Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans

by Dave Eggers

  We need the alpha and the omega, the micro and the macro, hydrogen as well as uranium, the zebra and the amoeba, Christian Science and Christian LaCroix! And, you know yourself, the stars themselves are overdone.

  THE FABULONS ARE MOVED DESPITE THEMSELVES BY THIS SPEECH, AND SNIFFLE HELPLESSLY.

  ISIDOR

  I never thought of it that way!

  ENSIGN

  Sir—you’re crying!

  ISIDOR

  Yes, Ensign, I have been guilty of bathos. And according to the Pledge of the Fabulons ...

  ISIDOR, JANA, and ENSIGN

  We must destroy ourselves!

  ISIDOR POINTS A LASER GUN AT HIMSELF AND HIS STAFF.

  CUT TO: ENORMOUS EXPLOSION FOOTAGE.

  FADE TO: OUTER SPACE SWEEP AS SEEN AT TOP OF SCENE.

  GENERAL

  They never returned, not even to bill us. Mankind went back to its sloppy, vulgar ways. Earth. It may not be much ... but it’s home.

  FADE

  PIRATE RIDDLES FOR SOPHISTICATES

  Kevin Shay

  Q:What’s a pirate’s favorite aspect of computational linguistics?

  A:PARRRsing sentences.

  Q:Of which concept shared by Jungian psychology and Northrop Frye’s literary theory are pirates especially fond?

  A:ARRRchetype.

  Q:Who’s a pirate’s favorite member of the creative team behind 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould?

  A:Don McKellARRR.

  Q:Of all of Richard Harris’s many achievements in the performing arts, which is a pirate’s favorite?

  A:“MacARRRthur PARRRk.”

  Q:What’s a pirate’s favorite alliance-creating diplomatic agreement from the Second World War?

  A:The TripARRRtite Pact.

  Q:Which ancient Greek lyric poet do pirates like the best?

  A:PindARRR.

  Q:If a pirate were to recite one of the Olympian odes by the aforementioned poet, which one would it be?

  A:The XIth Nemean Ode, “To ARRRistagoras, the Prytanis of Tenedos, son of ARRRchesilaus.”

  Q:If that same pirate were then to recite a twentieth-century poem about the nature of poetry, what would it be?

  A:“ARRRs Poetica” by ARRRchibald MacLeish.

  Q:What if he went on to recite a poem by Sir Walter Scott?

  A:“LochinvARRR.”

  Q:Why does that pirate keep reciting poetry, anyway? Is he some sort of nancy-boy?

  A:Aye, ’tis a nancy-boy he be. Arrr.

  Q:Of the ghosts that appear to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, which do pirates prefer?

  A:Jacob MARRRley.

  Q:Can we replace that last one with something about Bob Marley, so we can have an additional gag about RastafARRRianism?

  A:No.

  Q:Whom did the pirate vote for in the Haitian election?

  A:ARRRistide.

  Q:Wait. Why did they let a pirate vote in the Haitian election?

  A:Remember, the nation was taking its first halting steps toward democracy, and balloting procedures were rather chaotic. The pirate just slipped in somehow. Arrr.

  Q:I don’t buy it. Pirates care nothing for participating in the electoral process.

  A:Look, can we finish this up soon? I’m having those phantom pains in my wooden leg.

  Q:A phenomenon first described in the seventeenth century by which important contributor to the field of amputation surgery?

  A:Oh, this is getting ridiculous.

  Q:Just say it.

  A:Ambroise PARRRé.

  Q:You can go now.

  A:Arrr. Nancy-boy.

  A SHORT FICTIONAL PASSAGE ENTITLED “DRIFT NETS,” IN WHICH SEVERAL ENTERPRISING CHARACTERS TROLL THE HIGH SEAS, EXPLORING ABANDONED TRADE VESSELS FOR “PIRATED” GOODS, AND LEARN TO COPE WITH DISTINCT PERSONALITIES IN A CLOSE-KNIT, HIGH-STRESS ENVIRONMENT

  Todd Pruzan

  AS SOON AS they hoisted him back over the railing, onto the deck—before they could even see his face—they knew Philip Glass had hit the jackpot. He’d surfaced with a thumb up, and crooked in the other arm of his rubber suit he had two dark green bottles and a small trunk. They’d lifted Philip Glass carefully from the water to avoid dropping his find back into the sea.

