Ten Thousand Gods Season 1 Episode 1

by Jim Hodgson

  In the end, he had to open the door himself. Bernice's phone bleeped, she picked it up, said "Can do" into it, and then gestured for him to go in. He stood, straightened his pants and shirt, and went in.

  #

  Phineas found Dr. Losscraft behind his desk and Dave Thomas sitting on a couch to the right. Dave gave a wan smile that reminded Phineas of one he'd seen on his own mother's face when the family dog had been hit by a car. Dr. Losscraft was using an ornamented pair of silver pliers to crack walnuts over a wooden bowl.

  Phineas had always thought the man had a bullish quality about him. He had a thick body and wide set eyes, but more than that, his expression seemed somehow dazed yet aggressive. Losscraft always wore pleated pants, tassel loafers, and a braided leather belt, as though he'd been forced to dress himself while being chased by a madman through a cheap department store and had never gone back to make any more considered choices. One eye was lidded, which often made his expression look as though he was trying to decide if he'd just heard a strong insult about his mother.

  Phineas had been impressed that Dr. Losscraft was a doctoral degree holder, until he learned the degree was in Business Administration. He chided himself. Surely it was as involved as any course of study. But business administration, really? The rumor was that Losscraft had never wanted to leave college, but his father, the founder of the Atlanta Record and later a congressman, used his financial and political influence to urge the school to graduate his son. Eventually there were no more degrees to earn, and Dr. Losscraft had been forced to graduate. When his father passed, he'd taken the helm of the Record.

  "Sit down, Phinney," he said, prizing a walnut from a cracked shell and popping it in his mouth. When Phineas was seated, he said, "Okay, Davey, go ahead."

  Dave shifted on the couch. "Phineas," he began, "the Record, um." Dave looked at Losscraft for help but was met with only nut crunching and a gaze that bespoke mild interest.

  "I have a few things I'd like to say," Phineas said.

  Dr. Losscraft shook Phineas off with his head, speaking around a mouthful. "Not how this works. C'mon Davey. Go."

  Dave shifted again. Hands fidgeted. "Phineas, the Record is moving in a different direction." He looked at Losscraft again as if to say, "better?" Dr. Losscraft gave a hand wiggle to indicate so-so.

  "Direction?" Phineas asked.

  "Yes," Dave said, emboldened. "See, we, uh. Well, you know, you and I have talked about your work, and, well, you're very technically capable, but I'm afraid the views just aren't there." He gave a sigh as he finished.

  Phineas stared at him, mouth open. He was unable to form words. "Vyeh?" he said.

  Losscraft cracked a new walnut. "He's saying you're being let go, son." Crunch crunch. Then, just to make sure he was not at all mistaken, he added, "Fired, basically."

  Fired, basically. The words floated up from Losscraft, burned into the air there above the desk. Phineas could feel them burning him, poking into him like a tattoo needle. Uncaring: fired, basically. His eyes stung. Tears came. He smoldered at himself for not being able to hold them back.

  "But, sir, I—" Phineas began, cut off by an especially loud walnut cracking in the silver pliers. He collected himself, then asked "Do I get to say anything?"

  Losscraft didn't look up from his walnut but nodded. "Yep, we're there now."

  Phineas drew himself up. "Sir, I... Well, you just can't. F—uh fire me. Can't, sir. This paper is my life. This paper and your daughter are my life."

  Losscraft spoke quickly, not bothering to enunciate. Words ran together to illustrate that Phineas was making a big deal over nothing. "Aw, come on. Pull yourself together, man. Things just don' work out sometimes. Not a good match, y'know?"

  Phineas experienced an untimely memory of the previous Christmas at the Losscraft's house. He'd given Dr. Losscraft some thick, warm socks. It was Phineas's go-to gift. Who doesn't like thick warm socks? Losscraft had opened the present and looked in the box as though he'd mistakenly been given a walrus turd. He'd forced a smile and said thank you, but Phineas's impression was that the man considered socks too mundane an item to ever achieve so lofty a rank as gift.

  Phineas's brain caught up with his ears a bit. "Wait, you know? About Karlyn?"

  "'Course I know. I'm her dad."

  "B-but, it just happened. Downstairs. In the bike lane."

