Empire of the Dead

Paxton’s Anger Journal 5/8/2024

I think I’m losin my fuckin mind.

It all started in Wales when Julian and his lackeys beat the shit out of me and took away any hope I had of ever gettin Nora back. Ever since then I feel like I’ve been mad as hell at everyone and everythin. And that’s what this journal is for, right?

But this time feels different. Every time I felt angry before, there was somethin holdin me back. Like some kind of cable tetherin me to the ground. Whether it was Julie, or Petra, or hell just the image in my head of holdin Nora for the first time in years. I felt grounded.

I’m jus floatin in the wind now.

It’s been a bitch, travelin back and forth between Europe and America since PRIME started this dumb fuckin tour. But after what I did to Quinn, I ain’t goin back home. I can’t go back home. Whatever punishment MESSIAH has waitin for me back in New Orleans? That shit can just keep waitin.

Stayin in a different country ain’t exactly on my wish list. Only French I know is the curse words I say before I tell Nora to pardon it. So I’m gonna call the only person who might be able to keep me on the ground. _______ There’s a certain flavor to Frenchness for the Bodhisattva, and it’s not of the Parisienne, baguettes in le bicyclette variety.  It feels vague or vapid, he’s not really sure.  There is passion here, don’t mistake.  An almost religious devotion to pleasure is inherent in the framework, deep in the veins coursing through from countryside to city center.  But just as common is a sort of hangover melancholy that, frankly speaking, doesn’t jive with Sage’s mentality or approach.  If the goal is pursuits voluptuary, then why the fetishization of ennui? It speaks to something either undecided in the framework or a surface-level interest in getting purposefully lost. And while The Bodhisattva is always down to get lost, he likes to get lost for a cause at minimum, if not a few.  He can’t say that he minds the scenery, though.  A sea of fashionable bodies of every conceivable size and age, with a certain vibe to them that makes even the habit of smoking cigarettes seem chic and untouchably, unaffectedly cool.  This place is like if the cold war was between the square community and the Beats, and the Beats won.  And while he’s feeling disconnected from the man he loves, he wouldn’t dare break the vow he made, no matter what he’s been approached by.  Besides, he has other bad habits that knock on the door far, far more urgently and loudly.  As beautiful as these people are, as effortless as their cool is, their derision for his entire milieu, the mis-en-scene of Transformative Experiences, is a juicy steak to the starving dog in his head.  He knows they’d be so easy to rope into a fight.  A little bloodletting would bring them closer and let him finally catch the dragon, but– There it is.  His phone.  Paxton.  To the rescue again.  He smiles, shaking the bad thoughts away.  _______

“I know I said I needed my mind right, but…where the fuck did ya take me, Pontiff?”

The whole thing feels sepia, which is less by design and more just the nature of it.  Lit by sconces containing candles and torchlight, Paxton has to bend over at standing to not scrape his head on the ceiling.  Sage has opted to crouch, and the brilliant smile on his face as he takes in the surroundings tells us that his friend’s grumble of confusion hasn't registered.  The sign on the door says Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort–and they are in the Empire of the Dead indeed.  Beneath Paris, surrounded by skulls and femurs, Sage Pontiff has decided that the best place to experience and ride out his particular high (and the best place to get the Butcher's mental in peak shape) is the Catacombs of Paris, a massive labyrinthine sepulcher under the south of the city proper.  Sage runs his hand along the dirt on the ground, thinking.  “It’s wonderful, isn't it?”  He looks to Paxton, who affixes him with a glower of smelled-a-fart confusion.  “‘The goal of human life is to strip away layers of delusion and recognize fundamental reality.’  And this, right here, right now, is recognition of the divine that exists in everything, dude.  Look at this place!”

“Oh I’m lookin’ all right.” Paxton leans in and examines a skull with a few teeth missing. “Looks like this one got in a couple fights.” Paxton looks over his shoulder at Sage. “So I say I’m feelin’ lost ‘cause I almost killed a kid and ya decide t’just surround me with death, huh?” “Surround you with truth, brother.  Or to put it another way–you almost killed someone.  Look at all of this.  All of these lives.  Over five million individual lives, gone.  These people had families, loved ones, aspirations, complained about their boss or neighbor, they ate and pissed and fucked and lived…and they’re here.  This is what I mean by universal truth.  You’re in an ossuary with six million spirits.  What’s one close call?”

