by Neil Gaiman
It’s a sad little park, now, with a mobile chapel in it that wouldn’t fit a small funeral party, and a motel whose windows look like dead eyes.
“Which is why,” concluded Mr. Nancy, as they drove into Humansville, Missouri (pop. 1084), “the exact center of America is a tiny run-down park, an empty church, a pile of stones, and a derelict motel.”
“Hog farm,” said Czernobog. “You just said that the real center of America was a hog farm.”
“This isn’t about what is,” said Mr. Nancy. “It’s about what people think is. It’s all imaginary anyway. That’s why it’s important. People only fight over imaginary things.”
“My kind of people?” asked Shadow. “Or your kind of people?”
Nancy said nothing. Czernobog made a noise that might have been a chuckle, might have been a snort.
Shadow tried to get comfortable in the back of the bus. He had only slept a little. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Worse than the feeling he had had in prison, worse than the feeling he had had back when Laura had come to him and told him about the robbery. This was bad. The back of his neck prickled, he felt sick and, several times, in waves, he felt scared.
Mr. Nancy pulled over in Humansville, parked outside a supermarket. Mr. Nancy went inside, and Shadow followed him in. Czernobog waited in the parking lot, smoking his cigarette.
There was a young fair-haired man, little more than a boy, restocking the breakfast cereal shelves.
“Hey,” said Mr. Nancy.
“Hey,” said the young man. “It’s true, isn’t it? They killed him?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Nancy. “They killed him.”
The young man banged several boxes of Cap’n Crunch down on the shelf. “They think they can crush us like cockroaches,” he said. He had a tarnished silver bracelet circling his wrist. “We don’t crush that easy, do we?”
“No,” said Mr. Nancy. “We don’t.”
“I’ll be there, sir,” said the young man, his pale blue eyes blazing.
“I know you will, Gwydion,” said Mr. Nancy.
Mr. Nancy bought several large bottles of RC Cola, a six-pack of toilet paper, a pack of evil-looking black cigarillos, a bunch of bananas, and a pack of Doublemint chewing gum. “He’s a good boy. Came over in the seventh century. Welsh.”
The bus meandered first to the west and then to the north. Spring faded back into the dead end of winter. Kansas was the cheerless gray of lonesome clouds, empty windows, and lost hearts. Shadow had become adept at hunting for radio stations, negotiating between Mr. Nancy, who liked talk radio and dance music, and Czernobog, who favored classical music, the gloomier the better, leavened with the more extreme evangelical religious stations. For himself, Shadow liked oldies.
Toward the end of the afternoon they stopped, at Czernobog’s request, on the outskirts of Cherryvale, Kansas (pop. 2,464). Czernobog led them to a meadow outside the town. There were still traces of snow in the shadows of the trees, and the grass was the color of dirt.
“Wait here,” said Czernobog.
He walked, alone, to the center of the meadow. He stood there, in the winds of the end of February, for some time. At first he hung his head, then he began gesticulating.
“He looks like he’s talking to someone,” said Shadow.
“Ghosts,” said Mr. Nancy. “They worshiped him here, over a hundred years ago. They made blood sacrifice to him, libations spilled with the hammer. After a time, the townsfolk figured out why so many of the strangers who passed through the town didn’t ever come back. This was where they hid some of the bodies.”
Czernobog came back from the middle of the field. His mustache seemed darker now, and there were streaks of black in his gray hair. He smiled, showing his iron tooth. “I feel good, now. Ahh. Some things linger, and blood lingers longest.”
They walked back across the meadow to where they had parked the VW bus. Czernobog lit a cigarette, but did not cough. “They did it with the hammer,” he said. “Votan, he would talk of the gallows and the spear, but for me, it is one thing . . .” He reached out a nicotine-colored finger and tapped it, hard, in the center of Shadow’s forehead.
“Please don’t do that,” said Shadow, politely.
“Please don’t do that,” mimicked Czernobog. “One day I will take my hammer and do much worse than that to you, my friend, remember?”
“Yes,” said Shadow. “But if you tap my head again, I’ll break your hand.”
