Crossroad

By Christopher Paul Saenz

Prologue

A new avalanche of restlessness swept through a bloating, riverside town like a sudden, summer wind.  Greedy government charlatans conjured the rules, redefining American living.  Mass media molded the minds of children.  Gangsters were heroes and prostitutes were heroines.  Crime and self-indulgence spread like wild weeds.  Pure Satanism, worship of self, became the contagious trend, a way of life called “looking out for number one.”  Only pleasure kept the economy afloat.  In the wilderness of concrete and steel, fallen Christians wallowed through Jesus’ sacred blood, gorged on fat sin and knelt before unknown, obsidian idols.

 Scene 1

Black widows spun tangled webs in the musty corners of a dark room that reeked of mold and mildew.  A crooked door creaked every so slowly.  The decayed wooden floor of a naked bedroom sagged down to an empty, rotting bathroom with a small, quartered window of cracked glass and a splintered closet door.  Just beyond the door, a ragged rug partially hid an uneven floor of wood planks, one of which was loose.  The sallow ceiling was missing a square, twelve-inch panel.  A thicker darkness filled that hole.  A pointed stake leaned against the dingy wall, red at the tip.  Low voices whispered like snakes slithering through dry leaves.  Footsteps thumped across the floor, echoing throughout the small apartment, blocks away from a meandering, muddy river.  The wind strengthened.  An old pecan tree’s cold fingers clawed at the bathroom window, reflecting the flashing red and blue lights of a police car parked just outside.  The neighbors huddled, their spines chilled and mouths open.

Jude smiled at his reflection in a glass of Jim Beam.  “Close the door, you’re letting the smoke out,” a longhaired, skinny man yelled from near the waitress station of a dead, historic, downtown bar.  Jude squeezed his glass tightly as the rocking liquor numbed his tongue and misted his eyes.  “The show must go on,” he mumbled as he downed his drink, rose from a chair walked out of the bar.  Outside, a constant drizzle slicked the streets.  In just minutes, he would be bathed in electric light on stage before hundreds of listeners.  Before he knew it, he was there.