Paxton doesn’t answer. He scours the numerous skulls and bones, his hand hovering as if compelled to touch but not sure if he’s allowed. “Down in Louisiana we do these grand graves in the cemeteries because we don’t like t’bury ‘em underground, y’know, on account’a the hurricanes. My granny has this really big monument that her friends bought because she was part’a DAR.”

“What’s that?”

“Daughters a’the American Revolution. Her grave is this ornate thing with gold paint and beams and columns.” Paxton bends down and looks at the bones. “An’ meanwhile these guys ain’t got even a shred a’ evidence to who they were. Jus’ dead and forgotten.” Sage scratches his beard, considering this.  “I dunno, to me it’s sort of romantic, in a way.  Sure, we don’t know who the individuals are–but them as a collective are literally foundational to this city.  And a single skeleton in a cave is one thing, but the sheer volume here…it comforts me.  Can’t explain it, I guess.”

“Nah man, it doesn’t comfort me at all. Ya say they lived. They had wishes, hopes, dreams, families, love — that’s all gone. An’ they don’t even get the decency of a fuckin’ name attached to their remains? Hell, if none of it lasts, if it all jus’ goes away…  what the hell was the point for ‘em?” Paxton’s voice is uncharacteristically shaky and low. “What’s the point for any of us?”  “Hey, hey.”  Sage stands, getting a hold of his buddy’s shoulder.  “The point is to live, all caps.  There’s a quote from–” “Sage,” Paxton says gruffly, moving his hand to remove Sage’s from his shoulder. “I don’t need a quote. I don’t need a weird fuckin’ life lesson.” Paxton sighs. “I don’t need a spirit guide, I need a fuckin’ friend.” Sage backs away, blinking, looking genuinely hurt.  He saunters to a far end of the chamber they’re in, his head down, before making a loop back to Paxton.  “Pax, sorry.  I get…I get caught up sometimes, and sometimes that looks like me falling into bad habits–sometimes that looks like me hearing a friend in genuine pain and trying to help him in a way that doesn’t actually help fuck all.  That’s on me.  I’m sorry, dude.”  He pulls a joint from the extra dimensional space behind his ear, sparking it absentmindedly as his mind is elsewhere.  Finally, he jerks his head towards the pitch black catacomb hallway.  “Wanna get out of here?”

Paxton hadn’t looked at Sage, but he still feels the dynamic shift, so he smiles up at his friend. “Yeah, I’d like that. Lemme show ya the dead bodies I’m comfortable bein’ around.”

_______

Paxton grins, kicking his feet up on the bench of the dive bar he found by asking one of the valets from Rev47. “That cat musta known a lot ‘bout me,” he laughs, playing with a napkin emblazoned with the bar’s name: Le Crocodile. “I ain’t no Murder Croc, but it’s close enough.”  Sage, seated next to him, lays his head back, his eyes quite dilated and glassy.  We can presume from this that the entire raw cone of high-potency sacrament has been taken in.  And the fried croak of his voice speaks to that, persistent even after he takes a long sip of something in a tall glass–a cocktail, one can assume, from its brilliant red tone.  “It’s not the catacombs, but they kind of share some DNA, right?  Both dark places people go to to reckon with their souls being out of balance.”

“Ya got that right.” Paxton leans back. “Whaddaya know ‘bout our next city? I ain’t exactly itchin’ t’leave Paris, t’be honest.” “Whole place looks like  Disneyland, dude.” “Really?” “Legit, I googled it, it looks like a town in South America that the Nazis landed in.  It’s all…cuckoo clock.  Check it.”  The Bodhisattva retrieves his phone from the painted-on vintage bell bottoms he’s been wearing as of late, tapping it a few times before showing Paxton one of the many idyllic streets in Strasbourg, all timber-framed houses and perfectly-kempt flowerboxes.  “It’s like a fever dream.  Remind me to not do too many psychoactives there, I’ll fuck around and think I’m the first Buddhist Von Trapp.”

