by Paul Neuhaus
“I dunno,” Economides replied. “I never found out. She could see I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been one for politics and most people with a Grand Vision are full of shit. She changed tactics. She threatened me. She took my wife. She said she was gonna kill her.”
Huh. I did not see that coming. I looked back at my friends. Connie understood the problem, but Amanda did not. I turned back to Basil. “Basil, you’re out and you’re proud. Always have been. Not only are you not married, you’re not the type that would ever need a beard.”
He wore an expression of utter confusion. “No,” he said. “That can’t be right. You’ve met Gladys. You’ve met her a million times. She used to do my books.”
Wow. Not only did my doctor have a fictitious wife, the wife had a fictitious back story. “Basil, I’m telling you, there’s no wife. There’s no Gladys. Why—?”
He shook his head adamantly and took out his wallet. “You’re just trying to confuse me. Make me feel worse than I already do. Medea has Gladys. She’s gonna hurt her.” He took a photo out of his wallet and motioned me over. I looked down at the picture he held over his lap. It was of a pretty redheaded woman smiling and holding a hurricane glass. Here’s the weird part: As we looked at it, the image faded away leaving him holding a blank piece of photographic paper. He was dumbfounded.
“Fucking hell,” I said, and I turned to leave. The others stood up and followed me.
“Where to now?” Venables said.
“West Hollywood, of course.”
I parked the Pontiac at the same meter in WeHo we’d used the time before. We got out and found Slumberland boarded up. In fact, it had been boarded up for a very long time. Years maybe. Amanda and I looked it over with identical dumb expressions on our faces. On a hunch, I pulled the matchbook cover and the strip of photo booth photos out of my purse. Both of them faded out to nothing as Amanda and I watched. I started to giggle. It was part maniacal breakdown, part Well, of course! The three of us shuffled around the side of the building and Venables and I at least were relieved to see the statue of Hecate still on the porch. We mounted the stairs and stopped when we got to the door. It was open, and the apartment was empty. No black furniture. No mirror. No black knickknacks. Medea had been there, but she’d cleared out. The bar on the other hand had all been an illusion. The lesbian patrons. Lisbeth the bartender. All of it.
The front-most Hecate of the trio held a dagger. Stuck to the dagger was a piece of paper. Amanda pulled it off, unfolded it, read it and handed it to me. In a woman’s handwriting, it said, “Everything’s fine today. That is our illusion. —Voltaire”. I sighed, crumpled the paper and dropped it on the porch. “Alright, everybody. Back in the car.”
As soon as we parked the car in the lot at the Tonga Lei Lounge, I busted out laughing. It was a more raucous version of the giggle I’d let loose in West Hollywood. Here was an even bigger illusion unmasked. The coup de grace in the whole Let’s make Dora look like a chump extravaganza.
My trailer was completely intact. There’d been no fire. Venables’ sherbet green Smart car was still parked where she’d left it. My friend in the passenger seat was struck dumb for a moment. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would someone fake a trailer fire?”
I got out and put down my seat, so Connie Constantinides could get out too. “Come on. I’ll show you.” I went around to the back of the car and popped the trunk. From out of my duffel bag, I got two gladii. A gladius is the blade you see in all the sword and sandal epics. I handed one to each of my two friends. Before I slammed the trunk, I grabbed a Greek spear called a Dory and a little backpack-y thing. It was a specially-made harness, so I could wear the pithos on my back. When I wore it, I looked like Luke Skywalker and the pithos looked like Yoda. I put my arms through the holes, fastened it in the front and Amanda slipped my jug into the harness. With all that out of the way, we headed for the trailer.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) the place looked exactly the way I’d left it. Clothes on the floor. Layers of dust. I would’ve been embarrassed to have company had it not been for the odd circumstances. Upon inspection, two things were different. Number one, there were two sets of sandy footprints leading from the front door to the desk. They were small footprints. Midget-sized. A weird, unexpected detail. Number two, Pan’s pinecone was on the desk but in a slightly different place than where I’d left it. Someone had used it recently. I picked it up and showed it to my little entourage. “Here,” I said.
