My final words to him replay themselves in my head:
“Murray!! Come here!!”
How I wish.
Shit happens.
Bobby
Dear Miss Young,
We are in receipt of your most recent email dated 3/21/14 and are pleased to hear of your imminent arrival in Inverness so that we may settle the estate of your uncle, Ronan Bon Young.
Once you sign the necessary documentation you are within your legal rights to take up residence at Mr. Young’s house, although there are still some formalities remaining in order to complete execution and distribution of the estate. Please stop by our offices when you reach Inverness—the address is included at the bottom of this email with our company hallmark—and we will have the appropriate legal papers ready for you to sign and shall supply you with keys and directions. Or I would be happy to drive you to the house myself.
Provided you have all the correct documentation noted in the previous email, this matter should be resolved fairly quickly.
Please call my cellular phone when you arrive. The number from your U.S. device is: 011 44 1463 3789 131.
Looking forward to meeting you. Your uncle was quite a fixture around this part of the Highlands.
Your faithful servant,
Clive McGivney
of
McGivney, McGivney, & McGivney Law Offices, Inverness, Scotland 41 Church Street, Inverness, Highlands, IV1 1EH
Bobby
Los Angeles International is so crowded at 7:30 in the evening that there’s not even enough room to change your mind. And we are all thinking about doing just that as the three of us head to Security on our way to Immigration (where I will be forced to display my inhuman, zombie passport photo) that will then take us to the gate that will take us to the plane that will take us to London and then Glasgow, where we will rent a car that will take us to McGivney, McGivney, and McGivney of Inverness. And who knows where else? We’re all at the point of thinking this could really just be just some wild, stoned-goose chase. Or maybe not. I guess at the very least, Alice gets a new house and I get to dip my imagination into the cold and awesome Loch Ness, “home of the world’s coolest creature,” to quote twelve-year-old Horatio Cotton. Not sure what Lexington Vargas’s hopes for this trip would be. He doesn’t say much.
All this excitement, however, is tempered by the brick of pain that sits on my chest. Murray died on my watch. I’m heartsick to have lost him like that. We made a deal a long time ago, we humans and dogs. They would give up their wild, wandering ways to idolize us and keep us good company, and we would love them and protect them from harm. Murray lived up to his part of the bargain; I did not. I’m still so mad at God for not looking out for us. I know it’s ironic, given my recent conversations with the entity, that I still seem to be able to blame him/her for shit happening, but old habits die hard and my boy Murray just . . . died.
I am glad to be going somewhere new and away from the scene of my pain, if not from the pain itself. It’s welcomingly distracting to consider what we might find at the end of this wild-ass rainbow, although a big part of me is dreading flying twelve-plus hours sitting next to a traveler’s worst nightmare, the very large and space-consuming Lexington Vargas. I got the best price I could on the round-trip fares, and the best price was, unfortunately but obviously, coach. So the three of us will be squished into a space that wouldn’t fit three normal-sized people very comfortably and certainly not for as many long hours as we will be so ensconced. But we’ll endure.
Everything is going as swimmingly as I imagine it could until we get to Security and they find L.V.’s hunting knife in his backpack. I look at him in disbelief as they yank the wicked-looking man-killer out of his carry-on.
“Dude, what were you thinking?” I say, possibly in an attempt to publicly distance Alice and myself from this globetrotter’s faux pas.
“What? I’m not allowed to carry a knife?” says Lexington Vargas, nonplussed.
“Sir, it’s illegal to board an airplane with a weapon,” says the stern young woman in the blue shirt, and every time someone in authority says “Sir” like that it sounds like what they really mean is “Hey, dipshit.” Am I the only one who picks up on this? Ms. Blue Shirt has a look on her face as though she were holding a bag of heroin, a block of C4 plastic explosive, and a certificate of transit for the eight white-slave-trade hookers we have drugged-up, bound, and stashed in our checked luggage, rather than a small hunting knife. We’re all glad she is keeping the skies safe by patting down little kids and strip-searching grandmas.
