Lousiana Biker Magazine Louisiana Biker Magazine Jun2016 | Page 30

Perhaps Heaven: Aftermath
Story by John David Saxxon

Introduction by Mama S

Welcome to the first in a series of sneak
peaks of JD Saxxon’s second book of the Perhaps
Heaven trilogy. If you remember, loyal readers, we
ran a story about the man behind the first book,
Perhaps Heaven, back in March. We at Louisiana
Biker are privileged to receive excerpts from his
second book, Perhaps Heaven: Aftermath as it is
being written! While you’re waiting for next month’s
installment, pick up a copy of the first book.

seething just beneath the surface as the man dressed
in black stepped before me. I opened my eyes, lifted
my head and stared at him. He wore the collar of a
priest. He had a kind smile and spoke very softly.
The way I felt I was too irate to carry on a conversation with anyone, especially a minister. I had always
believed and trusted in God, but right now all of this
was too much for my faith to endure.

- Mama S

He extended his hand saying, “My name is
Brother Lewis of The Church of-”

To each ripple in time there is a unique and individual
destiny. . . .
. . . And for every destiny there is yet
another Aftermath.

I had rarely been tempted to curse and had
never been so weak or livid to be blasphemous, but
the words burst form my mouth without control,
“Well fuck you and fuck your Ch-”

Sarah Saxxon

I saw his shoulder shift, but the punch came so
fast that I had no hope of blocking or evading it. My
eyes shot red and my face grew heavy. The ground
rushed up to meet me. The priest caught me in his
arms.

As the warden spoke, I watched a man dressed
in black assist the prisoner who had been knocked
out, to his feet. He helped him maintain balance for a
moment and then he said a few words to him before
he stepped away. From the corner of my eye I could
see him going from one man to another in line. He
would speak to them for only a short time then move
on. The indignation deepened to a burning rage from
the insolent manner of the warden’s berated and demeaning words. My fists were clenched at my side so
tightly that the muscles in my forearms burned.

A convict standing down from me whispered
to the men beside him and then they all looked at me.

He said, “Don’t fuck with him, man, that’s da’
motherfucker that killed the judge and chief of police
over in Blight.”

I looked down and closed my eyes, trying to
dismiss the statement; I couldn’t. The memories I had
hoped would be a solace, were no more than a vivid
canvas of anguish and grief.

The memory fused to exasperation, the anger

two battered and dilapidated basketball goals.

to the top rack and let his anemic legs hang off the
side. Neither one of us spoke. He seemed to have

The bunks were aligned with the precision of
some inherent knowledge of why he was here. I was
grave markers in a military cemetery. The barrack had clueless, sullen and livid.
the dismal appeal of an abandon coalmine. I wore
The old man straightened his back as best he
the dingy orange uniform of a convict with a six digit could. He looked at me with a form of amusement
number stenciled on a white patch above the breast
that perhaps a child may have had when he learned
pocket. It was late in the afternoon. The prisoners
the circus was coming to town. He smiles with his
working the fields wouldn’t return until it became too gums for much too long a time to imply friendship or
dark to be productive. I was unshackled and I walked greeting.
to the far back corner bunk with the coward following
silently behind.

“Sit’in there, that’s a stupid play, boy” he said
with an inflection that didn’t seem to fit the situation.

A toothless old man, with joints ravaged from
arthritis, struggled to sweep the barracks floor. He

I didn’t reply. My hard stare spoke the lanwas bent forward at the waist with hunched shoulders guage he understood. He relaxed into his natural
and hands that would barely hold the broom handle.
posture and continued his awkward slow dance with
The scars on his arms, neck and face told a story of the the broom. I knew I was probably in someone’s bunk.
violent existence of a man who had spent his life in the It didn’t matter, I was eager for a fight.
brutality of the penal system.
©W. Saint Barnett/John David Saxxon 2016

I sat on the bottom bunk. The coward climbed

He said in a voice tainted with shame and
regret, speaking more to himself than to me, “My
temper…, I’m sorry.”

The warden called, “Trouble Brother Lew?”

The priest replied, “No sir, the heat’s just too
much for him.”
*

There were three cinderblock buildings side by
side with a lawn in between each one. The front of the
buildings faced the entrance gate and the main yard.
I walked in shackles, at gunpoint to the entrance of
the far building. The barrack was constructed with
the guard’s quarters and an open mess hall at one end.
To the rear the remaining two thirds of the building
was filled to capacity with rolls of bunk beds. A wall
of bars and expanded metal ran the width separating
the mess hall from the domicile of the main body of
convicts. At the opposite end of the barrack a single
steel door led to a recreation area that consisted to
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