Post by Amy Jo Smyth on May 27, 2017 22:08:47 GMT -5
I'll be okay
'Cause when I back away
I'm gonna keep the handle of your gun in sight
'Cause when I back away
I'm gonna keep the handle of your gun in sight
___________________________
In the Continuing Adventures of Our Hero...
◀◀ Be Kind, Rewind
Griffin holds me in place, using me as a human shield to both block the view into the hotel room and to prevent any shots. If I can see the tactical team pointing SIG MCX carbines at me, then he can see them pointed at hm. This man might have nothing to lose and a death wish but that doesn’t mean he wants to end this so quickly. I’m his pawn, knight, bishop, and every other expendable piece in what will become a very interesting game of chess between him and the police outside. My life is now a bargaining chip in his attempt to keep his own, or at the very least, further his own means - that wretched agenda.
He will be happy to become a martyr for the cause of white supremacy.
First, though, he has to tell the world what he believes, he has to reveal what he did all of this for. The mass shooting at the mosque was the attention grabber, the way he could support and spread his cause, and of course, to become the hero for his cause. Not much different than the extremist jihadist suicide bombers that gladly blow themselves up and take others with them to make a point, to avenge something, to get in good with their God and their mortal masters. Except, well, now he can’t do that thanks to my interference.
Change of plans.
His plans may have to take a one-eighty turn but that doesn’t mean his end game has to change. Taking a CIA agent with him will do more than enough to support his cause and gain new followers. He will become a hero, exactly what he wants to be.
After having a good look and possible staring contest with the masked men outside, he pulls me back violently, flings me away from him. I crash into the chair, smack my head against the wall, and nearly fall to the floor. He quickly slams the curtains shut and turns around to face me.
He growls at me.
I just sit there, holding the back of my head, letting the pain radiate and daze lift. That’s now three times that I’ve taken hard hits to the head. Thank God for being so hardheaded. My poor brain. It’s already damaged, it doesn’t need anything else.
Things weren’t supposed to go like this. Only his plans were meant to be foiled, not mine.
Griffin charges right for me and shoves the Browning against my forehead. The metal of the muzzle is still warm. Happiness is a warm gun. He pushes more, presses it harder and harder, driving the barrel, front sight, and spring plug deeper and deeper into my flesh. It quickly starts to sting.
“This is your fault!” he shouts and continues to push. I have no other choice but to offer as little resistance as possible to relieve the pressure and reduce the pain. My head slides back all the way the wall and now I have nowhere else to go. If he keeps pushing as hard as he is, the gun will break the skin, crack my skull, and enter my brain. Okay, so I’m embellishing.
But if he pulls the trigger, something else will very easily find its way into my brain.
The Figure Eight.
8
When a gun is held as closely as this and fired, a contact gunshot, the resulting movement, heat, and force will occasionally leave a figure eight shape at the entry point, known as an abrasion collar. The bullet makes a hole, obviously, but the barrel creates a more perfectly round hole, one that is cut by the slide moving outward, right into the soft flesh, and cauterized by the heat of the explosion. The second circle appears right beneath that thanks to the spring coil plug, mainly because of the heat. It literally burns a circle into the flesh and depending on the weapon’s design, it could leave other designs inside the circle, like a grading or x-shape. If it has a high front sight, it can even, in a sense, crown the bullet hole. If that doesn’t happen, there will often be unexploded gunpowder and residue around the wound. Powder burns that can help create the figure eight design.
I remember seeing once during my time on patrol, the perfect imprint of a .38 special revolver front sight and muzzle bruised into the flesh of a gunshot victim. Now that was a special moment, something so rare - like a unicorn. A bunch of drunk bikers got into a brawl over - God, I don’t remember - and one of them just, pulled out a Saturday Night Special and that was the end of that. Mister Saturday Night Special. Got a barrel that’s blue and cold.
Christ.
When you’ve seen heads blown off and brains sprayed all over a bed room wall, you never, ever want to have that happen to you. And I’m real danger of having Griffin repaint this hotel room’s walls with my blood. Even if finger just slips. I’m absolutely powerless. The vulnerability is real. So is the quick burst of adrenaline that re-ups the level in my system. It never gets any easier looking at the wrong end of a gun.
I swallow hard, close my eyes, and hold my breath.
The gun is pulled away. He grabs my face with his hand, holds it in place, squeezes my cheeks tightly. The stench of gunpowder, dirt, and body odor on him and being so close is just intense and overwhelming.
