by john | Jun 20, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
a little longer chunk this time, couldn’t find a good break around the 1,000-word mark. Enjoy
“We’ve gotta go.” I said after allowing myself a moment to wallow.
“Where?” Cain asked.
“I’m not sure yet, but we need to get everybody together and get ready to roll. If Lucky’s known about this for any length of time, then we can’t be sure what parts of what has happened have been our idea and what’s been his.” I dropped a five on the table for a tip and headed back to the poker room. When we got there Emily had taken her seat in the back corner, and her stacks were smaller than when we had left. There were more green chips, though, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I stayed on the periphery of her vision for a minute while she played a hand, and then tapped my wrist where a watch would be if I wore one. She looked at me and Cain, nodded, and picked up a couple of racks for her chips. We met her at the cashier’s cage as she was folding a nice little stack of hundred dollar bills into her front pocket.
“You boys are back early. What’s up?” She asked as we came up on either side of her. Cain and I were both looking around like our heads were on swivels, sure that we’d see Lucky leaning on a slot machine somewhere. It was useless, of course. Nobody sees Lucky unless he wants to be seen, and then you usually don’t want to see Lucky.
“Time to go sweetheart. Did you have fun?” I kept my tone light as we headed for the doors. I didn’t need any interference from casino security if they thought we were trying to muscle the girl. She picked up that something was wrong, and put her arm through Cain’s as we walked. We looked for all the world like a father and a couple of young lovebirds. I put that disturbing thought out of my head, and before anyone took notice of us, we were back out on the street headed toward Cain’s place.
We’d gone about half a block when Emily pulled up short. “Okay boys, out with it. What’s going on? Why did you come back early, and why were you in such a hurry to get me out of there?”
I could see that she wasn’t interested in waiting for an explanation, and checked off impatience as another attribute that she got from Eve. Yes, I know I credit Eve with all the character traits that I find annoying, and that I take credit for all the traits I like. She does exactly the same thing. She blames every hot-tempered moment in human history on me, from the start of wars to hockey fights. It’s a thing we do, so just leave me alone, okay?
“Well, Em, Dad and I had a little conversation and we realized that your friend Luke is someone we both know, only I knew him as Lucien, and the last time I saw him was in the 19th century.” Cain started.
“And I usually call him Lucky, and the last time I saw him was just a few days ago, when I left Las Vegas and started this whole trek.” I continued.
Her eyes got big and her mouth opened in a big, round “O” as she sat down on the stoop of the house we were in front of. I thought for a minute that it was because she had made the leap as to whom we were really talking about, and I guess that was probably part of it. But the rest of it was the fact that the son of a bitch was standing right behind me. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and spun to throw a punch. Lucky wasn’t the pacifist that Michael was, though and he caught my fist in his left hand without so much as a blink.
“Peace, Adam. I’m just here to talk.” He purred in my ear as he slowly forced my fist down to my side. We tend to forget exactly how powerful the seraphim are when we don’t see them do anything out of the ordinary, but Lucky was strong. “Good evening, Cain. Emily.” He inclined his head to each of them in turn.
“Morningstar,” replied Cain with a nod.
“Um, Luke? What’s going on? And why did he just call you…oh.” Emily put it all together pretty quickly, then her hand flashed to outside of her pocket where the money was, as if to touch it to see if it burned her or something.
Lucky chuckled a little at her discomfort. He let go of my hand and took a step back, holding his hands outstretched, palms out at me to keep me from charging him. I had no doubt that he could do plenty of unpleasant things to me, maybe even kill me, but I wasn’t in a place to care just then.
“Relax, Big A. I’m just here to talk. And just for a minute. We wouldn’t want your little poof friend Michael to smell sulfur on you, after all.”
“Alright then, talk.” I muttered, moving slightly in front of Emily.
“That’s sweet, Adam. But really, if I wanted to hurt the child I would have done it long before you ever knew she existed. But anyway, I’m here about the Choice. There are things you should know.”
“And we should believe you why?” I asked with no small hint of sarcasm.
