by Paul Neuhaus
Hope seemed to be thinking for a moment. “Alright. Hold on. Let me see if I can...” Then she rocked from side to side with her bottom still stuck to the top of Vasquez Rocks. The motion threw the Evils off-balance and led to a lot of surprised exclamations. Finally, the personification of hope did the one-eighty roll I asked for.
Here’s what she got right: She managed to completely upend everything inside of her and seal herself at her top (which used to be her bottom). She did this—seemingly—without losing anything inside of her. Here’s the part that wasn’t an unqualified success: She lost her balance and rolled off the peak of the stone formation. One thing I should point out: The inside of the “Hope Ball” was not rigid. Rather than being like the interior of a hollow metal sphere, it was more like the inside of a hollow latex sphere. She stayed a ball all the way down, but those of us on the inside felt every outcropping and protrusion on the way down. You’ve never encountered a more unhappy group of Evils in your life.
Which is saying something since they weren’t exactly glass-is-half-full people to begin with.
I alternated being on top and being on the bottom as we rolled. I had neither the presence of mind nor the proper orientation to pull the pithos off of me or take a deep breath. It was like the most unpleasant theme park ride of all time. I would say, “Well, fortunately it was over quick”, but I can’t say that. While it was happening, it felt like a fucking eternity. And it wasn’t like we reached the bottom and stopped. Our momentum carried us about halfway across the scrubby terrain between the Rocks and the ranger’s station—and we only stopped because we ran into something. I think it was a little hill. It probably wasn’t a tour group since the site was empty. Anyway, we had that going for us.
When the ride was over, I found myself plastered to one of the walls, a press of smoky bodies against me. That couldn’t last since we were on the inside of a sphere. As I started to slide back down again, I took a big drag of sweet, sweet air and I yanked the pithos away from my titty.
What followed was a very gratifying riot.
It turns out, the pithos could suck in more than one Evil at a time—or at least this one could. Maybe Zeus had worked in some upgrades to model two-point-oh. As I descended, screaming, angry spirits flew toward the mouth of my jug. I recognized some of them as they got sucked in. Fear, Covetousness, Sloth, Envy, Pedophilia, Schadenfreude, Murder, Gaslighting, False Witness, the minotaur, Scylla and Charybdis, Self-Pity, Lechery, Necrophilia, Wantonness, Usury, Mormonism, Gluttony, Pride, and Making Money Off the Mentally Ill all shot in a steady stream back where they belonged. It was like a reverse firehose. After a moment, I gave in to the sheer awesomeness of it. As I moved the pithos around to suck up every unwilling Evil, I laughed like a madwoman, drunk on my own power. Grabbing all nine thousand-plus of the mean little buggers took less than a minute. After they were in, I put the stopper back on and it made the most satisfying pop I’d ever heard.
Then I collapsed.
Hope stopped being a sphere. She became a little point of light floating a foot or so above my eyes. “Dora! Dora! Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think so. My lungs hurt. And my titty. Plus, I feel like a thousand fat guys took a nap on me. Other than that...”
“Do you need a minute?”
“Yeah. Just a minute. Lemme just... Lemme just catch my breath. And rub my boob.”
“You want me to rub your boob?”
“No. That’d be weird,” I replied.
“Oh, I know. I was confused. Say, Dora?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming after me.”
I nodded to her. “It was never even a question,” I said.
When I was able to stand, Hope and I went back to the Firebird. I'd parked it in front of the deserted ranger station. I put the pithos in the backseat and sat down in the front. For a while, I rested my head against the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” Hope said from the passenger side.
“It’s been a rough week,” I conceded. “Pan fucked off, I made a new friend, my new friend became queen of the Underworld, I had to talk to Medusa, Medea poisoned me, I had a gas bomb planted in my body, I got shot in the shoulder, my trailer burned down (but then it didn’t), I died (but then I didn’t), I watched Medea get straight-up murdered by her own kids, then I came here and almost got suffocated inside a giant hamster ball.”
“You need a vacation.”
