6
The Crescent Theatre at the LunaDome could be compared to one of those old theater places you sometimes find in the old downtown districts, and some of those fine establishments are still the kinds of business people who serve beer and popcorn to their patrons. A fantastic business.
Crass brought the tickets with him and gave Mickey two of them, also passing off two shiny clusters of aluminum foil. He secured them in his pocket, and glanced around to make sure he hadn’t been caught. I don’t know why. It was perfectly legal at home on Earth, why the hell would it present a problem here? In a place where no one seemed concerned about the others around them catching a buzz to pass the time.
Everyone here was already high. On the Moon, of course.
Eva and Crass had eaten one a piece before leaving the room. They hadn’t kicked in yet, but soon everything came around, didn’t it? He thought so, presently speaking anyways.
Mickey spoke up, shattering the silence with the whip of his tongue.
“We’re going to watch The Astronaut Farmer,” he said. “You guys take the other movie. It’s playing on the screen next door.”
He asked Skye if she was alright with that. She shook her head. They walked off towards a black door behind a red velvet wall. He yelled back over his shoulder.
“I think they’re taking us out on the rovers tomorrow. Gonna be a riot storm!” His voice reverberated across the small lobby.
An employee behind the wooden desk looked up, and then quickly went back to playing with his glass tablet, sliding his finger over the screen in zigzag patterns. Crass thought he saw a turquoise dolphin. He tried howling again.
“Aghmph…Aghmph…AaaghhHHHHHEEEEEWWWWWWwwww…”
That got everyone’s attention, momentarily, and Crass smiled. Sometimes those moments just filled him up and he had to let it go; release the pressure. And quite possibly, he was feeling a little high at the moment.
Eva grabbed him by the arm, and escorted him to the other black door, the theater playing the film with Johnny Depp in it, Mr. Gilbert Grape himself. This time though, he was an astronaut with ummm…needs he guessed? He had trouble remembering it, but in time maybe it’d come back.
Eva was giggling up a storm in his ear.
“Please tell me you’re not a werewolf,” she whispered girlishly. “It could be a bad thing for a single girl on the Moon. What if some wild madman covered in hair snuck into my room and wanted to…I don’t know…like touch my erogenous zones?”
“I imagine that you’d probably have a good time,” Crass said. The red velvet on the wall looked entirely too soft not to touch.
He dragged Eva over to it with him, and rubbed it with the palm of his hand. It felt like soft velvet, what more could he say?
“Werewolves are handsome lads these days.”
Crass twisted and turned and finally made it over to the black door with Eva on his hip. The movie trailers were already rolling inside.
Crepuscular Creatures Pt. II—Blood Moon Harvest.
Wait…that wasn’t real was it?
“Ehh…maybe so. Maybe not,” Eva said. “Depends on the viewer I think.” She looked at him a last time before the pitch blackness surrounded them, cloaking over their bodies.
Crass was trying to remember what he said to get her response, and then it all made sense.
“They do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Eva grabbed his hand, and pulled his body closer to hers.
“I know what they say. They’ve been yapping in my ears for a while now and I’m fuckin sick of it.”
She led them both into the empty rows of the small theater. When they had sat down, Crass spoke up, saying something he couldn’t believe he had remembered.
“Vous êtes foutu,” he tried saying. “That’s French for yo—”
“—I know my French smartass. It means I’m fucked up.” She slid down in the seat and kicked her feet up on the seat in front of her. “Maybe I am, but so is the rest of the world. I’ve got that to rely on for a while, I think.”
“You’re not that bad. Don’t you fix people’s faces?” he asked. “I know that isn’t any walk in the park, it’s their face for God’s sake. Their outer shell.”
Eva laughed. “Yeah but the lasers do most of the work, unless you have a genuine protuberance like a giant mole or something. Then I get to wield my scalpel around the office.” She whipped the cool air with her right hand, slicing and dicing it.
