Cabalifornians, p.1
Cabalifornians, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by PJ Tower
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Paperback ISBN: 979-8-8229-3818-2
eBook ISBN: 979-8-8229-3819-9
Table of Contents
0: Prologue
1: Under the Mountain
2: Bloody Knuckles
3: A Magnum Miss
4: The Republic
5: Heat
6: Ignition
7: Relief
8: Chaos
9: Sacrifice
10: Clarity
11: Fedwicks
12: Stones
13: Bart
14: The Naked Eye
15: Locks & Keys
16: P & J
17: Static
18: Biscuits & Blood
19: Quitting Time
20: The Mine
21: Reap Fire
Afterword
Cabal U (excerpt)
About the Author
0
Prologue
I
am going to have to try to kill someone for the second time in my life. It’s not entirely my fault, just the way this life has been. I apologize in advance for being me, but it’s no longer a course I travel alone. I wish there were a different way, but the tides move of their own accord, and I have been dragged back to the depths, drowning in the unknown.
In return, this life wasn’t ready for me. It wasn’t ready for the fortitude I was bringing with me. It wasn’t ready for me to pay in blood, then jump up and start screaming for more—the spirit of a Viking, adrift with a heart for war.
As I write this, I am certainly going to lose my job in this when and where; no doubt it won’t be long. The job was supposed to be a dream come true but has since turned into a living nightmare. My family and I currently occupy space in California, where my money is everyone’s money, so I need to work twice as hard to have half as much. The empire no doubt has gained the West.
A previous eighteen-year career, just a short while ago, was peaking, the cabal taking an ample share. Despite that, goals had been reached.
Unfortunately, the relentless pursuit of a deeply examined life brought about much personal turmoil, yet answers were coming. The demons that lived within were being forced to the light. My past brought a raging storm, then death, addiction, and sickness brought the hurricane ashore.
Life spiraled out of control; the harder I fought, the faster it spun. The storm continued to grow, and in short order, I found myself shipwrecked and brutally beaten against the rocky shore of the Pacific.
Thus a face-down life began, day after day, week after week. Then month after month. Only undeserved grace kept me breathing.
I was stranded on an island of despair, the horizon never changing or yielding the secrets of tomorrow to the hidden eye of hope. I was cast away by life, left to face my jinn, mara, and self alone.
I have lived on the fringe of insanity for too many years now and fear I can no longer hang on. It claimed my childhood, stained my adolescence, and holds my life in chains. I either have to let go and welcome the abyss of madness or claw my way out, despite the journey beyond. This island of many minds can no longer be; I am splitting in two.
The following pages tell of addiction, despair, and darkness; of loss and where all my trouble began, a place where worlds collide and grow of their own volition. These pages detail the first time I set out to take a life and when one was lost because of me, hard times from a hard life—a heavy heart for a young boy in the world as it was, enduring things there shouldn’t be firsts of, much less seconds. Unfortunately, the soil I was grown in was watered often with my own blood and tears, bringing much discomfort from bones of truth—not a gospel account, but certainly a tumultuous beginning of a boy’s life.
Yet who really knows? Reality is unquestionably thin these days.
J-
1
Under the Mountain
T
he sweat ran down my back as I pedaled across the river bridge, knowing work was only minutes away. It was 6:28 a.m. on a Friday morning in February, and it was cold—in the mid-twenties. There was no snow, but the wind chill from the river was biting; it brought teeth, giving the weather callous, harsh life. To keep it at bay, I pushed myself and kept my legs pumping until I hit the bridge. It was a cold and painful seven miles, and I needed to stop and stand, breathing deep, despite the frigid temperature. I pulled the brakes and dismounted, leaning my bike against the rail, and looked out at the water, stretching my back against the barrier and shaking the muscles in my legs loose. Daybreak had yet to come, but the sky was growing lighter. Mist rose off the river, adding a dramatic effect to the sparse plant life and leafless oak trees along the bank: life on hold.
The pedal down the bike trail was a kick start to the life I was chasing, and the street urchin that survived from childhood was never going to let go of his love for two wheels. I knew enough to not let opportunity pass me by, barely but I was trying to seize it and hang on as best as I could.
“Opportunities don’t come often, and if dey do, you haf ta jump right in. Adapt quick, midstride, change direction. God don’t have time for you to be messin’ around when he giving you something to do. Das’ what repent mean. You gonna change direction in life a few times, little missus; you hear me? God gonna bless you afta you listen sho’ enough.” My old memaw bustled with enthusiasm.
I could still hear the sound of the archaic woman’s voice telling all the young hens in our family how to walk a righteous path from her tiny kitchen table with a plate of applesauce cake for each. If I were a smarter lad, I would have known the tiny table at Memaw’s was intentional, to keep everyone close, leaned in and huddled together as the old sage imparted her wisdom. I hung around hoping for table scraps after eating my crumbs and heard many of her ideas as a youngling. She was a devout woman of faith and raised all her children and younglings to follow in her footsteps. Her astute teachings often fell by the wayside, and many only listened to her briefly. Yet I heard her stern but kind and soothing voice in my head often as of late.
