Mirage

by Perry Brass

  He smiled, "Enkidu—I mean, Alan—what else would Greeland be? Arrogance is his problem in life; sometimes though, you must have a little bit of it to get by."

  Now I smiled. "Yes. A little bit doesn't hurt, does it? You're right."

  "You've changed," he said. "I mean, this is not like talking to the boy who left Ki."

  Well, was he right about that! No way was I the same boy who'd left Ki. I nodded my head in agreement. I started to get used to Woosh being there. We were talking like old buddies, not like a young man and a much older one. I asked him if he wanted to go back upstairs, where it was warmer and I'd get him some food.

  "No, I can't. I can't risk seeing Greeland. He has threatened me, you know? And the Blue Monkeys do not take well to being threatened. It has always been a problem with us. Why don't you bring me something? I can wait. This place doesn't really scare me. It looks like any other old cave to me."

  I ran back up the stairs as fast as my cold, bare feet could take me. Robert was waiting nervously. He asked me what the hell was going on. I told him we had a client downstairs. He was a con—a prisoner—who'd escaped from a local county jail. He was sick and couldn't take being in jail, so he managed to get out.

  "How'd he ever get in?" Robert asked.

  "Who knows? That was his specialty, breaking-and-entering; getting into places without anyone knowing. He's an old pro at it."

  "Should I go down there and help?"

  I told him no. He should just stay right up there, in fact, go back to his room. There was no telling when Wright would return. In fact, I didn't want Wright to know about it. If Wright got back before I returned, he was to detain him upstairs.

  "How do I do that?" he asked.

  "Just tell him a couple of stories about Fire Island and Key West," I suggested. "Where we come from, there are no such places. But then, maybe we don't need them."

  I hurried back up to our room, put on my sneakers and a pair of socks, and grabbed a warm, terry cloth robe, a pair of cotton sweat pants, and a black tee shirt that said, "SILENCE = DEATH." Then I went into the kitchen and made a tuna fish salad sandwich on whole wheat. There was a large bottle of Mountain Dew in the refrigerator, and I poured Woosh a glass.

  "What is this stuff?" Woosh said, biting cautiously into the sandwich. I told him it was very popular on earth. They caught these big fish called tuna. But sometimes, the tuna got mixed up with other fish called dolphins, who were intelligent mammals and spoke a language humans were trying to figure out. "I hope they treat the dolphins better than each other," he said and chewed the sandwich. "It's not bad tasting." He asked about the drink, and I told him the name of it, which in the language we spoke on Ki sounded extremely poetic. "It doesn't taste like mountain dew at all to me," he said.

  The tee shirt really intrigued him. I explained that it meant not talking about AIDS didn't keep you safe from it. He looked up at me. "Have you found the man?" he asked.

  I told him I thought so.

  "Good! You will be able to get him back. I believe that. This situation bothers Greeland, I know. But I'm sure you will be able to get him back."

  I asked him how would I do it?

  "When you share your seed with him, I will direct you. You will be able to reach me."

  "But I couldn't reach you before," I argued.

  "I was hiding from Greeland: he threatened to kill me if I didn't bring him back immediately. The last time you had sex and he took all of your seed—and didn't give you one damn drop of his own—he became too arrogant."

  "Wait a second, how did you know all this?"

  "I know. I know all these things. Like I said, you have a very strong thought beam. I had to hide myself very well on Ki when you came looking. Unfortunately, your beam didn't do a thing for Greeland; he seemed to be as impulsive as ever. But we talked for a long time."

  "A long time?"

  "Yes. Time bends through space. Greeland told me his story—his anguish at being here. His fears—the ordeal it has been to play so many roles. He is basically simple, but with the capacity for power. Many people share that characteristic—do not forget that."

  Suddenly I wondered what Greeland was afraid of. Woosh caught my thought in mid-air.

  "He is afraid you will leave him, and he will die alone on Earth. It haunts him. He cannot love anyone else except you. He's frightened by his own heart. I told him, no—he will have to come back with you. In your hands and Greeland's is the balance of the planet. That was the stipulation; I insisted on this, when we spoke that evening in the old man's hut, before you came. 'If you leave together, you must return together. To do otherwise would upset the balance.' I reminded him of our agreement."

