Fractious

by Carrie Lynn Barker

  * * * *

  We sat on the ground around a large bonfire. The Goat People, danced, chanted and shloomed in some kind of sing song that only Roger Valentine understood. He bobbed his head back and forth to the tune and hummed along. Cu, Crista and I just stared at each other. Soon, a couple of female Goat People wearing long, flowing gowns appeared bearing trays of food.

  "Eat up, folks," Roger said as we were handed plates. "You must be staaaarving."

  I picked at my food, unsure if it was safe, but when I saw Cu eating, I felt okay about it and began to gobble down whatever it was filled my plate. Roger said something about roasted duck and caviar, but I could only assume. The pile of slop on my plate didn't look much like roasted duck and caviar. Whatever it was, it was better than flour paste by quite a bit.

  "So how did you end up here?" I heard Crista ask Roger.

  "Oh, there's a couple portals into this place," Roger said, dabbing at his mouth with a white, linen napkin. "I just stepped through one in Pennsylvania, right into the middle of the fertility festival. Quite by accident, actually. I wandered around and found this place." He gave a giggle.

  "I found these little guys in the middle of their orgy. Just think, a hundred or so little Goat People fucking and humping in the fields to help fertilize the crops. Then I came out of the woods and BANG! They worship me. Just like that!" He gave his fingers a snap for emphasis.

  "They worship you?" I repeated.

  "They worship me," he said. "Isn't that something? Me!" Grinning fit to split, he slapped himself in the chest. "I'm a god!"

  "Holy crap," I muttered, with a mouthful of food.

  "Got that right!" Roger hollered.

  A Goat Woman brought him a hollowed out gourd from which he pulled a cork and took a long swallow. She bowed low and honked something at him before retreating.

  "Thanks, Marcie." Roger said, holding the gourd out to me. "Anybody want some potato vodka?"

  "Um." I didn't see any potatoes around.

  Cu, who didn't seem concerned that there were no potatoes around, darted in and grabbed the gourd. He yanked it from Roger's hands and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth then passed the gourd on to me. I took an experimental sip before guzzling and passing it on .

  Crista shook her head and turned up her nose. Roger took back his gourd and drank some more.

  "Good stuffs," he said with a laugh. "Anybody want any more?"

  Cu and I shook our heads.

  "Marcie!" Roger hollered.

  "Does anybody ever not yell around here?" I muttered.

  Marcie reappeared, trotting over on her short, furry legs. She bowed her horned head and took back the gourd. She babbled something in Goat Person lingo to which Roger nodded with a smile.

  "There's more food, if ya'll are still hungry," our pink-panted host said.

  I held out my plate for more. How could I resist roast duck and caviar, if that was indeed what we were eating.

  It was a fun night. Roger taught us to dance in Goat People style, jumping around in circles and waving our arms in the air. He taught us a few words in their language too, even though I doubted any of them would come in very handy unless we met other Goat People while strolling through the woods. We danced and drank more and more potato vodka, which is probably what led to what happened next.

  I was having a dance with Crista after having dragged her away from our new friend, Roger. I was decently drunk and having a good time. Roger swore in colorful terms when I cut in, but he let me have her. I put my arms around her waist and spun her in a dizzy circle while the Goat People whirled and twirled all around us.

  They'd long since brought out a couple of drums and Pan pipes, which were more than appropriate, and were playing the theme song to the Love Boat. Roger said he'd taught it to them when he first got there.

  Roger had been there a long, long time. He just didn't know it yet.

  So, we danced around in something that was more or less a circle but might have been a polyhedron. We weaved a bit due to copious amounts of potato vodka for me and something that resembled wine, but definitely was not wine because the Goat People had no grapes, for Crista. She said she enjoyed the fruitiness of her drink and I enjoyed the potato-i-ness of mine. Good stuff.

  Good times.

  Then we fell down.

  We tripped, or I should say, I tripped over the feet of some Goat Person who was already drunk and out cold in a heap on the ground. I fell backwards strategically so Crista would land on top of me. I just didn't want her to get hurt, and that's the honest truth. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. So, I landed hard on my back, and had the wind knocked from my lungs in the process. She landed hard on my chest, laughing. My back protested the fall and my lungs protested her weight until I rolled her laughing self off of me and sat up, rubbing the base of my spine.

