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Big Rock Candy Mountain



Starring Jethro James as the messianic crack addict

and the Host of Heaven as intergalactic garbage men



“Porn, crack, angels and government conspiracies—this is the quintessential Southern California tale.”

–The NoHo Reader



In 3D



In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,

it's a land that's fair and bright,

the handouts grow on bushes,

and you sleep out every night.

Old Folk Song





Jethro James tapped the last rock into his crack pipe and smoked it. The memories of his third grade field trip to the Natural History Museum in Omaha and his first sexual experience with his third cousin Alice at the age of twelve sizzled, popped and extinguished as the toxic drug took hold of his nervous system and turned him into a human disco ball. But that was okay, because smoking crack was his job; at least it was ever since the nice government men had gotten hold of him.

The van roared away, leaving him alone on the street. Old buildings, some reaching seven stories, huddled together and swayed as the warm Santa Anna winds threatened to blow them away. Graffiti covered every surface as unreadable as the small print on a drug bottle. The smell of urine and garbage mingled to become a recognizable uptown aroma. Cars sped by, driven by wild-eyed suburban drivers holding the steering wheels with double-handed, white-knuckled grips, afraid of those few who braved the urban walks.

Ventura, California. Once infamously known as the Porn Capital of the World, was now just another Los Angeles suburb where malls and prefab houses sprouted overnight like mushrooms on a shit pile. Who knew that the end of the 1980s meant the decline of hair metal, the Soviet Union and pornography as a capitalistic way of life? Sure, remnants of all three still existed. Ratt still performed in Northern Pennsylvanian VFWs to long tables of retired soldiers who remembered partying when Reagan was president. Russian government officials still had their dachas and dreamed of the return of a society where everyone was equal, and they were just a little more equal. The Internet resurrected the world's wet dreams allowing one-click viewing of anything and everything, in all time zones, and any position. And for those who desired a more permanent solution, videos could be rushed to their door in nondescript brown wrappers. But gone were the blockbuster porn movies. Gone were the triple-X theaters with thousand-bulb marquees illuminating the darkness like nightlights for the perverse.

Porn in Ventura had been as common as corn in Iowa. Porn and corn.

Jethro liked the way the two words sounded together.

Corn.

Porn.

Corn.

Porn.

The porn fields of Iowa.

He broke into crack-addled giggles as he imagined Ma and Pa Iowa harvesting fields of Ron Jeremys.

And in the Kingdom of Ventura, there was a time when Jethro had been king. He'd starred in one hundred and twenty seven movies and videos. He'd had every woman in the industry at least twice. Men wanted to be him. Woman wanted to be done by him.

But no more.

Crack was now his life.

The juicy rush as the raw smoke shot past his gums, terra-forming the surface of his lungs, exciting the vessels to turbo-charge the drug through his system and into his brain, until even his vision sizzled, was better than anything life could give him. Like now, normal sight had been replaced by a fusion of colors, gyrating in three dimensions like an epileptic kaleidoscope. His glistening eyes revealed the world as a chaos of Crayola. A poodle and an elm tree could glow pink as easily as not. Cars shown blue, their reflections in storefront windows bright yellow. Ochre streets ran beneath an umber sky. Purple and violet buildings cast green shadows from an orange sun. Telephone wires and power lines pulsed red like the veins of a great beast. People moved about, their solid colors random by assignment, yet vibrant with their mystery.

But it was one specific color that Jethro James sought. He swayed, the effects of the drug as it clenched tighter causing him to stumble. He steadied himself on a golden parking meter, and noticed off-hand that the time had expired. After fumbling in his pocket for a moment, he thunked down a dime, then pushed himself away from the meter like a boat casting off.

And then he saw it, a single white presence. Dressed as a postman, the nephilim strode down the sidewalk, as unaware of its stalkers as the surrounding pedestrians were of the true form of the postman. Jethro squinted past the brightness enough to make out that the nephilim was a middle aged black woman. Her forward-leaning gait, combined with the uniform of a postal worker, lent an inculcated officiousness that deterred people from bothering her.

Jethro began to giggle.

“J-Dog, this is Asylum. Cut out the chatter,” the voice came through his earpiece.

