An Awareness I'm In

Feathers flutter in the dark, blossoming epidermal outgrowths of protein, white as snow on black rock, where The Great Whore reads Revelation 17:5 —the letter —contradicting the thousands of stars and voices in the dark winter night, observing the approaching silhouette. The thing that hid in Oklahoma. The quiet student. The decorated soldier. The checks that arrive whenever Jesse Helms receives a quart of Cambodian blood from the ear and arms of the free world.

Loose snow hovers over rolling dunes suppressed by sporadic winds of expanding foam, where crystals rain into heaps of ground diamond that shimmer in the moonlight. There is a crunching sound with every step he takes. The snow is hard. He is tired. His hands tremble. He is afraid of being right. He is afraid of being wrong. He is afraid of many things, but hears he no longer needs to be. Breath curls across his cheeks. Goggles protect his eyes, but the pale horse gallops across odorless plains, screaming for Death. Nature continues, ushering in snow that covers what it is and was, adding a layer of purity that will lose its innocence regardless of whether it is touched. The truth, sealed in a tomb between the past and present—a strange dream waiting to join reality as a discovered incident. Mercy waits, tied to the good and the bad before a solemn swamp, where judgment sank with the expectations of men that do not know themselves—the mirror we find our strongest opinions, spreading through the cheeks of Babylon, daring one another to sit in the mouth of Moloch.

His flashlight dies in a reservoir of dark cold. Looking up a slight incline, clouds gather, and all is black and sound. The man listens to a voice in the wind.

“Guilty as the carpenter who built the cross, the snakes who lick Cassandra’s ears, wake from this dream, return to Saturn’s rings and birthday cake with candles. Be convincing. Thorough. I will use you and you will use me, and no one will be able to tell the difference. This is for you, brother.”

Murus Cloud wakes in the only jail cell, covered in sweat and very confused. He’s read the bible. Read it a few times, and chapter 17 in the Book of Revelation mentions a Great Whore. That Earth’s inhabitants are drunk off the wine of her fornication, but they drink the wrong wine. Murus patronized a woman in Chattanooga who claimed to be “The Real Great Whore,” and he remembers she was right. Oh, yes, almighty walls, she was right. Probably still is, though she robbed him of everything but his virginity.

He sits and strokes his beard in the robes of Socrates. His bare feet dangle above the cool floor. Amid deep thoughts, he squints at the intrusive moon and whispers, “That Whore,” once again paying a high price, and not knowing it is by the hour. Without currency, he spends the night. He grabs the Bhagavad-Gita and says, “I have become death, destroyer of worlds.” His bookmark is a Caravaggio of John the Baptist’s severed head.

“There is only so much a man can take,” he quips, in a last-ditch attempt to hold onto the atheism he acquired five hours ago, but relents and acknowledges his Gods. On his knees, he bows to the cell wall. His Lord. The mighty protector, speaking of the imminent Second Coming. That the time of judgment is near, Wallsus, the wall of walls, has already left, and will fully manifest the victory over his enemies. Sledgehammers, saws, and children upon a cross, and granting all a share of Wallsus’s resurrection.

The Lockheed LC-130 hums loudly. FBI Agents Tim Halton and Louis Caldwell sit in the only seats amongst the cargo. They are on their way to investigate two murders outside the Wexler Research Facility in Antarctica. Halton wakes up, rings around his eyes, wondering how long it has been. This is not the plan. Sleep is never the plan. He reaches for the bottle of J&B in his partner's shoe and pours himself a drink, pops an Obetrol because he woke up, and then another when he realizes there is no coffee. He opens his report for the fiftieth time, and whispers what he makes of the dossier, unable to internalize what he believes he must hear, trying his best not to wake Caldwell, who believes in beating those who disturb his sleep.

