In case you don't ever come across it, I would highly recommend following the Unfair Park blog from the Dallas Observer. I like to peruse it and get a feel for what it happening in Dallas. It offers a different perspective than you might find in the Dallas Morning News. Robert Wilonsky often finds interesting historic things from Dallas that makes this city a little more interesting. If you don't believe me, check out the story on "The Tragic Tale of That Giant Santa Who Once Sat Upon Porter Chevrolet on Mockingbird" (http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2010/12/the_tragic_tale_of_that_giant.php).
I came across this short film documentary this morning about Stanley Maupin (made in 1973). The film is called, Sometimes I Run. Stanley was a sidewalk flusher (yes, you read that right). Unfair Park ran a piece and a link to the film on youtube (http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/03/sometimes_i_run_the_greatest_f.php) and called it the greatest film about downtown Dallas you've never seen. I'm fascinated already. The night shots of a 1973 Dallas are fantastic.
It got me thinking about a different kind of hero, maybe a serial that I will run and release here on the blog. Find me an artist and we'll make it into a graphic novel. It could be loads of fun.
Here's the premise: Imagine Dallas in 1973. It's 5 years before the television show or the intense urban sprawl known as South Oklahoma, Deep Ellum is full of jazz, Little Mexico still exists and movie palaces line elm street. Downtown is not quite the shell it is today. The city is still wounded from the Kennedy assassination and people still talk about Candy Barr. That fancy iconic Reunion tower isn't completed and The Statler Hilton isn't abandoned quite yet. A tired Police Chief Dyson is trying desperately to hold the city together amongst civil unrest and racial divide even though a wounded population is still reeling from Dallas's only riot. Everyone needs a hero. Enter Stanley Maupin. He's an overnight street flusher. His passions are the city's best chef salad that he can purchase for $1.10, cut off button down shirts, Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury, digging through trash cans for discarded bottles for a 5 cent refund, and of course, high pressured water spewing from a hose. He might have the occasion to hose down a drunk refusing to move out of his way, but he's courteous all the same. From his vantage point, he sees the city in a way that only he can. He knows every place in town. Accompanied by his long time buddy who he simply calls Brown, described as a Christian who likes to sin, Maupin strolls the streets in an attempt to keep the sidewalks clean.
It's late one typical humid night in Dallas. The air is sticky and working with water doesn't make it much more bearable. Stanley and Brown are making their usual run through the streets. Full of the free coffee that Maupin drinks after his $1.10 chef salad, he decides to relieve himself behind a dumpster. The guard across the street turns a blind eye because he knows Maupin will just hose it down after he's done. He always does. Stanley doesn't pay much attention as he enters the dark alley on Commerce street, just behind the Carousel Club. The sound of urine hitting the pavement doesn't sound quite the same because tonight, it isn't. Barely visible in the shadows is the body of seventeen year old runaway stripper, May Etier, aka Lily Liberty.
I don't know - it's just a start. A spark of sorts. I like the idea of a kind of 1970's noir story with an unlikely hero. And I like the idea of playing with Dallas's notorious underbelly. I think Stanley could be quite the character as he and Brown get deeper into the world of gangsters and the dirty politics that is so typical in Dallas. Maybe a young John Wiley-Price or Dwayne Carraway makes an appearance. Or just for fun, the beginnings of Arnold and Archie (that one is for Jim Schutze). If you've ever read Joe R. Lansdale and have heard of his Hap and Leonard series, you get the idea, but this one might be distinctively Dallas. After all, where else do urban legends begin if not hidden somewhere on the deep underbelly of Dallas.
Who's in?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Think Tank #1: Musings on Santos Rodriguez
“What if the red I see is not the same as the red you see?” I know. It sounds like one of those late-night, sleep deprived, substance driven kind of conversations that you have when you think your mind is open and you’ve suddenly tapped into the source of the universe. Still, it makes me think. How do I know that what I point at and call red has the same hue and saturation as what you see? We’ve all seen various computer monitors and television screens that skew things just a bit, so what if each of our eyes and brains are all wired just a little bit differently. It’s not far-fetched.
So suffice to say, it works the same way when we view the world through cultural lenses. In short, we all see things differently. We see things through our own slants, upbringings, biases, place in history, geographic location, relationship to the protagonist, etc.
I say all of this as I sit down to write and research historical events that took place in Dallas in the 1970s. But how do I write it? What slant do I take? How much poetic license is allowed? The deeper I go into the story, the more distortion I see. Everyone has a distinctly different viewpoint. People remember things differently and have a different vantage point as to what took place and what is significant. And with each interview, I get contradicting information. So what really happened? Or rather, does it really matter?
The facts are simple and they don’t change: In 1973, two Hispanic boys, David and Santos Rodriguez (13 and 12) were picked by Dallas police for allegedly burglarizing a gas station vending machine and stealing $8. Roy Arnold reported seeing three boys run from the gas station. He fired a gun in the air, but the boys fled the scene. A call was made over the radio. Around 2:30 A.M., Arnold and responding officer, Darrell Cain, went to the Rodriguez household, roused the Spanish speaking grandfather, arrested and handcuffed the brothers and put them in a squad car to question them. They drove the boys to the scene of the crime. Cain put a .357 magnum to Santos's head. He pulled the trigger and the gun clicked as he yelled at the boys. (In court, Cain swore the gun wasn’t loaded and he was only trying to coerce a confession). The second time, he blew the kid's face off. When a nearby cop took the gun from Cain just seconds after the shooting, the gun was fully loaded except for the one empty chamber that had discharged the bullet. Evidence later showed that the prints found at the scene of the robbery did not match those of the two boys. Later, a downtown demonstration and rally for Santos turned violent and caused riots in the streets of Dallas.
Now what? Newspaper articles from the Dallas Morning News during the time paint Cain as a good ole American white cop who really was sorry, swore it was an accident and was the real victim in the story. Facts show that Cain had shot and killed an eighteen-year old African American just a few months earlier. Santos, actually, was the third victim he had shot and killed in the line of duty. The defense attorney for Cain tried desperately to paint the two boys as low-level thugs. Their mother was in prison for killing her boyfriend in a domestic dispute where she claimed he tried to kill her. Her reputation among the citizens of Little Mexico in Dallas was not favorable. The boys were living with a family friend described as their grandfather. Cain was found guilty of murder with malice and got a sentence of 5 years and $25. He only served two and a half. Arnold was never indicted, but was removed from the police force for failure to report discharging his weapon in the initial pursuit.