Jethro continued to giggle.

“J-Dog, have you spotted a target?”

Jethro managed to enunciate despite his drug-induced jubilance enough so that they knew he'd seen one.

“I think he’s crazy,” a voice said.

“That may be, but that crackerhead hasn’t failed us yet. Return to Asylum, Jethro.” And to the others Asylum said, “Establish triple canopy surveillance. I want to know everyone she touches and everywhere she goes.”

“So you really think she’s one of them?” asked a voice.

“Definitely. You should get ready, because if we’re lucky we’ll find their hive before nightfall.”

“Then I’ll finally get to see one?”

“Just like in the f*cking Bible.”



***

Jethro had been seeing them for months, now. He’d thought they were his own personal versions of pink elephants. He'd never known they were real until the day he was scooped up in the government net.

Nearly two dozen of his fellow crackheads were blindfolded and taken to an underground classroom. He reasoned it had to be the abandoned Skunkworks. Not far from Ventura, the old top-secret military installation was the crucible from which the SR–71 spy plane had been born.

Twenty-one wooden chairs filled the room. Twenty faced forward in four rows of five. A single empty chair had been placed in the front of the classroom facing the rear. Upon each of the twenty chairs sat an addict in different stages of withdrawal. They’d been held in separate cells for at least forty-eight hours, so some were already shaking uncontrollably, yellow bile seeping from between cracked lips as they herked and jerked against the chains that bound them.

Jethro felt his teeth growing. His heart beat tom-toms through his eyes. He'd been focusing on the smell of his index finger for an hour and swore it reminded him of cotton candy.

Glancing at the others in the room depressed Jethro. Part of him wanted to be away from these rejects. Gaunt faces. Malnourished bodies. Ruined and rank clothing. But then another, less kind part of his Samaritan psyche reminded him that he looked just like them. When he was high he could trick himself into believing that everything was cool. But he wasn't high now. He was sober and ashamed to be among them.

He began to notice a sulfur smell. It took a few moments, but he finally detected the narrow ribbon of brimstone circling the empty chair in the front. The smell and the brimstone reminded him of a movie he'd done with Dirk Dong and Mulva Darling where he and Dirk had been traveling exorcists and Mulva was a poor misunderstood succubus. She'd been trapped in a circle of brimstone and it was up to them to save her soul. And as was the norm in his chosen profession, salvation came from f*cking, front, back, top, bottom and sideways.

Before he could return to the mystery of the brimstone, his attention was stolen when a fight broke out between a Filipino He-She and a man Jethro recognized as having once been a fellow actor. Sean was his first name, but he'd gone by the name Snake Foreskin, his oddly thin and impossibly long member propelling him through celluloid hits like Escape from New Jack Off City and Escape from Lost Ambulance. Sean had been what they'd termed a geek in the industry. For the most part he'd done intros and extros like on the set of Ali Baba and the Forty Knees, the film had opened with him blowing on a flute like a snake charmer, his penis rising as a nearly invisible monofilament line pulled it into the air as if it were alive and hypnotized by the music. But now the He-She had Snake's head in both hands, bouncing it off the floor as he-she screamed over and over, "You no touchee me!"

Government men in black jumpsuits, helmets with face shields and rubber gloves rushed into the room and separated the pair. Within moments they'd rearranged the addicts so that Snake and his adversary sat at opposite ends of the room, breathing heavily, and sweat dripping from their brows. They looked pathetic. They needed some of their dignity back. They needed some crack.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when six government stooges wearing orange hazmat suits entered the room, two carried trays like holocaust butlers, the remaining four held sub-machine guns and arrayed themselves in the corners, their reason for being stunningly clear. Move and you die!

"Welcome to the Skunkworks," a voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. "You all have been invited to participate in a brand new program to save the world."

The proclamation was met with giggles and a few groans, but nothing more.

"My assistants will be passing out crack pipes for your smoking pleasure. Please accept them in an orderly manner. No pushing or shoving will be allowed."