I looked up and expected to see a point of light floating over the passenger seat. What I saw instead floored me. It was a little girl wearing a toga, a garland of flowers in her hair. It was the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. She smiled. I started to speak but stopped. I started again but couldn’t find the words.
“Relax,” the little girl said. “It’s me.”
“Is this... what you look like when you’re not stuck in a jug?”
Hope shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it is.”
“Huh,” I said, still trying to take her in. She had a faint luminousness, little blonde curls, and enormous blue eyes. “If there was a picture of you outside of every K-mart portrait studio in America, they would never stop selling out of the deluxe package.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she replied.
“It means you’re every ad man’s dream. You could sell Barbies. You could sell Campbell’s Soup. You could sell ice to Eskimos.”
“You’re babbling.”
“Maybe. What I’m trying to say is you’re the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen.” Seeing her (as opposed to just hearing her, as I’d done for thousands of years) washed away a lot of the hostility I’d felt toward her. I’d always thought of her as a pest, but it was hard to hold onto that after seeing her in her native form.
“I appreciate the compliment,” she said. “But I need you to do me a favor...”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to put me back in the pithos.”
“What? Why? Why would you wanna go back to that dusty old place?”
“I’m scared. And I’m uncomfortable,” Hope said. “The pithos is my home. It’s what I’m used to.”
I don’t know why considering my own recent bout of reclusiveness, but that struck me as an unsatisfactory answer. “Hmmm. Maybe you oughta stretch outta your comfort zone.”
“I like my comfort zone where it is,” the little girl replied. “Besides... What if you decide to go after one of the remaining Evils? How’re you gonna do that with a moppet in tow? It works much better if you’re point and I’m intel.”
I laughed. “‘Point’? ‘Intel’? You really took a shine to those Bourne movies, didn’t you?”
Hope threw up her arms and launched into a fangirl rant. “I’m sorry! It’s just so fascinating to me! With the Treadstone, and the Blackbriar, and the ‘Is he Jason Bourne or is he David Webb?’ It’s soooo good!”
I couldn’t help grinning. But I also reached into the backseat and grabbed the jug. “Here’s my input and you can ignore it or not. It’s your life. I just spent more than ten years in a jug of my own. That stupid trailer. Now that I’m out, I’m exhausted, and I’m scared, but I feel like I made the right decision. So... I’ll ask you again: You’re sure about this?”
Hope nodded.
I sat the pithos in my lap and started to pull off the stopper. “You’re sure you’re sure?”
“I’m sure I’m sure.”
I put my hand on the lid.
“Wait!”
I stopped.
Hope held out her little fist and we bumped in the air. We smiled at one another.
Then I pulled off the lid and sucked my friend back into the pithos.
After she was in, her voice came out again as it always had. “In our better moments,” she said. “I think of us as sisters.”
I put the car in gear and backed out. “That’s ‘cause we’re sisters,” I replied.
After I got on the Southbound 405, I turned on the radio and rai
sed the volume. Hope understood that as a signal I had some thinking to do. As I did my best to stay awake, I mulled over the last couple of days. A lot had happened, and I was pretty sure I was a different person than I’d been when I started. When I started, I was a shut-in who didn’t care about much of anything except watching TV, clubbing the clam, and getting blasted. After spending time with Amanda Venables and Constantine Constantinides, and after narrowly averting an invasion of the old gods, I was starting to feel like the old me. The old me from before my decade-long lost weekend at the beach. I hadn’t always been a surly loner, and a little tickle in the back of my brain told me I didn’t have to backslide. I wanted engagement. I wanted interaction. I wanted the satisfaction of jobs well-done.
Or at least I thought I did. My noggin was so clouded with exhaustion, I wasn’t sure if it was the old me peeking out, or if it was a fever dream fueled by sleep deprivation.
Only after I enjoyed a mini-coma would I know for sure.
2
Meet the Wieners
When we got back to Malibu, I slammed my car door and went around to the passenger side. I undid the seatbelt from around the pithos, picked it up and walked toward our aluminum homestead. “It’s weird,” Hope said from inside the crock. “It’s almost like we never left.”
“Except that I feel like a piece of ABC gum.”
“‘ABC’?”
