EPILOG
In which I invent a somewhat happy unending for my tale of woe
Dab Mostly climbs out of a dumpster behind Grass Valley’s famed Suicide Manor Apartments. It’s a nice sunny day.
Why is my skin falling off? he wonders.
A shadow falls over him, and he looks up. Above him hovers a gigantic concrete crystal, painted hot pink with magenta stripes. A beam of brown light pops out of the bottom of the craft, jerking him off the ground, and he rises up into the beam. By the time he disappears inside the concrete UFO, the beam has changed to a golden hue, and his sloughing flesh has been renewed, and he is in a peaceful coma.
When Dab Mostly comes to, he is walking down a dusty road with old shacks and cottages and outhouses and lawn mower sheds stretching in all directions as far as he can see.
One of the smallest and shabbiest, a thin-walled wooden miner’s shack, draws his attention because a small tornado hovers over it noiselessly, and the shuttered windows are attached to the walls by bellows; the cottage appears to be breathing in and out. And even more interestingly to Dab, someone has put in a little garden around the perimeter of the cottage: growing out of the weedy, rocky dirt are hundreds of clusters of rose quartz crystals, from hot pink to lavender to magenta. He looks from side to side for any sign of a spectator, and finding none, he plucks one of the crystals from the ground and inspects it briefly, then drops it in his pocket.
Rose quartz crystals, he knows, are more rare than diamonds.
Dab Mostly studies a scrap of paper thumbtacked to the front door of the cottage. On it someone has inscribed a poem with one of those lavender calligraphy pens he used to use at Fairly Honest Dabney’s Rock Shop to make signs for his display shelves. He reads the poem:
Clusters of crystals
Clusters of grapes
Mustard of sisters
Ketchup of apes
Spell me a riddle
Don’t spell it wrong
Don’t stop to dawdle
This won’t take long
Somebody once said
Suicide was bad
Somebody else said
It’s all he had
Coulda asked anyone
But nobody cared
How many years till
A car runs on air?
Overcome with curiosity, Dab Mostly tiptoes to the side of the house away from the road, staying well clear of the breathing windows, and locates a small knothole in one of the thin, dry boards that constitutes the shack’s scanty siding. He puts his eye up next to the tiny knothole, but can’t see through it. He fishes in his pocket for his favorite knife, but is dismayed to find it missing. He finds the small quartz crystal in his pocket and uses it to ream out the tiny hole in the center of the knot.
Ream, ream. Ream, ream. Dab Mostly reams as sneakily as he can. He can hear voices inside the building, and a woman screaming in the basement. Curious, he thinks. I must get to the bottom of this.
Someone taps him on the shoulder, and he gasps in surprise, then slowly turns around, palming the crystal and slipping it into his back pocket.
A tall man with a white fringe of hair, a red baseball hat, and old-fashioned black plastic glasses extends his large hand. Despite his deadpan expression, the man’s Oklahoma drawl seems almost purposely exaggerated to suffuse his speech with hospitality: Hey buddy, you can have that crystal, but the front door’s over there. Just remember, it may be the easiest way in, but there’s only one way out, and that’s to stay to the bitter end.
Dab stammers in embarrassment and confusion, then finally shakes the other man’s hand and introduces himself: Dab Mostly, King of Rocks.
Terry Miller, Father of the Modern Air Car Movement.
Air cars! Are you people working with Maxwell Zdaemon or something?
Terry responds: This is air car world headquarters, son. Activity central. Nothing happens down there unless it goes through us first.
Dab raises his eyebrows. And I’m . . . I’m here to help out, is that it?
Only if you care to, young man, only if you care to.
