by Paul Neuhaus
“You’re not stuck with him. Take off the crown and renounce the Underworld.”
Venables gave the table a little pound with her left fist. “You know the problem with that plan. The second I take off the crown, I die. I turn into a ghost. You should know that since you’re the one that killed me. I don’t wanna be a ghost. I’m around them twenty-four seven. You know what ghosts are? Bored as fuck, that’s what they are. They trudge around all day, looking all hangdog. Being dead’s like being at the DMV. Only they never call your number.”
I shrugged. “Those’re your choices near as I can figure it. You can stay Queen of the Underworld and put up with Connie’s idiosyncrasies, or you can be a shade. I don’t see any other options.”
“Idiosyncrasies? More like character defects.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean ‘doesn’t matter’?”
“How many long-term relationships have you been in?”
“What?”
“How many long-term relationships have you been in? A year or longer…”
Amanda had to pause and think. She even counted on her fingers. “Four. Five if you count Weird Harold, but I’d rather not count Weird Harold.”
“Four then. How many of those four guys were exactly the way you wanted them to be?”
“None.”
“How many had recurring behaviors you wanted to stamp out?”
“All of them.”
“Did you try to correct the behaviors?”
“Yes.”
“How successful were you?”
Her shoulders fell. “Not.”
“Right. Which was my point. People are who they are. You couldn’t change them because the wiring was already in. You could’ve either accepted them for who they were, or you could’ve moved on.”
“Wow, you really are no fun. What happened to the good ol’ days of girls sitting around bitching and moaning about their men?”
“I never did that. You’re my first female friend in… Maybe ever.”
“For real?’
“For real. But we’re not done yet…”
“We’re not?”
“No. I’ve got more questions… Does Connie deliberately try and undermine you emotionally or psychologically?”
“No. I mean I don’t guess so.”
“Has he ever laid a hand on you?”
“No.”
I took another sip of the peach iced tea and regretted it. “Has he done much of anything beyond saying insensitive things about your appearance?”
“No.”
“Could you counter those comments with sarcastic responses?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean every time he says something about your body, you should say something about his dick.”
“His dick? Just his dick?”
“Correct. His dick and nothing else.”
“And that’ll keep him from saying nasty things about me?”
I looked around to some of the other patrons like, “Can you believe this chick?” None of the other patrons were listening to us. It was nothing but a sarcastic gesture. “No. What’ve I been saying? You can’t change people. They’re immutable. Particularly someone like Connie.”
“What do you mean ‘someone like Connie’.”
“I mean Connie’s Greek.”
“So?”
“Greeks’re a special breed.”
“Greeks’re a special breed? What does that mean? You’ve got license to be rude?”
I shook my head. “No. Not license. We don’t get any special favors because of who we are. But we are who we are. All of us.”
The ex-lawyer leaned in. “You’re gonna have to break that down for me.”
“Greeks are just like other people. Only more so.”
“More please…”
“Take whatever you are and times it by two.”
“More please…”
“We’re… volatile. We’re… exaggerated. It stems back to our old-time religion. Our gods—some of whom you’ve met—were the worst role models you can imagine. Big, outsized personalities. Giant passions, giant moods, giant behaviors. They were like a clique of super-powered high school kids. Back in the day, Olympus was Raging Hormone Central.”
“And Connie has that?”
“Yes. We all do.”
“So, I should give him a pass for being Greek?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You can give him a pass or not give him a pass. He’ll be Greek either way.”
She paused to digest. “That’s a very defeatist attitude.”
“No, it’s a there’s-so-much-I-can’t-change-so-I’m-just-gonna-get-on-with-my-life attitude.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?”
“What?”
“Getting on with your life?”
I gave her the most bored look I could muster. I answered in a monotone. “I see what you did there.”
“What about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m mostly Lithuanian. How’re Lithuanians wired? I’m asking so I’ll know what I can get away with going forward.”
I thought for a minute. “Believe it or not, you’re my first Lithuanian. Which is amazing since I’ve been alive like a million years.”
“Well, you’re so specific as regards to the Greek mindset… According to you, every Greek carries the same basic set of traits. Which means you should be able to diagnose all Greeks from just one specimen. Based on what you know about me, what’s the four one one on Lithuanians?”
I saw the trap but, for some reason, I took the bait anyway. “I’d wanna look over a couple more Lithuanians to be sure, but, offhand, I’d say Lithuanians are never satisfied. They’re high-strung and they expect others to bend to their needs rather than meet in the middle. Lithuanians are… childish.”
She stooped in her seat, clearly not believing I’d just gone there. Anger came into her eyes fast. “Yeah, well, maybe Greeks’re dicks. Did you think about that?”
“I was—”
“No, no, no. You talked, now let me talk…”
I shut up, giving her the floor.
She didn’t talk. She started to a couple of times, but she stopped each time (apparently not satisfied with any of the things she thought of to say). Finally, she raised her finger, glared at me, gathered her purse and stomped out.
After a moment, I took another sip of my treacly drink and wondered how I was gonna get home.
