The Excess Road by Joshua Jones
Chapter Seventeen: The first step
The next class was with my favorite professor and then glorious, gluttonous lunch. I was dehydrated and needed sustenance before I wasted away but could hold it off for another hour. This was not the worst hangover but I needed water to restore my spirit.
Usually I sat in the back of amphitheatre classroom, but I wanted to get a good seat right in front and be first in line to greet Professor Campbell at the oak doors but first water. I was dry. Gravel dry. The water fountains in this old edifices trickled brackish fluid but the ground floor was renovated with a sterile computer center and a pastel foreign language lab. Best of all, new water fountains that sprayed like fire hoses so I slapped my feet on the stairs as I made my way down to the vacant bowels that was enema clean.
The fountain sang to me as I gulped. The small fluffy bubbles that gathered in the corners of my lips and the sore throat were washed away in sibilant streams of mountain water. After dragging my stiff limbs up the stairs, I found that the whole class had entered. All of the seats in the front were taken. I would not be the first face the good professor would see. My black pinstripe pants greeted the vinyl seat.
Professor Campbell didn’t look very good when he rolled in and set shifty eyes on the class. He sagged. His wrinkled suit hung loose on his bones and matted hair reflected the lights from above in greasy streaks.
I figured I’d be nice.
He lectured for half an hour on the Minoan civilization and never asked us a question. Words rushed out of his mouth, spat out like a sour taste, and he kept looking to the clock above the door. We had ten minutes left in class and he began packing away his papers and said, “Follow the syllabus and see you next week.”
He made a rapid egress out of the room with his face hidden by his vein clustered hand so I bolted behind him. A caravan of my hall-mates was spotted over the bend heading in the direction of the Kaf. I jogged to catch up with my crew. Tim might know about the Professor’s disarray but I’d wait to ask until he was softened by food.
I fell in line behind George, said my salutations, and asked what was for lunch. It was one of those buffet days where you make your own sandwiches. My plate filled, I bound over through the thicket of students most wearing sweat shirts and baseball caps. The food wasn’t balanced on my tray. The plates slid to the lip and almost tumbled off as I got to Tim. He didn’t notice. I squeezed by and spun out a chair.
“Professor Campbell was messed up today. Looked like shit,” I said.
There was no reaction as the whole crew seemed lost in thought. Tim lifted his head and put his fork down. He turned his head to the left, sat back in his chair and looked at me with stern beveled eyes.
“You didn’t hear about Tom Chamberlain did you? He fucking fell three stories last night and is in Intensive Care at Memorial Hospital. He might not make it or that’s the word flying around campus,” Tim said and stopped to take a bite.
I tilted my head and said, “Uh, really?”
“Really. Don’t know the whole truth because the E.M.T. s’ won’t tell anybody anything so there are a hundred stories floating around. I think I know what happened though and it ties in with Professor Campbell being all whacked today,” he said.
“So, what is it?” I asked
Before I could press further, Tim cleared his throat and wagged his finger at me. I put my hands up. He tilt nodded.
“Well, Tom was fucked up last night but not drunk. He was doing hallucinogens but I’m not sure which one. From where I was told he landed I assume he went out his window on to the third floor deck. He lives in McKinley hall, the one that is separated into three terraced buildings. He got on one of lower roofs and ran straight for the edge. Took a fucking leap. Must have had some speed because he cleared the four foot wall, the bushes and the sidewalk,” he said.
“Fuck, but what does this have to do with Campbell?” I inquired. Tim looked irritated and clasped his hands in front of his nose.
“You sure don’t have the patience for a good dramatic story do you. You probably read the end of a mystery first. Fine, Professor Campbell and Tom trip all the time together and they take off to see hippie jam bands too. They took off for whole weekends, so some people suspect other things besides drugs and music. I know Tom bought doses and the Prof is probably worried about being linked to the accident. Maybe he saw Tom last night and partied? Maybe he’s fucking him? Don’t know. He probably found out this morning that Tom took a leap. You know Prof there lost a gig at another college for fraternizing with the students so to say,” Tim said and chomped on a pickle.
“Wow.”
