Life On Other Planets Is Difficult
By Euchrid

It’s nice out today. Warm too. Well, warm for Alaska at least. Warm enough to get away with wearing just jeans and a flannel shirt. I've been up here for about 3 years now, working on the fishing boats. I make pretty decent money I guess, enough to have my own little apartment and be able to eat and have new boots when I need them. The rest I sent to my Mama. She needs it more than I do since Dad got killed at work. one of those freak accidents, they told Mama. Some scaffolding gave way and him and a couple other men fell 10 stories down and they all died. Mama doesn't get much money from the government since Dad was just a construction worker, and my brothers don't do much good either. I guess they sort of went down the wrong road after that. My brothers... what a bunch of kids we was. See, Mama got this idea in her head a long time ago that she was gonna breed herself a family of the 12 apostles. I was the firstborn so I was called Simon. Mama got over her idea real fast. 4 years later she named my first brother Andrew and after that she swore she was through with makin' more babies. But sure enough, in 4 more years she got knocked up again. She was so mad, she named the poor kid Judas! I suppose she started feeling a funny about it though because we all called him John. He’s never been that healthy, kinda like the runt of the family I guess. But he’s real nice though. Once he found a bullfrog some kid had been poking with a needle. he brought it home and hid it in a box under his bed. But Dad found it and threw it out the window when it started making noises. He’s always done things like that. Bringing hurt animals home and Dad was always throwing 'em out the windows.
There isn’t much to say about Andrew. He was real quiet and he did what he was told. I guess he was scared of Dad. I didn’t see him too much during the day. Last I heard, John ran off to the west coast and Andrew was gettin' ready to marry his girl up in Virgina. He went to live with our Aunt and Uncle after Dad died.
But it suits me I guess. Mama needs the money more then me. I just want to eat every day, have a couple clean shirts and a place to lay my head at night.

Back to my story, it took me a good couple weeks to get myself up here between keeping low and finding my way through the bus routes. I had to try harder and do things more frightening than I ever thought I could, but I made it. Pastor Daniel was an evil man and he had it coming to him anyway. Maybe he had me going with his act at the start, but once he started getting funny with me, I saw right through his phony Jesus-talk. I had to plan it for a couple weeks, but I did it. I killed him. One day I turned right around and stuck my knife right between his ribs. I killed him, took his money and whatever else I could find that looked like it was worth something and ran out the back way into the woods. I went back to my house grabbed some clothing and just left.

I went to Jefferson. In North Carolina. I don't believe I mentioned that's where I lived. Jefferson is where my Dad worked. I knew the city alright because every so often he would take a pair of us kids to work with him. We'd have to sit in the hotel room all day while dad was at the site, but we'd just walk down to the shop for candy and fight with each other. The town I lived in was so small, nobody in Jefferson would know what happened, let alone I was the one who did it, until after I was long gone. I hoped to get to Alaska from there so I bought a bus ticket to the Canadian border in Montana. I didn't have no reasoning behind that except for it being a straight shot from Jefferson to the border, apart from a few stops to switch busses. I wanted to get straight where I was going without any detours. That didn't go so well though. I got on the wrong bus in Nebraska. I didn't realize what happened until I was halfway across Wyoming. You get a real lesson in geography traveling by bus, let me tell you. The man behind the counter at the station I got off at was nice about it though. He changed my ticket for free and I was on my way again.

