Have you seen them out there? They’re everywhere now. Everywhere there’s an accident or a disaster,
you can see them, grinning their evil little blue grins. The last place I saw one was on TV, in a
crowd of people watching the multiple contrails of the doomed space shuttle as
it flew to pieces over
Of course, I’m a little different. I always have been. I think I have some kind of powers. I see things that other people don’t see. When I was a kid, I believed I had a trail of energy tubes which flowed behind me as I walked. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. Sometimes, when I got lost, like at a department store or something, I could just follow my energy tubes back to familiar surroundings. I used to go down to the basement of the house and would enjoy getting them all tangled up in all the junk down there. They would get so stretched out that I could hardly move. I would have to wait for hours for the energy to evaporate. That was okay, though, because I would be sure and bring a book, usually some science fiction. I would sit down in the cool basement, reading and waiting, feeling occasionally for my tangled energy tubes, as their emanations got slowly fainter and fainter.
I brought the subject up with my oldest brother, Danny, who was twelve when I was seven. I told him about my energy trail. He laughed and said I was crazy. People don’t have trails. What are you, nuts? I laughed along with him, and told him it was a joke. I idolized Danny. I didn’t want him to think I was nuts. Thereafter, my energy tubes were my very own deep dark secret. I never told a single soul about them, until now. Now it doesn’t matter. Everybody thinks I’m nuts anyway. But I’m not. I’m the only sane person on the planet.
Actually, maybe not the only one. The shrink they assigned to me, Dr. Parvey, is pretty sane. She believes me. She and Preacher Sam were the only people who ever believed me. Preacher Sam I’ll tell you about later, right now I’m talking about Dr. Parvey. No matter how outrageous the things I say, she says she believes me. I even started making things up, just to see if she would believe me. She did. She’s a very trusting soul. She’s also very pretty. I think I might be falling in love with her. I haven’t told her that. But someday I’m going to, once I get up the nerve. Maybe I’ll ask her to join me in a cup of coffee. I’d offer to buy her a beer but we’re not allowed alcoholic beverages here.
Ronnie the orderly is a different story. He makes fun of me all of the time. He sneaks up behind me and yells “Look out, Henry, it’s a little blue man!” I’m a little uptight in this place, and when Ronnie does that I jump a mile. I reported him to the floor supervisor, Mrs. Rumstadt, but she didn’t believe me. She says Ronnie is a nice young man and wouldn’t do such a thing. That’s a big problem here, nobody believes me. Mrs. Rumstadt says I’m like the boy who cried wolf. Nobody believes me anymore. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t that story involve a kid who told lies all the time, and when the one time came when he was telling the truth, nobody believed him? So I don’t see how that story applies to me. I tell the truth all the time.
On the other hand, Ronnie lies most of the time. When I complained to Mrs. Rumstadt about his behavior, he looked at her with the most innocent look in his eyes and shook his head, kind of sad like a lost puppy. It made me so mad. I told Dr. Parvey about Ronnie. She believed me. That made me feel a lot better. I wanted to ask her what I could do about Ronnie scaring me, but she changed the subject and I forgot to ask her. I guess I’ll ask her the next time I have a session with her, if I remember. The problem is that whenever I have a session with her, I just get lost looking into her eyes and imagining what it would be like. You know, *it*.
At night I have fantasies about Dr. Parvey. We’re doing *it*. Every which way. She is so prim and proper when we have our sessions. She speaks in this “teacher” voice and uses big words like “association” and “management”. I don’t always understand what she says. But at night, she’s a different person. She’s like, insistent. You know what I mean? Oh, I fully understand her at night. She makes herself perfectly clear. I let her tender hand guide me to a soft slumber.
Ah, but my ecstasy is never to last. My nights are almost always interrupted by
dreams – nightmares about the Blue Imps.
That’s what I call them. They
torment me. They poke at me. They steal my things and hide them. They say the most awful things to me. They say nasty things; they suggest things I
don’t even understand. They use words I
don’t know, not like Dr. Parvey, but short ugly
little words. Words in some other
language that is harsh and brutal. I
usually wake up at
I told Dr. Parvey about the Blue Imps and the nightmares. She prescribed some sleeping pills for me. I don’t like to take them because I don’t dream when I take them, and I heard somewhere that dreaming is healthy. So usually when they bring me my sleeping pills, I tongue them and spit them out when I’m alone. I have a large collection of sleeping pills in my shaving kit, and who knows, they might come in handy some sleepless night.
I saw the first Blue Imp the day after 911. I was going to work, along the road I’ve used
a thousand times. I was crying. I had enough to cry about. My mom had died a few weeks before. Some shitty assholes had blown up those
buildings in
There’s one house in old-town that burned up a couple of years ago. Since then, it has just sat there, all black and broken down, and nobody lives there anymore. My mom kept saying it was a shame; it was an eyesore; they should either rebuild it or just tear it down. But nobody does. Someone told me there were some dead burned up bodies in it. I had never seen a dead body before, especially a burned up one. So I went up there one night with a flashlight and checked it out. I snuck in and poked around on the first floor. I couldn’t go upstairs because the stairs had collapsed. I didn’t see any burned up bodies. At least not human. I saw a dead bird, but it didn’t look like it was burned. But then I told you I have never seen a burned up body, so I couldn’t tell you for sure if it was burned or not. It was ugly, that’s for sure.