I sipped my drink no longer hungry and watched the others suck in the food like a Hoover on high but a vacuum makes less noise. Tim rolled a napkin into a ball and bounced it off my roast beef sandwich.
“So, I hope I answered your question about the professor but I have an explanation for Tom’s jump and it’s not suicide,” Tim said.
“Enlighten me please,” I said, crumpled up a napkin and tossed it in his drink.
James then unleashed a burp that shook the plaster off the walls. Four tables cheered.
“Nice shot dick. Done with that any how. Listen Joaquin, I think I understand why a guy like Tom might trip himself delusional and fly like an eagle,” he said.
“What like repressed identity he wanted to set free?” I said and dried my clammy hands on my pants.
Tim’s face looked like a frustrated child about to throw a tantrum.
“No. Tom’s a new age dude. Believes in astral projection and that reincarnation junk, a comparative religion major or some bullshit and conceited bastard too. He had a trip he couldn’t control and thought he was having an out of body experience. Probably thought he was Jesus and could levitate into heaven. Tons of people in the sixties dosed and thought they were the second coming of Christ and a symbol for Jesus is a dove hence the flying delusion. You saw that movie in high school with the naked dude and the girl who jumps out the window right?” he asked. I nodded.
He cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. I leaned in.
Tim took a deep breath and said, “You see all of that superstition screws with a man’s mind and can lead to illusions of grandeur. First rule of tripping is know what you can handle. I know mine. All that religion cult shit just fucks with your mind.”
“So what do you mean by religion cult shit?” I asked.
Tim was ready.
“What I mean is like what happened in Guyana with Jim Jones. Some charismatic dude takes biblical scripture and molds it to fit their belief system. Then they take the gullible undereducated end of society and get them to believe with some cleaver trick. They take pre-existing beliefs and modified them. The followers of Jesus of Nazareth did the same thing but not for power like Jim Jones, but we really don’t know that since what we know about Jesus wasn’t written by him. Shit, stories can barely be told around here without getting fucked up. But Jesus and his cult, his merry men, were a reaction to Rome’s oppression. Nothing new, happens to every society with an underclass.”
At this time, George’s eyes went aflame and he interjected, “Yo, Tim, does it matter if it’s a cult or not if the outcome and teachings of the new religion preach forgiveness over anything else?”
Tim shook his head and replied, “What Jesus taught was righteous. In that way I would be a Christian, or Unitarian, because I agree with his teachings, but what he started isn’t what we ended up with. It’s like what Kierkegaard said about it being Churchianity and not Christianity. The institution became more important than the teachings. The Holy Roman Empire, neither Holy or Roman, came along and the Church persecuted Jews, then came Martin Luther and the arguments about who the anti-Christ had begun, one accusing the other, and so on.”
He stopped and sniffled.
I knew what was up but I didn’t think people who were amped up could eat so much. He rotated over to stare down George.
“Don’t you think Blind Faith Chris
tians are bothersome George? I do. It’s like they suffer from an inferiority complex? They don’t feel special so they put others in Hell because they don’t believe Jesus is divine. Hell sure must be crowded. Why would God make something just to damn it? Sounds like a waste of time. Damnation does have its good points like scaring fools into not killing each other over women,” Tim stopped, put his hand up, “Sometimes.”
Tim puts his hands flat on the table. Silence enclosed us. George expanded his chest, took a sip off coffee and then tapped the side of his nose.
“I love contradictions. Don’t you Joaquin?” he asked with a wink.
“Uh…. no,” I said.
“Why would God give us the ability to question reality and then demand we believe blindly?” Tim asked.
Sweat beaded along his hairline.
“Faith, bullshit, faith and fear. Fear controls. Faith controls. It’s a negative validity. I believe it so it makes it right. No, just gullible. And the obvious counter is ‘Don’t tempt the Lord thy God’, isn’t that convenient? The church lost me with the whole the Earth is the center of the universe thing. How could their textbook be so wrong about so many things, unless their god is a retard or they fucking made it up. It’s great fiction, if they would only admit it,” Tim sung.