  "But," I said to Woosh, "part of his fears come from Wright, who has never been able to trust Alan. I, myself, have always trusted Greeland."

  "On Earth, when he is Wright, he does not know that. Greeland is angry and jealous. He threatened to kill me if I did not allow him to return. I became frightened."

  "Why?" I asked. "You are in control of magic. You've lived so long. Greeland is no 'brainchild.' You told me he's simple. How could he kill you?"

  "Greeland is trusting and exquisitely sincere, even in his unfortunate malevolence. That is why the pain of betrayal is so deep for him. Please understand this: he will betray you and not think of it, but for you to betray him will kill him. As for me, there is always some higher knowledge, Enkidu—Alan—and at this point, only that knowledge can kill Woosh. Just as ignorance kills most people."

  I admitted that was true. "So what knowledge could Greeland possibly have that can kill you?"

  "Only a fool would say. I am sorry, my beloved son. It puts me at too much of a disadvantage. Now come back soon, dear boy. And bring this man. Only then will you—and Ki—be safe."

  A volt of anxiety shot through me, as I started to get cold in the basement. He saw me shivering.

  "Do you want to wear the robe?" he asked.

  I told him no.

  "Thank you for bringing me this fish-that-looks-like-other-fish and the water from the mountains. It will give me the strength to go back. Remember what I told you about trusting Greeland. Be careful."

  I grabbed his arm. "Wait, wait. Tell me, what will happen to Robert when we bring him back. He's going to die here if we don't bring him back. All of his will-to-live is leaving him. I can see it."

  "Good, good, he sounds like perfect material," Woosh said. "Now I must return."

  "No!!! Tell me, what will happen to Robert?"

  "My child, you have always known. He will be given to the Off-Sexers, instead of you. He has only two balls anyway. What they do with him will be their business. But you told me, he wouldn't live much longer regardless."

  "And if we don't bring him back?" I asked.

  "You will die."

  A moment later, he disappeared, getting smaller and smaller. At first he resembled the wrinkled, small mummy again. Then that shrank, until all the light around him darkened, and where he had been became—for an instant—black. My shoes suddenly felt lighter, as if I had lost half my weight: but in reality, it was because I felt stronger; as if Woosh had instilled in me some confidence that I never knew I had. There were no "butterflies" or fear in my stomach. Or in my mind for that matter. I looked on the slab. I saw the terry cloth robe, the sweat pants, the empty plate, and the glass that had been filled with Mountain Dew. But the tee shirt was gone, and I had no idea how he would manage to get that back.

  I picked up the other things, and started up the stairs. I switched off the blinding basement light, and—as silently as possible—closed the door behind me, replacing the bolt.

  I tiptoed up to the kitchen. I could hear voices in Robert's room. I put the dirty dishes in the sink, and threw the sweat pants and robe into the bathroom. When I walked into Robert's room, I saw that Wright was there, with George Marshall.

  Wright looked at me, and smiled. "Robert was just telling us the funniest story. Where've you been?"

/>   I told him I went out for a moment. I needed some air.

  "I didn't hear you come in."

  "I'm quiet as a ghost. What's the story?"

  "It was about a very proper Episcopal bishop on Fire Island," George said, chuckling. "He kept trying to baptize a boy—can you believe?—with Chivas Regal."

  "He didn't have any holy water," Robert said. "So he figured nothing's as holy as good Scotch. Chivas was the best stuff around. So why not?"

  "I guess you've met Robert?" I said to George. He told me he had.

  "He's a very clever young man," George said. "Very clever. Has Wright told you anything about our discovery?"

  I said no. I looked at Wright, very puzzled. "What discovery?"

  "George and I think we've made an amazing discovery," Wright said, starting to move toward the hall. "But we should talk about it downstairs, in the office. This really calls for a drink. The only reason why we're up here is that Robert called to us. I thought you'd be up here, so I took George on up. We haven't been able to budge Robert at all. He seems to like his room a lot."

