by Paul Neuhaus
“Yeah. Barring trouble, I don’t expect to be there long. After that, I need a lift to a mountain range in Greece. I can point out the exact location on a map.”
“Okay,” Sebastian said. “We’ll work out the details. I’ve got you a private jet into Armenia and a helicopter for local travel. Before you land there, I’ll have figured out Armenia to Greece.”
“You’re good,” I said with a smile.
“This is true,” he agreed. “Are you going to need anything special in Caucasus?”
I nodded. “Mmm-hmm. I’m gonna need the biggest bolt cutters you can find.”
Elijah was right. The trailer was exactly as I’d left it—which marked the second time I’d been tricked into thinking it’d been burned down. As I unlocked the front door, I wondered why Prometheus had built that bit into his artificial reality. I guess he’d intended for El and I to get together and make a baby inside of his pocket universe. Something to keep me contented and out of his hair. He must’ve gathered enough intel on me to know how I’d react given certain variables. That made me queasy to think about, so I promptly put it out of my head.
Without turning on any lights, I plopped down on the couch and realized how weird it was Hope wasn’t around.
I was awakened a few hours later by an insistent pounding on my front door. I’d fallen asleep where’d I’d been sitting on the couch and I was disoriented by the noise—especially since I hadn’t been inside my trailer in ages. Finally, I wiped the drool from my lips and opened up. Sebastian Squire was on my porch looking more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than anyone had a right to. I’d take him over a bunch of blackshirts. “Come on, come on,” he said. “Do you want a ride or not? Look at you, you haven’t even changed out of yesterday’s clothes. You haven’t showered.”
“Can you give me ten minutes?” I said, my adrenaline suddenly pumping.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s a private jet.”
“Come on in. It won’t take me long to get ready.”
“Do your thing. I’ll wait in the limo.”
I looked past him and, sure enough, there was a big black limousine parked next to the Firebird. “You know, it woulda helped if you’d let me know.”
“I tried calling,” he said. “They must’ve cut off your phone.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t pay your bill for a year.”
He nodded, and I shut the door behind him. I then took a world record shower (partly because I was in a hurry and partly because the water was ice cold). I then threw on some outdoorsy clothes, exited the trailer, locked up behind myself and dashed out to the limo. I got in the back with Squire and he signaled his driver to get underway.
We drove to the Santa Monica airport and right onto the runway next to a sleek little jet. “Is this your plane?” I said to Squire.
He shook his head sadly. “‘Fraid not. It’s a loaner. My fortunes have fallen ever since I led a guerrilla raid on Der Fuehrer.”
“Yeah, well. That’ll happen.”
“So, yeah, the plane belongs to a good friend of mine. Don’t stop up the john.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He flicked me a salute. “Since you won’t give us an itinerary, how will we know when you’re back?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know. I’m totally winging it.”
“I can’t tell you how comforting I find that,” he said, and he was just deadpan enough that I almost missed the sarcasm. “There are some absolutely massive bolt cutters under your seat. I hope you’ve got the upper body strength to use them.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Okay, good. Did you remember your passport?”
I flushed. “I don’t think I have a passport,” I said, on the verge of a panic attack.
Sebastian flashed a devious grin. “Just kidding. This plane belongs to a rich man. International laws don’t apply to the wealthy.”
With that, he turned and went back to his car. I turned and went up the stairs into the jet.
Soon after takeoff, I fell asleep again and slept through the whole flight. Not surprising since I was both physically and existentially exhausted. When we landed, a nice man dressed like Captain Stubing from The Love Boat roused me. “Miss Weir?” he said. “I think Mr. Ohanian is already on the runway to meet you.”
“Mr. Ohanian?” I said.
The pilot looked down at a slip of paper in his right hand. “Apkar Ohanian. He’s your local contact. I’m told he’ll take you where you need to go.”
I nodded and again wiped the drool off of my lips. “Do you have a toothbrush?” I asked. “I’m afraid I packed pretty light.”
“Of course,” he said, smiling. “There’re individually wrapped toiletry kits in the head.” He pointed, and I went where I was directed. After I freshened up, I returned to the main cabin, claimed the bolt cutters from underneath my seat and exited the plane.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was Apkar Ohanian. He was a role-poly little man who reminded me of Peter Ustinov, the late actor. He wore a striped sweater, corduroys and hiking shoes. The long sleep had dulled my social graces and I told him he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who could lead an expedition on foot.
Ohanian smiled a pained smile. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “I’ve eaten more than my fair share of baklava. That’s why we’re going where you need to go in my helicopter.”
“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my temples. “I completely forgot about the whirlybird.”
He turned and walked toward a very modern-looking helicopter. “Right this way,” he said.
I fell into step behind him and I kicked myself mentally. Two minutes in Armenia and I’d already gotten off on the wrong foot with my contact. “I’m sorry. Can we start over? I’m Dora. Dora Weir.” I held out my hand and he shook it over his right shoulder.
“Hello, Dora Weir. I’m Apkar Ohanian.”
“Nice to meet you, Apkar. I’m not an ugly American, I swear.”
“Are you an ugly Greek?”