“May 15th, 1978. Murus Cloud shoots Phil Ordonez in the throat for burning the station's entire library, cigarette rations, ping-pong paddles, and projector. He confesses. The Marshal has two signed witness statements and locked Murus up, but waited a week to report the murder via the US Embassy in New Zealand. By then, a second occurred while Cloud was behind bars—the victim is Ray O’Barr, another round to the throat from an M-1 Carbine Rifle. Same type of gun that shot Phil Ordonez. No known motive. No suspects in custody.”

Halton looks at the photo of Murus beneath the paperclip. A casualty of the sixties, but not the peace and love kind. It would be more like if Manson lived in Tulsa and shot up speed and TV sets while waiting for kids to get out of school. He is tan, tall, and has a long beard. His eyes are big and wide, and they look at Halton as if he knows what Halton is doing this very moment, dropping Alka-Seltzer into his water. He drinks it and looks back at the photo of Murus—a Rasputin for a different time—someone who could run across Antarctica naked and make it to the other side.

Murus was hired last year by Chief Custodian and Maintenance Superintendent, Hein Chu, even though Murus has a criminal record that couldn’t get him a job collecting golf balls, but a Judge, whose first job was collecting golf balls, offers the opportunity to serve his country instead of a prison sentence—even hints that being his caddy would constitute as service to the red, white, and blue. Murus chooses to serve and ends up in Vietnam. Feeling betrayed, he flees and attempts to enlist in the NVA, but is instead kept at the luxurious Hanoi Hilton, a prison in North Vietnam for four years, two years longer than what would have been his sentence in America. Released during Operation Homecoming, a massive POW swap, he left Vietnam in ‘73, and according to men he served with, found it hard that not only was there a movie called The Godfather, but headlines were announcing the release of The Godfather Part II.

They arrive in Japan, and he notices he is the only one still cuffed. A recording is played for him, offering his services to what he believed was Le Duan’s staff, but which was actually South Vietnamese intelligence in Da Nang. Murus learns he has never been to North Vietnam and was in a prison in Saigon. He is not part of a prisoner swap but has served his sentence alongside other deserters. He is set free, and despite wanting to keep a close eye on their new friend, he disappears. No sightings, paperwork, or golf course scorecards reveal his existence between 1973 and 1978 until the Judge who sentenced him mysteriously dies in what local authorities say was a putting accident in Houston. Coincidentally, this is when Murus lands a job mopping floors on US property, in Antarctica, and Uncle Sam becomes aware that he has been in Thailand and the Philippines via surrogates on the remote continent. There is no evidence that Murus has been in America since 1968. The deaths of Phil and Ray are their excuse. They don’t even exist. It’s a cover, so there’s no more putting accidents by the time they get there, because everything leaks in Antarctica.

“You hear about the FBI, Murus?” asks Hein, an elderly man of Burmese descent.

Murus looks at his employer with the face of a sorcerer and the body that violates multiple human rights laws.

“Apparently, someone got killed,” says Hein, tapping his desk. “Don’t worry.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.”

Halton drinks, and that warm, fuzzy feeling fills his stomach, and tranquilizes the rabbit in his head. Hours pass, and he drifts in and out of consciousness, where thoughts and dreams merge into fact that walks the blurred line of well-wishes that currently retains a 50% sobriety pass for suspected DUI offenders. He connects the loss of Sammy Davis Jr.’s left eye in 1954 to Willie May’s over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series. “Willie Mays had Sammy Davis Jr’s eye, and thus was able to see the ball.” His eyes widen. He opens his treasure trove of pharmaceuticals and takes enough Valium and Obetrol to kill a five-year-old. Amid mild turbulence, Caldwell wakes and notices the missing bottle of whiskey from his shoe. This is not the plan. This is no one's plan.

“Did you drink all of my JB?”

“Do I listen to the JB’s? Sure, I think they’re James Brown’s best backing band. Bootsy Collins, are you kidding me?”

“Bootsy Collins? What are you talking about?”

“My mom said he is God.”

“Angela was a whore.”

