by James Murphy
“Build a fire out of wood. The smell of its smoke pleases me.”
There were no trees around, but when James looked behind him, a stack of fire wood appeared out of thin air. James built a fire and sat awake the whole night through. Morning came and as the sun burned off the dew, the sound of the flute became fainter and fainter. Then James began to hear the sound of drops of water hitting a pool. He felt fluid in every way. He took shape to his surroundings. In the light of day, the hill, the grass, the clouds all impressed upon him a desired concept of being, and James began to conform to this. James could feel the flow of energy between each discrete object in his environment, and everything seemed to be as one. Energy and spirit seemed to be interchangeable ideas, and the flow of spirit and energy revealed the humble desires of every being in the ecosystem. The sun, the grass, the fire, it all allowed energy to flow however it so chose. James’s eyes were open to the attitudes and opinions of every discrete being in the system, and he felt a sense of unity in the common interest of a sustainable, dynamic world. As he browsed the horizon he began to see tiny hearts effervesce out of the grass that covered the plains. They were blue and red and vaporized as they floated up towards the sun. James began to feel himself float up toward the sky with the hearts. He was rising, gaining elevation and aspect, an aspect that could comprehend what fed life and made the people of the world whole. The intangibale things like love, happiness, and ideas, became objects that could be held. He could see the unity between these things, the Earth, the lives that composed communities and populations. Each was composed of spirit, and that spirit, though dynamic, was unified throughout the world. Each leaf, each droplet of water represented life in a colorful variety of forms. He wished everyone could feel the unity he was feeling. He wished everyone could see the desires of nature, and the fluxes of energy. James’ Vision Quest was enlightening him with what he sought. His eyes throbbed and his mind melted into a cognition perceiving the architecture of the wind, the sugary smell of the sun, and the wholesome warmth of the Earth. James was content. He thought this would be all the guidance he would need to get through life, but it was almost too ideal, and his Vision Quest was only beginning. James was content. He was glowing with happiness from this heightened state of consciousness, and he was ready to go back home, but remembered what Paahsaakii had said.
He stayed on Sweet Grass Hill until the sun went down a second time. The peyote was coming in waves. He was feeling very tranquil while the sun was setting. Then as it became dark James began to feel uneasy. The spirit of the day had faded over the horizon, and with it went James’s comfort and serenity. He fueled his fire, and as its light danced across his skin, the sight of his lanky arms, knobby knees, and big boney hands made him feel savage. Seeing himself as a brute sparked a primal fear. The comfort he felt earlier was only a mere sense of direction. He was at his starting point, and was facing the finish line, but he was unsure how to negotiate the road between the two points. It was up to James to take the actions required to follow the direction. James began to feel hollow as he heard a coyote howl in the distance. He watched the stars for a second night thinking he would see a visitor approach. The night was cold and the wind blew. The stars seemed to change colors before James’s eyes all night. The constellation, Scorpio, seemed to shape-shift and illuminate in technicolor. He could hear the stars twinkling as the light changed from white to blue to green, and back again. It was captivating and was the only thing that seemed to free his mind from the cold wind that blew through him. The wind grasped his ribs, and tried to make him shudder, but James’s fascination with Scorpio was so strong that his heart was in sync with the pulsating constellation. Scorpio seemed to drip with color as he roamed the night sky. As James felt his heart beat he could see himself roaming the sky with Scorpio. They journeyed far, leaving James in awe and full of questions. Whatever James asked, Scorpio only replied with “Follow me.” They chased the cold from the night sky, and watched down on Earth with a peaceful connection. Scorpio acquainted James with Ursa, Gemini, and Aquarius. When James asked them questions, they only replied “Close your eyes, and watch with your heart.” Their adventure together was waning.
James descended from the night sky and bid farewell to Scorpio. As he did he began to get sleepy, but was determined to remain awake. He trotted around his fire, and began to hum gospel tunes he could remember as a child. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, Coyote came to James under the moonlight. Coyote began to talk to James, then transformed into a man with blood-covered hands. James was shaken by Coyote’s appearance, but part of him expected such a thing to happen. Paahsaakii told James not to be afraid when the dark spirits of the night come to him. James braved the primal fear, and opened his heart to whatever Coyote was to bring.
