Excited salesman’s pride was working, spreading all over his body and throughout his vocal tones. He was happy to make this sale. Ecstatically charged, if that was possible. Sort of like regolith was, except it was just statically charged, not overly excited about the sales commission on a thirteen million dollar sale.
Michael put on a pair of light blue examination gloves and called the other employee over to the front desk. She came over and Crass saw her name tag—KT, although she’d drawn a black and bold-faced Q in place of the lightly scribbled-out K. She put her finger on the biometric scanner at the same time Michael unlocked the back door of the display case with his special key.
He placed the hunk of golden nugget on the counter and let Crass inspect it thoroughly before giving up the goods. Mickey lost interest in the plum-sized red ruby, and walked over, looking at the large odd-shaped meteorite with him.
“What’s going on?” he asked with a blank expression. “Are you gonna buy it?”
“I’m thinking about it, yeah,” Crass said. “It’s so unique.”
He tried picking it up and found it heavy. It was a small boulder, in fact. It was like trying to hold the Elephant Man, only as a smaller child and much, much more malleable.
If we could have beat human beings into thin sheets with a hammer, maybe we wouldn’t have ever came to the Moon in the first place. He laughed a little on the inside, letting his mind wonder freely with thought. But space was limited on Earth, and everyone, or at least the illusion of everyone, seemed absolutely hell-bent on filling it up with the most pretentious and flamboyant of frivolous items, designer or otherwise.
We just had to have it, dammit. And by God’s good grace and a little creative financing, we could easily achieve it, filling up all the spaces around us, until finally we had no other place to go but Outer Space. It was the answer to one giant and greatly misunderstood question.
What is the meaning to all of this?
He didn’t know. Did anyone want to take a guess?
Some thought it was for personal and material gain. Others felt they should make a difference in the world they loved, but either way, purpose rang true in all of their hearts. And what really counted was the lens you viewed Life through. That’s what he thought, anyways.
And here on the Moon tonight, Crass felt the energy coming at him from the blue and green orb across the distance of black Space. Its power was raw; unfiltered emotions flowed through the course of his veins. It was electric, carrying away all the grime and dirt from the windshield of his mental fortress.
All at once, he could see again. Sunlight danced across the tips of his space sneakers, and across the grey carpet of Grifters Unlimited.
Michael, the bold faced employee in his late twenties, spoke up quickly and sweetened the deal. This was Crass’s kind of salesman.
“If you buy it today, I’ll throw in a waterproof duffel bag to take it home in and four tickets to the Crescent Theater. I hear they’re showing The Astronaut Farmer and The Astronaut’s Wife this weekend.” He was holding the long ticket stubs up in his gloved hand.
“Who needs a waterproof bag on the Moon?” Mickey asked indignantly. It was a fair question, he thought too.
“Nobody,” Michael said with a sly, curving smile. “Except the people going back to Earth. The last time I checked they still land in the ocean somewhere. And sometimes you don’t always account for strange things happening. This is Space, guys. Land of the strangest shit you’ll ever see.”
The other Grifters employee, the one known as only QT and certainly not KT, wandered to the back, disappearing behind dark wooden saloon doors. Michael hadn’t noticed. He was closing the sale, as they called it in business speak.
Crass conversed lightly with his wingman, the gold-toothed whisperer Mick, and they both agreed it was a pretty damn good deal, even if there weren’t any rainstorms or tsunamis or hurricanes on the Moon’s cratered surface. Earth had enough of that for the entire Solar System.
He pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to Michael who looked it over, and then grinned.
“Wow, haven’t seen one of these cards in a while.”
He flipped it over and inspected the back and front of it a few times. Probably because everyone did that little trick of the fingers.
“You accept it, right?” Crass asked, hand on the wallet in case of the possible denial. He was way off the mark of correctness.
