The Cleansing Trail

A story I thought up during my morning jog....

Greg stepped outside at four-thirty that morning, the temperature was much lower than the meteorologist with firm breasts, heavy eyeshadow, and gaping teeth had previously predicted, which made Greg even more excited for the upcoming eight mile jog.

Feeling blessed to be currently living directly across the city’s modified river canal, it would be a crime for someone in Greg’s peak physical condition not to take advantage of the two mile radius encircling the naturally discolored water and all the feisty creatures dwelling within and around it.

Greg felt blessed lately. His short stay in county prison reassured his meaningful value on life and the honorable code of ethics taught to him by his father. Everyday Greg awoke behind his cell door he carried a backbreaking weight of shame. His father would have believed he had failed as a father and as a man had he lived to see Greg under these circumstances and felt the same about Greg.. What made things worse was that Greg felt right at home in those police state conditions, even made several friendly associates that helped him cope with prison life, but in his heart Greg was not a prisoner; he could never succumb to such a mundane, overly supervised lifestyle. He needed fresh air, transcending daylight, and the ability to make simple decisions without asking for permission.

As he walked across the street to Lincoln’s Trail entryway made of vermillion colored dirt, outlined by side-standing bricks, which reminded Greg of the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz as green bushes and fully loaded Fichus trees cascaded the open field peripheral to either side of the bright dirt and rocky trail. By the time the dirt met the parading trail of pavement ensconcing the water, Greg had programmed his mp3 player to his wickedly motivational workout mix comprised of an eclectic variety of upbeat tunes ranging from groovy and soulful to hate-filled and speedy. Once his jams were set, he stuffed the mp3 player in the left pocket of his dark gray hoodie.

At such an ungodly early hour, Greg expected to be the only patron using the trail, but growing up in the barrios he had learned to always be prepared. Strapped around his waist was a knife holster loaded with his ten inch survival knife given to him by his grandfather when Greg was a boy. No one in his family ever went hunting, but Grandfather knew to always carry the right tools around with you, and his whole family were well aware what kind of socially cloaked town they lived in and just because they weren’t hunters didn’t mean they were not ever going to be hunted. The rules changed everyday. Greg began his jog.

He turned left where the Solstice Street met the river and left again shortly after, following the curved path, passing by fishing docks to his left and swing sets, slides, and sandboxes to his right; park benches were spread out all along the trail.

In the center of his right there was a basketball course adjacent to a shaded rest stop that could seat at least two dozen people. A weather worn canopy shaded the pavement laced quarters while wired fencing shielded any potential users from wildly flung basketballs. Across the street from all of that was El Estrella, the rough barrio where both of his grandparents had spent their own teenage years and where Greg visited his great grandmother Nana every weekend as a child before any of these neighborly amusements ever existed at Lincoln’s Trail – before Lincoln’s Trail itself even existed.

The kind of people that lived there now were the kind of people that Greg had spent his whole life walking around while empathizing with; the kind of people he spent six months with in county jail. They were the new generation of self-entitled, unethical thug wannabes. They gave real thugs a bad name. They were too cowardice to be real criminals and too stupid to be anything else. They were the lost generation that was becoming the utterly hopeless nation, thinking that the government’s welfare checks and Medicaid offerings equaled a king’s ransom and a low brow morality.

Greg hated them, but he knew how to use them.They begged to be used, goaded, and extinguished.

In fact, in a nerve alerting moment, about seventy feet before Greg turned left on Colon Street; Greg noticed one of El Estrella’s newly lost souls walking along the sidewalk. Greg startled the young man who thought he was the only one walking the park at this hour, and instead of keeping straight along the sidewalk, the wannabe thug dressed in a white jacket, black baggy, butt-sagging shorts with a matching black shirt, shoes, and beanie decided to step on to the pavement trail and pretend to stare out at the river in the chilly morning moonlight. This made Greg nervous, but from the way the wannabe stiffened his posture and tried being nonchalant with his purposeless business; Greg noticed the wannabe’s nervousness as well and kept on jogging.

Returning to Solstice Street, Greg spotted his usual, anonymous morning compatriot – an older gentleman who walked only on El Estrella’s side of the trail. The first three weeks that Greg had jogged around Lincoln’s Trail, the old man assisted himself with a cane. He would politely wave at Greg either as a gesture of kindness or simply letting Greg know, “I see you,” but knowing the neighborhood and the culture, Greg interpreted it as an act of kindness. It was the same kind of gesture his grandfather made to every person that walked past his house when he would sit on his front porch and absorb the scenery, appreciating life and all the little things that made life matter to him.

These last three weeks, the old man had forgone the use of his cane. Greg was proud of him.

When Greg made the left on to Solstice, he witnessed a new arrival to the early morning exercise group. Another old gentleman whose body looked haggard in comparison to the man who used to use a cane had just embarked on his exercise walk with a hunched over torso and rickety knees that made his steps seem painful, but there he was, pushing his frail body along in the morning’s cold darkness. After passing the physically delicate man on the trail, Greg continued on and noticed that Wannabe had moved over to the canopied eatery area next to the basketball court. He was sitting down; his torso slumped over the table top with his beanie-covered-head lying flat on its side.

Fucking waste.

Greg continued left around the corner of Colon with his mind still on the worthless waste of flesh and oxygen housing itself beneath the canopy.

Even in prison, there were wannabes that learned how pathetic they had made their lives; though many of the wannabes, it wasn’t completely their fault. They had been raised by neglectful teenage parents to rely on the government and other hard working folks to keep their greedy pockets full and their gold-toothed mouths fed. The more Greg thought about it, the quicker his pace increased.

Another thing he learned in county was anger management; how to control his temper when under the most infuriating circumstances. One bad move landed you in the hole, another one landed you in the infirmary. 

When he made his third turn at Solstice Street, Greg noticed that the old man that formerly used a cane was just passing by the basketball court as Wannabe was still loitering under the canopy. Meanwhile, the fragile old man was beginning his first trek down the other side of the trail.

It was with this fortunate timing that Greg slowed down to a walk, paused his mp3 player, and took out his earbuds. Wannabe never heard his footsteps or the unsheathing of his survival knife. The dumb bastard never even had time to lift his head from the tabletop before Greg slammed the ten-inch dagger through the pathetic slacker’s neck, straight through the wooden table’s surface. Unable to scream and too terrified to move, Wannabe’s blood dashed across the table’s surface. Greg could hear it pouring off the edge down to the concrete. He adjusted his stance so he could maintain pressure while avoiding contact with the blood. He twisted the blade inside Wannabe’s neck to ensure a quicker and slightly more painful death.

When Wannabe’s body stopped completely moving, Greg checked for a pulse (again, avoiding any bloody contact). The stars were bright enough to allow Greg to look into Wannabe’s eyes. They were totally devoid of life, not that there was much life to begin with. This trail was for people that embraced life.

Greg yanked his blade from the fresh corpse’s neck feeling relieved - one less societal leech; one less waste of flesh. He swiped the blood from his knife off on a clean portion of the corpse’s blood soaked jacket, checked for any signs of new walkers or runners, and when he saw none he completed one more turn at Colon and retreated back to the vermillion dirt road feeling rejuvenated and excited for the blessing that was a brand new day.