When interviewing a former mayor pro tem and high profile Dallas Hispanic lawyer close to the case, he described Little Mexico as a police state where shootings and police brutality was common. He says kids in little Mexico used to make sport of throwing rocks at patrol cars. However, another political activist who helped organize the rally downtown says that the lawyer has a knack for over exaggeration. At this point, everyone runs in their own direction with the story. Most tried to use the events as some sort of rallying point to get what they wanted by exploiting the event. The brown berets and even black panthers tried to spur this into a catalyst for a Hispanic Civil Rights movement of sorts but there was no organized structure to make that happen. Hispanics were viewed as white without rights and didn’t have the history behind them that the SCLC or SNCC had at their disposal. There was no Martin Luther King in Dallas to make that happen (although many would disagree). The mother wanted money. She sued the city for damages but the case was dismissed. Some say she tried desperately to attempt movie and book deals. She even mounted an effort a couple decades later to get Pike Park renamed after her son. The city finally decided that he wasn’t a hero and that Pike Park was too closely tied to Mexican-American heritage in Dallas to be renamed. His mother insists he was never given the chance to be anything, much less a hero. The brother David had his own struggles growing up and the family was never too far from tragedy. Others are still not sure if Santos and his cousin Herman (who is oddly left out of the story) might have actually broken into the gas station. A coroner reports stated that when the autopsy was done on Santos, there was a lot of candy in his system and he had eaten within the hour. Where would a poor Hispanic kid get candy in Little Mexico at one or two in the morning? The boys had been in trouble for theft before. It still does nothing to justify why Cain pulled his gun in the first place. Both boys were handcuffed. For twenty years after the event, it was often talked about in Hispanic circles. Every conversation at birthday parties and gatherings seemed to come back to Santos. But then again, everyone remembers it a little differently. And how does one distinguish the facts from the legends? It’s a ghost.
So here’s the challenge. I want to write a story that is intriguing. I have the shooting of a troubled kid in a police car by what appears to be a racially motivated officer. It caused a protest. Many say it was a rallying point for the Hispanic movement in the United States, but it never materialized. Santos’ death never captured the national stage the same way the slaying of Emmett Till did for the movement in the sixties. It’s mostly just a forgotten event.
Who were these kids? They don’t appear to be heroes. They were just kids. It could have been anyone. Was the cop a racist? Depends on how I paint him, I suppose. How do I characterize the mother? And is any of it right? Who’s the hero of the story if there even is one? When I sit down to write this story, how much truth and how much dramatization and much license do I have? And with an event that is almost forty years past, what is truth? As I said, we see things through our own slants, upbringings, biases, place in history, geographic location, relationship to the protagonist, etc.
I guess I will just embark on the journey. Stephen King describes writing as unearthing some great archeological find. You have to keep working at it. The story is there somewhere and with each chip of the rock, it should reveal itself. The best advice I’ve gotten comes from Michelangelo: “I saw the angle in the marble and carved until I set him free,”
There’s got to be a story in there somewhere. Until then, it still just remains a ghost.
So suffice to say, it works the same way when we view the world through cultural lenses. In short, we all see things differently. We see things through our own slants, upbringings, biases, place in history, geographic location, relationship to the protagonist, etc.
I say all of this as I sit down to write and research historical events that took place in Dallas in the 1970s. But how do I write it? What slant do I take? How much poetic license is allowed? The deeper I go into the story, the more distortion I see. Everyone has a distinctly different viewpoint. People remember things differently and have a different vantage point as to what took place and what is significant. And with each interview, I get contradicting information. So what really happened? Or rather, does it really matter?
The facts are simple and they don’t change: In 1973, two Hispanic boys, David and Santos Rodriguez (13 and 12) were picked by Dallas police for allegedly burglarizing a gas station vending machine and stealing $8. Roy Arnold reported seeing three boys run from the gas station. He fired a gun in the air, but the boys fled the scene. A call was made over the radio. Around 2:30 A.M., Arnold and responding officer, Darrell Cain, went to the Rodriguez household, roused the Spanish speaking grandfather, arrested and handcuffed the brothers and put them in a squad car to question them. They drove the boys to the scene of the crime. Cain put a .357 magnum to Santos's head. He pulled the trigger and the gun clicked as he yelled at the boys. (In court, Cain swore the gun wasn’t loaded and he was only trying to coerce a confession). The second time, he blew the kid's face off. When a nearby cop took the gun from Cain just seconds after the shooting, the gun was fully loaded except for the one empty chamber that had discharged the bullet. Evidence later showed that the prints found at the scene of the robbery did not match those of the two boys. Later, a downtown demonstration and rally for Santos turned violent and caused riots in the streets of Dallas.
Now what? Newspaper articles from the Dallas Morning News during the time paint Cain as a good ole American white cop who really was sorry, swore it was an accident and was the real victim in the story. Facts show that Cain had shot and killed an eighteen-year old African American just a few months earlier. Santos, actually, was the third victim he had shot and killed in the line of duty. The defense attorney for Cain tried desperately to paint the two boys as low-level thugs. Their mother was in prison for killing her boyfriend in a domestic dispute where she claimed he tried to kill her. Her reputation among the citizens of Little Mexico in Dallas was not favorable. The boys were living with a family friend described as their grandfather. Cain was found guilty of murder with malice and got a sentence of 5 years and $25. He only served two and a half. Arnold was never indicted, but was removed from the police force for failure to report discharging his weapon in the initial pursuit.
When interviewing a former mayor pro tem and high profile Dallas Hispanic lawyer close to the case, he described Little Mexico as a police state where shootings and police brutality was common. He says kids in little Mexico used to make sport of throwing rocks at patrol cars. However, another political activist who helped organize the rally downtown says that the lawyer has a knack for over exaggeration. At this point, everyone runs in their own direction with the story. Most tried to use the events as some sort of rallying point to get what they wanted by exploiting the event. The brown berets and even black panthers tried to spur this into a catalyst for a Hispanic Civil Rights movement of sorts but there was no organized structure to make that happen. Hispanics were viewed as white without rights and didn’t have the history behind them that the SCLC or SNCC had at their disposal. There was no Martin Luther King in Dallas to make that happen (although many would disagree). The mother wanted money. She sued the city for damages but the case was dismissed. Some say she tried desperately to attempt movie and book deals. She even mounted an effort a couple decades later to get Pike Park renamed after her son. The city finally decided that he wasn’t a hero and that Pike Park was too closely tied to Mexican-American heritage in Dallas to be renamed. His mother insists he was never given the chance to be anything, much less a hero. The brother David had his own struggles growing up and the family was never too far from tragedy. Others are still not sure if Santos and his cousin Herman (who is oddly left out of the story) might have actually broken into the gas station. A coroner reports stated that when the autopsy was done on Santos, there was a lot of candy in his system and he had eaten within the hour. Where would a poor Hispanic kid get candy in Little Mexico at one or two in the morning? The boys had been in trouble for theft before. It still does nothing to justify why Cain pulled his gun in the first place. Both boys were handcuffed. For twenty years after the event, it was often talked about in Hispanic circles. Every conversation at birthday parties and gatherings seemed to come back to Santos. But then again, everyone remembers it a little differently. And how does one distinguish the facts from the legends? It’s a ghost.
