One man’s God often is another man’s abomination.

The spiked haired, redheaded imp recruited several volunteers in the waiting line, the larger customers impatient to ingest their daily Voodoo Doughnut decadence, to haul Hunger’s limp body out of the store and onto the sidewalk across the street. Hunger made an effective pedestrian roadblock, but Portland’s citizens, accustomed to stepping over the local homeless, easily circumnavigated his prone figure.

In the cool and misty Portland morning, saturated fats and a cereal box worth of sugar coursing through him, Hunger fell for the first time into a state of delight and delirium. His dreams no longer presented acres of starving humans, desperately scratching the ground for a seed, a weed or a rat bone on which to gnaw. Now he only saw floating discs, brown plasma gently oozing off all edges, flying happily into his mouth by the dozens. From out of their tiny pink boxes, hungry hordes of humans escaped and rushed joyfully to Hunger’s side, mouths agape, snatching the discs from midair. Together they chewed, and swallowed, and smiled.

“Oh, Sweet Jesus,” Mable said to Albertine. “Look at this poor fellow. He’s all just skin and boney-bones!” The heavy Portland air was heavier now with Mable’s aged Cajun accent.

Albertine looked upon Hunger with the disgust she looked upon everyone. “Yesum, he’s a mess, alright.”

“Well, we just gotta do sompthin’ for this poor child. He’s just starvin’, good Lord Almighty. He’s so hungry he’s got a crazy look on his face.”

“Maybe he is crazy,” Albertine replied with a poorly concealed sneer as she stood rigid and clutched her purse more tightly. Now in her seventies, Albertine knew that nobody was worth trusting. Not store clerks. Not neighbors. And especially not street people. She even had her doubts about Cousin Mabel.

“I tells ya what. Let’s get this poor soul overt to Buford’s place. He’ll feed him. He’ll feed him good.”

Albertine Looked at Mabel as if Mabel had again lost her mind. Mabel returned a putty faced gaze dripping with Christian warmth, love and hospitality that silently reminded Albertine of their upbringing and of their Lord’s commandments concerning charity. Albertine opened her mouth, started to object, and even considered looking over the top of her eyeglasses, her go-to display of disapproval. But in the eternity of two seconds, elongated with Mabel’s overtly upright and humbly righteous heart, Albertine softened, shuffled back and forth in her Walmart flats and support hose, and stared at Hunger. With a final, audible sigh, Albertine relented.

“Praise the Lord,” Mabel all but shouted. “We can save this poor man. You gets that other arm,” she said while bending down to gather up Hunger’s left elbow. “Buford’s is only a block from here. This skinny old thing. We can get him there.”

Albertine opened her purse, extracted two neatly folded and blindingly white lace hankies, and wrapped them around Hunger’s other upper arm. On Mabel’s count, they half lifted Hunger to his knees and began moving forward down a rapidly evacuating sidewalk, Mabel speaking words of encouragement, Albertine stifling revulsion to the task, and Hunger sleep stumbling on his knees.

“Is this a chicken and egg question,” Faith asked, her smile battling the Colorado sun for supremacy. She slowed the Caddy as they approached Byers, sensing it was time for food and maybe a change of drivers.

“Yes, but no,” Michael said in his contently ambiguous style. He scanned the forward view which allowed him to watch the horizon, the traffic, and the reflection of Faith’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He liked her eyes, having finally noticed them after his more long-term admiration of her tits, butt, and smile, in that order. But now those eyes were making other anatomical delights less noticeable.

“So, God came into being once man conceived of him,” she asked, triangulating his logic.

“Perhaps. If God is half the jerk that religion makes him out to be, then I suspect God inherited those traits from people, not the other way around.”

“But aren’t you in an infinite loop,” she asked, making Michael ponder how she acquired a computer science term. She was obviously smart enough to scare most men, which made her smart enough to interest Michael.

“How so?”

“Man created God in his own image, and the scripture says God created man in His own image.”

“That last bit is just self-flattery. I doubt God would lay claim to our kind.”

“But, if God didn’t exist until man created him, doesn’t that mean the nature of God changes with human evolution? God improves as the species improves?”

“Who said we have improved?”

Faith was silent for a second, not only to ponder Michael’s theoretical theology, but to scout the side streets of Byer for suitable food.

“You have a point,” she finally admitted. “Things are biblically violent these days.”

“And we just drove away from the Modern Sodom. The more things change, the more God stays the same. Can’t recall who said it, but he said, ‘The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.’”

“Does that include man and God’s good side?”

Having checked Michael’s cynicism, he had to ponder if indeed man had created God, and if there was some good in the Old Man after all. Faith turned left, sensing which of the streets held Byer’s few eating establishments.

“Likely. This all assumes that man did create God, and not the other way around.”

“The two are connected then.”

“Men and God?”

She smiled. “Yes, but good and evil too.”

“God’s yin and yang?”

“Yes. Hey! How about ribs? I see a place up ahead.”

“No, let’s wait until we’re in Kansas for ribs. They supposedly have the best.”

“I hear Portland has good ribs too.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Michael said. “Portland has good eats everywhere. But back to God. What you say, about the yin and the yang, that leads to the notion that God has to hold both of those traits in his own being.”

