The Curse Of The Moloch (16) A voice sound from the upper floor, "Yeh, this is one of them. Hidin' under th' bed." They dragged the struggling Jeremiah from beneath his bed and prodded him to stand. The mine offical surveyed him, "Yep, this here boy being another one of them scoundrels. Saw him pitchin' slag through th' warehouse windows." With out further ceremony, they tied his hands and prodded him downstairs, past his struggling mother to the waiting army lorry. The guardsmen quickly released Miz' Jezebel, and left with her curses trailing behind them. Jeremiah was brought to the overcrowded jail filled, not with angry miners, but drunken men clodhopping and singing in off-key voices. Apparently there were back windows to the cells, and youngsters, armed with coins, brought an ample supply of spirits which they passed through the window bars. The sheriff attempted to stop the practice, but the youths were slippery devils, evading the sight of the deputies, and in the right time dodged through and passed the jars. Jeremiah, well known to the group, was welcomed and his coinage was readily accepted. "C'mon in and join in th' fun," belched one of the miners. Within time Jeremiah dribbled the contents of many jars down his throat and the vapours caused drunkeness. "Yahoooo!" he shouted as his feet clumsily clodhopped to an unknown tune. A county judge was called to try them and the sheriff's office was commissioned as a temporary court. The charges were read out, and under the fierce glaring stare of the judge, all pleaded guilty. The magistrate was firm in his demanding lecture on the respect of property; he called miners a bunch of good-for-nothing louts with no regard for the law. Fines were meted out, and since the amount was not readily available the offenders opted for the alternative, namely 30 days in the lockup. ...and the moonshiners knew the miners were good at their word and they supplied the miners with credited jars of their white lightning. Jeremiah could hardly remember the thirty days he spent in jail as he was continually locked in a state of drunkeness together with the fantasy of his mind. But Miz' Jezebel, his anguished mother, could never forget the picture of his son upon his release - a grinning face covered with a scraggly beard, crowned with shaggy hair in tangles, and dressed in soiled clothes with the clear signs of vomit. Death, the Intruder For each of the good folk of the settlement, set in the hollow, there comes a moment when King Death takes them by the hand and says - "it is a time to rest, you are tired, lie down and sleep. For this sleep there is no fear, no care, only the everlasting peace as it has no to-morrow." The righteous one asked, "Why do we have to die?" They told of their obedience to the words to the Good Book, their good deeds on the warm earth, their duty to family and kin, and yet they asked over and over again, "Why do we have to die, to go to that place way yonder? Yet, for those that asked, there was no answer. For the wicked, the ungrateful, the selfish, the philander, death was the lasting punishment, visited upon them for disobedience, ingratitude or sheer stupidity. King Death said to these people, "It was the misfortune of an act that should not of taken place; therefore to wipe it out you had to die!" King Death was there, the black clothed skeleton with his rusty but sharp scythe; the curve of the blade reaped the souls of the departed. The presence of King Death could be heard in the sound of the rattling of his bones of his skeletal frame. Those waiting till the last breath of life knew of his coming through the trickling of grains of sands in his hourglass; each grain falling like moments of time. The damned and the blessed looked and saw the spectral image approach softly as the grains of sand ceased in their flow... and their reaped souls were taken from the corrupt bodies and placed without rites in the black sack carried over his shoulder. The Grim Reaper is an intruder whose appearance was seen in the past, felt in the presence, and expected in the future; he was not there in the beginning, but he made an early appearance. He came in error and then rattled his bones over the dying. The shadow phantom chortled in delight as armies are mowed down like sheaves of grain; He watched in joy as pestilence swept barren all life from towns and countries... And the Great Leveller rode and continues to ride on the penalty of sin, forcing its retribution in the form of death on the acts of senseless execution and coldblooded murder. "King Death looks and leads the elected to the house of darkness, to the dwelling of nothingness; to a house from which he would entered never goes forth." King Death changed one from one mode to another, the reunion with the body to the earth, and the soul with the eternal spirit. King Death's harvest is everlating and every living creature that fell to his reaping scythe never returns. He reaped with strength and patience in the past and carries on in this pace at the present, and will continue in the coming future. Everything lingers for a moment and then hurries to a mortal end. The plants and insects die at the end of a season, an animal falls to prey, and man struggles on for a few short years in time. Everyone, the righteous, the sinful, Returns to darkness and dissolution." � � � Chapter Thirty-four Hard times hit the community of the hollow. Those with the thought of hopelessness packed up their meager belongings in their second hand autos, placed their kin folk in the remaining limited space, and