So here’s the challenge. I want to write a story that is intriguing. I have the shooting of a troubled kid in a police car by what appears to be a racially motivated officer. It caused a protest. Many say it was a rallying point for the Hispanic movement in the United States, but it never materialized. Santos’ death never captured the national stage the same way the slaying of Emmett Till did for the movement in the sixties. It’s mostly just a forgotten event.
Who were these kids? They don’t appear to be heroes. They were just kids. It could have been anyone. Was the cop a racist? Depends on how I paint him, I suppose. How do I characterize the mother? And is any of it right? Who’s the hero of the story if there even is one? When I sit down to write this story, how much truth and how much dramatization and much license do I have? And with an event that is almost forty years past, what is truth? As I said, we see things through our own slants, upbringings, biases, place in history, geographic location, relationship to the protagonist, etc.
I guess I will just embark on the journey. Stephen King describes writing as unearthing some great archeological find. You have to keep working at it. The story is there somewhere and with each chip of the rock, it should reveal itself. The best advice I’ve gotten comes from Michelangelo: “I saw the angle in the marble and carved until I set him free,”
There’s got to be a story in there somewhere. Until then, it still just remains a ghost.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Father's Right Hand
a short historical narrative written in 1996
Circles of dust swirled around the ’79 Cutlass as Dad pulled onto the dirt road that would soon lead to childhood memories and anguish for the loss of a Man we all idolized and aspired to be, the Man who saw visions and spoke with tongues of angels, the Man we affectionately called “Grandpa,” for He was dying and not even God Almighty could stop Him save for the prayers of a despondent daughter clinging hopelessly to the Man she knew as Daddy. The road seemed to close off behind us, and dark trees which ominously hung over us, even in the daytime, carved a path to the new dimension of life we were now entering, each acre leading us deeper in the stark reality of a different world. I had heard that people die, but I had never seen one die. And certainly Grandpa would never die. He was sick; that was all. Death could not touch Him, nor would it dare to try.
Gravel shuffled under the tires as we approached the half hung wooden gate leading to the property where He always met us, but today, He would not. He was sick; that was all. Dad would open the gate today. Someday, I, too would open the gate and close it again as the car pulls through sealing off the world behind us. Up ahead near the house sat my aunt’s car, for she was there again. She was always there, always praying that God would pause in His infinite wisdom for one more day and allow her to see her Daddy alive for a brief second longer.
Our car pulled behind hers, and we exited in orderly fashion as would any family of five seeing their grandfather for possibly the last time. Gathering up toys, blankets, pillows, or any other necessary item needed for a 150 mile trip to keep a five, seven, and nine year old at bay, we entered through the chicken wire fence supported by concrete posts with sparkling marbles cemented on top that I had always thought were the jewels strewn about Heaven’s gates. Passing by the towering crepe myrtles painted white on bottom to keep out disease and pestilence in this otherwise perfect world, we approached the house, the house that He built. The wooden porch. The lemon yellow porch swing. The creaking screen door slapping against the wood of the old frame house. And we were standing in His room.
Hey there, squirt.
You’re sure getting big.
Why, there’s old cotton top.
I had heard it all before. Just the weekend before. It was all routine, but it could be the last. He was sick; that was all. I would for certain hear it again. After a hug and a kiss to the seventy-three year old woman who was strong enough to bring life to some eight children, six men and two women, yet based her entire existence solely upon the Man who lay in that room, the women reverted to the kitchen, the men to the living room, and the children went outside to play.
It was the game that I remember.
Every weekend was the same.
Every face the same.
The same game.
The same accidents.
The same teams.
The same winner.
Nothing ever changes.
No one ever dies.
The game was sure to go on forever.
I’m not for certain what went on inside the house. I’m sure women talked and men laughed. I’m sure they walked around their childhood home, and in every corner, in silent whispers, wondered what would happen if He did die. What would happen to the clock, the gun, the dog, the fields, the mother, in that order. Men gossip just as much as women.
In out little world of Fox, Oklahoma, a small community outside of Healdton, a town that rests a little ways from Ardmore, which lies some forty miles away from the Red River border of Texas, the game began. Our older cousin Tina was always the quarterback of choice if Dad chose not to play. He was the youngest son and often broke the family ties to play with his children, his nieces, his nephews. Greg was there, too, another older cousin, who would cry when He died and have dreams that he saw Him in his room, who would run frightened to his mother and father afraid at the loss of his Grandpa.
The same game.
The same dog-chewed football.
Nothing ever changes.
No one ever dies.
The game was sure to go on forever.
Then, I would fall. Then, I would get hurt. Then, I would cry. Until the next game. Football, baseball, crawling through the pastures in search for Bigfoot. It did not matter. Like a perfectly conducted symphony, the day went. The sounds of children laughing, screaming, and playing entertained the countryside. We would climb tree when He wasn’t looking. We would traipse around the yard in search of any sign of anything. Outside, we were living, breathing, while inside a Man was dying, fighting. God had touched the earth again. Eden was recreated here without our knowledge, and the Fall was nigh. So another Man must die to take away our sins. His only link to life was the rusted green oxygen tank that rested against His outside wall. I never knew what it meant; I never knew what it was. To me, it might have been a mysterious rocket that would take me anywhere I wanted to go, but to Him, it was His prayer in the garden, His blood-stained brow as He prayed that His children would not be lost, that this cup might pass.
Nothing ever changes.
No one ever dies.
The game was sure to go on forever.
The day was over, and we drove away after pulling off the stickers, as we called the prickly thistles that would cling to an innocent child’s tennis shoes unaware, casting them back into the field leaving no trace that we ever played there. However, we would return the next weekend, and the next, and the next, and still another, until on June 4, 1981, He died and He did not rise. He quickly ascended to the Father’s right hand accompanied by His visions and His angels.
For me, though, He was always there as He was for Greg. He was there every time I sinned or failed, watching. Every move I made, I am sure He saw it. Some men fear God, and some men fear nothing. I feared Him. I love Him, but I feared Him. I know though, that both He and Jesus stand before the Omnipotent pleading my case in all my failures. Little boys don’t understand why Grandpas die, so throughout our lives, our eyes are watching God.
