Confession of Mr. J (463 hits)
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Submitted by jack aholic <theshadypeach2000.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2008-07-10 00:25:50 EDT
[Transcript
Article 09062023a9
PersonsInterest-Sect]
---
My father was a clockmaker and my other father sold furniture. Sold and made.
I don't mean to trivialize them at all. In addition to being competent in their crafts, my parents were also businessmen whose lives seemed to extol the virtues the American self made man.
My father owned a jewelry chain and my dad ran a series of luxury furniture stores. They were talented enough to design and construct their own designs, setting themselves apart as the last of their kind. I mean, by then it was rare enough that they were private owners of their businesses, most replaced by conglomerates , but they were one of the few who actually sold what they made by hand.
--
Thought you'd never ask. I was born in vitro in San Francisco 2011, a child of the new millennium, and adopted to a happy young couple within the city. Don't bother looking for records. They were torched in the riots along with the stem cell centers only a few months after my birth, making me one of the last batch of test tube babies.
The trio of us was the closest thing to a picture perfect family. Actually--here --
[he swiftly slides out a photo from his wallet without looking]
This was taken when we were still living in a tiny two bedroom apartment when I was seven. One for home improvement magazine. -chuckles-
But you can see what I mean, the place was pretty well kept: designer fixtures, lighting, nice furniture, and clean hardwood floors. And we all had on silly grins plastered on our faces like the ads that pop out around the holidays, you know the ones where a family looked far too happy just sitting by the fireside laughing at god knows what. There was only a minor difference between our family's photo and the ones in the ads, one that was subtle to me, but i guess obvious and even shocking to others. Still.
---
Keep the photo, you can use it for the article.
Anyways, as we were posing--well they were--and I was squirming, my father said to me: look your best, look so respectable that our photo would fit right in the New Conservative. I wondered if it was that much of an honor to appear in it. The dad and father bantered, and one of them(I forget who) warns not to confuse me, explaining that he was being ironic. He also added, never touch the magazine; it contained dirty words. I find that his criticism is still on the mark.
I found out later the publication had used a photo of our family in an op ed piece slamming SS families as sources of corruption for children, how they were slowly eroding america. And, I'm not kidding, New Conservative photoshopped box of dildos under the Christmas tree. I would laugh, if only people weren't so gullible. We got stares from our neighbors and dad was sensitive about it, so we decided to move.
---
Actually this whole thing gets me a bit lost. I dont get what to say when someone asks you, 'tell me about yourself' because honestly i don't know where to start. Too much to say and too much I don't even remember. Is this piece about me? Or is the focus on what I did?
---
Hah. Either isn't really much of an answer
---
Anyways, from our apartment--we lived downtown--we heard riots, protests, and struggle against our government. I guess Big brother, even with his friendly name, had just gotten, well, too big. With too many ears, too many eyes, too many gps systems monitoring every movement, every word, every thought and opinion that'd raise flags. But i guess people lacked the same backbone as they did half a century ago, and the military and police response or the propaganda made everyone lose their nerve. It was a time when streets constantly flared in sirens and shouts and screams, and then was replayed on the news.
During dinner, we'd eat quietly, dad would try to make small talk and flash a weak smile once in a while, but father didn't even try to hide his somberness. We watched on the news as our country came apart, and the times feeding people to the grinder.
I was there when they took away the Arabs, and then the Indians because they looked like Arabs. I was there when they came for the Mexicans because they were working too hard. I was there, when the hippies and the kids on the street quoted "First they came" and like the first time, no one listened. And I was there when they came and took the newlyweds away.
But I was not there when they came for my parents.
I wasn't there for my father and my dad.
--
It was hot that day.
I was sweating hard, walking back from my job past the picket lines and protests that I didn't pay much attention to.
Broken glass, and mens heads in black bags lined up and on the pavement. I tried to shout out their names, but I could only feel a scream reverberating from the deep chasms within my chest, flowing through the gaps in my ribs and between my ghost-white teeth. I could see a hood stand and struggle against the arms holding him down.
