The Villain

By rj Longren

The Villain was written before 2018. An alternative reality told from the edges of a militia group unfolding fears of the state falling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387935871

Book preview



theVillian cvr.jpg

by rj Longren

©2022 rj Longren all rights reserved

ISBN#978-1-387-93587-1

All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent.

Table of Contents

Forward/let it burn… 4

Weight …8

Insincere justice …35

Sacking retail giants …52

The faceless take the wall …59

flowing into the streets …64

House blanks …73

Epilogue … 107

Foreword

let it burn

I lit my joint off the smoldering embers of the courthouse downtown.  It had been empty for many years, decades possibly, I came all this way to see my hometown burn.  I’m ahead of myself as always and today is not any different.  The cool of the night wind hisses the rubble; I walk through the city looking for memories of a life I wouldn’t live.  I can hear crickets.  The cicadas back and forth, I’m at the pond not a duck in sight.  I’ll finish my smoke then I’ll tell you all about the days leading to this one.

None of it amazed me.  I admit I feel fairly smug.  All one can do is survive.  In the act of survival we evolve to withstand our conditions.  Silly creatures packing their world with comfort, is the act of survival no longer vital?  Do you really think Americans are superior? The greatest country on earth boastful with our weak educations, colossal debts and childish culture.  Democracy maybe once but we are not free anymore.  I do not feel free.  I have no say over my life’s work, it is a slavery to the dreams of lazy millionaires.  I have no say over my body and organs; a small group of men decide their fate.  I wasn’t going to lift a finger. 

Subtle changes have been taking place in American society since its onset.  If we are Americans at what point did we become American?  Is our identity tied with our Government? Can we not embrace the notion that our current is merely the longest running attempt?  I do not blame the ideals.  Strip away the ignorance with the pity and embrace the notion that all of it is our responsibility.  We made this torture chamber.  What once was a playpen to protect has become the threat.  If we are tied to the land we have taken advantage allowed our lives to cheapen the value.  The pendulum will complete it’s swing bringing us into another evolution.  Survival while feeling it burn down around me.  I can not save you.  I can not save an inch of myself.  In the pit of my belly the revulsion of torn up bits.  I have to spit this violence out, drop to my knees clear the tarry grime from my lips.  I smile I can’t help it.  It’s the emptiness that fills me with resolve.  It’s broken and the system beats down every thing it doesn’t understand.  Stifles voices, washes out over decades the painful marks of our abuse, it’s power hungry and paranoid.  If we no longer give it power, if we choose to starve the beast, we may only snuff out one string binding us in it’s clutches. 

How much longer will the strong minds remain under the strain?  I look at the generation aging under me and it’s numb wasting parasites walking famine overfed by products of fillers both in their heads, hearts and stomachs.  I’m ready to take my chances. 

I’m that voice in the ear of violence, I’m the choice you will make or  be subjected to one day; one day this shallow scum dripping from our lips and pores, it will drown us.  I’m not Justice, nor to be mistaken for Revenge.  I’m not so easily scrapped off or treated.  My powers of seduction, the flexible time slipping into their ears.  I once thought I was carrying the weight of the world.  I was mistaken.  To suggest I, one solitary person, could carry out such a feat. That’s absurd.

Every day I see a populous swimming in their misery.  Some numb to the numerous infractions taken upon those in their vicinity.  Blind, seeing only the bright flash of dreamy gloss thrown millions of times in our own faces.  It’s a digital world; my skin crawls as the electric age ripples leaving traces of me, jagged flakes I tore off, trying to escape the groping gulf.  A civilization poisoning itself, imprisoned by a morality based on the words of crazed ‘holy men’. 

It’s a joy to me. I can smell the sad sap of the weeping martyrs hoping that such ‘sacrifice’ will instill belief.  Their selfish act a final dramatic exit.  I’m interested in the survivors.  I’m interested in finding dignity in existence.  Passion instead of shame, every privilege I have I use to rip apart the notion of why there is inequality. 

Why is there injustice in our democracy?  It’s right in front of us we see it carried out on a daily basis, the privileged remain silent least they fall from favor.  The loud become cast aside as delusional.  The rest are busy entertaining each other to fight the misery of the painful poverty and conditions they face.  The looming threat of things becoming worse.  Americans have never had it so good it chimes in our ears as we become arrogant.  As we begin to treat the world as we are being treated. 

I wouldn’t blame any country for taking advantage.  Wrought with corruption yet some how out policing the ‘less fortunate’ souls unable to come to agreement on their own government.  Stepping in for the populous to defend their rights: it sounds heroic. It sounds like money to me.  It feels like an urban legend: America the land of millionaires.  Everyone I know is struggling to make ends meet.

Where was I? I tend to tangent off. 

I can see it happening and I don’t read the news or listen to any media outlet. I hear tragedy in their voices, grief on their faces but relief.  Relief that these things haven’t happened to them.  People feel safe.  Take such comfort in distance: what seems random is merely a slow progression in types of violence.  After all we have been at war since we set our feet on this soil.  No one is indigenous, the first welcomed the second but it didn’t stay nice for long.  Nothing ever does, but make no mistake we are at war. 

Weight

My mother named me Blackberry because she craved it while she carried me. Jams, pie, cobbler and anything sweet my Da said.  But Da never called me that and I never heard it without hearing the story.  Da’s been dead a long time and Mom’s been moved out to the country a while now.  I kept their trailer still in Grable’s  park, lived in it since Mom left out.  Everyone calls me Nine, it’s the name my father left me, he was Claude Nine: his father before him, and several generations back.  But Da never had any boys, there was only me.  I guess he thought he’d have more chances to pass his name on, or maybe he decided to be the last one. Da called me Nine, as if there were 8 others somewhere.  As if he was claiming me when he said his name.  Teachers tried to call me Nin or Nina but I wasn’t budging.  When Da died they begin to sing it sweetly as if to charm a beast.

Grable’s Trailer park lies off a fairly large suburb but it feels like there’s nothing around for miles and everybody hangs out at the strip club that Grable also owns: His name isn’t Grable but nobody ever bothers to pay him any attention when he informs us for the millionth time.  We get all kinds from the city, heading in and running out a few times.  It’s not safe much farther down the block heading into the city, but there’s nothing on the other side for miles.  Open desert I’m told but I’ve never gone anywhere besides the city.  I’m not even sure where mom went, she told me since I had a job, she was leaving she gave me the keys to the trailer and drove off in the beat up pick-up which ran for the first time in my memory.  It sat in the yard covered in a tarp until a week before she left. 

I’m thinking about leaving, I could hitch a ride with any of the truck drivers in here.  See America from coast to coast and every mile in between.  I’m not sure I want to, every time I watch the news all I see is misery.  Even the television shows are about misery.  I figure everywhere is here.  The same mild distaste of the masses around me.  I know Grable is always trying to out think his misery.  Mom used to sit at the table chain smoking cigarettes day after day waiting, I realize now, to be anything else but here.  I am waiting too even if I don’t know what or whom for, all the same.  I should wait here and not tempt my fate.  I can’t help take the notion though that all the unrest is worth knowing what was meant to be. 

I never sleep at night, after the club closes, I clean the place.  When I started it took until noon but now I can watch the sunrise from the end of the parking lot on my way home.  It’s my time hardly a soul is out and I could walk into the edge of the city ,it’s day beginning.  Sunday morning is the best time, I watch the many drunken and desperate give in to their vices. See them sleep the sabotage off, rising a little later