Another excerpt from The Resurrection, a novel in progress about a former rock star named Mercy Maddock's quest to reunite his band. Here's a link to an early section of the book.
The Great Drive West
They say that California burned down in a great conflagration that swallowed LA and turned multi-million-dollar homes into ash and cinder. No one could afford those homes anyway, and the people who could, couldn’t afford to rebuild. In our collective mind’s eye, California is a paradise of beautiful people frolicking on beaches while skateboards slide down drained aquifers, punk music blaring in the background, emitting from speakers unknown. Cowboys and movie stars and tech giants and the omnipresent sun. It’s far away from the Midwestern reality that many of us know. Contrast that pop image with everlasting fields of corn and tiny towns rotting from the inside out, drugs and trash spilling from their crumbling houses like the disemboweled innards of a famished bovine. It’s not all good, nor is it all bad—I know the truth and the fantasy of both places—but the myth of the West has started to fade, and I wonder if the fires which char its surface are the result of a deal gone bad.
We were on our way to make a bad deal, to sell my soul for a guitar. The landscape flies past the windows as Mercy drives his SUV through the wide open spaces of desert and rock. This much emptiness has enough room to swallow anyone’s soul, although apparently I’m the only one left who has anything to sell. Mercy purchased a Rubik’s Cube for Maggle to fondle, and he’s made real progress with it, having matched the colors on two sides. I’m content to sit and stare through the glass, pondering the hazy mystery of my past, while trying to conjure anything real for the future. Mercy’s fine though—he’s huffing on a vape pen while the stereo plays Otis Redding—tapping out the rhythm on the steering wheel, lost in his quest to get back what he once had.
The thing about the horizon is that if you keep on looking at it, you can see whatever you want. The shimmer and haze, the heat distortion, the curve of the earth. The stark monotony of the landscape. In an arid environment, nature becomes a minimalist. All that space begs for something to fill it, so you must oblige.
What I see is a woman walking through the sand. She’s so far away that I can’t make out her details, but I imagine that her hair is the same sandy blonde of my wife’s. Is she waving? Should we stop and make sure that it’s not a mirage…”
“What if somebody just shot all the rich people?” yells Maggle, tossing his Rubik’s Cube off the dashboard.
“Christ, Maggle, what are you going on about?” says Mercy, as he struggles to keep the car on the road.
“I’m not talking about your healthcare CEOs or that guy on your block that drives a Porsche,” says Maggle. “I’m talking about the super-rich. The guys who have enough money to build rockets and own stretches of Hawaii. The real sonsabitches.”
“That’s a real novel idea you have their, Maggle,” says Mercy. “I’m sure no one has considered it before.”
“The guys who are trying to replace us with computers. The guys who own all the trucks that deliver packages. The guys who ruined the internet. The guys with more money than God or Davy Crockett.”
“Davy Crockett?” I ask.
“Does he mean ‘More money than Croesus?’” asks Mercy.
“Why should we want to kill them, Maggle?” I ask, fearing the answer.
“Because what the fuck are they doing with all that money?” he snarls. “I’m living in a house full of trash. So are my neighbors. You telling me I haven’t worked hard in my life? Well I have, if not lately. But that don’t mean I deserve to live like I do. What about all those people in Africa who can live off of like fifty bucks a month? What about instead of building a giant dick to the Moon, one of those assholes donates half of their fortune? What about instead of buying off the President, that South African rat man stops the world from heating up? How can you have that much money and not do anything good with it?”
“Rubik’s Cube really flummoxed him,” whispers Mercy.
“If I ever win a bunch of money,” says Maggle, voice rising, “I’m gonna buy all the girls on my street new TVs and fancy perfume, and then I’m gonna donate half of it to the town and make ‘em change the name of my street to Maggle Street, and then if I have any left over, I’m buying guns and Scotch for anybody that’ll spend the day with me, just doing whatever I want.”
“That’s kind of sweet and terrifying at the same time, Maggle,” says Mercy.
“They took away our connection to people!” he blubbers, tears beginning to well in his eyes. “You can’t talk to anybody no more! There’s phones in people’s faces, and pretty soon they’ll put them in their brains and nobody will go outside their house and the whole damned mess will collapse like Rome and Athens and Machu Picchu!”
“We’ve got to keep it real, luv. You, me, and Julius,” says Mercy. “If there’s love in this world, then there will always be people.”
“Nobody loves me!” says Maggle, sobbing now.
I reach back and give his shoulder a shake.
“Nobody cares about a fat, middle-aged methhead who lives in trash and talks to rats!”
“I care,” says Mercy.
“You care because you want me to play the piano!”
“Yes, of course. I want to give you a purpose. I want to let you show the world that you still have it.”
“I don’t have it!”
“You do, Maggle. Everyone of us has something to give.”
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