“I am the great warrior spirit,” Coyote said. “I have come to you because you will one day fight a battle. This battle will rage, but you must not be afraid for you are the only one who can defeat the enemy.”
Then as quickly as Coyote came he was gone. James was filled with questions. James felt stronger by his Vision Quest, but the words of Coyote carved deep suspicion into his frame of mind. Likewise, with any man receiving such prophecy, James wanted to know who, what, when, and where he was to fight. Coyote knew where James road would lead, but he also knew that such details as James desired would only cause him to lose focus on what was important. He would lose focus on all he had learned those days on Sweet Grass Hill. As James waited for the sun to rise, the air grew colder then finally the sun peeked over the horizon and James went back to Paahsaakii for breakfast. When he got to Paahsaakii’s house, he shared what he saw. Paahsaakii remained stoic and his only reply was,
“What you have seen is yours to own. I cannot tell you when or how your vision will help you, but you may call on it to find the love and strength it showed towards you. You may call on it to find love and strength in yourself. I will say though, it is rare to have a day vision and a night vision. Most people only have one vision. The gods have big plans for you. They hold you close to their heart.”
James took what Paahsaakii said with him, and remembered it forever. He remembered it for five whole years as he worked at the butcher shop, but could not fathom what big plans the gods had for James. After spending long days covered in blood with a knife in his hand all he could think was that he was meant to kill someone. Despite his vision and what Coyote, and Paahsaakii told him, he could not stand the idea of plunging his steel deep into someone’s heart and ending their life no matter how despicable that person may be. He also knew very little about evil at that time; how evil smelled, tasted, and felt; how it chased the soul, and tormented the mind relentlessly.
For five long years James went to work and came home with the vision fresh in his head, as fresh as the day he had it. He finally had enough of the slaughter house and went home. He was tied up, hands cuffed in blood. He could no longer take 300 pound men coming in to order a whole cow to be slaughtered and butchered. The customer would salivate, and the rancher would see dollar signs. It was all sacrilege to James’ integrity. Butchering cows slowly worked against all the unity and vitality of life that were so vivid and so close to James’ heart. That unity and vitality was his faith. It was where he drew his strength, but everyday when he clocked in he was actively destroying it, actively working against himself. He left the rangeland of the high plains headed for the mountains and rivers of Appalachia to try to make a fresh start in his life. When he got home all he could find was a ceramic vat and that big red Dodge. Now, hearts floating out of tall grass were not enough to cool his blood. Evil was sinking its teeth into James. He boiled with rage and wondered if anything in his vision truly meant anything at all. All he could think about was that red ooze and how it coagulates and hardens. He would bite his fingernails and taste the bloody crust beneath them. It filled James’s mind with visions of greed and gluttony; ranchers driving Cadillacs, and 300 pound men with sweat dripping from the fat that stuck out
from under their shirts, scarfing cheeseburgers, and having heart-attacks. The taste of evil drove him to the brink, now he was on his way to the psych-ward in Good Samaritan Hospital.
“Hearts,” He thought. “Was I not supposed to find love somewhere? What love was Paahsaakii talking about? This great battle Coyote spoke of. When, where, with who?”
James had nothing but questions in his head and crazy in his eyes. What he did not know is that Coyote was a trickster. Coyote put thoughts in people’s heads that drove them crazy and James was no exception. Only time would tell if James’s journey would be one in vain.
Chapter 3
When the elevator doors opened, James found himself facing a lobby with locked doors on the far end. The nurse hit the buzzer. The doors, unlocked and James was wheeled into the seventh floor of Good Samaritan Hospital, the mental ward. The place was pure chaos. There were people staggering without direction, people talking to each other, and people talking to themselves. The institutional odor of baby oil struck James’s olfactory senses as he gazed at the imprisoning white hallways and dim fluorescent light. The Seventh Floor seemed to creep and lurch with a synthetic texture. James was checked in at the nurses’ desk, then was escorted into the psychiatrist’s office. The small office had the same synthetic feel as the rest of the Seventh Floor. The bright lights of the office chased James’s psyche back into his skull. The pens were neatly aligned on the desk next to a yellow note pad. The stainless steel desk protruded from the walls which were covered by black filing cabinets. James sat patiently for fifteen or twenty minutes then finally a doctor walked in and introduced herself as Dr. Noel. She was a hag of a woman with a hairy mole, a fat ass, and the saggiest tits he had ever seen. When she opened her mouth, the words that came out sounded like they were being strangled out of a duck.
