The Old Man

The following is the beginning of a prequel story to "The Great American Werewolf Story"

🐺 My werewolf novel, The Great American Werewolf Story

🤖 My Sci-Fi short with Plotagon

🎬 The Screenwriting Gift for authors that keeps on giving

I am working on a prequel story to The Great American Werewolf Story. It will not be a digital novel like The Great American Werewolf story was, but a regular story. I will share more details as I am closer to finishing it. The story revolves around the mysterious old man from The Great American Werewolf Story. I plan on writing other stories about characters from The Great American Werewolf Story. What other characters from the digital novel do you think I should write about? I plan on writing stories about Ferris, Peter, Huckleberry, and Jenny. And without further ado, here is the beginning of The Old Man.

You may be here because of the story about Sampson and his ordeal as a werewolf.  That was quite a story.  Yes, it was.  Well, in that story was a peculiar character simply known as The Old Man.  He was, how can I put it…?  “Different,” to say the least. 

That old Man’s name happens to be Jonathan.  And he has a story just like anyone else.  Some may call his story a folk tale, others may call it a tall tale, and others may call it his testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is a story nonetheless.

Although this story may have some fantastical, supernatural, or horrifying things, it is still a story that we have all heard at one time or another.  That is what makes the story relatable.  Some would say it is one of those stories “As old as time itself.” And the time that this story began was back when people called “Rock and roll” “The Devil’s Music.”

This story begins on a muggy Tennessee night when Samuel and Jonathan were barely in their teens.

Standing outside a blues bar, they stood hidden in the shadows.  With his rebellious mop of hair and eyes blazing with defiance, Samuel pressed his nose against the glass, drawn irresistibly to the pulsating heart of the blues.  Beside him, Jonathan, younger by a year, with a serious countenance that spoke of his budding religious convictions, hesitated, his internal struggle evident in his furrowed brow.

The neon sign overhead sputtered, casting an eerie glow on Samuel’s daring smirk and Jonathan’s worried frown.  Samuel, who would one day embrace the mantle of a rock n’ roll rebel, felt the rhythm of the blues coursing through his veins, igniting a fire deep within.  He dreamed of commanding a stage, his guitar an extension of his restless soul.

On the other hand, Jonathan was destined to become a Pentecostal preacher and was already under the influence of the Holiness movement.  To him, the muffled music seeping through the walls was a siren call of sin, the devil’s melody luring unsuspecting souls.  His gaze lingered not on the musicians but on the sway of the crowd; their faces lost in worldly pleasure.

Photo by Brandon Jean on Unsplash

“Can’t you feel it, Jonathan?  It’s freedom!” Samuel whispered, his voice a mix of excitement and challenge.

But Jonathan, torn between the allure and his deep-rooted beliefs, shrank back.  “It’s wrong, Samuel.  It’s the music of temptation, of everything we’re taught to resist.”

Yet, even as he spoke, Jonathan’s eyes betrayed a fascination with the scene before him.  The raw emotion in the singer’s voice, the honest pain in the piano’s blues, it spoke to a part of him he didn’t understand, a part he was afraid to acknowledge.

That night, outside the blues club, two paths lay before the brothers.  Samuel, his heart ablaze with the promise of rebellion and rock n’ roll, and Jonathan, wrestling with his faith and the undeniable pull of the music, he was taught to fear.  It was a moment of awakening, a crossroads that would shape the courses of their very different futures.

“We can’t listen to this.  I can feel the evil.” Said Jonathan.

“Shut up,” said Samuel.

“You can have an evil heart, Samuel.  This music might corrupt you, but it ain’t going to corrupt me.  You have an evil heart.  I’m going to cleanse myself by the blood of Jesus!” said Jonathan.

Jonathan ran back home that night.  He poured some olive oil on his head and covered his brother with the blood of Jesus in his prayers that night.  It wouldn’t be the first time he would plead for his brother’s life—no, sir, not by a long shot.  Pleading the blood for his brother would be something Jonathan would do throughout his life.  Poor ol Jonathan prayed until sweat was dripping down his cheeks that night.  His body felt like it was on fire from the intensity of the heat from his prayers.  It was the type of prayers his grandma called “warrior’s prayers’.