  Now his helmet was off, and Philip Glass was whooping. 1

  “Four hundred years on the ocean floor!” The crew was grinning as they helped him out of his diving suit. Stephen Glass2 gently plucked the chest from Philip Glass’s arm and set it on the deck. It was heavy. Heavy was good. Although they all knew it could be full of sand, in this case they all shared the same feeling—this was the real thing. Stephen Glass was hoping they’d let him jimmy it open with his Swiss Army knife.

  When they got it open, it was something to behold.

  “Wow. Four-hundred-year-old rum,” said Stephen Glass.

  “Pretty incredible, isn’t it,” said Philip Glass. “They made bottles pretty different back then. You drop that on the deck, it’ll break into big chunks.”

  Stephen Glass put the bottles down gently.

  “You should take a dive yourself, Stephen. The fish down there are pretty spectacular too.”

  “Actually, I’d rather stay here and get a taste of that rum,” said Stephen Glass.

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Ira Glass.3

  He’d been hearing about the rum for a fortnight now, knot after knot, and he was at the end of his rope. Ira Glass had had passengers like Stephen Glass before, but usually his impressive bulk and salty language were enough to put off anyone’s complaints. Creeping alcoholism, however, was another matter. He’d dealt with it in his crew, but never in so brazen a paying customer.

  “We’re going to lock that chest away,” Ira Glass said, “and we’re going to have Seymour take a look at it when we return to port. And that’s the end of it. Now who’s ready for a dive?”

  Seymour Glass4 was ready, but he’d been down once that morning and had seen enough for one day. He’d come up short—a broken empty flask. Complete trash. Worth less than sand. “I’m OK, thanks,” he said.

  “Can I take a peek?” said George Glass.5

  “Yeah, let’s get you fitted with that helmet,” Ira Glass said, taking it from the bench next to Philip Glass’s right foot.

  He was almost suited up when they heard a loud curse from the cabin. “What is it?” Ira Glass shouted.

  Bill Blass6 appeared in the doorway, his face dark. “There’s a hurricane on the way, boys.” The deck fell silent.

  INEFFECTIVE LINES DELETED FROM FINAL REVISIONS OF VIOLENT BOX-OFFICE HITS

  Dan Kennedy

  —Why don’t you get a sugar packet or a little piece of napkin and put it under the table so it doesn’t wobble. Because when I shoot you, you’re gonna need a nice firm surface to collapse onto.

  —Do yourself a favor: Clean off the letters and papers from your desk and get it organized. Put the bills on one side and the junk mail in the trash. I want it to look real nice and orderly when they find your body here.

  —Wash your car. Wash it real good, but if I were you I wouldn’t waste your time applying a coat of wax ... because by the time it dries and is ready to be buffed off of there, you’ll be dead.

  —You a big tough guy? If you’re so tough why don’t you stick your head up your ass and join the army. Why don’t you spit on the ground and I’ll swim in it or whatever. Huh? [Pulls back hammer on gun.]

  A GRACELAND FOR ADOLF

  Zev Borow

  The State of Bavaria said today that it had found an investor to turn the site of Hitler’s 262-acre retreat at Berchtesgaden, his official summer residence near the Austrian border, into a tourist attraction.

  —New York Times

  Selections from the audiotape accompanying the walking tour of “Berchtesgaden: Hitler’s Summer Retreat”:

  “WELCOME TO BERCHTESGADEN, Hitler’s fabulous place in the country. Naturally, the Führer had his own special nickname for his beloved retreat, a
n Austrian folk expression that translates roughly to: “All the small birds are dead now.” Yes, Hitler loved folk expressions. And hated birds. [Pause] Stand straight! [Pause] The Führer would arrive here at the start of summer weekends, exhausted from tyranny and evil. Close your eyes and imagine how it must have been then, without the adjacent petting zoo. Hitler would arrive, gaze at his surroundings, and likely feel the beginnings of a smile, perhaps the first to creep across his cherubic face all week. For here, all the small birds were dead, exterminated actually, in 1938. Open your eyes now, and, at your own pace, walk ahead....

  “The front door. Now, we’ll have to ask all Jews, Catholics, and Macedonians to wait out front while the tour continues inside.... Just kidding—all are welcome! Step in and see the wonders of this palatial home. Move along....

  “Growl if you like sauerbraten! Welcome to the Jungle ... Room. And you thought only Elvis liked panther skin! This positively wild place is where Hitler would entertain some of the most fabulous Nazis in the world with lots of alcohol and late-night ‘winner-take-all’ Scrabble. Notice the custom-made swastika-shaped waterbed and accompanying shag rug. And dig that groovy mural! Walk ahead. Eyes forward.

