[I'm trying to write every day as an act of faith, walking out into the darkness and trusting God to lead things someplace worthwhile. It means I have only the vaguest of ideas where this story is going, but let's be honest: how is that any different from my writing before this?
[Also, writing is more fun again. I hope you enjoy discovering this section as much as I did.]
The first day of the second year of high school was the first day that I decided, without a doubt, that I was in love.
"I am in love," I told my sister, Serenity Clara Shupak, who had just taken a bite of her peanut-butter and raspberry freezer jam sandwich.
She looked at me.
"Really," I said. "I am now in love. I saw her black hair, and now I am in love."
Clara looked at me longer.
"Stop that," I said.
She sprayed sandwich all over my face and laughed until she cried. I decided that day to never forgive her.
"I'm Midnight Jane," said the goddess with the muddy-rainbow hair. "This is Tumble Dry."
"Yo," said Tumble Dry. He reached out his long, long arm and shook Harold’s much smaller hand.
"Hi. I'm Harold, but I hope I won't be much longer. How do I get a new name? I think that sounds so awesome. Ever since I found out about, you know, my divinity, I've been looking forward to trading in Harold."
"You don't like your name?" asked Tumble Dry.
"Oh, I like it just fine. It's just that it's so hard to beat the romance of a name like 'Standing Appointment' or 'Fish Fry.'"
"I don't like the name 'Fish Fry,'" said Tumble Dry, glaring off into the distance--not that there was much distance to glare into. The windows on the first floor of the Eternal Rest look out on a row of trees across the street, and that's about it. "'Fish Fry' rhymes with 'Tumble Dry,'" he explained when Harold's round face looked quizzical. "Whenever people talk about 'Fish Fry and Tumble Dry,' I feel like I'm part of some low-rent rap group."
"Do people ever talk about 'Fish Fry and Tumble Dry?'" asked Midnight Jane, looking at him innocently.
The god with the architectural nose crossed his arms and glared at her. "No," he admitted grudgingly.
"Then shut up. You're just mad at Fish Fry because he beat you in the pie eating contest."
She was probably right. Fish Fry is about five-seven, medium brown hair, medium waist, medium shoe size, medium everything except his mouth. His lips part and it looks like Tartarus has opened to inhale the dead of the world in one cataclysmic swallow. I had nightmares about it for a month after, and Tumble Dry had to swallow four pies and his pride that day. Midnight Jane had laughed at him for six hours straight. She may make my heart jump a beat or two, but she has a certain mean streak running through her. It's a slash of red through her midnight soul.
She's so beautiful.
"So do I get to pick my own name?" asked Harold.
"I did," said Tumble Dry.
"Really?" Harold looked excited, like a slightly overweight puppy discovering chocolate for the tenth time. "You thought up 'Tumble Dry?'"
Midnight Jane laughed. "Not even close. He may have picked his own name, but the rest of the gods wadded up his idea, blew their noses on it, and threw it somewhere in the garden."
Tumble Dry frowned and looked off into the distance again. "My name was better. It had class."
"What was it?" asked Harold, looking hopeful.
"It was--" Midnight Jane started to answer, but Tumble Dry cut her off with a glance.
"No," he said.
"But you're right, Tumble Dry, it was a good name."
"It doesn't matter."
"But Harold wants to know. Don't you want to know, Harold?"
"Yes, very much. I think Tumble Dry is pretty great, so if the name you thought up is even better, well, that would be like having a two-scoop ice cream cone and finding out you actually have THREE scoops, and--"
"It's not happening," said Tumble Dry, "and that's the end. And don't tell him when I've gone to the bathroom or something, either. It was a good name, let it rest in peace until we change things around here and a body can pick his own name. Or hers."
Midnight Jane looked at him for a while, then shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Bradley, get us more root beer."
I looked over at her, then at the empty pitcher that Mad Hatter Barnes had left full just three minutes before. Then I looked back at Midnight Jane. What could I do? I went off in search of the Mad Hatter.
I have to tell you now about my Chief Acolyte, Rutherford B. Hayes Smithson. (You might think that 'Rutherford B. Hayes' would be enough of a name for any small child, but his parents had to add ‘Smithson’ on the end. Inevitable, I guess. I mean, that was their name.) Interestingly enough, no one in his family knows what the 'B' stands for--his parents never bothered to find out--so, that's his complete name. It's not 'Rutherford Barrett Hayes,' or 'Rutherford Bingham Hayes,' or 'Bartholomew,' or even 'Bradley.' Just 'B.'
I bring up BB--yes, even my Chief Acolyte has a nick name, while I remain just 'Bradley'--I bring him up, because he has a rather fluid idea of property rights. Fluid like water and as broad-reaching as the Amazon. He simply doesn't comprehend the fact that, even if he needs something, he shouldn't just take it. Your car? He'll borrow it. Your books? They looked interesting. Your toothbrush? If the need is great. Your underwear? Not likely, but let's not rule out any possibilities here. I did mention that his concept of property rights was fluid, didn't I? Is there anything that is more liquid than water? That substance, whatever it is, is the firmness of his grasp of 'yours' and 'mine.'
Fortunately, if there is a fortunately to this situation, BB also is one of the least selfish people I know. If he were going to borrow your underwear, it's more likely he would be borrowing it for a friend than for himself. While that thought is slightly disturbing, the principle behind it is solid: BB might be what some people would call a 'thief,' but he's the oft-portrayed-in-literature-but-never-actually-seen Thief with a Heart of Gold. He really, truly would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need.
Or the shirt off some other guy's back. It's all the same to BB.
My cell phone rang as we sat there around the table in the Eternal Rest.
"Nice ring tone," said Midnight Jane. "That Brahms?"
"Yeah," I said, not having any real idea if it were Brahms or not. Classical composers and I had met around the time I was two, hung out together until I was twelve, and then spent most of our time not talking after that. Out of the free ring tones on my phone, this was just the tone I disliked least. I suppose it really was good, though, if you liked arpeggios. "You mind if I get this?"
"You ask that every time," said Tumble Dry. "Just answer it."
I flipped my phone open. "This is Bradley."
"Bradley, this is BB. We might have a problem."
I pulled at my chin. Hearing from BB was never boring. Sometimes I really, really wanted to be bored. "What happened?" I stood up and walked away from the table as I talked. I had a feeling I didn't want to have to explain any of this to my friends. They're good people, but, well, they tend to laugh. Especially Midnight Jane.
"I borrowed something," said my Chief Acolyte. "Not a big thing, but a thing. I don't think it will be a problem, though. It's only a minor holy artifact, anyway, and this guy wandered into our temple, really sick and all, and he doesn't trust the elder gods, so I helped him out."
"What did you take, BB?"
"Come on, Bradley. Don't talk like that. It's not like our temple is the most popular around. We don't have good music or good sermons, and the government stipend barely covers expenses, if that. We've got to do what we can to show the people around here that you're a nice guy, the kind of god you want to go to in distress--and let me tell you, a healing here or there is just the kind of good press a young god needs."
I could feel a headache coming on, grinding through the brain behind my forehead and settling up against the inside of my skull, content to lurk there, painful and menacing. "You took something important, didn't you."
"It was important to the guy I helped! He's been really sick for over a year now, but he was dressed all nice, so I figured he had some money to spare, and you do know we can do good things with spare money."
I started to worry that I was asking the wrong question. If BB was going to this kind of effort to convince me that things were okay, that had to mean that things--things of all kinds and sorts and types--weren't okay at all.
That's when I saw him advancing across the dining room of the Eternal Rest. Forgotten Zed is a solid six-foot-six with intent, packed with the kind of muscles that take over two-thousand years to develop...and then have run down a little bit, but nobody is going to tell that to Zed's face. Not me, at least. I don't say much of anything to Zed's face. I did, on one occasion, mutter something behind his back, but my heart wasn't in it. Maybe I'm intimidated by his facial hair--white and electric. I've never been able to grow facial hair more than a paltry sandpaper scruff, and Forgotten Zed's beard, like the rest of his body, is filled with dynamic energy.
But not necessarily a surplus of coordination. He tripped over a chair as he advanced toward me, stumbling, stopping, and glaring at the offending piece of lumber. Then he snapped the back off and dropped it on the floor. It clattered there, then held still, afraid to attract any more attention from the outraged god.
The next object of Forgotten Zed's attention was me.
"Are you Bradley?" he called across the dining room, striding towards me again.
"BB," I said, almost whispering through the phone, "did you steal from who I think you did?"
"Who do you think I stole from?" asked my Acolyte. "Because I probably didn't. I wouldn't be that dumb. Why, is he there?"
I closed my phone and tried to force my cheeks and lips into a friendly smile. After all, I'm a god, Forgotten Zed is a god, and that means we have lots in common. We probably use the same toilet paper. And we both like our lives without pain. Well, at least one of us does.
"I ask you again, sir," said one of the oldest of the elder gods, "are you Bradley?"
"I am," I squeaked, then cleared my throat. "I am," I tried again in a slightly less embarrassing register. "Can I help you with something?"
Zed looked down at me from what seemed like a more lofty climb than the five inches difference in our height should have made possible. I didn't think I was slouching--was I? I straightened my back, looked in his eyes, but then slouched a little again, just to be safe. Or feel safer. I also broke eye contact, having read somewhere that eye contact only provokes savage beasts.
"You can give me back what is mine," said Forgotten Zed.
I swallowed. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," I said, "but I'm sure we can--"
"And then you can have the acolyte who took it executed."
I blinked. Time seemed to stretch, like a long pull of saltwater taffy. "Excuse me?"
"You can have your kleptomaniacal acolyte executed as dictated under the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood, codified and ratified by the entire body of the divine in the year 427."
"I don't think I've read it," I said, trying to stall for time as my mind raced to catch up with what Forgotten Zed had just said. Executed?
"It doesn't matter if you've read it or not," said this imposing slab of divinity. "Part of the ratified treaty was that, in order to protect our civilization as we know it and prevent cataclysmic war between divine personages, the laws and strictures would apply to all gods, past and future."
That didn't sound good. Had they mentioned these laws in the orientation packet the government had given me? It was ringing a bell, but there had been a lot of pages. Stalling still seemed like a good idea. "But isn't that rather sexist? You said it's called 'the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood.' Kind of unfair to women, it seems."
Forgotten Zed glared from under white and bushy eyebrows. "The Laws were ratified by the United Divine Sisterhood in 632. It applies to all gods. Everywhere. Equally. And the law dictates that any holder of Great Office that is caught in the theft of artifacts of power, whether historical or newly shaped through the faith of worship, must be tried, speedily convicted, and put to death."
"What if he's innocent?"
"Your acolyte? I think not.”
I blinked. He was almost certainly correct on that one. I tried another direction. "Are you sure it's the Great Office holder that needs to be executed?"
His eyes narrowed. He said nothing.
I swallowed and went on. "Because, the way you said it, it could have meant that the artifact of power needed to be executed. I've seen a couple of those things, and honestly, if they let themselves get stolen, I would say it probably was their own fault--"
"Don't be fatuous," he interrupted, and he stared--glared, really, the way an avalanche glares its way down a mountain--and I decided not only to stop being fatuous right then, but to never be fatuous again. Ever. I also made a mental note to find out what 'fatuous' meant. "You know what your Chief Acolyte took, and you will get it back to me. Immediately. In fact, I'm almost ready to believe that you ordered the theft yourself." Forgotten Zed leaned down and in until his beard was almost tickling my chin, and I found myself leaning back and a little more back, my calves tense and burning. "And do you know what happens if I discover that you are the one behind this? Chains. Rocks. Eternally devoured by a great bird of prey."
I tried to stop my mouth. I often do. My mother has said before that when the angels assembled my brain, they forgot to include any of the usual filters or safety features that keep the stupid words inside and let the smart words out. I expect she was correct.
"I've read that story before," I said. "Didn't he escape?"
Forgotten Zed didn't get mad. I had expected him to, but there was no thunder in his hair, no fire in his eyes. In fact, he just smiled. It was a friendly sort of smile, almost like we were on a picnic together, we were the oldest of pals, and he was only looming over and threatening me with immense pain the way the oldest of pals do.
Then he turned and walked away.
I remember reading the story of Prometheus as a child. It was a children’s book about celebrities of the Western Hemisphere, and it included a bit about 'Mister Pro' as his publicists call him now. He has a good life, from everything I can see. His marriage has lasted over five-hundred years, his children seem to actually have healthy lives in spite of all the family money, and the way he's posed in the pictures, you can tell that he's the sort of guy you'd like because he'd like you. He likes people. He likes life. He's happy.
So between Forgotten Zed and Mister Pro, who has the last laugh?
Of course, there's one number that always stood out to me from the Prometheus story: six-hundred-eighty-three. It's the number of years the god was chained to a rock. I did the math once. That means the guy had his liver eaten out 249,295 times.
Between Forgotten Zed and Mister Pro, who has the last laugh?
I walked the long way around the broken chair and joined my friends at the table again. Already some of the very discrete staff of the Eternal Rest were moving to clear away any signs of unpleasantness. Not that there were any, really. Everyone's friends here. I realized I was shaking, just a little.
"What was that about?" asked Midnight Jane. "You look like you need a pair of clean underwear."
"I do not," I said, then sat down and discretely checked under the table. Everything was dry--good to go. "And I honestly don't know what that was about." Actually, if I were being completely honest, I did know a little what that was all about, but I didn't need to tell Midnight Jane about it. She had a thing for fires, and for throwing fuel on them. Also, she didn't like Forgotten Zed.
"Whatever it is you did," she said, "I applaud you. Anything that tweaks the nose of that bit of prehistoric rock is all right with me."
"'Tweaks the nose?'" said Tumble Dry, snorting. "No one has tweaked anyone's nose for decades."
Midnight Jane flicked a piece of ice at him. "It's not polite to point out a woman's age. Come on, Bradley. Tell us what it was about."
"I admit that I'm interested, too," said Harold. "Forgotten Zed is like Mount Everest. I mean, I've always known he existed, but I've never expected to actually see him. This is remarkable!"
I knew a bit about what Harold meant. Growing up in Northern Lights, I'd known that Zed was in the area, but I never thought I'd meet him. Or be threatened by him.
I shrugged. "Something to do with BB, but I'm sure it was a misunderstanding."
Midnight Jane hooted. "A misunderstanding? With BB? Not likely! What did he take this time? Old Zeddie's beard trimmer? His Angry Toga? Good for BB! I'll have to buy him lunch."
I shifted in my chair. I wanted her to buy ME lunch, not my Chief Acolyte. Hang on. Switch that: I wanted to buy HER lunch. Then I remembered the dismal state of my temple finances and, in my head, switched things back. But either way, I didn't want her spending her time with BB. I know the guy isn't exactly a romantic sort, but he has a way of getting under your skin with how CUTE he is, and I didn't think Midnight Jane went in for 'cute,' but better safe than sorry.
But that wasn't the point.
"That's not the point," I said. "If BB DID steal something--and I'm not saying he did--then Forgotten Zed is threatening to execute him."
"Under the Laws of the Divine Brotherhood?" asked Tumble Dry, leaning back long in his chair. "Those haven't been enforced for centuries. Not the truly draconic parts of them, anyway." He slapped the table and leaned forward. "I know what this is about."