The truth, though, was that she wasn’t my memaw, and I wasn’t one of her hens.
“Hard work ain’t the only thing you gonna haf to do in this life. When the Lord come calling, you best answer da door. He ain’t gonna wait fa eva on you, chile. You set your stuff down, and you run, girl!”
I heard the old woman’s thick and happy laugh as she counseled her brood, her hens bristling and guffawing at her ageless and loving guidance.
I, on the other hand, stood by the kitchen doorway, eyes bulging and ears burning, with not a single idea of what any of it actually meant yet. I was a bastard child of her late husband and his alley cat, my real mother, who died of a heroin overdose when I was five. I stayed in the family house with memaw and her hens until my aunt Jo and most recent beau snatched me up a few years later.
The biting weather and my burning thighs pulled me back to the present. I was lucky to still be breathing and knew it, but even the smallest shred of gratitude was difficult to hang on to at times. My most recent attempt at sobriety was turning a hearty ten days old. I made it to work, daily at that, since starting the new job back in January, and I was no longer drinking until I dropped. At least not yet—it was cycling down at the moment, but the roller coaster was always moving. I was going to the gym on a regular basis, riding my bicycle to work a few times a week, and I thought I had finally turned a corner on the road to recovery. A new chapter, it seemed, might be finally dawning—one less of quiet despair and dysfunction.
Or so I thought.
The day dragged on, eventually ending the same way it started: sober, confused, and cold. Later that evening, my quartet was heading to Disney on Ice at the newly constructed arena downtown. The invitees had a suite, and they were kind enough to extend the courtesy to our family. I wanted to join in but felt hesitant; there was a tug of emotion from thoughts not yet developed. Some call it intuition. My wife took a hard stance, demanding it would be rude if I did not attend; thus we loaded up the car and hit the road despite my internal warnings.
We arrived at the arena and found an exclusive entrance for suite holders. The line was short, and we passed through security quickly, then were ushered to a private elevator. The suite door was open, and smiling faces waited with open arms as they welcomed us in. The facility was only a year old, and the suite itself was top notch. It whistled of a better life with more expensive habits. There was a refrigerator stocked with water bottles, a bar top in the middle of the room with stools around it, and two large wall-mounted flat screens above the balcony seating. Everything glistened brightly, still favoring the look of an untarnished building. Directly in the front of the entry door was stadium seating with large comfortable leather chairs overlooking the arena. The kids were bouncing off the walls with excitement, as expected, but my suspicious nature was aroused. Our host greeted us, and introductions were made.
She was involved in mental health locally, and her employer gave use of the suite.
The alarm bells broke the silence in my thoughts, and the foreboding I felt earlier materialized; the oncoming semi cut loose in my mind, shattering the quiet winter night with a thundering air horn. No doubt I was in the middle of the road and about to be run down. Like a deer frozen in the headlights, I began to panic as the terror welled.
My skin started to crawl while my mind began winding up the scenario. I helped the kids settle in and offered to buy the adults some beverages as a measure of gratitude. The escape hatch opened, offering relief, as I took orders, then walked away. I needed space and something to drink.
How easily the fight was lost. The previous years were filled with similar attempts to break the cycle. None lasted.
I had to get out of the suite and have a look around, regardless. The other family and hostess were certainly harmless to my wife and children.
It was only me the Cabalifornians wanted.
The destructive march of thoughts began unfolding, trapping me in yet another nightmare. I could feel heat stir as anger began to climb. I kept up my smile as I picked up two twenty-four-ounce beers from the nearest vendor. The first was gone in seconds. What did they want? And why? That latter was always the one that hung me. Why? A crossroads of a question in life. One line of thinking would lead a way out of the fog to peace, freedom, and indifference. The other led down a road filled with self-pity, anger, resentment, and war. Thoughts and memories of different lives were slowly cracking the hard, clear surface of the present.
I pitched the empty cup and started in on the second beer, following the darker path opening in my mind. The drink would keep my crawling nerves from melting down, but the thoughts began to twist my mind askew. Hypervigilance was at the tip of the iceberg, but I was well below the surface now. My mind was spinning and bent, my body headed for lockdown, and the intense feelings were swallowing me whole from the inside out. It was the howling fantods of dis-ease.
I chugged the rest of my second beer and went for a trifecta, scanning the crowds and walking slowly, on the lookout for my would-be persecutors. I made eye contact with a large tattooed man sporting a tank top and leaning against one of the coliseum’s ornate pillars. He held my gaze far too long, watching my every move. No question they were out there. Was he one of them?
He stared back in discord, grunted, then looked in the other direction. I turned and headed into the crowd. Once I moved through the mass of bodies a fair distance, I found my own pillar and slid around the backside, mostly out of sight.
I watched the man from afar. He was casually leaning back, hands in pockets, and continued watching the crowd, then looked back in the opposite direction. His shoulders lifted up and settled back down as he sighed. A phone appeared in his hand, and he seemed to lose interest in his whereabouts and other people altogether.
