Cold night. Shitty mood. Detroit. A lethal combination for whichever testosteronewrought bastard decides to cross me tonight.

My sister's words ring callously in my ears; she'd called because Mom and Dad were too scared to even talk to their criminal son. "Until you drop the job, you can't come home." What a crock of shit, like I'd want to go home anyways. Incest-driven redneck hellhole of a town, I'd rather spend years here in Detroit than go back there. Shaking off the thoughts, I focus a little harder on finding somewhere to lose myself. Right, left, walk three blocks, right again, hang a left on the three-way intersection. Doesn't mean shit to me, I'm in a part of town I don't recognize, and that's just fine with me. The night was always my only true friend; it would deliver me to the morning, safe and sound as always. --I swear, sometimes when I walk the streets at night I'm invisible. People gaze through me as they hail buddies and strangers alike, fueled by liquor and the need for companionship. Even the hookers don't see me: five hundred dollars and a lonely boy, invisible. I just blend in with the surroundings, a human chameleon, I guess. It helps in my line of work, but damn it hurts. I walk down the middle of the street, and cars drive straight on, regardless of if their mirrors should clip my extremities in their haste to get wherever they were supposed to be thirty minutes ago. What's my lesson? Look right through me, look right through me...

Numbed fingers run down cold steel like raindrops drip, plip-plopping against every surface as they fall like God's tears, Our Father mourning for his lost children who dishonor and disgrace his likeness with every substance and fashion known to man. And I, the alleyway prophet, stand motionless on a street corner amidst filth both human and physical. The shepherd lost along with his flock, afflicted by sexually transmitted infections and vice, dog killing dog for

scraps and bones. Most folk don't know the real truth, the Truth with a capital 'T.' The Truth that echoes off fire escapes as the good city folk lay asleep in their beds, the Truth that can be found in every birth and every death. God has already left us; as orphans we stand before a higher reckoning, we fend for ourselves in an impossible struggle for righteousness. The barrel chilled like ice feels marvelous against my fevered forehead; I bet the bullet would be even cooler, would perhaps rid me of this madness. Kneeling in the center of a four-way intersection, the last prophet prepares to join Christ, Muhammad, Moses, and all others before him. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name... *** Cars continue to swerve past the huddled mass in the road, paying it little mind as yet another pothole in the highway of America. Shaking and sweating, eyes bulging with the fevered madness of divine revelation, Kobay knelt against the still-warm asphalt, a bone-chilling 9-mm held firmly within his right hand. "They must listen, they must learn.." Repeating the mantra, over and over, once then twice and again, he slowly stood up, extending arms and throwing his head back to the smog-ridden night sky. "And I will strike down upon thee with an unholy vengeance unseen since the days of old, the Father will chastise the children like a lion does the lamb, blood shalt be spilled and lives wilt be lost. Only the pure will remain, led by the asphalt prophet of New America. This is holy war, remember thy Father and thou wilt be spared." Words tore from his throat, flying into the night sky, for the briefest moment over-shadowing all sounds of traffic and pedestrians, as Detroit fell silent to the ranting delusions of a religious soldier.

Screaming, raving, religious tripe spills from every orifice as he stands stock-still in the street; crazed eyes pouring images of virgins and crosses, men and women drinking and eating

from the body of another. Cannibalism in the name of Our Father, between the visions there can be seen two bright lights growing increasingly stronger, the two tunnels of Salvation and Damnation quickly approaching though he still had life yet in his bones. Frowning, he spoke only to find more proclamations spilling from his tongue, his own mind locked away by the opiate of faith. "Brothers and sisters, let us not live each breath in fear, embrace Allah and see the Truth taught from the burning bush. Walk over waves and turn staffs to serpents, God has power beyond vision nor imagination. Feeble minds comprehend only what they see, honest hearts understand far more than that. Faith is far more important than knowledge, for while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, faith points to all we have yet to discover and create." The gun barrel finds the temple just as the beams become all-too-real, the headlights of the red Hummer breaking through visions and hallucinations at 75 miles per hour.