Suddenly all eyes snapped to the men with trays as they began to pass out small unadorned pipes. Each was accepted by greedy shaking hands. Many of the men wept openly, effusive with gratitude as they cupped the pipes in their hands. A hair-lipped Hispanic with wiry arms and collapsed veins barked his impatience as he leapt past an old war vet. Two of the orange-clad government men opened fire, three round bursts stitching the man in place. He spun, then collapsed, his arms and legs folding in upon themselves like those of a dead spider.

"Please stay in your seats." The calm voice was pure Mr. Rogers. "We won't allow disorder."

Jethro glanced around recognizing the barely contained glee in everyone's eyes as their dreams came true. All their midnight prayers and begging had finally delivered to them what they so desperately craved. His eyes lingered once more on the empty chair amidst the brimstone circle. Was it for one of them? What did one have to do to sit there?

A sticky net of melancholy entrapped him as he realized how far he'd traveled from his life in Iowa. He could have stayed with his family, he could have been part of a heritage first ground into the soil two hundred years ago, but instead he'd followed a dream fueled by rock music, porn mags and impossibly long-legged girls. He'd found happiness and fame for a time between their legs, but when the industry had crumbled beneath the enlightenment of the 1990s, he'd nowhere to go. He couldn't go home. For him Iowa was a clean place, a place where his family had grown for generations, and a place where people rarely even kissed in public, much less...

He didn't want to finish the thought. At least he had the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Unspoiled and unpopulated, it was his heaven and a place that even his sordid history could not spoil.

Two orange-clad men entered the room from the door at the rear, and drug the body away. A third mopped up the blood trail, backing out the door so that the only evidence that something had gone wrong was the empty seat.

When the drug tray came to Jethro he tried to be cool, but couldn't stop his hands from shaking with anticipation. Putting the pipe to his lips, he inhaled deeply, tasting the unlit crystal resting in the bowl as he hummed a string of song– There's a lake of gin, and we can both jump in, and the handouts grow on bushes.

"In just a moment, we will be passing out lighters. Please take your time and enjoy the product. Thank you for your cooperation."

The addicts fumbled with the lighters when they came, their excitement making the simple procedure complex beyond quantum physical standards. Still, they managed to light their pipes, the flare of red, then blue, then acrid smoke shot through their lungs. Almost as quickly they sagged in their desks, legs askew, backs arching and relaxing as the drug pumped through their systems. Eyes rolled madly, sometimes nothing but white.

When it became Jethro's turn, he couldn't contain his desperation as he grabbed the blue plastic lighter and snapped it once, twice, then sizzle, snap, crackle, pop goes the weasel, the sweet mad taste of chemical that took him to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, traded for a memory of his mother's first smile that split to infinity. He sagged as his muscles jumped and twitched. He let his hand rest on the desk, the pipe loosely grasped in case there might be another welfare rock on the way. His mind drifted through fields of cigarette trees, soda water fountains and lemonade springs. He soared above a lake of stew and streams of alcohol. His skin felt both hot and cold as his blood sizzled through his veins.

His head lolled on his neck. He felt drool trickle free, but didn't have the will to control it. He allowed his gaze to coast across the room. This time when he looked at the chair in the front, it wasn't empty.

Sitting with its hands clasped on its naked lap was a gaunt creature—part man, part something indescribable. White skin was blotched with grays, greens and blues, cancerous and tumorous as they bulged and sank with disease. Breasts sagged, brown chewed nipples folding upon themselves. Knobbed legs crossed beneath the chair at the ankles, long clawed feet kept carefully inside the circle. The skin of the face was pulled so tight that the cheekbones and the brow ridges seeming ready to tear through. Yellow cataract eyes glared back at him as a mouth of pustulent gums and slimy teeth opened.

"Will you die for my sins?" it asked.

Jethro jerked back in his desk, his legs scrambling beneath as they fought for purchase. He slammed his eyes shut and brought the pipe up to his mouth once more and inhaled. Please make it go away. Please make it go. But instead, the view shifted as his mind snap, crackle, popped the last of the crack taking him to his Big Rock Candy Mountain. But instead of the peaceful sounds of the brooks and the birds and the bees, a great voice boomed across the land causing crevices to wrench open and rocks to avalanche down the faces of the cliffs. Water boiled and forests burst into flame. Even the air became so oppressive and heavy that the creatures of the mountain fell where they stood.

