Accidental God 4.0 -- Section 03

[Stayed up a little too late to write this, but it was fun to meet Bradley's neighbor. It's hard to tell if she likes Bradley for himself, or just because he's a god.

[Being divine comes with its own problems.]

    My mother never had much use for sports, especially as they mixed with schooling.
    "What is the point of institutionalizing what is essentially tribal warfare as a part of our nation's educational system?" she asked on more than one occasion. I sometimes have thought she practices phrases like that so she can use them at appropriate times, but I've never been able to catch her at it. She must do it while she's in the shower, or in the deep of the night when the rest of the world is asleep. She had more to say about it than just that, though. "We're told that sports teach valuable skills, problem solving, determination, teamwork. Ninety percent of the time all I see is ego-building and a small course in hatred and hate speech. It appalls me that my tax dollars help pay for this."
    "Have hope for the other ten percent," said my father, smiling at me and winking. I wasn't sure what that wink was for, but it wasn't his way of telling me to go out for school sports. That wasn't going to happen, not in this lifetime.
    What my mother didn't know was that all through high school, for the forty-five minutes after class that she thought I spent walking home, I was actually part of one of the five Geek Clubs of my school. The top four were, of course, Math Club, Chess Club, Culinary Club for Men, and Technologists of the Future. Club number five was my club. It was my refuge, my home that was less stressful than home.
    "Why the Ping Pong Club?" my sister had asked me. "Has anyone in that club ever had a date?"
    "Of course," I said.
    "Who?"
    "Lots of guys."
    "Name one."
    "Brock."
    "Brock Madsen? That wasn't a date. That was a 'group activity.'"
    "Sure, but it was with one specific girl. Mostly."
    "Doesn't count," said my sister, walking away. "Call me up when you're old and lonely. I'll cry for you."
    My sister got nicer since then, and I wouldn't want to imply that ping pong is an inherently geeky sport. Quite the opposite, I'd say. Have you ever seen Lao Ping Pao Men Mei Long of the Chinese go at it? I'm sure I'm saying his name wrong, but that's not the point. The point is that, when he plays, the sun stops what it's doing to watch and the four winds hold their breath. His Swallow Stopping for a Drink at a Convenience Store is perhaps the most powerful and graceful maneuver ever performed in a professional sport. Ever.
    No, ping pong is classy. It was our club that was geeky.

    "You play ping pong?" asked Harold, his eyes filled with wonder. It was starting to get on my nerves. Everything was superlative for Harold, and he always had some comparison to tell you exactly how wonderful things were. "That's amazing!" he said. "I've always wanted to learn ping pong. It's like I walked out my door this morning and found a world filled with--"
    "Yeah, I play ping pong," I interrupted. "It's my favorite sport."
    "It's not really a sport," said Midnight Jane, "but it's cute that you think it is. But that aside, we need a plan to get back at Forgotten Zed. I'm sure it's not just him, though. I can guarantee that any dirty dealing has Slick L behind it as well, and he's not someone to mess with lightly."
    "What about Apples?" asked Tumble Dry. "She's not above a bit of dirty dealing and she's still upset about last year's competition."
    "But she won," I said. "By a lot. How could she be upset?"
    "Did you see her hair at the end?"
    "Not really," I said. Fact is, when Apples is in spandex, most guys aren't paying attention to her hair. I'd spent as much of the race embarrassed and looking away as I had cheering for Noodles, the only one of the younger gods with a real chance in the steeple chase.
    "Exactly," said Tumble Dry. "NO ONE noticed her hair, except for Apples. Her hair was, I quote, 'mussed,' and she's had it out for Noodles ever since. I'm pretty sure the New Year debacle was her fault."
    I blinked. "You mean when Noodles came into the room and--"
    "Exactly."
    "And then the EMT's had to--"
    "Yes."
    "That was Apples?"
    Tumble Dry shrugged and he took a drink of water. That was all Tumble Dry ever drank, and in the whole year I'd been a god, I'd never once seen Midnight Jane lift a glass to her lips, so I was once again stumped at how the root bear pitcher could be empty. Again.
    "Will I get to meet Apples?" asked Harold.
    "I wouldn't recommend it without a full suit of armor," said Tumble Dry.
    "Are the elder gods really all that bad?"
    "Yes," said Midnight Jane.
