part 18

Our hero sat disposed with grandeur twitching his fingers. Ill will was a reasons to say that all was well. Richard was a man from the league of sincere reasoning and smiled like a mean person. The bad tastes of cigarettes and whisky in his mouth made him say, “I’ll take your soul.” The sentence slipped out of his mouth and traveled across the mind of his friend Bob as he searched for the words to follow. It was simple, so he asked, “Why do they hold men in chambers?”
Our hero continued to twitch his fingers and began to look at them as a measure of mortal men. “Reason and virtue would be best,” he continued. He read the paper and it suggested that he would take their souls. He needed to find a connection to deal with it. That statement made him shake his head. Richard had confidence. It was the path that gave him his high.

“Matters should be recorded,” he suggested, realizing he was still standing on the corner grinding his teeth.

Richard wanted a glass of water. He would sip the rim and calm his internal fires. This is a man trying hard to look wary of the street yet he did not. More than one person saw this young man in prep school garb and held no respect for him.

With this in mind he opened his wallet to check his situation. He lied to himself that it was okay to do this, that nobody here could hurt him and that he was the most feared man on the block. This was because he sent his psychic forces out to set such repute to this city block.

He was making progress in his plans. He pulled a folded piece of paper and made a comment that he was still young. Still nobody was listening and he appeared to be mentally ill, so he was not found out of place when he took another sniff of white powder. He did the rail in a perpetual search for a better word to describe the fear he struck in the hearts of common men. He nearly fell over but let himself think that this was the drug of the kings. It was the drug of the most powerful people.

He repeated the word “powerful” to himself. It was true. He was going to be king.

The moment trapped him so he stood still in some unfinished painting for a number of minutes. He was frozen in the instant like the world was his for the taking. He could do anything he wanted, and spoke softly to himself, “Those that are making the true gains in politics are snorting cocaine right now. I know this because I am. This is the drug that makes one smart and cool. Those that smoke the stuff are below me. They do not actually feel its effects.”

He then walked to find the dealer that he last bought the drug from. Cocaine was expensive. Crack was for the poor. He was cool and he knew that his dealer saw this. He forgot the path that he was going to take. He knew that it would have been a good one, but Richard reasoned that this silence was very interesting as well.

He took a moments glance at the man selling drugs on the corner and sighed. It was his friend and dealer, a man that Richard only knew as Paint. He bought more drug in silence with a smile that was key for the man to know that he could be trusted. Richard left quickly and decided that he should go visit his friend. He could not stay here. He left and felt higher for it. He would be wiser in the future, knowing that his people existed on one side of the tracks and the disenfranchised lived on the other. Our hero knew that every day that he longed for supremecy over his peers was a day wasted, as he was simply longing for it and not truly superior.

He left thinking about a box of soap. The interest of his statements to himself and that city block left him wondering if he would rather exist as one of those actual boxes of soap. He did not make sense of this connection. He just wondered why he thought such things.

The nuisance would be to carry such an object with him. Maybe he could hire help. One of those black men that worked for his family would be perfect. Or maybe an Asian woman. He reasoned that they were used to being set in their place.

Our hero gazed into the distance and made his way back to the affluent section of town without remembering a thing that he said or did.


PART 18:

Our hero had the catchy song of the day in his head. It was a number one hit a few months back but had made its way down the charts back to relative obscurity and impulse purchases of the sorts of people Richard could not make sense of. It was a simple tune and our hero could not help but bob his head.

One day, Richard supposed, he would publish his autobiography. It would be insightful and about his meteoric rise to power and influence. He would have it ghost written, but only because other men were better writers than him. He would make sure it would be insightful and explain how he was right about everything. It would detail his beliefs and people would purchase it and learn about his wise teachings. They will keep good thoughts about him and keep him high on a pedestal above everyone else, especially those who made him an outsider. They would fear him the most, for he would have been their king.

And only those that Richard considered cool would survive. It would be a strange test, our hero thought in a lark. “Do you believe in Richard Channing?” the paper would remark. If they circled yes than they would become his class. If they circled no than they would become slaves until finally they were simply wiped out. Those who did not think our hero cool would be punished and this simple goal would be kept secret. He could not be caught discussing this with anyone.

It could be implied to those who held powerful positions and they would know. Richard knew how politics worked. They would agree with what he meant and it would be easy to become that man.

The key to being cool, Richard figured, was to be just a little badass. He once used the term that he was “In the closet as a bad man,” to explain that the common people should believe that he was a good man in a charade preformed for the mass media. His collegues were a little taken aback by his statement. They sat in silent shock when that series of words left his lips.

Richard laughed it off, as a man should do. He stated for the record, “I didn’t mean like that... It is just that people should believe in their leader because otherwise there will be too much uncertain air around the elections.”

The fellows who sat with him agreed and quickly changed the topic. Dick was unsure whether he had uttered a faux-pas or if he made an important point. Our hero knew that they had picked up his tone and suggestion. They knew what he meant.

Richard looked in the eyes of the people in the room hoping that they did not hear his last thought. It was a silent thought but he understood that his mind could influence people so he hoped these men did not know what was up.
These men were cool. They were a sort of cabal that men at midnight. The claim was that by becoming one of them he could start his quest to be the most powerful man in the world. It was as simple as coming to the meeting and discussing world events. Most of these men had fathers in politics. They were good connections and would serve him wisely in his plans.

But Richard’s mind began to wander.
He could not mention his other wishes, the ones to join crime. If they knew that he wanted to sell drugs while making them illegal for everyone else he would seem too crooked, even for this shadowy group. He would stick to implications regarding ethnic cleansing and the immense superiority of his class and people. They did not realize that he meant only the few that Richard thought were cool would survive. They would understand eventually but he would need to be further entrenched in this cabal to send this idea towards any of them.