Saint Schizophrenia's Soliloquy

_____ verse

2010-01-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

This morning I have poetry

in my head

but not a damned thing to say

I've got the rhythm

but no words

wish I were a drummer

or a pianist

Man, I wish I were

a pianist

I even have a piano

in my house

I took some lessons.

But alas

I've not gotten there

So, I'm stuck

Billy Preston had a song

with no melody

and it made him a

pretty penny

I just don't see a poem

without words

moving anyone

or moving me

for that matter

Damn, now Billy Preston

has overtaken my rhythm

More crazy people...

2010-01-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

Here at The Saint, we appreciate crazy people.

Especially those those types of crazy people who cast off

convention in order to do something great.

(We're often entertained by the crazy people who

cast off convention to do something terrible,

but we don't want to be friends with them.)

This is Kate and Johnny Brooks

A Future and A Hope.

They are our kind of crazy.

Kate and Johnny are American expatriates

who left the States with little more than

the clothes on their backs and

the voices in their heads and moved to

Nakuru, Kenya in order to be a blessing

to the people there.

In addition to taking seven orphaned girls

into their home as their own and opening

a home for orphaned boys with another family,

they spend their days taking care

of those who are often nearly decimated
by poverty and AIDS.

They provide food, mattresses and other basic

necessities, as well as simple love and care

to those who otherwise would go without.

They don't do this with the backing of some

large mission organization or trust fund,

they do it by insanely trusting that the God

who sent them there will provide

everything that they need.

We, at The Saint, love these folks.

In order to be a blessing to them,

we have started a series of paintings

featuring their Kenyan girls.

All proceeds from the sale

of these paintings (not including

shipping costs) will go directly

and immediately to

A Future and a Hope.

The first three paintings in this

series are ready and available

for purchase.

They are 18" x 18"

oil on wood panel

framed and ready to hang.

Each painting is $250

plus shipping (which is about

$25 in the States).

The links below will take you

to my artfire.com shop where you can

purchase them.

Beatrice

Edith

Mercy

So, there you have it.

Here's your chance to take part

in the madness.

Plus, you get a pretty good painting

out of the deal.

It's a win/win.

If you want to learn more about

Kate and Johnny

and the crazy stuff that they do

you can check out their website.

A Future and A Hope

If you can't go a whole $250 for a painting

but you still want to help them out,

there's a Paypal button

on their site that can make that possible.

Anyway, that's that.

Later,

Sean

12.07.09

2009-12-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

This morning, long before dawn
while you were buttoning your shirt
were you thinking that one day you'd like a job
that didn't require a uniform?
Or maybe one that didn't drag you out of bed
hours before your wife?
Or were you just happy to have work
with Christmas coming
so that the requests your boy and girl made
on Santa's knee would be filled?
I'm sure, however, as you smoothed
your shirt and tucked it in
you had no idea that
before your first delivery
the morning light would find
three holes in that shirt
as the rain from the ground
and the blood from your body
soaked it from within and without

David (sarx:four)

2009-10-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

David Brookshire anxiously batted at the velvet rope, which led him and other bank customers through the sluggish labyrinth to the tellers behind the over sized counter. The rope swung back and forth, like the pendulum on a grandfather clock and made David glance down at his own watch. He rolled his eyes and sighed as the second hand steadily ate away his lunch break.

If this place were any slower, he thought, it would begin to move in reverse.

Someone stepped away from the tellers and the line dutifully lunged forward one space. As the line shifted, he was able to see exactly why the line was creeping along at a crippled pace. Behind the counter stood Mary Anne Beasley; former cheerleader, prom queen, social butterfly and all around vacuous good citizen. David knew Mary Anne from high school, yet while David was taking Honors English and Calculus in his senior year, Mary Anne was running pep rallies and enjoying her second rousing year of Algebra I. They only shared one class, the obligatory senior study hall.

Mary Anne looked up at the next customer and greeted him with her prom queen smile. It only accented the blank expression that surrounded her eyes. To have someone of Mary Anne's mental stature working at a bank was tantamount to making Barney Fife head of The Secret Service.

"Its hard to know what to do with someone like that, isn't it David?" David cut his eyes over his shoulder and saw Sarx, his eyebrow arched mischievously as he continued his thought. "You don't know if you should nail her or smother her in her sleep."

"Maybe both." David winked, yet still didn't turn completely around. "You know, I should have made a bet with someone that I would be seeing you soon."

"Really? You're a smart young man, David. And that's why I like you."

"Don't get too used to it. That trait has a way of pissing folks off."

"And how might you piss me off?"

David hesitated. "I don't know if I want to say."

"Hmm..."Sarx mused. "Now you have my curiosity piqued. Tell me. What's the worst that could happen?"

David exhaled a nervous laugh. "My mom's a nurse at Community Hospital; she told me that Rita Holmes was admitted to the hospital early this morning. Looks like she tried walking through an industrial fan."

David searched Sarx's face, looking for any sign of defensiveness or hostility. Seeing none, he continued. "Now, she left Roscoe's with you last night, drunk, but in one piece. That's not all that damning except for the fact that, being the perceptive guy that I am, I've noticed that anyone who spends any amount of time with you ends up in worse shape than when they started. I don't think that's a coincidence, either. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if someone had seen that jumper in your presence not too long before he dove."

The tip of Sarx tongue darted out and slid across his lips and David wondered if Sarx was capable of swallowing him whole. Sarx smiled.

"See what I mean, David? You're a bright young man. I like that. Not many people pay enough attention to little details like that. You, my friend, could be a great help to me."

"I'm not sure that I would want to help you. Plus, my only agenda is to get the hell out of this ridiculous town. Anything else is peripheral."

"I wholeheartedly agree. I'd be looking to escape myself, if I were you. All I'm thinking is that if you were to help me, you could leave Podunk with a bang. Call it a parting shot, if you'd like."

Sarx leaned in close to David, his voice dropped to a whisper. "Besides, think about the people that supposedly have met some misfortune from being in my company. Is there one of them that you gave a rip about? Any of them that didn't deserve it?"

Mary Anne's chronically cheerful voice broke into Sarx's pitch. "Next?"

"It's my turn. I gotta go."

Sarx stopped David as he started to turn away. "Just think about it. I'm sure you'll see what I mean soon enough."

David was rattled, which for him was unusual. He was generally armed well enough to make a simple battle of wits look like the St. Valentine's Day massacre when he was through. It had been a long time anyone had gotten the last word. David shook off the conversation the best he could and stepped up the teller's counter.

"I need to deposit most of this," David said, sliding his paycheck and deposit slip across the counter.

"Hey, I remember you," Mary Anne said, taking his check but not doing anything with it. "You were in my study hall in twelfth grade. You used to sit back in the corner writing poetry."

David nodded. He responded in his low voice that he reserved for conversations he would rather not have. "Yeah. That was me."

"You know, I read one of your poems once in "The Clarion". I didn't get it."

"You bought the school literary magazine?"

"Yeah, I had a poem in it, too. It was called "My Summer at the Beach". Do you remember it?"

"No. I can't say that I do." He now knew why the line moved so slowly. Sarx was right, he didn't know if he wanted to screw her or smother her. But when he realized that she might start talking during sex and ruin the whole prospect, smothering looked like the only option. "Is there anyway we could speed this transaction along?"

"Oh, sure. Sorry." She took his check and began typing on her computer. "I get a little chatty sometimes."

As she worked her way through his deposit, David started counting. He was curious about exactly how many seconds she could go with out talking. He made it to five.

"So, what have you been up to since high school?" Her head bobbled side to side like a novelty dog for a car dashboard.

"Trying desperately to avoid inane conversation."

She laughed, completely missing his point. "You were always so weird."

Any semblance of a smile that David was feigning disappeared. "I believe that I came in to deposit money, less cash received. Not to get a personality assessment by the high school pep squad. Could I have my cash and my receipt, so I can go about my "weird" life?"

Mary Anne crunched up her perfectly plucked brow and frowned as she slid him his bank envelope. "There's no need to be rude."

"That is where our opinions differ, I guess." Smothering, most definitely, was the only option. He grabbed his cash and receipt and walked out.

___________________________

Sarx had not gone far. He had perched himself on the side of a planter just outside the bank’s front door. He had watched the interaction between David and Mary Anne though a window. As their mouths moved soundlessly, he filled in the dialogue. Strangely enough, it wasn’t far from the words actually being exchanged.

When David pushed through the door, Sarx fell in behind him.

“So, you’re telling me that if something happened to Mary Anne Beasley you’d be all torn up inside?”

David did not turn. He continued on his path to his car, his steps tapping out a hurried rhythm on the concrete. “It’s not Mary Anne that I’m worried about. My concerns fall more under the heading of self-preservation.” He reached his car and jammed the key in the lock.

Sarx rounded David’s car and faced him across the roof. “Unlock my door. I‘ll talk while you drive.”

The driver’s door creaked open and David slid himself inside. He could feel Sarx staring at him through the window. Begrudgingly, he turned his head enough to see from the corner of his eye. Sarx motioned for him to unlock the door, a winning smile plastered across his face. Once again David wondered about being swallowed whole.

At the exact same moment, in perfect synchronization, David said with great resolve, “No” and then slid his hand over the electric lock button and clicked it toward “unlock”. The passenger side lock popped up, an exclamation point to the end of his action. David seemingly unfazed by the dissonance between his words and actions, turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life.

Sarx opened the door and climbed in. His smile was still spread across his face. However, had David been looking directly at him, he would have noticed that there were far too many teeth showing to be comforting.

David whipped his car out of the bank parking lot and pointed it toward the college. As he gripped the steering wheel, he could feel his cheeks growing warm. His stomach fluttered, as if he might vomit. He swallowed hard.

The road was spotted with other cars that were cruising along at the posted speed limit. Every few car lengths, David would jerk the wheel and weave between the other motorists, increasing his speed each time. David glanced at his speedometer, which was showing 57 MPH, and he wondered how much faster he could push it without getting a ticket.

Suddenly a flash of red brought David’s attention back to his driving. The signal at the intersection directly ahead of him had just changed from green to red and the cross traffic started to flow. David slammed on the brake pedal, yanking the car to a sliding stop just over the line of the crosswalk.

“For a young man so concerned with self-preservation, you sure drive as if you had a death wish,” Sarx said. When David didn’t answer Sarx continued. “You’re a fireworks aficionado, aren’t you?”

“Pyrotechnics,” David corrected him without taking his eyes from the road.

“Have you ever been hurt while using them?”

“No.” He cut his eyes and glanced at Sarx peripherally.

“Would you agree that nearly all injuries involving pyrotechnics were caused by stupidity or fear on the part of the user?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s possible for something to be destructive for one person yet pleasurable for another?”

“Your point is...?”

“That rule extends beyond explosives. In fact, it could be applied to nearly anything. Like, for example, me. Some people - like our poor unfortunate Rita - don’t know what to do once they light the fuse. They fumble their way into danger. You, on the other hand, are not so dull. You know to light it and throw it. No destruction for you, only pleasure.”

David pulled into the parking lot of the college and raced toward the front where a car was pulling out of a parking space. Just as the other car cleared the spot, David whipped into the space and threw the gearshift into park. He turned to Sarx, but could not quite make eye contact.

“Listen, I have one goal and that is to leave this town unscathed, as soon as humanly possible. Your plan to weed out all of the human dross sounds fascinating...hell, it sounds downright laudable...but it is not consistent with my goal and I am not interested.”

“You will be.” Sarx opened the door and pulled himself out. “When you change your mind, come and find me.” He shut the door and disappeared from sight.

___________________________

David, still reeling from his encounter with Sarx, pushed through the swinging double doors of the college library and nearly leveled Ms. Hanson, the head librarian, who was fumbling with a stack of hardback books. When the door whisked by her shoulder, she let out a yelp and dropped the books she was carrying.

“Good, David, you’re here,” she said as she bent over to retrieve the books, wobbled, then stood back up empty-handed.

“There was an incredibly slow teller at the bank...”

She frenetically waved to dismiss the rest of his explanation. “No matter. I’m not feeling so well, so I need you to keep an eye on things out here for a bit. Okay?”

David knew what she meant. Several times a week Ms. Hanson had episodes of “not feeling so well”. These episodes, strangely enough, coincided with the days that she smelled of Wild Turkey. David played along. It was a symbiotic arrangement; Ms. Hanson got to be drunk at work and David got the library to himself.

“Certainly,” David assured her. “You just go lie down in your office. I’ve got everything covered out here.”

“You’re a saint, David.” The smell of mints and whiskey followed her words. She tottered away, calling back to David over her shoulder. “Would you mind re-shelving those books for me?”

David generally spent a good portion of his workday cleaning up after Ms. Hanson, so he was quite used to it. Actually, he felt it to be a fair price for being left alone while on the clock. It sure beat his year as a campus custodian, which had mercifully ended at the end of the summer quarter. Despite the fact that he had a key to every door in the building - which made him privy to nearly every piece of secret information on campus - he found that any job which centered largely around urine should be avoided at all costs.

When the library job opened up in the fall, he lunged at the chance to get away from his cart of cleaners and mops. Taking the card from the job board in the Commons before anyone could see it, he cornered Ms. Hanson in the periodical section and launched into a fifteen minutes spiel on why he was really the only candidate for the job. While the speech impressed her, it was actually the fact the she was having a “not feeling well” day that motivated her to look no further. David became her assistant that day.

Besides cleaning up after Ms. Hanson, the only other drawback to the job was that he was thrust into situations with two of his least favorite types of people. The first type were the ones who only visited the library in cases of desperation - more often than not under duress from a professor who had threatened their academic well being. This type generally made a beeline for the Cliff’s Notes when they passed through the library’s doors and, for the most part, were avoidable.

The second type of person really wasn’t a type at all. In fact, it was just one person: Dean of Students, Jerry Sutherland. While it is a matter of record that David Brookshire has at least an inkling of contempt for nearly every person on the planet, there is not one human being that has crossed his path that has reserved such a degree of contempt and red-hot loathing as Dean Sutherland.

David initially thought that Dean Sutherland was a typical self-important bureaucrat within the college system; a man of moderate pomposity but relatively harmless. Even the dean’s penchant for pontificating on various subjects entertained David to a degree. Listening to a man who was as vehemently opinionated and yet as woefully ignorant as Dean Sutherland satisfied some morbid curiosity on David’s part, until it became personal.

One day, David, while emptying the trash from the cans in the office, became so thoroughly engrossed in the one of the Dean’s obtuse rantings that he didn’t realize that it was obvious that he was listening. Midway through his sermon, Dean Sutherland stopped and turned to David.

“Do you find what I am saying very interesting?” He quipped, hoping to shame David back into working.

“Oh yes. Absolutely,” David responded, not at all moved.

“Really? So, what is your opinion on the matter?”

The Dean’s question was meant to cause David, whom he assumed to be another uneducated louse pushing a broom, to drop his eyes, shuffle his feet and go back to work. However, much to his surprise, David actually set down the trashcan and launched into a critique of Dean Sutherland’s point of view. He took the Dean’s dissertation up to that point and, without compunction, dismantled it line by line. Not only did David insult the Dean’s opinion, but he also called into question the Dean’s education and family lineage as well.

When David finished, silence reigned in the office for several moments as all of those present glanced nervously about the office, completely stunned by David’s verbal barrage. Color had risen to Dean Sutherland’s cheeks and his bottom lip was quivering in rage.

The Dean swallowed hard, cut his eyes at David and responded in short choppy sounds. “Don’t you have a toilet you should be cleaning?”

With that sentence the war began. Both David and Dean Sutherland took every given opportunity to make each other’s lives miserable. The war would have ended in David’s dismissal if David hadn’t inadvertently walked into Dean Sutherland’s office to empty waste cans one day during lunch and found Judy, the school secretary, straddling Dean Sutherland in a manner that David was sure that Mrs. Sutherland would not have sanctioned. Unnoticed, David pulled the door closed and waited outside for Dean Sutherland.

A few minutes later, a slightly rumpled Dean exited his office with Judy following behind applying fresh coat of lipstick. David stood up, nearly blocking the Dean’s path.

The Dean stopped, pulled on the bottom of his coat to remove any wrinkles and glared at David. “Is there something I could do for you?”

David, grinning mischievously, leaned in to whisper. “Jerry, heretofore, you’re going to get off my back. Because I’m sure that you wouldn’t like for me to inform Mrs. Sutherland about what Judy was just doing on your front. Do we have an accord?”

