Skin Deep: Volume I

Copyright © 2022 by Eric Trujillo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/08/2022

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CONTENTS

About The Author

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Joy Boy

Foreword

Chapter One

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With his first novel, JOY BOY, Mr. Trujillo became a pioneer in a heretofore untapped literary genre, that of the gay, black, male detective. SKIN DEEP will not be the last.

Writer/photographer, Eric Trujillo, was born in southern Louisiana and educated in Louisiana and Mexico City. He speaks English and Spanish fluently and three other languages with varying degrees of fluency.

He worked for thirty years in various investigative positions, including twenty-two years with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), several of which were in the Uptown area of Chicago, where JOY BOY, his first novel, took place.

After retirement, he returned to, and currently lives, in swampy southern Louisiana, where this novel, SKIN DEEP, takes place.

Mr. Trujillo is the father of Jared, an attorney, his pride and joy.

Mr. Trujillo is also a fine arts photographer, specializing in flower portraits, landscapes, and the nude male.

A canophile, Mr. Trujillo has never met a dog he did not love but his special love is for standard poodles, which he has owned, bred, and shown.

Throughout his life, he has had seventeen (and counting), of which, Leo, a black male, is currently his only roommate. The others are always in my heart.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the victims of hate and of the Middle Passage; both those who made it across and those who did not. To the victims of slavery, Jim Crow, and the everyday racism that still persists in present-day America.

To the victims of homo-odio who have been persecuted from time immemorial in almost every country on the planet for being who they are and loving whom they were designed by Nature to love.

To the Black Bourgeoisie as it existed in 1950s and ’60s Louisiana, when I was growing up. They lined the barbed wire of segregation and restriction with velvet and circled around us like a herd of musk oxen with horns down and pointing outward to protect us youngsters from the ugly realities of the world around us.

They helped us understand that, despite the restrictions we faced, there was nothing we could not accomplish. They taught us to believe in ourselves and to strive to reach the top.

To my son, Jared. I did the best I could for you, and my sister, Iris S. who takes my ribbing in stride and gives as well as she gets.

To my oldest unbroken friendship, Carol Simmons, a honky-tonk girl in spirit if not in practice. True friendship does not know color.

In loving memory of my parents, the two tigers who protected and shielded me from all of the dangers that could befall a gay black, boy in 1950s Louisiana.

It is also dedicated to my two good friends who entered the year 2021 in good health but did not exit it alive, Mr. Christopher Todd Trant, and Mr. Russell Joseph Crochet, for whom race, color, class, age, and sexual orientation did not exist. Requiescat in pace.

ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My heartfelt thanks to two of the world’s true living angels, Mrs. Bonnie B. Martiny for her insightful suggestions regarding the course of my novel and for all of her help and support, and Ms. Eileen Augustine, who gave up many of her nights and weekends to sit with a dying friend without complaint when his own family could not be bothered. Greater love hath no woman (or man)!

I’m a Luddite. I’d still be writing with pen and paper, were not for Bonnie’s computer help. Or maybe on an old Underwood.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mr. Russell Crochet for his help with Cajun French and rural Louisiana Cajun life but he died too soon. I would especially thank him for suggesting the name of the settlement, Toe-Toe Town, which really exists in unincorporated Assumption Parish, Louisiana. Sleep on, my brother. May you rest in peace!

Mrs. Murielle Pierre-Louis also helped me with some of my French language quandaries. Merci, beaucoup, Madame la Comtesse!

Mr. Milton Wayne Franklin provided me with honest critiques of the excerpts I sent him. His opinions helped me keep my perspective. His insights helped me understand that the poor come in all races and colors and that poor whites are in the same predicament as poor blacks.

Also by Eric Trujillo

JOY BOY

Alex Ashby, a drop-dead gorgeous 22-year old male prostitute, incarcerated In Chicago’s Cook County Jail accused of three murders he did not commit, tells his life story to an African-American investigative reporter at one of Chicago’s three major newspapers.

The reporter is the only person who believes that Alex did not commit the murders and sets out to find the real killer, who is known by the other hustlers as THE NIGHT CRAWLER.

