Stimp, the Prophet Man

Villain: Lights Out

This is episode 6 in a storytelling experiment. Read each episode as a standalone chapter, or start at the beginning.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

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-Recap-

Stimp makes his way to the homeless shelter, the only place with a comfortable bed for him after his accident. He wants to save his pain pills as a trade for meth, but the pain is too much. He wakes from sleep after taking one, to Pastor Rob talking and praying before opening the shelter doors for the night. On the outside everything seems okay, but Stimp can feel the tide turning. As clouds gather, so does Stimp’s knowing that his debt will have to be paid. God has a message for Pastor Rob, and Stimp will have to deliver.

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Villain

Screams erupted, the background cafeteria noises replaced with eerie silence as the lights flickered, then went out. Thunder cracked outside, and heavy rain pounding against the window took the place of the buzzing refrigerator. Stimp let his eyes adjust and looked around at the faces, terror written there in the tired lines, black eyes darting, edgy from the come-down. He moved over, looking for familiar faces as his eyes adjusted, then settled his gaze on the difference. The pastor.

One of these things is not like the other.

He was in the middle of one of the benches, seated far enough back so that he could watch the rest of them eat, but his attention was elsewhere. His eyes were on his plate, his spoon scraping greedily like he hadn’t eaten in days. A woman was to his left, middle aged with stringy blond hair that hung down so that she couldn’t see in her periphery. Between bites her lips moved, the bottom one jutting forward in a horrendous underbite. He had owned a dog like that once. Barley, the old mutt, hit by a train when they used to camp by the river.

Light poured in from the glass doors and the windows that dotted up the high ceiling in the lobby, but the sky was dark growing darker. Lightning flashed. The pastor spoke up over the gasps.

“Don’t worry about the dark. Phil is grabbing candles and flashlights. He’ll be up soon.”

He flashed a smile and swallowed, washed down his food with an amber glass of water. He looked at Stimp over the rim of the glass, set it down and stood up. Stimp’s eyes went back to his meal, appetite gone.

“He’s coming,” the man next to him said. Stimp looked and saw him twitch nervously, then scoot away.

“Hey stranger,” the pastor said, and clapped a hand to Stimp’s back. Even with the dulling effect of the pain pills, he breathed in a hiss of shock at the contact, the accident roaring to life in his body. “Whoa, didn’t mean to hurt you,” he chuckled.

He made his way around the table and took a seat across from Stimp. His hair was spiked in the front, carefully combed and gelled just so. Stimp got the feeling it wouldn’t lay down even under the weight of the torrential downpour outside.

“You got a name?”

Stimp nodded and pointed to the hospital bracelet on his wrist.

“Stimp, huh?” A chuckle, then, “That the name your mother gave you?” he smiled but there was something behind the words, a needle meant to prick the skin, bring blood to the surface.

Stimp set his fork down and looked the man in the eyes, the memory of the voice in the hospital room running through him. The woman on the bus, with her hissing. (You know that church?) Yeah. (I want you to tell the pastor something for me.)

“Your mother name you Pastor, or was it God who did that?” he asked back, and the man’s smile faded for a minute.

“God called me, so in a way He did name me that. Before I was called Sinner, Unclean, but I’ve accepted Jesus into my heart, and now,” he moved his hands up and down his sides, like showing off a win on a game show, “I’ve been reborn. I have a new name.”

Stimp grabbed a piece of turkey between his thumb and forefinger, squished it until clear juice ran down to the webbed part between. He brought the meat to his mouth slowly and smiled.

“Well thanks a lot pastor. For the food and the bed.” Stimp looked around at the drab walls, the gymnasium flooring. “But I’ll take my preaching to go.” And he stood, holding back a sharp inhale as his ribs breathed fire into him.

“No, no, no. Please,” the pastor held out his hand as he stood. “We haven’t opened the doors to the sleeping area. Plus, would do you no good right now. There aren’t windows in there, and in this,” he gestured to the noiseless lights above, the dark sky grown darker outside, “you wouldn’t even be able to see.”

He smiled, then winked before turning his back. Stimp didn’t sit down until he was back to his own table. His hands were clenched into fists, sweat gathering there, holding back the pain that was radiating now. He needed his medication, but not here. If someone saw it, they would take it from him, unzip his bags in the middle of the night, and boom.

The pastor was back to eating, laughing and talking with two guys at his table. They were young, happy to engage for a free meal. Stimp watched as he scraped his tray clean. The woman next to him was still muttering, her spoon turned sideways and oozing potatoes. The pastor saw it too. He looked at her for a moment, then around the room. Satisfied with what he saw, he reached his hand out, allowed it to hover, palms up, in front of her face.

He turned to the guys across from him, a giant frat boy smile spread wide. They both shook a little with laughter. The woman didn’t move, her eyes staring past his hand and at something only she could see. He snapped his fingers, the crack of it echoing across the room. A few tired heads turned towards him. She didn’t blink. He did it again, two, then three times, but still nothing.

He looked around, noticed them noticing, and that old smile returned, the one he wore during stage prayers when his eyes were closed. The heads turned back to their own plates and the pastor continued his conversation with the two young men. He glanced back at the woman, her hand still up like it was holding the spoon, and slid her plate over to himself. His spoon moved around the little squares in the tray like before, scooping hungrily, until he had cleared the whole thing.

“Hungry?” Stimp heard one of the men ask.

The pastor looked him right in the eyes and Stimp saw something familiar there. A glassy, smiling satisfaction that eclipses the addict when he’s just had a hit that soothes the wound enough to bring relief. If you looked deep enough in the eyes, you could see the hole growing larger, the hunger pangs roaring to life just after a big meal. Lightning flashed, and the pastor smiled.

“I always loved storms,” he said to the room. “The dark makes the light shine brighter.”

Stimp watched him as he glanced down at the empty plate, then at the woman beside him. That meal had barely been enough. His eyes were ravenous.