“Of course we do. It’s accepted all over the LunaDome. And why shouldn’t it be?” Michael grinned. “The man who helped to provide this service…” he said, waving the shiny plastic in the air. “Is the same one who helped to build the rocket you come in on.”
“He’s talking about Mohgal I think,” Mickey said. “The guy with the Space Company. Makes the electric cars. The billionaire.”
He nudged Crass in the side. My God, Crass thought, he didn’t forget anything and seemed to know everything. How was that possible? Where did he find the unused space in that bulky head of his?
Then it came back to him, rather sharply. Images of a sultry maroon car, driving along one of California’s two-lane blacktops, cast against the widening expanse of the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful and free, like the wild horses of the Australian plains, galloping away to freedom. Running just to run.
“Is he the one who created the HyperLoop Transport?” Crass asked. “A friend told me it’ll get you from L.A. to New York in about three hours. Coast to coast.”
“Yep. That’s him,” Michael replied.
He passed the card through the reader, and handed it back to him. He turned over the slip of receipt—$13,000,000.00—and began shuffling the nugget inside the black walls of the duffel bag.
Crass found it funny they were disguising a valuable gold boulder resembling the Elephant Man. He wondered why anyone would really want the hideous thing. Why did he ever? The old silent creeper, the painful and overwhelming blow to the senses known as buyer’s remorse, settled in, and dropped its stupid monologue off in his ear.
Shut it, shut it, and SHUT it. Not today, kemosabe. This was his souvenir and he wasn’t going to listen to any other words spoken against it.
Michael smiled and handed the duffel bag over the counter. Crass grabbed it and turned, beginning to walk out of Grifters, the Moon’s one and only gift shop. And didn’t they have some cool stuff on the walls, and the collectibles were quite nice.
“Thanks Mr. Duvall. Come back and see us,” Michael said, and hurried to the back.
Crass strolled to the main lobby, out over carpet, and into the spacey white corridor wrapping around the place in a giant O with little offices, a ton of shops, and boutiques, and the Observation Deck, which was almost directly in his line of vision.
I might take you up on that, Michael ole-buddy-ole-pal. Depends on if I see the cutie hanging around and needing someone to talk to, Crass thought. I’ll be right back in there buddy-o, and quicker than you can say Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
The weight of the treasure swung by his pant’s side. Crass felt energetic, and powerful. Almost like he’d discovered little Shackleton Stranger by himself, and now it was all his. He could do anything he liked with it.
Mickey mentioned he was heading back to his room.
“It’s number two, dude. This is going to be real fun.” He walked briskly to his room, and disappeared around the smooth radius of the inner wall.
“I’ll see ya in a little bit.” Crass first looked at the Observation Deck door and then over at the LunaRealty office with lights glowing warmly through the storefront window.
He stopped moving. He didn’t know what to do. It felt like he was carrying two or three professional weight bowling balls around in the bag. He sat the damn thing down on the floor and rested his arm, letting it regain its composure and vitality.
Turning around, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face (Eva) through the glass storefront window of Kaguya’s Nail & Tanning Salon. How he didn’t encounter
the stark aroma sooner was a mystery. It hit him bluntly in the nasal cavity like a Freightliner blowing down the Interstate, and carrying one heavy dose of acetone and high-gloss lacquers.
He stumbled backwards, trying to cover his nose and nearly tripping over the bag, a colossal conglomerate of some value. How the girls in the nail shop were having conversation in the middle of that cloud was unreal. And scary.
His ears were ringing; it sounded like those huge fans they rolled out when they needed something to dry quickly. Very quickly. He brushed it off, walked further out, and opened his eyes.
Crass? You there buddy? Come back.
He picked the duffel bag up, and shifted it over to his right arm as he walked past the LunaRealty office, and around curved walls. He spotted the black line on the far right side. He followed it until he saw something familiar.
It was the placard on the wall. It read:
A ← D → Rec Center→
B ← E → Café→
C ← F →
Thank God he found it when he did. His arm was tired of the back and forth swinging motion of the bag’s heavy mass.