"You do?" I asked. I was certain I didn't.
"The competition."
Midnight Jane's eyes narrowed. "You don't think so, really."
"I do," said Tumble Dry, leaning back in his chair again. "I do indeed. Forgotten Zed is worried, and he's decided to play dirty. Get Bradley off his game."
Harold looked side to side, clearly delighted by all of this and not having any idea what was going on.
Midnight Jane crossed her arms over her breasts. "That bas--"
"Language, madame," said Mad Hatter Barnes, leaning in to replace the empty pitcher of root beer.
She flicked her eyes up at him and grunted an apology. "That jerk. We finally get a competition where the elder gods DON'T have an edge of thousands of years of experience, and they immediately step in to start sabotaging our best player. I cry foul."
"So this is all about some contest?" asked Harold.
"Yes," said Tumble Dry.
Midnight Jane nodded. "Definitely," she said with confidence. "They're trying to intimidate Bradley."
I had looked into Forgotten Zed's eyes, and I wasn't so sure this was just about intimidating me. This was more than that, somehow. However, if it WAS about intimidating me, I knew one thing: it was working.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Accidental God 4.0 -- Section 01
[Here's the start of something new. Same ideas, but much, much more my style, I think. I'm having lots of FUN again with my writing, and that's a good thing.
[Did I mention? Accidental God 2.0 is going to bed. Possibly forever. I looked at what I was writing, and I dreaded it. My favorite parts had nothing to do with the main plot, and I found myself slogging through section after section to get to the irrelevant parts I most enjoyed.
[I may not be an expert, but I think that's a danger sign. I simply didn't want to read the book I was writing.
[Then came Accidental God 3.0 which made it to around 2,000 words before I set it aside and started writing this. Here it is, an Accidental God 4.0 that feels fun to me. I have no idea what the story will look like--really and truly, none--but I intend to listen to God the best I can and enjoy the ride. Let's see where Practicality Bradley Shupak takes us.]
The Accidental God
"Over there," said Tumble Dry. He was nodding his head toward the door, which is a sight to see. Not the door--Tumble Dry nodding. He's got the kind of neck you see in cartoons about skinny guys: too long, thrusting his head out in front of the skinny rest of him that takes a while to catch up with the head, unless he's walking backwards. Also, his Adam's apple is about the size of an overgrown walnut, majestic in its prominence.
On second thought, the door is a sight to see as well, but that's for another time.
"New guy?" asked Midnight Jane, eyeing the man who had just walked in. Midnight Jane’s got hair the color of--wait for it--midnight. Or she would, if she weren't always coloring it. This week she'd bleached it and worked in rainbow highlights that--not that I'd ever tell her--had gone kind of muddy. Fortunately, she's some extreme kind of color blind, so when we all lied to her and said it was wonderful, she smiled. She's got a nice smile. Le sigh.
"Definitely a new guy," I agreed. That's me, the last of our trio. My name is Practicality Bradley Shupak. I'm twenty-seven, single, and until recently the newest of an undying breed. I am, to my everlasting confusion, a god.
"You can always tell the new guys," I said. "They have that look about them."
"Which you see every day in the mirror," said Tumble Dry. He snorted, which, with his nose, had a particular depth and resonance--I'm trying to say his nose is big, prodigious, its sweep an Arch of Triumph--and he laughed at me. It's fine. I can take that. Yes, it hurts just a bit each time, but I can take it.
"Don't mess with Bradley," said Midnight Jane. "He can't help that he is such a cute little baby." She reached over and grabbed my cheek, shaking my face from side-to-side in a distressingly sisterly manner. Color isn't the only thing that Midnight Jane is blind to. Le sigh. "Besides," she went on, "we need to welcome the new guy before anyone else finds him."
"Heaven and earth, yes," said Tumble Dry. "If the old farts get him, it will be nothing but misery for the poor sap for centuries to come."
"Or at least for the next few hours," said Midnight Jane. "Bradley. Go get him."
"Me?"
"You."
"I’m not the new guy anymore. I have seniority."
"Which is why you're going. You have responsibilities now. Hurry up, and I'll go get us some root beer."
"You don't have to get it," I said, noticing the waiter, Mad Hatter Barnes, on his way over. "Barnes is bringing it already."
"Do not question me!" said Midnight Jane, waiving her hand in the air dismissively. "I am a goddess."
"Sure," said Tumble Dry, snorting. "But not on purpose."
"Nonetheless, I have been an accidental god for longer than both of you, so my decree is law. And if you don't believe that, I'm the cutest one here, so that works just as well."
I looked at Tumble Dry. He looked at me. She was right. I shrugged and stood up. What else could I do? I went to greet the new guy.
On my fifth birthday I declared to my parents that I was going to grow up to be a sign holder.
"What kind of sign holder?" asked my father supportively.
"No you're not," said my mother, not so supportively.
"Just listen to the boy for a few minutes," said my father. "He might surprise you. And besides, it's his birthday."
"Fine," said my mother. "What kind of sign holder?"
"Construction." I said it with conviction, and I could have told you exactly why. It had to do with the vests. The reflective striping had caught my eye, and love had swept over me like a tsunami over a small tropical island. In its wake there was nothing left--nothing but love. Love was the wave. Love was the terror. Love was the desolate aftermath.
"See?" said my mother. "Terrible idea. I'm getting the boy a pamphlet on pharmacology."
I don't want to give the impression that my mother was unkind. She simply knew what was right. For everything. And everyone. I used to envy her confidence. I still do, I suppose. Just two years ago my mother declared that the mayor of Northern Lights, Wisconsin--where we live--had no idea what he was doing, which was the generally accepted opinion throughout the city. Everyone agreed that Mayor Livingston Formaly Brock was useless as a government official, everyone including the girl who was bringing us burgers in baskets at Horse Burgers Restaurant--their motto, ‘At least we're honest, and you'll love the taste!’ I don't know how we got onto the subject of the mayor. It might have gone something like this.
"Here are your burgers," the waitress might have said. "Doesn't the mayor suck?"
"Watch your language," my mother might have said, "and yes, he does. I think I'll run for mayor."
I'm sure that isn't how it happened, since I was there, but however it happened, my mother in that instant decided she knew what was right for the entire city of Northern Lights. Before I knew what was happening, there were signs telling me to 'VOTE for BARBARA SHUPAK!' I really didn't need to see those signs, because my mother had already told me who I was voting for: her. I did. The other option was Mayor Livingston Formaly Brock, and I wasn't about to vote for him--his middle name was 'Formaly.' Apparently, nobody else was going to vote for him either. My mother campaigned like a landslide, won in a landslide, and the city had kept on sliding since.
I mention all this, if you recall, because I had determined at age five that I would be a sign holder. Subsequently, at the age of six, my feet were solidly set onto the pathway of the orthopedic surgeon, mostly because I had just learned to say the words 'orthopedic' and--wait for it--'surgeon.' Also, Mark Fitzpatrick's father was a surgeon, and he had the most awesome pens I had ever seen. He kept them in the pocket of whatever he was wearing, and they had four colors, and he used them ALL.
That dream lasted me until the age of seven, and to cut this all short, I had since that time decided I would be a professional pianist or conductor (I saw the tail coats), a mascot for one of three football teams (wolverine, duck, or squirrel), a poet (because I thought they didn't have to do anything except forget to comb their hair), and a professional ice cream taster. Also, I wanted to try the luge. Just once.
Never, in all my changing dreams, had I ever told my parents that I wanted to grow up to be a god.
I walked up to the guy and smiled down at him. It looked like I'd be doing just about everything down at this man. I had a solid foot on him, and I peak out at around six-two in thick shoes. His hair was brown and restless, sticking out in as many directions as it could, arguing with itself, different tufts making peace with each other at the oddest places. I realized I was staring at his hair, and brought my eyes down to his face.
"Hey," I said. "I'm Bradley."
I held out my hand and he took it, shaking brightly, a dazed but happy look on his face like a puppy who has just fallen into a bowl of butter.
"This is really the place, huh?" he said. "I mean, this is the club where gods hang out, right? Of course it is. That's what they told me when I got all registered with the government--nice people there, don't you think? They took great care of me, gave me my ID, told me what to watch out for as a new god. Did you know that we don't age?"
I tried to look sincerely interested--not that I wasn't, but I'd been through this already, and it had become a little tired for me. Of course, it was good that I was the first god talking to the man, because anyone else would have been so far beyond interested in all the 'new god' chatter that this little guy could have been crushed by the indifference.
"I actually did know that," I said.
He was nodding his head, and I wondered what exactly he was agreeing with. "I always knew gods lived forever, but I didn't know that they never age. That's just crazy. All kinds of stuff about gods. You're a god, too, right? I figure, 'cause you don't have a uniform on. The guys in uniforms are angels, right?"
I looked around at the club's wait staff. "Nope," I said. "Actually, none of them here are angels. All just regular humans. And Mad Hatter Barnes is a demon."
"Really? No kidding! I've never met a demon face to face. Which is he?"
"The one with the hat."
"Oh! Wow. Well." He leaned forward slightly and squinted at Barnes. "He doesn't look very demonic."
"He doesn't act very demonic, either. He's an excellent storyteller, though, if you can get him to talk about the French Revolution."
The little god swallowed and his lips turned down. "That sounds...gross."
"Well, it's that, too. I did say he was a demon, though. Come with me. I'll introduce you to my friends."
"Are they gods, too?"
"Most definitely. I didn't get your name, by the way. Like I said, I'm Bradley."
He looked up at me, the skin of his nose wrinkling. "Just Bradley?"
"That's it."
"But I thought all gods got some kind of name. Like Barley Fields McCoy, and Two-Tone Zuke, and Long-Song Jenny. The Brick. You know, names like that."
I shrugged. "I guess I just don't have a name yet. Nothing has stuck."
"That's too bad," he said. "I wonder what they'll call me."
When I found out that I was a god, I had gone through the typical four steps of divinity. From what I hear, every god goes through them. It's like grieving, and you can't help it. It's something you have to live with.
Actually, to be more accurate, I went through the first three out of the four steps.
First was denial. As I mentioned before, I never expected to be a god. It was never an entry in my 'To Do' list, not that I usually had one. That was more a brief flirtation with organization at the beginning of my freshman year, and pretty quickly my day planner was filled with sketches of men wrestling with octopuses. Octopods. Octopi. One of those. It was an art phase of mine, the doodles of tentacled things, and it lasted longer than my 'To Do' lists ever did.
So what I'm saying is, again, as I mentioned before, I didn't plan on godhood. I didn't really believe it at first.
"That can't be right," said my mother. I suppose she was going through denial as well. "Practicality isn't a god."
Mom is about the only person around who still calls me by my real first name. I'd find it comforting if it didn't feel like a judgment every time she said it. 'Practicality,' she calls me, and she aspires for me to live up to that name, and I know I fail. I once put 'be practical' on my 'To Do' list. Then I covered it over with the head of an octopus.
"Practicality isn't a god," said my mother.
"I'm pretty sure she's right," I said.
"This is so cool," said my sister. She just skipped right over the first step.
"I'm afraid we're quite confident about this," said the man from the government. He was in a suit that had seen better days--by which I mean that it was wrinkled and worn at the edges and INTERESTING. I wanted to draw it. In fact, I wanted to draw it right then. I recognize now that I was avoiding thinking about what he was saying, another sign that I was firmly in the first step of divinity. "We've run the tests, our angelic visitors have identified your house as the correct location for the divine emissions, and, Mayor Shupak, it is an inescapable conclusion: your son is a god."
"Well," said my dad. "This will make for a dynamic Christmas letter."
I'd moved through to the second step: confusion and panic, which you'd think might be two steps, but new gods swing back and forth between those two so often that metaphysicians have just wrapped them into one. I drew all the time, filling sketchbooks, then wondered if gods were supposed to do art, then wondered if a god should have to worry about what gods were supposed to do, and then I dropped my paints on my sister's cat and cried. I didn't mean to drop them on the cat; that was just a bonus.
Then I moved on to the third step: acceptance. I was a god. It wasn't going to change. It got me a discount just about everywhere and let me meet Midnight Jane, though that's another story. Also, in Northern Lights, a kind of de facto hang out for gods, it got me into the Divine Rest, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: gods only. Hard to get more exclusive than that.
Somehow, though, the fourth step of divinity had never caught up to me, at least not in the year I'd been a god: I still didn't have a name.
"Bradley's a good enough name for now," I said to the little man. "What's your name?"
"Harold," he said.
I looked down at him, surprised, trying to not look surprised. He looked closer to thirty than fifty, and I was pretty positive I'd never met a Harold under fifty. It was like the government had decreed a cut-off date for naming your child 'Harold,' and if you didn't get all your Harolds born before then, well, you were simply out of luck. Your child would have to have a more modern name like 'Michael' or 'Bruce.' Actually, 'Bruce' was pushing it. You could probably have been born in the last forty years and be a 'Bruce,' but certainly not in the last thirty.
Either way, Harold was far, far too young to be a 'Harold,' which confirmed something in my head that I found rather depressing: Harold was going to get a name before I was.
[Did I mention? Accidental God 2.0 is going to bed. Possibly forever. I looked at what I was writing, and I dreaded it. My favorite parts had nothing to do with the main plot, and I found myself slogging through section after section to get to the irrelevant parts I most enjoyed.
[I may not be an expert, but I think that's a danger sign. I simply didn't want to read the book I was writing.
[Then came Accidental God 3.0 which made it to around 2,000 words before I set it aside and started writing this. Here it is, an Accidental God 4.0 that feels fun to me. I have no idea what the story will look like--really and truly, none--but I intend to listen to God the best I can and enjoy the ride. Let's see where Practicality Bradley Shupak takes us.]
The Accidental God
"Over there," said Tumble Dry. He was nodding his head toward the door, which is a sight to see. Not the door--Tumble Dry nodding. He's got the kind of neck you see in cartoons about skinny guys: too long, thrusting his head out in front of the skinny rest of him that takes a while to catch up with the head, unless he's walking backwards. Also, his Adam's apple is about the size of an overgrown walnut, majestic in its prominence.
On second thought, the door is a sight to see as well, but that's for another time.
"New guy?" asked Midnight Jane, eyeing the man who had just walked in. Midnight Jane’s got hair the color of--wait for it--midnight. Or she would, if she weren't always coloring it. This week she'd bleached it and worked in rainbow highlights that--not that I'd ever tell her--had gone kind of muddy. Fortunately, she's some extreme kind of color blind, so when we all lied to her and said it was wonderful, she smiled. She's got a nice smile. Le sigh.
"Definitely a new guy," I agreed. That's me, the last of our trio. My name is Practicality Bradley Shupak. I'm twenty-seven, single, and until recently the newest of an undying breed. I am, to my everlasting confusion, a god.
"You can always tell the new guys," I said. "They have that look about them."
"Which you see every day in the mirror," said Tumble Dry. He snorted, which, with his nose, had a particular depth and resonance--I'm trying to say his nose is big, prodigious, its sweep an Arch of Triumph--and he laughed at me. It's fine. I can take that. Yes, it hurts just a bit each time, but I can take it.