Each summer after that, when we returned to Oklahoma, we always stopped by the cemetery to see Him, always careful never to call it His grave. Dad would always criticize the upkeep while picking out dead pine leaves from the place where He lay. Mom would always comment on the last time someone had brought the faded flowers laid near the headstone, and we all would try and guess who it was that had brought them. Other than a large dead tree watching over His place and the bent iron gate surrounded the cemetery, the place was not fearful. I was never afraid. What scared me most was the adjoining tombstone with my grandmother’s name printed upon it and an empty spot where her death date would one day reside. Then, we got back in the car and carefully pulled off the stickers and cast them back at the graveyard.
I returned to the house last summer to play the game. Grandma has outlived Him for over two decades and moved into a house in town. The gate is gone, and I’m sure that marbles have faded from their original splendor. The fields are plowed over, and the lemon yellow porch swing has found another resting place. Yet, in some faint breeze over the field, the sound of children laughing, screaming, and playing still entertains the countryside. Greg got married and Tina ran away. But the game is still being played. He was sick; that was all. I was seven. He was eighty-three.
There
a poem from the Echoes of Mercy Collection 2005
A hand passed over the waters
calling forth from the firmament that
which was beautiful and altogether lovely;
the trodden clay, the broken silence,
the unclean woman, the dying mother,
a suspended moment of defeat;
the common event of man’s grueling passage.
Upon the path of time
never perceived in joyful rapture
he finds his soul in the grasp of a friend
toying with all that was good and shattered
yet placing the critical pieces of his existence
intertwined with his own by happenstance,
unknown to either voyager.
Why God allowed for these two
magnificent oaks to stand alongside
the beaten road and grow
confronting the other in mid-stretch
and parting after brief conversation
one will never know except for
the strength provided within
the common event of man’s grueling passage.
A Crack in the Wall or Anastacio's Dream
an excerpt from the unfinished novel Apolotrosis, 2002
He dreamt he was, as a child, walking through a field of thick crimson flowers. Below the flowers covering the meadow’s floor was the whitest snow, but he was not cold. White light surrounded him on all sides and a gentle breeze swayed the creations. He walked throughout the field of flowers taking in their purest of beauty. Where he walked, he felt a presence surrounding him as if he was holding onto someone’s hand. For what seemed like years in a dream, A boy played in this garden of paradise. He grew as a young boy and slipped into his present state. But one day, he ventured to the edge of the garden and looked out amongst the shadows to the perilous lands that surrounded the blissful meadow. He chose to leave the garden and all its comforts for the harsh lands before him, and as he stepped from the field, the land quickly turned dark and the ground hard. In his hands he had held a handful of snow that promptly melted into a black slush and stained his hands. He prepared his way for the journey and began to revel in a sense of adventure outside the garden. He walked for days in this wasteland, the features ugly and jagged along its borders. The cragged hillsides and mangled trees cast dark shadows over his once tender heart and sang to him a fallen song.
In search of a dark refuge, he moved throughout the land escaping the horrible thunder that followed him. He began to forget the warmth of the crimson meadow and longed for comfort in his new home. Although frightened by the unforgiving surroundings, he fell in love with the dark. He liked slinking through the shadows unnoticed from the stares of that presence he had once felt in the garden. He tried to allude the glares he felt from the land and often found himself running at full stride to escape his own convictions. At night he would wrestle with a great fiend that in the morning turned out to be his own reflection in black waters.
But his torment was his comfort and he grew deeper and deeper a part of this foreign land. He positioned himself high on a hill overlooking the expanse of his wickedness. Along the way, he had found chains lining the road of his reckless quest, and each time, he collected them in a burlap sack he carried with him. By now the weight of the bag was immovable. And not being able to travel any deeper into the territory, which would have been impossible anyway, since he was in the middle of his rebellion and a step in any direction would have been a step of reconciliation toward the garden, he settled in the high place and began unpacking his chains.
Each night before he slept, he took out one chain and began fastening it to another. He stayed high on the mount for several days and during that time, he grew hungry for that presence he had lost in the garden, but he loathed it and fought its advances. His shame was too powerful than the grace it offered. He fought the thunder and made war with himself. Often at night, he was beaten by his reflection and bloodied by creatures that attack only in the obscurity. On several occasions, his flesh was torn and his back was bruised.
Then, and this stirred him to the point of all fear; a beast met him at midnight and held him in the frame of his embrace. The terrifying creature cradled him tightly and kissed him with the kisses of his mouth. The beast’s hot breath was pain to his face. As the beast caressed him and tenderly rocked him, he reached down his fierce razor-sharp claws and tore into the boy’s flesh. His excruciating fist probed the inside of the boy’s chest until it rested on the tender heart beating furiously inside. Then with madness, he ripped the heart from his chest and swallowed it whole as the blood ran across his chin. The boy looked in horror, for his life was not spent. The beast still holding him like his own child reached to the ground and found a jagged stone lying there. He picked it up and placed it into the boy’s chest where, to his revulsion, it began to beat as the heart of flesh that had been removed. The beast dropped him carelessly to the ground, which broke his ribs, and scurried from the mountaintop.
In great pain, the boy began to scar over the wound in his chest and saw no great change in his heart, but he did not know that the blackness set in. His veins were full of the same black sludge that had stained he fingers as he had left the garden. As he remained on the mountain, he began to gather nearby stones. And with great labor and pain from his broken body, he began to construct a wall. He thought that he was to build the rampart to keep away the beast that had wounded him, but every night, he dined with the beast on the mount and welcomed him into his fortress. And every time, the beast wounded him and left him on the mount to die, which he never did.
He built an elaborate castle on the hill and fortified the walls with several layers of stone. No intruder could invade except that which he invited in. All the time, he continued to piece together the chains of the land late in the night for he grew fearful of his solitude. Finally the wall was complete and the fortress secure and he lay each night in wait for the beast to come and injure him with his companionship.
One night the beast became so violent that he left The boy lame after breaking both legs when he hurled him into the stonewalls of his own construction. The boy lay on the floor weeping uncontrollably and cried for his creator. He knew now in his heart how he would attempt to fend off the beast. He stood in his tower and locked himself in his room, tightly shutting up the windows. The chains he had been linking were now woven into a frightfully beautiful robe of his own design. The beast had held the chains in his hands and laid them near the listless body of the bleeding Boy. With his doors shut, the boy dragged his mangled body to the chains and crawled inside them for comfort. Once inside the robe of chains, he began to tangle himself in and cocoon himself tightly to where no man or beast could ever enter and he himself could never escape. And he slowly began to die.