“This is clearly on the list of banned carry-ons,” she continues, pointing to a large sign that also contains illustrations of explosives (really?) guns, chainsaws (no way!) and fire extinguishers. “Please step over here.” She points to a spot right next to the lethal-dose-emitting X-ray machines that they work beside day in and day out, and announces over her walkie-talkie: “Male assist. Male assist.”
“What does that mean?” I ask her.
“Are you three travelling together?” she replies sharply. It’s not quite the response I’m looking for.
“Er . . . yes,” I say. I guess it’s pretty obvious. Ms. TSA looks at Alice and speaks again into her intercom.
“One female assist. I need two male assists and a single female assist.”
We wait by the death-dealing radioactive machines in silence, thinking that this trip just got a whole lot more complicated. Eventually three more Blue Shirts approach us and signal us forward with a commanding and slightly demeaning wave of their blue-rubber-gloved hands.
“Oh, shit, are they going to body-cavity search us?” I think, seeing they are all wearing the same “rectal exam” rubber gloves.
But it’s not that bad. They rummage through our carry-ons, pulling out each article and inspecting it as though they were monkeys that have never seen an iPod or a Sudafed inhaler before. Then they run everything back through the X-ray machines! We are subjected to a hand-search and are told they will only touch our “sensitive areas” with the backs of their gloved hands. So no rectal exam, but some strange dude rubs Woody with the back of his hand as I send mental signals to the aforementioned penis to ignore the stimulation because (a) it’s coming from a man, (b) I’d be mortified if he (Woody) moved a muscle, and (c) do not, repeat, do NOT look over at Alice as the lucky female Blue Shirt rubs the back of her hands over Alice’s “sensitive areas.”
Soon, after much wiping of rubber gloves with strips of cloth and consequent processing of those strips, we are free to go. Lexington Vargas wants to know if he can have his knife back.
“Tell me the address of the rock you’ve been living under since the whole 9/11 thing, and I’ll have them mail the knife to you,” I say, maybe a bit heatedly, but honestly . . . “Can I have my knife back”? Fuck!
Lexington Vargas’s response is an expectedly low-key “I don’t know, I thought we might need it.”
Which actually may have more truth to it than I’d like to admit to myself.
We’re herded with the other cattle and board the aircraft inch by inch, bit by bit, as people mindlessly whack us with luggage, take forever to stow their bags, sit in the wrong seats, and generally make me wish I wasn’t a part of the same human race. Jesus, some of them smell bad already! What’s it going to be like after twelve or so hours with them all snoring and farting and generally causing me to yearn for Lexington Vargas’s hunting knife to put either them or me out of our misery?
The aircraft takes off with an explosive and thundering noise, jolting the three of us into fearful flashbacks of the plane crash on the 101 that will probably never leave our fear receptors.
Alice grips my hand until her knuckles show white. On the other side of me (yep, I got the middle seat), L.V. does the same. His giant hand engulfs and crushes my little mitt in his panic. He gives me a furtive look that speaks volumes. It says “Sorry, man. I’m totally freaked out about flying, and that whole plane-crash thing the other
night didn’t help any. Hold me, Daddy.” Wow, when did I become the rock in this weird partnership?
We do not crash in a fiery ball of boiling jet fuel on takeoff, and eventually the whole aircraft settles into the strange and restless lethargy that is part and parcel of flying across continents and time zones.
Alice has the window seat and the interior wall of the fuselage to sleep against. Lexington Vargas has the aisle and can stretch out to some degree, with his heavy head lolling into the walkway, although sporadic collisions with drink carts steered by aggressive flight attendants occasionally smack him into wakefulness. I have the choice of either Alice’s or L.V.’s shoulder. And although L.V. is more padded and would provide a fairly comfortable pillow (given the fact that his body also takes up half of my seat’s real estate already), I’m more than happy to lean my head on the fragile surface of Alice’s shoulder, even though I know it will leave me with a neck-ache for days. I think it’s a fair exchange. She is the only person on the whole airplane who smells good. She smells more than good. I slowly drift off.