    "Not really," I said. "Well, some of them are, but not all of them. There's just a...difference between the old gods and the new gods, as best I can tell. The world used to be a different place, and any gods over a thousand keep expecting things to be that way. You know, with hordes of chanting worshipers, nations moving at their whim, storms and wrath and changing people into animals, all that stuff."
    Midnight Jane glared at nothing in particular. "They need to get their heads cleared out. This is the modern world. Gods aren't gods anymore, not how they used to be."
    Harold was nodding. "I get it. So there's a kind of rivalry between the old gods and the new gods."
    I shrugged. "Sort of. They're not all like that. Standing Appointment is a good guy. So is Bagel Girl."
    Midnight Jane snorted. "I don't trust her. She's TOO nice. It's like she's all desert and no meat."
    That's not exactly fair to Bagel Girl. She IS nice, and easy to talk to. In fact, morning bagels had been the only thing keeping me going for the first half year of my godhood--morning bagels and her advice. She didn't make a big deal out of it, but I'm not sure I would have made it without my morning. She’s wise AND kind, and I made a mental note to visit her, realizing how long it had been.
    I didn't say any of that out loud, though, and I felt ashamed, but Midnight Jane didn't like Bagel Girl, and when Midnight Jane started going off about the elder gods, it didn't do much good to get in her way. Last time I'd ended up with root beer all over me.
    She's so beautiful. I'm such an idiot.
    Harold was nodding again. "And so this rivalry plays out every year in some kind of competition. I'd heard about it, but I only moved here recently, so I haven't had a chance to see it. That's so exciting, it's as if--"
    "Exactly," I interrupted, "except there isn't any official competition between the elder and younger gods. It's more an unofficial thing. The elder gods just always end up on teams together."
    "And they always beat the younger gods," said Tumble Dry, glancing over at the wall where Fish Fry's picture hung, next to the plaque commemorating the god’s victory.
    "Could I participate?" asked Harold. "I could start practicing ping pong right away! I might not contribute much, but it would be a fun way to get to know the other gods."
    "Sure," I said, standing. "You do that." I'd gotten over the brutality of speaking to Forgotten Zed, and I was beginning to think I needed to see BB face to face. Maybe we could sneak the artifact, whatever it was, back into Zed's temple. Or maybe an abject, groveling apology that lasted the next twenty years would do it. Either way, I needed to get started immediately.
    "We're still practicing tonight?" asked Tumble Dry as I walked away. "Got to keep you in top form."
    I said something back. I assumed it was a 'yes,' but I couldn't remember. I kept seeing Forgotten Zed's eyes.
    And his beard. Honestly, it’s not the kind of beard you ever forget.


    My sister never took my divinity very seriously. When she got married, she asked for my blessing, then snorted for the rest of the night. (I didn't find it particularly funny. Maybe a little, but only a little.) Then, when her first child was born a rather precise thirty-eight weeks later, she asked me to be little Erica's godfather--followed, of course, by much hilarity. Then, when two years later, JoBeth was born, she used the same joke all over. Apparently, she will never get tired of it.
    Once, when Erica was still tiny and Clara and her husband had me over for dinner, she asked me what kind of god I'd be.
    "How do you mean?" I asked, though I knew what she meant.
    "Doesn't every god find a niche for themselves?"
    "I believe that's referred to as a 'naos,'" said her husband.
    "What is?"
    "A niche for the statue of a god to sit. It is called a naos. It's Greek."
    Clara and I looked at him--his name is Tom--and we stared.
    "Bradley," said my sister.
    "Yes, Clara?" said I.
    "I think my husband just made a joke."
    "Are you sure?"
    Tom smiled and stood up. "I'm going to wash the dishes. You two can stay in here and be witty."
    "It's what we do best, dear. Did you make any desert?"
    Tom ignored her and carried a pile of plates away into the kitchen. Clara watched him go, then grinned at me.
    "I got a good one."
    I nodded. "You did, I'll admit it. Better than either of your brothers." I was referring, of course, to myself and our younger brother, Peace in Troubles Mark Shupak, who was off at UCLA or USC--I could never remember which--studying physics with a minor in practical theology.
    "Darn right he's better than my brothers. Did you taste that lasagna?"
    "Of course I did. Five pieces worth. Have you ever considered cooking?"
