by Tim Pratt
"What's that?"
"A Diaspora is the breaking up and scattering of a people. The forced settling of people far from their ancestral homelands."
"You mean they're being moved out?"
"Yes, exactly."
"By who? Who's moving them?"
"Satan."
I cleared my throat and snatched a quick glimpse of Rae. She gave me a look that said, "Don't make trouble with these guys." So instead of cracking wise about the Satanic Moving Company, I looked at the others to see if they were going to snap at the bait.
"All those piles of stuff out on the streets are there because the Devil's throwing people out of their houses? Why's he doin' that?"
Zin Zan picked it up. "Because Hell is filled to overflowing, sir, and Satan needs the room. He plans to re-populate the Earth with the fallen."
I didn't know about the others but I was so embarrassed by the direction this conversation was taking that I could only stare at the floor and hope those Brothers would evaporate by the time I looked up again.
"So you're saying that if I was bad and die now, there's no room for me in Hell and I may end up back here living next door?" Vito said in a voice full of "you gotta be shittin' me."
My eyes still down, I heard Zin Zan's thick accent field the question. "Why do you think the world's in such bad straits, sir? New fatal diseases being discovered every day, crime the likes of which defy human imagination. How do you explain people's vast and unfailing indifference to one another?
"Because so many of them are dead. They have no souls. This has been going on for some time. The dead bring death back with them when they return to Earth."
What can you say to something looney-tuney like that? I felt like taking a nap. I felt like getting up from where I was sitting, maybe or maybe not giving a wave to everyone in the room, and walking right out of there into the bedroom and my pillow and about an hour nighty-night. My brain felt tired and like it had had something lousy and too heavy for lunch.
"Yeah? Well prove it, Brothers." Dennis spoke like he was spitting and said that last word like a Black soul brother. You know, he said it "bruddas" and there wasn't any respect in the word.
Not that it touched the Heidelberg Cylinder boys. They smiled on like two Ken dolls on a date with Barbie. Brooks politely asked, "What do you mean, sir?"
Dennis pointed an "it's your fault" finger at him and shook it. "You know exactly what I mean. Guys like you have been coming to my door for years, talking about how the world's gonna end tomorrow. God's gonna kick my butt for sinning unless I repent. Armageddon's coming so watch out! Well you know what? Arma-geddon pretty damned sick of hearing that stuff from your like. If you think you're so right about what you're saying, prove it. That's all--show us it's true. You say the Devil's on Earth moving dead people out of their houses? Show me!"
Vito put a thumbs up. "I agree! Show me too!"
I kind of felt like doing it too. I myself was sick of gleamy-eyed wackos coming to my house with their cheap pamphlets and "God's-gonna-get-you" threats. Having the big fat nerve to tell me I'd done everything wrong with my life. And I'd better start dancing to their tune or else. Oh yeah? How do you know; you been watching my every move?
What I resented most was how damned sure people like this were that they were right. Hey, maybe they were, but how could they be so convinced? I admit I wasn't sure of anything in life, much less how His Majesty upstairs in heaven makes things work. But at least I admit it. Listening to these dudes talk, or others like them who'd appeared over the years with their own smudged magazines and weird smiles, God was as easy to understand as the baseball scores.
"Well?"
The not-so Righteous Brothers blinked at the same time and smiled again. But kept their traps shut.
"Huh? Can you prove you're right? Or are you going to tell me to wait till Judgment Day rolls around to find out?"
"Oh no sir, we can show you right now. That's not a problem." Brooks spoke and his voice was nice as rice. I mean he spoke like what Dennis had just asked was the easiest favor in the world to grant. You want me to show you Satan? You want me to open up the back of the big clock and show you how it ticks? Follow me, sir--this way to Satan. Just like that. Simple.
"What the fuck are you guys talking about?"
Rae caught her breath hearing my words, but I couldn't help myself. I was suddenly as hot and sizzling as a frying chicken. I didn't like where this conversation was going. And I sure didn't believe what was just said. All eyes were on me like the kid who just farted in class. Dennis and Vito's faces said ha-ha, but Rae's was uh-oh because she knows my temper. The Brothers were calm as usual.
