Instead, I sit there every night and wait for Joyce to come back to her shanty and sit outside in a chair, too. I wait for her to come and take that chair and talk with me and tell me that she loves me. That Momma loves me. I wait for that, but every night, over the past few weeks, she leaves the fire and follows Terrance into his shanty. I’ve sat in my chair, boiling, as they grunt and make moist, animal sounds, nearly knocking their damned makeshift shelter down. Sometimes Sam stays by the fire, pretends not to notice. Sometimes he looks over the fire, toward me, where I sit a million miles away, still flooded with the ugly sounds. Sometimes Sam looks at me and his face turns red and he spends the rest of the night with his eyes downturned to the dirt until he finally lies down, rolls on his side, and rattles the earth with his deep snores.
Tonight’s no different, except that I decide to leave my post where I’ve simmered for too many days and I walk over to Sam, who’s twiddling his thumbs, open-mouthed, his big fat bottom lip glistening in the firelight. I sink into the grey dirt next to him, cross-legged, and pat him on the back. He shrugs his mammoth shoulders and I wait for the close night-clouds to push away from his effort.
“Why the long face?” I pick a stick up and place it in the fire, out of habit.
“Long face,” Sam says in his dumb voice.
“Yeah, big guy. Why do you look so sad?”
“Sad,” Sam repeats.
“Yeah, but… come on, you can talk to me, big guy,” I tell him, my hand tiny on his granite shoulder.
“All gone,” Sam says.
“What’s gone?”
“Them.”
“Who’s them?”
“Kenneth. Our party. All gone.”
“There ya go, pal. There ya go. Now, tell me, where do you think they went?”
“Left. They left.”
“Why? Why do you think they left?”
Sam doesn’t say anything. He looks into the fire, then over toward Terrance’s shanty where a sharp unnhh unfurls and slaps up against the close night sky.
“Kenneth sent you guys to my Kingdom planning to leave you all behind, didn’t he?” I ask, pulling my stick out of the fire and stabbing it into my rubber boots, seeing how much they’ll melt.
“Mmm…” Sam grunts.
“You’re a nice guy, Sam.”
“You’re nice too, Clyde.”
“See, you don’t call me ‘kid,’ or ‘mutt.’ That’s real nice of you, Sam.”
“Real nice.”
“So, you got left behind because Kenneth wanted to ditch Joyce and Terrance, is that right?”
“I don’t… I don’t…”
“It sounds to me like you got the short end of the stick, big guy.”
“They’re my friends,” Sam says, taking the stick from me and placing it in the fire. He lets it sit there a few seconds, then puts it in his mouth and sucks.
“But you didn’t really deserve to be left behind, you know. I mean, if Joyce was with Kenneth and she decided to… be with that splotchy rat-fucker, Terrance…”
“They’re my friends,” Sam repeats.
“I know, buddy, but I’m your friend, too. And if I made a mistake, I wouldn’t let you get kicked out of my Kingdom—not for my own mistake. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Mmm…”
“Listen, Sam, I know you can talk. I know you know what I’m saying. I know you understand it. So why don’t you talk? I mean, at least… why don’t you talk more?”
“I…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t like…”
“Don’t like what? Don’t like talking? Don’t like me?”
“Don’t like my voice.”
“Why not?”
“I know I sound… stupid. I sound… dumb. I’m… slow…”
“You’re not slow. And you shouldn’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Especially not that rat-fucker, Terrance. He’s the worst. Don’t listen to the things he says. You shouldn’t have a second’s thought about that. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re…. Well, Jesus, Sam, you’re fucking enormous! You’re incredible! You’re like something out of all those goddamned epic poems I’ve read!”
“Poems.”
“Yeah! And you know what people used to worship more than God before they all became so pointless that they decided they could destroy the planet?”
“Hmm…”
“Poems. I tell ya, there were some great ones. The world, when it was early in the making, and long for the taking, was all poetry, man. My Momma used to read that shit to me. I mean, it was all poetry, and then suddenly there were a few hundred years of no poetry, and, BOOM, this is the world we live in. You understand?” I pat him on the shoulder.
“Poetry.”