“Apparently, the greatest in the Chattanooga metropolitan area. She had some stories. Then they took me away. I was young.”

Caldwell leans back and exhales.

“What? Angelawas a whore.”

Caldwell raises his hands.

“No judgment.”

He exhales again and flips through his dossier. After the Civil War, Hein fled to Thailand and opened schools that ethically trained southern pig-tailed macaques to harvest coconuts. He eventually expanded into Malaysia with the help of his old rival, Somporn Saekhow, a student of a famous monk and Buddhist teacher, Phra Buddhadasa. Apparently, Somporn agreed to run the schools for Hein without using force; many of Hein’s employees quit, especially those who liked beating the monkeys, or macaques. Fearful that he couldn’t retain or hire new employees who would obey or adhere to Somporn’s unique teaching style, Somporn told Hein about Mr. Condom.

“Is this some sort of joke? A revelation that you are, in fact, trying to undermine my finances?”

“No, no,” said Somporn. “Mr. Condom, very famous and popular amongst the right people in Thailand. His real name is Mechai Viravaidya. He cares for the rural poor like you, the southern pig-tailed macaque. Hire anyone he suggests, and we will have the right people working for us.”

Through Mechai Viravaidya, or Mr. Condom, Hein meets Murus and educates monkeys for the next three years. Political instability forces Hein to flee once again, and he brings Murus with him because, in many ways, they are the same: no one wants them, or they are wanted. Caldwell wants them. Halton draws The Pieta, but in Hell’s Kitchen, a subway ride from Caldwell’s neck of the woods, the Bronx.

Murus rummages through the night. There is no time. Literally. Picking apart ideas and building new ones for his guests.

“Wallsus! Strike thee with thy silver saxophone!”

It takes Hein a minute or two to open the door for The Agents, which they find interesting. The lights are turned on and disrupt Murus’s Prayer to Wall. His long, greasy hair, peppered with strands of white and black, wraps around the rusted bars he clings to, turning into a yellow-eyed owl presented with mice, but the Agents see a bloodless sack of long bones with a beard every Orthodox Christian dreams of touching. Hozmeier speaks.

“I had unfavorable childhood influences.”

Hein extends his arm to the person he is introducing.

“Murus, this is Agent Caldwell and Agent Halton. Agent Caldwell and Agent Halton, this is Murus.”

They know this man —or what was—and he knows them, but it does not.

“Mr. Cloud,” they say, unsure of what else to do for now. He looks at them, back and forth with his jaundiced eyes. Hands rubbing the bars, still in his Socratic robes, looking more Jacobin by the minute, and he smells Marat.

“Agents Halton and Caldwell,” he says, without a hint of twang. “We meet in an absurd predicament, don’t we? I wish to speak, but nestled between the fifth and sixth commandments, a receding tide reveals the mockery of any communication between us. The grain of sand employed in your complexion is abhorrent enough, leaving rooms with insolent ideas that ring like Paul Revere’s bell, except nothing is coming but the precedent you set. Dancing for the man. Waiting for letters of commendation from any office or government!”

His glazed skin, malicious smile, and large, piercing eyes. The wild hair, the way it feels to be near him. He gives off the impression that he is going to lunge at you when he can. He continues to look at each of them, as if he is choosing.

Agent Caldwell looks at the Hein, an old man unmoved by what he hears, and probably has heard many times before.

“How do you feel, Mr. Cloud?” asks Halton.

“Like Maximillian Kolbe with second thoughts. Moloch without any children.”

Maximilian Kolbe rings a bell, a priest in Auschwitz who volunteered to die in place of a man sentenced to death with a family, but they do not know this, “Moloch.” Murus sits. Agent Caldwell opens his mouth.

“Hein has told us…”

“Nothing,” says Murus. “You ambidextrous idiot! Stupid on both sides, with the heart of an unvisited Ebenezer Scrooge, and the mind of a rose-ringed parakeet, repeating what he has heard in one room and claiming it his own in another! Praise be to Walsus!”

