15 sneak peek

BecHavn Publishing Copyright © 2013 BecHavn Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Edition.

ISBN: 978-1-304-84959-5

Printed in the United States of America All lyrics written by David Bryant

Additional excerpts from: Opening - 'So You Wanna Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star' – The Byrds Chapter 29 - 'A DJ Saved My Life' - Indeep Chapter 29 – 'A Murder of One [Carving Out Our Names Edition]' – Counting Crows Cover Photography: Tiffany Callahan Cover Modeling: Travis Stancil Cover Editing: David Bryant Editing: Frances Bryant Betsy Clarke Apoovra, Tiffany & Sophia BecHavn.com

WARNING: READING THIS BOOK MAY CAUSE PERMANANT DAMAGE

To those who love me: To my Dad who loves me even when I write shit like this.

To my Mom who loves me enough to proofread shit like this.

To my boyfriend who loves me enough to read shit like this.

To God who loves me enough to not strike me dead for writing shit like this.

Thank you for loving me.

To the 75,000 “Directioners� who read this while it was still just a One Direction FanFic: Thank you for believing in me.

Everybody needs somebody to believe in them; otherwise, how do they know they exist?

To the antiquated detractors of Fan-Fiction: This is art. This is the new citizen media. This is the new underground.

We are here to stay, and we are not going away.

Fan-Fiction is a form of art and deserves to be recognized.

To all the kids who never fit in: This one is for you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 15 |-| Book I: The Teenage Christ Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37

|-| The Murder of Joachim |-| The-Car-Crash-That-Never-Was |-| Faggot |-| The Devil, the Witch, and the Blonde |-| No One Ever Thinks They're Bad |-| the Church of the Prophet |-| The-Car-Crash-That-Was |-| Viral |-| When a Famous Person Dies [Part 1] |-| Chris Doesn't Know Jack |-| L-O-V-E |-| S-E-X |-| When It Gets In Your Eyes |-| Bitch |-| 2 + 1 + 7 + 5 = |-| 15 |-| Nile Is Not Just A River In Egypt |-| Vaccine |-| The King of Nothing |-| Killing Babies |-| Teenage Christ |-| Rock 'n' Roll Powder Keg |-| Sing Like A Humming Bird |-| The Man In His Mother's Pink Nightgown |-| Reading This Chapter May Send You To Hell |-| A Ghost, A Demon, An Angel, and God |-| Sack Rah Ledge and Blast For Me |-| The Rape of Persephone |-| Sky Full Of Dark |-| Sand-Nigger |-| Simon Says Die |-| Don't Shoot Up Your School; It's a Waste of Bullets |-| Things Your Parents Don't Want You To Know |-| The Shit and the Fan |-| When a Famous Person Dies [Part 2] |-| Blaine and His Hand (Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter!) |-| Nothing Fitz |-| It Is All San Andreas' Fault

15 |-| Book II: The Human Punching Bag Chapter 38 |-| 15 Dead Men

Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

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Allah That And A Bag Of Chips When You Wish On A Movie Star Once In Heaven You'll Long For Hell Retard Kissers This Song Plays Backwards Kisser A You Turn In The Middle Of Traffic The Plan Plan B Fuckwad Real Life Guitar Hero The Things I Do To People I Love Shouldn't Be Allowed Someone Had To Go This Far Insert Politically Incorrect Slur Here Childhood Is A Promise That Is Never Kept God's Last Name Is Not Dammit

15 |-| Book III: The Media Martyr Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

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Life's A Bitch And Then You Die The Hand You're Dealt Death Is Like A Haircut Irresponsible, Inexcusable, Delinquent Behavior In Public The Car-Crash-That-Always-Will-Be Yes Virginia, There Is A Devil Jack and His Hand (Get Your Mind Out Of The Gutter!)

The Perfect Place For A First Kiss This Song Plays Backwards (Reprise) Peter Treats Nile Like Shit: The Movie Blaine and His Hand (It's Exactly What You Think) The Most Disgusting Chapter You Will Ever Read Sculpting A Sentence With Paper Cliche A Chapter With An Inappropriate Sex Reference As Its Number Just Kill Everyone And Let God Sort Them Out I Wrote This Book To Damage Your Children When A Famous Person Dies [Part 3] The Murder of Herbert Sky Full Of Spark The Ghost-In-The-Light

So you wanna be a rock 'n' roll star? Listen now to what I say.

Just buy an electric guitar. Take some time and learn how to play.

-The Byrds

Prologue | – | The Murder of Joachim A witch!

That's right. That is what they called his wife. 'A wicked old witch.'

Ever since the Church of the Prophet plastered her face on its global website, nothing in their lives had been the same. Their family's new found notoriety had made the simplest tasks a chore.

Life was hard for a traveler on the freeway, and life was harder for a man, a wife, and a daughter who roamed from town to town as attractions in a circus.

In recent weeks, their lives had been made worse by members of that hateful church who stalked them from city to city.

There were a lot of people who claimed to read palms, people who claimed to read tea leaves, and who claimed to sell the future per-minute on a telephone line. So why hadn't “the Church” gone after those people? Why did they protest his wife?

Joachim knew the answer before he even though the question.

It had to be his wife because his wife was real. She didn't tell you lies about sparkling diamonds or cherub babies or fast cars; she told you the future, and she should learn when to keep her mouth shut.

Rubes on the outside were different from the performers on the inside.

On the outside they wanted to hear lies. Everything on the inside was different from the outside and all traveling shows had an inside.

Life on the road wasn't easy, but the folks in the clean-scrubbed townhouses had no idea. They saw tents go up; they saw tents come down and in between they saw a spectacular show. But that was all it was, a show.

The girl on the elephant looked dazzling, and the men on the trapeze looked daring. The lions always looked mad, and the clowns never looked sad.

But after the pan stick came off, and the wig glue peeled away, there were expressions the clean-scrubbed townhouse folks never saw. They never knew that the clown was a clown because he had fallen from the high wire and injured himself. Now his only job opportunity was to make money being laughed at.

The clean-scrubbed townhouse folks raised safety nets of gasps as a human being shot himself from a canon. They never saw the prayers before the show.

They never saw the cannon ball pray to see his children grow old enough to risk their own death for the amusement of future suburbanites who hid behind picket fences like white bars in a government prison.

Joachim had always told his sixteen-year-old daughter to dream of better days when they could settle down in peace. Maybe they would settle in Barcelona; maybe they would settle in London, or maybe the city of love?

Paris would be a perfect choice because Joachim loved his wife and

daughter more than anything. It was because of them that he wanted to leave the shows. If only he had the balls to stand up, take them away from their rickety trailer... But, that was a problem with the inside. Once you are in, you could never leave.

The bosses made sure you had just enough money to get you to the next town. They made sure you had to rely on pie cars to feed you, and on them for a place to sleep. If you left, you left with nothing. If you were a main attraction, some bosses would rather see you dead than leave their fold.

Joachim was a main attraction. He was a trapeze artist, and a tumbler on the high wire, jumping through hoops of colorful flames.

Yes, life was hard, but damn... the Church of the Prophet made it harder and all because his beloved wife couldn't keep her mouth shut!

Joachim could say with certainty that the worst day of his life was the day the Church's sleek, black car had barreled into the gravel pit outside of their tent.

Joachim had been holding a smoke between two of his blistered fingers. That was something else the clean-scrubbed townhouse people never saw. They never saw the blisters from the trapeze bar that cut gashes into his palms.

Cake on some more chalk to cover all of those lines.

Hang on to that bar like monkeys hang on a vine.

The black car kicked up dirt from the gravel lot and stopped a ways down from his family's round tent. At first Joachim paid no mind to the vehicle. Why should he? Another black car going by could have meant anything. It could have been for a funeral, or a politician taking people's money for a ride. But when Joachim saw the man who stepped out of the car his jaw dropped. He couldn't recall the man's name, but he had seen him on TV. He was the head of the Church of the Prophet.

That was a big deal because the Church had grown to fester like a virus in the stomach of the world. It had its first break in the States, because so many American's were gullible ideologues; but, it soon spread to the UK where most of its leadership had been born and raised. It continued to spread like a Michael Crichton disease until the whole world was touched by its plague.

The Church's message was simple: God hates you.

God hates sex.

God hates the government.

God hates fags.

Thanks to the Church the word fag was a part of the international lexicon. It was no longer a term for simple-minded Americans; it was used by everyone who drank the Church's Kool-aid and a lot of people had been thirsty. The American Congress had been infiltrated; members of the British Parliament had become converts, and even the French president was one of them.

It was a dark coupe led by a dark haired man with dark eyes and a black car.

“May I help you?” Joachim asked, and the man smiled a devilish grin.

“I wouldn't be here if you couldn't,” the man replied. “Tell me, is your wife everything that I have heard she is?”

