by V X Lloyd
"Oh yeah," said the Sphinx. "I'd been meaning to tell you. We're doing like a transferring-over thing. Pretty awesome, right? For awhile, I'll be in my Sphinx training wheels, Kitty overseeing me."
"I can't believe this," he said, then "This feels totally right."
Something shifted in the space around him. It felt older, wiser, and solemn.
"I called you here today to provide closure to this chapter of the great cosmic saga you have been a player in. You have done well, and millions of minds are the better for your labors. You have proven true, and the checkered potion has worked its magic through you. And instead of claiming your life, which I feared, the potion has instead re-calibrated your para-cerebral linkage to harmonize with the goings-on of terrestrials. Your home is Earth now. No more will you be called away. Your future missions will be on this planet, and you have proven yourself most worthy of the title of Steward. From all of us here in the Great Hall, thank you. The forces of light once more have a chance to take root in Earth."
"What about Perry?"
"Yeah, of course. Perry's great too. Everyone loves Perry here."
"No, I mean, I'm wondering about our abilities. It sounds like eventually we'll gain our telepathy back, but it'll be different. But I'm wondering about, like, the fate of our souls."
"It's no question that alien humans are always interesting to forces, both light and dark. Your soul's trajectory, what path you take, is more in your own hands now than ever. You are your own judge far more than you realize."
The Very Long Epilogue
His second day on the job, Moony worked cleaning trash around the mailboxes, then the Dumpsters.
He rolled up his sleeve to inspect his bullet wound, careful not to touch the actual wound part. It was a little bruised, and the wound itself was healing nicely. His mind turned to Deb. This same wound had also been her wound. The bullet that had passed through him had reached her. If only the gunshot had been a few inches the other direction. Or if his timing had been different, somehow better, then she would still be here. Maybe he would be gone in her place.
“Hey,” said someone in a smoky monotone voice from the window of a slowly-passing Cadillac. It was his delinquent brother Alex, probably late on his way to someplace crummy. Two pretty girls sat in the back seat together. Moony looked down at his clothes -- he wore cheap blue jeans and a Broncos jersey. He wasn’t wearing shoes. His toenails were untrimmed. There was dirt underneath his toenails.
“For a second there, I thought you were the gardener. You got a tan, bro.” He winked, which could have meant many things. A dog whined and whined in the distance. Alex winked again.
“You had Mom worried,” Moony said.
“Hop in.” He did.
“I’m Taylor,” one girl said.
“Hi, I’m Ingrid,” said the other.
“Nice to meet you both.”
Moony and Ingrid used to be friends when they were both very young -- they played hide and seek -- but neither remembered the other now.
The white Cadillac, the parking lot.
“Dan Senior kicked the bucket.” Ingrid and Taylor had apparently not heard the news. “Funeral’s in an hour.”
“You’re a cold one,” Moony said.
“He’s the cold one now. I’ll give you a ride.”
“I can’t go wearing this.”
“Meet you there, then.” Alex would grow up to be just like Dan Senior. He pulled into a handicapped parking space to let out Moony, who walked into the Sod Hill office.
Perry was chewing on the end of a #2 pencil when Moony walked into the office. On his desk was a stack of flyers which read:
Residents,
After a lot of detective work, the hidden camera pervert has been caught. The bathroom in the gym is secure again. Many apologies for this intrusion into your privacy. The employee responsible has been dealt with.
Management
The man who looked like God was right. It was Julio.
He put his hand on Perry's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He had gotten a new haircut. Moony said it looked nice and that he’d have to take the rest of the day off for a funeral. Out the window behind him, Moony saw his brother run past, carrying a trashcan above his head. Perry placed his hand on Moony’s, looking in his eyes.
"There's getting to be a lot of those lately. I'll stay here and look after things."
There was a loud crash outside. It sounded a lot like a garbage can smashing into some mailboxes, then into some bushes.
“I’ll deal with that outside.” Moony felt good to say that. He patted Perry's shoulder again and left.
“The funeral’s in Boulder, not Denver, like Dad wanted it to be,” Alex said, throwing stones at the trash can.
*
“Well, you do look like a goddamned gardener,” Joanna said. She wiped her eyes with a Kleenex, though she hadn't been weeping. She reserved drama for less obvious times. She made a face at him, rolling her eyes. "You could at least stop picking at the hedges. Either get some shears and a salary, or put your hands in your pockets."
They were outside on a warm, still day on top of a gentle hill in Boulder Cemetery. Beneath puffy white clouds, Dan Senior’s headstone was seven feet, eight inches tall -- enough, but not too much, everyone felt.
"What did he die of?" asked someone.
Nibbling her pinky nail, Moony's mother replied, "His heart wasn’t ever that good." Her eyes were beautiful and bored.
Moony had given his brother a black eye. Joanna winked at the eye.
"Will she remarry?" someone asked.
Moony brought Ingrid and Taylor to his mother, introducing them as his friends. He hoped the three would talk with each other, but they had almost no common ground and very little interest. He asked if he could get them anything to drink.
"I'm seventeen," Ingrid said. "Bottled water."
Taylor was fine and didn't need anything.