“You probably shouldn’t. But you shouldn’t believe everything your mealy-mouthed sword-swinging nancy-boy tells you, either. Just like me, Michael has his own agenda. And it might not have your best interests at heart.”
“Oh don’t worry. I trust him at least as much as I trust you, pal.” I spat.
“And when, in all the years we’ve known each other, have I ever lied to you?” If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was actually hurt at the notion. I had to take a minute and think it through, then I looked over at Cain, whose expression mirrored my own.
“Never.” I said in a quiet voice.
“Exactly. I have never lied to you, Adam. And I haven’t spent the better part of seventy-five thousand years telling you the truth, not always the whole truth, mind you, but the truth nonetheless, just to build up equity so that I can lie to you on a muggy early morning in Louisiana. So will you at least give me a chance to say my peace?”
“Go ahead.” I was actually listening, although I wouldn’t for a second put it past him to be honest for a few thousand years just to set up one huge lie now. After all, he invented the long con, as it were.
“So far Michael has been telling you the truth as well. There is a Choice coming, and it’s another major Choice. But just like me, he hasn’t told you the whole truth. He hasn’t told you what’s at stake, and he won’t. Neither will I.”
“So why bring it up?” Emily asked. “If you’re not going to explain yourself and tell us the consequences of this Choice, why bring it up in the first place?”
“My dear girl, I am the Devil, remember? Torment is kinda right in my wheelhouse.”
“Ass.” She muttered as she leaned back on the stoop.
“Adam, you always did breed the most potty-mouthed children. But where was I? Oh yes, the point. The Choice
Michael is leading you to isn’t the only one coming for you, Big A, and it might not even be the most important one.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I get the whole tormenting obtuse thing, but shit, Lucky, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” I interjected.
“Your Choice, Adam.” He replied calmly.
“Huh?” My natural eloquence sometimes amazes even me.
“Your. Choice.” He said very slowly and distinctly, as though speaking to a particularly slow first-grader. Eve did that, too, and I can bet I know where she learned it. “Haven’t you wondered why Eve made the Choice in The Garden instead of you? Haven’t you wondered why Cain and Abel both had their Choices so early in life and after all these years, you’ve never had to make a major decision? You know, something that might affect someone other than yourself?”
“Not really, no. I figured not everybody makes the big decisions. And after this long, I just kinda figured that I wasn’t going to have to.” It sounded lame even to my ears, but it was how I’d muddled through for so long.
“Sorry, pal. The father of the human race has a Choice to make, too. And yours is coming up soon. It’s part of this whole trip, and it might be even more important than the one little Mikey has already told you about.”
“Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he tell me I had a Choice coming? And why won’t you tell me what it is?” I was starting to get agitated, and Cain put a hand on my shoulder to keep me from going completely apeshit.
“He won’t tell you for the same reason that I won’t tell you more. We don’t want to influence your decision too soon. We both want the same thing, for you to choose our side, but we don’t want to make our case until the last possible moment so our arguments stay fresh.”
“Yeah, like there’s any chance I’d take your side in any argument.” I spat at the fallen angel.
“Of course there’s a chance. After all, Eve did, didn’t she? And by telling you a little bit now, while Michael is still keeping you in the dark, I undermine his argument before he ever makes it. Quite brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
He smirked and it was all I could do not to punch him square in the face. It helped that I knew he wouldn’t let me, and I didn’t want to end up with a sore jaw.
“So what do you want with us tonight, Lucypher?” I drew myself up to my full height and addressed him with all the weight I could put in my words.
“So formal, Adam? That was all. I’ve just been waiting for you to find my connection to dear little Emmy here, and thought that would be the most apropos moment for a chat. But now I think you probably want to be on your way, and since Eve got to Cain’s apartment about twenty minutes ago, you should probably go see if your first love and your last one have started the jell-o wrestling yet, don’t you think?” I glanced over at Cain, a little alarmed for his knick-knacks, and when I looked back at where Lucky had been standing, he was gone.
“Dad?” Emily asked from the step where she was sitting.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“I’m a little scared.” Her voice was very small, and when I looked back at her, she could have as easily been fifteen as twenty-four. I held out my hand to help her up, and put my arm around her shoulder as we started walking through the night toward Cain’s place. Our feet splashed through things that were probably better left undescribed as we walked down the suddenly too-empty streets.