Terry Miller drapes his long arm around Dab Mostly’s shoulders and walks him toward the front door. Terry doesn’t avoid the breathing windows; they avoid him. He speaks: You see, Dabney my boy, there was once nothing in this universe but one shiny little dot of infinite freedom. Freedom everywhere you looked. Freedom enough to choke on. Freedom was God’s middle name. It wasn’t until the Big Bang that things got kinda scary. God had got so bored with his infinity of freedom to do anything he wanted, that the boredom actually put him in a deep purple funk and eventually drove him apeshit bonkers, splitting him up into a jillion little pieces, and the pieces flew every which way. Some of them were happy, some were sad. The happy little pieces stayed in Heaven and live there to this day, having their happy little dreams with nothing to stop them from being happy. They’re so happy, they don’t even know they’re happy. But the sad little pieces found safety in numbers and eventually hunkered down together and formed a committee, and sooner or later they created a school for themselves on some of the prettier chunks of Big Bang debris, one of which is a place called Earth—a place you might remember—and on this Planet and others like It, they set up systems such as endless cycles of reincarnation, whereby they could explore the nature of their sadness so they could try to turn it into happiness, with hopes of someday being happy like their dreaming zombie cousins up in heaven.
Terry and Dab sit down on the front step of the shack, and Terry continues: Now, sooner or later, it had to happen: some of the sad little pieces of the universe started learning how to be happy, and before you know it, half of the sad world was bowing down in worship to these unusually happy pieces, while the other half was either trying to kill them out of jealousy or steal their happiness for themselves.
Terry looks at Dab. Are you getting any of this, son?
Dab Mostly nods and smiles, gesturing for the older man to go ahead with his story. Terry says, Do you like my garden? Hey, and how about those breathing windows, aren’t they neat? I figured those out myself.
Nice, says Dab. And the silent tornado?
Shhh! Terry warns, finger to his lips. He whispers in Dab’s ear, Vortex shear force. Can’t do nothin’ about it.
Terry goes on: Now getting back to today’s lesson: of course, you can’t kill one of God’s sad little pieces—he pauses and raises his eyebrows, looking into Dab’s eyes before continuing—You can’t kill one of God’s sad little pieces on Earth any more than you can kill one of God’s happy little pieces up in Heaven, because Heaven and Earth are just two boards on the same porch, you know what I mean? And you also can’t sneak away with anybody else’s happiness, otherwise what would’ve been the point of having a Big Bang and making all the little pieces separate from each other to begin with? Meanwhile, Schoolhouse Earth has become so busy and crowded and inefficient that most of the sad little pieces have forgotten why they signed up, and from time-to-time one of them thinks he can just up and terminate his contract. You know what I mean?
Dab Mostly stares at the ground and nods slowly.
Terry stands up. Well, that’s enough for today’s Sunday School lesson. So how about it? You want to come in here and help one of those sad little pieces while he messes up and gets everything wrong and keeps trying, or you want to go thataway?
You mean help Maxwell, don’t you. Him and that air car project of his. Or go—whichaway?
Terry Miller raises his eyebrows and shrugs. He doesn’t say anything. Dab stands up.
OK, Dab Mostly says, Let’s go in.
You go on in, son, I’ll stay out here and water my garden and oil my breathing windows and watch out for folks going by. I’m sort of the caretaker, or the watch dog or something.
The woman in the basement screams. Terry whispers to Dab, I’m really working for her.
Terry turns the knob and pushes the door open, and gestures for Dab to enter the dusty little shack.
Five men lounge around a huge television screen on homemade wooden chairs and benches, all in their underwear. The big blond bearded man stretched out on the couch is asleep. A tall black man takes his feet down from the chair in front of him, and hollers, Howdy Commander! Dontego Bailey, at your service! May we have the pleasure of your company, I assume?
Dab Mostly grins shyly and takes another step inside, and the door swings shut behind him. Dab Mostly, King of Rocks.
Krishna Bernie takes his eyes off the screen for a moment to wave distractedly, then slumps deeper into his chair.
Batanwa Jim stands up to scratch his nuts, and scowls in recognition, Hey, aren’t you that guy from that rock shop? What’s it like to do yourself in? Everybody thinks I killed myself too, you know, but I was really murdered.
Donovan opens one eye, takes a peek at the newcomer, and shuts it again.
Grandpa Zdaemon walks up to Dab Mostly and pinches his cheek, making a funny noise back in his throat.
He’s shy, Dontego announces. Here, have a seat. This is some show. Our hero is about to start a new life, and we’re getting ready to wager on what his next move will be.
I don’t gamble, Dab says.
Donovan roars with laughter: A miner who doesn’t gamble! Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? and the others join in, Dontego with his big bellowing HaHaHa, the other three with silently shaking shoulders. Batanwa Jim slaps his thigh and shakes till tears run out his nose.