"You can sit there with a straight face and say you'll show me Satan this minute?"
"We can show you proof, sir. All the proof you'll need. We just have to go up to Pilot Hill."
"What's on Pilot Hill?"
"The proof you want."
"What proof?"
The brothers stood up. "We can go right now. We'll give you a thousand dollars each if you're not happy with our proof."
The room went stone quiet for the second time in ten minutes.
Rae said in a wiggly voice, "A thousand dollars?"
"Oh yes, ma'am. We have no desire to waste your valuable time." Brooks reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills as thick as a Big Mac. So help me God, that man's hands contained more cash than I'd ever seen one person hold, outside of a bank teller.
Vito whistled one note low and asked what I'm sure we were all wondering: "How much you got there?"
Brooks looked at his hand. "I think ten thousand dollars. How much do you have, Brother Zin Zan?"
Zin stuck out his lower lip and nodded. "Ten thousand." He patted his pocket.
"Each of you guys is carrying ten grand?" Dennis's amazed voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
"That's the way we do things in our organization, sir. We want you to be happy with your decision, one way or the other."
Vito stood right up. "Well, I just made my decision--let's go!"
Dennis too. "I'm with you. Pilot Hill, here we come."
Rae looked at me and then stood up slowly. The Brothers did too. Only I stayed where I was sitting. To emphasize that fact even more I crossed my arms and went humph.
"What's the matter, Bill?"
"You know damn well what the matter is, Rae! This whole thing is nuts. The three of you are going out the door with these screwballs because they dangled some free money in front of you. Dangled but didn't give. Well how about this: I'll come too if you give me my thousand dollars right now, Brothers. Not later--this second. I'll give it back to you when we get there if I'm so convinced you're right."
"I'm fine with that, sir. It's no problem," Brooks said and without one second's hesitation peeled ten crisp new hundred-dollar bills off his Big Mac. "Here you go." He crossed the room and handed them to me.
"Hey, I want mine too if he's getting his now!"
"Me too."
"Yes, me too please." Rae said that. She is a shy, kind woman who doesn't even complain when someone big steps on her toe at the market. But now here she was wanting her thousand dollars up front just like everyone else. I was setting a bad example, but at least we were all a thousand dollars richer for it.
Then an evil thought came riding in. I looked suspiciously at the money in my hand. Maybe it was too fresh, too new? Was real money really that green? "How do we know this isn't fake? That it's not counterfeit or something?"
Brother Zin Zan was counting off hundreds while Brooks was handing Vito his share. "Oh we can stop at a bank on the way and have it checked if you like. But I guarantee you it's real."
I looked at my money like it might have something to say. This whole thing was so crazy, why shouldn't we just accept it at face value? Four thousand dollars was being handed out in that room and everyone was as cool as cucumbers about it. Like it happened to us every day and now was just the payoff hour. Rae wore a smil
e that was somewhere between happiness and crime.
"How do you want to go over there?"
"What do you mean?"
Dennis waved his hand around the room. "Well there's six of us. You want us all to go in your car?"
Zin Zan shook his head. "We don't have a car."
I shook mine. "We got a little Hyundai. We can barely get the two of us into it. It wouldn't know what to do with six people."
"It'd have a heart attack," Rae said, and it was like the first joke she'd made in five years.
All the guys smiled at her and I felt pretty proud to have a wisecracking wife. First she's putting out a greedy hand just like the others for a thousand dollars and now she was cracking jokes. She was suddenly a completely different woman from the one I knew, but I kind of liked it.
"Then I say we all go in the truck."
"What truck, yours? And ride in the back with the rest of the appliances?"
"Naah--you and your wife can sit up front with Dennis. Me and the Brothers will get in back."
Brooks and Zin Zan nodded to that and so did Rae. Who was I to argue? We put on our raincoats and waded out into the storm. Where I looked left and right but didn't see any furniture truck. "So where is it?"
