Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk

by James Lovegrove

  Juha, who, annoyed by his local muezzin’s calls to prayer, cut off the man’s head and threw it down a well, then threw a ram’s head down there too in order to allay suspicion...

  Juha, who sold his house but drove a nail into the wall before he left, then kept coming back on the pretext of inspecting the nail, meanwhile preying on the new owner’s hospitality until eventually the new owner fled the property in high dudgeon without asking for his money back...

  Juha, who borrowed a large sum of money off his rich-but-stingy neighbour and refused to return it, then asked the neighbour to lend him his horse, robe and shoes as they made their way to see the judge, who he hoodwinked into believing that Juha himself must be the rich one and the neighbour a liar...

  Now out of contention.

  One entrant down already, and the contest hadn’t even officially begun.

  THOUGH IT PERHAPS ought to have been, Las Vegas was not the location of the contest. Our ultimate destination lay some one hundred and fifty miles outside the world capital of tourist fleecing: a tiny town that went by the name of Sweetwater, stuck out in the Mojave Desert.

  So, after a night in a decent enough hotel some distance from the lights and hurly-burly of the Strip, I caught a westbound Greyhound. The bus rolled away from the city into a landscape so arid and barren it almost hurt to look at it. Everything that was not rocks was scrubby, barely-there plant life.

  Anansi was enthralled. Reminds me of the savannahs of home, he said wistfully. The Serengeti. The Rift Valley. Olduvai Gorge.

  “I’m a city boy,” I told him. “All I see is wasteland, without a Starbucks or a Marks and Spencer in sight.”

  “Is like Mars,” said a voice from across the bus aisle.

  “Excuse me?”

  He was big and thickly bearded, with a lumberjack shirt and a snake tattoo on his forearm. His accent put him somewhere east of the Caucasus. “I said is like Mars. All this red desert. No wonder peoples is always seeing flying spaceships out here. If Martians are coming to this planet, here is where they are likely to be landing. Somewhere like their own home.”

  “Oh. Yes. Fair point.”

  “Do I know you?” The man squinted at me, his bushy eyebrows knotting together like a pair of caterpillars mating. “I am thinking we have met before.”

  “No, I’m sure I –”

  Veles, whispered Anansi.

  “I’m sure we –”

  He is Veles. Trickster god of the Slavic folk.

  I consulted my trove of research data. Veles. Storm god. Able to transform himself into various kinds of animals and even people. Protector of sheep and cows. Famous for...

  Anansi chipped in. Famous for fighting Perun, god of war, after stealing Perun’s wife, or his son, or some of his cattle – depends which version of the story you read. Their battle raged in the heavens as a lightning storm. Veles lost, and his blood fell like rain. He looks after peasants, bringing them wealth, and is also the god of sorcerers. Those who weave spells as well as those who weave wool look to him for patronage and inspiration. He concluded, Slippery customer. These shapeshifter types always are. Keep your wits about you, Dion.

  “Yes,” said the man. “I am recognising you. We are both here for the same reason, no?”

  Without being invited, he heaved himself across the aisle and squeezed his bulk into the seat next to mine.

  “Ivan Rodchenko.”

  I shook a hot, powerful paw.

  “Dion Yeboah.”

  “Someone is riding with you, yes? As with me.” He tapped his skull. “A secret traveller.”

  I glanced around at our fellow passengers. The bus was a quarter full. Nobody seemed to be interested in us. People were dozing, reading, messing around on their phones and tablets, or listening to music through earbuds. Nobody was eavesdropping.

  I nodded to Rodchenko.

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought so. I know for sure when I am hearing you talk to yourself. Is hard sometimes to remember to not speak aloud when you are having conversation with guest in head. Maybe, to others, you are looking like mad person, or too much this...” He mimed glugging down alcohol.

  “Normally I’m careful,” I said. “I must be feeling a touch of jet lag.”

  “We have come long way to compete,” said Rodchenko. “Others are coming from even further. China, Japan, Australia, all over. Is big world. Many gods. Only a few from America itself. Including last time’s winner.”

  “Coyote.”