As I was poking about in the wreckage inside the house, I had a strange feeling. I’ve told you that I thought I had powers, and this was another one I had. I would get this – feeling. I can’t explain what kind of feeling. Dr. Parvey keeps asking me to describe it; it’s important to be in touch with your feelings. But I can’t except to say that it’s not like anything I usually feel. She calls it an “intuition”. At any rate, whenever I get this feeling, it’s an omen that something’s going to happen. Usually, it’s something surprising; like a flock of birds exploding out of their hiding place as you approach. One time, I got the intuition feeling and then I heard the screech of car tires and then a teeth rattling crash of metal and glass as two cars collided.
Well, I had the intuition that day in the burned out house, in spades. It was the strongest I had ever felt it. It was so strong I decided I had to get out of there. As I was leaving, I found that body I had been looking for. I tripped over it. I started scrambling on my hands and knees, struggling to get away from that body, tearing myself up on the debris on the floor. All of a sudden the body reached up and grabbed my ankle, and it was screaming and yelling bloody murder. I turned to see the body sit up. I started screaming. It was screaming. We were both screaming at each other, loud enough to wake the dead. I realized that it was as scared of me as I was of it. The next moment I realized that it wasn’t a body, it was alive. It was just an old tramp, camped out in the old house. Still, I got out of there as fast as I could. The old man was smelly and dirty, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I never went in that house again, and never saw that old tramp either.
I was passing that very house, that horrible day after 911, when I saw my first Blue Imp. It was walking along the road in front of the old burned out house. As I approached, I thought it was a young boy because it was so small. But as I passed it, I got a better look. It had a boyish face, but was maybe a teenager or young adult. It wasn’t wearing a shirt. It was wearing those white linen underpants like that Indian fellow used to wear. It had long black hair, tied back into a severe pony tail. It had a pouch of some kind on a strap over its shoulder. As I passed, I got a quick, fleeting glance at its face. Its face was painted in blue colors, horizontal stripes across its face like Indian war paint. Its face had vaguely Asiatic features. It was just a quick impression. It was well behind me before the full impact of what I had seen hit me.
It was such a strange sight, I immediately began to doubt what I had seen. You just didn’t see such sights in this southern town. Sure, we had a thriving population of Indians, but none of them ever walked around half naked with painted faces. Dr. Parvey says it was an over-active imagination brought on by anxiety over the horrible events of the day before. I don’t know about that, but I was freaked out all day. The image of that war-painted fellow seemed to be burned into my memory.
I went on to work, but my mind wasn’t into it. I messed up two of my morning deliveries. I thought Mr. Butner was going to have a heart attack. I know he was that close to firing my sorry ass. Fortunately, these customers were good people. I had been delivering to them for years. They were very understanding and told me not to worry. But Butner tore me a new asshole, he was so pissed. After Butner reamed me, I went back out in my truck. I managed to finish my deliveries without messing up.
I went home. It seemed so empty without Mom. I missed her terribly. It’s so hard, living with someone for so long and then, all of a sudden, they’re gone. I didn’t know how I was going to go on living. That night, I had the first of my nightmares. I dreamed I was in a furniture store. It was a huge warehouse of a furniture store. It just didn’t end. I kept walking and walking but I couldn’t find my way out. I walked mile after mile past living room sets, bedroom sets, dinette sets, and bookcases. It was all dark, with just enough light to avoid tripping over vaguely sensed shapes. If only I could find the exit, but I couldn’t.
There was something following me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I had this definite sense of dread. It was my intuition, coming in strong. Whatever was coming was going to cause a huge sensation, a disaster, a cataclysm. I kept moving through the aisles of furniture. I wanted to run, but there was not enough light to run. I walked faster and faster, and I started stumbling over things – footrests, steps up onto platforms, steps back down to the floor. I could hear breathing behind me. I was beginning to despair. I felt something – it was my energy tubes. They had gotten tangled; I had been running in circles. It was getting harder to walk, as my tubes stretched tighter and tighter in the tangle of furniture. I finally reached the point where I couldn’t walk at all. It required maximum effort to lift my foot up, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I felt so tired. I opened my mouth to scream out, but I couldn’t talk! I wanted to tell whatever was following me to leave me alone, but all that came out of my mouth was a stream of bellows like a cow getting slaughtered.
I finally tripped over my tangled tubes and could go no more. I turned to look back. There, looking down at me, was the Blue Imp I had seen that morning. Only it had horns on its head, and its eyes were an ugly red. It was coming closer and closer, and it was saying something to me; talking to me in that harsh language it used. I wanted to scream at it to go away, but now all that was coming out of my mouth was an endless, primitive, and silent scream.
