C28 I'm the Baby New Year

Inside the Dugout, Billy lit a candle of hope.

Chauncey Gibbons looked like he was caught in the throes of a nightmare from which he would never awake. In spite of the ropes that bound his limbs, and the handcuffs behind his back, he twisted from side to side, thrusting his legs out and then bringing them into his chest, as if he still lay in his mother’s womb. He’d be quiet for a moment and then repeat the movements again.

When he began banging his head against the floor, Billy took a gallon of water and dumped it over his face, still splattered with dead rat.

Chauncey came to.

Chauncey had no idea where he was, or what was happening. “You’re the Messiah of the Second Coming,” Billy told him. “I am?” Chauncey said, still bewildered by his surroundings. “You’re about to rise from the dead.”

“Where am I?” he asked.

“You’re still in the tomb,” Billy told him.

“I am?” Chauncey asked.

“Yes, but first you must renounce all your worldly possessions.” Billy took the scissors off the table and began cutting the ropes wrapped around Chauncey’s body. He used a hammer and chisel to break the small chain holding the leather handcuffs together.

“Who are you?” Chauncey said, looking up at Billy as if he was looking directly into the sun.

“I’m a ghost who’s here to separate you from the material attachments you developed in another lifetime. It’s time to let go of Chauncey Gibbons. It’s time to purify yourself. It’s time for you to redeem the world.”

“It is?” Chauncey asked.

Chauncey was still handcuffed as Billy lifted the top half of him and set his back against the wall.

“It’s simple,” Billy told him. “I’ve booked a hundred foundations that help humanity. You’re going to donate all your money to them.”

“I am?” Chauncey said.

“Yes, you are,” Billy replied.

Billy picked up the silver cigarette case that once belonged to Rudolph Valentino and wiped the mirror clean with a dishtowel. He held the mirror in front of Chauncey’s face.

“Does that look like Chauncey Gibbons?” Billy asked him. Chauncey’s eyes were small slits as he tried to make out the image. His face was gaunt from a lack of food. He had a mangy growth of hair on his face. His hair was tangled and caked with dirt. “People used to say I looked like Donald Trump,” he said.

Billy looked deeply into what remained Chauncey’s soul.

“I can see the resemblance,” he said.

Billy opened Chauncey’s briefcase and pulled out the pound

of coke. He took the baggie and soupspoon over to Chauncey and squatted in front of him. He pulled the toilet paper out of Chauncey’s nostril. He loaded the soupspoon with coke.

Chauncey was still trying to figure out where he was.

“What are you doing?” Chauncey asked.

“This is the elixir of enlightenment,” Billy said. “This is a return to the Holy Grail.”

“Give it to me!” Chauncey said.

Billy held the soupspoon up to one of Chauncey’s nostrils and pressed the other nostril closed.

“Suck it up, Jesus,” Billy encouraged him.

He tilted the spoon up a bit to make sure Chauncey got the whole lot. Then he loaded the spoon again and filled the other nostril. He repeated the process three times.

Chauncey rested his head back against the wall. A big smile broke on his face.

“I’m in heaven,” Chauncey said.

“No, you’re on earth,” Billy assured him. “But you’ve come here to bring us heaven on earth.”

“I have?” Chauncey asked.

Billy took what was left of the pound of coke and began making large piles of powder in different corners of the room.

“What are you doing?” Chauncey asked in horror.

“I’m protecting you from the devil,” Billy told him. “Have you ever seen rats on coke?”

“Rats on coke?” Chauncey asked, bewildered.

“Nothing can scare away the devil better than rats on coke.”

A vague memory seemed to appear on Chauncey’s face, as he recalled his friend, the rat.

“You’re not going to leave me here alone?” he asked.

“We have to hurry!” Billy said. “It’s New Year’s Eve. The prophet is must reveal himself to the world at midnight!”

“Are you sure I’m Jesus?”

“Of course, you’re Jesus! I just baptized you. I’m John the Baptist!”

“You are?”

Billy went to the mat and sat down in front of Chauncey’s laptop.

“Now let’s get started with the codes to your offshore accounts. Let’s start with the Cayman Islands.”

One by one, Chauncey gave up his passwords to each account. One by one, Billy transferred the funds to charitable foundations all over the world. Billy sat there for five hours transferring fifty million at a time until he was finished.

Finally, Chauncey coughed up his Bank of America account, and Billy transferred a million to his own account. He would never go hungry again.

When Billy was finished, he checked the time and began mak- ing preparations to leave. He had a half-hour left to get to the designated corner where the private car would pick him up and take him to the airport.

He went through a shopping bag and picked out the hair shirt, Pampers, and cross on the long gold ghetto chain.

“Here, put these on,” he told Chauncey. “We don’t have much time.”

“Where are we going?” Chauncey asked.

“You’re going in one direction and I’m going in another,” Billy replied.

Chauncey did as he was told.

Billy put the belongings he would take in his new leather Louis Vuitton luggage. He set the shopping cart on top of China Doll’s grave and put all his old sacred objects into it. He covered it with Billy Wild’s old rags. He placed the American flag on top of that.

When Chauncey was standing there in his diaper, hair shirt, and gold ghetto chain with the cross on it, Billy Wild looked around and made a quick calculation. He put on his overcoat and jaunty bowler hat. He picked up his fancy carved walking stick. Then he opened the door and set his luggage and the metal suitcase with the money outside.

He led Chauncey out the doorway. Chauncey was still in a dither as he tried to fathom what planet he was on. Billy pointed him toward the other side of the small valley in the construction site.

“You’re just coming out of the desert after forty days and forty nights of temptation by the devil,” he told him and pointed a finger. “Jerusalem is just over the hill there.”

He gave Chauncey a little push and Chauncey complied.

“I’m Baby New Year!” he declared and waved back at Billy. “Just over the hill,” Billy encouraged him. “Just over the hill.” Chauncey began singing “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.”

Billy Wild went back inside and picked up the Beretta.

Then he stood at the open door and emptied the magazine into the boards that held up the Dugout. When the magazine was empty, he tossed the gun inside.

Riddled with gaping holes, the boards began to creak, and then creak some more, until the tiny hovel slowly collapsed. It was a slow smooth collapse that showed no signs that anything unusual had ever happened there.