“Wake up! Bobby, wake up!!” someone is prodding and poking me and yelling in my ear. Where am I? Is it raining? I hear thunder. And it’s really stinky. Suddenly I am awake and trying to grasp why I am awake. The thunder is the jet noise, the awful smell is my fellow passengers, the shoulder I have been drooling, yes drooling on, is Alice’s, and the face in my face is large and looks like a giant about to eat me, but I quickly realize it’s Lexington Vargas. I’m immediately on high alert. Something is going on. Are we crashing? “Bobby, wake up!!!” L.V. keeps yelling, although he’s not really yelling, but it sure feels like it. My neck hurts.
“What? What is it? I’m awake. Stop yelling. What’s the matter?”
“I just went to the bathroom,” L.V. begins.
“You woke me up to tell me you just went to the bathroom?”
“No, no, listen to me.”
“Stop shouting at me,” I plead.
“I’m not shouting,” whispers Lexington Vargas.
He sits up straight in his seat. The seat groans audibly. So do I as he leans in.
“The coach bathrooms were all busy or clogged up or something, and I really had to go, man . . .”
“Please, I don’t need to hear this.”
He continues anyway.
“So I walked down to the business-class toilets and one of the flight attendants asked me which section I was sitting in. I pointed to the back of the bus, so she said I had to use those bathrooms, but I told her they were full or out of service, and she said that the business-class restrooms were for business-class passengers only, and I said that I really needed to go and that it was “turtle-headin’,” and she said she didn’t understand what I meant by that and should she get one of the male flight attendants and did we have a problem here? and I said “Oye, hermana, I’ve got a brick knocking at the back door and—”
I stop him with an actual hand over his mouth, so close is he.
“Okay, stop. I need to sleep.”
“Merikh is on the plane!” says Lexington Vargas with some force, though muffled, through my hand.
“What?” I remove my hand and wipe it on my pant leg.
“He’s sitting in business class.”
“What?” Why does this seem to be my “go-to” word of choice?
“I saw him just as I was turning to come back here. He’s kind of unmistakable.”
I am awake!
“Our Merikh?” is all I can muster.
“He’s on the plane, man. With us!” says L.V.
“No fucking way,” I return.
“Come on. I’ll show you.”
He leads me to the business-class/cheap-seats barrier where the really fortunate upper class is sleeping luxuriously in exotic modular chairs that look incredibly comfortable.
“Are they sleeping in pods?” I ask, momentarily distracted by the opulence of business class.
L.V. ignores me and points to a profile that I have only seen once but recognize in an instant. It is perfect, flawless, beautiful, and it chills my heart. Sitting in the section we are not allowed to enter, even if the Titanic hits an iceberg and the only lifeboats are in business class, is the Angel of Death himself.
“Is he going to crash this plane?” asks Lexington Vargas, like I friggin’ know. “Should we tell a flight attendant?”
“Tell them what?” I reason. “That we saw this guy jump from a burning plane crash that no one was supposed to have survived and that he held us up with a gun right out of Pirates of the Caribbean and we think he might be the Angel of Death but we’re not really sure?”
“Okay,” answers L.V., like a little kid who’s been told by Mommy that there will be no trip to the zoo this Saturday because of his bad grades.
How did Merikh find us? Why is he following us? What’s with the long hair? All questions that need to be answered.
L.V. and I walk back to our seats on the lower decks with the rest of the Irish immigrants and wait for the possible collision with an ice mountain.
“We need some protection,” says Lexington Vargas. “Damn, I wish they hadn’t taken my knife.”
Okay, now I agree.
We decide not to tell Alice, but like a dopey kid who can’t keep a secret from his sister, I end up letting the nervous cat out of the bag and then wishing I hadn’t. She looks stricken.
My thinking is that if Merikh is going to bring this plane down, then Alice should know ahead of time so she can prepare for the afterlife or whatever. She sneaks up to take a look for herself.
“It’s him,” she confirms, squeezing past both of us to reclaim her seat, just as the plane starts to shake violently.
Again Alice and L.V. crush my hands into submission as the giant aircraft pitches and yaws. Is this it? Is Merikh about to turn another plane and its occupants into ash and embers?