Dean Sutherland stepped back and snorted. He straightened his jacket again, dropped his eyes and walked around David.

“That’s what I thought.”

After that the hatred between them smoldered, but remained outwardly civil. When the Dean made daily visits to the library he would systematically ignore David finding reasons to look in the opposite direction anytime David was nearby.

___________________________

The rustling silence, known almost exclusively to libraries, was suddenly broken by a cackle of laughter coming from the bank of computers in the corner near the reference section. The computer monitor at the end of the row was glowing with the opening page of a porn site promising to show young women being indiscreet with farm animals. The two boys in their late teens who had guided their browser to this site were being equally indiscreet about their find. The shorter boy, whose laughter had disrupted the quiet of the library, was trying desperately to nudge his friend out of the way so that he could gain control of the keyboard and discover the vicarious pleasures of bestiality himself. The taller boy had no intention of relinquishing the keyboard and began to shove back. Their voices began to rise as they grunted and chuckled through their jockeying for position.

Across the room at the checkout desk, David looked up from the book he was reading. When it became obvious that the boys weren’t going to settle down on there own, with an annoyed sigh, he set his book down and stepped from behind the desk.

The short boy was still attempting to depose his friend. He exclaimed, “It’s my turn, dumbass.”

“The hell it is, I just started.” The tall boy was still centered at the keyboard despite his companion’s nudging. “Besides, I found it first.”

“It’s my student ID that you’re signed in under.”

The tall boy took the card, which had been propped behind the row of number keys, and flung it at his friend. The card hit the short boy’s chest and bounced onto the desk, skittering and spinning as it landed.

“Oww!” The short boy rubbed the spot where the card nicked him. “That’s it!” He stood up with his chest bowed out, dripping with adolescent bravado. “Come on. Let’s get it on.”

David’s hand seemed to drop out of nowhere and land on the boy’s shoulder, pushing him back down into his chair. He swooped around them and sat on the counter, facing them both. He leaned toward them, his voice although a whisper was slick and venomous.

“There once was a time when the library was free of mouth-breathing, knuckle-draggers such as yourselves --except on a rare occasion when either you got lost on the way to gym class or you came in to look up bad words in the dictionary. However, thanks to free internet access we are now infested with all manner of intellectual bottom-feeders, most of which haven’t opened a book since “See Spot Run”.

“Now, looking at you both, I’m quite certain that this is the closest either of you will ever get to a naked female that isn’t a blood relation, so I can sympathize with your plight. However, if you raise your voice above a whisper again and disrupt those of us who can read you’ll be wearing a print of the toe of my Docs on your ass for a week.”

The tall boy smirked. “Go fuck yourself.”

David grinned. “It must be hard to run out of vocabulary before you run out of breath.”

“You talk pretty big. Can you back it up?” The small boy challenged him.

David studied both of them. He could do some damage, he was sure of that. However, he needed the money that would be deprived of him if he got fired for fighting. And there were certainly other ways to cut his pound of flesh. As a matter of fact, he could see one availing itself presently. He leaned down over the table and placed his right hand over the shorter boy’s ID card.

“Just keep it down over here, or I’ll call security to escort you out.”

The small boy puffed his chest up again. “That’s what I thought.”

David rolled his eyes, but said nothing. He stood up and his hand slid to the edge of the table and palmed the boy's ID. He made eye contact with each of them and neither of them showed any spark of awareness that the card was missing.

“Good day, gentlemen,” he said as he slid the card into his pocket, turned and walked away.

Fifteen minutes later, when the boys finally decided to leave; David had yet to get back to his book. He was scanning the bar codes of several expensive books, which were going to be checked out by one James Thompson, a short college freshman with a penchant for Internet animal porn. Thanks to David and a bottle of lighter fluid, soon the books that James Thompson didn’t know that he checked out would show up overdue and he wouldn’t get his diploma until he returned the books or paid for them. David even considered sending him a box full of the ashes just to taunt him.

David watched them walk out the door and saw James Thompson’s hand poke back in and give him the finger. David laughed and hit enter on the keyboard. Sometimes people were just too stupid for their own good.

Sarx, sitting just outside the commons, watched as two young men exit, they were laughing loudly. The shorter of the two walked with an over-emphasized strut, as if to mark no small victory on his part. They passed from Sarx’s view yet he didn’t shift his gaze. His eyes focused on a figure approaching up the sidewalk directly in his line of sight. Gina, dressed far more conservatively than she had been at Roscoe’s a few nights before, was clutching a folder full of paperwork to her chest as she headed for the entrance to the college’s office.

Since she appeared to be lost in thought, Sarx stepped into her path. “Well, hello, Gina.”

She jerked to a stop when she heard her name. When she saw it was Sarx she relaxed and exhaled in relief. “Oh, hi. Sorry. I was somewhere else I guess.”

“Anywhere is better than here, so I’ve heard.” He locked his eyes on hers and made her shift her gaze away from his. “So, how are you today?”

"Not good, really. You heard about Rita?"

"As a matter of fact I did. Tragic." Sarx noticed that black circles encamped about her eyes. She hadn't slept much since Sarx had seen her last. "You look troubled. Guilty perhaps. Why so?"

A tear danced about the margin of her bottom eyelid and her voice caught on a short sob in her throat. "She did that after I told her about Scott.” Another hitch and the tear trickled down along the side of her nose. “I feel like it’s my fault."

"From what I hear, it sounds like she'd going to pull through." Sarx studied her and gave her a minute to perhaps feel the relief from that thought. Then he struck. "However, that's not the only reason you feel guilty, is it?"

She looked up from her shoes to face Sarx, but his eyes drove hers away again. "What do you mean?"

"When you told her about David, did you tell her the whole story? That this little college girl might not have been the only one? There were others, right? Maybe even someone she knew? A friend, even?"

"Listen, that was a long time ago. We had been drinking and I made a stupid decision. It was just a mistake."

"A mistake that you chose to repeat three or four more times?'

"It was a bad time for me. But when I realized what I was doing I broke it off. Rita is my friend and I chose because I valued her friendship more than I enjoyed the affair. What more could..."

Sarx put his finger to her lips and cut her off. "Don't fret yourself over it. Maybe you did the right thing by not telling her. So, what's with the paperwork?"

Gina looked down, having nearly forgotten the bundle of forms and papers in her hands. "Oh, this. I'm enrolling in the cosmetology program at the junior college. It’s supposed to be a really good program."

"Good for you."

"Yeah, after I heard about Rita it made me realize that life is really short. I need some direction. Something to do with the rest of my life."

"Such as it is."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Congratulations on your new direction."

"Thanks." Gina excused herself to go finish her registration forms and Sarx watched as she walked away, a little bounce in her step.

"An epiphany," he mused. "Always a day late and a dollar short, aren‘t you?"

___________________________

It was nearly a quarter past five when David pushed his way through the swinging double doors of the library and headed for his car. It was his night off at Roscoe’s so his dealings with the masses were finished for the day. He could hunker down in his garage apartment behind his parents’ house, check his e-mail, read a book and, if he still had some on hand, he could have a glass of wine. He almost was tempted for the briefest of moments to consider himself happy.

If David had chosen to consider himself happy, that consideration would have been unfortunately short-lived. In the sparsely occupied parking lot his troubles became swiftly and glaringly evident. His car was not where he left it. In fact, it was nowhere in the parking lot at all.

His steps rattled to a halt as the realization sunk in. His jaw set and his teeth ground against each other. “Son of a bitch,” he growled through clenched teeth.

David rushed through the main office door, startling Judy who was applying a fresh layer of powder to her cheeks before she leaving for the day. “Judy, I need to use the phone. My car’s been stolen.”

“Don't you have a cell phone?,” she asked, momentarily missing the point.

"No, I don't want a cell phone. Can I use the phone?" He asked again, spacing each syllable out.

”Sure. I don't care," she said, snapping her compact closed, "but your car wasn’t stolen. Jerry had it towed.”

“He did what?!”

“He told me to call and have it towed.”

“Why the hell did he do that?”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that.”

“Fine. I will.” David started for Dean Sutherland’s door.

“He’s not here.”

David exhaled a throaty growl. “Where is he?”

“He left for the day. Had some committee meeting to go to. He’ll be back tomorrow morning at eight”

“Who has my car?”

Her gaze had dropped back to her purse as she fished out a tube of lipstick. “Jensen’s, but they closed at five.”

“How in hell am I supposed to get home, then?”

She recoated her lips and smacked them loudly. “You want me to call you a cab?”

“No, I think you’ve cost me enough money with that phone today. I’ll walk.”

___________________________

David walked home with his hands clenched in fists by his side, one gripping his backpack by its straps and nearly dragging it along the concrete sidewalks. He found himself scanning the terrain of the neighborhood, looking into the shadows of cars and bushes being formed by the setting sun and occasionally glancing over shoulder. He was certain that Sarx would be peeking out from some dark corner at any moment and to David’s own surprise he wasn’t trying to avoid Sarx. He was trying to find him.

By the time David arrived home, the anger with Jerry Sutherland and his frustration with not being able to find the annoyingly ubiquitous Sarx had built up to such a degree that he kicked open the door to his garage apartment and threw his backpack across the room.

“Where the hell are you?!” He slammed the door behind him. “Come on out! I know you’re here somewhere!” The room answered with silence and David’s shoulders dropped. “Damn it.”

He pulled a bottle of wine from his fridge and set it on the coffee table. After considering getting a glass but deciding against it, he plopped down on the couch and grabbed the bottle. He closed his eyes as he tipped the bottle to his mouth and let the wine flow over his tongue.

Sarx‘s serpentine voice spoke from the shadows. “It’s so heartwarming to be sought after so vigorously.”

Startled, David sat bolt upright and nearly spat wine across the coffee table. “Dammit! Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

“I like to make an entrance.” Sarx stepped from a shadow in the far corner of the room. “So, why were you looking for me?”

“You know why.”

“True. But I’d like to hear it anyway.”

“I want to help you,” David responded solemnly.

“I knew you’d come around.”

At that point, time slowed down. At least it seemed that way as Sarx made his way from the shadows to the chair directly across from David. Watching Sarx move held a dreamlike quality and David couldn’t tell whether he was hallucinating or if Sarx was just toying with him. At this point, he thought, it could be either one or a mix of both. Anything is possible today, he thought.

Sarx sunk into the overstuffed chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “So, at what point did you change your emphatic and well-stated position? Was it having your car towed that pushed you over the edge in my direction?”

“You knew about that?”

“I have my fingers in all sorts of pies.”

“What?! That was your idea?!” David sprang from his place on the couch.

Sarx looked up at him, but seemed to be unmoved by David’s outburst. “No. I did not say it was my idea. There is a vast chasm between foreknowledge and fore planning. Now, sit down before you put yourself in a precarious position.”

Sarx’s tone was warm and friendly, but a seriousness burned in his eyes and David, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable, sat back down. When David settled back onto the couch, Sarx continued.

“So, was it the car?”

“Yeah,” David, still skittish from Sarx’s warning, responded, “ it was exactly the car.”

“While I sympathize with having your car towed unjustly, I must say that I was a bit encouraged when I saw it happen. If anyone would stir up your sense of justice it would be our friend Dean Sutherland. Bit of a pain in the ass, isn’t he?”

David laughed and his nervousness began to melt away. “Yeah. That’s a concise way to put it.”

Sarx continued. “You see, David, actually Jerry Sutherland could be a poster child for my cause. A pompous old man nailing his secretary all the while hiding behind a righteous veneer. He’s ripe for the picking.”

“So, you know about that too? I thought I was the only one.”

Sarx smiled. “Fingers and pies, Davey. Fingers and pies.”

Completely relaxed, David leaned back onto his couch and tipped the wine bottle to his lips. He sipped and savored for a moment before swallowing. “So, who are you? The devil?”

Sarx laughed. “You flatter me. No, I am not the devil. We may share some common goals, but beyond that we are quite different. Actually, if you were a Darwinist, you could say that I was just a facilitator of natural selection. I help to weed out all of those too weak or stupid to survive. I’m a public servant, if you will.”

“I follow you so far. I only have one question. How do I play into this?”

“Of course. That’s a valid question. Let’s see if I can answer it to your satisfaction. You see, I could continue on like I have - slowly and methodically taking care of things one person at a time. I’m quite good at that approach.

However, sometimes there arises a need so great that in order to take care of all of the necessary business I would have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing so. And, quite simply Davey, I crave efficiency. And in order for me to be efficient, I’m going to need help.

You’ve heard the old axiom about good help being hard to find? Its damned near impossible in my case. They either have the mental aptitude but lack the intestinal fortitude or they’ve got the guts in grand supply but they’re as dumb a stick. Either way, they’re no good to me. To find a young man possessing the intuition who's not blinded by sentimentality and has enough chutzpa to get the job done is a rare treat. And in you, I have found just that.”

David was now so completely relaxed in Sarx’s presence that if he had thought about being his nervous around him before, he would have laughed at himself for being ridiculous. He continued to sip the wine from the bottle as Sarx continued.

“People all throughout your life have misunderstood you, haven’t they? Accused you of being negative and critical. Too sullen or morose. Perhaps even a little morbid. Am I right?” David nodded emphatically and Sarx dropped his tone to one of confidence and familiarity.

“All of those traits that everyone else mistook for morbidity are just the traits I am looking for. You have a job to do. An assignment. A mission. .”

David set the bottle in his lap and looked into Sarx’s eyes. “When do I start?”

“As a matter of fact, I could have something for you to do as soon as tomorrow. Are you game?”

The fine line where David’s lips met curled into a wicked smile. “You better believe it. So, what do you want me to do?”

“Aha! There’s the trick. I can give you the ‘when‘ and ‘where‘. However, if I were to have to come up with the ‘what’, then I might as well do it myself. And then we’re back to the problem of inefficiency. Do you follow?”

David nodded. “So, where and when?”

“You’re gonna love this.” Sarx stood up and began to pace in front of David. “You see, there are a couple handfuls of people who are in desperate need of my services. As luck would have it, all of their schedules have them converging upon one place at the same time tomorrow after lunch. Ironically enough, all of these people will be within one hundred yards of the office door of one Dean Jerry Sutherland.”

“The college?” David’s words were carried out on a chuckle. “Umm...”David was anxious and tried to reel in his excitement before asking. “Would one of those people happen to be the aforementioned Dean himself?”

“I told you that you were going to love this.” Sarx stopped pacing. “So, now all you need is to figure out your end of this assignment. You’re a bright boy. The ‘what’ will come to you.”

David jumped up from his couch and flipped open the lid to a footlocker nearby. “I’m already there.”

The footlocker appeared to be filled with magazines and books initially, but David pulled two tabs on either end and lifted out an insert, which held books on top and concealed other items beneath it. David tossed the insert aside and sent magazines shuffling across the floor.

Sarx leaned over the trunk and peered inside. “So, what have you got there? A slingshot?”

“Not hardly.” David looked up from his hidden cache, his smile spread to its fullest width. “Explosives.”

“At one point, it was almost obscene how easy it was to obtain military grade explosives.” David was emptying the contents of the trunk on the floor. “There was always some ex-military nut job who had swiped some C-4 and was willing to trade it for just about anything.”

“However, since national security has been increased, making transactions of that kind have the potential of drawing unwanted attention. Fortunately, what I didn’t already have before then, I just made myself. The only thing more obscene than how easy it is to obtain explosives is how easy it is to make them.”

Sarx surveyed the array that David had set out before him. His tongue ran along the edge of his teeth, just barely peeking out between his lips. “You have impressed me David. My expectations have been exceeded, and that is saying something.”

“Exactly how many people are we talking about?”

Sarx’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as he pondered the question. “Thirty.”

“They will all be within three hundred feet of the main office?”

“Yes.”

“And all thirty will need to meet the exact same fate? No leftovers like Rita?”

“Exactly. Thirty people. Thirty bodies.”

“Well,” David said looking at the piles in front of him, “I can’t guarantee that you will have thirty countable bodies when I’m done.”

“I’m worried about efficiency, not neatness.”

“Very well.” He stopped for a second. A thought crossed his mind. “One last question.”

“Okay.”

"How do I know that there aren't going to be innocent people in there too?"

