Goodevil: Light, and Darkness

By David Miller

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. What does that even mean? Where is the line, between good and evil, and how do you cross it? What pushes someone to commit horrible atrocities against their loved ones, and what pushes someone to make the ultimate sacrifice, for people they've never even met? Things are not always as they appear...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365236785

David Miller

David A. Miller is the vice president of Slingshot Group Coaching where he serves as lead trainer utilizing the IMPROVleadership coaching strategy with ministry leaders around the country. He has served as a pastor, speaker, teacher, and coach in diverse contexts, from thriving, multi-site churches to parachurch ministries.

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Goodevil: Light, and Darkness

GoodEvil:

Light and Darkness

by David Miller

Copyright...

Copyright (c) 2016, by David Miller.

All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced, or used in any manner, whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher; except for the use of brief notations, in a book review or scholarly journal.

Dedication, and Forewords...

Hello, everybody! I really hope you like this; this is my first novel, and I'm a bit nervous.

Since I'm at over 105,000 words, already, I'll make this brief...

The inspiration for everyone, and everything, in the novel has come from real life. That doesn't mean that it all comes from my own life; mostly, it comes from the lives and identities of everyone I've ever known, and relatively current events. If you're going to criticize anyone, criticize me, for not doing them justice; incidentally, I hope I do them justice, in this seminal work. In fact, I know I will, and you will all love it... OR ELSE! (Of course, that's a joke; the book's contents are very serious, so take it for what you can, okay?) By the way, guess the songs, and artists, who inspired the chapter names...

The names, of course, have been changed, and I've done my best to sterilize the accounts of any personal information. In this book, there are some people, very close to me, to whom I pay tribute; many of them are very humble, and would not like for their personal information to be made known, so I've done my best to make sure that their wishes are respected. If you see yourself in this book, and I know you, chances are that it's intentional, and I hope I've properly paid tribute to you; if I know you, and you don't see yourself in this book, look a little closer; I'm sure you'll see yourself, eventually.

While this book ended up as a tribute to all of the people I've ever known, that's more of a happy accident, because, initially, I didn't intend for that to happen; I was just trying to do a story on a character that my brother made up, when he was younger, and a tribute to a very good friend's cat, who passed away (R.I.P., Ketto). The story just, kind of, wrote itself; I went from one opportunity in the plot, to the next.

This book took about two years to do. I know, I'm pretty lazy; between Internet distractions, and the multiple times that my computers were destroyed by giant robots, for calling them fat, or something, it took forever. This time around, I was homeless, and had a ton of time on my hands, and this is the result. Two years, and about two or three months, of labor have given birth to this abomination.

Thanks for reading this, and again, I hope you enjoy this book.

-D.D.-

One: No Hero...

I hate when people call me a hero. If they really knew me, they'd know that I'm not a hero, at all. I never wanted to be; I never tried to be. It certainly never crossed my mind, let alone guided my actions or inspired my words. My inspiration, more often than not, was just doing what I wanted, or had to do; sometimes, I was just doing what was right by others. There's a lot more to being a hero; there must be. I never hung out with heroes, I never emulated anybody, and I never cared to. When my son wanted to hear my stories, to get to know where I was coming from in my rationale behind a decision, I had no problem telling him; it wasn't to impress him, and in later years, he didn't act like he was phased, either way; though I knew he always idolized me, and it still gets on my nerves. I just figured that experience is the best teacher, and who was I to hold back my own experiences, and let him make his own mistakes? Although, to be honest, he seemed to prefer that way of living, but to each, his own...

Like I said, it was never about being a hero. My son had remarked, time and time again, that heroes never do what they do for recognition, or for gain. Whatever; I'm still not a hero. I've done my fair share of rotten things to people, even when it was for a good reason. I've also held myself back from fighting, when I could have just let myself go and destroyed somebody. When I was a kid, I was beaten, and verbally abused, by my parents; I took it, because I knew they never would have believed I wasn't to blame for whatever made them mad, in the first place. I let other friends, who had it way worse, stay with me; maybe because I felt bad for them, but also because I hated their parents, and loved defying them. When they got in trouble, whether it was at some party, or stuck out in the middle of nowhere, I was there, but mainly because it would have been a real pain in my backside to have to deal with them shifting blame to me for their stupid choices. When people hurt them, or took advantage of them, I stepped in, but usually in a way some might consider sneaky and violent. I, pretty much, defied as much of convention as I could; I'd ace tests, and sleep through the rest of the classes, because the teachers were just covering the same boring, old stuff we learned before, and I chose to leave my parents' religion, rather than have them scam me out of my hard-earned cash. Nevertheless, and especially in spite of the kinds of people my parents were, I still ended up working with my own dad, taking care of the details of his business, while he went off and did his own thing.

