by A. R. Braun
Sid’s brain might as well have been set ablaze, for the devil let fly with blows, the massage over. Like his freedom. Like his hope.
As the first spray of bitter urine hit his face, he laughed, no longer one of the sane.
Down through the cracks Sid went.
Fanatical Farce
The enormous snake and the gargantuan water bug threatened to attack.
They’d morphed from Jig’s worst enemies: the rattlesnake a bully from his childhood named Vincent, the insect his college professor Mr. Portobello. The snake rattled—the sound booming in Jig’s chest—as the Madagascar cockroach hissed. They railed on him as he lay in bed, trying to sleep.
“You’re no good at playing quarterback,” the lanky youth with short, raven-colored hair had cried before he’d changed. “You ain’t even got chest hair. It’s just peach fuzz!”
Jig had been a rotund child, teased by everyone at school. Later, he’d become a metalhead and worn black nylon shirts—a poor man’s leather—with the buttons undone. Vincent had caught him on the trail by the cornfield one day, plucking out his few chest hairs. Then he’d punched him in the stomach.
“I don’t know what business he could start!” Mr. Portobello pontificated before morphing, pointing him out from the closet. “Maybe Jig’s T-shirt shop!”
The class had laughed when the professor said this.
His metalhead phase continued into college, where he’d worn death-metal shirts, tired of the same three chords of heavy metal. The professor hadn’t approved of his apparel with severed body parts and blood. Jig had been so angry at him that day, he’d been tempted to rip him a new asshole, but rushed out and slammed the door instead. Jig had integrity.
Mr. Portobello’s scowl had melted into mandibles and his arms and legs into insect legs. Huge feelers writhed like bullwhips as the bug perched in front of the window. It turned and climbed up the wall, taking position on the ceiling right above the bed. Any minute now, the huge chitinous frame would let go of the ceiling and fall onto him. It would dig into his soft flesh with blood-seeking mandibles, and the insect legs would wrap around him and suffocate him.
Jig screamed.
Even worse was the form that peered out of the closet. Vincent’s scowl twisted into a scaly serpent’s face, spotlighted by the full moon that loomed in the window. His two incisors changed into a couple of fangs as his forked tongue searched the air. The snake slithered across the floor, and the sandpaper tongue licked Jig’s face. The behemoth reared back to strike.
Jig’s mind was on fire. Panic made him jump up and run out of the bedroom to pace in the living room.
Exhausted, he fainted on the couch.
***
As he shaved the next morning, Jig didn’t have time to worry about hallucinations. Work called. He’d acquired yet another dead-end job to please the church. The congregation at Arcadia Baptist had complained when they’d found out he was unemployed.
Jig had always been too nervous. When he’d first come to God, he’d calmed down and nothing frightened him, but lately he might as well have been plugged into an electric socket.
He shrugged it off, ready for another “enthralling” day of telemarketing. He wished he loved his job like some people did. What was that Confucius quote? “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
His thoughts couldn’t help returning to last night.
My mind hasn’t been right. I’ve been more nervous since I started taking the Bible seriously.
He wished he could strike a balance between sanity and servitude.
After he finished shaving, Jig frowned at his medium build and short red hair, too curly to behave. A couple of women had made fun of him at the grocery store, saying, “Hey, did you lose your gig with Simply Red?” He bore a hint of a gut, something he tried to get rid of by doing 100 sit-ups and 100 trunk twists every night. Yet all the ladies turned him down. Even worse were the women at church who walked away every time he tried to talk to them. They made him feel like dirt. You’d think they’d care, but no love there.
He needed to become a success, find his niche. Though he was a talented metal guitarist, he felt God didn’t want him to put together a band. “Selfish ambition,” the Bible judged.
The head pastor who hadn’t been ordained, Jerry Fogohowl, resembled Frankenstein’s monster the way his forehead jutted out. The church leader jumped his case about Christian convictions every chance he got. He hadn’t been amiable when Jig complained about his biggest pain in his ass: Chucko Dorman, who dared to show up at church one day telling a teenage boy he was “God’s nigger” because he felt like a whipped Christian.