It rotated scanned the crowd and uttered a muffled as if straining to look for a face, and then--He stopped. As if he had finally realized its eyes have been taken from him. He was promptly struck with a baton pushed headfirst the white metal box without any additional futile resistance.
The engine roared harmoniously with the screams of the sirens to overpower my coarse voice which continued to shout names. My sweat is ice. The white truck overpowers my legs which unknowingly give chase, carrying me through blocks full of apathetic crowds loud traffic until I collapse in the street, straining to hear the fading metallic falsetto of the sirens that I once tried to block out from my mind during our family meals and in my sleep. the people on the street only watch quietly, then back into their stores and homes, unharmed and unhindered.
I finally saw the horror of it all. Men being reduced to the faceless, formless shapes, wrapped tight around their head. I could see the imprint of their wide gaping mouths struggling for air or to shout--I coudln't tell. And I could see the hands that made it happen, sterile gloved hands that seemed to spring from shadows and the crevices of their police trucks, the magicians that make rabbits disappear in hats and bags never to come out because the show never ended. There are hands of creatures I refuse to acknowledge live, whose intolerances run amok. Hands which gripped innocents by the eyelids and tore down straight down peeling off strips of human flesh. Hands which gouged out their owners' eyes and wore gloves so it would never have to see or touch any of the blood it shed.
If I couldn't tell them apart nobody else would. Nobody else would care, or they wouldn't be standing and staring from their stands and windows, watching this magic show. they wouldn't pass by without a glance like the pedestrians who've already gotten used to the idea of a city without its people. Father, dad--just strangers.
I knew, I knew that no one would remember them a month of now. Their human heads were transformed to the formless shapes of bad dreams. Their muffled screams reduced to a shadow of discomfort locked away along with the spectators' conscience. And then pushed from appropriate dinner conversation.
Faces and voices had been stolen, and then forgotten. Today, nobody cares. By tomorrow, nobody would remember--or pretend not to.
It was cold that day.
---
I did theatre at the community center once in a while, in front of the stone heads. And from this vantage point, Hamlet and I stared into the eye of the world. I found a mirror placed in the fourth wall and stared at myself.
I had one of those revelations only profound to oneself, the kind that seems to invert the lens you've using on your world and then makes you realize how obvious it was. And then you wonder not only why you didn't see it before but how you lived so long thinking so backward.
I killed, I was a killer, but all to a script already written and predetermined. There was genocide in Asia, war and famine in africa, and yet people were here watching. They ignored the real murders and atrocities because they all seemed so meaningless--real life and death lacking the poetry that only fiction can provide. And I knew then I had to provide the fiction, to provide the show, the magic, the fucking horrible symbol so all of them would stand from their seats, break the fourth wall, and try to save someone.
My impulses, my desires, my changes in understanding caused by this rapid chain of events, were just as predestined as the mechanistic events which caused them. People were laid out like domino pieces, hardwired to jump when they're nervous, hate when their afraid, reject those they see as different. They're governed by physics like every other inanimate object in the universe--under the invisible control of electrical signals and chemical levels, dictating their every choice.
But there is no liberation that came with my enlightenment. I knew the ending to the script and would be powerless to do anything but act it.
I was compelled to trigger change. Enslaved in an ugly game to liberate others. And change, like any other impulse that controlled that ugly machine built of men which grinded against itself with every movement, would leave blood stains over the rust.
And I guess the events drove me to where I am now, a gear turning gears. Turning eyes and heads and politics.
You know i'm right, the headlines are only topped by missing white girls, missing white women, about serial slaughters, rapes--people may not pay attention to logic, to others' empathic gestures, but they notice cruelty. They consume it. They set the gears and the wheels maligned--there was no other way to get their heads and hearts ticking and running without the grinding of gears. And people.
But Christ christ christ, you don't know how hard it was. I had to choose a symbol. Someone kind, respected all around except for his one. I mean, he'd be taken away eventually anyways right? I hope he understands, I hope he understands, I hope you understand. I just wanted the sane people to be heard, and before they stole his face away too. I knew needed it--A new body to become the symbol of sacrifice that the crucifix once carried and caused, from the red sanded coliseums to holy Jerusalem herself. The crucifix has lost , reduced to a fashion icon worn in style with southerners and conservatives and the rich.I told myself I was right, and kept repeating, We needed that fucking symbol, that show, the revival of some ancient and primeval emotion to break the set minds and craft something new, something more accepting. I needed it.