"I assure you, David, no one in that room is going to be innocent. Every one will deserve exactly what they get. In fact, I'm going to go one step further. You're a young man who likes to know things. Right?"

David shrugged. "Yeah."

"Once you're in there I'm going to open your eyes. You're going to see what I see. All of the nasty little secrets laid bare right before you. You'll have no illusions about innocence after that. I assure you."

Davis smiled greedily. "I like that."

"I knew you would."

David worked silently through the night. As the sun was coming up he was making the final adjustments to the pack. He pushed a rat’s nest of wire into the bag and then clipped the timer to the strap of the bag, where it would be easily accessible when needed. The face of the timer stared at him dumbly, its red LED “3:00” blinking as it awaited David to press the button and begin its countdown. He tossed a strand of firecrackers on top and closed the bag.

Sarx watched David from across the room, equally quiet and still. A half-grin crawled up his cheek from the right side of his lips as David pulled the zipper closed, the teeth whistling as they interlocked with their counterparts.

After a beat, David turned to Sarx. “That’s it.”

Sarx allowed his half-grin to spread across his face. “It’s all over but the crying.” He crossed the room and sidled up to David. “Are you ready?”

David looked down at the bag filled with C-4 and then glanced sideways at Sarx. “Only those who deserve it. Right?”

“Exactly.”

David returned Sarx’s wolfish grin. “Yeah. I’m ready. Let‘s go get my car.”

___________________________

David clutched his backpack as he swung open the door, which led into the Commons. A blast of chilled, re-circulated air hit him in the face and blew away any thoughts of turning back. Even the climate in here is bullshit, he thought.

He had to work quickly. Get in. Get their attention. Drop the bag and get out. He had figured it would take him 30 seconds from the time he started the timer get back to his car where Sarx was waiting.

There were only a few people passing through the Commons as David entered. None of them even seemed to notice him. That was about to change.

As he reached the center of the room, he positioned himself facing the bank of windows, which separated the office from the commons. He could see Judy chatting away on the phone, her head bobbling back and forth as she talked and snapped her chewing gum.

Hope you enjoyed your lunch, Judy. Hope the couch was comfy.

David dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and his Zippo. He tapped out a cigarette, slid it between his lips and, with a swift flip, opened the lighter, struck it and touched the flame to his cigarette. He slid the pack and lighter back into his pocket and pulled out the strand of Black Cats. They danced around as he finagled them to get to the business end of their common fuse.

He took a long drag from his cigarette and then touched the fuse to the glowing tip. A shower of sparks leaped from the fuse. He tossed the bundle of fireworks into the middle of the floor and stepped back into the alcove, which led into the men’s restroom.

As they hit the ground, the fuse ceased its sparks and the firecrackers themselves began their aural barrage. The rapid, frenetic cracks and pops echoed off the walls in the Commons making even more clamor than David hoped. He smiled.

Doors began flying open as people scrambled into the commons to find out what was happening. Judy dropped the phone and wobbled out to the commons in her ridiculously high heels. Dean Sutherland blasted through his door and pushed past Judy, who had just righted herself in his favorite heels, almost sending her toppling.

David watched them all as they poked their heads out of their doorways like scared little rabbits. They hovered at the edge of the room, their eyes darting about trying to make sense of the noise.

The firecrackers finished their cacophonous report, gray tendrils of smoke whispered up from the frazzled empty paper casings. The walls coughed back the fading echo of the noise and then a tangible silence followed.

He pressed the start button, which started the countdown with a friendly chirp. Three minutes.

As everyone began to assume that they were in no danger, they pushed out into the commons. A buzz of conversation rose from the clusters of people, some asking questions some hypothesizing answers.

Dean Sutherland walked to the spent casings, pushed at them with his toe and looked up to the crowd.

“Alright, people. Who’s responsible for this?”

The buzz of voices deepened, yet no one spoke up.

“Someone has to have seen something.” He turned to the office doorway. “Judy? Did you see anyone out here?”

Her voice cracked nervously, “No, Jer-, um, Dean Sutherland. I was on the phone.”

“Call the police,” He ordered her and turned back to the onlookers. “This sort of behavior is childish, let alone dangerous.”

Dangerous? David thought. You have no idea.

Another glance at the timer. “2:30”, it said.

“No one is going to leave this area until I find out what happened.”

Thanks Jerry, you pompous prick. You’re making my job so much easier.

David continued scanning the crowd. As he watched them, he began to see things. To know things. Sarx's promise was being fulfilled.

His eyes stopped on Dean Sutherland. Images began to unfold in front of him, like a film reel projecting on a screen. He saw the couch in his office, which David already knew that Sutherland used for extra-curricular activities with Judy. But it wasn't Judy on the couch. It was several girls, their faces transposing over each other like a slide show. Young, eager yet scared faces staring down into his groaning face. With each face, David could see the circumstances, which put them in this position. Academic probations swept under the rug. Tuitions written off. Matters of discipline not recorded. Just come to Ol' Dean Sutherland girls, he can fix your problems. If you don't mind the price.

Dean Jerry Sutherland? Guilty.

For a second David felt sorry for Judy. Poor, stupid Judy who probably had no idea she was being used. No idea that she was just the palette cleanser for a never-ending buffet. He looked through the office window and watched her making a frantic phone call and suddenly his pity for her disappeared. He nearly laughed. The visions continued and he saw Judy rifling through Dean Sutherland's wallet when he stepped into his private bathroom to clean up after their lunchtime trysts. There were heaping wads of cash in her hands. Not only a slut, but a thief too.

Judy? Guilty.

He glanced at the timer. “1:45.” Time enough.

Hanging at the library door was Mrs. Lily Hanson. David knew of her chronic state of drunkenness, however what he saw beyond that surprised him. At the end of a dark hallway in her house was a bedroom door equipped with a substantial deadbolt. Behind this door, curled up under filthy sheets, lay a wizened old woman. Her stringy gray hair was matted to her scalp and her shriveled skin the color of oatmeal. In Lily Hanson’s pocket, mingled with breath mints and wadded up tissue, David could see, almost as if it were glowing, one single key. A key which fit a lock to a prison of a woman that Lily once called ‘Mother’ and now just wished would hurry and die.

Mrs. Hanson the librarian? Guilty.

He continued to scan the crowd, watching their faces. Seeing their most hidden, nasty secrets.

There was a young, bright looking girl, far on her way to being her class valedictorian, was selling teacher's exams to underclassmen for a tidy profit.

Guilty.

The crotchety old janitor. David could see his stash of pictures of college girls showering after volleyball and swimming. He had rigged a camera inside a broken locker.

Guilty.

A lady in her early thirties, who looked vaguely familiar, holding onto new student paperwork. David could see her in a naked romp with her best friend's husband.

Yep, you're guilty too.

The images just flowed across David's mind as he watched the crowd.

He’s right. David thought. No one in here is innocent. They all deserve what they're about to get.

“1:04.”

Hey, hey, the gang’s all here. Time to drop and run.

He drew closer, coming just to the periphery of the crowd. He looked back to see if Judy was still on the phone. He needed her out of the office so he could make his stealthy retreat. Instead of seeing through the window into the office, the light hit it in such a way that he could see his own reflection. He could see the timer’s red light blinking with each fleeing second and he smiled, feeling very proud to be a part of this operation. Judy walked out of the office and broke his train of thought.

He turned back the crowd and he could still see their secrets. A husband hitting his wife. A young girl shoplifting makeup. Another girl keying the paint job of her ex-boyfriend’s car.

“You're a young man who likes to know things. Right?"

Absolutely. And the visions kept coming, flooding his consciousness. Until he was almost aware of nothing else. Even the timer.

"00:27"

An echo of a conversation days before, reverberated in his head cutting through all he was seeing. It was his own voice. "One thing I’m not gonna do is die in this town"

"00:21"

He turned back to his reflection in the office window. The red light was flashing. Ticking away on the strap of the backpack still in his hand. The flicker of red mesmerized him.

"00:17"

Suddenly he could see things in the reflection, just like he had seen everyone else, except the images pulsed red with the timer‘s light. He could see himself at the bank becoming irritated with Mary Anne Beasley. Reasoning that smothering her was the only option.

"00:12"

He saw himself scanning a pile of books, their pages burning away and ashes falling to the counter. The red light from the bar code reader flashed and burned in his eyes.

“00:10”

He saw himself stuffing wires into a backpack on top of a ridiculous amount of plastic explosives. Another echo. Sarx's voice. "Everyone will deserve exactly what they get."

"00:09"

Everyone.

"00:08"

"Even me?"

"00:06"

"Especially me." He looked down at the wires coming from the backpack. “You'll have no illusions about innocence after that. I assure you,” Sarx lectured from his memories.

"00:05"

David broke his gaze from the pack and turned toward the door. Through the shimmering glass facade of the commons he saw Sarx, still leaning against his car, grinning malevolently. He gave David a thumbs up.

"00:02"

The light flashed and David winced.

"00:01"

His fingers released from the strap of the pack as if wanting to throw it away.

"00:00"

There was a blinding flash of fire and the front windows of the commons blew out, showering the parking lot with slivers of glass. Smoke, paper and chunks of unidentifiable debris soared through the openings which once held glass. After the initial blast there was a moment of quiet before fire alarms began sounding across the building. In that silence, Sarx, who was still leaning against the trunk of David's car, could hear the tinkling of glass hitting cars and asphalt.

Sarx approached the building as people began scurrying out from other parts of the campus. He peered in through the smoke and settling dust. The commons area had been gutted and fires clung to the walls and other items not torn apart by the blast. There were a few people who were moving slightly, still alive but seriously wounded. Sarx peered through the flames and looked over the crowd. Finally his eyes settled on what he had been looking for a pair of high black boots. One still standing and one toppled over in the center of a circle space swept clean by the blast.

"Excellent job, David." He spoke in the direction of the boots, possibly the only identifiable feature left of David without the aid of dental records. "Left Podunk with a bang, eh?"

People began to crowd the windows, looking in at the destruction. The buzz of their mutterings was then drowned out by the wail of sirens as all manner of emergency vehicles pulled into the parking lot. Satisfied, Sarx turned and passed through the crowd. He passed ambulances and fire trucks as they sped toward the building. A police cruiser pulled in after them and Sarx winked at the bewildered face of Officer Scott Holmes behind the steering wheel.

Sarx turned one more time to survey the debacle. "That's a good start, I'd say." His wicked smile unfurled, spreading across his face. "I'm going shopping."

Watching

2009-09-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

Watching through the vertical rectangular window
as they scurry around her ICU bed
flooded with that unnaturally white hospital light

Watching the clock, two ticks forward, one back
as I wait for my wife and kids to return
their five minute drive takes at least fifteen

Watching the doctor as he lays out, with compassion
our options, extended not to save a fading life
but to give dignity and grace to the lives who will go on

Watching the final assisted breath leave her chest
and everything becomes suddenly still
and I understand why stillness makes us all so afraid

Watching the parent's name tag fly across the ICU
my fury quickly tempered recalling where I am
I pick up the tag and apologize quietly, they all understand

Watching myself, phone in hand voice trembling
making calls that I never wanted to make
spreading a fleece of grief across the country

Watching my wife and me sleep, television on
to forestall the dreams that would come
she on the couch, I on the floor beneath her

Watching everyone watching me, I'm talking
white-knuckled grip on the podium
I tell them why “Why?” is an unnecessary question

Watching my wife decide, at the last moment
that we should be the ones who lower her
into that place where she will be until the end

Watching us, the week of years past
seeing the shadow that it has thrown over us
we grope in its darkness, but we still press on

Rita (sarx:three)

2009-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Rita strained against her front door, which had been jammed for nearly a week. The door creaked three or four times before the frame released the door and let it swing open.

"Can’t even get him to fix a damn door," Rita muttered to herself.

She stepped carefully across her darkened living room, which was littered with beer bottles and other random trash. She faltered as she leaned over to turn on a table lamp and nearly fell.

"Watch your step." A voice came from the darkness. "Most tragic accidents happen in the home."

Frightened, Rita flicked the lamp switch and spun to face the recliner across the room. Sarx grinned as their eyes met.

"Oh," she sighed, relieved. "You scared me."

"I was wondering if you were ever coming home."

"I covered part of Darla’s shift for her. Figured I could pick up some extra tips." She began emptying the contents of her apron on the table by the couch. "Anyway, didn’t see much reason to hurry home. Its not like Scott’s going to be here."

His tongue darted out and seemed to dance on his lips for a second. "Have a seat. You look dead on your feet."

Rita dropped on to the couch, which she and Scott had bought a week after their wedding, those many years ago. Its lumpy overstuffed cushions nearly swallowed her. She kicked off her shoes and curled her bare feet up underneath her. Instinctively, she picked up the remote and turned on the stereo. She was a die-hard music fan, whereas Scott was strictly a TV guy.

"So," Rita began,"what brings you by here?"

"I told you that you’d see me soon. It looks like you’re in need of my help here."

"What? Do you do dishes?"

"Not hardly. But I can assist in a housecleaning of sorts." Sarx reached over to the end table and picked up a silver picture frame which displayed Scott and Rita at the wedding altar. "What a lovely dress. Let me guess. Handmade?"

"Yeah. My Nana sewed it for me. It was the last thing she made for me before she died."

"And this handsome young man? Would that be our Scott?"

"Yeah. That’s him. My knight in shining armor." She laughed quietly. "It’s funny, I don’t think I’ve looked at that picture in at least a year. It’s been sitting there. I just forgot about it."

"Now that’s a shame. Such a beautiful picture should be admired regularly." Sarx leaned across the coffee table and handed it to Rita.

Reluctantly, she took the photo. It was one of the posed shots taken after the ceremony. The train of her gown swirled around in front of them both as they stood hand in hand on the altar steps. She could remember the feel of the taffeta against her skin, the smell of Scott’s after shave - and the sound of her father’s grumbling somewhere off to the right, out of frame.

Her father had been complaining for a week before the ceremony and didn’t stop even as she and Scott were climbing into their car for their honeymoon. He had always been a harsh, critical man but had become even more acidic as her wedding date approached. He was displeased with the cost of the reception, the church they had picked and most importantly he thoroughly disapproved of Scott. Her father’s low, but well-voiced opinion of Scott only served to propel her to marriage. She hoped to escape his tyrannical reign and begin a new life with her husband - her knight in shining armor.

Scott would never yell at her or hit her like her father had. Scott wouldn’t do all of the terrible things her father did. And soon, as time wore on and familiarity grew, Scott would barely even speak to her. And there were times - times that she would never admit to anyone - that she would wish that Scott would just hit her, just so she knew he was paying attention. At least then she wouldn’t feel invisible...

"Yes, my dear. What a lovely couple. What a lucky young girl." Sarx slid back in the chair and settled in. "So, what time will Scott be joining us this evening?"

"He won’t be. He has some paperwork at the station to work on. It may be an all night thing."

Sarx clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Now that’s a damned shame. That young man works far too hard. That must put an incredible strain on you, as well."

"Yeah. But you know he really needs to be dedicated if he wants to get promoted. We don’t get to spend much time together, but one day that will change. Until then, I‘ll just need to hang in there..."

Her cell phone interrupted her in mid-thought and she dove to grab it. The phone skittered across the glass coffee table and tumbled to the floor.

"Dammit." She grabbed the phone and flipped it open anxiously, barely waiting for it to connect before she spoke. "Hello?"

Sarx watched the excitement and anticipation drain from her countenance in that silent moment as the other person on the phone responded.

"Oh, hey Gina." She poorly masked her disappointment. "Yeah, I just got home from work."

She flipped her head to the side and held the phone to her ear with her shoulder. "Nah, I’m not in the mood to go out, really. I want to be here when Scott gets home."

Sarx began to speak, his lips barely moving. "It would be fun ."

"I guess it would be fun," She mimicked without acknowledging Sarx had spoken.

Sarx’s razor blade slash of a smile spread across his face. "What the heck, you should go."

"What the heck," Rita quoted excitedly, "I’ll go. Meet you there in forty five minutes." She hung up the phone.

"Girl’s night out?" Sarx asked through a sneer.

"Oh, yeah," Rita responded as if she had forgotten Sarx had been there. "We’re gonna have couple drinks up at Roscoe’s. You know, listen to music, blow off some steam."

"Sounds like an excellent idea. I think I’ll tag along, if that’s okay with you."

"Sure. Why not?" She pushed herself off the couch with a renewed sense of energy. "I think tonight might end up being fun after all."

