Cardboard Caricature Christ

by Joseph Rutledge

He looked up from his chair wondering what the hell had happened to him, wondering how the hell he ended up like this, alone in his wooden shack of a home, all decay and cold, all desperation and madness. No rosebushes or rainbows. He can hear the termites gnawing at the plywood, tearing into the siding; he secretly hopes that one day they will come for him, his wooden heart. He had a wife once and he said to her straight, looking at her with sincerity and sanity, he'd said, nothing you know can be right unless everyone you know is alone.

He said that and the next morning she was gone, she left a note but we all know what it said, no need to explain, there are no secrets here.

He watched the flame from his fireplace flicker and dance and the light bounce off of his cardboard caricature of Christ. He picked it up three years ago at Bill's Flea Market the day after his wife left him. He liked Bill. He didn't want to watch Bill die of AIDS, to watch all of his friends abandon him, but he did. He wasn't afraid to touch his sheets and his frail and pierced skin. He stood by him and read stories, answered phone calls, despised himself, wished he was the one in that bed, utterly alone and frightened, waiting for the angel of death to come and whisper in his ear. But it wasn't him, it was Bill and that was just one of those things he had to live with, like everything else.

Sometimes, now, he throws his bottle of Vodka into the fire when he tells himself he has imbibed too much, he has had his fill for the night. If he keeps it around he will drink more and in the morning he will know what it is truly like to be in hell, so he throws it and the flames explode into a giant ball of flame, clean, pure. Really, though, the real reason he does it, the reason he would never tell another living soul is that he is trying to catch Jesus on fire.

He's trying to watch the idol burn. He is trying to watch all of his pain and anger burst into flames, that's the real reason. It never works, though. Christ just sits there and smiles back, a deceitful smile, like he is commanding angels to torment the depths of his soul and destroy his inner-being.

Of course, most people would say that it would be easier for him to grab the lighter that he uses to chain smoke his cigarettes, strike and set fire to the cardboard figure, but what would be the challenge in that? What would be the fun? So he positions the idol closer and closer each night, he splashes Golden Grain and he sprays WD-40 and any other flammable liquid onto the fire. His hands are burnt, his eyebrows singed, and his house always smells of the burnt crack smell of hair on fire. Like when his step-mother would put too much hairspray on to go to work at the diner, she would light her cigarette over the gas stove before she left and poof! Just like that or maybe it was the smell of crack, really, how can you tell about these things? She was just that type of person.

But nothing ever happens, as if the cardboard is impervious to flame and destruction, but he will keep moving it closer and closer every night, and he will use gas and kerosene. He will get a little braver, just a little more courageous, and one day, one day soon, the cardboard Christ will go up in flames, a giant ball of fire. It will spread to the curtains, to the ceiling, to the chair, but he will not get up, he will stay, and in doing so, as his skin melts from his body into a puddle on the ground, he will be liberated; free.

He and his shack of a home and his Cardboard Caricature Christ will explode into a giant ball of fire. Simple, clean, and pure.

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Joseph Rutledge was born and he will die. He wants everyone to get over it, move along. There is nothing to see here, no secrets, just move along.