But, what was so beautiful to even him was that in the prison he had created, he could faintly hear redemption’s song from the crimson meadow. As tears streamed down his face and his black heart weakened, he whispered for help. From his chains, he could see something that frightened him and reassured him all at once as emerging over the frame of the door, their appeared a crack in the wall. His eyes darted around the room and more cracks appeared all over the impenetrable walls of his own creation. Light shot in through the cracks and the whole fortress crumbled around him and great was the sound of its falling.
He awoke again in a field of flowers now more crimson stained than before. His chains were removed and nowhere to be found. The brilliant light of reflecting off the snow hurt his eyes to the point where he could not open them for a long time. He was dressed in a new robe that reminded him of that presence whose hand he used to hold. He was a little fearful, but more ashamed of his departure from the garden.
Then from among the flowers came a slaughtered lamb walking toward him. In his hand he held a double-edged rapier and his eyes burned as white fire. He approached him and spoke peace to his soul, but with great force, he thrust the blade deep though the boy’s chest. The boy winced in pain and screamed in terror as the sword found the secret places of the soul. As the sword was removed, it had stuck to the end a jagged stone. The black sludge ran across the boy’s chest, but it did not stain the new robe.
The relief was unbelievable and he was stunned that the pain of the action actually felt good. The lamb reached deep into his own chest and pulled from the cavity a heart of flesh, with which he placed into the hole in the boy’s chest and he was given life anew. The healing began almost immediately and no scar appeared where the former tear had been. The boy stared at his own chest watching it heal before him. When he looked up, he saw that the lamb had been transformed into a ferocious lion that leaned down and kissed him tenderly on the head and then walked in majesty throughout the garden.
Morning came.
He dreamt he was, as a child, walking through a field of thick crimson flowers. Below the flowers covering the meadow’s floor was the whitest snow, but he was not cold. White light surrounded him on all sides and a gentle breeze swayed the creations. He walked throughout the field of flowers taking in their purest of beauty. Where he walked, he felt a presence surrounding him as if he was holding onto someone’s hand. For what seemed like years in a dream, A boy played in this garden of paradise. He grew as a young boy and slipped into his present state. But one day, he ventured to the edge of the garden and looked out amongst the shadows to the perilous lands that surrounded the blissful meadow. He chose to leave the garden and all its comforts for the harsh lands before him, and as he stepped from the field, the land quickly turned dark and the ground hard. In his hands he had held a handful of snow that promptly melted into a black slush and stained his hands. He prepared his way for the journey and began to revel in a sense of adventure outside the garden. He walked for days in this wasteland, the features ugly and jagged along its borders. The cragged hillsides and mangled trees cast dark shadows over his once tender heart and sang to him a fallen song.
In search of a dark refuge, he moved throughout the land escaping the horrible thunder that followed him. He began to forget the warmth of the crimson meadow and longed for comfort in his new home. Although frightened by the unforgiving surroundings, he fell in love with the dark. He liked slinking through the shadows unnoticed from the stares of that presence he had once felt in the garden. He tried to allude the glares he felt from the land and often found himself running at full stride to escape his own convictions. At night he would wrestle with a great fiend that in the morning turned out to be his own reflection in black waters.
But his torment was his comfort and he grew deeper and deeper a part of this foreign land. He positioned himself high on a hill overlooking the expanse of his wickedness. Along the way, he had found chains lining the road of his reckless quest, and each time, he collected them in a burlap sack he carried with him. By now the weight of the bag was immovable. And not being able to travel any deeper into the territory, which would have been impossible anyway, since he was in the middle of his rebellion and a step in any direction would have been a step of reconciliation toward the garden, he settled in the high place and began unpacking his chains.
Each night before he slept, he took out one chain and began fastening it to another. He stayed high on the mount for several days and during that time, he grew hungry for that presence he had lost in the garden, but he loathed it and fought its advances. His shame was too powerful than the grace it offered. He fought the thunder and made war with himself. Often at night, he was beaten by his reflection and bloodied by creatures that attack only in the obscurity. On several occasions, his flesh was torn and his back was bruised.
Then, and this stirred him to the point of all fear; a beast met him at midnight and held him in the frame of his embrace. The terrifying creature cradled him tightly and kissed him with the kisses of his mouth. The beast’s hot breath was pain to his face. As the beast caressed him and tenderly rocked him, he reached down his fierce razor-sharp claws and tore into the boy’s flesh. His excruciating fist probed the inside of the boy’s chest until it rested on the tender heart beating furiously inside. Then with madness, he ripped the heart from his chest and swallowed it whole as the blood ran across his chin. The boy looked in horror, for his life was not spent. The beast still holding him like his own child reached to the ground and found a jagged stone lying there. He picked it up and placed it into the boy’s chest where, to his revulsion, it began to beat as the heart of flesh that had been removed. The beast dropped him carelessly to the ground, which broke his ribs, and scurried from the mountaintop.
In great pain, the boy began to scar over the wound in his chest and saw no great change in his heart, but he did not know that the blackness set in. His veins were full of the same black sludge that had stained he fingers as he had left the garden. As he remained on the mountain, he began to gather nearby stones. And with great labor and pain from his broken body, he began to construct a wall. He thought that he was to build the rampart to keep away the beast that had wounded him, but every night, he dined with the beast on the mount and welcomed him into his fortress. And every time, the beast wounded him and left him on the mount to die, which he never did.
He built an elaborate castle on the hill and fortified the walls with several layers of stone. No intruder could invade except that which he invited in. All the time, he continued to piece together the chains of the land late in the night for he grew fearful of his solitude. Finally the wall was complete and the fortress secure and he lay each night in wait for the beast to come and injure him with his companionship.
One night the beast became so violent that he left The boy lame after breaking both legs when he hurled him into the stonewalls of his own construction. The boy lay on the floor weeping uncontrollably and cried for his creator. He knew now in his heart how he would attempt to fend off the beast. He stood in his tower and locked himself in his room, tightly shutting up the windows. The chains he had been linking were now woven into a frightfully beautiful robe of his own design. The beast had held the chains in his hands and laid them near the listless body of the bleeding Boy. With his doors shut, the boy dragged his mangled body to the chains and crawled inside them for comfort. Once inside the robe of chains, he began to tangle himself in and cocoon himself tightly to where no man or beast could ever enter and he himself could never escape. And he slowly began to die.