hightailed it from the parish in search of the earning of bread for their families. They were few in numbers as opportunities were scarce for those who only knew the sound of the drill on coal facing. Other mines in nearby counties were closing down; the number of unemployed grew in numbers from day to day. "T'aint no use botherin' t' pack up an' move along.. Ain't no work now where and no how," they figured. A handful of self-respecting chaps found demeaning work hauling cow dung from barns, clearing rubbish from outlying dumps and when available doing a spot of tar-patch work on the road. Yet this work was only on a part-time basis, and, of course, the earnings were pitiful. "Jess enough fer th' bread and milk fer the kids... an' maybe a couple of jars," they reckoned. A few of the loyal workers were picked by the mine managers to fill the coal cars from the piles of surplus coal; the bitterness of 'humble pie' was in their throats as they took apart the machinery at the colliery. They worked hard in the misery of the labour as they slowly cleared the yards around the mine of everything of value; a value that could only be measured in the toil of their work over the past years. And even that labour of clearing the colliery dis appeared; and within a short period, these loyal workers join the ranks of the unemployed. The laid-off miners lined up and received their weekly unemployment checks, and when the alloted time of payment ran out, they accepted the pittance of government charity in the form of food stamps. Church organizations collected some second clothing and distributed the meager collection to the poorly dressed children of the community. But charity was demeaning to the unemployed miners who rough hands could still hold a tool for an eight or twelve hour workday. They drank their misery through the foul and evil vapours of the jar. The women folk had a constant battle with their men over the possession of the food stamps. The men wanted to trade them at the general store for the jars, and the women, in their right, wanted the official coupons for the bread and milk for their little ones and a bit for themselves. Fights were fierce and many a woman had their eyes blackened or their ribs cracked. The finality of the domestic conflict was that the men, through their brute strength, won out and many a child went to bed crying in hunger; thereby the bruised women folk also went to their beds and cried, not only for hunger, but in their helplessness. The demoness Lilith, with feathered legs and bird's talons, roamed free throughout the hollow seeking her revenge from the first man's infidelity. Here and there Lilith kept her pledge to harming women in childbirth, as well as their newborn babes. Women screaming in the weakness of labour only spewed forth the stillborn. Mothers feared the cold of the nights as they found in the morning the bluish form of their little ones lying in their cradles. The women beat on their hardened breasts and wailed out their losses. Sorrowful times trailed on the wake of poverty throughout the hollow. The stain of poverty increased from day to day. The coin was scarce, and only a few could enjoy its worth, which usually went to the endless drowning of misery in the jug. Children did not enjoy the teaching of 'Thet Godly Woman' as they were busy hunting scraps of metal to sell to the travelling Hebe junkman; a few were seen with the hand of beggary at the crossroads. A few of the older girls offered their bodies secretly for a pittance until they found the punishing hand of the law. And the minions of the law had additional duties in the course of the poverty - theft of property, drunken brawls, and, now and again, the drawing of the knife or the aiming of a shotun. The county jail was filled to capacity with the desperate offenders on minor charges; others charged with committing heinous crimes were sentenced to serve longer terms at the state penal institution. True believers called out to the Lordy for deliverance from this terrible affliction. They jammed their little chapel in the hollow and sent forth-earnest prayers; and they offered themselves to His Son for that blessed salvation. They listened to the goodly words of their preacher as he turned the pages of his 'Good Book', but no answers came. They turned to magic and idolatory; they spun the wheel of the magic of incantations and amulets to seek out the correct way for release from the shadow spirits, the demons and all the other feared creatures of the nether world. They called out the acradabra formula 'Lilith, Lilitu, Lilu, Lil' to protect their little ones from the wrath of the terrible demoness, Lilith. They strung garlic pods around their neck, filled their homes with symbols against the devil and his emmissaries... ...But there was no deliverance from the misery of their poverty, and, in time, the citizens of the community accepted their fate. It was looked upon as the curse of the devil. � � � Chapter Thirty-five Jeremiah Micaiah was counted as one of the unfortunate unemployed, and he had to endure on top of its decaying misery an additional wretchedness, namely the wrathful tongue of Miz' Jezebel, his unrepentant mother. She didn't accept the closing of the mine, and had constantly included a curse or invective against the mine owners in her words. She didn't want to understand that the thinning seams of coal had lost in its competition with the cheap everflowing oil. Her reasoning were that the mine owners were at fault; she figured they were yellow bellies, interested only in