Star-Spangled Apocalypse

by Harmon Cooper

  Panting now, Sax continued. “And Virgil, the pseudo-eschatologist shaman, your box contains a powerful hallucinogen that only a few shamans of the Ute Tribe know how to make. As you very well may guess, Pug learned the recipe from one of these shamans on his deathbed. In the box is a small pouch that you put under your tongue. As with James’ gift, the hallucinogen is the most powerful conceivable on this sphere.”

  James and Virgil stared at Sax with puzzled faces.

  “One more thing, amigos.” Sax raised his hands in the air and pulled them down to a pair of prayer hands in front of his heart. “I don’t want either of you to take either of these items. They are too powerful for even some Armageddon experts such as yourselves. Instead, I want you to keep them as keepsakes of our time together!”

  Sax fell to the earth, rolling in the dirt and laughing at the two men.

  “He’s a whackjob,” James whispered under his breath to Virgil, his vocal cords now fully functional. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “What did you call me, James?”

  Somehow, Sax heard James’ mumbled statement. He took off his hat and tossed it threateningly at the two. His long, dirty hair fluttered in the wind and slapped at the paint on his face. He pointed at James. “Your son is in a coma because of you, and you have been driving across country acting like it is fucking Armageddon to ‘save’ him! Who’s the real whackjob, asshole!?”

  James placed his hand on the pellet gun, which he’d tucked into the front of his pants. “Shut the fuck up.”

  Virgil looked at James and noticed his hand was clutching the pellet gun he’d taken from his garage at the start of the journey. “Dude, James…” he whispered next to him. “Don’t pull the piece out, man.”

  “You can’t shoot the truth, James!” Sax yelled while laughing maniacally. He started pantomiming a man pulling a gun from his holster and shooting another man.

  He fell to his knees laughing.

  “You’re freaking crazy, man!” Virgil yelled at Sax

  “Me? Crazy?” Sax finally stood up and kicked the dirt around him. “Gentlemen, I invite you up here for a ceremony and you turn your fucking backs on me? And I thought we were friends!”

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Virgil placed his hand on James’ shoulder. “Lower the gun and let’s go.”

  “Yeah,” James said, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter 21: Failed Destiny Line

  As Interstate 25 curled and twisted through the lower Rocky Mountains, Virgil breathed a sigh of relief. After about an hour of driving, the two men had finally crossed the border between New Mexico and Colorado, breaching the barrier between the desert air of the former and the crisp mountain air of the latter.

  Most importantly, they had left the maniacal Sax Arba back in Raton.

  As they cut deeper into the jagged terrain, he felt like he was entering what Mark Twain might have called the kingdom of dreams. Virgil marveled at the large peaks that seemingly sprung forth from the earth, and admired the tips of each mountain’s crescendo, his heart peaking with each peak before slowly dropping off into oblivion.

  Eventually, he concluded that millions of years ago, God herself must have punched the topsoil of Colorado. That’s the only way ripples of soil could have burst forth so beautifully from the earth. At the very least, his anecdote was a fairy tale interpretation of what science would describe as seismic activity, but Virgil knew very well that science sometimes took the fun out of imagination.

  After driving in silence for a bit longer, the two came upon a small gas station.

  As he sat in the jeep waiting for James to fill up, Virgil realized that they had never used the coffee cambro full of gasoline in the backseat. It was just a day ago when James had filled it up, in his speedy trip caused by the Modafinil.

  They both had grown accustomed to the gasoline smell radiating from the back seat of the jeep, a smell that both enticed and repulsed all who inhaled it. Virgil made a mental note to mention it to him at some point.

  After all, if they got stopped by the authorities, the container full of gas would inspire suspicion.

  James hadn’t said much since leaving Raton, except for a timely placed “hell yeah” when he saw a sign that read Satan Sucks. Virgil had laughed, wondering aloud if sign-bashing Satan would really do anything to thwart his supposedly evil plans.

  James never answered.

