The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories

by Eugen Bacon

  Distraught, Bluey returned to the city and hunted manholes. He’d read about them, lids giving way, loose crossbars and all. People plunging and drowning in twenty-one feet of human waste. Where were these goddamn holes with their loose lids? He found a few, lids clamped tight.

  He fell into bed exhausted. He did not question his past, or his future. All he knew was now. He was Bluey, a ginger head who worked at Kinetics, an insurance firm. And now more than ever, he wanted to die. To die. To die. Didn’t death want him? A big fat tear rolled down his cheek.

  ***

  6 a.m., the alarm. Out in the streets, just past Hade Avenue, he saw a milk truck. He ran toward it at full speed, eyes closed, arms spread. Nothing happened. “You got a death wish or something?” the driver barked.

  The building that housed Kinetics stood tall, unperturbed by it all. There was the receptionist with her cobalt hair and potato cream suit. Sunbathed ceiling awash with heaven. She smiled back. Lift. Ninth floor.

  “What’s going on?” greeted the team lead.

  “I’d tell all, Joffa. But you won’t believe me.”

  “Shove off. Hospital thing, I heard. Take more time off. Work will wait.”

  “I’m good, Joffa. Ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What do you know about me?”

  Coles’s laugh was uneasy. “Messin’ with me, boy?”

  “I wake up. Every day. Come to work. Go home. Who am I?”

  Coles scratched his head. “You do your job. I’m good with that. No questions.”

  “Then good for you! Me? I have questions. My life is the same, day in day out. Just the deaths. Now the living. I got questions!”

  “Just go home, man.”

  “You and your Nana, you’ve got a life. My life’s fucked-up.”

  “Man. Get a grip.”

  “I die and wake, die and wake. That’s right. When I avoided death, I died and then I woke up. When I chose to die, chased it, nothing happened. What twisted fuck controls my destiny? Who is in charge?”

  “You’re talking like some TV guy, mate—”

  “Am I? Am I! This ain’t no drama!”

  Coles was quiet a long time. “You’re talking all over my head. I don’t understand a word of it. But if dying is what you want—” He pulled a brown bag from his drawer. He put the gun in Bluey’s hand.

  “It got bullets?”

  “What do you think?”

  Bluey pressed the gun to his temple.

  “Holy mother. Bluey. Thing’s loaded!”

  “Is it?” said Bluey. “I’d like to ask what you’re doing with a loaded gun in the office. See, me, I ask questions.” He waved the gun.

  “Point. That thing. Away from me!” Coles’s eyes were that wide.

  Bluey dropped his hand. “You gave me the gun.”

  “Jesus Christ. I was just messing with you! Pushing common sense!”

  A burst of ringing, the phone. Bluey looked at Coles’s desk. “No shit.” The ringing persisted.

  Coles answered. “Hello?” He listened. “I didn’t,” he spoke to the receiver. “Some mix up, sweetie. Golly gum. Really sorry.” He hung up. He looked confused.

  “Well?” asked Bluey.

  “Receptionist downstairs. Asks why I called.”

  “Strange.”

  “Roger that. What the—”

  Bluey aimed at his temple and fired. The gun just clicked.

  Coles had leaped, was crouching behind his desk. “Christ!”

  The phone started ringing. It rang and rang and rang. No one paid attention.

  “Thought you said this thing was loaded.” Bluey fired. Nothing.

  He pulled back the top of the gun, slid the chamber. It spat out a bullet that dropped to the ground.

  “Shit, Bluey—”

  “So it was. Loaded.” Bluey laid the gun on the desk. “Told you. It’s not our script. Ever wondered? About life? What if we’re part of something bigger than us?”

  Coles slumped against the leg of his desk. “You could have hurt someone.”

  “What if it’s someone else’s show?”

  “You could have killed yourself. You, you . . . Larrikin. You.”

