Upload
vantruc
View
215
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
How can I
, jealousy and heartache in his
Erik T. Johnson 100 Gatling Place Brooklyn, NY 11209 917-704-4586 [email protected]
Word Count: 3,719
The Drama God
by Erik T. Johnson
I. Bad News and Worse News
The Drama God swaggered into the office of Martin Box, Private Investigator, leaving the door
open behind him in the careless way of deities.
“Please shut the door,” Martin said. “Mortals catch cold.”
The colorful god lifted his hand. The door slammed shut, shattering the diamond-shaped
glass window set in the top.
“Thanks,” Martin said. “ help you?”
“Are you the tentacled detective?”
“A sucker worn every minute.”
“I need you to find the bush this leaf came from,” the god said
voice, eyes indecisively strobing colors like Vegas. “And what bit it.”
“It could co
—
me from anywhere.”
the
et’s start with the
s have their places,
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 2
He put the foliagen question on Martin’s desk. It
wasyourical
leaf, green with
stem.A
W-shaped bite had been taken out of one corner with fanged teeth.
Martin carefully examined it.
“It’s a leaf,” he said.
“No, it’s an existing ing so it can only come from one place
placeitcomes from,”
the bright god said in the exasperated way of deities.
“Allright, l
Whered you
findit? Why do you want to know?
Who do you think bit it? And the name of the Woman who’s led you to Whatever mess you’re in.”
“God
reasons,theiraccomplices.”
Martin knew it was bad news to get involved with gods. He also knew it was worse to turn
down their offers.
“Okay, fine. I’ll take your case.”
II. Two Lists
After they agreed on terms of payment and the Drama God gav
e Martin an advance, the deity left.
Martin didn’t have much to go on. He wrote them down in his notepad:
1) There’s a leaf on my desk
2) Someone has taken a bite out of it.
3) A god wants to know where it came from.
that’s
7) Figure
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 3
4) Gods usually know everything.
5) The god of drama doesn’t.
6) His not-knowing has something to do with the leaf.
out who theoman is
really behindthis god’s
trouble.
He put his pen down and took a sip of coffee. Then he took a walk to the park to think
some more.
He sat at the top of the hill under the flagpole, where he used to sit with his partner Denny,
before the zombies did him in; and before Martin was accidentally shot in the head with a gun from
another dimension, which gave him two tentacles that could appear from anywhere on his body at
his command, a sense of humor, and made him visible and open to business to gods and stranger
entities.
He lazily watched clouds change. Then he remembered that sometimes when a god is
around, small, everyday details take on greater significance. So Martin made notes on his pad about
the clouds every five minutes:
1) To the east, looks like an alpaca and an apricot mating; to the west, looks like an upside-
down crown; to the north, looks like Algeria.
2) Now the one that looked like an alpaca and an apricot mating looks like a slipper; to the
west, the one that looks like an upside-down crown still looks that way; to the north, what looked
like Algeria looks like a duck.
3) To the east, the one that looked like a slipper looks like a cross; to the west, the one that
looks like an upside-down crown still looks that way . . .
s odd.
.
on,”
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 4
Wait, Martin thought. That’
III. A Doctor Appointment
Martin made a new list:
1) There’sacloud that is not changing shape
2) It looks like an upside-down crown.
3) On second thought it looks like the same W-shaped bite-marks from the leaf.
4) Figure out what bit the leaf.
5) Figure out what kind of leaf it is.
He went to see the cryptobotanist Dr. Julius Jonsson, who lived in a Baldwin VO-1000
diesel locomotive and a World War II, Type XXI Elektroboot submarine inexplicably half-sunk next
to each other in Dyker Heights golf course’s wetlands. An expert on unknown and obscure flora and
herbs, Dr. Jonsson spent his days and nights searching for specimens in Brooklyn, which hosts more
extraordinary plants than any other borough of New York City. This is because people spend more
time looking down to avoid dogshit than to find cryptobotanical samples.
Martin knocked on the hatch of the Elektroboot, swatting a dragonfly from his ear. A man
in a gray cloak and a living, vinous broad-brimmed hat popped out.
“Havea dandeli
he said, pulling onefrom his white beardand handing
itto Martin.
“Thanks.
bit it
“ sui generis—
nding Jonsson the god-given leaf.
plants
eaf.”
pure
and it grows on top of
son.”
I
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 5
“Good for you. Take a bite.”
Martin ate the flower and Dr. Jonsson prepared thistle-tea for them on a kettle over a fire-
pit.
“Do you knowat
this is,” Martin said, ha
The cryptobotanist closedhis eyes and studied it with his hands, because
don’t see
and he always tried to get into the mood of the vegetative world when exploring it. Then he stuck
the stem in his beard and shook his head up and down. He smelled it at a drunken caterpillar pace.