“You have heard of my wife?”

“I've heard she has told some very 'accurate' fortunes.”

“It is not illegal to read someone's fortune.”

“No, it's not.” The man arched a thick black eyebrow. “Yet, that is.”

“I see.”

“No, you do not. You do not see.” The man pulled a crucifix necklace out from under his shirt. “Do not claim to see if you cannot. I can see. I can see because God has shown me how to see.”

“Aren't you the lucky one?”

“I am. And now I want to see if your wife is really what they say she is or if she is a fraud.” The man's smile left, and his dark eyes bore into Joachim's blue gaze.

“A man of your standing in the Church wants the services of my wife?”

The man's driver grabbed Joachim by the neck, and Joachim could feel his veins press against the collar of his t-shirt. The driver looked him in the eye, and Joachim could smell the man's thick breath as ugly as his distinctive face. The man's skin was like pale leather, and a moon-shaped scar circled his left eye.

“You speak to anyone about this...” The driver let his voice trail off while keeping the implications loud and clear.

“All clients have confidentiality,” Joachim assured them.

He led the hostile men inside to see his wife. The entire time he kept his hand on a pocket knife in the left side of his black wind beaten jeans.

If he needed it, he would not hesitate to use it no matter how famous a patron was.

Joachim's wife sat at her usual table, surrounded by waterfall candles that had been packed and unpacked in every major city in Europe; a deck of tarot cards was already held in her aging, world worn hands.

The man with the moon-shaped scar placed a Euro on the table.

“My friend,” the driver explained, “wants you to read his fortune.”

“I know you.” She narrowed her eyes at the first figure.

“You have seen me on TV?” the man asked.

“No,” she replied. “I have seen you in my dreams. I had a strong feeling that someday you were going to come, but I did not want to believe it.”

“Well, that is an easy claim for you to make now, as it is impossible to disprove your previous thoughts.” The man with the dark hair

crinkled his brow.

“So, you do not believe that I have the ability to--” “If I was absolutely, positively, 100% sure that you had such an ability, I would have to follow very strict guidelines for my own safety,” The dark haired man answered. “I am here because I feel I have to be here. Trust me when I say that I am not fond of suffering a witch amongst us.”

“I'm not fond of arseholes either, but I figure that's your business.”

“Ha! A sharp tongue!”

“Sharp indeed,” the driver echoed.

“You would do best to bite it,” the man warned. “As I said, I would not be here unless I had to come. If you are a witch, and you can help me, I am willing to offer forgiveness to you and make your family wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Surely you do not wish to live in a decrepit trailer all of your life?”

Joachim knew the answer to that question, and he liked the idea of a potential escape from this side show, but he still kept his hand on the knife.

“You say that you have had dreams,” the man continued. “Well, I too have had dreams, and I need you to tell me if they are true.”

“So, do you believe or do you not believe?” the woman asked the dark man. “That is very important information for me to know.”

“I believe in God,” he said. “With that comes belief in the Devil.”

“I do not know the Devil. I have never spoken to him.” Joachim's wife kept her voice quiet. “But, I do know the truth, and one Euro will buy you one truth.”

“What truth is that? The truth about my dreams?”

“What truth it buys is up to you.” he woman placed three tarot cards face down. “Do you want to know your past, your present, or your future?”

Each time the woman spoke a tense she placed her quavering hands on the cards as if her fingers alone could vacuum answers from their frayed edges.

“I want to know all three.”

“Then you should have paid three Euro!” the woman quipped.

The driver tossed down two more Euros with enough disdain to peel paint.

“Very well,” she scraped the two Euros into her lap and turned over the first card, “Your past has brought us the Seven of Swords.”

“And that means?” The man's eyes looked down at the image of an impish youth clinging to five swords while two stuck into the chest of his victims splayed on the ground. At the top of the card was the Roman numeral VII. “That means you were always as you are now, a man with great ambition. You have triumphed over adversity, but did so with cunning

and lies.”

“That is not true!” The man's voice rang loud with outrage. “I do not lie!”

“And neither do I.” The woman leaned closer to the table as if the card wanted to whisper into her ear. “It says you killed your mother to gain success.”

“That is also a lie!” The man exclaimed. “She died of cancer.”

“And you spent money on your church rather than on her treatment.”

“Only God could have cured her, and I prayed to God for a cure, but God had nothing to offer. It was not a part of his plan.”

“God had something to offer.” She frowned. “God offered doctors, hospitals, and therapies. All of this was turned away because you wanted the money more.”

“How do you know so much about my mother?” The man's voice turned soft and sly, “You've read my book, haven't you?”

“I would never read one of your books,” she spat the words like bullets. “I know what I say to be true because I see seven swords tied to your waist like a chain that you are doomed to carry for the rest of your life.”

Before the man could speak again, the woman turned over the center card and revealed the Three of Wands.

“Your present,” the woman continued, “I present to you The Three of Wands in reverse. I see a man who has achieved much but is now striving for unattainable goals. You are retreating from reality into fantasy. The world is not a one-man playground, and people are angry at the holes you have dug in their sandbox. Every face you have stepped on while climbing the staircase built out of your fallen foes are the same faces you will have to step on all the way down. On your journey down, however, their mouths will be open, waiting to gnaw off your feet.”

“Are you predicting my end?” The man's face turned red.

“I am saying nothing for certain. I must be honest, and say that not everything I see comes to be exactly the way I see it. The images come to me as metaphors, and I interpret them the best I can,” the woman explained. “This card is only your present. Your future depends on what you do after you leave this room.”

“And my future is?”

The fortune teller turned over the final card. On its face was a man with different-colored eyes. Long curling horns grew out of the figure's tragic head, and two long gnarled teeth spewed down from its mouth onto its stomach. The man sat on a throne made out of two nude women with wings made out of snakes “Card fifteen,” the woman replied.

“Fifteen! What does that mean?”

“It is the fifteenth card in the traditional deck of the tarot. It is also the card of the Devil.” The woman raised her blue eyes to meet the dark haired man.

“So, I am the Devil?”

“Your enemies may believe that, but you are not the Devil --” Before the soothsayer could finish, her eyes turned to pinholes, and the ends of her hair stretched outward as if marionette strings had been attached to each strand.

The two outsiders jumped back, knocking Joachim to the ground.

Joachim fumbled to find his footing again and checked to make sure his knife was still in place. His heart raced. He had only seen his wife like this a few times, and knew something bigger than any show was about to take place.

“There is a he,” the woman said, “the one who appears in your dreams. Either he will end you, or you will end him.”

“Who is this man? Is he the Devil?”

“He is a fifteen-year-old boy, but in three years' time he will come like a blast of trumpets to cover you in sound and destroy all you have worked for.”

“The beast?”

“No! While the numeral of the beast is fifteen, he is not the beast anymore than you are the Devil,” the woman explained. “However, beast or not, he will come with a sound that will cleanse the world of your church!”

“Can he be stopped?” The man leaned over the table, his face inches away from the woman's needle hole eyes.

“Anything can be stopped,” the woman said. “The future has yet to happen. He can be stopped, and so can you.”

“Why be so vague? You're supposed to tell the future, not guess at it!”

“I have told you the future, but now that you have this information, I cannot tell you the path the future will later decide to take. The future is like a river. It never bends unless something falls in its path.”

“You are saying my end is near?”

“Everyone's story has an end,” the woman replied. “It matters only whether or you decide to finish reading your book or to simply put yourself down.”

“Life is a book that is already written!”

“No, it is a book that is writing itself as you read.”

“And who is it you speak of? This number fifteen? This fifteen-yearold?”

The woman's hand flailed across the table until her fingers lay on a piece of red candle wax. Using the wax as a pen, she scrawled three words on the Devil's card.

The man looked to see what she had written. It was a name: Christopher Harold Cross The dark man snatched the card from the table and shoved it into his

pocket!

“You can't take that,” Joachim yelled. “That is ours!”

“Out of my way,” the man marched back to his sleek black car.

Joachim chased after him, his pocket knife drawn. He would have slashed the tires if he had been fast enough, but he wasn't. The black car pulled out of the gravel lot with such haste that it knocked Joachim to the ground.

The horror of those bright headlights had woken Joachim many times from his sleep, and he knew that if he were to die he would rather plummet from the tightrope than have his life taken by those cold, blank, sinister headlights.

Now, Joachim sat in a different lot with a different cigarette, in a different town.

“Kill the witch!” Joachim could hear the shout of protestors in the distance.

That Friday Joachim had made a decision to do something to stop all of it. He decided to go to a local news station and work out a deal to tell the world why the leadership of the Church had singled out his wife. The station would pay enough that they could leave the circus behind and never have to look back.

Joachim took a long drag from his cigarette and looked over his shoulder at his daughter watching him from the window of their trailer.