“Now James,” she spoke, “I understand you called the cops on yourself. Why is that?”
James hesitated for a minute. Then when he opened his mouth, out came the only thought he had in his mind for the past five years.
“Blood,” James replied in the most monotonous voice to ever break a sonic frequency.
“Can you elaborate on that?” Dr. Noel squawked.
“I said, blood !” James replied.
“Okay, allergic to any medication?” She squawked again.
At this point James was beginning to get slightly amused. It wasn’t the nature of the question Dr. Noel was asking, but more the way in which she asked them. By this point James was envisioning a 240 pound duck with saggy tits on the other side of the desk reading some hokey list that was put together by professionals, you know, people with all the right shit stewing in their skulls.
Dr. Noel continued to ask James questions.
“Have you ever taken any recreational drugs?
“Just blood.” James said as he started to feel the edginess of the whole situation wear off.
“Are you serious?” Dr. Noel replied. “Is that how you’re going to answer every question?”
James tried to hold back, but he began bubbling inside and just couldn’t contain himself.
“I ate peyote once. Fucked me up ten sorts of sideways!” he laughed.
Dr. Noel disgruntily jotted down a few notes then excused James from her office. What James didn’t know is that from the moment the paramedics put him in the straight jacket something was growing inside of him. It was his spirit. He finally broke the chains that bound him to the tyranny and oppression of modern society. Launching that ceramic vat through the windshield of the big red Dodge dematerialized the shackles that restrained James from walking his own path. He broke away from the material world by means of its destruction. He finally acted upon an impulse, and even greater, he stood to face the music. It was symbolic. It was a cleansing of the soul. Whatever demons haunted James seemed to vanish after hurling the ceramic vat through the windshield. James was pinned to the ground for too long, and it was about time someone felt the weight of his fist. There was nothing civilized about his role as a butcher, and once he took that first step and hurled that 80 pound ceramic vat through the windshield of the big red Dodge, he began an introspective revolution that allowed his spirit to walk the road it was meant to walk. After the initiation of his detainment, James began to feel a little relieved inside. He loosened up. Life in this place didn’t feel so morbid and destitute. That was at a time when James thought he was going to be on the Seventh Floor of Good Samaritan Hospital for two or three days. Tragically, James was greatly mistaken. The doctors saw James as a threat to society. They were bound and determined that he would never have the opportunity to cause further destruction in anyone’s life ever again. Despite the very finite extent of his answers to Dr. Noel’s questions, he said things that were pretty dark. The mere mention of anything that symbolized violence or hostility was taboo on the Seventh Floor. He lived a life of sifting through death, and that brought him to a place that cloaked his whole outlook on life in a bloody, grotesque vision. He said things that robbed him of the credibility of what the professionals call a “sane individual.” His words were ambiguous leaving plenty of room for the professionals to twist them into something more demented than they were. When the little glass house upstairs finally shattered, all the bloody anguish transformed and spewed out of his mind into witty sarcasm. All convention was lost. To James, his great battle had just begun. He decided then and there that Coyote played a dirty trick in his vision. This great battle was not against someone else, and it would not be a bloody one, but it was a battle of a man against society. It had been for the past five years. Whenever James found himself amongst people, he couldn’t help but despise what he could see; two hundred dollar sunglasses, and five hundred dollar watches. There they were living the life of luxury while people like James scraped by through life, working the underbelly of society, and had nothing but pain to show for it. He was bound to explode. He sat back and thought about the course of events that had brought him to the Seventh Floor. By the time he was excused from Dr. Noel’s office his eyes were as big as the Montana skies. His pupils were so dilated that he looked like he had just eaten a ten-strip of acid. James was swimming in epiphany. When he walked out of Dr. Noel’s office, a nurse started looking him over and began moving his way. She was about 5’10” and 120 pounds. When she walked, her slender waist and round bottom popped from left to right, back and forth, as her long brown curls bounced on the white shoulders of her uniform. Her legs screamed up from the floor, and as she leaned in to ask James a question, she pressed her full-bodied breasts against James’s quarter.
