Faulty Wiring

By Vicki Smart Penhall

Is Galen Monroe a man on a divine mission, or simply a mentally deranged criminal? He is a homeless junkie whose domicile of choice is a cardboard box in an East Dallas alley. His requirements for living are as basic as any human that ever existed on earth: food and shelter, comfort, and amusement. He fulfills these needs with trashcan treasures, stolen electronics, and heroin.
But Galen also has qualities that reach into the spiritual dimension. He discovers that he has supernatural gifts, including remote viewing and the ability to interact with transcendental beings, from guardian angels to ancient aliens. When Quid the Runt invades the limited confines of his box, he turns Galen’s world upside down with his talk of eternal truths, heaven and hell, and secret missions.
If the cops and shrinks would just leave him alone, he could slip into something more comfortable – like death. The county jail doctors diagnose him as obsessive/compulsive, paranoid, and schizophrenic. Regardless, Galen knows that he is merely orderly, cautious, and gifted in a way that others could never understand. Predictably, the mental health and law enforcement communities are determined to have him permanently locked away.
Galen’s life and the lives of all who encounter him are changed forever. In some other time and place, he might have been considered a holy man. How should we deal with those who evidently were created with faulty wiring?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penhall Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9780985739362

Vicki Smart Penhall

Vicki Smart Penhall is a truly engaging and readable author of short fiction novels. As a performing artist, she is an actor, comedian, director and a Texas singer/songwriter. She hails from Houston; was mostly educated at Texas Tech University, and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Texas A&M University. As an educator, she has taught high school and college writing and theater, and regularly serves as an adjudicator for UIL academic and theater competitions.

Book preview

Faulty Wiring

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Vicki Smart Penhall

Faulty Wiring

Smashwords Edition

Penhall Publishing

Copyright © 2013 by Vicki Smart Penhall

ISBN: 978-0-9857393-6-2

Fiction-General

Fiction-Psychological

This book is also available in print edition at several independent bookstores and

online retailers, and at the author's website.

Discover other titles by Vicki Smart Penhall at vickismartpenhall.com

Contact: Bob Penhall [e-mail]

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Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

About the Author

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Preface

Several important issues came together in the writing of this fiction: the ineffectiveness of the so-called ‘corrections’ system, the plight of mentally ill and homeless folk, and the spiritual void in society that impacts the other two. The main character is the very embodiment of these issues.

Both the medical and law-enforcement communities want to see the petty miscreant permanently locked away. Obviously, this is the most efficient way of dealing with the trio of social ills, the mentally unwell, the homeless, and the criminals.

But Galen also has qualities that reach into the spiritual dimension. It is a realm we mortals often try to avoid facing, as though looking into that illumination will surely make us blind. It is human nature to fear that which we do not understand, whether physical, spiritual, and especially psychological. Turning away from the study of one element of human assembly may weaken our understanding of the other two. How should we deal with those who evidently were created with faulty wiring?

(back to top)

Chapter One

You got the stuff? asked the jonesing junkie.

Don’t worry ‘bout what I got. Le’me see the cash, demanded the muscle-bound dealer, who clearly had the upper hand.

You gonna rip me off? I think you’re gonna rip me, man, whined the junkie, trying to assert his street smarts.

The dealer’s gold laden dental grill gleamed under the security light in the alley in Deep East Dallas while he disdainfully sized up his client. He smiled broadly.

Well, that still remains to be seen. Do you want the product, or do you want a trip to Parkland? Your choice.

The junkie most certainly did not want a trip to Parkland, remembering in a nano-flash the number of times he regained consciousness in the psych-ward of that particular hospital from trying not to recover from a heroin over-dose. He was even a failure at suicide. The junkie knew if he pushed this individual, he would regain consciousness from a violent beating as well as a violent junk withdrawal.

Take it easy. I want the product, he said wiping his nose.

He reached into his grimy sock and pulled out a grimy wad of currency. The dealer grabbed it out of his shaking hands.

Wait a minute, wait a minute! I need food money. Not all of that! the junkie cried.

The dealer quickly and deftly counted out the cash and stuffed it all in his pocket. The junkie began to whine and twitch, so the dealer threw a tiny bag of brown powder at the ground. When the junkie dove down after it, the dealer peeled off a twenty from the wad, threw the bill down beside him, and then returned the wad to his pocket.

Next time you call me, don’t call me, ordered the dealer as he took his leave, for there was nothing more disgusting to the prosperous dealer than a whimpering, pasty-white addict from a once comfortable, working class neighborhood. They were clogging up his East Dallas neighborhood.

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Back inside the cozy cardboard box near the dumpster in his urban alley, the desperate junkie began gathering his works around him which consisted of someone’s carelessly discarded insulin needle, a length of rubber tubing, a bent spoon, a semi-dried out wad of cotton, and a Bic lighter he had stolen from a lunch counter. His conversation was one-sided, the usual practice of solitary living.

What did he mean ‘don’t call me’? Don’t call me, on the phone? Don’t call me by name? Don’t call me, call my associates instead? I need a definition of terms. I need terms. Terms.

The whole time he cooked his junk and prepared his fix, he peeked nervously out of the box in case that little runt showed up again. The runt must be a thousand years old by the lines and wrinkles in his old face. He wasn’t dressed any better than himself, so the junkie supposed he was in the same boat. He thought the runt wanted to be in the same box the way he kept showing up so unexpectedly.

Turning to face the contents of the cooking spoon full of heroin, he dropped in the cotton ball and cut off the flame. Removing the syringe lid with his teeth, he drew up the liquid contents which he filtered through the dingy cotton ball. After the syringe was filled, the practiced junkie grabbed the rubber tubing he used to tie off his left arm. Quickly finding his vein, he lifted a blood drop, plunged in the fix, closed his eyes, and once again chased the Dragon…

Inside his haze, the junkie pondered his almost complete joy. People who never experienced an orgasmic heroin high could not understand the never-to-be-duplicated body rush of the first time. However, if someone has been there once, he will sell his own mother to try and reproduce that first visit with the Dragon. It never comes back, but he will try, and try, and try again.

Slowly, opening his eyes from the blissful stupor, he jumped through his skin at the sight of the runt crouched inside his box. The junkie fumbled around for his Bic before finally flicking on his lighter.

It’s okay. You’re alright, the runt soothed.

Shit, man! You scared the crap out of me. How’d you get in here? the junkie responded, twitching and jerking to an upright sitting position.

I’m here all the time. You’ve seen me, right? the runt continued calmly.

The junkie flicked his lighter again and studied the little intruder. He was, for a fact, the most wrinkled and ravaged street person the junkie had ever seen. He had short, grayish dark hair under a worn navy blue long shore man’s cap. His trousers could have been denim or they could have been gabardine; it was hard to tell, so old were they. His leather jacket, neck scarf, and fingerless gloves layered over a shirt of unknown design completed the indefinable, ageless look of the man. He had obviously been living on the street a long, long, time.

Sure, I’ve seen you, man. But, I don’t know you. So, why don’t you move along before I have to move you myself. Hear me, old man?

Spitting out his threats had the net effect of putting out the lighter flame. Immediately, the junkie flicked on the lighter again. This time, the runt had vanished! The loaded junkie thrashed around looking for him in the one-man box, but he was gone. The addict wondered briefly how the runt, small as he was, could even fit in the box with him. He breathed hard trying to make sense of the encounter. Soon, the heroin high took over again and he began to settle into stoned slumber. He had nightmares all night long, and fantasies of winged creatures and gargoyles perched on buildings all around Dallas.

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Statistics from various task forces on runaways will support the sad