A racist comment I could’ve done without.
The bald, pudgy man with glasses also told underage girls, “Yeah, we’ll be going out on a date” at the weekly meal at church. Then he’d tried too hard to be Jig’s friend, and he’d known what that meant. Apparently, Chucko swung both ways. Though Jig wasn’t a homophobe and it was a free country, why did Chucko have to bother a straight guy?
Chucko eyeballed Jig a lot lately, but that was all he could do. Jig had again talked with the pastor about Chucko’s stalking, how he showed up and waved everywhere he went. The bastard not only went to his parish, but also worked at the library a block away and passed Jig’s apartment building often on his way to talk to the pastor. Jig took to sitting on the other side of the sanctuary from where Chucko sat, but when he glanced over, the guy’s eyes were always on him as Chucko got up to go to the bathroom his regular twelve times per service. Jig knew why—so he could watch him. He had the feeling his enemy was watching him when he didn’t know about it.
Creepy, that.
The pastor finally told Chucko to leave him alone, but had gotten in Jig’s face, touching noses as he explained that the man was too mentally ill to respect boundaries. After a fit of rage one Saturday night, Jig was tempted to come back Sunday morning and warn him to never get in his face again, for he practiced martial arts, boxing, and wrestling at the gym every week. But when the time came, Jig didn’t resort to that, the bigger man, though he did mention it made him feel threatened when Fogohowl had gotten in his grill.
Then he’d felt God’s chastisement—not meek enough. Quit practicing self-defense and apologize.
For what? Asserting myself? I wasn’t aggressive.
The assistant pastor, Charlie Daily, taught Jig’s Bible class and proved cordial as he asked questions about his life with genuine concern. The only thing that bothered him was when Charlie would say unorthodox things like, “If you like the big sandwiches at McDonald’s, you’re brainwashed. When they started, they only had small cheeseburgers.” Jig’s favorite restaurant just happened to be McDonald’s. Nothing was better than the heavenly-soft buns holding the double fish or the sesame seed buns holding the quarter-pound sandwiches; no other restaurant made fries so crisp and delectable. Jig had never run into another church teaching this strange doctrine. All the other pastors had bragged of their right to down a huge cheeseburger on occasion.
One Sunday, Jig mentioned he wasn’t brainwashed just because he liked the big sandwiches at McDonald’s. Besides, he only ate there one day a month. Again, Jig had been vexed by God and apologized. “Humility,” the Bible said. Get your head around it.
Jig hadn’t been arguing with the church lately. He felt convicted by their constant teachings of love for everyone and keeping one’s attitude in check.
That’s when his mental problems had started.
***
Jig walked toward his beater of a car after breakfast, his hands in the pockets of his chinos. The beginning of a hot summer day threatened, the mildly warm temperature perfect, though it wouldn’t last. As he climbed behind the wheel, he adjusted the collar of his polo shirt and slipped on his sunglasses.
He felt compelled to act like the men in the Bible. He was just trying to do the right thing.
It’s that or damnation.
Though it drove him loopy, it was only spiritual warfare. He knew the war with Satan was ongoing; perhaps it took time to find strength in God.
Jig sighed and turned on the radio.
I’d rather listen to exciting music like extreme metal, but I have to please God instead of myself. Death and thrash metal is too good to be true. Though there are “Christian bands” that play it, it can’t be holy. It’s too much fun, so it’s sin.
Therefore, he endured the whiney voice and the acoustic guitar, the worst composition of all time: “Smiling at Jesus Through the Rain.”
Why would anyone smile when it’s raining?
Ruefully, Jig found himself tapping on the steering wheel and singing along, though he couldn’t carry a tune with a wheelbarrel.
He pulled into the parking lot of the telemarketing office at the defunct train station, now a haven for insurance companies and fleecers like the outfit Jig worked for, Varsity Cheer. They assembled sports programs that already existed for high schools, selling them to people in the school’s area—tiny towns and cities far away from his small city of Mowquakwa, Illinois.