“I am too, baby girl. I am too.”
by john | Jun 19, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
So I realize that this is getting long, we’re in the 30,000-word range now, and it’s feeling like it’s going to be novel-length by the time I’m finished. So I guess my question now is, if I keep posting the whole thing up here, am I killing any chances of getting the thing published later? I didn’t start this journey with an idea towards writing a book, but that’s more and more what it feels like. Meh, if you wanna buy a copy when I’m done with it, you will. If you don’t, you’ll read it here and that’ll be that. Enjoy.
I sat for a moment digesting. I knew Lucky kept tabs on me, and it stood to reason that he had kept an eye on Eve and Cain, too. What I didn’t understand was why Cain had been playing cards with him, and said as much.
“Because we were making money, Pop. We were hustling mining camps for their claims in card games.”
“With Lucypher? What kind of stupid shit were you up to, son?” I started to stand, but sat down at the look in Cain’s eyes. It was a cross between shame and fear, with more than a little resentment thrown in, and a lot of it was directed at me.
“Really? Who was I supposed to pal around with, Dad?” The emphasis on the last word was heavy with sarcasm, and I suppose it was only to be expected. “I was thousands of years removed from any paternal influence, I had murdered my closest relative and best friend, and Mom was in the middle of one her nuttier periods. Besides, Lucien and I had plenty in common.”
“Lucien?”
“Yeah, that’s what he called himself then. Nobody in their right mind would play cards with a guy named Lucky, and Lucypher was a little blatant.”
“And what in the hell, no pun intended, do you think you have in common with Lucypher?” I was trying to keep my voice down in case the octogenarians sharing the buffet with us weren’t as deaf as I thought.
“The same thing that Mom does, we’ve made Choices. Look, I can’t tell you any more about it. It’s part of the deal I accepted when I made my Choice. Just let that part of it go for now, because I’ve got a feeling before long you’re going to understand it better than you’ve ever wanted to. Suffice to say that Lucky and I have spent some time together in some of the seedier parts of the world, and that we were working together in Deadwood. Of course, what I didn’t know was that Lucky also had other things working.”
“He always does.”
“Yeah. So he had been pumping McCall full of liquor earlier in the day, and telling him how Hickock had been talking about what a sucker McCall was and how Hickock had to give him money for breakfast because McCall had lost his last dollar playing cards. I never did find out what Lucky had against Hickock, but he got McCall wound up enough to walk right up behind Hickock and blow his brains out through his eyeballs. Hickock dropped his cards on the table, a couple of boys went after McCall, and Lucky stole the money in the pot while I sat there with pieces of Wild Bill’s brains splattered all over my favorite coat. After a couple minutes’ shock I ran out into the street and grabbed Lucky. I pulled him into an alley and asked him what the hell he was doing. He said that he was done with Hickock, done with McCall and done with the West. He said he had bigger things to do in Europe and needed a little seed money to get him there. He left me with half our winnings, a coat matted with blood and brains and a stupid look on my face. I didn’t see him again until Germany.”
“Germany?” I asked.
“Another time, Dad. The point is, he told me the same thing he told Emily, you never leave while game’s still good. And judging by the look on your face, he’s said the same thing to you more than once.”
“Yeah. We played Glic once or twice in France, and Lucky always had a sense for when the game was good, when you could take down a hand just by vying at the right time, and who at the table was not terribly attached to their money. I always wondered what he wanted with the money. It’s not like he needs it.”
“I asked once. He said it’s just a way to keep score. The money itself only matters in that it means something to the guy you’re taking it from.”
“That sounds like Lucky.”
“Yeah. But what does he want with Emily? He had to know who she was, and he had to know that eventually you’d find out he’d been around her, and that you’d be pissed.”
“True, but would he care? It’s not like I can hurt him, Cain. Nobody can. At least nobody that was born here.”
“No, you’re probably right. But then why mess with her? She’s just a normal kid. It’s not like she’s one of us.”
