by Sam Clemens
Laird opened the door and squinted at the sunlight. He was wearing an oversized Looney Tunes t-shirt and sweatpants.
“Morning,” Cosmo said.
“Man, I was up.” Laird shielded his eyes with his right hand. “I can dress how I want on my day off. What’s that?”
Cosmo Hendricks looked at the Saint Bernard-sized to-go bag sitting at his side. White plastic, the contents bulging out the sides. “It’s leftovers from the lunch.”
Laird blinked. “Were there more or fewer than a hundred people at the lunch?”
“Long story. I thought you might want it—there’s good shit in there. Cake and stuff. I gotta get back to work.”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Laird said. “How’d the meeting go? What happened?”
Cosmo shook his head. “Long story short, they have this, like, religion, and they think I’m their leader. They all had a dream about it.”
Laird narrowed his eyes and nodded confidently, as if this had been expected. “Like, a collective dream?”
“Like, they all had the same dream.”
“All?”
“Yeah,” Cosmo said. “They said there’s more of them. I don’t know how many.”
“Well, find out where they work and let’s go there for dinner,” Laird said, and laughed. Cosmo frowned, and Laird stopped. “What’s wrong?” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Yeah.” Laird motioned around with his hands. “I mean, I know this is weird, Coz—and let me assure you, it is one hundred percent, utterly, totally, super fucked. Probably the most fucked thing that’s ever happened to someone I know.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah but, what I’m saying is…opportunity, Coz. I get your life has taken an extraordinary change, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Who wants to live an ordinary life?”
“I think I’d like to,” Cosmo said.
Laird waved his arms again. “Coz, you know what ordinary is code for.” He waited for Cosmo to say it. “Come on man. What’s it code for?”
“Boring,” Cosmo said flatly.
“Exactly! And you don’t want to be boring. Your name’s Cosmo, for God’s sake.”
Cosmo rubbed his forehead then. “Shit, that’s part of it, too.”
“What’s part of it?”
The taller man pitched forward, and began breathing heavily. He stared at the ground and ran his hand through his hair. “Listen man, this has got me feeling weird.”
“Weird, like how?”
“Like all lightheaded and shit. And like, I don’t know, nauseous.”
“How much did you eat?”
“It’s not that,” Cosmo said. He waved his hand and took a breath. “No—I don’t know, dude. It seems like the world’s becoming not real. Like I’m losing it or something.”
Laird put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You’re not losing it, buddy. Trust me. You’re right where you need to be.” He paused, and then said, “The supreme leader of some religion where you visit people in their dreams.”
“Fuck off,” Cosmo said, and walked away as Laird giggled. He could hear Laird yelling after him, but he ignored it.
By the time Cosmo Hendricks walked through the automatic glass doors of REI, it was nearly 2 p.m. His head felt airy in a puzzling sort of way; like he hadn’t eaten, even though he just had. He felt pins and needles in his feet each time he took a step.
Max Schmidtmann was organizing Marmot shell tops in a display by the door. He made a spectacle of looking at his watch when Cosmo came in. “Hooo boy. Long lunch, eh?” Max leaned on the clothing rack and waited for an explanation.
Cosmo stopped. “Yeah, I had to handle some shit.”
“I try to handle my stuff outside of business hours,” Max said, and tilted his chin up.
“Yeah, well, you’re not my boss.” Cosmo turned to leave.
“But what if your boss knows?”
Cosmo faced Max and frowned. The man had a way of getting under his skin. “You’re going to tell Taylor on me?”
The bespectacled Max Schmidtmann lifted his shoulder and smirked.
“Why?” Cosmo asked. “Because I interrupted your precious transaction yesterday? Dude, they didn’t even want anything. They weren’t shopping.”
Max widened his shit-eating smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m not telling Taylor. He already knows. He asked me where you were about a half hour ago.”
