Biting the Bullet

This story never managed to find a home. I submitted this to over twenty magazines. By the end of the process, I learned that the story was indeed publishable. One editor informed me that she wanted to publish, but her magazine was going out of business.

This story starts out in one place then ends up in a different zip code. Looking back, I’d probably change the ending, but it is what it is.

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“Bite the bullet, kid. That’s the key to getting out of this. If you catch it with your teeth, the bullet will vanish. If you miss it, your brains will paint the walls. I’m pulling the trigger on the count of three, so time it right. You only got one shot at this.”

I nodded, feeling the cold steel barrel scrape against the bottom of my teeth.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

He pulled the trigger. The gun clicked empty. He croaked a bulbous laugh, sounding like a toad in an echo chamber.

“How stupid”, he quipped. “I forgot to load the damn thing.”

I laughed too. My legs were warm. Wet all over. I had peed myself.

When he ambushed me in a parking garage, he told me that he was a troll and I just happened to be walking over his bridge at the time. “No ever expects to meet a troll,” he had said as he taped my arms together in the back of my car. “But when they do meet one, they scream ‘bloody murder’. You’re different, kid. I bet you have part troll in you.”

I wanted to disagree with him but my mouth was sealed shut with duct tape at the time.

He snapped a full clip into the gun. He paused, smiled, then swiveled a desk lamp at me.

“See,” he giggled. “Like I said, you are a troll. We do turn to stone in the light”

He was right. I couldn’t move.

“Let’s try it again,” he said. He sounded eager to get it right this time. I didn’t want to disappoint him so I nodded that I was ready. We both knew that I was lying.

“One.”

“Two.”

A knock.

He laughed. He removed the gun from my mouth. He was all smiles.

“Lucky, lucky, lucky. Skin of your teeth lucky, indeed.”

I was warmed by his compliment, not wanting to be.

He turned to the door, and there in the blur of dirty fluorescents, I caught myself muttering a plea. A plea to Jesus. I stopped myself. Religion was the tooth fairy. The easter bunny. An absurd answer to a difficult question. I had sworn off Jesus and his cronies in college. To turn back to him now, in my moment of despair, was just plain hypocrisy.

The troll opened the trailer door, and in walked another man carrying a large box. He was dressed in bright colors – orange, yellow, even blue. His baseball cap was askew, almost dangling over the side of his head. He saw me. Tied. Sweat cascading down my face. Blood was on my brow from where the troll had thumped me. The pizzaman adjusted his hat, doing his best to ignore me.

“Pepperoni pizza,” he whispered. His voice was faint. Almost inaudible. It was as if he were in a library, not a run-down trailer. “Extra sauce. Comes to sixteen-fifty.”

The troll removed a handful of bills from his pocket and gave the wad to the pizzaman. Twenty-two dollars in total. I knew because it was my money.

“Keep the change,” he muttered. He threw me a sideways wink.

The pizzaman nodded. He did a quick count of the money, not caring about totals or tips. He did his dangest not to make eye contact with me on his way out of there. I avoided him as well. The last thing that I wanted to do was embarrass someone with my predicament.

The pizzaman left the small enclosure. I heard his steps on the trailer’s rusted metal staircase. Loud hollow clangs that filled the empty air with resolve of a dead sprint.

The troll was quick. Two steps, and he was out of the trailer.

Pop. Pop.

Giggle.

The troll returned, grabbed a fresh slice, and sat opposite me. His grin was wicked. End to end. His teeth, yellowed and worn, seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

“Let’s try again,” he muttered, taking a bite.

There was no hope. I was going to die.

He put the gun in my mouth. Panic ran up my spine like a lit fuse as the callous metal slid past my teeth, over the arch of my tongue, and into the darkness of my throat. There was no catching the bullet now. There was no way to make it unreal.

I jerked my head back, ejecting the gun with a mix of spittle, terror, and words that were not words. They were warped, drunk with fear. They bounded into one another. I was speaking nonsense. Only backwards.