Lift up your banner upon the high mountain. I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have called my mighty ones for my anger. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, with my weapons of indignation, to destroy the whole land.

Jethro scrambled to his feet, breaking the desk apart. He backed away, his arms in front of his eyes, terrified at what he might further see. But the creature merely grinned as it stood to its full height, easily that of the tallest man.

"Will you die for my sins?" it asked again.

Jethro fell to the ground, his head slamming hard against the tile. Volcanoes erupted along the spine of his Big Rock Candy Mountain, spewing effluvium into the air. Screams of animals and insects joined with his own as his heaven was destroyed.

Howl ye for the day of the LORD is at hand. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt, and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them and they shall be amazed one at another as their faces turn to flame.



***

Three days passed before he was allowed to leave his hospital bed. Nothing was physically wrong with him. Only his mind had been affected, and even now, after a dozen therapeutic doses of crack and some minor explanations, his imagination felt scoured and raw. Finally he'd been able to return to his Big Rock Candy Mountain and it showed none of the devastation that the creature had heaped upon it.

They didn't go into great detail, but it seemed that he'd been the only one to pass the test. The others were released. He was given a new set of clothes—jeans, shirt and shoes— then they took him into a conference room where two men waited. His mouth felt sandblasted. His body had spent time rammed in a compactor on the back of a trash truck. He really didn't feel much like talking to anyone. All he wanted was to get back in bed and smoke a little more.

"This is Mr. La Chance. He's a cosmologist." The government man was the same one who'd spoken to him before and was straight out of a B-movie. All that was missing were the dark glasses.

"He sells make-up?"

"No. That's a cosmetologist. A cosmologist studies the physical universe as it relates to time and space."

"And associated phenomenon," Mr. La Chance added. He wore jeans, loafers and a tweed jacket over a t-shirt with the words I Honk for Angels. "Some of us study planets, some study the relativity of distorted space, others, like me, discourse in celestial existence as outlined in certain historical texts."

"What?"

"Part of my studies involves angelic transmigration, in this case, cherubim and nephilim."

"Wait. You study angels? As in white robes, flaming swords and booming voices?" Big Rock Candy Mountain turning Vesuvius? He shook the memory away and reminded himself that it had never happened; could never have happened. Turning to Mr. Jones, "Has this guy been smoking my crack?"

"No, Mr. James. He's very serious. You should listen to him." The government man knocked on the table. "You know what he's talking about."

Jethro glared at him a moment, wondering exactly how much the “you know” meant. "Fine. But look at it from my point of view. You pick me up, put me in a roomful of addicts, feed me crack with enough kick to break my teeth, then reward me like a lucky monkey for being the only one to see a special kind of pink elephant; in this case, some shriveled and dying thing. Only he wasn't my pink elephant; instead he was some angel you'd captured and managed to hold in a circle of brimstone. Angels? Are you kidding me?"

The government man shook his head, knocked on the table to get Jethro's attention, then pointed to some words he'd written on a piece of paper. Isaiah 13. As if Jethro knew what that meant.

La Chance cleared his throat and frowned down his nose. "Not mere angels, but nephilim and cherubim."

"Whatever," Jethro cursed, tearing his gaze away from the paper.

"Is he always this belligerent?" La Chance asked.

"We don't know. This is the first time he's been sober since after the test."

"This is the real me." Jethro stood and postured, pumping his pelvis towards them. "This is me in all my faded glory. And to think that women used to beg me to f*ck them."

"Thankfully we don't want the real you. We like you just fine on crack." Mr. La Chance lowered his glasses and peered over the tops of them. "You're very special, Mr. James. We've only found sixteen others like you in twenty years of testing."

"If I'm so special where's my fix?"

The government man knocked on the table once more, bringing Jethro's attention back to the paper. Isaiah 13.

"You'll get that soon enough," Mr. La Chance said. "We just want you to understand why we’re doing this.”

"Why? Do I have to sign something?"

"Well, yes, actually. A non-disclosure agreement and a release for death or damage. Standard stuff."

"These might be standard for you, Sparky, but not for me. So you want me to sign papers stating that I'll never talk about it, and if I die, I'll never expect you to pay me, and if I live but am just a little f*cked up, I'll not come to you for a little fix up. Does that about cover it?"