“Yeah, poetry. I’ll read some to you sometime, if you’d like. My Momma used to read me poetry from way back when… like, the twentieth century, even. Poems by Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, T.S. Eliot… John Ashbery. I could read you those guys. But the giants—the poetry that told of magnificent creatures such as yourself, Sam—well, we have to go further back for that. To old dudes like Homer and Ovid. I could read you that stuff, too. But, I’m telling ya, Sam, you are the stuff legends are made of. And so are kings. Kings. Do you know what a king is, Sam?”
“King.”
“Kings are rulers. Rulers of land. Rulers of people. And do you know what I am?”
“King.”
“That’s right, Sam. I’m a king. I am King Clyde The Destroyer, and I rule over this land. This whole land, from wall to wall to wall to wall, is mine. It was mine before you three got here, and it’s still mine now.”
“It’s… your… land…”
“That’s right, pal!” I say and smack his back, my hand nearly breaking like an egg against it. “And when others are in a king’s domain, they do as he says. Have you ever been among a king before?”
“Kenneth,” Sam says, putting the stick back in the fire.
“But where is Kenneth?”
“Gone.”
“And when has Kenneth ever stayed in one place?”
Sam pulls the stick from the fire, sucks on it, and turns his head toward me.
“See? He’s not a king, Sam. He’s not. He’s a nomad. And I guess nomads can have leaders, but they can’t have kings. Kings are linked to land.”
“I understand.”
“Good,” I tell him. “Good. So, you understand I’m your friend. But I’m also your King.”
Another wild grunt rolls out of Terrance’s shanty, tumbles toward us, and dies in the fire. The garbage mountains shudder in the night.
“You’re king,” Sam says.
“I like talking with you, Sam,” I say.
Sam’s face grows wider with a giant grin. He laughs, squinty eyed, and says, “I like talking with you too, friend.”
“Good. Good,” I tell him. “Because we have some pressing work at hand.”
My car! It’s flying! It’s really really flying! I was zoom-zooming along in one of the doorless and windowless hotrods in The Used Car Lot, heading right for all those jagged junk mountains in the east when, suddenly, the front wheels pulled out of the grey earth with a deeply satisfying suction sound, and all I could see before me was that close grey sky pulsing and flickering like a fish’s belly due to the lightning above it. But I was flying! And I swear that sky was coming closer and closer as I zipped upward. Soon I would be above it and I would be reminded that the sky is blue and big and far away. I would finally see that blue for the first time since I was a dumb little baby.
Then: ka-clunk-clunk-clank! I come crashing back to Earth, the car squeaking and bouncing on its shredded tires. Sam looms before the car, a monument of flesh and bone nearly blocking out the trash ranges behind him, rubbing his hands together and twirling his neck free of kinks.
I wasn’t really flying, of course. Not really. Sam simply did as I ordered and lifted the car as best he could, giving me the
illusion of flying. Which was really great! My imagination is something else, I tell ya, but having Sam here is something like that virtual reality I’ve read about in old magazines. And, boy, with Terrance and Joyce all but ignoring the two of us, I could use some virtual reality and Sam could use something to do. He’s used to being bossed around by those two—told to dig up that trash mountain, relocate that garbage heap, run down that jack rabbit, etc.—that he was seriously becoming restless, having nothing to do and no motivation to give himself something to do.
So, here I am, being the good King, yet again.
Even though he’s one of my lowly subjects, Sam has become like a brother to me. We’ve visited The Library where I read Beowulf and other poems with giants to him. Sam got sad because giants are always monsters and bad guys and, in the epic hero tradition, were always defeated and slaughtered. Their large heads rolled through town as peasants carried their hero, seated on a golden chair, through the streets. He asked me if he was a monster and I said no but that I expected to be carried around my Kingdom on a golden throne should I ever slay him. Sam didn’t think that was funny until I told him it was funny and ordered him to laugh. I slugged him on the arm and said, “Laugh, dammit! That’s funny,” and he rubbed his arm, aimed his eyes downward, and chuckled quietly. “Good,” I said, picking at the trash surrounding my big rubber boots as I laughed, too.
We’ve had a great time lately!