“Maybe not, but he’d know that she mattered to me, and he’s always loved screwing with the things that I care about.” I leaned back in the booth and sipped on a Coke. None of this made sense. I’d spent enough time around Lucky over the centuries to start to think I had an idea how he thought, but this had me completely stumped. It’s like he knew I’d find her, like he…I sat bolt upright as the thought hit me. “He knew!”
“Knew what?”
“He knew this was coming! He knew that we’d all get together, that I’d see Emily together, that I’d have to come for Eve, that I’d find out that he’d been messing with the kid, all of it. The bastard probably set up the whole mess in Vegas that sent me to her in the first place.” I let out a low whistle at the way he’d played me. Again. After all this time, just when I thought I was getting to a point where I could see his moves, and he’d checkmated me again.
by john | Jun 18, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
“Where did you learn to play poker?” Cain asked.
“Now, big brother, don’t worry. I can teach you if you want. Daddy, where did you pick me and Mama up?”
“Texas.”
“And what’s the name of the game we’re playing?”
“Texas Hold’em.”
“Now doesn’t it stand to reason that a girl who grew up in Texas, and happened to have been raised next to a bar, might have learned a little about poker?” She kept up the sweetness and light demeanor, which I think made it all the worse.
“So how much do you have?” I finally asked.
“About sixteen hundred dollars. The three hundred you gave me was seed money, and as soon as I could double that, I took a seat in a juicy 2/5 game. I’m gonna pick up another decent pot or two and then hit up the Pot Limit Omaha game they’ve got over in the back corner. It’s an uncapped game and the three seat’s throwing money away like a Catholic priest on a Bangkok bender, while the seven seat has had about seventeen Crown and Cokes and is falling asleep between hands. As long as I stay out of the way of the four and six seats, I should be okay. I can’t tell if they’re playing partners or just locals that don’t see any need to tangle with each other, but either way they aren’t the soft spots at the table. I’ll avoid them unless I’ve got the mortal nuts, and I figure they’ll take a shot or two at me because I’m a girl and then they’ll go back to the easy pickings themselves.” Her whole body language changed when she went on this description of the table. It was like a general talking about an opposing army’s strengths and weaknesses. And never once did she look back at the table to make sure she was talking about the right people. It was, to put it mildly, the damndest thing I’d ever seen.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand a damn word you said, Baby Sister, and I’m real sure I can’t afford any poker lessons from you.” Cain said with more than a little awe in his voice.
“Well, are you about ready to roll? We’ve got about two grand between us now, and that’s enough to make some headway before we need to reload our funds. We might even have enough to get us all the way through this mess, wherever that is.” I was not very comfortable with some of the looks we were getting. Not that they were threatening looks, more like Emily was a piece of meat, and I get squirrelly where my girl children are concerned.
“Come back in two, two and a half hours. I’m just about done with this table, but it’ll take a couple of good hands at the next to get me where I want to be before we head out. And besides, you never leave while the game is good.” She turned to go back to the table and I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back, hard.
“Where did you hear that phrase?” I asked in a low, very serious tone. All the levity went out of her when she looked up into my eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she actually looked afraid of me. And frankly, I didn’t know better, and she probably was afraid of me. I loosened my grip on her arm but stayed right down in her face. “Who told you that line about never leave when the game is good?”
“A..a guy. He used to come in the diner. He taught me how to play cards. He’d flirt with Mom and play cards with me in one of the booths after school.”
“What was his name?” I kept my voice down but she could see in my eyes that something was going on.
“Luke. Why?”
“Nothing.” I tried to force my face back to normal, but could tell I wasn’t doing a very good job. “Nothing. It’s just that’s a phrase I heard a long time ago, but it’s been years, and I’m sure it’s just part of the vernacular now.” I was lying through my teeth and she knew it, but she could tell that I wasn’t going to come across with any truth right then. “Go on back to your game.”
“Are you sure? You wanna tell me what’s got you so spooked?” She asked. “Besides, now that you’ve got me rattled, I’m gonna have to fold every hand for the next orbit to get my head back in the game.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s nothing, really. Go on back to slaying the redneck dragons and we’ll be back in a couple hours.”