They all looked at the pinecone as if it was about to do something magical. When it didn’t do anything magical, they all looked at me. “It’s a pinecone,” Amanda said flatly.
“It’s not, though. Not just. Here, take it.”
Venables took the pinecone. After a few seconds she gave me a dubious look. “Are you sure you’re not feeling the after effects of some— Oh!”
She shoved the pinecone back at me. For a just a moment, she looked like a little girl who’d been slipped a caterpillar. “I... saw somewhere else. A forest.”
“Yes.”
Connie raised one eyebrow. “Let me see that thing,” he said.
I handed him the pinecone. There was short delay and he too said, “Hey!” Unlike Amanda, he hung on to the object. “Where did you get this? I think it’s a—”
But then he disappeared. Amanda gasped. The pinecone hung suspended in the air for a second and I caught it when it fell. Amanda looked at me goggle-eyed. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“Have you ever been to Greece?”
“I went to Mexico once.”
“It’s not the same. Here, it’s your turn.” I held out Pan’s gift again and, with a shaky sigh, she took it. She didn’t say anything. She just held it and waited until it took her. I caught the thing one last time and gripped it firmly over the desk so that, when it fell, it wouldn’t fall far. After about ten seconds, I was back in Pan’s little pocket sex world.
I appeared in the same grove of evergreen trees I’d appeared in the first time. All the same niceties were still in effect. Pine-y smell. Creatures everywhere. The sound of the far-off ocean. The only thing different was I wasn’t alone. Amanda and Connie had arrived before me. Connie was out of his mind with excitement.
“Do you know what this is?!” he fairly shouted. “It’s a Demizoi! Do you have any idea how fricking rare these things are?”
I smiled at his enthusiasm. “I have zero idea. Especially since I hadn’t even heard the term six seconds ago. What the hell is a— What’d you call it?”
“A Demizoi. Demi- meaning partial and zoi meaning life. Way, way back in the day Hephaestus had an affair with Hecate. Which is weird since Hephaestus was married to Aphrodite, but let’s not get off-track. Hephaestus was the god of the forge. He made all the cool knickknacks for the gods. Hecate was the goddess of magic. During their brief fling, they made a little handful of these Demizois. Think of them as virtual reality simulations or pocket universes inside of everyday objects. Thanks to those two crazy, lovestruck deities, we’re back in ancient Greece. Isn’t it amazing?!”
“I think this one was made especially for Pan.”
“Well, that explains all the big, big titties and big, big dicks.”
“Indeed,” I conceded. “But what does this mean really? Is this place real? Is it a simulation? What’s going on?”
“The short answer is it’s both real and not. It’s real enough that we could die in here if something kills us. It’s also real enough that it’s a reasonable stand-in for a consummation.”
I hung my head for a moment. “So, Orpheus and Eurydice don’t have to go to the real Greece...”
“Nope. And I’ll go you one better: The date in here is different than the date on the outside. I can tell from the stars.”
“Lemme guess... It’s the seventh, isn’t it?”
Connie nodded.
“Great. Now if only we knew which direction to go or where to look to break up this necrophiliac’s hone
ymoon.”
Constantinides said, “Ahem” and pointed to my right. In that direction there was a huge path cut through the ferns. For some reason, our quarry had left an obvious marker in their wake. “Oh. Right. Good eye.” For the first time, I turned to Amanda Venables. She was standing with her jaw slack and her eyes bugged out. “Amanda?”
“Those’re centaurs,” she said. “And those... What’re those?”
“Dryads. Look, I need you present and focused for this. I think I can help: Did you hear what Connie said? He said this is a simulation. Like virtual reality.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “It is?”
“Yeah. Just do me one favor—both of you: Don’t get yourselves killed in here.”
Amanda and Connie shared a quick look, I adjusted my pithos backpack, and, using my spear as a walking stick, I set out on the path. My two friends were close behind. Right away, I noticed two sets of footprints in the dark soil. Two sets of small footprints.