“Open your fucking eyes,” he shouts. “Look at me!” He just squeezes more, pinching my cheeks more and driving my chin upward. “Look at me!”
What else can I do? I open my eyes. His face is right there, not inches, but centimeters away. His hot breath hits me in the face; at least that doesn’t smell. Small favors.
“You did this,” he says, spitting on my face, and then starts shaking my head back and forth. “You fucking bitch. I’m going to kill you. Just…” Griffin releases me and throws me back, rocking the chair. He then steps away, turning his back to me. I see the Glock, my Glock, slide into his waistband. I could easily reach it from here, grab it, shoot him in the back of the head. My hand slowly inches forward, opening, ready to take back my weapon.
I’m a finger away.
He starts screaming at the top of his lungs - the guttural growls of an animal - and bends forward, tightening all his muscles, flexing, becoming something that I don’t understand and terrifies me into submission. He turns around, his arm swinging, gun in hand. There isn’t enough time. There is nothing I can do now.
Take the hit gracefully, my dear.
Pleasent dreams.
↼ ⟡ ⇁
Fucckkkk.
My face hurts. It burns and stings. Without opening my eyes, I gently touch the location of my worst pain. There is a scraping, swelling, and dried blood. A zing of pain rushes through me. Then I remember the rest; there’s a big bump on the right side of my head and another on the back of my head.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” Griffin reads.
For a moment I forgot where I was, who I was with, and why, but now it comes back to me.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” he continues. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
I open my eyes.
Griffin is sitting on the edge of the bed, a book opened on his lap and the Browning sitting beside him just within reach. The book I can accurately assume is a bible, because where else do you get Genesis from?
Why is he quoting the scripture to me? Where did he even find a bible? This is just fucking great, because his racist and hatred wasn’t enough, now he’s gonna ramble on about that… I’m sure that’ll find a way to be racist, too.
He flips a page. “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the lord,” he reads aloud and then looks up at me. “Cain… The offspring of the serpent who tempted Eve. The twin of Abel, the son of the serpent!”
“What?” I mumble. Talking makes my jaw hurt. “Cain is the son of Adam and Eve. Their first born. Abel came after.”
After loudly flipping back the page, he reads, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
“Okay, and?” I ask softly, trying not to move my jaw.
“Seed… Satan's son and Adam's son. God knew she was carrying twins, having lain down with both before being expelled from the Garden. They shall bare hate between them. In the very next paragraph, Cain is jealous of God's love for Abel so Cain kills Abel. Do you know why God does not love Cain? Cain is not a son of God. Cain is the son of the serpent!” he explains with passion. A passion of a preacher spreading the gospel. He's preaching to the wrong person. “And when Adam's children beget the ten tribes of Israel, his chosen people, Cain was not one those leaders. He gave birth to the Jews!”
This version of the Bible doesn't link up with the one I spend sixteen years memorizing. “When God spoke about seeds, he was referring to the seed of a woman, the virgin birth. Satan, or the seed that is Satan, will be at odds with Jesus, a child born of a woman and not a man, but through miracle, without knowing a man,” I tell him, fighting through the pain.
“That is what that modern, universal translations will tell you,” he says, driving his finger into the pages of the book. “God chose his people, Adam's children - his white children. All others are beasts that came before or the spawn of Cain. You see, Yahweh, promised salvation only to those truly born of Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac, the ones that from the first man, Adam.”
“He promises salvation to those who accept Jesus into their hearts,” I say, unsure of why I'm doing this. God isn't real, the Bible is giant fairy tale, and Jesus’ powers were greatly embellished.
“The house of God belongs to the Europeans, Germanics, the Celts, the Norse…” he says, growing red in the face. “They are the ones who shall inherit the Earth when Jesus comes again. Yahweh created all others to be servants to his people when Jesus rises again.”
I stare at him.
“The lost tribes moved into Europe, conquered the Earth, conquered all manner of beast… The beasts of the fields! Why do you think the white man took over the planet, spread itself everywhere? They conquered and made servants of those that God put on his creation to serve. It is what God wants and it what God shall have,” he says. “We are the chosen people and it is vital we take back what belongs to us, serve God so that we do not betray him, and that means living up to the obligation he set, to the - the - to our birthright as Adam’s children.”
“I think you're reading it wrong,” I say.
“Have you even read the bible?!” he shouts. “You do not…”
“Fuck you,” I fire back. “I memorized that book cover to cover. I can recite verses that you've never even knew existed.”
He stands suddenly, taking the book with him. “Then you should know exactly what I'm saying,” he says roughly. “The Jews even spoke of Cain and Abel being twins, of him baring no soul, being the son of Satan.”
