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I spun around. Where was she? Fran came swinging out like a naked
Tarzan and kicked me in the face with her muddy foot, sending me
crashing through a sliding glass door, into the kitchen. I got a big
knife and ran outside.

They were gone. Those two naked bastards were gone.

I chased after them, shrieking a
battle cry, big knife cutting through branches.
When I get
my hands on them,
I thought,
I'm
gonna cut them open and finally be at peace. That's all anyone wants
– right? To be at peace? I'm gonna kill'em. I'm sorry, but I
have
to. There's no other way. Enough with this
weirdness....Peace, here I come.

CHAPTER
TWO

THE HEALING POWER OF NATURE

PHIL

I was home alone. There were pictures in my wallet – pictures
of me and Carmen holding hands, hugging each other, kissing, looking
real happy. It all made my stomach turn sour. I ripped the pictures
up and burned them over the stove and flushed down the ashes. I was
being dramatic. It felt great. Seeing her bits vanish in the toilet
was a relief.

Fran was off at work. I was going crazy. I was in heat. A comet flew
across the moon. Random images popped into my mind, of UFOs and
aliens and swords and burning cars and big eyes...but no bears.

I grabbed at my hair and shook my head.

Hide it all. Tell no one of this madness.
Sweep it all under my mental carpet.

That was the best thing to do. I was my own best shrink! Better I
lock it all up in my brain. It was easy when I was awake. Sleep was
the problem. Each night, I'd get those damn dreams – of me in
the spaceship, of “them” experimenting on me. Waking up
in a cold sweat, I'd roll over and hug Fran for support, but she'd
kick me away and tell me to go back to sleep, that aliens didn't
exist, only bears. She was right.

Jesus,
I thought,
she's
so smart. I deserve all this yelling. How dare I wake her from her
beauty sleep?

I opened my eyes....I was back at the house again, alone, hands to my
head, tears in my eyes. Soon. My baby would be home soon. I wondered
if she was thinking of me.

Phil....

I turned around, squinting my eyes into the house.

“Yes?”

This is your smarter self talking – the part that went to
college for all those years. Remember me? You created me. You trained
me. I'm here to tell you that sealing up all this pain and confusion
will only grow into something awful. You'll go mental. One day, you
might wake up and find yourself killing someone for no reason. The
mind is strange that way. A real mystery box. Trust me. I'm a doctor.
I know these things.

“
Lies. I'll be fine. I'm
strong. I'm tough. I'm a
man
,
and as such, my job is to
hold all this in.”

I went into the kitchen and made a grand feast. Fran would come home
and kiss me all over my body. In excitement, and in preparation for
our night of sex, I stripped off my clothes and baked a turkey.

“I'll never say anything to depress her,” I promised.

CARMEN

The sun was up. I was in the middle of the woods? Deep, deep in
there. Monkeys made odd sounds. Strange, seeing how there weren't
supposed to be monkeys in Hawaii – at least not to my
knowledge. I kept walking. My feet sank in mud. I felt at ease. Vines
dangled all around me. Those mysterious monkeys were dancing in the
trees. One came down and fed me a banana. I said my thanks and ate
it. The monkey smiled (I think) and ran away screaming.

A wonderful vibration filled me.

Home....Home....

Peace.

Peaceful.

Everywhere I looked, animals smiled at me.

The deer smiled; the racoons smiled;
the anteaters smiled; the rabbits smiled. I kept thinking,
How
many of you guys are native to these here parts?
No matter. I loved them. I walked up and hugged them all. A deer even
let me ride on his back. The grand beast took me for a ride, and we
jumped over fallen logs and mud puddles. I laughed and laughed....

After two hours of riding through the woods, I crawled out from a
dirty-brown lake and realized I was in the nude. Where were my
clothes? When did I take them off? Didn't matter. I was in ecstasy!

And then I was running through the woods and laughing –
laughing at the top of my lungs. Eventually, I started screaming. I
was releasing all those emotional toxins.

