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Dare The DevilChapter 17 - Drex #1“Can you see me, do you know my position, how quick is your eye? I hear them moan, I hear them weep, because they feel I belong to the devil. They feel the pain, they will again, till they stop reaching up for this level. No one will defeat me, no one can; I command the lightning’s hand.” --Kansas, The Lightning’s Hand The “morning after” is always a special time for substance abusers. The glow of the night before is gone, and one is left to deal only with the afterburn. And of course, each lovely substance has its own pleasures…Headaches, emptiness, sorrow, diarrhea, itchy nose, vomiting, you name it. All pleasant and lovely in their own way, but my problem was different. Reality. That was my problem. Who am I? What is real? What exactly is going on here?!? I needed a reality check. Do you really think, Sam, that you “did something” to Richard? I mean, come on. The guy has had migraines his whole life. Yeah, but the timing…I “shot” that “thing” at him, whatever that was (what was that? Where did it come from?) and immediately he fell to his knees. Forget it. Timing. Chance. Coincidence. Yeah, OK, but why would I do such a thing? He really is a good guy. What part of me would make me want to do something like that to a friend? Forget about it. You had stuff to do, and it was easier than telling him to leave, and maybe he got your subconscious message, ESP and all that. Probably just coincidence. Forget about it. Yeah, but, it was so creepy…And later in the field The Voice… What Voice? OK, let’s deal with this here and now. There is no voice. There is NO VOICE. It’s only me, talking to myself. I mean, like now. Right? That was the question. The Essential Question Number 1: Was The Voice just me talking to myself, or not? For the prosecution: It sure seems real when it’s happening. Defense: Yeah, but you’re stoned, dude. Prosecution: High. I’m high, not stoned. Defense: And you’re lying to yourself. You’re a doper, nothing more. Prosecution: But….in the books, movies, heck, my own friends….they NEVER talk about ANYTHING like that stuff….they get silly, goofy, relax and laugh a lot, but they never hear Voices telling them they are…. Defense: What? Say it! Prosecution: The AntiChrist. Defense: AnteChrist. Prosecution: Yeah, that’s it. The AnteChrist. That was the Essential Question Number 2: Did I, Sam, high school student, born-again Christian, member of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, really, actually think I was the Anti, oops, sorry, I mean AnteChrist? The alcoholic knows that he only needs to stop drinking to sober up. Wait a few hours and the hangover will go away. You can count on it. And thousands upon thousands do so every day. But this was different. Chillingly different. There were no biological hangovers, at least none worth mentioning. I was young, relatively healthy, and the actual amount of substances I was taking was really fairly small. A couple pills, a couple No-Doze which didn’t even count since it was just there to help keep me awake, and I had only had 4 hits of weed. 4 were enough, true, but there was just not all that much stuff. So, OK, no hangover here, at least not biologically. So I can think straight and deal with this. I think. But there was a different “hangover” here, one that would not go away, I knew, after a couple hours or with a greasy ham & cheese omelet. And I had to get a handle on this. One way or the other it was absolutely imperative I deal with this. My sanity depended on it. So, start again. Fact: I had the experience of a voice telling me I am the AntiChrist. Option 1: The voice was inside my own head. The whole thing was made-up, a silly though dangerous game I was playing with myself, and under the influence of the drugs I was doing all kinds of drug-induced stupidity, one of which was actually listening to the ramblings of a pothead. Option 2: The “Voice” came from outside. It was either some type of angel or demon, or maybe just the spirit of a dead person, or whatever. In the light of day, looking at this as soberly and sanely as I could, I honestly didn’t like either option. Psychotic break or voices from beyond. What a choice. Maybe I should lay-off the weed. Maybe this whole “witch-thing” wasn’t such a good idea after all. The door was open. Like Rael in Genesis’ Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, I saw an open window above my head, offering exit from the madness back to the safety and sanctuary of home. Had I walked away then and there, renouncing the whole craziness, I would have been free. Could have started living a real life. Could have saved myself from the confrontation that would regrettably reveal which option embodied truth. Could have saved sweet, precious Lori from the unspeakable abominations I would ultimately subject her to. Could have. Should have. Would have, if I had even a fractional clue of what I was really dealing with….what I was becoming….Yes, Dear God, I swear with all that I know and am that I would have…. Should have. Could have. But didn’t. And the window slammed shut like a mousetrap having missed its prey, “Back to the void where it came from….” as Rael sang. But unlike the hero of that story, who turned from the gate in order to save his drowning brother, I turned aside from hope and peace and salvation and sanctuary for another purpose….another issue….An answer to my Essential Question Number 2: Am I really the
AntiChrist, He who has been prophesied of old?
