Are you “My Dad?” (Sympathy for the Devil)

All that remains from the day of the Astral Gate Incident are snippets— fragments of conversations with contexts long forgotten, lost to time, to entropy, to death. A story could be made from these snippets, but it would be incoherent, lacking protagonists, antagonists, and even setting. Attempts have been made in the past to create a narrative of that day, though they rather erroneously try to shape it in terms of the moment of the incident. To define humanity as a series of suffering after suffering after suffering is foolish and benefits only those who gain from human suffering. People too rich to be effected by the fall out of incidents such as the Astral Gate. Suffering builds character, but what kind of character is being built. A servant to the masters we call capitalism. This is not the place for such musings. Here is the story of people caught in a tragedy they were never prepared for. But then, what other kind of tragedy is there…

“So,” says the man with three scars on the back of his neck, “so I say t-to the guy, what do you think I am, a monster? And he look- looks! Looks at me, and he says, well, Yar. Youse covered in blood.” He is drinking at a bar five hours before the incident occurs. The group of friends he is drinking with laughs at his story, believing it to be a long form joke. They’ll all say they get his joke, but in truth they do not. For that would require him to be joking. He will not survive.

“Mama,” says a little girl with blue eyes, red hair, and black skin, “what happened to Dada?” She is four years old, today is her birthday. These are her first coherent sentences. Her mother was a woman with prematurely grey hair and scars hidden beneath the clothing she wears. Her daughter will never see these scars. She will never know what happened to “Dada.” They will not survive.

A billionaire at the age of 25, Johnathan Smith has it all. He earned his fair and square. Sure, his father gave him a little push, a donation or two from the family vault. But then, is that not the job of fathers? To help their sons out when the time comes? Meanwhile, these leaches are asking for a handout. Asking for what he earned fair and square. Why should he help them? They aren’t his. Johnathan returns to the office he owns where he decides to increase prices on a lifesaving pill. It’s his pill after all, he bought it fair and square. He will not survive.

A blind woman sleeps on the street corner. She will not be awake for the incident. She will not survive.

Two officers are beating a black man on the streets. There are five witness, all white. On a normal day, they will file a report that says the black man was caught trespassing on the premises of one of the white people’s house. Evidence for this will be a splotch of blood with the black man’s DNA found three inches away from where he was beaten. The black man will be found guilty and sentenced to an extrubiant amount of time where the police hope to teach him the lesson: be more white. But today was not a normal day. They will not survive.

A queer woman enters a church. The priest, a man of faith for 37 years and of cloth for 40, holds her as she cries about the cruelties done to her. By her parents, by those who claim to be of faith, by those who seek to cure her. The priest holds her as she cries. He introduces her to a woman of faith with different queerness. A smile comes across the faces of the queer women. They talk for what seems like days. The priest cleans the plates of the homeless who sleep in his church. They will not survive.

A man searches the city of Los Angeles for his dog. The dog will not be found. He will not survive.

A bar mitzvah is held three miles outside of London. The boy is being held up in a chair. His sister, a girl with pink hair, violet eyes, and a birthmark on her neck, talks to her girlfriend about moving into their boyfriend’s apartment. The girlfriend is unsure, perhaps not wishing to make such things real. She says none of this to the girl she loves. She looks at her soon to be brother in law, smiling at becoming a man. They will not survive.

In Greenwich, CT, a family of five is moving into a house. The father has a scar on the back of his hand. The mother has the bottom potion of her left ear completely missing. The youngest son broke his arm. The oldest son wears glasses. The daughter wears braces. The family dog is digging in the garden. The house is blue with a red door and lion’s head for a knocker. The flowers are starting to bloom. They will not survive.

A cat wanders the streets of a suburb. She has black fur, green eyes, and blood on her claws. She will not survive.

A baby is born premature. They live for only an hour. In another, an incident occurs.

In a field, a little boy plays fetch with his dog. The dog runs faster than the boy. He is a kind dog, beloved by the boy. Records found on the boy (a note written in crayon, three trading cards with Pocket Monsters on them, and a copy of The Monster at the End of this Book with three nonconsecutive pages missing) show he lived in an abusive household, but ran away three years prior to playing fetch with the dog. The sun shone on the boy’s face as he petted the dog. They did not survive.