He hated her seeing him smoke. Even though she had not picked up the habit, he did not want her to see her father slowly puffing away his life.

He hid the cigarette between his legs and smiled at her. He loved her so much, and his view of the girl he loved most in the world distracted him from the black car roaring as it roared around the bend.

“Daddy!” the girl screamed and pointed at the rushing car.

Joachim turned just in time to see those terrifying lights smash into his face. His body went under the front wheel; the black car lurched in the air and he was thrown from under the car by the stinging hot rubber of its two back wheels.

The car stopped, and Joachim tried to get to his feet but found that he could not. He could not so much as take a breath as his ribs cut into his lungs.

The man with the moon-crest scar got out of the automobile and stepped toward Joachim. He towered over Joachim who tried desperately to inhale and panicked as he realized he would never take air into his lungs again.

“You don't think we have members at the news station?” the man asked.

Joachim tried to answer, but blood had filled his mouth.

Joachim's wife opened the screen door to their home, and the driver shot at her. Bullets flew and sank into the side of their trailer like planes flying easily into clouds. His wife ducked back into the home and slammed the door.

“Tell a soul, and I will kill the rest of your family!” the driver

shouted at her, and Joachim knew that the evil man meant it.

Joachim rolled over onto his back, looking up at the stars, glittering like a sky full of sparks. Each star seemed to be reaching down for him, trying to suck away his soul into an afterlife free of high wires, costumes, and blistered hands. “May the lord God forgive me for this act of self defense,� the driver snarled, and then he shot Joachim straight through the center of his forehead.

In his final seconds of sight, Joachim could see his daughter peeking through their trailer window; then, his own blood trickled into his eyes, and he was gone.

|-| Three Years Later |-|

16

Chapter 1 | – | The-Car-Crash-That-Never-Was “Oh God,” the words coiled in Nile's throat like a smoldering cigarette.

Nile Brook's teenage heart beat like an ill-timed drum machine trying to burst from between his spine and his ribs. He could see translucent veins of lightning pulse with every crash, and he could feel the weight of water in his intestines when his heart would stop for a second before kicking his gut and beating on.

He didn't deserve this.

Did he?

He was a slight creature. He was just bag-of-bones with pale skin and wisps of blond hair. His eyes were water and his braces made his mouth a chain-link fence. He never hurt anyone, never stole anything, never cheated on tests, and only lied when he had to. So, of all the people in the world... why him?

It was fifteen minutes past midnight, and he still hadn't seen it. Maybe it wasn't coming tonight? Oh, if only he could be so lucky. Last night he had seen it at 12:03, the night before at 12:05, and before that at 12:07.

He'd seen it every night, just after midnight, for three weeks.

Oh God, how he never wanted to see it again.

It was an 'it,' right? Yes, dead things were its. Nile was sure of this.

Living things were be people, and dead things at the foot of his bed were its.

“This will pass,” he whispered. But, denial made it worse. In order for it to pass it had to be real, and that meant the worst thing he could imagine; it actually was real.

Nile's life had been full of weird shit as far back as he could recall.

He had an imaginary friend named Herbert as a child. His friend liked to play in the crawl space in the hall where the air was sucked into the wall by the vents, and Nile would join him. A five year old and his imaginary friend tucked inside the walls of his parent's home like dragons or pirates hiding in a secret fortress.

Nile never understood why neither of his parents could see Herbert.

He never understood why his parents were always so concerned about Herbert.

Herbert was the epitome of harmless; he was kind; he was old; he smelled like mothballs, and he told stories at night from outside Nile's window.

At five, Nile never thought it strange that Herbert could fly outside the second story window of his room.

When Herbert told Nile to come out and join him, it made sense.

Herbert said it was safe, and friends didn't lie to each other. They were friends right?

“Come and join old Herbie.”

17

Nile only had to step outside his window and he could join the floating man with wrinkled sink like wrapping paper, and moth holes in the lapels of his suit jacket.

That was the night Nile broke his leg falling from the second story window of his bedroom. That was also the night Nile found out that he once had a great uncle named Herbert who had committed suicide in the wall vent of his home.

Nile ignored Herbert after that.

As Nile grew older, 'weird shit' came less and less. Red stains in the bathtub‌gone... Writing in the condensation on the mirror‌ gone. But, even to this day, if Nile stared long enough into the pitch black hole that was his window, he could see an ashen face begging him to come out and play.

Okay, maybe things could never be entirely normal for him. After all, he was a gay Irishman in a very conservative English community outside of Manchester.

Nothing could ever be normal.

Normal.

The word was beautiful. Nile wished to be normal, and he tried to so damn hard.

The people at church told him he could be normal. His youth counselor had prayed over him and told him it was going to be okay.

Had they been lying?

Had he been hanging out with the wrong crowd?

Hadn't he done everything an 'normal' teenage boy was supposed to do? He got a job, though he had hated it. He had got a fake girlfriend, though he hated her.

Normal, right?

He had bought a guitar, and written angst-ridden songs about the fake girlfriend when they broke up. Nile even tried out for the football team.

You couldn't be a poof and be on the football team. Right?

Well, he didn't make the team. He was told he was too small. That was true; he had always been small for his age.

Biology was a bitch.

Nile tried out for the school play, but he didn't get to be Peter Pan. He didn't even get a singing part. Instead, he was 'boy fairy number four', and now, rather than impress the school with his singing, his fake exgirlfriend had even more ammunition to assure everyone within ear shot that he was indeed gay.

His ex was a bitch.

But that was still sort of normal right? All teenagers went through those things. It was a rite of passage. Teenagers scorned their teachers, carved graffiti into school desks, and worried about being picked last when choosing sides for basketball.

Teenagers thought life was a bitch.

What teenagers did not think about were dead things at the foot of 18

their bed, and neither had Nile until the morning of the radio sermon.

The radio sermon….

His parents had played a sermon in the car on the way to another day in his sixth form. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary because he had grown up listening to radio sermons every morning. His parent's attended the Church of the Prophet on occasion, and it was a sermon broadcast from their church.

Nile heard the pastor's voice scrape the top of the man's mouth like needles against metal. He imagined the heavy set pastor's red face, damp brow, and an over fed mouth screaming about queers and immigrants taking away their jobs.

“God hates fags! Yes indeed my brothers and sisters. I tell you the God of love is a lie! Did that God love Job so much he had to smite him? Did that God love Isaac so much he asked his father to sacrifice him? Did that God love his son so much he strung Him up on a tree in the shape of a T to die! Yes God hates brothers and sisters. God hates the Queen! God hates the Prime Minister! God hates the immigrants who steal from our country! God hates the Republic and Loyalists who bomb our embassies, and above all else GOD HATES FAGS!” The voice was so loud, so hot, so close.

Then the car hit a skid.

His father slammed on the brakes. The preacher's screeching voice gave way to screeching tires. They spun into another lane, and Nile's head smashed into the window, creating a delicate spider's web of glass.

An eighteen wheeler stormed over the horizon, and Nile only caught a glimpse of it as it plowed into the driver's side of the car.

The car flipped and the roof caved in.

Skidding sparks shot across the pavement, spreading like stars against a night sky of darkened asphalt.

A lanky, brown-haired boy on the footway, who was leaning against a telephone pole, startled at the magnitude of the noise. He froze like a deer caught in headlights as the upturned car hurled toward him. The boy was crushed between the car and the phone pole.

There was blood.

There was Nile's blood.

The world had turned red, and then it hadn't happened.

Nile opened his eyes to find the car window unbroken and the radio still shouting hate speech in the name of religion. The memory of the crash felt translucent. It felt like an unnerving case of déjà vu, or a surreal daydream that he couldn't entirely shake.

But he was okay, and he was alive.

After the car-crash-that-never-was came the ghost that would not go away.

The first night, and every night after, there had been a dark figure with long limbs, pale skin, and a smudged face standing at the foot of his bed. The face and upper torso were always in shadow and never looked quite right.

19

That had happened for the past three nights. Now it was 12:15 and a creaking sound broke the tattered beat of Nile's heart.

“What do you want?” Nile whispered so soft he wasn't sure he had spoken.

The closet door opened and clothes hangers on the door handle clattered like a toneless wind chime.

The blackness of the closet overwhelmed him.

Nile's limbs tingled. At first, just his fingers; but then he couldn't open his cramped hand! It was frozen! Shit! He was having a heart attack!

Nile felt spittle glisten across his lips as they opened and closed like a dying fish. It all went cold, and he knew the ghost-in-the-shadow was now at the foot of his bed watching him die.

For the first time since the car-crash-that-never-was, the ghost-in-theshadow spoke: “You're only as strong as the things that you scare, and you're only as weak as the things that you fear.”

What? Was that in rhyme? Did the ghost just address him and do so in rhyme?

“I don't do this to be mean, so please don't be scared.” The ghost said, “But you should be informed so you can be prepared.”

