tw: infidelity, death, prolonged exposure to a corpse, child neglect, daddy issues.It was on a day full of sunshine; flowers bloomed the moment he took his breath. Everything in the world came together to bring peace. A loving family and their first born son. The angels sang, voices rang, and all hailed the newly born king —SIKE.This story began with the affair of a rich, powerful man and his secretary. So very fucking cliche, isn’t it? A boss and his secretary. He'd laugh if it weren't so goddamn tragic.This was life, and life had a way of bitch slapping the underdog. Or, in this case, the woman who had thought him a single man only to get pregnant with his child a month before that man’s wife also became pregnant with his other child.Fired from a job, the boss' wife’s venomous whispers leaving her damn near jobless, all with a baby on the way. Mary-Anne Monroe was no weak woman. She did the best she could, got back on her feet, and took care of herself and her unborn child.For four years, they never went and asked for help. They never begged for a cent. They made due with a single parent home, hopping from shady apartment to shady apartment — and they were HAPPY.Until they weren’t.It wasn’t noticeable at first. Sometimes she would get a little winded faster than usual, she’d need to take longer breaks during playtime, but whenever James Dean voiced worry, she would give that bright smile and tell him not to worry. He should have never believed her. The day he’d turned four, she brought him to some expensive gated neighborhood, had knocked confidently on the door, and had been greeted with a man that had the same eyes as James Dean. And even the same goddamn name. James. James fuckin’ Williams.He’d turned them away, but not after James Dean had seen a little boy with the same green eyes coming over, sniffling for his father. His chosen family. The one he’d actually wanted. His mother had never taken another man after the one before him, and yet he was happy as peach cobbler with his chosen family. When he’d rejected her, it hadn’t been because she wanted money. She couldn’t care for her son anymore. She was getting too sick, and the doctors had said she didn’t have long. James Williams didn't care.She didn’t have long at all, in fact. A month later, she was dead on her kitchen floor. No one noticed or questioned it. Not until nearly two weeks later when the neighbors had complained about the SMELL. Only then did they find the single mother, rotting on the kitchen floor, and her child, crusted blood on his clothes and rancid smelling from both his mother and having not taken a bath in so long.After that, it was foster home after foster home. No one wanted the reticent, introverted, ANGRY boy he’d become while processing his trauma. As time went on, elementary shifting to middle school, middle school shifting to high school, he came out of his shell, becoming rather exuberant and shameless. He never spoke of his parents nor what he remembered, but he never hid his attracted to the paranormal, grotesque, and macabre.In his sixth grade, he met with a woman who claimed he was just like her. Born of witches. It explained why he could see things others couldn't, ghosts and ghouls that begged for a little of his time. He thought he'd been crazy, but the more she explained, the more it made sense. In the end, she asked to adopt him. Florence was a kind woman, a knowing woman, and he agreed.She taught him everything she knew, and he realized what he'd been left with was the last parting gift from his mother. She taught him more than just the mystic. She taught him how to take care of himself, how to take care of a car. They found an old Chevy Impala model at a junkyard, and it became a shared project to restore it. When they did, she transferred the title in his name.But, as always, happiness doesn't last for an underdog. Sophomore year was meant to be a good year, but another bout of cancer threatened to take yet another mother from him. While they'd traveled around before, they settled down in a small town in Texas to allow her to get the medical help she needed. He took care of her as they attached tubes to her to help circulate the pain meds through her. He took care of her as her mind became jumbled, frazzled, gone. Until she was gone, leaving him to bounce around shitty motels and live in his car, the only thing he had left of her, until graduation.In the end, his mother left him a sizable inheritance that he gained authority over once he hit eighteen. It helped to pay off his tuition for Columbia, allowing him to go to a prestigious college for psychology. He and his roommate in college, his best friend Richie Isles, began True Crime and Ghoul Time while they took care of Richie's infant (and by proxy, James Dean's own child), and it hit the number one podcast more times than they could count. He was able to make his hobbies and interests his very well paying job.And so he lived, never seeking out his brother or his father, making more money than he knew what to do with — though there was a darkness inside of him, one built from the putrid memory of his mother’s rotten corpse, that festered inside of him, silently growing.What it would become, even James Dean didn’t know.

ABOUT THE MUSE !

AUTHOR'S NOTE !

• back

Two comedians take a dive into the interesting world of the paranormal, as well as the ever-active true crime genre. Tragedy, cryptids, and a morbid sense of humor — what more could you need in a podcast? Just us every Wednesday for a look into the mysterious and murder-y!