This took a few minutes. When he was done, he opened his eyes.
“Easy,” he said. “L
“I know that.”
“No, you ’t. It’s
the leaf. The leaf. No species,
genus.”
“Is it rare?”
No, native to Brooklyn. There is only one bush—
abandoned buildings where someone is about to commit suicide. But it vanishes after the suicide
takes place, or if they don’t go through with it.”
to
keys.
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 6
IV. Suicide Watch
Martin spent the next several days listening to his police radio for potential suicides. Each time he
rushed out as quickly as he could. He saw a few splattered guts, a few close calls, and several
narcissists just making threats. Meanwhile, the bitten cloud hovered in place, but it was hard to tell
exactly where it was situated over the landscape.
Then one night, about to fall asleep in front of the television, his client-god appeared on
HBO.
“How is thee
progressing?”
he asked.
“It’s moving.But have one problem.”
Martin explained what he understood of the leaf.
“Why didn’t you tell
me?”e Drama God said, even though he’d given Martin no way
contact him, as gods never do. “Let me see…right now there are three people about to commit
suicide in Brooklyn. One of them is in their kitchen…hmmn…another is—oh, never mind that’s
done now. Oh, there is a priest entering an abandoned church in Williamsburg—he’s thinking about
going up to the roof.”
“Thanks,Martin said, grabbing his car
The priest’s
bush would look in a
“
“Whoever you are, you can’t stop me,”
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 7
V. No Point
The church was set between empty warehouses in the long shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. It
was just an old brick building with a dilapidated sign that read Church of Saint Swithin: Trespassers
Welcome. The door was locked from inside.
Martin stepped around a rat eating a tennis ball and concentrated. Two small grayish
tentacles emerged from his forehead like bull’s horns, and the suckers pulled him up along the wall.
He had to keep tilting his face back to keep from getting his nose scraped off. Soon he’d reached the
roof.
There was a man standing at the edge, looking at a thunder cloud. He heard Martin
struggling to his feet and turned just as the tentacles retracted.
the priest said.
“Don’t worry. I’m notere
to stop you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
But if youuld just
waitminutefore
jumping that would be great.”
Martin searched about the roof. In a flash of mute lightning he saw the bush. As he ran for it
the priest stepped backward, slipping and hitting his head on the edge of the roof.
Martin examined the bush.It
lookedactly
like a
word
book. There was a tuft of silvery hair stuck to a branch that was missing its leaf. He collected the fur
with tweezers and put it in a zip-lock bag.
eyes were barely open, like difficult pistachio nut shells.
Good luck.”
.”
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 8
“Are you okay?” Martin asked.
“Yes…”
“You’re good to go.
“Aren’t you goingry
and stop me?”
Martin looked over at the bush, growing thicker before his eyes.
“No point
VI. Act I, Scene I
The bit of fur looked normal enough, but when Martin put it under a microscope he found that
each platinum strand was coated in a brief theatrical production, a residue left by the Drama God.
Martin wrote down the play in his notepad:
King. So, you are the What Who Eats Gods.
What. Aye, sir. And a gourmet meal they make.
King. Good. A god I have for you, rare as a truffle
And fatter yet by omens and curses fed.
What. Where then this morsel?
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 9
Exit the What Who Eats Gods stage left.
King. Then eat nothing, too. Starve!
(Aside): For your god is the one
Who takes things away, and I am your god, if today is today.
VII. Three in the Morning
Martin put the TV on and made another list.
QUESTIONS:
1) If the bush disappears after a suicide takes place or if it isn’t completed, why is the leaf
still here and visible? I can only think the bite brought some permanency to it.
2) What about that cloud that was not changing?
3) The bite-marks on the leaf and cloud look like a W—is this the signature of the What
Who Eats Gods?
4) Why did a woman’s sandaled foot materialize next to the bookshelf with the bust of
Groucho Marx while I was watching HBO?
5) Cancel HBO.
He turned off the TV and examined the foot. It was a young, healthy foot with well-tended
toes and nails, without nail polish but shiny nonetheless. The sandal was made of gold and blue
stone and could not be very comfortable, though they would make crushing heads easy.
corner of 2
It was Suzan, Martin’s
nd th
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 10
I knew a woman was involved, Martin thought.
The phone rang.
contact at the police. No recent suicides and attempted suicides had
taken place on top of an abandoned building in Brooklyn. Acting on a hunch, Martin asked her
about any other incidents taking place in such locations and wound up speeding past bodegas and
auto parts stores to a water tower in Sunset Park.
The foot would have to wait.