The intercom clicks on and a casual voice says, “Sorry, folks. We seem to have hit a little bit of rough air. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened. We should be clear of this is a few minutes.”
So we’re good for now. But we’re on high alert, condition red! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
We take turns at checking on Merikh to see if he looks like he’s planning some kind of sabotage, but all he seems to be doing is sleeping. And the militant flight attendant who first accosted Lexington Vargas is getting pretty upset with our cavalier attitude towards her God Almighty authority.
“Get back to the sardine-packed seats and the plugged up crappers where you peasants belong!” she says with her eyes and her demeanor every time one of us ventures toward business class on recon.
“That guy sitting over there brought down the plane on the 101 freeway. We think he may be the Angel of Death, and we’re all in great peril, including you and your little area of sovereignty here by the business-class toilets,” is what I want to tell her, but instead I say: “Sorry, I thought these bathrooms were for everyone.”
After seeing the awesome pods the upper-class passengers sleep in, what must their bathrooms be like? Do they have gilt-edged wall-to-wall mirrors? Attendants that hand out mints? Automatic butt-wipers?
The flight seems interminable, but eventually we land at Heathrow Airport in Jolly Olde England unscathed and in one piece, and the Angel of Death can bite me.
We watch for Merikh all through immigration (where I’m pretty sure the young British admissions officer smirks at the photograph of the incestuous chicken-rapist masquerading as me in my passport—but I may be projecting) and the Angel of Death is nowhere to be seen. Nor is he on the flight from London to Glasgow. Believe me, we check. Often.
“I need to get us some protection,” says L.V.
Unfortunately, Woody thinks he means condoms because we’ll be shagging our brains out here in the Highlands with many of the fine young Scottish lassies. But I know what L.V. is referring to.
“Like what?” I ask as I hand over my eunuch of a MasterCard to the Hertz guy, wh
o has no idea I could never pay the bill I’ve run up if I lived to be 150. “I need to get us a gun, I think,” says Lexington Vargas quietly and ominously to me.
“How?” This is way out of my very small area of expertise.
“Don’t worry about it. I know how to do that,” answers L.V. reassuringly, and I believe him. “I think they still get weapons smuggled in here from old IRA stashes. I’ll go digging for something when we get to where we’re going.”
I have absolutely zero idea how to do what he is suggesting, so I do what I know how to do and pay for the rent-a-car. Oh my God, it’s a Kia!! Yes! I think this is a very good sign. Alice is still anxiously looking for Merikh in every person she sees and doesn’t join in my Kia joy.
L.V. and I have decided not to tell Alice about the weapon he is going to attempt to procure, and I do manage to keep that secret. We are all famished (when did they stop serving real meals on airplanes?) so I ease the McKia into a restaurant parking lot just up the street from Europe Cars-for-Hire. We head inside the ultramodern glass-and-steel building and order up some traditional old Scottish fare: haggis, neeps, and tatties (not really—we settle for a basket of soggy French fries and something resembling a hot dog). I am kind of disturbed by L.V.’s insistence that he get us some protection, and I wonder if he really will return from the dark streets of Inverness with the condoms—shut up Woody, Jesus!—gun.
God
“There are only two choices for opposing sides: force or reason. Why do they always seem to choose force?” thinks the OSB. “All force has ever done is inspire more force and more anger, never any lasting and true peace. Just ask the Vee-Nung. Well, you can’t, since sadly, the aforementioned organisms no longer exist. The dominant species is the dominant species because of the dominant weapons created by their dominant brains: that is, until these top-of-the-food-chain geniuses self-destruct. Weapons always provide the initial advantage, but then they become the genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. No principal life form has ever been able to avoid this. The ruling class on any planet always seems to fall into the same trap. And once they are in power, they think it’s their right to do whatever they want and take whatever they desire from their world and expect not to have a balancing of the books, a reckoning, an equilibrium to be reached at some point. And the longer they insist on their “free lunch,” the more dramatic and painful the counterbalance. The greater the yin, the greater the yang.”
Magnificent Vibration Page 21