Lucky shifts beside me, his hand going out toward his girlfriend around the curve of the table. “It’s okay,” he says.
“Yes,” I say to her, “there is no responsibility …”
“It’s hard enough trying to be what I am,” she says.
“Nobody ever heard of Thaddeus or James the son of Alphaeus.” This is from Citrus, who is still standing. We all look at her, and she adds, “They were part of the first twelve. You don’t have to be a major player.”
“Are we still trying to say that Mr. Desi is Jesus?” Misty asks.
“I am not Jesus,” I say. Firmly.
“You are next,” Citrus says.
“I am …”
“It’s all made new,” Citrus says. “It’s always got to be made new.”
“I am Desi.”
“My daddy will never recognize you,” Citrus says.
“Actually I am not originally Desi …”
Citrus lifts both her hands high, her palms turned upward. “There will be many who will not recognize you.”
“My wife Edna Bradshaw has given me that name.”
“They will turn on you.”
“You cannot pronounce my original name.”
“They will crucify you.”
With that, declared loudly by Citrus, everything stops. I, of course, am drawn instantly back from my tangent about my name. The local murmuring — I presume about the opportunities for appearances on late-night talk shows and endorsements of various products — suddenly ceases. We all look at Citrus. She is looking at me. Her hands are still raised, but in the silence she slowly lowers them.
Then Hudson says, “Where exactly do you plan to appear?”
“Yes,” I say. “This is something that you can help me with.”
“New York City,” Citrus says at once. “Times Square.”
I am growing frightened again. Of Citrus sounding like a prophet. Citrus giving voice to the worst that might happen to me. Citrus, now, tapping into my dream. Times Square.
And Hudson frightens me, too. “That’s the logical choice,” he says.
I know it is logical.
“Big media,” says Digger.
“I’m worried,” says Claudia.
“It’s the only choice,” says Citrus.
“Worried about what?” My wife Edna Bradshaw breaks her silence at all of this. She is speaking to Claudia.
Claudia turns to Edna and motions toward Citrus. “What she said. If there’s a danger of a crucifixion for an unarmed spaceman suddenly appearing in a flying saucer and scaring the hell out of a big, drunken crowd, that’s the place for it.”
“If?” I ask.
“There is a danger,” Claudia says.
“There is an inevitability,” says Hudson.
“Houston would be no better.” I turn to the voice. It is Hank. He makes fists with his two hands, extends his two forefingers and thumbs, and then snaps his thumbs down and up. I do not understand.
Hudson explains it to me. “Guns. They carry them in their cars.”
Lucky, at my side, leans to me again. “Any big crowd is going to freak out.”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” says Claudia.
“Does it have to be tonight?” Edna’s voice is tiny in my ear.
I turn to her. I know how hard it is for her to hear all of this. “I am sorry, my honeybun. This is one of the few things my orders specifically require. Your planet sees this as an auspicious moment.” I feel a sharp pain at this phrase coming from my mouth: “your planet.” I am apart. I am separate, in some important sense even from my wife Edna Bradshaw.
“Come with us to the casino.” Edna looks in the direction of this voice. I do, too. It is Trey.
“That’s a good idea,” Edna says, brightening. “We can all go together.”
There are strong temptations before me now. I am afraid this dinner has been a mistake. I am who I am. I say, “It is necessary to have a big crowd. It is necessary to have major media. Videotape. Slow motion. Freeze frame. Playing over and over for years to come. Regrettably, this discussion must come to a close now.”
I am afraid they hear a sharpness in my voice that I do not intend. They all fall silent and grim.
Then Edna says, “I think it’s time for pie.”
“Please serve our guests,” I say. I am Bluer Than Blue. “I will have no pie. My time approaches. I must be alone now and prepare myself.”
I rise.
Trey says, “I thought you were going to tell us how to win big at the casino.”
“That was just me shooting off my mouth like I always do,” says Edna. “I’m sorry if I misled you. I just wanted you to understand what a smart and good man my husband is.” I do not have to look at her to know that the tears are beginning to well up in her eyes.
I am feeling guilty at not fulfilling the promise made in my name. I think about what I have learned on this subject. I say, “Play the handle. There are four clicks. Jump into the moment. Know how much you’re willing to lose, and when you lose it, get up and find your way to the door.”
There is a moment of silence. Then Trey says, “That’s it?”
“I am not as smart as I look,” I say.
“And you’re talking to a guy they nicknamed ‘Trey.’ Not ‘Ace.’ I need a little more.”