    Clara cocked an eyebrow at me. "With Tom around? Of course not."
    "Good call." I folded my napkin in half, then in half again. "So...did he make desert?"
    "Something with pudding," said Clara. "I snitched."
    "How is it?"
    "Fabulous."
    I nodded and gave a contented sigh. "You got a good one."
    "I did. But Bradley."
    "Yes?"
    "My brothers aren't too bad, either."
    I looked at her and smiled, not entirely sure I deserved the compliment, but glad for my sister. It was one of those little moments that our family stumbles over every once in a while, but that we never talk about after. It's like a sunset that words would simply spoil. Or it's like walking outside without your pants on. Either way, you don't tend to bring it up again.
    Then Erica started kicking where we'd left her in the car seat on the dining room floor, and the moment was over. Clara picked her up and started nursing, something I'd grown accustomed to.
    "So what is it?" asked my sister after my niece was all arranged.
    "What is what?"
    "Your naos?"
    I picked up my napkin by one corner, shook it, and tossed it onto the table. "I have no idea."

    It's a short bus ride from the Eternal Rest to my temple. I've thought about buying a car, but public transportation in Northern Lights is pretty solid--got an award two years ago, if I remember correctly--and insurance rates for gods are abysmally high. That's probably the one place where a god doesn't get a little bit of a break. The way my friend, Jamal, explained it to me--he sells insurance for one of those big rock or handy insurance companies--is that gods have little incentive to drive safely. Then he went off into economics, which he studied in college, but what I could pull out of his explanation was this: if there is zero chance a car wreck will kill you, you might tend to forget your turn signal. I'd like to think that we gods are, as a body, better than that, but insurance rates tell a different stories, and to hear Jamal tell it, actuarial tables never lie.
    So I took the bus the few blocks over and up to where I could hop out and walk the two blocks mored to get to the Temple of Bradley. As far as government issue temples go, it was in decent repair. The fake-marble facade was clean, no graffiti, and the plinth across the pillars had a graceful arch to it. Was that a plinth? Could plinths have arches? What is the plural of 'plinth' anyway? Point is, I'm decently happy with the Temple of Bradley. It's not where I want to be in a hundred years, but every god has to start somewhere.
    The location, on the other hand, might leave a little to be desired. My rather narrow temple is wedged into a road so narrow it's more an older brother to an alley than it is an actual street. The government architects wedged it in between one store called 'Everything Hemp' and another store that's been out of business so long that no one I've talked to can remember what used to be there. I'd be willing to bet that the store was out of business before the building was even built--it was some primordial locus of business failure, and some local contractor simply built an empty shell around it.
    With that combination of neighbors and location, my temple gets a very small stream of passers-by, and an even smaller stream of visitors that actually step through the automatic doors and into the sporadically air-conditioned and heated interior.
    Sage Merlinus pushed open the door of her shop--yes, that is correct: she is the owner of 'Everything Hemp'--and leaned toward me, hanging onto the door behind her. A bell in the shape of a 'mystical goat head' swung from the door's handle, ringing with all the grace you'd expect from a goat head.
    "Bradley!" she called as I neared the front of her shop. She was smiling and swaying in a way that I might have found attractive, if the thought of dating a woman named 'Sage Merlinus' didn't make me want to grow a mustache and flee to be a prisoner in some oppressive communist country. "I'm glad you stopped by! Come in and have some coca tea."
    I blinked but kept walking, only slowing a little. "Coca tea?"
    "It's made from the leaves of the coca plant. Excellent health properties."
    "But isn't that...what they make cocaine from? That sounds dangerous."
    She shook her head and smiled at me indulgently. "They take the cocaine out, silly. It's the same stuff they use to make CocaCola, and you don't see people overdosing on Coke, do you?"
    I had to think about that one.
    "Even if you don't want tea, you should come in to look at the new carpets I got. Hand woven by the Sleeping Monks of the Deep Woods."
    At that point I made a nearly fatal error: I paused. It wasn't really a full stop, more of a hesitation, and I felt the mistake in my gut the moment my foot halted in its forward swing, but it was too late. The secret to getting past Everything Hemp is to stay in motion, walk with purpose, look like you have somewhere to be, and never, ever make eye contact. If you fail--break any of those rules--Sage Merlinus pounces.
