Storymania - Not In My Name Part 1 by E Rocco Caldwell

Not In My Name Part 1
E Rocco Caldwell

I am a father or at least I was a father. Status has no meaning I would suppose now. No meaning, no body and no substance like the momentary wisp of breathe in a cold New York winter morning. I can slightly recall days walking down Wall Street a newspaper tucked beneath one arm sipping a cup of coffee. I never knew how much I enjoyed the feeling of snow beneath my shoes until now. My life changed in a New York minute that horrible morning. I am so far removed from my human life the memory of it is nothing more than coins in someone's pocket. My past life is a smear across the window of my mind. So I wonder why I am still here in the land of the living? In Sunday school I was told once you died immediately you were in God's presence. I was told a lot of things concerning religion over the years of my life. I never once doubted. But now I am sure that much of religion is dross. It is nothing more than worthless trivia for a world of dregs. If I may ramble a little concerning the use of religion in my enculturation I would point out much of what I was taught is an outright lie. I am sure it was meant to be just a giant prevarication to fog our minds and keep us from the truth. The funny thing is that even now I don't know what is really the truth. Perhaps God is a myth, the entire religion concept a scheme? There wasn't any tunnel of light to walk through or angels with wings playing golden harps. In death there is just the echoes of memories and things that tie you to the living. What those things are form the mystery I must solve in order to go to whatever place awaits me. I never knew in death the ultimate conundrum remain.
I miss the texture of my wife's skin just after she finished showering and the aroma of her body. Strange I would recall such things now? Maybe that is what keeps me here? No, such thoughts are pure and inculpable nothing God would blame a husband to have concerning his wife. There is something else that won't parole me that keeps me from finding one of the ten thousand doors to exit this world. Perhaps I believed in the wrong religion and the punishment for it is to roam this world a tormented soul for all of eternality? Than this would be hell and hell would truly exist regardless of how it is perceived or taught in the world of the living. Torment doesn't have to come in flames or brimstone. The memory of my wife's skin and son's face lodged in my mind but unable to experience either would qualify as hell. To be alone for eternality would truly be hell.
At the ruins I run across other roaming souls but we don't communicate with each other. We are too engrossed by our memories to take notice. Our memories slowly burned like a used matchstick and crested over like the black ashes that remain. They are nothing more than residue. Many souls rummage through the ruins looking for something or someone perhaps misplaced items that were important in life. I have no time to grope through the past. I only desire to be free of this place and the memories. They have raised American flags and banners I can see them flapping in the wind. There have been so many vigils lit candles marring the night creating thousands of halos. I have sat in front of the candles and stared at the faces of the living twisted in pain and revenge strange how much influence that has on us. The power of hate can sometimes reach into the afterlife. Sometimes the love one has for the dearly departed can keep one from crossing. I wonder what odor the ruins posses as it smolders or how the mangled concrete feels? The ruins are too difficult of a place for me emotionally so I stay away on purpose. In life I avoided dealing with my emotions. I wished I had cried more with my son and told my wife I loved her each day. I guess my wife and son came to the ruins when others were searching through the chunks of concrete and twisted girders but I can't recognize them in my state. They are like drops of water in the ocean among the thousands of others. Hell doesn't have to have flames.
What happened that morning perhaps remembering it will free me? Trying to recall is like attempting to connect a jigsaw puzzle. There was the face of the fireman just before he reached me as everything came down around us. It was a determined visage at peace with his decision. I thought why was he even inside? He obviously entered the building to rescue whoever he found. Why? His face was the last thing I saw before the New York morning sky. I was staring up at it with my hands in the pockets of my long wool coat. The traffic flowed like water as people passed me without saying a word. I was a phantom in the world of solid things anchored here by some unknown force or will. There were protestors marching down the street carrying banners against a war and the sense of incredible urgency but I wasn't sure what or why? The seams of the city were beginning to split bulging to the shouts and chants and policemen whistles. In the afterlife new but different senses one possess that are deeper and spherical. I can sense what the living feel and those emotions are coils that tangle up spirits.
Time is irrelevant in my state so how long I stood on that corner I have no idea. Day and the night can't be distinguished because what I see is black and white as if the world is now just a photograph negative. I measure night only by the fact the streets are barren or filled with people. The ruins are never far from me they are compelling exercising an enormous influence. I can travel on the wind rising and spilling over buildings in a swirl like that of the eye of a tornado. It is a little scary being in such a state, expanded and yet still complete. My essence is smoke and ice at the same time. Up around the Empire State Building and over Central Park. As I walk the streets I see things, a gang of people beating a Middle Eastern cab driver those striking him say it is for America! I am baffled because the cab driver is an American. The atmosphere in the city I once loved is so different it is charged with anger and stained by revenge. It seems to weight on me like a heavy load and I am sure eventually it will break me in half. The cab driver is pleading trying to tell them kicking him he loves America! I must have loved America in some way. It is an easy place to love or is it lust? Whatever it is it becomes paradoxical. Like the man with the beautiful wife who says he loves her for her personality but when her beauty fades he divorces her. I think Americans love certain things about their country but divorces themselves from things they don't like or understand!