  “Yes, yes. The oh-so-wily Coyote. He wins, meaning he is getting to choose site for next contest. He chooses home turf. Well, of course. Why not? And you are being from... England, is correct?”

  “Is correct.”

  “You are with Robin Goodfellow, then? Also known as Puck?”

  I shook my head. “Anansi.”

  “Ah, Anansi! You speak like Englishman, but your ancestry is African. Interesting. I suppose, wherever we live, wherever we go, we are always carrying our true roots with us. If I am not having my home in Mother Russia, maybe Veles is still finding me and asking will I help anyway.”

  “Comfort stop coming up,” the bus driver announced over the intercom. “Fifteen minutes and not a second more. You ain’t back in your seat by the time I fire up the engine, ’fraid I’ve got to leave without you. Rules are rules. Can’t mess with the timetable.”

  WE ALL DECAMPED into a roadside pit stop that boasted a gas station, a car wash, a fast-food outlet, a minimart and a tolerable set of toilets. I relieved myself, washed my hands with my usual fastidiousness, then went to see what snacks and refreshments were on offer at the minimart. Candy, carbonated drinks and vast bags of corn and potato products were the main fare available, all of which, as a man conscious of his health and appearance, particularly his waistline, I shun. I opted for a packet of peanuts and raisins, some beef jerky, and a large bottle of mineral water.

  I joined the queue for the till – as luck would have it, directly behind the considerable girth of Rodchenko. He glanced round at me and winked. In his arms were great quantities of the very things I’d avoided, including what appeared to be a gallon bottle of Coca-Cola. He looked as content as only a Russian could on finding himself a voyager in the Land of Excess.

  “Must stock up on energy,” he said. “For when fun and games begin tomorrow.”

  Yes, tomorrow, said Anansi. The official start of the contest. But why wait? Someone took Juha out of the running early. Let’s do the same with Veles.

  On the counter, just by my right elbow, stood a spinner rack filled with Zippo lighters. They had a map of the state engraved on them – the outline reminiscent of a guillotine blade – along with the quip I GOT BURNED IN NEVADA. I checked out the minimart’s security cameras. The one trained on the counter was tightly aimed at the till clerk, no doubt to ensure the honesty of employees as well as of customers. There was another camera in the far corner of the premises, but I was well out of its range. Best of all, a Highway Patrol officer had just ambled in through the main entrance and was busy denuding the Krispy Kreme doughnut stand of most of its stock.

  Quick, Anansi hissed. Now.

  I palmed a Zippo off the rack and slipped it into Rodchenko’s back pocket.

  Two minutes later, Rodchenko was heading out across the forecourt to the Greyhound and I was informing the patrolman that an act of thievery had just taken place.

  “Him,” I said, pointing at the burly form of Rodchenko. “I saw him. He took a cigarette lighter without paying for it. It’s in his back pocket.”

  “Big fella with the plaid shirt?” said the patrolman. “You sure?”

  “Saw it with my own eyes.”

  I sounded plausible. My clean-cut English diction helped. I set my face, as any good lawyer can, in the expression that said, Would I lie to you?

  The patrolman set down his box of doughnuts and hurried outside. “Hey! Sir. Excuse me, sir? Hey! I want a word with you.”

  I sauntered by as the patrolman grilled Rodche
nko. The Russian fixed me with a curious frown. I feigned obliviousness.

  Out of the blast-furnace heat, back in the air-conditioned bliss of the bus, I watched as Rodchenko obeyed the patrolman’s instruction to empty out his pockets. He evinced surprise at finding the Zippo on his person. The patrolman demanded to be shown the receipt for Rodchenko’s purchases. It didn’t take him long to establish that the Zippo was not on it. He led Rodchenko indoors by the elbow, the Russian protesting and remonstrating volubly.

  Just before he was taken back inside the minimart, Rodchenko turned and aimed an angry look towards the bus. His gaze met mine. He spat out some curse in his native language. I smiled serenely at him and waved.

  “Guess he won’t be rejoining us, then,” said the bus driver. “Doors closing. Everybody, please take your seats. Next stops: Roach, Primm, Sweetwater.”

