Bodyswitch

Synopsis…

Jack Madigan has the perfect life. He runs a mission in the Bronx helping New York's poor and homeless, the lost souls of the city. His wife Kerry works on a campaigning newspaper. They are not rich but they are fulfilled. And they are about to have their first child.

Sadistic sociopath Ernie Mason is released from prison, the poor black kid from the Bronx who has been brutalised by a lifetime of abuse, drugs and crime until he becomes a killer; a walking time-bomb. He gets drunk, steals a car and goes joyriding in central Manhattan.

Jack says goodbye to Kerry after a routine medical examination and she crosses the busy street.

Ernie Mason hits Kerry full on, killing her instantly and killing himself.

The bottom falls out of Jack Madigan's life. But then he is made an offer no other human being has ever received. The chance to say a final goodbye to Kerry on 'the other side'. 

But there is a price to pay. He must allow a recently departed soul to occupy his body while he is in spiritual limbo to be given one last chance of redemption. That's when the cosmic switch clicks and a dark soul enters Jack Madigan's body. 

Guess who?

Excerpt...

CHAPTER ONE

There were only a couple of days left before Christmas Eve. The white flakes of snow turned grey almost as soon as they hit the ground. In the streets around the East River, there wasn't much in the way of Christmas spirit. The snowflakes had to concede defeat and turn into grimy, polluted slush. One of the few beacons of light in a bleak cityscape was the Refuge, a converted warehouse near the river, a haven for the poor and the homeless, for the lost souls of the city.

The Refuge took anyone overnight, fed them soup, bread and cheese or whatever could be hustled, bought cheap, bartered or begged, gave them a bed, some company and some warmth.

No one forced religion down your throat at the Refuge and there was hardly any trouble. Somehow the Refuge was protected, almost blessed, by the consent of the street people. And these were dangerous streets. Crime and sudden death were a way of life. This was desolation row, America's third world. This was where the spirit of free enterprise lost its soul and dumped its waste product.

When most people were taking time off and planning family get-togethers, Jack Madigan was preparing for his busiest time of the year. Jack was young, only twenty-eight, but he had run the Refuge for over a year and was its chief trustee. Without Jack the Refuge would have closed. Only his faith and driving force had persuaded the City authorities to grant the licence renewal. And now he was on the brink of agreeing a one million dollar insurance policy to bring some badly needed security to the enterprise.

Jack wasn't fooling himself. He knew he was only offering a temporary sanctuary to the homeless and the desperate. Those with serious drug problems were taken in but referred on - if they agreed. There was a strict rule. No dope, no booze and no violence in the Refuge. Mostly it worked out but sometimes it could get mean.

Right now he was preparing for the annual Christmas rush. Although he hated doing it, he would have to turn people away. So the queue to get in for a Christmas dinner of turkey and the trimmings and a bed for the night began early.

Jack's own Christmas celebrations usually had to wait a couple of days. He had a lot of helpers, all volunteers, but he planned to be there on Christmas day. There would be some presents this year, mainly socks and scarves and he was looking forward to giving them out. Kerry would be by his side. They had something special to celebrate this Christmas. After three years of blissful marriage, Kerry had announced six months ago she was pregnant.

Kerry was the best thing that had ever happened to Jack Madigan. She was slim and beautiful with elfin features and dark hair sculpted into a frame around her face. And now she was carrying their child. When she first gave him the news Jack could hardly believe it. He had actually cried and he couldn't remember the last time he'd done that. He had cried at his old man's funeral, but that was for his mother, not his father.

They had met when he dropped out of medical school. He had run out of money and his old man had refused point blank to give him a cent. Strangely enough, he wasn't too disappointed although he pretended to be. He had found it tough going and at the same time he had become conscious of the real abscess in the society he lived in. He wanted to do something for the poor and homeless. He wasn't particularly political, unlike Kerry and he didn't know if this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Right then, it was important to him. It still was. That is until six months ago when Kerry got back one evening and broke the news and he broke down. Now a new priority had entered his life.

At about nine o'clock, Jack was saying goodnight to his night shift. Snores erupted from the sleeping bodies in four rows of beds and some were crying in their sleep. A few guys were muttering to themselves in the midst of mind-locked nightmares.

Jack used a couple of ex-boxers as overnight wardens. Marcel 'Golden Boy' Nixon and Clyde Rydell were big, black and tough, a couple of reformed characters who had learned to trust the ‘honky with heart’ as they called Jack.

Jack looked out into the night. Snow was still falling, steam rising. Jack's car was parked behind a reinforced door. He unlocked the door and eased the old Studebaker out of its concrete silo, then locked it behind him. Jack took a look around at the streets. A couple of drunks were staggering towards the Refuge. In dark recesses and in doorways, shapes were moving, a match flared. Music was throbbing from somewhere. This was a mixed race neighborhood and it had always seemed to Jack that he had unofficial guardians whether black, Hispanic or white. No one ever talked about it but for some reason Jack felt strangely safe in this potential time bomb of a neighborhood.

