onto a cool mint sidewalk, his heart filled with the wonder of discovery and the awe of a wish fulfilled, little boy turned porn star turned crack head turned rock candy angel.

* * *

France gives the world Madame Curie and radium. Scotland gives us Alexander Fleming and penicillin. The USA gives us the inventive drug dealers of the 1980s and crack cocaine. Weston Ochse gives us a folk tale not unlike “Pecos Bill” or “Paul Bunyan”—only with more drug use.