"Don't mess with Bradley," said Midnight Jane. "He can't help that he is such a cute little baby." She reached over and grabbed my cheek, shaking my face from side-to-side in a distressingly sisterly manner. Color isn't the only thing that Midnight Jane is blind to. Le sigh. "Besides," she went on, "we need to welcome the new guy before anyone else finds him."
"Heaven and earth, yes," said Tumble Dry. "If the old farts get him, it will be nothing but misery for the poor sap for centuries to come."
"Or at least for the next few hours," said Midnight Jane. "Bradley. Go get him."
"Me?"
"You."
"I’m not the new guy anymore. I have seniority."
"Which is why you're going. You have responsibilities now. Hurry up, and I'll go get us some root beer."
"You don't have to get it," I said, noticing the waiter, Mad Hatter Barnes, on his way over. "Barnes is bringing it already."
"Do not question me!" said Midnight Jane, waiving her hand in the air dismissively. "I am a goddess."
"Sure," said Tumble Dry, snorting. "But not on purpose."
"Nonetheless, I have been an accidental god for longer than both of you, so my decree is law. And if you don't believe that, I'm the cutest one here, so that works just as well."
I looked at Tumble Dry. He looked at me. She was right. I shrugged and stood up. What else could I do? I went to greet the new guy.
On my fifth birthday I declared to my parents that I was going to grow up to be a sign holder.
"What kind of sign holder?" asked my father supportively.
"No you're not," said my mother, not so supportively.
"Just listen to the boy for a few minutes," said my father. "He might surprise you. And besides, it's his birthday."
"Fine," said my mother. "What kind of sign holder?"
"Construction." I said it with conviction, and I could have told you exactly why. It had to do with the vests. The reflective striping had caught my eye, and love had swept over me like a tsunami over a small tropical island. In its wake there was nothing left--nothing but love. Love was the wave. Love was the terror. Love was the desolate aftermath.
"See?" said my mother. "Terrible idea. I'm getting the boy a pamphlet on pharmacology."
I don't want to give the impression that my mother was unkind. She simply knew what was right. For everything. And everyone. I used to envy her confidence. I still do, I suppose. Just two years ago my mother declared that the mayor of Northern Lights, Wisconsin--where we live--had no idea what he was doing, which was the generally accepted opinion throughout the city. Everyone agreed that Mayor Livingston Formaly Brock was useless as a government official, everyone including the girl who was bringing us burgers in baskets at Horse Burgers Restaurant--their motto, ‘At least we're honest, and you'll love the taste!’ I don't know how we got onto the subject of the mayor. It might have gone something like this.
"Here are your burgers," the waitress might have said. "Doesn't the mayor suck?"
"Watch your language," my mother might have said, "and yes, he does. I think I'll run for mayor."
I'm sure that isn't how it happened, since I was there, but however it happened, my mother in that instant decided she knew what was right for the entire city of Northern Lights. Before I knew what was happening, there were signs telling me to 'VOTE for BARBARA SHUPAK!' I really didn't need to see those signs, because my mother had already told me who I was voting for: her. I did. The other option was Mayor Livingston Formaly Brock, and I wasn't about to vote for him--his middle name was 'Formaly.' Apparently, nobody else was going to vote for him either. My mother campaigned like a landslide, won in a landslide, and the city had kept on sliding since.
I mention all this, if you recall, because I had determined at age five that I would be a sign holder. Subsequently, at the age of six, my feet were solidly set onto the pathway of the orthopedic surgeon, mostly because I had just learned to say the words 'orthopedic' and--wait for it--'surgeon.' Also, Mark Fitzpatrick's father was a surgeon, and he had the most awesome pens I had ever seen. He kept them in the pocket of whatever he was wearing, and they had four colors, and he used them ALL.
That dream lasted me until the age of seven, and to cut this all short, I had since that time decided I would be a professional pianist or conductor (I saw the tail coats), a mascot for one of three football teams (wolverine, duck, or squirrel), a poet (because I thought they didn't have to do anything except forget to comb their hair), and a professional ice cream taster. Also, I wanted to try the luge. Just once.
Never, in all my changing dreams, had I ever told my parents that I wanted to grow up to be a god.
I walked up to the guy and smiled down at him. It looked like I'd be doing just about everything down at this man. I had a solid foot on him, and I peak out at around six-two in thick shoes. His hair was brown and restless, sticking out in as many directions as it could, arguing with itself, different tufts making peace with each other at the oddest places. I realized I was staring at his hair, and brought my eyes down to his face.
"Hey," I said. "I'm Bradley."
I held out my hand and he took it, shaking brightly, a dazed but happy look on his face like a puppy who has just fallen into a bowl of butter.
"This is really the place, huh?" he said. "I mean, this is the club where gods hang out, right? Of course it is. That's what they told me when I got all registered with the government--nice people there, don't you think? They took great care of me, gave me my ID, told me what to watch out for as a new god. Did you know that we don't age?"
I tried to look sincerely interested--not that I wasn't, but I'd been through this already, and it had become a little tired for me. Of course, it was good that I was the first god talking to the man, because anyone else would have been so far beyond interested in all the 'new god' chatter that this little guy could have been crushed by the indifference.
"I actually did know that," I said.
He was nodding his head, and I wondered what exactly he was agreeing with. "I always knew gods lived forever, but I didn't know that they never age. That's just crazy. All kinds of stuff about gods. You're a god, too, right? I figure, 'cause you don't have a uniform on. The guys in uniforms are angels, right?"
I looked around at the club's wait staff. "Nope," I said. "Actually, none of them here are angels. All just regular humans. And Mad Hatter Barnes is a demon."
"Really? No kidding! I've never met a demon face to face. Which is he?"
"The one with the hat."
"Oh! Wow. Well." He leaned forward slightly and squinted at Barnes. "He doesn't look very demonic."
"He doesn't act very demonic, either. He's an excellent storyteller, though, if you can get him to talk about the French Revolution."
The little god swallowed and his lips turned down. "That sounds...gross."
"Well, it's that, too. I did say he was a demon, though. Come with me. I'll introduce you to my friends."
"Are they gods, too?"
"Most definitely. I didn't get your name, by the way. Like I said, I'm Bradley."
He looked up at me, the skin of his nose wrinkling. "Just Bradley?"
"That's it."
"But I thought all gods got some kind of name. Like Barley Fields McCoy, and Two-Tone Zuke, and Long-Song Jenny. The Brick. You know, names like that."
I shrugged. "I guess I just don't have a name yet. Nothing has stuck."
"That's too bad," he said. "I wonder what they'll call me."
When I found out that I was a god, I had gone through the typical four steps of divinity. From what I hear, every god goes through them. It's like grieving, and you can't help it. It's something you have to live with.
Actually, to be more accurate, I went through the first three out of the four steps.
First was denial. As I mentioned before, I never expected to be a god. It was never an entry in my 'To Do' list, not that I usually had one. That was more a brief flirtation with organization at the beginning of my freshman year, and pretty quickly my day planner was filled with sketches of men wrestling with octopuses. Octopods. Octopi. One of those. It was an art phase of mine, the doodles of tentacled things, and it lasted longer than my 'To Do' lists ever did.
So what I'm saying is, again, as I mentioned before, I didn't plan on godhood. I didn't really believe it at first.
"That can't be right," said my mother. I suppose she was going through denial as well. "Practicality isn't a god."
Mom is about the only person around who still calls me by my real first name. I'd find it comforting if it didn't feel like a judgment every time she said it. 'Practicality,' she calls me, and she aspires for me to live up to that name, and I know I fail. I once put 'be practical' on my 'To Do' list. Then I covered it over with the head of an octopus.
"Practicality isn't a god," said my mother.
"I'm pretty sure she's right," I said.
"This is so cool," said my sister. She just skipped right over the first step.
"I'm afraid we're quite confident about this," said the man from the government. He was in a suit that had seen better days--by which I mean that it was wrinkled and worn at the edges and INTERESTING. I wanted to draw it. In fact, I wanted to draw it right then. I recognize now that I was avoiding thinking about what he was saying, another sign that I was firmly in the first step of divinity. "We've run the tests, our angelic visitors have identified your house as the correct location for the divine emissions, and, Mayor Shupak, it is an inescapable conclusion: your son is a god."
"Well," said my dad. "This will make for a dynamic Christmas letter."
I'd moved through to the second step: confusion and panic, which you'd think might be two steps, but new gods swing back and forth between those two so often that metaphysicians have just wrapped them into one. I drew all the time, filling sketchbooks, then wondered if gods were supposed to do art, then wondered if a god should have to worry about what gods were supposed to do, and then I dropped my paints on my sister's cat and cried. I didn't mean to drop them on the cat; that was just a bonus.
Then I moved on to the third step: acceptance. I was a god. It wasn't going to change. It got me a discount just about everywhere and let me meet Midnight Jane, though that's another story. Also, in Northern Lights, a kind of de facto hang out for gods, it got me into the Divine Rest, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: gods only. Hard to get more exclusive than that.
Somehow, though, the fourth step of divinity had never caught up to me, at least not in the year I'd been a god: I still didn't have a name.
"Bradley's a good enough name for now," I said to the little man. "What's your name?"
"Harold," he said.
I looked down at him, surprised, trying to not look surprised. He looked closer to thirty than fifty, and I was pretty positive I'd never met a Harold under fifty. It was like the government had decreed a cut-off date for naming your child 'Harold,' and if you didn't get all your Harolds born before then, well, you were simply out of luck. Your child would have to have a more modern name like 'Michael' or 'Bruce.' Actually, 'Bruce' was pushing it. You could probably have been born in the last forty years and be a 'Bruce,' but certainly not in the last thirty.
Either way, Harold was far, far too young to be a 'Harold,' which confirmed something in my head that I found rather depressing: Harold was going to get a name before I was.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 19
[I started listening to a Terry Pratchett book today. I don't know how it happened, but he got better than his earlier books. Lots better. In fact, it was somewhat distressing how good he is. But, as my wife said, his success doesn't take away from my success.
[It sure is intimidating, though.]
"Think it will snow?" asked Rae as they walked.
Luther looked around. "Eventually, yes. Why do you ask?"
"To make conversation. We haven't said anything for the last block."
"There was traffic," said Luther.
"So?"
"It was loud. Hard to talk over it."
"No more excuses. You have to talk to me."
Luther looked over at her. She was younger than he was--most everyone was--but they'd been friends so long it was hard to remember a time when he hadn't known her. So, he supposed, he owed her. And she looked concerned. Sure, she looked cheerful, but there was concern under that, about as well hidden as noodles in lasagna.
"Okay," he said. "What do we talk about."
"Anything. Whatever you want to talk about. Just start talking, and I'll answer, and we'll go back and forth. It'll be like a conversation."
"I've heard about those," said Luther. "Want to talk about shoes?"
"No."
"How's your job with the Twins?"
Rae wrinkled her nose. "Some days I can't figure out how those two ever became goddesses. Honestly, last week they come back from the hair dresser, and--hang on. No. You're not getting me talking. It's your turn to talk."
"Can't I ask you questions?" asked Luther.
"Possibly, but not before you say five things about your own life."
"What would I say?"
"Nope, you can't ask me that. I'm waiting for those five things."
Luther smiled. "You're working really hard at this."
"Yes, I am. You spent so many years listening to me, it's about time I shut up and did some listening. So talk."
"Okay."
"Start now."
"Give me a minute."
"Fine. Your minute starts now."
"I didn't mean that literally."
"Don't care. I'll expect you to be talking in...fifty seconds."
Luther rubbed at the scruff on his cheek--he'd forgotten to shave--and looked around at the world. Lunch traffic, people walking here and there. Luther noticed their shoes, as he probably always would. Why did women insist on wearing such terrible torture devices? Luther could appreciate attractive calves, but he wasn't sure they were worth the pain some women went through every day. If he'd had his way, Heartbreak Hal's shoe store would never have carried high heels--not for men back in the day, not for women now.
But Rae had said he couldn't talk about shoes. What else would he talk about? Luther assumed that Forgotten Zed's murder was out of the question. He supposed they could talk about Atty, but no--she'd said he had to talk about himself. What was there to say?
"Time's up," said Rae. "Talk."
"I'm not ready."
"Talk now."
Her voice was hard, harder than he remembered hearing it, and it surprised him. Luther found his mouth moving.
"I'm thinking about taking up cooking."
"Really?"
"I guess so. I joked about that with Atty, but I think I might actually mean it."
"You told Atty you're going to cook? Wonderful. Anything in particular?"
"Scouring pads."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't know. I have no idea what I want to cook. Atty had these magazines and books covered in pictures of beautiful food. Do you think all that food is real?"
"Probably."
"But I heard somewhere that the food in those pictures is sculpted from other food. Like the ice cream in chocolate syrup commercials."
"What about it?"
"I heard they carved it out of potatoes."
"But wouldn't the potatoes go brown?"
"Sure, because they're pouring chocolate syrup over them."
"Come on. The potatoes would start to oxidize, unless they covered them with spray paint or something. Maybe they use white on them. But I bet most of the food is real." Rae tucked some stray hair behind her ear. "Like asparagus. What's the point of trying to carve asparagus? Easier just to cook a dozen batches than to get all those little leaves on there."
"You have a point," said Luther. "There's the restaurant."
"Maybe you could cook some Thai food," Rae suggested. "Get some inspiration from our lunch here. Why did you stop walking?"
Luther hadn’t realized that he had stopped, but he had. He’d been distracted by the cluster of broguts hanging from the restaurant sign. “Up there,” he said, pointing.
“Ew,” said Rae. “Broguts.”
“Don’t like them?”
“Not at all. I think it’s the legs. Anything over five and I get the willies.”
“Five doesn’t bother you?”
Rae shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything with five.”
“I don’t think anything has five legs. So why not just say ‘anything over four?’”
“I don’t want to be prejudiced.”
Luther raised his eyebrows. “That’s...generous of you. I think.”
Rae smiled at him. “It’s how I was raised. Shall we go in?”
“Hold on a moment,” said Luther. “I’m trying to think. Why would broguts be out? You hardly ever see them, even at night.”
“Really?” said Rae. “Did we discover your one hobby, Luther? You’re a brogut watcher?”
The angel shook his head. “I saw a documentary last week. They’re really reclusive creatures, easily spooked. And look at those.” Luther pointed up to the roof. “See the noses sticking out over the edge there? Long-nosed rupplers. Also entropic creatures, and you never see them in cities.”
Rae scrunched up her face. “Are those the things that look like roadkill? They pretty much just lie around and sniff at stuff, right?”
Luther nodded.
“Then I hate those, too,” said Rae, and she grabbed his sleeve, pulling. “Let’s hurry and go inside.”
“Give me just a minute,” Luther protested. “When did you even get a chance to hate long-nosed rupplers? The camera crews had to hang from tree branches for a month to get shots of them.”
“A month?”
“It was a long time. When did you see them?”
“If we go inside, I’ll tell you.”
“If you tell me, I’ll go inside.”
Rae looked at him and sighed. “Fine. You remember when Lorenzo was a brand new god and I got a job with him?”
“With Lorenzo de Medici? Sure. You looked good in Renaissance clothing.”
“I did not, but thank you. Back then, he had entropic creatures around him all the time. Broguts, and the long-nosed whatevers, and chickens, and potatoes were growing everywhere, and it was a mess. I hated it.”
