Legacy

I pride myself on my ability to be alone. It’s the only time I really feel like me.

It’s why I come out here.

Northern Wisconsin is both beautiful and tucked away. No one bothers with it. Miles and miles of forest in a spot of the country no one ever thinks about. No one assumes these rolling fields and pristine canopies are available to them. There are roads, two tracks, streams and creeks. Folks hunt out here, fish. But drive far enough into the forest and it’ll just be you and the mysteries of nature.

I do this whenever I can. I pick a new spot every time. It’s safe. There are bears, wolves, coyotes. We steer clear of each other for the most part, and I have my sidearm if anything gets really hairy.

I can’t be bothered by the wiles of civilization. You can’t even hear a plane out here.

It’s why I was so confused when I came across the shrine.

I’m not religious at all. When I say I’m alone, I mean I’m alone. I think we are all truly alone. Realizing you’re truly alone is the only way you can make peace with yourself. I don’t want a wife or children. You only get taken advantage of. To be truly free is to sever yourself, find a way to live without needing anyone and without anyone needing you. It’s better to die alone a free man than surrounded by “loved ones”, a prisoner of tradition.

I don’t get along with people. I don’t particularly wish for their destruction, but I’ve found I’m at my best when I don’t have to interact with them. I’ve found that people don’t consider me their equal. They find me either amusing or outright revolting. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I don’t think so.

I was out for one of my walks again, exploring a new section of the forest, down an overgrown path off one of the two-tracks I use. I was mounting a rise in the forest floor when I saw the clearing. Through the trees, a burst of clear sunlight contrasted with the dim shadows of the woods and what looked like furniture.

I got that eerie feeling you get when you think you might be trespassing or sneaking up on someone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but what the hell was furniture doing up here? I couldn’t see anybody through the trees, and couldn’t hear anyone either. There was no way someone would bring furniture all the way out here.

I made my way down to the clearing. It was small, green, shaded, threaded through with one of the forest’s many creeks. It looked maintained, the wild growth kept to the edges. The grass was cut.

In the center of the clearing were four wooden pews with crosses on their sides. They faced a stone altar, about five feet tall and seven feet wide.

The first thing I noticed was the TV on the altar. One of the old plastic box kinds, not the flatscreens everyone’s used for the past ten years.

The second thing I noticed were the mice. They scritched and scribbled their little pink claws all over the polished square of stone. There had to be at least fifty of them.

No one was around. I couldn’t hear voices and there was nowhere to hide in the clearing other than behind the altar.

I stepped out of the shade of the woods and the hot sun drenched my face. I walked over and sat in one of the wooden pews. I felt compelled to.

There was one more item that made up the shrine — a wooden idol in a glass box that stood behind the altar. The idol was a hooded figure holding a baby. The baby had a pale white mask on its face, like the kind that’s used to hide deformities.

There was a big brass bell to the right of the pews next to some stumpy pines. It started ringing as soon as I sat down. I jumped, startled. The bell swung back and forth, flashing in the sun, its toll echoing out over the empty wilderness.

The TV clicked on. The picture faded in to reveal a preacher who looked like Jordan Peele standing in front of an identical altar.

“Welcome, brother,” he said, looking right at me.

I didn’t move. A strange cloud of ease had settled over me, ever since I set foot in the clearing.

“And lo,” recited the preacher. “I looked upon the face of the devil and he was both man and woman and by the time I knew who he was, I could not tell them apart.”

The channel changed, and now it showed a stage that resembled a lavish Hollywood award ceremony. The stage itself was gold, looking like a pharoah’s idea of the Oscars. All gold-plated egos and expensive dresses and crystal glassware. An unseen audience cheered offscreen.

“Please welcome, Jesus Christ!” said a cheery female announcer’s voice.

Jesus came out to rapturous applause, a handsome, healthy Middle Eastern man in his prime with the body of an athlete, dressed like a shepherd in modest robes of white and red. He nodded primly and made the sign of the cross.

The TV switched back to the preacher.