Alex Ashby tells a horrendous story of a childhood of severe physical and sexual abuse by his father and uncle while the reporter, with the help of Alex’s friend, Tom Pappas, trolls the depth of Chicago’s seedy Uptown neighborhood where many white Southerners have settled, trying to find, not only the killer, but the only witness to the crime, a 12-year old male hustler, and is quickly drawn into a nether world of murder and child-selling, and taken on the ride of his life in the infamous Uptown street known as Blood Alley, where even angels fear to tread.

COMING SOON

EXCERPTS OF REVIEW OF

JOY BOY

A NOVEL BY ERIC TRUJILLO

By

Bertha Jackson, Bookshelves Moderator, Online Book Club

(18, Sept., 2021)

JOY BOY by Eric Trujillo has many positives and negative aspects. Eric Trujillo did an excellent job with character development....Many of the characters are hillbillies and the author uses that dialect throughout the book.

The book is written in the first tense from the investigative reporter’s perspective and flows smoothly between the investigation and his interviews with Alex (the Mississippi hustler accused of killing three people, two prominent Chicagoans and a pizza boy). I liked that the author used italics and bold print to emphasize some of the events in the book...

I was emotionally affected by the debauchery, physical and sexual abuse, murder, drug abuse, bigotry, discrimination, and racism in this book....I would have preferred that he (author) had left something to the reader’s imagination.

The scenes where young boys are raped or willingly participated in sexual activities were disturbing because they were graphic. This criticism is subjective because it is my personal preference for books. Having said this, I do believe readers need to be aware of this content.

To be objective and fair, I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars because the positive aspects outweigh the negative.

I recommend this book to mature adult readers who want to understand more about sex trafficking or sexual abuse of young boys. I recommend that sensitive readers not read this book because there is gory content involving murders and rape....

{NOTE: The author worked for 22 years as a sex abuse investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and 8 years as an investigator of discrimination for the Illinois Department of Human Rights. Most of what he wrote is based on first or second-hand knowledge}

OTHER REVIEWS

I was attracted by the cover and title of the book and after reading and I’m not disappointed at all. The book discussed many important issues which should be addressed in this world.

By Rishi, 23 Nov 2021

I appreciate the author’s bringing up the issues which mostly get (over) shadowed or suppressed.

By Priya Singh 24 Sep, 2021.

I loved read(ing) this book...to know more about how the author tackled the issue."

By Elisa Joy Ocasla, 25 Sep, 202l

The book is a good one.

By Nazzy, 02 Oct 2021

Your review made me ask a whole lot of questions about the book. I can’t wait to satisfy my curiosity. I’m reading this book next.

By Elendu Ekechukwu, 19 Oct 2021

From the cover, it’s a colorful book written in a great descriptive style. Awesome.

By Humera955, 07 Oct 2021

Fantastic book. Written about something most of us know nothing about and don’t want to know anything about. These themes the author writes about are universal and right under our noses like rats and roaches. They only come out in the dark of night.

By R. C448, 01, 2020

FOREWORD

It’s my turn to hurl yet another brick at the wall of American racism/classism/homo-odio/colorism, and all of the other isms that make up this land of ours.

Ideally, I’d like to hurl the brick and hide my hand because I have never been very confrontational. At this stage of my life, I feel completely inadequate to confront this giant but the older I am, the more I feel compelled to try. I am alone, old, and relatively defenseless. Vulnerable.

Hell, I don’t even know if I am up against one giant with many heads or many giants, each carrying a huge cudgel with which it can smash me to bits, as it has so many others.

The Bible would have us believe that when David confronted Goliath, he felt completely qualified; completely adequate, and completely competent in the battle. But I’ll bet that that boy was shaking in his sandals!

The entire Israelite army was standing there in battle gear, ready for a fight. How did they choose a mere boy, a shepherd, not even a soldier, to go up against the entire Philistine army and its secret weapon, a giant named Goliath?

Did he lose at Rock-Paper-Scissors or did someone really, really hate David and pushed him forward with a simple challenge: I’ll bet you can’t fell that giant, David!

All David had was a slingshot and a pile of stones against one of the dominant forces of his time.

All I have is a pile of words. Stories that I can tell to try to get my point across.

