So I let something real come out.
"Suppose you could push a magic button that would end all the violence and hate in the Middle East. It would make the streets of Kabul or Baghdad safer than the streets of Beverly Hills, and save the lives of thousands of kids, but you would die if you pushed it. Would you?"
She looks at me with the most serious expression I have ever seen her make, and she's obviously thinking about her response.
"You have too much time on your hands." She laughs now. "Magic button." More giggles.
I try again. "No, I'm serious. What would you do? Push it or not?"
"I've never seen you so fired up about something so silly."
"Amuse me."
Her voice is angry, hard, in pain, something I have never gotten from her before. "Do you really think you can fix anything? How long would it be until it breaks again? My brother went off to fix Iraq and he never came home. Did it accomplish one fucking thing?"
I had never heard her use that word before except in its sexual context, and I had never even known she had a brother. Her face is actually glowing with anger, something else I have never seen before, and she doesn't stop there.
"Did World War I end all wars? World War II? Korea? Viet Nam? Did the war on crime stop crime? The war on poverty prevent kids from going to sleep hungry? There's no point in worrying about anything but yourself. The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream."
She's not a super smart woman who is ignorant of the world around her, she's a super smart woman who sees too much reality. Who knew? And she's read Wallace Stevens. I reach out and take her hands in mine. The anger is still there in her eyes.
"You want to go to Hawaii with me Friday morning? No ice cream, but unlimited shave ice."
She laughs. I am instantly happy I'd made her laugh.
"No, but I'm going to lick
your
ice cream cone tonight."
I look her in the eye, trying to look mischievous, and give her something back. "And I'll put some ice where
you
shave."
She laughs again. We just hold hands until dinner came, and then talk long and hard about absolutely nothing.
The movie is, for me, boring, but I keep the tease alive for Jen. Everyone thinks she is purity and light. I know that there is nothing that excites her more than something forbidden done in public. So we watch a chick flick with her favorite stud actor, and when he appears in a scene, I let me hand slide to her thigh, or a finger slip between her legs.
When the movie ends, she tells me to drive to my place, and, after carefully buckling her seatbelt, promptly sticks her hand down my pants. She has my shirt off in the elevator. I have her pants off in the kitchen, and made good on my promise to use ice in a way not intended by whoever invented it, assuming that ice was actually invented to keep things cold. Not that I wasn't keeping something cold, just not something that you normally attach to the word cold. We finish with each other after midnight, and cuddle in my lumpy bed.
I fall asleep holding her, no thought about the consequences.
Fog dude apparently has no shame. Once again he's sitting on his boulder, guarded by the evil grass. I decide to stand. Then I put my foot up on the boulder, trying to look cool.
"Cute girl," it seems a strange way for the conversation to start, "but you shouldn't lie to her about your feelings."
"You want to kill me, and you're worried that I tell my girlfriend I love her when I don't?"
"Our intent is to save lives, your death is the tradeoff that balances the karma, not something we want."
I was actually calm now, thinking somewhat rationally. I had a legitimate question.
"What power, exactly, do I get if I open door number 1?"
"Good question. We want you to be able to be a symbol, as well as accomplish great things. Think part Superman, part Spiderman, part Captain Marvel."
"You've got to be shittin' me. I'm going to be able to fly?"
"You already do, but in the future you won't require a plane. Some of the comic stuff is stupid, so no super cold breath, no X-ray vision, no webbing, just magnified human capabilities."
He's distracting me. The fog is getting brighter, the light is sneaking up on me, and he's helping it.
"I haven't decided on anything," though actually I have decided to yell, "Stop it now!"
"You have decided. The part of your brain that has hasn't told the part of your brain that hasn't. Trust the light."
It clearly isn't stopping. I can feel it now, pulsating, alive. It's talking to me, though I can't quite make out the words.
Then, hallelujah, my cheek is wet, a little rubber ball is rolling down it, and Halloween is looking me in the eye once more, giving me a soft mew unlike anything she's ever said before. She's sitting on Jen, square in the middle of the long blonde hair splayed across her back, who now is awake and taking offense.
"Good morning, beautiful," rolls out of my mouth. Beautiful rolls over and kisses me.
"Molly's coming over to pick me up. You don't have to drop me off at work." Molly is her BFF, who does the same thing Jen does, whatever that is, in the next cubicle. "She'll be here at seven, so I need to hit the shower first."
Jen heads for the bathroom, grabbing a towel from the closet, checking the stuff she has in her half of the medicine cabinet. I get up and make her regular breakfast, two glasses of orange juice and real cooked oatmeal. I walk out with her to make my run, ask her if she wants to have Sunday dinner with my parents, accept her yes, kiss her goodbye, and run off into the morning.
I spend the run having an argument about whether or not I have actually made a choice. No giant marshmallow man appears, but that doesn't mean anything. I have a feeling that the light might be right. Home and into the shower, Halloween once again watching me as I get out. There may be doubt about whether or not I have decided to die, but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that Halloween knows when Fog Dude is in my head, doesn't like him, and is protecting me. The only question I have is whether or not that means I should listen to her, and not my own brain.
Thursday is my second day of rest, but I am anything but restful. All I can think about is truth and consequences. I go down to South Coast Plaza mall, ostensibly to replace the shorts I ripped on Monday, but mostly just to be in the midst of people. And there are lots of people there, all shapes, sizes, ages, colors, you name it. After a couple hours, I leave with a new pair of shorts in a bag, a couple cheap tacos in my stomach, and fog still swirling in my head. Starbuck gets me home on autopilot, I don't remember the trip.