  "Are you okay?" she said through her giggles.

  "Nothing more vodka won't cure."

  Crista helped me to my feet and staggered a bit, leaning against me for support. She waited until I got my breath then surprised me with a big, wet kiss on the lips. She held that for just a few seconds before pulling away, looking embarrassed and turning a multitude of shades of red. "Sorry," she said, hiding her face behind her hands.

  She tasted of sweet wine that probably wasn't wine, since the Goat People had no grapes, and no caviar, I later discovered, so I have no idea what we had been eating for dinner.

  No kidding.

  I wanted more, but restrained myself for all of ten seconds as I stood and stared at her through my drunken eyes. Then I darted in and kissed her myself, one hand on the back of her neck so she wouldn't get away. She didn't try to run like every other girl had ever done throughout the entirety of my life. Besides, she'd kissed me first.

  We stood there, arms around each other and lips locked together until Cu came up behind me, stood on a stool, and hit me over the head with his ever present bright green top hat.

  Thwack!

  Crista pulled away from me and again hid her face behind her hand. "Oh my gosh!" she yelled. She turned and ran inside one of the huts that I knew belonged to the women folk. Roger had already told us that the Goat People had separate quarters for the unmarried women and the unmarried men, just to keep such things from happening until the fertility festivals occurred. According to him, that was about twenty different times during the year.

  "What'd you do that for?" I bellowed at Cu, who was now almost my height since he was standing on a stool.

  "Hate to break up the party," he said, "But we have a job to do."

  "Hey, it is not my fault that we ended up here," I said, stomping my foot.

  "It's not my fault either," Cu said. "But we have a wizard to kill, and I'll not have you going all soft and gaga over that girl."

  "I wasn't going soft and gaga," I said firmly. "I was all soft and gaga before I even met Crista."

  "You kissed her!" he said.

  "That doesn't make me soft and gaga," I said.

  "But you kissed her!"

  "You would have, too, if she'd kissed you first," I said with a pout. I was disappointed that our kiss had ended so soon. I really wanted her to come back.

  "You really think she's into you?" Cu said, nodding his chin in the direction Crista had disappeared in. "You really think she likes you? She's drunk and so are you. There's nothing here but a couple of drunken human beings who find sexual interest in each other because they are the only two human beings here." He glanced at Roger, who was dancing circles with his gal pal Marcie.

  "He ain't human," Cu added, pointing at Roger.

  "He is too," I protested, crossing my arms over my chest. "He's just gay."

  "Gay?" Cu repeated.

  "Yeah, gay. Don't you guys have that here?"

  Cu seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. "What's that?"

  "It's when a dude likes a dude, or a girl likes a girl... And they... You know..." I made a lewd gesture.

  "Oh, that." C
u said. "Here we just call that normal. Anyway, you aren't her type. She's looking for a hero, somebody who can save her life. You're a weak, stupid human being with one mission and one mission only. I can't have you going all soft and gaga over that girl."

  "I! Was! Not!" I stamped both my feet in a mini tantrum. "I don't feel anything for her. I'm here to kill your damned wizard so I can go back home and you'll buy me my big house in Beverly Hills with a butler. Which I haven't forgotten about, by the way, and will still hold you to when we get done with this stupid task. I don't like that girl. She just popped in unannounced and just happens to know me from the bank. She's just a stupid girl with some kind of stupid infatuation and she should keep her lips to herself. She's just some girl.

  "That's it! Now get off my case!"

  Cu was silent for a moment before he whispered, "Damn."

  I should have known. Things like this always end like this.

  Crista was standing right behind me.

  I turned around and saw tears in her eyes. She gave a sob and rushed away into the woods. Her cries trailed her in the darkness. Roger came over to us with a fearful look in his own eyes.

  "What have you gone and done to her?" He stood there with hands on hips.