stuffing their pockets with the profits from the sweat of the miners' toil. Since these officials were not within her sight the wrath of her tongue was delivered to her son, and every action he took it was coupled with the harsh phrases spewed from her bitterness. "Jess lok ye' - shiftless an' no durn good - T'aint yer fault ah s'ppose," her words spumed, "Ye be workin' in them pits an' earnin' a bit ov money if it weren't fer them shiftless skunks, them thar high and mighty bosses!" Jeremiah simply ignored her mother's bitter words and turned his thoughts away from the babble of her vicious tongue. He turned to the enjoyment of the companionship of his friendly demons and shadow spirits that constantly surrounded his mind. Miz' Jezebel in fury nagged him when he turned his back on her, "Y' be listenin' t' me, boy when ah be talkin' t' ye," But Jeremiah just turned his back on her and closed up his mind... and the surrounding creatures joined him... When tired of the sound of Miz' Jezebel's harsh and bitter words, he simply left the grand house. Not a word was uttered as he slammed the door of the grand house. It was his daily custom to troop about the dusty paths of the settlement only talking to his invisible friends; alway accompanied by a small group of taunting youngsters. Jeremiah, now in his thirtieth year, was accepted by the settlement as a harmless crazed hulking figure whose smirking features provoked pity to some and feared remarks by others. On the close of the day Jeremiah Micaiah escaped to his fellows, where they usually met under the old willow near the general store. They met in all forms of the changing weather; just warming their souls with the fiery liquid. Through the trade of a couple of food stamps he tasted the spirits of the jar in their company. Jeremiah enjoyed their friendship and joined in their drunken revelry, namely clodhopping about to the tune of raucous bellowing. His presence evoked tricks and pranks played upon him by his so-called companions; whatever was done to him for their amusement. The simple figure played his part, carried them out, and laughed together with the culprits. At the late hours all were in the fog of drink; they joined their arms around their shoulders as they bellowed and staggered through the dusty road. A sleeping stray dog or a mangy cat on the prowl usually suffered a thrown missile and the creatures yelped away in the pain of the blow. They yelled and hooted as they clodhopped their unsteady feet to their respective shotgun dwellings.... and the unseen creatures circling Jeremiah joined in with silent merriment. Jeremiah never faced the hard stare of Miz Jezebel, his embittered mother as it was her custom for an early nightly rest. When he entered the grand house. Carefully he opened and closed the creaking door. "Shhh," he whispered to the creatures surrounding his mind. "Shhhh, (hic) y'll wake th' she-devil," as he snickered softly to them. Darkness was all about, and the only sounds heard were his mother's loud snoring and gasping for breath that reverbrated through the thin partitions. Jeremiah staggered through the hall as he made his way in the shadowy obscure light to the stairs leading to his room. The walls were uncomplaining as he bumped into them, and their was no movement from the boards sighted dimly in his drunken gaze. He slouched up the creaking stairs to his room. Without undressing or removing his shoes, he fell on the complaining bed and drifted off to a intoxicated sleep. Jeremiah's life continued in its circle of fantasy and the taste of the jar until that fateful day in the heat of the summer months. On the afternoon of that dreadful day, government agents took a fancy to search out the darkened forest above the settlement. Together with the able assistance of the sheriff and two of his deputies they rooted out a couple of hidden illicit stills; one happened to be the main supplier of liquid spirits to the settlement. While the officers of the law handcuffed the owners, the agents, with their wielded sledge hammers, wrecked havoc on the apparatus. Both the sheriff and his deputies watched the flow of spirits on the hard ground, and the dryness of their mouths felt the loss. � � � Chapter Thirty-six At the darkening of that fateful night, the terrifying sight of the devil wafted in the flow of the air above the community - waiting and watching. The black creatures of Hades hovered above Jeremiah as he trudged the odd mile to the center and to the companionship of his fellows. As he walked along the dust-churning road the friendly spirits of his fantasy were replaced with demons and frightening shadow spirits. They flew above him calling out their taunts and threats. Jeremiah tried to drive them away, but they continued to haunt him despite his threatening weepy voice, "Git away, ye be th� curse of th' devil, git away." He waved his hands wildly about in an attempt to drive them away, but they continued to whirl about him. Somehow in his crazed efforts he managed to turn the rhythm of his fantasy and the tormenting creatures were forced to flee from his thoughts. Jeremiah was deeply puzzled by this interference of these creatures from the abode of the underworld that entered his simple mind. But when he reached the willow at the center and saw the despairing look on the sober faces of his drinking companions, he knew something was amiss. A few words from their lips told the miserable story; and the presence of one miserly half-filled jar ended the narration.
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