aaron_the fall of america_chapter_02

Chapter 2

The church bell still refuses to sound. There is yet nothing but this musky smell. There are many possibilities. Someone may have stolen the bell. At the same time, a power failure disabled electrical entertainment devices. A sudden oil crisis or awareness that toxins come out of auto exhausts has prevent car horns blaring. Permanent, total eclipse of sun and moon. Ice 9 had been discovered, which would explain why my taps are inaudible. I am severely drugged and can't understand the progress of time. Other possibilities I refuse to face.

Maybe I shouldn't trouble myself with trying to make up my mind. It seems to be bulking to such strenuous conclusions. Bunnies. Black bearded bunnies.

My last job was computer assisted, paint by number. Or something like that. My college diploma was redundant. Simoza would have gone to Nicaragua in search of mules. Many persons lost their minds at the colour controls. One fellow threw monitors on the floor before being released. Someone else had an epileptic seizure because of a flashing monitor. Most employees were docile or angry. I was growing hostile and unbalanced. There was something wrong in that place.

Brent and I had found a rusty bike with two flat tires. Though I discouraged it, Brent took it home. With a little effort he made it function. It was stuck in the hardest of three gears and the front tire pulled stubbornly to the right. It was too small and the brakes were bad, and soon after the back brake would break. I took it from Brent and left my better one safe in my apartment building.

All these details only serve to add to the ridiculousness of the evening I was standing outside of work finishing a slice of vegetarian pizza I had purchased around the corner. Guy held up a lock and proclaimed that judging from its appearance, it had been cut. I looked at it and confirmed his notion. I then recognised the lock. I looked to where my bike, or Brent's bike, was, to discover it very much not there. My cable was there but the worst bike in the rack, possibly the city, was gone.

This time it hardly mattered. When we were kids, one of our adventure lands was the industrial area. One day, Ken and I rode our bikes to the magazine distributor, leaving our bikes leaning against a nearby fence. Dumb. We climbed into the large garbage container to search through the magazines. We collected comics to take home. We collected, but didn't take home, magazines with pictures of women, the kind with no clothes. Only in our steel sanctuary did we look at our two dimensional girlfriends. At ten or twelve years we were not prepared to deal with the inquisition on masturbation.

The door to the iron maiden stands open.

"Do you masturbate son?"

"No, Mom," a mousy voice squeaks out. "I only touch my bird when I go pee. And I try not to look at it."

A sardonic smile and the sound of a file on metal were the prelude to the revealing of the indisputable evidence. The magazine of ill repute had been hiding behind her back.

"Are you lying to me?"

She baited me into the trap of the worst crime. Not only was I a masturbater but a lying masturbater. I could feel the gates of hell open under my feet. My soul cried out for help but God was too disgusted. Who would help me?

"No."

"If you are not lying to me, why do you have this filthy book with dirty pictures hiding under the floor boards under you bed?"

"Ah."

"Tell me. What is this?"

She opened the evidence to the centrefold. Since I would not see the book again, I had one last good look.

"Is that what women look like?"

"If they are dirty whores. This is sinful, filthy garbage from the devil. God will forsake you if you play with yourself. You will go blind on your way to hell."

Life and eternity was taken away from me because of my silly indiscrepencies.

Unless hell is a musky smell, I think I was lied to. Up until I could see nothing, my eyes were as strong as an eagle’s eyes. But of course we didn't take the magazines home and most mothers aren't so bad. And I lived mostly with my grandmother at that age.

Unfortunately we didn't take our bikes home either. After Ken and I climbed out of the garbage container with our many comics, we returned too late to find our bikes. My bike was my cousin's bike. When she found out, I learned about painful inquisition.



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by Joanne B. Washington

© 2001 | the jose wombat project