Shit, Cosmo thought. Usually he could sneak in an extended lunch without being noticed—he’d never tried two hours before, but he thought he might get lucky. He left Max and power-walked to the back to clock in.
The man denied it, but Cosmo knew Max was sour about what had happened the previous day. Forget the fact that Roy and Retha sure as hell weren’t in there shopping—the guy was too stubborn to believe that. From day one, Max had been weirdly territorial about helping customers. He even walked them to the register when they were ready to check out, despite the fact REI employees didn’t operate on commission. An odd duck, Max Schmidtmann.
Cosmo scurried to the back and made it to the break room, which housed the clock-in computer. Taylor was waiting.
“Hey dude,” he said from his seated position.
“Hi,” Cosmo said. “Listen, I’m sorry. I got hung up in some shit. My bad, man.”
Taylor nodded. “Two hours.”
“Yeah. Won’t happen again. I wasn’t clocked in, so it’s not like I got paid for it.”
“Of course,” Taylor said. His face was somber—different from what he showed on the floor. “Dude, if we could talk about this for a sec? I’m not trying to be an ass here, but you know I have responsibilities as a manager and stuff, right?”
“Right,” Cosmo said.
“So like, it’s just really important that if you’re on, you gotta be on, you know? It’s like with climbing. If just one member of the team isn’t fully committed, the climb is going to fail. We have the same type of thing going on with our team here at the Boulder REI.”
“Yeah,” Cosmo said. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Dude, you know I hate doing this stuff,” Taylor said, motioning to the space between them. “I hate being that guy. I’m a free spirit, same as you. But I’m on the upper management track, you know, so sometimes you gotta be more of a boss than a friend.”
“Loud and clear.”
“What’d you get hung up on, anyway?” Taylor asked. His tone changed. “Max said you were over at Copper Mine the whole time.”
“Max?” Cosmo said. “How’d he know?”
Taylor waved it off. “You know him. Always in other people’s business.”
Cosmo inhaled. “Long story short, I made some new friends at the sub shop and they kept giving me more food and it was really hard to leave.”
“They just kept giving you more food,” Taylor said.
“Like I said, long story.”
Taylor nodded, then injected a prolonged moment of awkwardness with ambiguous hand gestures and an inability to articulate a new subject. “Hey, uh,” he finally said. “Changing subjects, but…you didn’t—” he looked at Cosmo and squinted, “—you didn’t end up buying that climbing gear, did you? No pressure or anything, but like, I think you’d really get into it if you gave it a shot. And I got an opening for our next trip.”
Laird went to Cosmo’s apartment again that evening. He apologized for making light of Cosmo’s esoteric unrest, and promised to help him through whatever path lied ahead.
“Problem is,” Laird said, removing a Buffalo Gold from a plastic ring six-pack, “this shouldn’t be making you feel shitty. It should be making you feel empowered.”
Cosmo cracked a beer. “It still feels not real. It feels like a dream I had, or, like, I’m still having.”
“I can assure you this is the real world,” Laird said. “I told you before, and I’ll tell you again: you aren’t dreaming. You just had something good happen to you. I know it can be hard to accept
.”
“Something good?” Cosmo said. He took a long drink and shook off the carbonation. “That’s how you see it, eh?”
“I do,” Laird said. “And you will, too, in time.”
The thing had taken a turn, and Laird could see this clearly. While he enjoyed needling Cosmo Hendricks—and would continue to poke fun at this situation until the proverbial cows came home—he knew it had become bigger than a joke. These people actually believed Cosmo was some celestial being, and as far fetched as that was…well, people were dumb. Laird had enough experience with the general public to know that. But that wasn’t the point. The point was it had turned from a simple goof to a bona fide, Grade A, ripe-for-the-picking break of fortune. The opportunity was real now, and Laird fancied himself an expert in maximizing opportunities.