And then I woke up. I sat bolt upright in my bed. Sweat was pouring down my face. I was shaking. I was panting like a wolf. My heart was beating so hard it was threatening to explode right out of my chest. I sat there, letting the nightmare slowly fade into unreality, letting my breathing slow, letting my heartbeat go back to normal. I got up, watched the tube for a while, afraid to go back to sleep. After a couple hours, my fatigue got to me and I fell asleep in front of the TV. I got maybe 45 minutes of sleep before I got up groggy and head-achy for the next day of work. And that’s how it’s been, every night, for the last two years. Well, until I lost my job, and then ended up here. After that, I could at least go back to sleep for a couple hours.
I’m used to it now. I
sleep for maybe four hours until the nightmare wakes me up. I get up, read for a couple of hours, or
watch the tube, then sleep for another few hours until the nightmare wakes me
up again. Then, I’m ready to face the
new, shortened day. When Ronnie was
working the morning shift, he wouldn’t let me sleep late. He’d push me out of bed and onto the
floor. I’d drag myself around in a daze
until Ronnie left for the day, and then doze off. Now that Ronnie is working the middle shift,
I can sleep until about
My second encounter with a Blue Imp was actually over the Internet. Being a single fellow, and not much of a lady’s man to boot, I don’t get much action. I tend to get my thrills over the Internet, if you know what I mean. Well, one day I was perusing a site which featured orgies and gangbangs. I came across a page which chilled me to the bone. In the photo there, amidst all of the naked men and women, was a Blue Imp. This one seemed identical to the first – the young boyish face, the blue war paint, the bare chest, the white linen loin cloth, the pouch. This one was engaging in the activities everyone else was, except that it was doing it with another man, rather than a woman.
This disturbed me more than anything else. Until now, I could tell myself that it was my over-active imagination. I had not really seen a Blue Imp that day in front of the burned out house; it had just been some Indian kid running around without a shirt. He didn’t really have blue war paint. And the dreams, man, that was easily explained: I was just going crazy. But seeing that porn site with the Blue Imp right there in living color just blew me away. It was the real deal. I wasn’t going crazy. It wasn’t my imagination. Some guy had seen a Blue Imp at the orgy and taken pictures of it.
I put that site in my favorites list and went back to it the very next night, to see if the Blue Imp was still there. I fully intended on writing the photographer or the webmaster for the site. But my computer kept telling me that site didn’t exist. I never did see that site again. And I never again saw a Blue Imp on my computer. But I knew what I had seen. No matter what was to happen, it could not shake my conviction that the Blue Imps were real.
A couple of months passed. I was getting stressed out from sleep deprivation. I was making mistakes at work. Mr. Butner was getting more and more pissed at me. He thought I was retarded or something. He kept saying that he was going to find someone with half a brain, and then he’d throw me out on the street. The thing is, I used to be his star employee. I could do this job, but the thing was I was so spaced out from sleep deprivation I couldn’t cut it. I would be fine for a few hours, and then this overwhelming fatigue would come over me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d pull my truck over into a parking lot and grab a few winks. That would be enough to keep me going through the day, but I couldn’t concentrate. I’d forget to make deliveries. I’d bring my truck back still half-full of product. I’d have to catch up on my deliveries the next day, but the next day I’d be even more spacey. It was what Dr. Parvey calls a positive feedback loop, but I just called it a can’t-win-for-losing kind of day. Only it was happening every day, and I just seemed to be falling a little bit more behind every day.
I was driving around town one day; just kind of moping about. I pulled up to a street light, a light I always hated because it seemed to take forever. I always thought about timing that light and writing a letter to the city, but never got around to it. As I was sitting there waiting, I noticed a man on the corner, a black man who was handing out newspapers to drivers as they waited for the light. I started to put my window up, but something he said stopped me. Something about the devil, and demons, and hell fire. Something about what he said touched me in the core of my being.
He came up to my window. He was old, with grey hair and wrinkled skin. But he had an energy that made him seem younger. “Have you seen the devil, brother? He’s here, and he’s catching up sinners and throwing them into the pit. The devil and his minions are here, and they’re going to ruin you if you don’t repent. “
He kept on talking as he dropped his newspaper into my open window. He was asking for a donation for his church. I told him “wait” and drove forward as the light changed. I turned right at the light and pulled into the parking lot from which he was preaching. I jumped out, and pulling ten bucks out of my wallet I headed out to the preacher where he stood by the side of the road. He was resting his voice until the light changed again, waiting to turn unsuspecting drivers into his unwilling congregation. I gave him the ten dollars, for which he blessed me. I hardly knew where to begin.
“What do they look like?” I asked. “The devil’s minions, that is”.
“Oh, they look just like you and me”, he replied. “Only they’re ugly as hell and they got warts and things all over them. You can tell they’re demons because they say awful, unholy things. Believe me, brother, if you’re righteous you can tell a demon from a mile off.”