"I think you’re right." The tip of his tongue darted out, flicked and retreated behind his teeth. "Actually, I’m counting on it."

_________

Roscoe’s Bar and Grill was one of the more popular places in the area in which to waste an a perfectly good evening. The beer was cold, the food was cheap and the atmosphere was undemanding. It didn’t apply the pressure that the typical sports bars did with their understood dress code of khaki chic. But it was, on the continuum, above places where patrons spat on the floor. The unassuming charm of this hole-in-the-wall kept the tables and dance floor active, if not busy, nearly every night of the week.

Rita breezed through the swinging front door of Roscoe’s almost exactly forty five minutes after she had spoken to Gina. After the phone call she showered quickly and selected an outfit that she might have called "sassy" if she had to find a word for it. With her nearly twelve-hour old waitress make-up rinsed deftly down the shower drain, she actually took a few thoughtful moments in the bathroom mirror to add some color to her lips and eyes. When she was finished, she stared at her reflection and started to let herself believe she was pretty again.

With her renewed energy she scanned the bar looking for Gina, whom she found standing by a corner booth near the square of linoleum which served as a dance floor. Rita waved to Gina and looked behind her to Sarx who had just slipped in the door behind her.

"I’m gonna be over there. You wanna come with?"

"No," Sarx responded, his eyes scanning the crowd as well. "I think I’ll just watch from here for now."

"Okay. Have fun. " Rita weaved through the crowd, her hips swaying to the country music pouring from the jukebox.

Gina slid into the horseshoe shaped booth as Rita made her way over to the table. She pulled her beer bottle and cardboard coaster in front of her. "Well, I'll be damned, you made it." She stubbed out her cigarette and slid another out of the pack.

"I don’t know how you talked me into coming," Rita said as she was sliding across the vinyl seat of the booth, "but I'm sure am glad that you did."

"Hell, girl, I knew you needed a night out. That husband of yours sure ain’t gonna do it for you."

Rita stiffened up at Gina’s comment. "Don’t start in on him now. I haven’t even warmed my seat and you’re already at him."

"I’m sorry Rita, it’s just that it makes me crazy the way he treats you. You might as well be invisible."

"I appreciate that you care, Gina, but just let it go tonight. We’re here to have fun."

"Alright. But just for tonight. "

Gina took a deep drag off of her cigarette and looked around for the waitress. "What the hell? Is it self-serve in here tonight? We need a couple more beers." She slid out of the booth. "I’ll be right back. Sit tight and don‘t run off with any cowboys before I get back."

As Gina left the table, Sarx, who had been watching their conversation, turned to around and leaned on the bar. Roscoe, owner and head bartender of Roscoe‘s Bar and Grill, was filling a bus pan with dirty glasses while watching the television above the bar. The ten o’clock news was covering some particularly grisly story that had Roscoe engrossed.

"Wha’dya think about this mess?" He asked no one in particular while motioning to the TV. "Looks like some jerk took a swan dive off the Blackmon."

Sarx’s eyes traveled across the room from Roscoe and his morbid fascination with the story, to the twelve or so others, who seemed to neither notice, nor care that a young man plunged to his death just a few miles from where they were now sitting. Somehow, Sarx was pleased by both.

"Hey Roscoe!" Gina’s shrill backwater voice sailed over the bar’s hum of noise. "Your waitress on strike or something?"

Roscoe broke away from the television. "What can I getcha Gina?"

"I need a couple more beers. And how about an order of onion rings for my inconvenience?"

"Two beers,” he answered. “I guess Rachel stepped out for another break without telling me."

He reached into the cooler and pulled out two longnecks. He popped the caps and handed them to Gina. "Here ya go."

"What about the onion rings?"

"What?" Roscoe gestured grandly to himself. "Do I look like a soup kitchen?" He then turned back to the kitchen door. "David! Get out here!"

The kitchen door swung open and a wiry framed college kid appeared, a stained apron hung carelessly around his neck. He stopped in front of Roscoe who had turned his attention back to the news story.

Without breaking his gaze he spoke. "David, get these dishes to the back. And go find Rachel. She’s off wasting my time somewhere."

"Oh yeah, she listens to me." David turned to make eye contact with Sarx and winked. "I piss her off for some reason."

"You piss everyone off," Roscoe said jerking his thumb toward the television. "Probably your fault this dumbass jumped. Watch the bar and I’ll go find her."

As Roscoe hobbled off, David removed his apron from around his neck and ran his fingers through his black tousled hair.

"So," Sarx began, "I see you’re still a resident in this sleepy little suburb."

"Not for long, I’m not. I’m about six hundred dollars from getting out of here. I figure that if I can endure another week here and not kill the assholes at my other job and I’ll have enough to be able to take off and never look back."

"I thought maybe you’d have jumped off a building or a bridge by now."

David laughed. "Oh no, not me. I’m not gonna do is die in this town. I’m out of here come hell or high water."

"I like a young man who knows what he wants." Sarx looked over his shoulder at Rita. "I’m sure I’ll catch up with you before you leave. However, now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some business of my own to attend to."

"Take it easy."

"Sometimes," Sarx pushed himself off of the bar stool and smirked, "it’s almost too easy."

_________

Rita sat passively attempting to listen to one of Gina's dirty stories, however she found herself glancing at her watch every few minutes, wondering if Scott had gotten home yet. He would be worried if he got home and she wasn't there. Her attention drifted across the room to a pay phone between the restroom doors. Just one quick call...

"So, I told him, 'are you gonna just sit there and stare down my blouse or are you gonna do something about it?'. Well, that got his attention real quick and so he got up...Rita? Are you listening to me?" Gina snapped her fingers across the table in Rita's face.

Rita jerked back to the conversation. "Yeah, I was listening. Sorry."

"You don't want to hear about the it? That's fine by me. Just thought maybe you'd like to hear about some nastiness, since I know your man ain't giving you any."

"Please, Gina. Give it a rest." She glanced back over to the pay phone and Sarx passed into her view as he crossed the room.

He mouthed the words "Call him" and though he was still quite a distance away from her and the music was incredibly loud, she could have sworn she actually heard the words themselves. He nodded. "You better. He'll be worried." Again the words rang in her head above the din of the bar.

"Actually Gina, I gotta to go to the ladies room. When I get back you can finish telling me your story."

"Ok, you want me to get you another?" She held up Rita's beer bottle which was nearly empty.

"Yeah, that'll be good."

Sarx edged into the booth across from Gina and they both watched Rita make a path across the dance floor.

Gina broke her gaze first and turned to Sarx. "I know that she's not going to pee. She's going to call home and see if that son of a bitch is home yet. Which he won't be."

"You know that. And I know that. But what can you do?"

"Nothing, I guess. She's a big girl. She can take care of herself."

"You really think that?"

Gina exhaled a sigh and picked up her beer bottle like it was a pointer. "You know, it crawls underneath my skin. Here I sit acting like everything's all right when actually I know that son of a bitch is screwing around right under her nose. And she's completely blind to the whole thing."

"You're not exactly known for being discreet, you know. Why the sealed lips now?"

"I guess I was just hoping that either he'd quit or she'd find out by now without me saying something." Gina looked over at Rita with the receiver to her ear trying to hide in the ladies bathroom doorway. "She's really a tough old girl. There's just something about him that's just got her all screwed up."

"And holding on to this information will benefit her how?"

She pursed her lips and nodded as she thought about the situation. "You're right. I'm gonna tell her. Its gonna kill her, but she needs to know."

"It won't kill her."

"I hope you're right."

Sarx eyes met Gina's directly and locked there. "I'm always right. Trust me."

Before their eye contact was broken, Rita returned to the table. "Hey! You two know each other?"

Sarx stood up and let Rita slide into the booth. "I get around. I know lots of people."

"Well, just sit back down. I'll buy you a beer." She glanced over at Gina. "You okay with that?"

Sarx interjected before Gina could answer. "Actually, I've got something to take care of, right now. Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty things your girls have to talk about." His eyes locked on Gina's again. "You know, secret girl stuff."

Gina looked nervous, but still determined. She nodded and forced a smile. "Yeah. You're right. You're always right, aren't ya?"

"That's what I've heard said." And with that he turned and left, blending into the crowd and disappearing.

Gina decided that her only hope was a direct approach. "So, Scott wasn't home yet, huh?"

"No, he wasn't, but..." Rita flushed and looked down at the table, embarrassed. "You knew I wasn't going to the bathroom."

"Of course I knew. I also knew that Scott wasn't going to be home when you called.” A beat. “I actually know even more than that."

"So, what else do you know, then, smarty?" Rita said this attempting to be funny, but it just came out hurt and irritated.

"I know that Scott isn't at work. And I know..." She paused to build up the inertia to get the whole story out in one breath. She hoped it would compact all of the hurt into one quick moment, like ripping a bandage off. "I know that Scott is seeing someone else. Actually he's been seeing her for while. She's a blonde college girl with a huge rack. Every night that Scott tells you that he's working late, he's with her. Rita, Scott is cheating on you."

Despite the fact that the music was still blaring and the revelers were hooting and hollering, it was perfectly silent in Rita's world for a moment. She could hear nothing from the outside, only the Gina's rapid-fire words echoed in here head. And suddenly the silence was swept away and the noise of the bar swung back and Rita, who had been holding her breath during the silence, exhaled and began to laugh.

"Gina! You're impossible! I know you don't like Scott, but come on..."

"Rita. I saw them together. Myself. More than once."

Denial was her only recourse and Rita used it vehemently. "No. No. No. You're wrong." Her laughter had shifted into frustrated sobs.

"Get up." Gina stood and reached her hand out. "C'mon now, get up."

Reluctantly, Rita stood and followed Gina across the dance floor to the telephone she had just used moments before. Gina picked up the receiver, dug into her pocket and pulled out a handful of change. She plunked the correct amount into the slot and ordered Rita. "I'll call the cop shop. If he's there, I'll shut up. If he's not, maybe you should listen to me. What's the number?"

Still heaving from trying to control her sobs, Rita wiped her eyes and dialed the phone number of the police station. She leaned her ear toward Gina, who had the receiver placed to her own ear already, and listened.

When the switchboard girl answered, Gina shifted her voice to an even deeper country drawl and spoke. "Hi there, sugar. Could you connect me with Officer Scott Holmes?"

"I'll connect you with that extension."

Rita sneered, her arched eyebrows gloating I told you so. Gina raised her finger telling Rita to wait and be quiet.

A husky voice answered. "Scott Holmes desk."

"Is this Officer Holmes?"

"No ma'am, its not. He's not in at the moment. Could I help you?"

"Probably not, Officer Holmes came out to my house last week for a domestic disturbance. My husband gets a little swingy when he gets liquored up. Anyway, Officer Holmes said he wanted me to call him this week and let him know if things were going okay. You know, to see if he needed to come out and talk to Bobby Joe again. I just wanted to tell him that things been fine. Will he back in t'night?"

"No, he won't ma'am. He left for the night."

Gina looked at Rita with the same I told you so expression that she gave just moments before, but Rita answered with a shrug and whispered. "Doesn't prove anything."

"Well, now, he wouldn't still be hanging around would he? I'd sure like to at least thank him for being so helpful last week."

"No ma'am, he left hours ago. Would you like to leave him a message?"

Rita went pale and slid down the wall between the bathrooms. She began to heave and Gina didn't know if she was going to become hysterical or throw up.

"Ma'am, you still there?"

"Officer, one of the kids just got sick all over the place. I better go." She dropped the phone on its cradle and knelt down beside Rita.

"Hon, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but I guess you had to know. I'm so so sorry. Are you gonna be okay?"

Rita heaved once or twice more and then stopped quite suddenly. She wiped the tears from her face and looked up from her lap, fire seemed to be burning behind her eyes. "Yeah. I'm gonna be fine. Lets go back to the table. I want a drink."

Rita drank without saying much for a while. Generally, Gina was the heavier drinker of the two, often to the point that Rita would begin to worry and suggest that Gina slow down. However, that night Rita downed almost two beers for every one that Gina drank. At one point, after not being able to get Rachel to wait on their table fast enough, Rita finally spoke. "Screw this. She's too slow. Let's move up to the bar. Maybe Roscoe can keep them coming a little better."

So they did move, and they stayed at the bar, drinking to beat the band for at least another hour. During that hour, Rita loosened up and began to laugh and shout like the other bar patrons. She and Gina watched the TV above the bar, making fun of the people who were acting absurdly on some late night trash talk show. They laughed and talked bad about men and flicked peanuts across the bar at Roscoe when he turned his back. Then suddenly, as if someone hit a switch, Rita said, "I don't feel well," and fell face first into the bowl of complimentary peanuts.

_________

Roscoe called cabs for both Rita and Gina and sent them to sleep off their revelry at their homes. Having a couple cars sit in his lot would be far less troublesome than the lawsuit that might occur if he sent them out as drunk and they caused an accident. He gave the driver money and stealthily added it to their tabs.

Rita arrived home a few short minutes after leaving Roscoe's. The cab driver wasted no time getting her to her destination before she felt the need to evacuate the contents of her stomach in his back seat. She climbed out of his cab backwards, having regained a modicum of consciousness, and slowly made her way to the front door. The door, still jammed, nearly knocked her down as she tried to open it, Her second attempt, which involved running her shoulder into it, succeeded in opening the door and depositing her in her living room floor.

She lay face down on her floor, feeling the nap of the rug against her cheek. She didn't move or look around but spoke anyway. "You're here aren't you?"

"Yes. Yes I am." Sarx sneered at the back of her head.

"And Scott isn't?"

"Correct again."

She finally stirred from the carpet and raised herself up on her elbows to face Sarx. "Damn it." She shakily stood and maneuvered her way to the kitchen sink.

Sarx followed her, pushing the front door closed and locking it as he passed. "You look like shit."

"Thanks, a lot." Rita leaned over to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. "I can’t drink like this anymore. Maybe you should go, I need to be alone." She attempted to stand completely up, wavered and then fell to the floor.

"I can’t leave you like this. I’m sure there’s something more I can do." Sarx extended his hand and helped her to her feet.

"You don’t have to. You just trying to be kind."

"It‘s funny how many people say that." Sarx pulled her close to his face. "I insist." He led her to the living room and lowered her into Scott's recliner.

"This has been a long, stupid day." She mumbled. "My heart hurts. My head hurts and I'm tired."

"We can fix that. Can't we?..." Sarx pulled a ceramic vase from the bookshelf beside Scott's recliner and turned it over. A brown prescription bottle fell out into his hand.

"How do you know about that?"

"When are you going to learn, dear Rita? I’m everywhere. In your closets. In your bottles. In your head. I am everywhere." He twisted off the cap and poured the contents on the coffee table. Brilliantly colored pills and capsules danced around the glass top. "Now, what will you have my dear? Red? Blue? Pink? You’ve got quite the palette here."

She seemed to not hear him for a moment and then leaned out of the chair toward the coffee table. She picked two pills and grabbed the stereo remote control. She pressed the play button it on and started whatever disc happened to be cued at the moment. There was the faint whir of the CD spinning followed by the low, hypnotic beginning of Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare album. Alice's sickly calm voice poured from the speakers, "Welcome to my nightmare, I think you're going to like it...."

Rita laughed weakly as she watched the lights of the stereo's equalizer dance with the music. "Now that's appropriate." She sunk back into the chair and held the pills in a tight grip at her chest.

"So," Sarx began, "Your knight in shining armor seems a bit tarnished, eh?"

"You knew, too?"

"We all knew. And I bet if you did a little soul searching, you'd find that you knew it too."

She bowed her head in shame. Sarx was right, she knew it. "I didn't want to believe it. I really thought I chose better. Thought I did okay. That's why I kept lying to myself. I didn't want to admit that I had married an asshole just like my dad. You believe what you want, I guess. And now I don't know who I'm angrier with. Him or me."

She reached behind her to the cabinets at the bottom of the bookcase and pulled the door open. Inside bottles of liquor stood like glass sentries. She grabbed blindly and pulled out a sealed bottle of tequila. She spun the cap on the tequila, cracking the seal and launching the cap across the room. For a moment she considered getting up and getting a glass, but then reconsidered. "Screw it," she said as she popped the pills into her mouth and tipped the bottle taking a deep swig. The sting of the liquor made her wince and she swallowed it deliberately.