Crass blinked, thinking Joan of Arc might’ve arrived here on the Moon tonight. She slouched down in the lounge seat next to him. Her face was tranquil, naturally beautiful in the screen’s bright and flickering scenes of light.
On the widescreen in front of them, Mr. and Mrs. Armascost were having some extraterrestrial encounters from an unlikely source. Crass was secretly hoping it was a problem no real person had to encounter someday, because if they did, they would almost certainly be saying to themselves, as the French would say…
Je suis foutu.
They finished the movie in silence, and when the credits started rolling, they walked down the stairs and exited through another black door marked with a red EXIT sign above the door. They were outside by the café when Crass saw a bald man reading a book at a secluded table.
The white floor was mostly empty, except for mechanized and programmed robots sweeping and mopping over it in straight horizontal lines glowing under the fluorescents.
Captain Don glanced up from his reading, saluting Crass with a wave of his hand as they strolled by the large windows bordering the café. The book in his hand had that strange looking missile on the front cover again, an artist’s primitive creation of a rocket ship, circa-1950 something. It was old and decrepit looking, like it had been passed around the block, and looped back through again and again for years of good times and laughs.
Crass wanted it. He couldn’t see the author’s name (too small from his position) but he could ask the Captain later, when he saw him again. He tacked a mental post-it note inside his mind.
Eva yawned loudly and stretched out in the hallway like she was trying to create a snow-angel in midair.
“I’m tired,” she said. “Today’s worn me out, man. Big time.”
She had her head down, carefully examining her steps on the polished floor. They had a little bounce, but not much.
He could only wonder what would happen if they were to have a lot of bounce. Like too much. He didn’t want to go crashing into the rafters of a $600 billion-dollar facility. Even with the recent acquisition of many zero places, he wasn’t sure how long that could last if he was replacing Space equipment on the Moon.
Probably not very long, he thought. He could be wiped out rather quickly, but not if he left the question alone. Maybe it was better to try out theories on the Moon’s surface and not inside the lunar resort, you know. The LunaDome was expensive.
“I’m exhausted too,” Crass said, following behind her.
They came to his door—A-12—and he unlocked it with his palm as they strolled inside and laid down on the CloudBed. It was warm with budding life.
They propped their heads up on the pillows, and stared off at the black stretch of ceiling hovering high above them.
Well, Crass thought, it wasn’t totally black. Stars began forming in the nothingness; abstract pinholes exploded on the chalkboard of heaven. In the dark middle region, a multicolored spiral was beginning to pierce the blackness of Space; it turned and grew outwards towards the walls of the room.
Eva had already passed out for the evening, missing nearly all of the light show, but Crass watched for a while longer as she breathed deeply, her chest rising and falling with every breath of oxygen. It was much to entertaining to pass up.
He watched for maybe the next ten minutes before falling asleep beside Eva’s glowing figure. All was quiet, and that figured, didn’t it? Everyone was at (Earth) home and watching football or something like that. Likely. It didn’t matter to him either
way.
High on the ceiling, The Milky Way multiplied like poison ivy with a feverish itch; it rushed around, and encircled the clusters of stars. Taking them under her delicate wings.
Crass Duvall closed his eyes and went to sleep.
No dreams, only silent peace near
The Sea of Tranquility.
Part III
Neighboring Orbits
It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on Earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.
Neil Armstrong
XII: Reconnoiter the Moon
1
Crass woke early in the moments before dawn. He was oblivious of this fact, his only thought being: Why did I drink so much last night? How many beers can my bladder possibly hold in my sleep?
When he finally made it to bathroom and relieved himself of the warm liquid inside him, he would’ve guessed it was pretty damn close to a six pack. You simply ordered the beer and an employee brought it out as cold as icicles, serving you as many as you could stand. All it took was a simple innocuous phrase lasting of only a few words.
Put it on my tab. That’s right, Crass Duvall, with a C.