I attempted to do this in my first novel, JOY BOY, but I was preaching to the choir. The message was lost on those who refused to read it because it contained such issues as rape, lynching, child physical and sexual abuse, murder, male prostitution, human trafficking, and gay characters.

One CIS (straight, for us old-timers) male I know told me he would not read JOY BOY because of the title and because there was a picture of a handsome, shirtless young man on the cover. He said he would be embarrassed to be seen reading a book with that picture and title. Still, those were the only stones I had to hurl and that was the only story I had to tell.

I am up at bat again with SKIN DEEP and although the message is the same, it is more in-depth. I think it will be well-received by those who actually read it but it, too, will probably also be lost on those too timid to pick it up.

As Popeye used to say, I AM WHO I AM AND THAT’S ALL WHO I AM! And the stories I write are my only weapons against injustice and small-mindedness while simultaneously trying to entertain. I don’t want to preach to anyone or become too didactic.

This country needs to realize that not all eyes are blue, not all hair is blond, not all skin is white, and not all love is heterosexual and that those of us who do not fit those criteria also have value, relevant stories to tell, and full lives to live.

Those of the racial, religious, and gender majorities should revel in the opportunity to see the world through different eyes, to take a walk on the wild side, so to speak, and live vicariously in someone else’s skin for a few hundred pages. Maybe they will learn empathy for others.

Isn’t that the primary purpose of reading?

CHAPTER ONE

The Story Ends

Skylarville, LA.

Summer, 1978

"Listen you faggots, I’ll tell you-all for the last time. We. Are. Not. Niggers!" he growled through clenched teeth, tossing the bound document and the draft of the magazine I had given to him onto the coffee table that separated us from him.

He pointed the gun at me. "He’s a nigger! I’m not, and neither is my family. I’m tired of people saying that about us! We’re as white as…. He looked around, trying to find a comparison. His eyes were slits with the come-hither looks of a king cobra’s. I was already ruled out. Andy was as dark as he was, and he considered the other two white trash," which, in his mind, was as bad, if not worse than being black. There was no worthy comparison he could come up with.

"George Washington!" he finally said. Burn that! he growled, pointing to the portfolio.

He emphasized each word as if it were a complete sentence and glared at us as if we were vermin. His ruddy face had turned puce. His nostrils flared out like those of a fighting bull. His mouth hung open like a broken screen door with spittle spraying from it like the spray from Old Faithful. His beautiful green eyes, now red and half-lidded, had darkened to resemble twin turds in a dirty toilet.

He paused for a second, looked us over like used cars he had no intention of buying, and aimed it at us.

I’m sick of this shit! Sick of you two, he said, pointing at Andy and me, making unannounced visits, accusing me and my family of being niggers, and my son of being not only a faggot, but a rapist! He looked again at Andy, snorted, and continued, "as if he’d lower himself to rape the likes of you!

"I’m tired of being accused of doing something I have no knowledge of or interest in; and these other two dropping by as if we were old friends, bringing their porgy stink and swamp weeds into my house!

Somebody’s gonna die tonight! He now spoke calmly but emphatically. He looked us over carefully, as if choosing vegetables for tonight’s salad.

"Eenie, meenie, miney, Moe!

Catch… a nigger….by the toe!

When he hollers, let him go!

Eenie……..Meeeenie….……..Miiiiiney……… Moe!

Die, Nigger!"

Just my luck!!

The vicious orange, yellow, and crimson sparks spewed forth from the barrel of the gun like curses from a madman’s mouth.

I didn’t even have time to blink before the bullet tore into me but in my mind, everything slowed almost to a standstill.

I heard the ear-splitting report and I smelled the acrid odor of the cordite as it issued forth into the room. I could see the bullet as it flew toward me. Although it traveled at terminal velocity, I felt as though I could have plucked it out of the air as it inched its way toward me.

I was so surprised he had actually pulled the trigger that even if it were not traveling at warp speed, I would have been too stunned to move. And who has ever dodged a speeding bullet besides Superman? And he ain’t real!

I watched it in horror and fascination as it spiraled closer and closer like a tiny football. Things like that just don’t happen to people like me.

I remember thinking of the Superman television series my brothers and I used to watch when we were kids. "Faster than a speeding bullet," the announcer always said. Is this as fast as he actually flew? I asked myself. If this is it, the only person he’s fooling is himself. My granddad can move faster than that!!