“Sure. I guess. He certainly has a feminine side, and the Old Testament shows he suffered from recurring bouts of PMS.”

“Does that mean God went through menopause between the old and new testaments?”

Michael was uncharacteristically silent as Faith let the Cadillac slide effortlessly to a stop in front of a mom-and-pop diner, her preferred type of bistro.

“Yet those are polar opposites. Opposing forces. Something has to bind them.”

“Something has to bind you,” Lao said to Jesus/Buddha and Moses/Mohamed.

“Get away from us!” the heads of Moses and Mohamed shouted in unison, their bodies now largely amalgamated.

“It will be alright,” Jesus soothingly said with some difficulty, his beard now partially absorbed into Buddha’s left moob flap. Buddha openly sobbed in confusion, his self-loathing, now radically amplified by being forcibly united with Jesus.

Zoroaster said nothing. He had entered a state of oneness with himself. All the universe’s woes had vanished from his consciousness, along with most of his consciousness. Even the endless infighting between his fellow prophets was now a memory. There was, to Zoroaster himself, and he felt himself to be One.

Jesus’s remaining free arm reached down and grabbed a fist full of Buddha’s thigh flab. With uncharacteristic strength, he yanked their now mutual leg and flung it toward Moses/Mohamed as a forced first step in their direction. Buddha’s eyes suddenly opened in horror, sensing that he was no longer in control of his own body, and that it was inching ever closer toward his chief tormentors.

Jesus locked eyes with Mohamed, and Mohamed, smiling with malcontent, reciprocated. Mohamed threw an arm over his head, simultaneously lurching his and Moses’s agglomeration one step toward Jesus/Buddha and allowing a free hand to cover Moses’s eyes.

“Vos di?!”, Moses screeched. Blinded, he fell into the momentum Mohamed had initiated.

“I’m coming for you, you infidel!” Mohamed said through a clenched jaw.

“And I’m coming for you my friend” Jesus replied while grabbing and tossing the next of his and Buddha’s legs forward.

“I hate you!”

“I love you!”

Lao hated them all but let it all go. They would be what they were, only more so if they ever reached one another.

As Jesus/Buddha lumbered and shirked forward, and as the half blind Moses/Mohamed staged ahead, surges of electricity arched between them. The skies around the six darkened as the midfield between them started to glow. With each inch, with every lunge, sparks flew, and the ether rumbled.

Zoroaster stood, statue like, his arm fully stretched to either side. He then moved smoothly, slowly forward, toward the point of collision to which Jesus and Mohamed were navigating. He reached the critical juncture, facing Moses/Mohamed, eyes closed and in a trance. Both Jesus/Buddha and Moses/Mohamed stopped, eyes open with mixed suspicion and fear.

Zoroaster started to turn. With tiny, graceful, ballerina-grade footwork, Zoroaster slowly spun, his outreached fingertips stretching into position. He had nearly pivoted ninety degrees, fingers on opposing hands pointing to each of the paired prophets, when streams of white light simultaneously leapt from Jesus/Buddha and Moses/Mohamed. The flux found Zoroaster’s fingertips, and surged through him, illuminating his body from the inside. His head snapped back, his eyes flew open, his mouth silently shouted as pure energy surged from left and right and collided in his chest.

Lao was impressed, which he never was.

Zoroaster’s body pulsed, his chest expanding and contracting with each surge. It took only moments for the oscillations from each endpoint to synchronize, and when they did the glow emitting from Jesus/Buddha slipped from white to blue, and that from Moses/Mohamed turn red. The new frequencies of energy moved steadily toward Zoroaster, and an ethereal hum grew louder as they approached. Simultaneously, like a well-timed and mutually satisfying orgasm, they reached Zoroaster’s fingertips, and their slow progression switched to a sudden lurch into and through his body. Zoroaster went rigid, his head dropping to level, his eyes wide open, unfocused and oddly at peace with becoming an immortal conduit between opposing, demented conjoined twins.

Lao abandoned his sedate and passive observance of all things, and scampered out of the way when the spokes of the newly connected prophet wheel began to turn. Like a two-seater Ferris wheel – with Jesus/Buddha on one side, Moses/Mohamed on the other, Zoroaster rotating as a hub connected via streams of ever brightening energy – they turned. Slowly at first, but their trajectory was obvious, and Lao wasted no time in vacating their path.

“Wrong way you klots!” Moses shouted, having finally pulled Mohamed’s hand from his eyes.

“He’s doing just fine,” Jesus soothingly intoned.

“I’m going to get motion sick,” Buddha protested.

“Wonderful! That will make a perfect mess,” Mohamed said with disgust.

They bickered on, nearly as interested in their arguing as they were fearful of the cosmic carnival ride they had become. By their first quarter turn, their velocity had perceptibly increased. Steadily. Resolutely. Irresistibly. The horrors of the unknowable inevitable merely fed their rancor.

“It’s going to be a long day,” Lao mumbled.

“It’s going to be a long day,” Reverend Righthouse mumbled.

Tick thought otherwise as he glanced back and forth between Righthouse, the escaping leadership of the First United Church of Kansas, and the interruption-free news reports of how a bloodthirsty rider of a pale horse had disappeared somewhere in New Jersey. “Perhaps it might be a long day,” Tick reconsidered. “But it will go by pretty fast. Much to do.”