  “Hitler loved to surround himself with pretty things, and various kinds of poisons, especially here in his bedroom. The flower-print bedspread and matching snapdragon wallpaper are the perfect complement to Hitler’s collection of hand-carved cat figurines. The shelves toward the back bay window—the Führer made those curtains himself!—hold a dizzying collection of flavor-infused arsenics. Truly, a room where both Laura Ashley and a trained assassin hired to kill Laura Ashley would feel right at home. Now, march.

  “Hitler’s study, a refuge from his topsy-turvy world, where he could jot down any little thought that popped into his head—say, a haiku to his dead mother, a nifty Polish joke, notes on an idea for a screenplay about cops gone bad, or just a doodle of his imaginary friend, Sandy, who Hitler believed lived in the attic and came up with the strategy for invading Russia.

  “When Hitler was stressed, more often than not this was where you could find him, in Berchtesgaden’s gym. He’d spend hours here, practicing karate with his bodyguards, screaming into a full-length mirror, enduring marathon Taebo workouts, whatever. Yes, Hitler was extremely flexible. Why not let one of our armed guards twist you into a pretzel? Ha!

  “The yard. Nothing relaxed the Führer more than being astride a rideable lawnmower. An early proponent of organic fertilizers and home mulching, Hitler cared deeply about green, healthy lawns. In fact, Hitler once said that if he had another life to live, he would still try to conquer the world for the Aryan race, but first he’d conquer the menace that are dandelions and nasty weeds. Achtung! Time to go....

  “Sure, Hitler loved human suffering, but he also liked music—for marching, for dancing, for making one feel less sexually inferior. Music. And this was his music room. Look, behind the vintage Moog synthesizer is Hitler’s old accordion. That’s right, as a teenager the Führer was in a rock band, albeit one that included an accordion player. The group, named Torchyr, after a joke Hitler’s uncle used to tell, actually grew quite renowned in the clubs of Munich with songs girded by knowing pop structure and meticulously crafted harmonies.

  “Hitler’s garage. Here’s where the Führer would pore over ball bearings for his still-unfinished collection of kit ’30s Fords, sniff turpentine, or just fiddle at his workbench. That old-fashioned loom—Hitler loved to loom—in the corner has the tooth marks of a madman, and behind that are some really sharp knives. Indeed, here in the garage one can’t help but get a sense of just how creative a man Hitler really was, and, while at Berchtesgaden at least, how happy and at ease. [Pause] This concludes our tour. Thanks once again for coming. Peace.”

  TRINITY

  Neal Pollack

  PART ONE

  PORTRAIT OF AN ANDALUSIAN HORSE TRAINER

  AT SEVEN A.M. on a recent Tuesday, Paolo Luciamonte, the last great Andalusian horse trainer, arose from bed, spat on the floor, and put a fresh pot of coffee on the stove. As the fog of sleep evaporated from Paolo’s brain, he stared out his kitchen window into the crisp Andalusian dawn, like he’d done every morning for the last twenty-seven years. The colt loomed monstrously in front of the swirling clouds. El Caballo de Sangre. The Horse of Blood. The death horse. The greatest challenge Paolo Luciamonte had ever faced.

  “Today is the day I will break the spirit of the Horse of Blood,” Paolo muttered into his cup of steaming brew. “Today he will learn. No horse is useful unless he can be ridden for money. No horse is free in my stable.”

  I had come to Andalusia as a reporter, to learn what it was like for a man who had never known any other way of life to train horses in a world that had increasingly less use for his services. As I’d driven the previous night down the highway from the Barcelona airport toward Rancho Luciamonte, listening to Madonna’s Ray of Light CD on my Discman, I thought about my grandfather, T. Burlington Glass III, who had trained horses himself at our family ranch in Texas while I was growing up. I marveled at what a different person I turned out to be from my grandfather, the world’s largest manufacturer of tube socks and low-grade nuclear weapons, me a freelance magazine writer, published novelist, founder of an experimental kindergarten in the Bronx, and male fashion model. I wondered why my life had turned out so differently from his.

  Then I realized: horses. My grandfather and grandmother, with whom I spent every summer when I wasn’t on the island of Corfu with my parents, Jackie Onassis, and Andy Warhol, were obsessed with horses. When they weren’t riding them, they were breeding them. When they weren’t breeding them, they were racing them. Horses spurred my grandparents to great passions.

