Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

by Sweany, Brian;

  “That thing you’ve been working on for like five years that you won’t tell anyone about?”

  “All one hundred and twenty thousand words of it. The working title is The Messiah Project.”

  “Quick synopsis?”

  “It’s a near-future dystopian novel that asks the question, What would happen if someone traveled back in time, obtained the genetic material of Jesus of Nazareth, came back to the future, and foisted the Second Coming on the world by creating a cloned Christ?”

  “Holy shit, Lila. I love it! It’s very commercial. Plus you have this great angle as this attractive, well-connected, fall-away Mormon. I assume your agent is sending it out to the big boys—Random House, Simon and Schuster, Penguin, or at least your own people at Little Brown.”

  “He wants to, but I don’t know.”

  “Lila, come on now. Bunts aren’t your style. You need to swing for the fences on this one.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know.”

  “What’s to know?”

  “I feel like the big New York houses just aren’t for me. I work for one, so I have a pretty good idea how much they suck. My book has to pique the interest of an editor, who then submits the manuscript to an ed board meeting in which a room full of editors with disparate literary tastes must somehow come to a consensus that the book is publishable by spending an hour vetting the author’s platform and sixty seconds vetting the author’s actual writing acumen.”

  “Sounds about right,” I say. “At some point in the last ten years, the word ‘platform’ went from meaning ‘a raised horizontal surface’ to ‘the degree to which one manages to blow smoke up an editor’s ass.’”

  “Exactly,” Lila says. “Which is why I’ve been trying to focus on some midsized—Norton, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, Bloomsbury.”

  “And what’s the word?”

  “Most editors seem to enjoy the book, to a point.”

  “What point is that?”

  “The point at which the protagonist obtains Jesus Christ’s genetic material. I’ve been told the scene is somewhat blasphemous.”

  “Oh, come on, seventy-five percent of your editor friends are Jews. How bad can it be?”

  “Let me preface this by saying the protagonist is a theoretical physicist and recovering crack addict who discovers time travel at about the same time she becomes a born-again Christian.”

  “I love her already.”

  “An angel visits our protagonist in her sleep and tells her she must travel back to ancient Jerusalem to procure the seed of the Son of David and bring it back to the future to fulfill the prophecy of the Messiah’s return.”

  “Procure the seed?”

  Lila nods, points at me. “That’s the tricky part. She drugs Jesus and gives him a handjob.”

  “Why not go all the way and have her give him a blowjob?”

  “Well, she starts off doing just that but is worried her saliva might taint the semen.”

  “Fantastic! What happens next?”

  “She travels back to the future intent on inseminating herself with Jesus’s sperm, only to misplace the sample at a local sperm bank, and then—”

  “Madcap hilarity ensues from there?”

  “More or less.”

  “And you’re telling me no publisher will touch this?”

  “Are you really surprised, Hank? This is the new millennium. Clinton is out, Dubya is in, and the publishers see the writing on the wall. Like Moses’s golden calf, Christian fiction is a huge cash cow just waiting to be suckled.”

  “And imagery like that is exactly why you should have a publishing deal.”

  “Oh, I signed with a publisher,” Lila says.

  I scratch the winter stubble on my face. “Who is it?”

  “I’m looking at him right now.”

  “Huh?”

  “Aaron and I had two things to celebrate. He signed with Random House, and then he signed me as College Ave’s newest author, with you as my editor.”

  I grab Lila’s shoulders and squeeze her tight. I kiss her right on the lips. “Well, hot damn!”

  Lila looks flustered, and she never looks flustered. “So you’re okay with this?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, Aaron and I kind of took the decision out of your hands.”

  “Lila, it’s not like I don’t know you’re a good writer. I’ve been asking to see your stuff for years.”

  “And now you’re going to see probably too much of it. Just promise me you’ll be brutally honest.”

  “I have no intention of patronizing you. The first step in becoming a good writer is allowing people to tell you you’re a bad one.”

  “That’s a good line, Hank.”

  “That’s a great fucking line. Now, before we get started, I only ask for one concession.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Change the title.”

  “What’s wrong with The Messiah Project? It’s an allusion to the Manhattan Project.”

  “Uh, yeah, I get that, which is kind of my point.”

  “And what is your point exactly?”

  “The title isn’t subtle enough. Leave the hitting-the-reader-over-the-head allusions to C. S. Lewis.”

  “What problem could you possibly have with C. S. Lewis?”

  “You mean, other than the fact Aslan basically introduces himself by screaming, ‘Hey readers, Jesus Christ in da fuckin’ house!’”

  “Easy, Hank.” Lila raises her hands in submission. I can almost see the Mormon in her wincing as I pepper her with heresy. “Any suggestions, oh wise editor?”

  “Just one.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Magician-like, I unfurl the imaginary marquee with my hands. “Sperm Bank Messiah,” I say.

