Waking up before sunrise always made Brad feel like he’d broken down the regular theater curtained part of his life and he was poking around the backstage area of the day, waiting to go on. He woke up ten minutes before the alarm went off, but decided to try to snooze that extra little bit. But it was too late. The metaphor had woken up his brain and now it was chugging and not willing to shut down for just ten more minutes, no matter how much his body wanted the rest.
Callie took her hat off her face. Brad had the feeling that she was waiting for some movement or sign from him as permission for her to get up. He sat up and so did she, puppets with the same stick.
“Mornin’” he said. He gave a droll wave.
“Good morning.”
He stretched his arms, and then wound his torso left and right, feeling the cracks.
“You know, when I get up before dawn, it reminds me of this time my parents took me skiing. Back before they got all wimpy about the cold. We had this flight first thing in the morning, so we had to leave our house at 4:30. Anyway, my parents hadn’t put the bags in the car beforehand or anything and so we had to do that, but my mom told me to sleep in the backseat while she and my dad did it. I must’ve been eight, nine.”
There was a twinge of homesick. He shrugged off the warm blanket and the memory.
“Let me jump in the shower. Unless you want the first one,” he said.
“Go right ahead, Brad.”
Louie and his mother sat in the gate, waiting for boarding call. His father was wandering the airport shops, searching for Sour Patch Kids or some reasonable facsimile. Louie had a car magazine lying closed on his lap. His mother was reading the newspaper. This was going to be a real bungee funeral. Fly in Friday, stay overnight, funeral, and fly out early Sunday morn.
Louie looked around at the other Friday travelers. There were businessmen in business suits, heading either home or away. Each one had a cell phone active, or at least nearby as if to say, “I’m expecting important work.” There were families taking the last vacation of the summer, clad in layers that could be easily stripped off in warmer climes. Screaming toddlers ran under the chair benches and their parents half followed a few paces behind to ward off would-be kidnappers (although if the kids were crying screaming, the parent in question might entertain fantasies of being childless for a time). Louie and his folks were dressed normally. No black of any kind, not even black armbands. His mother did not have that fishnet lace over her face. His father wore the same golf shirts he always wore on the weekends. How was anyone to know that they were grieving?
It certainly wasn’t visible in the face. Sad is sad. A passerby might guess that Louie might have not been picked for the baseball team, or his dad might have gotten fired. No one could glance and read their loss, compare it to a help card, say, “Oh, there was a death in that family.” The only clue was that all three looked sad at the same time. What reactions did the other people have when they carried out that mandatory airport activity of people watching? “Glad I’m not in that family…”? Louie smiled at the thought of cheering people up with his sadness and broke the illusion.
Brad stared at the complimentary continental breakfast that always sounds like a bargain until you actually have to eat it. He remembered a family trip to Colorado long ago when his father said, “Well, it comes with the room. Makes this place a bargain.” That meal had been especially bad: desiccated bagels, broken toaster that scorched no matter the setting, orange juice in boxes. But Brad’s father didn’t want to admit that he was wrong, so he sat and choked down three bagels (Brad and his mother freely gave them up). Later Brad’s mother made them stop on the road and they’d been presented with the most mouth watering pancakes Brad had ever had in his life (hunger probably helped their appeal a bit). Brad’s father couldn’t eat more than a bite or two, his stomach being tied up digesting the rocks he’d put down earlier in the day.
“We can get pancakes after we contact the Bard, Brad,” Callie said as she popped into the dim breakfast room. “Brad, Bard, yes, upon further reflection, the switchup seems perfectly forgivable,” she, pardon the pun, mused to herself.
They checked out and got back on the highway. Red Top State Mountain Park was only 80 miles away. They’d be there by 7:30. Brad popped in some classic Queen that got Callie to bounce, ever so slightly, in her seat.
“Did you have pleasant dreams last night?”
Brad tried to pluck through the layers of things he was currently thinking about to remember what he’d seen the night before. He imagined that while he did this, his off to the left look and raised eyebrow made him look intelligent, like there was a lot to sift through and analyze.
“I don’t remember much. I think I was getting tested. Yeah. I was in this Lilliputian desk, trying to arrange all my pencils and stuff and juggle my answer sheet and test booklet when all of a sudden, I hit this essay question but my answer sheet was all bubbles. I wanted to jot the answer down in the margin, but that would mess up the scoring machine, you know? So I raised my hand and asked. But everyone else knew what to do. The teacher, some random guy, looked down at me like I was not fit to scrape gum off the seats much less take his test. I asked him what I should do and he hissed, ‘Write on the back, Mr. Gong.’ So I flipped the sheet over and looked back at the question and I had forgotten the answer. Scared shitless.”
