Orphan Pirates of the Spanish Main

by Dennis Danvers

  I sit down across from him. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me neither,” he says. “I heard from Camille. She says House stinks worse than ever, and he’s acting out with me not there. He chewed up her flip-flop.”

  “I’m impressed. I didn’t think he still had it in him from what you told me.” House is an eleven-year-old basset-Doberman mix with chronic odor problems, a constant source of Ollie’s distress, one of many tributaries. Ollie’s always got distress. He stocks up at Costco, clips coupons. I take it as a good sign Camille’s looking after the dogs. She must still love him. I don’t remember the other dogs or their troubled stories, but you can bet they’re a handful.

  “The vet wants to give him antibiotics, says the skin issues might point to an underlying infection. He looks like shit. Coat’s dull and patchy. He scratches himself all the time. I tried tea-tree oil. Nothing.”

  “Aloe?”

  “Haven’t tried that. You think that might help?”

  “Make him feel better anyway.”

  “What do you think about the antibiotics? This vet. She’s new. Girl right out of school. I don’t trust doctors.”

  “Me either. But I’m alive because I have three mini Slinkies in my heart: Doctors have their moments. My old lab Alice had something like what you’re describing, and antibiotics cleared it up when nothing else would. You don’t really think that’s a postcard from Mom, do you?”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I think she had postcards made of the sand painting, and Katyana’s father, Simon Deetermeyer, got ahold of them.” I’ve explained to him about Deetermeyer’s theories before, but he wasn’t ready to listen then. Now that we’re on a train in the middle of the night on the way to the abyss, what else is he going to do?

  Ollie’s skeptical. It’s a lot to swallow, to accept that your parents were aliens who had taken on human form, as Deetermeyer believed our parents to be. “So her father’s insane? I thought you said you believed him.”

  “I do. Not everything. Just the parts I like. Sort of the way Mom approached religion: Sweet Jesus, no Hell, lots of forgiveness and mercy.”

  “Mom was crazy too.”

  “That never kept her from being right, Ollie. Like the message on that card. Dad needed us.”

  “No he didn’t. I think he preferred his life out on the road. You know he cheated on her, right?”

  Did he think I was deaf? When they fought, old betrayals came up. We never lived anyplace large enough for me not to hear. When Ollie was in the military, and I was in high school, they plumbed Precambrian layers Ollie probably didn’t know about before Dad started traveling, while he was still in advertising, about the time I was born. While the adult children of alien beings tend toward serial monogamy, the alien parents like mine typically mated for life in a marriage riddled with infidelities, noisy fights and noisy sex, and lots of mercy and forgiveness.

  “So what? Mom knew more than we do, and she stayed with him. They loved each other, Ollie. They loved us. That’s enough, isn’t it? Case you hadn’t noticed, there’s people who would kill for that.”

  “I know,” he says, surprising me. “That’s more or less what Camille told me.”

  “What prompted this discussion of Mom and Dad?”

  “The postcard. I told her the story of the sand painting and how I wouldn’t walk on the damn thing, and she seemed to think I should’ve, that they aren’t meant to last, that’s why they’re made of sand, and I started arguing with her, and it got pretty heated, and that’s when she told me I had issues and left.”

  “Just like that?”

  “She called me ‘Ollie’—she never calls me that—and I yelled at her to never ever call me that. Then she hit the door.”

  “Jeez, Ollie. Oliver.”

  “Shit. You can call me whatever you want: Fucking Idiot, maybe.”

  “Okay. Fucking Idiot, it is.” I call to the conductor. “Is it too late to get a beer?”

  He raises his head from his work. My question seems to amuse him. He looks from me to Ollie and back again, and I imagine what he sees—two white-haired old men who should’ve been asleep miles ago. “I’m afraid it is, gentlemen.” To me he adds, “How’s the little baby doing? He traveling okay? I know your wife was concerned.”

  I recognize him as the one who set us up in our compartment. He’s young and black and handsome with a dazzling smile. “He’s been an angel.”

