Apocalypse of Jude

The spacious veranda is full of stagnant pleasure and its laziness is intoxicated with the hazy mid-afternoon beauty of the bay. Gary is lain out on cushions straddling the veranda wall, bare-chested with his t-shirt covering his eyes, trying to keep the preternaturally warm sun out of his eyes and the girl making him feel bad, out of his mind. Paul is sprawled out in the shade on an armless, stone-coloured veranda sofa, propped up by his right arm, musing upon his brother’s wreck and his father’s death before him. His eyes then turn to Gary with a disgust and a longing in his heart to be finally rid of this pawn. Yet he knows the next move cannot wait. Bracing himself and hiding his disdain, he casts his eyes into the bay.

“Sit up Gary. It’s time we talked about bringing your father’s house down.”

Gary lifts the t-shirt from his eyes and squints at Paul as he sits up warily. Paul bores his eyes straight into Gary.

“You know what it was like to grow up here with that half-breed as a brother? To know that your own mother gloated over that bastard in front of you, while all the so-called good Christian folk of this town, led by your turncoat father, laughed at you, called you names, despised you.”

Paul’s voice is cold and colourless. But the effect of his words on Gary is powerful, wrenching as they do, his gut with guilt. Knowing he needs the full treatment to gain the mastery he needs for his next move with Gary, Paul prepares for his assault.

“Shall I remind you Gary, how this town became the stench of my childhood? Thirty seven years ago my father became rightful leader of this town. When he became leader, he defied everyone and married my unbelieving mother. You know what it was like before they took over. Those pharisaical believers had made it illegal for any Gentile from outside of this town, even if they professed the faith, to buy property here. In 1967, after six years of getting this town to accept my mother’s religion along with theirs, my parents changed that law, and they gave your father the right to sell property to anybody from outside. These new buyers didn’t even have to confess the Church’s faith like they would have had to before. My father was finally doing what no one before had had the courage to do—make this town open to everyone and let my mother teach her mysteries alongside the Church. That was the year we were born Gary. That was the year Caul was conceived.”

Paul pauses to watch Gary’s guilt begin to change into anger. Happy with the progress he continues.

“But when my mother gave my father Caul as a son; a son who was not his son, but a son from a religious rite of hers, your father pretended to be all religious and started making the Church churn out good works so they could feel self righteous about themselves—enough to get them to turn against my parents, who had freed them from tyranny, and make your father the leader of this town. While all the time he was just consolidating his power over the new trade on property. Scandalous, wasn’t it.”

Gary can only sit shamefacedly as Paul shakes his head.

“Don’t let it break your heart Gary. My mother deserved it. And the fact that Caul’s coloured. That was her way of making sure everybody knew he, and not me, was to succeed my father as head of this town and as priest and king of her faith. Even his name is a bastardisation of mine.”

Here, for a second, Paul’s voice loses its mesmerising hold over Gary as it dips into the cup of bitterness in his spirit.

“I’m glad those rocks thrown that night on the highway killed them. Maybe it would have been better if he had died as well.”

Paul looks full of hate over at a bewildered looking Gary, realises his slip in mastery and commands a soothing voice over him.

“It’s not Caul I hate. Him and me. We are the victims. That’s why we’re still here in this house they built. But it’s gone to rack and ruin. And now it’s time I got a house of my own. That’s where you come in.”

Paul releases Gary slowly to be able to speak again.

“You mean bringing my father down has to do with this house?”

A gleeful smirk ripples Paul’s face, as he sees his pawn beginning to move.

“Yes. You know that I’m busy washing my hands of coke by bringing the three stooges under my control and handing them the coke trade in this town. We’re at a point now that anyone I find pushing coke in this town not authorised by me is sorry they were ever born. The reason I can do this is because I’m forty kilometres from the city. Close enough to get in, but far enough to be left alone. I’ve been in this game a long time. I’ve built up close connections. And the stooges have to go through them. So if I scare the crap out of some pusher they’ve brought in that bought a few low-grade grams from some scumbag on the city beach front, there are going to be no recriminations from that side if I take care of things here. You see Gary, there are no dealers in this town. Too easy to get caught. So I’m just a regular gangster filling a vacuum out here in an upper-middle class society town. I’m protecting your right to snort, and snort good without letting in any of the scum that comes along with crack. I want to keep this town just where it is. It’s in my best interests because the status quo is my best clientèle. I don’t want to let any of the moral free fall and social decline happening in the city to come into this town. It will drive my livelihood away. I want to keep this town safely tucked up with their meaningless moral standards that their useless religion preaches and that they hold onto for dear life, while we sell their land out from under their feet to those who want what I sell. And I know I’m not alone in this desire. All you real estate people want this too, because we’ve got the same clientèle. Isn’t that right?”

Confusion washes over Gary’s face before he takes a look around.

“But what’s this got to do with the house and my father?”

“I need to come clean Gary. Now that my cash flow runs by the three stooges, it can’t be traced back to me. And I’m bored with the underworld. I want a piece of your pie too. But how am I going to get in now that there are two powerful real estate barons ruling this town? Unless of course I can get one of them implicated in a money laundering scandal. By the way, how much is this property worth?”

“You won’t be able to pull that off. Not by my father.”

“You let me worry about that Gary. The point is, I control what you want, don’t I? Well, I’ve got a deal to offer you. I secure you the best of what you want. Personal consumption, I might add. No cost. And you do some paperwork for me. I’ll provide the inside track.”

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 59