Luther scratched at his neck, and his skin was rough against his fingers. How had he forgotten to shave? “So,” he said, “entropic creatures were hanging around a new god. Of course. That makes sense. New gods haven’t fully bonded with their power, so they shed it everywhere and attract entropic creatures like moths.”
“Ugh,” said Rae. “You had to remind me. Night was terrible with all the moths. I would’t walk with him. I refused.”
Luther continued chasing after his train of thought. It seemed important. “But why are they at this restaurant? And why was one following that boy?”
“What boy?” asked Rae.
“Boy at the bagel shop this morning. Tall, skinny kid. He said a brogut was following him around town--but he couldn’t be a new god.” Luther stopped as the weight of what he said started to sink in. “Could he?”
Rae was staring at him. Luther couldn’t quite figure out what he was saying. That boy couldn’t have been a killer. He had been so innocent. Maybe a bit of a schmuck, but that was what kids were supposed to be.
Rae thought out loud for him. “Zed dies, and suddenly a boy has broguts following him around? Doesn’t seem likely it’s coincidence.”
“But the boy seemed nice. I don’t think he was the guy.”
“I can think of one way we might find out,” said Rae. “Let’s go.” She turned and walked purposefully toward the restaurant and Luther hurried to catch up.
“This might be a bad idea,” he said. “If he is a god killer, confronting him is one of the worse ways I can think of approaching this.”
Rae glanced at him sideways. “Give me some credit, Luther. Are you going to get the door for me?”
“Of course.” He jogged ahead and pulled the door open. “After you.”
“Your courtesy sweeps me off my feet.”
Then Rae was past him and in the restaurant, looking around. Luther looked, too. No tall, skinny kid. He started breathing again, then realized how silly it was he had been holding his breath. That kid wasn’t the killer. He was sure of it.
“We’re checking the kitchen,” said Rae, but before they could make it halfway across the room, a young woman in an apron intercepted them.
“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling. “Table for two?”
“Probably not,” said Rae. “I mean, probably no table. I’m hoping you actually can help us. We’re looking for a tall young man, skinny. He might be a customer here, or on the kitchen staff.”
The young woman glanced back at the kitchen, a little nervously, Luther thought. “You might mean Bradley, but he doesn’t work here anymore. What is this for, anyway?”
Oh dear, thought Luther. He should have had a lie ready for this.
Rae sailed on without hesitation. “I work at Twin Goddess Art Gallery, and a patron left some things there. We didn’t know how to find him, but he had mentioned this restaurant, so, since I was on the way by, I thought I’d ask. And possible have lunch.”
“Art gallery?” said the young woman. “That was probably Bradley, then. He was always drawing. What things did he leave?”
“A sketch book,” said Rae, and the server cocked her head, looking suddenly skeptical.
“If you can call it that,” said Luther. “A bunch of loose papers, all folded up and tied together.” Was that right? It was a guess, but a good one, he hoped.
The young woman chuckled. “That sounds like Bradley. I wish I could keep them here for him, but he quit last night.” “Did something happen?” asked Rae, all friendly curiosity.
The server glanced back at the kitchen. Was there someone to worry about in there? She hesitated longer, looked at Rae’s smiling-yet-concerned face, then let out her breath. “There was an accident. A patron had an allergic reaction to the food. Peanuts, or something. The chef said it was Bradley’s fault, but I don’t believe it. He was smart. Too smart. He wouldn’t forget to mention something like that.”
Luther didn’t want to ask the question that came to mind, but he felt he had to. He cleared his throat and the girl looked at him. “Is it possible that,” he cleared his throat again--why did this make him nervous?--“that the young man would have done something like that on purpose?”
The girl’s mouth tightened and her nose wrinkled, which would have been cute if she hadn’t so clearly been angry. “How dare you,” she said. “How dare you. You should have seen his face. He was white as a ghost, looking at her. You might have thought he was the one who died. How dare you!”
“I’m sorry,” said Luther, but he had to school his features to keep the smile off his face. He was so glad. The boy wasn’t a god killer. He glanced at the server’s name tag. “I didn’t mean any offense, Denise. I truly am sorry.”
“Please do forgive my friend,” said Rae, pulling Denise’s eyes back to her. “He means well, but sometimes he walks around with his feet in his mouth.”
“That was a terrible thing to say,” said Denise, throwing her glare back at Luther. “I wouldn’t even say that about the chef.”
“Of course not,” said Rae. “I think we should go, then. Maybe I’ll come back later.”
“Without him,” said Denise. It wasn’t a question.
“Thank you for your help,” said Rae, and they left the restaurant. They paused on the sidewalk while Rae readjusted her scarf. Luther didn’t bother trying to hide his smile anymore. Bradley, the boy, wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t sure entirely why that made him so happy, but it did. Perhaps it was because he liked the boy, which he did, even after a total of perhaps two minutes together. Bradley had seemed sincere, like he cared about things more than the average person. And perhaps Luther was pleased because his judgment of the kid had been right. It was a frightening thing to doubt your judgment of people after more than a millennium of living. Either way, he smiled.
“That was tactless,” said Rae, “but probably necessary. So now we know that our killer is the woman who died from a peanut allergy. Should that be possible?”
Luther shrugged. “If the power hadn’t had a chance to bind to her, then sure, and giving the timing, I can’t imagine any real binding going on. She was almost as vulnerable as a normal human. And now Bradley has all that power.”
“We need to find him,” said Rae. “I’m going back in.”
“I think the girl would have mentioned it if she knew his address.”
“Which is why I’m not going to talk to Denise. I’m going to work the manager, but you stay here. No need to antagonize the poor girl.”
“I never antagonize anyone,” Luther protested.
“Except when you think there’s something good that needs to be done. Then you get a little bullish.”
“I’m gentle as a lamb.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Luther.”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to see you smile again.”
[It sure is intimidating, though.]
"Think it will snow?" asked Rae as they walked.
Luther looked around. "Eventually, yes. Why do you ask?"
"To make conversation. We haven't said anything for the last block."
"There was traffic," said Luther.
"So?"
"It was loud. Hard to talk over it."
"No more excuses. You have to talk to me."
Luther looked over at her. She was younger than he was--most everyone was--but they'd been friends so long it was hard to remember a time when he hadn't known her. So, he supposed, he owed her. And she looked concerned. Sure, she looked cheerful, but there was concern under that, about as well hidden as noodles in lasagna.
"Okay," he said. "What do we talk about."
"Anything. Whatever you want to talk about. Just start talking, and I'll answer, and we'll go back and forth. It'll be like a conversation."
"I've heard about those," said Luther. "Want to talk about shoes?"
"No."
"How's your job with the Twins?"
Rae wrinkled her nose. "Some days I can't figure out how those two ever became goddesses. Honestly, last week they come back from the hair dresser, and--hang on. No. You're not getting me talking. It's your turn to talk."
"Can't I ask you questions?" asked Luther.
"Possibly, but not before you say five things about your own life."
"What would I say?"
"Nope, you can't ask me that. I'm waiting for those five things."
Luther smiled. "You're working really hard at this."
"Yes, I am. You spent so many years listening to me, it's about time I shut up and did some listening. So talk."
"Okay."
"Start now."
"Give me a minute."
"Fine. Your minute starts now."
"I didn't mean that literally."
"Don't care. I'll expect you to be talking in...fifty seconds."
Luther rubbed at the scruff on his cheek--he'd forgotten to shave--and looked around at the world. Lunch traffic, people walking here and there. Luther noticed their shoes, as he probably always would. Why did women insist on wearing such terrible torture devices? Luther could appreciate attractive calves, but he wasn't sure they were worth the pain some women went through every day. If he'd had his way, Heartbreak Hal's shoe store would never have carried high heels--not for men back in the day, not for women now.
But Rae had said he couldn't talk about shoes. What else would he talk about? Luther assumed that Forgotten Zed's murder was out of the question. He supposed they could talk about Atty, but no--she'd said he had to talk about himself. What was there to say?
"Time's up," said Rae. "Talk."
"I'm not ready."
"Talk now."
Her voice was hard, harder than he remembered hearing it, and it surprised him. Luther found his mouth moving.
"I'm thinking about taking up cooking."
"Really?"
"I guess so. I joked about that with Atty, but I think I might actually mean it."
"You told Atty you're going to cook? Wonderful. Anything in particular?"
"Scouring pads."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't know. I have no idea what I want to cook. Atty had these magazines and books covered in pictures of beautiful food. Do you think all that food is real?"
"Probably."
"But I heard somewhere that the food in those pictures is sculpted from other food. Like the ice cream in chocolate syrup commercials."
"What about it?"
"I heard they carved it out of potatoes."
"But wouldn't the potatoes go brown?"
"Sure, because they're pouring chocolate syrup over them."
"Come on. The potatoes would start to oxidize, unless they covered them with spray paint or something. Maybe they use white on them. But I bet most of the food is real." Rae tucked some stray hair behind her ear. "Like asparagus. What's the point of trying to carve asparagus? Easier just to cook a dozen batches than to get all those little leaves on there."
"You have a point," said Luther. "There's the restaurant."
"Maybe you could cook some Thai food," Rae suggested. "Get some inspiration from our lunch here. Why did you stop walking?"
Luther hadn’t realized that he had stopped, but he had. He’d been distracted by the cluster of broguts hanging from the restaurant sign. “Up there,” he said, pointing.
“Ew,” said Rae. “Broguts.”
“Don’t like them?”
“Not at all. I think it’s the legs. Anything over five and I get the willies.”
“Five doesn’t bother you?”
Rae shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything with five.”
“I don’t think anything has five legs. So why not just say ‘anything over four?’”
“I don’t want to be prejudiced.”
Luther raised his eyebrows. “That’s...generous of you. I think.”
Rae smiled at him. “It’s how I was raised. Shall we go in?”
“Hold on a moment,” said Luther. “I’m trying to think. Why would broguts be out? You hardly ever see them, even at night.”
“Really?” said Rae. “Did we discover your one hobby, Luther? You’re a brogut watcher?”
The angel shook his head. “I saw a documentary last week. They’re really reclusive creatures, easily spooked. And look at those.” Luther pointed up to the roof. “See the noses sticking out over the edge there? Long-nosed rupplers. Also entropic creatures, and you never see them in cities.”
Rae scrunched up her face. “Are those the things that look like roadkill? They pretty much just lie around and sniff at stuff, right?”
Luther nodded.
“Then I hate those, too,” said Rae, and she grabbed his sleeve, pulling. “Let’s hurry and go inside.”
“Give me just a minute,” Luther protested. “When did you even get a chance to hate long-nosed rupplers? The camera crews had to hang from tree branches for a month to get shots of them.”
“A month?”
“It was a long time. When did you see them?”
“If we go inside, I’ll tell you.”
“If you tell me, I’ll go inside.”
Rae looked at him and sighed. “Fine. You remember when Lorenzo was a brand new god and I got a job with him?”
“With Lorenzo de Medici? Sure. You looked good in Renaissance clothing.”
“I did not, but thank you. Back then, he had entropic creatures around him all the time. Broguts, and the long-nosed whatevers, and chickens, and potatoes were growing everywhere, and it was a mess. I hated it.”
Luther scratched at his neck, and his skin was rough against his fingers. How had he forgotten to shave? “So,” he said, “entropic creatures were hanging around a new god. Of course. That makes sense. New gods haven’t fully bonded with their power, so they shed it everywhere and attract entropic creatures like moths.”
“Ugh,” said Rae. “You had to remind me. Night was terrible with all the moths. I would’t walk with him. I refused.”
Luther continued chasing after his train of thought. It seemed important. “But why are they at this restaurant? And why was one following that boy?”
“What boy?” asked Rae.
“Boy at the bagel shop this morning. Tall, skinny kid. He said a brogut was following him around town--but he couldn’t be a new god.” Luther stopped as the weight of what he said started to sink in. “Could he?”
Rae was staring at him. Luther couldn’t quite figure out what he was saying. That boy couldn’t have been a killer. He had been so innocent. Maybe a bit of a schmuck, but that was what kids were supposed to be.
Rae thought out loud for him. “Zed dies, and suddenly a boy has broguts following him around? Doesn’t seem likely it’s coincidence.”
“But the boy seemed nice. I don’t think he was the guy.”
“I can think of one way we might find out,” said Rae. “Let’s go.” She turned and walked purposefully toward the restaurant and Luther hurried to catch up.
“This might be a bad idea,” he said. “If he is a god killer, confronting him is one of the worse ways I can think of approaching this.”
Rae glanced at him sideways. “Give me some credit, Luther. Are you going to get the door for me?”
“Of course.” He jogged ahead and pulled the door open. “After you.”
“Your courtesy sweeps me off my feet.”
Then Rae was past him and in the restaurant, looking around. Luther looked, too. No tall, skinny kid. He started breathing again, then realized how silly it was he had been holding his breath. That kid wasn’t the killer. He was sure of it.
“We’re checking the kitchen,” said Rae, but before they could make it halfway across the room, a young woman in an apron intercepted them.
“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling. “Table for two?”
“Probably not,” said Rae. “I mean, probably no table. I’m hoping you actually can help us. We’re looking for a tall young man, skinny. He might be a customer here, or on the kitchen staff.”
The young woman glanced back at the kitchen, a little nervously, Luther thought. “You might mean Bradley, but he doesn’t work here anymore. What is this for, anyway?”
Oh dear, thought Luther. He should have had a lie ready for this.
Rae sailed on without hesitation. “I work at Twin Goddess Art Gallery, and a patron left some things there. We didn’t know how to find him, but he had mentioned this restaurant, so, since I was on the way by, I thought I’d ask. And possible have lunch.”
“Art gallery?” said the young woman. “That was probably Bradley, then. He was always drawing. What things did he leave?”
“A sketch book,” said Rae, and the server cocked her head, looking suddenly skeptical.
“If you can call it that,” said Luther. “A bunch of loose papers, all folded up and tied together.” Was that right? It was a guess, but a good one, he hoped.
The young woman chuckled. “That sounds like Bradley. I wish I could keep them here for him, but he quit last night.” “Did something happen?” asked Rae, all friendly curiosity.
The server glanced back at the kitchen. Was there someone to worry about in there? She hesitated longer, looked at Rae’s smiling-yet-concerned face, then let out her breath. “There was an accident. A patron had an allergic reaction to the food. Peanuts, or something. The chef said it was Bradley’s fault, but I don’t believe it. He was smart. Too smart. He wouldn’t forget to mention something like that.”
Luther didn’t want to ask the question that came to mind, but he felt he had to. He cleared his throat and the girl looked at him. “Is it possible that,” he cleared his throat again--why did this make him nervous?--“that the young man would have done something like that on purpose?”
The girl’s mouth tightened and her nose wrinkled, which would have been cute if she hadn’t so clearly been angry. “How dare you,” she said. “How dare you. You should have seen his face. He was white as a ghost, looking at her. You might have thought he was the one who died. How dare you!”
“I’m sorry,” said Luther, but he had to school his features to keep the smile off his face. He was so glad. The boy wasn’t a god killer. He glanced at the server’s name tag. “I didn’t mean any offense, Denise. I truly am sorry.”
“Please do forgive my friend,” said Rae, pulling Denise’s eyes back to her. “He means well, but sometimes he walks around with his feet in his mouth.”