  Losscraft dropped the nut he was working on and his silver pliers into the bowl and looked at Phineas. "Who do you think told her to break if off?"

  Phineas stared. This man. This man who didn't know how good life could be with the right pair of thick, warm socks. A man to whom cracking nuts was so fucking important that he had a wooden bowl and a special pair of pliers for the task. Here he was, this man, looking at Phineas with his dazed, accusatory look. He'd cracked Phineas, too, just like a walnut. Put his nuts and his heart and his head in those special pliers and made them emit a dry crack. What a phony, he thought. I bet he wears those socks I got him. When his shitty dazed bull feet get cold. I bet he doesn't even remember who was so thoughtful. It was me, you stuffy old shit. It was me who was that thoughtful.

  Instead of voicing any of those thoughts, to his own horror, Phineas gibbered and begged. "Sir, please. Don't fire me. I know I can do better. I can earn my way back."

  Dr. Losscraft was becoming disgusted. "Ugh, don't beg, son. Be a man. You had warnings. Didn't he have warnings, Davey? Not enough views?"

  "We talked about it a number of times," Dave said.

  Phineas's voice rose. "I can do it, though! I'll get photos. Of nipples! And vaginas. Whatever. Butt holes! Anything!"

  Dr. Losscraft was shaking his head, digging his pliers out of the bowl of nuts, and poking through for an uncracked one.

  "We don't do butt holes," Dave said.

  "I can get an interview with Satan!" Phineas heard his voice declare. What? I didn't say that, he thought. I said that?

  Losscraft's face showed a spark of interest. "You can?" He looked up, right into Phineas' eyes.

  Phineas was grasping. But he had Losscraft's attention again and felt he had to cling to it at any cost. So, he bullshitted. "Well, I mean, it's just a matter of finding him and getting an interview, right?"

  Dave snorted. But Losscraft seemed to be considering.

  "If you manage it, we'd like to see what you've got. But frankly, son, I don't think you have it in you. Too arty. Got your head in the clouds. You need some..." He waved a hand as though he were flipping through an imaginary card file, then landed on "business sense." Losscraft's face indicated he'd just had an idea. "You should spend more time around that guy in your department, what's his name? I call him Mr. Titties. Hah! Always gives me a laugh. What's his name, Davey? Ahhhh"

  "Barton," Phineas said. "Barton Densworth."

  "Him! He's good. Titties! Hah! Okay. I think we're done here."

  Chapter Eight

  Dave followed Phineas out of Dr. Losscraft's office, past Bernice's desk, past the bathrooms he'd just been in a few minutes before to prep himself for the meeting. When he'd been in the bathroom, he'd still had a life of some kind. Forever ago.

  They rode the elevator down in silence. Phineas could feel Dave's eyes on him in the mirrored elevator doors but didn't return his gaze. He had the sense that Dave was trying to show empathy. He'd probably say things like "Come on, it's not that bad. You'll find something somewhere else."

  "Did you mean it about being able to get an interview with Satan?" Dave said.

  "Maybe," Phineas said. He had zero hope of getting anything of the sort. He probably couldn't get an interview with one of those Jesus-happy kids on bikes. But Dave's interest in the subject made Phineas want to be coy. He wanted Dave to feel the Record was letting something valuable go.

  "Because if you made contacts on the Record's time, those contacts should technically be ours," Dave said.

  Phineas turned to look at him. "Dave, that is bullshit." He said it the way you'd remind a sleepy dresser that you
can't wear a shoe as a hat.

  Dave shrugged. "Maybe it isn't bullshit?" he said, his voice rising as if he expected some sort of credit for trying to do his best for the Record.

  The elevator doors dinged open, and Phineas exited. Dave stayed inside. Phineas was conscious that his eyes were red rimmed and his face looked as if he'd been leaking tears like a four year old. One of his asshole former coworkers would probably recognize his distress and instinctively take out a camera. Fuck them.

  At his cubicle stood a security guard and Geoff. Geoff wore a look of concern. The security guard wore a look of getting this over with already.

  "Hey," Geoff said.

  Phineas gathered himself. It was nice to have a friend. "Hey. How'd you know?"

