Prodigal: An American Parable

By Blake Johnson

"Please," the son said. He spoke through tears. "Please."

"It is too late. Your life is no longer your own. You've been bargained away, dear one. You belong to me, to my city."

Disgrace. Shame. Trauma. A place where there is no grace left from which to fall; but that doesn't mean a person can't fall any further. Bur

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trouble Department LLC
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781734039542

Book preview

Prodigal

Prodigal

An American Parable

Blake Johnson

Trouble Department LLC

Text copyright ©2021 by Blake Johnson

This edition ©2021 by Trouble Department LLC

www.troubledepartment.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without permission from the publisher, except in cases of fair use such as excerpts used in reviews and criticism. All rights inquiries should be addressed to Trouble Department via e-mail to [e-mail]

Cover art ©2021 by Trevor Henderson

www.trevorhenderson.com

First paperback edition ISBN 

978-1-7340395-3-5

First ebook edition ISBN

 978-1-7340395-4-2

Contents

Part One

I

II

III

IV

Part Two

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

Part Three

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

Final Entries

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Prodigal

Part One

he fToundation of your grandfather’s church is finished; how long before I tear it down?

There’s a sledge beside me. The boys are on break, and they had the good sense to leave me alone while I’m scribbling. It’d be an easy thing to put a few cracks in that concrete slab. A couple of times I’ve even hefted it up, just to see how it felt. And you know what? It didn’t feel good, but it felt right. Christ himself could come down and tell me I was doing wrong, and I’d still keep on turning that thing to gravel. But I bet you he’d ask me if I had an extra sledge.

The only reason I haven’t done the deed is because the sight of this place hurts that little shit more than it hurts me.

When you get older, you’re going to hear talk. Whispers about how I hate your uncle, how at one time I was set to put a bullet in his skull just like I did countless others in some godforsaken desert. I know they’ll say those things because they’re already saying them, and stories like that don’t die easy. But you read this next part twice over, you understand? Read it once, hold it in your heart, then read it again.

Here’s what you’re going to do when they talk. Here’s my gospel to you, boy. You’re going to nod.

That’s it. You’re not going to throw a punch, you’re not going to protest, and you better not stare them down, because that’s the same as swinging a fist. You just nod and walk on past and let them say what they want.

Why?

Because it’s your uncle’s blood that went toxic. Maybe my blood, too. Not yours. But defend our legacy and you risk the same infection.

We’ll never talk about your uncle—I hope you never start asking questions about him, but I’m guessing you will. And when you do, I’ll hand you this notebook and that will be that. I suspect that by the end of it you’ll curse me for letting you read such a thing, and you’ll be right to do so. 

 Maybe you’ll leave us, just like he did. I’ve made my peace with that. Because when you do, you’ll know how things really went and how things really are. You’ll know better than he did. You’ll know better than to come back to us.

I

The paper mill where the youths gathered was derelict, abandoned to moth and rust; here, at the very source and heart of their hopelessness, they sought a reprieve from the endless stretch of days to come. The haze of regurgitated smoke curled around these lost children like wraiths trying and failing to caress skin, their only substance an aroma, a sickening sweet char, flowers mingled with flame.

The son waded through the smoke, took a drag of his cigarette, and added his own noxious cloud to the gray atmosphere. Bodies writhed around him, laughing, twisting in a parody of dance. The son kicked a crushed can aside, waded past former classmates and fellow dropouts, adolescents he had known his whole life but did not recognize. He made his home by the metal keg and filled his cup again and again and again, as was expected of him. As was his due.

The music came from nowhere and everywhere and, like the people present, the song was familiar but beyond recognition. Long after he left this place, left the town and the brother and the father, long after he saw throats decorated with crimson smiles, the song would remain in him, a reminder of everything he was and what he could never be. On the day he died, it would sound in the base of his skull, and even then he would not be able to recall its name.

To his right, a figure shrouded in silken fog danced, movements slender and serpentine; the son watched. No one there had any reason to dance, had any sort of hope to celebrate, and yet they danced anyway.

Perhaps their hopelessness was the very reason for the movement and the smoke and the crying and the laughter. Perhaps that was why, in the haze around him and in the haze of his mind, the son approached the figure, danced with her. Perhaps that was why, unseen to each other, they entered a dark corner and rocked together, rebelled against the God and the universe that withheld from them.

The night ended. The headache set in and the haze lifted. The son looked at the naked body beside him, and bit back a scream; he knew the girl, and she knew him. 

When her eyes fluttered open and saw who was next to her, she clutched her chest, tried to cover herself as best she could, and began to weep. The son’s eyes drifted to the brass ring on her finger, the ring he had helped pick out. His mouth went dry.

Does my brother know you’re here? the son said.

I told him I was staying in last night, the girl said. 

 The son nodded, reached for his pack of cigarettes. Sweat made the carton slick, eel-like. He dropped it twice before he pulled one out, managed to light it. He offered a cigarette to the girl. She took it and puffed smoke and kept on crying. 

You going to say anything to him? the son said.

I don’t know. I’ll keep it in as long as I can.

Better keep it locked tight.

If it was a stranger, someone he couldn’t put a face to, he might forgive me. But you.

Yeah, the son said.

He hasn’t been back three months and I do this to him. We were planning on waiting, you know. Waiting for the honeymoon.

The son grunted; the teary words, the weight of them, squeezed his skull.

I heard.

Now it’s all ruined.

The son snuffed out his cigarette and flicked the butt away. It arced, hit the ground. Flickered one last time. Died. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine he was somewhere where nobody knew his name, and even in these wanderings he saw the brother, following him, holding the son to a standard he could not comprehend, one where he was the epicenter of the sin, the sole accountable.

It seems to me, the son said, that maybe you wanted it ruined.

The girl stopped crying. She just blinked and stared, not at the son but past him, as if someone else had spoken the words, lurking in a place she could not see.

What?

You wouldn’t have come out here if you didn’t.

I love him.

Maybe. But you know what people are saying. The son made a