Nile tilted his head from the pillow; his bleached blond hair scraped against the shams, and his large, blue eyes fell on the ghost-in-theshadow at the foot of his bed.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because the only way to learn is for somebody to teach, and the only way to teach is for somebody to preach.”

“I don't know what that means,” Nile pleaded. “Can you please --” Nile had to pause while fear burned in his veins like acid. “Can you please not speak in riddles?”

The ghost, the hidden face of everything Nile had ever feared, said nothing.

“If you want me to help you,” Nile cried, “I have to understand what you need me to do. I'm not that bright. I mean. I'm not that stupid but I just-- I can't--” There was silence again, and Nile could feel the eyes, if that thing even had eyes, boring down into his peach colored skin as if holes were being burnt through muscle and bone.

“Window,” the ghost struggled as if dead meat was being torn from its throat.

“Window?” Nile felt something warm in the bed with him. Shit.

Had he pissed himself? Please don't let him have pissed myself he thought. What would the people in his life think of him now?

His mum would be disappointed; his dad would shake his head; his maybe-sorta-kinda-still-says-he’s-straight 'boyfriend' Peter would hit him upside the head and their joint friend Blaine who was far more Peter's friend than his, would turn a blind eye. Even if he lived through this, he would never hear the end of it from the people in his life who were supposed to comfort him.

20

“Sit on the front row, sit by the window.”

“You want me to--” saliva went down the wrong way, and Nile choked on his own spit, “--to go, to the window? To go to the bedroom window?”

Nothing.

Nile cringed, and a fat, heavy tear streaked from his eye. He pulled the covers over his head. He couldn't go to the window; Herbert was at the window. Herbert was always at the window, just out of sight, every night of his life.

Nile opened his eyes under the covers to realize the ghost-in-theshadow had taken it upon itself to join him under the sheets. The horror sent chills down his entire body. The ghost was under the bed covers with him. Was nothing sacred? But there it was, looking at him under the covers, sitting up and turning the bed sheets into a jagged tent!

Nile tried to scream, but all that came out was a mousy squeak. He ripped the covers off; his feet became tangled, and his body dropped onto the floor between the bed and his bedroom wall.

He was so pathetic.

The idea circled around the drain of his mind... Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic!

He had seen ghosts before, and none of them had killed him, although Herbert and a few others had tried. Could ghosts kill? He wasn't even sure ghosts could kill. They couldn't pick up knives, and they couldn't punch you.

Why was he so afraid? Why couldn't he ever keep his shit together?

He looked at the bed; he had pissed himself.

His face burned with humiliation.

But why? Why did he even care if he pissed himself? There was a dead thing in his bed, and he could fucking smell it!

The ghost-in-the-shadow raised a hand, and its finger extended from the palm all the way to the window.

Nile pulled himself up and clung to the chair rail as he marched toward the window. His head hung down, his legs shook, and he hated himself for the squish of humiliation in his briefs.

He shut his eyes and tilted his face up to look at the cold panes of glass. He could hear a long finger tapping at the glass, and he knew he would soon have to look out into the darkness where Herbert lived.

Nile tore open his eyes like ripping off a plaster and, sure enough, there was a man in a suit jacket floating in the deep pit of darkness outside his home.

Herbert's face hadn't changed a bit, and an unexpected grin exposed the dead man's yellowed teeth.

“Nile?” Herbert's voice rang merrily, almost childlike. “Nephew!

It has been so long. Come on outside. I can protect you from the one you fear most.”

Nile shook his head no.

21

“This time you won't fall! I know for sure that this time you can fly!

If you'll just come outside; just step out the window... you can fly like me!”

“I don't want to.”

“But what choice do you have? Out here is the devil you know, and in there is the one that you don't.”

Herbert moved closer to the window.

BAM! A newspaper blew up against the glass, and Nile flew backwards in fright.

The wet paper stuck to the panes, and one of the corners beat up and down in the wind as if to mirror Nile's fluttering heart.

Then, Nile could feel it; it was behind him; its mouth was next to his ear. The blond boy shut his eyes. He could not do this. He wished he were dead. At least if he were dead it would stop, and he wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

The ghost's long finger tapped the window, more impatient than ever.

“What?!” Nile's voice broke, “What do you want me to see?

Herbert? He's always there. Every night. What do you want me to do about it?!”

“Pull the band-aid off the wound and make it better,” the ghost-inthe-shadow answered. “Pull the wool from off your eyes and make a sweater.”

Nile opened his lids. They felt heavy, and he felt so childlike, so fragile from fright, with his hair matted to his forehead and urine running down the inside of his left thigh. Nile stared hard at the soggy paper clinging to the glass.

It was an advertisement: A&R Programming | Auditions! | May 7th – 8th The Lennon Event Center www.artistandrepertoire.com to.

Nile unlocked the window; he didn't know why, but he knew he had

What if Herbert came into his bedroom? What if he was sucked out into the darkness and never heard from again? It didn't matter. He knew he had to do what he was told, and so he did it.

Nile pushed the bottom pane of the window up, and the paper flew in hitting him in the face. He swiveled to grab it and felt the cold touch of a hand reach through from the outside to grasp the collar of his neck.

“One more time,” Herbert's voice croaked as his hand felt its way down Nile's neck to the spine of his shirtless back. “One more time for Herbie?”

“No!” Nile spun around and slammed the window shut cutting through the 22

ghost's arm. Then he lost his balance and collapsed to the floor. The ghost-in-the-shadow bent down to look at him as though inspecting a zoo animal trapped in a cage.

“All that for this?” Nile pleaded. “You are scaring the shit out of a kid because you want me to audition for a reality show for a record company?”

Nile's fear joined a hopeless sensation of bewilderment. There was a reason he didn't get a decent part in Peter Pan. He was only an 'okay' singer. What was the point of all this, and why did anything from the afterlife care?

It made no sense to an eighteen-year-old boy who was more interested in wishing to be straight, wishing for Peter to 'like him that way,' or wishing to be accepted by at least a few of his peers than wishing to be famous.

Why was he surprised that it did not make sense? Nothing in his life made sense.

“Life can be a choice; can be a path that you take, or it can be a decision that you never make.” The voice was distant, but it wasn't soft like Herbert's. It was broken and coarse, as if speaking caused the spirit pain and sadness.

The ghost-in-the-shadow backed away, heading back toward the closet.

Just before stepping into the darkest darkness, it nodded to Nile's TV set, which flickered on. Nile looked up and the images on the screen glistened. It was a news reel of the horrible car-crash-that-never-was.

He could see the brown-haired boy as he lay pinned between the car door and the telephone pole. He could see that everything was the way he recalled it, except... the overturned car wasn't his family's car. It was Blaine's beat up red Ford Focus with his custom 'Football 4 Life' bumper sticker!

Something sick swam in his guts. Blaine was Peter's best mate from Wakeside. Did that mean that Peter the maybe-sorta-kinda 'boyfriend,' the crush of his life, his favorite obsession, and the only thing keeping him sane was trapped in that car too?

Shit! Oh fuck!

Please don't be with Blaine!

Nile squinted, trying to see into the car, but there was too much smoke. He could only make out Blaine's face pressed against the windshield.

Then, Nile noticed date at the bottom of the screen was wrong. It was dated four days into the future... on a Sunday... at 12:15 am.

That was the last thing Nile remembered before glaring sunlight poured over his closed eyes. The light turned the inside of his lids bright red.

It was morning, and it was all over.

The TV was off, Herbert was gone, and the closet door was closed.

Nile might have pretended it never happened, but he could still smell the stench of his own piss.

23

Chapter 2 | – | Faggot “Faggot!”

Chris tried to ignore them. That was what everyone told him to do.

“Arseholes go away if you ignore them.”

Right?

No, it wasn't right. The kids at his school were more like pus-filled zits. If you ignored them they grew worse and worse until something popped.

Something was about to pop.

A rough hand latched onto Chris' school uniform; the stitches burst along the bottom line of the collar. He felt another pair of hands grasp his shoulders and spin his body around like a lopsided tilt-a-whirl.

CRASH! His head smashed against the blue standard issue school locker behind him. One of the vent lips cut deep into his dark brown curls and broke the skin over the back of his skull. Blood trickled down his neck. Chris saw black spots, and the roof of his mouth started to taste like metal. He was yanked up again and felt himself shoved back into the locker with enough force to dent the door. This time his head hit between a painted over gang symbol and the residue of a long-scrapped sticker.

The hands let go, and he tried to stand on his own but, before he could figure out where his pelvis was, everything sank. It wasn't like in the movies. There was no dramatic dive to the floor. Chris just crumpled, as if his bones had turned to water.

“You called me a queer?” the voice barked down at him.

It was Peter Paint. But he hadn't called Peter a poof at any point in the school year? Maybe he did and his brains was too scrambled at the moment to recall?