He flushed the toilet and water gushed out with a silent vacuum of some kind. Interesting, he thought.
He bounced lightly across the room (no shoes now) and over by the large window positioned near the writing nook. The stationery and pen were still there in a ruffled pile. Sunlight was pouring through, far from over on the other side of the Dome.
It never wanted to go down. And for the length of their stay there, he couldn’t ever remember not seeing it out over the horizon like a friendly beacon in the dark and desolate sky.
What Crass could see perfectly was the blue and green orb of the Earth over the rolling plains of regolith. Maybe a few squandering clouds, but not many he could make out. He saw Africa and Spain. Some of Europe’s greenery and a lot of the Atlantic Ocean, a cauldron of deep blue waters. The Caribbean islands, Cuba, the rest of the Eastern seaboard. Florida’s coastline.
The Earth was smiling sideways at him, grinning from the Easterly longitude lines and stretching northward towards Russia, and Asia, and the far corners of the world. Closely, the terminator shifted from blue to the deepest black, hiding thirty percent or better of Earth’s right-most half.
To see it from here would make you want to fall in love with it all over again. It was like something you’d see in a Renaissance painting, continuously enhancing itself somehow, and he silently wished he could snap a picture of it. So he could catch the essence of the moment and save it for later, like it was a firefly he’d collect in a smooth Mason jar and have the light all his lifetime, there anytime he needed it. The bugs being immortal of course.
We however, were not of the variety and sought to record and collect. For later generations, he guessed. And anywhere we pleased. Snap, snap, snap.
Honey, take a picture of that! It looks splendid. How I just love the ambience!
Snap. Snap. Snap. Click. Click. Click.
Crass still felt tired. He yawned, scratched his stubbly navel, and bounced back to the CloudBed. Eva was lying in the top layer of a stratocumulus cloud; the puffy white blanket gently kissed her tan legs and bare feet. Long brunette hair hung around the soft contours of her face.
He’d snap a picture of that alright. Call it Eva’s Silhouette.
Naw, he thought. Some things were better stored on the inside where they had protection, sanctuary from the harsh elements that eroded everything in the end. It was eventual, you know. The cycle of life was taking place every passing moment, forever and forever, on and on, until the end of time.
Crass lay down next to Eva, and stared up at the Milky Way on the ceiling. He traveled deep into the inner web of his mind, looking for the safest place he’d ever known to exist: Crass City.
He strolled into the nearest bank and asked for a security deposit box, and if possible, a cup of coffee, black with two sugars. There was no need to overdo it. The staff obliged to his request, and brought him the items in a very small room with nothing but a metal table and one very cold chair, metal too, just as he’d expected.
“Here are the items you requested. Will there be anything else, Mr. Duvall?” the tall and straight-faced woman asked. She set the steaming cup of java down on the table.
He sipped it slowly. Perfect! his tongue screamed at once.
“Privacy,” he said. “This could take a little while. It’s quite the delicate process, as I’m sure you may well know.”
The lady nodded and turned. “Take you time,” she said, walking towards the door. “We’re open twenty-four hours a day. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year.” And she closed the door and was gone.
He was alone. It was time to get busy with the mental groundwork.
On the lunar surface, along the bright corridors and newly shined and waxed floors (once again, done by cleaning automatons who never stopped) of the LunaDome, hidden behind the high walls of the 12th room on A-Block, Crass Duvall stirred and twisted over on his side, arm around Dr. Eva Morrow’s trim waist. Cuddling creature comforts.
He was asleep in no time.
2
Mickey woke up and rolled off the CloudBed in his room on B-Block of the living quarters—the hotel/resort. The pretty girl with the caramel skin sat awake and blinked at him once, then twice. He already had the space shoes on and was pulling on his leather jacket. It settled on his masculine shoulders, creaking with the breezy movements of his arms.
“Where ya going?” Skye asked. She yawned quickly and then glanced up at him from the bed.