I got the impression right away there wasn’t a one to one correspondence between the real world and the pinecone world. It was more like the terrain in a video game where short distances lead to big changes in the territory. We emerged, with very little transition, from the forest and onto a beach. The sun was getting lower over the water and the sky was all purple. Standing on the beach—as if was waiting for us—was a man. He was thirty feet tall and made of bronze. He looked like a hoplite, an ancient Greek foot soldier. Again, I’m gonna reference Brad Pitt from Troy if you want a better picture in your head. Also, I like referencing Brad Pitt from Troy because he looked like all that and a bag of chips.
“That,” Amanda said. “Is a really big statue.”
As if on cue, the really big statue turned its head and started walking toward us. Both Connie and Venables took several steps back and said, “Holy shit!” in perfect sync.
“It’s not a statue,” I said, recognizing our soon-to-be foe. “I mean it is, but it’s a magical, living statue. It’s Talos.”
“Talos!” Constantinides said. “Of course.”
Amanda turned to me. “You wanna tell me who Talos is or are you gonna let him walk over and introduce himself?”
“Talos was one of the obstacles Jason and his boys faced on their journey to the Golden Fleece. Medea must’ve put him here to block our path.”
“Not a very effective block if you ask me,” the Knight of Eurydice pointed out.
“No, not at all.”
This time, Venables looked back and forth between me and her new lover. “Come on,” she said. “Remember you’ve got a layperson with you...”
Connie got to it before me. “Because Dora and I both know the story, we know how to kill Talos. He’s animated by... magic goo. On his right heel, there’s a valve. Open the valve, release the goo, no more animation.”
“Right. Okay. Good. Let’s de-goo this motherfucker.”
“We’re gonna need to stay far apart to avoid getting stomped,” I said. “Do whatever you guys can to keep him distracted. I’ve got de-goo detail since I’ve got a spear.” With that, we did the opposite of what most people in that situation would do: We ran toward the giant metal man.
Despite my being out of shape, I was the fastest of us. Not too surprising since I had the longest legs. At first, Talos tracked me but he was soon diverted by Connie and Venables. They stood several yards away from one another, waved their swords over their heads and made whoop whoop noises. Talos looked back and forth between them, uncertain for a moment what to do next. That gave me enough time to run around the back of him and look for the valve on his ankle. According to legend, the valve had two protuberances set diagonally from one another, so you could wedge in a long staff (or a spear handle) and turn to release the valve. I was all set to make short work of the giant metal bozo, so you can imagine my disappointment when I saw there was no valve on his heel. Stymied, I looked up and saw the valve had been moved. It was in the small of his back, way above my reach. Great. He’d gotten an upgrade. Talos two point oh.
By that point, he’d begun angrily stamping the ground in front of him, dividing his attention between Connie and Amanda. My two friends were spry, but I didn’t trust they could avoid those humungous feet forever. Not knowing what else to do, I ran around the animated statue and jetted toward the trees we’d emerged from. “Run away!” I said. “Run away!”
It took Constantinides and Venables a second to process what was happening, but they both fell in step behind me. Talos pursued us of course, but I didn’t think he’d be able to make it too far into the pine forest. The trees were close together and very sturdy.
“What. The. Hell?” Amanda said between ragged breaths.
Right as we broke through the tree line, I replied, “Either Connie and me were misinformed or Talos got his valve moved. It’s on his back. Way, way off the ground.”
“Fuck,” Connie said. “Do you think the trees will keep him back?”
“I do. I do think the trees will keep him back.” The three of us skidded to a stop and turned around just in time to see that the trees were not going to keep him back. With big arm movements, Talos knocked over a couple of the trees as if they were made of balsa. Let that be a lesson to you. Bronze beats wood.
“He’ll have trouble seeing us through the canopy,” Amanda said. “We could dodge him all day long.”
“Sure,” Connie said. “Until he runs out of trees to knock down.”