"Right there. Right in front of you."
Right in front of me was a red truck. But on the side of it was a picture of a smiling white pig wearing a black baseball cap. The poor little guy was being roasted on a spit. Now I ask you, why would you put a baseball cap on a pig you were cooking? Even more, why would the pig be smiling while it died? Above that dumbass picture was written "Lester's Meat." Which, when you thought about it, didn't sound very appetizing either. I made myself a mental note never to buy Lester's Meat.
"That's a meat truck."
"It's my uncle's. He lets me use it to make deliveries sometimes."
"You deliver appliances in a meat truck?"
"It's been known to happen." Vito and Dennis grinned at each other like they knew something we didn't.
"This is too weird. My new refrigerator was in there up alongside a side of beef?"
"No, the truck's empty now. He only lets me use it when it's empty."
"Yeah, but is my fridge going to smell of raw meat now?"
"I'm afraid we're going to have to walk," Brook said.
"Walk? Why?"
"Because members of the Heidelberg Cylinder are strict vegetarians. Not vegan but strict vegetarian. We don't eat anything with a face. We avoid contact with any form of meat."
"What the Hell are you talking about? You're not having contact with meat. We're going to Pilot Hill, like you wanted."
"I'm sorry, but we're not allowed contact with anything to do with meat. If there's a remnant in that truck it could contaminate us. No, it's out of the question. Brother Zin Zan and I will walk up to Pilot Hill and meet you there."
"It's three miles away. It'll take you an hour to get there! Look, I got a better idea. You guys get in the front and we'll all get in the back. I don't mind being contaminated by meat. Rae?"
She nodded. The Brothers looked at each other and shrugged that the idea was okay with them. Which is how we ended up standing inside a cold empty truck holding on for dear life while getting real intimate with the smell of fresh beef and etcetera. Then about three minutes after the ride began, the only little light bulb back there that lit anything flickered-flickered-flickered and went out. Poof--total blackness.
"Real cozy back here, huh?" Vito said from somewhere nearby in the blackness.
"I can't see a damned thing."
"Not much to see. Just a bunch of empty space."
"Bill?" Rae's voice was small, like she was far away.
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared now. I don't think I want to go."
"Why's that? You were fast enough taking their money," I threw in with a little twist-of-the-knife in my voice.
"I know, but I gotta bad feeling now."
"Why?"
"Because those men are so sure of themselves. They've got pockets full of money and can give away a thousand dollars just to prove they're right."
"Four thousand dollars."
Vito made his whistle again. "Four thousand smackers. Did you ever carry four thousand dollars in your pocket? From the way they talked, it sounds like these guys do it every day. Kind of tempting when you think about it, you know?"
The darkness felt like it was suddenly heavier. So did the silence that followed what he'd said.
"What's your point?"
Vito tried to sound light but I heard the rats gathering on the other side of his voice. "Well, there's twenty thousand dollars sitting up there next to the driver. That's a lot of money."
"Bill--"
A hand touched me on the elbow and I assumed it was Rae's. I patted it until I realized it was too damned big for her hand and that it was Vito's instead.
I gave him a fast hard poke that couldn't have felt good. "Just what the Hell are you doing?"
"Nothing, man. Take it easy. It's dark in here, in case you didn't notice. I'm just trying to get my bearings.
"Well, get them away from me."
Why was he touching my elbow in the dark like that? And why was he making suggestions like maybe we should do something criminal about the twenty thousand dollars sitting in the Brothers' pockets at that very minute?
"Bill?"
"What Rae?" I said it pretty harshly, and angry voices are not that woman's favorite music. Sure enough, her answer came back at me like a flame-thrower.
"Don't you talk to me like that, Bill Gallatin! I don't like any of this. I want to go home. They can have their money back. I don't care. I just want to go back home now."
"Well honey, wait till we stop and they let us out. There's not much we can do till then."
