by Gary Jonas
I pushed the button again. “Sorry, man, you’re not my type.”
He pulled out and turned toward me. I won’t bother repeating what he said as he pointed to his little erection. Let’s just say it wasn’t going to happen. If not for his request, I might have felt sorry for him since even erect, he was tiny.
Of course, his words were piped into the room, so Helen and Lakesha both heard him. Helen closed her eyes and scrunched her face. As for Lakesha, her skin grew even darker and her eyes grew wide. She fanned herself with the contract.
“Oh, honey,” she said.
I turned back to the window and jumped because Apollo stood right in front of it, looking in at us. I was glad the window cut off at chest level because from the way his arms moved, I knew what he was doing.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch. I couldn’t believe he was going to do that. I wanted to get the hell out of the room.
“This one’s for you,” Apollo said.
I raced out the door without looking.
Kevin darted into the room. “Nice,” he said with deep appreciation.
Lakesha and Helen exited. Helen kept her head bowed and I couldn’t get a read on her. Lakesha stared at me. She frowned. “And I thought you were disgusting.”
Apollo stepped out of the studio. I was glad he’d pulled up his pants.
“Hey, fake agent, I hope you’re a better guitarist than a negotiator. Be here tonight at seven for an audition.”
“Fuck off.”
“I just did,” he said with a grin. He knocked on the door opposite the meeting room.
A thin older man wearing glasses and a silver goatee peeked out from the control room. “Yes, sir?”
“Thomas, I’ll need you here tonight. We have an audition.”
“Very good, sir.”
Kevin trotted into the hallway. “You, sir, impress me,” he said and shot Apollo a thumbs-up.
Apollo took a bow. “Have your fearful loser here at seven.”
“I heard you,” Kevin said. “He’ll be here or I’ll zap his nuts with lightning bolts.”
“He’ll be here or he won’t have nuts for you to zap.” The grin he supplied as he spoke made me glad I wore a cup. The discomfort was worth it.
I was still too grossed out to say much, so I turned and moved toward the exit. When we reached the receptionist’s desk, I pointed down the hall. “You have a wet cleanup in studio two.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Do me a favor,” Helen said outside the studio. “Don’t ever disrespect a god again.”
“Are you kidding me? That guy’s disgusting.”
“He’s a god.”
“Real gods don’t jack off on studio windows.”
“They do if they’re making a point.”
“I’ve seen better,” Kevin said with a grin.
Lakesha sat on the bench. “Stop,” she said. “You’re both right.”
“What do you mean?” Helen and I asked at the same time.
Lakesha pointed at me. “You were an asshole.”
“It’s my greatest strength,” I said. “Well, second greatest. Napping is still number one.”
“Challenging the god of music to play for your approval is not a strength,” Helen said. “It’s sheer stupidity.”
“I have to agree,” Lakesha said. “Up until then, we had a chance, but you, Brett, just had to be an asshole.”
“People don’t like harps these days.”
“He doesn’t play a harp,” Helen said. “It’s a lyre.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s really not.”
“It’s still stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
“You’re stupider.”
“Children!” Lakesha yelled. “You’re both stupid.”
“What did I do?” Helen asked.
“You brought mortals in to negotiate with a god.”
Helen blinked. “Oh.”
“I felt the paper shift in my hands.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The contract wasn’t signed when we got there. When you challenged Apollo to play his lyre, he willed her signature onto the page of the original contract and it phased into existence on the copy I held, too. I felt the magic.”
“So did that blonde,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Too soon?”
Kevin laughed.
Lakesha and Helen just glared.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now,” Kevin said, “you’d better find your magic pick because you have to audition for Apollo at seven.”
“What?” Helen asked.
“You’d already moved down the hall,” I said. “Apollo told me to be back here at seven.”
“To audition?”
“Yeah.”
“You need that pick to play well, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Leave it at home.”
“Why?”
“Because this is an audition you don’t want to pass.”
“Why?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Read my lips, Brett. It’s not wise to challenge a god!”
“You don’t have to shout.”
“Leave the pick at home. Be here on time, play something simple that doesn’t sound very good. Take whatever abuse he dumps on you. He’s going to belittle you. He might insist on a sex act to gain his forgiveness. In fact, based on what he said and did in there, that’s probably a given.”
I shook my head. “No dick shall pass these lips.”
“You might want to think twice about that. You insulted a god. He won’t kill you, Brett. He will destroy your life. You do whatever you have to do to get back to zero.”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying.”
“You’re on his bad side,” Lakesha said.
“I get that.”
“That’s not good.”
“I get that too.”
“You think you have something to prove,” Helen said. “That you have to show him up somehow. Leave that pick at home.”
“Lakesha makes more sense,” I said. “Six words or less.”
“Fuck your six words or less.”
“That was six words. I understood that.”
“Squeaky wheel gets the oil,” Lakesha said.
I gave her a confused look. “You’re saying I’m the squeaky wheel?”