“That was a terrible thing to say,” said Denise, throwing her glare back at Luther. “I wouldn’t even say that about the chef.”
“Of course not,” said Rae. “I think we should go, then. Maybe I’ll come back later.”
“Without him,” said Denise. It wasn’t a question.
“Thank you for your help,” said Rae, and they left the restaurant. They paused on the sidewalk while Rae readjusted her scarf. Luther didn’t bother trying to hide his smile anymore. Bradley, the boy, wasn’t the killer. He wasn’t sure entirely why that made him so happy, but it did. Perhaps it was because he liked the boy, which he did, even after a total of perhaps two minutes together. Bradley had seemed sincere, like he cared about things more than the average person. And perhaps Luther was pleased because his judgment of the kid had been right. It was a frightening thing to doubt your judgment of people after more than a millennium of living. Either way, he smiled.
“That was tactless,” said Rae, “but probably necessary. So now we know that our killer is the woman who died from a peanut allergy. Should that be possible?”
Luther shrugged. “If the power hadn’t had a chance to bind to her, then sure, and giving the timing, I can’t imagine any real binding going on. She was almost as vulnerable as a normal human. And now Bradley has all that power.”
“We need to find him,” said Rae. “I’m going back in.”
“I think the girl would have mentioned it if she knew his address.”
“Which is why I’m not going to talk to Denise. I’m going to work the manager, but you stay here. No need to antagonize the poor girl.”
“I never antagonize anyone,” Luther protested.
“Except when you think there’s something good that needs to be done. Then you get a little bullish.”
“I’m gentle as a lamb.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Luther.”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to see you smile again.”
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 18
[This is just a short section. There's more about Rae and Luther written, but it's not done yet and I need to go help bed time along. Anyway, more than six-hundred words are written, but that'll have to happen tomorrow. Sorry for the creeping pace, but I'll try to be steady.]
Luther’s doorbell rang.
“It’s open!” he yelled. He felt confident it was Rae. He didn’t remember anyone ever ringing his doorbell in this apartment--Atty had pounded on the door. In fact, he’d forgotten what the bell sounded like. It was bland. A bland bell. Maybe he should get it changed. What did someone have to do to get a new doorbell? Was there a doorbell store out there?
He looked up from his desk to see Rae standing in the door of his study.
“Hey, Rae.”
She looked around the room. “Oh my,” she said.
“What is it?” asked Luther, looking around. “Is there something wrong?”
“Your stuff.”
Luther looked at her questioningly, so she went on.
“You don’t have anything new in here.”
“New isn’t always better.”
“True, but you also don’t have anything old. No antiques, nothing quality. When did you get all this stuff?”
“The fifties?”
Rae poked at his recliner and sighed. “Not this. This is screaming at me that it came from the seventies. When we go shopping, we’re also getting you new furniture.”
“But I just lost my job.”
“Seriously, Luther? You’re short on money?”
“Well...no. But it feels wrong to buy stuff when I’m unemployed.”
“You’ll have to compromise your standards, just this once.” Rae looked at the phone in Luther’s hand. “What are you up to?”
“Making calls. You heard the news?”
“Nope. I’m taking a break from the media, trying to catch up on some reading. Some books have been on my list for over three-hundred years, and I decided it was time to get serious. Did something happen?”
Luther picked up a newspaper and spun it so it landed on his desk, facing Rae. She walked over and put her finger under the headline: Zed is dead.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Luther shrugged one shoulder. “Seems like it should be, doesn’t it. Some assassin got him in his home. Forgotten Zed is done.”
“That’s insane.”
Luther nodded.
“Also insensitive.”
Luther snorted. “Yeah, killing someone has to be the pinnacle of insensitivity.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “I meant the headline.”
“Oh. Yeah, that, too. But it was probably inevitable. I mean, it does rhyme.”
Rae was ignoring him, skimming over the article with her finger. He waited while she finished, then they just looked at each other.
“Wow,” she said, finally.
“Yep.”
“So you’ve been calling people?”
“Yeah. Reaching out to some old friends, trying to find out what’s going on.”
“You think this is the start of a divine war?”
Luther shook his head. “None of my friends have heard anything, and another article in the paper says TCD doesn’t think so, either. They think it’s an isolated thing.”
Rae walked backwards and sat down in the recliner. “That’s a relief. Last thing we need is another World War.”
Luther leaned back in his chair. “Absolutely not. I’ve got a few more people I can call to make sure. Should we skip lunch today?”
“No!” Rae almost jumped to her feet. “We are going to lunch. We didn’t get you this far just to let you slip back again. Stand up.”
“Hang on,” said Luther. “‘We?’ What do you mean by ‘we didn’t get you this far?’”
Rae walked around Luther’s desk and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. “I mean Atty and me, of course. Didn’t I tell you? You’re all that we talk about.”
“Stop that.”
“Get up, get up.”
“I don’t have shoes on.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t wear them at home. I prefer stocking feet.”
“That’s weird.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve only been making shoes for the last thousand years.”
“Eight-hundred.”
“And you go around in socks when you have the chance.”
“All right, I guess that is a little weird. Maybe I am in denial about shoes.”
“Among other things,” said Rae. “Get yours on.”
Luther’s doorbell rang.
“It’s open!” he yelled. He felt confident it was Rae. He didn’t remember anyone ever ringing his doorbell in this apartment--Atty had pounded on the door. In fact, he’d forgotten what the bell sounded like. It was bland. A bland bell. Maybe he should get it changed. What did someone have to do to get a new doorbell? Was there a doorbell store out there?
He looked up from his desk to see Rae standing in the door of his study.
“Hey, Rae.”
She looked around the room. “Oh my,” she said.
“What is it?” asked Luther, looking around. “Is there something wrong?”
“Your stuff.”
Luther looked at her questioningly, so she went on.
“You don’t have anything new in here.”
“New isn’t always better.”
“True, but you also don’t have anything old. No antiques, nothing quality. When did you get all this stuff?”
“The fifties?”
Rae poked at his recliner and sighed. “Not this. This is screaming at me that it came from the seventies. When we go shopping, we’re also getting you new furniture.”
“But I just lost my job.”
“Seriously, Luther? You’re short on money?”
“Well...no. But it feels wrong to buy stuff when I’m unemployed.”
“You’ll have to compromise your standards, just this once.” Rae looked at the phone in Luther’s hand. “What are you up to?”
“Making calls. You heard the news?”
“Nope. I’m taking a break from the media, trying to catch up on some reading. Some books have been on my list for over three-hundred years, and I decided it was time to get serious. Did something happen?”
Luther picked up a newspaper and spun it so it landed on his desk, facing Rae. She walked over and put her finger under the headline: Zed is dead.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Luther shrugged one shoulder. “Seems like it should be, doesn’t it. Some assassin got him in his home. Forgotten Zed is done.”
“That’s insane.”
Luther nodded.
“Also insensitive.”
Luther snorted. “Yeah, killing someone has to be the pinnacle of insensitivity.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “I meant the headline.”
“Oh. Yeah, that, too. But it was probably inevitable. I mean, it does rhyme.”
Rae was ignoring him, skimming over the article with her finger. He waited while she finished, then they just looked at each other.
“Wow,” she said, finally.
“Yep.”
“So you’ve been calling people?”
“Yeah. Reaching out to some old friends, trying to find out what’s going on.”
“You think this is the start of a divine war?”
Luther shook his head. “None of my friends have heard anything, and another article in the paper says TCD doesn’t think so, either. They think it’s an isolated thing.”
Rae walked backwards and sat down in the recliner. “That’s a relief. Last thing we need is another World War.”
Luther leaned back in his chair. “Absolutely not. I’ve got a few more people I can call to make sure. Should we skip lunch today?”
“No!” Rae almost jumped to her feet. “We are going to lunch. We didn’t get you this far just to let you slip back again. Stand up.”
“Hang on,” said Luther. “‘We?’ What do you mean by ‘we didn’t get you this far?’”
Rae walked around Luther’s desk and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. “I mean Atty and me, of course. Didn’t I tell you? You’re all that we talk about.”
“Stop that.”
“Get up, get up.”
“I don’t have shoes on.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t wear them at home. I prefer stocking feet.”
“That’s weird.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve only been making shoes for the last thousand years.”
“Eight-hundred.”
“And you go around in socks when you have the chance.”
“All right, I guess that is a little weird. Maybe I am in denial about shoes.”
“Among other things,” said Rae. “Get yours on.”
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 17
[I had it backwards in yesterdays comments. That was mostly old with a little new. Today's is all new, though. Oddly humorous, too. Sunshine was conceived as just a bit part, but I like him--in a slightly repulsed kind of way. See, I know what he's like when he's not being charming.]
Will Mako had to pound for a solid five minutes before Sunshine opened the little window in the door.
“Mako,” said the man, glaring through the little bars. “Go away. My bar is closed. And you woke me up. I hate you.”
The sergeant held up a stack of twenties in front of the bartender’s face.
“Mako,” said the man again, “why don’t you come in? My bar is always open to you, and you’re like a brother to me.”
Will chuckled and stepped back as the two deadbolts slid open and the thick steel door swung into the alley. Sunshine’s wasn’t a gentle kind of bar, and it showed in the furnishings: solid and all bolted to the floor. It showed in the owner, too. Sunshine had a strangely unattractive combination of thick muscles and thick scars, and he had never bothered to hire a bouncer. He took care of that work on his own, and from what Will had seen of the man, Sunshine enjoyed it.
“What can I get you, Sergeant Mako? You on the clock? Or does that even matter?”
Will smiled. “Sure it matters. Drink on the clock and I might get caught, and right now I’m on the clock.”
“So,” said Sunshine, looking as thoughtful as he ever looked as he considered, “scotch then?”
“You read my mind,” said Will.
As Sunshine stepped behind the bar, he looked sideways at the police sergeant. “It bothers me,” he said.
“What does?” Will sat on a stool, set down the stack of twenties, and rested his elbows on the bar.
“When you look like that. Times like these, your smile really does look like a shark.”
Will cocked his head. “What do you mean, like a shark?”
“I mean you look like a shark.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Your name,” said the bartender, pulling a block of ice out of a little freezer. “Mako. It’s like the shark, right?”
“I don’t think so,” said Will. “Is it? I thought it was spelled differently.”
“So what? You still say them the same, right?”
“Yeah, but I think mine comes from Japanese or something like that.”
“No kidding,” said Sunshine. “Is the shark Japanese?”
“Why would a shark be Japanese? Animals aren’t anything. They’re just animals.”
“But pandas are Chinese, right? I mean, we have to give the Chinese a statue of gold every time we want a panda for our zoos, so I figure that means pandas are definitely Chinese.”
Will stared while Sunshine started chipping at the block of ice with a pick.
“I hesitate to say this while you’re holding a weapon, Sunshine, but you are an idiot.”
“I am not.”
“No, sometimes you are. We never gave anybody a gold statue for anything. What would America be doing with gold statues?”
“Then tell me how they got a panda in the zoo down at DC? ‘Cause they’ve got one.”
“I don’t know how they got a panda, but it wasn’t with any golden statues.”
“Had a baby, too,” said Sunshine.
“Who did?”
“The panda.”
“Why are we talking about pandas?”
The bartender shrugged and grabbed a bottle from the shelf behind him. “How should I know? You brought it up.”
Will rubbed at his face, wishing he’d had an hour or two more of sleep. “Pandas are not why I came.”
“Figured as much.” Sunshine poured and set the drink in front of the sergeant. “You here about the drug deal on the south side?”
“What? No.”
“Then the Lewiston burglary.”
“There was a burglary?”
“You didn’t hear about that?”
“When did it happen?”
Sunshine shrugged. “They were going to do it this morning. You’re not here about that?”
“I don’t think anyone on the force knows about that.” Will laughed. “Heck, I bet the Lewiston’s don’t even know about it yet. Don’t they have good security?”
The bartender sniffed. “I hear it’s fair. Not much against these guys, though. This money isn’t for that?”
“Not even a little. I’m in homicide now.”
“Never mind, then. I don’t know a thing about the burglary. What are you here about?”
“Bjorn Baernson.”
“The Bear killed someone? Oh, right. I heard somebody else got him last night. What about it?”
Will picked up the stack of money, bound with rubber bands, and tossed it closer to Sunshine. “He got killed, but thing is, he killed someone else first. It was a job, and I need to find out who hired him.”
“What about the person who killed him?”
“I need to know that, too.” Will stopped and thought. “Actually, that’s even more important, but I’m thinking that the person who hired him is the person who killed him.”
“Sounds nasty,” said Sunshine.
“Tell me about it. Also, I need to find this guy fast.”
“You sure it’s a guy?”
“Why do you say that? You think it’s a woman?”
Sunshine shrugged again. “Not particularly.”
“Then why did you bring it up?”
“I’ve just noticed that you’re a bit of a masochist.”
“I am not.”
“Sure you are. You look down on women.”
“That’s not being a masochist. That’s a misogynist.”
“I thought that was when a black guy married a white woman.”
Will shook his head. “I have no idea what they call that, but that’s not misogyny. Misogyny is when you hate women.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay then what?”
“You’re a misogynist.”
“I am not--forget it. Take that stack. Use what you need to find out about Bjorn, the rest is yours to keep.”
“Thanks. What’s the stack in your pocket for?”
The sergeant chuckled and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out another, larger stack of twenties. “This is for another little job I’ve got for you. You know my employers?”
“The NLPD?”
“No. Different employers.”
“You quit your job?”
“This is an extra job.”
“The best kind,” said Sunshine, putting on his wise face. It wasn’t very.
“Whatever,” said Will. “Thing is, there are two people in town who have me doing a bit of something on the side and on the low-down, if you know what I mean. Never mind. Don’t answer that. The point is that I’m thinking it might be smart to get a little insurance on these two. See, I’m starting to think they may think of me as usable and disposable.”
“Like a Kleenex,” said Sunshine.
“Sure, I guess. Like a Kleenex.”
“Or one of those cleaning wipes.”
“So,” said Will, talking over the bartender, “I’m thinking it might be smart to find out a little more about my employers.”
Sunshine’s eyes narrowed. “So this is dangerous?”
Will remembered the two, standing in his room, and he shivered. Actually shivered. He’d heard about people doing that--I mean people say that something made them shiver, but he’d never actually experienced it before--but now, there it was. Will had shivered, and it was because of those two.
“Yeah, I’d say it’s definitely dangerous.”
“Ergo, the bigger stack.”
Will stared.
“What?” asked Sunshine.
“Did you just pull out Greek on me?”
“Why would I know Greek?”
“You were just using it.”
“What? ‘Ergo?’ That’s not Greek. That’s like, French, or something.”
“It’s not French.”
“How do you know? Do you speak French?”
Will took a swallow. “I don’t have to speak French to know if something isn’t French. Maybe it’s Latin.”
“Can’t be Latin.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t speak Latin.”
“You don’t speak French either.”
“Sure I do. Ergo. See? I’m French, like Francois Truffaut and that skunk on Looney Tunes.”
“You’re a nut.”
“Does a nut know about French New Wave film?”
Will looked at Sunshine. “Yes,” he said finally.