In Canada, a polar bear swims to shore, finding hir cubs sleeping against hir’s flake. Hir’s flake awakens to see hir with five salmon in hir’s mouth. Ze smiles a toothy smile and awakens the cubs. They will not survive.

A short story writer prepares to work on a science fiction narrative about an alien dystopian empire that wishes to enslave humanity, but is constantly foiled by the hands of Clark Jones, Two-Fisted Space Adventurer. An idea strikes him to give the aliens nontraditional pronouns to highlight their alien nature. He considers using the pronoun “Ze” for the alien commander who tries to bed Clark Jones. He will not survive.

A lean man stalks the streets of a city. A slimy sneer oozes onto his face with the ease of a snake in the garden. A block away walks a woman, alone at night. The man has known the woman for many years, and time and time again she has refused his advances. “I can’t be with you. I’m with someone else,” she’ll say. “I don’t love you!” “Stop following me!!” And all those other lies. He’ll make her learn one way or the other. At least, that was the plan. But then, plans tend to fail when clashed with reality, especially when the woman has mace in her purse. He will not survive.

A nonbinary person wanders the streets with a golf club. Hir eyes are covered in purple contacts. Hir long black hair is covered by elvish ears and a blonde wig knotted into a long ponytail. In hir pocket is a card that says “SPELL.” Hir is dressed in a long, somewhat impractical robe. Beneath the robe is a tee-shirt riffing on the movie Akira with a character from the comic book series The Simpsons. Hir will not survive.

Jane Marks finishes shooting her latest motion picture. What footage remains tells the story of a bisexual man (Patrick Mann) having his life torn apart by discovering his sexuality. His girlfriend (Jane Marks) leaves him because she finds the people he’s with to be toxic. The man he falls in love with (Sean Smith III) refuses to be with him unless he rejects his attraction to women. His parents disown him for being gay and his father nearly beats him to death. The scene being filmed involves Jane’s character getting a phone call from Patrick’s informing her that he’s dying of AIDS and probably won’t see the week. She tries to get him to go back to the way things were when he was straight, but he hangs up on her. The movie was expected to receive a bunch of awards for its straight director (Max Landis). They will not survive.

A nonbinary kid was reading a book. She didn’t like the book and threw it against the wall, which caused five pages to be flung out. She will not survive.

“We have to hurry or we’ll miss the train,” said the man with one leg to the woman with short blonde hair. She smiles as he drags her along. The sun shines across her face, almost blinding her to the world around. But the indent the light makes inside her eyes has an abstract beauty to it. They miss the train and the man makes a performative shout of frustration before quickly calming down and discussing their plans with the woman. They will not survive.

It’s noted mobster Vinnie St. John’s 45^th birthday. The family is planning a celebration in his honor. Among their plans, two plot to have him wacked, one schemes to take over a rival family’s territory, and one opts to announce his decision to leave the business. Vinnie St. John, for his part, simply sits on the porch while his three daughters run around in the garden. A slight pain hits his left arm, and he collapses. He will not survive.

Ida and Carmine DeVita have been retired for many decades. Their children have had children and some are expecting grandchildren. Carmine is a stout man, nearing the sunset of his life. His short white hair is shaped to a point. Ida has more years within her than Carmine, though her frail body would say otherwise. She dyes her greying hair brown. They are walking in the woods, looking for mushrooms for a recipe they’ll serve their family for Thanksgiving. They hold each other as the sun begins to set. They will not survive.

The sun beats down on the world as a man with a grungy beard (thicker around the lips where a goatee once rested than the rest of the face) walks to the spaceport. He dreams of leaving the Earth he once called home. To him, having tasted the world outside, it is more like a small town than a planet. And small towns, to him, feel more like cages than anything else. To escape, then, would be his greatest desire. He has spent the past five years saving money for his escape. He put all of his resources, all his energy in leaving. He alienated his family, his friends, even burnt some bridges with work opportunities. But, in the end, he got his wish. He was heading for Mars that very day. All he’d have to do was breach the Astral Gate, and he’d be free at last, free at last. He thought of his brother, still on Earth. Still content with the cage. But not for long. He will not survive.

