Fractious

by Carrie Lynn Barker

  "I'll be seein' ya," Balor said to us as we all climbed up on Bob.

  Bob gave a whinny and picked up into a trot after I nudged him with my heels. Cu and Fiacha were behind me, clinging to me and each other.

  We didn't have far to go before we reached Murias and our journey came to an end. We reached Tat's cottage that day, but didn't do much more than stop for lunch. We relayed our tale to him but he'd already heard it.

  "Who'd you hear it from?" I said.

  "Girl passing through," Tat said. "She said she'd heard all about Amergin's death and told me all about it. I'm semi-disappointed that it wasn't my sword that killed him."

  "It wasn't anybody's sword that killed him," I said.

  "I heard," Tat said. "Peach cobbler."

  "Peach cobbler," I repeated, thinking back to that leap through the flaming hoop that Bob and I had done just before Amergin choked to death on the very thing he was allergic to. Tat even made a joke about Cu's cobbler being too good to pass up that even Amergin couldn't resist, allergy or no. Everybody had a great belly laugh at this, but I only chuckled.

  We had a quick lunch, and then we were on our way again. With Bob as our transportation, we got along a lot faster than we had with our two ponies, especially since Bob did all the work. At dusk we reached the city limits of Murias. Bob had kept up a good jog for the last ten or twenty miles. Even he was excited for our journey to be done.

  We were so excited that we passed right through Camhail, the place I'd originally thought of as Pub Town. We only stopped for two or three pints each when we could have had twenty. Our tale had reached Camhail already and the townsfolk toasted us, but we left quickly and only slightly drunk, ready to get back to Murias.

  "You're gonna be living high on the hog in Murias," Cu said to Bob when we reached the city limit, which was really just a break in the woods. "The king will be sure to give you the best of lodgings and all the alfalfa you can eat."

  Bob gave a snort and whinny.

  "And a girl friend," Cu added, "If you want one."

  Bob gave a happy neigh and clicked his back heels together, nearly throwing all three of us from his back. Yet we laughed. We almost went flying over his neck but we laughed. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to be in Murias. And the place had apparently been waiting for us.

  A huge group of the Tuatha Dé were gathered before the king's place, all standing around looking bored. When they got a glimpse of the three of us on horseback, they continued to look bored. Until Cu said, "Hey, folks!" and waved his bright green top hat.

  The crowd broke into a cheer, tossing stuff up into the air. Other hats flew, some bright green and some typical brown and black. I saw fruit fly, mostly peaches in honor of what had killed Amergin. I even saw a brown and orange tabby cat go flying. It screeched when someone caught it; or I assume someone caught it because it disappeared into the crowd.

  The crowd parted and the king, Mac Gréine, suddenly appeared. He strolled down the cleared space, scepter in hand, wearing a long, red cloak with white fur trim. A crown of gold and berries sat atop his head, holding down his shaggy hair.

  "Welcome back, my heroes!" he called, throwing up his hands. His scepter went flying, but I don't think he noticed, or perhaps didn't care, even when the crowd scattered to avoid being hit by it. I saw someone come up with it and run off, happy to have such a souvenir.

  Cu, Fiacha and I jumped off Bob's back and endured the hugs, caresses and thumps on the back from the group of Tuatha Dé that greeted us. On the back of the thighs in my case. We slowly made our way to the king with big grins on our faces. Bob walked behind us with his head held high.

  It was a party to end all parties. It lasted for days, so many days that I completely lost count. Hardly anybody slept, and if they did, they simply plopped down in the town square and used their arms or their buddies as pillows.

  Beer was served. Food was served. Merchants sold all kinds of things to anyone who would buy. People were buying all kinds of crap they didn't need: picture frames, flower pots, racks of lamb that spoiled in the sun, since nobody went home.

  It was loads of fun, but no matter how many people I asked, nobody had seen or heard of Crista. She must have skipped out on the fun in Murias.