VIII. The Water Tower, Act I
A few weeks ago, the police received an anonymous call from someone who liked to watch hookers
with binoculars who said he’d seen two people flying up into the sky from atop a water tower on the
avenue and 38 street. A wolf was flying behind them, and the wolf opened its mouth
wide enough to swallow the moon and at that point he lost sight of them all in the clouds. Needless
to say, this story was not taken very seriously.
Using his handy tentacles, Martin scaled the rickety tower until he reached a small ladder on
the side, at which point he climbed like a normal detective. He surveyed the scene with his flashlight.
Something glinted at him like a bloody star. It was a sharp, triangular, red gemstone stuck in
the metal water tower. The gem was cracked badly and there were little shards and red mineral dust
around too. It took some effort to pull the gem out. He also found signs of a struggle, places where
the tank had been scuffed by what must’ve been incredibly heavy feet and what looked like hoof-
prints dented the floor in several places.
He looked up into the sky—
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 11
There was a spot where the tank had been torn as though something had been uprooted—
like a very strong bush.
and saw the W-bitten cloud floating above.
IX. Act V, Scene 4
At five in the morning, Martin got a beer and sat on the couch, thinking and absently tentacling the
bills the god had given him as an advance on the case, and looking at the two feet and one shin that
had now materialized next to his bookcase.
He got out his microscope and put a toe under it. He found traces of a theatrical production
on the nail. The players were similar to the King and the What in the play on the fur sample,
although they looked a little younger. Also, some of the performance was missing as though it had
been rubbed off. Martin wrote down what he could in his notepad:
King. My love, my queen, do not approach the What.
Queen. His jaws are like a summer day.
King. His teeth are like the end of time.
Queen. His gut is gentle rain. I am dry.
What. I unroll the royal tongue for you.
Queen. Oh rain, oh summer!
King. Stop! I’ll grabher
from your grasp!
Queen. Why do you save me? What is over
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 12
Needs no protection, what is done no despair.
King. Would I had protected. His bite on your leg
Has poisoned you with permanence,
A wave frozen by unnatural winter.
What. Let me eat her whole.
The scene ended there.
Martin needed to sleep on all this.
X. Making Sense
Martin woke late the next day to a full pair of a woman’s legs standing by the bookshelf. They
matched the feet in vitality and beauty. On the outside of the right thigh was a W-shaped bite
pattern.
Martin went to his office to contemplate the facts. Bitten by the What Who Eats Gods, and
materializing in my room, Martin thought. If the theatrical residue of the drama god on her foot was
any dramaturgical interpretation of true events, then she was a god who tried to kill herself by letting
the What get her, but the Drama God stopped her. However, he was not able to prevent the What
from getting a bite, which was turning her solid like the leaf and the cloud that loomed over the
water tower.
Now things were starting to make sense…
“
my wife. But you’re
“
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 13
The door opened and the Drama God stood there, eyes flashing colors like Milton Bradley’s
Simon.
“You canceled HBO,” he said.
“I’m notpartial
to unexpected visits.
Speakingwhich, there’s
the lower half
ofgoddess
in my living room—any ideas who that might be?”
She’s
sharpn, as
men go.m sure
you figured that
out.”
“Whatis she partiallyng
in my room?”
The god sat down across from Martin.
Think of her as an hourglass,” the drama god said. “Whenyou know her face,
you’ll know
your time’s up.”
“Why?”
“Because Ineedu to
stop What
who bitr before
she’s fully permanent, like this
desk, or that pen, or you.”
“Why couldn’t you just tell me this to begin with.”
“Because
gods have their own ways.
As a god,m only allow
ed to reveal a little bit more of
what you already know. That is one of our ways. You knew the leaf would appear where someone
was jumping from a high building, so I could tell you where that building was. And you know your
doom is linked to that woman who even now is coalescing near a shelf featuring a bust of Groucho
Marx. I can tell you no more, for the moment.”
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 14
“Listen, trouble just
isn’t worth it over
awoman,” Martin said. “Let’sall
thee off
and I’ll return everything you’ve paid me so far.”
But the god vanished, like sanity when a bomb explodes.
XI. Midtown
TO DO:
1) Find the What (probably still around the water tower—last place seen)
2) Something that smokes
3) Some flexible, hard metal
4) 14.1 ounces of Silly Putty
“I need something flammable that will create a lot of non-toxic smoke,” Martin said to Dr. Julius
Jonsson, who was fashioning a pneumatic apparatus from Typha latifolia and candy-bar wrappers.
“I’ve got just the thing.”
Dr. Jonsson disappeared into the half-submerged diesel train and Martin heard him
rummaging around like a ferret in tap shoes in a washing machine loaded with ball bearings. He
reappeared with half a ream of carbon copy paper. On the top sheet Dr. Jonsson had written This
One; on each subsequent sheet were the words No, This One.
