by Zachary Howe
***
At 11:00 pm Gordie was in bed. Atalo had bought the one-way plane tickets to Athens out of O’Hare with a layover in London that was too long for Gordie’s taste. It was fifteen hours of travel time, excluding the drive to Chicago. They would leave the next morning. Why not? Why stay any longer and prolong the inevitable? There was nothing left for any of them here.
Atalo was retired, which he referred to as ‘waiting to die;’ he could not have been doing a worse job of masking the childish glee he was experiencing over this adventure. Ellie was more solemn. After her husband’s death, she took extended leave from work. Gordie didn’t know what she was thinking: whether she intended to come back here, or to just wander around the Mediterranean. He guessed the latter was his plan. Before he went off to bed, Ellie had asked Gordie one last time if he was sure that he didn’t want to go back to school. Her heart hadn’t been in it though. There was something deeply defeating about his Mom—a teacher—asking him if he wanted to go back to school, and knowing she didn’t even care. But why should she? Why should he?
The shadow of the window frame stretched across his bed in the glow of the full moon. Gordie had been watching its progression without really noticing. He supposed the cross-hatches were stretching across his face now, reaching. Thinking about his checkered complexion, he drifted off to sleep.
Gordie was at a track and field event, but there was nobody in the stands. He was in a field, all alone, with a replica of his high school’s track nearby, but he knew he wouldn’t be using it. There was a shot-put ten yards ahead of him and, without any other indication of what to do next, he walked towards it. As he began his approach, he realized it was not ten yards away, but a mile. He started to sprint towards it and it grew ever-larger. In what felt like seconds, he was standing next to a boulder, an iron boulder with a diameter equal to his height. Feeling confident, Gordie bent his knees and hoisted this globe above his head. It was light as a feather. He balanced it on one palm, spun it like a basketball on one finger, then tossed it straight up in the air. As it descended, he hopped back and punched it with a solid right hook. The gargantuan cannonball imploded and Gordie was sucked into the resultant vortex, a black hole that spat him out in the field where he began.
At his feet lay a javelin. Again, the field was desolate. Gordie lifted the spear and the stands burst into life. Thousands of faces popped into existence as he made contact with the javelin. He scanned the spectators. Bridget Clemens was sitting in the first row of the bleachers, eyeing him with hungry anticipation, yearning to see his great feat of strength, her chest heaving with unbridled excitement. A beast within him stirred. His blood boiled. Gordie wanted to show her his great power. He looked straight ahead.
In the distance a figure loomed, staring at him, challenging him. The man must have been thousands of yards away, but Gordie could see his face as clearly as if they were nose to nose. His shock white beard, flowing in the breeze, was only rendered mute by the terrible brilliance of his electric blue eyes. Each one was like the heart of a glacier, too old to comprehend. A glacier that hated indiscriminately for what this world had done to it. But right now, all that hate was focused on Gordie, focused on boring a hole through his brain and destroying him with the sheer power of gaze.
But Gordie knew he could not be destroyed. With a thunderous roar he reared back and hurled the missile with all his strength. He watched it soar. Crazed glee illuminated his features, broadcast on the scoreboard that he had not before noticed. Gordie could see the hunger in his own eyes. There was hate there too. But there was more: greed, lust, thirst for power. All of these were carved so deep into his features that Gordie did not believe they would ever fade. His eyes burned too. They were blisteringly red. He turned them back on his prey with irresolute arrogance. Like magma, they exploded with the drive to melt those cosmic crystals into which he stared. Gordie saw a shadow of doubt cross his rival’s face as he eagerly awaited the piercing scream of his pierced flesh. But then everything went wrong.