“Would you like something to eat?” She asked as she fanned her face with the menu. The whole debacle began around 9:30 in the morning and upon reception of the question James looked at the clock and saw it was pushing 6:00 in the evening. Nothing seemed too intriguing about the Seventh Floor aside from this nurse, and James damn sure didn’t want to spend all night hungry so he replied with a yes, and the nurse handed him a menu.
“Anything you want, as much as you want!” the nurse explained with her perky little voice.
James looked over the menu
“Hamburger, Steak Sandwich, Roast Beef” he read.
The mere thought of beef made his heart sink as he accepted his reality. This whole damn nation was so headstrong on their damn beef to the gluttonous point of obesity, and James was the one who had to shoulder the grotesque load, slicing meat from the carcass, coming of age with a knife in his hand and blood on his face. He couldn’t handle looking at beef on a plate. It would take him to a place he didn’t want to go, a place from which he had spent all day trying to free himself. Finally he saw fish on the menu and ordered two fish sandwiches. Someone brought them up about 45 minutes later. James ate them, then he was shown his room, number 135. It had tile floors and smelled of disinfectant. There was much room to get around the shelves and dresser, and a large window laid to the right of the bed with trees overgrown, blocking the view. James was indifferent to his qua
rters, just happy to lie down. He was by himself, no roommate, and a personal shower. He showered then changed into hospital clothes. The day had worn him out, and as he turned in early and laid down in bed around sundown, he realized it was Friday the 13th.
Chapter 4
Saturday May 14th wasn’t much better than the day before. It began with breakfast. The only things James could get down were a banana and a bowl of cream-of-wheat. It felt like mush in his mouth but when it hit his stomach he could feel the raw sustenance. His stomach wasn’t turning any more, but he had no desire to eat the sausage that laid on his plate. The past five years developed a man stout with anger towards the world. He was far enough away from Montana that all the blood on his hands and in his brain had been washed away, but it was the greed, the demand for mass murder to provide a fat belly that panged James’ temper. The coffee served with breakfast allowed him to loosen up just long enough to take a deep breath, then slowly the room worked him back into a frenzy. He could smell red meat in the air. It made his limbs and body surge with adrenaline. His eyes widened and his scalp tightened. He clenched his spoon with white knuckles as he shivered with excitement. More than anything, it made him feel hollow. The greed of others left him feeling hollow. It left him feeling as though all he had was his vision, something intangible within the material consumer culture. Coyote’s words that James would be the great warrior of his people were brewing in his head and in his heart. He was a rebel. He rebelled against the masses, consumption, and gluttony when he shattered the window of the big red Dodge. He was a warrior and his enemy was the evil that lives within us all, but this did not make him original no matter how much James might have believed it did. He looked out the window to get his mind off the struggle, and as he did, he noticed the trees and shrubs on the hillside. They seemed be looking in at him. James could see personality and emotion within each plant. Their leaves and branches jutted and sprawled in complementary fashion as if to speak to him. They were not happy that he was locked up on the Seventh Floor. The trees and shrubs were very opinionated in their message. He thought maybe something in his soul spoke to the Earth. Maybe something in his soul had power over the wind and the water and the grass upon the hill. He was pure at heart and his visions were powerful, and ever since his experience on Sweet Grass Hill, he felt a connection with Heaven and Earth that he could not explain. As he looked at the plants outside, and they looked at him, he began to desire power over something in his life. He knew he had power over the herds. He experienced that in the most explicit sense. James was in a dark place. All he could think about was the battle he was to fight. How could he fight this battle against greed from within the Seventh Floor? When he sat and thought about it he felt like he knew nothing. James felt like Coyote had played the greatest trick of all on him. He longed to be back on Sweet Grass Hill with those virgin hands and virgin eyes, listening to the flute and watching the hearts effervesce from the tall grass. Instead he was stuck on the Seventh Floor and waited to be evaluated by the psychiatrist, Dr. Chode.