I polished off what was left in my third cup and flipped it into a nearby waste bin, then went back to watching my man. I was shocked to see a young woman with her arms wrapped around him. She seemed to be talking quickly and with some animation. I slid closer—she was apologizing.
I turned and slipped into the nearest drink line, collected beverages for the suite, a fourth for myself, and headed back upstairs. The destructive fugue-like state of psychosis began to slowly loosen its grip. The alcohol lubricated the gears of my mind before they could overheat. I was restless and on alert, but my mind was finally starting to slow down. I went back to the suite and sat down with my children after distributing the drinks and tried to watch the show but couldn’t shake the thoughts of the cabal.
Somebody knew. I could feel it, and my instincts were uncanny throughout the years of my life. Borderline clairvoyant uncanny. A stir of guilt welled slightly and measured into my heart a small cup of feeling. As I sat with my family, there was little doubt that my past was finally coming back to haunt me, and the Cabalifornians, real or imagined, were the group of humans that were hunting me down for it on the surface of my life.
Later that night, I felt relief flood my body, and my broken mind let the nightmare go as we made our way home after three-plus hours of spinning away in chaos. I was exhausted from the mental marathon and standing on a razor’s edge of reality. Did my enemy have a face and a heartbeat or was I creating my own hell to live in?
Well into the wee hours of the morning, sleep finally came. My past and all the feelings that came with it were waiting on the other side of the darkness, haunting me.
2
Bloody Knuckles
I
was standing in my new third-grade classroom. Attendance had just been taken, and the bag of wrinkles leading the procession of heres and raised hands just kept squawking. The old crow was pecking at me. I needed to take my seat but only half listened from miles away. I watched the rain bounce off the weathered, rusty red pole that was in terrible need of a sanding and a fresh coat of paint—the flag bearer of the playground, the crusader, the standard Americana. I watched as it was slowly pummeled, one massive raindrop at a time. Portland was not a place of happiness and joy. Good mind had been evicted from residence in this land of sorrow and gray skies. Anxiety welled as I watched another raindrop collide violently with the pole. Then another drop crashed hard, and the feelings slid out, quietly, all on their own at first.
“No.” A barely audible whisper, it was meant to put a halt to the feelings creeping up on me. It was meant to stop the rain. It was meant to defy where this life was heading.
“Excuse me, young man. Young man! Take your seat!” The gas bag tittered from her queendom of sterility and bleach. She was the lone voice of authority and experience, and defiance was most certainly not on her agenda today. All the kids turned and stared. I heard the shifting of chairs and could feel the multitude of eyes on my back. The anxiety shot through me as the sky broke and punished the flagpole in a gusting blast.
“no!” I screamed and hit the window with both hands.
My fervor seemed to bring about a torrent sheet of rain that completely broke my will. A seed of depression sunk deep into the bowels of my soul. In another world, hushed silence ensued as gasps spoke directly to the type of authoritarian I was newly enslaved to for a handful of hours each day. I heard the sharp and angry click of heels grow louder as she crossed the room, then felt the painful tug at my ear as she escorted me out of her classroom.
On the walk down to the principal’s office, the darkness within stirred again. The little beastie growing inside of me had something to shed his water on and care for as the depression spouted. The two would live together from now on. My Isaac and Ishmael.
Despite the day and any misgivings, I frequented a small deli on the way home from school. I usually managed to find a couple bucks here and there, often from Dick’s wallet, and it only seemed fair to help myself.
If I didn’t, who would?
The shop had a delicious selection of handmade chocolates that would temporarily cure my feelings about life.
“look out! move!” a panic-filled voice yelled, echoing off the sides of the buildings. He came flying in and sent his bike sideways to avoid impact as my brain finally engaged, and I skirted out of the way in the nick of time, jumping back into the doorway of the deli. The rear tire caught on a crack in the sidewalk as he slid the back end around, braking hard. The rider was thrown from the bike, crashing and skidding along the pavement as I watched in awe.
I will never forget the look on his face—pure bewilderment, like looking in a mirror, with my face reflecting the same. His backpack hit the ground and the boxed contents shot out, littering the pavement. They looked like little boxes of cologne and perfume. The kid came to a stop in a heap and lay still as stone for a minute. Suddenly, he jumped up with heavy road rash on one forearm and blood seeping from it. He shot a stream of curses my way under his breath and limped at first, then scrambled to pick up his bounty. He wasted no time once on his feet. I broke from my trance and began gathering up his stray goods. He snatched a blue box that read “Coolwater” from my hand, shoved it in his pack, looked me square in the face, and smiled.
Then I reeled away in shock.
He leaned in, staring at me curiously. Then he crept a little closer for a better look. I was kneeling down, reaching for the remaining smelly contents but stopped and stared back. I was too mesmerized and afraid to do anything but watch. I could smell an apple Jolly Rancher on his breath, the cologne on his clothes, and the sweat on his body. He reached a hand out to my face and pinched one of my cheeks. His gloved hand held it firmly between forefinger and thumb. He gave a slight tug, made an expression that was both questioning and understanding, then let me go. He was bruised and had a fat lip with a scab on it. The wounds looked fresh, only a few days old.