On a misty day on a field in Scotland, where the cows graze lazily, a young boy is given a harmonica by his father. The wind silently bustles the grass with ease and calm, like breath on the back of your neck from someone standing right behind you. He plays the harmonica atop a rock to his family. The boy is wearing white sneakers, khakis, and a light blue polo shirt. He has short brown hair that slightly covers the tops of his closed green eyes. His mother’s hair blows in the wind like grass. The sky turns green as light shaped like life giving sperm rains down the heavens like water in an ocean. The world turns sepia. He will survive.

Who Can Be Saved…

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The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. (Jupiter Jazz Part 1)

I sit in the bar with a cowboy in my hand, waiting for the end. It began on a Tuesday evening, when I was given the job. My apartment had been wrecked the night before when I called to inform my previous employers that I wouldn’t do the job they hired me to do. Seems certain mobsters don’t take kindly to people not finding those they want found. I was lucky in that they were only able to break the cosmetic stuff before I arrived. At least I can still sleep in a bed that isn’t in tatters. I suppose I should have gotten the room fixed, but I needed to get off of Mars and I needed to get off quick. These types of bastards tend not to stop at wrecking a room.

That’s when fortune gave me one of its rare smiles in the form of a radiant woman. She was dressed in a provocative red dress, the kind you don’t see outside of old noir books. The surgical scars across her body were not as noticeable as she thought they were. She walked with a newness to femininity and spoke like she had always been one. Forgive me if I screw up my language. Sometimes I say something rather rotten when I’m trying to be sweet. But she was stunning. So stunning, I thought I was day dreaming when she entered my little room. All my work was done in there. I couldn’t afford anything more.

“Are you Ryan Chack,” she asked me with a voice affecting curiosity.

“Yeah. I’m him.” I rummaged the room for a box of cigarettes, but apparently the mobsters thought it would be a cruel joke to break all of them in a scuffle. Bastards. Still, a broken cigarette is just as good as an unbroken one, I lie to myself. Fortunately, the lighter still works. “Want one?” She politely refused my gesture. Fair enough. Not everyone gets the appeal of a broken cigarette.

“I have a job for you.” She was curt with me. As I would find out much later, she had a lot on her mind.

“What kind of job?”

“Two million right now. Twenty million when you finish.” The cigarette fell out of my mouth. “Plus expenses.” Now, as many people who know me know, I’m not always one to smell bullshit. And yet, this all rank of it. For starters, she clearly had surgery done on her, the kind someone with twenty-two million woolongs to spend would be able to hide better, let alone two million. As I looked at her closer, the dress she was wearing started to show patches of age and decay. I’d probably notice more in better light, but that might just be even more damning.

At the same time, I wasn’t quite in the position to openly question my employer beyond, “What did you say your name was?”

“Claudia. Claudia Valespie.” That clinched it. I quickly told her I would take the job, whatever it may be. One doesn’t say no to a member of the Valespie family, even the black sheep. The Valespie family was perhaps one of the oldest crime syndicates in the inhabited planets. Despite being Earth based, they had enough clout and power to keep their name on the board. The Blue Diamonds learned that the hard way. You can still smell their remains on Titan. The reasons why she was the black sheep of the family were obvious to me when she first entered the room. I didn’t say them, but she knew I knew once she said her name. She became sadder when she came to this realization.

“My boyfriend is on Callisto.” She presented me with the photo of the guy. He had a smooth face, almost like a baby’s. His eyes were soft and brown, though there was a hint of anger in them. His left center tooth had been chipped and there was a small scar on his lips. His skin was slightly tan, though not dark enough to hide the shiner. He had curly hair, though the sides were partially shaved off. Not in the way one has a mohawk. It looked as if someone had failed to give him a haircut and tried desperately to fix it. Then again, I’m bald so who am I to talk about other people’s hair?

“And you want me to find him?” She nodded. “What’s his name.” She told me. I must have given her a look of incredulity as she immediately followed up the name with a hideously fake laugh before giving me a fake name. I let it slide for the moment. Instead, I asked her if she knew what he was doing on Callisto and she instead told me that he was known to hang out at a bar called the Blue Crow. I’d find out in time what he did and why. I wish I hadn’t.