The chemicals were playing jazz in his head but I had no idea he put such thought into these issues. The shaking of George’s head began with a tremor but grew to be full chin shoulder to shoulder reprisal. James slept with his head between his hands on the table. A column of sun broke through the window’s edge illuminating the table next to Tim with a crisp light. A thought was born.
“What about worshipping Saints and the Virgin Mary. Isn’t that heresy? I was told by Professor Lynch that by allowing saint worship the early Christians were able to convert the heathen tribes in Europe and the Americas because they had local gods they didn’t want to give up. So they merged the saints and local gods. Christmas and the Christmas trees came out of the tree worshipping Germanic tribes. Winter Solstice was huge for them and occurs around December twenty-fifth,” I said.
Tim sniffed twice and a single devious eyebrow lifted.
“Nice point Joaquin. They do what they must to control people. Here’s a fun one. The whole drinking of blood and eating the body of God in communion appealed to the Aztecs because they already had ritual cannibalism. As for Jesus, god born of man, that’s old and just like Hindu avatars of Shiva and Vishnu. Let me see Mary, a virgin, gives birth. How about this parallel of unusual birth? The Buddha was born out of his mother's right side and it wasn’t a C-section. Fuck, the cult got lucky when they converted Constantine but not with the power of love. The power of war. Constantine prayed to the cross to fuck up his enemies. He won and said, ‘Cool. I’ll go with this dude Jesus. He kicks ass.’ Jesus-War God,” Tim said as George slammed his hands down on the table.
His brown fiberglass tray jumped. A crooked smile came to life on Tim’s face.
“What about the miracles Jesus performed?” George asked as he stared at Tim and clenched his teeth.
At this, Tim snorted once, a bull like dismal.
With a pause, Tim’s eyes looked up to the left. George’s face relaxed and it seemed he had thrown a shoe in the machinery. Tim neck cracked as he rolled it, a ratchet wrench clicking away.
He slouched down in his seat and said, “Well for walking on water that’s simple. He was walking over a mirage. People of the time did not understand optical illusions. As for exorcising demons, they weren’t demons just mentally ill people who thought they were demons. When some one attempted to expel the demon, they did because they believed it. AKA placebo effect faith healing version. Faith is a sugar pill,” Tim said, slammed his hands down on the table.
He propped up leaving his tray behind. A cigarette grasped to his lips as he held his hands behind his back as he slipped through the crowd at the entrance.
I was confused.
The next class was with my favorite professor and then glorious, gluttonous lunch. I was dehydrated and needed sustenance before I wasted away but could hold it off for another hour. This was not the worst hangover but I needed water to restore my spirit.
Usually I sat in the back of amphitheatre classroom, but I wanted to get a good seat right in front and be first in line to greet Professor Campbell at the oak doors but first water. I was dry. Gravel dry. The water fountains in this old edifices trickled brackish fluid but the ground floor was renovated with a sterile computer center and a pastel foreign language lab. Best of all, new water fountains that sprayed like fire hoses so I slapped my feet on the stairs as I made my way down to the vacant bowels that was enema clean.
The fountain sang to me as I gulped. The small fluffy bubbles that gathered in the corners of my lips and the sore throat were washed away in sibilant streams of mountain water. After dragging my stiff limbs up the stairs, I found that the whole class had entered. All of the seats in the front were taken. I would not be the first face the good professor would see. My black pinstripe pants greeted the vinyl seat.
Professor Campbell didn’t look very good when he rolled in and set shifty eyes on the class. He sagged. His wrinkled suit hung loose on his bones and matted hair reflected the lights from above in greasy streaks.
I figured I’d be nice.
He lectured for half an hour on the Minoan civilization and never asked us a question. Words rushed out of his mouth, spat out like a sour taste, and he kept looking to the clock above the door. We had ten minutes left in class and he began packing away his papers and said, “Follow the syllabus and see you next week.”
He made a rapid egress out of the room with his face hidden by his vein clustered hand so I bolted behind him. A caravan of my hall-mates was spotted over the bend heading in the direction of the Kaf. I jogged to catch up with my crew. Tim might know about the Professor’s disarray but I’d wait to ask until he was softened by food.