"Yep."

"What do I get out of it?"

"All the crack you want. Free of charge," the government man said. "For the rest of your life."

A thousand smart-assed responses crystallized into an explosion of pure joy as Jethro's need overwhelmed his concern. He swooned at the possibility of not having to panhandle, crying as each quarter and dime propelled him towards his salvation wonderland. Not having to dumpster dive. Not having to steal food because the money was already spent on a rock. God how far he'd fallen. Free crack was like free sex. He'd had the latter, now they wanted to supply the former

"Free of charge?" He couldn't keep the shake from his voice.

"USDA Prime Choice crack cocaine."

Jethro gritted his teeth and fought the urge to giggle. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands to keep them from shaking. He needed to concentrate. He needed a few minutes of clarity, because part of him was reminded that there were no free lunches. He might be getting free drugs, but there'd be a price to pay down the line.

"What do I have to do for this?" He licked his lips and pushed his greasy bangs out of his eyes. "I mean, I know you want me to see things for you, but it would help if I understood the big picture."

Mr. La Chance glanced at Jones who shrugged and looked away. "He'll be stoned anyway. Not that it will matter."

"Maybe it'll help," La Chance offered.

This was an opportunity for Jethro. He'd been locked in his crack spiral for nearly a decade with no possibilities past the next fix. Now he had a horizon. Something to look forward to. Something to look past. Not that he knew what was on the other side, but he at least knew that he could get close enough to look. And then a small part of him hoped that he'd find a way back to Iowa where he could once again walk through the fields of golden corn and smell his mother's rhubarb pie.

So he listened as the government doctor explained about the nephilim that had been chained to the chair, invisible to all but him. About the nephilim who'd been creating hives across America. For what purpose, no one really knew for sure, but the government treated it like a military maneuver. Pre-positioning was the word La Chance used over and over. Creating hives of humans to serve each cherub, the nephilim were biblical royalty.

La Chance had quoted Genesis. "The Nephilim were upon the Earth in those days and thereafter too. Those sons of the gods who cohabited with the daughters of the Adam, and they bore children into them. They were the Mighty Ones of Eternity, the People of the Shem.

"No one ever really paid attention to that particular part of the bible, because it didn't fit neatly into Adam and Eve being the first. But the Bible says specifically that these creatures were on the earth before Adam, before Eve."

Before crack, Jethro couldn't help but think.

La Chance explained about the cherubs. Not the fat little babies of television, but powerful celestial beings who'd been in the presence of God. Cherubs like the angel who prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son, Isaac. Or the angel that wrestled with Jacob. Or the angel who led the Israelites under Moses out of the wilderness.

"Each hive is ruled by a cherub. They're here for a reason. If you look at history as we've done, each appearance resulted in a turning point for mankind." La Chance shook his head as he snapped shut the bible. "We can't let that happen. We're not prepared for a turning point in the history of the world. Not here, not now. We're quite happy where it is. That's where you come in."

To stop an angelic invasion? What if this was the end? Judgment day. What if God was pre-positioning his forces, preparing them to battle evil? Could he stop it? Did he want to? Trust an addict to rationalize.

"I know I shouldn't ask this, but how do I know this isn't some crazy elaborate hoax?" He licked his teeth, almost able to taste his next fix. "How do I know you're not f*cking with me?"

The government man jabbed his finger at the paper one last time. Isaiah 13. Then he tossed him a Bible. "Read this, then get back to me if you have any questions."

***

San Remo’s Props and Wardrobe. Such a benign sign. The place seemed so common. So Iowa. So corn. If they only knew it was all porn inside. Back in the 80s, San Remo’s had been the number one provider of sexual devices and wardrobe. If they didn’t have it, they could build it. Nothing too big or too small. Outrageous and ingenious were slick partners under this roof. Closed now for twenty years, the building was both an odd choice and a perfect hiding place.

The interior glimmered with golden rays that seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere, dulling the outlines of objects and rendering them to blur. He couldn't discern distance, objective relevance skewed by the warping of space, straight lines curving to abstract. His eyes began to burn, unable to withstand the constant assault of color. His gut twisted. His equilibrium faltered sending him tripping into the top of a railing that followed a set of stairs into the basement. He felt like he was in a funhouse without the fun.

