Accidental God 4.0 -- Section 07

[Here's summore.]

    I climbed off the bus near the Eternal Rest right about the same time that Tumble Dry was walking up with one of his sons. Tumble Dry, with his architectural nose and long limbs, looks to be in his early forties, but with the eyebrows of a much older man. His son, standing next to him and laughing, had less grandiose facial features, was equally long, and looked to be in his late forties. This was something I still hadn't wrapped my head around as a god. I'd only been divine for three years, so life hadn't had much time to catch up to me, look at me in pity, and pass me by. At least that's how Tumble Dry had described it one night, drunk on melancholy.
    "Life does pity us, Bradley," he said. "Nothing on this earth was meant to stand still. Life, death, the eternal cycle. It's how things should be, but we've stepped on some cosmic spill of laundry detergent and slipped right out of the natural way of things, like a hamster falling out of his wheel. You ever seen that?"
    "Laundry detergent in a hamster wheel?" I asked.
    He waved his hand. "Never mind. My point is, we're the wax apples in an entire bushel of real fruit. When the rest of the fruit is gone, eaten and enjoyed, we'll be beautiful and pathetic and alone."
    It was a very depressing conversation, but I found out later from Midnight Jane that Tumble Dry's youngest child had just turned thirty-five, the age the god had been when his wife had given birth for the last time. It made me curious what age his wife was, but some things Tumble Dry keeps private. I've never seen her, not even in photographs.
    But at the Eternal Rest, outside on the sidewalk, the long god looked cheerful enough, and his son was telling a story with broad gestures of his hands. I started to eaves drop as I got closer.
    "Then the entire troop of Girl Scouts surrounds the angel, and you can tell the guy is late for work, but he just CAN'T say 'no' to them, and they've got sixteen cases of cookies left to sell, and the panic starts to spread across his face. I wanted to save the guy, somehow give him a way to escape, but then I thought to myself, 'What would my dad do?'"
    Tumble Dry snorted, wrinkling up his prodigious nose and doubling over. "You let him suffer!" he wheezed.
    "All sixteen," said his son. "The poor angel bought all sixteen cases before they let him escape. I'd never seen a more determined or ruthless group of thirteen-year-olds in my life. Women like that are going to be running this country in twenty years."
    "And we'll be better for it," said Tumble Dry. He looked over and noticed me. "Bradley! You remember my son? This is Mark."
    Mark held out his hand, I took it and shook it. "Of course I remember Mark, though I admit, I'd forgotten your name."
    Mark shrugged it off, his grip firm. "Just remember who my dad is, and I'll be happy."
    "Please," said Tumble Dry. "Don't be too proud of me. Just wait and see how badly I lose in the Divine Tourney."
    "I don't see how you can lose," said Mark. "Dad set up a ping pong table in all three of his Temple Laundromats, and he'll play with anyone who shows half a interest. It's a bit pathetic how competitive my father is."
    "You're one to talk," said the father in question. "How's your internet business doing, by the way?"
    "Number one in Wisconsin. And Illinois."
    Tumble Dry looked at me blandly.
    "I'm staying out of this conversation," I said. "I'm not number one at anything."
    "No!" said Tumble Dry, sharply. "You are the number one ping pong player in the Eternal Rest. You are the god of ping pong!"
    I started to open my mouth to say that I was anything BUT the god of ping pong, but Tumble Dry cut me off.
    "Attitude! Winning starts in the head, Bradley. If you're not confident in your skills, how can you expect to bring those skills out to the table. You are a powerhouse! You will dominate! You are a god!"
    "Everyone else is a god, too."
    "Stop it!"
    "And weren't you just saying YOU were going to lose?"
    "Ah, that may be true, but I also have a keen awareness of reality, and I know one thing absolutely: you, Bradley, are much better than I am. You're carrying my hopes on this one, friend, and you will be BRILLIANT."
    Mark put his hand on his dad's shoulder. "Sorry for cutting in, but Mom is expecting me. We're putting up that new curtain rod."
    Tumble Dry smacked his forehead. "I completely forgot. That was my job."
    Mark smiled at me, still talking to his father. "Yes, it was, but Mom hasn't been married to you this long without knowing how you get when there's a competition ahead. Go, practice, and I'll take care of the curtain rod."
    "I could send one of my angels to do it, if you don't have time, with your business and your kids. Mithraelind probably isn't too busy--"
    "Dad, I want to do this. I haven't had much time with Mom recently. It's good for me to take a break."
    Tumble Dry held his breath, then nodded. "You're right. It's sometimes good to take a break. I think I'll do that, too." He looked down at his watch. "Mind if we do a shorter practice tonight, Bradley?"
    I glanced at Mark, who winked at me. "Sure," I said, "we can cut this one shorter."