They drank three beers each and played FIFA on Cosmo’s Xbox. Barcelona vs. Chelsea—Cosmo won two straight with the boys in blue. Finally, Laird declared, “Fuck this,” and suggested they bike to Pearl Street for more beverages.
The men pedaled along the creek in the day’s twilight. The water was still high from spring snowmelt, and the creek’s roar drowned out the other sounds as they made their way west. They cut through the farmer’s market grounds and biked past the band shell that was never used, then down across Walnut and Pearl. Finally they stopped, and locked up their bikes in front of the Czech place with long oak tables and extra large beer glasses.
It was loud, and the men wedged into an open spot between two other parties. Laird went to order beers and came back with two steins of dunkel. “To Cosmography,” he said, and raised a glass.
Cosmo laughed then, belatedly coming around to the humor of his situation. It was easier to accept in a place like this. They both drank.
“How did you end it with them?” Laird asked, a foam mustache adorning his upper lip. “After they boxed up the food and all that.”
“I just thanked them and left,” Cosmo said. “They didn’t ask for anything, but the guy said, ‘we’ll be in touch.’”
The men drank and talked and laughed. It was a normal evening, and the mystical unease that had plagued Cosmo Hendricks for much of the day dissolved in the company of Laird and perfect strangers. He felt good, and regular, which is how he was most comfortable. Soon their beers became low, and the thought of a second round occurred to Cosmo. It was his turn.
A woman appeared with two fresh steins. She was dressed like a waitress—black tank and shorts and ponytail—but without the customary waist apron. The woman set the beers down in front of them and showed a pleasant face. “You boys look like you’re ready for another round,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Cosmo. It was presumptuous, but he wasn’t bothered. He located his wallet and produced a credit card.
“Oh, no,” she said, and held up a hand. “These are on the house, sir.”
The woman held eye contact another second before disappearing with their empties. When she was gone, Laird looked across the table.
“Dude,” he said.
Cosmo shook his head. “Dude.”
“DUDE,” Laird said again, and smiled wildly.
They rode home in the dark, headlamps lighting the path. Laird hugged next to Cosmo and raised his voice to overcome the sound of the creek.
“Your disciples are everywhere!” he said, and laughed. He’d been laughing a lot.
Cosmo focused on the path and tried to ride a straight line. The steed seemed wobbly beneath him.
“This is insane,” Laird said, basking in reverence. “Bonkers! Bananas!”
“It really is,” Cosmo said.
“So what’re you gonna do? You gotta do something now. Man, you just gotta.”
They rounded a corner and rode over a wooden bridge. Each slat made a thud as the bike tires rolled along.
“I don’t know,” Cosmo said. “It was—do you think…you think it was what we thought it was?”
“She called you sir!” Laird yelled. “It was definitely fucking what we thought it was.” He weaved closer to the water. “This is insane,” he said. “Insane.”
The next curve came quick—to the right and down a hill—but the booze and the darkness made it hard to notice until they were already on top of it. Cosmo saw it too late. As they rode fast through the night still pointed straight ahead, the thick woods in front jumped out at them, and there was no time to properly correct course. Instinctively, Cosmo yanked his handlebars to the left, crashing his bike into Laird’s and sending them both tumbling into the expanse of grass and dirt above Boulder Creek.
“Fuck!” Laird yelled upon Cosmo’s contact, followed by a shrill yelp as he landed back-down on an exposed tree root.
Cosmo Hendricks rolled off his bike and came to a stop five feet from water’s edge. The noises of the crash faded out and things were quiet again. Cosmo sat up and took inventory—skinned knee, but otherwise things seemed okay. They’d avoided the woods and dodged any head-on tree collisions. He walked to Laird.
Laird remained on his back, staring into the canopy of stars above. “Dude,” he said.
“Sorry. I always forget about that turn. You okay?”
Laird rolled gingerly to his hands and knees. “Yeah. Despite that root severing my spine, I think I’m fine.”
Cosmo sat next to him. The bikes were splayed out next to the path like someone had been shot. “Nice night,” he said.