  Three days later, after the celebration had died down slightly, I made my way through throngs of people, stepping over drunkards, winos and goats alike. I was looking for Cu. Mac Gréine had just handed me the deed to my new house in Beverly Hills. He'd also given me the name of my butler, Aloysius Belvedere, who was right at that moment getting the house ready for my return. I wanted to tell my one-time guide that I was ready to go home. Only this time, I'd be going home through the Watts portal.

  After two hours of wandering aimlessly, I came across Bob, who was standing in a comfy looking pile of straw behind a barn. A pretty, white filly was standing beside him, her head hanging down and her eyes slightly rolled back. She looked spent. Bob winked at me when he saw me approach and began to make his way to meet me. The filly gave a protesting whinny, but he licked her cheek and she quieted down. "He's my friend," Bob had told her.

  I embraced his long neck and let him lick my face. He nickered softly in my ear. "Lookin' for Cu," I said. "Have you seen him?"

  Bob shrugged. He snorted to his filly, telling her he'd be back in a little while. Then the two of us went in search of Cu. We found him and Fiacha sitting in one of the many bars at the far end of Murias. Cu saw me and immediately ordered a pint for me and one for Bob, who had recently discovered a complete love for grainy beers. This particular ale house was smaller in size than some of the others, but everyone knew me by now, and the pint I was given was a Guy sized pint, much smaller than the ones Cu and Fiacha were drinking. The two of them came outside to join me.

  We sat together, the four of us, drinking our beers in relative silence. Cu knew what was coming. So did Fiacha, but neither of them asked. It was Bob who spoke up with a neigh and a snort.

  "So," Cu echoed Bob's words, "you are ready to go home, eh?"

  I pulled the deed out of my pocket and flashed it in front of his face. "My house is almost ready. I should get back to my normal life."

  Cu nodded glumly. "All right, Fractious. It'll be night in Watts right now, I'm sure. We'll have to wait about two more hours. That okay?"

  I nodded. I couldn't argue with him. He knew Watts better than I did, and I'd heard enough to know that I didn't want to be there during the dark hours.

  So we drank. We talked. We laughed about good times. We recalled my drunken experience in Tara and how I'd awoken on the back of my pony, my head being dragged along the ground on one side of the pony and my feet being dragged along the ground on the other side of the pony.

  Bob thought that was particularly funny and laughed to think about me riding around on one of the Tuatha Dé's tiny horses.

  I told him to shut up, and reminded him of the people I'd discovered him with. The image of Lug riding around on Bob's back was just as funny as me riding around on the Tuatha Dé pony. We continued to laugh and drink, enjoying each other's company as if we'd known each other all our lives. To me, it felt like we had.

  Before I knew it, it was time to go.

  Cu guided me through the town of Murias, with Fiacha holding his hand and Bob on our heels. The horse hung his head until his nose nearly touched the ground. Little puffs of steam drifted up when he breathed. Cu gripped Fiacha's hand until his knuckles turned white. She grimaced, but said nothing. I liked her even more for that.

  Cu had agreed he would take me to the bus stop near the portal in Watts, and he would leave me with directions for what busses to take to get me to my new home. I wondered at the impression I would leave on any of my new neighbors, if anybody was around to see me arrive. First off, I'd be walking instead of driving a Bentley, Mercedes or Lamborghini. Second off, my clothes were not so fresh. Not a single one of the Tuatha Dé in Murias had complained so I hadn't bothered to attempt to find new clothing, or, more lik
ely, have some made. It occurred to me that I had no money to buy new clothes with either. But Fiacha had the answer to that.

  She held out her hand to me, her fingers closed around something. She dropped it into my hand.

  I marveled at the size of the emerald she'd just given me.

  "I can't take this." I tried to give it back.

  She closed my fingers around the jewel and shoved my hand back against my midsection. "Keep it," she said. "It's the biggest one."

  "I don't know how to thank you," I said, as tears formed in my eyes.

  "No need," she said. "Besides, I should be thanking you."

  "What the hell did I do?"

  "Enough." She was still holding onto my hand and used it to pull me down to her level. She laid a nice kiss on my lips, long and sensual, in a way that should have been reserved for Cu.

  When she pulled away, I said, "What was that for?"