  "I sort of guessed when this guy rolled up." He tilted his head toward the security guard, who nodded.

  "I'm sorry you have to see me like this."

  "It's okay. I've done this before," said the guard. His tag said his name was Jenkins.

  Phineas glared at him. Geoff gave a bleak laugh.

  "Please pack your personal things and leave company stuff behind. Take your time," Jenkins said.

  Phineas nodded. Jenkins had brought a sturdy box with hand holds on either side. Around his desk were a couple of photos of Phineas and Karlyn and some of his favorite pens. The pens were the ones that disgorged a nice quantity of ink smoothly. He put those in the box, and, feeling dramatic, stuck the photos of himself and Karlyn in the trash.

  He'd printed them off as digital photos anyway. He could print more at any time. Still, it felt rebellious, which was good. There wasn't anything else. "I guess I wanted most of my impact here to be through my work," he explained. He realized as soon as he said it that he was opening himself up for a biting sarcastic remark, should either man feel in the mood to kick him while he was down. Neither did. They both just nodded.

  "If it's just the pens, can I keep the box?" Jenkins asked. "My wife is kind of nuts about recycling, and I've picked up the habit from her. Save the Earth and all that."

  Phineas retrieved his pens from the box and handed it back to Jenkins. He stood and handed over his ID and swipe card.

  "Okay, let's go," he said.

  Jenkins nodded.

  Geoff stuck out a hand to shake, and said, "Take it easy. Call me later. Anytime."

  At the door to the parking deck, Jenkins had promised to meet Phineas at the exit to swipe him through the robotic arm that controlled egress. He was as good as his word. Phineas rolled down his window to say something but didn't know what to say.

  Jenkins ran a card past the machine and the robotic arm went up, the last barrier between Phineas and a world of unemployed bachelordom. The arm moved to an upright, unrestrictive position. It had a function and a place.

  "Listen," Jenkins said, leaning toward Phineas conspiratorially. "I ain't supposed to say much in these situations, but for what it's worth, I've been fired a ton of times. It's no big deal. You seem like a nice guy. You'll be fine."

  Phineas stared a moment then said, "Thanks."

  Jenkins nodded, stood. Phineas drove into the street, made a left. He was back in the street where he'd been dumped at lunch, passing the same bike lane in which it had happened. He approached the same stop sign where he'd last touched Karlyn's car.

  Do rules still apply to me? he wondered. If he didn't stop, he'd have an accident. Some car zipping up Peachtree would smack into him. Maybe he didn't care if he got hurt. He toyed with that idea.

  Realism reminded him he did care if other people got hurt. He stopped at the stop sign. A television screen in the window of the Record office building cafe was showing what must have been that Aphrodite's nipple slip. People in the cafe were looking at it, smiling, elbowing one another.

  At least now he didn't have to pretend to be like that. He pulled out his phone to check if that was indeed the photo, but his connection to the company intranet was already locked. Oh yeah: fired basically.

  A horn honked behind him. He pulled over to let the car behind pass, sticking his arm out the window and giving a "go around" motion. The car moved slowly. It pulled up alongside, and its passenger window descended. The driver was a woman he didn't recognize.

  "Do you realize you are parked in a bike lane?" she asked.

  Phineas sought inside himself for a sarcastic remark that could encapsulate the horror of the morning's events for the woman, but he found nothing. He just said, "Yes."

  She must have seen in his red rimmed puffy expression that he wasn't having the best of days. She mumbled something along the lines of "okay, just making sure" and merged into traffic.

  Something was poking him in the leg. He felt it through his pants. It was his watch. With all the lacerations his heart had been subjected to during the day, he'd forgotten all about that little slice. He withdrew it, looked at it, put it on. It felt like strapping on a tiny piece of armor much too late.

  #

  He drove slowly back to his apartment. His eyes stung. His mouth sagged open a bit. At a stop light he gazed to his left at a black luxury car. A woman was inside, talking on the phone and checking herself in her mirror. Don't worry, he thought telepathically to her, you look fine.

  The woman turned, saw him gazing, made a disgusted frown, and gave him the finger. He realized he'd been staring and started to laugh. Then the corners of his eyes got wet again and he wiped them. I must appear completely insane, he thought. He gripped the steering wheel and looked out the car's windshield.