There was no telling exactly when the End Times would arrive, so Tick decided to hasten his program. He had successfully gotten Reverend Righthouse to express pride, wallow in greed, and eat with unregulated gluttony. Righthouse was already guilty of envy, admiring with heart-hurting desire the country’s mega-churches, and had been long before Tick made the reverend one of his special projects. That left lust, wrath and sloth. The first two might be easy. The Right Reverend Righthouse was a man after all, and Tick knew well that a man’s genitalia routinely overrode rational thought, moral upbringing and fiscal responsibility. Testosterone, the same rocket fuel responsible for carnal misadventures was also handy for inciting instantaneous outburst of anger, an incestuous first cousin to wrath. Tick felt he would have lost his touch should he fail to get Righthouse to commit both those sins before dinner.

Sloth was a different matter. On a slow day, Righthouse was an animated fellow, so full of himself that there was precious little room left for the Holy Spirit. To Righthouse’s credit, he effectively channeled this, and his authentic religious fervor, into making the First United Church of Kansas ever bigger, ever grander, ever more a monument to God and Righthouse. The Reverend was anything but slothful. Engineering indolence in Righthouse would be a time-consuming process, and Tick knew there was very little time before the end of time.

“Find out what the Hell is going on you pack of heathens!” Righthouse suddenly erupted, hurling one of the mass-produced Bibles, emblazed with the First United Church of Kansas logo, at his Chief of Staff. “Find that demon, now! I don’t care if you have to run all the way to New York to do it!”

“That’s didn’t take long,” Tick thought to himself, mentally scratch wrath off his project list.

Righthouse’s staff scattered like cockroaches in a suddenly lit room as the Reverend stalked toward the television. All except Katie Mae vanished, who was somehow unalarmed by Righthouse’s sudden and seemingly demonic attitude. Katie Mae was too mentally inelastic, and too enamored by the Reverend to sense anything but wonder. His wrath appeared to her as majesty. His thunder a mere expression of his ecclesiastical power. She was, in a word, smitten and a tiny bit wet.

Katie Mae stood a solid two paces behind the Reverend, who stood mere inches away from a flat screen covering the better part of the office wall. He studied the news ticker reporting that New Jersey and New York authorities could not agree on a plan of action for locating the now missing Horseman. He listened as the talking heads interviewed an operative from one of the leading political parties, who placed blame for trail of blood soaked streets on the economic policies of the opposition. Righthouse jabbed his thumb into a remote control he held in his hand, rapidly switching between channels, seeking any information on the rider’s whereabouts, or if any other religious leader saw what was plainly obvious to Righthouse – that a verifiable demon was on the loose.

He found none, and in finding none, found opportunity.

“Katie, get Rich Alties on the phone.” Alties was a pious man, despite his perpetual indulgence in drink and sexual harassment. He was also the chief at the nation’s largest news network, one that fed international audiences as well. He and Righthouse had shared many meals, considered one another friends, and Alties had even confessed a few of his more minor transgressions to Righthouse. The Reverend knew Alties was not opposed to putting religious perspective before his news-and-opinion-addicted audience, and that he would gladly grant Righthouse airtime to communicate the Reverend’s revelation about demons, God and the looming Apocalypse. After all, in the twenty-four by seven television news business, there are a lot of minutes to fill and too few interesting people to fill them. Righthouse, demons and Armageddon were interesting.

“Revelation”. Righthouse let the word linger on his tongue as he would savor the first bite of prime rib. He allowed the juices of a godly connection to glide down the gullet of his ego. He was indeed the only man of faith who saw the demon for what it was. He also knew that the seven seals were being broken faster than hymen at a college frat kegger, and that the pale horse which demon rode was no accident. Righthouse was, in this instant of history, a revelator himself. That thought did not trouble him. In fact, it caused a surge in his level of conviction, his bodily energy and his self-esteem. He assumed it must be divine intervention at work – that he, the Right Reverend Righthouse, was to be God’s messenger to the masses. It was he who would tell the world that the end was not nigh, but that it was here.

Almost bouncing on his toes, Righthouse added, “And tell production to set up for a live feed. We’re going national tonight baby!”

Katie Mae had traveled nearly to the desk when Righthouse amended his order, and as he spun about. Tick was already there, and sensing that emotional intensity had reached an apex, pushed a stack of folders off the corner of the desk, the same corner where the telephone sat and where Katie Mae was reaching. Her response was instinctive, preprogrammed to maintain order for the Reverend. She momentarily forgot about the phone, about Alties, and about broadcast television. Instead, she bent at the waist and began picking up the scattered folders and papers.

This one motion was enough to raise the hem of her otherwise modest skirt to expose parts of Katie Mae’s anatomy and unmentionables. Having turned about, Reverend Righthouse halted, transfixed by the sight of Katie Mae’s slender and otherwise shapeless legs, the pair of which had seen too little sunlight over too many years. Righthouse’s visual encounter lingered just above Katie Mae’s knees where dime store hosiery ended, and infrequently shaved thighs began. As Katie Mae reached for the furthest folder, bracing with one hand the edge of Righthouse’s desk, her skirt inched ever slightly northward, unmasking a dimple and the hem on a pair of plain, beige, nearly industrial bloomers containing her oblong buttocks.