I felt the bullet’s hot tip as it seared my clothing and punctured skin, bone, and internal organs. It felt as if someone had stabbed me in the chest with a hot poker! I remember falling forward. I dropped down to the floor like a hard-working piece of lint. I felt my body thud against the huge brass and glass coffee table on the way down, scattering the magnificent, hand-carved gold and lacquer chess pieces that sat untouched atop it on a board made of semi-precious stones, but it was just the dull recognition that living flesh had hit a breakable, stationary object.

I also felt the shards of thick glass as they entered my body in about a hundred places, tearing my new linen shirt to shreds, but instead of pain, I only felt a cool, crispness as I slid toward the parquet floor and I thought to myself, I’m going to bleed all over his expensive Aubusson rug. It serves him right! The lights went out. All sounds ended. I was at peace.

I asked myself, am I dead?

I felt myself lift up out of my body and float away. I was exhausted. I was more tired than I had ever been in my life. This fatigue was because I had spent what felt like an eternity struggling to shed my outer shell; my body. My old self.

I now knew how a newly-emerged butterfly feels when it sheds the cocoon or a newly-hatched chick when it finally pecks its way out of its shell. I was so very tired, with no more will to struggle left. I only wanted to rest.

I looked around but I could not, or did not want to see if my other self, my original shell, was lying on Senator Catash’s floor as I headed toward wherever souls go after departing the only world they knew. As for the proverbial White Light everybody talks about, I missed it. I felt, rather than saw, everything around me.

When I did look down to where my temporal shell lay like a discarded tampon, my only thoughts were: "this is really wild! I just shed my body like a snake sheds its skin. That’s not me lying there. I’m too young to die!!!!

I was tired so I closed my eyes…and rested.

***

When I opened them again, I was on the deck of an old-fashioned wooden ship in the middle of a great body of water. There was no sign of land.

I had no idea of how I had gotten there or where I had been before popping up on the ship. It was disorienting, to say the least. Sort of like waking up in a different bed from the one in which you had gone to sleep.

The ship looked like one of Columbus’ ships, the Niña, the Pinta, or the Santa María, or maybe the Mayflower, the Golden Hind, the Bounty, or any number of other ships that had been launched from seaports throughout Europe over a two or three hundred year period.

As a kid, I loved to read about the ships used by the early invaders of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and all of the islands between them. The history books called that era the Age of Discovery. I called it the Age of Invasion. While I was no fan of Pizarro, Cook, Columbus, Cortez, Hudson, or any of the other money-hungry bastards who left Europe for unknown worlds, I was definitely a fan of the fantastic sailing vessels they built in order to accomplish the task.

I was not sure if I was standing on the deck of a carrack or a caravel and it really didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that I was the only one there. There was no one at the helm or in the crow’s nest, and no one manning the riggings or the cannons that lined the ship’s sides. Their tompions were still in place.

Where was I, and how did I get to …wherever this was? My senses told me that wherever I was, it was a real place, not a dream. I could hear the riggings as they groaned in the wind.

I could see the gigantic main mast made from one solid spruce tree as big around as six of me, and its smaller sister masts, the foremast and the mizzen mast. The first two carried one large sail, two smaller ones, and one pennant each. The mizzen carried a lateen sail. In addition, there was a small sail, the sprit sail, attached to the bowsprit. It was furled but the others were open and full.

I could feel the ship as it dipped and plowed its way through the crests and troughs of the rough sea, yet it was completely yare, and I could taste the ocean spray it spit up and over the deck.

From my history books and in the authentic replicas I had made, I remembered seeing large crosses or other decorations on the sails of ships from the Age of Invasion but these sails were pristine.

Also missing were the colorful flags and pennants that proclaimed the country or ruler under whose auspices they sailed. It was as if this particular ship was announcing that it was owned by no one and owed allegiance to no one.

Directly above me, I could see the crow’s nest, surrounded by the braided rope ladders crew members would have used to reach it. It now sat abandoned. Empty. As if the baby birds had fledged and their parents had moved on.

I could hear the groaning of the thick hemp ropes that lashed the sails to the riggings as they struggled to keep the wind from tearing the sails from their grasp, and I could hear the creaking of the wide oaken planks as they played their part in the intricate ballet of wind and water; dry and wet; life and death.