The scoreboard exploded in a shower of sparks raining down on the spectators. Pandemonium reigned. Gordie saw his best friend Noah screaming with his scalp ablaze. Little Judy Pritchett was engulfed in flame, rolling down what appeared to be an endless stair of bleachers. Nameless faces were consumed by the inferno as Gordie looked on in horror. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. He snapped his gaze back to his adversary only to find him laughing, a booming guffaw that all but drowned the anguished screams of Gordie’s flaming classmates. For one fateful moment, Gordie allowed himself to rejoice in the madman’s distraction as his spear hurtled towards his chest, but at the last second, he disappeared in a flash of lightning, and Gordie’s javelin pierced the chest of some poor soul he had left standing in his wake. Ellie’s scream rent the air.
“Gordie! Gordie, are you all right?” His mother shook him awake and her dream-scream trailed off.
“Mom? You’re okay?” Gordie looked up at her with doe-eyes.
“Of course I am, honey. But you were screaming.” Her eyes were full of concern, and Gordie felt growing embarrassment that the scream he had heard in his dream was his own.
“Yeah, I-I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. You were . . .” Despite his efforts, Gordie’s eyes brimmed with tears. He was furious with himself for causing his mom further pain as she stroked his hair and looked at him with a deepened sense of worry. “It’s okay, Mom. Really.” He was supposed to be strong—maybe the strongest person alive—but in her shadow he felt so small; safe, but weak . . . helpless.
“Well, it’s okay now. It’s time to get ready to go anyways. It’s almost five.” Gordie realized with a jolt that they would soon be leaving for Greece. He fell silent as he started thinking about all that was to come.
“Gordie, I know you’re scared, but—”
“I’m not scared.”
“Okay. You’re not,” she smiled, “but it’s okay to be. There is nothing in the world that can prepare anyone for what you have gone through in the last couple weeks. And there’s certainly nothing to prepare any of us for whatever awaits us in our future. We’ll just take everything one step at a time. That’s all we can do.”
Gordie nodded in return. He wasn’t really sure what to say. “I’m gonna hop in the shower.” He started towards the bathroom, but turned back to his mother as she rose from her perch at the end of his bed. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”
She strode over to him and cupped his cheek in her hand. “That’s good news because you don’t have a say in the matter.” With a soft smile she kissed him on the forehead and walked down the hall to join Atalo at breakfast.
Gordie stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As he waited for the water to heat up, he stepped in front of the mirror and examined himself. He thought his features looked more gaunt than usual. He didn’t know if it was his imagination, or if the anxiety about what lay ahead was actually altering his appearance. I’m going to Greece today, he thought to himself. I’m going to Greece to search for an immortal blacksmith. Where do we start? How do you find a god? What the hell?
His image was fading in the steam creeping down the mirror. Gordie watched as his eyes were swallowed by the advancing vapor. He turned and stepped into the shower. It had been eleven days since the attack. His hair was still short by most people’s standards, but it felt voluminous to him as he lathered it up. After he rinsed, he let the steaming water cascade over his shoulders. It was one of those mornings when the warm water just felt too good to step out of. The soothing caress of the heat extracted all thought from his mind. Given his current predicament, he could ask for no greater blessing.
Apparently Gordie had taken too long, because his mom started shouting for him, ripping him from his meditative state. He turned off the water in a panic, hopped out, dried off, wiped the steam from the mirror to inspect himself one last time, and was stopped dead by what he saw.
One little chin hair was poking out—his first
chin hair. He must have missed it before the shower in his post-nightmare bleariness. A fountain of laughter escaped his lips before he even realized what was so funny. Here he was, preparing to embark on an epic journey fraught with certain danger, and he was confronted with a reminder of his extreme youth. It was ridiculous. But he supposed it was a sign that he was becoming a man. A face of contemplative approval flashed at him in the mirror before he plucked out the first of many facial hairs to come.
Gordie darted back to his room and threw on a brand new ensemble his mother had bought for him the week before. When they had lost the house, they lost nearly everything of use, including their clothes. Ellie had gone on a shopping spree for them after the incident. Gordie’s new duffle bag was stuffed with all new digs and a couple pairs of sneakers. Clad in his new Nike shorts and sweatshirt, he looked like a typical sixteen-year-old. He grabbed his bag and raced off to the breakfast table.