Czernobog snorted. Then he said, “They should be grateful, the people here. There was such power raised. Even thirty years after they forced my people into hiding, this land, this very land, gave us the greatest movie star of all time. She was the greatest there ever was.”
“Judy Garland?” asked Shadow.
Czernobog shook his head curtly.
“He’s talking about Louise Brooks,” said Mr. Nancy.
Shadow decided not to ask who Louise Brooks was. Instead he said, “So, look, when Wednesday went to talk to them, he did it under a truce.”
“Yes.”
“And now we’re going to get Wednesday’s body from them, as a truce.”
“Yes.”
“And we know that they want me dead or out of the way.”
“They want all of us dead,” said Nancy.
“So what I don’t get is, why do we think they’ll play fair this time, when they didn’t for Wednesday?”
“That,” said Czernobog, “is why we are meeting at the center. Is . . .” He frowned. “What is the word for it? The opposite of sacred?”
“Profane,” said Shadow, without thinking.
“No,” said Czernobog. “I mean, when a place is less sacred than any other place. Of negative sacredness. Places where they can build no temples. Places where people will not come, and will leave as soon as they can. Places where gods only walk if they are forced to.”
“I don’t know,” said Shadow. “I don’t think there is a word for it.”
“All of America has it, a little,” said Czernobog. “That is why we are not welcome here. But the center,” said Czernobog. “The center is worst. Is like a minefield. We all tread too carefully there to dare break the truce.”
They had reached the bus. Czernobog patted Shadow’s upper arm. “You don’t worry,” he said, with gloomy reassurance. “Nobody else is going to kill you. Nobody but me.”
Shadow found the center of America at evening that same day, before it was fully dark. It was on a slight hill to the northwest of Lebanon. He drove around the little hillside park, past the tiny mobile chapel and the stone monument, and when Shadow saw the one-story 1950s motel at the edge of the park his heart sank. There was a black Humvee parked in front of it—it looked like a jeep reflected in a fun-house mirror, as squat and pointless and ugly as an armored car. There were no lights on inside the building.
They parked beside the motel, and as they did so, a man in a chauffeur’s uniform and cap walked out of the motel and was illuminated by the headlights of the bus. He touched his cap to them, politely, got into the Humvee, and drove off.
“Big car, tiny dick,” said Mr. Nancy.
“Do you think they’ll even have beds here?” asked Shadow. “It’s been days since I slept in a bed. This place looks like it’s just waiting to be demolished.”
“It’s owned by hunters from Texas,” said Mr. Nancy. “Come up here once a year. Damned if I know what they’re huntin’. It stops the place being condemned and destroyed.”
They climbed out of the bus. Waiting for them in front of the motel was a woman Shadow did not recognize. She was perfectly made-up, perfectly coiffed. She reminded him of every newscaster he’d ever seen on morning television sitting in a studio that didn’t really resemble a living room.
“Lovely to see you,” she said. “Now, you must be Czernobog. I’ve heard a lot about you. And you’re Anansi, always up to mischief, eh? You jolly old man. And you, you must be Shadow. You’ve certainly led us a merry chase, haven’t you?
” A hand took his, pressed it firmly, looked him straight in the eye. “I’m Media. Good to meet you. I hope we can get this evening’s business done as pleasantly as possible.”
The main doors opened. “Somehow, Toto,” said the fat kid Shadow had last seen sitting in a limo, “I don’t believe we’re in Kansas anymore.”
“We’re in Kansas,” said Mr. Nancy. “I think we must have drove through most of it today. Damn but this country is flat.”
“This place has no lights, no power, and no hot water,” said the fat kid. “And, no offense, you people really need the hot water. You just smell like you’ve been in that bus for a week.”
“I don’t think there’s any need to go there,” said the woman, smoothly. “We’re all friends here. Come on in. We’ll show you to your rooms. We took the first four rooms. Your late friend is in the fifth. All the ones beyond room five are empty—you can take your pick. I’m afraid it’s not the Four Seasons, but then, what is?”
She opened the door to the motel lobby for them. It smelled of mildew, of damp and dust and decay.
