Conduits: the Death of Jinx Jenkins

By J. Ryan Sommers

Ignored and marginalized, the people of Green Valley have fallen victim to the all-powerful BigCorp—a company bent on consuming and laying waste to everything the valley has to offer.

Love the classic comic and magical realism? You’ll lose yourself in this piece of Americana. Fortunately, some citizens will stop at nothing to see their home return to its former glory.

They will take new names, attack their innermost demons, and in the process, show the world they have it in them to enact true change. They merely need to choose to do so.

If not, all will be lost, and America’s very soul will be stricken from existence. Become a citizen of the City by the Shore and see how seemingly random occurrences come to shape an entire civilization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665551038

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CONDUITS:

THE DEATH OF

JINX JENKINS

J. RYAN SOMMERS

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AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Phone: [phone]

© 2022 J. Ryan Sommers. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/08/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5102-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5103-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902254

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Trigger Warning

Welcome to Green Valley

Trapping Snowflakes

The Death of Jinx Jenkins

Grackle & Crag

The Errant Knight

Peter Man

You Just don’t Come Here

The Life of Jinx Jenkins

The Hound

Vanguards

Three Little Monkeys

It Takes A City

Some People

The Balcony

Sundown

The Hanged Man

River on Fire

What the Hell Happened to Jinx?

The Inferno around Him

Hound and A Terrier

The Heart of Everything

The Crystal Cathedral

The Starling

Love Me, Love My Dog

A Birthday for Charlie

The Ole Hanging Tree

Out of the Flames

About the Author

DEDICATION

For Jenn and her unborn Cece

Who will never be able to read this book,

Due to America’s obsession with guns.

And for my friend TJ

Who survives them.

Let this inscription serve to keep their memory alive.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A s always thank you to every single last teacher I’ve ever had (especially the English and Arts teachers), from Lake Forest High School, the University of Arizona, the University of California Los Angeles, and Columbia College Chicago. You have passed on your knowledge, which is priceless. An extra special thanks to my family. I assure you, if you see parallels to yourselves the intention was never meant to be malicious. Extra special thanks as well to Alexis Pride, Sam Weller, RS Deeren, Alex Donnelly, my dogs (Keaton and Gidget), Toni Morison, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Cervantes, Ray Bradbury, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Norman Rockwell, Gordon Lightfoot, Marvel and DC comics, and so, so many more that influenced the work before you. And to my wife, who put up with my perpetual self-effacements and obsessions throughout this entire process. And lastly to my friends at AuthorHouse who made this book possible. I love you all.

TRIGGER WARNING

I n this work, I have chosen to use pejorative language that often times causes readers pain or discomfort. Please note that this is not my intention. Many would prefer to ignore these words and act as if they are banned. Language is a tool. It can never be banned. I’ve chosen to include these words to point a finger at the unfortunate reality of our collective vernacular. Hate will never go away from being ignored. It is all of our duty to face prejudice and intolerance head on. Pretending it does not exist is a delusion that serves no one. You should know it is your author’s greatest hope to be as inclusive and honest with you as possible. I, myself, have been forced to put a book down due to the hateful language used in it. If this is the reaction you have to this text, so be it. But you should know I not only write with the intention to entertain, but to enlighten. With this explanation, it is my sincerest hope you see the reason for their inclusion.

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Green Valley map illustrated by Dewi Hargreaves

Author’s Note to the Reader:

WELCOME TO GREEN VALLEY

I t exists in a long-forgotten corner of the American dream. It exits in the soul of every town and every village, every suburb and every city. It exists in twilight—that place between waking and dreaming. If you go looking for it, you will pass it by. To find it, you must forget your way there. A place unlike any other, it saturates your consciousness when you are visiting, and it quickly falls to the back of your memory once you’ve left. To say you remember it fully is a lie. And to say you have no memory at all would be the same.

We have all been to Green Valley.

Don’t you remember?