“I think I’ve seen some”, I said. “They didn’t have warts or anything, but they did say awful things. And they had paint on their faces.”
“Now you’re talking about whores, son, and whores are evil but they ain’t demons.”
“No, these demons were male. But they didn’t wear a shirt, even on cold days, and they wore these white bunchy underpants and sandals and they had blue paint all over their faces.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense, my friend. You’re saying you saw a bunch of Injuns on the warpath, and they was wearing war paint? You been watching too much TV, my friend.”
“No, I swear to you”, I said. “I’m telling you the truth. Please believe me. I’ve seen them. I think they’re the devil’s minions. That’s the only thing they could be. You just said they’re everywhere, and now I’m telling you I’ve seen them.”
“Relax, brother, I hear you. You’ve seen the devil’s minions. Okay, I believe you. You’re a fortunate soul. Most people can’t see them. You must be touched by the hand of the lord. Son, let’s go get a cup of coffee, warm up, and talk about it some more.”
So that’s how I got to know Preacher Sam. We went over to the convenience store on the corner, had a cup of coffee, and talked about the Devil and his minions. I was so happy that there was somebody I could talk to about it. I told him all about the blue imps, the first sighting, the porn site, and the dreams. I even told him about my intuitions and my energy tubes. Preacher Sam didn’t say much, just listened carefully. Finally, I finished telling the whole story.
“Son, you’re going to have to come to church tomorrow. I want you to testify to my congregation. I want them to hear your story. I want them to know that there’s demons running loose among us. I want them to fear for their souls, and you can strike that fear into their hearts. Would you do that for me? Would you do that for your own soul?”
I told him I would. I
got the address and went home excited and optimistic for the first time in a
long time. I could hardly sleep, but
when I did I slept all night without a single nightmare. I woke up early the next morning, well before
the
I arrived fifteen minutes early, hoping to get in a word with Preacher Sam before the service started. I thought I had the address wrong. The address was in a residential section, and when I got there, I found there wasn’t any church, it was just someone’s house. I began to think I’d been had. I sat there in my car thinking it over. But I saw a couple walk up to the house, and Preacher Sam opened the door and let them in. So I figured this must be the place, and I guess they can have church services in a house as easily as they can in a church. So I got out of my car and marched up to the door.
“Brother Henry!” he exclaimed when he opened the door to my knock. “Come on in, let me introduce you around. This here’s Brother Kevin”, pointing to a large, mean looking black man. He was apparently an assistant preacher or something, dressed up all in black like Preacher Sam. “This here’s Brother Dewey and Sister Edwina”, pointing to the black couple I’d seen walking in before me. He went on with the introductions to the others, about fifteen or so people. I forgot most of the names, except for Brother Bruce, on account of the fact that he was the only white man there beside myself. Everybody was very nice, and made me feel very welcome. I felt very shy, and didn’t feel much like chatting. I most certainly did not feel like testifying to the congregation like Preacher Sam had said he wanted me to do. I wanted to tell him that, but he wanted to get things started.
“Okay, brothers and sisters, let’s find a seat and get this show on the road. I want to formally welcome Brother Henry to the congregation.” At that, there was a faint chorus of greetings from the folks there, and one hallelujah. “We’ll get to know Brother Henry real well as time goes on, but right now, I want to talk about sin. I want to talk about the devil.” There ensued a slightly louder chorus of agreement from the congregation. “I want to talk about the devil and his minions, and the savior and his angels, can I have an amen?” Excited amens erupted from a few of the folks. Preacher Sam picked up the tempo, and his voice acquired a sing-song quality, and the folks were swaying to the rhythm as the sermon progressed.
He was good, I’ll tell you that. It wasn’t no boring sermon like the kind I was used to, back when Mom and me used to go to church every Sunday and sit on those hard pews for hours as Reverend Blackwell droned on. Most of the men would be half asleep, their heads drooping down more and more, until finally they would wake with a snort, sit up real fast, and pay attention for half a minute before they started drooping again. Nope, at Preacher Sam’s service, you didn’t have time to be bored. Preacher Sam wouldn’t let you fall asleep. His service was too busy, too full of amens and hallelujahs, for you to nod off. Why, there was even one point where Sister Edwina jumped out of her seat and started dancing and swaying.
I kept waiting in dread for Preacher Sam to ask me to testify. I didn’t want to talk to these strangers about the Blue Imps. It was something I thought best left between him and me. His sermon was all about the devil and his demons and how to recognize them. How to pick him out of a crowd by the way he shifted his eyes and the foul language he used and his cruel treatment of others. He didn’t say anything about blue war paint, but then again I’m glad he didn’t, because if he had mentioned it I would have had to testify, and I didn’t want to.