  "Because I like you, Guy Fractious," she said, blushing slightly. "You may have saved my life."

  "From what?"

  "Doldrums and boredom," she said. "Plus, you led Cu to me."

  "Actually, Cu led me to Amergin," I said. "So maybe it was Amergin who led you to Cu. Indirectly, of course. Or maybe it was Cu who led Cu to you. He was leading, after all."

  "Whatever way it goes," Fiacha said, stopping my rant, "I'm glad to have met you."

  "Me, too," I said. I kissed her cheek, and then turned to Bob.

  Bob shuffled his feet in the dirt, his head still lowered. He snorted.

  "Don't be sad, buddy," I said, patting his head between his black-tipped ears. "We're friends, remember? I never forget my friends. Thanks for carrying us so far."

  He snorted again.

  "I don't think they allow horses in Beverly Hills," I said.

  He neighed.

  "The Clampetts were not real," I said. "Besides, I don't think they had a horse."

  Bob bumped my stomach with his head. I bent down and put my forehead between his ears. He huffed and pulled back to lick my face. I didn't even bother to wipe off the horse saliva from my cheeks. I just let it run and drip and grinned all the way through it.

  Then came Cu. That was hard. Harder than I thought it was going to be. He'd called me a thousand names and insulted me more times than I'd ever be able to count, but in the end, he said he liked me. That meant a lot.

  Just outside Murias was the portal and he took me there alone, leaving Fiacha to console Bob, who'd started to sob as I walked away. The portal to Watts was in a rock that didn't look big enough to contain a portal.

  "Don't worry," Cu said. "Bigger things than you have come through this portal."

  "Like what?" I said, feeling somber.

  "Like my dick!" he said, slapping my thigh.

  I laughed. I couldn't help myself, and I knew that had been his intention. "Well," I said when the laughing was over, "Guess this is it, eh?" Cu motioned for me to step through the rock but I shook my head. "No way, you go first."

  "Fine," Cu said. He walked into the rock just the same as he'd walked into the tree.

  I followed, bent over so I could fit into the rock portal. I stepped out onto a sidewalk and a very loud, very honky bus flew by me. Cars and pedestrians rushed along in their daily lives, and no one even noticed that I'd appeared from nowhere. Cu was standing before me, laughing heartily. I held up one finger, stepped up to a dirty trashcan and puked. I straightened up a minute later, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and cleared my throat. There, off to the left, was a bus bench occupied by a single, grimy, homeless person with a mangy cat on his lap.

  I followed Cu over to the bus stop and sat down. Cu eyed the bum for a moment before hopping up beside me. It didn't even occur to me that the bum couldn't see the Tuatha Dé. It had become second nature to me.

  "So, Cu," I said, "I guess this is it."

  "This time it is," Cu said.

  The bum eyed me out of the corner of his eye then went back to petting his cat. Or at least I think it was a cat. It quite possibly might have been a wombat. I can't be sure.

  "Bus'll be here in a couple of minutes," Cu said. "Here's the list of the buses you need to take."

  I took the scrap of paper from Cu and looked it over carefully, forgetting everything that was on it when I put it in my pocket, and also forgetting that I'd put it in my pocket, which is probably why I got lost later. "Will I ever see you again?"

  "I'll stop by every now and then for a beer," he said, giving me a wink.

  I smiled. "I'll be sure to have the fridge filled, if I have a fridge."

  "You can buy one with Fiacha's emerald."

  "I could buy a thousand fridges with Fiacha's emerald," I said with a laugh.

  "Well, keep some left over for beer, okay?"

  "Okay."

  A grey cloud of smoke suddenly appeared on the corner of the street down the way. A cough and a backfire later and the bus was in front of us. I looked down at Cu.

  "This is my home world," I said, looking around at the ghetto of Watts, California. "Or as close to my home as I can get. Thank Mac again for the house for me, will you?"

  Cu nodded, at a seemingly sudden loss for words.

  "And I hope you and Fiacha have a whole bunch of little kids."

  Cu smiled at that. "We'll try. We might even name one Guy."