It was not Victoria’s Secret, but it was enough to cross Reverend Righthouse’s eyes, quicken his already accelerated pulse, and channel his newfound supernatural frenzy into more temporal action.

The Right Reverend Richard Righthouse, founder of the First United Church of Kansas and televangelist to millions, walked purposefully to his desk, and with a singular movement dragged his hands up the outside of both Katie Mae’s legs, depositing her skirt around her hip bones, and hooking his thumbs into her unremarkable panties, sending them downward. He fumbled briefly with his belt, which when released allowed his pants to fall on their own accord from around his ample circumference.

Katie Mae was silently glowing. She had never once had a single conscious impure thought about the Reverend, and ruthlessly suppressed the wanton dreams about the two of them that spewed into her mind almost nightly. Her mouth opened in a state of astonished glee as Righthouse made corporal contact.

“Six down, one to go,” said Tick, turning away with satisfaction and a mild case of nausea.

Strife could barely blink, his face tight with anticipation, reveling in both the open and passively aggressive tension in the Pretty Prairie Estates clubhouse.

“It would seem to me that a waiver on the trim color for Mister Ferguson’s house, from Fog Mist to Soft Mist would be a violation,” the widow Taylor said with soggy condescension.

“I think you’re a friggin’ violation,” retorted the widower Ferguson. The two routinely failed at politeness since Ferguson’s failed sexual violation of Taylor many years before.

Strife sat rigidly upright, a copy of the Pretty Prairie Estates CC&Rs open in his lap. He absorbed every word, caught every jaundice glance, decrypted each snarky reference, checked all malice-laden smiles, noted every whispered gossip, memorized who had deep knowledge of HOA rules, and even logged Mrs. Clarke’s seven-year vendetta against Ms. Baker for failing to leash her Pekingese, who deposited its post-processed breakfast on Mrs. Clarke’s driveway.

Fred Crumly cleared his throat, which in the angry yet hallowed halls for the Pretty Prairie Estates clubhouse and HOA meeting space was a stern reprimand. Fred was the homeowners’ association king maker. He never wanted, nor would he accept, the president’s office. Doing so meant he would have responsibility when all he wanted was authority. Instead, each year Crumly would hand-select officer candidates and ensure they were elected. Being the HOA’s puppet master provided Crumly dictatorial power without the burden of being a community despot.

“But didn’t the Russel’s get a waiver for Sea Cloud White last year,” Jackie Lloyd innocently asked, holding a red plastic cup of iced tea between her hands, resting it politely on her lap and uniform capris pants, leaning attentively inward to the circle of neighbors while peering over the top of her tortoise shell glasses. Jackie Lloyd had the distinct disadvantages of being an innocent soul, a relatively new resident of Pretty Prairie Estates, and thus a pig ready for rhetorical slaughter.

Strife couldn’t wait for the counter strike.

The widow Taylor allowed a moment of silence to accompany her patronizing gaze. She knew this riveted everyone’s attention, making her rebuttal count as well as sting.

“Section fourteen, subsection twenty-seven clearly states that color variations must be within one percent as defined on a K-scale. It was the HOA’s determination that Sea Cloud White was within the acceptable range. Now,” she almost sighed for dramatic and managerial effect, “If we can have no more distractions, I’m ready to rule, and reject Mister Ferguson’s request for variance to use Soft Mist White for his trim. All in favor of rejecting the request, say aye.”

Every voice, aside from the widower Ferguson and Strife’s, agreed. Ferguson threw his hands up in disgust. Jackie Lloyd stared down at her iced tea. Strife was gleeful.

“On to the next agenda item,” Taylor said with the confidence of an HOA President more intimate with association’s rules and regulation than with the widower Ferguson. “Item seventeen, a code violation against the Petersons at 237 Sea Port Avenue. They were reported for failing to trim the grasses around their mailbox post. I personally measured the grass,” she said with a hint of self-superior self-gratification, “And indeed the grass was a full quarter of an inch above the maximum allowed. Now, normally I would advise sending a violation letter to the Petersons, but as you may recall, early last year they were several days delinquent in sweeping fallen pine needles from the sidewalk in front of their home.”

She sighed once more, to put an exclamation point before her verdict, one enhanced by the fact that the Petersons perpetually beat Taylor and her partner at the weekly bridge tournament. “I see no alternative to putting a lien on their property until they are in compliance. All in favor, say aye.”

The vote was, again, unanimous though muted. Nobody dared object, though the hurdle of unraveling a property lien was much higher than the grass around the Peterson’s mail box.

“So recorded,” Taylor said, closing her binder. “Now, unless there is new business before the homeowner’s association, we’ll open nominations for next year’s …”

Taylor and the room fell silent as the tall stranger seated next to Crumly, a man in uncharacteristically heavy clothing for southern Florida, a man who had sat silent but smiling throughout the afternoon, slowly raised his hand until it commanded all attention, including an anxious but encouraged Crumly.

“And you are?” Taylor asked.

“I am Strife.”

“Well, welcome Mister Strife. I’m afraid we haven’t met before. Are you new to the neighborhood?”

“He’s a guest of mine,” Crumly inserted.