  I looked at Robert and smiled. "We've made it as comfortable as we can for him." The room had become quite homey, and Robert had his things out. I suggested it was time to head downstairs. Downstairs wasn't anymore comfortable, but there was more space. There were crackers, cheese in the refrigerator, and some ice in the freezer. I asked Wright and George to meet us down there, while Robert stayed with me up in the kitchen "to help."

  "You sure you don't need more help?" Wright said to me, grabbing me and nuzzling my neck with his face.

  "Positively not," I said.

  I led Robert into the kitchen, and pulled some Ritz crackers out of one of the cabinets. There was cheddar in the fridge. I found some Dijon mustard there also. Before I reached for the ice—when I was sure that George and Wright were down in the office, I held Robert and kissed him. "How could I be so much in love with you?" I whispered.

  "You're nuts, that's how."

  "Where did you get the story about the bishop?"

  "I made it up. You said to detain him. Or them. Who is this George. He looks like a mutant. Did his mother get surprised by a gorilla?"

  "A gorilla and a refrigerator. Doesn't his voice sound like it was produced by a machine."

  "Why-do-you-ask-that-because-it-is-a-complete-monotone? Yes, it does. What happened to your friend?"

  I told Robert he was gone. He'd gone about as far away as Robert could imagine. Maybe even further.

  We put the cheese, crackers, mustard, a knife, and a bowl of ice on a cheap but nice chrome tray we'd picked up at thrift shop near the Eastern Market. I brought them downstairs. By the time we got to the office, George and Wright had opened a new bottle of Glenlivet, 12-Years Old, that Wright had been "hiding" in his desk drawer.

  "Ice. That often helps Scotch," George said, waving his glass. "But if you have to drink the stuff neat, it never insults you." He took a sniff from his glass. "Glenlivet," he sighed. "Excellent choice. It doesn't taste as peaty as Glenfiddich, know what I mean?"

  Wright smiled. "I think so," he said. "You have a way with words, George."

  "Smoother. Definitely more aristocratic, Wright."

  I clinked a few cubes into George's glass; he swirled around the amber liquid and took a deep chug of it. Although I hadn't been around that much, I'd swear George polished off Scotch like it was Kool-Aid. I put a cube in Wright's glass, poured Robert and myself some Scotch, and we dug into the cheese and crackers.

  George leaned his head back and made something that sounded like a tinny, ironic laugh. "This is the funniest story. But I think Wright should tell you."

  I looked at Wright, and he pursed his mouth and then grinned. "Okay," he said. "We begin. Remember I told you about those old photocopies of clay tablets George found in the Library of Congress about a year ago. Now, it seems that nobody—and I mean nobody—was interested in them. First, the academic world is scared of anything involving the big G-A-Y. Our Guv-ment ain't gonna fund nothing to do with ancient queers. And second, these tablets were pretty mushed up. They were hard to read; the cuneiform was all mixed up. Some of the writing was in Sumerian, which is very old and some was in Akkadian, which is pretty-damn old, and some in plain old Assyrian, which is a bit newer."

  I wondered how much of the Glenlivet Wright had swilled, the grin on his face was so shit-eating.

  "I never could have done it without you, buddy," George said. "I mean, it took me a year to get through the first two tablets. And between any good stuff, back then, I had to scratch through all the shit about who owned so many goats and had so many sheep. See, these people were great record keepers. That's why so much cuneiform reads straight from Peat, Marwick, Mitchell. Make no mistake about it, the world's oldest profession was not the whores, but the accountants. The whores were all freelancers. But you had to hire an accountant who could make these funny marks in the clay."

  I had no idea what he was getting at, but I did have an idea that Robert was getting bored. Robert was about as interested in cuneiform as he was in cunnilingus. Both were not his subjects.