Dab Mostly walks around the room. What’s on? he says, stopping in front of the screen.
Don’t bother, Donovan West grumbles.
Not much to report, Dontego Bailey announces.
Batanwa Jim mimes an exaggerated snore.
Grandpa Zdaemon pretends to inspect his liver-spotted knuckles.
Phhhht! decries Krishna Bernie.
Then Dab Mostly spots a big red button on the back wall of the cottage, next to a closed door.
He realizes that it is through this door that he has been hearing a woman screaming.
He walks up to the glowing, pulsating red button and says, What’s this thing do? and pushes the button.
Batanwa Jim shouts in his phony Irish brogue: Holy Mary Mother of God and all the Saints and Sinners, do you know what you just did?
Not really, Dab sighs. Will I be punished?
All five of the men jump up, put on their pants, and smooth down their hair.
The doorknob by Dab’s right hand rattles, squeaks, and turns.
Dab Mostly checks his fly and smoothes down his own hair.
The door creaks open on its hinges.
A short, well-constructed, serious-looking young woman with lots of dark hair piled up on her head, wearing a long dress with puffy shoulders and big heavy boots, steps into the room, and quietly shuts the door behind her.
Donovan jabs a finger in her direction: No screaming now, or you can just go back downstairs!
Meshuggener female, Bernie mutters.
Howdy, Commander! Dontego offers, with a worried look.
Batanwa Jim whispers, Hey, look at the mellow hippie chick! He elbows Dab Mostly in the ribs. Dab allows his tongue to briefly hang out.
She opens her mouth, and the crackling voice of a 79-year-old retired schoolmarm says, Keep your pants on, boys, I have some chalkboards to erase.
Dab Mostly runs and hides behind the couch.
Grandma Wrathburn follows him, and gazes down at him sternly. Young man, you’ll get up from there this instant, or you’ll keep your nose pressed into the corner till dinner’s over and breakfast is cooking.
Dinner? Batanwa Jim calls out.
Dab stands up and stutters, T-too bad you missed the whole show. I mean, locked up down there like that.
Grandma Wrathburn replies, Are you kidding? I watched the whole damn shootin’ match on a little black-and-white TV about half the size of a bread box.
Grandpa Zdaemon says, I didn’t know there was a television down there.
You weren’t supposed to know.
Dontego asks, Was that really you screaming down there?
Who the hell do you think it was, Howdy Doody?
Grandpa Zdaemon asks, Since when did you learn to swear?
Grandma Wrathburn says, Since when did you learn to talk?
Grandma Zdaemon explains timidly that he and Batanwa Jim had time to tell each other their whole life stories before anyone else showed up.
Grandma Wrathburn says: That must have taken up your whole fifteen minute recess.
Donovan West chimes in, Now children, we mustn’t argue.
Who the hell are you? Grandma Wrathburn asks.
Donovan West, Ma’am, at your service.
She replies, Next time I require the services of a man, you’ll be the first to know.
Krishna Bernie and Batanwa Jim stifle giggles and poke each other in the ribs.
Grandma Wrathburn ignores them and speaks, looking straight at Krishna Bernie, who writhes in discomfort: Who has the controls for that thing? pointing at the big screen.
Bernie fishes in the pocket of his faded red windbreaker, and pulls out a neon yellow remote control. He hands it to Grandma Wrathburn hesitantly, saying, We’re not sposedta use that thing, you know, unless it’s a dire emoigency.
This is a dire goddam emergency! she shouts hoarsely, and everyone cringes.
She holds the remote up to her face and scowls at it, then hands it to Dontego Bailey. I can’t see those little letters. How do you put that show on hold?
The men all gasp.
Dire emoigency, Bernie repeats.
Shut up!
Dontego Bailey sighs with resignation, and points the yellow remote at the big screen. He punches one of the buttons and the screen stops with the show’s main character in mid-stride. He was about to walk up to a big machine at a public library where he has gone to escape from his job search. The big machine says “Oregon Employment Division.”
In one hand he holds a book entitled How to Form Your Own Non-profit Corporation.
In his other hand he holds a book entitled Portland Community College Course Catalog.
