by Mick Farren
For a while, after they had left Aimee’s derelict Heaven, Mr. Thomas had tagged along with Jim and Doc, but his physical limitations, and his habit of drinking the worst bathtub gin by the bucketful, had made it hard for him to keep up with the fast and furious, pistoleer ways of the other two. He had dropped off the wildman bandwagon and elected to become the town drunk in a strange little settlement where almost all the inhabitants had reincarnated themselves, either by accident or design, as deliberately eccentric animals.
The final arrival had been Igor. Semple’s longtime butler had appeared a couple of relative months after Mr. Thomas had shown up at the house. He had apparently made it all the way from Aimee’s failed Heaven under his own steam, with little help and no sense of the shortest route between two points. The trek through the Jurassic swamp had all but finished him, and he had fallen onto the porch and collapsed, one early dragonfly morning, filthy with slime and waxy and insubstantial from exhaustion and fever. As with the goat, Semple had greeted Igor as an old and trusted companion and retainer. He, too, was nursed back to servile health, and joined what was now becoming Jim and Semple’s little colony in the swamp. Once again, Jim had no objections. A butler was a largely beneficial addition. Now Jim had someone who seemed more than pleased to bring him drinks when he was too idle to get up and make them for himself; plus he was freed from doing almost any chores around the place. About the only peripheral drawback was that Jim, now living the life of the idly pampered, had started to put on weight, much as he had done on the lifeside, and a nascent beer gut was already starting to protrude over the concho belt of his leather pants.
As the sun made its last curtain call, shooting majestic rays through the valleys between the volcanic peaks, Jim continued to lean on the front porch rail. He took a swig of beer and dragged on the cheroot. The cheroots were rum-soaked and mildly opiated and produced a very slight hallucinogenic buzz. As often when stoned, Jim’s mind wandered to the odd paradox that, sooner or later, a younger version of himself would come slopping through the mud and water, attracted by the light of the house, to creep and peer in the windows, just in time to watch Semple carve her initials on his back with the rapier. So far, his and Semple’s lovemaking had only infrequently drawn blood, and certainly no sharp steel objects had yet been employed on the endless quest for higher and more esoteric planes of fun. So maybe it would be some time before the young Jim came tiptoeing by.
Out in the depths of the swamps, the diplodocuses and the other long-necked herbivores were starting into their sunset chorus, and a big carnivore, maybe a T-rex, was baying in triumph after an evening kill. By the rusting Buick, Mr. Thomas and the Mammal with No Name were taking turns drinking mint juleps from a plastic bucket while, overhead, pteradons were circling for one last snack while they still had the light. Jim knew that when darkness fell, the flying saucers would commence their nightly display. Of late, the UFOs of the night had been big and bright, close to a continuous traffic pattern. Paradoxically, however, no abductions had occurred, unless of course the aliens were now targeting some of the smaller dinosaurs for microchip implants and rectal probes. When, on one occasion, Jim had speculated about how it was that he hadn’t been abducted a second time, Semple’s answer had been simple, to-thepoint, and not especially complimentary. “They’ve had you once already, and besides, you’re a self-involved idiot who still insists on wearing foul-smelling leather jeans after all these relative years. What would any fastidious E.T. want with you?”
Jim had mixed feelings about alien abduction. He knew he would be exceedingly reluctant to go through the process again, but on the other hand the encounter with Epiphany and Devora—even though he still believed them pure illusion—had been one of the most memorable sexual thrill rides of his entire continuance, and had, after all, in its own strange way, brought him to Semple. Now and again he fantasized about somehow reuniting with the two space beauties and organizing a foursome with himself and Semple. He suspected that Epiphany and Devora were so formidably exotic that Semple might well have agreed to it, but he could hardly see how that kind of negotiation could be conducted with the big-headed little aliens.
As these thoughts passed idly through Jim’s very slightly fogged brain, Semple herself came out onto the porch. “You never tire of watching the sunsets, do you?”
Jim smiled and nodded. “I guess it’s a legacy from living so long in LA. The worse the pollution, the more awesome the sunset.”
“Bloody red sun of fantastic LA?”
“That’s about it.”
Semple was wearing a long, black, almost transparent peignoir over a leather bustier, sheer black stockings, and five-inch Lucite heels, and Jim knew that in this instance it wasn’t for his benefit. “Igor?”
“He was getting fractious and required a little attention.”
“And where is he now?”
“Probably curled up in a fetal ball in some dark corner of the attic, nursing his cuts and welts and fondling himself while he relives his memories, detail by painful detail.”
Jim had long since ceased to allow the psycho-erotic content of Semple’s relationship with the diminutive butler to upset or bother him. “So he’ll be in a fine mood tomorrow?”
Semple smiled. “Bright and early and more anxious to please than we’ve seen him in a long time. We might even get breakfast in bed.”
Jim sighed and shook his head. “Is the way we exist weird or is it weird?”
Semple moved beside him. “You know as well as I do that none of the old lifeside criteria apply here. Here in the swamp it’s just us. We set the standards. Whatever we do has to be normal because we are all there are.”
The first of the UFOs moved across the sky; a cluster of the small, skittering red spheres that Jim always thought of as the jokers. Mr. Thomas and the Mammal with No Name both looked up and then glanced at Jim. Mr. Thomas’s speech was slurred from the mint juleps. “Here they come again.”
The dancing red spheres were followed by a pair of Adamski saucers, close together, line abreast with under-apron searchlights raking the swamp. Semple took hold of Jim’s hand. “The Bee Man is coming.”
“He is? How do you know that?”
“I can feel it.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“You think it will be like the last time?”
Semple squeezed his hand harder. “It might be even more extreme. Plus we’ll have the honey.”
Jim turned and looked at Semple. “Is this love?”
Semple laughed. “Maybe.”
Two large triangular spacecraft swung over the house. Semple’s hair began to stand up on her head, and Jim could feel his own doing the same. “For all we know, its an eternal cosmic punishment,” she continued, “but it doesn’t seem so bad. Or maybe it’s just another fake-out by the gods. Who the fuck knows for sure?” She moved close to Jim and kissed him. “And does it really matter? We’re here, we’re dead, and, by and large, we get along. What more can a human being hope for in eternity?”
A third triangular UFO swung low over the house, hurrying to catch up with the others.