“I would like to report a code violation,” Strife said with a resonance that communicated its own influence.

The steady hum of the air conditioner, laboring against south Florida swelter, was the only sound in the Pretty Prairie Estates clubhouse. It was certainly odd enough to have a stranger attending the mundane and quietly acrimonious HOA meeting, much less a stranger who listened attentively. But for a non-homeowner, a non-resident to participate was unheard of. To report a code violation, unthinkable.

“Well, Mister Strife,” Taylor started using her most falsely pleasant and utterly controlling tone. “These meetings are for our members. People who have invested in property here at Pretty Prairie Estates …”

“Or their designated appointees, assignees or representatives. Section thirty-two, subsection twelve.” Strife juiced, sitting still while tense, ready to strike.

Taylor, again, allowed three ticks of the clock before answering. “And who would you be representing?”

“He’s with me,” Crumly said while looking up and admiringly at Strife. Strife never allowed his eyes to wander away from Taylor.

Three ticks later, Taylor said “Yes, well if you care to put Mister Strife’s designation in writing, at the next meeting …”

“Section thirty-two, subsection twelve, paragraph ‘C’. A designee can be presented at any meeting of the homeowners’ association when the designee is present to provide essential or expert guidance,” Strife nearly sang as his words sank into Taylor’s ears and seared the flesh off her self-image.

Audible murmurs echoed among the other HOA members. Nobody knew the Pretty Prairie Estates CC&Rs better than Taylor. Not even Crumly possessed her mastery.

“And your essential or expert guidance would be what, Mister Strife?”

“He knows the regulations front and back,” Crumly said, unsure if it were true, but betting it was. “I rely on Strife.”

“This is quite unusual Fred,” Taylor objected. When Crumly did not respond, she reluctantly relented. “Okay Mister Strife. You have a code violation to report?”

Had he been physically able, Strife would have grinned broadly, which given his nearly British dental arrangement, would have repulsed all in attendance. Instead, he spoke slowly, clearly, and directly at Taylor.

“Section twenty-nine, subsection nine, paragraph ‘F’. All exterior surfaces shall be free of mold, mildew, rust stains or other blemishes.”

She let four ticks pass this time. “Thank you, Mister Strife. And who is in violation of this code?”

Strife thought two ticks was the optimal delay for full effect. “Four thirty-nine Shoreline Drive.”

The audience collectively gasped. Crumly, merely smiled with deepening admiration. Taylor considered fainting before concluding that it was not yet necessary.

“No, Mister Strife. That’s my house. I know for certain we are not in violation of Pretty Prairie Estates …”

“Southwest corner, on the shady side. Two inches up from the foundation.”

“Well. I will certainly look into this matter …”

“Section twenty-eight, subsection nineteen, paragraph ‘Q’. No residence is allowed to display holiday decorations three weeks before, or two weeks after said holiday.”

“Your point, Mister Strife?”

“Four thirty-nine Shoreline Drive.”

“What?!”

“You have a Christmas card taped to the inside of the guest bedroom window.”

“Now that’s not the intent of the rule,” Taylor objected.

“Rules are rules,” Crumly added.

“Well, that’s not a big thing …”

“Neither is the height of the Peterson’s grass!” mumbled Ferguson.

“I can take down the Christmas card. Now, if we may …”

“Section twenty-five, subsection two, paragraph ‘B’. All weather stripping must be intact and not visible on the exterior.”

“Let me guess,” Taylor began. “Four thirty-nine Shoreline Drive.”

“Yes.”

“Mister Strife, you seem particularly focused on my house.”

“No. It just has the most number of violations in the neighborhood.”

“What should we do about it?” Crumly asked Strife.

Strife wanted to suggest thumb screws. He would have preferred an Iron Spider, but the widow Taylor lacked enough breast material to make that implement useful. Instead, Strife suggested the one thing guaranteed to generate the highest pitch of mean spirited conflict.

“A lien on four thirty-nine Shoreline Drive is in accord with section thirty-two, subsection …”

“A LIEN! On my house. You arrogant son of a …”

“Section forty-three, subsection eight, paragraph ‘H’. Liens shall be obtained against property owners with repeat, excessive or detrimental violations …”

“I’ve … I’ve … I’ve had enough of this …”

“Well, then, may I suggest you continue with the agenda,” Crumly said.

Taylor spun her head toward Crumly, angry at his interruption and grateful for backing her down off the ledge of rage. She took one long and much needed inhale and let it out with equal pacing. Thus calmed, she looked down at her neatly typed agenda.

Taylor started to cry.

“The final … sniff … agenda item for today … sniff … is nominations for next year’s HOA executive board. I open …”

“I nominate Mister Strife, as my designee, for the position of President,” said Crumly, driving a lyrical stake into Taylor’s authoritarian heart, and throwing the room into murmuring discord, a discord that made Strife want to dance with joy.

Buford Melancon’s face would have been pink with disgust were he not three shades darker than midnight.

Yet Buford said nothing, knowing that protesting against Mabel LeBlanc’s recurring raids on his restaurant’s larder, for the benefit of the street oddities she dragged in through the restaurant’s back door, was pointless. Though this was not the first street sleeper Mabel had dragged into the Hot Flames Rib House, it was the oddest of the bunch. Buford wiped his hands on an already bar-b-que sauce coated apron, frowning with pity-laced resentment as Mabel and Albertine propped Hunger up in a chair in the restaurant’s kitchen.