The bus ride wasn't too unpleasant, but I got around to thinking about what I done that started all this business. That one night I couldn't sleep and went out walking along the road my house was on. I was going in the direction of the edge of town, as usual, just minding my business. All of a sudden a bum came runnin' out of the trees, stuck a knife to my ribs and told me to give him all my money. I didn't have any money at all! I was so surprised, something came over me that I never felt before. It was like a family of starving mad rats was trying to claw it’s way out of my belly. I'd been scared before. Like that time the neighbor's dog chased me right up onto the porch of our house. This was a whole new kind of scared! I turned to face him real fast and kicked him right between the legs. He fell down and curled up like a little baby, groaning. For some reason I didn't run away right then and there. I was angry! I started kicking and punching him all about his head and his guts until he didn't move. Yeah, I was so afraid by then I didn't know weather to shit or wind my wristwatch. But he wasn't moving. I'd kicked him to death. That little moment when I realized what I done was probably the worst moment of my entire life. I felt like God turned around and wouldn't look at me ever again and that didn't feel so good at all. It was like my stomach was going to crawl right out my mouth and run away. Like a big hole opened up in my chest.

Simon didn't realize how often he confused his dream world with real life. He never killed any bum. He only knocked him out for a few hours- the next day the vagrant woke up, staggered off in the direction from whence he came and nobody was any the wiser to the hi-jinx that occurred the night before. But Simon didn't know that. He only knew that he'd left a body in the woods and he was too busy trying to stay away from the area to think about going back to see if it was actually still there. That bum was dead in Simon's eyes and he was the one who murdered him.

***

After staring at the supposed corpse for a few minutes, Simon's brain kicked in again and he dragged him back into the woods a few hundred feet, threw some leaves over him and took off sprinting on his skinny legs for his home. He went straight to bed and slept till 11 o'clock in the morning. About a week later, Pastor Daniel confronted him at church about his abnormally strange behavior.
"Look, Simon," he said. "I know you done something bad and it's eating away at your soul. The Lord told me so. Me and your Mama want you to come and see me tomorrow, so you head on over around noon and we'll have some coffee and you can tell me all about it".
Needless to say, Simon was terrified. His cover had been blown. He had been unmasked. Found out. Or so he thought.

Drawing By Euchrid

After a long, long ride, I got to the border and realized that I wouldn't be able to get through. The police were probably looking for me by then. So I went west on foot for a while, then I crossed into Canada. Apparently, I crossed straight into some kind of national park. But I didn't know much about that sort of thing. But it's good I ended up in the park because everything I needed was there. Once I stumbled across a trail, that is. But it didn't take long. It only took me about a day because I didn't go very far on foot in the first place. I found my way to the visitor’s center and asked the lady behind the counter about my money since I found out they had different money up in Canada. She pointed me to another building where I changed some of my money, and was able to buy my next bus ticket in the same place.

Simon sat on yet another bus, staring at yet another wheat field. For all he knew, the earth was just one huge wheat field with a few cities scattered here and there. It had been days since he lost track of how long he'd been traveling and the only decent meal he'd had since he left was a big roast beef sandwich he bought in the park. He was tired and hungry and generally not feeling well. His mind wandered from thought to thought, mostly memories of his childhood. Some memories weren't so pleasant.

Dad liked to drink. He used to beat on my brothers and Mama. He didn't beat me much when I got old enough and smart enough to get out of the house when he started knockin' 'em back. But he used to beat on me good. He broke my nose twice before I was 14. It's all crooked and it's got a big bump on it now. I always took the brunt of it because I was the oldest and he must have felt funny about beating Mama up too bad because she's a lady and all. Once I started running away, Andrew got it the worst because he was the second oldest and he was kinda dumb. Both my brothers were a little dumb. I guess I'm kinda dumb myself compared to most people out there, but I know my ass from a hole in the ground and I know how to walk and that's good enough for me.
Mama was real religious. She took me to church for as long as I can remember. I used to sit in her lap on Sunday nights. on the end of the second bench back. Sometimes she'd get so full of the Holy Spirit that she'd jump up in her seat and send me flying over the back of the front bench and I'd sit there with my eyes as big and buggy as dinner plates watching people dancing around with snakes and whatnot. It used to scare me when they'd start screaming and all, but I got used to it. I learned how they had the Holy Spirit protecting their flesh from the snake's fangs and all the dancing and jumping and yelling and crying was just their way of being excited for the Lord Jesus. I got the Holy Spirit keeping me safe me too, but I got my own way of knowing it.