“Yeah, go rob the poor unsuspecting swamp rats, Baby Sister. Me and the old man are gonna go grab a bite and play a little more blackjack.” Cain put an arm around my shoulders and steered me towards the buffet. As soon as he saw Emily take her seat again, he whispered fiercely in my ear “Exactly what the hell do you think you were doing?”
We got a booth a little separate from the rest of the buffet and sat. I downed a Coke in one quick gulp and once the waitress was headed off for my refill I leaned forward. “You know who her poker lessons came from?”
“Yeah, the Morningstar.”
“Yeah. Exactly. That son of a bitch has been hanging around my daughter and I want to know why. Wait a minute. That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. How did you know who her ‘Luke’ was?” I leaned back as my son took a moment to figure out the best way to tell his story.
“Remember when I mentioned not liking to sit with my back to a door?” He started.
“Yeah, you said you were in Deadwood when Hickock got shot.”
“Yeah. I was sitting across from him at the table, and probably was about to lose my ass, because my two pair wasn’t as good as his when McCall came in and shot him.”
“What does that have to do with the Morningstar?”
“He was there, too.”
by john | Jun 17, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
The casino in New Orleans is just like most of them, loud, garish and a little depressing. It’s no wonder Lucky feels so at home in them. I wonder what it says about me that I also feel very at home among the dropouts, the degenerates and the hopeless dreamers. But I’ve always like blackjack, and I count cards just well enough to generally make a little money without getting noticed by the floor guys or the eye in the sky. I sat down at a low-limit table and settled in to a nice six-deck shoe. Most people think you can’t count a six-deck shoe, but the reality is that it’s just a little harder. If you’re patient, you can figure it out. If you’re immortal, patience is one thing you’ve got in spades. The kids wandered around the slot machines for while as I got my groove started. I was up about a hundred bucks at a $15 table when Emily came back.
“Gimme a couple hundred bucks.” She said, holding out her hand.
“And why, pray tell, would I want to do that?” I responded without touching either the chips in front of me or the cash in my pocket.
“Because you’re taking too long and I can make us a lot more money a lot more quickly. So gimme $300.”
“How do you plan to make significantly more money than me, faster than me, with half our remaining money?” I was a little concerned. She had an odd look about her, not like she had a gambling bug, but like she knew she had an edge. It worries me when people think they have an edge over a casino, especially one that’s as close to water as that one was. I’ve seen people frantically trying to learn to swim after big winning sessions in casinos, but it can be difficult to learn new things with you hands and feet tied together. I ended up very soggy in that little adventure and didn’t relish an opportunity to repeat it. It’s a lot harder to find thugs in casinos nowadays, since they’re all run my huge multinational conglomerates, but there’s still the occasional neckless twit rolling around, and if I could avoid any interaction with them, I would.
“Poker.” She looked up at me and when I didn’t fork over any cash, she went on. “I’m a good poker player, and I read people very, very well. So give me one buyin and I’ll make us some serious cash. I’ve been watching, and these games are ridiculously juicy. It’s almost like these guys want to give their money away.” Now I’ve played a little poker, and I’ve played once or twice in the Delta, and the boys down there like to gamble. And they would never think that a little girl like Emily could hold her own, so even if she didn’t have a somewhat amazing ability to know what people were thinking and feeling, she’d probably have an edge. Couple that with her mildly disturbing insight, and I did what any right-thinking father would do. I gave her the money.
“Thanks. Now stay here. If you’re there with me it’ll singe my groove.” She walked off, and I saw her tying her hair up in pigtails as she went. Singe her groove? Really?
“They grow up fast, don’t they Poppa?” Cain was in the seat next to me at the table. I hadn’t noticed him there before and wasn’t sure how much of the exchange he’d witnessed.
“Yeah. They sure do. Did you ever have any?” I realized how little I really knew about my son, what with that whole wanting to murder each other for millennia thing getting in the way.
“A few. I had a few early, but they all bore The Mark on their foreheads, so I waited until after the carpenter did his thing to have any more. You know what’s funny? After they killed him, none of my children since had The Mark.