The forerunner of the return of The Son? AntiChrist or AnteChrist, could I be him? Forget about the nature of the voice or Voice that told it to me….More important, Much more important, was….Is it true? Oh, come on now. You cannot be seriously thinking that you, little ole you, Sam the geek, is the World Leader to usher in the Great Tribulation as the prelude to the return of Christ? Well, it was at least possible. Moses, Abraham, Paul, Peter….these were normal, job-holding guys before The Lord Almighty decided to send them on a mission. And every one of them expressed initial incredulity at the message. Just like I was now. Another thing I had in common with the Prophets of Old. But come on, now. I’m just a kid. Except…I wasn’t. It’s 1975, I’m turning 18 in 3 months. The Rapture isn’t scheduled until 1981, six years from now, making me 24. So, OK, age-wise it is at least possible. Sure, a stretch, but possible. But come on, now. World leader? Just how was this supposed to happen? I had the education and the religion and the brains and The Shield of Faith and all that, my hyper-inflated ego sought to remind me, and maybe Mom had been right all along that I was fundamentally different….But still, how in the world was this going to happen? Well, if God wanted it done He would have to make it happen…..Certainly He could do that…And… Wait. Just wait one minute here. There’s something very wrong….something very suspicious….What is it the voice or Voice kept telling me? Over and over? For months now…Heck, starting almost a year ago with Debbie McIntyre in the library….I had repeatedly been told I would do what I was told. Just what did that mean? Just what in the world did that mean? Every time I turned around some one or some thing was telling me I would “do what I was told.” And think clearly here, Sam. Listen up. If that’s coming from in me, if that voice is just my own drug-addled brain talking to me, just why exactly didn’t I tell myself what I meant when I told myself I was going to do what I told myself to do?!!?!? And since that seemed sooooo impossible, maybe The Voice was really not me….leaving, of course, only the question of ….Just Who was it? Is it? Just what was going on here? My morning-after self examination had left me with two extremes. Either The Voice was True, and from God, and I was called to be The Forerunner of Christ, or I was in deep trouble here. But then I remembered the Gifts. Sure, maybe I wasn’t exactly nice to my best friend as I shot my psychic arrow at him, (whether or not I could convince myself the apparent effects were coincidental, that is what I had done), but there were so many good things. Blessings. The celestial music playing on the stereo of the Cosmos, the girls who loved me or at least let me play with them, the Cone of Light where I could actually name each particle of light…I mean, I had seen the Devil, remember that, and it was horrible! Certainly if there were any forces of darkness at work here I would know. Wouldn’t I? But even assuming that God Himself was calling the shots, there were soooo many questions, like just how this was supposed to happen? What exactly was I supposed to do to get on the world stage? And would someone, anyone, please tell me exactly what I was supposed to do?!? Oh, too much, too much. I can’t deal with all this. Got to get out and clear my mind. Take a bike ride in the open air. All will be revealed…. So I headed out on my trusty bicycle to get a breath of fresh air and clear my head. Fast, pedal, up hill, down, breathe hard, get the heart pumping, flush out any traces of substances from my system, start afresh….Except…Except… Except it wasn’t going to be like that. It quickly became evident that I was caught-up in something that in all probability I could not have extricated myself from, even if I had wanted to. I became inexorably trapped inside this web of my own making when I rode my bicycle past the schoolyard where I had Communed the previous evening, to see Drex playing paddleball with a friend. Racquetball, handball, paddleball. All had the same basic idea and were played on the same court, but the things you used to smack the little ball were different. In the California public schools the courts were all outside and had three walls. It’s played a lot like tennis, only on a half-court against a wall. And Drex was playing. Drex was one of the techie drama guys, preferring to work on lights and sound systems helping stars like me to look cool. A nice guy, I had seen him around school often, at the rehearsals, and at all the drama parties. Drex was also a jock. Big muscles, strong legs, very coordinated, and much more popular with the ladies, at least until I got help from wherever I was getting help from. And I hated him. Oh, not for Drex himself. I doubt he would ever hurt a fly. And really I barely knew him. But he touched one of my deepest, most raw and exposed nerves: the popular, able athlete who was attractive to girls. My father was a 4-letter all-star jock in high school, and actually went on to be a professional baseball player. And like so many parents wanted a son who would not just follow in his steps but be a companion, have things in common. He certainly cannot be blamed for that. His curse, though, was that he gave birth to me instead of Tiger Woods or Mark Maguire or any number of able-bodied athlete-types. He tried to teach me to play baseball, football, even sent me to a private golf academy, anything, anything at all, but to no avail. I was to be an egghead, genetically engineered (no one knows how, as Mommy so often reminded me) to be a chess whiz at 8 and invent my own system of mathematics at 13 and score nearly 1600 on my SATs after 2 years of being a bum. Sorry, Dad. And every year at Shady Side Academy the first 3 days of the school year were dedicated to simple, rudimentary physical tests like push-ups and throwing a softball and the like, and while my 6th grade friends were throwing the ball 50 yards I was really lucky if it went 15, and my 2 push-ups were hardly any match for their 100, and the school always took the 12 worst, most