Ellie and Atalo were finishing up, so Gordie scarfed down a bagel with cream cheese while receiving light-hearted chidings from his grandpa. “All right, Dad. If you keep nagging him we’re all gonna be late. Let’s get going.”
Their plane was to leave Chicago O’Hare Airport at noon, so they were starting the one-hundred-fifty-mile drive at 6:00 am to give themselves some leeway. Based on past experience, it was prudent to allow a little extra time when flying internationally.
A few years ago they had all gone to Jamaica on a family vacation. On that excursion, they had only given themselves about an hour between check-in and departure time, and nearly missed the plane. Ellie had been irate; there was nothing more important to her than punctuality and good planning. Atalo had funded the trip, much to Robert Leonhart’s chagrin. He had been a very proud man who did not do well with handouts, but there was no way they could have afforded a trip like that on their own. After a lot of begging from both his son and wife, Robert had finally come around, and the family spent a week at an all-inclusive resort. Ever since, it had been a dream of Gordie’s to travel throughout the Caribbean, which he now realized with a pang, would probably never happen. But he at least had some international travel experience under his belt, and a lot more of it ahead, it would seem.
Breakfast was over and they were packing up Ellie’s car in the driveway. The sun was already up, its rays dancing through a sprinkler on an ambitious neighbor’s violently green lawn. They each had one carry-on bag, and that was it for Ellie and Atalo. Gordie, however, had one bag to check. It was a brand new baseball bag containing the club of Hercules.
Gordie was in the back seat. Ellie was behind the wheel. As Atalo came out of the house and walked to the car, he opened the passenger side door to climb in but stopped, facing his house. With his towering frame, not much more of Atalo was visible than his legs, so Gordie could not see what he was doing. After thirty seconds, he looked at his mom in the rearview mirror, puzzled by the delay. Her reflection shook its wavy dark hair, and a second later Atalo was climbing into the car. Gordie heard a sniffle and was taken aback; he didn’t believe his grandpa could have been crying.
Indeed, when Atalo spoke, there was no waver in his voice. “Well, let’s get a move on, kids! No point hangin’ around here any longer!” Gordie decided that he had been wrong because it made things easier for him. They pulled out of Atalo’s driveway for the last time.
They exited the residential area and turned onto the main drag. After a few sprawling city blocks, they were passing the high school where Ellie had taught. By the way she stared straight ahead Gordie could tell she was making a concerted effort not to look at this symbol of what her life had been. She had always looked forward, never back. She caught Gordie watching her in the rearview mirror again, and she nodded. She had a way of speaking volumes without opening her mouth.
After fifteen minutes of silence, they were entering the downtown area of Madison. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Monona Terrace slept on the eponymous lake in the early morning light. Off to their left, the State Capitol rose above municipal and residential structures alike, a nearly exact replica of the National Capitol Building. The statue atop the dome was a Greco-Roman sculpture of a golden woman, reminiscent of Athena, her right arm outstretched. In her left hand she held a globe upon which an eagle perched. How fitting.
Zeus was closely associated with the eagle. In fact, he had once transformed into an Eagle to kidnap a young boy named Ganymede, whom he had brought back to Mount Olympus to fulfill his pedophiliac desires. Ellie had once told Gordie that pedophilia did not carry the same connotations in ancient Greece as it did now—that it was a normal social convention—but it was disturbing regardless. Of course, Zeus did not only abduct young boys. He had his way with countless women as well, generally to their (and his wife’s) dismay.
It was hard to hate a being whom you once believed to be mythological, but it helped if that being had killed your father. Still, Gordie was having trouble wrapping his head around what it was that he was off to do. He wished his dad were with him. Robert had always seemed to know what to do regardless of the circumstances. But, Gordie figured, if his father were still with him, then this endeavor would be moot. It didn’t matter; his mom and grandpa would figure something out. He supposed they were the brains and he was the brawn of this operation. He was glad they were with him, especially his mom. His dad had always seemed to know what to do instinctively, although if he were ever stuck, Ellie’s rationality and logic would pull them through. Now that Gordie thought about it, she had always been the level-headed one.