But, what was so beautiful to even him was that in the prison he had created, he could faintly hear redemption’s song from the crimson meadow. As tears streamed down his face and his black heart weakened, he whispered for help. From his chains, he could see something that frightened him and reassured him all at once as emerging over the frame of the door, their appeared a crack in the wall. His eyes darted around the room and more cracks appeared all over the impenetrable walls of his own creation. Light shot in through the cracks and the whole fortress crumbled around him and great was the sound of its falling.
He awoke again in a field of flowers now more crimson stained than before. His chains were removed and nowhere to be found. The brilliant light of reflecting off the snow hurt his eyes to the point where he could not open them for a long time. He was dressed in a new robe that reminded him of that presence whose hand he used to hold. He was a little fearful, but more ashamed of his departure from the garden.
Then from among the flowers came a slaughtered lamb walking toward him. In his hand he held a double-edged rapier and his eyes burned as white fire. He approached him and spoke peace to his soul, but with great force, he thrust the blade deep though the boy’s chest. The boy winced in pain and screamed in terror as the sword found the secret places of the soul. As the sword was removed, it had stuck to the end a jagged stone. The black sludge ran across the boy’s chest, but it did not stain the new robe.
The relief was unbelievable and he was stunned that the pain of the action actually felt good. The lamb reached deep into his own chest and pulled from the cavity a heart of flesh, with which he placed into the hole in the boy’s chest and he was given life anew. The healing began almost immediately and no scar appeared where the former tear had been. The boy stared at his own chest watching it heal before him. When he looked up, he saw that the lamb had been transformed into a ferocious lion that leaned down and kissed him tenderly on the head and then walked in majesty throughout the garden.
Morning came.
Worth
a poem from 1994
A vase was shattered suddenly upon the hardwood floor.
Pieces scattered everywhere; fragments by the door.
Its ornamental life was spent; its beauty nevermore,
while dreams of monetary prize lay broken on the floor.
When most discard this worthless piece, you’d find the work’s life giver
on hands and knees upon the floor collecting each lost sliver.
A gracious glue gently applied would give the vase its hold,
And all the scars would be replaced with trim of white and gold.
And placed upon a pedestal to celebrate its birth,
A single rose was dropped inside to give the vase its worth.
A vase was shattered suddenly upon the hardwood floor.
Pieces scattered everywhere; fragments by the door.
Its ornamental life was spent; its beauty nevermore,
while dreams of monetary prize lay broken on the floor.
When most discard this worthless piece, you’d find the work’s life giver
on hands and knees upon the floor collecting each lost sliver.
A gracious glue gently applied would give the vase its hold,
And all the scars would be replaced with trim of white and gold.
And placed upon a pedestal to celebrate its birth,
A single rose was dropped inside to give the vase its worth.
The Parable
an excerpt from the unfinished novel Apolutrosis 2002
In the house, the whole party had arrived and the widow rushed from kitchen to den making sure that all were tended to. The noise from the parlor grew as the celebration for the lost coin was now well underway. The commoners from the town gathered in large groups to enjoy the camaraderie of people that more than not are passed by in the streets without even as much as a word. Busy lives. But for the evening, the stresses of the day could be forgotten and they began to settle into the home and tell the anecdotes of an honest day’s earnings. Each began to share his greatest tale or most humorous joke. Some blushed and others roared in laughter, but no one left the fold. For tonight, all were family and each one was truly grateful that the widow had found her lost coin, for had she not, such a celebration, a break from the formalities of life, could not have been enjoyed. They continued to weave their folklore throughout the night, but no one could tell a story quite like the old man they called Quo. He captivated the commoners as he spoke. Some amazed at his simplicity and other in awe of his greatness, but all were engaged by his words. A great storyteller is hard to come by, but a masterful one is the gift of the ages. Even the widow stopped running to and fro, for she too was enamored with the voice of Quo. His stories awoke the dreams she had had as a child and made her feel as warm as when she had been held in her father’s arms.
Quo had placed himself on the hearth and gathered the crowd around him to begin the telling of his story.
“A certain man planted a vineyard far north in the hill country where the farmland is richer than any known in all the land. Gentle breezes passed over the hills and pure streams cut through the valleys to produce the most glorious land of all. This vineyard was the grandest of all vineyards that anyone has ever had the pleasure of seeing. In it grew the finest grapes of a thousand vineyards in all of North Apolutrosis. Not just the small grapes that one would find in his own vineyard, but these luscious grapes were the size of grapefruits and yielded the sweetest wine to ever pass over a man’s lips. The man was pleased with his work, and being the shrewd businessman that the vineyard owner was, he leased it to the vinedressers, or tenant farmers who worked the vineyard on his land. These farmers were to work the land and provide grapes for the vineyard owner and make him a profit while he was to tend to other business in the land. He placed his trust in these vinedressers and gave them simple responsibilities that would bring honor to his lordship.
“At the right season, the vineyard owner sent his servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. The servant approached in great anticipation for what he would find in the vineyard, but the farmers did not receive him well. They thought him a nuisance to their great work and rather than give him what the master had sent him for, they devised a plan to show all who ventured there what they thought of such intruders. The first farmer scorned him while a second gave play to his requests, but once he came behind the storehouse, with one felled motion, he thrashed the servant‘s face hard into the side of the stone silo knocking him unconscious. The farmers moved with urgency as if they were going to get caught for committing a heinous crime. They hoisted the listless body of the servant into a nearby cart and began to wheel him down the road leading from the vineyard. As they came closer to the city limits of the province nearest the vineyard, they discarded the beaten servant in the dust near the beggars that lined the roads of that fair city. The servant awoke some days later in the streets and returned to the master empty-handed.
“The master of the vineyard entreated the vinedressers a second time and sent another servant. The farmers again saw him coming from afar off and chose to treat him more harshly than they had treated the first servant. Their first intention was to only whip the servant and scare some sense into him, but as their anger at his requests grew, their thoughts turned frightful. They bound him and intended to take him to what they thought was the scariest place in the nearest wood. The spot was located close to where a lake bends under a bluff with a sixty-foot drop, but which looked much further in the dark. They gained much pleasure as they whipped him on the bluff and dangled him over the fall as if they were going to drop him. At the end of the terrifying night, they sent the servant away empty-handed and greatly ashamed.
