Easter Bunny?

The Easter Bunny? Peter Rabbit? No, it’s Ottis O’Toole as Daniel Blowden.

Nobody sneezed, but it sounded bad enough to listen to. “I’m Daniel Blowden on your pirate radio station,” Ottis said. He was stuck in a prison cell of a room. “Suck my cockiness, lick my persuasion.”

Doors chimed. Holy fuck was there ever a big change in his attitude. O’Toole could take on new things and work independently. Jim Morrison art distracted Ottis from paintings of “The Last Supper” to posters of Jim hanging on the wall almost like he was Jesus Christ on the cross. Jim’s crucifixion pose was enough to make anyone break into prayer. The Second Coming was heavy. Ray Manzarek had foreseen it, the disciples from The Doors, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and Joel Osteen. Joel secretly preached the word of Jim from a locked underground room in Lakewood Church in Houston. When Jim Morrison was born in a manger in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, his virgin mother had helped Jim’s old man break on through as a carpenter and move around to travel the New World. He learned the truth from Bible study. The Doors were part of God’s plan to help Jim break on through to the other side. Band members from the Doors were Jim’s disciples, and they were the founding priests orchestrating a new Church of Jim Morrison. They canonized Toni Morrison. Held vigils. A hunched Ottis over his aluminum desk, a Hunchback of Notre Dame, sober, and e-mailing girlfriends. There was crust and long hairs extending out of Spock-like ears. A glint in his eye.

First, Ray’s keyboard playing drew him in, Soft Parade CD looping. Door’s shirt ripped off his chest, he picked at the scar from his belly-button piercing, then moved hand and fingers into his mouth, slowly removing big chunks of pepperoni from last night’s pizza pockets. “Alright, alright, alright,” he said in a come-to-Jim moment. LA Woman stuck in his head from two Sundays ago. Ottis stopped and wondered if Good News from the bible spread fake news about Jesus Christ or whether Jim Morrison was a new representation of cool, the real Second Coming where he too had survived the end of the world, believed in The Doors. Jim had the power to heal. Good news filled his soul, but he was sweating badly. He was reading Toni Morrison, then he started reading the word of Jim. It made him feel special. “Lizard woman / with your insect eyes / with your wild surprise. / Warm daughter of silence. / Venom.” A pause from his rambling. It turned quiet.

A prison silence.

His hands folded in prayer. “Praise Jim, my brothers,” said Ottis, staring blankly at Jim like he was God’s son, a Lord of Heaven, Shangri La, or The Morrison Hotel. After all, Ottis O’Toole was well-versed in carpentry, meditation and prayer.

Rejoice and love yourself today and every day.

There’s only one way to increase your faith.