“Now, Buford,” Mabel began, using a voice that held the half-endearing tone of a mildly scolding mother, and the other half stoked with fire-and-brimstone evangelism. “Blessed are they which do hunger.”

Buford declined to get angry at Mabel. Raised like she in the ragged tip of the bible belt, he had heard scripture enough to know that Mable truncated this beatitude for her own purposes, namely to take a free meal from Buford’s kitchen and insert it into the belly of yet another derelict. She had done this several times to Buford, as well as every other imported southern restaurateur in their low-rent corner of Portland.

Buford’s silence caused Mabel to turn away from Hunger’s slumped frame, and fully face Buford, hands on her hips, threateningly heaving her 48-H breasts up from their normal gravity-impaired direction. Buford could not quite contain a testy grunt before retreating toward his stoves.

“And put some of those ribs on the plate,” Mabel insisted. “He needs some meat on his bones.” Albertine nodded in agreement with both Mabel’s direction and Buford’s objection.

Hunger was nearing consciousness when Buford returned with a plater occupied with his specialty sucre et salž pork ribs and two slabs of corn bread, large and dense enough to be used for masonry work. Buford held back for an instant, then stepped one foot closer to the table in an attempt to serve Hunger while simultaneously staying as far away from him as possible. He slid the plate onto the table, and with a bookend grunt of disgust, went back to his boiling pots, flaming stove and grease coated floor.

Mable risked knocking Hunger off his chair as she and her breasts swung clockwise toward him. She motioned to a reluctant Albertine, compelling her to assist. Mable gently patted Hunger’s face and wiped away a lingering doughnut crumb, while Albertine removed her lace gloves and, using a paper napkin, picked up one of the thicker ribs on the plate.

“Come on Honey Chile. We’s goin’ to helps. Just open wide. Albertine’s gots you some good eatin’.”

Nearly comatose from his fat and sugar Voodoo Doughnut high, Hunger auto-reflexively, absentmindedly did what he was told, his jaw falling open and his forked, Gene Simmons scale tongue tumbling out. Albertine was revolted, and turned her head as far away as she could from the sight of Hunger’s open gob while still maintaining adequate aim. Mabel was less squeamish to the visuals, noticing instead that for a homeless person, Hunger lacked horrendous halitosis and had amazing white and nearly perfect teeth. Several millennia of not eating anything had provided Hunger some collateral benefits.

Hunger’s eyelids twitched before the succulent pork loin rib entered his mouth, because the aroma had entered his nose first. He jerked a little, his mind in raging conflict beneath his otherwise insensate state. Hunger’s lizard brain recognized the smell of food and, due to complete indoctrination for his mission and thus from his convictions, that part of his brain was appalled. Yet a more primitive piece of his psyche, something deeper and more ancient than even the limited logic of his limbic cortex, that part smelled ambrosia. His nostrils pre-processed fats still fresh from deceased swine, complex spices, sweetness of tomatoes and brown sugar, and a myriad of other things that Hunger wished to deny mankind. Hunger had programmed his brain to decline even bread, but nothing had prepared him to confront Cajun influence bar-b-que ribs fresh from the slaughter house and kitchen.

Albertine’s hand shook slightly as the plump rib reached the boundaries of Hunger’s thin lips, the bottom arch of the pork rib making contact with Hunger’s protruding tongue. Albertine then screamed as if her limited time on earth had come to an abrupt halt, for Hunger’s eyes flew wide open while his teeth and lips closed bear-trap like on the rib and dangerously close to Albertine’s fingertips. With a long, sloppy, sickening slurping sound theretofore unheard except near clogged sewer pipes, Hunger sucked every fiber of porcine muscle, all remnants of sinew, and each molecule of sauce off the rib, leaving the bone as perfectly clean as his teeth had been moments before.

The three froze in astonishment, Albertine waving a stained napkin like a bloodied flag of surrender at the tip of a dead pig’s lower rib peeking out of Hunger’s puckered lips. Hunger’s eyes were ablaze, focused on nothing as his mind focused on sensations beyond his comprehension. He raced to correlate the conflicting aspects of his assignment and his newly appetizing awareness. His eyes rapidly jutted from side to side, looking directly into the gaze of Mable, then Albertine, then Mabel. Hunger drew one long, steady inhale, then spit the pork bone from his lips with a force that propelled it across the kitchen, slamming loudly into the tin ventilation canopy over Buford’s stove, ricocheting off a dangling stock pot, and landing with a wall-covering splash in a simmering cauldron.

“Damn it!” Buford shouted loudly enough for his patrons in the main dining room to hear. “Now I have to make a whole new batch of beans and rice, woman!”

Mable easily ignored Buford. Hunger had not moved any part of his body aside from his jaw and his eyes. His mouth was wide open and both eyes bolted back and forth between the women, painfully mimicking both a needy child and a starving baby bird. Hunger had provisionally decided that it did no harm to risk another rib, rationalizing that knowing what the food of the Gods tasted like – for certainly, only God could conceive of something as delicious as Buford Melancon’s Hot Flame Ribs – could only amplify his cruelty in inflicting want and famine upon the world.