He was smiling a playboy’s grin, all love and determination. He was handsome, in the rough cut, unrefined sort of fashion, at least his admirer thought so.
“I don’t know really,” Mickey replied. He was pumping up the weight of his soles with a few clicks of a button. “Just feel like walking around the place. We’re only here once. Better enjoy it.”
“You wouldn’t come back?” she asked indifferently.
Mickey thought it over (if it were financially feasible, sure) in his head.
“Yeah. Sure I would. But rocket travel isn’t cheap and I already owe your girlfriend Eva a wad of dough for this trip. When I get back home, I might have to get rid of my condo on San Marino Island to free up some funds and pay my debt off accordingly.”
Skye laughed a little. “I sold my timeshare in Lake Tahoe and all of my fine art…even two of Goya’s Black Paintings. All to come here and survey. When I get back, I’m thinking of covering all the walls of my house with paintings, just like Francisco did, and I’ll call it Loony Skyes.” She smiled.
Mickey looked her over. He felt like he was peering in at the soft edges of her soul.
“You’re an artist?” he asked, still smiling a devilishly handsome golden grin. “Like a poet or something?” His teeth twinkled dimly in the pale light of the room.
It was 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time, but neither of them knew this, nor cared. Their minds were in a different place altogether. It was like Moon fusion.
Skye bounced of the bed and pulled her pants up to her waist, covering the long contours of her legs, and then slid her feet into the space shoes one at a time.
“A little bit of both. And maybe more,” she said, rolling her brown eyes to the side. Being a flirtatious girl. And from what Mickey felt, she was winning the battle, which really wasn’t a battle at all. A cool, kinetic energy flowed between them.
“What do you do?” Mickey asked. “For work I mean?”
She looked up, excited. “Restore old paintings. I’ve come very close to patenting a revolutionary technique. Still working out the imperfections right now, but when it’s done it’ll blow the art crowd away. I think so anyway.”
Yeah, Mickey thought, you should see that crazy fucking painting over at Crass’s place. You wouldn’t know where the hell to start wit
h that extravagant piece. Who had painted it? The Dalai Lama maybe? No that couldn’t be right, although he thought it was close. His mind drew a blank.
“Artsy people are so emotional sometimes,” Skye muttered aloud, and slipped a Blue Moon tank top over her head, pulling it down until it was higher than her pierced naval button. She straightened out her hair with the palm of her hand and waited for Mickey to say something.
He was thinking about a movie he’d seen with Andy Warhol in it. The name was a blank, again. Today wasn’t his day for remembering names, No Sir, not at all.
“I would have said weird over emotional any day of the week. People in the arts are weird. Eccentrics. Look at Van Gogh, or Marc Quinn for God’s sake. He created a frozen blood sculpture of his face, using his own blood. There are probably a few of ‘em in his freezer right now. I’m pretty sure that’s weird, not emotional.”
He walked over to the door and unlocked it with the touchscreen. It slid into the wall, disappearing out of sight. Now they could see the lights of the hallway. A robot whirled by, sweeping the floor, mopping it, and drying it, all simultaneously. A small antenna jutted out from the top as it sped by on silent rubberized tracks.
“Maybe Mickey, but it takes emotion to achieve anything. Even a simple task like taking a poo has some relevance to the overall scheme of things,” Skye said, following out the door behind him.
He thought this over with glee. It actually made him chuckle, for a little while anyways, He’d never quite thought of it put in those terms, but she was right. If you didn’t take a poo, you’d likely stop up your insides, and not be able to do shit, so yes, he did suppose that pooing was a very important function. Quite mandatory.
They walked down the narrow corridor with bright fluorescents shining overhead. The place was immaculate. Everything looked so clean, so sterile.
Up ahead, the corridor folded out, giving way to the interior radius of the Dome, where all the shops were, and the Welcome Desk. They were the ones he was looking for; the employees that could answer his question.
LunaDome: A Novel Page 14