by Rob Dircks
Nana straightens her back proudly and announces, “And now, like the mythical scarab beetle of millennia past, you are about to be reborn, into a new life, and usher in a rebirth for all mankind.”
Dad applauds. “Wow, Mom. Very eloquent.”
“I printed it off the website.”
I hang the trinket around my neck. “Awww. The Red Scarab. Thank you Nana. That was sweet.”
She harrumphs. “You don’t seem too impressed.”
“No, it’s sweet. Really. I’ll keep it with my others.”
Yes. I’m embarrassed to admit I already have twelve Red Scarabs hanging in my secret corner, part of my pathetic shrine to the impossible dream of You’re Going to Mars!, so one more isn’t about to send me to my fainting couch. The scarabs are nice looking baubles, something to decorate the disappointment, I guess, like other Fillers who keep laptop backgrounds of beaches they’ll never visit. I could easily go out to any of the nearby fills and find more, because when you produce fifty million cheap scarab medallions, and every single one gets thrown out – except thirty lucky winners – a majority of them are going to wind up here in Fill City One. Like the dream, they’re discarded everywhere, no longer worth the plastic they were molded from.
Nana flicks her bony finger at the scarab. “Press the head.”
Now even the sea shell wind chime stops.
Dad, Rock, and Scissors hold their breath as they stare at my index finger, hovering over the head of the Red Scarab.
It can’t be.
Can it?
The odds are – sorry for the pun – astronomical. If this is one of the thirty winners, when you press the head the beetle’s wing covers will spring open, its wings will unfold, a red glow will emanate from the inside, and it will announce in Zach Larson’s annoying voice, “You’re Going to Mars!” Everyone – and I mean every single TV-watching human alive – knows this, because we’ve seen the commercials so many times it’s seared like a radiation burn into our collective consciousness. We know that thirty lucky winners will compete in a ridiculous reality show/astronaut training/popularity contest starting next week, in lavish accommodations, until only one contestant remains, and earns the single coveted spot on the crew of humanity’s very first manned mission to Mars, aboard Larson’s privately-built ship, High Heaven.
If this is one of the winning scarabs, my life will change forever. All our lives will change forever.
Against every rational thought, every calculation of every betting odd, every past disappointment, against every fiber of my being telling me it’s impossible, my heart begins to race, and I close my eyes, and I press the head.
Click.
And nothing happens.
“Nana!”
Dad, Rock, and Scissors look equally shocked and angry, and a chorus of “Nana!”s fills the little dining area. “Boo”s and “Tsk”s follow in great numbers.
Rock shoots to her feet in a huff. “I blew a travel allowance for this?”
Dad tries to stop Rock from storming out the door, calling back, “Mom? Really? I have a number of things to say about this.”
And I can’t tell whether Scissors is crying or laughing, so I flick her earlobe for good measure. She hates that, and shouts, “Hey! I’m not the one who screwed you out of a trip to Jupiter.”
“Mars, you idiot!”
“Whatever, it wasn’t me, it was-“
“STOP!”
Nana has both her arms raised, like I imagine Moses did to tame the Red Sea. We all freeze, having never heard such a stern command leave her mouth in our entire lives. And again, while we stare, wondering once more if her brain is reaching its expiration date, she does the wiggling thing with her arms, producing from behind her, from some previously unseen pocket on her housecoat, a second little box.
She winks at me, chuckling. “Sorry about the first box, Paper. I couldn’t help myself.”
But I won’t put up with more of her shenanigans. I grab the box from her hand and rip open the lid. “Ha ha. What a surprise. Another scarab. You’re hilarious, Nana. How many more of these boxes are you hiding in that housecoat?” And with a dramatic, angry jab of my finger, just to show her how mean she’s being, preying on the impossible dreams of her granddaughter, all for some cheap joke, I press the head.
And the wing covers spring open.
Dad, Rock, and Scissors’ jaws drop in unison. Nana smiles so wide her dentures threaten to pop out.