“Well?”, Mable started, looking to Albertine, then to Hunger and back again with a rapidity nearing how Hunger looked at the two women. “Give that boy another rib.”

Albertine, simultaneously fearful of losing a finger or two in the process, but grateful that she had not abandoned the soiled paper napkin, hesitantly selected another rib from the plate and inched it toward Hunger’s mouth. This time there was no violent reaction, no sudden movement. Instead, Hunger’s eyes and lips closed tandem. The corners of his mouth lifted. Hunger purred.

“There are people dying who have never died before,” Michael quipped as he piloted the Cadillac past a cemetery outside of Flagler.

“Looks like a popular place,” Faith replied, unaware of how dangerously close she came to tempting a pun from Michael. And a pun nearly erupted, but Michael thought better of it, more inclined to continue his metaphysical musings.

“So, there is supposed life and after life. Eternal life. Life without end, even after the End Times.”

“Sounds boring to me.”

“Really? Boring?”

“Sure,” Faith said with calm conviction. “At least in the Heaven they described in Sunday School.”

“Which, by the way, is an evil idea.”

“Heaven?”

“No. School on a Sunday. What kid wants to go to school on his day off?”

Faith smiled in agreement before saying, “Sure. But all that harp playing, chorus singing, embraced by God’s love. That would get dull pretty fast.”

“Hell might be a little more exciting. At least you’d meet some really interesting folks, though you would still have to deal with a fair amount of the clergy.”

“I’ve always liked the idea of reincarnation.”

“But you are a fairly enlightened human. If you reincarnated, you risk coming back in a higher state.”

“Good. I’ll come back as a horse.”

Michael smiled broadly, sensing that like far too many women, Faith might be horse crazy. This was not a sin per se, but he knew that any smart woman forced to choose between a man and a horse will kick the man to the curb and saddle-up.

“Heaven, Hell and horses aside,” Michael began. “Is there in fact eternal life? Boring or not. Do we not die, but transform to some other aspect of ourselves?”

“What else do prophets have to offer?” Michael was stunned by her insight. “When you look at their histories, most of them were poor and persecuted. The only thing they could give their believers was …”

“Belief.”

“Yes, but a belief that it was all going to be good over the long run. That they would eventually get the basic stuff of a pleasant existence. Safety, food, peace.”

“Blessed are the have-nots, for they shall be the haves.”

“You are a cynical man, Mister.”

“Nah. I’m just an evangelist in the Church of Reality. But I think you are on to something. The prophets of every generation appealed to basic needs, the floor of Maslow’s teepee. The only people who lacked those basics were the poor, the uneducated, the desperate.”

“The easily led.”

“Or misled.”

“That’s why Heaven is so boring. By the standards of the poor masses, just a lack of hurt was a step up.”

“Wow. Religion really is the opiate of the masses. But then again, so is television.”

Faith fell silent at the mention of television, and the scenes from New York which she witnessed back at the Horseman Bar and Grill, scenes she had instinctively, and for no logical reason she could conjure, had kept Michael from seeing. She was puzzled by her own behavior. She didn’t know what had been on the screen but knew that things would not go well if Michael caught sight of it. Perhaps it was this spiritual enlightenment quest of his. The spooky sights from New York could quell his desire to believe that there was something worth believing. Or it might even cause him to change plans and directions, and head straight for New York. Either way, it was an unpleasant end to what had been a pleasant adventure.

“It is hard to believe that there is life after death,” she added.

“Some days it is hard to believe there is life after birth.”

“Another commentary about the wasteland of American society?”

“Yes, but about the way people treat life. No introspection, no adventure, no grand embrace of the unknown. But people are willing to embrace the unknowable and avoid the rest.”

“I think people like the notion of life after death mainly because it skips the death part.”

“Canceling the biggest change they’ll ever face, eh?”

“Yes. Death is scary.”

“True. It is the big unknown. But that is what makes it interesting. What exactly is the nature of death? Where does death take us?”

The Greyhound ticket agent never batted an eye at anything. Not at the deranged psychopath who went on a stabbing spree several years ago. Not at the parade of booze and narcotic fueled transients in route to nowhere. Not at the vagrants, hookers, deadbeats, refugees, runaways, and various societal debris.

Not even the towering, black leather wearing, blood splattered, winged helmeted man and his more squatty Italian friend.

“Yeh, my goombah here needs a ticket,” Angelo said to the disinterested Greyhound employee.

“Destination?” she nasally rasped.

“Hey, bub …”

“I’m not Belzabub,” Death repeated with more annoyance than anger in his voice. New Jersey and Angelo were getting on Death’s nerves.

“Yeh, sure. Where did you want to go again?”

“Lebanon,” Death replied in the darkest voice he could still muster.

“Right, that’s right,” Angelo said before turning back to the ticket agent. “He wants to go to Lebanon. In Kansas. Not the one where all the shooting is happening, ya know.”

For the briefest of instances, the ticket agent found interest in her passenger. She had sent America’s poor nomads to many locations, most well-known, others not so much. She had even once arranged a complex route to get a passenger close to their final destination of Two Egg, Florida – a berg of no distinction and thus no bus station. So today, quite by surprise, she was confronted with the previously unknown Lebanon, Kansas.