And don't you dare box me in with the other Robert Mcnamara's of the world, those people who only say their ends justify their means. The thing is, its easy to look back and criticize them, to show that the ends never justify the means, but it isn't that simple. Because in all those examples, those wars of attrition and political battles acted out on real battlefields--the damage they caused were not calculated as a part of the End. But what if there was a situation which the rewards were so great, that any action, no matter how morally reprehensible, would be right. It'd be a moral checkmate and a bigger lapse of judgment to not sin if they benefits were so powerful.
And I chose a man to make into a symbol. A simple name. Timothy. One from the bible. The kind of name that seems non threatening and american--like apple pie. Served years in Africa, combatting HIV, was in med school. He also fought, picketing and protesting, joining various organizations to combat this purge. He also showed more understanding than anyone around him would give. He'd try to reason with the police at the pickets, throwing pearls to the pigs in uniform, logic and pleads to the deaf ears. He became active in politics and was protected by his organization that he joined after his ex-husband disappeared in the camps. Casted to the script.
And I watched him, I understood him. Don't think I'm a sociopath or couldn't feel it because I can or I wouldn't be here now. But still I knew I had to be the one to do it. But I realized I couldn't look him in the face as I watched. I am no killer. I had to pretend he was already a black bag. Somebody gone and already made into a shadow in my head.
[Stands]
And I--I've mediated on this, plumbed every moral depth, and pondered all the possibilities of my actions, and at every ending is a world better than the beginning. Even if the damage I've caused is so irrevocably terrible and horrifying, the means cause a better end.
And lemme tell you, it isn't easy. It isn't easy at all. But knew it had to be done. Told myself it'd be a mercy killing, a mercy killing, he'd disappear in bag in a few months anyways.
When he left his hospital shift, I followed him to the car. I watched him fumble with his keys. I breathed hard, steadied my hand.
I killed him quick and unpoetically. Inserting a hypodermic needle into his neck and which jetted a combination of anesthetic and poison that killed him immediately. And then I went to work.
The photos were all over the internet, the newspaper, the televisions. People reacted. Several biographies in the papers were printed with his smiling photos, extolling his service, his promise, his virtues. His old boyfriends, even his ex-girlfriend, cried on television.
People finally spoke. Like something ancient and old returned to their souls, to allow them to speak again as an individual. Or more like a switch deep had been flipped, a part of their brain they had shut down before.
And eventually people took to the streets again with their signs. Even policemen and men from the war in the east. People stopped disappearing. People cheered and smiled again.
I threw up. And eventually, somehow, in a way that baffles me, I ended up here.
---
With my wrapped around me, dressed in a place where all the nurses and guards are dressed in the same white that angels would wear
I remember once in this rock's sorry excuse for a library, I looked up his biography online, but midway I tried to close it because you know, I just didn't want to know. I didn't want to see his face. I had avoided all photos before. I didn't want to feel sad, because I knew, I knew that he needed to die. That was the thing. IT was because of all you people, everyone who shrugs off injustice daily ignoring quiet pleas for change just because the suffering was frequent, was widespread, it was nothing special--it was the norm. and for some reason for you people, it made it okay. And you watch, throughout history, people always needed something shocking to be awoken.
Christ his body--his body I ruined him. I pinned him to the wall like a butterfly, twisted, upside down with his head near the floor. I took his head but I couldn't look him in the face. I know I'md damned. they wonder why I'm fine with everyone but mean and vile with the priests and the nuns. I shout at them, I swear at them. i'm just trying to save their time because I know i don't deserve any piece of the heaven they talk about.