Funny, huh?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought he could have affected us, what with us being so much older than him and all.”
“I know. But it really did seem like something changed after his time. Like Father hit the reset button or something.” I’d never pegged Cain for the philosophical type, but people can change in 5,000 years I guess. We sat there for an hour or two pushing chips back and forth. I wasn’t counting cards much anymore, just chatting with Cain about our lives through the years. Basic blackjack strategy will keep you from getting in too much trouble, and after a while doesn’t really require any thought. I managed to get lucky a few times and pick up a couple hundred dollars when I realized that Emily hadn’t come back for any more money.
“Wanna go check on your sister?” I asked Cain.
“I thought she didn’t want you to singe her groove?” Cain asked with a smirk.
“Really? Out of all the people, do you think I would singe a girl’s groove. C’mon.” I colored up to a purple and a couple of black chips and walked over towards the poker room. Poker room is something of a misnomer, it’s more a slightly enclosed area with a rail around it where addicts can go smoke.
It took a little bit of eyeballing from the rail, but we finally caught sight of Emily, and when we did, Cain and I exchanged what could most charitably be called shocked glances. She was sitting at one end of the table, the only girl in a sea of fat, sweaty men, and she had a wall of chips in front of her that was impressive in its size alone, much less in the fact that it was made up of mostly red and green chips. I made a quick guess and figured she had close to $1500 sitting in front of her. She saw us watching, folded her hand and sashayed over to the rail to give her brother a big hug and me a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey boys, how did you do?” She asked with an altogether impertinent smile.
“We made a little. Looks like you hit a nice little lucky streak yourself, sweetheart.” I replied cautiously. I wanted to know what she was up to, but damned if I was going to give her the satisfaction of asking.
“I’ve had worse days.” She answered with a twinkle in her eye. She knew I wasn’t going to be able to resist asking, and as a matter of fact, I wasn’t.
“Where did you get all that money?” I finally blurted out.
“It’s the funniest thing, Daddy. When you have the best hand, they give you all the chips in the middle of the table. And if you put all your chips in the middle, and you have the best hand, you don’t just get your chips back, you get everybody else’s chips too! Isn’t that fun!” She even squealed a little at the end. I felt ill.
by john | Jun 16, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
It was noon by the time we got to the police station, and the desk sergeant was glad to see us. Or more to the point, he was glad to see anyone that would agree to take Eve off their hands. We paid her fine, collected her belongings, including that ridiculously large bag, and waited on the sidewalk for her. It took about twenty minutes, but finally she tromped down the steps, grabbed her bag from Cain, and started walking off down the street. “Thanks for the bail money, kiddo.” She tossed over her left shoulder without breaking stride.
We caught up to her after about a dozen paces, and I blocked her path on the sidewalk. She stepped around me into the street, and kept on going. After a few fruitless attempts to stop her, I stopped and said “Go ahead. Keep running, Eve. But no matter where you go, there you are. And you can’t outrun you, no matter how far you go.” She stopped, and her head dropped. She slowly turned, and walked back to me.
She got right up in my face and said, in a voice dripping with chill, “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your archangel, fuck your new kid, fuck your latest love story, fuck your Choice, fuck living forever, fuck the rest of humanity, if that’s even what we are anymore, and fuck the Father.”
I didn’t know my hand had moved until her head rocked back with the force of me slapping her. She raised her hand to retaliate and I caught her wrist. I leaned in a got close enough that I could feel her breath on my face and I said in a low voice “You can say whatever you want about me, you can even talk shit about Myra and Emily. They can take care of themselves. But you will not disrespect our Father in my presence. No matter how you may feel about the mess we got ourselves into, no matter how much help we may have had from that douchebag angel, he is still our Father, our Creator, and he deserves your respect. “ I kept right on going without giving her a minute to get a word in.
“Now get your head out of your ass for a minute. There is something going on here that is bigger than both of us. I don’t understand it completely, and I’m not going to pretend for a minute that I trust Michael, but right now, we need him. I’ve got a real bad feeling about whatever this Choice is, and if we’re gonna get through this, I need people with me that I can count on. And you’ve always been at the top of that list. No matter what’s happened over the years, I know deep down you still care about me, and I will always, always care about you. And that’s the kind of backup we need.”