He started asking if we’d seen the devil. Sister Edwina cried out that she had seen the
devil last night, out pimping his whores over on
I didn’t want to answer. “Brother Henry, have you seen demons?” I started to shake my head. “Brother Henry” he yelled out in a powerful voice. “Have you seen his imps and his familiars?” he was practically screaming. I couldn’t deny him.
“Yes”, I screamed. “I’ve seen his imps! I’ve seen them! They have blue war paint and black hair and they don’t wear shirts, and they wear bundled up underwear like diapers! They say horrible, nasty things and they pick at me and pinch me and push me around!” There, it was out, let the others laugh and call me crazy. But they didn’t. They shouted out “Amen”. They told me to “tell it like it is, Brother Henry”. They slapped me on the back. Sister Edwina hugged me.
“You all say you’ve seen the devil”, Preacher Sam went on relentlessly. A chorus of “Yeays” and “Um-Hmm” came from the flock. Sweat was pouring off his face now, more sweat than any man could possibly produce.
“Then what you going to do about it?” screamed Preacher Sam.
“We gonna pray”, they said in unison.
“What else you gonna do?”
“We gonna sing praise to our lord!”
“Then let’s sing!” Everybody stood, and Brother Kevin punched a button on a CD player and organ music started pouring out. Everybody started singing a hymn. I didn’t know the words or the tune, so I just stood there and swayed to the music. It was an old time gospel tune, and its melody was infectious. I felt good. I really felt like I belonged. I had overcome my fear and had testified. Maybe it wasn’t winning over the congregation like Preacher Sam had thought it would, but it was a step in the right direction. I felt energized, like maybe I was full of God and the imps would now leave me and my dreams alone.
There was much more to the service, news and business and more hymns and more preaching. But it finally ended, and we all lined up to shake hands with Preacher Sam and Brother Kevin. As I shook hands with Preacher Sam, he told me “stick around, Brother Henry, you and I got work to do.” I nodded and moved on to Brother Kevin. As he was shaking my hand, he leaned over and said quietly to me, in a soft voice that nobody heard but me, “You crazy as a loon, motherfucker.”
Those words immediately knocked me down off my high of euphoria. He could have physically struck me and not had as extreme an effect on me. I stood there sulking as I waited for Preacher Sam to shake hands with the remaining people. Finally, they all left. Preacher Sam slapped Brother Kevin on the back and shepherded him out the door. He shot me a menacing scowl as he left.
Preacher Sam left the room and came back with a bundle of newspapers. “Well, don’t just stand there, grab a bundle of papers and let’s get ourselves down to the corner. We got some sellin’ and savin’ to do.”
I grabbed a bundle and followed Preacher Sam out the door to his car. He tossed his bundle in the back seat, and I did the same. He motioned for me to get in the passenger side. I did so, and he got in on the driver’s side and we took off. We went to the corner where I had first seen him yesterday. On the way, Preacher Sam was all business, telling me what to say to the folks in their cars at the stoplight. He told me he didn’t expect me to be a preacher, that he just wanted me to sell newspapers. I was glad about that because I ain’t no preacher, never have been and never will be.
That’s how I started my sellin’ and savin’ on that street corner downtown. At first I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just hold my newspapers up to the folks in their cars when they stopped at the stoplight. I could hear Preacher Sam across the street, hollering and carrying on about salvation and jesus, and damnation and the devil. I took a look at the newspapers, and they were about all about salvation and damnation. I didn’t read much of it; I could get all the preaching I wanted direct from the source.
Occasionally, some driver would roll down their window and say something to Preacher Sam. Sometimes they would give him money in exchange for the newspaper. Quite often, those people would turn up at the next Sunday’s services. More often, people would roll up their windows as they came up to the stoplight, and lock their doors. They would get this blank look on their faces and stare straight ahead as if we didn’t exist just outside their car in the cold.
We spent all that winter of 2001, Saturdays and Sundays, hawking those newspapers. We’d go down after the sermon and start, and go on all afternoon. Afterward, Preacher Sam and I would warm up at the convenience store with a cup of coffee. We’d talk about religious things, but we’d also talk about other things – politics and world news and the like. Preacher Sam was the most opinionated man when it came to those subjects; I learned a lot. He was always preaching, even when he wasn’t in church.
He was the most persuasive man I have ever met. I remember one day I watched the president on the TV as he talked about war. He was a hard and determined man and he was on a mission. He wanted to destroy evil. I came away from that speech convinced that war was the only course of action left to us. Sunday came, and I was eager to talk to Preacher Sam about my convictions. After sellin’ and savin’, while we were warming up, I had my chance. I brought up the subject, and told him about my thoughts.
Preacher Sam just looked at me as I talked. He had this kind of sad look on his face. When I was done, he launched on me.
“Brother Henry, what do you know about war and killing and
bombing? You told me yourself, you never
served in the armed forces. I did, in
“Most of those men would end up thieving and killing because it didn’t matter to them anymore. Thieving was no longer a sin to them. Killing was just a way of making a living, there was no more commandments for these men other than to make a buck. Some would end up pushing drugs, others would pimp whores, others would just end up in the street, homeless and aimless and with no desire for anything in life but unable to end it. Others would end up in prison, and if you ain’t lost your soul yet from war, you will by the time you get out of that hell hole.”