I could also hear the sea gulls cawing and see them flapping their wings as they landed or took to the air from the yardarms, and their larger cousins, the giant albatrosses, who floated lazily nearby but never seemed to land.

And I could smell the salty sea air and feel the fine brass fittings and the square-headed iron nails that held everything together. The brass had been polished to a high shine and gleamed in the early morning sunlight.

Cannons lined each side of the deck with their cannonballs stacked in neat black pyramids alongside, held in by low wooden corrals. Attending them were untapped powder kegs and lengths of corded fuse line, coiled like a Wyoming cowboy’s lariat.

Barrels of fruit, salted fish, rum, and fresh water also lined the deck, lashed together like sacrificial virgins to prevent their being washed overboard by a large wave or the rolling of the ship. A heavy iron anchor lay nearby, attended by its neatly coiled rope. Everything was shipshape, but there was no crew!

I felt as if I had stepped into a stranger’s unlocked home while the owner was away, as in the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," but unlike Goldilocks, I did not want to disturb anything or leave any trace of my ever having been there. I needed help. I needed answers but there was no one to provide them.

I looked toward the helm, one deck above me. It held steady, guided by some unseen hand. It was amazingly yare for a ship without a helmsman.

I took a seat on the steps of one of the twin Jacob’s ladders that climbed from the main deck to the bridge of the ship on both sides. This seat gave me a direct view of the ship from all angles; bow to stern and from port to starboard.

I kept a close eye on the ship from the fo’c’s’le to the aftcastle and I was determined to sit there and wait until someone appeared or the ship ran aground.

Fifteen or so minutes later, a door opened directly below the bridge, near where I sat. From it, a solemn procession of ten or so shabbily-dressed men appeared from below deck, led by a bell-ringer who shouted something in a loud voice in a language I could not understand.

Behind him, black-clad mourners cried loudly and rent their garments. Following them was a handsome young man with coal-black ringlets that hung to just above his shoulders and came down to just over his eyes. The curls danced and jounced around in the heavy sea wind. This man appeared to have been freshly scrubbed and neatly clothed, in sharp contrast to the other crew members.

The young man was dressed entirely in black. He was athletically built, darkly tanned, and had the most beautiful eyes, the color of amethysts. He appeared to look directly at me but did not take notice of my presence.

Behind him, a larger group of approximately twenty men appeared, led by a rag-tag crew of six, who carried on a makeshift litter what appeared to be a human form wrapped from head to toe in canvas and bound tightly by heavy cord.

The last man in this larger procession was maybe a priest or some other type officiant- but not of any religion with which I was familiar. He was dressed in a black surplice with three broad white vertical stripes down the front, giving him the appearance of a gigantic magpie.

On his head, he wore a high black miter trimmed in gold that kept blowing away in the strong winds that buffeted the ship. In the hand not used for keeping the miter on his head, he carried a thick black book. On the forefinger of each pudgy hand, he wore large red-stoned gold rings.

The men laid the litter next to an anchor and backed respectfully away, bowing their heads and forming a semi-circle around the priest, the cadaver, and the young man in black.

The priest finally gave up keeping the miter on his head and handed it to one of the pallbearers to hold for him. He read from the book he carried, anointing the canvas covering the body with oils from small vials he fished from his large appliquéd pockets while the young man in black looked stoically on.

The last item he took from his pocket was a large, crudely-made wooden square that was diagonally intersected by a thin piece of wood that, in effect, divided the square into two right triangles.

He broke the square at the intersecting line and gave one of the two resulting triangles to the young man in black. He placed the other atop the cadaver and then handed the young man in black a piece of what appeared to me to be leather cord. The young man accepted the cord and attached it to the triangle he had inherited, tied the ends together, and looped it around his neck.

He then bent down to where the corpse lay and did the same, attaching the triangle that had been placed there by the priest to the corpse’s chest.

That done, the other crew members moved forward to bid farewell to their departed friend. All shed copious tears as they paid their respects. Some laid flowers on the shroud while others pinned money to it, but the majority appeared to attach personal items or notes and letters to the canvas covering.