Sam also carries me on his shoulders and sprints through the twisting lanes and avenues between all these massive rubbish alps. Even though Sam isn’t a hotrod, that’s better than the flying-car routine, really. Sam really tears up the turf, you know what I mean? And up on his shoulders, I may as well be up there with those fucking birds. On Sam’s shoulders I probably don’t even need my trusty slingshot to brain those fucking birds and drop them out of the grey clouds. No, I could probably just stick my hand out and wring their scrawny little birdy necks. Easy as that.
Since Sam and I have become such good friends, like brothers, I’ve also been smelling a lot better. Me and Sam have been taking regular trips to The Drinking and Washing Fountain where I strip down to my birthday suit and he washes my clothes while I throw buckets of water over my head and watch all the grey slip off and sink into all the grey surrounding me. Washing up really has become a whole lot easier now that I know the water won’t melt me like it did that bad old Wicked Witch of the West.
In The Used Car Lot now, Sam’s breathing a little heavy from holding the car up for a long time.
“I didn’t tell you to put the car down yet,” I yell at Sam through the imaginary windshield.
“Sorry,” he says, blowing on a cut on his palm. I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten tetanus yet. Or maybe he has and Sam became dickless long ago. How would I know?
I keep my hands on the steering wheel and stare at him standing there at the front of the car, narrowing my eyes at him until he says sorry again.
“That’s OK, big guy. But don’t let it happen again.”
“OK,” he says in his slow, low voice.
“You know, Sam,” I say, my mood brightening.
“Yeah, Clyde?”
“You’re like a brother to me, you know.”
His big dumb face glows and he says, “Brother?”
“Sure, big guy. You know, I had a brother once.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. And I miss him a lot. He wasn’t around for long, but I still miss him,” I tell Sam, remembering the baby I carved out of Momma. In this moment’s recollection, I believe I heard it weakly cry. Or maybe its little blood-filled mouth moved for just a second before I’d flung the tiny thing off into Hades.
“You miss him,” Sam says, nodding at me.
“I do. But, you know, Sam—you’re a pretty good replacement, I guess.”
“Clyde like a brother, too,” Sam says, still nodding.
“But I’m still your Lord and King,” I remind him.
“Uh-huh,” he says through a grin.
“Great. Now make the car fly again. And don’t drop it this time until I tell you.”
PART TWO
22
“This way!” I yell into the wind at Joyce, who’s only a few feet in front of me. The wind’s as thick and heavy as a mountain of rusty refrigerators and it’s pushing me back, away from Joyce. We were on a stroll after visiting Rosa and Petunia at The Library. Joyce read to me from The Aeneid and let me place my head to her heart while she read about poor Dido (she thought I was trying to hide my tears!). I relished in the story, as well as her metallic, dusty, and salty scent, and the soothing tone of her voice set to the beat of her heart. We weren’t far from The Library when I felt the first waft of God’s Breath. I knew it immediately. God’s Breath always starts with a huff, as if God suddenly realized how bored she was with all of this—us and this planet of garbage. And so God huffs and sighs. It’s hot and quick at first. There’s one, two, three, and then God tries to blow everything away, like Papa erasing drawings he decided were no good. God wants to start over. So far she’s failed, but what do I know? Maybe God’s Breath, over the course of time, will erase the planet. And while it may feel like thousands of years to us humans, perhaps it’s just a few days or even a few minutes to God. Thus, she seems to be in no real rush. Not to us, at least.
“Come on!” I yell against that fat, forceful gale. “This way!” I reach through the heavy curtains of wind to take Joyce’s hand.
“Where are we going?” Joyce shouts, her face strained, her eyes tearing up from the smacking gusts. Just then a large crunching, clicking, and cracking sound whips up from the earth. Behind Joyce a cyclone of garbage twists into the low sky. It’s not the biggest one I’ve seen, but it’s pretty big and as bits of metallic debris fly past us I don’t have to be reminded how dangerous they are, no matter how big or small. In the cyclone, I can see objects as big as flat-screen TVs flying.
“We’re going to The Cellar Door!” I tell Joyce, holding onto her hand not only to keep her from being torn from the earth into one of those trash twisters, but to keep myself from being sucked up into one, as well. Fortunately, The Cellar Door is in the opposite direction and instead of running as if under water, we’re gliding eastward, our feet barely skimming the earth, traveling almost as fast as when Sam hoists me upon his shoulders and gallops like all those beautiful extinct horses I’ve read about.