“It is.”
“What am I gonna do?” Cosmo asked then, seated between the quiet path and the roaring creek. He shifted tone in an instant. “Honestly. Do I just hope this all goes away?”
“Well,” Laird said with a pause, “are you actually asking my opinion?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for this.” Laird waited and they listened to the water. Finally he said, “These people think you’re something special. So why not let them think that? Lean into it.”
Cosmo nodded. “And to what end? So I can get free sandwiches for the rest of my life?”
“No,” Laird said. “No, that’s thinking too small. The opportunity here, Coz, is much bigger than that.” He turned to look at his friend, and the dim yellow light from nearby street lamps framed his blonde head. “What I’m saying,” Laird said, “is lean into it. Become who they think you are. Become Cosmography.”
Seven
Cosmography is an actual thing. There are a half dozen definitions—some of which directly contradict one another—but basically, it’s a field of loosely scientific study that deals with the constitution of the whole order of nature, examining both the heavens and earth. I.e., fucking everything. There is some historical application of cosmography in religion; cosmographers in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain faiths conceived the theoretical Mount Meru, a sacred five-peaked mountain that is considered the center of both the physical and spiritual universes. They postulate an existence in which the universe itself is repeatedly destroyed and recreated, for what any of that is worth.
Cosmo Hendricks knew none of this. He’d had little contact with any religion after his high school youth pastor got arrested for grabbing adolescent dicks, which was when his parents stopped taking him to church. He never lost religion because he never really had it; church in the Hendricks family was an errand rather than an actual devotion, and when his dad saw the opportunity to bail on the place and stop missing the damned start of the football games, he jumped.
Still, Cosmo wasn’t gung-ho anti-church. He wasn’t gung-ho anything, and this was the driving factor behind the man’s mediocrity for most of his life. But the more he and Laird talked, the more Cosmo was intrigued by the idea of playing a spiritual leader; once you got past the fact that the whole situation was one hundred percent USDA prime batshit lunacy—and it certainly, definitely was—he could see how it might actually work. His ties to religion weren’t nearly strong enough to give him any pause about blasphemy or desecration or other pesky notions of that order, but his mind was open enough to th
e spiritual realm that he might be a suitable fellow to play the part. Not that Cosmo had any designs of truly becoming a spiritual leader—he knew he was roundly unqualified for such a task, not to mention uninterested. But these folks were going to find someone to follow, and if it was him, well, at least he could keep them from drinking cyanide.
There was a strange energy that came with the decision to move forward. All of the consternation that had plagued Cosmo Hendricks seemed to lessen, even if the path was unknown. He was going to do something, and that something was definitely unpredictable and likely dangerous and quite possibly extremely dumb, but as Laird said, doing something was, at least in theory, better than doing nothing. Cosmo’s current lot in life had him a middling hourly employee at REI, and the most positive life development he could imagine would involve getting hired somewhere as an entry-level accountant. There was no harm in putting those things on hold to fuck around with some weirdoes in a sandwich shop for a little while. It was like riding a roller coaster, if the roller coaster was filled with obscurely religious zealots and had a real chance of being stopped and investigated by the police for fraud. Either way, a thrill.
Via text, Cosmo contacted Roy and told him to set up another meeting at Copper Mine.
They made the meeting for 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, before the store opened. It was Cosmo’s day off, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the nagging wants of Taylor and that shit-ass Max Schmidtmann. When he arrived, Retha was there to open the door and close it behind him.
“Thank you,” Cosmo said. “Same table?”
She affirmed, and they walked around the bend to the back corner. Cosmo saw a table crammed with even more food than last time; stacks of subs and mounds of cookies and one gigantic, kiddie pool-sized bowl of chips.
“No,” he said. “We agreed no food this time. No spread. I told you I didn’t need it.”
Roy stood by the table and smiled. “It just seemed right, sir.”