  “Ever wondered? What if that receptionist downstairs is a bot? And see those?” Bluey pointed at the ceiling. “Those blinkers, smoke alarm shit, what if they were eyes. Watching, always watching.” He yelled at the beacon above his head: “That’s right. You narcissistic fucks!”

  Coles was looking at his hands as if they were snakes. “You want to kill yourself,” he said finally.

  “Now you get it.”

  “Would you? Try that again?”

  “I’d try it again tomorrow.”

  Again Coles went quiet. “Your life is fucked.”

  “Sure thing, Joffa.”

  “What now?”

  “Imagine scientists in a room full of monitors. Someone speaking to a recording: ‘Computer, register this. Subject zero showing signs of reasoning capability beyond preconditioning.’”

  “Ha-ha funny. Not.”

  ***

  Somewhere in the city, in a dilapidated pub named Crockers, a few people sat round a table with the angel of death. Among them: a kid in a yellow T-shirt; an Asian woman; a lollipop woman.

  “Why didn’t you let him blow his brains, boss?” the kid asked.

  “To what end?” said the angel, the man in black. “It’s more fun when he doesn’t want to die. Just wish the Jesus chick didn’t keep patching him up.”

  “Must have the hots for him.”

  “Yes. She loves him.”

  “Let’s get another prawn,” someone said.

  “Yeah. That Geoff Coles goon.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the angel snapped. A pay phone somewhere along a corridor started ringing. They all stared at the direction of the sound. “Coles got family,” the angel said, quieter.

  “What, you’ve got a conscience now?”

  The phone rang out.

  “Call it whatever you want,” said the angel of death. “Everyone has to die some time. I’m just not ready to take Coles right now. That answer work for you?” He looked around. “No more of this shit. We have enough on our arses, like proving that free will is pure gumbo. Death comes knocking, we don’t ask you about voluntary. Any more of you clowns got questions?”

  They all looked away.

  “And while we’re on the topic of clowns. Stop calling her name in vain. Bitch won’t stop ringing.”

  “Um . . . boss,” someone said. “It was you that said Jesus Chr—”

  “Sod it, the goddamn phone—”

  Ngrrrr-ngrrr! Ngrrrr-ngrrr! Ngrrrr-ngrrr!

  ***

  At the ground foyer of Kinetic, the receptionist behind her desk, round wide eyes, all lashed up, cradled the receiver.

  WOLFMOTHER

  Dragon and I sit at the bar. Tavern Terrafirma is chockers, bustle as drunks, punters and bartenders in baby aprons and carrying trays interlace with the crowd.

  Dragon is on pristine behavior.

  “Fire play, none tonight,” I’d counseled. But a crystalline shade, pretty as a wish in his arms, not my warning, bears reason for his unspoiled manners. She has azure eyes, wide. A glitter of gems strokes her arms, throat and ears.

  Dragon needs no notice of how her colorless skin could never endure his flames; never seen him gentler. He clicks his fingers. A barmaid, all bosoms, appears.

  “One freezer for my beaut, one sequin double for Russo,” points at me, “a pint of red lantern for me.” Slips a twenty in the valley of her chest. “And one keep change for you, my dear.”

  The shade pouts.

  I chow on chilled pheasant, and notice a spread of curls at the corner. “That, is who?”

 
Dragon shrugs.

  A clink of coins in the haze of smoke . . . now the jukebox is playing. Spread of Curls faces us at the bar. Olive eyes sweep past me. I turn. It’s a traveler. Tavern Terrafirma is the traveler’s inn, attracts them like flies. This one treads his way to a stool beside Spread of Curls.

  He smiles. She smiles.

  I twirl to Dragon and his shade. “Again, she—is who?”

  Dragon fingers a scar on his nape. “Diana Ferrari or her reincarnation.”

  “Puff out.”

  “That said with diplomatic caution,” Dragon. “She’s a moxie too, aggressive as they come.”

  Moxie or not, blokes are jostling for position, but only Traveler has scored. He’s bought her a drink.

  “Know each other, them two?” Me.