She always told Jonathan that one day, he would grow up to be a preacher and bring this world of sinners and heathens to the Lord.  Once grandma got started on the bible it was hours before she would stop talking.  Speaking of Bibles, she even bought little Jonathan a brown leather bible.  A bible that Jonathan has kept and still reads out of this very day.  He carries that brown Holy Bible with him everywhere he goes.  The leather is now worn out, and some pages are yellow and torn.  It is a bible full of highlighted and underlined words.  There is a bullet hole in the top corner of the bible, but that is another story for another day.  What is that old saying?  I believe it goes something like this.  “If your bible is falling apart, that means your life is held together, or something like that.  Hell, if I know”.  Jonathan carries that bible tucked under his arm everywhere he goes.  And he has traveled a lot in life.  He calls that old brown leather bible his shield.  That is now, but Jonathan was still just a young lad just beginning his walk with the Lord back then.  Jonathan was influenced by what people now call the holiness movement.  There are plenty of movements in religion.  The holiness movement was just one of them.  There was the Sheepherding movement, the prophetic movement, the end times movement.  I guess with everything being called a movement is why so many believe that the church is full of shit.  I reckon that’s the case.  Me, I ignore it all.  People are just people and sometimes people are ornery, and other times people are just ignorant.  I ignore folks and take my bread and wine. 

Now, Samuel on the other hand wasn’t interested in the holiness movement or any religious movement for that matter.  Samuel could give two shits about living a holy life.  Samuel enjoyed being a rebel.  One of his first introductions to becoming a rebel was blues and jazz music, or what white people called in those days “nigger music.”  That mixture of blues, jazz, and gospel music would later become what is known today as rock and roll music.  Samuel enjoyed the beat, energy, and feeling this music gave him.  His first introduction to it was that night at the blues bar, but it wouldn’t be his last. 

The feeling this music caused made Samuel’s little pecker hard.  And unlike Jonathan, who would pray for forgiveness or burn with the lust of hell when his pecker got hard.  Samuel liked the feeling of a hard pecker.  In fact, Samuel loved it, and when Samuel grew a little older, he enjoyed sticking his pecker into what some people called the promised land.

On this particular night of jumping, drinking and hollering at the blues bar, Samuel was invited inside.  Samuel didn’t know what to think of it.  Samuel had nothing against the colored folk; he just never associated with them.  

Samuel was surprised about how nice and friendly the colored folk were that night.  Samuel always had a fear of the coloreds.  It was drilled into him by Uncle Jeff.  Well, until Uncle Jeff ended up in the penitentiary.  But Samuel had never spent much time around colored people.  And Samuel concluded that colored folk ain’t that bad.  Samuel had his first taste of whisky that night at the blues bar.  He didn’t like it, but he would later love it.  A woman named Daisy caught Samuel’s eye, and he wanted a taste of her black ass, but he was too young for that.  But when Samuel would grow older, he would not only taste black ass but a whole lot of other things too.   But whisky and devil’s music would be the only thing Samuel would taste tonight. 

A blind black man was sitting in the corner of the club, which caught Samuel’s curiosity.  He was wearing a suit with gray hair and sunglasses.  He had a shine to him that stood out to Samuel.  The man seemed like something special, and I don’t mean special in the way people say retards are special.  I mean special in another kind of way.  He had a glow or shine to him, like he was from another time or another place.

And it was that shine that sparked Samuel’s interest. 

“Hey boy, you like this music?” said the blind man.

“I love it, sir,” said Samuel.

“Don’t call me sir; you make me sound old.”

“You are old,” said Samuel.

The blind man chuckled and wiped some sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Why do you like this music?”

“It’s got heart in a way that white music just doesn’t have.”  Said Samuel.

“You know that’s right,” The blind man laughed, “Music is a universal language that everybody can understand.  It doesn’t matter if they are black, brown, white, red, or yellow.  Music comes from the heart”.

“Is this the devil’s music?” asked Samuel.

“No, it’s not.  That old fool can’t create anything but trouble.  It isn’t the devil’s music, but the devil can use it.  “

“How so?”

“Did you ever hear the story of Robert Johnson?”

“Who?”

“Ol Robert Johnson stood at the crossroads and sold his soul to the devil so that he could master the blues.”

“You can do that?” asked Samuel.

“Of course, you can.”

“How can I do that?”

“You don’t want to make a deal with the devil.  That old cunning beast will beat you every time”.

“I ain’t scared of no devil,” said Samuel.

“You ain’t scared?  Well, maybe you should be.”

And at that the blind man picked up his guitar and played the song Crossroads.  Crossroads is the song about Robert Johnson standing at the crossroads when he sold his soul to the devil.