The World of Myth Magazine

Casey Stang was my best friend; we've been close since the third grade. As we stood outside the pool hall on Third and Cotton Streets, hearing the commotion, we watched the mob walk past. Casey shouted out to the group.

"What's up?"

"They found Clark Regal guilty in the first degree. We're going to give the judge a piece of our minds. Clark was an innocent bystander, and they pinned a murder on him."

I'd never seen such an angry crowd. They carried baseball bats and wore catcher's masks on their faces. They were all shouting, responding to the guy with a megaphone asking for Clark's immediate release. Sure, I'd heard about the trial today. We all thought he'd be found not guilty. A couple of dudes robbed a mom-and-pop store and then ran out, shooting back at the owners. One of the guys ran into Clark, dropping his gun.

Clark was faster at grabbing the weapon and shot the guy between the eyes. Now the robber was unarmed and dead. At first, everyone hailed Clark as the conquering hero because he probably saved the lives of the DeSalvo’s ( the owners of the store). They called him the Good Samaritan until they found he was a convicted felon and shouldn't have touched the gun in the first place.

Clark found himself behind bars once they ran his record. Lots of protests then. Even the folks who owned the grocery store said they'd be dead if it weren't for Clark Regal.

"Come on, Jim, let's see what's going on." Casey egged me.

"Casey, that's crazy. You are just asking to get arrested. They are armed with baseball bats, and you have a pool cue in your hand."

"Come on. I gotta see this." Casey turned his ball cap around to look like a gangster going into battle with the other people. He's crazy, but I am his best friend, so I follow behind the crowd of angry people armed with nothing more than curiosity. The crowd had worked itself into a frenzy. When we rounded the corner to the courthouse, there was a line of squad cars with their lights flashing and cops in full riot gear. This was not good, I kept telling myself.

"Casey, let's go. There are too many cops. You are going to get us killed." I see him trotting ahead of me, the pool cue held like a pike ready to claim a head. I slow down. The people aren't stopping for the cops, they are running between the squads, and the police are shooting rubber bullets. I see Casey go down.

"Casey!" I ran to the line, and two cops came out with Billy clubs and started beating me. "Stop. I'm unarmed. I'm trying to help my friend." Only they don't listen to me. The cops have been pushed to their limit and aren't cutting any slack, even to an unarmed man. I see behind them they've taken Casey's pool cue and are using it on him.

"Stop!" I scream, struggling to my feet. I got to get Casey out of here before he's killed. Curiosity killed the cat, my grandpa always said, and he's right. If we had stayed at the pool hall hustling, we'd have had a pocket full of cash, but Casey and I are about to have our brains splattered on the sidewalk. I should have never followed him, but he's my best friend, and I was trying to keep him out of trouble, but now we were both screwed.

The cop took that pool cue and repeatedly brought it down on Casey. I tore myself from the ground on a dead run to stop the guy. People were breaking into the courthouse, and the cop lost interest in me and ran to head the people off at the front doors. I knelt on the road, blood pouring out of my head. I was afraid when I saw the amount, so I sat next to Casey. I am dizzy. Can someone come back from that much blood loss, I ask myself? But now Casey is standing over me with a gash on his forehead.

"Jim!" He's patting my face to wake me up, but I feel so out of it. "Jim, we gotta go." He pulls me up by my arms and forces me to walk on spaghetti legs.

"Casey, I can't," I tell him as I try to sit down, but he won't let me.

"You got to keep walking. We got to get you to the hospital before you bleed out." Why doesn't he call an ambulance for me? Isn't the very act of walking causing my heart to pump blood even harder?

"Casey, this is going to kill me. Call an ambulance."

"We have to get far enough away and blame the protestors for our injuries."

"But it was the cops who did this."

"We were part of the riot."

"No, Casey, you were part of the riot. I went to save your ass and got mine kicked instead." Then my legs let go, and we were both on the ground.

"Call an ambulance." He pulled his cell out of his pocket, punching in 9 1 1, gave the information where we were, then handed the phone to me.

"Buddy, they are on their way, using the phone to track you. I gotta go."

"Casey, don't leave me!" He runs into an alley, and I can no longer see my friend. I do notice I am near the pool hall where this whole unfortunate incident started. I lay down and accepted my fate. I will bleed out in front of Dewey's Pool Hall, and no one will find me until it's too late. How I hate my friend right now. We were having a good time drinking beer and shooting stick, and now I am watching my life flash before my eyes, all for a criminal who shouldn't have grabbed a gun and played Matt Dillon so many months ago. I hear the ambulance in the distance and wonder if this is my ambulance or some other schmuck's. I feel at peace, and I don't care anymore if it's mine or not. I enter the darkness.

Light in the eyes, I squint. Leave me alone. I am at peace. I feel myself floating. And then hit a hard surface. I am jostled about and crawl back to that warm place in my dreams.

Bits and pieces come back to me when I don't try to think about it. Little snippets of someone trying to put an I.V. in me, another guy putting pressure on my head, memories of them putting me in a sitting position, grateful to be strapped in because I was ready to tip over. I just couldn't get it together. I tried to remember what Casey had told me. Say that the rioters did this when they went past the Pool Hall. That seemed safe because if I told them I'd walked to the courthouse, they would know I was interacting with the cops. As long as I didn't bring attention to myself and point fingers, I could still get out of this looking like the victim.