“Brother Henry, have you ever seen a picture of what a bomb does to a human body? Have you ever seen a blackened husk and marveled that it was once a living, breathing, human being but is now burnt to a crisp, and missing arms and legs and maybe half its head? I have. I saw a mother and child like that. I will never forget that image as long as I live.”
I thought about the burned out house and the supposed burned up body in it. I thought it best not to say anything. Preacher Sam was on a tear.
“Now Bush thinks the way to stop all the terrorism is to kill people. That is pure evil, soulless thinking. Some people think its all about oil. Those people I pity, because they are so cynical they can only see the world in terms of money and oil. Naw, I think Bush is sincere in his explanations. But that doesn’t make him any less evil. A man who is both sincere and evil is the biggest threat you can face.”
He said a lot more, but I’m not going to repeat it all. But I tell you one thing, he turned my opinions right around. He had that gift. He always seemed to know the right things to think. I mean, it was partly a matter of his own conscience. Everybody can do that, everybody can look in their own soul to see what’s right and wrong. But he had the courage to apply his convictions without fail. He would not let practical matters sway him. He would not let others convince him against his own judgement.
Preacher Sam was a good man. He did a lot of good in an evil world. He saved me, I know that. All during the time I attended his services and helped him with sellin’ and savin’, not once did I have one of my nightmares. Not once. I was beginning to think I was cured. All it took was a little old time religion. But, as Preacher Sam was frequently fond of saying: “There ain’t no curin’, there’s only various stages of healin’”.
The congregation grew to fifty, then seventy five. We had long since abandoned Preacher Sam’s house, and had moved to a dance hall downtown, the one that is on the third floor of the building that holds the downtown food court. The rent was cheap. We had to bring our own chairs. It was cold that winter, and as spring came and then summer, it was sweltering. That didn’t stop the people from coming, and the congregation was now almost a hundred souls. There were more whites now, for which I was a little grateful. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not prejudiced or anything, but I’m just a little more comfortable around my own kind.
It was around this time that I lost my job. Mr. Butner was very sorry, said that I had turned myself around and was doing good work, but times were hard and he had to let me go. I went on unemployment, occasionally going out for temp work and doing just enough to keep the checks coming in. It was impossible to find a new job. Nobody was hiring, especially for my line of work, driving a delivery truck. I managed to hold on to my house, the one I had inherited from my mom, at least for a while. Until I ended up here.
I got bolder, and started to testify a lot more during services. I felt that I was helping Preacher Sam, in my own way, in getting his point across. Preacher Sam certainly didn’t mind. I was very careful when I testified. Everything was past tense; I used to see the demons. I didn’t see them no more, on account of setting off on the path of righteousnous. I could tell most of the flock thought I was crazy, but a few listened in rapt awe. I didn’t care. I was doing some good and using my experiences to help others. That’s all that mattered.
It was in the heat of summer, just after services, when I got the first hint of trouble. Most of the folks had left, but some were still standing around chatting. I was walking around gathering up trash. I went into the side room to get some more garbage bags. Sister Edwina was talking to some folks, and I stopped as I heard her mention my name. “Brother Henry is another one of Sam’s special projects, like Brother Kevin. Poor fella, thinks he’s seeing demons all the time.”
Now, the fact that she didn’t believe me didn’t particularly bother me. Nor did the fact that she thought I was still seeing demons bother me. But what did bother me was her pity, and the fact that she said I was some kind of special project. Like I was a charity case that Preacher Sam took on out of the goodness of his heart. That’s not what it was like at all. Preacher Sam had seen something in me, something that would help him tame his flock. I wasn’t no “special project”.
I was in a funk. I gathered up the trash in a plastic bag and took it downstairs and around back. There, in the alleyway, I saw Brother Kevin standing over the garbage can, and he was throwing up. “Brother Kevin”, I began, “Can I help you?”
“Get away from me, motherfucker, or I’ll break your scrawny neck.”
I dropped my trash bag right then and there and rushed back inside. The only two times Brother Kevin had ever spoken to me, he had called me a motherfucker. What was his problem? I decided to ask Preacher Sam about it.
“Don’t you go messin’ with Brother Kevin, Henry. He’s a mean one. He lost his soul in prison and he’s busy trying to grow himself a new one. That’s a painful process. He’s got a drug and drinkin’ problem he’s trying to lick. Best you stay clear.”
“Why are you messing around with him?” I asked. I was still pissed about what Sister Edwina had said. “I mean, he’s lost his soul, so he must be the devil’s man now. He’s a lost cause. Why are you trucking around with him?”
