That was fifteen years ago; a decade and a half filled with wonders of the perfectly human variety, to be sure, but in the wake of all the big changes, the smaller, more personal ones have been no less miraculous.
Maya Otsunde imigrated to France and became a journalist and human rights activist. After drawing attention to the plight of the people in her village she took to the world stage, winning a Nobel Peace Prize at the age of seventeen. By her twentieth birthday she’d founded the Human Action Network, a global initiative that brings hope and help to the disenfranchised citizens of more than two dozen African and Asian nations. She currently teaches International Studies and Philosophy at Oxford.
Herb and Barbara finally got sick of their longtime love/hate affair and got a divorce. They sold the family house and got on with it. After the strange disappearance of Owen Holiday, Barbara declared herself a “Happy Lesbian”, sold her taverns and moved to the Pacific Northwest with her therapist to open a rehabilitation facility called Barb and Fran’s Green Mountain Serenity Bed & Breakfast.
Recently, she ran for mayor of their small town. When she lost the election by a landslide, Barbara stormed the Mayor’s office with a Glock 9mm and took the incumbent mayor hostage. After a nine hour stand-off with local and federal authorities she voluntarily surrendered to her wife/therapist. After a psychological evaluation, it was discovered that my new stepmother had overprescribed Barbara’s mood stabilizers. After their attorney convinced local authorities that the therapist was at fault, all charges were dropped. Barbara then checked herself into the Green Mountain Serenity Bed & Breakfast’s Twelve Steps to Wellness program, becoming its first successful resident. We talk two or three times a day by phone. She apologizes constantly.
Herb and Missy Tang got married and opened four more Cooper & Sons locations. Herb got his new wife involved in all aspects of running the family business, including the commercials. Missy, a frustrated actress since before her days as a frustrated exotic dancer, took to her new duties with relish, playing a variety of roles in a new and controversial series of ads, including Nervous Housewife, Ms Balbuster, Immigrant Lady 1, Schoolgirl With Mastiff, and Nearsighted Female Asian Driver.
In protest, Chick Flaunt left Cooper & Sons and opened his own business: Flaunt It! Luxury Autosupply. He even tried his hand at making commercials, the most infamous being “A Day At The Ostrich Races”, during which Flaunt was nearly kicked to death on camera by the company mascot. It was later discovered that Flaunt had abused the ostrich by forcing it to wear a Herb Cooper mask and pelting it with Boston Crème Pies. The absence of dramatic tension between Flaunt and a voluntary scene partner eventually forced him to declare bankrupty. He later found religion, married his bible study leader and relocated to Mexico City.
Other relationships needed ironing out too, and some of them weren’t so simple. Standing on the plains outside the little Italian village of Armageddo, freshly resurrected by the former Prince of Darkness, I was sorely in need of an explanation. He’d tried to kill me, then turned around and saved my life. It wasn’t until later home that I’d remembered what Benzaiten had said, right before the Coming’s attack.
We fell in love. I made him vulnerable to what came next.
What had “come next” was an unprecedented abomination: an angelic possession. Gabriel and Holiday had used the power of the Coming to overcome Yuri’s considerable psychic defenses. When Yuri attacked me, it was really Gabriel wielding Lucifer’s dwindling powers; Gabriel who convinced the disgruntled pantheons to side with the Coming.
Yuri later told me that during the fight at the North Pole, he’d been able to reassume control from Gabriel long enough to redirect the hammer’s attack, using it instead to open an inter-dimensional doorway and eject me into Amon-Ra’s universe, deceiving Gabriel into believing he had killed me. He was almost right: if not for Yuri’s satanic tampering, I would have died the real death. Even so, the audacity of Holiday’s plan was breathtaking: the Archangel Gabriel, once God’s messenger, using stolen divinity to possess the Devil and foment a divine revolt in order to enslave humanity. But because of his love for Mitsuko, their unborn child, and for me, Yuri Kalashnikov had performed an even rarer wonder: an auto-exorcism. He’d saved my life, twice. He’d saved the world for the sake of love. When we assumed mortality, my ancient adversary had truly turned over a new leaf. The former Prince of Darkness was now the unsung savior of the human race.
Yuriel Kalashnikov married Mitsuko Leavenworth in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. The ceremony was lavish, well attended by friends and families of both bride and groom. It was later reported by many of the wedding guests that several inexplicable events occurred at the reception, showers of gold raining down on the heads of selected guests, indoor thunderstorms, and a minor invasion of talking snakes who, though terrifying to the groom’s parents, nevertheless insisted upon wishing them “Eternal good fortune”.
The Kalashnikovs live in the suburbs now, the happiest of happy families. At seven years old, Yuri and Mitsuko’s son, Lucien Lando Daikokuten Kalashnikov already displays uncanny intelligence, a frightening acuity for games of strategy, and sleight of hand. He’s also an unbelievable dancer and a real hit with the ladies.