    Mad Hatter Barnes isn't the only superlative staff member at the Eternal Rest. Graceless Grace is perhaps the best chef in the greater Northern Lights environs, and the Angry Triplets, who aren't actually related, are one of the more astonishing cleaning crews ever assembled by man or god--and those are simply the only staff that are coming to mind at the moment. There are several more, and I have no idea who is in charge of hiring for the club, but I expect it is a demon. It would take that kind of devious mind to whisk these people away from whatever fabulously paying job they previously worked, cooking for princes or waiting on marquises. (I failed to mention previously that one of my aspirations as a child was to be a marquis. I'm still not entirely certain what they are, but whatever it is, that's what I wanted to be.)
    Double Take French--yes, that is her complete name, and I have absolutely no idea why--had set up a practice area for competitors--multiple practice areas, actually. The staff of the Eternal Rest has learned from numerous years of Divine Tourneys that gods are somewhat competitive--something that anyone could learn who had the slightest bit of knowledge about the Trojan War, Ragnarok, or the Philatelic Crusades (and yes, that war WAS about stamp collecting, though I understand it is a slight misnomer, since Philately is the STUDY of stamps, not the actual collection)--but I'm getting away from the point. Competitive gods do not like to be observed during their training, so Double Take French had divided one of the larger basement rooms into eight separate ping pong training areas. The temporary walls between sections were thick enough and carpeted enough to be mostly soundproof, and the sign up sheet for the areas was kept by the team of Matthews that run the front desk. (Matthew the Red, Tiny Matthew, Remainder Table Matthew, and Ugly Matthew, if you were wondering.)
    I had planned on being content with just a few spare games to get ready, playing with my dad a time or two, and then diving in. I recognize that I do have some skill with a ping pong paddle--not a phrase that anyone with the slightest shred of cool has ever used at a party--but I've never felt any real need to win against the elder gods, or even any optimism. The elder gods are GODS, the genuine kind of god that did all the stuff I read about in D'Aulaires' History of Europe for Children.
    Tumble Dry, of course, had other ideas.
    "Again," he said, "but faster."
    "I've already done the serve twenty-seven times. I'm not sure it's going to GET any faster."
    In fact, I had done that serve--Water Leaking Through a Narrow Crevasse--closer to forty times, but I didn't want to sound like a whiner. Unfortunately, Tumble Dry had a point. It wasn't sliding off my paddle like it usually did, and the serve that he normally had a nearly impossible time returning was snapping back across the net at me at insulting speeds.
    Tumble Dry tossed his paddle down onto the table. "What is it?" he asked. "You are not yourself tonight."
    "Maybe I'm just tired. We have been at this for almost three hours. Shouldn't I be resting before the Tourney?"
    "Nonsense. You've been putting in this many hours training for almost a month. Your arm is fine and you'll be fine. This is hardly a warmup for you. What is the matter? Get it out of your brain. You can't afford any distractions tomorrow."
    I thought about telling him. I really did. Tumble Dry has a way of leaping at problems, grabbing them in his jaws like an alligator snatching a poodle, then shaking it around until pink fur is flying everywhere and all the problems have gone away. It was appealing, the thought of sicking him on Mr. Obscure Pike and letting someone with more experience clear the path for me. I opened my mouth to strip away all my troubles and run through the world of the Divine Tourney naked and carefree--or something like that--when my cell phone rang.
    "I know that music," said Tumble Dry.
    I nodded. "Yeah, it's my mother. You mind if I get this?"
    "Of course I mind, but I know you will anyway."
    I shrugged, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and flipped it open. Due to budget constraints, I was one of the few people in Northern Lights with a cell phone that pretty much was just a cell phone.
    "Hi, Mom," I said.
    "About tomorrow," she said, skipping over greetings entirely. "You are still competing?"
    "Yes."
    "Fine. I'm bringing someone along that I'd like you to meet."
    "What?" I said, with the usual kind of lightning thought and witty dialogue I am only capable of with my mother.
    "I'm bringing someone to watch you compete that I would like you to meet. She is a lovely girl, highly educated, and the daughter of a good friend of mine. After you have played in your first match, you can treat us to dinner in the club, though if you can't afford it I suppose I can get you some money before tomorrow night. I think it will give a better impression if she sees that you are the one paying, and not your mother, don't you? In fact, it would be best if you could put it 'on your tab,' if you can run a tab at that club. Do you need me to send you money?"
    "I have enough money for dinner here, Mom. That's not the problem."
    "Oh?" she said, and there was weight to that single syllable, like an inverted iceberg, tip down. "Does that mean that there is some problem with my suggestion?"
    My mother calls them suggestions, but they're suggestions in the same way that a chef suggests things to a head of cabbage with his knife. I could feel my life plans in threat of being hacked into pieces, but I suppose I couldn't blame my mother for trying. Her perspective was that I wasn't getting any younger--not that I was getting any older, either--and she wanted me to find someone nice to spend the next few decades of my life with. She couldn't have known that I already had someone in mind because of the very simple reason that I hadn't told her. The thought of Midnight Jane and my mother in the same room made the lizard part of my brain start to twitch, anxious to find some narrow crack to slip through into darkness.