  Excellent work, said Anansi, congratulating both me and himself.

  I wondered whether what I’d just done might be considered cheating.

  Cheating? Cheating!? Anansi dismissed my concerns with a scornful laugh. In a contest of tricksters, what’s fair and what’s not? I’ll tell you. Everything and nothing. Just because hostilities haven’t been declared yet, doesn’t mean we can’t get in a pre-emptive strike or two. Veles would have done the same to us, given half a chance. Initiative and ruthlessness. That’s how we’re going to survive to the end, Dion. Initiative and ruthlessness.

  SWEETWATER, JUST ACROSS the state line into California, had once had something going for it, namely a large lake. In the ’fifties and ’sixties, the town had been a handy stopover point for people travelling from Los Angeles to Vegas, and a resort besides, even if it had lacked the lure of the slot machines and gaming tables that lay in wait just a few miles further east. Boating, swimming, fishing, water sports in general: these had been its attractions, on a lake filled with cold limpid snowmelt straight from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

  Then, however, the main river that fed the lake basin had been diverted and dammed some way upstream to create a reservoir and a hydroelectric plant, providing hungry, ever-expanding LA with power and leaving Sweetwater with nothing but a swampy pond fed by a trickle of a stream, and sad memories of its boom days. The town was mostly forgotten now, in spite of the billboards lining the freeway at five-mile intervals announcing to drivers that they were getting closer to The Best Little Burg You’ll Ever Pass By. Most people seemed content to do just that, pass by, and Sweetwater had sunk slowly into sand and obsolescence.

  That was certainly the impression I got as the bus turned off Interstate 15 and followed the narrow road into town. Everything about Sweetwater appeared to belong to a bygone era. A gas station with clockface-dial pumps. Diners that looked like railroad cars. Everywhere, that low-slung American architecture that spoke of space-age optimism and the capacity to spread outwards into infinite acres of wilderness. Sprawling aingle-storey structures. Polygonal blocks of concrete and plate glass and steel.

  The bus halted opposite the town’s one remaining hostelry, the Friendly Inn And Conference Center. Only I alighted. For a moment, as I felt the weight of the midday sun on my head, I wavered. It wasn’t too late to climb back aboard and go elsewhere.

  No, warned Anansi.

  And then it was too late. The Greyhound pulled away with a diesel growl, executing a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and sending a fine cloud of dust over me that stung my eyes as it trundled back to the interstate.

  I crossed the street, tugging my roll-along suitcase behind me.

  THE FRIENDLY INN And Conference Center had one of those cheap display signs outside it, the kind you see almost everywhere in the USA, with simple cutout letters that clip onto thin rods. It read:

  THE FRIENDLY WELCOMES

  18TH ANNUAL JOKE SHOP

  PROPRIETORS JAMBOREE!!!

  I couldn’t help but smile to myself. I’d read a feature about this little trade fair a couple of years ago in the Sunday Times Magazine. The article described how retailers and wholesalers in the American novelty retail industry got together once a year to compare notes, buy and sell the latest items, and discuss the ins and outs of their rarefied business. I recalled photographs of rather odd-looking men, and a few women, poring over trestle tables laden with stink bombs, hand buzzers, sachets of itching powder and suchlike. The tone adopted by the journalist had been a mix of wistful and snide. Joke shops were dying out, he averred, kids in our computer age no longer as attracted to pocket-money prank wares as kids used to be. How brave and foolhardy these people were who strove to uphold the tradition.

  In that respect, Sweetwater was the ideal spot for such a convention to be held. For all concerned, their heyday had passed.

  A joke shop trade fair was, of course, perfect cover for a gathering of trickster gods to come and conduct their tournament of one-upmanship. Amid all the plastic hilarity of squirting buttonhole flowers and fake dog turds, who would notice us divine avatars fooling and foiling one another? Who would care? We would blend right in, camouflaged like tigers in the jungle. No one would look twice at us.