“‘Already been chewed’. Speaking of... If we had anything to eat in the house, I’d eat it, and then I’d pass out.”
“What about Uber Eats?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where you message Uber and tell them what you want, and they bring it to your house.”
“How did you hear about that?”
“From TV.”
I scratched my nose. “Don’t you need a cellphone to make it work?” I didn’t have a cellphone. Couldn’t afford it.
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe.”
“Well, I’m not gonna worry about it right now. Maybe if—”
But then a voice to my right scared the shit out of me. “Are you Pandora? Pandora Weir?”
I threw back my head and took a deep breath. “Don’t do that to people!” I said. “I almost threw my jug at you.” Then I looked over and saw a teenaged girl. She was especially curvy for a teenaged girl, but I could tell she was no more than fifteen. She had brown hair in a ponytail and she wore a “Grand Funk Railroad” t-shirt (which was weird since I don’t think anyone had worn a “Grand Fuck Railroad” t-shirt in thirty-five years).
Right off, I got the weird feeling I knew her.
“Yeah. I’m Dora. What’s wrong? You lose your peepaw? There’s a lifeguard station over there.”
The girl talked really, really fast—like she was hopped up on goofballs (which, I found out later, she was). “I’m Keri. I need your help. My dad’s missing and I don’t know where he is. Which is weird—like really weird—since his food and his Xbox are at home. I don’t think I’ve gone like half a day without seeing him since I came out of the womb. Which is not to say he’s overprotective, he’s just always around—except in the last few days. Like I said. Also, the last time I talked to him, he said to me, ‘Keri, I’ve found magic. Real magic and I don’t have to wish anymore.’ Which is a really weird thing to say—especially apropos of nothing which is how he did it. Anyway, I’m getting worried.”
I sighed and resumed walking toward the trailer. “Well, Keri, I don’t know how any of that’s my problem. Do I look like a cop to you? Is there a P.I. shingle hanging over my door? I don’t do missing persons.”
“I know. My uncle said you’d say that. He told me you’d say, ‘I don’t do missing people. Just like that. He even did an impersonation of you which, now that I meet you, was pretty accurate.”
For the time being, it didn’t register that, if the uncle in question could do an impersonation of me, he must’ve known me at some point. “What’d he tells you to say after I said it? To, you know, get me on your side.”
“He didn’t. He’s kind of a fuck-up. Not as big a fuck-up as my dad, but they do share the same blood. Actually, correction, he used to be the lesser of the two fuck-ups, but then he got himself a head injury, so now he’s the bigger of the two fuck-ups, but, to be honest, it’s still a tight race. He—my uncle, not my dad—got beaned by a foul ball. And it wasn’t even at a major league game. It was at a triple-A game. Such a fucking waste. He can’t count past fifty. And he doesn’t remember anything before 1998. But I digress. Am I talking too fast?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m thinking too slow. It’s your world. I’m just living in it.”
Keri stopped, and, for some reason, I stopped with her. “Was that sarcasm?” she said. “I’m not good with sarcasm. I can’t pick it out. I have trouble reading people. My mom—who’s also a fuck-up—says I’m hella Aspergers, but she never took me to see anyone that could tell us for sure. So, I say to people, ‘I think I might be Aspergers’ and they’re all like, ‘Yeah. No shit,’ so maybe I am and maybe I’m not.”
“I don’t do missing persons, and I don’t do psychiatric evaluations. If you want my opinion, I’d say, ‘Yeah, you might be hella Aspergers’, but I’m a layperson, so, you know, take it with a lick of salt. Is there anything else I can help you with, Keri? I’m hella tired, and, if I don’t get some shut-eye, I’m gonna die.”
Keri crinkled her nose. “You won’t die. You’ll go psychotic first. Sleep deprivation turns people into raving lunatics before it kills them. I saw on the news once about this dude that stopped sleeping. After like a week, he thought he was Ross from Friends. Remember that show? I don’t know why he chose to be the dorky guy instead of the snarky guy or the dumb, good-looking guy. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Dulls the senses."