“And so the master, whose anger was growing, sent a third. And, too, they wounded him and cast him out. Then, the owner of the vineyard said to his servants, ‘What shall I do?’ Three of his best servants had been treated with contempt and were not received by the farmers. They had beaten each one, shamed them, and cast them out empty-handed. In distress, the master, who was wiser than all the merchants in the land began to devise a plan. This time, he was sure, that the vinedressers would treat him with kindness. He said, ‘I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’
“And so the master sent his son to the vineyard, for surely they would listen to the master’s son. The day was hot and the work had been long as the master’s son gave up his place in the household to go to the vineyard and bring back the fruit requested of his father. He walked for many miles and through many small towns until he reached the hills where the gentle breezes passed over and pure streams cut through the valleys. He walked along the road that led to his father’s vineyard.
“From afar off, the vinedressers saw the boy approaching. When they saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir.’ ‘What shall we do?’ another asked. ‘I say we give him what he asks for,’ a third suggested. But, a wise vinedresser rose among the crowd and spoke to his brothers, ‘Brothers, I have worked in the vineyard for many years and I have seen the servants that the master sends. We are what make the vineyard work. We are the sweat and toil in these grapes. Many come from all lands to feast off the fruit of our hands and be drunk with the sweat of our brow. It is the vinedresser who is the vineyard and not the master of this field. You look and say, this is the heir. I say come, let us kill him, that the inheritance be ours.’
“The vinedressers erupted with cheers and moved to greet the heir on the road. He smiled as he saw them approaching thinking that they would obey his requests, but he did not know the wickedness in their hearts. The first farmer held out his club and delivered a blow on the son’s head that knocked him unconscious, much like they had to the first servant while another bound him as they had done to the second. Carrying him on their shoulders, they methodically walked toward the old abandoned tool house. The room was about twelve feet square, and the door was slightly off its hinges. The first farmer opened the door to let the light of the morning invade the room for the first time in presumably several years. The others followed close behind with the heir upon their backs. They quickly looked around the room for a suitable place and dropped the son on a broken table in the corner. The thud of the table and the dust cloud that followed woke the son from his slumber, but his conscious level was well below awareness. He struggled to get his bearings. The surroundings were unfamiliar. Voices came out of the darkness that he thought were vaguely familiar. Rage was in the voices, and the son was overcome with fear. He cryptically began to piece together the details of the recent events. A sickness rose in the farmers that had never entered their members. And with the club he held tightly in his hand, the first farmer struck the son across the face cracking his jaw and loosening six of the son’s teeth. The taste of blood filled the heir’s mouth as he tried to spit the teeth onto the floor, swallowing blood with every effort. Again the club came cracking down into his cheek. He tried to reposition himself, but his left eye began to swell shut from where the club collided with his face a second time. Shocked by the blows, the son instinctively raised his hands to guard his face. The adrenaline began to flow through the vinedressers as they took turns hitting him, sometimes with clubs and other times with their hands. The mob unmercifully attacked their own, draining the life from their proverbial brother. The hoots and hollers of the vinedressers rang through the countryside, and still no one heard their song. It became sport with no remorse and a blood-taste for victory.
“The son felt the punches in his stomach, face, and eyes. He began to accept a fate that he would never make it home again. Had the blood around his eyes not readily flowed, the tears on his cheeks would have become evident. Why he conceded to death is no mystery, but the torment continued, as he lay there not able to die. Then, it stopped. The echoes of their laughter became noticeable when the hitting stopped. The pounding in his temples grew louder as he began to wonder why he had lived and why he couldn’t die. He tried hopelessly to remember the faces of his life, but he could not recall what his father looked like. He felt a hand on his arm as a farmer pulled him to his feet.
“’Take off your clothes,’ one said with complete humiliation in mind. The blood had dried in a crust upon his split lip and the son could not etch out a word, but inside he screamed of confusion.
“The farmers decided what to do and went in search for a weight, such as an anvil. They remembered seeing some men discard a circular millstone near the shed a week before. One farmer went outside and called for the others to help him move it. They instructed the son to carry the stone down toward the river, and they quickly went to task. Standing upon the banks of the river, the farmers again struck the heir in the back of the head and began tying the millstone around the boy’s neck with new rope and rolled his weighted down body into some twenty feet of water. The boy sank to the bottom of the river where he drowned quickly. Covering their atrocity, the vinedressers spent three hours that morning burning the remainder of the son’s belonging.
“Therefore, my dear friends, when he hears of the great atrocities that those in which he entrusted his vineyard, what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?”
The crowd hushed as the striking story sank into their hearts. Eyes sank to the floor and many of the wiser guests understood. The silence continued for what seemed like hours until Quo, who loved to bring his audience to great moral dilemmas with his parables, quietly whispered, “He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to another. Can you, my friends be trusted with the vineyard?”
The night had waned on, and with the completion of his story, Quo rose from his place on the hearth and kissed his host, thanked his listeners and began gathering his things to depart. Many in the crowd, in response to the story, thought, “Certainly these things cannot be.”
In the house, the whole party had arrived and the widow rushed from kitchen to den making sure that all were tended to. The noise from the parlor grew as the celebration for the lost coin was now well underway. The commoners from the town gathered in large groups to enjoy the camaraderie of people that more than not are passed by in the streets without even as much as a word. Busy lives. But for the evening, the stresses of the day could be forgotten and they began to settle into the home and tell the anecdotes of an honest day’s earnings. Each began to share his greatest tale or most humorous joke. Some blushed and others roared in laughter, but no one left the fold. For tonight, all were family and each one was truly grateful that the widow had found her lost coin, for had she not, such a celebration, a break from the formalities of life, could not have been enjoyed. They continued to weave their folklore throughout the night, but no one could tell a story quite like the old man they called Quo. He captivated the commoners as he spoke. Some amazed at his simplicity and other in awe of his greatness, but all were engaged by his words. A great storyteller is hard to come by, but a masterful one is the gift of the ages. Even the widow stopped running to and fro, for she too was enamored with the voice of Quo. His stories awoke the dreams she had had as a child and made her feel as warm as when she had been held in her father’s arms.
Quo had placed himself on the hearth and gathered the crowd around him to begin the telling of his story.
“A certain man planted a vineyard far north in the hill country where the farmland is richer than any known in all the land. Gentle breezes passed over the hills and pure streams cut through the valleys to produce the most glorious land of all. This vineyard was the grandest of all vineyards that anyone has ever had the pleasure of seeing. In it grew the finest grapes of a thousand vineyards in all of North Apolutrosis. Not just the small grapes that one would find in his own vineyard, but these luscious grapes were the size of grapefruits and yielded the sweetest wine to ever pass over a man’s lips. The man was pleased with his work, and being the shrewd businessman that the vineyard owner was, he leased it to the vinedressers, or tenant farmers who worked the vineyard on his land. These farmers were to work the land and provide grapes for the vineyard owner and make him a profit while he was to tend to other business in the land. He placed his trust in these vinedressers and gave them simple responsibilities that would bring honor to his lordship.
