Dionysus and the Crucified

By Richard G. Wanderman Jr.

A travelogue of murder and sex, the main character is as twisted as the roads he navigates. A college student has divorced himself from morality and social conventions and must go on the road to find himself and rediscover his lost humanity. Here is the author's first novel. First published 10 years ago in England, be the first to read this revised and updated American edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257426263

Book preview

Camus

ONE

I drink tea nights, sometimes Darjeeling, or oolong, but tonight ginseng. I like the flavor as I work late. I’m watching Star Trek. Fox has acceded to showing the original at nine o’clock Fridays and Sundays, while broadcasting the new series other nights. Tonight is Monday, and the Next Generation is on. Worf, the Klingon security officer, now paralyzed, may die. It’s touching. During the last set of commercials, my phone rings. I usually don’t accept calls after nine, but I answer.

Hello.

Hello, Kevin. The emphatic voice must be John. I was wondering what you’re doing tonight?

I hate John, and he knows it. He’s a real asshole, doesn’t know when to quit. I had a girlfriend, Justine, and he tormented me for months. He was in love, or in lust, when I started going out with her. After we had moved into a new apartment he got upset, and called me a pimp who’s just shacking up with his meat to spite all the customers. Fruitcake. I once caught him entering our apartment through a front door and met him in the back bedroom going through Justine’s lingerie. He faced around and gasped, then pulled a short hunting knife from his web belt. He stood in an awkward karate stance from some old ‘B’ movie and held the four inch knife so tightly his knuckles whitened and his wrist shook. He tried to side-step the dresser and make me circle around, away from the door. I side-stepped the same way he did. No ground gained for either of us.

You shouldn’t have come here, John, I said slowly, grinning. He scowled and got red in the face making his pimples stand out like the seeds on a strawberry. John held the knife and yet dared not move an inch without his guard up. He didn’t think about surrender. We kept each other at bay by mimicking movements. Hew countered mine, an outflanking maneuver brought him around to my left, another bringing him back to my right. We stood perverse mirrors of each other’s movements. Then he decided to charge me. He first lowered his knife and straightened it out towards me, a sure sign that he was going to lunge. He shot past my side-step and almost ran head-first into the wall next to the door. I laughed at him, and clocked him on the head with my fist. He dropped the knife as he spun to the brown medium-shag carpet. I grabbed him around the waist, dragging him through the apartment, and threw him out the front door. He landed beside the black pole supporting the stairwell balcony for the second floor. I told him then that if I ever saw him again, I’d mark him as one does thieves – a slash across the nose and right cheek to scar and mark him for life. (I guess I’ve seen The Seventh Seal a few too many times!) At this, he ran away and I’d almost forgotten him.

I’ve since broken up with Justine. That was a terrible experience. I’d been out at rehearsal with the Firehouse Theatre and had come home very late, around one-thirty or two. I’m walking up to the door and see most of the lights are on in the apartment. Very unusual. When I opened the door and saw Jason, a half-Indian, half-Mexican from San Antonio, getting something to drink in our kitchen, wearing only a smile and his BVD’s. I began to see red.

Hello, Jason.

Hi, and I walked right past him down the hall and into my, our, bedroom and saw Justine laid out there with nothing on. Not even a smile. I could have killed them both right there, and almost did, but I let it go. I got on the phone and called Hal in Memphis.

Hi, I’m coming up now, and threw some shit into a small bag and left. It took me four hours to get to Memphis. Usually it takes seven going seventy-five. I just showed up, much to Hal’s dismay. I drove into Harold’s driveway and walked into his house rousing him from bed. We didn’t speak as we drove to the CK’s in Germantown, our hang-out dating from our high school days. Our friend Bonnie still worked behind the counter. We ordered our coffee and I began to open up, and as we sat, I released all my frustrations to the one-two of coffee and Camel’s. I soon had catharted my emotions and spent a few days in Memphis without much grief. I’ve never forgiven Justine for this. To act when the action is known to offend, that is the enemy’s action. It is when your love beds another in your house, in your bed, and upon finishing, gloats and brags upon those actions. That is hate. I returned in a week and kicked her out of the apartment. I probably should have killed her, because now her memory is coming back to haunt me. Too many loose ends. Anyway, she moved out almost a year ago. Now John’s on my phone. I’ll meet him. Meet him and mark him as I said I would.

What’s up?

"Nothing. Just some fun down at Vincent’s. Meet me here in one hour. I’ve got something for you. With a smug snort, he hangs up. What the hell is his game? If he thinks he’s going to play with me he’d better damn well think again. I’ll fuck his world. If he wants to truck down, damn straight I’ll ball his jack to the concrete, and then bugger him with a two-by-four sans Vaseline.

I get up from my grey-cushioned, black wood rocking chair and walk slowly back into the bedroom. Kevin, got to remain calm, no emotion, if some shit’s going to go down tonight. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, fucking with someone that is. I’m sick of taking other peoples’ shit. I take their shit, and what? Hope that they’ll begin to like me because I put up with it? That’s crap! I’m sick of trying to get accepted by consigning myself to the role of scapegoat or party idiot. I’m sick of assimilation. I decide to change clothes. Getting out of my orange shorts and Eric Clapton concert T-shirt, I walk to the closed wearing only green, white polka dotted, boxers. I pull on the light. Better go conservative, don’t want anybody recognizing my tripped-out clothes. I put on a starched white Oxford button down, and black cotton slacks. Opening my sock drawer, I choose dark colored socks with an almost invisible maroon and teal pattern and walk to the bed, sit, and put them on. I complete my outfit with a pair of Nunn Bush, black tasseled loafers, and walk into the living room area, to the dining table and get my wallet and keys, put these into my pockets. I walk back to the first bedroom, now my office, and take out a blue hardback book from the bottom shelf. I open both it and the red velvet lined compartment containing my party rod. A surgical scalpel, still sharp, in a black leather scabbard with leather ties on it. I bind it to my right ankle, underneath my slacks.

After locking my apartment, I walk to the car, slow, measured steps every one echoing my deep breathing. I try to keep all emotions locked away for the night. It’s my reason that will get me through. My car unlocks with a remote locking system, a brand new 1992 blue and grey Buick Skylark. As I drive out of the apartment complex a light rain begins to fall. This rain, along with the humidity, creates a blue haze rising from the asphalt. Nights like this are perfect for criminals. In the haze and mist they cavort and connive, caress and kill, or at least I do. We try to make ourselves feel powerful. By objectifying our victim (helpless as a lamb), as we slice the throat of this lamb, a sacrifice to our god, Power, we eliminate our object and are predicated no more. Being without predicate is, to me, a lonely existence, if one can call it that. That’s why we do it again. I’ve met very few criminals that are true psychotics or neurotics or even thrill seekers, we are all subjects without predicates, and without objects upon which to predicate ourselves, and so we search for these objects time and again until we can be predicated no more, as in death, or have found permanent predications in some semblance of ‘normal’ life.

"I drive down Azalea that turns into McGregor until I hit Dauphin and hang a right going downtown. Vincent Van Go-Go’s is my favorite bar. It’s a sacrilege that John said to me him there. Vincent’s is small, wit a stage for a band in the back, a rectangle of a bar in the middle, a pool table and a CD juke box. I often hang out there on weekends drinking martinis, listening to the bands and sometimes reading or writing. Lately, I can’t get out much with all the papers to write or books to read for my classes. When I do get out, though, it’s either with my friend Ellen, to go see a band or to see my current lover, Rachel.