“Look at me.” Peter slapped the half conscious boy's face. “Hey! Kid, look up!”

Chris' eyes looked toward the ceiling, threatening to reverse in their sockets.

“I think I need to see a nurse.”

“You need to see this.” Peter held a smart phone over Chris' glazed eyes. At first the boy couldn't see only the glare of fluorescent lights against a cracked screen.

Kids in the distance screamed 'FIGHT!' and footsteps beat on the government issue floor tiles. Chris tried to shut out the noise and focus.

What was on the screen?

“When you say you're not a queer,” Chris heard his own voice coming from the phone's speaker system, “another fairy drops dead somewhere.”

Shit. They had found his private YouTube account. He hadn't meant Peter when he'd said that. Well, not Peter specifically, more like all the 24

closet cases in the whole miserable school. Peter, Victor, Nile, Katie, Blaine, all of them. They fucked each other, and laughed at those who weren't straight as an arrow. Well, Nile didn't laugh, because he wasn't in the closet, but he was always with them like a dog on a leash.

Nile had it better than Christopher though, because Peter fucked Nile rather than fucked him up. Most people wouldn't believe that claim because Peter's gang treated Nile as if he were a freak of nature, blessed to be near them.

Nile was the only kid at school, besides Chris, who was openly gay.

Seeing the way Peter looked at Nile, it was obvious to Chris that they were fucking; seeing the way Peter treated Nile, it was obvious to Chris that Nile was an idiot. How could anyone let another human being use them like that?

Still, Chris would never have said this in public. He knew the beating would be too severe. So what was Peter talking about? Chris vaguely remembered recording the YouTube video that was playing on Peter's mobile. He'd written a song, and sung it against a bad photo montage of all the pus-filled zits from his high school. Peter's picture must have come up during that particular line?

Chris didn't know for sure. He couldn't think; his head throbbed too much. “The preppy kids all hate the Goths,� Chris heard the phone crackle.

People were crowding him, suffocating him, and sucking up all of the oxygen.

How had they found this? Chris_Cross15 was a private account. He didn't want others to hear him sing anymore than Peter wanted them know he was gay.

Chris was a very private person specifically because of moments like this. Though, in the end, it was unavoidable. Everybody is somebody's punching bag. Chris, Nile, and Peter too. Even me, and even you.

Still, Chris had been so careful! Yes, he was gay, but he didn't flaunt it. That was a personal thing that he kept personal. Just like this the video diary which was the most personal thing of all. It was Chris' words his private thoughts on a video with private settings on YouTube, and now everyone could hear him sing.

The preppy kids all hate the Goths, and the Gothic kids all hate the jocks, and everyone hates the ugly kid, but pretty's not what you think it is.

It's no magazine, and it's not T.V. Mirror, mirror lie to me.

25

Someone laughed. Were they laughing at the words? Were they laughing at him? How many songs had he uploaded, 20? 30?

You can't buy it, can't sell it; you should take this note.

You can't teach it, can't preach it shove it down my throat “It's not about you,” Chris muttered, but wasn't sure he could be heard.

Blaine stood next to Peter. The two boys were a contrast of each other. Peter was a fresh faced jock straight out of a teen magazine, and Blaine was a doe eyed Muslim with brown skin and dark hair. Chris saw Blaine's lean hand clasp around his neck like talons and his circulation started to vanish.

Yes, I am an angry boy, rage stock piles 'til my words deploy.

You can't watch my words; they're too fast to see.

You can't hold my tongue because it's slippery.

Yes, I'm an opportunist.

Take my motto and live by this.

Each time that you turn your back is another chance missed.

“Blood flow,” the wounded boy muttered. This could cause brain damage. and beauty wilts when you grow old; until then it's a lonely road lined with thieves and filled with crooks; cursed are those who have good looks.

Which friends are hearts and which are spades?

You won't know the truth until your beauty fades Blaine let go and things started to swim back just long enough to see Peter reach down and press his hand against Chris' jugular. Things went black again.

“Mate,” Blaine fretted. “I think you need to let go. You're gonna kill him.”

26

“Fuck that shit,” Peter slapped Chris. “Kid, stay with me. Look me in the eye.”

You snip it, and you tuck it, and you suck it out..

Yeah plastic's fantastic til' your insides melt.

Peter shut off the phone. “I'm going to say this once. Don't call me a fag again.”

Chris was gone; he had left the world, and the air felt black and warm in contrast to the coolness of the floor tiles. Then the grip loosened and he was back.

“You got that? You understand?” Peter tilted Chris' head to meet his gaze. “Do it again, and I'll kill you. Shake your head to let me know that you understand.”

Chris nodded and smeared blood from the back of his skull onto the locker.

“Now we understand each other.” Peter stood. “Shut down the YouTube shit.”

The crowd backed away and Mr. Carl, waddled down the hall, out of breath and red in the face. He moved as fast as his little bowed legs could carry him.

“You!” Mr. Carl pointed at Peter and Blaine, “Which one of you started this?”

“Mr. C,” Peter's voice was smooth, “this kid fell; I think his blood sugar's low.”

“Mrs. Jung!” The short man shouted for back up. “Someone get Miss Jung.”

Mrs. Jung was a sixty- year-old school nurse double dipping on her retirement. What was she going to do? Peter could knock her unconscious.

Call the fucking police! That is what they should do! That was all Chris could think of. Call the police. Don't let them get away with this again. Don't give him detention, external exclusion, or fixed period exclusion, send the bastard to jail!

“Fuck you,” Chris muttered, still on the floor, a purple hand print around his thin neck. “Fuck you, and fuck your Church of the Prophet.”

Peter jumped at the degradation of his Church. He knocked Mr. Carl to the ground, and swung his arms down onto Chris who covered his head.

“You're going to hell, faggot!”

“Get off me!” Chris was now in tears. “'God' has nothing to do with your fucking hate church.” Chris swung for Peter's balls and missed.

Everything was disoriented. Did he have a concussion?

“That Church is my family,” Peter sent his knee into the side of 27

Chris' jaw. “Off of him!� Mr. Carl pulled himself up and steadied his bowed legs.

Blaine watched as Mr. Carl grabbed Peter's collar. His gaze darted from a prone Chris to a smiling Peter. Blaine's eyelids twitched with a twinge of guilt at the site of the queer kid on the floor. Sure, the kid dressed funny and was always wearing gummy bracelets advocating some bizarre humanitarian cause. But being bizarre and quiet wasn't a crime.

Besides, the boy hadn't advertised the YouTube account; Peter had searched it out, and as always, Peter had over reacted.

Blaine looked down at his hand that had been wrapped around the boy's neck.

What kind of hands did he have? They looked thin and weak, but they had nearly killed a person. Would they still feel weak if Chris had accidentally died?

Blaine looked around at all of the people. There were so many watching the violence with vacant eyeballs, glossed over like glass.

People whispered; people pointed; people wandered off, but out of all of the people there, out of the whole crowded hallway packed full of warm bodies, not one single person so much as bent to help Christopher up.

28

Chapter 3 | – | The Devil, the Witch, and the Blonde Everyone was naked.

The balding man in front of him had devilish eyebrows and chest hair in the most sporadic places. The witch-like woman sitting next to the balding man with the devilish eyebrows had tits that looked like raisins dangling from shriveled flesh, and then the younger blonde sitting next to the witch looked like a perfect B cup - a sight for sore eyes- well... straight eyes.

Everyone in the room was as naked as the day they were born. At least that is what twenty-one year old Jack Fitz forced himself to believe while standing, ready to audition, in front of a trio of assistant producers at the Lennon Event Center.

A balding man with devilish eyebrows, an old woman with the nose of a witch, and an airhead blonde were all naked in his mind's eye.

How had it come to this?

It started in the center's basement, waiting in a line sprawled like human yarn across slick concrete. At the end of the line, woven between several fifteen gauge aluminum fence panels, were folding tables where Jack had signed away every right he had ever taken for granted while showing two forms of identification.

As a souvenir to commemorate this cattle call experience, he received a sticker with an eight digit number. At that moment he went from being Jack Fitz the orderly, Jack Fitz the wannabe-singer, Jack Fitz the lone oddball Brit who made a hobby out of studying a dead American President, to being number 00107205.

Fantastic.

So, 00107205 wandered into a sparse waiting room with nearly a thousand other people sitting in brown metal folding chairs. Some of the auditioners were stuffing Doritos in their mouths; others read magazines or Harlequin romance novels, but most... at least half... of the people in the room were singing.

The gargantuan exhibition hall was filled to capacity with some of the most God awful singing 00107205 had ever heard.

He put his head down between his legs and tried to wish away the noise.

Did he sound like that?

What if he sounded like that?