"But we should be there by now. It's not that far. How come we haven't gotten there yet?"
I took a deep breath and licked my tongue back and forth across my lips, which is usually my procedure when I'm trying hard to stay calm. When I was sure I had my temper back on its leash I spoke. "I don't know why we aren't there yet, sweetheart. Pilot Hill's on the other side of town, remember. It takes a little while to get there."
"I want to get out of this truck right now; it's creepy and weird."
"Well sure it is. It's pitch black and we're standing in the back of a meat truck!"
"I don't mean that."
"Well what do you mean, Rae?" I lost my composure and my voice came out sounding damned irritated.
The next thing I know, my good wife's crying because she's scared, while at the same time I'm realizing this is all my fault, basically. I was the one who invited Brother Brooks and Zin Zan into our house not one hour ago. Before them everything was fine--we had a new refrigerator, we were shooting the breeze with the movers, and finishing our coffee.
Before I had a chance to say anything more, the truck began slowing. Then it stopped with a jerk that sent us all flying, judging by the sound of things around me. Vito yelled "Hey!" and Rae squealed, but I was quiet because it was all I could do to stop from falling on my face. My mother used to say never try standing up when the bus is going around a corner. Now I had one to add to that--never try keeping your balance in the dark. You need to see stuff so you can judge angles and tilts. At that moment I couldn't see anything so I was groping out with my hands, basically reaching for whatever would have me.
Unfortunately I found something.
What's warm and furry and licks your hand in the dark? A dark that had gotten ten times darker because all of a sudden it was totally silent in there except for the sound of me being slurpy-licked by an eager tongue.
"Shit!" I yanked my hand and body back like they'd been in fire and doing so, lost my balance after touching something warm and furry. I didn't know where I was falling because it was whoa-whoa-whoa backward. But still it was away from the tongue and that was all that mattered.
I fell on my ass. One of those breath-death drops where
you land bullseye on the tenderest part of your spine. It sent an atomic jolt of pain up to the tips of my ears and then shivered back down my body, gradually looking for a place to stop.
When I could breathe again around the pain, I said "Rae?" Nothing. Then I said "Vito?" Silence. Nothing but me, the dark and whatever thing had licked me.
"Mr. Gallatin? My name is Beeflow. I'll be your guide now."
The voice was right next to my ear. Right next to it. I was on my ass, remember. It was a nice voice--smooth and low--but without warning hearing it so close to me in that all-out darkness, know what my first thought was? The very first one?
Is it little?
Is this thing standing up, or bending down to talk into my ear? How big is it? Not what is it, or how did it suddenly get two inches from my ear. How big is it?
Then I tried sliding away from whatever it was.
"Don't be afraid."
"Get away from me! Where are the others? Rae?"
"You needn't worry; they're fine."
"Prove they're fine."
"Bill, we're fine."
"Rae?"
"Yes, sweetie, don't worry. I'm in Los Angeles."
"What? Where? What?"
"Yes! I'm at the Universal Studios tour with Vito. We're about to go into the Back to the Future ride. I'm so excited!"
Her voice sounded like she was talking on a telephone. In her background was a lot of noise--kids shouting and laughter, some sounds I didn't recognize. Then to my amazement, I heard the bold theme song to Back to the Future. I recognized it right away. We owned the video and would pop it in the machine pretty often because it was one of our favorites.
"Bill? We're going in now. I'll talk to you later, honey, and give you a full report. Do you have the tickets, Vito?"
"Got 'em right here."
The son of a bitch! Ever since we got married six years ago Rae and I have talked about going to L.A. and especially to the Universal Studios Tour to take that ride because we like the movie so much. Now here was some moving man I didn't even know accompanying my wife instead of me.
I was so angry at the thought that for a few seconds I forgot where I was and what had been going on.
"You see Mr. Gallatin, everything is all right. By the time your wife's ride is over, you'll know everything and the two of you will be back home again. But in the meantime she can be having the time of her life. Do something she's always wanted to do. Isn't that super? We try to make everybody happy."