“Touché. Please don’t throw me out of your helicopter, Mr. Ohanian.”
Once we were aloft, Ohanian proved to be a very genial fellow. He had a thermos of some of the strongest coffee I’d ever tasted, and he showed me the details of his nearby city. Vanadzor, the place was called. It was small, but it looked beautiful from the air.
Over the sound of the rotors, he asked me the obvious question. “You came here from California, right?” I nodded. “And you’re headed into Caucasus…” I nodded again. “For the love of God, why?”
“Not exactly the garden spot of the region?”
He shrugged with his shoulders and adjusted his headphones. “It’s alright, I guess. I just can’t figure out why a lady—who isn’t exactly dressed for the occasion—drops everything for a whirlwind tour of the ass-end of nowhere.”
I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing a jacket, but the Bullwinkle t-shirt probably wouldn’t provide adequate warmth in the higher elevations. “I assume they gave you exact coordinates…” I replied.
“They did. Very, very specific.”
“And no one’s ever been up there?”
“To that particular spot? I have no idea.” He grabbed a computer print-out and looked at it briefly. “What’s so special about—?” He read off the latitude and longitude of our destination.
I struggled with exactly how much to tell my pilot. If I told him that there was a big rock at that location and, over the course of thousands of years, not one but two gods had been tortured on that rock, I was afraid he might throw me out of the helicopter for real. I squinted and said, “Sometimes it’s better not to know, Apkar.”
“Alright,” he said. “The check already cleared. What the fuck do I care?”
Sebastian Squire had given very strict instructions. Ohanian was to land in a clearing a short distance away from the rock and wait for my return. Once we were on the ground, I grabbed my giant bolt cutte
rs and marched off through the underbrush. On the other side of a thick stand of trees was the rock exactly as described in myth and legend. It was mostly square and very flat. At each of the corners was a bracket to which was attached a length of chain. Each chain ended in a manacle. The manacles bound the wrists and ankles of a naked man with a bird sitting between his legs. The bird—a buzzard—had torn open the man’s abdomen and was feasting upon his liver. The man was, needless to say, not happy about this. In fact, he was moaning pitifully. I climbed up onto the rock and said, “Hold still” to the man. Then I brained the buzzard with the gigantic bolt cutters. I smashed its super-gross, nut sack-y looking head right in. Once it was dead, I kicked it off the rock and said to the man, “Hold tight. This might take a while.” Even as I set about trying to cut the chains, the guy’s abdomen started to close.
Zeus raised his chin and looked at me. “Pandora? Is that you?”
“The one and only.”
“What—? I mean what—?”
“It’s a long story,” I replied as I laid into the first chain. This won’t surprise you, but the chain was as strong as a motherfucker. In fact, it was too strong. I have better than average upper body strength, but I couldn’t get the cutters to so much as nick the thick links. “Holy, shit. Who made these chains?”
“Hephaestus,” Zeus said as he laid there looking up at the sun.
“Of course. You know I really wish he’d done a shittier job because this ain’t working.”
The allfather sighed and said. “Okay, hold on. Give me a minute.” The god took a deep breath, gathered his strength and waited for the hole in his gut to completely reseal. Then, one arm at a time, he snapped the chains with two mighty flexes of his powerful arms. Then he rose at the waist and ripped the chains off that held his ankles.
I threw the bolt cutters aside and glared at him. “Are you telling me you could’ve done that at any time? Why would you just sit there and be tortured like that?”
His expression was easy to read. It said, “Maybe I deserved it”. Despite that, his mouth muttered a barely audible, “I dunno”. Just to give you some context, Zeus looks like British actor Clive Owen if British actor Clive Owen had a full beard and was ripped as a motherfucker. Zeus also has one of the biggest dicks I’ve ever seen. Which is not to say Clive Owen doesn’t have a big dick. I honestly couldn’t say one way or the other. What I was dealing with was a super-fit, naked Clive Owen-looking motherfucker who appeared to be inhabited by a mopey teen girl.
“Look,” I said. “I see you’re feeling a little out of sorts, but we can talk about it on the plane. I really need your help, so if you could just stand up and— “
He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. He said something just outside the range of my hearing.
“What’s that? Speak up. You sound like you have a mouth full of marbles.”
“But I’m naked, I said.”
Right. That could constitute a problem. I didn’t know if Armenia had any laws vis a vis the transport of nude men via light aircraft, but I did need to take Apkar Ohanian’s comfort into account. For some reason, I looked around at my surroundings as if I expected to see an Armani suit hanging from a nearby tree limb. Finally, I did the only thing I could think of to do. I took off my shirt and handed it to him. “Here,” I said. “See if you can fashion that into some kind of diaper.”
Zeus took the t-shirt and did his best to make it work. I felt bad for Bullwinkle as I watched the poor moose go face-to-taint. “Now you’re naked,” the former king of Olympus said.
He was right about that. I never have been one for brassieres. I looked around again as if I expected Nature to provide a Rocky the Flying Squirrel top to replace the one I’d just given up. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.”