Like the staff of Moses, the cold metal death that rested in my hands split and hissed, defiant against the hurtling tons of steel. Sliding forwards, it bit me on my foot, enlarged fangs easily sinking through the suede material of my black Merrells. Unbalanced from pain, I fall backwards, the vehicle just barely driving over me not entirely clearing my head, the world explodes into bright colors at the contact of steel bumper versus human skull. Eyewitnesses interviewed later could hardly retell the story, trying to convince police and emergency personnel that they weren't actually crazy. The kid had just stood there in the street, screaming and raving while waving a shining gun in his hand, yet when the car came he shot himself in the foot and fell backwards surviving by mere tenths of a second. The police shrugged and dropped the case, the boy was unconscious and there was no motive, the gun was licensed and perfectly legal. Bandaging him up, the ambulance drove lights off to the hospital, taking him into the Emergency

Room for head trauma tests. Running his identification through the system; no contacts, no family, there was no one to tell that Kobayashi Roy was potentially brain-dead in a public hospital in Detroit.

Wake up, fight the sluggish hands of the morphine, see the bright lights again and panic. Look closer and see the lights hide behind cloth, rip off the bandages and see the new world, a sterilized hospital room of machines and medicine. Shiver in the gown, hear the rattling and see the various IV's digging into your arms, hear nothing else. Alone, you got to think, got to plan, got to escape. Can't reach the masses from the bed, can't heed God's call, can't smite the wicked. Grab the metal bar, pull yourself up, ignore the dizzy waves and screaming pain. You'll be alright, have faith. Rip gauze and plastic tubes from your body, stand only to fall, stand twice more before staying upright. Strip off the gown, find dirt-stained jeans and the doctor's spare coat, get dressed and peek into the empty hallway. Three a.m. is a dead hour even in the head trauma ward, creep to the stairwell exit, look around nervously before you step out the door.

Fuck. That's the worst word that comes to my mind, the first description of how I feel. As more consciousness slowly seeps in, I realize that I'm now lying at the bottom of a concrete stairwell, rough estimation is I fell seven flights. The Doctor feared head trauma before this, now it's only a certainty. Yet, there are nagging voices at the back of my mind, new ones that argue that I'm just fine. What would this man of science know? He is no man of God, he knows nothing of God's creation. I am fine, just weak. I must be strong, so that I may serve my Father and do justice to his image that I am made in. I can't help but groan but I get up, staggering out of the ground-level exit, lurching out onto the cold Detroit streets looking more like a bum then

I'd ever in my life. My name is Kobayashi Roy, that's what the identification in the wallet in my pants say, more than that I can't say. I am a believer, a man of God. And I shall bring righteousness to these streets, the likes of which none have ever seen. In our Heavenly Father's name I pray, Amen.

For days on end the crazed prophet raged on against Lucifers toils, standing upon a overturned milk carton he preached to those who passed by, ignoring all physical needs in order to further deliver his message. Driven by the insatiable hunger of faith, he preached of the apocalypse and Detroit becoming the modern day Sodom and Gommorah. His voice came and went, vocal cords raw and blistered as he spoke always at straining decibels, growing weaker daily as fatigue and hunger tortured his body. Dropping weight like the proverbs he spat, his body began to grow emaciated as it fought against the changes, his unconscious will to survive striving to push him further towards survival. Tattered clothes smelled as his natural odors became more and more prominent, no longer cleansed and masked behind soap and colognes. The most rank smell however could not be traced by the nose, it resided within his skull, infection eating away and altering the gray matter as it spread through each lobe forcing every synapse to contort to meet its demands. Every sermon grew weaker and less comprehensible, they echoed of aliens and government conspiracies now, declarations of racial superiority and salvation for the violent. Kobay was dying.

Everyday I can feel the poison growing, the microbes that serve as Satans weapons creeping to silence the truth, the man who stands as the antidote of his daily on-goings. Its a pathogen of evil, that filters through the blood stream and disables the immune system quicker

than even the HIV/AIDS virus. Everything is silent now, though everyone and everything continue to move by just like any other day, I lost the ability to hear three days ago. Yet still I scream, I can feel the vibrations tearing at my throat as silent prophesies of doom rip from my chest trying to warn even just one innocent of the horrifying future that is coming. Most folks dont even glance at me anymore, so used to my presence in their daily routine that they dont hear it, dont see me. Ignored I still rage on, clutching desperately at the cold spare change thrown by aloof samaritans hurrying towards work. They dont care, but that little act of kindness helps them sleep at night. I stash all the change I can get, finding men in long coats in the nighttime alleys, exchanging filthy rags of rusted coins for fresh plastic sacks filled with that beautiful white powder.