There was a man sitting in the lobby, in the near darkness. “You people hungry?” he asked.
“I can always eat,” said Mr. Nancy.
“Driver’s gone out for a sack of hamburgers,” said the man. “He’ll be back soon.” He looked up. It was too dark to see faces, but he said, “Big guy. You’re Shadow, huh? The asshole who killed Woody and Stone?”
“No,” said Shadow. “That was someone else. And I know who you are.” He did. He had been inside the man’s head. “You’re Town. Have you slept with Wood’s widow yet?”
Mr. Town fell off his chair. In a movie, it would have been funny; in real life it was simply clumsy. He stood up quickly, came toward Shadow. Shadow looked down at him and said, “Don’t start anything you’re not prepared to finish.”
Mr. Nancy rested his hand on Shadow’s upper arm. “Truce, remember?” he said. “We’re at the center.”
Mr. Town turned away, leaned over to the counter, and picked up three keys. “You’re down at the end of the hall,” he said. “Here.”
He handed the keys to Mr. Nancy and walked away, into the shadows of the corridor. They heard a motel room door open, and they heard it slam.
Mr. Nancy passed a key to Shadow, another to Czernobog. “Is there a flashlight on the bus?” asked Shadow.
“No,” said Mr. Nancy. “But it’s just dark. You mustn’t be afraid of the dark.”
“I’m not,” said Shadow. “I’m afraid of the people in the dark.”
“Dark is good,” said Czernobog. He seemed to have no difficulty seeing where he was going, leading them down the darkened corridor, putting the keys into the locks without fumbling. “I will be in room ten,” he told them. And then he said, “Media. I think I have heard of her. Isn’t she the one who killed her children?”
“Different woman,” said Mr. Nancy. “Same deal.”
Mr. Nancy was in room 8, and Shadow opposite the two of them, in room 9. The room smelled damp, and dusty, and deserted. There was a bed frame in there, with a mattress on it, but no sheets. A little light entered the room from the gloaming outside the window. Shadow sat down on the mattress, pulled off his shoes, and stretched out at full length. He had driven too much in the last few days.
Perhaps he slept.
He was walking.
A cold wind tugged at his clothes. The tiny snowflakes were little more than a crystalline dust that gusted and flurried in the wind.
There were trees, bare of leaves in the winter. There were high hills on each side of him. It was late on a winter’s afternoon: the sky and the snow had attained the same deep shade of purple. Somewhere ahead of him—in this light, distances were impossible to judge—the flames of a bonfire flickered, yellow and orange.
A gray wolf padded through the snow before him.
Shadow stopped. The wolf stopped also, and turned, and waited. One of its eyes glinted yellowish-green. Shadow shrugged and walked toward the flames and the wolf ambled ahead of him.
The bonfire burned in the middle of a grove of trees. There must have been a hundred trees, planted in two rows. There were shapes hanging from the trees. At the end of the rows was a building that looked a little like an overturned boat. It was carved of wood, and it crawled with wooden creatures and wooden faces—dragons, gryphons, trolls, and boars—all of them dancing in the flickering light of the fire.
The bonfire was so high that Shadow could barely approach it. The wolf padded around the crackling fire.
In place of the wolf a man came out on the other side of the fire. He was leaning on a tall stick.
“You are in Uppsala, in Sweden,” said the man, in a familiar, gravelly voice. “About a thousand years ago.”
“Wednesday?” said Shadow.
The man continued to talk, as if Shadow were not there. “First every year, then, later, when the rot set in, and they became lax, every nine years, they would sacrifice here. A sacrifice of nines. Each day, for nine days, they would hang nine animals from trees in the grove. One of those animals was always a man.”
He strode away from the firelight, toward the trees, and Shadow followed him. As he approached the trees the shapes that hung from them resolved: legs and eyes and tongues and heads. Shadow shook his head: there was something about seeing a bull hanging by its neck from a tree that was darkly sad, and at the same time surreal enough almost to be funny. Shadow passed a hanging stag, a wolfhound, a brown bear, and a chestnut horse with a white mane, little bigger than a pony. The dog was still alive: every few seconds it would kick spasmodically, and it was making a strained whimpering noise as it dangled from the rope.
