Sarcasm Alley

It had been a time of infamy. Every paper, every media outlet in the world carried the deliciously savory story: "Famous Assassin Caught Naked!" In a world of choking liars, the story of a nude man in a drive thru was titillating enough but make the perp a world class assassin and it's an editor's headline dream come true. Before the arrest, few were those who knew the name Goupil, afterwards, few were those who did not. "I guess he was trying to show off his gun," snorted a late night comedian - and the criminals of the world laughed.

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"Behold! I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."
- Revelation 16:15

The nightmares were gone. The feeling was gone. The charade was gone. Why wasn't he gone too? All that had ever been, gone in the twinkling of an eye. When planning a precision hit, one always has a plan B, an escape route if things go wrong. But Goupil had no plan B for being stripped of his identity.

Stubbly faced, Goupil rolled out of bed in a bedroom that spoke nothing of himself - in a condominium that spoke nothing of its owner. He proceeded to the shower stall, swim trunks on in permanent defeat. He did nothing naked now - ever. It was a personal vow he'd made to himself, at least one item of clothing on at all times. In never exposing himself, Goupil hoped to find salvation.

He hadn't learned his lesson yet.

***

With his Icarus wings melted, Goupil sat stranded in a darkened SUV at a nearby park on a burgeoning Spring day. Lazily, his eyes gazed upon the dancing shadows on his hood as the wind and trees partnered in playful chaos, the warm weather drawing in as winter's cold clung to a hopeless fate. What use the world for a recovering assassin, a waster of life? "Or is there no place for me anywhere?" he sighed. On a whim, he decided to sell this stealth mobile of his, it belongs to a past life.

Strange how life can turn on a dime! Had it been inevitable all along? To float between the responsibilities of heaven and the torments of hell was the one guiding force of his life: no love, no hate - a serenity of nothingness. But that was revealed as a madman's dream and the true canvass of his life remained blank. After a lifetime of avoidance, time came to paint his true self at last.

Goupil had hoped to escape life before that moment arrived.

A lifetime of hiding

***

In America - the country of Goupil's arrest - a flasher engenders many times the outrage of a mere killer. The Frenchman chafed at his branding of "sex offender". He reviled the court: "I no rape anyone! I no molest child! You treat me like goat fucker! What is wrong with you people?" That's when Goupil found out assassins come in many forms and take life in many ways. Beware a bad man in robes, all his deaths are thrill kills.

The mandated therapist, seated securely in the knowledge of her moral superiority, sat facing the foreign barbarian and his twisted sexual mores. She explained to the heathen how the girl he exposed himself to was irreparably damaged and likely could need counseling for years to come. Like a dug in tick, she patiently determined she was to bring light to his darkened soul. Goupil balked at facing this Mad Hatter.

"But she laughing whole time! Big smile on her face. She peek of own free will!"

"She's too young to know better. That kind of exposure can damage a young mind's psyche."

"Exposed to what? I'm man! We all have one! What she do on wedding night? Wear blindfold?"

"Sir, it's a matter of consent."

"So I say, 'Hey you wanna see dick?' first that make it OK?"

"No, she cannot legally view a penis at her age. We have laws in this country."

"You joke, right? Pull dumb Frenchman's leg? America lead world in teenage babies! How you think baby get in them? Tooth fairy?"

"It's because of our high rate of teenage pregnancy we need these laws of repression. We protect our children here."

"Then go arrest horny teenage boyfriend!"

"Sir, it's your own sickness we are dealing with here today. Penile exposure is a serious offense and I don't think you realize the gravity of what you did. Your mind is warped and we need to fix it."

"Mon Dieu! I say same to you!"

Despite his brave bluffing, Goupil inwardly wilted in the face of his Salem prosecutor. Like a spaceman whose tethering line has snapped, his hands reached out for something to grasp but found only emptiness, drifting further and further out in deep, cold space. His life of illusion gave him no real guideposts to hang onto, the devil's laughter in his ears at his realization of futility. All this time thinking himself the "smart one" collapsed into a harrowing black hole of despair. Is there any coming back?

***

Goupil didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before, but the blankness of his condominium embarrassed him. No magazines, no pictures of interest upon the wall, no books of passion - just simply his jailhouse Bible. He'd taken the warning of the naked man in Revelation as a personal admonition. Could he find true guidance in this book called The Word? He did not know - but anything was better than drifting deeper into outer space alone and unloved.

"I have no hope! Must you make a man blind mon Dieu?"

The doorbell rang in startling interruption, Goupil instinctively reaching for a gun that was not there. Enemy action! Had to be for such an outcast as he. If reporter I shoot! Dousing the light and sliding to the peep hole he spied two young, white shirted boys with large, dark ties hanging from sweaty necks. In careful reconnaissance, Goupil noted two bicycles leaning against a courtyard tree. Too curious - and desperate - not to answer, he opened the door to an inquisition he would fail.

"Hello, sir. We're from the Mormon church and we want to share the holy Word with you. Is your soul not saved? Do you live in fear of eternal damnation? If so, we have good news for you."

Scanning with practiced eyes, Goupil found no guile in their stance. Perhaps God wanted him to live even if none of his fellow Earthlings did. It seemed too easy somehow but...

"Yes," he admitted. "I live in fear. Please, show me the Way."

Can you spot the French assassin?