This job’s a scam. I should quit to please God.
Would it please God to be broke, though? He hadn’t been able to find another job, though he’d performed a diligent search. Without Varsity Cheer, how would he give tithes and offerings? Therefore, he looked up to the sky and sighed, resigned to face another day with the obese redneck who perpetually hacked up a lung.
At work, the radio blared a nu-metal band, and God pushed Jig’s conscience to witness by changing the station to the Christian one, W.U.S.S.
Thanks a lot, God.
Knowing “the way,” he felt obligated to obey. Jig rose and changed the station.
A pop group called Yahweh Girl sang, “A Little Shopping, Some New Shoes, and a Little Witnessing.” The three women who could’ve been models chirped in perfect harmony of the pleasure of greed laced with concern. With a gangbanger beat.
Robert, the redneck, wished to be called “Bobert.” God knew why, and Jig didn’t get the joke. As Bobert coughed out his complaint, the other co-workers, Jillian, Tamara, and Dirk, scowled at the radio.
“Time for some good vibes,” Jig announced, then sat down and brought up his call list for the day.
“This station . . . sucks!” Bobert, probably in the first stage of lung cancer, wheezed between coughs. “Turn it back!”
A spike of torment stabbed through Jig’s mind.
Why does he have to say that? God’s offering him prosperity and eternal life.
Jig said, “I’ll gladly suffer persecution for my Lord.”
Chuckles ensued.
“Hear that . . . guys?” Bobert managed to get out between hacks. “Jig’s gonna take it!”
I’m asking God for revenge against him in the bathroom.
As he stood and headed toward the restroom to fake a number two, Tamara, the office’s gorgeous brunette, blanched at the radio with wide eyes.
Jillian, a feisty woman with curly brown hair, shook her head. Her chunky body jiggled as she did so. “Tell that idiot to change the station back.”
“Why do you all have to be so mean?” Jig asked.
Tamara had recovered. “You don’t know the meaning of mean, but you will when I tell my wife what you made me listen to today.”
Jig continued to head toward the bathroom.
Biff, the boss, a wiry man with frosted tips in his short hair, rose. “Jig, sit down. You just got here.”
Biff is perfect, the way he swaggers and dresses in trendy clothes and boots, and I’m the opposite.
Shaking his head, Jig returned to his seat. “God forgive you all.”
Biff also shook his head when Jig glanced surreptitiously his way. His boss pointed to the radio. “Awful. Awful! That’s the worst radio station I’ve ever heard.”
His co-workers echoed that sentiment, and Jig knew in his heart that they were right.
Biff eyeballed him. “Sorry, Jig, but I’m an American Idol junky, myself.”
When Jig got down to work, Biff changed the station back. The office cheered.
It’s just persecution. When I’m home, I’ll jump up and down, rejoicing that I’m counted worthy to suffer for God’s name.
***
On smoke break, Jillian got in Jig’s face. “Who the fuck do you think you are, radio hog? Don’t ever do that again!” She shoved him, and he took a couple of involuntary steps backward.
Bullied by a woman? This is Christianity?
Bobert walked up and coughed in his face. “Stay away from the radio, asshole!”
“Hey,” Jig cried, wiping off the mucous with his hand, then depositing it on his shirt. “Keep your disease to yourself.”
“Don’t mess . . . with the radio again,” Bobert hacked out.
“Do your duty and witness to them,” Jig mumbled to himself.
“Do your doody?” Bobert asked.
His enemies laughed.
Jig said, “You two need to get saved and accept Jesus Christ.”
“You need to get fucked,” Bobert cried.
“You need to shut up!” Jillian shoved him up against the outside of the building.
Bobert pointed him out. “Don’t even think about hitting her. It’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
As Biff came through the glass door leading to the smoking area with the brown clay ashtray filled with sand, the marauders split off from Jig like similar-pole magnets.
Biff lit a cigarette. “What’s going on out here? I heard yelling.”
Bobert and Jillian shrugged. Laughing, Tamara hopped out of her car and threw away a McDonald’s bag.
