Scarecrow Gods

SCARECROW GODS

Weston Ochse

First Digital Edition

November 2011

Published by:

Darkside Digital

P.O. Box 338

North Webster, IN 46555

www.darkfuse.com

Scarecrow Gods
© 2011 by Weston Ochse

Cover Artwork © 2011 by Mike Bohatch

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Yvonne.

Your heart and beauty inspire me.

Acknowledgements

With love and thanks to my family for supporting me in this solitary passion.

Thanks for the very special help I received from Dr. Jefferey Katts, Doug Clegg, Tom Piccirilli, Brian Keene, Joe, Brian Knight, Nick Paraskevas, Ed Lee, Nanci Kalanta, Ray Garton, Mike Arnzen, Joe Nassise, Adam Niswander, and F. Paul Wilson.

To Paul and Shannon, thank you for your encouragement and friendship.

To Bob Strauss, thanks for championing the life of Maxom Phinxs.

Thanks to H for Keeping the God.

Thanks to Shane for believing in me.

Thanks to my wife, Yvonne, for absolutely everything.

Thanks to Ishmael Reed for allowing me to be a “Cowboy in the Boat of Ra.”

Finally, allow me to express my love for the Cabal. You know who you are.

PROLOGUE

SUMMER—1972

The Highlands of Vietnam

Sunlight dappled the greenery of the jungle’s edge, each spot of darkness a bullet hole that could be. Pin-pricks of never-was pierced the canopy like peep holes to the heavens allowing Infinity to gaze down, sole spectator to the mad events that were about to transpire. Winks of green-light reflections flashed from beads of moisture and sweat dripping from muddy foreheads crinkled in anticipation.

Maxom Phinxs sucked air through clenched teeth, each breath matched by his old friend Bernie and the other six members of the team, all of them breathing in unison, their collective heartbeat counting cadence as they lay waiting in ambush.

The team had been forged long ago in the crucible of Fort Bragg, tempered in the hate called Vietnam and battle-proven in twilights of screams and flowing lead. Star-spangled passion shot through their veins. Red, white and blue murder shone from their eyes.

They had never lost a battle.

Some whispered that they never would.

It was hard to believe that these martial creations had once been boys who’d fired invisible death from finger guns. No matter the enemy, no matter the battle, they’d always been sure, they’d always been successful. They’d always managed to survive.

The Special Forces Team crouched and waited for the Viet Cong patrol to slink along the trail at the jungle’s edge. Maxom and Bernie exchanged quick grins as they heard stealthy movement creep within their kill-zone.

They’d never lost a battle.

Some whispered that they never would.

It was all up to Infinity.

CHAPTER 1

Friday—June 8th—The Present

Ooltewah, Tennessee

“Maggot Man, Maggot Man,

He has no feet, He has no hands.

Maggot Man, Maggot Man,

He has no hair, He has no tan.”

Stones rained down upon the flat tin roof of a tired and beaten home. Black tar oozed from between its weathered slat boards, each held bent and twisted to the skeletal foundation by rusty iron nails. Weeds and small saplings grew thick where a lawn had once been. An old Ford truck squatted, the same color as the twin gravel tracks it sat upon. Chunks of the concrete porch were missing as if a great beast had passed by hungry and mean.

Like midsummer’s fairies, six giggling boys chanted and danced their hate through the tall milkweeds and shadowy pools at the kudzu-draped forest edge. Louder and louder they cried, attempting to transform words into weapons. They traded decibels for velocity in their efforts to bring down their dedicated monster.

When the grating sound of the home’s front door intruded upon their gay nastiness, the boys merged and became a single dread beast. But instead of attacking, they turned and fled, puffs of dust from the little-used road screening their laughter, covering their tracks, hiding their contempt.

Their sentiments lingered in the air like clouds of gnats on a Southern summer’s eve.

“Maggot Man, Maggot Man,

He has no feet, He has no hands.

Maggot Man, Maggot Man,

He has no hair, He has no tan.”

* * *

Maxom Phinxs stood behind the screen door watching the boys scamper home to their own full-bodied lives. He scratched the side of his smooth hairless scalp with the bony nub of his left arm, turned and lurched back into his private dark. The windows had been covered long ago with black garbage bags to not only protect his skin from the painful light, but to also protect him from the many versions of the cross that had made him.

Oblivious to the screams of his mother cowering in a corner of the living room, on his first day back from the VA Rehabilitation Center, he’d allowed the devastation of his body to finally send him reeling over the edge of sanity. Fueled with the desperation of a phobic rage, he’d careened through the old home shattering each and every window, concentrating his violence upon the crosspieces that created the baleful symbol until he fell sweaty, bloody and crazed in a heap amidst the shattered glass and sobs of his confused mother.