“Not to mention the fact somewhere up ahead Orpheus is gonna fuck Eurydice and all this is gonna be moot.”
Connie was looking up. The trees were tall. Many of them were taller than Talos. “How’s your climbing?” he asked.
“How’s my climbing?”
“Yeah. I was thinking maybe we could Ewok the son of a bitch.”
I knew what he meant right away. He meant we should use our surroundings to our advantage. I looked to my left and saw a good candidate. A strong pine with accessible limbs. “What about that one over there?”
“That one will work,” he replied. “You gonna do it, or do you want me to?”
“I’ll do it. I’m the one with the death wish.”
Amanda was doing her best to follow our conversation. It was tough given the giant monster drawing closer and closer. “What’re you guys talking about?! We need a plan!”
Connie took her elbow and pulled her away. He nodded to me and I ran toward the tree he and I’d selected. As I climbed, I could hear him explaining the situation to Venables. “We’re gonna lead Talos in an arc away from this spot and then back past that tree. Hopefully, that’ll give Dora enough time to climb high enough.”
“And then what?”
“And then it will work, or it won’t work.”
I was just about spent between the running and the climbing. Not to mention the fact that I shouldn’t have been climbing in the first place thanks to the recent shoulder wound. But life doesn’t give a shit about your shoulder wound or your missing anthropomorphic sentiment or your shattered Ghostbusters jug. Life doesn’t give a shit at all. In that spirit, I climbed the tree at a pretty good clip. In a short time, I was high enough off the ground for phase one of Connie and I’s plan. Phase two was still a huge gray area. A Hail Mary to beat all Hail Marys. Still, it was nice to be in a position to wait for Amanda and Connie to complete their part and not be scrambling up the tree until the last possible second. I tracked my two friends’ progress and was impressed. So far, they’d done exactly what they needed to do. They’d gotten Talos to follow them in a wide arc through the forest. As I watched, they doubled back toward my position, pulling the giant, metal man along with them like a puppy. After they ran right underneath me, I looked back to make sure Talos was still following and that he hadn’t seen me. He was still following, and he hadn’t seen me. As his head passed me on my left I took a deep breath. I was preparing to do one of the most reckless, crazy things I’d ever done. I say “preparing”, but you can’t really think about some
thing like that. You have to just do it and hope you live to tell the tale. Once I could see Talos’ back, I leapt from my branch with my spear held horizontally.
I fell for less than a second but somehow, I managed to change the angle of my hands once or twice to better insure the placement of the spear shaft. Miracle of miracles, I managed to jam the weapon right between the two valve protuberances. My fall stopped (with a grotesquely painful jerk), and I was actually hanging from the monster’s lower back. He got hip to what’d happened fairly quickly and did his best to grab me from around his own torso. I tightened my grip on the spear and planted my feet just above his robotic buttocks. For a second I thought to myself, Righty tighty, lefty loosey. I pulled left and cursed who’d ever built the grotesque behemoth for not following the time-honored Rule of the Lug-nuts. I quickly altered my thinking and went right. Three things happened nearly at once. The valve turned to the full open position, my spear handle broke, and I fell to the ground. Not only did I fall to the ground, I was covered with thick goo. I had the wind knocked out of me, but I still managed to get my head up to see Talos wobble back and forth. If he fell backwards, I could only hope that he did so with his legs spread apart (otherwise I’d be turned into guacamole). If he fell forward, all I could do was pray my friends got out of the way in time.
Talos fell forward, knocking over still more trees. Fortunately, Amanda went left, and Connie went right. Both of them managed to avoid being crushed and they converged over me. Venables crouched next to me. “God, are you okay?”
I hurt all over, but I was pretty sure I would live. “My butt feels awful,” I said.
“Can you stand?” Connie said.
Without waiting for an answer, my two friends each hooked a hand under one of my armpits and hoisted me out of my bed of pine needles. “Never, ever, fall fifteen feet onto your ass,” I said.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Venables said as she and her boyfriend helped me out of the forest and back to the beach. “What you did there was pretty fucking amazing, though.”