“And the oil is Apollo’s derision.”
“She means jizz,” Kevin said. “Apollo might shoot his wad in your face until you shut the fuck up.”
“Way more than six words,” I said. “And way over the line into Inappropriate City.”
“That’s where I live,” Kevin said. “But you know I’m right.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not a pretty picture you’re painting.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kevin said. “I want to watch. I like seeing bad shit happen to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like you.”
“Apollo doesn’t like you either,” Helen said. “Neither do I, come to think of it.”
I turned to Lakesha.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I get paid to deal with your shit.”
I stared at them each in turn. I knew Kevin didn’t like me. He’d pissed on me, and was assigned to mess with me. I thought Lakesha liked me, but she was right. My father paid her to put up with me. And her cat probably had the final say. Isis hated me.
I faced Helen. “You seemed to like me at the diner,” I said.
“When you meet someone, the person stands at a zero. You don’t like or dislike them. I can see you want to tell me six words or less right now.”
“I thought about it,” I admitted.
“Not charming.”
“Go on.”
“Different things will make you like someone more or less. If the person is attractive, that will affect how you feel.”
“I do have nice hair
,” I said.
“Interrupting is not charming.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“I feel like I’m wasting my breath. You don’t listen to people. You just look for the place to stick your next smart-ass comment. Maybe it’s to get attention. Maybe your father was a jerk. But at some point, you have to grow up. You can’t be Peter Pan forever. You’re what, thirty?”
I nodded.
“While that’s nothing compared to me, it’s a long time for a mortal. You’re a spoiled brat who thinks only of yourself, and you think you’re funny quipping about how lyres are harps or how much cooler you think you are than everyone else. Those sorts of things get really old really fast. Someone must have laughed at one of your jokes, so you took that as approval. It was probably shock at the fact that you’d say something so stupid.”
“Go on,” I said.
“You’re not even listening to what I’m saying.”
“Go on,” I said.
She gave me disgusted sigh, turned and walked away.
“Was it something I said?”
Lakesha shook her head, got up, and followed Helen off the lot.
“Good work,” Kevin said.
“What do they know? I have friends. Chuck, Teddy, and Michael like me. Sabrina doesn’t, but she’s family, so that doesn’t count.”
“How did you meet them?” Kevin asked.
“Band auditions.”
“So you don’t really know anyone else in Galveston?”
“I know a few people. Hey, I haven’t been here long.”
“Where were you before this?”
“New Orleans.”
“You have friends there?”
“Of course.”
“Name three.”
“Well, there’s…”
Kevin tapped his foot.
He tapped his foot some more.
He kept tapping.
“Okay, I left New Orleans partly because I didn’t have any friends there. I was in a band, but we had creative differences.”
“Band talk for they hated you.”
“Fuck you, Kevin.”
“If I thought that would get me back to my dimension, I’d drop my undies, bend over, and let you do the nasty right here and now.”
“My bandmates don’t hate me. And a kid named Demetrius likes me.”
“Who’s Demetrius?”
“A little boy who’s been dead since before I was born.”
“Zombie?”
“Ghost.”
“This ghost have lots of ghost friends?”
“Of course not.”
“So having you is better than being alone all the time, especially when you don’t come by to visit.”
“I bring him comic books from time to time.”
Kevin grinned. “So you’re buying his friendship. Got it.”
“Michael was the closest thing I had to a real friend,” I said.
“Was?”
I sat on the bench Lakesha had vacated. “He’s with Sabrina now.”
“So you and Michael were lovers?”
“No, dumbass. We were friends. We hung out.”
“So there was nothing in it for him other than the pleasure of your dubious company?”
I thought about that. “Well, he’s a vampire, and he thought my dad could cure him. Holy shit, he wasn’t a real friend either, was he? When I was in need after my father cut me off, Chuck wouldn’t take me in, Teddy wouldn’t take me in, and it’s just now dawning on me that I really don’t have any friends. Holy shit.”
“I’ve known you for only a few days, but you’re a real asshole. And coming from me, that’s saying something because I pride myself on being an asshole. You take it to all new levels with ease, while I have to work at it. And I know you’re ignoring everything I’m saying because you think everything is about you, and if I offered to have a hot chick do unspeakable things with you right now, you wouldn’t even know it because you’re lost in your own head feeling sorry for yourself because the poor little baby doesn’t have any friends.” He went into baby talk at the end of that to add to the insult.
“Did you say something?” I asked.
“And I rest my case.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Demetrius sat on the front porch of the house he still haunted. As always, he wore his yellow shirt, brown shorts, and flip-flops. He was lucky the ectoplasmic boogers he always dug out of his nostrils couldn’t be wiped on his ghost shirt. He wasn’t picking his nose right now, but I knew I needed to be ready in case he started. He liked to wipe the extractions on me.
I pulled up to the curb and parked. Kevin peered out the window at the ghost.