"My sentiments exactly, my dear. Screw it. Screw him. Screw her. Screw them all."

She nodded and parroted him. "Screw 'em all." Another swig, not quite so deep this time, yet still as deliberate. She then stood up and raised the bottle like a wedding toast. "Screw 'em all!"

"There you go. Get it all out."

She walked over to the silver framed wedding photo, picked it up and spat out a cynical laugh.

"Screw his little college girl with her bleach blonde hair and teenaged tits! Screw him and his weekend football! Screw his '52 inch television..." She threw the frame at the television, it cracked the screen and bounced off. A mischievous grin grew across her face. She stumbled into the kitchen, grabbed a dining chair in her free hand and dragged it into the living room. She set the tequila bottle on the top one of the speakers and hefted the chair into the air by its back. She swung the chair in a wide arc and nearly toppled over in her drunkenness. The legs still connected and crashed through the screen.

The tone of the music shifted sharply as Alice and his band kicked into Devil's Food. "Getting ready for the lady, she's going to be a treat..."

Rita dropped the chair and turned to face the rest of the living room. She lurched toward Scott's recliner. "His precious husband throne!" She kicked through the fabric in the side of the chair, it opened wide with a satisfactory ripping sound. "Long live the king!" She bellowed and grabbed the back of the chair, pulling it forward and toppling it over on its face.

Sarx stood back and watched her ranting as she opened the liquor cabinet again and pulled out his cache of adult magazines, which had been strategically hidden under a few copies of Sports Illustrated. She dropped them on the end table and took them one by one, ripping pages and throwing them around the room. She was moving so frenetically it soon looked like a blizzard with huge Technicolor snowflakes.

"I knew about these too, you bastard!" She screamed, meaning it for Scott, despite his absence. "I knew about everything!"

After destroying the stack of magazines, she grabbed the bottle of tequila from the speaker and drank again. This time she was nearly oblivious to the burn and swallowed heartily.

The music hissed just beneath her, "Our thoughts are hot and crazed...our brains are webbed with haze...mindless, senseless daze..."

"You see this couch?" Rita motioned, slinging liquor across the room. "This couch was the first thing we bought together. Big comfy cushions so we could curl up together after a long day. Even made love a few times on this couch. Now all I do is fall asleep on this couch waiting for him to come home from work...heh...work...that's funny."

She flipped the bottle in her hand so that she was holding it by the neck, its contents pouring out the opening. She swung the bottle, shattering the end of it on the speaker, baptizing it in Jose Cuervo. Holding the neck of the bottle like a sword she began to rip through the fabric on the couch. She ripped and stabbed with her right hand and yanked the couch's innards free with her right. Stuffing flew in huge white chunks, once again making the the living room look like a victim of some demented snow storm.

A piano began playing the opening notes of Some Folks. The sound of fingers snapping with the beat popped from the speakers and oddly kept time with the second hand of the clock on the wall. Rita watched the seconds tick away and as more instruments joined the song her shoulders began to sway jauntily. She strutted across the living room like a stripper, kicking beer bottles and trash aside with the tempo. She threw the broken bottle into the gaping hole in the TV screen and cackled with laughter.

"Now there's the Rita I know." Sarx watched greedily pranced around the room. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah," Rita answered, the word slipped off her lips slow and lustily. "Better all the time. You know what I'm in the mood for?"

Sarx eyed her from under the ridge of his brow and grinned."What would that be?"

Rita took two grand, dancer-like strides toward Sarx and planted her feet in front of him. She leaned into him and breathed,"Revenge"

Sarx licked his lips and bared his teeth, transforming his mischievous grin into a wicked wolfy smile. "And what exactly do you mean by that, my dear?"

"You dance and you gotta pay the piper."

"A cliche aptly spoken. Except perhaps its you who needs to pay."

"But..."Rita was confused. "Not me...him."

"The pills should be kicking in now."

"Huh?" Rita muttered dumbly and then her concrete world began melting like wax before her eyes as the pills and alcohol which had mixed violently in her gut now leeched into her bloodstream. The walls of her house trembled and the floor undulated. The music pouring from the speakers began an animal-like screech, causing Rita to grab for ears. She dropped to the floor, sitting cross-legged like a preschooler.

In the midst of Rita’s shifting reality, there stood Sarx , unscathed, in the center of her field of vision. She watched him as he stood above her, his tongue darting out to moisten his tight lips. She heard his voice clearly, as he began to speak.

"Look at the mess you've made. What are you? A toddler? Throw your tantrum, baby. Kick and scream and hold your breath until you turn blue for all anyone cares! No wonder the mess you're in." He dipped low and filled her vision. "Look at yourself, Rita You're not exactly the radiant beauty you were on your wedding day. A little more round in the waist and saggy in the bust. And poor Scott has needs. Desires. Lusts. And do you think they're going to be fulfilled by a stretched out old country girl who comes home smelling of chicken fried steak?"

Rita looked hurt. Surprised and stung as if Sarx had just slapped her. "That's not the point," she muttered.

"Oh, yes, it is and you know it too. Just like you knew that Scott was screwing around on you. But it had precious little to do with your bad old daddy and your dumb choices. You ignored all of these things because if you faced them, you also would would have to face the fact that all of this is your fault." He walked behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Get up!"

She gave no resistance. She stood and was lead to the living room where a large mirror hung by the couch. Sarx stood her in front of the mirror, but she wouldn't look at her reflection.

"Look at yourself." She shook her head and Sarx put his hand under her chin and pushed it up. "Look! Is this the woman of a young man's dreams?"

Her reflection stared back at her from a face streaked with tears and mascara. Her eyes looked exhausted and her mouth drooped in the corners. She was beginning to develop those jowls like old women. Old women. She wasn't old. Far from it. But she sure looked it. Didn't she? Soon her boobs would be sagging to her knees. She pulled open her blouse, buttons popping everywhere, some hitting the mirror and ricocheting back at her. There were stretch marks across her breasts, which disappeared into her bra, which itself actually was at least a cup size too small. Another bit of denial there. She was getting soft and was outgrowing her once sexy little body. He belly rippled slightly as it tucked into her jeans, the waist band a line of demarcation digging into her paunch. No this wasn't the body of a young man's dreams. She was soft in all the wrong places. She jiggled where Scott's college girl probably bounced.

Suddenly, a new wave of contempt washed over her. This time it wasn't for Scott or his cute little college girl. Or even for her wretched father. The contempt was for herself. No sense projecting it onto anyone else, when the real target of her loathing hung right between her own eyes.

She stared at those make-up streaked eyes, her anger growing at herself exponentially by the moment until she could stand it no longer. She balled her fists and smashed them against the mirror, sending shards of broken glass sailing in all directions. Her face was now a disjointed mess in the reflection with five black dripping eyes blinking stupidly back at her.

"She cries alone at night too often, he smokes and drinks and don't come home at all..."

She looked at her fist, which was sliced across the knuckles, looking like someone had played an insane game of tic-tac-toe across them in red ink. The blood seemed to pulse on her fingers. Throbbing crimson rivulets keeping time with the beat of her own heart, which by the moment was getting stronger, more erratic. She held her hand up in front of her face and watched the blood trickle from her fingers to her palm and down her wrist. Her wrist. The skin shone white contrasted against the scarlet streams, white and smooth. Smooth and unbroken.

She turned her hand away from her face, grasped a shard of mirror and pulled it from its frame. The edges of the glass dug into the pads of her fingers and palm.

"I'm a bad girl?" She asked looking into the bit of mirror in her hand.

"Yes, you are," Sarx responded.

"Its all my fault?"

"Yes. It is."

"Bad girls must be punished." She raised her left hand and bared her wrist. Without averting her eyes, she swung the glass in a wide arc and opened the white, smooth skin of her wrist. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen and then a thin stream of blood separated the smooth, white skin parting it like a mischievous smile across her wrist. She sliced down again and a jagged edge of the mirror caught her flesh and tore it instead of slicing through it. Another swipe. And another. She turned to Sarx and showed him her wrist. The blood was now gushing from the wounds, pouring from the tip of her elbow and beginning to puddle on the carpet.

"Bad girls get fat and their husbands don't love them." She put the glass to her belly and traced a line across it just above her navel. Before this one even had a chance to bleed, she made another slash beginning above it and intersecting it diagonally. "Fat, bad girls sag and don't excite their husbands. Bad, bad girls."

She attempted to slice across her left breast, but stumbled forward instead. She dropped the shard of mirror and wavered back and forth. Frantically, she tried to reach for Sarx but although she could see him she couldn't seem to reach him.

"I don't feel so well." She looked up at Sarx with pleading eyes. "Why?"

"If you dance..." he mimicked.

"...you've got to pay the piper," she finished and staggered another step forward hoping to grab onto something to keep her upright and stumbled. Her inertia toppled her right through where she could have sworn Sarx was standing, but it wasn't him she felt. Whatever she hit felt hard, yet cold and smooth, which for the slightest second felt wonderful against her fevered skin until the glass center of the coffee table shattered and she began to fall again. She never knew she hit the ground beneath the table.

_________

The front door rattled in its frame as something heavy landed against it. Keys jangled as they found their way to the lock. Scott, attempting to enter as quietly as possible, turned the handle and pushed solidly on the door. It creaked twice in protest and then swung open. Scott staggered into the house. "Dammit. She oughta get someone to fix that," he mumbled incoherently. He took a second to stabilize himself, then noticed Sarx sitting in his recliner. "What the hell you doing here?"

"I was just leaving, actually." Sarx stood and sauntered toward the door, stopping briefly at Scott’s shoulder. "You smell like sex. Nasty sex."

"Shh!" Scott warned him. "Not so loud. The old lady might hear you."

"I wouldn’t bet on that." Sarx grabbed the door and pulled it as he exited. Just as the door was about to shut, he poked his head through the opening. "Oh, Officer, about that old lady of yours; you might want to call an ambulance."

Sarx mused at Scott’s bewildered expression and swiftly shut the door.

________

Nearly eighteen hours later Rita Holmes was laying in a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit of Community Hospital, her arms and legs bound in restraints. A mixture of shock and morphine kept her floating just beneath the surface of consciousness. White gauze and tape covered a large portion of her face, as well as covering the stitches on her forearms, wrists and abdomen. Minor scrapes and cuts spider webbed across her visible skin and her lip was swollen, three stitches holding a substantial laceration together. IV tubes and wires trailed from her body and draped over the side of the bed connecting her to various machines. A clear plastic oxygen mask was strapped across her nose and mouth, pumping oxygen directly to her system.

For a moment, the fog seemed to lift and Rita felt herself coming around. With her right eye, which wasn't covered by any sort of bandage, she saw a shadow pass through the light she assumed was the doorway. It approached her bed and completely filled her vision.

"You really look like shit now." Sarx's voice was no longer veiled with any feigned pity. He sounded amused.

"You did this to me." Rita moaned, her voice barely a hiss behind the oxygen mask.

"That can't be. Your doctor says that these wounds were self-inflicted." He leaned in close and whispered, "But then again, what do doctors know?"

"Get out."

Sarx drew an affected gasp of disbelief. "That's no way to speak to a friend."

"You're not my friend," she inhaled deeply between words trying to make them as emphatic as possible. "I hate you. I never want to see you again."

Sarx laughed, thoroughly entertained by her bravado in her vulnerable state. "You will see me again. And the funny thing is, as much as you hate me now, when I show up at your door next time, you'll invite me in and offer to make me dinner."

Her unbandaged eye grew wide with fright. She wanted to argue, but she somehow knew that what he was saying was true. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it, finding nothing to say.

"You'll have to pardon me. I've so much to do and so little time. I must be leaving now." He patted her hand patronizingly. "I'd have you tell Scott 'hello' for me but I'm sure be seeing him before you will. Goodnight, Rita."

She tried once again to speak, but the morphine haze began to creep in from the edges of her field of vision and Sarx faded from her sight. She floated back down beneath the surface of consciousness and her thoughts of Sarx dissolved until there was nothing left. Once she was settled back into her chemical oblivion, Sarx turned and left.

As he walked down the hall, he watched nurses casually performing their duties, looking bored by their tasks. One nurse sat at a desk working on a crosswords puzzle, pensively chewing the end of her pen, barely avoiding falling asleep. Sarx leaned over her, although she seemed not to notice.

"Go ahead. Give in. Sleep." The nurse nodded once more, snapped her head up and then succumbing, her eyes slowly shut. She dropped the pen she was holding and laid her head on her arms. "Good girl. Rest up. You're going to need it. Its about to get very busy around here."

Sarx made his way down the hall toward the exit. To no one in particular, he repeated, "Very busy, indeed."

Prettiest cop on the block...

2009-09-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

and now for the work of sean matthew howard...

"If the World is Sane"
oil on panel
Original not for sale

"Dreamer"
Oil on panel
2' x 4'
$500

"Kate"
Latex and oil on panel
2' x 2'
$500
ready to hang

"Blow Through Me"
oil on panel
4' x 4'
$750

God
blow through my dark desire
haunt my head
flicker in the night sky over me

"The God Who Sees"
4' x 4'
latex and oil on wood
$750

"Fallen"
approx 12" x 12"
latex and oil on panel
ready to hang
$250

"Hannah"
approx 12" x 12"
latex and oil on panel
ready to hang
$250

"Untitled"
approx 12" x 12"
latex and oil on panel
ready to hang
$250

"Gulf Breeze"
6' x 4'
oil on wood
portable mural
Original sold

Seven and seven is...

2009-09-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

"Pirate Chest"
Oil on wood panel
approx 5" x 5"
Framed, ready to hang
$75

"Toes"
Oil on wood panel
approx 5" x 5"
Framed, ready to hang
$75

"Cleaver"
Oil on wood panel
approx 5" x 5"
Framed, ready to hang
$75

"Suicide Jack"
Commissioned by www.aestheticreations.net
for use as roof graphic for MINI Coopers.
Original sold.

"Emptying the Magician's Pockets"
Oil on wood panel
Ready to hang
approx 12" x 12"
$175

"Zippo"
Oil on wood panel
approx 4" x 4"
Framed, ready to hang
$75

"Fire"
Oil on wood panel
approx 5" x 5"
Framed, ready to hang
$75

(Prices do not include shipping and handling.)

Shameless Self Promotion

2009-09-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

There have been a few requests
pertaining to the details of the work
of The Saint.
Here goes.
Knock yourself out.

"Self Destructive Delicacies"

Oil on wood panel
framed and ready to hang
4' x 4'
$2500

"What feeds you is very often what destroys you."

This is the first concept developed in The Saint, however the painting that you see here is, in fact, the third incarnation of this painting. The first was small and sad and lacking chiaroscuro. The second was large and darker but tool a nasty spill off the easel on day and broke. This one, is by far our favorite, which is convenient since it's the one we have.

"Remote Controlled Wet Nurse"

Oil on wood panel
4' x 4'

Framed and ready to hang
$2500

"Television is a fine friend, but a lousy parent."

This painting is actually back on the easel as Tumnus, forever unsatisfied, decided to rework a few of the television images. If anyone wanted to purchase it, there would be a short wait. But the wait would be well worth it.

"The Wonder Years"
Oil on wood panel
approx 2' x 4.5'
Framed and ready to hang
$1000

"Self-Portrait"
Oil on wood
Not for sale

This was Tumnus' first foray into self-portraiture. After this he realized that he himself was his favorite subject to paint. Although the original is not for sale we are looking into selling prints. We also think that this would look damn cool on a black tee.

"Shut Up the Kingdom"
Oil on wood panel
2' x 4'
Framed and ready to hang
$1000

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."

"Little Red"
Oil on panel
2' x 4'
Framed and ready to hang.
$1000

"There are wolves out there in the woods. Be careful."

So, there we go.
The first installment.
More to come.

Andy (sarx:two)

2009-08-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

The sun finally dipped beneath the horizon and the muted violet of dusk washed across the cliffs which hovered above West Beach. Andy Mitchell settled back into the driver’s seat of his silver Acura as he pulled from the shoulder of the road.

“So, Andy,” Sarx's voice from the passenger’s seat seeped into the darkness, “What brings you this far out from the big city?”

“Just needed to take a drive," Andy sighed, his troubled face illuminated by the blue light from the dashboard, "You know, wind down after work. Think a bit.”

"Hard day at work?"

"Is there another kind?."