  I CHECKED IN at the reception desk, which was staffed by an elderly lady with a beehive hairdo and those pointy-tipped schoolmistress spectacles that I didn’t think anyone made any more, let alone wore. Gladys, as identified by her name tag, wished me a pleasant stay in a voice like gargled gravel.

  “Friendly by name, friendly by nature, that’s us,” she drawled, a motto that had been leached of all warmth and meaning through decades of repetition.

  The hotel was a ramble of long corridors and branching annexes, arranged in a complex geometrical pattern around a sun deck and a drained swimming pool. My room, which overlooked Sweetwater’s main drag, proved to be small but serviceable. There was a TV set from the era when no technological device was complete without fake-wood panelling; a window-mounted air-con unit that crackled and wheezed like a catarrh sufferer’s windpipe; and a bed which crunched when sat on. The mattress had a deep hollow in the middle, and I imagined countless coupled bodies thrusting up and down, hammering out this concavity over the years – then tried not to imagine it.

  Just jealous, said Anansi.

  “Am not.”

  You need a woman. Why don’t you have a woman in your life?

  “You sound like my mother.”

  You’re thirty-two. Why aren’t you married yet?

  “You’re married. Has it made you happy? Complete?”

  Of course.

  “And yet you’re a serial philanderer.”

  A man has needs, Anansi said defensively. Besides, my marriage has brought me children, and they definitely make me happy. He reeled off his offspring’s names. Akaki. Toto Abuo. Twa Akwan. Hwe Nuso. Adwafo. Da Yi Ya. And my precious little Intikuma. I love them all more than life itself. I fought Death for them, did I not?

  “I know.”

  If you had children of your own, you’d realise how important it is, being a father, said Anansi. How it fixes your priorities and grounds you in the nitty-gritty of life. Then you would understand, too, why I dared trick Brother Death to protect them.

  “You were so brave.”

  I was. I was. I know you’re being sarcastic, but I was. Death had us cornered in our house...

  “After you antagonised him by eating his food and drinking his water and not thanking him.”

  True, but let’s ignore that, shall we? I and my family were clinging to the rafters while Death prowled below us with a burlap sack, catching each of us one after another as we lost our grip and fell, until only I was left, grimly clinging on.

  “But you persuaded him to use the flour barrel to catch you instead, saying it meant you’d be nicely crumb-coated for him, all ready to be fried and eaten.”

  And I landed on his head and his face went in the flour and he was blinded for a moment, and we all escaped. Hee, hee, hee! Anansi wriggled inside me, overcome with his own cleverness. But, Dion, he continued, serious again, I mean it. You need a f
amily of your own. Nanabaa Oboshie, wherever she is, must be beginning to think there’s something wrong with her grandson. A proper Ghanaian, by your age, should have a brood of rug rats scuttling around him and a nice plump wife in the kitchen.

  “Busy,” I said. “High standards. And I’m British, not Ghanaian.”

  Too uptight, Anansi opined. Too self-obsessed.

  “Are we here to criticise Dion Yeboah or are we here to win a competition?” I said testily.

  A pause. Then: A competition.

  “Very well. So let me rest. I’m worn out.”

  I lay down on the much-used bed and closed my eyes, trying to blot out all distractions.

  But it was hard when one of those distractions was a rustling voice inside my head that wouldn’t ever be fully silent but perpetually whispered and nagged, nagged and whispered...

  THAT EVENING, WE gathered in one of the hotel’s small conference rooms, the Sagebrush Suite, for a preliminary meeting. Several of the joke shop people wandered in with a view to joining us, then wandered out again. Instinctively, they sensed this sidebar event had nothing to do with them. They didn’t belong. One man, dressed in full mime makeup and costume, pretended he kept bumping up against an invisible wall just inside the doorway which wouldn’t allow him into the room. The wall could almost have been real. If you weren’t a living vehicle for a trickster god, something inside told you you were barred from entry.

  We took our seats on plastic chairs, eyeing one another up. It was weird, seeing the faces of all these strangers, random individuals culled from across the planet, and somehow recognising them. It was like meeting one’s own extended family. We looked utterly unalike and yet there were similarities, something in the set of everyone’s features, a shared look behind the eyes, unifying us.