He shook his head with a mix of irritation and disappointment. From behind pursed lips, I could hear the guttural anger rising inside of him.

My cheeks glistened with tears. I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

He brought the gun close. It blurred in my vision.

“Please God,” I exclaimed. “Take me into your arms. Quick.”

The gun never passed over my teeth. It remained suspended in the air, jiggering from the slight altercations of his arm.

Silence.

The troll just stared at me, mouthing my last sentence in a slight whisper. The gun lowered. Inch by inch. Until it rested on his knee. The barrel turned askew, pointing at a picture of cats playing cards. He leaned back into his chair, making it squeak in metallic agony. The gun slipped out of his fingers and onto the rug with a heavy thud. He had no use for it now.

“Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he whispered. “The little bugger has found himself God.”

He lashed out at me. I expected a volley of punches in my face, but instead, he clasped onto my ears and jerked my head towards the floor. He kissed the top of my head. All lips. No tongue.

For a moment, a new terror passed over me. The rape card. But my fear dissipated when I felt his tears drip onto my cheek. They were coarse droplets. Liquid sandpaper.

He stopped kissing me, and jerked my head towards his own. Our eyes were inches apart. His fingers dug deep in my hair. It was just me and the troll. Nothing else existed.

“Do you mean it?” he asked. “Do you mean to let God back into your heart? Answer me honestly, David. That’s a real gun with real bullets and I’ll be damned to show mercy to a heathen.”

My name. He knew my name.

“Answer me!” he commanded. His face was red. Contorted. He was a man oversexed, ripe with violence.

I felt foolish. Idiotic. Like the brute was proposing to me.

“God be praised,” I managed to say. My stomach wrapped around itself. The lie expanded. “God be praised because my good troll, I’ve come home. Back to Jesus. Back to God.”

It was a lie. But it wasn’t. I felt something stir in me. The block – the alienation – the lack of God in an empty world – the empty nights – the shiftless sleeps – the faceless women in so many different places – my broken parents – dead friends. I was an atheist with an attitude, but with my lie – a lie I had concocted to save my own miserable existence – the pain melted away. And there, in the center of my millstone – the heart of my albatross – was God. Waiting for me. Open arms and all. It was like Disneyland. Even better, though. Everything was free.

Tears bled down my cheeks.

The troll retrieved a bible from the dark corner of the trailer. He put his hand on my head. Mumbled some cryptic language that I assumed to be Latin.

I couldn’t stop crying.

He stopped talking and just stared at me as I continued to stutter tears. He was envious. In awe of my pain. My salvation. It was as if he were the prisoner, and I were the free man.

He undid my bonds.

“Come,” he said. His thick calloused hand engulfed my tiny one. “It’s time for us to celebrate.”

He walked me past the discarded gun. Over the cooling slice. To the trailer door.

“My son, your old life is dead in that chair. Your new one is behind this door. Are you ready to walk in God’s light?”

“Show me the way,” I managed to say.

He opened the door. The night was as bright as day. White light billowed from the treetops like angels keeping the abyss at bay. He pointed at the threshold of the door. I stepped through it.

I was drowned in applause when I stepped out of the trailer. When my eyes adjusted, I could see them all. Smiling. Clapping. My mother. My father. My brother, too. Back from deployment. Old childhood friends who I hadn’t seen in years. A few old girlfriends hovered in the crowd. Even the pizzaman was there. Also clapping and free of bullet holes.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

The troll squeezed my shoulder.

“You died when you turned your back on God. Now that you’ve embraced him again, you’ve been reborn.”

Strange men approached me with cameras slung over their shoulders. They swarmed around us.

“Don’t look directly into the cameras,” the troll whispered to me. “Pretend they aren’t there. You’re on the reality show, Saving Faith.”

I was lead to a small plastic child’s wading pool. I stepped into the water, not caring to remove my boots. Unseen hands pressed me to my knees.