He didn't think he was God awful, but why would anyone come here thinking they were God awful? Every one of those in the waiting room had been told by someone, somewhere that they could sing.

Was it their mothers?

Mothers were probably responsible for a good portion of it. Mothers, pastors, guys wanting to run their hand up a naive girl's skirt – they 29

were all to blame.

But Jack had sung for enough people that someone, out of the hundreds, would have told him if his voice was weak as shit?

Right?

Well, his year ten drama teacher had made it clear his voice was thin.

But all the others either said nothing or said he had a nice timbre, and his vocal instructor kept giving him private lessons... Wait, of course she did, he was paying her!

Why had he come? He'd be laughed out of the building by the professionals. None of this was the way it looked when he watched the A&R auditions on TV. Where were the famous judges? There was not even a theater in the building! This felt like the most dehumanizing experience possible! He wasn't a boyish face lost in the crowd; he was less than that; he was a number. He was 00107205.

Jack figured producers must find it easier to say no to a number than a name.

A group of numbers was called: 00107000 – 00107300. He was in that group.

00107205 pulled himself and his duffel bag out of the brown folding chair and made his way toward a man with a megaphone and a triangular orange flag.

“Follow me,” the megaphone crackled.

Jack had thought he was going straight to an audition, but was surprised to find that he was instead being herded into yet another waiting room.

How many waiting rooms were there? And for that matter, why, when a person had only seventy odd years to live on this planet, why would they so easily consign themselves to rooms created for the sole purpose of waiting? Was life that easy to waste? Did they not realize what they were throwing away?

This room was brighter than the previous one, and the floors were carpeted. Someone was walking around with a camera filming people, but they never got close to where Jack sat.

Backdrops for the A&R Production Company hung from C-stands like gaudy vinyl flags and people were having their pictures taken in front of these backdrops. Some would show those pictures to friends and claim they were on TV. After several hours the megaphone sparked to life again telling 00107200-00107225 to line up on the left wall and 00107226-00107250 on the right.

The walls were marked, so neither location was hard to find.

Then the two groups were split again while a local film student came by with a clipboard and a long range walkie-talkie.

“Form two lines! Acappella on this side, and if you play an instrument, line up on the left,” the boy ordered, and like good cattle everyone obeyed.

That was how Jack got to this point... to the naked people.

30

Now Jack stood in front of a table of judges, but they weren't famous judges, and they didn't even look all that important. One was a bald man with devilish eyebrows, to his left was a thin woman in her late 60's with a long hooked noise, and to her left was a young girl in her twenties with a perfect smile.

“Okay, go ahead,” the thin woman spoke in the voice of a calloused witch.

“I-” Jack felt his throat seize up. “I-don't -” And then he sneezed, right there, with everyone watching. Snot shot out of his nose, and his hands reached up to wipe it away before they could gawk at him even further.

“Are you okay?” Sarcastic concern slithered from the bald man's mouth.

“I-I think I'm fine.”

“Did you not read the pamphlet?” the blonde girl asked.

“The what?”

“The pamphlet! It specifically asks that you not come if you are sick.”

“But I'm not-” “You could have submitted a video audition rather than spreading illness around this building for the last ten hours.”

“Do you even watch those videos?!” Jack snapped.

He didn't mean to snap, and he felt shame the moment he realized the tone in his voice, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't the devil, or the witch, or the blonde, or pretending everyone was naked. It was the whole day bearing down on his shoulders at once like a mountain trying to hold up the sky.

“What did you say?” the witch-like lady asked, slow and deliberate.

“I said … I mean... I asked if you even watched the audition videos.

I'm sorry,” Jack could see the young girl studying him with her green eyes. He felt molested. Why had he worn skinny jeans; he knew what it displayed. “I-meant to say, that I have been waiting for ten hours to sing ninety seconds of a song, that you will probably forget right away the moment I step out that door. I looked forward to this for three months, but now I see that all I am to you is a number.”

The three assistant producers, sat stunned as though a firework had gone off in front of their table and the fresh embers still glittered on the ground.

“I'd like to get this over with if that's okay with you?” Jack looked at the floor.

“Go on,” the bald man replied, refusing to move a single muscle in his face.

Jack sang.

Jack sang like a humming bird, trained to perform on cue. He was doing great, and it all felt like a dream... Then his voice broke. Then it was over.

31

There was no applause from the devil, the witch, or the blonde. There was no approval or disapproval. Jack looked at the other contestants to gauge their stoic response. His voice had cracked; there was nothing he could do to change that.

He hated himself.

“Thank you, uh, Mr…?” The girl with the perfect teeth paused...

“Fitz. Mr. Fitz.”

“Mr. Fitz, could you wait outside until we're done with the others?”

“Of course!” Jack nodded his head and walked out of the audition area to a waiting chairs that looked like they had been stolen from a cheap doctor's office.

There Jack waited while more of his youth slipped through time like sand in a sieve. Seconds felt like hours, and minutes felt like days, and then the other contestants walked out of the audition room en masse.

A small Asian PA stuck her head out of the faux wooden office door to ask him if he could step back inside for a minute. Jack fumbled his way out of the chair and followed after her.

“Mr. Fitz.” The bald man raised a peaked eyebrow. “I'm going to ask you to audition again, this time for another panel, one that you haven't snapped at.”

“Oh?” Jack was shocked, and a little confused. Why was he getting to audition again? He'd been a total arse; they had no reason to grant any second chances.

“And Mr. Fitz,” the older lady spoke, “show them as much personality as you possibly can. Always be yourself, but remember to turn the volume up.”

Jack blinked.

Was she being kind to him?

Had he judged the book before he read it?

“Follow me,” the Asian girl said with a smile, and Jack felt his stomach churn.

“Is this a good thing?” he whispered the question into the Asian girl's ear. “It is a good thing right?”

“Well, it can't be a bad thing, now can it?”

32

Chapter 4 | – | No One Ever Thinks They're Bad Jack was led down a corridor to another wait-away-your-life room.

A girl with blonde dreadlocks asked him to stand against a wall. He did as asked, and she pulled out a Polaroid camera.

“Smile,” she chirped before the blinding flash went off and an opaque sheet slithered like a tongue from the camera's mouth.

“Name?”

“Jack Fitz.”

The girl wrote the name down and then looked at his sticker and wrote the number 00107205 on the photo as well. “Sit here.”

Jack was lead to a seat which happened to be next to a handsome boy with light brown hair that swooped in a storm of curls.

“Hey, mate, they got to you too?” the boy asked.

“I guess.” Jack looked at the boy. “I hope that's a good thing. I think it is.”

“It's a great thing!” the boy answered. “I sing at my church every Sunday. If you're good enough to be here with me, you've obviously done something right.”

“My voice cracked.”

“Well, maybe that's what sold them. Maybe it made you more real?” The boy extended a hand. “My name's Peter.”

“Jack.” Jack was grateful for someone to speak to and give his name to. It made him feel less like a number. To at least one person in the room he was no longer 00107205; he was Jack.

Hands were shaken, and Jack could see a thin, darker-skinned boy sitting to Peter's left. The boy was taking a good deal of interest in his palms. He stared at the creases of skin as if awed by the power of his muscles to relax and contract.

Was he high?

“That's Blaine,” Peter smiled. “He isn't auditioning. He's just here for moral support. He comes to hear me sing at the church sometimes.”

“At Church?” Jack narrowed his gaze. “Which church is that?” “the Church of the Prophet.”

Jack fell silent. The Church had grown into a global phenomenon, but he had yet to meet someone who practiced the homophobic mess they considered religion.

That was the same church that cheered the death of soldiers returning in caskets. That was the same church that asked women to take vows of silence during menstruation? Jack wondered how a sweet-looking boy could go to that church? Peter looked normal, but the people in that church were not normal. They were bigots! As normal and handsome as he seemed, if he went to that church then he must be a bigot too.

“Bigots,” Jack whispered under his breath, and then stopped in shock that the word had escaped his mouth. Bloody hell! He had meant 33

for that thought to stay locked in the back of his head. Jack's cheeks turned pink.

“What did you say?” Peter's eyes narrowed. “Are you a fag?”

“No, I am not!” Jack lied. It was a harmless lie, little and white or at least opaque. Was he wrong to lie? He didn't think so. It was a lie for his own safety.

Peter's gaze fell between Jack legs. Okay... why was this freak looking at his trousers? Was the bulge that noticeable? Dammit, first the blonde, now this guy? He shouldn't have worn skinny jeans. They were for girls and hipsters anyway.

“You're wearing bender pants,” Peter said.

“Does it matter what pants I wear?” Jack covered the bulge between his legs.

“Nah, I don't hate all faggots. That's a stereotype.”

“Does your mum know you talk this way? That's a lot of hate for no reason.”

“I don't hate poofs!” Peter narrowed his eyes. “I have a fag friend.”