“At the right season, the vineyard owner sent his servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. The servant approached in great anticipation for what he would find in the vineyard, but the farmers did not receive him well. They thought him a nuisance to their great work and rather than give him what the master had sent him for, they devised a plan to show all who ventured there what they thought of such intruders. The first farmer scorned him while a second gave play to his requests, but once he came behind the storehouse, with one felled motion, he thrashed the servant‘s face hard into the side of the stone silo knocking him unconscious. The farmers moved with urgency as if they were going to get caught for committing a heinous crime. They hoisted the listless body of the servant into a nearby cart and began to wheel him down the road leading from the vineyard. As they came closer to the city limits of the province nearest the vineyard, they discarded the beaten servant in the dust near the beggars that lined the roads of that fair city. The servant awoke some days later in the streets and returned to the master empty-handed.
“The master of the vineyard entreated the vinedressers a second time and sent another servant. The farmers again saw him coming from afar off and chose to treat him more harshly than they had treated the first servant. Their first intention was to only whip the servant and scare some sense into him, but as their anger at his requests grew, their thoughts turned frightful. They bound him and intended to take him to what they thought was the scariest place in the nearest wood. The spot was located close to where a lake bends under a bluff with a sixty-foot drop, but which looked much further in the dark. They gained much pleasure as they whipped him on the bluff and dangled him over the fall as if they were going to drop him. At the end of the terrifying night, they sent the servant away empty-handed and greatly ashamed.
“And so the master, whose anger was growing, sent a third. And, too, they wounded him and cast him out. Then, the owner of the vineyard said to his servants, ‘What shall I do?’ Three of his best servants had been treated with contempt and were not received by the farmers. They had beaten each one, shamed them, and cast them out empty-handed. In distress, the master, who was wiser than all the merchants in the land began to devise a plan. This time, he was sure, that the vinedressers would treat him with kindness. He said, ‘I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’
“And so the master sent his son to the vineyard, for surely they would listen to the master’s son. The day was hot and the work had been long as the master’s son gave up his place in the household to go to the vineyard and bring back the fruit requested of his father. He walked for many miles and through many small towns until he reached the hills where the gentle breezes passed over and pure streams cut through the valleys. He walked along the road that led to his father’s vineyard.
“From afar off, the vinedressers saw the boy approaching. When they saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir.’ ‘What shall we do?’ another asked. ‘I say we give him what he asks for,’ a third suggested. But, a wise vinedresser rose among the crowd and spoke to his brothers, ‘Brothers, I have worked in the vineyard for many years and I have seen the servants that the master sends. We are what make the vineyard work. We are the sweat and toil in these grapes. Many come from all lands to feast off the fruit of our hands and be drunk with the sweat of our brow. It is the vinedresser who is the vineyard and not the master of this field. You look and say, this is the heir. I say come, let us kill him, that the inheritance be ours.’
“The vinedressers erupted with cheers and moved to greet the heir on the road. He smiled as he saw them approaching thinking that they would obey his requests, but he did not know the wickedness in their hearts. The first farmer held out his club and delivered a blow on the son’s head that knocked him unconscious, much like they had to the first servant while another bound him as they had done to the second. Carrying him on their shoulders, they methodically walked toward the old abandoned tool house. The room was about twelve feet square, and the door was slightly off its hinges. The first farmer opened the door to let the light of the morning invade the room for the first time in presumably several years. The others followed close behind with the heir upon their backs. They quickly looked around the room for a suitable place and dropped the son on a broken table in the corner. The thud of the table and the dust cloud that followed woke the son from his slumber, but his conscious level was well below awareness. He struggled to get his bearings. The surroundings were unfamiliar. Voices came out of the darkness that he thought were vaguely familiar. Rage was in the voices, and the son was overcome with fear. He cryptically began to piece together the details of the recent events. A sickness rose in the farmers that had never entered their members. And with the club he held tightly in his hand, the first farmer struck the son across the face cracking his jaw and loosening six of the son’s teeth. The taste of blood filled the heir’s mouth as he tried to spit the teeth onto the floor, swallowing blood with every effort. Again the club came cracking down into his cheek. He tried to reposition himself, but his left eye began to swell shut from where the club collided with his face a second time. Shocked by the blows, the son instinctively raised his hands to guard his face. The adrenaline began to flow through the vinedressers as they took turns hitting him, sometimes with clubs and other times with their hands. The mob unmercifully attacked their own, draining the life from their proverbial brother. The hoots and hollers of the vinedressers rang through the countryside, and still no one heard their song. It became sport with no remorse and a blood-taste for victory.
“The son felt the punches in his stomach, face, and eyes. He began to accept a fate that he would never make it home again. Had the blood around his eyes not readily flowed, the tears on his cheeks would have become evident. Why he conceded to death is no mystery, but the torment continued, as he lay there not able to die. Then, it stopped. The echoes of their laughter became noticeable when the hitting stopped. The pounding in his temples grew louder as he began to wonder why he had lived and why he couldn’t die. He tried hopelessly to remember the faces of his life, but he could not recall what his father looked like. He felt a hand on his arm as a farmer pulled him to his feet.
“’Take off your clothes,’ one said with complete humiliation in mind. The blood had dried in a crust upon his split lip and the son could not etch out a word, but inside he screamed of confusion.
“The farmers decided what to do and went in search for a weight, such as an anvil. They remembered seeing some men discard a circular millstone near the shed a week before. One farmer went outside and called for the others to help him move it. They instructed the son to carry the stone down toward the river, and they quickly went to task. Standing upon the banks of the river, the farmers again struck the heir in the back of the head and began tying the millstone around the boy’s neck with new rope and rolled his weighted down body into some twenty feet of water. The boy sank to the bottom of the river where he drowned quickly. Covering their atrocity, the vinedressers spent three hours that morning burning the remainder of the son’s belonging.
“Therefore, my dear friends, when he hears of the great atrocities that those in which he entrusted his vineyard, what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?”
The crowd hushed as the striking story sank into their hearts. Eyes sank to the floor and many of the wiser guests understood. The silence continued for what seemed like hours until Quo, who loved to bring his audience to great moral dilemmas with his parables, quietly whispered, “He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to another. Can you, my friends be trusted with the vineyard?”
The night had waned on, and with the completion of his story, Quo rose from his place on the hearth and kissed his host, thanked his listeners and began gathering his things to depart. Many in the crowd, in response to the story, thought, “Certainly these things cannot be.”
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