She stood there for a long moment before she looked up at me, nodded, then said to Cain “I’m gonna head back to my place to pick up some things, and some different clothes. I can catch a cab back to your place, or you can wait for me while I pack. I can call in to work and tell them I’m quitting. They won’t miss me, always said I was high maintenance.”
“You? Can’t imagine.” I said, grinning at her. She punched me lightly on the arm and said “I’ll see you back at Cain’s. And tell the floozy I’m sorry I was a bitch.”
“I’ll pass the word.” She walked off up the street and I turned back to the others.
“Do you think she’ll show?” Cain asked.
“Yes.” Emily didn’t have the slightest hesitation in her voice, and I had learned to trust her when she used that tone. So I nodded to Cain and we headed back to his apartment.
As we walked, Cain looked over at me and asked “How are you set for cash, Dad?”
“I’ve got about six hundred on me. Why?” I replied.
“Because all my ready cash just went to pay off a drunk and disorderly charge on Mommie Dearest, and since I share your distaste for traditional financial institutions, I have a modicum of concern as to how we’re going to finance our little world-saving endeavor.”
“Hmm. That’s a good point. Em, I don’t suppose your mother won the lottery since I skipped town, did she?”
“Yeah, of course she did. That’s why we were both waiting tables. To keep it real.” She made some type of odd gangster hand signal, then laughed at the confused look on my face.
“So how much money do we have, then?” I asked her.
“Well, there’s your six hundred, plus about four hundred between mom and me, and Cain’s now broke, so that just leaves anything Michael and Eve have.”
“Since Michael has been an incorporeal ball of self-righteous energy for most of his life, I’m guessing there’s not much earning potential on his resume. So that leaves Eve. And that means we’re screwed.” I answered.
“What makes you say that?” Emily asked.
“Mom doesn’t believe in money. She keeps only the bare minimum to support herself and gives the rest away, usually to the most deplorable people she can find. She might have fifty bucks on her, and that would be from last night’s lap dances. There’s not going to be much in the rainy day fund at Casa Eve.” Cain answered.
“Alright then, I guess it’s time to make money the old-fashioned way.” I declared.
“Bash people in the head with a rock and take it from their still-warm corpses?” Cain asked.
“Tacky, son. Really, really tacky.” I glared at him.
“Sorry, Poppa, old habits die hard. So if larceny and skullduggery wasn’t what you had in mind, how exactly do you plan to fund the next leg of our road trip?” He asked.
“The same way I’ve supported myself for the past twenty years. Blackjack. Come on kiddies, Poppa’s gonna take you to the casino. If you’re real nice, I’ll give you twenty bucks to play the slots with.” I headed down to Canal Street and turned left towards the casino, my two children in tow. I looked back at Emily “By the way, did you bring ID?”
“Yes, Dad.” She sighed in the tone that twenty-something girls have used with their ridiculous fathers ever since I first had a twenty-something daughter.
by john | Jun 13, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
I love the dreams about The Garden. It’s the only time I get to go back there, and those are the dreams I hate to wake up from. In this one, everybody was there. Me, Eve, Cain, Abel, Myra, Emily, all my children and wives from thousands of years, and all of Eve’s husbands and babies, too. I was sitting under The Tree watching Emily pose while Cain painted her portrait. She was sitting on a rock, barefoot with shorts and a t-shirt on, with a flower stuck behind one ear. Cain looked more at peace than I’d seen him in many years while he mixed paints on a little palette and dabbed a little yellow here, a little blue there, a swath of green over there. Abel stood behind his brother watching proudly, the love he had for his baby brother shining in his eyes. Eve lay on her stomach next to me, resting her head on her folded arms while she twisted flowers into a garland. We were at peace, all of us a huge ridiculous family, and even Lucky wasn’t looking to spoil anything. He just sat on a tree limb watching the children play. It was like his rebellion never happened, like Eve and I never ate the fruit, like nobody ever made any Choices.