Slowly, the beetle’s wings unfurl, and tears stream down my face as I watch the red glow burn inside.
Scissors squeals, “Now say it! Say it, TV guy, say it!”
And as we all lean in to hear, in the cheapest-quality sound possible – though it sounds like a high-fidelity choir of angels to me – an eight-bit recording of Zach Larson’s voice croaks, “You’re Going to Mar-“
Rock snorts. “You’re going to Mar? What’s a Mar?”
Panicking, as if the absence of the final letter of Zach’s catchphrase might nullify my winning scarab and doom me to permanent exile here in Fill City One, I flick the beetle.
And this time, as clear as day, we hear the words that will change our lives forever:
“You’re Going to Mars!”
7
Light a Fire in the Sky
I can’t stop staring at the red glow.
It’s impossible. But true.
“Nana… How…?”
Dad collects me and Nana in his arms. “Remember her last job I told you about? It was to find that.”
“But… the odds. Literally thirty in fifty million. Point zero zero zero zero zero six percent chance.”
“Yes. Terrific odds. But here’s how she narrowed those odds…”
Dad proceeds to tell us how Nana uncovered one of the most intricate scams in history, one with fake websites, diverted shipments of cardboard boxes full of scarabs, and lots of dirty money changing hands, all in a bid to win a spot on the show, because it meant guaranteed fame and fortune even if you never got to Mars. Nana followed the leads of these grifters, connected the dots, patiently waiting and toiling.
I’m too entranced by the glow of the scarab in front of me to listen.
“…and once Nana triangulated the spots in the fill where the discarded scarabs were being dumped…”
“Wait. Nana, how many scarabs did you sort? There must’ve been millions.”
Nana shrugs, as if millions of scarabs aren’t a bother. “We stopped when we hit the winner.”
It turns out Nana had harangued a group of old-timers to spend five weeks, day in and day out, searching through the unopened cardboard boxes of scarabs that had been discarded. The grifters behind the scam didn’t even have to open the scarabs or the boxes they were in to determine if they were winners – they had stolen some kind of infrared scanner that could tell if the winning chip was inside. Except that, unbeknownst to them, the scanner they stole didn’t work, and they weren’t actually scanning – or more important finding – anything. Whoops! Karma had won.
Nana’s fist shoots into the air in triumph. “Mainlanders overestimate themselves, and underestimate us Fillers. I knew they’d miss it, there’s no such thing as a cut corner. But I’m a Filler. I don’t cut corners. I don’t miss nothin’!” She leans over and gives me a kiss on the forehead, opens her fist and points to the heavens. “And now, my sweet Paper, you’re going to light a fire in the sky.”
I smush her cheek with a big, wet kiss of my own, and look around at Rock and Scissors. We all laugh, and start jumping up and down, hugging and screaming and waving our arms in the air. “I’m going to Mars!” I shout again and again and again. Until my hand accidentally knocks the candle over.
“Oh, shit.”
The tip of the candle lands a little too perfectly against Nana’s fake plastic flower centerpiece, setting it ablaze. In a panic, I reach for the nearest liquid – Dad’s glass of bourbon – and throw it on the fire. Unfortunately, alcohol doesn’t put out fires as much as it feeds
them, and within seconds the vinyl tablecloth is also engulfed in flames. Frozen like four deer in headlights, we watch as Dad lunges for the fire extinguisher, pulls the pin, squeezes the handle, and aims the impotent little spittle of expired foam at the growing conflagration. He looks up, and I almost laugh.
“Run!”
I’ve seen fires before, many, but never one that grew so fast. I imagine that the older trailers like Nana’s must’ve been built from sapwood soaked in kerosene, that’s how fast this fire tears through our little home.
Luckily – if you can call it luck – Fill City One takes fires very seriously. With all the landfill’s methane, and an entire underground refinery with pipelines branching out in every direction, a house fire here could blow a crater in the Earth the size of Texas. So firemen are on the scene in forty-five seconds, and the blaze completely out in under two minutes.