  In a way, he wished he were losing his mind. Then Karlyn and Dr. Losscraft would understand what they'd done, how deeply they'd hurt him. But it wasn't happening. His mind was functioning properly and reproducing for his benefit images of the horrors of the day accurately. He'd have to get through this the normal, boring, painful way, without whatever small consolation insanity might provide.

  Back at his apartment, he was surprised to find plenty of street parking. Benefits of unemployment already, he thought. He got out and unfolded his body. His muscles felt borrowed and imprecise as he walked down the sidewalk.

  In front of his building, a red haired man in a windbreaker was standing at the bank of mailboxes trying to open one of them. Actually, it looked like he was trying to open Phineas' box. He couldn't get the key to turn despite shaking the whole box. He gave a dissatisfied grunt then noticed Phineas watching. He sighed.

  "I can't get my box open," he said.

  "That's my box," Phineas said, without stopping. It would be nice to get inside and pull the blinds closed and never come out again.

  The man turned to look at the box again then called after him. "No, I'm number 3!"

  Phineas stopped. Why not? He turned to face the man, waiting for him to get a good look at the red rimmed eyes. "They're all off by one number. See, box number 1 is the outgoing box." Phineas pointed in the general direction of box 1, with its horizontal slot. "So, apartment 1 is box 2. I'm apartment 2, so I'm box 3, and so on."

  The man seemed to be realizing that he lived in a madhouse upstairs from someone who, judging by his red rimmed eyes, empty stare, and freedom to roam the streets during daylight hours on a weekday, probably ate brains for Sunday lunch. "Oh. Well, I. Ah," he said.

  Phineas said, "Here, I'll show you." He withdrew his keyring, oddly light now in absence of his work keys, and clinked through until he found his mailbox key. He inserted it, turned it. But it didn't turn. He jiggled it, tried again. Nothing. There were what looked like fresh scrapes on the mailbox door. He looked at the man. "Did you call CLM to change your box lock?" he asked, voice thick with accusation.

  "Well, I mean, yeah. My key wouldn't work."

  "Ugh," Phineas said, a drawn out moan.

  The apartment management was a nightmare. He'd awoken one spring morning to an ungodly stench. He'd called apartment management. They'd said some form of animal had probably taken up refuge in his furnace over a few previous warm days, then been incinerated by the furnace when the weathe
r turned cold again. Their plan for remedying the situation was to wait until it went away. They claimed for days that the smell would go away. It didn't.

  After many phone calls, a maintenance team had appeared at his apartment, removed all the vents, sniffed at the ducts, concluded that, yes, it did smell bad, then left without replacing the vents. Phineas wasn't terribly concerned about that at the time because it gave him an excuse to stay at Karlyn's place in Midtown, but it grated on him that the apartment management company's business model appeared to be to do everything they could to forget about tenants with the singular exception of collecting rent.

  The man clearly didn't know what to say, so he put his hand out. "I'm Rob," he said. "Just moved in."

  Phineas stared at him. A human is attempting to connect with me, he thought. All right.

  "Hey Rob. I'm Phineas. It's... been a long day."

  "Ah. Well, it happens to the best of us."

  "Yeah," Phineas said after a pause. "Look, don't call management to fix anything unless it's absolutely necessary. Just do it yourself."

  "Even mail? Don't you want to get your mail?"

  Phineas tried not to sigh. But he did anyway. "Nobody's going to send me anything," he said. He turned and headed inside, pulled all the shades as low as they would go, put on some soft music, and pulled his own pity up over himself so that he was completely covered.

  Chapter Nine

  When he woke up, he felt better. He'd slept straight through the night until morning. Outside, it was sunny and gorgeous, a day brimming with possibilities. Phineas regarded it as one might a filthy kitchen floor brimming with insects. He went back to bed, intending to sleep until he died.

  Instead, he woke up again a few hours later. The sun still shone. The day still brimmed with possibilities. But now his limbs were leaden and he could feel his heart beating behind his eyes. Good.

  He sat at his desk and flipped the computer on. The Internet had the same shit it always had. Gossip. Old jokes reposted. Naked people thrusting and inserting.