“The kid is waiting for you?” Kevin asked.
“No,” I said. “He likes to sit on the porch in the afternoon. When you’re dead, it’s sometimes good to see life going on around you.”
“If you say so,” Kevin said.
I grabbed the bag of comics I’d picked up on the drive over, and climbed out of the car. The neighborhood was quiet, which suited me fine. An old woman sat in a rocking chair on her front porch a few houses down, but she was the only other person I saw. Other than that, it was old houses and palm trees lining both sides of the street.
“Hey, Demetrius,” I said waving the brown paper bag.
“Hi, Brat.”
“Brett,” I said.
“That’s what I said.”
“I brought you some comics.”
He perked up. “Cool.”
I walked up to the porch and sat down beside him.
“What did you bring me? Something awesome, I hope!”
He didn’t look at Kevin, so maybe Demetrius couldn’t see him. It was hard to tell with Demetrius.
“I always make awesome choices. Check it out,” I said and pulled a comic book out of the bag. “The latest issue of Power Man and Iron Fist. I figured you’d want to catch up.”
Demetrius frowned. “Oh. Sabrina brought that issue to me last week.”
“She did?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I also grabbed a couple of old Werewolf by Night comics,” I said as I took them out of the bag.
His eyes widened, and I knew I was on the right track. “Is Brother Voodoo in them?”
Maybe I wasn’t on the right track. “No, but he fights Dracula in this one.”
“I don’t like Dracula.”
“Oh,” I said, and tried to save myself. “This one has other vampires on the moon. You like vampires, don’t you?”
“Sure, I guess. I mean, I like Michael.”
“There you go. Check this one out.”
He looked at the cover of the comic book where two vampires held the werewolf in a combined full nelson on the moon with the planet Earth visible in the background. A vampire chick named Liza was chomping down on the werewolf’s shoulder while the vampire dude in a cape told her in no uncertain terms that even a wolf-man could feed the undead. Demetrius shook his head. “Looks like Dracula.”
To be honest, I thought it was Dracula when I bought it. What kid doesn’t like Dracula? Obviously, the one I was buying for. My bad.
“Got any others?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, dude, I thought three was good enough.”
“Sabrina bought me ten comics this week.”
“Wow,” I said, thinking, that bitch. “She sure showed me. I’ll do better next time.”
Demetrius sighed. “It’s okay, Brat.”
“Brett.”
“Whatever.”
“Want me to read one of the comics Sabrina brought over?”
“She already read them to me. She and Michael are coming over tonight with a computer to show me a movie where Will Smith fights aliens.”
“Independence Day?” I asked, surprised that he knew who Will Smith was. He hadn’t seen a movie since the early 1980s.
“No, we watched that last week. It was cool. This time it’s a series, though. I think there are three of them. Men
in Black.”
“Yeah, there are three of them. Fun movies. You’ll like them. Okay then.”
“We might even do a triple feature! Sabrina and Michael are so cool. I love it when they come over.”
Kevin hopped off the porch and pointed a finger at me. “The implication, in case you missed it, is that you aren’t cool, Brett.”
Demetrius didn’t react, so that meant Kevin was invisible and inaudible to him. I didn’t respond. Instead I just nodded to Demetrius. “Yeah,” I said. “They are pretty cool. How often do they visit you?”
“They come over quite a bit. Sabrina will sometimes come alone in the daytime, and Michael will sometimes come alone at night too.”
“I see. Well, I’ll tell you what, Dee, you tell me which comics you want and I’ll buy them for you.”
“Don’t call me Dee,” he said. “That’s Sabrina’s nickname for me. And don’t worry about the comics. She brings me all the comics I need. But thanks for stopping by. I’m gonna go inside now. Catch ya in a few weeks.”
He got up and walked through the door.
Kevin stared at me. “Few weeks? The ghost kid is all alone and you see him every few weeks?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what? Sleeping?”
“Working on magic.”
“All day?”
“Shut up, Kevin.”
“I gotta hand it to you, Brett. I’ve never seen a ghost sigh before. Good job.”
“I don’t get credit for trying?”
It sounded better in my head. When I spoke the words out loud, I felt like a shithead. You shouldn’t have to try to be friends with someone. Especially a lonely ghost boy.
“This is getting a bit too Dickensian for me,” I said. “If you show up as the Demon of Christmas Future, I’m gonna get worried.”
But Kevin didn’t pay any attention to me. He slid into the car and waited.
I sat on the porch for a few more minutes feeling sorry for myself. Then I put on my big boy pants and went to the car. It was time to go home. I needed a nap.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My balls hurt.
I woke up from my nap and gingerly moved my legs over the side of the bed. My first thought was that Kevin must have kicked me while I slept, but he wasn’t even in the room. Maybe he kicked me and ran? But no, the pain felt different. Like it was coming from inside my testicles. I stood and stumbled to the dresser. I checked the time on my phone. 6:30.