Comet trails of color shot away from objects as his gaze moved on, searching for the Cherub, for the figure of pure golden light, for nephilim or any sign of a hive. Instead, blue men and women huddled against the walls whispering and firing neon green liquids into their veins, becoming purple as the liquid transformed them. The farther into the building he went, the more purple people he saw, and the more able he was to digest the colors. In the center of the room hidden by a low row of boxes lay a crisscross of purple bodies, helter-skelter pick-up-sticks of the drugged.

"J-dog come in," the voice hissed in his ear.

Jethro spied stairs rising to the second floor against the back wall. Should he take them or return to the front and go down? Before he could decide, a yellow man skipped down the stairs and stopped in front of him. Lanky blond hair with a bodybuilder's bare chest, he leaned in and kissed Jethro on the cheek, then whispered, "would you die for our sins?" Then he was gone, hopscotch-skipping across the bodies and out the front door. The smell of crack and his body odor lingered around Jethro, then fell away.

Would you die for our sins? There it was again. Like the Nephilim at the Skunkworks. Whose sins? Then he remembered the guy from his direct to video days before the porn market completely capitulated to the Internet. Rod. That was his name. Just Rod. Like Shaq or Cher. And for him, Rod fit perfectly—thirteen inches of pure stud. Was Jethro to save all the out of work porn stars? From the fluffers to the grips, was he to be their savior? Jesus died for the world's sins, whose sins was Jethro James supposed to die for?

"J-dog? Are you there? Come in J-dog."

Jethro ascended. The top of the stairs opened into a room that took up the entire second story. Light from floor to ceiling windows cascaded through the shadows and the floating motes enough for him to see that the floor was empty. But the room wasn't. His breath caught as the enormity of the vision crystallized. "In the name of God," he cried.

"J-dog? Is that you? What's going on?"

"I told you we couldn't trust him."

"Shut it. He's doing fine."

Jethro ignored the voices and let his gaze sweep past the dozens of hanging bodies. All yellow like Rod, these men had been hung by the neck and were dead. Evenly spaced around the room, the bodies swung gently in different directions, the ropes tied to pipes running along the ceiling, the combined weight of the bodies causing the bodies to bob. The ropes dug wickedly into the flesh around the dead men's necks, stretching them to almost twice their length. Eyes stared blank and bulging. Some had vomited. Others had bit their tongues. Jethro began making his way through the bodies, sidestepping rather than touching as they bobbed and swayed across his path.

He stopped at a hanged man near the middle of the room. He knew this one. They'd shared a pipe once behind the 7–11 on Fourth Street. As he gazed at the yellow face, the yellow lips began to move as the body twisted to face him. "Would you die for our sins, Jethro?"

He leaped backwards, intersecting several bodies, sending them spinning violently away in pendulum arcs. He fell, landing on his back, cracking his elbows on the hard wood floor. When he looked again at the face it was composed in death, yellow lips pressed together with grim rictus. There's no way he could have spoken. Jethro giggled. He scooted away from the spinning bodies and found a place to stand.

At the far edge of the room was a step ladder and an empty space. Sidestepping the bodies, he managed to make it there without touching any of them. Above the ladder was an empty hangman's noose. Jethro didn't need to be a genius to figure out what was expected of him. His left hand went to his neck as he backed away. They wanted him, but they couldn't have him. Now unconcerned about touching the bodies, he ran to the stairs. Looking back, among the bodies swaying back and forth, rebounding off each other, was Snake Foreskin. "Would you die for my sins?"

"No!" shouted Jethro. "No way in Hell!"

He hustled down the stairs, ran across the room, and found the stairs to the basement. Looking back, he saw nothing but purple people. No yellow men. No nephilim. So why was he so scared? Suddenly a shadow flew across the room and enveloped one of the purple people. Seconds later, the shadow returned to a space near the ceiling, the purple person gone.

"J-dog. Come in."

Jethro peered down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. "This is J-dog." he couldn't keep his voice from trembling.