“Please don't call Nile that,” Blaine interjected for the first time.

“Why, he is one, right? If you choose to be something, you should own it.”

“You know what, I'm gonna move seats.” Jack started to get up, but Peter's arm shot out and grabbed his slender wrist. What the hell?

“No,” Peter said, his voice firm. “No, you're not.”

Jack's first reaction was to punch the stranger in the face! He balled up a fist...

“Is everything okay?” The girl with the dreadlocks asked from a distance.

“Oh, yes,” Jack lied. The lies were turning grey. Was he wrong to lie? No, he didn't think he was wrong. It was a lie for his own prosperity. He didn't want to be seen as causing trouble or being antisocial. He didn't want to give them a single, solitary reason not to accept his audition out of the thousands of others.

Peter's grip on Jack's arm softened. Something in the boy's eyes felt both warm and frightening. Peter's smile was the kind of smile Jack associated with a funeral director's condolences, easy to accept, but hard to believe.

“Do you think I'm attractive?” Peter asked. “You stare at me a little different.”

“No!” Jack lied. Okay, so the lies were now pitch black. But was he really a bad person to lie about something like that? Of course not.

This boy may have an attractive exterior, but there was nothing attractive about his humanity. No, Jack didn't think himself wrong for that particular lie.

But, was he a bad person to even find a bigot like Peter good looking? Maybe it was human nature? Peter had beautiful lips; that was a 34

fact. Peter had beautiful eyes; no one could lie about that. And Peter had hair that caught the light just right. Yet, something dark and evil lurked inside. No, Jack wasn't a bad person for finding Peter attractive, but Peter was a bad person for sure.

“Sit down,” Peter coaxed.

Jack remained hesitant, and then looked at the others in the room who were staring at him: contestants were judging him, staff members were judging him, PA's were judging him. Jack turned his gaze back down to Peter.

“I come off harsh sometimes,” Peter said in an apologetic tone.

“We use the word fag a lot in our church, so it is easy to forget how other people perceive the word. But, if you are a queer, that's okay. The world needs people like you so that there is something to be the opposite of. You see? You are like Paul. In the Bible it said he lived with a thorn in his side. That didn't mean he was evil.”

“I'm not gay!” While Jack's lie was opaque, his conviction was transparent.

“I didn't say you were,” Peter replied. “Are you going to sit down, or are you going to let them stare at us forever? They wouldn't want to cast a performer who can't get along with others.”

Jack sat back down.

“Even if I were gay,” Jack hissed, “it would be none of your business.”

Jack hated himself; he couldn't even hide his sexuality from the danger of strangers. Couldn't God have at least given him a deeper voice?

“You're right. I'm sorry. We got off on the wrong foot.” Peter winked.

Had that been a wink? Was this monster trying to flirt? How fucked up.

“Peter, turn it off,” Blaine mumbled. “Nile would piss himself --” “Nile is not here,” Peter waved off the concern. “If he were, he'd suck it up."

"Who is Nile?” Jack asked.

“Someone who sucks it up a lot,” Peter laughed and Jack cringed.

“He's my gay friend. Like a little gay chia-pet. I told you I have gay friends. Remember?”

“Are you gay?” Jack's words stumbled in confusion. There was that wink...

“Nah, no can do mate, no way, but Nile is. And he's in love with me, too. Well, it is erroneous to call his lust love, but he crushes on me.”

“He doesn't crush on you; he worships you, Peter,” Blaine interjected. “It's more than lust, and it's more than love. It's not healthy, and you encourage it --” 35

“I encourage it because it's funny, and honestly, I am doing him a favor!” Peter kept smiling at Jack like a broken Ken doll. “Who wouldn't want to live their school years thinking they had a chance of dating the star striker on the football team? I give him hope, mate. I give the kid hope. 'It Gets Better.' Isn't that what they want the fags to think these days?”

Peter's words were so manipulative and vicious that Jack felt as though they had stabbed him in the face.

“You are a bad person,” Jack snapped.

“No, I'm not bad. I do a lot for Nile. I don't hate the person; I hate sin.”

“But your church does hate them!” Jack cringed. “They champion the slogan 'God Hates Fags' on big red signs outside funerals. I'm not making that up, am I?” Jack shifted his body a little further away from Peter.

“No, you're not making that up, but that is not all of us. American's came up with that slogan. Some of us say it to, but we're just joshing. I don't hate them.”

“But you think God does?”

“If God were a director and life were a film. Most directors would be unhappy if they cast someone in one role and then that same person went about acting another. I think that is more the problem than the bum-buggering. You know?”

“No,” Jack stammered. “No-no I do not know!”

Jack once again moved his body farther from Peter, making the arm of his chair dig into his side and his posture awkward.

“Tell me about yourself,” Peter asked. “I told you a lot about me."

“I'd rather not.”

“Where do you work?” Peter pressed on. “Or do you go to school?”

“I am a nurse's assistant. An orderly of sorts.”

“Ha!” Peter laughed in a short singular burst of sound. “You really are a fag.”

“I am going to find another seat!” It didn't matter how much Jack didn't want to cause a scene; getting into this contest was not worth it.

“Don't. Please. If I hated you, do you think I'd still be sitting next to you?”

“If you don't hate me, I mean them, I mean us, then keep it down!” Shit, he had willingly outed himself to this lunatic in less than ten minutes. He had to get away. Jack looked around for another empty seat.

“Mr. Fitz!” A voice called out. “We need to get your information.”

“Go on; I've already been asked for mine.” Peter continued to grin.

36

“They'll take down your address, driver’s license, and all your digits.”

“Yeah, I'll go on.”

“Hey --” Peter stopped Jack one more time. “--maybe I could have your digits?”

“No!” Jack turned his back on Peter, adjusted his collar and walked toward a make shift receptionist's desk just outside the second audition room. He sat down and gave her enough information to steal his identity ten times over. Then they led him into a room, no different than the first except this one had two C-stands holding a backdrop and a camera behind the heads of the judges.

“You're Jack Fitz?” the head judge asked as she looked down at a laptop, and reached a hand out for Jack's paperwork.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Thank you for coming.” She looked up and smiled. It was a real smile, not a funeral home smile, and it calmed him. “Do you want to tell us about yourself?”

“Well, if I get to be a part of the show, I feel I have an interesting life story.” Jack paused, he was getting nervous again. “Plus, it would mean the world to me!”

“Do you know how many people we hear say that every day?” The woman kept smiling, and Jack didn't know how the question was meant to be taken.

“A-a lot, I'm guessing.”

“Yes.” Her eyes twinkled. “A lot.” Her skin was youthful and fair; her lips were glossed an inviting pink, and her hair was layered in blonde curls. She was a stark contrast from the woman in the previous audition room. If this woman was a witch then she was the Good Witch of the North. She was far too beautiful to be a wicked witch. “Would you like to go ahead and sing?” she offered. ”Make sure your number is visible for the camera.”

Jack pulled the sticker off the leg of his pants and put it on his shirt.

He closed his eyes for a minute to steady the rumbling sea inside his stomach, and then he sang, once again, like a trained hummingbird.

His blood throbbed in his ears and everything turned to music. When it was over, his voice hadn't cracked. It was the perfect performance he had always dreamed of delivering, and now it was there to hang in the space between the judges and him.

“Thank you.” The woman's smile held steady. “Would you like to stay for a short interview in the other room? The wait won't be as long this time.”

“Sure!” Jack's heart jumped a beat. Had he made the show? Was he going to be on national television?”

“Is there anything else you would like to add before you go?” she asked.

“I just… I want to thank you. I always thought I was good, you 37

know?” Jack paused, wanting to ask but afraid to. “I know you guys see a lot of performances --” “Yes, we do,” “So you seem like the people I should address this question to. Am I good?” Jack asked. “I'm not one of the guys you'd put on TV to make fun of?”

She blinked a few times and went back to the laptop. “What do you think?”

“I think I'm good.”

“Maybe you are,” she said. “Maybe you are not. If you do make it onto the show I suggest you sing your heart out. Do your best no matter what. Okay?”

“I always do,” Jack replied. “But, giving a non-answer isn't very reassuring.”

“Well, let me tell you a little secret.” She shut the laptop. “I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the bottom of the barrel. I get asked these questions a lot, and when they ask me I always ask them what they think.”

“And what do they think?”

“No one ever thinks they are bad.”

38

Chapter 5 | – | The Church of the Prophet Why do I feel all alone in church when there are a hundred people there?

No, Chris shook his head as he walked the cobblestone footpath, that was a dreadful lyric. He tried to clear his mind, but the voice in his brain would not shut up. The words just came. Sometimes Chris listened and wrote down what he heard.

Why do people ask me if I am fine when I know they do not care?

Sometimes he would not.

Ugh, that was as amateur as it gets.