Our house was situated at the end of a long street that goes right through the center of town. There was just the one street and a bunch of little dirt roads that lead off it. We lived at the very end of that street. Where the houses started getting further and further apart until they were hardly in yelling distance of each other and there was no pavement down where we were either. I guess it was more like a road that far down. Nobody really went down that far unless they had some business with Mama or Dad. The road went down into the valley a little then it curved around and led to some big highway. Sometimes we'd see a stay truck or maybe a transient pass through, but that was about it.
We had a real nice view though. The town was sort of up in the foothills and we could look across the valley to the hills on the other side. The woods were right behind us and they went way up to the top of the hills. We had to be real careful about animals getting to our food because they came down during the night. Usually nothing more then a couple mangy coyotes, but they'll eat anything they can find. Even somone's little puppy. That's what happened to us years ago. We had this real cute little mut we got from a lady in church when her dog had puppies. We didn't even get to name the poor thing because the next morning we found him all torn apart in the yard where we tied him. John was real upset, as you can imagine. He never looked happier when we brought that dog home...

***

I was so tired of busses and strange cities and wheat and big blue sky that I was ready to throw up. I moved to the back of the bus, rolled up my jacket for a pillow and turned my back on the fields and tried to sleep. I didn't get much rest though. The bus was bouncing around too much and my jacket kept sliding down, knocking my head on the window. My brain kept going back to things I'd rather not think about. Things about Pastor Daniel, really. Somehow he found out what I did to that bum and he was using it to blackmail me. Mama made me go talk to him every week because she thought I was acting different. She saw me with my shirt off one morning. See, I felt so bad and guilty about what I done sometimes, I can't say I didn't use my pocket knife on myself a couple times. Sometimes I used to go cut a switch and hit myself around the legs with it. But I don't feel right talking about that because I don't remember it too good. Anyway, she made me go talk to Pastor Daniel because she thought he could drive the devils out of me. Well... he drove them into me, to put it in a nasty sort of way. The first time I saw him just me and him, he made me unbutton my shirt so he could see what I done to myself, even though it wasn't much more then a few scabby scratches. He kind of sat there looking with big buggy eyeballs and his tongue poking out the side of his mouth. I had to ask if I could button my shirt back up because he was taking so long with it. He looked me in the eyes real fast, threw his hands on me all of a sudden and started yelling at the top of his lungs about foul demons and oppression and in the name of Jesus. I didn't know what to think about all of it, so I just sat there with my eyes shut tight while he went on like that for a minute or two, shaking and screaming nonsense words, sweaty hands on me the whole time. Finally he sat back down and told me to come back next week at the same time. I mean... I'd seen it in church every Sunday, but just then, just that day, it began to strike me as a dirty cheating act. I guess us hill people aren't all that smart and it might be easy to con us into believing you're an honest man of God if you use the right words. I guess I see why he never really did pick up no snakes in church. I never did, but I was always scared and I was taught you ought not take up no snakes if you don't feel the hand of the Lord moving you to do so. I wanted to though. Boy I sure wanted to. I remember one Sunday after church I went up to the front to look to the snakes in their boxes. There must have been about 10 or 15 of 'em in 3 wooden boxes with chicken wire lids. I sat down on the floor as I looked at them and wondered if it was God himself that charmed those things into gentle sweetness or maybe He just took away the pain and rendered the venom harmless if one did happen to bare it's fangs. I guess I'll never know unless the Lord decides I should.
As I sat there looking and wondering, one of them sort of reared itself up and looked me square in the eye for a second or two as if to say "If I weren't under this wire lid I would jump out and plant both my fangs in your eyeball, boy!". Then it looked away and twisted itself around and under the others.
I figure he'd been shown a little of the future just then and he wanted to pass his opinion to me.