  Jesus doesn’t talk to me anymore—hell, he probably never did—but I can almost picture Aslan standing behind Lila, shaking his head in disgust. Lila assumes I’m joking, just as I assume God doesn’t notice me go through a box of Kleenex every other week without ever having a cold.

  Chapter seventy-three

  The moment we got back from Beth’s OB with the news of the twins, I started running, and I haven’t stopped. I don’t know why I’m running: excitement, fear, uncertainty. I’m running five, seven, sometimes ten miles a day, six days a week. I’m at one hundred and eighty-four pounds, down from my wedding peak of two-fifteen. My wife passed me on the scales this morning at one eighty-five. She has packed on nearly sixty-five pounds during the pregnancy.

  I sip my coffee. “Would you stop crying already?”

  Sasha is still sleeping. Beth sits at the kitchen table. She’s wearing my robe because her robe doesn’t fit her anymore. Her hair is wound tightly on top of her head beneath a white cotton towel. She’s been crying for about twenty minutes straight.

  This is pretty much our standard third-trimester breakfast. This morning in bed, I came at Beth with my 6:00 a.m. erection, assumed the spoons position, and squeezed her milk-sodden circus boobs. She rejected my advances, and then I went into my commensurate emotional shell and ignored her as she tried to explain how her lack of a sex drive had nothing to do with her feelings for me. I went downstairs, put on some coffee, and masturbated to Internet porn, which afforded Beth just enough time to shower, look at herself in the mirror after getting out of the shower, and crank up the self-loathing.

  While I’m on the subject of porn, I simply couldn’t imagine being a teenager in the Internet age. Instant gratification with the click of a mouse: holy hell, I would’ve been blind and dead by age sixteen. Barring a cooler older brother or an oblivious father with a hidden stash, porn in the eighties was acquired through a mix of subterfuge and raw tenacity. Even then, it usually am
ounted to only bad soft-core videos and ten-year-old hand-me-down magazines.

  “Fuck you, Hank!”

  “Is this still about your weight?”

  “I’m heavier than you!”

  “It’s just a number.”

  “Husbands are supposed to be supportive.”

  “I’d like to think I’m doing a pretty good job at that.”

  “You’re not supportive. You’re fucking one eighty-four!”

  I shake my head in disbelief. I run my hands through my hair. “That’s what’s bothering you? The fact I’m not a goateed, pinheaded lard ass like most of your friends’ husbands? Go ahead, call up your gal pals. Ask them if their husbands make a pass at them every morning and night, even when they weigh a hundred and eighty-five pounds.”

  “Having the libido of a sixteen-year-old boy doesn’t make you a good husband.”

  “But it doesn’t me make a bad one either.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Maybe not in so many words. What do you want me to do, Beth? Do you want me to apologize for being attracted to you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I want you to apologize for not being my friend.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  “Wanting me is the easy part for you.”

  “I got a thing for my wife,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Guilty as charged.”

  “It’s liking me that you struggle with.”

  “Well, I’m sure struggling with liking you right now.”

  “Stop being so fucking glib.”

  I touch her shoulder. “Look, that came out wrong. I’m sorry.”

  Beth looks at my hand, then down at the table. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

  I remove my hand from her shoulder. “Not a clue.”

  “Then why apologize?”

  “Because I rarely know what I’m apologizing for.”

  “Fuck you, asshole!”

  I stand up from the table, turning my back on her hostility. The kitchen opens up to the family room. I walk to the side table along the far wall of the family room, grab the dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I walk back to the kitchen, open the book, and slam it down in front of my wife.

  “Show me,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Just show me, Beth.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to—”

  “Maybe I missed a section. Maybe somewhere between gastrointestinal ills, rubella, toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus, fifth disease, group B strep, Lyme disease, measles, UTI, hepatitis, mumps, and chicken pox, I missed the part about abusive wife syndrome.”

  Beth is crying again. “Y-you just recited those diseases off the top of your head?”

  “Of course I did.” I grab my coat off the coat tree in the hallway leading to the garage door. The coat is an olive double-breasted London Fog trench that used to belong to my father. It’s a little dated, but I’ll wear it forever.

  “How did you know all of them?”

  “Because I read the goddamn book,” I say, buttoning my coat. “Chapter fifteen lists all the shit that can go wrong with your body during pregnancy.”

  “But why did you read it?” Beth says.

  I open the door to the garage, turn to my wife. “I read it because you’re my friend, because I like you.”

  Chapter seventy-four

  Mom got married, again.

  She and Gillman Prestwich dated for a whole twelve weeks before eloping. They got married in Nauvoo, Illinois, which I’m told holds some sort of sacred significance to Mormons, but to Mom’s credit, she refuses to convert. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, I guess, although I’m not allowed to swear or bring alcohol into her house.

  Son of a bitch, that really fucking sucks a goddamn ass-ramming moose cock.

  Phew. I feel better now.