  "Nothing. I--"

  "Well, you done something, Fractious." Roger slapped me across the face. "How dare you hurt a sweet little thing like her. Now she gone and run off and she's gonna get eaten. You don't know what kinds of things are out there. Things that'll eat you, probably slowly."

  "I thought that was you guys." Cu pointed first at the Goat People, who had stopped their dancing, then back in the direction Crista had run.

  "No, that's not us." Roger said. "We don't eat people slowly. Hey, Brian! Get your men together and let's go make sure nothing eats her. Come on, fellas." A group of Goat People surged out from the dance circle and followed Roger into the woods, each bearing a torch and a pointy stick.

  I stood rubbing the sore spot on my face where Roger had struck me.

  "Now look what you did," Cu said, taking off his bright green top hat.

  I obediently bent down and let him whack me with it. I deserved as much, if not more. I felt like the stupid fool everybody was always making me out to be, and only now did I see why people always called me that.

  * * *

  chapter 9

  The next morning, I was nursing a hangover I didn't expect and feeding my friend Bob an apple, when Cu came over to me.

  He had a pack over his shoulder. "Ready to go?" he said with a weary smile.

  I nodded. Bob nudged my shoulder and nipped at my hair. "Stop that," I said quietly to him.

  He did.

  "I'm ready."

  "Your girlfriend is staying here with Roger," Cu told me.

  "Yeah, that's what I expected she'd do." I paused, then added, "No big."

  Cu punched my upper thigh, which was as high as he could reach. "When you come back a big hero, she'll look at you differently. You'll see."

  "You think I'm going to come back a hero?"

  Cu shrugged.

  "Who are you and what have you done with the Cu I know, the one who hates me so severely?"

  Cu looked around, glancing at the people going about their goat business. "Come on, Fractious," he said. "And if you get to ride that horse, then so do I."

  We made a quick decision to leave the ponies with the Goat People, after Roger promised they wouldn't be eaten. We'd make better time without them, and, after being assured that they would not become food, the ponies weren't too upset about it. We waved goodbye to our new friends and left, lacking one. Crista didn't even come out of the women's hut to say bye to us. I felt bad, but I'd feel worse if I never made it back to apologize to her for being such a dope. So I vowed to make it a point to live so I could come back.

  Bob the horse conveyed both Cu and me through the forest, following a nearly unseen pathway back to the road we'd been on before being accosted and goat-napped by Goat People. Bob also conveyed our packs without any protest whatsoever. My pony would have been whining and complaining the entire time, as was his nature. I had certainly grown to like my pony, but I liked Bob a whole lot better. Bob was less inclined to protest anything.

  Cu rode behind me, hanging on to my waist for dear life as I kept Bob to a slow walk. It was a long fall for a Tuatha Dé from Bob's back to the ground below, so I didn't blame him for holding on. Our packs hung over Bob's shoulders, tied together with rope, and my sword swung lazily from my hip. We didn't talk much, and we all knew we still had a long way to go. I was brooding. Cu was thinking.

  Finally, he said, "You know, you certainly are living up to your name."

  "Guy?" I muttered.

  "No."

  "Can't be Alamode," I grumbled. "I'm more out of the fashion than in it."

  "No. Fractious. You're irritable, touchy and always complaining."

  "I'm not complaining now."

  "And you tend to be troublesome," Cu said.

  "Trouble has a way of finding me," I said. "And what are you? A walking thesaurus?"

  "Quite possibly," Cu said.

  I snorted, a sound Bob echoed just for fun. I leaned forward and rubbed him between his ears.

  "Hey, stop that!" Cu yelled from behind me as I lifted him off his butt.

  "Sorry," I said, sitting back down properly. "Forgot you were there."

  "How could you? Oh, never mind."

  "Hey, Cu?"

  "What?" he grumbled.

  I laughed. "Heh, heycu. Now you're a Chinese poem."

  "What in all hell is wrong with you, Fractious?" Cu belted in my ear.

  My head rang for a moment then I just sighed. "I think I might like her," I said.

  "Who? Marcie?"

  I snorted laugher and was once again echoed by Bob, just for fun. "No, Crista."

  "What's she like, in real life?"

  "Crista?"

  Cu jabbed me in the ribs. "No, Crista."