They had been driving for thirty minutes and had just left the outskirts of Madison, traveling on Interstate-94 towards Chicago. The two-hour drive from there did not offer a lot of scenery; it was a boring, monotonous trek. Atalo turned on the radio to some 1920’s jazz music and hummed along, occasionally making trumpeting noises as Gordie slowly went insane. There wasn’t a lot of speaking. Everyone seemed to be lost inside their own head. Gordie was, at least.
They listened to a lot of brass instruments for the remainder of the trip until they finally pulled into the ramp at Chicago O’Hare airport with more than three hours to spare before the plane departed.
When they made it to the ticket counter, it was time for Gordie to check his bag. Ever since the incident, his bat had been by his side at all times. The thought of parting with it was terrifying. Ellie recognized his apprehension, but had no words to ease his fears. Instead she placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring nod, willing Gordie to be strong as he handed off his bag to the check-in lady. Feeling helpless, he fell in line with his mom and grandpa as they started toward security. But then a spark of inspiration hit Gordie as he realized this airport contained a fool-proof pick-me-up.
Gordie’s first mission on this quest was to find a Cinnabon, stat. When he was a kid, there had been a Cinnabon in each of the largest shopping malls in Madison, but they had since gone one out of business. He rarely got them anymore, so he scoured the airports when they went on vacations. Having flown out of O’Hare before, he knew that they had one of the sinfully decadent confectionaries.
“Really?” Ellie asked. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Getting a Cinnabon?”
“Uh, yeah!” Gordie said as if that should have been obvious.
After forty-five minutes in the violation that was airport security, Gordie and Atalo chowed down on Cinnabons, making grunting noises like Cookie Monster in a back alley with a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies. Ellie watched her companions with a look of repugnance on her face as they licked their plates clean before saying, “All right, fatties, can we go to our gate now?”
They headed off with broad smiles.
After they took their seats at gate C3, they still had two hours to kill before boarding, and Gordie was feeling antsy (most likely a result of the sixty grams of sugar he just inhaled). He got up and announced that he was going to walk around. Ellie looked alarmed. “You shouldn’t go anywhere alone. Why don’t you just stay here?”
>
“Relax, Ellie. He’s fine. Go on, Gordo. Go check out the sweeties.” Atalo gave him a wink, which Gordie returned with a mischievous grin.
Ellie looked between them and rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Men are disgusting. Don’t go too far, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be fine.”
Gordie walked across the terminal to the nearest convenience store to snoop around. He worked his way to the magazine display and, looking both ways, reached for the top shelf to pull down the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. He began to daydream, lost in the blue eyes of a voluptuous blonde gracing the cover, scantily clad in the middle of an arctic snow-scape. “I’ll keep you warm,” he whispered to her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the store clerk watching him so he threw the magazine back on the shelf and snatched up a car magazine, his cheeks ablaze. The girl behind the counter was young with caramel skin and dark hair. She was cute, which added to Gordie’s shame. Feeling claustrophobic, he scurried out of the shop. As he was leaving, the clerk gave him a coy smile and said, “Have a great day.”
“You too,” he muttered without returning her gaze, and headed for safety.
He was walking down the concourse now, thinking about his Caliente Princess, slowly convincing himself that she wanted him, and trying to talk himself into going back for her number. Then he reminded himself that there was no point in hitting on her because he was headed to Greece to fight gods. He became lost in serious contemplation again as he meandered, observing the harried yet excited families rushing to their tropical getaways. A sense of sadness consumed him as he groped for some clue about what his life would be like after this journey.
One of those obnoxious, beeping airport shuttles approached his flank and snapped him back to the present. He watched the driver maneuver his way through and around a crowd streaming in both directions with cool composure. He followed the flashing light of the trolley without any purpose.