“Let me tell you something, Brother Henry. There ain’t no such thing as a lost cause. No matter how much a man has lost his soul, there’s always the possibility of him getting it back. Look at yourself, Brother Henry. When I first met you, you were as soulless as they get. You was dreamin’ demons every night. I didn’t give up on you, did I? Now you’re in pretty damn good shape. Now I didn’t save you, you saved yourself. I just showed you the right path back to your soul. You did all the rest. That’s what I’m doing with Brother Kevin. Just showing him the righteous path back to his soul. But its dangerous work, son. I can’t let anybody else take on the risk. It’s something I’ve got to do, because that’s my calling. But you, my friend, I tell you to just stay away from him.”
This was hard medicine to take. I was a charity case, after all. But somehow, coming from Preacher Sam, it was a little easier to take than coming from Sister Edwina. There wasn’t that element of pity in his attitude that she had, like I was some poor pitiful basket case. There was only compassion. My admiration for Preacher Sam grew a quantum leap that day. I still believed that he saw some value in me that day when we first met. I vowed that I would try to be as compassionate as he was, and to lead others on the righteous path, others who had gone astray and lost their souls. But I took his advice and stayed away from Brother Kevin. At least, I tried to.
It was difficult. There was the day Brother Kevin came to church drunk as a skunk. Preacher Sam just ignored him, and went on with his sermon. But the next Sunday his sermon was all about the evils of drugs and drink. Preacher Sam kept eyeing Brother Kevin the whole time he was preaching. After a while, Brother Kevin started getting this mean look in his face, like he was fixing to explode inside from rage. The service ended and Brother Kevin gave a long, menacing look at Preacher Sam, and then stomped out. Preacher Sam then stamped out, not even staying to shake hands with the flock. Everybody was flabbergasted.
The next Sunday, I woke up with my intuition tingling all over me. It was an intense vibration, like there was some machine inside my head spinning up to speed and screaming out in its shrill metallic voice. Something bad was going to happen today, sure as hell.
Brother Kevin showed up drunk again. Preacher Sam had started his sermon talking about ministries and going out and sellin’ and savin’. But as soon as he saw the shape Brother Kevin was in, he switched over and started preaching again about the evils of drink. The whole time, he stared straight at Brother Kevin. The congregation was now into it. Every word Preacher Sam threw at Brother Kevin, the folks would shout out an amen and a hallelujah and a ‘praise the lord’. Brother Kevin was getting madder and madder, and his face was getting red (something you don’t want to see in a black man).
It was like a battle. Like a battle between God and the devil. It was Armageddon. Only Preacher Sam was doing all the fighting, and Brother Kevin was just sitting there taking it. Sam was shouting now, and the flock was shouting along with him. I did my own shouting. Finally, Brother Kevin could take it no longer. He jumped up and staggered out. Preacher Sam sat down, wiping the dripping sweat off his face with a towel. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then another. Sister Edwina was in a trance, still dancing and swaying and amen’ing even though the preaching had stopped. Everyone was talking at once. Most were saying that they had witnessed a miracle, that Satan had been in their midst and that Preacher Sam had driven him away.
Me, I just thought that Preacher Sam was doing what he was called to do, trying to push a man back onto the righteous path. Only he had failed. I never saw him look so defeated as he did that day, sitting there with the towel draped over his head, with his eyes closed and a look of pain on his face. He sat there for the longest time. The flock started to get restless, wondering if the service was over or what. Finally, he gathered himself and brought the service to a quick close. He shook hands with the flock, and when all had left he and I prepared to go do our sellin’ and savin’.
On our respective corners, I looked over at him. He didn’t have his heart in it that day. His voice was not booming,
he was not speaking like the voice of God was in him. I wasn’t much into it either. Lately, I had taken to imitating some of his
style. You had to bark out your pitch,
“Come and get saved”, like you were a vendor at the ball park yelling out “
One car pulled up to my corner. I started holding up my paper, looking in to see if they had an interest or if they had locked their doors and were pretending I wasn’t there. There, on the passenger side nearest me, was a Blue Imp, sure as I’m sitting there. It was staring at me with soft brown eyes, a faint smile behind its blue face painted stripes. I was so surprised I dropped my bundle of papers. Then, I looked over to the driver’s side and there was Brother Kevin. I started yelling out “What the hell are you doing” but the light changed and the car sped off. I ran across the lanes of oncoming traffic to where Preacher Sam was staring at me in amazement. I breathlessly told him about the car and the Blue Imp and Brother Kevin.
“Holy shit, Brother Henry, you’ve done stepped off the path. You’re seeing them demons again. Let’s get you out of here.”
We went back to Preacher Sam’s house, back where it had all started, back where I had begun to believe I would never see the Blue Imps again. I was in shock. I was crying and moaning. I didn’t want it to start all over again. I didn’t want the nightmares. I had tried so hard to stay on the righteous path. I had been so careful. I had been so good. It wasn’t fair.
