Something Wonderful is Going to Happen (Installment 5, Chapters 8 & 9)

The following are the 8th and 9th chapters of a longer work. It is a satire of sorts with elements of dark comedy. It follows a main character with a clearly defined morality that is well removed from normalcy.

This story contains scenes that are graphic, vulgar, and very likely per the definitions of some, blasphemous. IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED, DON’T READ THIS STORY!!!

I couldn’t breathe last night again. Asthma was acting up and some guy came to choke the life out of me, ya know, in my dreams. It would be nice, havin a few hours off to sleep a bit. Body gets tired bein used the way it is all the time. But I couldn’t sleep after that. Celeste, one of the other girls, came to me, asked what was wrong. I didn’t say nothin, like I always do, and we made love like we always do when she sees I’m upset. I’m not a d**e! It’s just nice sometimes though, to be touched nice and soft and let yourself enjoy it--to know you’re with someone who knows how to be soft so you can enjoy it.

Seems like most the guys always want to make it hurt. Dad usually did it right. He was soft and tender and it almost always felt special. Sometimes he made me do things I didn’t like, but that’s always part of it. I tried to do it just how he liked if I wanted it or not, but sometime he got mad.

It was my fault, though. I know when I’m bein out of line. I see the other girls act out of line sometimes. They usually got it comin. But sometimes they don’t. I don’t know, though. Sometimes I wish I could live in a world where you could have it comin and not get it anyway. That would be nice--even if just sometimes.

I loved my daddy. Sometimes I wish I could love one person again, like that. Be somebody’s very special girl again. I saw a guy get off the bus today. Wanted to be his special girl, but he went off to get et up by the Sharks. I don’t know why I thought he was special. Just a man like all the others who pay to f**k me. Probably just as dangerous. Hell, I know he was dangerous. That’s why I wanted him. Myssy never wanted anyone that wasn’t dangerous and Myssy always has to pay for it.

Still, I hope Slappy and the Sharks didn’t kill him. Can’t ask them. Get the holys**t beat out of ya for askin a question like that. All in all, it’s probably for the best if he’s dead. One less thing to hope for. One minus one is zero.

I woke up in the shelter the day after the beating with a throbbing headache and a large welt near my eye across the right side of my face. I also had a massive erection. It’s a funny thing, this morning visitor. Here I am, penniless, in a strange place, and still there is that familiar, turgid sway just below my waistline. Old faithful primed to spew. I imagine the fellas in Hiroshima woke up the same way the morning of the bombing.

Anyway, the people at the shelter, the ones that ran it, seemed off to me, but I still wasn’t onto their little scam. I got up from my cot and walked up to some manner of office, and at full staff, asked one of the exuberant young men who worked there if I could have an icepack. He glanced down and gave me a look as though I should be ashamed at what the pr**k ferry had given me and then went to the back and produced the pack.

“Quite a shiner you got there,” he said in his emetic, joyful way. I relayed my story in short form. “Praise Jesus you weren’t killed!” he exclaimed, to which I gave him an indifferent “Yeah.” I reached for the bag but he clinched it tightly. “Praise Jesus!” He yelled again. “Yeah, Praise Jesus,” I responded. Anything to get that icepack. “No,” he said. “Praise Jesus!” This time even louder than before, seemingly splitting my already aching skull. “Praise Jesus!” I yelled, but still he held onto the bag. “Praise Jesus!” again. “Praise Jesus,” I responded over and over until it finally met with this dumb bast**d’s approval.

The whole thing was belittling to a would be King. It made my boner go away to have to scream some man’s name over and over again that I didn’t even know and who very well may have never existed. And this was their con, and as with all religious cons, it had no teeth.

The shelter offered refuge for the downtrodden, for all supposedly without regard to your beliefs. But every item here, like the icepack, was paid for in full with pride. For example, meals were “free,” but I watched in disillusionment as I and my fellow transients stood in line for food and none of us given any unless we first told a story of how we could be helped by Jesus.

I listened as one fellow told the tale of his long, sorted fight with substance abuse and how each time he would feel the urge he’d think of how Jesus died for him on that cross. Another guy talked about how he had once had it all and lost it to gambling, and although he had yet to find Jesus, he was sure if he kept looking he would come around and everything would be repaired. Unlike the first story, this one wasn’t good enough for the enforcers, so in a pathetic spectacle, they made him scream “Praise Jesus!” until the man lied and told them he had indeed found his Lord and Savior.

Then I was up to bat, and I contemplated telling a lie. Hell, it might even be fun. But the whole situation with the icepack had left a bitter taste in my mouth. Kings or even wanna be kings don’t bend over and take it in the a** like this. They lie, yes. Preferably every word that comes out of their mouth. But they don’t do this when there is a struggle that can be won and a power move is so much more effective.

“And how can Jesus help you?” he asked.

“I have lusted!” I said. “And I still lust. Jesus can help me by providing a bit of Pu**y every time I lust for it.”

Some of the other men in line snickered to which they were given admonishing sneers by the religious faculty.

“That is not how it works. If you go in back with Brother Maynard he will explain the error of your ways so you might be cleansed.”

“I tell you what,” I said calmly, “I’ll eat now and Brother Maynard can tell me what Jesus has against pu**y some other time.” Without haste I grabbed a bowl of soup from the table and left to eat. The man behind the counter, a Brother Rausch, stood beat red, but what was he going to do about it. His church had offered free food. I had taken it. I would continue to take it and the stupid bast**ds with their G**d**ned shame could keep right on suffering for it.

Although none of the others, non-kings that they were, followed in my footsteps, almost everyone gave me a smile. For my militancy I was liked. A King that is liked, it is essential in a democracy, whether it is acknowledged or not, especially to gain the throne--not so much to keep it.

I hadn’t given much thought to my name since the whore had asked about it the night before, but maybe something allegorical would do?

A Shrub is weak, but a Shrub Jr. is weaker. Yet a man had become President with this name and later had become its dictator. How had that worked?

I still didn’t like the King of our United States name, but I had to admit that being common, or at least pretend common (a man of the people, yeah right! Trust fund baby.), and of common intelligence (Actually well below) with the proper intelligent people spinning things had boosted the insignificant Shrub to the pinnacle power. So I in turn needed a name that would make me a man of the people.

Immediately I thought to the old “Everyman” ploy, but this was too obvious. I would be seen as trying too hard. I was on the right track, though. This King’s name would come and it would be something everyone could relate to.