Planet Fever (27 page)

I had no animosity for him, rather I felt for the dude: he had no part in Charlie’s obsession with him. I deduced that Charlie “Chicken-Bones” had made a deal with Mephistopheles to keep Don’s records up on the board, and now Mephisto was coming to extract payment from the poor and unknowing Don Deluzio.

I imagined Charlie weeping under that shoddy record-board hanging above the gymnasium entrance of my former elementary school, cursing the gods that
his
star elementary athlete’s NFL hopes had all but been thwarted when Don graduated college to become a damn fine tile salesman. Charlie’s dreams of having fostered a professional football player who had gotten his athletic start in
his
elementary gym class were dashed.

That was it.

I was destined to be a behind-the-scenes type operator—the unknown champion.

I got it early: cynics get birthed when they figure out they are getting a raw deal by lame-ass gate-keeping puppet masters who run a strange show that has their own interests at heart, jerking off to their own puppets.

Fuck Charlie “Chicken-Bones”
….

I continued upward and sideways, pausing to survey the best possible route to take. I found myself on what had appeared from below to be an easy angle, but was pretty much stuck on a steep face—not quite vertical but closer to it than I had reckoned.

“Shit.”

The heat of the afternoon sun, paired with my newfound predicament, caused a profuse sweating of my hands, which made climbing much more treacherous. Every time I got a decent footing I’d let go one hand to wipe the sweat off with my shirt, grab hold again and wipe off the other. For every step: one foot, one hand, one grip at a time.

I imagined what I must’ve looked like from below: a lunatic without equipment up very high on the side of a very steep cliff.

Keep it simple, stupid …
the classic Mark Twain maxim on storytelling I applied to this impromptu freestyle cliff scaling.

I’d have to go up and over to my left and around a slight corner, to the horizontal tree, above which access to the summit was. Step-by-step, I shinnied diagonally up a slight fissure in the rock to get to that tree, telling myself it’d be “smooth sailing” once that point was reached. So I hoped….

A COUPLE
of hawks flew around calling to one another, “Check out the dumb-ass climbing up this cliff….”

I inched my way along, sweating, cursing and swearing if I got to that summit I’d be a better man.

“Who are you swearing this to?”
a calm voice asked.

“You,” I blurted out.

The sun blazed down on me, creating a blanket of heat that kept getting hotter.

“Whoever
you
are,” I added.

Across my field of vision, which was now spotted and sun-blinded, the name “Atoz Al Ways” scrolled.

“Thanks. I still have no idea who you are.”

The calls of the hawks began to enmesh with the sound of the stillness of the desert atmosphere and a low, pulsing hum reverberated around me. I was either tripping from heat stroke, having a peyote flashback, or both.

The rocks became malleable, rubbery, and easy to grip. Patterns outlining the precise course I needed to scale the rocks appeared, showing a clear pathway across. The angle no longer felt steep (though I was aware of the dangerous grade)—my mind and body had “tuned” into the terrain. I became one with the mountain. It all became second nature, and I thought that’s what it must be like for a mountain goat.

“Do not get over-confident,”
the calm voice warned.

“Okay.”

With acrobatic ease, I scrambled to the horizontal tree. Standing at its roots, I thought the tree had it right: it was growing in the proper direction—the rest of the world was off-kilter. This horizontal tree was a marker, a checkpoint notifying the climber “you are almost there, buddy.”

Looking up the mountain, the angle was easy for the rest of the way, and the rocks made a natural stairway to the top.
A stairway to heaven
.

It took about ten more minutes to get to the summit. At the top, a cool breeze caught the layer of damp grit encasing me, cooling me down. I did a few slow, panoramic pirouettes to view the entire landscape around me. The continuous blue and white sky hovered majestically above layered rocks of gray, orange and yellow giant jagged towers, stretching forth into the horizon.

“Oh yeah!”

I removed my knapsack and sat down on a flat rock. Never had I experienced such a stillness before—neither outside my body nor within my own head. I was at ease.

The sun started to hit that angle in the sky that makes its impending set known: a late afternoon sweet light that says you don’t need to rush, but it might be a good idea to think how you’re to go about your evening. I figured I’d camp out right there near the top—in a natural cove of rock (to shield off the desert wind).