Joanna told Ingrid that it was before noon anyway, and that no one but a lush has alcohol in the morning, least of all at a public gathering. She ordered Perrier.
What remained of the burial of Dan Senior, who was a rich and ostensibly powerful man, was a dull event.
*
The Frog Regal had never looked so artsy: sleek televisions with imitation gold-leaf affixed to their borders had entirely replaced the older rear-projection models, the floor had been polished to highlight the brass frogs set into the tile, green marble baseboards were installed around the perimeter, and the wet bar itself was replaced by an artisan model produced in near-exact imitation of the truly wonderful Bar il Palio in Siena, Italy. Moony, hair longer and slicked back like a greaser, wearing a blue work shirt and corduroy pants, pressed a button underneath the main bar and the new German vinyl shutters swung open, allowing in the eleven o’clock alpine light. He squinted his eyes against it.
The telephone rang, so he walked outside. The outside air smelled of hay at first, then of cattle, then of cow shit. The odor lingered as Moony watered the ornamentals around the entryway. The spring air was crisp and perfect, the temperature ideal.
A Lincoln Town Car pulled up. A skinny man rolled down the window.
“Is this the venue where they do the art film screenings?”
“Positively is. Today we’re showing both the old and the new Planet of the Apes, pretty much back-to back.”
“Oh wow, I still haven’t seen the new one. Tim Burton, right?”
“Are you a fan?”
“I couldn’t get enough of Edward Scissorhands.”
“That was Johnny Depp.”
The driver paused, guessing that Moony was uninformed. “Yeah. So I guess I’m a little early.”
“Come on in.”
“Can I park here?”
“If you’re handicapped.”
“I’m a marathon runner.”
“Then you’ll have to park on the street.” Moony walked inside, hand on his budding gut. It takes effort to let oneself go, and he was r
eady to start, not because he was depressed, but because he wanted to experience what it was like to be a man of the earth. His and Celia’s relationship had been succeeding, he believed, largely due to their willingness to accept each other’s flaws, even be attracted despite them. Celia was happy because she knew Moony did not ask her to be faithful, and so she found it effortless to be faithful. The distance between them was ideal because it was compromised; the tension in their relationship was necessary -- it was a presence they both required -- a quiet, yet powerful third person in the couple who held equal status with both of them. They were very much in love with this shadow person.
He was alone in the bar. Perry had passed onto him managerial duties for both lawn care and art movie screenings at the Frog Regal after only a week of being continually impressed with Moony’s abilities, and gave him a small hourly wage in addition to free rent. So far, with his inheritance money, he had bought a new car, the all-electric Tesla Motors Roadster. Since it needed a special plug-in to recharge nightly, he had to ask permission from Perry (which was granted only after an expected hesitation, followed by a “Go for it, Bucko”) to park it under the Frog Regal maintenance vehicle’s carport and wire up a special adapter to its breaker box. Perry’s special adapter usually worked fine.
That meant the maintenance van sat in the parking space for apartment Q303, which caused Heath to deduce that he was being spied on – a white van parked conspicuously below his apartment, day and night – he was certain he had seen these things happen before and knew they must point to a future which saw him moving out. His travels in the universe with the Qualids had shown him many things about how to live in balance with those around him. Even though the location was central to the large number of South Englewood buyers, it was no longer Heath’s way to sell meth.
*
Heath had made a fresh start. Though he no longer saw the face of God in his cookpot, he did have a charming young dog to look after. The dog turned out to be even more energetic than Heath, which gave him insomnia but got him out of his apartment a great deal, on hiking trails and at dog parks, where he learned how to connect with strangers without giving them much of an impression that he was cognitively unstable. He met a few girls, and he fell in love with one named Quinn, who was more polite than any woman he had before dreamed of, and less obviously pretty; he felt she was perfect. He wanted to move in with her, and she had not objected to this – though she disapproved of his previous meth habit, she did not despise him for it, or discourage him from his past manufacturing it. In love as she was with Heath, she saw in him an artist -- she was not afraid of getting blown up an explosion at his designer drug laboratory. As it goes, Quinn worked in a rehabilitation clinic; not surprisingly, she was a former addict. She was short, her hair was black and straight, and she always wore jeans except when swimming, which wasn’t often. She had slept with three hundred and twenty-one men and two women before meeting Heath. She had been in love three times before. She and Heath were in love. They kept no secrets from each other.
Moony was there the morning Heath moved out, and he had helped him box up some of his things: in the front room, lots of fire extinguishers, beakers, pails of chemicals, stuffed animals, plastic tubs. In the bedroom, vintage baseball posters, lawn furniture, an air mattress, religious texts. Moony tried, but could not make an articulate judgment on the character of these possessions. When he told Heath goodbye, he meant well. They both felt like real human beings thankful they had nowhere impressive to escape to.
When Heath entered the Frog Regal, he looked around, taking in the scene.
“You really did a number -- a number one on this place.”
Moony associated the phrase “number one” with urination, so it took him a moment to realize Heath was not inferring that he had pissed on the bar.
Quinn entered also, carrying a decidedly-obsolete VHS camcorder. Moony realized at once the truth that she and Heath were meant for each other. All the same, when they kissed, he became a little sad.