  “Don’t bet on it.” Dragon.

  “Puff out.”

  ***

  Falcon is behind the counter, tonight on duty. He is a hawk mutant, charcoal hair gleaming, eyes sharp as pins. His red-brown cloak matches the hue of his beak. He is glowing new glasses from the steamer with a towel. He notices me, winks.

  The tavern door bursts open. Headless lurches in. A crust of crimson on his neck. His severed head under his armpits. A motley crew spills after him into the tavern. Skullface is with them, dressed all tar and pearl white. Hangman too, sporting burgundy tights.

  “Lost it again?” Falcon, across the counter.

  “Grow back soon.” The muffled croak and echo is from somewhere inside Headless’s neck. “How about a pint?”

  “Straight down the throat?”

  Ribald laughter all round. Only Traveler looks troubled, I note with liking.

  ***

  The lads are guzzling away, raunchy jokes aturn. Dragon and Shade have vanished. Even Hangman is in jolly disposition and has said nothing of gallows or appointments with a headstone. Spread of Curls is working the traveler, or the other way round. Doesn’t matter really, they are making out. Period.

  “Bloke’s whopper impressive,” Hangman says. Hands me a joint.

  “Shark—he sure is.”

  “I’d call him a dolphin,” Dragon behind me. The shade’s gone.

  “Dawn climb to the mountains,” he explains. “Come-of-age ritual, imagine that.”

  Traveler and Spread of Curls are heading out the door.

  Hangman’s head is clasped between elbows. He snores.

  Dragon glances out the window. “Coppers, yellows and reds,” he says. “Beware.”

  I don’t understand. I don’t really care. Actually, I do. But fuck.

  Falcon is closing shop: stool over stool over stool. Place is abandoned, just the regulars now.

  “Fierce storm,” Falcon says.

  “Splice, want one?”

  “Why not.”

  I offer him a joint.

  Tavern Terrafirma reeks of burning corn. A flicker of light through the window, then a spear of lightning. A burst of copper, yellow and red chases a white shaft of light.

  “There,” Dragon. “Colors of the night.”

  At first I think my hands have tremors. Then I notice the table.

  “An earthquake. From where?”

  The measure of shaking so intensifies I seize my drink.

  A scream renders through the dusk, then quiet.

  The tremors are gone.

  Spread of Curls slips into the room. She pulls a stool beside me. I pretend to ignore her.

  “Hey sweet girl,” Dragon says.

  “Hey Drags.”

  Her curls are in disarray, her face half-hidden from light.

  I glare at Dragon. “Know each other. You two?”

  “Long story.”

  “Puff out. Prick. Introductions, that’s what.”

  “My dear pal, no one introduces his best mate to a vamp. Meet Wolfmother.”

  She faces me fully, olive eyes dark as a seer.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she says. Her voice is as caressing as the crimson drop at the corner of her lip.

  TOUCHED

  She’d come to the end of herself when Flare stumbled on the church.

  It was an innocuous little thing in the middle of a small street off Objections Place. A man and a woman stood holding placards. One sign said: Put a boot on it. The other said: Kick it.

  She saw a cross on the wall.

  You know how life passed you by and left you scattered? She moved toward the placards. The woman was a young girl with purple hair and chewing gum. The man was the kind you’d expect outside a church: suited and wearing tennis shoes.

  Across the street a guy in torn jeans and a T-shirt that said Omega looked in their direction. People flocked into the little building, piquing Flare’s curiosity.

  “What’s with the signs?” she said.

  “It’s a protest,” the suited man with tennis shoes said.

  “Against?”

  “Despair,” the purple-haired girl said.

  But people were spilling with goodness. They looked at Flare with kind eyes and smiled like they knew her.

  Going in was like walking into the Tardis. It grew bigger on the inside. She went past a buzzing food court, through a T-shirt attended book stall and stood by a rainbow-colored playpen. Parents were dropping off children. Most totties were happy for some stranger to take them, but one bawling toddler in pigtails, hands outstretched toward daddy, chased. Someone gave her a rose-colored bible and she sat on the floor, happy, flicking through pages, hair on her face, her daddy forgotten.