I dropped out of school, not because I knew better than everybody else, but because school was the only thing that kept me from joining the military; I joined the military, because I was tired of stepping in to save everybody else, and always being treated like their whipping-boy for my efforts. My defiant streak continued in the military, where I was drilled and reprimanded like a mangy dog in the hen-house. It just made me stronger, tougher, and more defiant. That didn't really end, when I was sent overseas, to fight guerrillas in a foreign country; it just made me sneakier, and better skilled in a variety of fields of expertise, which really helped when I came back home. Being cheated out of a promotion I definitely deserved, and then having my parents sell my car while I was gone, pretty much led to me refusing to reenlist, and cutting most of my ties with my family... especially my parents. I took to the road, and took a wide variety of jobs, while I was on my own, before I finally found my niche and settled down. People knew they could count on me, and turned to me whenever they needed help, but I didn't do it for any special reason; I just wanted to be better than people were led, by my parents, to believe I was, and I really wanted to be a better person than either of my parents. When my siblings were cheated by one of my parents after their divorce, I tracked that parent down, and turned them in to the cops, who were too inept to find them. When a local gang-banger messed with my family... well, let's just say that my friends and I had a little chat with him, alone, after Midnight, and he and his buddies decided to skip town and never look back. I had, however, gotten my best chance to portray myself as a decent human being to the families of my now-ex-wives, one of whom entrusted me to help them with their last wishes. I had quite a few adventures, but they were just matters of surviving being in the wrong places, at the wrong times. I was finally ready to settle down, when I met my on-again, off-again girlfriend.

Annie had a pretty rough childhood, having been abandoned by her parents to raise her siblings at a young age, only for them to be put into foster care, and suffer all kinds of abuse; when her father decided to come back into the picture, he got them all out, remarried, and made sure the kids never had contact with their absentee mother again. Their new mother, though, was even more abusive and less stable, teaching her female children to use their feminine wiles to get what they wanted and keep their men around, and scaring away her male children, who both died mysterious deaths. Annie left home, after repeated inappropriate propositions by her father and members of her mother's cult, but with no skills of her own in a merciless and indifferent world, she could only fall back on her cunning and beauty to get by. Fortunately, for her, she was really beautiful; unfortunately, genetics, and her history of child abuse, had driven her crazy, and I didn't know about it until it was too late. I fell for her, and we lived together for a while, but she drove me up a wall. Several times, I was about to leave, but by some miracle, whenever I would get ready to leave, she would get pregnant; I say it was a miracle, because neither of us were supposed to be able to have children. I was too old for it, but soon after my  kids were born, it became clear that I had no choice. I may not see myself as a hero, but I couldn't just abandon children I helped create; they didn't ask to be born, after all...

Then, I found out just how badly postpartum depression had taken it's toll on her. I had, literally, scratched and clawed to make a successful business, sticking it to the corrupt unions and government fat-cats, pulling down a sizable living, legally. I had finally made it, my way. No short-cuts, no compromises, and no apologies. Then, the hospital called. My kids were brought into the emergency room, for the third time, with injuries that left my youngest near death. I couldn't count how many times Annie had lost track of the eldest one, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. By now, it was painfully clear that I could no longer balance my life with the welfare of my children. The doctor had told me, in no uncertain terms, that one, or the other, had to go: either I lose the business and girlfriend, or I lose my kids to the system. I sold my business, and dropped Annie off at a shelter, all the way across the country. From then on, life was hard, but I was confident that I could handle whatever came our way; I had to, for the sake of my children. I made sure they never spent one day without food to eat, clean clothing on their backs, and some kind of shelter over their heads. I made my mistakes, as everyone does, but I did the best I could, all things considered. I wanted my kids to have a better childhood than I had, so they could have what I didn't. I wanted them to grow up with all the advantages I didn't get, and in many ways, I made sure that they did. I was there to patch up their wounds, to give them motivational speeches, to get in their faces when they crossed the line, and to defend them from as much as I could. I wasn't a perfect parent, by any means, but I like to think that I was a good parent. Sometimes, I wonder if my kids wouldn't have turned out better off, if I had made different choices, but I can't really complain; one graduated high school, in spite of being what amounts to a little boy who's trapped in a grown man's body, and the other is a respected minister, with a pretty impressive track-record, all things considered.