Sarx grinned, the dashboard light only barely reflecting off his teeth. “I thought this was your dream job.”

Andy snorted a bitter laugh. “It is. You know that dream where you show up to school naked? It's that one.”

“Really? Tell me about it. ”

“You don’t want to know about my stupid problems. You’re just being nice.”

Sarx turned to face Andy, his eyes serious. “Trust me. I’m not being nice. Tell me.”

“It’s the same old story, really. I work myself to death. No one notices. Some fresh new face drops in from four years of college and he gets the position above me. ”

“That’s not just your job, that’s everyone’s job. What else?”

“You really want to know?” Andy grabbed wildly behind him between the seats, his right hand and eyes no longer attending to his driving. The car dipped off the road onto the graveled shoulder as he pulled his laptop from his backpack in the back seat. "Oops," he said righting the car, "That woulda been bad." He slid the laptop into Sarx's lap. “Open it."

Sarx opened the computer and Andy hit the power button. The screen jumped to life, bathing Sarx in a devilish glow. A stylized image of an eye with lashes like flames filled the screen. The eye blinked and disappeared, leaving a password box. Still only half-paying attention to the road, Andy reached over and entered his password. The login screen folded in on itself repeatedly until it disappeared, leaving a desktop cluttered with icons.

"Okay, you see those icons?" Andy's voice jumped in pitch with his frenetic childlike excitement. “Check this out. Every one of those are mine. I designed them. I don't mean just the icons. I mean the programs. Built most of them from the ground up."

"Impressive."

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying, right? But that ain't the biggie."

“What is 'the biggie'?” Sarx encouraged.

“C'mon! Did you see how fast that thing booted up? That's the fastest of any OS on the market." He added in conspiratorial whisper, "Safest too, if I do say so myself."

"And this is your design, as well?"

"Well," Andy began, a beat slower than before "The basic idea isn’t mine. It belongs to the company. It’s a system that they’ve been trying to roll out for a while now, but it kept failing. The morons in development have been screwing around for three months trying to figure what's causing everything to go bugfuck. So, I snagged a copy of it and took it home. You know, see if I could make it work."

He stopped at an intersection and turned left, heading back to the city. Once the car cleared the intersection, his full attention no longer needed to drive, he continued his story.

"When I got it home, I realized that they weren't going deep enough to fix it. The basic programming was flawed and they were just tying to tweak externals. After work, I would go home and work on re-programming it. When I finished, it cranked right up for me, so to speak. After that, I started tinkering with some of other ideas. Those ideas." He pointed the icons on the screen. "This could be the most amazing system on the market.”

Sarx tapped the screen. “Sounds perfect. What's the problem?”

Andy deflated at the question. “I can’t get anyone to listen. I try to talk to my boss about it. ‘Catch me next week,’ he says. Well, next week comes and goes. Then the next. And nothing. I'm sick of getting dismissed. Is that problem a good enough reason to hate my job?”

“More than enough, I‘d say.” Sarx closed the laptop and placed his hands on it. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“What?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, pull in there.” Sarx pointed at a dingy little diner just off the road. “I need to pay someone a visit...and you’re going to need all the strength you can get tonight.”

____________

Flop's Diner was the quintessential greasy spoon, cheap food made fast and served under the yellow glare of bad fluorescent lighting. It had been a family run joint for years. Rita Holmes had worked there so long that, It was familiar and comfortable work for her.

Rita greeted Andy and Sarx as they entered the diner. Sarx pointed to an obscured corner booth across the restaurant. “Have a over there. I’ll be there in a minute.”

As Andy crossed the room, clutching his backpack, Sarx approached the counter and mounted a stool.

“Hello, Rita.”

Rita looked up from filling ketchup bottles.“Well, hello, stranger. I didn't realize that was you. You been hiding from me?”

“No. You don’t have to worry about that. I’m never too far away.”

“So, what brings you in tonight?”

Sarx nodded in Andy‘s direction. “That gentleman over there is in need of some dinner. And I thought I should come check in on you.”

“Ah. Kill two birds with one stone?”

“Exactly.” Sarx grinned maliciously. “How’s that husband of yours?”

“How is he? He‘s a cop. That‘s how he is.” He cheerful demeanor dripped away. “Damn near sleeps at the station. Only time he‘s home, he‘s drinking beer and watching football. Closest I get to being taken out to dinner is delivery pizza...” Rita realized that she was rambling and stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry, that’s just a sore subject lately.”

“That’s quite alright. I shouldn’t hold you from your work any longer. Why don’t you go see what my young friend over there wants for dinner?”

Rita stopped filling the bottles and scuttled off to the table where Andy was seated, leaving Sarx alone.

“Now that’s a helluva woman there.” A slurred voice came from beside Sarx. “I’d probably stay home more if I had one like that.”

Ed Pemberton was seated next to Sarx, his nearly three hundred pounds somehow precariously perched upon the singled legged stool. He was voraciously devouring two obscenely large chili dogs.

“Well, hello, Ed.” Sarx turned to face him. “I see we’re taking good care of that gout.”

“Now, don’t you start in on me, too. I get enough of that crap from the old lady.” He took another heaping bite of chili dog. “If’n it ain’t the gout, its the diabetes. Hell, its not like I was gonna live forever anyway.”

“I agree with you Ed. It’s your life. Have a chili dog.” Sarx stood up from his stool and clapped his hand against Ed’s massive back as he was walking away. “Hell, while you’re at it, have a slice of Rita’s chocolate pie. They say it’s to die for.”

____________

When Sarx finally returned to Andy, he found him sitting quietly, spinning a coffee cup between his hands on the table.

“I thought you were hungry,” Sarx said as he slid into the booth.

“I was. But I’m too keyed up to eat right now.” He stopped spinning the cup long enough to take a sip of coffee. “I’ll just throw up if I do.”

“Very well.” Sarx settled back in the seat and rested his clasped hands on the table. “You’re angry.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Shouldn't I be?”

"I never said that."

Andy slumped in his chair, exasperated. "What does it matter if I'm angry or not? They're in a meeting right now to try and dump the whole project without pissing off their investors." He rested his head on his hands and rubbed his eyes with his palms. "It's a wash."

“But you fixed it.”

His head snapped up. “And other than you, who knows that?”

"Tell them."

"I can't."

“Why not?” Sarx queried.

"Listen, I'm not young. I'm not cool. I could give shit about their scenester lives and their indie bands. Hell, my favorite singer is Huey Lewis. So, you can guess that I'm not their first pick on dodgeball day." He drank down the dregs of his coffee. "Most of the young punks they call on write code like drunken preschoolers but they kiss ass like pros. That's not a skill I can stomach. So, here I am day after day, doing their work for them while they drink lattes and download porn!”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

Andy’s fervor faded and he slumped back in the booth. “Do? What can I do?”

“I think you have all the resources you need,” Sarx tapped on Andy’s pack, “right there.”

“What good are ideas that won’t be heard?”

“I didn’t say anything about your ideas. Did I?” Sarx slid the zipper of the backpack open with his finger. “What else do you have in here?” Andy stared in shock as Sarx reached in and slid out the butt of a pistol. “Hmm... look at this.”

“How did you know about that?” Andy began to sweat.

“Don’t you worry about that.” Sarx slid the gun back into place. “Now, what is your plan?”

“I don‘t have a plan.”

“If you didn’t have a plan, you wouldn’t be carrying that with you.”

“But...”

“’But’ nothing. Listen to me, Andrew. You are a visionary. A genius. The masses miss genius because they’re blinded by their own banality. You’ve got your audience in that conference room. You just need to get their attention and I’d say you’ve got one hell of an icebreaker there.”

Andy stared at his pack, his thoughts reeling.

Rita came up carrying a coffeepot. “Can I get you boys anything else?”

“No,” Sarx said. “I believe we’re nearly done here.”

Rita pulled their ticket from her apron and set it on the table. She winked at Sarx. “Now, you come back and see me, okay?”

“I will, maybe sooner than later. Oh, and tell Scott I said hi.”

“Hell, you might see him before I do.”

“I sure might.” As Rita moved on, Sarx leaned toward Andy. “Have you sorted anything out?”

Andy stood up, zipped the pack and slung it over his shoulder. He tossed a handful of money on the table and grinned. His eyes met Sarx, once again burning with passion.

“Let’s do it.”

____________

Michael Johnston, company president, and his frazzled software development team were seated around a sprawling meeting table on the sixth floor of the Blackmon building. Just outside the door of the conference room Andy waited nervously, the strap of his backpack clasped tightly in his left hand. Sarx was sitting on the edge of a desk a few paces away.

“Are you ready to soar, Andy?” Andy nodded silently and grasped the handle of the door. “Knock ‘em dead, kid.”

Andy pushed the door open slightly and peeked his head in the room. No one looked up. He stepped inside and set his pack at the end of the table and scanned the room.

“Gentlemen!” Andy called out over the buzz of their conversations. “Could I have your attention!”

The room fell silent and Michael stood up. “Andy, this is a private meeting. If there’s something you need, talk to me tomorrow morning.”

“No.” Andy was seething at being put off once again. “This can't wait!”

“It'll have to, Andy. We're very busy.” Michael looked back down at his screen hoping to dismiss Andy, the others followed suit.

Infuriated, Andy reached down into his bag, pulled out the gun and fired it at the ceiling. The sound of the shot echoed off the walls and sent the young men scurrying to the floor.

“I said it can't wait.” Andy pulled his laptop from his bag with his free hand and strode across the floor to the head of the table. "Have a seat, guys." he said amiably and gestured for everyone to get up from the floor.

"What do you want, Andy?" Michael asked, visibly shaken,

"Hook this up." Andy handed Michael the laptop. Michael took the computer, connected it the projector and powered it up. The flaming eye blinked on the projector screen at the end of the room.

"How do you have this?!" Michael exclaimed, forgetting momentarily that Andy was armed.

"Never mind that, Mike," And motioned for him to return his attention the the laptop. "Type in my password." He paused for a beat. "Wunderkind."

Sarx slipped in silently as the Michael did as he was told. He positioned himself by the door, directly across the table from where Andy was standing.

"Now, if all of you would be so kind as to close your laptops and face the screen, I will be so kind as to not to discharge another bullet. Okay?"

Computers snapped closed one by one as the rattled young men tried to process what was going on. Michael looked up from Andy's computer and shrugged. "Well, what?"

"What's the biggest problem with this system?"

"What? Is that it? You want to try and fix it?"

"No." Andy leaned on the table and smiled. "I already have."

____________

Andy’s captive audience sat motionless as he unfolded his changes to the system. He gestured wildly, the gun still in hand, as he directed Michael through the program. He took them through a far more detailed, though no less self-aggrandizing story than he had told Sarx as he led Michael through every keystroke and mouse click.

"That, guys," he said as he wrapped up his presentation, "is how you do it." His breathing was heavy and beads of sweat had trickled down his forehead. “Well?” He asked.

The men turned tentatively to face Andy. Jack Finch, the head of development started a round of polite applause and the others joined him. Michael closed the laptop and looked up at Andy nodding. “Well, I'll be damned, Andy, " he said. "I'm impressed." A wide business smile spread across his face. "Looks like we got ourselves a new golden boy around here.”

Andy grinned sheepishly. “Thanks, Mike.” Andy said and then turned to Sarx. “Did you hear that? He liked it. I can’t believe it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“What??” Andy asked, bewildered.

“You shouldn’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“Come on, Andy. You're smarter than that. He’s only pacifying you because you have a gun.”

“What are you talking about?” He turned back to Michael "You liked it, right?"

“Oh sure, Andy, he loved it," Sarx made little effort to conceal a smile. "Most people show their affection by calling the police.” Sarx stepped to the window. “Want to see?.”

Andy approached the window. The ground floor of the building was awash with red and blue light as several police cruisers pulled into the parking lot. "But, how?"

"Did you have them relinquish their cell phones?"

Andy's confused expression dropped as the realization set in. He pressed his palm and the butt of the gun into his forehead. "Son of a..." His brow tightened and he swung the pistol out at arms length sweeping it across the room. "Who did it?!"

“Andy, calm down. We can fix this,” Johnston pleaded.“Trust me. We'll tell them that it was a misunderstanding.”

“Bullshit.”

Sarx stepped up beside Andy. “That’s right, Andy. It's bullshit. First, he ignores you. Now, he's lying to you. And tomorrow, when you’re safely locked away, they’re going to take your hard work, call it their own and make a pile of cash with it. I think you should make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?”

“How many more bullets do you have in that gun?”

Andy turned his face to the ground. “None.”

“None?”

“I didn’t actually think I’d have to use it.”

“Looks like you’ve just severely limited your options.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarx glanced at the door and then back at Andy. “Run.”

____________

Andy flung the door open and spilled out into the hallway. He took a step left and then a step right, his eyes darting about looking for a way of escape. He ran toward the elevator. The lighted display above the doors showed the car creeping up towards the sixth floor.

“Where do I go?!”

Andy spun around looking for Sarx, but the hall was empty. Frantic and witless, he scurried down the hall grabbing door handles hoping one would open. None did. He reached the end of the hallway and fell against the wall in despair. Peripherally, he saw a bright red glow above his head. He turned toward the glow, which was emanating from an exit sign above the stairwell door.

“Use it.” Sarx’s voice crept up behind him.

Andy turned around. “Where were you?”

“That should be the least of your worries right now. Looks you‘re going to have company soon.”

The elevator’s bell dinged as the display shone the number six.

“Run, boy.”

Andy dove into the stairwell and the door shut behind him as the elevator’s door slid open. Below him, he could hear the faint sounds of voices on the ground floor. The police were waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

He clambered up the steps, completely lost and having no idea what to do next. His feet pounded the steps as his hands wildly grabbed at the railing. He stopped on the landing to the seventh floor and peered through the small window in the door.

“What? You think they won’t look there too?” Sarx taunted him. “Keep moving!”

Up and up he continued for several flights until he realized that he had run out of floors. The only other option was the door labeled, “Roof Access: Authorized Persons Only”.

“Where to now?” Andy turned behind him. Sarx was gone.

Andy could now hear footfalls on the steps below. His mad scramble up the stairs had obviously attracted attention. He was stuck once again, it seemed. He pulled open the roof access door and scaled the metal steps, taking two at a time. Barely slowing for the door, he slammed the crash bar and toppled through.

The stairwell door slammed shut behind Andy, issuing a metallic report like a gunshot. Wind whipped around his body as he frantically looked for a way of escape.

“This is quite the sticky situation, isn’t it?”

Andy spun around to face Sarx, who was leaning casually against the stairwell door.

“What in the hell am I gonna do now?” Andy’s eyes were wide with fear, tears welling up in the corners.

“Do? You do what you came here for. You make your point. You show them all.”

“And do what? Jump?”

“Do you see any other options? Besides, imagine how terrible they’ll all feel in the morning...”

Sarx smirked as he stepped toward the ledge. Andy hesistantly followed.

“Andy, my friend, you are a revolutionary. A visionary. They don’t see that now. Common people rarely do. And if you’re still standing here when the police bust through that door, they will only see a criminal. They will be the ones to write the end of your story. But, why allow that? You write the end. You tell the world. You be the hero.”

Sarx stepped up on the ledge and offered his hand to Andy. “Your last chance at greatness.”

Andy stared at Sarx’s outstretched hand. “Will you come with me?”

“I’ve brought you this far, haven’t I? Let‘s go. I hear their footsteps on the stairs.”

Andy grasped Sarx’s hand and was pulled up to the ledge. He could see the red and blue lights of the police cars dancing below. The sound of boots crunching on the stairs behind him was becoming increasingly louder with each step.

“Are you ready to soar?”

Andy nodded and squeezed his grip on Sarx’s hand.

“On three.” Sarx’s tongue darted out and moistened his lips. “One”

The footsteps stopped in the stairwell.

“Two.”

The door crashed open and two officers emerged with guns drawn.

“Three.”

“Freeze!”

Andy leaned forward and pushed off the ledge.

He fell silently, peacefully, for nearly three floors before he looked to his right hand.

It was empty.

He was alone.

It was then he began to scream.

Seconds later, the scream ended abruptly with a solid, wet thud.

Sarx smiled, stepped from the ledge and walked past the officers that were advancing toward where Andy had been standing seconds before. They leaned over the ledge, guns still drawn. When they saw Andy's shattered frame lying sprawled on the blacktop, they holstered their weapons.