  "Oh, Crista," I said to which I received yet another jab. "I dunno. I know she hates kids. Which is fine. I don't much like 'em either. She works at the bank where I used to work. She's nice. She fucks like nobody's business." I paused, lost in thought then added, "I saw that much when she was with that Ken dude."

  "Fractious?"

  "Hhm?"

  "I might have been wrong about you," Cu said.

  I tried to look at him over my shoulder and failed. "Wrong how?"

  "You aren't an asshole," he said. "At least, not completely."

  "Ah, thanks Cu." I said, feeling all girly inside. "You're not so bad yourself."

  "Okay, that's enough."

  "Good," I said quickly.

  We were quiet for a while, riding comfortably along on Bob's bare back, two pairs of balls bouncing up and down his horse spine and getting bruised along the way.

  I tried not to think about Crista. I tried not to think about a lot of things, but I found I was regretting the things I had said. I had been drunk and sometimes I don't think when I'm drunk. I don't think much when I'm sober either, but that's a different kind of not thinking. Like spending days in the park trying to catch what I thought at the time was a leprechaun but turned out to be a Tuatha Dé. Like agreeing in the first place to go find this Amergin whosie, all for a house in Beverly Hills and a butler.

  What did I know about killing a wizard? I could do as Lug suggested and throw peaches at his head, but what good would that do me? All it would probably do was make Amergin even angrier and he'd lob something even worse back at me, like stones or perhaps prunes. Lobbing peaches... What was I thinking?

  I wanted to go home. I had no job, probably had no apartment and I certainly had no friends. But I wanted to be back in New York. I knew New York. I understood it. I even liked it. I wanted to smell the subway and hear the crazies. I wanted to hail a cab or try not to get hit by a bus. I wanted a curbside hot dog really, really bad. I wanted to see a movie starring anyone but Tom Cruise. It was bad enough that the man was
on the money here. I wanted more and more.

  But what I really wanted was Crista.

  "Damn it," I swore under my breath. "Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Asshole. Dickwad. Reamer." I went on and on, going through cuss words that hadn't been bad words until I decided to add them to my list. At the end, I called myself a wallie, although I had no idea what that meant only that it was some British swear and decided I was done. I passed a hand over my brow, exhausted by the effort.

  "That was pleasant," Cu said from behind me. "You left out snogger and shyster."

  "What's a shyster?" I said.

  Cu was probably raising an eyebrow at me, but I couldn't see him so I just assumed. He didn't answer me, anyway.

  "I should never have come here," I said to Cu, and to Bob, who had his ears pricked back, listening intently.

  "You didn't come here," Cu said. "I dragged you. Remember?"

  "I guess," I said.

  "Look, Fractious, could you just forget about last night and think about the task at hand?"

  "Okay," I mumbled.

  "This isn't just your love life at stake here," Cu said seriously. "This is my world. And yours. Have you forgotten?"

  "No," I said. "It's just... I'm a jerk."

  "Yes, but use that to defeat Amergin. Then we'll go back to Roger and the Goat People, pick up your chick and I might even hold up my end of the bargain and buy you a house in Beverly Hills."

  "Swimming pools, movie stars," I said dreamily. "And it was Mac said he'd buy me a house in Beverly Hills, not you."

  Cu didn't answer me. So I kicked Bob into a trot and got on a little faster. I could feel Cu clinging to me like a very large burr, his body bouncing against mine as we rode. I wasn't afraid that he'd fall off. I was more afraid of getting back to the Goat People and discovering that Crista was no longer there.

  * * * *

  We made a camp that night in a large, overly green meadow. Cu built a fire by use of his teepee method, which he was very good at. He sat beside it, looking smugly at his creation, as if he invented the thing or something. I couldn't tell what was on his mind and I'm not sure that I much cared. I just sat on an old, hollow log, listening to the beetles scurrying around in its interior and sharpening my sword with a whetstone given us by Tat the sword maker. The sound of the stone against the blade was somehow soothing, not unlike listening to the tunes of AC/DC. I closed my eyes at times and just listened to the scraping. Not that I really knew what I was doing.