  "Please don't," I said, putting up my hands for emphasis. "It's bad enough that I'm named Guy. Don't saddle yet another kid with it."

  Cu shook his head. "Fine then. Balor, maybe. Or Bob, perhaps. Though I think a lot of kids born in the next few years are gonna be named Bob."

  The bus driver was staring at me through the open door, through which the bum had already entered, cat, or perhaps wombat, and all.

  "You can name him Balor only if he has a poisonous eye," I said.

  Cu handed me a wad of bills. "That should get you home."

  "Thanks," I said. I took the bills, and then mounted the steps of the bus. I waved my hand. "Come by any time."

  Cu nodded, a sad smile on his face. "It's been fun, my friend."

  Then the doors to the bus closed and the bus pulled away. And that, as they say, was the end of my adventure.

  "Pay up, pal," the bus driver said.

  I dropped the appropriate amount of money in his box. "Thanks."

  "For what?" he said.

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out but air.

  "Who were you talking to?" the driver said, his eyes on the road.

  "A friend," I said as I watched Cu disappear into the distance. "Just a friend."

  * * *

  chapter 16

  A few hours later and a few miles detour later, after I got on the wrong bus and ended up in some place called Hawaiian Gardens without even realizing I'd left the continental United States, I found myself standing in front of a particularly large mansion in the lovely city of Beverly Hills. I was grimy, smelly and probably looked as psychotic as that bus driver thought I was. The street was empty of human beings, for which I was thankful. I compared the house number to the one on my deed and walked up the walk to the front door.

  Mac had said he'd leave the keys with Mr. Belvedere, and when I knocked, a really nice dude answered the door. His eyes were half closed and he held his head up way too high, but he was dressed nice and he obviously recognized me.

  "Mr. Fractious," he said in a phony British accent.

  "How'd you know it was me?"

  "I recognized you, from the description given to me by the person who hired me." He stepped aside. "Welcome home, sir."

  "No need to call me sir," I said. "You can call me Guy."

  "Guy it is then, sir," he said, pronouncing it properly and with flare.

  I stepped into my house.

  I'd conveniently forgotten to give details concerning the details of my new home. I'd asked for a home with a yard and a butler. That's what I got. I got a house with a yard and a butler. There was nothing else in the house.

  I borrowed a su
it from Mr. Belvedere, who still insisted I call him that, even though I explained the sitcom in the eighties to him, a show he'd never even heard of, which I didn't believe. The suit didn't fit quite right and hung a little saggy in the butt, but it was all I had. I even had to borrow a pair of his shoes. And so, shuffling along in too large shoes, I made my way to a jeweler recommended to me by my butler. There, I sold the emerald with no questions asked.

  The jeweler just opened his eyes really wide at the jewel and said if I didn't sell it to him he was going to throttle me senseless, and then throttle me some more while I was senseless. I couldn't argue with that, and besides, I had nowhere else to go. And when the dude behind the counter asked my name, I refused to give it, which made him even more eager to buy it, even upping his price when I hesitated for a split second.

  So, with hundreds of thousands of US dollars bulging out my pockets, I went to the nearest car dealership. I bought an eighty-nine Toyota Camry for two thousand of those dollars, which was a rip off, but I did it anyway, and drove to the nearest mall. There, I bought clothing at the cheapest stores, picked up a couple pairs of tennis shoes at Payless Shoe Source and returned three times to my car to drop off my bags. I didn't buy a television. I didn't buy a radio. I didn't buy anything but the essentials. I felt no need for such things. Such things didn't matter.

  I did stop and order a fridge and stove, giving the dude an extra hundred to have them delivered within twenty-four hours. I waited patiently at home until they arrived, and only then did I go grocery shopping. I was starving because I hadn't eaten since the party in Murias. I hadn't even thought about eating since arriving home. I was thinking about other things.

  One word mattered to me out of all the other words Cu had ever said to me. "Friend." Nobody since the second grade had ever called me that, and that was an incident of mistaken identity. Balor had called me that, too. Fractious the mule thought of me as such. So did Fiacha and so did Bob. And I could call all of them the same. And I'd left all that behind me for my own world.