My eldest son has left the family, three times: once, when he tried to go into the Army, and washed out; once, when he lived on his own for over a year; and this last time, when he just... disappeared. Of course, he'd like for everyone to forget about him, and he deliberately erased as much of a trail leading to himself as he could, but he knows I can always find him, if I want to. Why he went through all this trouble, I don't really know; he's always been a little off, in some ways, and the older he gets, the more he reminds me of his mother: a heart in the right place, but completely out of his mind. I'm still waiting for that phone call, one day. Dad, he'll say, in that tone of voice that tells me that he messed up, big-time, I'm in jail, and I need to be bailed out. Or, Dad, I'm in a hospital, recovering from some serious stab-wounds. Or, We found your son; he was gunned down in an alley, somewhere. I know it's his life, and he can do whatever he wants, but I get the feeling that he's trying to impress me, or something. We've been at each-others' necks plenty of times in the past, but he's always looked up to me. Try as I might, I could never get it through his thick skull that I'm no hero, and he shouldn't look up to me like one. He's about as good at listening as my former buddy, Gerald.

Gerald and I met during my last tour of duty. He was a real party animal, flirting with all the pretty young ladies and making sure the booze never stopped coming, even when most of us were puking our guts out in the mens' room. The party didn't stop when we left the bar, either; sometimes, it followed us back to the hooch, where Gerald could be heard for clicks around, having the time of his life with two or three beautiful young women, who we'd never see again. If you think he let that attitude drop when we got back Stateside, you're as wrong as the day is long; for the short time Gerald and I lived together, I had to make sure I could nap during the day, because he was up all night with his ladies, when he wasn't drinking like a fish at the local taverns. Occasionally, I'd join him for a few drinks, maybe pick up some chicks with him, but at the time, it didn't seem like he could understand that there was more to life than partying, booze, and girls. We parted ways amicably enough, though he seemed to have a malevolent glint in his eyes, like he was hiding some sort of resentment. A couple of decades would pass, before I would take the kids to see him. That's when I found out what had become of him. It turns out, Gerald did, eventually, decide to settle down. He now had three kids of his own – two boys, and a girl, – though only two lived with him. The girl was a few years younger than her brother, and had been from his then-current marriage, as his former wife and eldest son had both died in a horrible accident. He had offered to put my boys and I up for a while, and we accepted, but I began to notice that things just weren't right. For one thing, he was friends with a lot of shady characters, who came over at all hours of the day and night, and I had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't discussing masonry, like he had claimed his business was. For another, he had way more enemies than any honest businessman should have; case in point, the ones who put out a hit on him, and ended up killing his wife and oldest son... something he had neglected to mention before, but I got out of him one night, during a drinking contest. I also noticed that his kids were up to some shady dealings of their own, with the boy always having his own money, in spite of having no job, and the girl going out at all hours of the night in these outfits that would make a stripper blush, and coming home a total mess. It was after my eldest son had almost drowned, one day, at the park, that I found everything out. His son was dealing drugs, and even had his own little syndicate started up to make a bigger and more organized profit. His daughter was going out at night, co-hosting raves, and always seemed to be too high to remember anything when she got back. He didn't care, because he was involved in organized crime, himself. I, flat out, told him, to his face, that I wouldn't tell anybody what was going on, for the safety of my family, but his kids needed help, and he had become a really sorry excuse for a human being. I also told him that, if he did try to send someone after us, I would take them out, and then I'd come after him. I made it very clear to him that my family was all I had left, and without my boys, I would have nothing left to lose. Somewhere along the line, the fun-loving man-child I had known as a friend had turned into a total monster.

Gerald let us go, and we hadn't heard anything about him, or anyone connected to him, since.

Two: I'm Your Hero...

I, for one, am blessed to consider myself a hero. From humble beginnings, I rose through the ranks of every enterprise I endeavored to endure, and conquered all in my path. No greater success-story has ever been written, than that of my own life, and, one day, I might give the world the privilege to peruse the world, and life, through my own seasoned and successful senses. It truly is an honor, and a privilege, to serve others in such a manner, and to be such an honored and esteemed personage. I serve as a role-model to countless people; when you're in such a great position, it gives you the confidence to tackle anything, and win, by any means necessary. Of course, some people will always see this as a measure of arrogance, condescension, or even elitism; to them, I ask the question, Why are you such a loser?

