Judas is Scared A Lot

Woke up in the kitchen when Saint Frances barked at me. I've been sleepwalking since I was dead. Since I died that time. Before the tunnel. Cerberus was a good dog until she wasn't. She would wrangle herself between me and the wall and then push me out of the bed. If she was a protector, I never knew it. I don't doubt she saw herself that way. Cerberus later transitioned and became a two-headed calf. One head was cat and the other remained dog. They remained by my side through all the bad things and I never knew if they were there to keep me in, or to keep me out. Doesn't matter, cause it's all the same, anyway.

Last night I dreamt that I was trying to tighten my belt but it couldn't be done. I kept pulling and pulling more belt through the loops and through my hands until it was coiling in a pile on the floor. And the thing wouldn't cinch. It was as if, despite all my effort, I wasn't there inside my pants. Only a couple of arms, hands, trousers, and a never-ending belt.

Judas got a bum rap but Saint Frances earned every bit of his eventual demise. Frances wasn't a Saint when I met him. He was a bully with a role to play in someone else's drama. In his obituary it was told that he was known as "Fran" to his friends.

As a child I had a dog named Frannie and a brother named Frankie. My father's signature was just his initials, FWJ, with a flourish that I envied, another Frank, but let's call him Woodcock, because that was his name. How much cock would a Woodcock block if a Woodcock could block cock?

This all happened in a place called Franklin, but which I now refer to as Woodcocklin.

Woodcock was the guy in the train car who wouldn't open the door. Butch asked him nicely but Woodcock wouldn't budge. Hence the dynamite. My father was a kind of dynamite. Explosions still make me jump. FWJ is just another word for TNT. The only thing I wanted for christmas was my two front teeth, but all I got was a Startle Response action doll.

It was a different kind of belt that sent me reeling from the dinner table, sliding across the floor, and into a heap in the corner of the kitchen. Ethel screamed, "Frank!" And without thinking I blurted out, "Yeah, Frank!"

In high school I knew a guy named Judas who wore a black cape. He was older, not in school. His girlfriend Patrice gave me a handjob, but wasn't careful about it and kept mashing my head of cock into my zipper. Why did I tell you that? it has no bearing on anything. Judas had blond hair parted in the middle and black-lined eyes. He was quite good looking but he would rather not have been. His name was the only memorable thing about him. Judas was a schtick puppy.

Judas of the bum rap is the original Judas. The one from the Bible. Half that book is a secret code, and the other is a pack of damned lies. Judas wasn't a betrayer, he was just a delivery boy. Go ask Peter who was Alice. He was there. He was the one asked to get behind the Rabbi. Peter came to be known as Simon, but that was never his name. Let me ask you: have you ever seen Peter Rabbit and Satan together? Peter was a Rabbit born of egg. A Tarsus Lizard's egg. How they got that egg out his ass while he was up on that cross nobody knows.

When Judas heard the crow cock three times, he only did what his Rabbi asked him to. He fulfilled his destiny knowing full well what the cost would be. Condemned forever for an act of loyalty. For three pieces of silver, he allowed himself to be denied, and he let the Rabbi collect the interest, which has been compounding ever since. Speaking of compounds, you think it's a coincidence that the Vatican is a fortress? Or that the Pope wears a dress? Which brings us back to Frances, the Saint, rhymes with t'aint.

Saint Frances looked like an Aryan fuckboi and he had the voice of an angel. Saint Frances was my betrayer, one of them, anyway. The first time I met him, I accepted his extended hand. This was before I learned to discern the deceit of a smile. I saw a bright white light, and felt an ice cold sledge of a hammer against my cheek. I briefly forgot my name for about the next forty years. His rubber-soled golden leather boot looked cartoonish as it mashed my head into the snow bank. By drawing this picture of Saint Frances, I aim to own him.

He laughed as he lifted me back up to my feet. I looked at Frankie. He looked down at his feet. So many feet. Saint Frances pulled out a bottle of whiskey, a half of a fifth in size. Message delivered, we each took a swig and carried on.

Saint Frances was survived by his family, including his older brother, who shared a name with one of my other brothers. We'll get to him eventually. The problem is, the more you look back, the more coincidences appear to be revealed.

What is it about brothers? Remus was taken prisoner. Romulus failed to rescue him. Saint Frances lured me to the altar. His brother held the knife, while mine was a ghost. Saint Frances eventually died, whether for his sins, I don't know. His brothers knife took not my life, as was foretold, but my brother's. Saint Frances' brother, with a knife at my throat so long ago, slayed my brother, Frankie, those many years later. Are you confused? So was I. It gets worse.

Frances was survived by his family! Oh, the irony. My survival came many years later and this is it. I didn't ask for it but since it's mine, all mine, I am holding onto it for my deer in the headlights life.

Carl. His name was Carl. His name is Carl. My rapist's name is Carl. Saint Frances was Carl's Judas. Carl was his Rabbi. Carl was my Moloch.