I am more jesus than jesus now--I am Judas. Jesus, he was just some weekend warrior, checked in and out of hell like a hotel--went on a fucking vacation--to save humanity. Now Judas, he was the real lamb of sacrifice--the man still on the cross roasting on a rotisserrie. He knew his part in our redemption, he knew his punishment: the shame and slander from the people, the eternal damnation from heaven and his own self loathing, but he accepted anyways. Jesus didn't have a hard choice--eternal glory on earth and heaven was assured.
He sacrificed nothing--he never sacrificed his own redemption. What's a body when, you know, you have absolute confidence, definite knowledge that your soul will be saved. A fucking businessman could make that choice, a profitable investment.
Any man who could see, who knew, who actually was guaranteed eternal bliss, would be willing to sit on a stick for a while if it meant the souls of everyone around him. His spread arms, able to encircle and protect, to be able to embrace others. But Jud-- [...]
But my palms will be pressed together in repentance, tied by the cuff links and the marks on my wrist. And I don't even know if i could hold another human hand again without having a panic attack.
And He had the power to forgive anybody--even Himself. And I think that'll be one of His holy gifts out of my reach.
---
God. I start bawling everytime I see a kid, reject every half decent person who tries to help, even if its out of pity. I can't even talk to the nuns because I don't want forgiveness. I repent
but I know i cant have that. I don't deserve that.
And I--I've mediated on this, plumbed every moral depth, and pondered all the possibilities of my actions, and at every ending is a world better than the beginning. Even if the damage I've caused is so irrevocably terrible and horrifying, the means cause a better end.
And lemme tell you, it isn't easy. it isn't easy at all.
--
In the paper, eventually. I saw his face on the bathroom floor.
--
[...]
I have picture of just father--look, here--he looks like the kid in the papers doesn't he.
He doesn't? I guess I'm the only one who sees the resemblance. I see it in the smile, the same smile in the articles that leave out the kids brutal murder, the one with smiling childhood photos. That smile shattered my shatter my ribs. I sat down. I sat down and cried. Cried again.
It feels like I have his picture in my wallet too, muddled in the same tears. It's hard to carry around. A stone in my pockets as a drown.
I can't even look at dad and my fathers' faces anymore. Much less face to face
[...]
Actually I don't think I have to worry about that [laughs, quiet].
I think i'll be somewhere else.
---
I don't even have an answer to that either. I guess I just wanted somebody to feel some sympathy, maybe know the truth. Maybe I wasn't so prepared after all. Maybe I know somewhere deep down there I made a mistake. Maybe I know i'll end up like Judas.
[he rubs the marks on his wrists]
You know this wasn't even how I tried to kill myself. Everyone thinks I'm a cutter.
I took a knife to my own arms because I saw those reaching hands.
The same gloved arms that took my parents. That took me away.
You want to know something funny? You know how they found matched my DNA? Not by blood, but my fucking tears.
God i'm glad Timothy didn't see.[laughs]
A man crying to himself as he tried to kill somebody. Imagine that.
[...]
[/End Transcript
info- Interview 09/06/23]
User Reviews
Submitted by Ejryuu (user info) at 2008-07-10 17:10:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-07-10 12:50:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think if you had someone edit this for you,it would be a fairly good read.Idea was great though.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-07-10 16:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2008-07-10 16:45:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
DUDES I WON A FIVE THOUSAND SCHOLARSHIP FOR SCHOOL WOOOO WOOO
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-07-10 12:50:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think if you had someone edit this for you,it would be a fairly good read.Idea was great though.
Submitted by icarus1987 (user info) at 2008-07-10 10:47:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Douchetacular.
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2008-07-10 10:21:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
To be fair tears have DNA.
Submitted by Darth_Famine (user info) at 2008-07-10 09:07:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
V in america, how quaint
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2008-07-10 07:56:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Man this was hella long. Almost fucked it off a few times.
I actually made it to the end, the only bit that I enjoyed was the Idea of Judas being more of a martyr than Jesus. That's pretty clever and I sort of agree (If I beleived that Jeebus was anything other than a preacher)
Apart from that this was quite boring.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-07-10 07:24:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Shitacular!
Submitted by bjrog2 (user info) at 2008-07-10 05:18:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
You cant extract DNA from tears, spaz. Lean chemistry
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-07-10 03:14:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
what?