I stand here wishing I can be more helpful and finding nothing to say, and then Hudson speaks up, catching Trey’s attention and addressing him. “If Desi does what he says and lets us remember all this and take our story with us, he’s giving you something a lot more valuable than some gambling tips. Book deals. Lecture tours. Oprah’s show. You’re a made man … Ace.”
“You will all remember,” I say. “I want you very much to remember.” And saying this, I turn and Edna touches my hand. I manage to smile at her and I know she understands that I must be alone.
I go out as Edna cries “Who wants pie?” and a chorus of voices says “I do!” and I am glad they will get what they want.
16
I move away from the sounds of the others, into the quiet of the corridors of my ship. I am blank inside. Inside my head, that is. Somewhere else inside me — in the very somewhere else I have been learning about from the people on this planet — I am filled too full. I want, I yearn, I yak yak yak, I yada yada yada, I make a turn and another and I go in at a door without thinking and I am in the Hall of Objects. I stop. There is a hush in the air. There is a dim blue light all around. The shelves are full of bits of the planet Earth. I wait for just the right moment. One click. Two. Three. I listen. To the soundless welter. Inside and out. I move forward. And I am. A garden troll and a Swiss Army knife and an adding machine large as the portable TV on one side of it and as silver as the Pontiac hubcap on the other side and there are more hubcaps and more and more stored in stasis elsewhere and a multitude of umbrellas and single gloves and socks — we have collected many socks, but only one from each set — and The Club to protect your car, to keep the bad guys from getting what they want, and a Heated Massaging Body Mat with Magnets with a woman on the box lying on her side and her head is thrown back and she is feelin’ groovy like the Feelin’ Groovy Barbie doll beside her with spaghetti-strap fuchsia minidress and knee-length iridescent coat with faux fur at the cuffs and hem and hot pink drop earrings all setting off her lovely black hair and lavender eyes and a wingless Quacker the Beanie Baby Duck with original tag, old-style, and a lava lamp birthing an orange sun, even now, and I am floating on the crest of these waves inside me, they crash beneath me, but as they do, others come along and bear me up, me, and I am a Krazy Kat Klock ticking away the last ticks of my time before me, the eyes darting back and forth, and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head standing side by side waiting for me to speak, to tell them what my existence means to them, waiting to ask me to interchange their facial features to make new delightful combinations of them both, and I am a bag of golf clubs and a Weed Eater and a painted saw with a great green stretch of countryside and a barn and cows and an orange sun and I am a Soap-on-a-Rope and a three-bladed razor with rubber fins and a bowling-pin cocktail shaker and a Tom Corbett Space Cadet steel lunch box and a St. Joseph Home Sale Kit with plastic Saint Joseph to bury in the yard of your handyman’s fixer-upper to make it the house of someone’s dreams, someone with good credit, and I am reeling now, I am feeling snagged as if by this Popeil’s Pocket Fisherman before me, I am being dragged from my watery world into this other world of air and light and a glow-in-the-dark rosary taller than me and a Crosley tabletop cathedral radio and I am The Body Hug the full-length pillow to hold in the night and it conforms to your very own body contours and it is easy to care for and it is odorless, and this is the hook in me, the loneliness of these things, the terrible striving in these things, and I am a battery-operated mustache trimmer and a nose-hair clipper and pre-trimmed prefeathered self-adhesive long and lovely eyelashes and a Water Bra more natural than any other padded bra (not for prolonged use in cold weather) and a wolf-whistling furry monkey who says I love you — and what am I to do about all of this what am I to do and where am I to go? — and I am a brass Statue of Liberty, her lamp lifted and her belly a thermometer, and I am, beside her, a cast-iron Empire State Building, also with thermometer, and I stop here before them, and there is a necessary thing for me to do and there is a logical place for me to go — Little Old New York New York the Big Apple the Big Burg the Big City Father Knickerbocker the Empire City Jumpin’ Jitterburg the Melting Pot the Little Old Hell of a Town If I Can Make It There I Can Make It Anywhere — and I see out of the corner of my eye the blue-black metallic gleam of Claudia’s pistol, but I do not look at this object, I focus to see what the temperature is, and it is both seventy-two and eighty-one, and for a moment there is no logic at all, there is only the jostle of things and a clock somewhere — perhaps Krazy Kat, perhaps another — clanging an alarm — and I am a poor and huddled mass yearning to breathe free, but I am not free, it is nearly time and I am bound to go. I am homeless and tempest-tossed, and I have my own lamp to lift.