inept kids and put them in a special remedial program called Physical Education. The “Phys Ed Flunkies” (as we were universally known) were the bottom of the bottom of the all-boys totem pole, and I was a charter member 5 years in a row until the move to California mercifully saved me from the public humiliation, and getting sick in my junior year saved me from having to do athletics at all, until my senior year when I started each day playing racquetball because it was the easiest thing I could find or think of to do. And paddleball was just like it, except that one used a solid paddle instead of the tennis-racquet-like thing I was used to, and here was Drex playing paddleball. “Hey! Mind if I give it a try?” I could literally hear Drex laugh. This was going to be a joke. Drex was practically a pro. He almost had to wipe the drool off his chin, thinking about the thorough pounding and humiliation he was about to give this pathetically scrawny looser. Not to mention the fact that I had never played paddleball in my life, since either the paddles were relatively new to California or I had just never seen one or whatever the reason, and I told Drex and I guess he believed me and I knew it was true, that I was a novice. What he didn’t know was that I had a secret weapon. I was The Chosen One. I had a Voice that promised me that I was special, that I could have what I wanted, had demonstrated that in remarkable ways quite beyond my expectations, like making this very schoolyard act as my soundstage just last night. So it was time for a test. The scientific approach. What voice, from where, what’s truth, what’s going on here, all of my morning-after confusion offered-up upon the Altar of one paddleball game. I wanted to beat Drex. Pound him. Humiliate him. I grabbed the paddle, holding one in my hand for the very first time. Thick. A bit heavier than the racquets. Shorter, but broader. Take a swing. Hmmm…No holes, so the wind resistance was greater. Knock it around a bit. A bit odd, but OK. “Ready?” Sure, let’s give it a go. And then, just before my first serve, an old tradition says the worst player always has the first serve, I did “it,” whatever “it” was, the psychic arrow I tried to use on my brother and shot into Richard and this time I shot it not into Drex but into myself. A prayer of sorts, though since this was much more along the lines of an order it should properly be called a magic spell. And I ordered The Voice and The Powers to come into me, prove themselves in one, real, tangible way. “Can you see me, do you know my position, how quick is
your eye? I hear them moan, I hear
them weep, because they feel I belong to the devil.
They feel the pain, they will again, till they stop reaching up for this
level. No one will defeat me, no
one can; I command the lightning’s hand.” “Serve.” I beat him 21-4. Oh, I wasn’t perfect, as measuring mathematical perfection, since I did miss a few shots and he scored a couple points, but for all intents and purposes I was perfection incarnate. “Ilste Manifestoir.” Meaningless syllables that kept ringing through my brain almost like an incantation, as I saw stroke after stroke as a manifestation of my energy, and the ball did not go where I wanted it to, because I didn’t know exactly where that was, but it did go exactly where it should. I mindlessly swung with all the power I had and the shots were perfect. Serves that could not be returned, nicking the thinnest edge of the side wall at the last tenth-second and completely changing course…over-the-head-backhand-shots I would catch as I ran as fast as I could away from the front wall, only to land on the front wall 2 inches from the floor…Mad stabs at Drex’s incredibly fast serves that miraculously, yes it did appear to be a part-the-Red-Sea-type-miracle, flew across the court and practically died in the corner, physically un-returnable. What was happening was impossible. I had never seen anything like it, let alone actually done anything like it. I did not even feel in control of my body, and tried not to look jaw-dropping-amazed as shot after shot landed perfectly as though it had been placed, so it seemed to me, by the Hand of God Himself. I think Drex scored about 10 points in each of the next two games, but the overall effect was stunning. “I had no idea you could play like that! Wow! That’s amazing! Where did you learn to do that? Can you give me some pointers?” Drex was a champ, all around. Really, another great person who happened to unfortunately cross my path. The competition was fun, a true game to him, and he delighted to see such a performance, and the fact that he had “lost” was completely irrelevant. To him, that is. But not to me. I had played Sam Versus The Universe for Signs He Really Is The AntiChrist, and I had won. Or so I thought. Not to mention the fact that I was much more astounded by what had happened than Drex, since only I knew that I did not know how to play that way, and the only explanation was supernatural at best. Add to that having vindicated years of less-than-able-bodied-frustration, and my gentlemanly response was only “Bite me, Drex,” as I ceremoniously tossed the paddle onto the ground and rode my bike away without a look back. Game, set, and match to….To Whom? It certainly wasn’t me. But, again….Who? I was back where I started, confused, mystified, full of more questions than answers, and yet….Something….Nagging…That this wasn’t just chance, that “it” really worked, and I had asked for (or was it commanded?) a sign, and certainly had seen enough signs in the last 24 hours for one life, and that meant….though I could hardly say it or admit it…That I was beginning to think that The Voice really was God, and He was right…I am special…The Holy One Foretold. The madness that enveloped me was so complete, so perfect, that I could find no possible proof that I was not The AntiChrist. The AnteChrist. But….wow….I mean, if that’s true…. So, OK, granted all that, just what am I supposed to do? I needed a break. Too bad the upcoming Spring Break would not provide it. |
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