Travel Bug (20 page)

“You bet,” he said.

We did.

The Rapture woman herself would have a difficult time critiquing the beauty of The Sistine Chapel. We, as an obscenely wealthy family, had gotten the tour many times before but this little bug trip was different. Harold and I watched the genius, Mr. Leonardo himself go to work on his little humble Christian art project.

“You know, resurrections are kind of funny,” I said.

“How so?” asked my great grandfather.

“They really bring people together you know,” I said. “The ultimate family reunions could probably all be attributed to some resurrections.”

What a funny way to make a living by exploiting the inevitability of people dying and pretending you know what comes next. That’s what many nonbelievers think religion at its core is. God knows my church has had enough of despots, cruel taskmasters, and money changers in the temple who profit without Christ ever showing up to kick their ass.

“What are you getting at, son?”

“Some of the folks who are ripped off, from our perspective, the poor and the ignorant are still better people than we are.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I mean you can believe the world is flat or the world is only six thousand years old and be much more ready to meet God than you or me……”

“They are much more prepared to face death……”

“Yes……”

“Why?”

“Well, blind faith I would suppose.”

“You want everyone else to be faithless compared to yourself but it’s you, baby who needs to see the real McCoy.”

“What?”

“J.C., I mean. You know the son of God, the king of kings, the lamb of God, and the one whose flesh you want to feed to your flock when you become pastor……”

“Oh,” I said. “That is a frightening idea.”

“And why is that, Andrew?”

“He might not be who I think he is and I could end up like our adversary.”

“Do you think he cursed when he threw out the moneychangers?”

“No, I don’t think so. And I know you are pulling my leg, Harold.”

I felt like a fool perhaps for all of the wrong reasons. Why should I be a fool when so many have trusted in Christ? I mean so many have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and why not trust in Christ as their rod and staff? I mean what the hell, why not?

“All men fear death but some more than others……”

“I have a broken heart, that’s my courage,” I said.

“Oh, stop sounding like an arrogant bastard, I’m not talking about you…”

“I’m an orphan, Harold.”

“For God’s sake, I know that…”

There was a pause.

“Andrew, I’m talking about folks who think that, however naively, they’re going to go on forever and ever, you know. They might be young or old but they think life is something that never ends, apparently. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes…”

“It ends and people do die and I want you to know that,” he said.

“Yes, I know that,” I answered him.

“Good, the reaper doesn’t like the ignorant……”

“No……”

I never said it to him because I did not know how his journey with me would end. That he would die someday was imminent. I did keep it to myself, however. Why should he get special treatment? Did the reaper ever like anyone?

We Are Not Amused

“It’s hidden!”

“What?”

“That fantastic inner beauty of mine you choose to ignore.”

“It doesn’t exist.”

“You are mistaken, it’s waiting for you.”

“I don’t think so, muse.”

Dr. Henry David Wells was a college professor and a formerly successful writer. His novel “One Wish” was a bestseller. That was a long time ago. Now thanks to the magic dark powers of an ancient book he found while traveling in the Amazon, he had the power to meet the source of his creativity. Now Dr. Wells or David as he was known to friends had seen his muse. He was very disappointed. What the man expected was a beautiful, fairy like goddess of light and goodness. He asked her to go out because he was out of cigarettes and shut the door. Then before he could think of a plan, she crashed through it.

“You got inside, didn’t you?”

“I’ve gotten times your upper body strength. I’m a fucking muse!”

She was short, very fat and had the worst case of acne he had ever seen. This ugly beast could not have been the source of his great dreamlike fiction. She came crashing through the door of his country home, an historic house in Pennsylvania. His home was really closer to being a mansion than a house. The professor taught at the prestigious Donnis University, he was very well admired and had a spectacularly active sex life with his students. The idea that his neighbors could possibly see this thing brought him great embarrassment. David liked showing off. His book signings and television interviews made quite a few colleagues hate him.

“Don’t worry about the neighbors,” said the muse.