I walked around and gathered pieces of dried wood and shrubbery scattered around, then built a fire, drank some water and snacked on the rest of Eliza’s homemade granola. The blue sky turned to orange, orange to gold then gold to purple as the sun set, and the stars began to poke into the massive dome of the sky.

OFF IN
the distance a bunch of hyenas laughed as the stars speckled across the darkened sky—every single one in the Milky Way Galaxy, it seemed.

“Hi there,”
a voice from no distinct direction said.

I couldn’t tell if it was from within my own head, or a fellow climber. I jerked my head over my shoulder, scoping the area.

“
I am speaking from both within and outside your head, just in case you were wondering.”
The voice was calm but authoritative. The same voice I had heard earlier while I was scaling the cliff. The same one that intermittently had told me to “go to the mountain.”

A few more hyenas made mockery of something else in the night.

“
I’m glad you didn’t say ‘a few more hyenas made mockery of the night’ as you were thinking of doing. It’s more subtle that you have them mocking something else in the night, rather than mocking the night itself. Nice job in not forcing the poetry.”

“Um—thank you.”

“
You’re welcome.”

In no rush to advance this conversation with my invisible visitor who claimed to be both outside and inside me, I stared off at the night sky some more. A few shooting stars streaked across, inducing a sense of comfort. The existence of my new companion wasn’t bothering me, and for some reason I felt as though we were well acquainted. It was casual. I’d encountered some strange shit along the journey; this wasn’t anything new.

The galaxy around us made its slow swirl and time passed with hyenas and light-breeze accompaniment. As I stared above, a yet deeper calm prevailed through me, and the stars ramped up their spinning in a time-lapse fashion, transforming into a circular swarm of light, quickly gaining speed, as though vertigo was being induced. The hyena laughter bended into an undulating, fast and rhythmic chorus of strange music that grew faster and faster. The desert breeze morphed into a roaring river of sound. Though everything around moved at an incomprehensible pace, I remained still and my mind serene, absent of panic and fear.

Then it happened: what could only be described as a giant thunderclap or cannon-shot reverberated through the air, and then an upside-down man bounced into my field of vision, then bounced out. He bounced back in, then out, in then out, in, out, and finally—in.

I was face-to-upside-down-face with a guy wearing dark sunglasses. He seemed to be suspended from something above via bungee cord strapped to his feet. The spinning and roaring had stopped.

“Howdy Eddie. How’s tricks?”
he asked.

“Um—–”

“
You may not remember me. As a matter of fact, I guarantee you don’t remember me, so I’ll just get down to the brass-tacks: I’m Atoz Al Ways. I’m your author and employer. I understand you need some help with some things.”

“Um—–”

“
Well, I’m here to help you finish.”

“Uh—–”

“
Your novel.”

“Oh.”

“PRETTY WILD
, huh?”

“
Uhhh huhhhh….”

“This thing called ‘reality’—I wrote it. I designed it.”

Atoz Al Ways’ bouncing settled and he hung before me. Still upside down. I looked up to see what he was suspended from, figuring a hot-air balloon. Nothing but black sky. What happened to all the stars?

“
I have you in a suspended animation right now. You are neither here nor there. You are outside space and time. And for what it’s worth, I am not the one who is upside-down. You are. Like I said, pretty wild, eh?”

I looked down, and sure enough my feet were on nothing. I was surrounded by utter nothingness. But I wasn’t worried or terrified, more intrigued.

“Yup, you certainly are intrigued. All of this will be in your novel. This very conversation, verbatim. And it will serve a purpose, believe it or not.”

I cleared my throat. “Purpose?”

Atoz smiled. “
You are going to save reality. And free thought and free will. The reality I had authored has been plagiarized and rendered quite lame because of my former associate’s designs. He and his league of hacks have purloined and turned my work into a circus of sleazery, wretchedness and confusion. He’s trying to get into your head, to steer the story, hence, the Universe, in a bad direction. You are going to get things ‘back on track.’ That’s what this is—a little informal meeting. I have employed you to do just that. Of your own free will, of course….

‘Huh?’ is what comes next—by you, of course—and then you ask:”

I did say “Huh?” Then:
“
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“Now I will tell you that they gave you those pills because they are scoping your mind, to see if you have ever come into contact with me. Do you not remember….”

Though I didn’t need to, I closed my eyes and recalled previous instances when I was asked the question whether or not I had ever heard the name ‘Atoz Al Ways’: by the psychiatrist with the third eye and the Colonel … and Moroni.