Jig pointed out the duo. “Jillian was in my face and shoved me, and Bobert coughed on me.”
“Is this true?” Biff asked.
Bobert motioned to Jig. “Aw, he’s nuts. I never went near him.”
Jillian scowled at Jig. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”
Biff sighed and snuffed out his cigarette. “Everybody in the conference room.”
***
After the employee meeting, it was understood that Jig was to stay away from the radio, and his co-workers were to leave him alone.
As he sat listening to a blistering rock song—God help him, he loved it!—Jig stewed.
I went to the bathroom to ask God for revenge, and they didn’t even get fired.
Jig tried to concentrate. Yet his crotch itched, as if a telekinetic force caressed it. When he looked downward, another hallucination haunted him: Chucko, honking on his manhood.
Crying out, Jig stood.
Biff rushed over. “Are you all right?”
Act like nothing’s wrong. I need the hours.
“Yes. I just spilled some coffee on myself.”
Liar, liar, soul on fire, Christianity mocked. A sin unto death.
Biff furrowed his brow. “Well, try to be more careful.” With that, he swaggered back to his desk.
Jig sat down, afraid to glance at his crotch; when it itched again, he reluctantly looked downward and spotted a cockroach the size of a football on his lap. The feelers writhed through the quarter-open zipper. Jig fell back in his chair, then landed on the floor, and his co-workers erupted in laughter.
Dirk, the confirmer, adjusted his glasses and slinked down the stairs from the top floor, for he’d been watching him through the windowed wall. Everyone’s favorite to lunch with, Dirk’s rapacious wit dubbed him “Mr. Cool” in the office, the way he talked like a rapper and told the best jokes.
He stood over Jig. “Technical difficulties with the chair, Holmes?”
His co-workers cackled like witches.
“Jig, in the conference room,” Biff said.
***
Sent home early while the troublemakers got away with it.
Jig drove too fast, furious at The Lord for making a fool out of him. “Thanks a lot, God! I’m trying to be your friend! Why are you doing this to me?”
His an
swer came in the form of cherries in the rearview mirror.
Jig got a speeding ticket. He’d tried to tell the musclehead officer with short gray hair and glasses about his faith.
“Oh, no you don’t,” the officer had spat. “My brother’s a pastor, and I know something about Christianity. You’re supposed to obey the laws of the land.”
After the fiasco, Jig stomped into his apartment and threw the car keys onto the coffee table. Closing his eyes, he slammed into the back of the couch. He wanted to give up.
When he opened them, Chucko’s hairy ass was in his face.
Another hallucination! What’s going on? God’s supposed to heal me, not drive me insane!
When he threw punches at what wasn’t really there, the ass cheeks changed into multifaceted blow fly’s eyes; infernal buzzing filling his ears so volubly that he had to clamp his hands over them. The insect rubbed its legs together, sounding like two pieces of sandpaper, then stuck one into Jig’s jugular as the fly morphed into a mosquito, sucking all the blood from his body. Withering pain wracked his frame, and he crumpled like a snake’s shed skin.
In reality, he grew weak and lightheaded. He passed out.
***
Sunday morning, Jig walked into the sanctuary. He checked to make sure Chucko hadn’t changed his seating pattern to follow him over to the far-left aisle. He’d fake him out like that sometimes, sitting where Jig had sat the previous week. If he took a seat at a library computer, Chucko would stand by that seat in expectation later. As a result, Jig had quit going there before 1:00 p.m. when Chucko worked his part-time shift.
This weekend, the nemesis sat in the far-right aisle. Jig took a seat a couple chairs down from a kitten-cute brunette adorned in a sleek black number too short to be called a dress. Her slender legs showed, but Jig refused to stare.
I must resist lust.
When it came time to pass the offering plate, she grinned at him, then licked her lips as she raised her eyebrows. She moved to the seat next to him. Her skirt brushed against his wrist.
She held out her hand. “I’m Janie.”
“Jig.” He shook her soft hand. “How old are you?”