  Instead, he took a sip from his flask and wiped his mouth unenthusiastically. Since their encounter with Sax, James’ level of focus and intensity had risen, and his disturbing reticence had started to frighten Virgil.

  However, as they pulled back onto the interstate, Virgil’s gaze drifted away from James’ silent behavior and towards the puffy, grey clouds that sat lazily over the partially digested landscape. As Virgil pondered eternity, time continued to pass, and the sun continued its decline over the western mountains.

  Out of habit, he opened his collection and pulled out his plastic bag of marijuana.

  He pressed his fingers against the buds inside the bag, careful not to disrupt any of the crystals or little red hairs that are characteristic of premium bud.

  He’d been smoking for so long now that he rarely got high, but as with most addictions, there was no true explanation for its continued occurrence. For Virgil, it had become somewhat of a ceremony: the taste of the paper, the pungent smell of the herb, and the sound of the lighter as it struck the end of the joint.

  Virgil inhaled a large whiff from the joint and coughed.

  He had read somewhere that if you coughed while smoking, you could open more capitularies, meaning that you could get even higher. He did it more out of habit now than truth, forgetting long ago you can only get so high.

  ***

  After zoning out for what seemed like a quarter century, Virgil cocked his head to the left and observed James as objectively as he possibly could in his marijuana haze.

  James drove like a madman, destined to get as far from Raton as possible, but he also looked tired, and showed signs of wanting to slow down and rest for the night.

  Virgil watched his former shift manager suspiciously as he downed his favorite beverage, tossed his flask aside, and went straight to the bottle.

  Neither of them said anything as they broke record speeds and headed deep into Colorado Springs.

  Colorado Springs was gorgeous, a town nestled on the edge of the mountains and full of large, shiny buildings. As they passed a sign advertising the Garden of the Gods, Virgil pointed to it hoping that James would make a stop. James paid no attention to him: his only focus was the road and his favorite beverage.

  It took less than ten minutes for the men to breach the outskirts of the city, leaving the beautifully named Garden of the Gods in their wake.

  Virgil was secretly disappointed.

  After all the people they had met on this voyage, the Garden of the Gods seemed like an important place to visit.

  Over the two hours since they had left Raton, James’ face had turned sour and his frown had sunk to the seat of his pants. He bit his nails and stared out at the road, wild-eyed and impatient. He yelled at a few cars who weren’t going over ninety miles per hour, and cursed every time he approached an eighteen-wheeler.

  “Heyyy, aren’t mimess supposed to be silent!” James finally blurted out at Virgil, his words slurring and twisting together.

  “Yeah, what a strange dude. That tea was crazy. Got to be honest, I’ve never tried Amanita Muscaria. Its effects were totally trippy, dude. But at least he didn’t try to hurt us or anything.” Virgil looked at James uneasily, trying his best to coax him and keep the conversation light. What he really wanted to tell him was that they should stop and get a hotel.

  “Annnd hiiis little stances and facceee paint…why’d he evennn invite us up theerre!”

  James slammed his fist on the steering wheel, honking at a car that was trying to get in his lane. The jeep swerved into the safety lane; Virgil
instinctively grabbed the ‘oh shit’ bar.

  “It’s cool, brother. Screw him…” Virgil really hoped James would calm down. The last thing they needed was a car wreck.

  “Well he can just, he can goooooo to hell assss far as I’m concerrrned. Dooo we still have annnyyy of Hope’s brotherrr’s clothes?”

  Virgil had forgotten that they had borrowed a bag of clothing. He nodded. “Yeah, we should check those out.”

  “Just brrring them intooo the hotel. I wannna get dressed up for tomorrow.” James closed his eyes and smacked his lips. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a cigarette, his hand wobbling as he placed it in his mouth.

  He tried to light it, but his aim was off, and he ended up burning the hairs on his chin instead. Quick to diffuse the situation, Virgil offered to light it for him as long as he kept his eyes on the road.

  He’d seen James inebriated before, but this time was different.

  Over the course of an afternoon James had downed over a liter of whiskey.