Like usual, Paxton understands about half of the words coming out of Sage’s mouth, so he just laughs. “An’ remind me not to go too far and kill that Dick prick.” Paxton takes a sip of whatever beer they had available, sneering as he registers the taste. “God that tastes like piss. Man, I can’t wait t’get my hands on ol’ Freddie in the ring. Can't wait to see how hard that STRONK guy can hit too. But it ain't personal with him, even though he made some pretty bad choices in friends. But with Freddie? He deserves more than what I gave 'im at the last show. Who knows how far I’ma take it.”

“I personally wouldn’t hate seeing you repaint the canvas in whatever colors he happens to dribble out.  I’ve become more…comfortable, I guess, with destruction.  Because sometimes it has to happen, right?  Even Jesus, the original pacifist, advised to turn your plows into swords.  Rot can spread out from a bad crop, ruin the whole harvest.”  He raises his glass to Paxton.  “Might as well eradicate it before it poisons the roots.  That’s transformative too.”

“Rot,” Paxton repeats, looking past Sage into the dive bar. Somehow the two of them aren’t sticking out like a sore thumb — maybe a thumb with a hangnail. In fact, there’s another duo that looks even more like an odd couple than Team Crunch n’ Punch. One man, lean and lanky, is drinking wine with a short and squat man in a leather jacket near the entrance. Paxton looks back at Sage. “I been thinkin’ a lot ‘bout rot, actually.”

“Why’s that on your mind?”

“I mean me, Sage.” Paxton takes another unsatisfying sip of French beer. “Ever since I lost her, I feel like my brain’s been rottin’ away. After what I did to Jon…ya could argue that I was rotten then, but I felt whole. I felt like me. But right now…all I wanna do is hurt somebody. Anybody. An’ it don’t even make any sense.” He looks to the men near the entrance again. “Like these two fucks. I wanna spill their blood an’ I got no idea why.”  Sage’s eyebrows raise, but he deadens the look just as fast, as if he’s afraid of seeming too eager.  He looks to them, then to his partner.  Then to his drink, which he downs.  The rangey lank of The Bodhisattva stands slowly, rolling his spine upwards, and then he cracks his neck.  “I’ve been feeling out of sorts myself, tell you the truth.  This place, these people, being away from Cliff…I gotta break through a layer of permafrost up here and down here.”  To punctuate, he taps his temple and his chest.  Then he eyes Paxton.  “Maybe getting the blood pumping is just what we need?”

“Prep for the tag match, yeah,” Paxton mutters as he takes another swig of beer, then spits it out. “God damn, y’all’s beer is fuckin’ awful!” As he hoped, the two men look up and scowl in their direction. “Ya got a problem with that?” And without waiting, Paxton stands up and strides towards them with Sage in tow.

_______

A few minutes later the four men are roughly ejected from the bar out into the streets of Paris, the Frenchmen stumbling away first. Paxton rubs his lip with a smile. “Good idea, partner.” “Great idea, but I’m left feeling a little disappointed.”  Sage wips blood from his nose, absentmindedly smearing it across his forehead.  “You got the better fight, my guy couldn’t swing for shit.”

“Ya see it as disappointin’, I see it as an opportunity…let’s switch up  when we catch up with ‘em.” Paxton begins running without turning to see if Sage is behind him. Sage chuckles in a nonplussed fashion, less surprised by Paxton’s running than his good fortune.  He begins to jog after his friend, his laughter growing.

One of the men, the short one, looks over his shoulder and his eyes grow wide as he sees a large man in a white tank top running after him. He picks up the pace and so does his friend, turning down a back alley that turns out to be the back of a restaurant, with a dumpster, trash debris, and nowhere to go.

“We ain’t done,” Paxton says, shoving the short man into the dumpster. The motion causes the dumpster to shift, and an object that was leaning against it falls to the ground and shatters. It was a mirror, and a shard of glass finds itself at Paxton’s feet.

Sage is busy tossing the taller man into a fence when he sees Paxton bend over and pick up the shard of glass. His eyes grow wide for a moment, then he sends a fist into the tall man to make sure he’s knocked out so he can tend to his friend.

“What’s that, Pax?”

“When I was gettin’ ready t’stomp the shit out of Fred Dick in the bathroom,” Paxton says, sliding a finger against the jagged edge of the glass, “I kept lookin’ at the mirror. An’ ya know what I saw?”

Pontiff remains silent, but slowly walks towards Pax.  Cautiously.  The chemically enhanced serenity of his bloody face is at odds with the clearly slow, ‘do not disturb’ approach.