    "There aren't enough tickets," I said, settling onto the most cowardly way of avoiding the issue that I could find.
    "Of course there are," said my mother. "I found another. That was your only objection? Excellent. Then I plan on seeing you tomorrow for your first match. It was at six, correct?"
    I nodded, realized I was on the phone, and told her out loud that she was correct.
    "See you then, Bradley, and I do hope you win. It always does look better to a girl when a prospective suitor wins, but I suppose you could always be a gracious loser. Good night, Bradley."
    "Good night, Mom." I closed my phone and looked at Tumble Dry.
    "It's not my place to say anything," he said.
    "But you're going to anyway."
    "I'm going to anyway. You need some boundaries with your mother. I have no idea what that conversation was about, but you were on the run before you even answered the phone."
    "Blind date tomorrow," I said. "Apparently she's a very nice girl."
    "And your mother doesn't know that you have a...thing...for someone else?" Tumble Dry, with the eye of a father who has married off multiple sons, had recognized my interest in Midnight Jane almost before I had, and he'd been, well, not exactly supportive, but he hadn't tried to interfere. He'd let me do my own thing. Or rather, NOT do my own thing, with all the progress I'd been making.
    "She has no idea. I'm not that crazy. Midnight Jane is--"
    "Mean," filled in Tumble Dry, "but in a nice way."
    "She's not exactly mean. She's just--"
    "Goth," inserted Tumble Dry again.
    "She's not exactly Goth, either. Well, at least not this week. Have you said anything to her about the color of her hair?"
    Tumble Dry pulled back. "Oh no! I learned long ago not to comment on any woman's appearance other than to say 'you look great' and 'did you get a hair cut?'--and I only use the second one sparingly. But either way, mean or Goth or both, it shouldn't be your mother's business whether you are interested in Midnight Jane or not. It's up to you now. You're twenty-seven."
    "She's my mom."
    "You're a god."
    "She's the mayor of a city lousy with gods. Besides, you know what the elder gods say: divinity isn't what it used to be."
    Tumble Dry laughed. "Either way, this blind date isn't a good thing. You need to be able to concentrate on tomorrow night. No way of putting it off?"
    I grimaced and shook my head. "It would be more stressful if I tried to fight it. I'll just go with the flow, like a paper ship in a gutter."
    "Nice image," said Tumble Dry, then he froze. "Hang on. How long did you say we'd been practicing tonight?"
    I checked my watch again. "Almost three hours."
    He muttered something under his breath--I assumed it was something pungent from his childhood, like 'golly gosh gee whiz!'--and started packing away his paddle and ping pong balls. "I said I was going to cut it short tonight. I'm never going to catch up with all the evenings I owe my wife even if she lives to one-hundred-fifty."
    "She's not nearly that old, is she?"
    He shook his head. "Not even close. You'll have to meet her some time."
    "She coming tomorrow night?"
    "I don't think so."
    That was all he said. I had picked up the impression, somewhere during the last three years, that Mrs. Dry wasn't comfortable around gods. I hoped that didn't extend to her own husband--he had been a reasonably normal man before his divinity, after all--but it was another of the questions I never dared to ask.
    "Thanks for the practice, Bradley," said Tumble Dry, reaching out to shake hands. "You'll be great tomorrow. Just be sure to get whatever it is off your chest that's on it. You need to play with a clear mind."
    "Sure."
    Then he was out the door and gone. I packed my paddle into its cloth carrying bag and made my way to the club's locker room. Not many people were around--I nodded at Marilyn Swing and a god whose name I had forgotten twice--and made my way to my locker. I may have given the wrong impression by calling this a 'locker room.' While it's true that each of us had our own individual space with a door that could be closed and locked, each 'locker' was large enough to hold a tall, muscular god inside with room left enough for two significant pieces of sporting equipment, such as a lacrosse stick and a polo pony. That's a slight exaggeration, but think hardwood walk-in closet more than locker, and you have the right idea.
    I pulled open my locker door and stared.
    "Really?" I said out loud. "Shaving cream?"
    I said 'shaving cream' because that's exactly what my entire walk-in closet was filled with: masculine scented foam. Parts of the mass were collapsing under its own weight back into a bluish gel, but overall the foam was holding up remarkably well. I decided that Mr. Pike was correct: his team was, in fact, excellent. Creating such a stable pile of foam must have required a real--if terribly misapplied--amount of skill.
    And I was certain it was Mr. Pike. There, perched on the front of the pile like a sort of masthead on a ship of sea foam, was his card.
    I sighed, closed the door, and left to go home without a shower.