“Oh?”

“I’m invisible, dumb ass.”

“Fine, then. Put some damn clothes on. Would you please?”

David wasn’t sure how an invisible muse could purchase a carton of cigarettes.

He decided not to ask. Some things were better off unsaid. He began looking at the kitchen. The muse laughed because she knew what was on his mind.

“I wish…”

“Come on, David. I’m not a fucking genie!”

She lit up a cigarette and started to laugh again. He hated her fat, acne covered naked body sitting on his fine couch.

“Look, I…”

“You want a drink, don’t you?”

“No. I’m in recovery.”

“You’re also in writer’s block.”

“Damn you!”

The muse was absolutely right about that. He hadn’t had a drink in five years. During those five years he tried to write about a detective who didn’t believe in God. He threw the book in the trash after writing half of it. There were also books about time travel, astronauts going mad, vampires, haunted houses, and intellectual college professors facing their own mortality, alien monster fascists and deadly amusement parks. All ended up in the trash, half completed and never to be read. He was a walking cliché, a terrible one at that. He was a once great writer and now he was becoming a drunken joke. A has been writer was worse than someone who never tasted success at all. His colleagues were jealous because he had once tasted the glories of fame and all that goes with it. They pathetically wasted all their time writing about the accomplishments of others. It was the get published or perish world of academia; and it was not for the faint of heart but most professors took the easy way out. Scholarly journals instead of stimulating short fiction and long annotated bibliographies instead of epic novels. Cowards was the term David preferred for those who lacked the courage to create.

“I’m here to help you, David.”

“I don’t think so. You disgust me.”

David looked at the muse’s face. It was ironic that for the first time he felt genuine sympathy for this overweight, foul creature. He had hurt her feelings. Then it dawned on him at last, this thing inspired him when he wrote a bestselling novel.

“You don’t even have wings.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry that I insulted you. You did provide creative inspiration for me when I really needed it. You know, I’m grateful for your work. Where the fuck is your magic dust?”

“Later Apology accepted.”

She appeared to be in her mid-forties. Red haired with a bit of gray in it and her fat drooped damn near down to the floor. It really was foul to a man who had slept with so many beautiful women. David didn’t even like them to walk around naked all day long after they were done sleeping together.

“I’ll help you get to where you need to be, David.”

“For the love of God, we’re not friends. Call me Dr. Wells like my students do.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You’re real name is David Proctor. Your pen name is Henry David Wells. You and I both know why that is.”

“Yes.” David Proctor was very old, not ancient but old enough to be cheating nature. The power of the Jinn had seen to that. Proctor fought for Britain during the American Revolution. He wasn’t old enough to be ancient but he was old enough to need an alias. So David Proctor became Dr. Henry David wells, the most celebrated literary professor at Donnis University.

“I’m not your first trip to Pandora’s Box, am I?” asked the muse.

“No,” he answered laughing.

It was true. This man had played around with the gods in a way so dangerous that he would make Prometheus look like he played it safe. He once served the great and terrible Jinn in return for fame. They fed off of human wishes and hoped to enslave mankind. And David signed up to help them. He thought he would never escape them. A young student named Christopher who was a gifted writer wished those bastards right out of existence. David manipulated him into giving the only wish he would ever have to save his ass. Now the young man was a great and successful writer of things that make most men very uncomfortable. He was proud of his protégée.

“You’re thinking of Christopher, your former student.”

“How the hell did you know that?”

“I’m a fucking muse.”

“Of course you are, how could I ever doubt that?”

“He’s got his own life now. The way that your books and your characters came to life in the old days, do you remember that?”

“Yes,” he answered happily.

“These stories, especially your fantastic novel were like creatures that had no right to live. You fed your monster, your creature by telling polite society to go to hell and that you had something to say about the things that most men considered unspeakable. That’s why I fought tooth and nail to be your muse. I thought you were a genius and to be honest, I still do.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t even think about calling Christopher. This is about you and you alone. This is your journey.”

