Deamons

Chapter 7 Get in the Back, Jack/ The Hearse part 1

Get in the Back, Jack! /The Hearse

The gifts want to party now. They rally around Strength who will have none of it. Besides being exhausted he knows he would have lost his battle had Anger not interceded. They move their attention to Hope. Hope will not celebrate either. He is desperately trying to communicate with the Great Almighty. The connection is broke and has been for some time now. Diligence assumes the thinker pose and ponders out loud. "How has a deamon touched a gift? Isn't it supposed to be like a nuclear reaction if they touch." He nor any of the other gifts have any answer for what went on.

The deamons are peeved. One of their own siding against them. "Total bullshit!" Envy exclaims. "We were having a good time too, finally," Addiction chimes in. They are all grumbling except Rejection. It got out of hand. He knew it. He needs a slow burn and with all these hungry deamons coming on in such a short time he realizes it will be hard to control them. What just happened cannot happen again. Let the gifts think Anger serves them, he can change that when he needs to.

Years pass. His mother is job being a union one has granted her regular raises. She is making more money than his father with great benefits. They move to a house with a bigger yard and lots of trees; actually, woods around. It could be a childhood paradise; except they are ignoring him. That would not be so bad if he were around kids that he might commiserate with. Many of these kids have families that want them and it shows. His father hates his job. He went to school to be a mortician and served an apprenticeship. That is over now and he is licensed. He expected life to get better when he did. He thought he would have more respect at work and be his own man sort of. That is not the case. In fact, he has less freedom at work. Before he could leave the funeral home early to go to school. The morticians he apprenticed under razzed him but it was friendly and playful he realizes now. He is their equal now. They are miserable lot. Their teasing him and having him want to be one of them made them feel better. Now that is over. There is no one to make fun with. They are looked upon as peons by the owners. Peons not just at this one funeral home, but all the funeral home owners view the help that way. He jumped ship thinking work life would improve, but things were all the same.

He hates being treated like a piece of the furniture in the building, a tool. Used and owned by another person. He served his country during the Vietnam era and felt lied to by the military. He was told college was the answer and thought being a funerary professional would bring him the respect he so desperately desired in society as well as his family. He did not even make more money then his wife now who constantly reminds him of that fact. She is the real power in their home. She hates working too. She wants to sleep all day and be served. She compounds his work misery when he comes home. Constant reinforcement that he is worth only a pittance. When he suggests he go in to trade work she quickly comes on board hoping that it might mean he will make enough money for her to quit her job.

Starke found puppy love. It is a big deal for him filling a gap he has inside. However, it is not the same worth like the love from a parent which helps so much with finding self-worth. Puppy love does not give him sense that he was brought into this world with love and has a purpose. He wants to be the big guy. The person the little girls who like him think he is. Anger is in him deep. The gifts and deamons might have thought the beatings by his mother had not affected anger deep down in the bowels but it had. Anger keeps himself pent up down there. Acting out against her would just make it worse he discerns. The attention from the girls brings with it jealousy from some of the boys.