We try not to think of it too often. It.
The situation was this… we pushed our limit, we overreached, we took out the part of us that God put in, labeled free will and we shook it liberally all over our skin, hair, hands and feet.
Don’t get me wrong, don’t think I’m one of those people who blame God for everything. We knew what we were doing, and we knew we really should stop.
But we didn’t.
I’m not sure how old he was or where exactly he came from. I know he was very old, but he was prodigiously strong. I understood his strength when I saw him, when my mind connected with my vision and nudged my soul (something I most assuredly believe in now, my soul) and said “the legends are true, the stories are at least based on fact and man are you in a world of hurt.”
Alex, poor guy, his mind didn’t nudge his soul and the legend, now a reality, which we went out to meet, snapped him like a toothpick. Sometimes on my better days, when I don’t see Alex gasping like a fish out of the water, I believe he had enough time to think, “I have a soul and I’m going to God and I’ll be okay.”
I really don’t know. On my bad days, I cry like a baby and go visit Alex’s Mom. She hates me but I mow her lawn and fix stuff around the old shack she lives in.
Please don’t think Dana and I ran, we didn’t. Dana lifted her cross and peed. I lifted my cross and felt something like an electric shock thunder down my arm and blow out my fingertips. For a minute I was ashamed because I had just finished a joint. How could this work, how could I keep this horrible monster at bay after finishing a joint?
He was tall; you know. Very tall and he had this ironish white hair that sort of matched the paleness of his skin. When Dana and I lifted our crosses (we pinched them from the old, tumble-down, Catholic Church that is there on Moore House Street), he snarled at us and for a minute, despite Alex all in a heap, I felt sorry for him.
How did he get that way? The same way we did; arrogant, stoned and seeking a thrill?  Maybe because he wanted to or maybe because he was ambushed. He circled around us but my days in the army settled that maneuver; I told Dana we needed to go back to back and keep him at bay.
Three hours until sunrise. Three hours with Dana’s wet pants dripping on dry leaves. It exhausted us; always looking down, looking up, Alex in a heap. Every noise we figured he was coming up from the ground or coming down from the trees.
You do not understand what it’s like, you never will, to dread the dark.