  I loved horses then as well, and pranced them relentlessly until that one day Grandpa made me take a special ride.

  My grandparents retained the services of a Nubian manservant named Carlos, who was a pretty big guy, nearly twice my adult size—and I’ve been told by numerous award-winning actresses whom I’ve dated that I have a nice body. One day, as Grandpa and I were counting my inheritance money in front of a roaring fire, he called Carlos into the room.

  “Carlos,” he said, “it’s time to play horsey.”

  Although Carlos protested slightly, soon Grandpa had him whinnying on his hands and knees. He then placed me astride his houseboy’s broad, firm back, thrust a whip into my hand, and said: “Don’t just sit there, boy, make Carlos giddyap!”

  “But—” I protested.

  “Don’t worry,” said Grandpa. “Carlos likes being a horsey, don’t you, Carlos?”

  Carlos, who had a stainless-steel bit jammed firmly between his teeth, could not respond. Grandpa thrust a pointy boot into his rear, and he began to move. As I trotted Carlos around the room, I asked Grandpa why he was making me do this hideous, slave-driving thing.

  “Boy,” Grandpa said, “there are two kinds of men in life: trainers and horses! And for a Newsworthy, every other man is a horse, black or white! Remember that! Don’t ever let another man saddle you up and get you into a lather!”

  “Whoa, Carlos!” I shouted. “Whoa!”

  I dismounted the debased Nubian and turned to my grandfather. “I don’t want your stinking golden bridle!” I shouted. “I’m gonna make my own way in the world!”

  I ran out of the ranch, down the mile-long driveway, and onto the county road, sobbing and cursing the day I was born a Glass. I was seventeen years old and already a Harvard graduate, but what did that mean when I had a super-rich racist grandpa?

  Now here I was, in Andalusia, watching Paolo Luciamonte, the last of the great Andalusian horse trainers, get tossed around like Raggedy Andy by El Caballo de Sangre. The Horse of Blood.

  “This was to be my day of greatest triumph,” he said to me. “But instead, I have just ruined another pair of blue jeans. I cannot defeat this horse. This is the last great horse in the world. No man can tame El Caballo de Sangre. The Horse of Blood. It cannot be d
one.”

  The Horse of Blood snorted in defiance. Paolo sighed.

  “I will turn you into mere sausage,” he said. “Someday. Someday.”

  “Paolo,” I said. “May I try riding El Caballo de Sangre? The Horse of Blood?”

  “Great Journalist from Brooklyn, you will surely be killed!” Paolo said in heavily accented English. “I, the greatest horse trainer in Andalusia, mount him every day, and he’s turned my nuts into butter! What chance do you stand?”

  “Let me attempt this feat,” I said. “It’s for the good of my story, which I am writing for an important magazine with a large circulation.”

  Paolo sighed bitterly, and turned away. He could not stand to witness my fate, and also could not understand that this was an act into which destiny had forced me. I had come to Andalusia to write a story about Paolo, but my mission had suddenly been obscured by the darkness of memory. The tragic last years of a centuries-old way of life are nothing compared to my wine-dark soul’s screaming need for redemption.

  As Paolo watched from the house, the sun began its sad descent below the great horizon of the grassy plain. I mounted El Caballo de Sangre, the Horse of Blood, and dug man-made stirrups into his flesh with my powerful spurs.

  “This one’s for you, Carlos,” I grunted, and rode the son of a bitch into the dirt.

  PART TWO

  THIS ALBANIAN LIFE

  I’VE BEEN GOING to bed lately on a pile of jagged stones covered only by a thin cotton blanket half-eaten by moths. This is one of the worst possible sleeping arrangements I could imagine. Sometimes I wonder how things got this way. I have to remember that I am a twenty-six-year-old journalist, novelist, radio producer, and poet, and I am here in Albania to find out what life is really like for a family in the poorest country in Europe. I have personally borne witness to much human suffering and am here to tell you: Things are not good.

  We had dirt for lunch today. All twenty-three of us. Jumanji, the patriarch of the family, is a short, bald, armless man who looks older than his eighty-seven years. He tells me that dirt has been in short supply in Albania lately, and he worries about the health of his family. I tried to make our lunch taste better using some of the skills I had learned at the Culinary Institute of America. It didn’t help much. Here I was, a former Rhodes scholar, and what did it all matter, really?