  “Let’sss fuckin’ stopppp there.” James pulled onto the frontage road headed towards Gleneagle, Colorado.

  After a final sip from his bottle of whiskey, he tossed it over his shoulder into the backseat.

  Not twenty seconds later, James roared into a badly painted parking spot at a Super 8. “Nowww lisssen, I know you lost yourrrrrr wallet back there at that shitty house, so I am entrusssssting you with mine. Go payyy the hotel clerk and don’t fuckin’ lose it! Pay the attendant off if you have too. Don’t give ‘em our names! If not, tell ‘em to fuck off!” James laughed loudly.

  “Cool, man,” Virgil said hesitantly. “Just chill…and I will take care of this.”

  Virgil opened the door and walked towards the hotel lobby. He straightened his shirt and attempted to fix his hair in the reflection of the lobby’s window. He quickly made a plan to take a walk as soon they checked into the room, with hopes that James would take a nap or something – anything to shake his current level of inebriation.

  It was a little before six and the last thing Virgil wanted to hear all night was drunken rambling and nonsense. Furthermore, James was acting more and more violent, and it was starting to scare him.

  ***

  “Hello, my good friend,” Virgil said, as the male clerk gazed nonchalantly at his computer screen. “I’d like to book a room for the evening.”

  “How many guests?” the clerk asked without looking up from his computer.

  “Two,” Virgil answered, while admiring the wood finish of the clerk’s station.

  “Can I see an I.D.?”

  “Oh…I don’t have it on me. I lost it back in Raton.” Virgil smiled coolly at the clerk. “I know that can be quite a pain, so here’s an extra hundred for just one night…” Virgil handed the clerk the money, awkwardly, as he glanced down at his name tag. “Thanks for your troubles...uh…Bernard, you can just have whatever is left over from that.”

  Virgil knew very well the hotel room couldn’t be more than eighty dollars and hoped that Bernard got the hint. He did, and after making change, he placed the wad of dollar bills under a stack of papers sitting next to the computer. Bernard looked down at the stack of papers and slowly up at Virgil, adjusting his eyeglasses.

  “Look,” Bernard said, giving Virgil an ambiguous yet defiant stare. “I don’t normally take bribes, but tonight isn’t a normal night. My brother’s coming home from the war tomorrow, and I want to take him out for a real night on the town. Maybe go to Colorado Springs or even Denver. So, do me a solid and keep the room clean.”

  “Will do. My bro is in the service too, at an air base in Iceland. Tell your brother thanks for putting up with the demands of religious figures, weapons manufacturers, and bureaucrats. That’s what this is all about anyways, that’s what it has always been about.”

  “Well, someone has got to do it,” Bernard replied. “And to tell you the truth, I’m just glad he’s coming back for a few weeks.”

  ***

  “Wait, so you gave himmmm how much!?” James plopped down onto the bed and slowly sat up, staring angrily at Virgil.

  James had brought the sword in too. It rested in its sheath against the nightstand.

  “It was a tough sell, man! He didn’t buy my story, so I had to sweeten the pot. No worries…” Virgil stood by the front door, ready for some fresh air. He could smell the alcohol seeping from James’ veins and it was making him nauseous.

  “Wherree you goin!? Hey!”

  “To the convenience store up the way. I just need to get my legs moving. Want something?”

  “Well seein’ as how you still have mmmyyy fuckin’ wallet, I want somme Twinkies or, iff you cannn, some whiskey.” James grinned at Virgil.

  “Cool, I’ll take care of it for you.” Virgil shut the door and headed down the hotel room stairs.

  Hopefully James will be asleep when I get back, he thought, as he kicked at a plastic bag floating in the breeze outside the front door.

  The sun had begun to slowly sink into the mountains in the distance, again making Virgil feel the cool hand of geographical tranquility. He didn’t know what it was about the mountains, and maybe it was the fact that most of Central Texas was flat, but whatever it was, the mountains soothed his soul to the very core.