In the charred remains of the place where I grew up, I can just make out the corner of my New York Jets blanket, somehow the only thing not black, hanging from a nail like a flag of surrender. I want to cry, but it’s not the time. Right now is about Nana. I turn to her, expecting to see her weeping, or gearing up to spank me for the first time in my life, because I really deserve it this time, of all the infinite times I’ve tested her infinite patience. But she puts her arm around me instead. “You know, Paper, when I said light a fire in the sky, I didn’t mean it literally.”
I laugh, and start bawling in her arms. And I don’t stop. Dad, then Rock, then Scissors envelop us, and we all cry through the night.
8
I’m Going for a Walk.
The next morning, as rain soaks our clothes, the only clothes we now own, our neighbors come out to the leaky overhang they let us sleep under and offer hot coffee. Nana continues, as always, to see silver linings. “You know. The rain is good. Makes sure all the embers are out. Keeps Fill City safe.”
Dad holds out his mug under one of the leaks to let a little rainwater cool off his coffee. Another silver lining, I guess.
I can’t see silver linings right now. Yes, I have a winning scarab around my neck, the ultimate silver lining, one in fifty million, a chance to live my childhood dream. But Nana has lost everything. Because of me. I have the sudden urge to fling the scarab out to sea.
“I’m going for a walk.”
I make it maybe a quarter mile before I’m confronted by Tom Bradline. “Well. I heard. You really did it this time, didn’t you, Paper Farris.”
“I know. I’m an idiot.”
“Yes. You are. Grade A idiot.” He takes the toothpick out of his mouth and traces a little “A” with it in the air.
“Listen, Mister Bradline. I lost a day’s pay, our home burned down, and now we’re standing here in the rain. Can I go on my way?”
“No. You’re coming with me.”
And so Tom Bradline escorts me in the direction of the Body Shop, I suppose to find one more way to make my day even more terrible. Or worse.
“So, Paper, while we walk… tell me about Mars.”
I stop. “What?”
He pulls me along. “While we walk. Tell me. Mars.”
Does he know? About the scarab? Is he going to steal it? It’s worth taking my life for, easily. It can probably fetch a million credits or more. Maybe even secretly buy a family’s way out of this filthy shantytown they dare to call a city. Tom Bradline always seemed like one of the good ones, despite his sour attitude, and that stupid ever-present toothpick, but you never know. People have disappeared for much less. I shiver in my wet coveralls, and pull up my collar. Maybe he hasn’t seen it.
“Well, Mister Bradline… Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It was named after the Roman god of war. They also call it the Red Planet, because of the reddish iron oxide on the surface. It has seasonal cycles like Earth, and a thin atmosphere, and it’s the next planet from us, so it makes an excellent candidate for terraform testing, and potential off-world colonization. The first manned mission is finally taking place, in December.”
“You’re going to Mars.”
I jerk my hand back to my collar, closing it around my neck. “Excuse me?”
“The show. You’re Going to Mars!”
“Oh. Yes. The show.” I look around for a place to run, just in case. Not that there is one, Bradline knows every nook and cranny of this route at least as well as me. “Um, as you know, every fifteen years or so there’s been a global economic crash. So every time NASA thought they had enough funding for a manned mission, boom – the money would disappear again. Finally, Groupie-“
“I hate Groupie.”
“You’re supposed to hate it. It’s for the six billion people on the planet under the age of thirty-four who can’t get enough virtual social media entertainment. It’s not for fifty-five-year-old Fillers.” He looks at me sideways. “No offense. So finally, Zach Larson, the world’s first trillionaire and owner of Groupie and AceSpace, said ‘enough,’ and told NASA to hold his beer while he funded the whole thing himself. To help with the funding, he came up with a sponsored TV show that would auction off a spot on the crew to a random Groupie subscriber. The winners are picked by-“
“Okay. I’ve heard enough.” He steps in front of me, blocking my path. Looks down at me.
