He knew that women would like his body. If he had cared for women, he could have had any of them he wanted, maybe even without using any of his powers.
But sex was of no interest to him. For one thing, sex was the old god’s biggest mistake. People had become obsessed with it, and all of their endless frantic breeding had ruined the world. Because of sex, the new god must thin the herd and clean up the planet. Besides, for him, orgasm was triggered not by sex but by the violent termination of a human life. After using one of his golems to kill someone, when he brought his entire consciousness back into his real body, he often found the black silk sheets wet with glistening streams of semen.
What would Grandma think of that!
He laughed.
He could do what he wanted and eat what he wanted, and where was his nagging grandmother? Burned, dead, gone forever — that’s where.
He was twenty years old, and he might live to be a thousand, two thousand, possibly forever. When he had lived long enough, he would most likely forget about his grandmother altogether, and that would be good.
“Stupid old cow,” he said, and giggled. It tickled him to be able to talk about her any way he wanted, in what had been her house.
Though he had made the sundae in a large serving dish, he ate every bite of it. Exercising his powers was extremely taxing, and he required both more than the usual amount of sleep and far more calories per day than other people. He napped and snacked a lot of the time, but he assumed the need for food and sleep might entirely vanish when he had finished Becoming and was, at last, the new god. When his Becoming was complete, he might never sleep, and take food not out of necessity but only for the pleasure of it.
After he had scooped up the last spoonful, he licked out the dish.
Grandma Drackman hated that.
He licked it thoroughly. When he was finished, it looked as clean as if it had been washed.
“I can do anything I want,” he said. “Anything.”
On the table, in a Mason jar, floating in preservative fluid, the eyes of Enrique Estefan watched him adoringly.
9
Driving north along the night coast with Ricky lying dead in the snake-infested house in Dana Point, Harry said, “It’s my fault, what happened to him.”
From the passenger seat, Connie said, “The hell it is.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“I suppose it’s your fault he walked into that convenience store after he got off-duty three years ago.”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but no thanks.”
“Should I try to make you feel worse? Look, this thing we’re up against, this Ticktock — there’s no way you can figure what he’s going to do next.”
“But maybe I can. I’m getting a handle on him, sort of. I’m starting to know what to expect. It’s just that I’m running one step behind the sonofabitch. As soon as I saw that belt buckle, I knew it was natural for him to go after Ricky. That’s part of what his threat meant. I just saw it too late.”
“My point exactly. Maybe there’s no way to get ahead of this guy. He’s something new, damn new, and he thinks a lot different from the way you and I think, from the way the average sleazebag thinks, doesn’t fit any psychological profile, so there’s no way you or anyone can be expected to out-think the bastard. Look, Harry, this is just not your responsibility.”
He snapped at her, not meaning to, not in the least blaming her for anything, but unable to contain his anger any longer. “That’s what’s wrong with the world these days, Jesus, that’s exactly what’s wrong! Nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Everybody wants a license to be and do any damn thing, nobody wants to pay the bill.”
“You’re right.”
She obviously meant what she said, agreed with him, wasn’t just humoring him, but he would not be defused that easily.
“These days, if your life is screwed up, if you’ve failed your family and friends, it’s never your fault. You’re a drunkard? Why, maybe it’s a genetic predisposition. You’re a compulsive adulterer, have a hundred sex partners a year? Well, maybe you just never felt loved as a child, maybe your parents never gave you all the cuddling you needed. It’s crap, all of it.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“You just blew some shopkeeper’s head off or beat some old lady to death for twenty bucks? Why, you’re not a bad guy, no, you’re not to blame! Your parents are to blame, your teachers are to blame, society is to blame, all of Western culture is to blame, but not you, never you, how crass to suggest such a thing, how insensitive, how hopelessly old-fashioned.”
“You had a radio show, I’d listen to it every day,” she said. He was passing slow traffic even when he had to cross a double yellow line. He had never done that before in his life, not even when he’d been in a car with a siren and emergency beacons flashing.
He wondered what had gotten into him. He wondered how he could wonder about it — but keep doing it anyway, now swinging around a van with a Rocky Mountain mural on the side, into the oncoming-traffic lane in what was essentially a blind turn, even though the van was doing five miles an hour over the speed limit in the first place.
He raged on: “You can walk out on your wife and kids without paying child support, bilk your investors out of millions, beat some guy’s brains to jelly because he’s gay or he showed you disrespect—”
Connie joined in: “—drop your baby in a garbage dumpster because you had second thoughts about the joys of motherhood—”
“—cheat on your taxes, defraud the welfare—”
“—sell drugs to grade-school kids—”
“—abuse your own daughter, and still claim you’re the victim. Everyone’s a victim these days. No one’s a victimizer. No matter what atrocity you commit, you can stake a claim for sympathy, moan about being a victim of racism, reverse racism, sexism, ageism, classism, prejudice against fat people, ugly people, dumb people, smart people. That’s why you robbed the bank or blew away that cop, because you’re a victim, there’re a million ways to be a victim. Yeah, sure, you devalue the honest complaints of real victims, but what the hell, we only go around once, might as well get your piece of the action, and who cares about those real victims anyway, for God’s sake, they’re losers.”
He was coming up fast behind a slow-moving Cadillac.
A passing lane was provided. But an equally slow-moving Jeep station wagon with two bumper stickers on the rear window — I TRAVEL WITH JESUS and BEACHES, BIKINIS & BEER — was blocking the way.
He couldn’t cross the double yellow line again because suddenly a stream of oncoming traffic appeared behind dazzling headlights.
He thought of blowing his horn, trying to make the Caddy or the Jeep speed up, but he didn’t have the patience for that.
The shoulder of the highway was unusually wide at that point, and he took advantage of it, accelerating hard as he pulled off the pavement, passing the Cadillac on the right side. Even as he was doing it, he couldn’t believe he was doing it. Neither could the driver of the Cadillac; Harry looked over to his left and saw the man staring at him in astonishment, a funny little guy with a pencil mustache and a bad toupee. A soft bank of eroded earth, hung with ice plant and wild ivy, pressed close on the right side of the Honda. It was just inches away from the door even where the shoulder was broad… and then the shoulder began to narrow. The Cadillac dropped back, trying to get out of his way. Harry accelerated, and the shoulder shrank further. A California Highway Department no stopping sign appeared directly ahead of him and was absolutely certain to stop him if he hit it. He swerved off the diminishing shoulder, onto the blacktop again, fishtailing in front of the Caddy, got control, and continued north with the Pacific vastness to his left, as black as his mood.