    My foot paused. She pounced.
    "I have you interested now, don't I," she said, her arm slipping through mine. I hadn't noticed when she'd left the door and materialized next to me.
    "In what?" I said, swallowing. She was pressed slightly closer to my side that I was comfortable with. (I'm not exactly a touchy-feely kind of guy.)
    Sage grinned. "In the carpets, of course."
    I shook my head. "No, actually. Just in the monks."
    "Oh! The Sleeping Monks of the Deep Woods." She bounced up and down and, incidentally, against me. "It's the most amazing thing! They weave in their sleep, chanting hymns to the universe the entire time. There's an award winning indie documentary about them that's playing in the Black Box Theater, if you wanted to go see it. We could go together! It's right next to this art gallery that is having a show entirely of decomposing plant life juxtaposed with the crass eternity of manmade plastics. The show is titled--"
    "'Landfill,'" interrupted BB, grabbing hold of my other arm and pulling me into motion again. "Sorry for stealing him away, Miss Merlinus, but I need my boss."
    Sage tugged at my other arm for a moment, but then let me go. I think she finds my Chief Acolyte disturbing somehow, though I have no idea why, but I'm not about to argue with it. I shrugged at her, as if to say that I really wanted to stay and see the carpets woven by the Sleeping Monks, or even have some coca tea, but honestly, what can you do when your Chief Acolyte has you in his iron grip?
    "Another time," I said out loud.
    "I'll hold you to it," said Sage.
    BB pulled me up the two small steps--we also have a ramp, for handicapped visitors--and through the automatic doors that swished open and then closed behind us.
    "Why automatic doors?" I asked. "Shouldn't a temple have either open space or something more imposing? A portcullis, maybe."
    "Those are in castles," said BB, "and I think you're just in shock."
    "She almost had me this time, BB."
    "I could see that."
    "I'm not sure I ever would have escaped. Did you know that she actually believes in the Mystical Goat? It gives the Life Milk of the Universe, nurturing man's inner soul."
    "And it's head makes a lousy bell," said BB. "You need to be more careful getting here, boss. Maybe come around the other way."
    I shook my head. "Too long of a walk to get around. I'll just walk faster next time."
    "Are you sure it will be enough? She's tricky."
    I looked at BB. He was a little shorter than me, blonde hair, warm brown eyes, and a face that wasn't handsome--I can recognize handsome in a guy, even if I'd rather spend my time looking at a woman--but he had something about him that I mentioned before. 'Cute' was the closest term I'd come up with, but a better description might have been 'trustworthy.' BB had the kind of face that less scrupulous men had used to sell used cars and win the Presidency of the United States. He had that...SOMETHING.
    "She is tricky," I said. "I guess I'll just have to rely on you to get me out of trouble when I need it."
    "Don't I always?"
    That reminded my why I had come back to my temple in the first place. "No. No, you don't always get me out of trouble. Sometimes you get me one-hundred-percent into it. What, exactly, did you take from Forgotten Zed? The god practically smote me into ashes on the spot!"
    BB slapped me on the shoulder. "Come on, Bradley. He couldn't smite you into ashes. You've got more going for you in the god department than that! He could have singed you a bit, but give yourself some credit."
    "It's not me I'm worried about," I said, and I could hear my voice shaking. In spite of his penchant for casual theft, BB was a good guy. I didn't want anything bag happening to him, and I figured execution was a pretty bad thing. "Forgotten Zed wants to invoke the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood, or whatever they're called."
    BB's face went still. "He's not serious."
    I remembered Zed's eyes. "He's very serious about something, and he was talking about the laws at the time, so I'm not inclined to guess that he was referring to anything else."
    "But no one has been executed under the laws in over three-hundred years. They're completely outdated. Besides, I only borrowed the thing, and it's not one of Zed's major artifacts anyway. From what I could tell, he hadn't pulled the thing out of storage for millennia. You can't tell me that an artifact like that was created just to be left on a shelf. Miracles are to be shared, not stored away like last-year's Halloween candy. It gets stale and gross. Miracles should be fresh and alive."
    I rubbed at my face, finding that I was agreeing with BB, and distressed that he could make theft from one of the most powerful--and vengeful--of the elder gods seem so reasonable. "What did you take, BB?"
    "It's just a--never mind. Just come look at it."