That strange county, with an over population of trees, gray-green snow, and buildings washed in art. Contained within a tall mountain ridge, Green Valley is inhabited by a great arbor sanctuary, several small villages, and a river that trickles down its spine. The citizenship walks about, stained in a noxious film that intrudes their pores, their hair, and everything they own.

A single road stretches in a large, dented circle—Main Street. It runs through the forest and over mountain cliffs. It weaves its way from oasis to oasis and carries all the hopes and dreams of the people. The only way in or out of town is an entrance and an exit at either end, where upon you’ll find yourself back in a thick expanse of trees. Your lone guide, the woven tunnel of branches slinking in a fearful gauntlet through the forest.

The crescent valley is located in the heart of the country. The mountain chain tall and foreboding, verdant and fertile.

It’s right there on the map, don’t you see?

The valley’s mouth runs along the banks of Lake Sibylline—a lake large enough to be a member of the Great Lakes, but separated by land, and therefore, discarded by the public’s devotion. Sibylline is the second largest American lake, as well as the second deepest. But when was the last time anybody remembered who came in second?

Along the tortured shores, the people migrate to the metropolis where they find love and hate, work and play, and answer to the god in the crystal tower. But we’ll get to that…

Historically, Green Valley is the foremost spawning ground for the mighty North American Jackalope. During monsoons, lightning attacks the land, trees catch fire, and the antlered rodents mate until exhaustion. In spring, when the young follow their loins back home, many a tire is punctured by the razor points of road kill. Some go as far as to worship the vicious beasts, while still others enjoy them with currants and a splash of Worcestershire.

A place like all others, it has roads and houses and people and lots and lots of trees. Children go to school. Rush hour is a bitch. And in the summer, cicadas cry with lust. Also a place unlike any other, there are heroes and villains, murderers and ghosts, and lots and lots of magic. A boy crows at the sun. Mutants sneak in the shadows. And in the summer, the tired river catches fire and keeps the night at bay.

Consumed by a vast pattern of interconnected circles and tracks and trains, like a snake eating its own tail, the links in the chain glide along in never-ending loops. The valley people ride in the belly of the serpent, moving to and from the city. It was given to them by a madman. He will die for their sins.

A place that God and the Devil forgot, and in their absence, others filled the void. Enacting their will through mediums—conduits to their hope and rage, fear and love, truth, justice, and lust. They will lead a revolution. They will rediscover humanity.

To start our story with Once upon a time would be disingenuous. Green Valley exists at all times, which makes that particular adage a bit tricky. Rather, let’s say it happened Once upon a place… and leave it at that.

Welcome to Green Valley. We’ve been expecting you.

TRAPPING SNOWFLAKES

L akeview, a city on the water’s edge of Green Valley, can be found in a long-forgotten swath of the American Midwest. It is a sonnet, a reek, a cacophony of horns and screams and laughter, a wick on a dim candle, a pitch, an addictive routine, a reminiscence, a dream. Lakeview is the assemblage and dissemination of concrete and iron and gravel and bloodshot brick, crumbling asphalt and abandoned lots, and bridges upon tunnels upon bridges upon confusion. Its ancient stone titans are infiltrated by a burgeoning God; high culture and cathouses and midnight diners and off ramps connected by an omniscient ouroboros. Backroom deals transpire in uptown homes, while humanitarian efforts struggle in decaying slums. Flophouses and cathedral homes sit in perfect neighborly congruence. Its inhabitants are, as the bard once wrote, harlots, predators, pedophiles, and mother fuckers, by which he meant every last one of them. Were the bard to peek through a different knothole, he might have said, Gods and kings and martyrs and Santa Claus, and he’d have been talking about the same people.

In the morning when the first light peers over the horizon of Lake Sibylline, the tin boxes pack together along Main Street, sounding their opinions in shrill voices. The people of the valley load up in the never-ending snake and drift slowly to their day. Vagrants stumble in the streets as the smog builds like a layer of rainclouds waiting to be wrung. Business after business conforms, selling their livelihood, their inheritance, their familial identity to the despot at the top of his gleaming, glass tower. He is their industry. He is their savior. Their undoing.