  “Glad to hear it. Some babies love the train. Some don’t. But they all hate the planes.” He stands and buttons his coat. “You gentlemen have a good evening. I have to go make sure no one’s sleeping in the aisles.” As he walks past us, he stops, then turns around. “I couldn’t help overhearing a little of your conversation—that you’re headed for the abyss?” He stops there, at the edge, so to speak, and searches our eyes. His nametag says Amir.

  “That’s right,” I say.

  “My dad was in the military. We were stationed there once. Security at a research facility right next to it.”

  “What kind of research?” Ollie asks. I figure I already know.

  “Top Secret,” Amir says, “but we kids on the base—there weren’t but a dozen of us—we heard things, and we thought it was a portal, like for aliens, you know?”

  “Our parents died there,” Ollie says.

  Amir gives him a knowing look, like someone who grew up on the edge of the abyss, shrugs, and smiles. “Maybe not. Know what I’m saying? Maybe not. You gentlemen have a good evening.”

  When he’s gone, Ollie asks, “Do you believe him?”

  “Why would he lie to us?”

  “To amuse himself.”

  “I think he was just trying to reach out.”

  “You think everybody’s nice.”

  “Not everybody, just most people.”

  “You realize he must’ve listened to our entire conversation.”

  “Wouldn’t you? A couple of old farts talking about their alien parents? Dylan loved him. He was very sweet to Katyana. I think we should talk to Amir some more.”

  “Who’s Amir?”

  “The conductor. I read his nametag.”

  “I never read those things.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  Back in our compartment, mother and child are sleeping, bathed in the glow of the night-light, and I quietly adore them. Do I think this will last? Of course not. Nothing lasts. Not that I won’t stick by them no matter where their lives take them for as long as I live. You can’t imagine how good it makes me feel to love them so, expecting nothing.

  Her eyes flutter open, and she smiles drowsily. “Such a look,” she murmurs. “You should see yourself.”

  And I do. She mirrors me, her eyes full of love. I start crying I’m so happy. Old men do that. Her eyes gleam back at me. I ascend into the berth above as if into heaven, fall fast asleep, and dream of her.

  * * *

  In the morning I take Dylan in my arms while his mother showers and I make a progress of the train from one end to the other looking for Amir, but he’s nowhere to be found. It’s a slow journey. Something about a lovely child in the arms of an old man warms the hearts of passengers who befriend us. “Grandchild?” they ask. “Son,” I say and watch their eyes widen in surprise. They have no idea just how surprised they should be at this biological impossibility.

  I take Dylan to the observation car, and we observe a while. You hear different things about what babies can see, but he seems to be taking it all in, observing his home planet. That’s where I find Amir. For some inexplicable reason, the train rolls to a stop in the New Mexico desert, and there he is, standing outside. There’s an announcement that smokers in need of a fix can use this opportunity to satisfy their craving, or those of us who might want to stretch our legs can do so. There’s nothing but sand and rock and cacti for as far as you can see in all directions, the sun blazing away like it’s proud of the whole thing.

  There’s not exactly a rush f
or the exits. My legs are stretched, but my mind remains coiled around the mystery of the abyss, so I head outside. The smokers stand in a small herd, sucking and coughing. I’m the only stretcher. At first I don’t see Amir. He’s standing fifty yards from the train at least—where I imagine rattlers and Gila monsters thrive—looking off into the distance, the endless nothingness.

  I shield Dylan’s eyes from the glare with my jacket and head toward Amir, keeping an eye out for venomous reptiles—and scorpions, suddenly remembering those as well. It would be a hell of a thing to survive cancer and a heart attack only to die from a poisonous bite in the middle of nowhere. So careful am I that I fail to keep my eye on Amir, and when I’ve covered half the distance between us, I glance up, and he’s gone. I’ve grown accustomed to the impossible. I’m holding it in my arms, slumbering peacefully, though he squirms a little, making himself comfortable.

  I should probably turn around, but instead I press on toward a pile of rocks right out of a western movie that’s the only place Amir could be. Maybe he’s taking a piss, I reason. I do reason once in a while. It’s also likely where the venomous monsters might dwell, but I’ve come this far, and the smokers are still hard at it, signaling their mortality to the achingly blue sky in pale poisonous puffs. The rocks are the color of a rich red sunset, and I boldly close the distance like I stroll through the desert every day.