You cant fight the fire that courses through your veins, the hallucinations only give body to the voices, demons walk the streets boldly skipping from shadows as the world spins around. The Devil is among us, he hides in the smiles of policemen and the clergy, alternately contemptuous and obsequious grimaces attempting to mask disdain in courtesy. You have to remember the bugs arent real, keep your fingernails bitten down to the cuticle so you dont bleed too death. Remember that poor girl, died alone behind a dumpster screaming about insects swarming underneath her skin. You cant hear the obscene insults from the drug dealers and honestly you dont care, even Gods strongest warrior needed fuel. The rotten leftovers and handouts you can find dont sit well in the upset stomach, the infection that first manifested in your brain has promptly moved its way through the blood stream now sitting comfortably in the lungs and stomach lining. You cant hold food down, but you need something to give you energy

even when the cold fingers of Death begin to pull and grab at your eyelids. Hold on kid, sniff that next line, push the reaper a little further away.

The Detroit City Police Department picked up Kobayashi Roy at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, passed out curled up on his milk crate and mistaken for dead. The emaciated and broken body inspired pity in the female Hispanic officer, who took the young man to the City Hospital rather than simply throwing him in the clink without asking questions. That he was under the influence of drugs was unmistakable, however there was something deeper to the teenager who stood on street corners preaching of doomsday and aliens. With no identification other than his picture and name printed on a small stock card, the officer posted notifications asking if any had any information on the boy. Shot in the dark, city of that size yet one always has to follow the motions. A week went by as he continued to rot in the hospital, the emaciation only worsened by the detoxifying from the cocaine. When conscious he begged to be killed, when asleep he would thrash out, crying and sobbing for unnamed family members.

Im a prisoner. They wont let me go anywhere, they wont let me refuel. I sit here day in and day out, tethered to this infernal hospital bed, back wracked with pain as the thin sheet hardly compensates for the cast iron grille that makes up the frame. I can feel every spring pressing in, every second brings another tinge as painful as the last, I can hardly twitch any more, the doctors say that I am dying. I have an unknown virus that is attacking every vital organ in my body, it is the reason I cannot eat and the reason I am hallucinating. They refuse to accept the obvious, that the disease is an agent of Lucifers, crafted solely to silence me from spreading the truth. They use big words like head trauma and emaciation, shushing me like a wayward child

even as I see the Devil laughing in their condescending smiles. Sweat drips despite the airconditioning, every joint aches as I long for my beautiful white powder; the only thing that seemed to coexist with the pathogen enough to keep me alive. There is a pretty Latina detective trying to help me, she said she is trying to find family members or friends who can fill in the blanks of my past, but I dont think it will work. There isnt anybody out there for me, they would have come and saved me by now. God would have delivered me to them. But I smile and nod hopeful, because she is an honest woman and a true Christian.

Who could say theyd ever met a drug-addicted, homeless religious fanatic with an unknown virus eating away at their body? Now who can say that theyve met one who is only eighteen years old? You could try and chide me, wag a finger for ignoring protocol and offering these services for the patient and prisoner, but it would fall on deaf ears. There is something more to this Roy, a story untold that needs to be understood. That he is unwell is obvious, even if we were to simply charge him I doubt that he would actually serve time in prison. He would most likely be committed to an asylum, left to rot in a straitjacket never again to experience compassion or comfort. Ive pored over the reports, searching for runaways and abducted boys matching his description, and there is nothing. He obviously left home willingly and with consent, or there was never a family to notice he was gone. I searched the last name, crossreferencing with a census and his most likely ethnic heritage. We found a match in Southern Indiana, Im still working on making solid contact, if nothing else Ill drive down on Monday and make a personal house call. Im not going to give up, Lt. Ortiz out.

God its a long drive to Detroit. Keep your hands on the steering wheel, eyes on the road. Its no use trying to focus, but try to go through the motions and hope it ends well. I wish these tears could stop, I wish this heartbreak would heal; but those only happen in time, time I may not have. What was God thinking, bringing news such as this at such a late hour; why would He allow my brother to suffer such for so long? And now hes sick, so sick the doctors dont have a clue what to try; his suffering so acute even the morphine wont numb the pain anymore. It had been a beautiful day until the police detective showed up, Lt. Ortiz or something like that. The beautiful Mexican woman had solemnly informed the family that their only son was currently laying in a hospital ward in a public hospital in godless Detroit. Hallucinating and fevered, hed contracted an unknown virus that was slowly eating away at his brain and every other critical organ within his body. As always shed been sent as the diplomat, assess Kobays state and smooth over the relationship between parents and son before they showed up at his bedside. Pedal to the metal, every second is wasted on this never-ending road.