21. A god among men

Jesse woke at noon.  The landlady was at work, thank God, or she’d have been doing something useless and noisy and to interfere with his sleep.  The requirement for sleep during the day had been made so clear to the landlord, and it was so opaque to the unfortunate person who was his wife. The landlord was unfortunate too, but he at least was a decent human being, so the bad luck didn’t run all the way through.

He made breakfast, coffee and a smoothie and scrambled eggs with cheese, ate it and did the dishes.

Once he’d dealt with the coffee, it was time for his workout.  His extra-special payday had allowed him to buy some upmarket exercise equipment. Two hours later it was time for a shower. There was no air conditioning in the house and although the apartment was usually cool, it now felt like a swamp. He knew his worshipper was going to bathe him again tonight as part of her ritual, and as with everything about the situation, her devotion could be viewed many ways; with amusement, with dread, with sympathy, and most usually with the flat and uncensorious incomprehension which, in the face of a human experience so different from his own, was his resting state.

He spent the rest of the day binge-watching Fringe and eating snacks, healthy and otherwise. He didn’t usually hit the bong until about four, since when he made that mistake it would completely fuck up his day. Today he didn’t bother, since tonight he would likely be impaired and staying over, with his Evil Villain mask at the ready so he could get home.  How the landlady had yelled the first time she’d seen it! It had almost been worth it, although he’d been so wretched from alcohol he felt her voice going through his head like a scrollsaw.

Since her first tentative suggestion a few months earlier, he’d had lots of time to think. He got the creepy feeling that if he were a god, he might possibly be Attis or one of them other godly dudes and maybe going to get sacrificed, but Lark (whom his sister, not knowing how unconventional their relationship was, referred to as ‘Larp’, while smirking that Jesse was probably calling her that now too, at least mentally) had assured him that human sacrifice was never acceptable to her gods without being freely given for the welfare of the group in the context of a community-threatening conflict. Or so he hazily recollected, he’d been plenty high at the time. He did remember the part about ‘enthusiastic consent’ and relaxed, but not much.  He was trying so hard to be a good sport about it, and clearly remembered saying something like, “So you won’t sacrifice me to make sure Stephen Harper gets kicked out in the next election,” which had made her face go red.

Doubt swayed and pivoted in his chest. She was going to ask him to drink honeyed wine, which sounded barfulous.

The sun was low in the sky when the taxi came. Transit would have been cheaper, but he was tired of the stares, and finding nastily captioned pictures of himself on the internet, worse now that somebody had been able to figure out what his name was. He’d lost count of how many of the Skytrain Stasi had confronted him; one had tried to hit him up with pepper spray, and another one had tried to rip off the mask, which given it was dawn on a brilliant day, might have killed him.  Repeated nasty letters, including one pro bono from the BCCLA to Translink, hadn’t helped.

He tried to picture what was going to happen next, and failed. He felt as horny as a floor mat.  The driver nearly drove off, but Jesse held up the cash for the fare and walked around to the driver’s side, where he showed his ID and said, “I explained this to the dispatcher!  Sir, can you please call them?” He stifled the urge to hop around yelling that he’d report him if he drove off. After a long, unblinking moment, the driver put up his left hand and said, without enthusiasm, “Okay, get in.”

Jesse got in.  He put his head back, closed his eyes, and told the driver to turn up the bhangra full blast as a concession to the fright he’d inadvertently given him. The driver complied, and they travelled without conversation for most of the twenty-five minute ride. The driver knocked Jesse out of his doze to take evasive maneuvers when an SUV pulled out of a parking space on Commercial. Whatever he said, Jesse assumed in Punjabi, sounded quite pungent.

“You can let me off here,” Jesse said, and tipped him five dollars. Word would get around that the crazy guy in the goggles was a trouble-free customer and good tipper.

He texted Lark upon his arrival and then, as he looked down the side street, acknowledged the waning gibbous moon that had just risen in the east. It seemed foolish and somehow appropriate.