"Come on, Jack," he muttered to himself, "time to go home."

At that moment a tall, wizened figure shuffled through the flickering street lights, long matted hair dressed with a topping of snowflakes. Like an Old Testament prophet, Abraham was making for the Promised Land. Jack smiled, wound down his window. "Evening, Abraham," he said. "We've kept your reservation open as usual."

"Ah! Jack, you startled me," Abraham walked over to the car. "Nearly Christmas and soon you'll be a father. Such times we live in."

"I can't wait, it's all I seem to think about."

Abraham looked around then glanced at the Refuge where Clyde was waiting for him. "This is no place for a young man like you. You've made your point. You've built up some good karma my young friend. Believe me, it has not gone unnoticed by those in higher authority." Abraham raised his eyes into the white night. "I for one have much to thank you for."

"Don't even mention it. It's good to have you with us. The guys seem to respect you. You've never been mugged; people leave you alone yet they tell you their troubles. You're a natural psychiatrist, Abe."

"I like to be of service. Give my best to your beautiful wife."

Abraham's expression suddenly turned serious. "Look after her, Jack, especially now."

Jack glanced at him curiously. "Sure, of course I'll look after her."

Abraham shuffled through the slush to the door. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Abe," Jack smiled to himself and revved up.

••••

Kerry Madigan stared at the flickering screen, her face clouded. "Shit, what's the matter with me?" she muttered.

She glanced up and smiled as Bill Sherman came into the office. "Leave it for now," he said, "it'll come to you tomorrow."

"It's a damn good story, Bill. We can really nail Mancini this time; an Insight exclusive. We have evidence of chemical dumping he can't refute. This is going to ruin the bastard."

Bill Sherman, editor of Insight, a radical magazine that hovered on the verge of bankruptcy with every issue, regarded Kerry with the eye of friend and colleague.

"Don't get so worked up. We'll get him. He's not going to get away with poisoning half the Bronx. Listen, Kerry, don't you think you it's time you packed up work. Three months to go, that's all. It's time you were putting your feet up."

"Maybe you're right. I know you're right. I just can't seem to help myself."

"You're just totally impetuous, right?"

"Not in the way you mean, Bill."

He laughed then. "How are you going to be for money? I pay you a pittance and Jack can't take home a fortune?"

"We'll survive. We've got some put by. We don't pay any rent for the apartment in the Village, don't forget, courtesy of my father. Jack takes a salary from the donations and bequests. He's done incredibly well you know, Bill, I mean, getting money out of all kinds of people."

"He's a natural entrepreneur. He's in the wrong business. If he wanted to make money...."

"But he doesn't," Kerry interjected, "that's not what either of us care about," she paused, "but you are right. This little life inside me is more important than the Enrico Mancinis of this world."

She spun round slowly in her chair and caressed her stomach. "It's fantastic you know, Bill, to think another human life is in there."

Bill watched her. The rest of the staff was packing up for the night. Snowflakes were clinging to the window; each one an individual; each one clinging to life as long as possible; each one succumbing to its fate and dissolving into the sea of creation.

Kerry Petrovich had left Pittsburgh for New York after working for her local paper for a couple of years. From the age of seven she had known she wanted to be a journalist. Her father and mother had emigrated from Poland. He moved into real estate in a limited way and bought up some rundown properties in Greenwich Village in the fifties. Now they were worth a small fortune. When Kerry first met Jack it was like lightning striking. He had moved in with her in under a week.

Kerry had had lovers, but no one to touch Jack. He was a natural in bed. He seemed to sense just how she was feeling. He sensed her needs. She went through bouts of jealousy, thinking that a man like Jack could have any woman he wanted. But she needn't have worried. Jack had proved faithful and had not, as far as she knew, been with another woman since they had been married. She was deliriously happy.

They had a lot of friends, went to a lot of parties, they were involved with serious issues from which they drew enormous satisfaction. Kerry's only worry was a totally irrational one. She wanted things to go on forever just as they were now. But she knew life had a habit of taking you down a peg, just when you thought things were just perfect. How would the baby affect their relationship?

Would sex be the same afterwards? Would there be any sex with late nights, breast-feeding and possible post-natal depression to look forward to. Kerry sighed, glanced up at Bob.

"Come on," he said, "we're supposed to be meeting Zoe at Mike's Bar in fifteen minutes. Jack's coming too, remember?"

This was the usual Friday night ritual. Mike's Bar was where the real Village got together.

"Right, I'm with you." Kerry looked at her half finished story on screen, shrugged and switched it off.