  There is indeed someone there, but it’s not Amir. It’s a man the color of the rocks, like he’s been baking there his whole life—the Indian shaman who taught my dad to make perfect gravy so he could pass it on to me only to have me renounce the knowledge when my clogged arteries rebelled, and I dropped all but dead and arose a new man.

  “So, Stan, what are you doing heading for the abyss again?” he demands. “I thought you were through with that nonsense. It’s nowhere for a little darling like him.” He holds out a red finger to Dylan who grabs it in his tiny hands.

  “It was my brother’s idea,” I say, knowing that’s no excuse.

  Shaman shakes his head. “Follow me,” he says.

  “The train,” I say.

  “It’ll wait,” he says, and there’s no time to doubt as he walks into a cavern I hadn’t seen before, and I follow.

  The way is straight and narrow, no natural formation, sloping down into the Earth. We come into a big round room, a kiva I think it’s called, and there, sitting by a small fire, are my dad and a one-legged boy as black as coal. Natasha’s there, sweeping her tail back and forth in the dust, glad to see me, and I understand where we are. “So this is where the abyss is?”

  The Shaman laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound. “Son, the abyss is everywhere.”

  Dad stands and embraces me, admires his grandson.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him.

  “I’m dead, Stan. Doing great. Your mom sends her love.”

  This is a lot to process. “Ollie’s having his problems.”

  Dad nods, turns to the shaman, who hands him a tiny plastic bag. Dad places it in my palm. “Tell him six.”

  “Six?”

  “Allspice berries.”

  That’s what’s inside the bag. Six berries like six tiny planets. “Isn’t that a lot?” He gives me a look, like who am I to doubt my mentor? “I’ll tell him. What about Deetermeyer? Katyana’s worried sick.”

  Dad turns again to the shaman, who pulls out a glossy brochure from his bag of tricks, and Dad hands it to me: The Institute of Advanced Alien Sciences, with a picture of a smiling Simon Deetermeyer on the back. A picture of Mom’s sand painting is on the cover. “This explains everything,” he says.

  Somehow, I doubt that, but I don’t have time to argue, for I hear the train whistle blow. “I have to go.”

  “Wait!” the shaman says. He places his red hand on my heart. “You have healed yourself. Your blood flows everywhere. Open your heart, and your loins will follow.”

  Dad and the refugee kid nod in agreement, and Natasha wags her tail with renewed vigor. Dylan gives one of his joyful shrieks, and I turn and run back to the train. All the smokers are inside. I can see them at the windows wagering on my chances, running across the dead land at my age. My blood flows like a mighty river. My heart sings. I engage my yogic breath.

  Amir is in the entrance to the observation car as the train starts to roll, and he pulls me inside. I’m too breathless to thank him, and he returns me to my seat. “Rest here,” he says gently, and I do.

  I don’t know how much time has passed when Katyana finds us slumbering, father and child. “Look at you two,” she says, her eyes full of inexplicable, miraculous love. Blood courses through my scarred arteries to every extremity. I have an erection, my first in five years. “I have to find Ollie,” I say. “I have a message from Dad.” I show her the allspice berries, the brochure, and tell her what happened when the train stopped in the middle of nowhere.

  “The train didn’t stop,” she says, even as she’s reading the brochure, which does indeed explain everything. She points out the caption beneath the cover. Your Father Needs You is the title, not a message. She looks at me like I’m the one who’s needed. “Dad looks happy. He’s not in any trouble for a change. That’s all I really need to know. If I show up, that could just ruin everything. Let’s all go home,” she suggests.

  And we do. The dogs will be deliriously happy to see us.

  About the Author

  Dennis Danvers has published seven novels, including Circuit of Heaven (New York Times Notable, 1998), The Watch (New York Times Notable, 2002; Booklist 10 Best SF novels, 2002), and The Bright Spot (under pseudonym Robert Sydney). First novel Wilderness has been re-issued with a sexy new cover. His short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizon’s, F & SF, Realms of Fantasy, Electric Velocipede, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Lightspeed, and in anthologies Tails of Wonder and Imagination and Richmond Noir. He teaches fiction writing and science fiction and fantasy literature at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 by Dennis Danvers

  Art copyright © 2016 by Chris Buzelli