“Maybe. Do you wanna be here when I turn into Ross from Friends? I’ve got weapons in the trailer. Ross with a battle-ax is a bad scene.” I resumed walking.
“I know you’re a Mythnik,” the girl said to my back.
I didn’t even stop. I just looked over my shoulder at her. “So?” I replied. “Our days of lurking in the shadows are over, I think. Like a day and half ago, I accidentally let all the dead out of the Underworld. I imagine that must’ve raised an eyebrow or two.”
“That was you?” The girl said, impressed. “They’re calling it fake news. A Chinese hoax. The president said it was just a bunch of lost Mexicans.”
“Whatever. You are knowing I’m a Mythnik doesn’t give you any leverage. It’s not like I’m a Deep Cover Operative or something.”
Under my arm, Hope cooed at the term “Deep Cover Operative”.
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to put one over on you. My uncle told me you were a Mythnik, and that you knew my dad.”
Okay. That stopped me in my tracks. I missed the first uncle reference, but the second was too specific not to register. “Did you say your dad’s name a minute ago? What’s your dad’s name?”
“Elijah. Elijah Wiener.”
Shit. That did it. If I hadn’t found the wooden stairs in front of my door, I’d’ve fallen down. As it was, I planted my butt so hard on the middle step, my teeth chattered.
Elijah.
Keri.
The uncle. Uncle Jack to be exact.
There I was looking smack-dab at my past—or at least a past that might’ve been. I grew flush and my vision swirled. I was not only overwhelmed, I was embarrassed and overwhelmed.
Keri rushed over to me. “Hey, are you okay? You don’t look okay. Was it something I said? Are you sick?”
My sudden attack of vertigo bothered Hope too. “Dora, your heart rate’s way up. Your breathing is shallow. Close your eyes and take some deep breaths.”
“I’m okay,” I insisted, even though I still wasn’t sure. I stood on wobbly legs and put my hand on the doorknob. “I just need a drink of water. And a sit down.”
“Okay, okay,” the teenager said, concerned. “Here, let me help you.” She put her hand on the small o
f my back, and I opened the door. What I saw when I looked inside sure as hell didn’t help my heart rate or my breathing.
I saw Hermes, the messenger god, on all fours wearing a black leather diaper. He was also wearing a leash and he had a red rubber ball stuck in his mouth. Behind him was a dominatrix. She was wearing a black leather bikini and a black leather mask with zippers over the eyes and mouth. She was whipping Hermes with a cat-o-nine-tails.
I slammed the door shut and turned to Keri, my face flushed. “Wrong trailer!”
Keri Wiener and I waited outside until, finally, the dominatrix left. She was wearing street clothes and carrying a big duffel. She looked at us and without an ounce of shame, got into her BMW. A sign on the driver’s side door said, “Mistress Sheba: Discreet Humiliations”. A minute later, Hermes opened the door. He was all smiles. “Come in, come in,” he said. We were supposed pretend what just happened hadn’t just happened. I wanted to lay into him (I explicitly told him, ‘No Whores’), but Keri being there reined me in.
I walked into the trailer and put Hope down on the desk. I looked around to make sure nothing was out of place and gave Hermes a stern look, so he’d know he wasn’t out of the woods.
Keri came in behind me. I didn’t forget my duties as hostess. “Hermes, this Keri. Keri, this is Hermes.”
Hermes held out his hand and Keri shook it. “Hello, Keri,” Hermes said. He cocked his head, seeing something in her face I hadn’t seen right away. “What’s your last name, Keri?”
“Wiener,” the teen replied. “Keri Wiener.”
Hermes stopped dead. He was still holding onto the girl’s hand and he wore a shocked expression. He’d done the math quicker than I had. “Elijah and Addie’s kid?”
Keri tried to get her hand back, but Hermes wasn’t ready to let go. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
The Olympian released the hand and looked over at me. “Lucky guess,” he replied.
I’d already gone to the sink and I was downing my second glass of water. Unfortunately, the drinking didn’t have the desired effect. My head was still pounding. I thought about checking the fridge for beer but decided that’d only make things worse. After a third glass, I went around the desk and plopped down hard on the chair.