I grew up in Brooklyn, in the sweltering city heat and blistering city cold. I know, humble beginnings, right? Let me tell you, some of the greatest men had humble beginnings. Thomas Edison was from Jersey. Poe was a drunk, with an abusive father. Alexander II of Macedonia? His father beat the crap out of him, all the time. Even Rasputin, the Mad Monk of Russia, who held no political office and did no work of actual value, still was able to hold the Czar and his government in the palm of his gnarled hand... and, when he was younger, his peasant father used to beat him mercilessly. I've even heard that he was drowned in the icy river, as soon as he was born. Legend says it was because he wouldn't cry, because he was born dead, like the cambion of Roman Catholic myth; I think he just wanted to kill the rotten bastard. Did it work? Hell, no; like any great man, Rasputin rose above his horrible circumstances, using only his cunning and charisma, and became the man behind the greatest power in Eastern Europe. We great men are all alike, in that regard: whether through superior beauty, superior power or speed, superior intellect, superior charm, superior cunning, or superior violence, we always dominate. I was that way, myself. I was born to an addict, and her 'manager'. When I was eight, they tried to sell me to their supplier, for extra 'supplies'. I guess even drug dealers have a conscience, when it comes to certain things; he put them down, like the filthy, mangy dogs they were, and took me in. It was through what I saw of his business that I learned the secret to success. There are no real rules; that's just a lie, made up by the weak and pathetic, unworthy of survival, because they don't want anybody else to get what they can't afford. You take what you can get, by any means necessary, and you only feel more and more pride at your ability to survive.

I remember awakening to the sounds of gunfire. The man, who had taken me in, apparently owed a lot to his own suppliers, and his lack of skill caught up with him. He crawled toward me, blood spilling from his mouth. I could see the terror in his eyes, as he realized his time in this world was almost up. I watched the light in his eyes fade, his bullet-riddled body go limp, and his own handgun fall to his side. I felt nothing for this man; not even gratitude. Why should I feel gratitude to him, when I was the one who made him take care of me? It was by my own skill and power that I was able to live off of him. That's when I heard footsteps. I knew, if I was caught, I'd be joining this man in some shallow grave. With cold determination, I dragged myself underneath his corpse, and hid, trying my best to not gag on the smell of his corpse, or the fact that he had just voided his bowels. Holding my breath, for as long as I could, I waited, until I heard their voices. They spoke in heavy accents, in a language I couldn't understand, but I got the gist of their tone: their work was done, and they were leaving. As I would discover, once I heard their car peel rubber down the street, and I decided to risk crawling out from beneath my concealment, they didn't leave empty-handed. With hardly anything left, I had to figure out how to take care of myself.

I refused to sell my body, or drugs. If I was going to take care of myself, it would be on my own terms. For a couple of weeks, I did pretty well. Teachers took pity on me, and would do whatever they could to help. Eventually, though, they got the local government involved, and I was shuffled off into an orphanage. The place was my first taste of Prison, or it might as well have been, anyway. We were all kept in this one musty. old room, about sixty of us, with mold growing on the walls and the occasional rat scurrying along the floor. The staff either didn't know how to take care of kids, or didn't care; we were beaten for the most minor infractions, on a regular basis. Our usual diet consisted of gruels, soups, and God-only-knows what kind of meat they poured out of cans. Our playtime, such as it was called, involved working our butts off in a warehouse for most of the day, and we were barely given any sort of education at all. What was worse was, the doctors and nurses would hardly ever give you any legitimate medical care, but they loved to experiment with the latest brain-rotting drugs on the kids, and there were certain members of the staff that were known for having done horrible and inappropriate things to them. You'd think, in an environment like that, the kids would band together to take care of themselves, with the elder kids looking after the younger ones, but that wasn't the case. You see, another thing I'd learned about human nature was, no matter how horrible the experience, people often give in to what becomes the norm for their environment. Young victims of offenses become offenders, themselves; young victims of abuse often abuse others. That's the way it was, in the orphanage. The older kids had gotten so used to it, they dished out their own abuse and misconduct to the younger kids, who they beat and intimidated into keeping their mouths shut. In summary, the days we longed for were Adoption Day, or the days when inspectors would arrive to see if the place was fit for children. Keeping up appearances meant making things look nicer than they were, which meant a day or so of better treatment. On those days, we were able to pretend our lives were okay, even if the days, weeks, or months afterward were not.