The marathon runner and several slight women entered, followed by a crowd of regulars: Celia, Josh the Satanist, Perry, Deb, Bachman, and the others. The drug addicts, role-playing gamers, sex offenders and magicians had all been kicked out for one thing or another. When it was time, Moony started the screening and sat down in what had become his usual chair. He had scrawled “Moony’s ass here” on the seat of it.
The old Planet of the Apes bore some substance, but the remake did not. Perry found it likable, but admitted to the discussion circle that it was not as great as the first. When the screenings concluded, Moony got behind the bar and made drinks. True to form and happy to be assigned a role, he did an excellent job and made himself forgettable. When his brother entered the bar, he did not lose momentum, asking “What can I get for you, brother?”
Josh swiveled around in his barstool and extended to Alex his black-fingernailed hand. “Hello.”
Alex, still watching Moony, asked “What is this, that old show Cheers?” Josh withdrew his handshake and glared at him as if he had become his own boorish, self-involved father. His eyes found Alex’s Ozzy Osborne key ring, resting on the bar.
“You’ve come a long way,” said Moony, polishing the inside of a beer mug with his apron.
Alex sat down next to Josh, not noticing how vengefully he was being regarded. Moony, entertained, shook his brother a martini. “I remember when we were little, you seemed like James Bond to me. Now you seem more like, I don’t know, a retired tennis coach.”
Moony laughed. “I drive Bond’s car, at least.”
“007 drove an Aston Martin.”
“So do thousands of people.”
Alex sipped his drink. “I hate martinis. But this one’s pretty good.”
The truth? It wasn't.
Julio, appearing from the bathroom, asked if anyone had heard his story about horse racing. No one said they hadn’t, and he left through the back door.
Moony set down the polished martini shaker and told Alex, “It's good to see you.” It wasn't convincing.
Alex ran his head through his hair and gulped down the rest of his martini, looking macho despite stifling a retch, he said “Don’t count on it.” The expression on his face didn’t look like a smile, but it may have been. It was difficult to tell, he looked like such a tough guy.
With Perry standing by looking as if he wanted to give Alex a hug, he decided that he had better be going. Moony asked if he had just stopped by to get a free drink and some attention from Celia. Alex looked at Celia and laughed. Celia laughed back, more in his face than he thought possible. Josh took the opportunity to steal Alex’s house key off his key ring. He later offered it to Celia as a gift. She declined, but tousled her hair and smiled sweetly at him.
Moony watched his brother take out a ten, lay it on the bar, snatch up his keys and walk out. Not caring to say anything to Alex, he put the ten in the cash drawer and took out seven to put in the tip jar.
“You know what I love?” Heath screamed happily, running toward the door, arms linked with Quinn. “I love ass!” On their way out, they tromped into Alex so clumsily it must have been choreographed. It gave Alex a black eye.
*
In Sod Hill’s main office lounge, Celia ate cotton candy while Moony and Perry spoke of their big plans.
“As the operations develop, they’ll start to pay for themselves,” Moony assured him.
They were generating ideas for the next art show. So far, they hadn’t been able to get any sort of deal with the Denver Art Museum, but they would continue to try.
“It’s like we get to be talent scouts for local artists,” Moony said.
Perry agreed. “Pretty soon, we’ll make a name for Sod Hill. I’m thinking we could get nothing but artists, musicians, and those types living here. Whenever the leases expire on the turds occupying our domiciles presently, we’ll make a move to inject some creative people into this complex.”
“Please don’t call them domici
les,” Celia said. Her lips were stained pink from the cotton candy. “Anyway, the worst occupants are gone already. Out with turds, in with talent.” She extended her arms like a proud belly dancer. Like Deb, truth be told.
“We could give coupons for rent deductions based on each tenant’s creativity,” said Moony.
“Not a bad idea,” Perry said, writing it down.
“What about a Halloween party?” asked Celia. “Costume design is art.”
“We could do our own exhibit,” Moony proposed.
“The one we keep talking about -- a series of photographs of people taking public transportation – and brief bios and interviews with the people,” said Perry.
“We could call it Who’s Taking the Bus?” Moony said.
Celia stood up and clapped her hands, excited. “We could do sketches for some, maybe, instead of photos.”
“I can’t draw,” Perry confessed.
Moony couldn’t either.
“We could still draw something and say middle school kids did them,” Perry said.
“Or asylum people, for my drawings,” Moony fumbled with his pencil. “I would need to practice, even for that.”
Celia took off her dress, her bra, her panties, but left on her leggings and heels. “Draw me.”
Moony got up and locked the door.
For half an hour, Celia reclined in the chair, legs crossed. She held a pencil like a cigarette and rested her head on her wrist, looking pensive.
The drawings turned out terribly. Moony’s was grossly disproportioned (Celia called it a fertility figure), and Perry had drawn faintly, clearly paying too much attention to her face, especially her eyes, to do any justice to her figure. They compared drawings and each said “Not bad” at the same time.
*
Celia looked at her face in the mirror, waiting for the toilet to finish flushing before opening the bathroom door.