“I saw the glass. An’ I thought maybe I should jus’ throw his head into it. Break it t’pieces. Use the pieces to scar that fucker’s face t’make it more ugly. I got too scared t’do it, jus’ swirlied his ass instead.” He takes a step towards the man slumped against the dumpster. “But I ain’t scared tonight.” “Pax, are you–”

“I prob’ly can’t go back t’America ‘cause I almost killed a kid. Maybe I should scratch another country off the list.” Paxton steps forward with the glass, but a hand grasps his wrist. “Come on.  We’re walking away, you’re walking away.” “Fuck that, I–”  Paxton is cut off as Sage pulls him forcefully away, getting nose to nose with the Bayou Butcher.  “Paxton.  Look me in the eyes.  We’re walking away.”  His voice echoes on the brick, and even he himself seems surprised by the forceful bass he’s thrown in the words.

Paxton looks down at his hand, which is now bleeding as he had gripped the glass tight. Closing his eyes for a moment, he nods. “We’re walkin’ away.”

_______

We can’t really quantify where Crunch and Punch have landed, other than it’s an alleyway offering enough privacy that Sage doesn’t feel too exposed.  Somewhere in the distance we can hear a crowd and the sirens of French police–if there is one thing in the French spirit Sage admires, it’s their propensity to riot at a moment’s notice.  But that thought has to take a back seat, as he has greater concerns.  Leaning against a wall by a dumpster, Paxton hasn’t taken his eyes off the cuts on his hands.  He seems…frozen, in his way, like there’s no figuring going on behind the eyes.  Like he’s in shock.  Sage clears his throat, crouching.    “Paxton, what was that?”

Paxton lowers his hands against his jeans, looking at the red forming near his pockets. He sighs. “I always…” False start. He shakes his head and tries again. “No matter what happened in my life. No matter how many people saw me as a monster. No matter how many people I hurt. I always knew that when I got Nora back, I could ignore all’a it, ‘cause bein’ her dad is the only thing that matters t’me. That…that I was jus’ wearing this monster mask, and once I’m a dad again I can take it off.”

He blinks rapidly, wiping his face and leaving a streak of blood under his eyes. “But I ain’t ever gettin’ her back, Sage. It’s over. She’s with MESSIAH for now an’ forever. So now this person I been? The one who nearly killed a kid last month, the one who tried to slice up a random French guy jus’ now? That’s jus’ who I am. A monster. A monster put on this Earth t’paralyze and maim people. I been waitin’ and hopin’ t’wake up from this nightmare with her in my arms, but let’s be honest…I’m the fuckin’ nightmare.” Sage snorts, derisively.  Pax looks at him with daggers in his vision, but The Bodhisattva waves him off.  “You’re assigning value judgements to things you’ve done with a goal in mind.  Everything has been in service to this one act, and now you’re trying to square that with some polite society notions about what’s acceptable.”  Sage stands up, walking over to him.  “You became what you needed to be to survive, because your only other option was laying down and dying.  So don’t stand there and talk like you’re some sort of civilian, Pax.  We fight for a living.  We’re violent by our nature, down to our fuckin’ bones, dude.  But monster?” He spits.  “I’m not looking at a monster.” Paxton looked over at Sage, his eyes glassy.

“Whaddaya see, then?” “My best friend.  My only friend, really.”

Paxton smiles. “Well, I said I needed one’a those.” He leans back and closes his eyes. “You’re right, Sage. We fight. I like fightin’. I had fun tonight, until I didn’t. But the line is gettin’ so hard to see now. I jus’ keep bein’ violent because it’s all I know. An’ it’s bleedin’ into everythin’ else.”

The Bayou Butcher lifts himself off of the dumpster and takes a few steps towards Sage. “I lied earlier, man. I am scared. I’m scared’a goin’ too far again.”

Suddenly, without much warning, and with a sort of speed that make’s Paxton go into half a defensive stance, Sage grabs the taller man.  He pulls him close and says nothing, just holds on…and after a moment, Paxton relents, returning the hug.  Pontiff doesn’t let go, that half-stoned perma-smile of his in soft repose.  “I’m not gonna let that happen.”

_______

I’m still floatin in the wind, but with Sage around I can at least see the ground. And it ain’t that far away.