At nighttime, those forest animals fed me all sorts of things:
Berries, leaves, bark, and other things of nature. I had the bright
idea of maybe cooking the berries, and a lightning bolt shot from the
sky and hit the ground right at my feet, into a pile of wood, and a
huge fire started. We all cooked our various foods. My deer friend
turned to me and asked if I wanted meat this time around. I said I
did, and he ran off behind a tree. He came back after a minute and
spat flesh into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed as politely as I
could. I didn't question it.

Then I started getting a strange feeling in my belly...a strange
hunger. I wanted brains. But not just any brains. Baby brains.

I knew then that I was crazy.

I needed that damn drug. I had to
get off of it. I got embarrassed and ran off. My animal friends
called out to me – all bleeping and honking – and ran
after me, concerned about me, but I was just too ashamed to show my
face. I was a drug addict. I was a loser. I didn't deserve friends. I
didn't deserve love....Not until I cleaned myself up. I climbed a
tree and sat on a branch.
Of course! That was it!
I thought.
After I clean myself up.
It made perfect sense. First get off the baby drug, then the alcohol
drug, then the coffee drug, then get a job, then get rich and famous.
The meaning of life was clear. I had to turn myself into a success. I
climbed down and told the animals my plan. They thought it was a wise
decision, and they wished me well and said they would do all they
could to help me on my way.

As I stared out at the Honolulu lights way in the distance, I said to
myself, “I can do this. I can get clean. I have the power. I
can be normal again. I can make something of myself. I can make a
difference. I can be important. I can matter to someone....I can find
a new love.”

And as I said that last part out loud, something in me clicked.

Something in me didn't really believe.

Maybe didn't wanna believe.

LOLLIGAL

I was at work when that butcher, Carl, came into my confessional. We
spoke on the phone earlier that day. He didn't have much money, but
he said that if I gave him the service – inject his love ghost
into someone he had the hots for (some old teacher he once had) –
he'd give me a free month's worth of meat. I took him back into the
white room and performed the big suck on him. After the operation, he
went outside and gave me an oily, dripping, brown box of various
meats. He said that, as a bonus, he threw in a cow's head. I accepted
his deal. See, I owed him a favor anyway. Carl once stopped a bunch
of football players from beating up my daughter. Good kid, that Carl.
Always handy with his butcher's knife....

Walking back into the church, a line of ten cats followed me. I gave
them some sausages and sent them on their way.

In my office, I gathered my crew – the nuns and my UFO pilot –
and gave them their share of meat. They were all very grateful, but
meat wasn't going to pay the bills, so I went over to my safe and
took out a big bag of money with a dollar sign on it. I handed out
the bills. As everyone smiled and counted their pay, I said, “Now
let's hurry up and get ready. We have another job to do.”

Everyone walked out.

Except for my UFO pilot – Jody.

She was crying.

“Lolligal, I need more money,” she said. “My
mother...her medical bills keep going up.”

I sat her down.

“Is it the medicine?”

She sniffed. “It's her eye drops! One month they're $20, and
the next month they're $60.”

“And now?”

“$200....” she said.

I was horrified.

“Jesus Lord God. I am horrified.”

“
Indeed,” she said. “She
needs those eye drops. Without them, she says it feels like her eyes
are being dipped in acid. She actually just ran out of them eye
drops. Mom's been crying all the time for the past week. Why, just
the other day, she was cooking bacon when blood started falling from
her eyes! Oh, no....Please, please help me. I know I shouldn't ask
for
more
money. I
don't want that Pope to do anything weird to you....”

I put my hand on her head and smiled.

“Don't you worry,” I said. “I can handle him.”

I gave her more money from the bag.

“Besides,” I said, “as long as we keep this between
me and you, nothing 'bad' will happen.”

We hugged, and I walked her out.

Jody.