I fell in line behind George, said my salutations, and asked what was for lunch. It was one of those buffet days where you make your own sandwiches. My plate filled, I bound over through the thicket of students most wearing sweat shirts and baseball caps. The food wasn’t balanced on my tray. The plates slid to the lip and almost tumbled off as I got to Tim. He didn’t notice. I squeezed by and spun out a chair.
“Professor Campbell was messed up today. Looked like shit,” I said.
There was no reaction as the whole crew seemed lost in thought. Tim lifted his head and put his fork down. He turned his head to the left, sat back in his chair and looked at me with stern beveled eyes.
“You didn’t hear about Tom Chamberlain did you? He fucking fell three stories last night and is in Intensive Care at Memorial Hospital. He might not make it or that’s the word flying around campus,” Tim said and stopped to take a bite.
I tilted my head and said, “Uh, really?”
“Really. Don’t know the whole truth because the E.M.T. s’ won’t tell anybody anything so there are a hundred stories floating around. I think I know what happened though and it ties in with Professor Campbell being all whacked today,” he said.
“So, what is it?” I asked
Before I could press further, Tim cleared his throat and wagged his finger at me. I put my hands up. He tilt nodded.
“Well, Tom was fucked up last night but not drunk. He was doing hallucinogens but I’m not sure which one. From where I was told he landed I assume he went out his window on to the third floor deck. He lives in McKinley hall, the one that is separated into three terraced buildings. He got on one of lower roofs and ran straight for the edge. Took a fucking leap. Must have had some speed because he cleared the four foot wall, the bushes and the sidewalk,” he said.
“Fuck, but what does this have to do with Campbell?” I inquired. Tim looked irritated and clasped his hands in front of his nose.
“You sure don’t have the patience for a good dramatic story do you. You probably read the end of a mystery first. Fine, Professor Campbell and Tom trip all the time together and they take off to see hippie jam bands too. They took off for whole weekends, so some people suspect other things besides drugs and music. I know Tom bought doses and the Prof is probably worried about being linked to the accident. Maybe he saw Tom last night and partied? Maybe he’s fucking him? Don’t know. He probably found out this morning that Tom took a leap. You know Prof there lost a gig at another college for fraternizing with the students so to say,” Tim said and chomped on a pickle.
“Wow.”
I sipped my drink no longer hungry and watched the others suck in the food like a Hoover on high but a vacuum makes less noise. Tim rolled a napkin into a ball and bounced it off my roast beef sandwich.
“So, I hope I answered your question about the professor but I have an explanation for Tom’s jump and it’s not suicide,” Tim said.
“Enlighten me please,” I said, crumpled up a napkin and tossed it in his drink.
James then unleashed a burp that shook the plaster off the walls. Four tables cheered.
“Nice shot dick. Done with that any how. Listen Joaquin, I think I understand why a guy like Tom might trip himself delusional and fly like an eagle,” he said.
“What like repressed identity he wanted to set free?” I said and dried my clammy hands on my pants.
Tim’s face looked like a frustrated child about to throw a tantrum.
“No. Tom’s a new age dude. Believes in astral projection and that reincarnation junk, a comparative religion major or some bullshit and conceited bastard too. He had a trip he couldn’t control and thought he was having an out of body experience. Probably thought he was Jesus and could levitate into heaven. Tons of people in the sixties dosed and thought they were the second coming of Christ and a symbol for Jesus is a dove hence the flying delusion. You saw that movie in high school with the naked dude and the girl who jumps out the window right?” he asked. I nodded.
He cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. I leaned in.
Tim took a deep breath and said, “You see all of that superstition screws with a man’s mind and can lead to illusions of grandeur. First rule of tripping is know what you can handle. I know mine. All that religion cult shit just fucks with your mind.”
“So what do you mean by religion cult shit?” I asked.
Tim was ready.
“What I mean is like what happened in Guyana with Jim Jones. Some charismatic dude takes biblical scripture and molds it to fit their belief system. Then they take the gullible undereducated end of society and get them to believe with some cleaver trick. They take pre-existing beliefs and modified them. The followers of Jesus of Nazareth did the same thing but not for power like Jim Jones, but we really don’t know that since what we know about Jesus wasn’t written by him. Shit, stories can barely be told around here without getting fucked up. But Jesus and his cult, his merry men, were a reaction to Rome’s oppression. Nothing new, happens to every society with an underclass.”