Grandma Wrathburn walks up to a small hole in the wall, in the middle of a knothole. She puts one eye up to it and hollers, Terry Miller, get in here right this very instant!
Before two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Terry Miller enters the cottage through the front door, doffing his baseball cap and then shutting the door behind him. Wisps of white hair stand up from his bald scalp. Emily! he says with a smile. They’ve finally let you out of the basement!
You’re darn tootin’. Now Terry, is everything we talked about set to go?
Yes, Emily.
Tornado twirlin’?
Like a champ.
Grandma Wrathburn addresses the rest of the crew: Now hear this! I have an announcement to make, and I’m only going to say this once.
There is a long silence as Grandma Wrathburn gazes sternly from one man to the next.
She speaks: It is now time to make a vote.
I’ll vote! says Batanwa Jim, raising his arm.
Donovan says, Put your arm down, sir, it’s a small cottage and we’re trying to breathe in here.
Grandma Wrathburn says, As you all know, we are gathered here to lend our creative energies to a project that is touted by its founder as the beginning of the end of the malignant grip of poisonous power and monopolistic special interests of all kinds on the future of Greenhouse Earth.
Amen, Grandmother, hollers Dontego Bailey.
She goes on: And as you are all well aware, our hero, the would-be savior of the hothouse Planet that we all once dwelt upon, is at a major crossroads in his career, at a point which could either make or break the final fulfillment of the promise that his mechanical message holds for mankind.
And womankind, says Batanwa Jim.
She goes on: Fellows, follow me. Terry!
Yes, Emily.
Open the fuse box!
Terry Miller leads the others over to an electrical box mounted on the wall next to the big TV screen, fishes in his pocket for a loaded key ring, hums “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while he sorts through the keys, and finally chooses one. He unlocks the metal box and swings the door open on its hinge.
Donovan West says, That’s not a fuse box, it’s a breaker box.
Same diff’, says Krishna Bernie.
Grandma Wrathburn turns to her charges, her eyes flashing. “Behold!”
The men stare at her, then look at each other.
She explains: Get out your voting fingers, gentlemen; you are about to add the creative powers of your twisted imaginations to that of our humble hero, the maligned and misunderstood miscreant who I attempted to harden for his task early on in his life. You are going to add the pure electricity of your compounded intellects to the existing confusion that our message bearer thrives on. You are about to push him over that edge from confusion into illusionless resignation so that he may inherit without apology his own warped point of view. By adding your undying input to these six electrical switches and simultaneously toggling them over, you shall have made six mighty mountains of momentous contribution to the future of your faithful friend as he carries out the next step in his career as an air car advocate, the savior of Planet Earth, and the savior of the human race!
Dab Mostly frowns. But Mrs.—uh . . .
Wrathburn!
Uh, Mrs. Wrathburn, there’s eight of us, and only six switches.
I don’t gamble, she replies.
Nor do I, says Terry Miller. It’s all for air or all for nothing.
Now what is it we’re supposed to do, again? Bernie asks, chuckling nervously.
You put your bony fingers on one of those switches up there, and you announce your best intentions and highest hopes for how Maxwell Zdaemon will choose to carry out the final stage of his air car project: the part where he actually builds the car. On three, now: One! Two!—
Wait!
Hold on!
I’m not ready!
Let me get my thoughts together!
Now where’d I put my bony fingers last time I used them?
The six men converge on the fuse box, reaching into it gingerly.
Grandma Wrathburn says, Now, my fine white knights, each of you has the future of the Planet in your hands. Each of you must make the right decision, or else. It’s do or die for our savior down there. Concentrate with all your power, give it everything you’ve got, and before you know it, your jobs will be complete and my little boy down there will have his air car to trumpet to the world.
Ready? asks Dab Mostly, his fingers tensing.
Don’t jump the gun, Rock Man. First, in celebration of our hero’s narrowly accomplished survival throughout nearly half a century of wrestling demons, I will quote the Scripture, the Gospel of his predecessor, from Luke the fifteenth chapter, verses one through four, and I paraphrase:
“Now the losers and the social cripples were all drawing near to talk air cars with him. And the Type A Workaholics and superficial psychopathic yuppies murmured amongst themselves, saying, ‘This man hangs out with wackos and smokes pot with them!’ So he told them this fractured fable: ‘What man amongst you, having a dozen credit cards, if he has maxed out one of them, does not pull out his wallet and use the other eleven, until they are all maxed out as well?’”