When the troll turned to face me, he was no longer the troll. Gone was the stained wife beater tee-shirt. Gone was the malevolent bent figure. He stood before me, erect and arms outstretched like the Christ statue over Rio De Janeiro. A bright blue robe wafted over his figure. He was a gleaming snapshot of heaven itself.

The troll stepped into the pool with me. Thunderous applause. My head dropped from the sheer weight of it. The troll raised his hand high in the air, silencing the crowd. The time for soul saving was at hand.

“Do you David, believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and the salvation of all mankind?”

“I do,” I responded. My voice was electric. Sorrowful and cheerful. An emotional conundrum that filled me ecstasy.

“And do you reject the will of Satan, David?”

“I do. I do, troll.”

“Call me Reverend, David. There are no trolls in the light of the lord.”

Great applause.

“I welcome you to the fold, brother. I welcome you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

He lowered me into the water, submerging me in ice cold redemption. The liquid shot up my nose, forcing me back to the surface with a sneeze.

“Jesus Christ and all his glory brought you to be with us on Saving Faith,” he told me. “You didn’t win a car or a trip or even a board game. You won the ultimate prize. You won your own soul.”

“Amen,” I sneezed. “Amen.”

The troll took my hand.

“Rise my son, and take your place by God’s side.”

I rose. Reborn. Free of all sin, shining like the North Star. He gripped me by the shoulder and held me firm like the good hand of Jesus himself.

A blond woman, dressed in a strapless white dress approached me from beyond the light bearing an oversized cross-bouquet. The crucifix read, “DAVID” where “INRI” should have been.

“Jesus saves again and like always, so do we. Thanks again for watching Saving Faith. See you next week.”

A pause.

“And that’s a wrap,” someone shouted.

Everyone relaxed. Everyone but me. I kept giving the waterworks. Jesus had pulled the stopper and now it was all coming free.

The troll patted my back. He stepped out of the pool where a legion of assistants waited for him.

“Troll,” I gasped. My voice was contorted inside-out. I had the shakes so bad, I could hardly speak.

He turned to me and smiled. It was the same smile that showed me the essence of terror not so long ago. He offered his hand. I took it, stepping out of the pool.

“The war is over,” he said. “Welcome to God’s country.”

They swarmed over me before I could say good-bye to the troll. Some pumped my hand while others rubbed my head. Everyone kept saying congratulations over and over again. I was saved and on television to boot.

It didn’t last long. My brother disappeared after a quick nod of the head, eager to meet the game show hostess. My parents started with their bickering. Friends, drunk, gave me a nod. A business card. And they were gone as well. It wasn’t long until I found myself alone as if I were on top of mountain. Free from the corruption of my past life.

The lights blinked out. One after another. The angels went home with the press of the button.

I could see my car now. In the parking lot. Alongside several opened vans where technicians rushed to pack video equipment. They were eager to leave the site of my salvation.

I turned from them. From my car. From my wandering scattered relatives. I was one with God now. I didn’t need them any more.

I entered the trailer. It was empty of people for them moment, but I could see that the crew were had already started prepping it for transport. The cameras were now free of their hidden enclosures, placed side by side on a table.

An electronic rosary.

I sighed happiness as I ran my hand over them.

I sat back down in my chair still wet with urine. My heart was so light. God had saved my soul. There was now nothing to fear. Nothing bad could ever happen to me again. No more trolls to capture me and beat me. I had managed to bite the bullet, and all the pain, alienation, and suffering of my entire life had disappeared with it.

I picked up the gun. Still underneath the chair. It was heavy. I pulled out the clip. Bullets winked at me in the dirty fluorescents. Small crosses were engraved on their tips. I put the clip back into the gun, put it in my mouth, and pulled back the hammer with a satisfying click.

I was so happy. I achieved all that I could achieve. There was nothing left except my own corruption. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see the big guy. I wonder what he’d say when I showed up unexpected.

I pulled the trigger, eager to find out.