Most kissed their fingertips and placed a kiss on the shroud after leaving their offering. A final prayer was said and when that was over, two of the crewmen weighed down the body with iron chains and gently pushed it into the sea.

Most of the men wiped away tears from their eyes. Some cried silently while others wailed loudly, blowing their noses noisily on their sleeves or on dirty handkerchiefs they fished from their pockets.

The man with the violet eyes said nothing the entire time. He stood and watched the ceremony, the final farewells, and the disposal of the body over the side of the ship, into the sea.

When all was done, most of the crewmen hugged him in tight, sincere embraces while others shook his hand or patted him on the back in sympathy. He received their words of comfort with a pained expression. Tears flooded down his cheeks. He made no effort to hide them or to wipe them away.

Eventually the other men drifted away, returning below deck through the same door from which they had come, leaving the young man and the priest alone on the deck.

I was too far away to hear any of the words they had uttered but the young man knelt before the older man, bowing his head respectfully.

The officiant placed his left hand on the young man’s bowed head and, with his right, scooped another vial from his pocket, uncorked it with his teeth, and poured a tiny amount of the neon-green liquid within onto the young man’s head, making what appeared to be signs of faith.

That finished, the younger man stood and they embraced. The younger man returned to the rail where the body had been pushed into the sea.

In one fluid, elegant motion, he picked up a nearby cannonball for ballast, jumped the rail, and threw himself into the sea, leaving the officiant stunned, his thin lips making a great O.

***

Apparently I blinked again, though I did not remember doing so, for I now found myself on a narrow dirt trail. There were no footprints to tell me if it had been made by humans or animals. The air was cool and still. There was no sound of birds or insects. By the position of the pale twin suns and the still-evident moon, I reckoned it to be early morning.

Tall grass surrounded me on all sides for as far as I could see. The grass was taller than me by several feet. I stand over six-and-a-half feet tall and this grass was way over my head. It reached maybe ten or fifteen feet in height and was topped by blond tassels that looked like the tails of palomino ponies. The stalks looked strange, too. They were frilly, soft, and dark, dark green like giant carrot tops.

Up until now, the tallest grass I had ever seen was the sugar cane of my native Louisiana, and that of coastal Mexico, but this was much taller.

I started down the trail, to my left. I walked for a bit and found nothing but more grass and the trail continuing off to who-knows-where but getting smaller and narrower as I went. I came across several intersecting trails and pathways but they were smaller and looked seldom-used.

I walked for a while and returned to the spot where I first appeared in this place. I decided to sit and make a plan.

I recognized the spot where I had first appeared because the grass along the side of the pathway had been flattened by the weight of my body. It was incredibly soft and pliable. I decided to make this my starting point for any future expeditions. If need be, I could plait the grass into any number of things, ranging from a rug to a hammock. I decided I would now walk toward the right for five or ten minutes and see if I could find anybody or anything.

Before I could carry out this plan, however, I heard something or someone thrashing through the grass, coming from my right in the distance down the path.

At first I was elated. People! Maybe they could tell me where I was and explain how I’d gotten here. Maybe they could help get me back to someplace familiar-- but if I was starting from a place with twin suns, I doubted it.

They walked swiftly and in tandem, talking in low voices and only occasionally.

I could not make out the language but I knew that there were at least two, and possibly three of them. Or one crazy person with several personalities talking to himself. I always try to keep a sense of humor regardless of the situation. It helps.

One had a high-pitched laugh. All of them were male. I decided to wait for them along the side of the trail.

I tried to use the time prior to their arrival at my resting place to make myself presentable to them. I dusted off my clothes, buttoned buttons, and tucked in my shirt tail.

They rounded a bend in the path and I saw them for the first time. PILGRIMS!!! Or somebody dressed like America’s Puritan forefathers with the dark clothing, wide, white collars, funny hats, and buckles on their shoes. One carried what appeared to be a wooden shovel about three feet tall. The others carried blunderbusses and stout walking sticks.

They moved along the path at a fast clip. I still could not make out the language but when they got to within two or three yards of me, I stepped out onto the path and said in a loud, commanding voice, Excuse me, gentlemen, could you help me….

They took no notice of me, continuing on their way like a fast-moving passenger train. Had I not jumped off to one side of the path, they would have plowed right into me.