There is a man waiting for a cab in the bleached rain not far from where I am standing. He stares at the ruins. There are tears in his eyes and I can sense a profound lost but a group of people carrying Bibles hurries by him and yells "Fag!" He lowers his head briefly and a cab stops in front of him. Why I think? He wasn't harming them he was remembering and experiencing lost. The very people who profess love injured him as they carried the testament of love. Hell is where you find, create or help organize it. We are both devil and saint the true duality of humanity. The man sits in the cab glazing again towards the ruins. I can't read minds but his face tells of his aguish.
"Terrorists," an apparition standing beside me mumbles. He is an older southern gentleman once into the entire process of oil refinery by his clothing; the big Stetson and black cowboy boots. His large belly stuffed behind a large brass belt buckle. I believe his business offices were on one of the highest floors. "Damn terrorists just walk into the country with sticks of explosives tied to their chests. Hell! Bleeding heart liberals are the blame."
"Why are they the blame?" I ask him. He doesn't hear me as he rambles on about Arabs being different from regular folks; in fact every race from the Africa is different. He used the word inferior.
"Once I got in a taxi and this boy with a towel wrapped around his head is speaking broken English and I have to tell him ten times to take me to the towers." The older gentleman turns and faces me. "He didn't even know how to get there. He's a taxi driver for crying out loud!"
"You mentioned terrorists can you tell me about them?" I ask.
"That's who did this. They hijacked two planes and flew them into the buildings." He squats as if looking for something. "Sons-of-bitches just walked right into the country. The liberals are just as much terrorists as those sand-niggers that flew the planes." For a brief moment his appears like Punchinello, the disfigured face and warped nose even the hump to his back.
"Why haven't we cross?" I ask him and he looks up at me letting a marred smile break in his porcelain face.
"This isn't heaven and that's for sure." He stands spitting tobacco in a line on the sidewalk but the stain evaporates like a mist.
"Perhaps this is hell?" I ask him but he's engrossed in a conversation with himself over the incident that September morning and his Punchinello form bents just slightly so. He hears me and quickly silent himself. He straights his slim body similar to that of the opening of a jack knife placing both hands on his hips and if there had been color the jewelry on his fingers and wrists would have sparkled.
"Perhaps it is hell I've been trying to figure that one out myself. I don't see no brimstone maybe it isn't hell but I don't see no pearly gates or Saint Peter so it can't be heaven neither."
"Purgatory perhaps?" I suggest.
"I ain't Catholic, son! So I don't believe in no damn purgatory." He is a matter of fact concerning purgatory.
"Maybe Christianity was wrong and this is actually some place out of another faith say like Islam?" I say.
"Islam is a nigger's religion. Hell, Allah is black so I know Islam ain't true. A black god couldn't get out of bed before noon." He laughs. His countenance graves as if he is staring at Armageddon and the outcome dismal. "There so little time now anyways. Events are occurring that will have scary results. The earth will sizzle like a rack of baby backs on a Mexican's grill." He removes his Stetson and wipes nothing from the inside brim. "Where we all end up is worth about the same as a hill of beans."
I don't answer him because I am not sure if I agree. I think where one spends eternality is worth something both in life and in afterlife. Perhaps we are nothing more than energy that can't be created so can't be destroyed this is where we identify with a supreme being? We are all that being, all a part of the universal constant--the flow of energy. Nothing is alive without the utilization energy right? It would explain many things such as how one's memory fades the longer you are away from the body, the memories the spirit have are only residue and soon even the residue fades away. Only the physical mind can store true memory and it is where all memory remains only to crumble into dust and so there would be no hell or heaven just a brief period between transfers. My essence will find another body inside the wound of a woman to begin again completely ignore of the life I just lived because spirits can't contain memory. In fact we aren't really spirits because that would suggest an entity or identity and energy would have either. The entire afterlife thing would be inconsequential wouldn't it? Crazy thing to think I agree but at a time like now it would be a question needing an answer.
"Listen, son, it's probably best to stay close to where all of it happened. If God is white he'll be assessing his options and probably sending transportation as we speak so wandering off and missing your ride wouldn't be the smartest thing to do!"
"What difference does the color of one's skin matter now?"
"Position and order, hell, white folks are going to get the best mansions in heaven! I don't know about you but I don't want to spend everlasting life next to the projects!" he laughs wiping at his eyes. "Let the liberals live next to the projects with their home boys and girls!"
"I don't know."
"Do you know why I feel great?" he asks. "Right as we speak Americans are bombing the hell of out a bunch of them sand-jockeys!" He places his hands to his mouth and shouts. "You don't mess around with the US of A!"
"Why are we bombing these people?"
"Because they are responsible in someway and if not what difference does it matter they aren't like us anyway!"
"No!" I shout at him but only a smile return from his made up clownish face. The redneck oilman walks away from me back towards the ruins. He left something there that he can't quite recall. If he doesn't get back some Jew would claim it as his own he mumbles. He is a produce of environment perhaps in another body, in another environment he would have been Bill Graham. If what I think is right about us being just energy soon his hatred and racism would fade along with his memories and in a sense he would be in heaven. The torment such hatred brings he would be free of and that is heaven isn't it?