A:Bad Blood

Cranston North Carolina lies about two hours east of Raleigh-Durham.
Hwy 11

runs North and South through it and Hwy 70 runs East and West.
Some

unimaginative folk like to call it little New York because of the
blossoming drug

trade there. Those folk have never been to New York and don't have the
faintest

idea what it's like in the big city except what they see on Cable
TV.

A famous writer once described his hometown as the world's rectum. He
later

changed his mind and called it the world's armpit. He was right when he
did.

The honor, if you want to call it that, of being called the rectum of
the world goes to

Cranston North Carolina. It's one of those places that time forgot.
They forgot that

the South lost the civil war; they forgot that blacks were no longer
second-class

citizens; they forgot that all men were created equal according to the
Constitution of

the United States. Yea Cranston NC was one big rectum on the world's
collective

ass. Tonight I'm here to dispose of one of its terds.

Across from an abandoned, burned out warehouse is what's left of a
park. Its grass

has long ago died of, the packed earth sprouts small tufts of weed and
sparkles with

broken glass, empty beer cans, and an occasional crack vial. Ain't the
future grand?

The heat and humidity of a windless August night gives this place the
slight stench

of piss.

In a corner of the field, is a large tent with scores of cars of
various makes and

models. Old cars, new cars, red cars, blue cars; and at the tent's
entrance stand two

very large "attendants". Having been in seen the revival many times
over, they're

content to watch those entering with passive interest.

Inside the tent, the revival on Tiffany Street is revved up with
shouting church

mothers and ushers standing at the ready to escort all the fainters out
to the first aid

section. The chairs are wooden and metal frames. Their fabric seat worn
by so many

bodies rubbing against them for so many years. The band, consisting of
an organ, a

bass player, an electric guitar, and drums, keeps the hot gospel music
flowing and

the rhythm of holy dancing moves the crowd as some sway in their seats.
Some are

standing and raising their hands upward in ecstasy toward God.

Off to one side, a really fat lady is trembling and speaking in
tongues. Her head lolls

about as if it might gain a life of its own and pop off and run away.
Just as she

begins to sink to the floor, an usher tries to catch her. Two more
rushes to aid the

poor woman who's about a mile thinner than the woman fainting.
Tambourines and

paper fans move and rattle among the audience.

I gave up my faith in God decades ago. I lost it when I found out what
was being

done to me. When Tuskegee became Roswell and Roswell became a new
private hell

of probes and injections and such pain that convinced me that Hell was
a place

conceived by political bureaucrats who enjoyed inflicting misery upon
the unwary.

I became an atheist when I saw realized that the military could play
god with my

life, my health, and everything else I owned. They made what I am. Gave
me this

curse of super ability. In doing so, like Job, I lost everything of
value to a man. Not

that I had much to start with, but what I had was mine. Now what I have
is theirs.

They won't get it back.

I sit in the last row of chairs; my eyes fixed on the show going on
down front,

everyone is moving to the rhythm, on my left is an older man who is
probably closer

to my age than he realizes. His bald dark head nod's in time with the
music. Once in

a while he shouts, "praise Him!" and coughs a little. On my right is a
middle aged

woman, not too bad looking, with her hair done up in one of those new
fangled

styles that make a black woman seem as if she came of the set of Star
Trek of

Babylon Five. Tears are streaming down her face, her body trembles and
she sobs

quietly through her quivering lips, "yes Lord, yes my Sweet Jesus". In
every

charismatic church in America there are those who seem to equate
spirituality with

near orgasmic experiences. This girl's got it bad.

All are hearing what is being said; none are really listening to what
the preacher is

saying. But I fix my amber eyes on him, staring at him, studying him as
if I were a

bobcat ready to pounce. My baseball cap is pulled low over my eyes so
as not too

much attention. It covers my close cut white hair so that only the
faded hairlines

below the temples show. I watch the little fat man as he performs. He
struts and

frets his way back and forth growling out scriptures as a watchdog
growls out a

warning to intruders.

"The Lord says, 'keep on seeking, keep on knocking' aha!" He spits out
"aha!" at

the end of each sentence as if he's got allergies. His voice rises and
falls like the

ocean on the eastern shore.

"And if ya just leeeeeeeeeeeeeave the thing behind ah! Pick up your
cross and follow

hiim! Aha!"

I watch as the little fat man brings the audience to their climax,
beckoning them to

come down to be healed. The music changes into a slow emotional gospel
march,

moving scores of folk down in line to be touched by the pastor.