I ended up walking back to the trailer. It was only a couple of miles. As I entered the Tonga Lei parking lot, I wished I’d stayed at Starbucks and finished my crappy drink. Standing on my steps and knocking at my door was yet a third visitor.
Elijah.
I was too tired to yell at him from across the pavement, so I waited until I was standing right behind him. “Yo,” I said.
I spoke quietly so as not to startle him. He was still startled because he didn’t realize there was someone else standing so close. After he recovered, he smiled a crooked smile and rubbed his hands on the front of his sweatshirt. “Yo,” he said.
We stood there without saying a word for a long beat and then I brushed past him to unlock the door.
I left the door open behind me, and my old flame entered. “Nice place,” he muttered. “I like the plates.”
He was talking about the Walking Dead commemorative plates Pan had given me as a going away present. His going away, not mine. “Thanks. I’ve got the whole set.”
“Is that what you’re into? Zombies?”
I shrugged. “It beats walking around dressed as a pony.”
He nodded. “Can I sit?”
I nodded in return and leaned against the desk.
El sat down on the couch. “Is that what this is gonna be? Trading barbs?”
“I didn’t know it was gonna be anything. You’re here unannounced, remember?” I looked him over. Again, he was still the man I remembered from fifteen years ago, albeit w
ith a little more mileage. He was wearing civilian clothes, at least. It would’ve been impossible to talk to him had he come in cosplay mode.
“Okay, well, I’m not here for the reason you think I’m here. Or at least the reason I would assume you’d think I was here. You said you didn’t wanna talk about that, and it’d be stupid to try and force you. I’m guessing you’re as strong-willed as you were back in the day, so what’d be the point?”
“Right. What’d be the point?”
He nodded again. The tension was thick as hummus. He wisely decided to get to the point. “Keri’s missing,” he said.
I sat down in the chair Ty’d left facing the couch. “Missing? What do you mean missing?”
“Missing as in nowhere I can find her. I’m worried sick.”
“Back up. Walk me through this. Ty said she was in rehab.”
“You talked to Ty?”
“He came by this morning, sniffing around for a Dora Status Report.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. Anyway, that’s not what we’re talking about. Focus. Keri.”
“Right. Sorry. My head’s not on straight. Where was I? What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Rehab. Yeah, I found a place. It was what I could afford, but it was still nice. Good reviews on Yelp.”
“Yelp reviews rehab clinics?”
“Yelp reviews everything.”
“‘Good service, but the methadone was lousy’.”
“Focus. Keri.”
“Right. Sorry. Go on.”
He rubbed his palms on the front of his sweatshirt again. “She went a couple of times. She was pretty noncommittal. I told her if she was going to get through it, she needed to jump in with both feet. She said, ‘Okay, sure. I’ll do that. But you know who’s not jumping in with both feet? Dora. Dora’s not jumping in with both feet.’ I told her you’d offered to go to rehab with her. It stuck in her craw we weren’t able to get ahold of you and you weren’t going. Should I not’ve told her?”
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “No. It’s okay.”
“Finally, after about a week, I noticed something weird. The place was pick-up and drop-off. Like a day camp. I went to pick her up and she didn’t come from inside the building. She came from the street. I said, ‘Where were you?’ and she said, ‘What do you mean? I was in rehab.’ I was suspicious. That evening, I called the clinic and asked them if Keri’d been there that day. They said she hadn’t been there in several days. They thought she’d withdrawn. So, I confronted her and asked her where she’d been. She dummied up. Refused to say. I took her to the clinic the next day and escorted her in. I told them to watch her like a hawk. They didn’t watch her like a hawk. She slipped out at lunch. When I came to pick her up, she was walking toward the car from the direction of the street again. It was the same as the day before, only this time she had… the haircut.”
“‘The haircut’? What do you mean ‘the haircut’?”
“I mean the Dutch boy haircut with the point over the forehead. The point like Flock of Seagulls.”
I slumped in my seat. Fuck. That haircut. I knew exactly what he meant when he said it. The Dutch boy with the point over the forehead (like Flock of Seagulls) was a symbolic haircut. It denoted membership in a club the same way someone in the Elk’s Lodge might wear a funny hat or a fraternity guy might wear the scalps of the women he’s raped. The Dutch boy with the point over the forehead marked its wearer as a devotee of the Church of Reciprocity. The Space Hippies, as most Angelinos referred to them. They called themselves a church. Nonmembers called them a cult. They’d been founded in the nineteen fifties by a charismatic guy with a gift for persuasion and a love for science fiction tropes. His shtick wasn’t unusual as far as cult claptrap goes. Millions of years ago, aliens who believed in peace and love came to earth and created the race of Man. The aliens imbued humans with the capacity for great love for all creatures, but humans had strayed from the path. The Star Fathers would one day return to right the ship but, in the meantime, they’d appointed the founder—Nicos Nephus (one of my own people, I’m sorry to say)—as prophet and guide. Nephus kept followers on the straight and narrow and the only cost was, well, everything you had. The Church of Reciprocity was worldwide, but it’d been a boil on Los Angeles for nearly seventy years. Our fault, really. L.A. was like True North to cultists. Most of them found their way here in time.