I followed them, beating with fists on the last man’s shoulder, but got no response. To them, I did not exist.

My first thought was that they were re-enactors like the kind one sees in Colonial Williamsburg or Plimouth Plantation, where the actors remain in character but interact with the paying public. These people, however, took no notice of me at all.

They continued on for a few hundred yards and then turned off the main trail to one of the smaller, intersecting trails, and to a copse of tall, old trees. These trees were even taller than the grass, reaching up as high as six or seven story buildings. The ground around the copse had been cleared except for some stumps of felled trees.

One man stood guard while the other two found private spots, laid their blunderbusses and walking sticks against a tree or stump, pulled down their pantaloons and copious undergarments, and proceeded to squat and defecate.

The numerous flies and other shit-eating bugs told me that this place was dedicated to that purpose. I stepped upwind a few yards and waited for them to finish.

When the two were finished, they changed positions. Two stood guard while the third man completed his business. That finished, they stepped out into the clearing and away from the smell. They gathered in a circle and played a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The loser frowned, lowered his head, and whined something in their language that indicated to me that he was not happy about the outcome.

The lead man handed him the wooden shovel. He returned to the copse, dug three holes, and shoveled spades-full of dirt over their leavings, then returned a few minutes later, wiping his hands on his pantaloons.

When they had finished, they bowed their heads, folded their hands, and prayed together. At the finish of the prayer, each said something that sounded like Go men!

I was close enough to them to notice that they still reeked from their morning evacuations. I don’t know what they had used to wipe themselves but it certainly wasn’t Charmin.

Upon finishing their morning prayer, each pulled out a long-stemmed clay pipe, stuffed them with greenish-brown leaves from pouches they carried on their belts, and sat down under one of the enormous trees for a smoke.

I cleared my throat. Excuse me, gentlemen, I began, most civilly. I’m lost. Could you tell me where I am and direct me to a phone?

No one moved. They took no notice of me and continued smoking their pipes, as peaceful as recently-fed felines. They seemed content to be there, smoking their pipes, their bowels and bladders relieved.

I approached to within feet, then inches of their unseeing eyes, touched each of them on the shoulder, face, or back. When that did not work, I touched each in that most private area. None even flinched. I then slapped one of them across the face and again, got no reaction whatsoever.

There was only one possible answer. I really was dead!! What other answer could there be?

The men finished their smoke, stood, and readied themselves for the return trip to wherever they’d come from. I’ll follow them, I thought. At least I won’t be out here alone.

The oldest man, a redhead with very pale skin, freckles, chicken lips, and pale blue eyes; who appeared to be in his early 30’s, said something to them in a language that was close enough to English that I could almost understand it—but not quite.

The others nodded their heads, stood, and stretched their lean bodies like cats in the sunshine. One by one, in the same order in which they had arrived, they headed back up the path, never acknowledging me or my plea for help.

I followed them closely at first. Despite their clumsy footwear, these fellows moved fast, taking the long strides of those accustomed to walking great distances.

Before long, I was falling back, getting winded, as they continued on. Do dead people need oxygen?

I had always considered myself in excellent shape. There was not an ounce of fat on me. I swam daily, worked out on a regular basis at the health club in my condo complex, and I played racquetball at least twice a week but these men were pulling away from me fast. I needed to speed walk to catch up while they, on the other hand, hardly seemed winded.

By and by, we entered the gate of a high palisade surrounding a settlement that included about a dozen houses, a church, and several other buildings whose uses I was not able to discern. Almost everything was tree-bark brown and colorless. No one noticed me and surely, if I were visible, they would have said something. I was a tall black petunia in a field of white calla lilies.

If this was a re-enactment, I thought, it was extremely authentic, right down to the smells of infrequently washed bodies and the stench of domestic animals living a bit too closely to humans. Mud and slop clogged the walkways and thoroughfares. Only a few homes had stone pathways leading up to them. Only a few had flowers or other signs of human beautification attempts.

Barnyard and household animals ran untended behind the stockade. Other, larger animals that looked like yak but with the tough gray skin of elephants that hung almost down to the ground in deep leathery folds, were tethered behind some of the houses or corralled behind neat fences in other houses, or hobbled behind broken-down or non-existent fences in still others.