One of the officers spoke into his radio. "Someone get an ambulance down here. tell 'em to bring a mop."

____________

Sarx took the stairs to next floor and slid into a waiting elevator. He pressed the button for the first floor.

“Hold the elevator!” Officer Scott Holmes ran for the door. Sarx stopped the doors.

“Thanks.” Scott stepped in. “What a mess, huh?“

“Most certainly.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been quite busy.” Sarx pushed the button for the first floor again, shutting the doors. “Working late tonight?”

“No. Actually, I’m cutting out a little early.”

“Big date?”

“You betcha. A little dinner and, if I’m lucky, a little dessert.” Scott winked.

“Well, definitely good luck to you, then.”

The elevator arrived at the first floor and the doors slid open.

“By the way,” Sarx added as they were stepping out of the elevator, “How’s the wife?”

“Rita?“ Scott laughed. “Hell if I know,” he said as he walked away.

Sarx licked his lips. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

Many thanks to Rob "Diesel" Kroese for his help to make my lack of technical knowledge about computer systems not so evident.

Miranda (sarx:one)

2009-08-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

"I don’t want you seeing him anymore!” Veins pulsed at Harold’s temples as they always did during the verbal duels between he and his daughter, Miranda. "I don’t trust him.”

"You don’t even know him!" Miranda volleyed back across the dinner table, her volume matching his. Her green eyes flashed and her auburn hair fluttered as she gestured incredulously at her father’s stubbornness.

Father and daughter were inextricably linked genetically by fiery red hair and equally fiery tempers. Harold's red hair began to fade into blondish grey not long after turning thirty, but his temperament had yet to flicker or fade. These dinner time battles had become stock in trade some time soon after Miranda reached puberty.

"There’s just something suspicious about the whole thing!"

"Dad!" She rolled her eyes and flailed her arms in exasperation. "You always think that something’s suspicious!"

"Then you tell me why a twenty three-year-old is dating a sixteen-year-old!"

Miranda stopped, wounded. She looked to her mother, Susanne, who was bringing a platter of roast beef to the table. Susanne grinned feebly, feeling helpless in the midst of the tempest.

With no support from her mother, Miranda turned back to her father. "What?! You don’t think anyone could love me? Well, Wayne does! And as a matter of fact, he wants to marry me!"

The absurdity had reached critical mass in Harold‘s mind and he launched one of the cliches, for which he was notorious. "Over my dead body!" He pounded his fist on the table as punctuation, rattling china and silverware.

"Harold," Susanne reached for his hand. "Let’s be civil. Just calm down."

"I will not calm down! This is my house and if she’s under my roof..."

"So, that‘s an option?" Miranda pushed away from the table and stood up defiantly, "I’m leaving."

Harold pointed across the table to Miranda. "Sit back down young lady!"

"Forget it. This is bullshit." Miranda flung the door open, exited and slammed it behind her.

Harold sat wide-eyed and slack-jawed; his index finger still extended at her empty chair. Slowly he retracted his arm, bowed and put his head in his hands.

"Shit."

______________

Miranda, sobbing, fumbled for the keys to her VW Bug. She found the key, opened the door and slinked down into the seat. She stared for a moment at her house before turning the ignition. The engine rumbled to life.

A voice crept into her thinking. "Well, that was certainly unpleasant."

Miranda turned with a start to find a familiar face in her passenger seat. "Crap. You scared me. What are you doing here?"

"Hitchhiking. Do you mind?" He reached for her stereo and clicked the button. A serpentine voice poured from the speakers.

"...Step into the street by sundown. Step into your last goodbye. You’re a target just by living. Twenty dollars will make you die..."

"You actually going to drive this thing? Or are we going to just sit here and watch the lawn grow?"

"Shut up," Miranda threw the car into first and stomped the accelerator. The car shot down the street.

"So, another fight with your dad?"

"Damn it! Is there anything you don’t know about?"

"I know about most things when they happen. Sometimes I know about them before they happen."

He watched Miranda shift uncomfortably in her seat. He waited for her to respond, knowing that she wouldn’t, and then spoke with hitting a nerve in mind.

"It’s always so sad when a parent kicks a child out."

He struck the intended nerve and she lashed out. "He didn’t kick me out! I left!"

"Oh sure." He spoke with feigned sympathy. "Of course, you walked out on your own. Showed some guts, it did. But he wanted you out. Wouldn’t have said that otherwise." He watched her peripherally as he stared at the passing road. "Damn shame."

"What? It was just a fight. It happens all the time. My dad still loves me..."

"Yeah, sure. If that helps you sleep. At least you’ve still got Wayne. At least he won’t turn you away."

______________

"End of the line." Miranda announced to her passenger as she pulled the car into the parking lot of Wayne’s apartment complex. "Don’t be here when I get back." She exited the car and slammed the door without waiting for an answer.

Miranda knocked on Wayne’s door, her left hand mindlessly twirling a lock of her auburn hair. The door opened partially to reveal Wayne wrapped in a towel, his face covered in shaving cream.

"Miranda? What are you doing here?"

Miranda’s lips quivered as a tear ran down her cheek. "My dad and I had another fight. So, I left."

Wayne pulled the door open and Miranda slid past him.

"I gotta be at work in fifteen minutes, but you can hang out here while I’m gone." He went back to the bathroom. "Hungry?"

"A little. I left in the middle of dinner."

"There’s some pizza left in the fridge. Help yourself. So what was the fight about this time?"

"He doesn’t like me seeing you." She grabbed the pizza box and carried it to the coffee table.

"That argument again?"

"Yeah," she said taking a bite. "You should’ve seen him this time. He was furious when I told him about us getting married."

"What?!" Wayne jerked and nicked his chin. "Shit!" He dropped the razor and spun to the doorway. "You told him what?"

"I told him about us getting married."

"Where in the hell did you get that idea?"

"I...I thought...I mean...well we...I just thought..."

"You thought wrong then. I like hanging out with you. You’re cute. But c’mon, marriage?"

The slice of pizza slid out of Miranda’s hand and landed face down on the carpet. She sat there for a moment with her mouth agape. "But Wayne, we’ve been...you know."

Wayne laughed. "You’re serious, aren’t you?" He stopped hoping that she’d break a smile and tell him it was just a joke. No such luck. "Oh shit Miranda. I’m sorry that you got the wrong idea but..."

"Fine! Forget it!" Miranda sprung to her feet. "I don’t care! Just leave me alone!" Her final few words were muffled as the door snapped closed between them.

Wayne stood dumbfounded, staring at the door. "Holy crap."

Miranda ran from the apartment building, yanked her car door open and threw herself into the seat. She laid her head on the steering wheel. "I’m so stupid."

"Didn‘t go well?" The passenger seat was still occupied.

"Are you still here?"

"Of course. Didn’t go well?"

Miranda started the car and jerked the gearshift into reverse. "No, it didn’t go well."

"So, where to now?"

Miranda turned to face her passenger. "I don’t know. Got any suggestions?"

"Have you ever known me to not have a suggestion?" The corners of his mouth curled up into a feral smile. He crossed his arms at his chest, laid his head back and closed his eyes. "Just drive."

______________

There was silence for several miles. Miranda stared blankly at the road over her white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. She drove as if on autopilot, the car winding its way along the cliff which towered above her favorite stretch of beach. It was where she liked to go and think. The sun cast a reddish fiery glow across the landscape as it descended into a watery horizon. The sand on the beach looked like burning embers. I’m in hell, Miranda thought.

She had nearly forgotten about her passenger. He had yet to move from his earlier position. His eyes fluttered madly beneath their lids and occasionally, and almost imperceptibly, the tip of his tongue would part his lips, wet them and slip back inside.

The fluttering under his eyelids stopped suddenly. He wet his lips one final time. "So, how are you feeling?"

His voice startled Miranda, yet she was somehow comforted that she wasn’t alone. Without taking her gaze from the road ahead, she whispered her answer: "Empty." A beat. "I have nothing left. No one to give to. No one to give to me."

He opened his eyes and faced her. "Sadly, you’re right. From the ones whom you have given the most love, you have received the most pain. You have no one on whom you can rely. A life like yours is very sad."

"Sarx." She spoke his name for the first time. It felt foreign and dangerous on her tongue. She turned toward him, pleading with her eyes. "What do I do now?"

His cunning smile faded and his eyes burned sober and clear. "I think you know the answer."

Understanding and fear flashed across Miranda’s face and then melted into a look of determination. "I guess I do."

She turned back to face the road which traced its precarious path above the beach and its burning sands. Miranda bore down on her grip on the steering wheel and shoved the accelerator pedal to the floor. The car lurched forward.

Sarx shifted his eyes to Miranda who met his gaze. He nodded and she mimicked his affirmation.

"There you go."

Miranda pulled the wheel slightly to the left and then, with every ounce of will within her, she yanked the wheel to the right. The VW’s back end swerved wildly, its tires spitting gravel across the road. The hood of the car shoved through the minimal barricade, prying a pathway wide enough for the car. The back tires left the edge of the terrain and the car soared for a moment before being pulled to its descent.

The car snagged on the jagged face of the cliff and flipped end over end until it smashed into rocks below. There was a second of silence abruptly followed by an explosion. The blast sprayed glass and metal across the beach. Pieces of burning car fell into the water.

From the mangled barricade several hundred feet above the blaze, Sarx stood watching over the bank of the cliff. He closed his eyes and listened. No screams. He smiled and turned away from the cliff to face the road. A lone pair of headlights was creeping up the hill toward him. He planted his feet on the black tire marks and stuck out his thumb. The oncoming car slowed and stopped next to Sarx.

The driver of the car lowered his window and leaned over the passenger seat.

"Where you headed...oh, hi. It’s you. " The young man sat back up and flicked the button to unlock the door. "Come on."

Sarx opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

The young man smiled despite his exhausted appearance. "Funny meeting you out here."

"Yeah. Funny." Sarx pulled the door closed. "So, having a good day?"

"Not really."

Sarx glanced back to the broken guardrail. His tongue darted out and moistened his lips.

"Good," he whispered. "Good."

Reboot, Restart, Resurrect

2009-08-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's Sean
Ok, so it's been forever and a day
since I posted anything here.
I think that I got hamstrung by some
wonky thinking
about the purpose of this blog.
I've learned some incredible things
from my Father in the last few years
and I've been busting to share them with folks,
especially
folks who are facing some of the same
pain and frustration
that this world is so ready to dole out.
However, in trying to do that I got sidetracked.

This is an artist's blog.
Not a preacher's blog.
Not a teacher's blog.
(Although I've done both of those things.)

I am artist.
Of oils.
Of paper.
Of words.
Sitting here pontificating about all of that
(or getting overwhelmed by the idea
and doing nothing)
is not what I'm called to do.
I'm supposed to make you feel.
Make you think.
Make you happy.
Piss you off.
Scare you.
Comfort you.
Whatever.
But I'm supposed to do it as an artist.

So, to re-kick things off
I'm posting the first story in a series
called sarx.
The majority of these stories were
published elsewhere online
some time ago.
My apologies to those who have
already read them.
You may want to re-read them,
however,
because I guarantee you that
you haven't read the last chapter
because I still haven't written it yet.
So there.
Without further ado...
(ado ado ado ado)
damn.
Ok, with four further ados
I present to you sarx.
(in the next post)

-sean

PS:
I will go ahead
and alert you
out of love for your
conscience
that there is, in my stories,
what the MPAA refers to as
language.
Which means that my characters
talk
like the people they are.
There is no other word than
"shit"
when an egg hits the floor.

The language shouldn't make you blush
or want to
take a shower afterwards,
however.

Hypocrisy, posturing and everyday low prices...

2009-05-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hey gang, it's Sean.

I've still got much to say about freefall, but life has been busy
and my brains can only handle the task updating my
Facebook status on occasion.
However, I'm just tweaked enough about something to push my
weary mind into some word-making action.
So, who is frustrating enough to shoulder me out of my verbal lethargy?

Wal-mart.

Now, the only way that something like Wal-mart would make it onto
thisblog would be if it somehow related to art or my faith in the
Kingdom of God as Jesus presented it. Today, it does just that.

Pop-punk band Green Day has just released their new album
"21st Century Breakdown" and the retail leviathan Wal-mart
has refused to carry the album because Green Day has not
provided them with an edited edition of the new album.
I'm sure by now that it's public knowledge that Wal-mart only
carries edited versions of albums which contain profanity or
other themes that the Wal-mart-Powers-That-Be find offensive. I will be
the first to say that within our economic system Wal-mart has the right
to carry or refuse any product that it so chooses.
I'm not here to debate politics or
civil liberties.

So, what's my contention?

If there were an icon for American Christianity, other than
the sprawling "Mega-Church", I'm sure that Wal-mart would be in
the running. Although officially Wal-mart is not a "Christian" company,
when former Wal-Mart executive Don Soderquist claims,
"The basis of our decisions was thevalues of Scripture",
separating the two might be a difficult
task in the minds of most people.
Consider what the perception would be if the basis of their
decisions was the values of The Koran or the Buddhavacana.
Could you see anyone being able to differentiate
between that andthem being a
Muslim or Buddhist company?
I can't.

When there is an icon that is so ubiquitous, no matter how iniquitous,
it becomes the default representation in the minds of nearly everyone.
So, simply put if in the collective subconscious Wal-mart represents
Christianityand then, Christians (Christ-like or "little Christ) are to
represent Jesus, it wouldreason that Wal-mart = Jesus, right?

So, why am I upset with a Jesus who doesn't want 13 year-olds to
be able to buy an album with the dreaded f-word in it?
I'm not.
Not really.
I'm angry with a representation of Jesus that is wholesale hypocritical
and, perhaps, thoughtless.

Herein lies the hypocrisy:

You cannot buy a CD with profanity at Wal-mart but
you can buy The Platinum Edition of the movie "Scarface" which
contains that ol' dreaded f-word - or derivatives thereof - 226 times.
(Not to mention that it's about selling cocaine and its
violence is off the charts.)
You can also buy the "Scarface" Gamer Graffix Skin for your
teen's PSP which has Pacino and
"his little friend" drawn and ready to kill.
Cute.

You cannot buy an unedited CD with adult themes,
but you can buy a copy of the film "8mm 2" where a politician
is being blackmailed with a sex video of him and two other women.
The politician and his wife go into the pornographic underground of
Budapest to retrieve the video.All sorts of naughtiness ensues.
And there's bad words. too.
You can get the R rated version at your local Wal-mart
or the unrated version online at Wal-mart(dot)com.

And since they've dropped "bad words" from the music they sell,
you could always purchase it from them in these movies:
Here's a rundown on the biggee: The F-word.

"Dogma" 106 times.
"Knocked Up" 113 times.
(Not quite moral fare. And it shows a vagina...Hmmm)
"The Boondock Saints" 239 times
"Running Scared" 315 times.
"Pride and Glory" 291 times.
"Casino" 398 times.
And if that's not enough for you, there's always
"Nil By Mouth" 428 times.
All available at Walmart or its online outlet.

I'll be honest with you, I'm mostly ambilvalent about "bad words".
I don't think they exist. I could agree with George Carlin and say
There are "no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions."
or I could quote my aunt, who was a quiet, godly woman,
if ever one existed, who said "There' no word other than 'shit'
when an egg hits the floor."
Words in, words out. I don't generally care.
I don't need cussing to make my rock and roll cool.
I don't need a censor to keep me safe or holy.

What I need is the representation of my God to be one that actually
represents Him. Not so much because I need it, but,
because there are people I love who don't know how beautiful He is or
exactly how wonderful His Kingdom is (and is going to be).
I want to knock down every possible obstacle
to them getting in tight with Him.

Wal-mart, you are inadvertently an obstacle. I wish you'd go away.
Liquidate your inventory to the poor
(many of whom are already in your employ).
Take your smiley face stickers and everyday low prices
and just turn to dust.
And if you're not going to do that
or make sense in your selling practices
then I'm just going to post this and say:
Brothers and sisters, shop there if you want,
but don't be fooled into thinking that they represent Truth.
They don't.

And to the artists. Speak the truth.
Even if its the truth about an egg that splattered your kitchen tile.
Lies and subterfuge do not advance the Kingdom of God.
Nor does God take pleasure in them.
I'm glad that Green day didn't change
just to please a retailer.
I have a feeling that he is more interested in honest sinners
than in hypocritical Christians.