Her not-quite sense of joy vanished as soon as her computer screen confirmed her suspicion.

“We don’t service Lebanon, Kansas. We can take him to Lebanon, Missouri.”

“No.”

“Lebanon, New Hampshire.”

Angelo looked over his shoulder, and when he saw that Death was distracted by grinding a formerly fat pigeon under his boot, said to the ticket agent “Okay. He’ll fall for that.”

“Today’s busses to Lebanon, New Hampshire are booked. I can put him on the twelve forty-five tomorrow.”

“Christ …”

“Who speaks that name?” Death demanded, suddenly distracted from his dead and formerly avian victim.

“Nothin’. Just talkin’ to the lady here.” Once Death had started scanning the sidewalk for more pigeons, he said to the agent “That ain’t going to cut it. What do you have going to Kansas? Today. Get him near this damn Lebanon joint.”

“We have an eleven-twenty to Junction City.”

“Close to Lebanon?”

“No. About 150 miles.”

Angelo looked back to Death, scanned his frame from helmet to hoof, and decided Death was healthy enough for the hike.

“Sure. Sure. Let’s do that thing. What was it? Jackass City?”

“Junction City, departing at eleven-twenty.”

“Okay. Good. One ticket to Junction City Freakin’ Kansas.”

“That will be Two hundred, forty-two dollars.”

“Two hundred, forty-two fuckin’ dollars?! Jesus H. Christ …”

“Who speaks that name?” Death demanded again, but with less vigor as he tired of the recurring process.

“Nothin’ strunz. Hey look, another bird.” Angelo pointed to nothing, betting Death would seek a new kill anyway.

“Look, sweetcakes. Where can I send boombots here for, say, sixty clams?”

The agent did not bother to reference her computer. A sixty-dollar fare was frequently the financial limit of her customers. She knew by heart every sub-one-hundred-dollar fare from Maine, to South Carolina, to Indiana. She also knew which route was going to be lightly traveled due to decreasing popularity.

“Cleveland.”

Angelo did not hesitate. “Okay. Cleveland. Here’s sixty.”

“Sixty-seven twenty five with tax and state fees.”

“Jes …” Angelo caught himself mid-swear. “Fine, here’s another ten. That bus. When is it leavin’?”

The ticket agent glanced at her departure board and said, “In about five minutes. Gate three. Here’s his ticket and thank you for …”

Angelo did not hear the rest of the agent’s insincere and corporately defined expression of commercial gratitude. Instead, he spun about and grabbed Death’s attention before grabbing his sleeve, sensing that sudden and unexpected physical contact with Death might be violently reciprocated.

“Come on bub …”

Death started to protest before deciding it simply was no longer worth the effort.

“Over here. Number three,” Angelo said while all but dragging Death to a Greyhound bus.

“Ticket please,” the driver said standing guard at the bus door, looking up at Death and deciding that this tall passenger was going to be very uncomfortable for the next ten hours.

Angelo handed the ticket over to the driver, saying “My pal here. His English ain’t so good, ya know. And, well, he’s a little loose in the gab, know what I mean. You know. Veteran thing.”

The bus driver looked at Death, unsure if his accouterments were military issue or not. War-like, but unlike the desert-sand colored field wear he had seen every other soldier wear through America’s bus depots in recent years.

“The sword,” he said, holding out his hand.

Death responded, throwing his chest out defensively reaching for and extracting the sword in a single, smooth, swift motion, lifting it up and preparing to end the life of anyone who dared take it from him.

The Greyhound driver did not bother flinching, this not being the first nor even the ninth time a passenger had drawn a long blade on him. Years of careening down American highways had eliminated the bus driver’s fear of death itself. And had Death swung his sword, the driver was fully prepared to pull his snub-nosed thirty-eight, an item strictly prohibited by company policy, a policy that every driver ignored.

“TSA regulations and company policy prohibit the carrying or transport of weapons inside the vehicle. I can put it in the baggage compartment until you arrive at your destination,” the driver said, pointing to the open cargo doors.

Death didn’t move a muscle, still determined to kill something, though killing the driver presented obvious complications.

“Hey, you want to get to Cleveland, no?” Angelo asked.

“Cleveland?” Death was confused, never heard the word before.

“I mean Lebanon,” Angelo unartfully corrected. “This bus will take you to Lebanon. It goes through Cleveland first, but it will get you to Lebanon.”

The driver said nothing, having heard similar curbside lies too many times to care.

Death was not happy, but not inflexible. He was, after all, the agent of carnage. The master of destruction. Slaughter’s broker. He did not need his sword to massacre millions. He could do without his sword for the few minutes he mistakenly thought the trip to Lebanon, Kansas would take.

Hesitantly, slowly, regretfully he handed the sword to the bus driver who nearly dropped it due to its unexpected weight.

“I’ll get him seated while you take care of that thing,” Angelo said. The bus driver nodded as Angelo put a firm palm to the small of Death’s back and nudged him into the awaiting Greyhound. Once aboard, the driver called over a depot worker. After a quick discussion and a magician-like, invisible passing of folded bills to the driver, the worker headed away from the bus, sword in hand and in the general direction of a nearby pawn shop.