The glass and frames had since been replaced, but the plastic bags remained, changed seasonally by a younger man from the church over in Ooltewah. The result of his self-imposed eclipse was a dark and dusky interior seemingly difficult to navigate. Maxom’s eyes had long since conformed to his particular darkness, however. He knew the complicated maze like Perseus with a map. Only a long blacklight high on a soot-covered wall illuminated the room in its own strange blue glow.

Maxom stepped stiffly around the dozens of thigh-high stacks of record albums and precariously balanced books and lifted the lid on the old, oak console combination record player, 8-track tape player and radio. With his remaining hand, he lowered the needle onto the black vinyl circle that was already in place. The scratchy intro came to life in the old-fashioned mono speakers embedded in the front of the fabric-covered console. Carole King’s
Beautiful
filled the room with its high images of happy promises and self-realization. Maxom grinned, appreciating the irony of his daily joke.

“You’ve got to get up every morning

with a smile on your face and show the world

all the love in your heart

then people gonna treat you better

you’re gonna find, yes you will

that you’re beautiful as you feel.”

He picked his way over to the long low sofa that squatted against the wall beneath the light, turned, and fell heavily upon the old, worn cushions. He hummed along to the rich scratchy words and gazed at the sparkling motes from the small plume of dust that erupted from the impact. They danced in the blacklight’s gleam like miniature disco balls in concert with the lament.

His therapist had recommended Carol King, promising that the woman’s lyrical philosophy could help relieve his depression. She’d recommended this song in particular, insisting that starting the day on a high note was critical. Like always, he followed her advice, but felt like a POW again, bombarded by propaganda.

How was some white-bread city woman supposed to know his mind? To know what it felt like for a dog to gnaw on your foot? Or the revulsion of watching a maggot pop free from your skin?

Still, of all the therapists he’d had, she’d been the only one who’d seemed to care. He wasn’t sure if it was her youth or her ambition or her damn good looks. All he knew was that she was the only one sent by the VA that he’d listened to and it was by her recommendation that he’d been allowed to finally leave the institution.

Maxom reached down and undid the straps on his prosthetics—first his right leg, then the left. As they came away, he placed them upon the cushions beside him. With a strong long-fingered hand, he massaged the stumps, kneading the bristle-bone that ended just below each knee. He loved the new integrated ankle joints the hospital had finally given him. They made his movements almost real, less plodding. If he could just practice more, he wouldn’t look so much like a stork. Between his days in the house and his nights on the job, however, there was little chance, or need for that matter, to wear them.

He’d strapped on his new prosthetics in a frantic rush after the children’s attack awoke him from his daytime slumber. He’d hoped it was, indeed, only children. He’d had problems in the past and wasn’t eager to renew them. It was the giggles and the high-pitched whining of the adolescent boys, however, that had kept him from grabbing the shotgun like he’d done so many times before. Still, he’d hurried to the door, remembering the men in white sheets who found his existence anathema. The scorching and smoky residue of their violent confluence was still evident in several places he’d yet to repair—permanent memories of KKK philosophies.

He reached across the long wooden coffee table before him. From between unstable stacks of paper and hardback novels, he plucked a container of talcum powder. Sprinkling each nub, he massaged the white dust into his skin, the talcum already relieving some of the chafing he’d caused by forgetting to slide on the flexible, cloth-covered rubber caps he’d neglected in his earlier rush. Satisfied he’d done all he could, he reattached each prosthetic with his single hand, stood and headed for the bedroom.

Piles of dirty clothes littered much of the floor. There had been a woman who’d come out to clean for a while, but like always, even when they were paid, serving the Maggot Man was just too much. Pretty soon he’d need to find another cleaner. His clothes were getting spare and the house smelled rank. Maxom wasn’t the type to sweep, vacuum or wash. After all, who did he have to impress? Just by walking, he’d provided several mediocre doctors with excellent articles to propel stagnant careers forward.

Maxom pulled the chain on the overhead bulb and a single blacklight cast the mess of his bedroom with the same eerie glow as the living room. It wasn’t that his skin couldn’t take the light. It was just that the scar tissue was so tender. He’d seen a dozen experts and learned even a graft was impossible. The white phosphorous had burned too deep and too long. Every time he even so much as glanced at his skin he remembered the burning that water couldn’t quench.

He removed his robes with a twist of the waist tie revealing a body that was a tormented mosaic of white and orange on a black canvas. He was too thin, as the nurses always said, his ribs showing like harsh ridges under stretched skin. Careful of the humidity and the inherent slipperyness of the vinyl floor, Maxom stepped into the cramped bathroom. He leaned against the sink for support and ran cool water into the black lacquered basin. Sitting on the shag-covered toilet seat, he began to gently sponge his skin with a thick black washcloth.

The whiteness had the slick gleam of old scar tissue. Speckles of rejuvenated orange skin were like random patches sewn against the patchwork. In several places, his original black could still be seen. The largest of these was a butterfly-shaped patch on his chest where the flack jacket had protected him from much of the burning.