"J-dog, where have you been?"

"Thing's are a little weird in here."

"What do you mean?"

"Yellow men and flying purple people eaters. Bobbing for crackheads on the second floor. Snake Foreskin wants me to bob."

"What the hell is he saying?"

"J-dog. You okay?"

Jethro gulped. "Okay as a crackhead savior ought to be, I think."

"I told you we shouldn't have—"

"Shut up, Bill. I don't want to hear it." Then to Jethro, "J-dog keep in touch. We're counting on you."

I bet you are. With that he descended the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he had no choice but to turn left, then a short hallway and a metal door. He grasped the knob, hesitated and asked himself why he was doing this. He'd read Isaiah 13 and found it to be exactly what had transpired in his mind when he'd first viewed the Nephilim in the chair. According to Mr. Jones, everyone capable of seeing the Nephilim had had the same experience. How odd that they'd all shared something written thousands of years ago having to do with the destruction of the world.

Why were the angels here? If he were to believe the government men, it was to destroy the Earth. Jethro didn't even need to think about it. There were a million things he hated about the world, but his memory of Iowa and the way things had been before he left were most precious to him. Who was he doing it for? Everyone he'd left behind. He couldn't go home, but he could ensure there was a home to return to, that there was a home for everyone else.

He popped one last rock into his crack pipe and smoked it. As the acrid smoke coursed through his lungs, the memory of a car wreck at age twenty and a romantic dinner with Stephanie at The Eldorado Steaks and Mariscos Buffet zapped from existence. That's okay. It was a fair trade for bravery. He never really liked Stephanie anyway.

The knob turned easily, so he opened it and stepped through. Light blinded him as at least a hundred Nephilim stood around the walls of the immense room, each glowing impossible white. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and made out a great mound of boxes in the center of an otherwise empty floor. Atop this darkness reigned, blotting out the ceiling in a roiling cloud of blacks and grays. He let the door shut behind him. The click echoed in the room. He winced, ready for an attack, but none came. Then he noticed that the nephilim were facing the walls like bad children being punished.

The sound of a bell striking reverberated through the room causing Jethro to cover his ears. The sound came again and drove him to his knees. The sound came once more and the Nephilim began swaying back and forth, moaning in a monotone dissonance. The cloud of blackness melted away revealing a golden figure resting upon a throne pieced-together from sexual devices.

Jethro could not move. The power of the Cherub's presence was so great that he couldn't even take his eyes off the angelic creature. The Cherub had the face and body of a baby, but was as large as a grown man. It shimmered with golden light. The eyes shown red and glared at him with what he could only describe as a loving fascination. Whatever courage the crack had granted fled in the face of this Old Testament being. Jethro tried to look away, he tried to avert his gaze, but he was completely powerless. A thin scream escaped his mouth.

The Cherub spoke, its alien voice almost out of octave range. The man-sized hand rose and a chubby finger pointed at him. The Cherub spoke again, this time screeching like an owl. The hundred nephilim spun on their heels. Each now faced Jethro, their moaning ceased.

Goosebumps popped along his arms. He trembled uncontrollably. He wanted to run. He didn't want to be here anymore. Who cared about Iowa? Who cared about the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

"J-dog, can you read—ssst—come in—ssst."

The transmission could barely make it through, but that wireless connection to reality helped him as much as a platoon of infantry. He managed to avert his eyes, at once lessening the power of the Cherub.

"Asylum." He could barely control the giggles in his voice. "Asylum this is J-dog. I have the target in sight."

"J-dog, say again last—ssst."

The Cherub spoke again, the sound like glass grinding in an open wound. Jethro grit his teeth. Dear God. How could this be an angel? How could this represent the hope of a benign God?

"Would you die for our sins?" asked the hundred Nephilim with one voice.

He couldn't take it any longer. What had been held at bay burst through the paralyzation. "Why?" he screamed. "Why do you ask me this? Why is everyone asking me this?"

"Because you have a choice. Die for our sins, or be punished for your own." The words came from the mouths of the Nephilim as one voice. Clearly the Cherub's voice wasn't meant for human ears.

"What are your sins?"

"We didn't care enough." The statement trailed off into sadness.