Ah....Such a sweet kid. Reminded me
of my daughter Jem. And it wasn't the first time I took a little
money from that bag. Nah. I was taking some out every now and then
and sending it off to Jem to help pay for her college. You have any
idea how much a semester costs in this day and age? It's evil. She
called me up one day, weeping, jobless, not knowing how to pay for
her schooling. She needed help. And I had all that extra money. A
little skimming wouldn't hurt. Who would ever know??? This so-called
Pope that came by sometimes to pick up his money? It's not like he
was psychic. He'd never find out. His
boss
would never find out. Not that I ever met the guy. I didn't even know
his boss's name. All I know is that Mr. Pope here picks the money up
and takes it to him via his Pope van. My crew came up with a funny
thing – took to calling this Pope guy the “Gangster
Pope”.

He was the one that recruited us all; taught us everything. He said
that the procedure came from an ancient time, and that Attila the Hun
and Hitler and Genghis Khan all used it to take over the hearts of
their soldiers – made them all fall in love with him. This
mysterious Pope was the one that put me in charge. Said that all we
had to do was play along. Fly around and give people love. Everything
would work out swimmingly for everyone. We'd all be rich.

I put the bag of money back in the safe.

I wish I could give you more, Jem.

When night came, we all gathered outside behind the church and
watched as Jody landed the UFO down in front of us. The rest of my
crew all wore their silver suits and were putting on their alien
masks. I carried a glass box containing Carl's love ghost. It flew
around, banging into the sides of the box, screaming, wanting
freedom. We walked into the UFO, and Jody took us sky high.

We had something like twenty damn jobs to do....Twenty ghosts to pump
into people. I got exhausted just thinking about the work. Carl
wanted us to put his love ghost into an older woman named Tina Lety.

We hovered the UFO over her house
and saw her watering her flowers. She looked up and screamed. Jody
pressed a red button and a ray of light shot down and hit Tina,
freezing her in her tracks. The UFO landed, and we got out and took
her inside. I injected Carl's ghost into her heart. She was awake, of
course. That was important. We wanted her to see us. She had to be
looking at aliens. That was the trick. That was
always
the trick.

Later, we knocked her out and stood her back up on her lawn, running
hose in her hand, watering those flowers.

One down; nineteen to go.

I was getting tired of doing it.
Uninspiring. How many years had I been doing that job? Too many. At
first it was exciting, but after years and years, you want out. Time
for a change. Time for something else. Time to learn how to play
darts. Something. Anything new. No one is made to do the same thing
over and over again. It's mental. A form of insanity. I think it was
after the Jerkins job when I finally got tired of it. That damn
politician. We had to make a whole
town
fall in love with him. Took us months....

There was a point when the guy running against Jerkins – a Susy
Granto – hired us to inject HER love ghost into everyone in
that town. I thought it was a bad idea, but the Gangster Pope
demanded we go through with it. Susy offered a million smackers for
the service, and that Pope wanted every dime.

Long story short, it was a whole mess.

People died. Their hearts exploded. Tiny ghosts flew out of everyone
– ghosts fighting ghosts in the sky. It was all-out war. That
town – called St. Bergers, in Makaha – burnt down in the
aftermath. Nothing remains there but piles of black stuff and cars on
cinder blocks.

I had bad dreams. Usually, right after a job....Of the island of Oahu
on fire. Of hands reaching out from black pits. Of kids crying and
screaming. I saw myself in there with them.

I had to get out of there.

I had to get out.

PHIL

A real crazy person sauntered into my office. His name was Carl.

“Doctor, please, you have to help me!”

“What's wrong?”

“It's my brain,” he said. “It's hurting all the
time.”

“Maybe you're thinking too hard.”

“No....It's the drugs.”

“That'll do it,” I said. “Stop taking drugs.”

“I can't,” he said, shaking. “I'm addicted! I'm
addicted to baby brains!”

I squinted.

“Excuse me. I didn't hear you right. Did you just say 'baby
brains'?”

He nodded, and then he reached back and pulled out a paper bag. It
was wrapped with a shoelace. The bag dripped red stuff, and I had the
funny feeling it was blood.