Surabhi and I live with our three children in an old Tudor not far from…
Oh? Did I neglect to mention that Surabhi’s alive and well? That the Molokes never boarded their flight at Heathrow? Sorry – it’s amazing, the amount of information I forget. Sometimes I worry about that, the forgetting. Flashes from my “old life” come back to me but only rarely and only in dreams: after centuries of observing from afar, like a voyeur in the last row of a darkened porno house… I have my own dreams.
But you were asking about Surabhi. As it turns out, two hours before they were due to leave for Heathrow, Calliope Moloke announced her intention to elope with her spiritual leader, Master Omar. From the driver’s seat of their mobile base of operations (Master Omar’s 1988 Chevy Crown Victoria) Calliope vowed “…to destroy the Whore of Western Decadence called Great Britain in a firestorm of righteous fury.” Five minutes later, a bomb went off at the American Embassy in London. Five minutes after that, Master Omar appeared on YouTube claiming responsibility for the attack in the name of the Coming God.
As he was tackled and led away in handcuffs, Master Omar took the opportunity to propose on-camera to his “…sexually voracious spiritual disciple… Calliope Moloke.” And five minutes after that, the Moloke home was surrounded by representatives of Scotland Yard, MI5 and London’s elite anti-terrorist squad.
The Molokes were detained and held for questioning at a CIA “black site”. Surabhi’s mobile phone and laptop were confiscated. She used a neighbor’s mobile to call me, leaving me a dozen frantic messages, but I missed the call because I was trapped in an alternate universe. Duh.
Master Omar also claimed responsibility for the bomb that brought down the Molokes’ plane, or would have brought it down, if Master Omar’s chosen assassin had actually managed to ignite his underwear as they’d planned. It was the assassin’s first time in a plane. When turbulence struck, just off the Irish coastline, the would-be bomber wet himself. A sharpnosed passenger smelled him trying to ignite his sopping underthings and tackled him.
Another passenger recorded the struggle on his cellphone and uploaded it to YouTube with the headline, “We’re Going Down!” The plane landed safely in an undisclosed location. The video went viral in minutes. Cooperating intelligence agencies saw fit to allow the world to believe the attack was successful in order to draw those who claimed responsibility for it into the light. Fortunately for the gene pool, Master Omar made their work ridiculously easy.
After learning that she was merely an expendable pawn in her spiritual leader’s plot to kill her mother and destroy Great Britain, Calliope lost eighty-five pounds. While in custody she fell in love with a CIA operative codenamed “White Rhino”. She remained a “person of interest”, and would grace international ter
rorist watchlists for the rest of her life.
Sir Magnus Moloke lost a lot of the public’s good will. Several of his franchises were linked to organizations that were linked to “terrorist-friendly” activities in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. By the time the Molokes returned to America, the latest addition to Her Majesty’s Royal Retinue had been cleared of all charges. But he too was a changed Moloke. At our commitment ceremony he embraced me like the son he never had. The fact that my career was ramping up may have helped him with the transition, but I didn’t care: he and Marian and a crewcut-wearing Calliope sat in the front row of our Unitarian church, right next to my parents and their respective spouses. White Rhino observed from an undisclosed location.
I told Surabhi the truth in the only way that could possibly make sense. I sat her down and gave her the facts. Despite the widespread awareness engendered by the Quantum Step phenomenon, she wrestled me to the floor of her apartment.
“Don’t play games with me, Lando. I’ve been through enough as it is.”
Then, drawing from the dregs of the tiny bit of divinity I still remembered, I grabbed her hands in mine, looked deeply into her eyes… and showed her my story. All of it.
Afterward, we sat together on the sofa.
“Considering that you’re an avowed agnostic I think you’re taking this pretty well.”
“What about Heaven and Hell? You’re telling me all that stuff is real?”
“It’s incredibly subjective. Heaven, Hell… they aren’t so much places as…”
“States of mind.”
“Yes. The communal mind anyway.”
“What about religion, Lando? Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, atheists? You’re telling me that nobody’s right?”
“Everybody’s right. Until they’re wrong.”
“But how can that be? How can everyone be right and wrong?”
“Funny. I suppose I knew the answer to that question once…”
“And now?”
“I forgot.”
Before she could kick me out, I got down on one knee and opened the heart shaped black box I’d held for nearly a year.
“Surabhi Moloke… will you marry me?”
She looked at the ring for a long time. Then she looked into my eyes for so long I thought she was going to toss me out her apartment window.
“But now… it’s over. You’re… mortal?”
“Cut me and I’ll bleed all over your sofa.”
“But then what? I mean if you’re God…”
“Was.”
“If you were God, and that function is empty now. What happens when… if you died?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that great?”
“But, Lando… I still don’t believe in traditional marriage. Especially after… well all this.”
“But it worked for your parents. Their daughter is a wanted fugitive but they stayed together. And my parents…”
“Exactly. Look, babe, it’s archaic and denigrating to all parties involved. And what’s the point? You stay with someone or you don’t. A piece of paper won’t change anything.”
“True.”
“It’s a tired old dinosaur created by a patriarchal paradigm shambling toward the cultural tar pit. Marriage is so last century.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We can make it work.”