“So you did not have a pleasant dream.”
“Yeah. It could be worse. About a week after graduation I had this one where I hadn’t taken some class so I couldn’t graduate. That one was freaky.”
“But no dreams about this car, right?”
“Not last night,” Brad replied. “Well, none that I remember vividly.”
“You had one before?”
“The night before I left. I figured it was just nerves for the trip.”
“Hm.” She looked to the right, out her window.
“Hm?” He also looked to the right.
“Maybe you are gifted.”
“K, I’ve been telling you that. Since I met you, really,” he grinned.
Outside, the morning fog shrouded the Georgia landscape. In the still wee hours, sun barely risen, it looked like at any second, Confederate and Union soldiers would erupt out of the trees, marching in lines and clashing over the dashed yellow line. Images from all the movies he’d had to watch for 8th grade history (Glory and Gettysburg) flashed in his head.
Esmerelda woke up when the alarm clock started clucking. It’d been a gift from her older sister, who always called her “Chickie.” Pushing the egg back into the injection molded chicken to turn off the alarm had seemed disgusting at first but it’s crazy what someone can get used to. Her sister had laughed her head off Christmas morning at Esmerelda’s attempt to be happy over the present. “You shoulda seen your face!” she still cried out at family gatherings when any mention of Christmas gifts arose. Since then, Esmerelda only gave gift certificates for all occasions. She didn’t want to put someone else up to the same charade.
The hundred leered at her from the desk, a reminder of promises made hastily at the end of the day. After a good night’s sleep, the fat man might have just been one of her dreams. And there might be some people who listened to what any fool dream told them, but Esmerelda Jackson was not one of them.
Why, a hundred could buy a lot of things that she needed more than any chopsocky lessons. Like a new cell phone to replace her ugly fat old one. Like a bottle of amaretto for when she got home at night. Like an oil change for her car, which had a rattle. All of these things would be much better than having to huff and puff and give up more of the already dwindling amounts of time she had to herself.
“Besides, if I wanted to get hit by strangers, I’d go key a trucker’s rig.”
She put the hundred into her wallet; ready to go out and convert it into any of the things she’d listed.
On her way out the door, she paused.
Esmerelda put it back on the desk. “Let’s wait on this business a bit,” she thought to herself.
Rand and Masterson swung their tired legs out of the car and stepped out into the Motel 6 parking lot. A Bowling Green policeman had spotted the Tercel in the parking lot and radioed it in. It was no longer there, but that didn’t mean the two couldn’t investigate a bit. Investigation was out of their purview, and really out of their experience. For all their bluster about TV detectives, they really had no idea about the sort of work local gumshoes did. But they were confident that some well placed questions and the sight of their brown uniforms (nevermind the wrong state being on those uniforms) would bring out something.
The clerk was still examining the wall when they entered. He’d been at it for eight hours. Dark stains and a foul stench on his clothes demonstrated the level of scrutiny that the kid was giving to a small meter square of plaster.
“Hey there, son,” said Masterson, taking command of the hotel desk like the bridge of a submarine. “We’re looking for a large man, black hair, beard. Carries a small harp. Seen him?”
Silence, except for the clerk’s foot tapping on the floor to a rhythm, perhaps guided by something he saw in the wall.
Rand slipped behind the desk. He looked at the security monitors (since the clerk wasn’t watching them). He opened the cabinet below and worked the controls. Just like the movies. He was feeling quite proud of himself.
“Stop the tape. There, there!” Masterson pointed, eager for another glimpse of his nemesis, his quarry. There was the Bluto. Running, something under his arm. The tape caught him at a top down angle. His large beard and larger torso made him look like an ugly gerbil confronting the tiny lab mouse that was the clerk. “Back it up.”
Rand rewound and saw the clerk get up from his spot at the desk and stand in front of the big man. Now Bluto was playing his lyre. Now the clerk was sitting back down and Bluto picking up a key. Now Bluto was walking backwards into the hallway on the right.
“Look for anything that might tell us who Fat Man is, Rand,” Masterson ordered. Masterson snatched the key from the desk, #118, and went trotting down the hall. Rand searched for paper records, but everything was on the computer these days. He looked at the dizzying array of buttons and text, looking for anything. Rand heard a cry from down the hall and he ran around the desk to help his partner.