Ohanian happened to be looking our way when we emerged from the thicket. A giant man in an ill-fitting diaper and a topless woman with no regard for modesty. He watched us, slack-jawed, until we reached the helicopter and got in. “Apkar, this is… Zach. Zach, this is Apkar.” He started to say something, but I interjected as quickly as I could. “You said the check already cleared, right?” He nodded, taking my meaning right off. Before he fired up the rotors, he took off his striped sweater and passed it to me. Underneath he was wearing a “Don’t forget the Alamo” t-shirt. “You’re a real gentleman, Apkar Ohanian,” I said as I slipped into the sweater.
Turns out our private jet had a stewardess on board. I’d never met her because I’d slept through the whole flight. She proved handy when we sent her into nearby Vanadzor to buy Zeus some proper clothes. As I was telling her what to buy and in what sizes, I noticed a spark between she and Zeus. Not surprising since Zeus is one of the horniest creatures that’s ever walked the planet. Motherfucker used to disguise himself as other things—people, animals, inanimate objects—just to get his fuck on. I felt bad for the stewardess since none of Zeus’ paramours ever profited from their encounters with the god. On the other hand, the flirtation showed me that Zeus wasn’t so mired in his depression he’d overlook some nookie.
As we sat around waiting for the girl to come back, I said to Zeus, “So… How ya been?”
The big man shrugged with his shoulders and muttered, “I dunno.”
“Do you wanna know what I think?”
“I guess.”
“I think that you’re working a martyr complex. I think that you buggered off to… wherever gods go when they’re buggering off, and you hated it. There was no more excitement, there was no more glory, and, more importantly, there was no more mortal pussy to win. Does that sound right?”
“I dunno.”
“Look up. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I almost laughed when he looked up at me. There was just so much teen girl in his demeanor. His body language said plainly, “I’ll look up but only ‘cause you’re making me”.
“So, you fucked off, you got bored, you got depressed and then this whole thing happened with Prometheus and, suddenly, you could say, ‘See?! I was right about being wrong!’ And so, you lapsed into this whole… thing you’re doing right now. With the ‘I don’t care’ and the ‘Whatever’. Well, guess what? It’s time to come down off of the cross. We need the wood.”
Zeus sighed as if the whole weight of the world had just come down on his shoulders. “What’re you even talking to me about right now?”
“Here’s what I’m talking about: You and me’re gonna raise an army, storm Olympus and put you back on the throne. Before we can do that, obviously, I need you to get up off your candy-ass and pitch in.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me. Then he burst into wracking sobs with tears streaming down his face. I felt bad immediately. I went over, sat down next to him, and put my arm around his massive shoulders. “It’s okay, it’s okay. There’s a good boy. It’s okay.”
So, yeah, maybe Tough Love hadn’t been the right approach.
Okay, sure, Zeus is a god, and he can hurl lightning and transform into shit and all of that, but, when you strip all that away, he’s wired a lot like the rest of us. And by the rest of us, I mean “humans” first and “Greeks” second. Just from talking to him for a couple of hours, I realized how like us the Olympians truly are. Forget for a second that I told you I was talking about Zeus. Wouldn’t you think a guy who’s own father ate him alive while he was still a baby would be entitled to a little neuroses? From what little I remember about my dad, he was a kind and simple man. I can’t even imagine being born and immediately being on the menu. The truth is, Zeus did a great job keeping his insecurities under wraps for a really long time. The cracks didn’t start to show until he retired. Although, now that I think about it, maybe he’d been acting out with all that aggressively sexual behavior.
When we touched down in the Motherland, Zeus was curled up into a ball in his seat, fast asleep. I regretted having to wake him, but he stirred without complaint. “Wow,” he said. “I dreamed
I was a lightning bug.”
“You dreamed you were a lightning bug?”
“Yeah. I was just flitting around, and I was all glow-y.”
“Do you think maybe the lightning bit was symbolic in some way?”
That stopped him cold and a thoughtful expression filled his wide face. “Huh. I didn’t think of that. You’re smart. I mean like really smart.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling my hands up into the sleeves of Apkar Ohanian’s striped sweater. The stewardess had gotten Zeus a pair of chinos and a simple black tee. He looked like a million bucks.
“Too smart to have fallen for the whole pithos full of Evil trick,” he said with a mischievous grin. “What were you thinking?”
I glared at him. “Says the guy who baited and set the trap.”
He suddenly looked sad again. “You’re right. I shouldn’t’ve done that. I was kind of dick back in the day. I wanted to say I was sorry before—when I offered you the chance to fuck off—but I was still too deep into the stoic leader trip I was on. This Prometheus thing has been… humbling.”
I nodded. “I know it has. Don’t sweat it.”
“No,” he said with some force. “I need to sweat more things. When I need to say I’m sorry, I should say it. When I need to thank someone, I should thank them. So, thank you. You know, for the talk last night. It was really helpful.”
His gratitude was touching in its sincerity. “You’re more than welcome,” I said. “And I apologize.”
“For what?”
“For keeping you up so late you didn’t get to bop the stewardess.”
“Oh no,” he said, his smile returning. “I bopped the stewardess. As soon as you went to sleep.”
“Of course, you did.”