“Did you kill Phillip Ordonez?” asks Caldwell. “Ray O’Barr?”

“We have signed witness testimony of you admitting your guilt,” says Halton.

Murus glares at the FBI.

“I am a man in a cage, agents. I don’t know guilt. In Abaddon, the personification of our worst nightmares, Adrammelech, encouraged landowners with no children to buy one from the poor and placed them into the hands of Moloch, where they,” he covers his smile. “‘Passed through the fire,’ discovering a world that is the end-all, be-all, instead of the dream, stripped of truth’s boundless keeper, separated from the victims and heroes by walls the color of Death's pale horse! Moloch. Walsus. Limitless time and space, diluting logical confrontation, contemplation, and balance, the fears of others, keeping the foolish busy, and the souls tied to the same ground without any mercy to stand between the darkness and the light. Do you understand the difference between the darkness and the light!”

“Are you saying you’re innocent?” asks Caldwell.

“I have my suspicions.”

Murus is a caged vulture, a lizard that looks around the room for a fly. His yellow eyes have grown, and he smells delicious soap from somewhere. He suppresses his appetite and strokes his beard, conjuring violent thoughts so grand and large that he sees the golden eagle soar across the Egyptian desert. Slaves strengthen his logic, block by block, into a pyramid that will stand for centuries, like the words that leave his mouth, eventually chiseled in stone.

“Mummies of Thebes. Screaming women of the Theban Tomb. You cannot fathom the restrictions. My hands shake, and yet I am warm, warmer than the fire that casts men’s last shadows, no longer worrying about the temperature obscurity requires. Life is obscurity, gentlemen. Do you know where you are?”

“I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” says Halton.

“I am the sand that blinded the Pharaoh with his own eyeliner! The Hollow Man who makes a whimper, and the guy who decided to break from coverage of the Raider-Jets game during the fourth quarter to broadcast the made-for-TV movie, Heidi!”

It is the latter that receives a response.

“That’s just wrong.”

“Well,” says Hein. He gestures to one of two windows. Outside, snow falls like static screens.

Murus rubs his head. He does not have yellow eyes. He has eyes. He sees Death. He sees himself. He’s outside, away from his Wall God. Birds chirp, and there are many others in white. He is shaved and looks at the three men hiding behind their clipboards.

“When's the last time you slept?” one asks.

“You tell me that, right?”

One man writes while another says, “You’ve been asleep, Phil. A long time.”

Murus hates it when they call him that. If he had a scythe, he’d harvest what they hide.

The doctors believe they have something he can identify. They’ve had it for a while and debated its purpose. Dr. Chu reaches into his pocket and hands him a letter.

“Some mail came today.”

Angela,

Light bounces off green leaves in a way I don’t think anyone can accurately describe. Maybe paintings, but I have yet to see it. I look out the window, forget about describing things, and am reminded that we are surrounded by beauty. There is an urge to do what I do, but, like all urges, it fades as the sun falls and the top tree branches sway, grabbing our attention as if the sun won’t rise again, feeding the roots deep in the dirt that allow the top branches to grow past the window.

I wish I could write something more romantic, but like the part of the tree that still gets the sunshine, it is the roots—endlessly expanding, searching, doing whatever it can to keep the tree alive—that feed the romantic part of me. I just wanted to write you something.

Phil O’Barr

He smiles and throws it.

“It’s Sunday, assholes.”

They glance at one another.

“And I was in Antarctica when that Judge died!”

“You were in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Is there no empathy for Phil? What about Angela?”

“The Great Whore? Sorry, I’m Wall. A Wallest. Not Christian.”

Snow comes, but he’s already inside looking out.

“Angela, tell them about Death’s horse across the orderless plain? Tell them about you. Tell them about Murus Cloud and the silver saxophones. I love you, especially when it feels like death sometimes. It’s an awareness I’m in.”