The five men grin nervously. Terry Miller had snuck out the door while Grandma Wrathburn was paraphrasing the Good News, leaving it open behind him.
A noise like a mighty wind shakes the flimsy cabin.
Grandma Wrathburn rises to her full height, and sparks fly from her eyes, as she shouts above the tornadic tempest: The time is Now! Gentlemen, state your intentions, and make damn sure I can hear you!
Dab Mostly: He’ll be a wildly successful multi-billionaire, the next Henry Ford.
Krishna Bernie: He’ll move to a hot springs and retire, giving seminars and workshops and selling books by mail.
Grandpa Zdaemon: He’ll learn to talk by standing in front of a roomful of air car enthusiasts.
Batanwa Jim: He’ll master the art of dreaming, and manifest a bag of money which will land at his feet.
Dontego Bailey: He’ll form a non-profit organization and save the Earth with rich people’s money.
Donovan West: He’ll blow their freaking socks off.
All fingers gripping buttons, Emily Wrathburn counts One, Two, Three, Now! and the fingers jerk; the toggles are toggled.
The huge TV screen blinks out.
Oh no! they all moan at once.
Grandpa Zdaemon says, Damn thing’s broken.
Everyone looks at him from the corner of their eyes.
Krishna Bernie speaks for all of them: Now whadda we do?
It is now the future, some years or many months from now, or maybe never, and I am in a town or city somewhere, sitting in a booth in a seedy, smoke-filled cocktail lounge. I have just finished telling my whole entire life story to a young hitchhiker I’d picked up about five miles from town.
The only reason I’d slowed down when I saw him was that he not only reminded me of a younger me from a distance; he also looked like my veritable twin when I got up close. Overcome with curiosity, I stopped and let him in, then immediately regretted it. He started whining right away about some girl he had to track down at some bar where she worked. I rushed my precious cargo toward the heart of the city; he sat on the edge of his seat the whole time, not even hearing my voice when I tried to start casual conversation.
At the bar, we found that the target of his passion had been fired for sampling the profits and had left town the previous week, and my friend seemed so dejected I could only offer to buy him a drink. He walked over to a booth and slumped down into its farthest corner. He told me he didn’t drink alcohol, that he was a confirmed pothead. When I asked him what that meant, he said pot was the only thing that could possibly cheer him up at a time like this, because only pot could always be relied on to make him happy.
I mentioned that I had given it up years ago and he asked why. I said I didn’t miss it and he asked why. I said, if you want to know why then I’ll tell you the whole story from the beginning, whereupon I proceeded to do just that, starting from my former life as a suicidal hermit, right on down to the final chapter.
My companion has proven to be a good listener while I have sipped beer after beer and shot off my mouth for hours. He can’t believe that after all those years of total obsession, I had completely lost interest in saving the world, but I shrug it off and say that I never liked cars anyway. Finally I wish the young man luck and we part ways in the parking lot.
So I’m steering around a corner with one hand and fiddling with the radio with the other hand, when I sense that if I were to look up, in the direction I’m driving the car, I might know more about the traffic conditions around me on the road. And a good move that is, for there in my very path is that selfsame young man—the twin of me as a youth, but for the flaming red hair—and I have just enough time to screech to a stop.
I wonder if he wants to die under the tires of my car, but then again maybe he just wants to say something to me, or maybe he wants another ride. Sure enough, he approaches me and I roll down my window.
Hey man, he says.
Hey yourself, what’s yup.
Hey man, he repeats. “Do you know the way to San Jose?”
I look at him and notice for the first time a small bump on the tip of his nose, exactly like the one I have. “Get in. I’ll take you there.”
I don’t know which way San Jose is, so I drive toward the hot pink sunset.
“What’s that?” the young man asks, pointing to a gauge next to my speedometer.
“That’s my air gauge,” I say. “It tells me how much energy I have to keep me rolling down the road.”
“Where’s the F and the E?”
There is no full and there is no empty. There is only a point of balance.
I drive my air car into the gathering twilight, my favorite time of day, completely alone and fully satisfied with my own company.
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