***

The next week was a nightmare. I still don't understand why I didn't fight back or yell or run away. Well, no. I do. He told me that he knew I done something real bad and if I ran away from him or told anyone else about what was going on, he'd tell them what I did. Once we finished drinking our coffee, he told me to take my pants off and if I didn't do it, he'd do it for me. I mean, what else could I do? He was gonna turn me in if I didn't do what he said! But I just sat in my chair staring at my knees and trying to hold back a big storm of tears. I knew what he wanted and it wasn't good. Right then I understood why he was always giving me those looks in church and giving me hugs and things like that. Old men ought not to go messing with boys like that. Men shouldn't mess around with men anyway! The only kind of messing around that should happen is when a man and a lady get married and want to have babies. This was the worst kind of messing around you could do and there I was, getting forced into it. I let it happen for almost 2 months until I finally did something about it. But I already told you about that part.

Finally, I ended up in Juneau where I got a cheap hotel room there for a few days. I had quite a bit of money from Pastor Daniel. While I was there, I bought some warmer clothes and found out where to get a job fishing. It was up north a little way and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but that's what I wanted. Nobody pays attention to what goes on in the other states up here. Probably because a lot of the people here are running from something too. But I did it. I got here.

After I'd been here for about a week, some of the other boys decided that I wasn't a threat or anything. They took me out to the bar where they got me a little drunk. Then they got me a girl. I didn't want nothing to do with no girl or what I was supposed to do with a girl like that. I didn't want any trouble, and they paid for her so I was obliged to go. I guess she saw how scared I was because she told me we didn't have to do nothing, but she wouldn't tell the boys so they wouldn't think I was funny or something. After that I just kept to myself and they left me alone except for the hellos and goodbyes at work. I guess they understood because a lot of people who go up here are that way. They just want to live their lives without other people getting in the way.

So here I am now, sitting on this dumb rock by these railroad tracks. I'm waiting for the train but the train don't stop here where I'm sitting. I saved up almost all the money from the last few paychecks and I sent it all to mama so she would have enough money to last until she could get a job. So now I'm just waiting here on this rock. I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing this and I can't go back home. I got a new name and everything now. But it’s not so much that, I still feel bad for the things I did to get me here. And it all started with that one stupid walk on that one stupid night when I couldn't sleep. I shoulda' just got a drink of water and sat on the porch like usual. But no, I had to go out and walk and meet up with that bum who just had to jump me and I just had to go and kill him. Pastor Daniel should have left me alone. And he kept on doing it too. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't get away from it because he knew about what I did. But see? That's what sin does to a person. You do one thing and it just leads to more and more and soon you're killing people left and right. I don't feel bad for Pastor Daniel, but I feel bad for what I did. I feel bad for that bum too. That never shoulda' happened because it didn't have a real reason. I miss Mama and my brothers and I miss Dad. But I can't go back. So I made up my mind and I'm just gonna wait for that dumb train.

Sure enough, the train came around the bend like it did every day at 2:17 in the afternoon. Simon stood up, took an apprehensive step backward and moved his hair behind his ear. He tried to look casual. Like he was just standing around the tracks for no good reason at all, and certainly not waiting for the last second to take a great swandive out in front of a train. He stuck his hands in is pockets for a moment, but the train's whistle blew and he jumped. He began cracking his knuckles and moving his hair behind his ears again. The engine came closer and closer and Simon ran out of air bubbles in the joints of his fingers. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and stood as still as he could. He thought about how his Mother would worry when the money and letters stopped coming, what she might have to do to put food on the table. He thought about how nice his life in Alaska was. He lived simply from day to day and had all the comforts of a full belly and warm feet. All the trees and hills anyone could ever ask for. He even had a dog that no coyotes or bobcats could eat because he kept him inside at night and when he was at work. What would his dog do if he never came back to feed him or let him out?
The train finally reached the spot where Simon stood. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and with a look of determination he waved at the engineer and walked back home to feed his dog.

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