The bartender rolled his eyes. “You’re right. This girl keeps making me watch the stuff. It’s like they filmed a good movie, then cut it into lots of tiny pieces, then taped it all back together into the longest waste of time ever invented.”
“That was almost poetic of you,” said Will. “I’m impressed.”
“Probably because I’ve said that exact same thing to this girl more than twenty times.”
“Really?”
“In my head.”
“Sunshine, you need a new girl.”
“No I don’t.”
“Sure you do.”
“Mako, have you seen her?”
“Which one is she?”
“Jackie.”
“Skinny Jackie?”
Sunshine jerked back, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t say that, Sergeant. Not even nice to think about.”
Will thought for a second. “Oh! You mean the Jackie with the--”
“Yep.”
“That’s the Jackie who--”
“That’s the one.”
“Whoa.” Will took another drink. “Okay, she might be worth a French film or two.”
The two sat in silence for a moment out of respect for high art--Jackie, of course. Will hated foreign films.
“So you’ll take it?” he asked after an appropriate time had passed.
“Dangerous,” said Sunshine.
“Yep.”
“Big stack, though.”
“Yep.”
“What else do you know about them?”
“I think they might be demons.”
Sunshine bent one eyebrow down. “Two demons, new in town, man and woman? I think I might have heard something. But why aren’t you looking into this yourself?”
“Not a chance,” said Will. “I can guarantee you, they hear I’m poking around, I won’t last the day. I need to get this information on the sly.”
“Ergo, you’re giving it to me.”
“Would you cut that out?”
“Ask me nicely.”
“Please?”
“Ask me in French.”
“I’m out of here.” Will stood up. “You’ll do the jobs?”
Sunshine shrugged again. “I don’t see why not. Which one is more important?”
“Definitely Bjorn. Wait. Hang on. The demons.” Will took a deep breath and let it out. “Both. They’re both important.”
Will Mako had to pound for a solid five minutes before Sunshine opened the little window in the door.
“Mako,” said the man, glaring through the little bars. “Go away. My bar is closed. And you woke me up. I hate you.”
The sergeant held up a stack of twenties in front of the bartender’s face.
“Mako,” said the man again, “why don’t you come in? My bar is always open to you, and you’re like a brother to me.”
Will chuckled and stepped back as the two deadbolts slid open and the thick steel door swung into the alley. Sunshine’s wasn’t a gentle kind of bar, and it showed in the furnishings: solid and all bolted to the floor. It showed in the owner, too. Sunshine had a strangely unattractive combination of thick muscles and thick scars, and he had never bothered to hire a bouncer. He took care of that work on his own, and from what Will had seen of the man, Sunshine enjoyed it.
“What can I get you, Sergeant Mako? You on the clock? Or does that even matter?”
Will smiled. “Sure it matters. Drink on the clock and I might get caught, and right now I’m on the clock.”
“So,” said Sunshine, looking as thoughtful as he ever looked as he considered, “scotch then?”
“You read my mind,” said Will.
As Sunshine stepped behind the bar, he looked sideways at the police sergeant. “It bothers me,” he said.
“What does?” Will sat on a stool, set down the stack of twenties, and rested his elbows on the bar.
“When you look like that. Times like these, your smile really does look like a shark.”
Will cocked his head. “What do you mean, like a shark?”
“I mean you look like a shark.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Your name,” said the bartender, pulling a block of ice out of a little freezer. “Mako. It’s like the shark, right?”
“I don’t think so,” said Will. “Is it? I thought it was spelled differently.”
“So what? You still say them the same, right?”
“Yeah, but I think mine comes from Japanese or something like that.”
“No kidding,” said Sunshine. “Is the shark Japanese?”
“Why would a shark be Japanese? Animals aren’t anything. They’re just animals.”
“But pandas are Chinese, right? I mean, we have to give the Chinese a statue of gold every time we want a panda for our zoos, so I figure that means pandas are definitely Chinese.”
Will stared while Sunshine started chipping at the block of ice with a pick.
“I hesitate to say this while you’re holding a weapon, Sunshine, but you are an idiot.”
“I am not.”
“No, sometimes you are. We never gave anybody a gold statue for anything. What would America be doing with gold statues?”
“Then tell me how they got a panda in the zoo down at DC? ‘Cause they’ve got one.”
“I don’t know how they got a panda, but it wasn’t with any golden statues.”
“Had a baby, too,” said Sunshine.
“Who did?”
“The panda.”
“Why are we talking about pandas?”
The bartender shrugged and grabbed a bottle from the shelf behind him. “How should I know? You brought it up.”
Will rubbed at his face, wishing he’d had an hour or two more of sleep. “Pandas are not why I came.”
“Figured as much.” Sunshine poured and set the drink in front of the sergeant. “You here about the drug deal on the south side?”
“What? No.”
“Then the Lewiston burglary.”
“There was a burglary?”
“You didn’t hear about that?”
“When did it happen?”
Sunshine shrugged. “They were going to do it this morning. You’re not here about that?”
“I don’t think anyone on the force knows about that.” Will laughed. “Heck, I bet the Lewiston’s don’t even know about it yet. Don’t they have good security?”
The bartender sniffed. “I hear it’s fair. Not much against these guys, though. This money isn’t for that?”
“Not even a little. I’m in homicide now.”
“Never mind, then. I don’t know a thing about the burglary. What are you here about?”
“Bjorn Baernson.”
“The Bear killed someone? Oh, right. I heard somebody else got him last night. What about it?”
Will picked up the stack of money, bound with rubber bands, and tossed it closer to Sunshine. “He got killed, but thing is, he killed someone else first. It was a job, and I need to find out who hired him.”
“What about the person who killed him?”
“I need to know that, too.” Will stopped and thought. “Actually, that’s even more important, but I’m thinking that the person who hired him is the person who killed him.”
“Sounds nasty,” said Sunshine.
“Tell me about it. Also, I need to find this guy fast.”
“You sure it’s a guy?”
“Why do you say that? You think it’s a woman?”
Sunshine shrugged again. “Not particularly.”
“Then why did you bring it up?”
“I’ve just noticed that you’re a bit of a masochist.”
“I am not.”
“Sure you are. You look down on women.”
“That’s not being a masochist. That’s a misogynist.”
“I thought that was when a black guy married a white woman.”
Will shook his head. “I have no idea what they call that, but that’s not misogyny. Misogyny is when you hate women.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay then what?”
“You’re a misogynist.”
“I am not--forget it. Take that stack. Use what you need to find out about Bjorn, the rest is yours to keep.”
“Thanks. What’s the stack in your pocket for?”
The sergeant chuckled and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out another, larger stack of twenties. “This is for another little job I’ve got for you. You know my employers?”
“The NLPD?”
“No. Different employers.”
“You quit your job?”
“This is an extra job.”
“The best kind,” said Sunshine, putting on his wise face. It wasn’t very.
“Whatever,” said Will. “Thing is, there are two people in town who have me doing a bit of something on the side and on the low-down, if you know what I mean. Never mind. Don’t answer that. The point is that I’m thinking it might be smart to get a little insurance on these two. See, I’m starting to think they may think of me as usable and disposable.”
“Like a Kleenex,” said Sunshine.
“Sure, I guess. Like a Kleenex.”
“Or one of those cleaning wipes.”
“So,” said Will, talking over the bartender, “I’m thinking it might be smart to find out a little more about my employers.”
Sunshine’s eyes narrowed. “So this is dangerous?”
Will remembered the two, standing in his room, and he shivered. Actually shivered. He’d heard about people doing that--I mean people say that something made them shiver, but he’d never actually experienced it before--but now, there it was. Will had shivered, and it was because of those two.
“Yeah, I’d say it’s definitely dangerous.”
“Ergo, the bigger stack.”
Will stared.
“What?” asked Sunshine.
“Did you just pull out Greek on me?”
“Why would I know Greek?”
“You were just using it.”
“What? ‘Ergo?’ That’s not Greek. That’s like, French, or something.”
“It’s not French.”
“How do you know? Do you speak French?”
Will took a swallow. “I don’t have to speak French to know if something isn’t French. Maybe it’s Latin.”
“Can’t be Latin.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t speak Latin.”
“You don’t speak French either.”
“Sure I do. Ergo. See? I’m French, like Francois Truffaut and that skunk on Looney Tunes.”
“You’re a nut.”
“Does a nut know about French New Wave film?”
Will looked at Sunshine. “Yes,” he said finally.
The bartender rolled his eyes. “You’re right. This girl keeps making me watch the stuff. It’s like they filmed a good movie, then cut it into lots of tiny pieces, then taped it all back together into the longest waste of time ever invented.”
“That was almost poetic of you,” said Will. “I’m impressed.”
“Probably because I’ve said that exact same thing to this girl more than twenty times.”
“Really?”
“In my head.”
“Sunshine, you need a new girl.”
“No I don’t.”
“Sure you do.”
“Mako, have you seen her?”
“Which one is she?”
“Jackie.”
“Skinny Jackie?”
Sunshine jerked back, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t say that, Sergeant. Not even nice to think about.”
Will thought for a second. “Oh! You mean the Jackie with the--”
“Yep.”
“That’s the Jackie who--”
“That’s the one.”
“Whoa.” Will took another drink. “Okay, she might be worth a French film or two.”
The two sat in silence for a moment out of respect for high art--Jackie, of course. Will hated foreign films.
“So you’ll take it?” he asked after an appropriate time had passed.
“Dangerous,” said Sunshine.
“Yep.”
“Big stack, though.”
“Yep.”
“What else do you know about them?”
“I think they might be demons.”
Sunshine bent one eyebrow down. “Two demons, new in town, man and woman? I think I might have heard something. But why aren’t you looking into this yourself?”
“Not a chance,” said Will. “I can guarantee you, they hear I’m poking around, I won’t last the day. I need to get this information on the sly.”
“Ergo, you’re giving it to me.”
“Would you cut that out?”
“Ask me nicely.”
“Please?”
“Ask me in French.”
“I’m out of here.” Will stood up. “You’ll do the jobs?”
Sunshine shrugged again. “I don’t see why not. Which one is more important?”
“Definitely Bjorn. Wait. Hang on. The demons.” Will took a deep breath and let it out. “Both. They’re both important.”
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 16
[A little old, quite a bit of new. Trying to write when I can, but a job is a job is a job. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the old stuff, and I think it fits in right here in the story. Enjoy.]
As Bradley walked out of the bagel shop, he looked up. Yep, there it was, clinging to a tree branch, that little brogut. It looked at him with wide, lizard eyes and its tongue flickered out. Bradley couldn't decide if it was disturbing or cute.
Speaking of disturbing and cute, what was it about that girl in the bagel shop? She wasn't the kind of woman Bradley usually thought of when he thought 'beautiful'--she was a little too skinny, not that Bradley was one to talk--but she was sticking in his head. Yep, there she was in his head, standing and smiling. She was doing a lot of smiling. Bradley put in his earbuds and walked and thought.
Happiness, he decided. That girl looked like she actually enjoyed life. How strange. Not to say that Bradley didn't like his life, but he also wasn't starting any parades in honor of how great the world was. The world WAS great. It just didn't always feel that great. But he liked it. Just not all the time.
Bradley shook his heads, realizing that he was thinking in circles, and all those circles were around that smiling girl. Should he have asked her name? But he had Olivia. Sort of. So he actually hadn't ever asked Olivia out, but he was going to. Soon. Whenever it felt right. He didn't want to rush things, because then she might think he was coming on too strong. And that's not what he wanted. And besides, that girl from the bagel shop was smiling at him. She probably smiled at everyone, though. She was a smiley kind of girl, and then she'd looked disappointed somehow when he'd picked the multigrain bagel. He'd asked for cream cheese to try to make up for it--he wasn't sure if it would--and it hadn't looked like it had done any good. Why was he still thinking about this?
And where was he going? Bradley still felt lost in the morning, with the sunlight slanting across the world so low it looked like it would trip over something. He knew where to go in the evening and at night, but morning was a foreign country.
Bradley wandered. It wasn’t a new feeling—it was kind of a default activity, something to do after losing a job or a girlfriend or a sense of purpose. In fact, a lost sense of purpose was probably the one he was most familiar with. He made his way toward his usual wandering spots, but none of them appealed. The D’Arte Board Gallery, always a good place to kill an hour (or at least maim a few minutes), was surprisingly unappealing--and closed--and Fifth City Park was too far.
That was when Bradley realized he hadn’t, in fact, lost a sense of purpose. Inexplicably, he was walking somewhere with a hint of determination. More than a hint. He had the full-on flavor of determination in his mouth, the scent of usefulness leading him onward.
Fifteen minutes and a few turns later, and Bradley was in front of the apartment building that held his sister, her husband, and their two children. On second thought, probably not the husband, since he had a job with early hours, but Clara was almost certainly there. And, from the faint sound of screaming coming through the ground floor windows, at least the smaller of the children definitely was there.
And not sounding good. Bradley walked faster, jogged up the five steps to the front door, and buzzed. It was a few seconds before his sister’s voice crackled through the speaker—along with a heavy dose of crying baby.
“Yes?”
“It’s Bradley.”
“Thank goodness! Get in here.”
There was an angry buzz at the door, and Bradley bumped it open with his hip. By the time he was in the hall, the door to Clara’s apartment was already opening, letting out the crying and a hefty dose of three-year-old shouting as well.
Clara was dressed for the day, but her brown hair had been abandoned somewhere between shower and brush. JoBeth, the ten-month-old, was clinging to her shoulder, and the t-shirt that must have been clean when she started wearing it was now smeared with baby-snot and some variety of pureed food. Bradley’s sister looked frazzled.
“Poopy diaper or crying baby?” she asked.
“Do I have to choose?”
“Please, Bradley?”
That purpose inside Bradley swelled up, moved his mouth, and made the decision for him. “Crying baby.”
“Really?” said his sister. “Thank you! As bad as she is right now, when I tried to put her down to change Erica, JoBeth freaked.”
“Worse than this?”
“Way worse. I don’t know what’s wrong. After I get this diaper changed, we’re calling the doctor. Please take her? Maybe a change of scenery will help her.”
“So I’m scenery now?”
“The best kind of scenery. Scenery that loves her.” Clara leaned her side toward Bradley. “Here, JB. It’s Uncle Brad. You like Uncle Brad.”
Bradley held out his hands to take his niece, and the purpose that had been building in him shot down his arms like a cat after yarn, not that Bradley had ever owned a cat. Down his arms, through his hands, and through the air to JoBeth. By the time Bradley’s hands took her weight under the arm, she had stopped crying. Before he had his niece against his shoulder, she was asleep.
Except for the whir of the stove fan in the kitchen, everything was quiet. Erica had stopped shouting and was staring up at Bradley. Clara’s mouth was open. Somewhere upstairs a dog barked.
Bradley tucked his chin and looked down at the sleeping baby.
“Guess I make for good scenery,” he said.
“Guess so,” agreed Clara. “Want to come in? Not much else is clean, but there’s enough empty couch to sit on.”
“You always do that,” said Bradley.
“Do what?”
“Say your place is messy, when it’s practically clean enough for a furniture photo-op.” He walked in, past the kitchen, and looked at the living room. “Oh.”