“We already work, babe,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “I love you, Lando Cooper. I want to spend my life with you. I want to bear your children. You feel me?”
“Ouch.”
“What?”
“Brit hip hop alert.”
She punched me, but not as hard as she could have. We laughed. Home, the possibility of her was an ache at the center of me.
“Well, I want to spend my life with you too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You know me. And I was hoping to bear your children. So…”
“So aren’t we already together in all the ways that matter?”
I basked in the warmth of a sunlight that can only be generated by two people in love, took her hands in mine and kissed her.
“I do.”
We have three children, the oldest: twins Oliver and Olivia, and the baby boy, Herbert-Hasani. My children and my wife have shown me the truest sweetness contained in the evolutionary fruit basket that is the human story: to love, and to be loved, unconditionally in each mortal moment. You may remember the title from my bestselling memoir. It spent twelve weeks atop the New York Times Bestseller list. It’s been optioned for a big screen treatment: screenplay co-written by my best friend, and Executive Producer of my hit late night talk show, The Lateside with Lando Cooper. It was Yuri, after all, who foresaw the show’s potential. I merely made a wish, one that, luckily, came true.
I still wonder about my old allies and enemies among the gods. The Morrigan, Agni, Ares, Zeus. Did they really die? Can a god ever really die? I still see the Buddha at the occasional comic book convention. He’s lost most of his hair and gained seventy-five pounds. He remains blissful. Baron Samedi just opened an autobiographical one man show on Broadway: Dance, Papa Voodoo! Ticket sales are through the roof.
I wonder about Gabriel, humanity’s newest Adversary. Where is he? What’s he planning? Every once in a while I catch hints of brimstone in the air over some national tragedy or environmental disaster. I turn, dreading that he’ll be looming behind me. His whereabouts remain a mystery.
Most of all, I wonder about Changing Woman; my Connie. Esmerelda Sanchez, her last prophet, died at the Arctic Circle. Had Connie gone off to live with her worshippers as a bodiless nature spirit in the new West? Had she been claimed by the same oblivion that claimed Zeus and the other victims of the Coming? Yes, I wonder about Connie. And sometimes, when I’m faced with some perfectly human dilemma, I miss her singing.
Occasionally I run into a minor deity at the odd flea market. Once I thought I saw Dionysus skulking in the background of a culinary arts reality show called Head Chef in Charge. He’d lost at least fifty pounds and was wearing a wig. Many gods have taken on full-time human identities. I suspect some of them have thrown their hats into the mortal lottery the way Lucifer and I did. Many of them are still unaccounted for. I still remember Gabriel’s last words on the battle plain of Armageddo.
Beware. The Final Assault has begun.
But happily, the future of humanity is no longer my sole responsibility. The gods of antiquity have officially joined the party. We’re just faces in the crowd.
But…
Occasionally, when I can’t sleep, I’ll leave Surabhi snoring in our bed. Our rambling Tudor overlooks the north shore of Lake Michigan, minutes away from Northwestern University and the television studios where I spend my days. Usually, round midnight, I’ll pass the kids’ rooms. Oliver and Olivia are thirteen now, their minds occupied with the things thirteen year-olds care about. They sleep like the dead.
When I check on Lil’ Herb, he’s usually sleeping soundly, his butt pointing skyward, comfortable in that boneless way of which only seven year-olds seem capable, our golden retriever, CZ Domino, snoring softly at the foot of his bed. But sometimes Little Herb lies awake, his eyes staring into the space directly over his head, singing songs in a language I know but can’t quite remember. Tonight, I sit in the big armchair, watching him sing, and I fall asleep.
And I dream.
I dream of a little boy with my father’s face, walking hand-in-hand with a tall man who shines like the sun. They turn and wave at me.
“Thank you, Ra. For a story told and a promise kept.”
“Be mindful, Understudy. The play has just begun.”
Then the man who is the sun sweeps the boy into his arms and they spin, laughing, together, dancing as I am swept away. When I wake up, Herbert-Hasani, my Herbert-Hasani, is looking at me with the fires of Creation burning in his eyes. I look closer, amazed, as suns and planets and galaxies swirl around his head like a halo made of stars. In the moonlight streaming through the window, a
golden lady with oversized eyeglasses, spiky black crewcut and a University of New Mexico sweatshirt stands next to his bed, pointing at the spinning stars and whispering into his ear.
My Herbert-Hasani laughs and claps his hands.
And I wonder what happens next.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Boatman spends his days and nights pretending to be other people. For a living.
He’s acted in television shows; China Beach, Spin City, ARLI$$, Anger Management, Instant Mom,The Good Wife, films; Hamburger Hill, The Glass Shield, Bad Parents, and Broadway plays.
After many years in his chosen profession he’s decided to chuck it all and seek his fortune as a writer. (Just kidding. He secretly dreams of changing the world as a talkative mime.)
www.michaelboatman.us
twitter.com/MichaelBoatman_
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Revenant Road
God Laughs When You Die (stories)
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The Divine Comedy
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