He put his hand on the room’s sensor, and the door swished to the right and in the wall with a burst of compressed air.
It felt good here. Almost like?
Almost like being at home is what it was. Close, but no cigar he’d told Eva earlier. How he wished he had a cigar to smoke right now, though it was a little out of the question in an oxygen regulated atmosphere. The LunaDome, in other words. It was their Life Support System.
Crass sat the bag on the top of the CloudBed and lie down beside it, slowly drifting off into the arms of the dreamer.
Off into himself. Into Crass Duvall.
4
Eyelids down. Blank. Nothingness. Black Envelopment.
Tunnels, a bright corridor entangled with the Milky Way.
Dreaming took him away. Another place was this?
The same as before. Earth is waiting…
Earth is waiting…
Earth’s waiting…
Crass opened his heavy eyes, realizing he was standing on the empty shores of a remote island close to the equator. It was hot. Hotter than hot—it was scorching—the sand was scorching his soft feet.
He saw a relief on the edge of the clear surf. It was his wing suit from earlier. A black and red leather suit with Teflon wings, titanium reinforcements sewn in, lay on the beach.
The break of the surf washed over his feet, an immediate relief. He pulled the suit over his slim body, shimmying in the armholes and positioning the wings. Getting ready for it.
Now, about that gravitational resistance. Don’t you try it. Better yet, don’t even think about it. There’s nothing to hold you back here. These are the shores of possibility, and you are the artist my friend. Paint your picture, but do it carefully, mindfully.
The Earth is waiting.
The axis shifted and Crass was ten feet above the water, holding thrusters for the hydrodynamic jet pack strapped on his back. Water rushed out the bottom, propelling him towards the blue sky. This was only a slight boost, and only that. Just enough to break through the clouds with.
(First stage)
But not enough to get out into space. The wings were for that. The manual second stage was a great workout for beginners. Hell, a great workout for anyone really.
He pushed down on the controls in his hand, giving it everything she had and he shot towards the effervescent clouds. He went soaring through big white puffballs. And when the momentum had almost died, he flapped his wings, and exited through the orange tinted troposphere, past the stratosphere, and on and on past the mesosphere, until he reached it.
Space. And low-Earth orbit, frigid as a witch’s tit.
Satellites were literally all over the place, by the hundreds, and they were moving around. Quicker than you might think. He kept on flying outwards into the starry ocean of night. The Sun did not melt his wings. They held up like boxing heavyweight champions.
Breathe in, breathe out. And repeat. This is your new breathing method; try it with me. C’mon.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Crass felt air rush by on the tips of his skin. Something had circled his position and was coming back around.
It was a round metal hatch with strange markings and a tiny window of opportunity. There came a knocking on the glass, hollow and far away, from behind curtains he thought. Really dark ones.
Taut…Taut…Taut.
And not floating away. Just hanging out, with Crass in space. Why oh why couldn’t it go away. Come back later, you know. Something besides hang the hell out beside him here.
Taut…Taut…Taut…
He tried to fly, and instead fell back through the clouds, the same way he’d got through to L.E.O.
5
He woke up in his bed, sweating and the clothes on his body saturated with an unwelcomed stickiness. The smell of panic. Of fear.
Taut…taut…taut on the door. Someone wanting to talk with him.
Well, isn’t that nice? he thought. Wake me up when I’m dreaming why don’t you? Honestly, you couldn’t have picked a better time.
Crass opened the door and saw Mickey standing there; his gold-tooth grin shined brightly back at him. Eva and Skye were both on his left, and looked him over strangely with investigative eyes.
“Your hair is a wreck!” Eva said, bouncing over to try and cowlick it down or something. He brushed her away.
“Stop it would you? I’m about to get in the shower anyways.”
“Are you coming to the theater or what?” Mickey asked, winking at him slightly. Cunningly. An unspoken language.