  "So," George went on, "I was kind of at a loss, until old Wright came in. He filled in the gaps in my knowledge of these old scripts. Still, getting through it was difficult. On the fourth tablet, we got back into some really juicy stuff. I mean sex. I mean men. I mean it really goes into this account of male temple prostitutes, and who should visit them, and how they should be paid. It mentions several by name, and what they did—like real details. Some guys wore drag. Others took it up the ass. Others sucked dick. You remember that adjunct from Leviticus, about how "Man must not lie with man as with woman." Well, baby, that all came out of this. See, the truth is the ancient Hebrews had female temple prostitutes, but the idea of male ones was repugnant to them. They didn't mind the idea of homosexuality as much as they were repulsed by the idea of paying a man for his favors and then giving the priests a cut of it, since the priests—including the Hebrew ones—were often homosexual as well. Dig it?"

  "Yes," I said, casually. "I dig it."

  "Don't make fun of me," George groaned. "Okay, I'm not the hip type. But Wright and I found this all very interesting. Then last night, I was all by myself, and I had nothing better to do—I had already looked at all my dirty magazines and jerked off till I was blue. In other words, I was bored. So I got out the photocopy of the sixth tablet, and suddenly I flipped out."

  Wright started laughing. He laughed so hard his hands shook.

  "What's so funny?" I asked.

  For a moment, Wright couldn't answer. Then he finally controlled himself. "George called me and he asked, 'Have you ever heard of the myth of the three bald men?' Well, I'd never heard of these bald men before. So I said no. None of my mythology books ever talked about three men with nothing on their heads. I didn't think anything of it. I thought George had gone crazy, till he dragged me over this evening."

  "Jesus, "George wailed. "Not bald! They weren't bald at all. They had hair all over. I was trying to tell Wright about three-balled men. They had three nuts. That was what was on the tablet. And I'd never heard of it. So I had to get Wright right over to make sure I was reading the right thing."

  "About the three-balled men?" I said.

  "Exactly," Wright said, looking directly at me.

  Robert's mouth dropped open. "Maybe it was just genetic," he suggested. "Some kind of funny freakiness."

  George twisted his mouth, to show he was thinking. "Could be. But according to this tablet, these strange guys crawled all over Uruk, where Gilgamesh was king. As well as that burg called Ur, where Daddy Abraham said he wanted his God to be the head guy. Eventually, we find them in Nippur, the center of Sumeria. They were employed as temple prostitutes to the goddess Inanna, the goddess of love and war, later known as Ishtar, her Babylonian name."

  "I've heard of Ishtar," Robert said.

  "Haven't we all?" George said, wryly. "Everybody knows about Ishtar, because she b
ecame incorporated into other goddesses. Like Aphrodite, whose husband, Mars, was War. But that's not the interesting thing, is it, Wright?"

  "No," Wright said, slowly. "In the beginning, there were a lot of them at Uruk, working the street for Ishtar, but in the end—" his voice went lower, "we found out from the seventh tablet that we started today—they were all slaughtered."

  "Slaughtered?" I said.

  "Sure wasn't nice," George said. "Either slaughtered or taken prisoner. Made to do demeaning slave labor. By the time the Assyrians took over—and they could be a nasty bunch—it was all over for them, the men of Ishtar. But some—we mean these special, three-testicled men—survived. They finally ended up in Nippur—about sixty miles away—where they were employed at the temple of another goddess."

  "Who was that?" I asked

  "One not very well known," Wright said. "In fact, most Sumerians ignored her."

  "Yes," George said. "The goddess Ki."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "Ki?" I asked.

  "Exactly," Wright explained. "The three-balled men stayed on as temple prostitutes in the service of the goddess Ki. They must have been less visible there than in a larger temple, because Ki had become such a minor goddess. See, Ki had started out being a great goddess. Big as any. She had given birth to the Earth, the same way that An, the heaven god, had given birth to the sky. She was like Gaea, the Greek goddess we associate with earthly balance. But after about a thousand years—as Sumerian culture became more warlike and patriarchal—she was demoted."

  "Poor thing," George sighed, "kicked to the lowest rung of the Pantheon."

  I bit my bottom lip. I could have been knocked over by a feather. "What happened to those men?" I asked.

  "Shucks, we don't know," George said. "But we're going to try to find out. I think this will make one fascinating paper for the Smithsonian. They probably will never believe us."