In the center of the compound, near the church and beneath a lovely elm tree, the only tree I could recognize, a haggard woman stood pilloried and miserable while a group of four or five boys of various ages stood nearby, taunting her and throwing rocks and vegetables at her head.

A small chestnut-colored ram with long, spiral-shaped horns, golden eyes, and a big black spot on its back, chewed on the hem of her dress where she had soiled herself. A pre-pubescent girl attempted to shoo it away to no avail and to the girl’s consternation. I assumed the girl and a tow-headed boy, around four or five, were her children. They looked almost as miserable as she did.

There was a wooden bucket half full of tea-colored water on the ground in front of the infernal contraption and a boldly-lettered sign around the woman’s neck in a language I could not decipher.

The whole scene was surreal and much too authentic to be a re-enactment.

The men took leave of one another, using brief nods and short, clipped waves of their hands. Each started off in a different direction.

I followed the last man in the procession, who appeared to be the youngest, to a low, thatch-roofed hut, made of wattle and daub, at the intersection of what appeared to be the main street and a smaller cobbled courtyard.

The man took off his heavy wooden shoes before he entered the main room of the hut, leaving them on the stoop. Upon entering, he hung his large Pilgrim-style hat with its brass buckle, on a peg next to the door.

He then took from his pocket some unused dried corn cobs of the type he had used to wipe himself after toileting. That must hurt, I thought.

The man put them into a wooden pail that contained approximately two dozen similar cobs in a corner near the room’s front window. He used a large flat rock that looked like a piece of slate except for its bright orange color, to serve as a top to the pail, effectively covering the pile.

A large rat ran from behind the pail where the corn cobs had been stored. But for the bright neon-blue colored feathers on the tail and the emerald color of its naked body, it looked exactly like its brothers back on earth. The man picked up the flat orange slate-like rock he had used to cover the corn cobs and threw it at the animal. He missed and the animal stood on its two hind legs, hissed, and bared its long, sharp yellow teeth before it dashed through a hole in the side of the hut to the adjacent courtyard.

Through the open window, I could see several shaggy animals of various sizes and colors that barked like dogs but skittered along on a multitude of legs like giant millipedes, give chase to the rat as it made a mad dash for the palisade and the safety beyond.

The man looked at the hole through which the rat-like animal had escaped, muttered something in his native tongue, kicked at the hole, and then turned his attention to the spectacle of rat-like animal versus whatever the hell those other things were.

He smiled, yelled something that sounded like words of encouragement to the multi-pedes and then turned to a stoneware wash basin on a spindly-legged wooden washstand below the room’s side window.

From a matching pitcher cradled in the basin, he poured lime-colored water into the basin. Here, he washed his face and hands and dried them on a coarse white cloth towel on the stand’s towel rack.

He then took off his outer shirt, revealing a smooth, well-muscled, nearly hairless, pasty-white chest beneath a course, off-white linen undershirt. The trail of hair that began sparsely just above the belly-button and thickened below it, was the color of copper.

He chose a well-worn black book from a high wooden shelf on the wall. The word "SAMKTUM BYBL" was written in large gold Gothic letters on its cover and spine.

The gold leafing that had once limned the pages was now faint from years of handling by coarse, damp hands. He seated himself in a straight-backed wooden chair painted a muddy brown near the window and bowed his head to read.

I sat on the bed in the opposite corner of the room, trying to figure out where I was and what I needed to do to get back to somewhere familiar to me.

I must have dozed off while sitting on the bed, my back against the wall, because when I awoke, the twin suns were casting long shadows against the wall and into the room.

Welcome, Traveler, said a deep, male voice that sounded soothing, sensuous and friendly. A man had appeared at a side window that looked out onto the courtyard. He beckoned me out of the hut.

The homeowner appeared to be reading, unperturbed, but he had dozed off in his chair. The book he had been reading now lay sprawled on the floor in front of him.

Leaving the hut through the open Dutch door, I was only too happy to greet the handsome, tawny-skinned young man about my own age, who had beckoned to me. He was one of the sexiest men I had ever met.

The man stood in the courtyard smiling, arms akimbo, giving me the once-over while I eyed him back. This place might not