Down at #118, Rand found Masterson holding a tiny marble, glowing blue, and staring into the room. “We should check that for prints, Bill,” he said to the older man but Masterson didn’t hear him. He was feeling the marble. The marble pulled at his hand, wanting to move. It had been wedged up in one of those little wall corners architects use to make their designs look more complicated. Masterson wouldn’t have noticed it except it was gleaming.
“Let’s check the room, Bill. The maid hasn’t been here yet,” Rand said, trying to edge around him but Masterson grabbed his partner’s arm.
“No! We have to go, right now.”
The Bard stared at the blue dot on the map. He’d almost had a heart attack when the dot started moving at 6:30 (but when you are as big as the Bard, you live on the edge of a heart attack all the time). He jumped up from the diner table, threw some cash on the table and ran out. He had been working on fixing his satchel and the duct tape he’d picked up at the gas station next to the diner held together on his mad dash out the door, so he figured it had passed its trial by fire.
“And I thought I had time for breakfast,” he fumed.
When he got to his car, he studied the location more closely. Was that…? Indeed it was. She was trying to call him. She still intended to go through with the trade. She was still following the plan, in her own messed up little girl way, but the gist of the plan was going to hold so the modifications the dealer had made to the plan were also going to work. He attempted to brush some of the powdered sugar from his waffle that had fallen onto his chest while he ate, but it just smeared white across his shirt.
The Bard considered asking the dealer what he should do now. He became aware of his still sore side. “He’ll say ‘My dear Bard, of course we’re going to stick to the plan…’ Then POW! I’ll have a black eye or something,” the Bard told himself. “Or he’ll break my arm or something.”
He’d be there soon.
Mr. Gong did some stretches. Today’s tournament was going to be his day in the sun. He’d played with Mr. Bancroft before, and beaten him. And he would do it today. Around the country club, everyone respected him as a golfer, but he’d never won the cup before. In the bar area, where the trophy sat in the case, his name would soon be engraved on the next line, for all to see.
He looked at his locker. Its dark wood and velvet styling oozed class, comfort. The good things in life. He was a pretty down to earth man, and when he first joined, the accoutrements made him feel uncomfortable. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only person not a multimegamillionaire. Of course there had to be other people in his bracket, but the feeling crept in, stealthily around the edges, that he was alone, the poster child for the club’s non-racist membership policies. And that was silly too, since he knew other Asian people.
Mr. Gong sat on the bench (carved from a single tree, for the perfect grain) and put his elbows on his knees. He looked around for anyone else in the locker room (they would be there soon) and seeing no one, he clasped his hands together and prayed a short prayer,
“Please.”
Red Top Mountain State Park. The morning fog had not yet burned off and so Brad again had his little vision of Civil War battles being fought just past the rise, but very quietly. He parked in the lot behind the visitor’s center, and was about to go in to get a map but Callie tugged on his sleeve. They started walking. It was brisk, and Brad wondered if he should have brought his coat. Dew coated their feet and soaked the bottoms of their pant legs. Brad tried to remember that last time he’d been in a state park.
It must’ve been that time summer of sophomore year he and Louie and their parents had all gone to Yellowstone after they’d come back from nerd camp. They’d stayed in a small cabin for a week and by the end, Louie’s parents vowed never to “rough it” again. Brad’s parents vowed never to go on vacation with Louie’s parents again. And Brad and Louie had swung in and out of feeling crappy or happy over the trip, depending on the day and depending on whether they’d found things to do or had seen cute girls or had had to spend the day cooped up inside the cabin while it rained. This up and down nature of the trip had totally worn them out and the resulting neutral memory hadn’t compelled them to ever go back to a park.
The best day of that trip was when Brad’s dad and the two boys had rented mountain bikes and gone on a ten mile ride. Mr. Gong was in much better shape than the two teenagers and he crowed about it as Brad and Louie wearily pushed their 21 speeds up yet another hill that they couldn’t pedal over. But then there was the ride down. Mr. Gong took it carefully, but Louie went full throttle, over everything in his path. Brad was more sensitive to the speeds and every divot and bump jarred the handlebars. At one point, he hit a root and the wheel went skidding along it towards the side of the mountain. Brad went flying down the side cursing the root, the path, the park, the bike, and the ground that was currently abrading him. Louie and his father were too far ahead to help so Brad grunted and pulled the bike up back onto the path. It took him a very long time to come down. Louie and his father were drinking from their water bottles and talking about cars. Brad was going to whine about the root, and the fall, but then he looked back up (to see if the point where he fell was visible due to the number of shrubs he had damaged on the way down) and was amazed by the height of the mountain they’d climbed and come down.