"I don't understand?"

"We let you do what you wanted to do. We were negligent."

"What are our sins?"

"You forgot grace."

"Grace?"

"The bond between the creator and the created."

Jethro had never thought about it before, and in that realization understood the problem.

"Respect," the Nephilim said.

Something he'd rarely cared about. Who respected a porn star? Who respected a crackhead? He didn't.

"You have none."

"Yeah." He lowered his head. "So."

"J-dog, give us a sign—ssst."

"You've come to kill us."

Jethro looked up at the mischievous smile on the Cherub's face. “There are no secrets here.”

"We know," the Nephilim continued. "The choice is yours. It always has been."

"What choice do I have?" he asked spreading his arms.

"The choice between Hell on Earth or the Big Rock Candy Mountain."

"But what about—"

"—Iowa? What about those you left behind?"

"Yes. I owe them."

"You owe them nothing. Your sugar-coated memory conveniently forgot the reasons you'd left. Your father. Uncle Jerry. Billy Jimmison. You've turned it into a Big Rock Candy Mountain."

Uncle Jerry. A memory of alcohol, hurried breathing, a struggle and the roughness of denim against Jethro's naked buttocks. Billy Jimmison who'd waited for him behind the mailboxes with a two-by-four. And his father who'd—

"Nothing that was is as it was."

"How could I have forgotten?" he gasped. Why'd I have to remember? A small tired part of him pointed out that the memories had been hidden for a reason.

"Snap crackle pop," mimicked all hundred Nephilim.

Jethro wiped tears away from his cheeks with his palms. "Yeah. That's it. Snap crackle pop."

"The choice is yours."

"Why do I have to choose?"

"Respect. Grace."

It took a moment, but Jethro finally nodded, and as he did, his shoulders sagged in defeat. "Yeah, I understand." He turned his back on the Cherub and the Nephilim. He trudged up the stairs, past the purple people, past the pick-up-stick bodies, up the next flight of stairs and through the hanging yellow men. The stepladder was where he'd left it. He climbed up the bottom two rungs, draped the noose around his neck and tightened it. The yellow man nearest him opened his eyes. Blackened rotting orbs appraised him. "Would you die for our sins?"

"J-dog. Where the f*ck are you? Is it in there?"

"Yes," he said to both the Nephilim and the government man. Jethro stepped up one more rung, then shoved off. The stepladder fell one way, and his body the other. When he reached the end of the rope his neck snapped, the crack followed by hundreds of automatic weapons as they opened fire on the floor below.

A second, a minute, an hour, or an epoch later, Jethro found himself standing in the open door of a train, chug-chugging towards an immense purple candy mountain. Lemonade springs bubbled through the rocks. Streams of alcohol meandered into a lake of ginger ale. Birds and bees buzzed the lollipop trees.

Respect. Grace. Yeah. He'd finally understood. The government men wanted to kill the Cherub to save the earth. The Cherubs wanted humanity to die to save themselves. Everyone had their own reasons to kill everyone else. What they'd all forgotten was selflessness.

The train slowed as it came to the last stop. Looking at the Big Rock Candy Mountain before him, Jethro knew he'd made the right decision. After all, if he hadn't, he'd never have ended up at the heaven he'd created for himself so long ago. He stepped off the train onto a cool mint sidewalk, his heart filled with the wonder of discovery and the awe of a wish fulfilled, little boy turned pornstar turned crackhead turned rock candy angel.



***

Story Notes: I wrote this story for Sean O’Bannon, a friend of mine, Hollywood Screenwriter, and resident of Ventura. We’ve tried to work together on many occasions but just been too busy to pull it off. To make up for this I remodeled him into the character of Snake Foreskin. The title and theme of the story comes of course from the old song Big Rock Candy Mountain. There exists so much imagery in that old folk song that it screamed to be used. Having a drug addict who has visions or can see things is nothing new. But having a drug addict who has visions or can see things who was a porn star hasn’t been done before. The whole idea of using an ex-porn star as the protagonist allowed me to create a depth of character I couldn’t have managed before. And as far as the angels and the end of the world… it’s only reasonable that our staunch and stable government would use the men in black and S.W.A.T. to try and stop it.