Highway To Hell: Origins.

Highway to Hell: Origins

"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' And I saw, and behold a white horse.

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names, and he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same, there'll be a golden ladder reachin' down, when the man comes around.

The hairs on your arm will stand up, at the terror in each sip and each sup,

Will you partake of that last offered cup, or disappear into the potter's ground?"

― Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.

"Alan Hurns had been out on his porch that night," Moseley began, his steely-blue eyes looking straight through Bortles' shit-brown peepers. He swallowed a gulf of air the size of an apple. Moseley leaned forward as if he had something monumental to say and continued his story, his hands furtively scouring the front of his acid-washed denim jeans with all the calmness of a man 'bout to crack under intense interrogative measures.

Searching for something, Sid? Maybe the right words? Or maybe your balls, old man? he thought. His hands quit moving; settling against the front of his thighs without as much as a twitch.

But Sid Moseley wasn't being pressured into spilling his guts in Sheriff Bortles's office on this particular night; he'd come here of his own volition—guilt?—and damn near couldn't hold back the biblical pile of shit stored up in his bowels any longer. And he couldn't think of any better place to pop that squat and relieve himself than on Sheriff Bortles' lap tonight. Constipation be damned, he'd strain himself if need be to get this shit out. Bortles leaned into his leather-upholstered swivel chair, while Deputy Edwards flanked the coffeemaker cradling his empty mug, waiting patiently for the fresh brew to finish. Sid stared into the dark matter of space that transcends time or logic within a man's thoughtful glare, picking up on his story where he'd left it last.

"The sound of Alan's rocker creaking against the floorboards outside his house was like the dry hinges of an old man's joints bending, flexing, and popping with the slightest of movements. It was a painful thing to hear—the sounds of old age bearing down on you, crippling you towards the ground; hoping you'd keel into your plot like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, keeping the exchange rate goin' strong with this world and the next. One day we all gotta fall, right? I used to wonder when that damned chair would give out from under Al's fat ass, wishing I'd be 'round to see his face the night he went straight through her. I figured I'd laugh till my heart gave out right there on his porch, one hand over my burning belly, and the other pointing a finger at his newfound bad luck.

"I swear you could hear the rocker swaying back and forth with Alan's weight anchored to its seat from the other side of the road, if the bugs didn't buzz like they usually did when the nighttime air was still thick with that afternoon's heat and humidity. How he was able to fit all those rolls behind so little refurbished wood, one of God's miracles I s'pose. Well that night, Jesus Christ on a rainbow colored unicorn, she was a scorcher of an evening by far—glue-your-sack-to-your-inner-thighs-hot. And the bugs as expected were as lively as ever, as if stirred into a frenzy of some kind, Sheriff. Alan Hurns had himself a symposium out on his lawn that night, all with their own unique instruments looking to add a certain melody to the festivities, if you catch my drift. Cicadas, which always sounded to me like a traffic cop softly blowing on their whistle as if tryin' the damned thing out first before hitting the road, were whistlin' in high from the dense thickets surrounding Al's property. That place is an exterminator's nightmare come to life—you wouldn't believe how infested that old fool's lawn was, never did he think of killin' the damned bugs. I reckoned at the time Al was either tight with his wallet, or too tired from work to bring himself to labor 'round the house when it was easier to let nature run its course.