At this time, George’s eyes went aflame and he interjected, “Yo, Tim, does it matter if it’s a cult or not if the outcome and teachings of the new religion preach forgiveness over anything else?”
Tim shook his head and replied, “What Jesus taught was righteous. In that way I would be a Christian, or Unitarian, because I agree with his teachings, but what he started isn’t what we ended up with. It’s like what Kierkegaard said about it being Churchianity and not Christianity. The institution became more important than the teachings. The Holy Roman Empire, neither Holy or Roman, came along and the Church persecuted Jews, then came Martin Luther and the arguments about who the anti-Christ had begun, one accusing the other, and so on.”
He stopped and sniffled.
I knew what was up but I didn’t think people who were amped up could eat so much. He rotated over to stare down George.
“Don’t you think Blind Faith Chris
Tim puts his hands flat on the table. Silence enclosed us. George expanded his chest, took a sip off coffee and then tapped the side of his nose.
“I love contradictions. Don’t you Joaquin?” he asked with a wink.
“Uh…. no,” I said.
“Why would God give us the ability to question reality and then demand we believe blindly?” Tim asked.
Sweat beaded along his hairline.
“Faith, bullshit, faith and fear. Fear controls. Faith controls. It’s a negative validity. I believe it so it makes it right. No, just gullible. And the obvious counter is ‘Don’t tempt the Lord thy God’, isn’t that convenient? The church lost me with the whole the Earth is the center of the universe thing. How could their textbook be so wrong about so many things, unless their god is a retard or they fucking made it up. It’s great fiction, if they would only admit it,” Tim sung.
The chemicals were playing jazz in his head but I had no idea he put such thought into these issues. The shaking of George’s head began with a tremor but grew to be full chin shoulder to shoulder reprisal. James slept with his head between his hands on the table. A column of sun broke through the window’s edge illuminating the table next to Tim with a crisp light. A thought was born.
“What about worshipping Saints and the Virgin Mary. Isn’t that heresy? I was told by Professor Lynch that by allowing saint worship the early Christians were able to convert the heathen tribes in Europe and the Americas because they had local gods they didn’t want to give up. So they merged the saints and local gods. Christmas and the Christmas trees came out of the tree worshipping Germanic tribes. Winter Solstice was huge for them and occurs around December twenty-fifth,” I said.
Tim sniffed twice and a single devious eyebrow lifted.
“Nice point Joaquin. They do what they must to control people. Here’s a fun one. The whole drinking of blood and eating the body of God in communion appealed to the Aztecs because they already had ritual cannibalism. As for Jesus, god born of man, that’s old and just like Hindu avatars of Shiva and Vishnu. Let me see Mary, a virgin, gives birth. How about this parallel of unusual birth? The Buddha was born out of his mother's right side and it wasn’t a C-section. Fuck, the cult got lucky when they converted Constantine but not with the power of love. The power of war. Constantine prayed to the cross to fuck up his enemies. He won and said, ‘Cool. I’ll go with this dude Jesus. He kicks ass.’ Jesus-War God,” Tim said as George slammed his hands down on the table.
His brown fiberglass tray jumped. A crooked smile came to life on Tim’s face.
“What about the miracles Jesus performed?” George asked as he stared at Tim and clenched his teeth.
At this, Tim snorted once, a bull like dismal.
With a pause, Tim’s eyes looked up to the left. George’s face relaxed and it seemed he had thrown a shoe in the machinery. Tim neck cracked as he rolled it, a ratchet wrench clicking away.
He slouched down in his seat and said, “Well for walking on water that’s simple. He was walking over a mirage. People of the time did not understand optical illusions. As for exorcising demons, they weren’t demons just mentally ill people who thought they were demons. When some one attempted to expel the demon, they did because they believed it. AKA placebo effect faith healing version. Faith is a sugar pill,” Tim said, slammed his hands down on the table.
He propped up leaving his tray behind. A cigarette grasped to his lips as he held his hands behind his back as he slipped through the crowd at the entrance.
I was confused.