Of course, just as I reached down beside me to take a drink from the frosty glass I had resting on the ground, I heard a voice.
“Alright, Sleeping Beauty. Time to make the donuts.” Sometimes having kids is a pain in the ass. Now try having kids that are thousands of years old. The whole respecting your elders thing goes in the shitter when your one of the oldest people in the world.
“Fuck off, Cain, we’re sleeping.” I mumbled.
“Unless you’ve got a mouse in your underpants, Poppa, there’s no ‘we.’ And since you’re swearing at me, you’re obviously not sleeping.” My smartass kid replied. Correct that. My eldest smartass kid. All my kids have had a wicked wit that I attribute to Eve. After all, that type of cynicism could never have come from yours truly. I then realized that the little shit was right, I was alone in the bed. That’s never an ideal waking situation, but it becomes even less so when you didn’t go to sleep alone, and had no real reason to anticipate waking up that way. I looked around the room for Myra, and heard the squeal of a water pipe as the shower kicked on to reassure me that I hadn’t been abandoned.
“Alright, darling child of mine, I am indeed awake. Now what can I do for you?” I rolled over to face Cain, who stood in the doorway already dressed for the day. He had gone native upon returning to New Orleans and stood in his flip-flops, white linen pants and a beige linen shirt. With his hair smoothed back into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck he looked like he could have stepped out of an Anne Rice novel. I envied him his sense of style, just a little. I’ve always leaned a little more towards biker chic myself, and I probably looked like Sam Elliott after a three-week bender given the few hours of sleep I’d grabbed.
“Well, Paternal One, I thought it might be a good idea for you to accompany me to meet mother for breakfast.” Cain replied, and there was something in his eyes that told me I needed to get dressed, and pronto.
“Where is she?” I asked as I pulled on pants and caught the t-shirt that Cain tossed to me. I reached into my bag for some deodorant and paused for a moment before I went over and knocked on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute.” I heard Myra call out from inside. I went in anyway, and closed the door behind me as I thought I heard Cain’s muffled reply. I stuck my head back outside the bathroom and said “Excuse me?”
“I said, she’s in jail. And we’re going to go bail her out. Now brush your teeth, your breath is peeling the paint.” I ducked back into the bathroom where Myra was just turning off the water.
“Adam, dear, I know we were close a while back, but do I really need to clarify that ‘just a minute’ does not mean ‘come right in and watch me shower?’” She said as she dried off. I did take a moment to notice that she really was a well-assembled woman as I squirted toothpaste all over the faucet.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She laughed as she said it and I remembered what drew me to her in the first place. Aside from the obvious attractions, all of which were on display at the moment, I loved her laugh.
“I’m sorry, Myra, I’ve gotta brush my teeth and run. Apparently Eve’s in trouble and Cain says we can get her to talk to us if we bail her out.” I brushed my teeth and tongue, and headed back out into the bedroom. I pulled on my boots and was just heading out when I heard Myra behind me.
“Take Emily.”
“I don’t know how good an idea that is, Myra. Eve’s pretty pissed at me for a lot of things, and she can be pretty nasty.” I started.
“Look. We all know how this works. I make a logical suggestion, you make unreasoned objections, and eventually Emily and Cain chime in, with the odd annoying aside from the angelic asshole on the sofa, and you end up doing what I say anyway. Since we’re short on time, why don’t we just pretend to go through all the tedious bits and skip right to part where you do it my way.”
“I make it a point never to argue with a MILF in a towel, so you win.” Cain snickered at that, Emily blew orange juice through her nose and Myra blushed all the way down to the tops of her breasts, which was where the towel started. She flipped me the bird and closed the bedroom door after herself. I headed for the door, and said to Emily, “Come along kiddo, you know she’s right.”
“When did you make up that rule?” Cain asked as we headed down the stairs.
“About ninety seconds ago.” I said.
“Ahem, Adam?” I heard from the balcony as we went out onto the street. I looked up and saw Michael leaning over the railing.
“Yeah, Michael. What is it?”
“What’s a milf?” and Emily, Cain and I walked down the street, laughing our asses off at the perplexed seraphim.