I found myself floating again. It must be good drugs they put me on. I see myself from above, where doctors are frantically working on me. I am put on a ventilator and don't feel anything. They are going through my pockets that are filled with one-dollar bills from all the games I won tonight before Casey talked me into going to the courthouse. I feel like I am underwater, and I can't tell the doctors to leave me alone. I am perfectly fine. I turn my back on them.

"Who are you?" I recognize the guy. He is another rioter. He is standing in front of me with a catcher's mask in his hand. I can see a wound of sorts bleeding from his abdomen.

"Someone stuck me. It looks like you took a few to the head."

"Where are we?"

'I don't know. I've been standing here for a few minutes wondering what I'm supposed to do. Waiting for direction, I guess. I don't need this anymore," and he drops the mask. It doesn't make a sound when it hits. Wait, where is the floor? We were transported somewhere without walking.

"I'm Jim. Who are you?"

"Mike Regal. I'm Clark's brother. I started the riot. They are railroading my brother to jail. He picked up a gun that would be used against him or the store owners and saved all of them. They needed a scapegoat because the guy that dropped the gun had just been let out on bail three hours before the robbery. The justice system is screwed, and they are trying to cover it up."

I didn't care. I wanted to know where I was and why I wasn't in the hospital. I have to say that I feel so much better here. In the hospital, I felt pain and my whole system going haywire, like my brain didn't know how to make my lungs breathe or my heart to beat. Did I have brain damage? Was I tripping on my own unconsciousness? It was making me mad.

"Look, you can stand here, but I'm moving ahead. Back there in my body is pain and confusion. Here, I feel pretty good. If my number is up, I want to get to those Pearly Gates and receive my reward."

Mike laughed at me. "I can't go. My brother needs me. My parents can't lose both sons, one to death and the other to jail for life? They would die. But I'll walk with you to the edge. Just before you go over the edge, I will get back to the land of the living. I am curious about the other side." So, we walked away from what we thought was the hospital.

My ears felt like they were popping. It was disorienting. Was I going up, like on an elevator in a skyscraper? I couldn't tell. There was no down or up, front, or back. It made me sick to my stomach, but still, I pressed on. Mike was close behind me.

"Jim, I feel a little disoriented. I am also afraid I won't find myself back where we came from."

"Would that be so bad? Do you have a lot to live for back there? Take me. I hustle guys at the pool table, and with the money I get from them, I blow it on weed or worse. I have never done an honest day's work in my life."

"I have worked in construction. It feels good to make decent money, but it was an easier gig to sell to guys like you." That made perfect sense to me.

We both stopped, staring at a vortex in front of us. It was black and angry, swirling counterclockwise like a tornado.

"This is not how I pictured Heaven," I told Mike. I was intimidated but curious. Something told me not to enter the vortex because there would be no return if I did. Suddenly my false bravado failed me.

"I'm not stepping over that line," Mike said pensively.

"How about you grab my feet and let me poke my head inside?" Mike considered that for a moment before responding.

"Jim, I could do that. But I'm going to caution you. If this is some portal and you are pulled in, I will let go of you like you are a hot potato. I told you I do not wish to explore the other side now. A doctor could still shock me or something. I'll face the pain and agony if I get to live. I mean, trespassing? Is that what they'll charge me with? What do I get? A fine?"

I thought about what he was saying. I had no weapon, and everything I'd done, which was pretty much nothing, was on some cop's chest video camera or the courthouse footage.

"Ok, I'm just going to lay down and stick my head in while you hang onto my feet."

"Wow, you're pretty brave," Mike said.

"Grab my feet. I'm going to walk into the swirl like a wheelbarrow. Do you remember that game?" Mike nodded "yes," picking up my legs.

I hand-walked myself into the swirling vortex, stopping at my waist because I didn't want to be a part of it. I only wanted to observe.

The wind rushed around my face as I forced myself to open my eyes. I thought sand would sting my face, but that wasn't the case. I shouted back.

"I can see. I have my eyes open and not getting dirt in them."

"That's good," Mike shouted, "What do you see?" I was glad the larger of us held, the smaller man's legs. I could feel the wind trying to break his hold, but Mike was a big guy and wouldn't let go.

When my eyes adjusted to the swirling, I was astounded to see what the tornado was made up of, that of tortured human souls. They screamed and moaned as if they were on a roller coaster ride and couldn't get off. They reached out to me, trying to grab me to pull themselves out of the ever-churning machine.

"Pull me back!" I screamed. Big Mike pulled with all his might and got me back out. "I've changed my mind. I am going back. I need to address my life and what I've made of it. I am going to be a changed man from now on."

"Wow, that is powerful," Mike said, then chuckled. "But that's not possible."

"What do you mean, not possible? I came, I saw, I changed my mind."

"Oh, Jim. If only it were that easy. Once you followed your curiosity, you forfeited any chance to return to your body. We can't let folks go around telling people what's here.

"What do you mean, we?" And then I saw Mike for what he was. There was no Mike Regal. There was only evil laughing at my confusion and predicament.

“You tricked me!” I shouted.

“No, I didn’t, I hustled you, just like you do to the guys down at the pool hall.

Damn, I’d been played by the devil, and Casey Stang, my best friend since the third grade. His betrayal led me to this chaos. I had cornered the eight ball, ending the game.

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