“I told you it was messy,” said Clara. “I didn’t finish laundry day, we still haven’t weeded out all the unnecessary toys Mom gave Erica for Christmas, and Ted has decided to start doing weight lifting.”
“So those free weights in the corner are his?”
“‘Free weights.’ Why do men call them ‘free weights?’ They cost enough, and they certainly don’t free up any space in the apartment.”
“Come on,” said Bradley, sitting on the one corner of the couch that wasn’t covered in unfolded—yet fresh scented—clothing. “You know you’ll like how he looks after a month or two with those.”
“I like how my husband looks just fine right now,” said Clara, grabbing an unusually silent Erica and laying her down on a diaper changing pad. “Besides, the last thing I need right now is the temptation to get another one of these. I don’t know how people handle three children at once. Sure, it’s a fair fight for the moment, but as soon as they outnumber us, I think the battle will be over.”
“Didn’t you want more kids?”
“Absolutely. Just not yet. Quit moving your legs, squirt—don’t touch! Yucky. This is a two wiper, at least. It’s dried on.”
“Ah, family,” said Bradley. “It’s all about sharing.” JoBeth was warm against his chest, and he could feel something…off inside her. Wrong. If she were a rose, her thorns would be too large—but they were shrinking. The wrong inside her was fading, and she felt peaceful against his shoulder. “Looks like this one is doing better.”
“I don’t know what you did,” said Clara, strapping on the new diaper and sealing up the old one with a grimace. “Whatever it was, thank you.”
“Not sure I did anything. She’s just a good kid.”
“She is,” agreed his sister, picking up her older child and setting her on her feet. “Go find Boobles, squirt.”
“Oh!” said Erica, her eyes bright. “I put Boobles in the big little blanket.” Then she was gone, her diaper waggling behind her.
“That’s a good kid, too,” said Bradley.
“She is. Easier to think that when they’re not shouting at me, though, I’ll admit that. Seriously, thanks for coming Brad. I don’t know how you knew, but thank you.”
Bradley shrugged but then froze when JoBeth stirred on his shoulder. “It just seemed,” he said in a quieter voice, “just seemed like I needed to be here.”
Clara smiled at him. “Mom never understood that about you. She keeps wanting you to be Dad, but Dad never listens to his heart the way you do.”
“He does, too.”
“When?”
“That time with the thing, when we were at that place.”
Clara laughed. “Exactly.”
“Of course, Dad has had a lot more steady jobs than I’ve ever had.”
Clara raised her eyebrows and nodded in agreement. “If by ‘a lot more’ you mean ‘one job that he'll have until he dies,’ then yes, he did. Can't keep a man away from his archives. And now I’m off to seal this thing in five layers of plastic before I send it to a landfill to store its stink for future generations.”
“That is a powerful one,” Bradley agreed.
Clara walked into the kitchen. “You see the phone?” she called back. “I think it’s on the couch somewhere. I’d rather not use any cell minutes wading my way through the doctor’s automated menu just so they can send me to urgent care.”
Bradley glanced down at JoBeth again. The wrong was almost entirely faded. “Not sure you need to,” he called back. “I think she’s doing better.”
“Here it is,” said Clara, showing up at the door to the living room, phone in hand. “You think so? I should probably check in just to be sure. How’s her forehead?”
Bradley felt it with the inside of his wrist. “Warm.”
“How warm?”
“Normal warm. Babies are a little hotter than grownups, right?”
His sister walked over and felt with her own wrist. “No fever.”
“Nice,” said Bradley. Then he noticed Clara was staring at him. “What’s up?” he asked.
“I think that’s my question. You look different.”
“It’s because I lost my job.”
“That’s not it, though I find that slightly amusing. What happened?”
“I fed peanuts to a lady with a peanut allergy.”
“Really?”
“Not exactly, but that’s how it ended up. Anaphylactic shock isn’t pretty.”
“She okay?”
“No idea. Off to the hospital she went, but she didn’t look good.”
“Eek.” Clara sat down on the floor and started folding clothes. “But that’s not it. That’s not why you look different.”
“I had a bagel this morning. Never underestimate the power of a good bagel.”
“Oh, believe me, I don’t, but that’s still not it either.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Maybe I’m in love.”
“Are you?”
“No. Well, maybe. No.” Olivia, he thought. Bagel girl, he thought back.
Clara wrinkled her nose. “Darn it. It would be good for you.”
Erica ran back into the room holding a stuffed dog tightly by the neck. “Boobles wants food,” she said, leaning in earnestly to announce this two inches from her mother’s face.
“What kind of food does Boobles want?” asked Clara with weighted tones.
“Chocolate.”
“Not chocolate.”
“Cereal.”
“What kind of cereal?”
“Ummm…red.”
“Red cereal?”
“Red cereal.”
“Did you mean oatmeal with raspberries?”
Erica nodded solemnly.
“We’re out of raspberries,” said Clara. “What about blue cereal? With blueberries?”
The three-year-old’s eyes got wide and she nodded even wider.
Clara pushed up to her feet, leaving a small pile of folded laundry and an even larger pile of the unfolded variety. “I’ll make that right away. You want any?” she asked, looking at Bradley.
“I had a bagel.”
“Of course,” said his sister. “This is me, not underestimating its power. Heck, you probably won’t even be hungry by tomorrow, which is good, because Ted doesn’t like to share my lasagna.”
“Were you going to invite me?” asked Bradley.
“Momma’s making zanya!” said Erica, excited.
“We were,” said Clara.
“Keep in mind,” said Bradley, “even bagels have their limits. What time?”
“Ted thinks he’ll be back by six, so any time after five-thirty would be perfect. Earlier and you can help cook, later and I yell at you for not setting the table.”
“Got it. Five-thirty.”
Clara disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Erica staring intently at her uncle.
“What’s up, Eri-berry?”
“You look funny.”
“Is that what Boobles thinks?”
Erica and Boobles nodded together.
“Maybe you’ve just never seen me in the morning before.”
She looked puzzled. “What?” she asked, her voice rising to a squeak.
“Morning light is different than evening light.”
“What?”
Bradley tried a different approach. “Do you like Boobles?”
That got a nod.
“Does he eat his own vomit?”
“Bradley!” Clara’s voice prodded at him from the kitchen.
“What’s a vomit?” asked his niece.
“Ask your mother.”
A blueberry flew out of the kitchen and smacked Bradley on the cheek. He picked it up off the dish towel where it landed and popped it into his mouth. “It’s a kind of dog food. Very nutritious.”
“Come to the table!” called Clara. Boobles and Erica scampered away, and Bradley settled back into the couch, resting. Not that he was tired. He wasn’t, even waking up when he did. He just felt…content. This was a good home.
“Someday,” he sighed to himself and looked out the windows. Sunlight painted a pile of sheets with squares of light so bright they hurt to look at. JoBeth, dense and warm on his shoulder, made him think of sleep. The wrong inside her was entirely gone, leaving a rich red of rose petals. Clara and Erica talked in the kitchen, and for a moment Bradley could feel the world spinning beneath him.
It was perfect.
As Bradley walked out of the bagel shop, he looked up. Yep, there it was, clinging to a tree branch, that little brogut. It looked at him with wide, lizard eyes and its tongue flickered out. Bradley couldn't decide if it was disturbing or cute.
Speaking of disturbing and cute, what was it about that girl in the bagel shop? She wasn't the kind of woman Bradley usually thought of when he thought 'beautiful'--she was a little too skinny, not that Bradley was one to talk--but she was sticking in his head. Yep, there she was in his head, standing and smiling. She was doing a lot of smiling. Bradley put in his earbuds and walked and thought.
Happiness, he decided. That girl looked like she actually enjoyed life. How strange. Not to say that Bradley didn't like his life, but he also wasn't starting any parades in honor of how great the world was. The world WAS great. It just didn't always feel that great. But he liked it. Just not all the time.
Bradley shook his heads, realizing that he was thinking in circles, and all those circles were around that smiling girl. Should he have asked her name? But he had Olivia. Sort of. So he actually hadn't ever asked Olivia out, but he was going to. Soon. Whenever it felt right. He didn't want to rush things, because then she might think he was coming on too strong. And that's not what he wanted. And besides, that girl from the bagel shop was smiling at him. She probably smiled at everyone, though. She was a smiley kind of girl, and then she'd looked disappointed somehow when he'd picked the multigrain bagel. He'd asked for cream cheese to try to make up for it--he wasn't sure if it would--and it hadn't looked like it had done any good. Why was he still thinking about this?
And where was he going? Bradley still felt lost in the morning, with the sunlight slanting across the world so low it looked like it would trip over something. He knew where to go in the evening and at night, but morning was a foreign country.
Bradley wandered. It wasn’t a new feeling—it was kind of a default activity, something to do after losing a job or a girlfriend or a sense of purpose. In fact, a lost sense of purpose was probably the one he was most familiar with. He made his way toward his usual wandering spots, but none of them appealed. The D’Arte Board Gallery, always a good place to kill an hour (or at least maim a few minutes), was surprisingly unappealing--and closed--and Fifth City Park was too far.
That was when Bradley realized he hadn’t, in fact, lost a sense of purpose. Inexplicably, he was walking somewhere with a hint of determination. More than a hint. He had the full-on flavor of determination in his mouth, the scent of usefulness leading him onward.
Fifteen minutes and a few turns later, and Bradley was in front of the apartment building that held his sister, her husband, and their two children. On second thought, probably not the husband, since he had a job with early hours, but Clara was almost certainly there. And, from the faint sound of screaming coming through the ground floor windows, at least the smaller of the children definitely was there.
And not sounding good. Bradley walked faster, jogged up the five steps to the front door, and buzzed. It was a few seconds before his sister’s voice crackled through the speaker—along with a heavy dose of crying baby.
“Yes?”
“It’s Bradley.”
“Thank goodness! Get in here.”
There was an angry buzz at the door, and Bradley bumped it open with his hip. By the time he was in the hall, the door to Clara’s apartment was already opening, letting out the crying and a hefty dose of three-year-old shouting as well.
Clara was dressed for the day, but her brown hair had been abandoned somewhere between shower and brush. JoBeth, the ten-month-old, was clinging to her shoulder, and the t-shirt that must have been clean when she started wearing it was now smeared with baby-snot and some variety of pureed food. Bradley’s sister looked frazzled.
“Poopy diaper or crying baby?” she asked.
“Do I have to choose?”
“Please, Bradley?”
That purpose inside Bradley swelled up, moved his mouth, and made the decision for him. “Crying baby.”
“Really?” said his sister. “Thank you! As bad as she is right now, when I tried to put her down to change Erica, JoBeth freaked.”
“Worse than this?”
“Way worse. I don’t know what’s wrong. After I get this diaper changed, we’re calling the doctor. Please take her? Maybe a change of scenery will help her.”
“So I’m scenery now?”
“The best kind of scenery. Scenery that loves her.” Clara leaned her side toward Bradley. “Here, JB. It’s Uncle Brad. You like Uncle Brad.”
Bradley held out his hands to take his niece, and the purpose that had been building in him shot down his arms like a cat after yarn, not that Bradley had ever owned a cat. Down his arms, through his hands, and through the air to JoBeth. By the time Bradley’s hands took her weight under the arm, she had stopped crying. Before he had his niece against his shoulder, she was asleep.
Except for the whir of the stove fan in the kitchen, everything was quiet. Erica had stopped shouting and was staring up at Bradley. Clara’s mouth was open. Somewhere upstairs a dog barked.
Bradley tucked his chin and looked down at the sleeping baby.
“Guess I make for good scenery,” he said.
“Guess so,” agreed Clara. “Want to come in? Not much else is clean, but there’s enough empty couch to sit on.”
“You always do that,” said Bradley.
“Do what?”
“Say your place is messy, when it’s practically clean enough for a furniture photo-op.” He walked in, past the kitchen, and looked at the living room. “Oh.”
“I told you it was messy,” said Clara. “I didn’t finish laundry day, we still haven’t weeded out all the unnecessary toys Mom gave Erica for Christmas, and Ted has decided to start doing weight lifting.”
“So those free weights in the corner are his?”
“‘Free weights.’ Why do men call them ‘free weights?’ They cost enough, and they certainly don’t free up any space in the apartment.”
“Come on,” said Bradley, sitting on the one corner of the couch that wasn’t covered in unfolded—yet fresh scented—clothing. “You know you’ll like how he looks after a month or two with those.”
“I like how my husband looks just fine right now,” said Clara, grabbing an unusually silent Erica and laying her down on a diaper changing pad. “Besides, the last thing I need right now is the temptation to get another one of these. I don’t know how people handle three children at once. Sure, it’s a fair fight for the moment, but as soon as they outnumber us, I think the battle will be over.”
“Didn’t you want more kids?”
“Absolutely. Just not yet. Quit moving your legs, squirt—don’t touch! Yucky. This is a two wiper, at least. It’s dried on.”
“Ah, family,” said Bradley. “It’s all about sharing.” JoBeth was warm against his chest, and he could feel something…off inside her. Wrong. If she were a rose, her thorns would be too large—but they were shrinking. The wrong inside her was fading, and she felt peaceful against his shoulder. “Looks like this one is doing better.”
“I don’t know what you did,” said Clara, strapping on the new diaper and sealing up the old one with a grimace. “Whatever it was, thank you.”
“Not sure I did anything. She’s just a good kid.”
“She is,” agreed his sister, picking up her older child and setting her on her feet. “Go find Boobles, squirt.”
“Oh!” said Erica, her eyes bright. “I put Boobles in the big little blanket.” Then she was gone, her diaper waggling behind her.
“That’s a good kid, too,” said Bradley.
“She is. Easier to think that when they’re not shouting at me, though, I’ll admit that. Seriously, thanks for coming Brad. I don’t know how you knew, but thank you.”
Bradley shrugged but then froze when JoBeth stirred on his shoulder. “It just seemed,” he said in a quieter voice, “just seemed like I needed to be here.”
Clara smiled at him. “Mom never understood that about you. She keeps wanting you to be Dad, but Dad never listens to his heart the way you do.”
“He does, too.”
“When?”
“That time with the thing, when we were at that place.”
Clara laughed. “Exactly.”
“Of course, Dad has had a lot more steady jobs than I’ve ever had.”
Clara raised her eyebrows and nodded in agreement. “If by ‘a lot more’ you mean ‘one job that he'll have until he dies,’ then yes, he did. Can't keep a man away from his archives. And now I’m off to seal this thing in five layers of plastic before I send it to a landfill to store its stink for future generations.”
“That is a powerful one,” Bradley agreed.
Clara walked into the kitchen. “You see the phone?” she called back. “I think it’s on the couch somewhere. I’d rather not use any cell minutes wading my way through the doctor’s automated menu just so they can send me to urgent care.”
Bradley glanced down at JoBeth again. The wrong was almost entirely faded. “Not sure you need to,” he called back. “I think she’s doing better.”
“Here it is,” said Clara, showing up at the door to the living room, phone in hand. “You think so? I should probably check in just to be sure. How’s her forehead?”
Bradley felt it with the inside of his wrist. “Warm.”
“How warm?”
“Normal warm. Babies are a little hotter than grownups, right?”
His sister walked over and felt with her own wrist. “No fever.”
“Nice,” said Bradley. Then he noticed Clara was staring at him. “What’s up?” he asked.