Reverend Jed W. Parker, his blue and black robe stained with sweat, the
hefty gold

cross dangling obscenely from his neck and below his belly, is drunk
with the power

of adoration that he gets from the crowds. His black curly hair drips
beads of sweat

and hair treatment chemicals. Sweat and chemicals pour over his dark
forehead and

into his eyes. He wipes it away with a practiced sweep of his meaty
palm. He's a very

young looking sixty-five years old. Life's been good to him

As the first believer a young lady with a purple headscarf approaches,
he extends

his right hand and places it on her forehead. He closes his eyes and
hisses intensely,

"In the name of Jeezusss!" as he grips her head and squeezes slightly.
He pushes her

back just a little and she collapses into the waiting arms of the
ever-ready ushers.

It goes on like this for another half an hour and then things begin to
clear out. It's

time to get this over with, I decide, and follow those leaving out.
Time to make my move.

If there is a Hell, does it have a special place for clergymen? I
wonder about this as I

sit in the darkness of the Reverend's office. I guess he'll find out
once he gets there.

It's the least I could do for some one who should have been my wife.
It's the least I

could do for a family that I didn't even know I had until six months
ago.

Three generations back, I was just a sharecropper who wanted to get
relief from the

bad blood. I had a steady girl friend named Flora-May Hargrove. She was
one sweet

thing if there ever was one. If I wasn't in love with her, then it was
the closest I'd

ever gotten to being there. When I found out she was pregnant, I was so
damn

happy. But then I realized that I didn't have any money to raise a
family.

When the doctors came around with a free program, it seemed like a good
thing.

What happened to me in all of this? I can only say that after the first
few

treatments, I was offered a chance at some serious money. It was the
type of cash

that a poor black man could never dream of making in his lifetime. And
all I had to

do was live on base with some doctors; help them find a cure for the
Bad Blood.

I later learned that it was called syphilis. Me and almost four
hundred other black

men were infected with it by chance or by Uncle Sam. What happened some
years

after that was the next thing to change my life. They injected me with
what I was

told was a new "experimental cure" for syphilis. The pain was
horrendous as the

serum coursed through my veins, I passed out; stayed out for
days.

When I awoke, I knew that I was different. I wasn't alone inside myself
any more.

I mean I felt good, but within me was something else. By this time I
was about forty-

eight years old. My hair was getting gray. My teeth were falling out. I
was getting

old. I felt as if there was something happening inside of me that I was
only supposed

to watch. It was weird. I asked the doctors what they'd given me. They
said it was a

medicine called Nanite Suspension.

I couldn't understand what they were explaining with all their medical
stuff. I just

knew that I felt weird. Before long I felt great. My body was doing
stuff that was so

impossible that I thought I was dreaming. Why my hair didn't turn black
is beyond

me. I grew teeth back, my eyesight improved, my strength increased. So
did my

agility and speed. For years the scientists worked with me, training me
and teaching

me stuff. I learned to read well, I learned to drive, I learned to
kill. The nanites

within changed me and responded to me.

I started calling them my little buddies. They were tiny machines the
sixes of

molecules. The "medicine" I received so many decades ago was taken from
part of

the pieces taken from Roswell. It was alien technology that the
government wanted

to know how it would affect a human. I think about Flora as I sit there
in Reverend

Jed's office. I think of the lost years that she spent raising our
child that I never had

the chance to see. I think of the grandson who grew up only as far as
seventeen

before he took his own life?a life that I should have been around to
watch and

protect. It was a life that ended because someone couldn't stop
molesting little boys.

Once I caught up with Flora May, after she accepted that it was me
after almost

seventy years, she told me about Dante`. How the Reverend took his
innocence and

kept on taking: Lawyers always protecting him from justice. But not
tonight.

I know he'll be back soon to go over the accounts. I've been watching
his routine for

a while now. I don't have long to wait.

He enters the swank looking office huffing and puffing, his bulk
maneuvering

through the doorway pushing a small boy ahead of him.

"Whew!" he says as he gently shoves the child ahead of him and reaches
for the

light, "yes Lord." I sit off to his right in an armchair in the far
corner of the room.

He doesn't notice me. He's too occupied with his "guest".

"The Word is a powerful son. You know that?" he strokes his face, the
unhidden

lust wells into his eyes.

The boy, maybe nine or ten years old, looks at him, innocent to what's
about to

happen, what might happen if there was no one else in the room. He
spots me and

stares at the muscle bound man in the jeans and black T-shirt. Parker
follows his

gaze until he spies me sitting patiently, watching eyes
unemotional.

"Uh? go on out to the limo and wait there son, I'm gonna deal with this
gentleman

here a moment." The boy leaves quickly, Parker moves over to his
desk.

"You aren't here to rob me I suppose??"

"Not at all Rev." I reply

"Who are you? What do you want from me?"