  Chapter seventy-five

  Basic Search

  First Name Angelina Last Name Valerio

  City or ZIP/Postal Boston State/Prov MA

  What the fuck am I doing? I’ve considered a lot of reasons as to why I’ve decided to contact my Spring Break ’91 fling—the most meteorically intense but brief love of my life and, in fact, the only other woman besides Beth I had ever considered marrying—when my wife is nearly nine months pregnant with twins. Being in a sexless, emotionally abusive marriage for the last six months might have something to do with it, but the reason I seem to have settled on is actually a rhetorical question: what’s wrong with a guy on the cusp of being a father again taking stock of his past and wanting closure with someone who used to be important to him? And by rhetorical, I mean I don’t want anyone to answer that question, because the obvious answer is nothing’s wrong with that—if you’re an insensitive douche pump.

  “What are you doing, Hank?”

  “Nothing, Urwa.”

  Urwa Mashwanis is College Ave’s silver-haired, middle-aged Pakistani IT director. He’s a nice guy, annoying as hell but forever well-intentioned. He constantly and, too often, graphically whines about his marital woes, a typical conversation with him going something like this: “How’s Beth doing with her pregnancy? My wife put on a hundred pounds with our baby and never lost it, and now she refuses to have sex doggie style because she doesn’t want me to see her cellulite ass. Only missionary, only missionary. She doesn’t even like the cunny-lingus. You want to grab lunch?”

  Urwa looks at the top of my computer screen, reading aloud. “Whitepages.com? Who you looking for?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Angelina Valerio doesn’t sound like nobody to me.”

  Aaron Rosner tends to err on the side of apocalyptic—maybe it’s a Jewish thing—so in anticipation of Y2K, he hired Urwa away from Eli Lilly’s patent division for twice the salary. Predictably, Y2K amounted to a whole lot of nothing, but Urwa was retained at the same level of compensation. This pisses me off a little. While, yes, my family’s seven-figure settlement with the Indianapolis Auto Auction has paid for three cars and half the mortgage on my house, my actual salary still skirts IRS tax brackets with the reckless abandon of someone who, minus a dead father, would be flirting with abject poverty.

  “You want to grab some lunch?”

  “We’ve been through this before, Urwa. You don’t eat lunch.”

  “Sure I do. Large fries. Best deal in town.”

  Urwa insists that the $1.75 the MCL Cafeteria down the street charges for a Styrofoam box filled to the rim with French fries is the steal of the century. “I figure I get about a thousand calories for less than two bucks,” he is fond of saying.

  I just need to stop arguing with Urwa and let the potato-addicted Pakistani face his maker—probably sooner than he’s likely anticipating—on his own grease-laden terms. “Fine, Urwa, eat your damn fries.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  Urwa points at my computer monitor. “Who’s Angelina Valerio?”

  “She’s nobody.”

  “She’s not nobody. I’ve seen the letters you typed to her.”

  “How about you get back to your desk and mind your own business? It wasn’t multiple letters. There was just one.”

  “I counted at least four.”

  “Damn, Urwa,” I say. “You are one nosy fucking Pakistani. There was only one letter. I sent copies of the same letter to four different people.”

  “Oh,” Urwa says. “Why did you do that?”

  “Angelina Valerio is an old friend who I lost track of is all.”

  “Friend?”

  “Fine, an old girlfriend. Beth and I have had a rough go of things the last couple months.”

  “Beth’s body is going through lots of changes,” Urwa says, empathetic
apparently as long as it doesn’t involve the prohibition of doggie style and the cunny-lingus.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I say. “It’s not like I’m going to do anything stupid. I’m just real lonely and want to talk to an old friend. I’ve spent the last three weeks searching the Internet for any Angelina Valerios along the East Coast.”

  “The East Coast?”

  “Angelina was from Boston.”

  “Got it.”

  “I found four Angelina Valerios in the greater Boston area and sent four duplicate letters out to these women.”

  “What if they call you back and Beth answers the phone?”

  “Won’t happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I listed my office phone number and office return address on the letters.”

  “Smart thinking.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Deceitful thinking, but smart thinking.”

  “You can shut up and listen to my story, or you can be an asshole. Your choice.”

  “Sorry,” Urwa says. “Go on.”

  “Three of these Angelina Valerios have returned my call, all of them telling me the same exact thing—‘I’m not the Angelina you’re looking for, but your letter was so beautiful I wish I was her.’”

  “Some letter I take it.”

  “I thought so.”

  My phone rings. The caller ID on the phone flashes Out of Area. “You going to answer that?”

  “Nope,” I say. “Probably just Cindy again.”

  “Aaron’s former secretary?”

  “Admin assistant.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I thought Aaron fired her.”

  “He did.”

  “She still calls you a lot.”

  “That’s because she still wants my dick.”

  “You have a highly inflated opinion of yourself, Hank.”

  “That’s a fair comment,” I say. “But in this case I’m not exaggerating. Remember when Aaron, Cindy, and I went to that Canadian bookseller convention in Windsor?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, the three of us went out on the town one night. We ended up at Jason’s.”

  “Jason’s?”