I was one of the smarter ones. Every time a kid was adopted, I watched what he or she did. I compared notes, and found that there were several common factors. You see, some parents like to show up on occasion, and play with the kids, before they decide to take them home; kind of like the way you might decide to play with a puppy at the pound, before you decide if it either comes home with you, or gets put down. The kids who got adopted spent time getting to know the parents. They learned how to play them. They learned how to set the tone of their interactions, mirror their responses to get close to them, and then find out what weaknesses they could exploit, to seal the deal. I realized that most people will fall for that act, hook, line, and sinker; it was only years later, when I would learn that it was called social engineering. I figured that I could use those tactics to make a few friends on the inside, maybe make my life more bearable, for however long I was stuck in this rut. Lo and behold, it worked; soon, I became the poster-child for their orphanage. Behind the scenes, I ran it all. Nothing happened, without my knowledge and, in one way or another, my consent. I was the conscience of that place, and that's a far more powerful position than just being the head, face, or muscle, alone. I lived like a king, and treated my most loyal subjects like family. Of course, all bets were off on Adoption Day, but I had a knack for deciding what people focused on, and what they ignored. When my time came, I was adopted by only the best: a local politician, looking to secure the vote by adopting a kid, for the sake of good publicity.

I had it all. Now that I had been adopted, by a rich and powerful political figure, I knew the sky was the limit for me; especially, since I was the one he would use to secure votes. After all, you always treat your most loyal pawns like the Queen, in case they actually become the Queen, some day. I was enrolled in a prestigious private school, and excelled in my studies. My new father's family didn't like me much, but that was only until I was able to dig up dirt on them all. It's amazing, how compliant people become, when you threaten to expose their affairs, or their drug abuse, or their gambling addictions. Without a doubt, that's part of the reason I was able to graduate with such high marks; I wasn't exactly the best student back then, but I knew how to play the system, I knew that everybody had a price, and I knew that everybody had skeletons in their closets. Nobody bullied me; even if some stupid ox decided to push against the goad, one too many times, I had learned, from my time in the orphanage and with my erstwhile parents before, how to cause serious injury, and even kill people. If I couldn't buy somebody off, I could threaten them; if I couldn't threaten them, I could beat them into submission. I was the king of the school. Eventually, I learned how to use the system, to make money; I used my entrepreneurial skills to sell papers that were written by legitimate nerds – for a cut of the profits, of course, – to lazy, rich students. I amassed a small fortune, saved wisely, and invested in underground fighting. It wasn't long, before all the ladies wanted me. I had it all. I was rich, respected – or, at least, feared, – and popular with the girls. I had a different girlfriend for every day of the week, and two for Sundays! Then, I graduated, with honors. I had high hopes for getting into College, and possibly getting a lucrative position as a Political Science teacher. You know, all the authority of a scholar, all the influence over the minds of the future that a scholar has, with none of the actual work. Then, the war happened...

Legally, my adopted father still held the reins on my life. He had fallen into that Conservative mentality, and decided that I had to register for the Draft. Then, I got busted by the cops; not for running underground fights, but for illegally gambling. Can you imagine that?! The force we depend on, to serve and protect, didn't care so much about protecting anybody, as they did about securing profits for businessmen! Anyway, to avoid my doing time, and my adopted father being shamed out of any chance in the gubernatorial races, a deal was struck: I'd go into the Army, and serve my sentence by serving my country. The next thing I knew, I was shuffled off to Basic Training. It wasn't exactly easy, but nothing in my life really ever was, so I was okay with what they did to us. I didn't mind sleeping in the barracks; they were a lot nicer than the orphanage. I didn't mind the slop they served at the mess; it was better than the orphanage's slop. I didn't mind constant drilling, P.T., or any of the other stuff we did; it was a lot better than slaving away in a warehouse for twelve hours, and taking abuse from the staff and other kids. I did, however, mind the attitude I got from the drill sergeants. They were above me, they knew it, they acted like it, and I hated them for it. I played the game for a while, until I was in a position to rat them out to the commanding officer for getting drunk and starting fights. Of course, it took a little subterfuge, paying off a few people, and planting some evidence, but they were finally reprimanded for it. I made it clear that, unless they changed their attitudes, I'd find other excuses to get them punished, until they were dishonorably discharged. After that, their attitudes changed dramatically, and for the better.

When Basic Training was complete, I went on to Advanced Individual Training, and passed that. It wasn't too long, before I was shipped off to a South-East Asian jungle. That's where I met the first legitimate friend I'd ever made...

From the first time I saw John, I could tell that he had the makings of a great man. He and I were a lot alike, in that we had both lived hard lives, and risen above our circumstances. He showed me how to make a 'screwdriver', and I taught him how to play guitar. Don't ask how I got