  Once he reached the edge of the parking lot, he sat down under a large tree and glanced down at his hands, tracing the outline of his palms with his eyes.

  Less than a year ago, at Eeyore’s Birthday Party Austin, Virgil had decided to fork over some money to have his palm read.

  He had first noticed the tent as he had walked through the vendor section. It was a small tent, shaped differently than the other vendor tents around it and had a small sign that said The Oracle of Delhi. The lady inside, a heavyset Indian women with a large red tikka between her eyes, was talking on the phone in Hindi when Virgil entered the tent.

  She played her part well, moving her hands back and forth over his palm and chanting incoherently. She looked his hands over, feigned astonishment, and then told him that he had a peculiar line near his thumb.

  She turned and blew incense on a metallic picture of Krishna behind her and pointed at his palm, stating she’d only read about this particular line in books. It was what she called a “failed destiny line.”

  The palm reader peered through her glasses at Virgil and carefully began to explain the details of the line. She claimed that whoever held this line was destined to fail.

  Virgil remembered thinking how batty she was, and how pointless and detrimental it was to tell someone that they would fail. He tossed ten dollars onto the table and quickly left the Oracle’s tent, acknowledging that it must be a scam.

  As he walked out of the tent, she yelled something to him that meant nothing at the time. “If you are ever given the feather of an angel, you will know I wasn’t lying to you!”

  Virgil paused, his heart now caught in his throat.

  He placed his hand in his shirt and pulled out the emerald green feather given to him by Mika’il. The feather sparkled in the evening sunset like it had been dipped in glitter. He gasped as he realized that her prophecy was coming to pass.

  “Failed destiny line…” he mumbled as he touched the line on his left hand.

  His mind dropped into panic mode.

  The words that Sax had yelled at the two of them electrified his thoughts. Sax had yelled that it was James’ fault that his son was in a coma!

  “But Sax must have been lying…he was mad…” Virgil whispered to himself. He stood up and started walking back towards the street, his pace quickened.

  Was the trip to Colorado a failed destiny? Virgil didn’t want to answer the question. He wanted the trip and its visions, entities and impulses to be real. Who was Sax really? Sax Arba?

  Virgil saw a convenience store up the street and walked towards it, nearly tripping over a homeless man sitting near the front door.

  “Spare some change?” the homeless man moaned at Virgil as
he opened the front door.

  Virgil pulled out a twenty and gave it to the man. The man looked at the twenty-dollar bill then glanced back at Virgil.

  “Don’t do it…” he whispered as he placed the bill in his front shirt pocket.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t do it…”

  “Don’t do what?” Virgil asked.

  The man looked up at Virgil and back at his legs. Virgil pulled out his wallet and gave the man another twenty.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t take it,” the man said as he placed the second twenty in his shirt pocket.

  Virgil shook his head and started running back toward the motel, thoughts hitting his mind like sacks of bricks.

  Is this a failed destiny? Is James’ son even alive? Have I been hallucinating this whole time?! What am I going to do?

  His mind spun as he thought back to the other things that Sax had said.

  There is something else.

  Sax Arba he had mentioned something about spelling his name backwards.

  Virgil pulled out an old receipt from his back pocket, sat down on the curb, fished in his pocket for a sketching pencil he usually had, and quickly wrote the name Sax Arba. He then wrote the name backwards, Abra Xas.

  “Abraxas?” Virgil gulped, knowing exactly what all this meant.

  Chapter 22: James Draws his Sword

  Virgil burst through the door just in time to see James tossing something into his mouth.

  “Why did you drink that? I know what Sax is, I mean, I know who he is, dude!” Virgil screamed at James.

  “Welllll whooooo is eeee theeeen!?” James yelled back, his hand wavering near the hilt of the sword. He pulled the sword out of the sheath and began tracing the tip of the blade with his finger.

  “His name! Sax Arba, spelled backwards it’s Abraxas!” Virgil hopped onto his bed and pulled out one of his books. “Here it is: Abraxas is a Gnostic god that is both God and the Devil at the same time. He’s both, he can be both.”