At midday, the uptown wives leave with handholds into their valets—animal carcasses on display. They go for high tea and feed the scraps to their wards. The populace walks from block to block, never stopping for traffic. They can’t hit us all, is the call. They pump through the streets like blood, occasionally getting tripped up on the plaque of life. The businessmen sneak into shaded watering holes and pound three fingers at a time to make it through the rest of the day. The restaurants burn their food and toss the slop to the alleyway strays. The sun is high and hot as a little boy crows in its silhouette. No one will know. They are too busy with the minutia that keeps the city breathing.

At the end of the day, the whistle blows, the clock chimes, and the horns populate the streets once more. The spreadsheets and the call lists and the happy faced fronts get put away in the top drawer. The dockworkers rumble to a halt as the last crate is cataloged and put away. And all pour, stinking and sweating and covered in the day’s grime, into the bars and restaurants and movie houses and bordellos and parks. Exhausted Frogs and Krauts and Guineas and Wops and Spooks and Spics, blokes and birds, husbands and wives, the embittered and abused find their way to comfort along the strip, where the city’s second shift clocks in.

Life takes a breath.

The bums retire to the feet of Ole Lady Columbia watching like a guardian over the city and sprawl out on the grass mound amongst the addicts shivering in their piss. The predators sniff out their prey as the sun sets, the taste of blood on the back of their throats. The mutants slither and slink and creep out of their tenements to join the factions of life, safe from the light. And vigilantes put on their masks of altruistic concern and exact their will with selfish pretense. The world comes alive under the flashing, panicked lights, singing sirens, and all is in its place.

How can the sonnet and the reek and the cacophony of horns—the screams and laughter, the wick on a dim candle, the pitch, the addictive routine, the reminiscence, and the dream—be set down alive? When you collect a snowflake, they are near impossible to capture whole, for they melt and dissolve at the moment of touch. You must allow them to set down in their pillowy layer and accumulate gradually of their own will and volition.

And perhaps, that might be the only way to tell the story of this civilization—to pull up the page and let the yarns settle into their proper place.

THE DEATH OF JINX JENKINS

W hen Jinx came to, he was draped across one of Lady Columbia’s feet on Liberty Hill in the Columbian Circus. Other vagrants and junkies littered the grass and benches. All around them, the titans of Lakeview stared down—BigCorp Tower, City Hall, the Green Valley County Courthouse, and the Bank of Lakeview.

I want my sacrifice.

The words played in a loop at the back of Jinx’s brain.

What did it mean?

He sat up on the monument’s big toe and held his head. His entire being had been stripped away, leaving only a grimy husk.

I want my sacrifice.

Then, he remembered the man’s voice. The man with the feathered mask. It came alive—moving, fluttering. A familiar timbre made Jinx shutter even hours later. A resonance that carried straight to his heart and speared it with a harpoon. He knew that voice. No doubt about it.

Jinx stumbled to his feet. At the top of BigCorp Tower, a cloud black as onyx rested in an otherwise clear sky. Red shots of lightning flashed intermittently.

I want my sacrifice.

As the sun dipped behind the valley mountains, the Tram—his baby, his home—the interconnected circles running in similitude to one another, was in full scope.

I want my sacrifice.

When did things start going wrong? The booze certainly never helped, but it was something else. Something more. He was the luckiest man in the valley at one time. A modern Midas. He assumed his luck had run out. Too much of a good thing…

But recollecting the destruction that had rained down on his body and spirit over the years, he knew it was an anomaly far worse. His soul was being sucked out his pores. He hadn’t just lost his luck, someone had stolen it.

In a stab of pain, Jinx fell to his knees.

The world opened up. Houses collapsed into the flames shooting up out of the cracks. Lava flowed down Main Street. Every citizen in the valley was consumed by heat, then fire, and finally ash. The river burned, and the lake boiled. And every last tree of the sanctuary was reduced to cinders.

Jinx took in a full breath. The vision passed. After seeing the flames so many times before, he finally understood what it meant.

I want my sacrifice.