“Yeah, I guess so. Let me grab a shower and I’ll meet ya’ll there.”
Mickey turned. “Bring those tickets with you. The guy from Grifters put them in the side pocket of that bag he gave you.”
“I got it. Don’t worry. Crass is gonna look out for you guys. I promise.”
“Promises, promises,” Eva muttered under her breath.
“Hey, don’t start,” Crass said.
She smiled with a shiny grin, and then walked in the room, disappearing to snoop around the place.
Mickey spoke low. “She’s with you now dude. I’m sorry, but two of ‘em is just too damn much for this old boy. Have a blast, Crass.”
He walked off with his giant arm around Skye’s slim and exposed waist, whispering something in her ear as she laughed, and turned around to look at him before the door closed. There was no telling what kind of story he may have been escorting into her eardrums.
The door shut closed, and Crass laughed a little to himself. An inside maneuver. He spun around, seeing Eva holding up the golden Elephant Man boulder in her arms. She cradled its obtuse angles like a mother and child. At least, she was trying to.
“How much you pay for this thing?”
She was rubbing her oily hands all over the polished surface. Michael had been keeping it clean for years now when suddenly that plight’s importance gets wiped out in a matter of seconds.
“Thirteen million,” he said, glancing casually at her face.
“Geezus Price Crass! I could pay off my college loans with that much money. And for graduate school, plus the price of my cap and gown. All of it!” she cried loudly.
“Ok, so take it,” he said, stripping the musty shirt off and tossing it on the bed next to her. She stared wildly at him, her eyes as big as the lights of an old bus, but twice as sharp.
“It’s just a souvenir from the gift shop,” Crass said, walking off towards the bathroom and a hot shower. “A keepsake or mantle piece for the collection at home.”
Eva shook her head violently. “It’s just a thirteen-million dollar souvenir. Probably not going to cash it in I suppose?”
She curved her eyebrows up so they twisted slightly down at the corners. The eyes were soft blossoms of emeralds shining brightly, even in the dark room.
Crass looked at her, not blinking for a
moment. He was almost to the door frame now. It slid into the ceiling at his presence, or really when his feet moved over the floor mat next to the door.
“I doubt it,” he said. “You take it if you want it. Pay off your college loans with it, or bills or whatever. I’ll find something else to take home with me.”
And he turned to go inside the bathroom. The door closed behind him before she could say anything else. He stripped naked and stepped in the shower enclosure. His skin was softly embraced by hot water running over it.
He was scrubbing off his bottom half when he heard the door swish upwards into the ceiling and footsteps on the tile floor.
The glass walls had fogged up, allowing very little visibility. He opened the door and peered out.
“What is i—”
And then he lost all train of thought when he saw Eva standing by the sink in skimpy lingerie. Space-influenced skimpy lingerie.
The left breast was Venus, and the right showed the red orb of Mars. Below was Earth, and from the back he saw a collision of the Sun and Moon, their respective spheres elegantly given shape by the firmest buttocks he’d seen in a while outside the gym.
You could’ve bounced a quarter off that ass. Maybe not here, safely anyways, but you understand the meaning trying to be conveyed. It was nice in a way that said: Hey You! Reach out and Touch Me. You know you Want to. C’mon boy.
“I got something at Grifters, too,” Eva said.
She walked over to the shower and climbed in.
“Mmhmm, I see that you did.”
The lingerie came off rather quickly once she was inside. Not the shoes though. We both kept them on. She said it was so we didn’t catch athlete’s foot from any previous tenant. It wasn’t a bad idea, though we needed the shoes on so we didn’t bounce around the shower like a bunch of untamed particles. We needed them for balance, stability, and poise.
Or in other words, for fucking.
The shower walls steamed up and we kissed, only fooling around this go at it. There was obviously more, but Crass Duvall hasn’t always been the kind to kiss and tell.
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