Jen texts that she is coming by with makings for a stir fry. I'm not really in the mood, but I don't have much choice. A short snicker of derision echoes across my apartment. No choice. What's the guy in the sucky
Matrix
sequel say, choice is an illusion? It's not fair. The choice should be take the power, or walk away, not take the power or have something bad happen to you.
The door is opening, Jen used her key. I go give her a quick kiss on the forehead and take her bag of groceries. She pulls me back toward her for a proper kiss. We eat, play and fuck until we can't do it anymore. I get a "what's gotten in to you?" from Jen when I roll her over for round three. I would tell her, but she'd never believe me.
We drift away to sleep in each other's arms. When I open my eyes next, the alarm is blaring. Halloween is sitting on the bed next to Jen, ball at the ready. One more good night of sleep, courtesy of my watch cat.
Chapter 3
Miss Mankat is at the counter when I get to dispatch, this time without my dad. She hands me the file before I can open my mouth. I guess being the son of her boss' boss makes me memorable.
"Fast and efficient, and I don't even know your first name," I smile and try to make my words smile too. "Did you know," I ask without giving her a chance to speak, "that your position lets you come to Hawaii with us?"
She's laughing. "First, your dad told me that under no circumstances am I allowed to go to Hawaii with you, and, second, that I am to have you call me Miss Mankat, not Taylor."
"Taylor? Doesn't sound Indian to me."
"My parents are untraditional, something yours are not. Your dad very much likes your girlfriend, and I very much like my job."
A captain appears at my side, laughing, I assume, at our conversation. He joins in the bash Simon contest. "Your dad told me to make sure you didn't hit on the new dispatcher. I am, unfortunately, too late to do my duty as chief pilot. Why is it that every aviator in the company would trade their wife or girlfriend for yours, and you keep looking to trade her in on a newer model?"
"Owning a Ferrari doesn't stop you from wanting to drive a Lamborghini," I looked at Miss Mankat when I made the Lambo comparison, hoping she understood that was her. She had, after all, told me her first name when dad had told her not to.
Then I slap the folder in my hand, and head off to a table. Captain Robert Amos had taught me to fly before I was a teenager, taking me up in an old Cessna. He got me the hours I needed to solo at 16, get instrument and multi-engine rated by 18, and have my commercial certificate by 20. When he couldn't fly with me, he'd "persuade" the junior first officers to be my right seat. He got me a job flying a corporate jet right out of college, and then led me back to Mountain Pacific as soon as I had the experience. I owe him big time, which allows him to speak the truth, and my dad to use him against me without making me mad.
The captain is meticulous, and it takes us right up to departure time to do everything just the way it should be done. The tower clears us to go, and Captain Amos makes a perfect takeoff. He's two years away from mandatory retirement, and both the other pilots and the passengers will miss a man with his skills.
When we're finally in the boring part of the trip, I ask him the same question I had posed the other night to Jen (no, not whether she wanted to come to Hawaii with me). He doesn't think about it very long.
"A life of meaning is what every man should strive for. It doesn't have to be saving the world, it can be raising a couple great kids, and keeping the missus happy for 60 years. If you had the chance to push the button and didn't, would you then be responsible for every death that occurred in the Middle East for the rest of time? Could you live with that?"
My mind was spinning, or what was left of it was. Death or wish for it. If I say no, and 1,000 people die in a bomb blast tomorrow, is their blood on my hands? Or is it on the hands of the fucking fog lunatics who thought this was a good idea? It's not a choice over some horrible burning torture, it's the potential torture of watching bad things happen and not knowing if you could have prevented them. I spend most of the trip thinking about it, while carrying on a meaningless conversation with Captain Amos.
Pretty soon though it's "Mountain 4-6-1, cleared to land, runway 1-7," and I'm standing on the tarmac at Kona Keahole. As I grab my bag and roll toward the terminal, I have that sudden feeling you get that you've forgotten something important. Then it dawns on me. I should have brought Halloween. No pit bull/cat hybrid to protect my dreams tonight, I'm on my own.
We shuttle into town, and have the usual lunch at the Royal Kona bar. Off shore the cruise ship is making its weekly appearance, there are an unusual number of jet ski plumes, and the surfers are out in large numbers. Or maybe the condemned man is simply more aware of his surroundings than usual.
Captain Amos has golf reservations up at Waikaloa, nine holes, four people. We get two of the flight attendants, rent a car, and head on out. My game is so bad it normally permits me to think of nothing else, but today I get to wonder if a Superman-Spiderman-Captain Marvel composite would be good at golf. I'm betting no. What iron could they use to only pitch 50 yards?
We stay up for dinner at one of the little outdoor cafes, and then drive back down after dark. On Hawai'i, on the Queen Kaahumanu Highway (highway meaning something different in Hawaii than in LA), dark is incredibly dark. There are 10 times as many stars as back home, plus the off chance of hitting a donkey crossing the road. Not quite like the 405, where the stars are human and the cars are full of asses.
Captain Amos and the flight attendants say good night, but one of them (not Captain Amos), despite actually having met Jen, knocks on my door a few minutes later, puts a finger to my lips and pushes me backward toward my bed. As a last meal, darn tasty. She's warm and playful, not as tight a body as Jen, but pleasantly bigger in some of my favorite spots. We finish and she slips back out of the room without saying a word.
My last conscious thought is that maybe the Fog Bastards sent her to tire me out. Either way, it's too late, and I can't keep my eyes open.
The fog is darker than it's ever been. Queen Kaahumanu would be proud if she likes her highway that dark. I can't really even see the fog, maybe just its shadow. Fog Dude isn't here either. He knows I don't need to talk to him, would be my guess. The light is just the other side of the fog, which I know despite the fact there is no light of any kind on my side of the fog.