How many times had he gone through this? Climbed the mountain; seen the fog.

The sensation of his soul tearing free, the soothing coolness on his skin, the spoken words all familiar and routine.

If what happened to him at that dinner was real, if it actually happened and wasn’t another vision, the consequences would be cataclysmic. A wrong so egregious, so opprobrious, could not stand. Apathy was not an option. Jinx knew what he needed to do.

He required a rope.

Jinx found a construction project underway around the immense circle of the Columbian Circus, and walked to it. A length of rope wove through a tarp to hold it down. He picked at the knot and pulled it free, wrapping it in a coil around his arm. The tarp caught the wind, dissolving into the black firmamental soup.

At the giant S-curve overlooking the lake, Jinx stood adjacent to The Duke Hotel. Main Street was dead. On occasion, a car might zip by, but for the most part, the four lanes were so abandoned, Jinx could do a jig in the middle without interruption. The sycamore, naked and gaunt like an old man’s arthritic hand, extended an extra thick branch over the northbound lanes. The tree created the median between the two roads. In fact, the sycamore caused the absurd S-shape in the highway. In a darker time, it was where Lakeview once sought its final justice on all criminals, runaway slaves, uppity niggers, and even proclaimed witches. Instead of cutting it down when the highway came in, the people chose to preserve it, a reminder of their shameful past and regrettable heritage.

The vision of destruction kept flashing against the sight of the metropolis from above. Like a city bleeding out all its sadness, the overwhelming red kept him in fear for so long. The heat he’d warned others about for so many years. The impending doom.

And before him, all bloodshot and stained, the city glowed, screaming for a savior.

Jinx took his time crossing the empty street. He tied the rope into a noose and tossed it over the branch, letting it sway as he secured the other end to the base of the tree. Climbing the median, he snagged the rope and put the horrific loop around his neck.

Another beautiful day. Hoot.

He stepped forward and let his body swing away from safety.

The red world swayed back and forth, the city tottering on the tree’s axis. The pressure built up in Jinx’s face.

The prospect of death scares all men. Yet, what Jinx did it for terrified him most.

How does someone know if their death has any impact on the world? They don’t.

How would the citizenship ever know the mere reason they walked around was because a homeless man sacrificed himself? How would they know that this man forwent all selfish desires? He chose between humanity and his neck; humanity won.

He frantically searched for a change. For the red to dissipate and disappear. For the crimson glow to soothe itself into empty night, void of emotion.

As his pendulous swing slowed to a solid sway, the light of the sunrise crept over the water.

And he thought to himself, where’s the glow?

GRACKLE & CRAG

I t loomed at the crown of the mountain peak, glaring down over the people of the valley like a coming storm. The facility was an overwhelming accumulation of darkened, soot-covered metal—towering silos billowing smoke and flame and shame upon the land. Winding and imposing, blinking on in the dark, a perpetual cloud hung over the factory, giving those working there the sensation they always operated at night.

Nocturnal, pale-skinned laborers jimmied, cranked, spun, dragged, and hoisted in their demanding occupations. Grated stairways ran alongside gears the size of suburban homes, ticking along as everyone did their part. Dingy orange bulbs burned in puddles of light, intermittently, along the weaving causeways.

Crackling music coughed its way out of loudspeakers set up for company morale and subliminal uniformity. The dirt and grime built up, making all men of the same race, an unnatural ashen gray-green caking every inch of skin and cloth. Out of the side of the mountain came three large pipes, as wide as two men, which seeped the occasional exhaust.

The factory worked round the clock, maximizing profits in shifts by seamlessly replacing the exhausted with the fresh. The contemptible covey trolleyed down the side of the mountain in rickety, oversized gondolas rocking back and forth on their cables, then off to home in the company town, where they ate company food, and took to lights out under company regulations.

At the foot of this town, an arched gateway announced its name, as well as the company who laid claim to it, in bright colorful letters: Swingo Candy by BigCorp.