Hitting his head had hurt him worse than the blood running down his neck had first indicated. Since Thursday's assault, he felt fuzzy and unable to think.

Chris 'played hooky' and skipped school on Friday. He knew that was wrong, but he worried about his own safety. He was grateful he didn't have to do the same thing on Saturday and Sunday. He felt vulnerable in the school building, especially with his head was still fogged up from a concussion.

Peter had been suspended but he would be back. Meanwhile, Peter's friends were pissed, but why were they pissed at him? He didn't dole out the sentence, and he hadn't so much as struck Peter. He had tried for Peter's nuts but missed by a mile.

Chris had just stood there, or lain there, and taken everything like a good little sap. Could the people mad at him fathom how embarrassing that was? He had absorbed every blow, insult, and nuance of the attack, and he hated himself for it.

Chris was a pacifist. He had been one for as long as he could recall.

He didn't understand war, violence or hate. It never made people happy.

They would kill something, feel victorious, and then want to kill something else.

People always had to have 'something else' to hate. As long as there was 'something else' that meant there was something they were 'better than.' Nobody wants to be at the bottom. Nobody wants to be 'worse than.'

So, every group had a them, a them that the group used to define what they were not. Goths were not preps, and preps were not Goths.

Footballers hate nerds, and nerds hate footballers, and they all hate the faggots.

Everybody was somebody's faggot.

That is what Chris had learned in school.

And yet, it was all so unneeded. No one was born with the word FOOTBALLER stamped on their forehead. There wasn't a clique section 39

on your birth certificate. It was all made up. It was all pretend! People didn't come out of the womb with anything but skin.

I'm sick of preppies I am sick of your cliques I'm sick of popular girls chasing your dicks.

That was better‌still not decent, but proper enough. Maybe he should write it down, because the way his head hurt he wouldn't remember in fifteen minutes.

Chris had taken hydrocodone and, despite doctor’s orders, enough aspirin to thin the Thames, yet his head still throbbed. The lip of the locker had dug through hair and skin down to his skull and the doctor told him he had a concussion.

That meant he had to have an MRI. That meant thirty minutes of claustrophobia.

He didn't handle claustrophobia well.

And, when you have no friends even your bedroom starts to feel claustrophobic. That was the reason he had gone for a walk despite the Sunday morning rain.

Well, rain wasn't the right word; it was more like God couldn't figure out how to get the faucet to stop dripping, but could he really complain?

Did he like the rain?

A ray of sunlight cut across the clouded sky like a razor cuts across an Andalusian eye. The grass was so wet that it reflected back the light.

Maybe things were not so bad? Maybe things would be alright?

Chris turned a corner and paused. Crap! No, things would not be alright.

Chris knew he would come to this point. Living down the street from it, he always came to this point: the Church of the Prophet. The ominous building was about a hundred feet ahead of him, not that anyone would bother him at the moment because they were all still in Sunday service.

It would be safe to walk past.

Chris wondered if there was someone like him in that church, someone surrounded by a hundred people and still feeling all alone.

Chris was lonely. He was as lonely as a yearbook; he was as lonely as high school.

A capo-ed crusader, a sound invader whose super power is a lyrical wealth.

Maybe the lonely church boy had 'accepted' their version of Jesus into his heart when he was eight but had no idea what it meant at the time.

Maybe the boy was trapped in a xenophobic, homophobic, claustrophobic closet and could not tell his parents how to unlock the door.

40

Life is no comic book, and no one stops the crooks.

Want something done? You have to do it yourself.

Not every church was bad. It wasn't that simplistic, and Chris had been to good churches. The kind where the linoleum floors were washed until they smelled like lemon and half of the fellowship had a tambourine.

Chris was a semi-regular churchgoer who wasn't sure what he believed.

Did going to church make you a Christian?

Does sitting in your garage make you a car?

Chris did believe in something because everyone has to believe in something even if that something is nothing at all. Even apes believe if they make noise while rolling down a hill that they can cause a rainstorm. Everyone needs something to believe, and everyone needs someone who believes in them. Belief is a vertebra in the backbone of society, and Chris longed for somebody to believe in him.

The Church of the Prophet was nothing to believe in. It was no church. It was a show, a circus, a staged orchestration with one actor trying to top the other in their misinterpretations of the Bible.

Women were things.

Gays were evil.

Abortion was murder.

Was it murder? Chris didn't know. Maybe? He wasn't sure he knew the answer to a question that complex, but the people in that church were very sure they knew.

Chris had read the entire Bible from front to back and thought it was an amazing book. It had answers and it raised questions. It told parables and stories that, like fairy tales, defined mankind.

God in the Old Testament was cruel.

God in the New Testament was love.

God in Proverbs and the Book of Psalms was a God for everyone, and everything.

Chris was glad he had read the Bible, but the Bible read in the Church of the Prophet had to be missing some of its pages.

Did the churchgoers with the largest donations make sure that everyone knew how much they put in the offering plate? Was there a battle to sing about 'the royal diadem' louder than the person sitting next to you? “Let us all rise and pretend to sing a song to Jesus! The Samaritan who sings the loudest gets a free car!�

What would hymns sound like if Chris wrote them?

Standing in the kitchen 41

a human chain of hands the whole entire family starts to pray.

One girl prayed for money; one boy prayed for girls, and someone prayed to bless the U.S.A. I just pray to Jesus to help me understand everybody else's point of view.

Gandhi was a Hindu; Anne Frank was a Jew, and Hitler was a Christian just like you.

His hymn sounded awful. He wasn't going to write that down and he would be struck by lightning if he did.

Wait, would he be struck my lightening if he did?

Did God hate the lyrics that came to him? What if it was the Devil in his head? If it was, he would be a human lightening rod! Maybe it was his own thoughts wondering and wandering through his skull? That was a lot better than if it were the Devil!

Was he a Christian?

Chris thought so. He told other people that, and they never questioned him. He prayed, privately, and when he prayed it was to a Christian God. Sometimes he even kept quiet afterward to see if there would be an answer. God didn't answer a lot, but if God had answered that would mean Chris was schizophrenic.

It was probably better God kept his answers silent and went about his work.

Chris didn't believe in praying for football games, and he didn't believe in praying for girlfriends or boyfriends or that God would favor one country over another. God probably considered those prayers to be the annoying spam in his inbox.

Did people really pray for money? Did people really pray to get laid?

God must think human were such superficial creatures. Why would he love us? We are idiots.

You're all stuck in the human race, out of breath and red in the face.

I think I'm in some other sport like tackling or dodge ball.

I don't feel like I'm in the human race at all.

42

Chris' biggest hope and only selfish prayer was that he could make a difference in the world. He prayed that he wouldn't become a gravestone to be forgotten. He felt like he had a message, something big inside of him that nobody else understood.

There is something big inside of me.

It is something bigger than myself, It is more than what you see.

I'm not like anybody else.

Chris stopped outside of the Church of the Prophet and looked up at the marquee: “God Is All Powerful. Take God and Save Yourselves.”

You say that I am not Christian; you say I have no religion.

You say that my soul has no eternal gift because I have all these questions; if God has no limitations, can he make a mountain that he cannot lift?

Maybe he should write that one down. Maybe God wanted him to.

Maybe not writing it down was a sin? Chris felt a compulsion to write his lyrics into a book before he died. That book would be his gravestone.

Would that make God happy?

Even if the lyrics were the voice of God, maybe God would think he was an attention whore if he wrote any of it down. What if he was Moses and these lyrics were water from a stone? Nobody wanted to be that Moses. That Moses died alone.

Chris was alone, but it wasn't his fault. It was the fault of every kid that picked on him in school and every kid who did nothing to stop it.

The only way to learn is for somebody to teach.

“Do you want me to write down the phrases that come to me?”

Chris asked. “Would it make a difference in some kid's shitty life?”

Nothing.

“Oh, come on, God! I don't ask for much! My head hurts; my life hurts, and these words come out of the blue; do they mean nothing?

Respond! Make me think I'm a schizophrenic! Give me a sign! Strike with the lightening! Hit me if you must!”

Nothing.

Chris leaned back against a telephone pole and looked up.

He got one.

The explosion of noise that came from the crowd was beyond anything he had fathomed possible. It sounded like a war was taking 43

place on the stage's apron.

The music started with a jolt, and all five of the boy's held mics to their mouths, ready to sing, but no one could hear them.

Shit, the mics weren't working!

Shit, shit, shit.

Chris looked around as if he had just discovered he wasn't wearing any clothes. Jack's face looked pissed over the mic issue, and Nile was arguing with an ASM. “The mute button,” Blaine screamed across the stage, “flip up the mute button!”

Feeling stupid, Chris dug his nail into the button and a tiny light on the wireless microphone blinked from red to green.

Then he looked to Jack who put the mic to his mouth, ready to 'sing like a humming bird' as the boy always put it.

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