“What about Terrance?” she asks as our bodies are turned into billowing ship sails.
I ignore her and she asks about Sam and I tell her the big lug will be just fine—that there’s no twister on the planet that could possibly wrench that mountain from the earth.
“We have to find Terrance!” she screams again but my grip is strong and with the wind at our backs I’m easily able to guide her through the twisting lanes surrounded by mountains of trash suddenly come to life. It’s like the mountains are the skin of a sleeping giant, and the giant’s just woken up shivering. My Kingdom is anxious and angry and loud, full of clanking and jangling and crashing. Another rust-colored cyclone rips away from the garbage heaps and gyrates toward us, spitting splintered wood and shattered glass at us. A dented, doorless microwave javelins into the grey dirt a few feet away from us. Joyce is still yelling at me but I can no longer hear her over the din and babel of enraged junk. When the most massive twister I’ve seen in my whole damned life takes shape in the west, stretching up into the grey sky higher than ten trash mountains piled atop each other, I’m certain Joyce and I are not going to be forgiven for our trespasses, and God’s Breath will be our Final Judgement before we’re lifted up from the dirt, flung through the clouds and up into space where we’ll hit the sun’s bullseye in God’s impromptu game of darts.
Then I see it: The Cellar Door. It’s the metal door I’d placed over the hole I’d dug in preparation for God’s Breath, which I’d known was coming soon but had been so distracted lately that I’d forgotten. It’s where I first tried to hide from these fucking Out
-of-Towners. These interlopers who’ve decided to become my new family despite my dead mother’s objections. But, like I’ve told Momma over and over, they aren’t my new family. They’re my loyal subjects.
Joyce still screams at me, but I can’t hear her, and with how well I’ve been eating lately, I’ve grown healthy and strong. With my new strength and God’s Breath at my back, I’m able to shove aside the massive, heavy door and pull Joyce down into the earth with me. In the hole, I slide the door back into place. It’s pitch black and the rumblings of the junkyard are muffled and distant-sounding now, and I wonder if that’s the way I sound to Momma and Papa when I sit over their graves talking to them.
Joyce is muttering and crying, I think, still going on about Terrance. I snatch the leather belt I’ve fixed to the underside of the metal door, pull downward, and hold tight. I instruct Joyce to grab on and help me. The door rattles above us, tempted to fly up into God’s billowing mouth, but stays in place. We stay this way for a long damn time. Like an hour, maybe. At some point, Joyce quits her mumblings and crying and I take that opportunity to remind her that I’ve saved her life. That I’m her savior.
Despite God’s goddamned “infinite wisdom,” Terrance survived God’s Breath, as well. Besides asking that the sun come back tomorrow, I don’t often pray. There were a few moments, however, when Joyce and I were keeping a tight grip on that belt affixed to that metal door where I prayed to God that Joyce and I would survive. I also prayed that Terrance would be sucked up into Hades.
But that’s the thing—while I may be a king, and that makes me the Lord of my land, I am not God. And that’s a shame. I’d be a good God. I’d be better than this God, anyhow. Because this God is clearly deaf, dumb, and blind. She doesn’t listen to us and she doesn’t care. I’ve read a few self-help books on psychology (once after I ate Grace and once after I flung my baby brother into Hades) and I know that a key signifier of psychopathy is a complete lack of empathy. And what is God but a complete lack of empathy? I think about my folks in that same way. What is parenthood but a complete lack of empathy? Who in their right mind brings life into this world? Be it God or a lady and a man putting their parts together and humping. Yet, it keeps happening. Life, that is. Dirty, rotten life. “Life finds a way,” a great book once said. But why should it? Even though I thought there were very few animals left on this planet because I rarely see birds and had hardly ever seen a jack rabbit or rat in the last several years, they are still out there, crawling around tunnels of trash and into labyrinths beneath the earth. I just didn’t know how to look for them until Terrance showed me. One thing he’s been good for, I suppose, though I still hate that ratty faced motherfucker. Joyce barely gives me any attention now that she’s boinking him on a regular basis. I don’t get it. I’m already getting bigger than him. I’m sure my pecker’s bigger, too!
The Sun My Destiny Page 11