The man he was following took his long stick, which Shadow realized now, as it moved, was actually a spear, and he slashed at the dog’s stomach with it, in one knifelike cut downward. Steaming entrails tumbled onto the snow. “I dedicate this death to Odin,” said the man, formally.
“It is only a gesture,” he said, turning back to Shadow. “But gestures mean everything. The death of one dog symbolizes the death of all dogs. Nine men they gave to me, but they stood for all the men, all the blood, all the power. It just wasn’t enough. One day, the blood stopped flowing. Belief without blood only takes us so far. The blood must flow.”
“I saw you die,” said Shadow.
“In the god business,” said the figure—and now Shadow was certain it was Wednesday, nobody else had that rasp, that deep cynical joy in words, “it’s not the death that matters. It’s the opportunity for resurrection. And when the blood flows . . .” He gestured at the animals, at the people, hanging from the trees.
Shadow could not decide whether the dead humans they walked past were more or less horrifying than the animals: at least the humans had known the fate they were going to. There was a deep, boozy smell about the men that suggested that they had been allowed to anesthetize themselves on their way to the gallows, while the animals would simply have been lynched, hauled up alive and terrified. The faces of the men looked so young: none of them was older than twenty.
“Who am I?” asked Shadow.
“You?” said the man. “You were an opportunity. You were part of a grand tradition. Although both of us are committed enough to the affair to die for it. Eh?”
“Who are you?” asked Shadow.
“The hardest part is simply surviving,” said the man. The bonfire—and Shadow realized with a strange horror that it truly was a bone-fire: rib cages and fire-eyed skulls stared and stuck and jutted from the flames, sputtering trace-element colors into the night, greens and yellows and blues—was flaring and crackling and burning hotly. “Three days on the tree, three days in the underworld, three days to find my way back.”
The flames sputtered and flamed too brightly for Shadow to look at directly. He looked down into the darkness beneath the trees.
A knock on the door—and now there was moonlight coming in the window. Shadow sat up with a start. “Dinner’s se
rved,” said Media’s voice.
Shadow put his shoes back on, walked over to the door, went out into the corridor. Someone had found some candles, and a dim yellow light illuminated the reception hall. The driver of the Humvee came in holding a cardboard tray and a paper sack. He wore a long black coat and a peaked chauffeur’s cap.
“Sorry about the delay,” he said, hoarsely. “I got everybody the same: a couple of burgers, large fries, large Coke, and apple pie. I’ll eat mine out in the car.” He put the food down, then walked back outside. The smell of fast food filled the lobby. Shadow took the paper bag and passed out the food, the napkins, the packets of ketchup.
They ate in silence while the candles flickered and the burning wax hissed.
Shadow noticed that Town was glaring at him. He turned his chair a little, so his back was to the wall. Media ate her burger with a napkin poised by her lips to remove crumbs.
“Oh. Great. These burgers are nearly cold,” said the fat kid. He was still wearing his shades, which Shadow thought pointless and foolish, given the darkness of the room.
“Sorry about that,” said Town. “The nearest McDonald’s is in Nebraska.”
They finished their lukewarm hamburgers and cold fries. The fat kid bit into his single-person apple pie, and the filling spurted down his chin. Unexpectedly, the filling was still hot. “Ow,” he said. He wiped at it with his hand, licking his fingers to get them clean. “That stuff burns!” he said. “Those pies are a class-action suit waiting to fucking happen.”
Shadow wanted to hit the kid. He’d wanted to hit him since the kid had his goons hurt him in the limo, after Laura’s funeral. He pushed the thought away. “Can’t we just take Wednesday’s body and get out of here?” he asked.
“Midnight,” said Mr. Nancy and the fat kid, at the same time.
“These things must be done by the rules,” said Czernobog.
“Yeah,” said Shadow. “But nobody tells me what they are. You keep talking about the goddamn rules, I don’t even know what game you people are playing.”
“It’s like breaking the street date,” said Media, brightly. “You know. When things are allowed to be on sale.”