“Gratis,” the doctor said.
Thanks. Another question: do you know any good alchemists?”
Brooklyn, or Midtown?”
th
she didn’t have a
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 15
“
“
On 44 street in the Alchemy District, Martin picked up two square yards of Premium Tensile
Argent, a rather expensive, hard metal that could be molded into any shape. Then he bought 30 Silly
Putty eggs at the 99 Cents Store.
XII. The Water Tower, Act II
At night, Martin returned to the Sunset Park water tower.
He brought the materializing goddess with him, leaving her sandals behind because they
were too heavy. She had appeared up to her elbows by this point, wearing a golden dress. He
figured there was enough of her for a What to smell. Arriving at the top via tentacles, he set fire to
the ream of paper Dr. Jonsson had given him, hoping to create a smokescreen to obscure him from
the What.
He hadvered the
goddess in Premium Tensile Argent. Because
head yet,
he used the flexible metal over the bust of Groucho Marx and put that where her head would be. He
then used Silly Putty to take an impression of Sarah Palin’s face from a New York Times Magazine
article and put the Palin-impressed Putty over the Groucho-shaped metal frame to give it some sort
of feminine features.
He placed the goddess near the paper, which was really smoking, much as any paper would.
Suddenly what looked like a firework streamer shot up into the belly of the W-bitten cloud above,
startled Martin off the
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 16
then fell down in sparkling letters that said This One, followed by streamers of No, This One that lit
the neighborhood up like a warzone.
The What roared like a thing that has eaten spoiled thunder. It descended from the bite mark
in the cloud, huge jaws open like a parachute to the heavens, the maw shrinking to lion-size as it
neared the smoking roof. Martin crouched behind the goddess.
The What dropped on its scaled behind and pawed the metal ground with steely hooves,
mouth full of the red gem-like teeth Martin had counted on being there. It sniffed with simian
nostrils and twitching antennae, and levitated to the smoke in which the two-and-three dimensional
face of Groucho Palin smiled through a Silly Putty mask. Then the What opened its mouth wide and
with full force clamped its jaws on the goddess. The red teeth shattered into thousands of sprinkly
shards and the What blared like all the car alarms Brooklyn.
With the What defanged, Martin stepped out from behind the smoke and fired his revolver
into its head. The What shrank to the size of the bullet that now filled its entire body like a gazelle in
a python.
Martin was nearly knocked down as the sui generis bush sprouted out from under his feet.
For a moment his heart sank as he imagined he’d grown sick of living without even realizing it. Then
the What scuttled off the edge to its death and the bush disappeared.
Before he could saype Noctem a woman’s
muffled scream almost
tower. The goddess was rapidly incarnating within her Tensile Argent shell. Martin unwrapped her
as quickly as possible. The false head plummeted to the ground, revealing the radiant face of a
goddess with a large moustache and dark-rimmed glasses.
“Area
god who can changenother god’s appearance
thus?”she asked.
“He calls,” s
“
“ only a
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 17
“No, m’am. Justa mortaldetective.”
Then that explains how you have vanquishedthe What—
mortal can stop it.”
And that explains why the Drama God hired me to do what I figured he could do for
himself.”
She shook her head and the moustache and glasses disappeared, leaving beauty to shine
forth like a klieg light.
he said, and took off into the sky.
XIII. Payday
The next day, the goddess entered Martin Box’s office with a paper bag full of bills.
“The Drama God sends your payment in full,” she said.
“Thank you,” Martind, counting the money.
“Why you
here?”
“He’s grown tired of me,”said. “I don’t know where
to go.”
“I thought you wanted to kill yourself.”
“Onlyen I
wasstuck with theama God. Besides,
now thathe What
is out of
commission, I can’t.”
Later that night, Martin and the goddess were sitting on his couch. She was blissfully staring at a pile
of laundry on the floor as though watching shooting stars or a flight of exotic birds taking off from a
E. Johnson/The Drama God / page 18
misty lake. Martin was uncomfortable. It wasn’t often he let anyone into his life—especially a
woman who cannot die.
To shake off his nerves he started counting the money again, coolly flipping the bills in an
even tempo. He thought he heard a tiny overture and examined them under his microscope.
Sure enough, the Drama God had left some final residue for Martin to examine. The players
on the hundred-dollar stage looked up at Martin with exhaustion; they seemed tired of seeing this
one audience member, like a single theater critic, continually coming to their shows while the public
stayed away. But they went on with it anyway:
The King. The mortal has made an appendix of my heart.
The Queen. Let him remove me, if you speak of your queen.
The King. Who else? He has shown me what I do not want,
That your love bores as an earthworm through dirt.
The Queen. So he may have my love, that deeper digs
Than royals in their gold and kings in their wigs.