Preacher Sam got me some coffee, all the time saying soothing words trying to calm me down. He told me that I would find the path again. He told me this was just a temporary setback. He told me I was a strong man and would find my way, just to use my strength. I started calming down, the things he was saying were having their effects. I was listening to him. As usual, he knew what the right thing to do and say was. Preacher Sam may have failed with Brother Kevin, but he had succeeded with me.
At that moment, my life changed forever. If Brother Kevin hadn’t chosen that moment to kick in Preacher Sam’s door, my life might have taken a different course. I might have gone the rest of my life on the path of righteousness, without seeing another Blue Imp, either in my dreams or outside. But Brother Kevin did kick in the door, and he walked in with a gun in his hand.
“I’m going to shoot your ass, and that nutcase faggot friend of yours.” Brother Kevin walked slowly up to Preacher Sam, a look of murderous hate on his face. Preacher Sam jumped up out of his chair, an equally imposing look of determination on his face. I was up on my feet as well, and I saw the Blue Imp in the doorway just behind Brother Kevin, smirking and mocking me in its ugly language.
My intuition was now screaming in my ears, drowning out all sound and causing the scene to turn blood red. I heard pops going off in my ears, like the blood vessels in my brain were bursting from the strain of the vibration. I thought I was having a stroke, until I realized that the pops were real; they were coming from the gun in Kevin’s hand, and Preacher Sam was falling backward into his chair. All of this was in slow motion, like that Matrix movie. I shouted out a guttural “No”, and charged after Kevin as he slowly turned the gun in my direction.
Still in slow motion, I watched myself hurtling toward Kevin, and saw him pull the trigger. I didn’t feel a thing, didn’t feel the bullet tear into my lung. I just grabbed at him and pulled the gun right out of his hand. Kevin outweighed me by a good one hundred pounds, and I had just taken a bullet in the chest, but somehow I managed to pull that gun right out of his hand. They said afterward that his hand was broken. Somehow I had done that. But I got that gun, and my momentum drove him against the wall. And I drove my shoulder into his chest and knocked the wind out of him. Still in slow motion, I turned the gun around as he struggled to escape. I put the gun up against his midsection and I pulled the trigger, and again, and again, and Kevin slumped as I backed away from him, and slowly eased down to a sitting position against the wall.
I turned toward the door. The Blue Imp was still there, still with that mocking grin on its face. I raised the gun toward it, but it ran away. I ran outside, starting to feel the pain now from the bullet in my lung. I saw the demon running down the road. I knelt down and took careful aim. I, who had never before shot a gun in my life, was now calmly taking aim like that hitman in The Godfather. I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened The gun was empty. The Blue Imp kept running and eventually disappeared around the corner.
I threw the gun down in the yard, looked around at the neighbors staring back at me, and ran back into the house. Preacher Sam was in his chair, and blood was oozing from wounds in his chest. His eyes were open but were staring off into space. He was breathing in harsh rasping gulps of air. I tried to help him, I put my hands over his wounds to try to stop his lifeblood from escaping, but my own wound was getting to me now. I was having my own trouble breathing. I could hear the distant sound of a siren, even over the roar of my intuition, but I didn’t know if it was for us or not. I could only hope it was, because I was incapable of dragging myself to the phone, let alone dialing 911 and telling them what was going on and where I was. I just sat there on the floor beside his chair, my arms draped over the arm of the chair, my hands over the wounds in his chest, trying to keep his blood in. That’s the last I remember of that horrible day.
At the trial, a number of neighbors testified that they heard the shots, saw me run out of the house with the gun and pull the trigger of the emptied gun. That was not good for my case. On the other hand, my lawyer found plenty of former members of Preacher Sam’s congregation who testified that there was bad blood between Sam and Kevin, and that counted in my favor. In the end, I was acquitted of the murder of Preacher Sam. I was convicted of killing Brother Kevin, but it was deemed self defense and I didn’t have to serve any time in prison.
But the judge was concerned about my tales of demons, and ruled that I would be placed into protective custody at the mental ward of the hospital until such time as I demonstrated that I was not harmful to myself or others. That will be a long time coming, I am assured by most people I talk to.
So, here I am, doing my time. It could be worse, I
could be in some hell hole of a prison, watching it slowly suck my soul out of
my head. This place is bad enough, and I
can feel my soul leaking out even here.
Ronnie the orderly is now working the
My nightmares have returned, plaguing me most every night now. I see only one way out of this. Things came to a head last night. I had just gotten to sleep when Ronnie came down the aisle, banging his defensive club against the metal bed posts as he walked. I jumped to attention, sitting in my bed, as he passed. Following behind him was a Blue Imp, insanely giggling and belching mosquitoes out of its mouth, stinging and biting me.
Oh yes, there’s only one way out of this. Now that Ronnie has played his hand and let me know he’s in cahoots with the Blue Imps, there’s only one thing left to do. Tonight, I’m going to grab Ronnie in some dark quiet corner of the hospital, and I’m going to strangle the life out of him. Then, I’m going to grab that stash of sleeping pills out of my shaving kit, and eat every single one of them, and end those nightmares once and for all.