He moves closer.
“Cain is evil, while Abel is merciful, Godly, good,” he says.
“That doesn't prove shit,” I announce. “All of it is bullshit. Just like every other zealot in the world, whatever religion, you're taking from it whatever you want to justify your hatred and somehow think that just because it's backed up by a religion, some ghost in the sky, it makes what you're doing okay… Well, guess what, bucko? It doesn't. The Bible is full of passages about love, too, and respecting others.”
The glare is strong and his breath starts to get heavier and heavier.
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth, it says,” I shout back. “Do you know what that means? That means you're a piece of shit going straight to hell!”
Before I can finish, I'm smacked in the face with the bible. It cracks against my nose, breaks it. I can feel the warmth and wetness of blood slowly pouring from my nose, right onto my lips, into the my mouth.
“No!” he yells with all his might. He leans into me, gets next to my ear, shouts again.
My ear explodes with a high pitched screech and rings. The rest of me instinctively cringes, turns away, goes to protect itself. He takes up a handful of my hair and uses it to pull my head back, forces me to look at him.
“That's the blood of Adam coming out of you,” he spits into my face. “How dare you deny that? You are a chosen! But, no, you choose your perverted way of life. You - you… You have dealt treacherously against the lord, for you have begotten strange children!”
What is even happening right now?
“I don't have kids,” I say, allowing more blood into my mouth. “I'm not - not in an interracial relationship. My wife…”
Shit. Why did I say that?
He’s once against up against my ear. “Their blood shall be on their heads!” he shouts and slams my head against the wall. “You are a disgrace to America!”
One more slam against the wall.
Captain America appears before me. Wearing his full uniform, he rests at the base of a large tree, shaded by its thick and immense dark green canopy, all the while staring off into the distance that I cannot see. Beside him sits his mighty shield, leaning up against the fat trunk. The shiny metal gleams in the flickers of sunlight that find its way into through the masses of leaves, coming off as a sort of beacon of hope.
The grass beneath me tickles my bare feet and the light, warm breeze that moves my hair smells of the late spring. Flowers in bloom, grass, warmth, and hope. That distinct smell that signals the approach of summer.
The man known as Steve Rogers finally looks at me. ““How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.,” he says softly, carefully, elegantly. “Psalm 82, two through four.”
“The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken,” I reply.
“I said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.’ But you will die like mere mortals, you will fall like every other ruler,” he continues.
“Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance,” I say, finishing the psalm.
Cap taps his finger against his against his helmet, against his head. “You know,” he says. “You remember.”
All I can do is nod.
“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shrink this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may,” he says. “Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree besides the river of truth, and tell the whole world - 'No, you move.’”
Again I nod.
“You know what is right and what is wrong,” he adds. “You know what your duty is, you know what you were put on this Earth to do. It may have nothing to do with God, but it does have everything to do with your soul. No matter what he says to you, or does to you, do not listen, do not believe it.”
The defender of America climbs to his feet and picks up his shield as he goes. He walks steadily toward me, his strides heavy and serious. Every move he makes is done in earnest. As soon as he is close enough, he extends his shield out to me, not to take, but to see and touch.
My fingers graze it.
He pulls it away suddenly and slings around to the mount on his back. “Your shield is here,” he says, pressing his finger into the center of my chest, the place where my physical heart beats in rhythm. “All the things in it. The things and people you love, the things and people you care about, the things you know to be right and wrong. Use it.”
And just like that, he walks away from, fading into the bright sunlight and disappearing beneath the grassy hills. My eyes focus on tree. There is movement there. Out from behind the tree creeps out Allison, my beloved wife. She hovers close to the tree, hiding behind it, a true sense of fear all over her face.
“It’s not safe,” she whispers.
“What?” I ask.
That’s when it happens and I can’t react quickly enough. A man, not just any man but Edward Griffin rushes up to her from behind me, snatches her up by the waist, and carries her away. She cries out but can do nothing else. My feet won’t budge. Before I know, she is gone, stolen from me, whisked away into the trees.
I start screaming.
“Shut it down! Shut it down!” he sings, his voice echoing all over, staining every inch of the land and seeping into every corner, hole, and curve. “I raise the Third Temple at dawn. Shut it down! Shut it down! The age of the goy is gone.”
“Stop!” I shout, my eyes opening and my body jerking forward.
Griffin is glaring at me, smirking.
“Oh, fuck, I forgot,” I cry.
...To Be Continued…