Oh my God.
“Now close your eyes.”
I try to run, but he grabs my upper arm hard. Instinctively, I turn opposite, flexing his hand backward, and, using a self-defense move Dad showed me a decade ago and made me practice endlessly – because, you know, we live in Fill City One, after all – I grab his palm, twisting his wrist sharply and sending him to the ground.
“Jesus Christ, Farris! Keep your eyes open, I don’t give a rat’s ass! I just thought it would be more fun!”
“More fun?! What kind of a sick–?!”
Just then, the members of Bradline’s team, the Body Shop crew, turn the corner and approach us.
They’re leading a caravan of lifts, carrying repaired appliances and reclaimed lumber.
A tow truck bringing up the rear hauls something big.
A trailer. A double wide.
Bradline wheezes through his pain and the broken toothpick threatening to pierce his cheek. “It’s for your family. You ingrate. Now will you let me go, goddammit?!”
“Oh my God! Mister Bradline! I’m sorry!” I release his palm and lift him up and give him the biggest hug I can remember. “Thank you! Thank you!”
He brushes some of the mud off his coveralls. “Thank your Nana. She’s one of the originals. She’s watched over many of my men, and myself for that matter. Decades of warm soup on cold days breeds a fierce loyalty. And she’s saved more than one life down here. So even one night in the rain is too much for her. She won’t have any more. You can thank her.”
I lean up and kiss him on the cheek. Strange. Not like me.
“And the other thing. The Mars thing. Your Nana told us.” By now, the crew had circled me, smiling, expectant. They want to see, I can tell. I loosen my collar, take off the scarab necklace, and press its head. Again the wing covers spring open, revealing wings and a red glow, and Larson’s silly voice. Some ooh, some laugh, and one says, “It’s really true. You’re going to Mars.”
“No. I’m going on a show. And if I survive three months against thirty competitors, then I’m going to Mars.”
Another one, Vera, turns to Bradline. “But… boss… the show starts in like a week. And she can’t even leave Fill City One. Can she?”
Shit.
In all the frenzy of last night’s fire, and my brooding guilt this morning, I haven’t given any thought to this actually becoming a reality, the Mars dream, so I’ve never seriously asked myself the question: how the hell do I get out of here? And how the hell do I get to Los Angeles in five days?
My hands start to tremble, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. No, Paper. Not in front of the damn Body Shop crew. My head’s spinning. Bradline sees my collapse coming, and takes my hands in his own.<
br />
“Miss Paper Farris. We – all of us – need you to hear something: You are your Nana’s grandchild. I don’t like to admit it, but you have her pluck, and then some, and you’re smart as a whip with your little gadgets and such, a little scary even, considering you’re about as graceful as a drunk raccoon and you make my life miserable. You, young Farris… you’re getting out of here. And you are going to get on that show thing. And you are going to win. And then you are going to Mars. Do you understand me?”
I look at him blankly.
“Come on, Farris. Wake up. This isn’t just about you.” He points around to the fills. “This is no life, not really. It’s servitude. A life without choices. We’re ‘free’ only inside thirty-foot walls.” Then he points to his companions. “Look at us. You’re doing this thing for us. You’re leading the way so that we can-“
“Whoa. Stop right there, Mister Bradline.”
“Excuse me? I was in the middle of my speech.”
“This is about me. It’s my dream.”
“No it’s not. It’s ours.”
“Mine.”
“Ours.”
“Mine.”
“How old are you?”
“How old are you, Mister Bradline? You’re older than me!”
He puts his fingers to his lips, to readjust his new toothpick, but stops, and settles into a burning glare for a few seconds.
It works.
“Okay, yes. I understand. But I’m not some kind of beacon of hope. I’m just a twenty-one-year-old Filler with a dream. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Vera’s right. I can’t make it out.”
He laughs, and the others follow his lead.
“What?”