“Alright. When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
“Three days ago.”
“Did she say or do anything that’d give you a clue? Anything at all, no matter how innocuous.”
He fidgeted on the couch, thinking. He rubbed his hands on his sweatshirt again.
“Why do you keep doing that? Rubbing your hands on your shirt?”
He smiled and held up his palms for me to see. “Sweaty. You make me nervous.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Table that for now. Answer the question.”
“Over dinner, the night before she disappeared, she said she was thinking about going to a con of her own.”
“A con? What do you mean?”
“A con. A convention. I said, ‘What do you mean? Like BronyKonfab?’ and she smiled this creepy smile and she said, ‘Yeah. Just like BronyKonfab’. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I figured she was giving me shit about the brony thing. She was like a broken record on the subject after our adventure last month. A mean broken record. Almost everything that came out of her mouth was a dig.”
“Forget about that. Do you have any idea what she meant when she said she had a con to go to?”
“None at all, but it was the only thing she said that felt like a clue.”
I sighed and tapped my foot. After a moment’s thought, I did something I probably shouldn’t’ve done. I stood up and put my chair back next to the door. “Alright,” I said. “Let me know if you think of anything else.”
He looked at me blankly. “You, uh, you don’t wanna help me find her?”
“Why would I be any better at finding her than you? You told me everything you know and I’m just as baffled as you are.”
“Sure, but… you found me. When Keri couldn’t find me, and you helped her, and it worked.”
“That wasn’t exactly master detective work. Anyone could’ve done what I did. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You need to call the police and let them handle it. It’s their job.”
His expression and demeanor were an odd mix of disappointment and despair. He was shell-shocked enough not to voice either emotion. “Okay. Well. Thanks for letting me bounce it off you.”
“Sure thing.” I opened the door and let him out. I watched for a moment as he walked to his car, in a daze.
Once I’d shut the door, Hope said, “Dora!”
The unexpected reproach caught me off guard. “What?!”
“Don’t what me. That was mean, and you know it.”
“Mean? How was it mean? I told him the truth. I’ve got nothing to offer.”
“Dora. Keri’s missing. You like Keri.”
The conversation was rubbing me the wrong way. I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. “So what? Do I look like a detective to you? Am I wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat?”
“Yeah, but it’s Keri.”
“Yeah, but it’s Keri. You know what? Keri’s not even my kid. I don’t need to be mixed up in it.”
Hope sighed from within her jug. “Wow. That’s just petty.”
I sat down behind my desk and popped the top on the Budweiser. “So, I’m petty. You can call me ‘Tom’.”
“I can think of a lot of things to call you besides ‘Tom’.”
“Have at it. It’s early still.”
2
Grand Theft Pinecone
I disappeared from Malibu and reappeared in a grove of pine trees. The air was gentle and sweet and the sound of the ocean on my right was soothing. I was back in ancient Greece—or at least the facsimile ancient Greece Pan’s magic pinecone pro
vided. I decided to head for the water, so I cut right and waded through waist-high ferns. I brushed the tops of them with my fingertips as I walked and tried not to think too much. I wanted to concentrate all my thinking into a nugget of time and leave my passage in and out thought-free. I focused on my breath, prolonging the inhales and exhales so I’d know I was maximizing my connection to the world (or pseudo-world) I was passing through. Mindfulness, the kids call it. For just a moment, I thought about entering the pinecone and never leaving, but I chucked the notion right away. Pan’s virtual, pocket-universe wasn’t designed for a life of quietude. It was designed for fucking. Pan was a high-functioning letch and sex was never far from his mind. That’s why the creatures I glimpsed in my peripheral vision had exaggerated titties, asses, and dicks. The pinecone was an erotic amusement park, and I couldn’t picture myself retiring into an existence of wanton sluttiness. (As good as that may sound on paper.)
As I neared the sea, I passed through the area of the forest where Amanda, Connie and I had fought Talos, the giant man made of bronze. I knew it was the same area because there were several fallen trees and Talos himself still stood, drained of animating goo. I spared the prehistoric robot a glance and lowered my eyes again. I knew where I was going and wasn’t particularly keen to sightsee.
At last, I broke through the tree line and onto the sandy beach. When I’d been there before, I’d spotted an outcropping of rock extending into the surf, and I wanted to sit there to do my ruminating. I stopped briefly to take off my boots and socks.
It was nearing sunset inside the pinecone and the sky was a watercolor wash of oranges, reds and purples. As beautiful as it was, I wasn’t interested in consuming the vista. I wanted nothing but the sound of the water and the thoughts in my head. I sat down on the outcropping and opened the floodgates.
Why hadn’t I helped Elijah find his missing daughter?
Because she wasn’t my daughter. And I resented her for it. She was supposed to be my daughter, and I’d been cheated. As irrational as it may sound on the face of it, I was angry with both of them for robbing me. I was more angry with them than I was with Adrestia—and it’d been her stupid revenge that’d left me alone in my trailer for more than a decade. Irrational or rational, I was who I was and, as I’d told Amanda, I didn’t think I would change.