The Re-Possessed
by Kerry Joyce
Ticketing ticketing ticketing ticketing
Christmas bells are ringing…
I always held the Boston Traffic Department beneath contempt, but when they booted my car and towed it away not an hour later over a few paltry unpaid tickets, I vowed revenge. But how?
You might think me mad. But how best to avenge myself upon the forces that had arrayed themselves against me on a scale equal to the indignity I had experienced at their pudgy ticket writing hands? It quickly became more than a harmless preoccupation, mushrooming into a full blown obsession. But wasn’t it Santayana, or was it Mo Udall, who said: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”?
Meter maids. They sounds so innocent, so helpful. Like milk maids. Lovely Rita meter FIEND would be more like it.
My brain burned feverishly, searching, searching for just the right retaliation, like a government computer zealously skip-tracing the license plate of an aspiring scoff law.
A satisfying counter measure eluded me at first, however. A few phone calls and it was evident that plutonium was prohibitively expensive and almost impossible to come by, and as for Plan B, well, all the good Kennedies were shot dead already save Rose. Lying in ambush for a 102 year old wheel chair-bound clan matriarch just didn’t seem sporting.
Like cruel nature which concerns itself only with species, not one whit with individuals, so it is with governments, even a democracy, I concluded while pondering the tattered remnants of my ravaged tear-stained bank book. Cursing both the grand design and the grand designer, I flung a dog-eared edition of Penthouse against a wall and wept bitter tears while gnashing my teeth until falling fast to sleep.
Then, as if in a dream, I was awakened by a heavenly host with a shit-eating grin. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. There were a few things on Lee Harvey’s to-do list the day Jack Ruby poured hot lead into his gut on national TV. He wanted to take a vacation to Milan, maybe hit Venice, and even Rome. He wanted to screw a black chick standing up like he’d read about in a crotch novel once during his Marine Corps days. He wanted to burn the home of the Chilean ambassador in Washington D.C. to a crisp. And least, as well as most certainly last, he wanted to accept Jesus Christ as his lord and personal savior.
As Lee Harvey looked askew at Ruby, the red light of the TV camera, and the blood leaking out of his sweatshirt, he knew intuitively that the Italian getaway vacation, and most everything else, was permanently out of reach. In truth, there was time to do but one more thing. He prayed: “God, I’m a sinner. I’m no damned good. I shot the fuckin’ president for chrissakes. Please save me from all my sins in Jesus’ name. Amen.” At that moment Lee Harvey Oswald was born again. A nanosecond after that, he was stone dead.
For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John iii:xvi
God was tempted to make an exception in Lee Harvey’s case. He’d shot the fucking president for chrissakes. But God, like nature and governments, loathes getting involved with individual cases. A deal is a deal, and a covenant is a covenant. “You start making exceptions and what have you got? Anarchy.” God asked and answered himself. Reluctantly, but without hesitation, the Pearly Gates opened for the once wretched Lee Harvey Oswald: Redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
“Kindness.” Lee Harvey Oswald said just 30 years later hovering overhead. “That’s easy for him to say,” I thought to myself. “Kindness.” He said again as he swung gracefully just inches below the ceiling. Two winged cherubs (Escapees from the Rubens exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts?) sweated hefting him about.
Oswald meanwhile tossed quarters into the air. Thousands of them. Lee, as he insisted on being called, brought forth an endless supply and they never seemed to hit the floor but just disappeared somewhere out of view. And though he undoubtedly spoke Latin as well as any angel, he just said “Kindness” one more time, tossed a few hundred more quarters, and faded out.
Kindness. Revenge. My brain whirled feverishly as it now attempted to formulate a plan which satisfied these two seemingly irreconcilable ends. A bump to the head, throbbing rhythmically, was my one tenuous link to that which is generally agreed upon to be reality. From somewhere outside myself, I unmistakenly heard a trumpet blare the last seven notes of the Final Jeopardy jingle. There was a momentary pause of eternal silence and… Eureka! A plan unfolded in my mind’s ears, nose, and throat that steadied, stilled, and strengthened me. I let out a triumphant roar and collapsed upon the mattress by the rug.
There was a knock.
“Who is it?” I said confidently.
“Sergeant Peregrino, Boston Police. Your landlady downstairs reported you have a lion or possibly a cougar in your apartment.”
“I said no pets,” she yelled from somewhere behind the badge. “The last tenant had a ferret that gnawed right through my cable television wire. I missed the whole Gulf war on CNN,” she sobbed. “My nephew in California taped it for me, but it’s just not the same when you know how it turns out.”
“Heh heh heh,” I informed Herr Sergeant.
“What did you say?” Peregrino said, with head turned, studying me with one beady eye like a parrot.
“HEH,” I shouted triumphantly, paraphrasing my initial remark and feeling almost as deranged as I must have looked.
“Listen, dirt bag. It’s three in the morning. If your landlady calls back, you and Mr. Lion might have to sleep it off in the city zoo.”
“Well, there must have been four thousand quarters on this floor not two hours ago and they’ve all disappeared. But don’t worry about what happened to them, there’s plenty more where they came from,” I assured him.
“Uh-huh. Well you just think long and hard about what I said before. OK, pal?”
“How Zen,” I retorted as the dark blue dressed ham descended the staircase to the clucking doorway on the floor below.
I closed the door and laughed quietly to myself, as I am wont to do, in eager anticipation of my brilliant revenge.
TO BE CONTINUED…