“Fear not, for the wicked are not truly wicked. And the weak are not truly weak. And the isolated are not truly the isolated.”

The TV switched back to the golden stage. The voice announced Jesus’s arrival again. This time there was less applause as he walked out. He looked more disheveled this time, his clothes dirtier and more ragged. There were cuts on his face. He made the sign of the cross again.

This switched back and forth for awhile. The preacher went on about the wicked nature of the world and the infinite. Jesus kept getting weaker with each presentation. The audience didn’t applaud him at all after the second time. Eventually Jesus looked as he did on the day of the crucifixion — bleeding and beaten down, half-naked and downcast. He had a Secret Service-like assistant helping him walk by then, a stone-faced guy in a tuxedo with an earpiece. The stage was so garish it was like Jesus was standing inside a screaming sun. The golden lights burned so hot they seemed fit to melt everything into a luxurious lava.

“No better loss than to lose myself in you,” said the preacher, snapping back onto the screen. “The devil is a paradox. The only true mystery. A man and a woman. An infant and an old man. Alive and dead.”

I was glued to my seat in the pew. Two minutes ago I’d been walking along, enjoying my thoughts and the thought of heating up some food with my portable stove once I got back to camp.

“And the little furry ones will carry your body to rest,” the preacher finished.

The channel clicked again.

The TV was now showing grainy footage of a man and a woman engaged in animalistic sex. I saw for the first time the TV wasn’t plugged in.

“Why would you want to burn these sad bones,” said the preacher, snapping back onscreen.

He pointed at me. I should’ve been scared, freaked out at this whole thing, but I wasn’t. I felt like I was on Vicodin, rinsed in a warm calm.

“You are no longer young,” the preacher said, pointing right at me. “You have lived by envy and fear, and your irrelevance is contemptible. No one wants you. No one. You have spent your life cocooned inside your own selfish ways. But wash your hands in the creek and know the paradox.”

He pointed to his right and to my left, at the bubbling creek. The water looked like Coca-Cola as it sloshed over a tumble of rocks. It looked like a postcard.

The altar mice stopped their scribbling about and lined up across the altar with military precision. They regarded me with their twitchy noses and oil-drop eyes.

Still possessed by that Vicodin calm, I left the pew and knelt by the water, put my hands in. It was arctic cold. I touched my palms to the rocks. As I did so, I looked up.

Across the stream, in the woods, I saw them. They were standing a few yard back in the brush of the forest, about chest-deep in leaves and branches. The androgynous figure was pale and hairless, cloaked in a black robe and hood. Her eyes were cold and white. She held a naked baby wearing a white mask.

I tried to take my hands out of the water but it was like they’d been stuck in dried cement.

We watched each other for a second. I didn’t have any thoughts.

The baby slipped his mask off and his face was like that of a 90 year old man. He smiled at me and my hands felt the cold water rushing over them.

“Your legacy,” the baby called out to me. His voice was deep, raspy. “Your legacy.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw the line of mice sliding off the altar like a length of furry rope. They came for me, noses twitching.

I felt myself lifted by my knees and shoes. I remained under the influence of whatever spiritual novocaine was being administred.

The mice carried me to the altar with its wooden idol. The woman and the baby still watched from the forest’s edge.

A doorway opened up in the altar. It led to a busy street. So many moving legs, so many speeding wheels, so many lives going about their solipsistic ways.

The mice tossed me through the doorway and I landed on my butt.

I looked up at the faces of the people passing by. I felt like a child, looking at them from all the way down here.

I snapped back into myself.

I held my cardboard sign, words drawn with marker. I looked at my plastic dish of random change and a few dollars. Everyone stared at me when they were far away and acted like they couldn’t see me when they were close. Across the street was a pawn shop with old television sets in the front window. One of the TVs was on. It was showing Key & Peele. To my right, there were dumpsters overflowing with trash and filth. I could see mice darting around in all of it.

This was me. I was me again.

I settled back against the brick wall, hoped someone would toss me a twenty, and thought about the forest again.