“What took you?” Louie asked.
“I was just admiring the view,” he replied.
At this park, Callie was in complete control. She bounded down the path and took lefts and rights without question or hesitation. Brad followed, glad that there were no bicycles around for him to ride. Her backpack made a pleasant shlumping sound as she briskly walked, head high. Brad was more careful, stopping sometimes to look back and try to remember which way they’d come in case he got separated.
And then they left the path. Callie scooted down a tiny dirtslide and went off through the woods. It occurred to her that she’d forgotten something. “Brad,” she said, “Hurry up or I am going to lose you.”
They continued on, off the trail, until they came to a clearing that Brad wasn’t sure the rangers knew about. It looked like a perfect circle of trees, one hundred feet in diameter. In the center was a large wooden box.
“This is one of those crazy semideity things, right?” he asked.
“Yes. We need to contact the Bard, but he must be able to trust that it is me sending him the message.”
“So what’s with the box?”
She pulled a small wooden ball from her backpack. She wrote a short message in an angular language that seemed very efficient onto one of her notebooks with the pen with the feather. Then she rolled the ball over the page. It left dark marks in a pattern under her signature. She stood over the wooden box and said, “The Bard.” She opened the box and took out another wooden ball.
“This is the Bard’s seal. What I do is like so,” and she rolled the ball quickly over the page, covering the entire surface with a thick dark pattern. “He picks up the page and uses his personal ball and when it rolls back over, it will remove the dark. He can check that it is from me by asking for my seal and rolling it over the pattern mine left. If it is all removed, then this is definitely from me.”
“Why, that’s just like PGP. Public key encryption. Except you have a magical box instead of a key server. Man. My computer teacher was telling me all about this.”
He ran through the basics that Mr. Stensler had outlined. Callie sniffed.
“Well, we had it first,” she said. “How do you send your messages?”
“Through the internet. Email.”
“This is how we do it.”
Callie clapped her hands together over the paper and the box and there was a painful magnesium flash of light that came up from the box to the sky. When his eyes cleared, she was rubbing the ash off on her hands and grinning.
“How does he pick up the message?”
“Oh, it gets to him.”
A mild flash from above his head startled the Bard. He looked up. There was a piece of paper stuck to his sunroof. Pulling over to the side of the road, he moved the sunroof back. The paper went with it and went into the roof. He put the roof back. A painful grimace glanced across his face.
“So how do you make sure that no one has stolen your ball?”
They were sitting back, waiting for a response from the Bard. Callie assured Brad that the big man had access to a transmitter somehow, since she had gotten the message from him asking about the Inspiros anyway. She held out her private seal to him.
“Try to roll it,” Callie said.
He took it and tried to mark up the paper like she had. Nothing.
“You wacky deities…” He thought for a second. “So who makes all this stuff? Who teaches you how to use it? Divine tech support?”
“How do you know how to read?”
“My parents taught me.”
“And them? And their parents? And theirs? Who was the first reader?”
“No one person was. They just decided to codify something that everyone was doing.”
“Well then.” She started casting around for a stick that fit some ideal of stickdom that Brad couldn’t fathom. He sat back and tried to take a nap in the sun.
The Bard read the message. He read the map. He read the sign that said, “Welcome to Red Top Mountain State Park.”
“Heheheh,” he cackled to himself. He popped out of the car as quickly as he could move. The lyre shone in the sun, light bouncing off the body and strings. He grabbed it with a little less care than one should give to a magic artifact, but he figured it would be out of his hands soon enough.
The location of the transmitter blinked red on his map. He set off towards it, not really worrying about the obstacles in his path: shrubs, rocks, oaks. A straight line would get him to the Inspiros the fastest, right?
Brad and Callie heard the crashing and the stumbling and the swearing before actually seeing anything.
“Is that the dude?” Brad wondered.
“There is no way he could way he could have gotten here so quickly,” replied Callie, again looking like she did not believe her own words. Perhaps the Bard had more gifts than she had guessed.
And there he was, the Bard, a bear happy at finding unguarded honey. “Hello, muse.”
And then he grinned a huge billboard smirk.
“I’ve been looking for you.”