“Indeed it is.”

“It’s damn time to take the first steps towards greatness again.”

The muse was actually making sense to him now and that was damn hard to believe. What lovely, erotic goddesses didn’t make the cut for him when he was poor in money and rich in imagination? Perhaps this ugly bitch was his destiny. The great irony of a man who spent so much time fucking beautiful knock outs was that his soul mate was a fat cow. How he lied to them about their writing talent in order to gratify his carnal lusts.

“You think that you deserve a better looking muse, I know.”

“Well, sure.”

“You started drinking after you became an ordinary mortal.”

“It’s a good of a reason as any and a fairly unique one.”

“Now the irony is that you’re killing your liver and hastening your death.”

“No, I was doing that. I quit drinking and this time for good. No more lies.”

“That’s right, you’re reformed. Yes, of course, you’re a new man! The mocking tone was almost unbearable. He was needed to be praised like the literary god that he was.

“Hey, you know you’re not all that handsome.”

“What?”

“You’re not all the good looking of a guy.”

“What the fuck are you saying, bitch?”

“I think you got a pretty big gut as well.”

“Fuck you.”

“You wish.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You couldn’t handle the ride, baby.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“No. You wish you could do me.”

“There are only so many wishes and I wouldn’t waste one on you.”

“Women slept with you because you were a famous writer. That is when you were not using Pandora’s supernatural gifts to seduce them. You arrogantly want all this attention, you use women for your gratification but you want sympathy from the whole damn world. You know what. You don’t deserve it. David, you are a silly, selfish, dangerous son of a bitch. You make me sick but we were destined to be soul mates as far as the arts are concerned.”

“You know it’s a good thing you can be so honest. Everyone else either lies to me or they tell me what I want to hear. They only speak the truth behind my back.”

“How are we going to fix me?”

“You mean your writer’s block?”

“Yes.”

“You want your old life back.”

“Hell yes!”

Like the spirit of Christmas past, David was going on a ride. The fat bitch of a muse took him back in time literally for the ghosts of fucking past. His first time was right there just like it was a live theatrical production. The girl he made love to in a graveyard when he was barely a teen. The women he slept with during the war years were present as well. Then many, many, many years later he was Mr. Big Shot, the professor, the good writer, the faithful artist who reported the bad news of the world in poetic form and became gloriously infamous. He played with Pandora’s Box and lived to tell the tale. David was a genius of dark fiction and he was the guru of fucking. Now he was nothing.

“I want to be famous again. I’ll do almost anything.”

“What won’t you do?”

“Make love with you.”

“Don’t worry, boy. You don’t have to do that. Besides, you’re too much a fat fuck for me anyway.”

David knew one thing above all others. There was nothing worse in the entire world then a fat chick that was full of self-confidence. This bitch was downright arrogant and mean.

She was as full of herself as she was of fried chicken and ice cream.

“Let’s go for a little ride, shall we?”

There was no time traveling device or any doors to other dimensions. She grasped his hand firmly and he was gone…… into a world of time travel and fucking.

What he saw was that women who were seduced by the man frequently needed a little help. David watched as they masturbated while he was in the shower or asleep. The! David was heartbroken, He felt… impotent.

“Sad as hell, don’t you think?”

“Why show me this?”

“Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet kid.”

They moved on to the substance abuse which was far harder to watch for the egotistical professor. Women getting high, really high in order to tolerate the frustrating experience of fucking him… They were complaining and complaining until they became quite chemically inconvenienced. Then they saw what they wanted to see, the fantasy of it all, an erotic mind trip. It wasn’t sleeping with David that brought pleasure, it was the idea of doing it that did. They went to bed with Dr. Wells but they woke up with stupid, horny, pretentious David. Fucking was his favorite pastimes and now it was whiskey with lots of cheap beer. That was the way he saw it now. Time to maybe drink some more and write one big, great final book. Then what? Several good men blew their fucking heads off with shotguns. They were damn good writers. It was time to be a man.