  Three entryways led to what turned out to be a massive auditorium. It pulsed with disco lights and music that could only come from heaven. The lead singer was Miss Universe—she had to be. The rest of the choir comprised beautiful people loaned from bliss.

  Flare found herself in a pew up front—somebody likely ushered her there. There was goodness everywhere. Everyone was smiling and swooning and dancing. You could leave your stuff on the pew and go up front to sing with the choir or be prayed for and no one would steal your purse.

  The music was like sunshine and rain, spring and autumn, magnolias and sweet peas. Something wistful and sacred wrapped around Flare, even as the sweet melody ebbed and Flare sank with the sound to her knees.

  A pastor named Parrot—yes, like the bird—flew on stage. He was a tall, wiry fellow who hopped and pecked about the pulpit. He wore black-rimmed spectacles but only used them to quote from the bible. The rest of the time he bent his head and looked over the glasses at the crowd, smiled before he said fierce words.

  There were serpents and dry bones in his sermon. And he liked to say: Hallelujah. I like that! When he wasn’t raining snakes and dead bones at the faithful, he was spewing fire. As he danced on stage, he said something about angels and faith, and Flare saw three angels moving alongside the preacher. One was a baby with fat legs and black curls, and despite his nappy he was playing a harp. One was a girl with tattoos and a nose ring—yes, she was an angel too: she had wings. The third was this old guy with a bald head. He was good-looking in a Bruce Willis kind of way, but he was a person of color and ribbed like Wesley Snipes. He too was an angel—there were wings, see?

  Embrace the process! The preacher was yelling. Contact with the Maker—have you had the touch? As the faithful fell out of their pews and spilled toward the preacher, Flare realized it was an altar call.

  She had no time to think twice about it. Before her nerves could deteriorate, her feet, on their own accord, led her away from the pew and her purse and out in front toward Preacher Parrot. All she knew was she’d never had the touch but really wanted it today.

  The preacher laid hands. People collapsed. She felt a presence and his energy neared. Her feet were jelly by the time he stood before her.

  “Where does your story begin?”

  She tri
ed to tell him about her boyfriend, Amos, and his dad jokes, how he wanted sex every night. About her asthma that hadn’t responded to preventers over twenty years. About the stupid workplace that took a pound of flesh but paid nickels and politics. No words came. She looked at him and he looked at her. And then he was mouthing something that nourished everything within and urged her to be born, find her essence.

  The faithful were making an unholy sound.

  “Hallelujah. I like that!”

  She realized the preacher wasn’t asking about her story. He was telling it.

  “You’re the favorite.”

  She felt whole. Now she was crying. He started to lay hands. She swooned. Gentle palms at the back guided her head to the floor. The light dimmed. Faint music seeped from heaven. Sunlight and rain. Magnolias and sweet peas. Two faces peered at her from above. It was the tattooed angel and Bruce Willis Snipes. They smiled. She smiled back. She wanted to rise but her legs refused to give. She wriggled some fingers and strong hands guided her up.

  She walked wobbly to her pew, but it felt like a float, so light her head. Her chest felt like an adrenaline stream had scoured her lungs. Her purse was gone. She didn’t recognize the people to her left or right. Was she in the right place? It didn’t matter. She just felt . . .

  The calming fire.

  ***

  She let herself in, the keys from her—what? she had her purse. It was a night of miracles.

  Amos sat on her couch. He was watching footie, eating nuts. An empty glass of red on the coffee table. A news ticker was rolling at the footer of the TV:

  Police urge vigilance against a serial rapist who has strangled five women . . .

  The remote was scattered on cushions, the carpet littered with beer-nut skins.

  Amos looked up. “I think my ears have dropped.” He laughed at his joke.

  “Haircut. Looks nice.”

  “I’ve been home ages. Where’d you go?”