"Name's Hayne, Sammy Joe Hayne. As to what I want," I stand and move
across

the room in front of his desk. " We've got some bad blood between us
Rev, it's time
to settle up.

I smell the fear oozing from him through the cologne and hair grease.
His brown

eyes widen as they peer into my amber ones.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He puts on a tough front.
"You better

leave or the my security will put you out."

"Not before we get things settled Rev, not before we?talk."

"Mister, I don't even know you. What's there to talk about?"

"Considering what I just saw I think you do."

I can hear his heart beat quicken. He stays cool and defiant on the
outside.

I lean forward; placing both hands on the desk, and bore into his soul
with my eyes.

"It's time for a 'come to Jesus meeting' Rev." I say. You've got to
settle up for all

the bad blood you caused, all the hurt and misery you gave to boys like
the one who

just left here."

Parker's breathing becomes shallow, rapid. I sense the adrenalin
pumping through

him. I know he's about to try something. His reflexes are good. He
reaches for the

drawer on behind the desk and pulls out a pistol. It's a nice one,
chrome .45.

"Now sucka! What you gonna do? If I shoot you it's self defense."

My grin turns deadly. "Get ready for a miracle Rev.," I say as I reach
over the desk

for the gun. I hear his fingers close around the trigger; my hand
closes around the

muzzle as he fires. The sound is muffled as the bullet tears through my
skin, flesh

and bones. I whence at the pain, smiling at his confusion and increased
fear.

"You ready for that miracle Rev?" I say, "It's time you had a
vision"

I hold up my left hand, the one with the fresh bullet wound. I will the
little buddies

to speed up their work. Before the Reverend's ever-growing eyes, the
wound closes

and heals as if nothing happened. I flex my hand testing it. No pain
whatsoever.

"My turn."

Before he knows it I've got his head in my hand, slamming him down on
the

desktop. I hold him there as my little buddies go to work. The nanites
extend

filaments through my skin, into his scalp, piercing through the bone,
reaching his

brain. Now The Reverend is getting a vision. He sees all the boys he's
molested. He

sees all the pain that they endured. He feels their fear, their anger,
their shame. He

sees each face, each child, wailing plead for mercy for the last twenty
years. Last of

all he sees the face of a small boy named Dante`, a child who was
taught to trust the

Pastor of the church; A child who's mother was my daughter, and had
only her boy,

her mother and her church to rely on. He sees how Dante` tried to
forget the shame

and horror of being touched and fondled by someone who's supposed to
protect

you. He feels the fear of being silent because if he tells the Pastor
says that Mommy

will go to jail. He sees this boy growing up trying to forget
everything anyway that

he can; alcohol, drugs, sex. Nothing works. Reverend Jed sees Dante`,
at age

seventeen; finding a permanent solution to the turmoil he's going
through. I feel him

jerk as He experiences the impact of the bullet that Dante` put through
his own

head.

He's crying now, whimpering like a baby. His body trembles and goes
limp on the

desk. I release him, the filaments retracting back into my hand. I
stare at him as he

slowly lifts himself off the desktop. He speaks to me through red,
tearful, choking sobs.

"What are you?" he says, "Are you the Devil or the Lord?"

My face is stone. "Neither one Rev, neither one. But you'll meet one of
them tomorrow."

He looks puzzled. " You ain't gonna kill me?"

" I didn't say that Rev", I move around the desk next to him. My move
is swift and

unexpected. A quick blow to his soloplexis, and he goes down to the
floor. I look at

my watch: Eleven-thirty pm. "You've got twelve hours or so to live.
Think about
your life."

He lies there gasping as I walk out of the room. Years ago I was
trained to kill with

my hands. The delayed death touch became my specialty. He'll be dead
before one

o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I leave him there coughing and sobbing, his
face

turned to the carpet, too scared to look up.

Outside, the air is still hot and humid. Cranston North Carolina smells
like the

rectum that it is. Trailers carrying Hogs to the slaughter pass through
and give this

town the stench of an unflushed toilet. I walk over to my rented car
and get in. I pull

out on to Highway Eleven North on my way back home, back to Queens, New
York.

I think of the years gone by as I drive. I think of all the time I've
lost, all the time

stolen from me by scientists and doctors using me as their private
guinea pig.

I think of Flora May and our daughter. I think of Dante my grandson
whom I'll

never see. I think of this stinking world with its race to Armageddon.
All I wanted

was to get rid of the sickness. All I wanted was to be healthy and
happy with a good

woman and folks who love me. "I'm sorry Flora", I say to no one, "I'm
so sorry

baby girl, so sorry Dante`"

Tears form in my eyes as I pass through Greenville and turn onto
Highway

Thirteen. I cut on the stereo and crank it up loud. It's gonna be one
Hell of a long
ride back home.