Far below the automation and grunt work of the factory, the valley people lived out their lives in perfect paradox to the company town, trekking from town to town, living mundane lives, never considering the darkness on the edge of their civilization. Pleasant peoples in their pleasant towns, nestled in the heart of an enormous arbor sanctuary.

The trees were green when the season called for it and changed colors when the time was right.

And all was right in the valley.

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"Thank Christ." The lumbering man with the stained overalls called out in praise as the seething work whistle ended the day. That instant, he pulled his lever for the final time and pivoted out of the way for the next shift to take over. He was a mountain of a man with broad shoulders that tapered down to small feet.

"Crag. Hey, Crag. A screeching voice came from down the grated walkway. A tall, spindly figure pushed his way past the other wearied workers. They all trudged along evenly in a hopeless shuffle. The squawking man removed the large goggles covering his thick, black-rimmed glasses, which doubly magnified the eyes on his gaunt face. His right arm hung at his side as he ran, twisted in the wrong direction. What we got on the menu for dinner?"

The mountain turned away, walking just slow enough to let his co-worker catch up. Crag’s body was a sack of potatoes, his head like the lone spud that didn’t fit in the bag. He was lumpy in the oddest places—body and head—and his eyes were tiny sunken holes, which appeared impossible to be of any use.

Grack, he said in acknowledgment. Not sure. Might be mush, could be sludge. Slop if we’z lucky.

Oh boy, I do enjoy me a big ole bowl of slop.

Crag grunted.

The sole respite in their long day was the overwhelming scent of sugar coating the air. As they plodded along with the other workers, both men took in deep breaths, holding them like opiates. The others seemed in a daze, zombies on the prowl. Few of them possessed thoughts outside the task at hand, nor did they aspire to anything greater. Quite regularly workers bumped into one another, completely unaware of the other worker’s presence. The foremen called it work blindness. Truthfully, anything outside of their routine was superfluous, like ignoring a panhandler or a mother zoning out her child.

Hey, Crag, what’d’ya say we splurge tonight and crack open a couple of frosties? Been forever since we had a beer. He gazed over at his friend hopefully, large ogles blinking through their glass.

If we got time. Gotta keep to the schedule. He sneered at Grackle’s buoyant and inflated eyes. We should be able to stop by the canteen and pick some up. As long as the gondola don’t break down again.

He didn’t look at Grackle when he spoke. He never looked at Grackle when he spoke. Instead, he moved forward, like a slow juggernaut, unable to change his way.

Yeah, as long as the gondola don’t break down again. Grackle peered over the rusting guardrail and into the foggy abyss below. Walkways crisscrossed both above and below him. Each seemed to gradually evaporate into the smoky mist until all one saw was the sick, milky vapor. Hey, Crag?

Yeah.

Ever wonda what’s down there?

No.

Me neitha. He lied. I mean, what’a they do down there? We pull da levas up here. I don’t know what da hell for though.

Probably more levers.

Yeah. More levas. I bet there’s more levas. Grackle’s voice was squeaky and high. The perfect intersection of hungry baby birds and a creaky floorboard.

Later, as the swinging cattle car crept down the side of the mountain, he continued his thought. Levas for what?

The two men stood, crammed in amongst a hundred other gray-green workers. All wore the same dazed, broken look in their eyes as Crag. Work blindness hung over them like a damp blanket, unable to care about anything around them. The lumpy man craned his head—the only thing he could move—to glance at his friend. How should I know?

I’m juss saying, I been pulling da same leva for years now. They say if we’z all don’t do our jobs at exactly da right time, da whole thing goes caput. He paused for a minute to build his interest.

And? If Crag didn’t say something, the wisp of a man would wait all night in mid-thought.

Grackle leaned in and whispered in Crag’s direction. So the utta day I was pulling my leva, like I’m’s supposed ta, when I hears a buzzing, humming sound. Well, it distracts me for juss a second as I look round to see where’s it’s coming from. And den I realize, holy Christ, I juss missed my interval.

Crag’s eyes widened to the size of peas. His face flushed as he struggled to look his friend in the eye.

Grackle held a large toothy grin.

The large