Good day, my faithful readers.

The calling of Saint Schizophrenia

2009-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, Sean here.

Hearing God can be a murky affair.
First, there's the wading through your own desires, proclivities and
(let's just be honest here) personal bullshit.
You want what you want, and if you're anything
like me, you're not beyond a little self-deception to get it.
But once you get through all of that
you've still not cleared all the hurdles
because, simply put,
God often likes to whisper.

I had followed these whispers from the verdant land
and flannel grey skies of Washington State
to the parched earth and gauzy grey skies of
the San Joaquin Valley of California.
These whispers unwound before me like a path
from my familiar and comfortable job in a screenprint shop
to the uncharted territories of full-time artist.
Even a whisper during my wife Sandi's dreaming
showed us which house we would soon occupy.

But then, there are those moments
as if the channel upon which we hear his voice gets
dialed into more sharply and the static dies away
and you hear it.
A word or a phrase
undeniably Him
and pregnant with meaning.

One of the most definitive of these moments came for me
six years ago just after Mardi Gras.
We had just moved into our new house and I was
already pursuing the whispered path of full-time artist,
but all was not well in my world.
My wife and kids were thrilled at the new adventure,
but certain others close to us had already begun
voicing some vehement opposition to my distinctly
un-9 to 5 trajectory.
It was arrogant
It was irresponsible.
It was immoral.
It was perhaps insane.
In fact, a non-liturgical Christian in this camp
(who had already expressed that he had lost

all respect for me as a Father and a Christian)

had begun fasting for Lent in hopes that I would come to my senses.

Now, I grew up in the land of manners
and good Southern gentility
amidst a group of people to whom
the opinions of others meant a great deal.
They gladly (or obligately)
passed this co-dependency onto me.

"What will the neighbors think?"
"What would your grandmother say?"

So, to have so many disgruntled people
not just questioning my decisions
but actually casting aspersions upon
my faith and character
was truly beginning to break me,
especially since I felt that I was acting
with more faith and integrity
than I ever had in all my life.

I had no training for this.
Not from my family.
Certainly not from the church.
(They always told me that if I was in God's will
my opposition would be the atheists, liberals and satanists. Ha.)
I didn't know what to do.
So, I went for a walk.

It was on that walk, barely a block from my house
that the voice in the wind
stopped being a whisper.

"I want you in freefall."

I can't attest to whether this message came as sound
through the air to vibrate my tympanic membrane or not.
All I can tell you is that I heard it.
Crystal clear and full of meaning, far beyond
its six syllables.

With that sentence I had a picture.
I was standing at the edge of a cliff,
one of those protruding precipices that Wile. E. Coyote
often found himself on,
and I was hemmed in by people.
People I knew. Family. Friends. And even foes.
They were all pleading with me to step away
from the edge.
But not one of them, not even the well- meaning ones,
was without an agenda or some stipulation.
All I had to do was trade what I knew I had heard
and I could walk away with them in perfect safety.

But the word "freefall" hung in the air like a mist
and I looked behind me.
My only open path free of the obligations
to the opinions of others
was just past the precipice.
"Freefall" echoed through the jagged canyons below.
My only option was to be obedient.
And for the first time ever,
I looked back at those pleading for my attention
smiled warmly at them
and I fell.

Free.

(More to come.)

The pregnant pause gives birth

2009-04-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's Sean.

It's been an uncreative period here at The Saint. Not long after our furious output of blog posts the most horrendous barrage of flu viruses descended, rendering us all virtually useless. It's that sort of void that I feared when starting this blog. I know that there are many who dutifully and joyfully update their blogs every day and I'd love to be one of them, but alas.

Many people liken life to a roller coaster as per it's ups and downs, and that's an apt metaphor. But so often I'm being jerked hither and yon by my particular coaster only to look ahead and see that the track which should be present is conspicuously absent. And that's the point where I have to close my eyes, cross my fingers, cover my balls and trust that my Papa will carry me across the gap. He always does, even though, occasionally, I land on a wholly other track than the one I was anticipating. C'est la vie.

So, here I am landing on the next set of rails and seeing where it goes. I may not be a daily blogger, but I'm typing these words for now. And here's hoping I'll do it again.

Just thought I'd open the window and wave a hello. One day soon, I'll come out and play.

Later,
sean

Cubist Christ and The Ice Queen

2009-02-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's Sean,

I read an interview with Bjork in Spin Magazine a while back.
I'm not a Bjork fan, I've never really heard much of her work,
but I usually read magazines cover to cover even if I don't know
much about the subject of each article.
(I've read some really useless things in my life.)
However, despite being pretty much Bjork-ignorant
I still took something away from this interview which has
stuck with me
for about two years now.

In response to a question asking about her
least favorite trend in music, she answered,
"I'm not crazy about rock,"
and then followed it with
the comment that has remained with me,
"It's a white, male thing for me. It's square-shaped and Christian.
It's very much about not having mystery."
While this isn't a direct statement about Christianity,
it is a statement nonetheless.
Bjork lumps faith in Christ with something that she views as
white, male, square-shaped and without mystery.

Now, one thing that I do know is that Bjork is a bit of an iconoclast.
This is the girl who wore a swan dress
to the 2001Oscars, mind you.
But as an artist who represents the Kingdom of God to the world,
I'm disheartened.
Not because she said it,
but because when I look at Christianity as portrayed by modern Christians,
I can't say that I disagree with her.

I don't think that many of the presumed Powers-That-Be
in the American Church ™ would disagree with her either,
but I also don't think that they'd be as sad about it as I am.
Square-shaped and without mystery is easy to believe.
Easy to teach.
Easy to control.
You can get a degree in square-shaped and without mystery.
Plus, it satisfies our post-enlightenment arrogance,
as well as our longings for"something beyond".
Perfect. I'll take one.
Can you gift wrap that for me?

But that ain't the Kingdom of God.
There's something fluid and alive about
this Kingdom that Jesus taught.
The character of God is unchanging, immutable.
That is true.
But His means and His methods?
They change.
They suit the situation. They're always of his character,
but the show up in different clothes almost always.

There are those who will shudder and
think that I am espousing Relativism.
I am not.
However, regarding methods, I will say that God spoke
to one man through a burning yet unconsumed bush.
He spoke to another through a animal.
To others through a messenger known only as
"The Word of the LORD"
And to others through dreams.

Regarding his means, I will quote only this:
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."
You can't become what you already are
and to become something you must change.
If that is not enough for you, that's fine.
You may have your square-shaped and without mystery.
I won't begrudge you, nor will I debate you.
Blessings to you as you go on your way.

But for those who are on the outside of this Kingdom
- and even to those who are on the inside and don't see it yet-
it is my hope, my dream and in fact, my calling
to tell you about this incredible, mysterious Kingdom
that far exceeds white, male and square-shaped.

I haven't found it's boundaries yet, nor do I think I ever will.
I can't map it or nail it down.
But I've got some pencil scribblings
(so I can erase when I invariably goof)
that I'd love to share with you.
Some of them might be
DEEP and THEOLOGICAL,
but some of them are just
fun, pretty stuff because
The Kingdom
doesn't stop at the church walls.
It's everywhere.
And it's quite amazing.

Since I don't have Bjork in my circle of influence, I may never
have the chance to introduce her to
the Kingdom from which that bastardized version
of Christianity mutated. But I'm thankful to her
for speaking her mind.
It helped me understand something outside myself.
Bless you, Bjork.

And bless you, too, my reader.

Later,
sean

Wait for it.

2009-02-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

Hey gang, it's Sean.

Thankfully, Tumnus got the blog ball rolling. I had the hardest time getting those first words down.
I do that with paintings, too.
The first stroke of paint on a canvas nearly kills me.
I often feel like somehow up to that time all of my work has just been
some extended fluke and I really have no idea what I'm doing.
But then, the first line or stroke of color hits the canvas
and I'm off running.

So, here goes:

The idea behind the Studio and this accompanying blog is a cloudy one.
I've yet to nail down exactly where God is taking us on this journey.
But then again, that's how it goes with God.
Almost always.

I'm pretty sure there are a couple destinations that we're not going to end up in.

First, I know we're not going to end up being the next "Christian" thing.
If you know anything about American Christianity ™,
you are well aware of the entirely separate market which exists solely for Christians.
Music, t-shirts, mints, pillowcases.
I even saw a news story about two new Christian reality shows.
And to that I say, ugh.
I don't believe in that market.
I don't believe it is holy.
Or good.
Or beneficial.
It's poo.
So, me and my masked counterpart aren't about to win any awards with them.

I also feel sadly confident that this blog won't be visited often
by many artists that we admire.
Quite a few of the people that really get our creative juices flowing
have no interest in our faith or the concept of god, let alone the Kingdom of God.
So, our friends and artistic influences who are atheists, agnotics, non-Christian
or just disinterested in the whole God gig aren't our audience either.
Shit.

Where does that leave us?

I guess it doesn't matter.
That's the calling of Saint Schizophrenia.
You do what you hear God say.
Audience or not.
Gallery show or not.
And you wait.

In fact, if there is a tagline for The Saint, other than
"yes, we're hearing voices"
then it would be,
"wait for it".
It's written in big bold Sharpie letters on my easel.

WAIT FOR IT.

What is it?
Don't always know.
But in due time, He shows me.
And until then, I fight to make the first stroke
(brush or key),
and then work like a madman until it's done.
Where I end up is wholly
(holy?)
up to Him.

So, here I am, closing my first blog post...
waiting.

later,
sean

What's in a name?

2009-02-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

Good mornin' folks, Tumnus here.

I know it's probably not morning where you are whilst you're reading this, but I can't plan for those sorts of contingencies. Since I'm still wiping away the sleep and propping my eyelids open with a strong cup of coffee, we're just gonna pretend it's morning where you are, too. I hope you like a good game of pretend, or perhaps we couldn't be friends. Wouldn't that be sad?

Anywho, there 's much to be talked about still so I'll just assume that you're not opposed to a little pretend and are still reading, so I'll keep typing.

I wanted to talk to you a bit about names today. In cultures that are less Western in their approach, names actually carry characteristics and meaning for the person who bears that name. But even in our culture, names have great significance, even if the reasons are far more superficial. I'd wager that you've not run into one Adolf on the playground in your lifetime. That's no coincidence.

Take my compatriot's given name, Sean Matthew. Named after Sean Connery and the tax collector-cum-saint who liked to throw parties with sinners. Not a bad mix. Doesn't hold a lot of meaning in the etymology department, but it sounds good and it's got, what he believes to be, the best and only correct spelling of the name on the planet. And since he was nearly named after football players Roman Gabriel and Johnny Unitas, my partner-in-crime - who could have ostensibly could have been Roman Unitas - is forever grateful for having dodged that bullet in utero.

My name, as it was self-endowed, holds a bit more meaning. My namesake is the only character that I could really relate to in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have forever been a man without a country. I find myself always living somewhere in the demilitarized zones between established boundaries: flesh and spirit, science and faith, fashion and function. I could empathize with this half-man, half-beast whose compulsory allegiances stood against his personal convictions. I admired this character who, in the face of his own imminent demise, chose truth and honor. So, I stole his name.

All that said, my true intent of this post was to shed a bit of light on the name of the studio itself. "Saint Schizophrenia" is an odd name which generally elicits a chuckle upon first hearing. There's something about the ridiculous juxtaposition between sainthood and mental illness that people find amusing. Good. That means we chose well. Yet, despite the apparent silliness of the name, it is in fact a tightly packed shorthand for the vision of our life and work.

"Saint Schizophrenia" is our concise way of saying this:

"I know that you didn't hear the voice that I heard when it told me to do the thing that I am now doing. I'm sure that there is the possibility that the voice could have been a delusion or hallucination caused by a bad taco or a chemical misfiring in my brain. But at this juncture, I'm not convinced that it wasn't God speaking. Nor has this voice suggested that I do anything which would be illegal or dangerous. In fact, so long as it continues to lead me through the teachings of Jesus about self-sacrificial love and the unsurpassed worth of others, and that I don't need to go around fighting and jockeying for position to get my identity or worth or even my food or clothes because God is taking care of me, then I'm gonna stick with it and see where it takes me. I neither expect you to believe me nor follow the voice in my head. I'm not going to argue with you and think ill of you because it's possible that you are the sane one and I'm the loon. We can even be friends as long you don't spend your time trying to prove to me that I'm wrong, and I'll afford you the same respect. I can live with the fact that when I get to the end, they might find out that I was crazier than a craphouse rat."

So, that is why we bear that name
and that is who we are.
Yes, we are hearing voices. Believe it or not.
If you would like to hear them, we can show you what we've learned.
If you don't want to hear them, we don't rightly blame you.
It occasionally muddies as much as it clarifies.
You can still enjoy our work, if you so desire.
We're sharing it with you because we like you.

Affectionately yours,
Tumnus

PS: I will leave you with one of the earliest paintings from The Saint:
"If the world is sane..." by Sean Matthew Howard

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully — the life you save may be your own — and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion. -Frederick Buechner (The Faces of Jesus, 136)

Welcome to The Saint

2009-02-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

Hello there, reader.
I hope you haven't been kept waiting long. I see that the last and, in fact, only post made to this blog was nearly a year ago. That is a terrible shame and you have my most sincere apologies. The management 'round here had all the highest of intentions when it came to getting this blog a-rollin'. However, as I'm sure that you are aware, rarely do intent and outcome coincide.
As it is always preferable to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, I have decided to commandeer this verbal outpost of Saint Schizophrenia Studios.

My name, in its most elaborate form, is The Amazing Tumnus. You, however, may simply call me Tumnus. You may be familiar with that name from another place and I will admit, it is a sobriquet that I have bestowed upon myself. However, I and my namesake share nothing else, save perhaps a fondness for umbrellas.

It is my distinct pleasure to be your host through the world which is Saint Schizophrenia Studios (henceforth known as "The Saint").

We are a small collective of artists who are also followers of Christ. It is our conviction that the attendant relationship with God in Christ, is active and involves actual relating to the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Simply put, we talk to Him and He talks back. We also are well convinced that God is looking to build or strengthen this same type of relationship between Himself and every other person on the planet.

To this end, he has employed those to whom he is already speaking to pass His intentions along. For far too many years there has been a glaring misconception that this message had been left to be delivered solely by special men in special suits on special days. We here at The Saint don't buy this. Not in the least.*

In fact, we are certain that God is using all sorts of folks and all sorts of methods. He might be using the sharp dressed preacher, but he's also speaking through the paint-splattered artist, the scruffy-chinned musician, the melancholic-poet and even the temperamental filmmaker.** And that's why we here, to use our inclinations to pass on the voice of God, whether it be words of spiritual encouragement or correction or just to show off the beauty of his Creation.

However. in light of the understanding that most have about the nature of so-called Christian art, there are a few clarifications that we need to make. First, we do not subscribe to the notion that art made by the children of God must be safe, mild, pleasant or accessible by the entire family. Truth is not always cuddly and suitable for decorating nursery walls. We seek to tell the truth with our work even if that makes nice people uncomfortable.

Secondly, we don't jive with the idea of the Christian ghetto. Jesus junk made for Jesus' people has done great deals of damage to the message of the Kingdom as well as propagate some incredibly substandard art and music. While we are not to be of the world, we are supposed to be in it, and that means the clubs and the galleries where all the other artists are. And that is where you will find us.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we feel compelled to make this abundantly clear: We do not like the work of Thomas Kinkade.

As far as introductions go, I believe that is sufficient for now. My thanks to you reading thus far and I hope you drop by again. On behalf of Sean Matthew Howard and the rest of Saint Schizophrenia Studios, I bid you adieu.

Affectionately yours,

Tumnus

*Although, I am a man who loves a fine suit.
**Okay, we're sure that he's using dentists, school bus drivers and soccer moms too, but here at The Saint, we're artists so that's kinda what we know.

Holding pattern

2008-04-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, you're early. That's okay. In fact, since most people are fashionably late, its kind of refreshing.

But just like when you show up at party early, don't be surprised that there isn't much going on here except for some scuffling and shuffling in the background as the host finishes getting dressed and makes sure that there is a box of decorative toothpicks by the crock pot full of Swedish meatballs. Feel free to lounge about on the couch, or if you wouldn't terribly mind, run down to the store and pick up a couple of two-liters. We appear to be running short.

Thanks.

-the mismanaged management