“I think that’s my question. You look different.”
“It’s because I lost my job.”
“That’s not it, though I find that slightly amusing. What happened?”
“I fed peanuts to a lady with a peanut allergy.”
“Really?”
“Not exactly, but that’s how it ended up. Anaphylactic shock isn’t pretty.”
“She okay?”
“No idea. Off to the hospital she went, but she didn’t look good.”
“Eek.” Clara sat down on the floor and started folding clothes. “But that’s not it. That’s not why you look different.”
“I had a bagel this morning. Never underestimate the power of a good bagel.”
“Oh, believe me, I don’t, but that’s still not it either.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Maybe I’m in love.”
“Are you?”
“No. Well, maybe. No.” Olivia, he thought. Bagel girl, he thought back.
Clara wrinkled her nose. “Darn it. It would be good for you.”
Erica ran back into the room holding a stuffed dog tightly by the neck. “Boobles wants food,” she said, leaning in earnestly to announce this two inches from her mother’s face.
“What kind of food does Boobles want?” asked Clara with weighted tones.
“Chocolate.”
“Not chocolate.”
“Cereal.”
“What kind of cereal?”
“Ummm…red.”
“Red cereal?”
“Red cereal.”
“Did you mean oatmeal with raspberries?”
Erica nodded solemnly.
“We’re out of raspberries,” said Clara. “What about blue cereal? With blueberries?”
The three-year-old’s eyes got wide and she nodded even wider.
Clara pushed up to her feet, leaving a small pile of folded laundry and an even larger pile of the unfolded variety. “I’ll make that right away. You want any?” she asked, looking at Bradley.
“I had a bagel.”
“Of course,” said his sister. “This is me, not underestimating its power. Heck, you probably won’t even be hungry by tomorrow, which is good, because Ted doesn’t like to share my lasagna.”
“Were you going to invite me?” asked Bradley.
“Momma’s making zanya!” said Erica, excited.
“We were,” said Clara.
“Keep in mind,” said Bradley, “even bagels have their limits. What time?”
“Ted thinks he’ll be back by six, so any time after five-thirty would be perfect. Earlier and you can help cook, later and I yell at you for not setting the table.”
“Got it. Five-thirty.”
Clara disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Erica staring intently at her uncle.
“What’s up, Eri-berry?”
“You look funny.”
“Is that what Boobles thinks?”
Erica and Boobles nodded together.
“Maybe you’ve just never seen me in the morning before.”
She looked puzzled. “What?” she asked, her voice rising to a squeak.
“Morning light is different than evening light.”
“What?”
Bradley tried a different approach. “Do you like Boobles?”
That got a nod.
“Does he eat his own vomit?”
“Bradley!” Clara’s voice prodded at him from the kitchen.
“What’s a vomit?” asked his niece.
“Ask your mother.”
A blueberry flew out of the kitchen and smacked Bradley on the cheek. He picked it up off the dish towel where it landed and popped it into his mouth. “It’s a kind of dog food. Very nutritious.”
“Come to the table!” called Clara. Boobles and Erica scampered away, and Bradley settled back into the couch, resting. Not that he was tired. He wasn’t, even waking up when he did. He just felt…content. This was a good home.
“Someday,” he sighed to himself and looked out the windows. Sunlight painted a pile of sheets with squares of light so bright they hurt to look at. JoBeth, dense and warm on his shoulder, made him think of sleep. The wrong inside her was entirely gone, leaving a rich red of rose petals. Clara and Erica talked in the kitchen, and for a moment Bradley could feel the world spinning beneath him.
It was perfect.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 15
[Work makes me tired. But I think the new job is a good thing. I'm sure it's a good thing, but it's making me fit writing in around the edges, and it's making me tired. Maybe I'm tired right now. That could be why I'm talking about tired. Anyway, small section today, more as I can get it out to you. Or out of me. Or both.]
"This is Proust, and you better have a fabulous reason for waking me up, or I'm crawling through this phone, down your throat, and pulling your pancreas out to throw at the paper boy."
"Good morning to you, too, Proust," said Tuck.
"You got him?" asked Paul. "Put him on speaker phone."
Tuck nodded. "Hey, Proust? I'm putting you on speaker."
"And I'm putting you on 'hang up' unless you tell me who this is in five seconds."
Tuck pushed the 'Speaker' button and set down the headset. "It's Tuck, in Northern Lights."
"And Paul," chimed in his partner.
There was silence on the other end, then a grunt. "Okay, so I'm not going to kill you. But only for old-time's sake, and after this you owe me."
"Actually," said Tuck, "if you can answer my questions, I'll owe you double. Why were you asleep, anyway? I thought you were always up at five?"
"Not today. Hamurabi had me out until the ungodly hour of one investigating an illegal creature breeding operation."
"Entropic or preservative creatures?"
"Preservative. Cute ones, too, so they're making good money. They're also messing around with local ecology. Too much divine energy in one place, and it's all out of balance."
"You get the guys?"
"Not yet, but that's not why you called me. Thanks for asking, though."
"No problem."
Silence.
"So why did you call me?"
"Forgotten Zed is dead."
Paul snorted. "It kills me how that rhymes. 'Zed is dead.' There's a limerick in there somewhere."
"Shut up, Paul," said Tuck and Proust together. Paul zipped his lips.
"How'd it happen?" asked Proust.
"Professional job. One shot, long range. They guy was a genius, or a psychopath."
"Not mutually exclusive," said Paul, then zipped his mouth again as Tuck glared.
"I assume you're calling because there's more to the story than this."
"There is. The guy is dead."
"You know who killed him?"
"We think so. She's dead, too. Or he. We don't know the order."
Proust sighed through the phone. "This is sounding familiar. Let me tell you the rest: after the second body, the trail goes dead, and you've got nothing. Am I right?"
Tuck and Paul looked at each other. "Not quite," said Tuck. "We've got another body."
"Hello!" said Proust, energy in his voice for the first time. "That's new. The body count usually stops at two. Well, three, including the unfortunate god. A third body...is interesting."
"But," said Tuck, "other than that, this matches a pattern you've seen before, right?"
"Definitely. It's like the killings at the Olympics, and the K Street shooting before that, and the Prohibition Killings, and the Suffragette Bombing, and three others that I can think of stretching back two- or three-hundred years. Killer does the job, is bumped off, and the bumper turns up a day or two later. Dead, of course. But I hadn't heard about Zed going down. This is recent?"
"Last night," said Paul. "So are we seeing the same process on fast forward?"
"Seems like it," said Proust. "Sounds like you're getting a few bonuses, too."
Tuck spoke up again, leaning in toward the phone. "Proust, did you ever get anywhere on the Olympic Killings?"
"Suspects, sure. Possibilities, but Tuck, they were all the longest of long shots. I couldn't find any connection between those people and any of the other assassinations we have records for."
"Could you send me what you've got anyway?"
"Sure, sure, of course. Let me get into the office, and I'll email you everything. I've got the stuff from K Street and Prohibition, too, if you want it."
"Anything you've got would be great. We're flying blind, here, but you may have just given us radar."
There was silence. "That's a lousy metaphor," said Proust finally.
"I'd say it's average," said Paul. "Not exactly original, but not the worst he's ever come up with."
"We should be careful teasing Tuck, though," said Proust. "After all, he is a demon."
"But I carry more guns," said Paul. "And bigger ones."
"You a gun buff, Paul? I didn't know that."
"If it goes bang, it's my friend."
"But you're an angel."
"What's your point?"
"Nothing, I guess. You need anything else from me, or do I go shower in coffee and get you your files?"
Tuck opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally spoke. "Can I answer without the two of you mocking me?"
"Maybe," said Proust.
"Definitely not," said Paul.
"Fine. Whatever. Please send it as soon as possible and now I'm hanging up. Later, Proust."
"Love to the missus, Tuck."
Tuck cut the connection and Paul stared at him.
"What is it?"
"You're married?"
"No."
"Then what's with the 'love to the missus?'"
"Old joke. Before your time."
"That again? You're only what, sixty years older than I am?"
"Sure, but I'm a demon. That means my years are like dog years. They count for more."
Paul snorted. "Right. Demons are such fleeting things. Your life is but a moment--a THOUSAND YEAR LONG moment."
"Will you come to my funeral, Paul?"
"Can it, Tuck. I'm going to see if Alice conned Draper into bringing in doughnuts."
His partner left, and Tuck smiled. Driving Paul away was a small moment and a small victory, but he enjoyed it anyway.
Damastes waited as the phone rang. A perky and obscenely young voice answered and identified herself as the university travel office.
“This is Professor Troy.”
“Of course, Dr. Troy. What can I help you with?”
“I won’t be able to make my flight today.”
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Did something happen?”
“Not particularly.”
“It’s just...I mean, I can look up your travel information--I mean that I have your travel information, and I can call the airline, but I’ll need to list why you were unable to--I’m sorry, but isn’t your flight in just an hour or two?”
“Correct,” said Damastes, wondering if he had ever had patience for humans this young. He couldn’t remember a time.
“If you had called earlier we might have been able to arrange something. I’m sure the airlines aren’t going to--”
“Young lady,” interrupted the angel, “I called you the first moment your office opened, and now I have something for you to do: cancel my flight. I will make my own arrangements for returning home. That is all.”
He hung up over whatever pathetic attempt at intelligence her small brain could muster, and he took a deep breath. She didn’t deserve his anger. He would save that for the worm of a police sergeant if he didn’t turn up some useful information soon. He would save it for whoever had interfered with his planning. He would save it for the people who were keeping him from making the world better.
Then he would destroy them.
"This is Proust, and you better have a fabulous reason for waking me up, or I'm crawling through this phone, down your throat, and pulling your pancreas out to throw at the paper boy."
"Good morning to you, too, Proust," said Tuck.
"You got him?" asked Paul. "Put him on speaker phone."
Tuck nodded. "Hey, Proust? I'm putting you on speaker."
"And I'm putting you on 'hang up' unless you tell me who this is in five seconds."
Tuck pushed the 'Speaker' button and set down the headset. "It's Tuck, in Northern Lights."
"And Paul," chimed in his partner.
There was silence on the other end, then a grunt. "Okay, so I'm not going to kill you. But only for old-time's sake, and after this you owe me."
"Actually," said Tuck, "if you can answer my questions, I'll owe you double. Why were you asleep, anyway? I thought you were always up at five?"
"Not today. Hamurabi had me out until the ungodly hour of one investigating an illegal creature breeding operation."
"Entropic or preservative creatures?"
"Preservative. Cute ones, too, so they're making good money. They're also messing around with local ecology. Too much divine energy in one place, and it's all out of balance."
"You get the guys?"
"Not yet, but that's not why you called me. Thanks for asking, though."
"No problem."
Silence.
"So why did you call me?"
"Forgotten Zed is dead."
Paul snorted. "It kills me how that rhymes. 'Zed is dead.' There's a limerick in there somewhere."
"Shut up, Paul," said Tuck and Proust together. Paul zipped his lips.
"How'd it happen?" asked Proust.
"Professional job. One shot, long range. They guy was a genius, or a psychopath."
"Not mutually exclusive," said Paul, then zipped his mouth again as Tuck glared.
"I assume you're calling because there's more to the story than this."
"There is. The guy is dead."
"You know who killed him?"
"We think so. She's dead, too. Or he. We don't know the order."
Proust sighed through the phone. "This is sounding familiar. Let me tell you the rest: after the second body, the trail goes dead, and you've got nothing. Am I right?"
Tuck and Paul looked at each other. "Not quite," said Tuck. "We've got another body."
"Hello!" said Proust, energy in his voice for the first time. "That's new. The body count usually stops at two. Well, three, including the unfortunate god. A third body...is interesting."
"But," said Tuck, "other than that, this matches a pattern you've seen before, right?"
"Definitely. It's like the killings at the Olympics, and the K Street shooting before that, and the Prohibition Killings, and the Suffragette Bombing, and three others that I can think of stretching back two- or three-hundred years. Killer does the job, is bumped off, and the bumper turns up a day or two later. Dead, of course. But I hadn't heard about Zed going down. This is recent?"
"Last night," said Paul. "So are we seeing the same process on fast forward?"
"Seems like it," said Proust. "Sounds like you're getting a few bonuses, too."
Tuck spoke up again, leaning in toward the phone. "Proust, did you ever get anywhere on the Olympic Killings?"
"Suspects, sure. Possibilities, but Tuck, they were all the longest of long shots. I couldn't find any connection between those people and any of the other assassinations we have records for."
"Could you send me what you've got anyway?"
"Sure, sure, of course. Let me get into the office, and I'll email you everything. I've got the stuff from K Street and Prohibition, too, if you want it."
"Anything you've got would be great. We're flying blind, here, but you may have just given us radar."
There was silence. "That's a lousy metaphor," said Proust finally.
"I'd say it's average," said Paul. "Not exactly original, but not the worst he's ever come up with."
"We should be careful teasing Tuck, though," said Proust. "After all, he is a demon."
"But I carry more guns," said Paul. "And bigger ones."
"You a gun buff, Paul? I didn't know that."
"If it goes bang, it's my friend."
"But you're an angel."
"What's your point?"
"Nothing, I guess. You need anything else from me, or do I go shower in coffee and get you your files?"
Tuck opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally spoke. "Can I answer without the two of you mocking me?"
"Maybe," said Proust.
"Definitely not," said Paul.
"Fine. Whatever. Please send it as soon as possible and now I'm hanging up. Later, Proust."
"Love to the missus, Tuck."
Tuck cut the connection and Paul stared at him.
"What is it?"
"You're married?"
"No."
"Then what's with the 'love to the missus?'"
"Old joke. Before your time."
"That again? You're only what, sixty years older than I am?"
"Sure, but I'm a demon. That means my years are like dog years. They count for more."
Paul snorted. "Right. Demons are such fleeting things. Your life is but a moment--a THOUSAND YEAR LONG moment."
"Will you come to my funeral, Paul?"
"Can it, Tuck. I'm going to see if Alice conned Draper into bringing in doughnuts."
His partner left, and Tuck smiled. Driving Paul away was a small moment and a small victory, but he enjoyed it anyway.
Damastes waited as the phone rang. A perky and obscenely young voice answered and identified herself as the university travel office.
“This is Professor Troy.”
“Of course, Dr. Troy. What can I help you with?”
“I won’t be able to make my flight today.”
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Did something happen?”
“Not particularly.”
“It’s just...I mean, I can look up your travel information--I mean that I have your travel information, and I can call the airline, but I’ll need to list why you were unable to--I’m sorry, but isn’t your flight in just an hour or two?”
“Correct,” said Damastes, wondering if he had ever had patience for humans this young. He couldn’t remember a time.
“If you had called earlier we might have been able to arrange something. I’m sure the airlines aren’t going to--”
“Young lady,” interrupted the angel, “I called you the first moment your office opened, and now I have something for you to do: cancel my flight. I will make my own arrangements for returning home. That is all.”
He hung up over whatever pathetic attempt at intelligence her small brain could muster, and he took a deep breath. She didn’t deserve his anger. He would save that for the worm of a police sergeant if he didn’t turn up some useful information soon. He would save it for whoever had interfered with his planning. He would save it for the people who were keeping him from making the world better.
Then he would destroy them.
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