We drove to the spaceport in the most opulent of cars and towards one of the most mundane of spaceships. I suppose that’s fair. Callisto has a long history of hiding criminals on the run. It stands to reason that they can’t all be murderers. Seeing the moon made me think otherwise. I’d never been to Callisto. No one goes to Callisto unless the ISSP is after you for a sum greater than seventy-five billion woolongs. It was a shithole. Not like Earth where you could at least have a conversation. I mean a proper shithole. It was a barren, desolate planet where the only life was a driving city without any cars in it. And, to top it all off, it was cold as balls.

So finding Claudia’s beau and convincing him to get off the planet wouldn’t be too hard. I started at the Blue Crow. Bartender seemed nice. Or, at the very least, he could act like he wasn’t thinking of the ways he could skin you to make a quick profit. Most of the clientele were either passed out or more focused on whatever was on the tv. Currently, it was that bounty hunter show that everyone watches for some ungodly reason. I never really got that show. It’s just two people talking about who’s going to die or go to jail soon. Sure, the lady had a nice rack and the guy looked like he’d be good for a fun one night stand, but the show just wasn’t worth it. Why watch some crap show with T and A when the internet exists? Or hell, just hire some prostitutes. I didn’t say any of this to the patrons. Even drunk, they were quite a fearsome bunch.

I asked the bartender about the lad. “Yeah, I’ve seen him,” he said with a rather uncharacteristically scornful tone. From the way he was talking to me before, I got the impression that he wanted to sleep with me before skinning me. I wasn’t much of a looker, but I had a similar build to the guy. Twinks, I think the term for us is. Maybe he knew something I didn’t. Then again, the way he said “him” rubbed me the wrong way. He must have noticed as he quickly followed up with, “He comes to the bar once in a while. Usually to listen to Gren. But Gren don’t play sax no more.” I didn’t ask what happened to Gren. His sour face told me the whole story. “Nowadays, the guy hangs out with the… other ladies.” I socked him in the face before heading out. Fortunately, the other patrons were more focused on the sudden increase in free beer to care about me.

“We’ve seen him, ya,” said one of the ladies. Her name was Vanessa and she wasn’t rich enough to look like Claudia. She could barely afford a razor to remove the five o’clock shadow, let alone the surgeries to make her look more like herself. Still, she had a beauty to her. The kind usually talked about scornfully by people who believed normality trumps humanity. She was quite sad, even when she was cheerfully talking about her life. She couldn’t quite stop telling me all the little details. How she realized who she was on Callisto, how she met others like her, how she loved and lost and loved again. So many stories, none of which are mine to tell.

When her story reached my quarry, she told me he was a sad lad. He claimed to have “accidentally” killed a mob boss, the head of Valespie family. A cold shiver went down my spine. The kind you get when an unwanted hand of a ghost touches you. I tried not to say anything, but Vanessa could tell I was worried. She held me, not the way a lover holds someone. But like one holds a fellow person when they realize that there’s no life on other planets, all that’s left is just one sentient species. That we are truly alone. She told me that my bounty, for lack of a better word, was hiding in an abandoned church. And then, she told me the rest of her story.

My life seems to be haunted by abandoned churches. My dad died in one, my mom was born in one, and my brother disappeared in one. I found Steven a few days ago after being hired to find him by some mobsters. It appeared that he had taken on some debt with the mob and had gone into hiding. They just wanted the money and, failing that, him. My job was finding people and he didn’t go by Chack, so they thought I’d be perfect for the job. I recognized my brother instantly. It had been a few years since I’d seen Steven and while he’d gained a few scars and his hair had gone grey, he was still the same kid I knew. Still the same little shit who stole my lunch money and gave it to the homeless girl outside our dump of an apartment.

I found him on the outskirts of Tharsis. He was tending a farm with a wife and three kids (two girls and a boy). We exchanged pleasantries. I asked him what kind of business he was doing with the mob. His wife looked rather worried about this question. It turned out that he didn’t owe squat to the mob. His wife used to be a moll for the mob who helped her “sugar daddy” (I think that’s the right term for kindly saying pimp) skim off from the top. Certain people in the mob caught wind and the sugar daddy put the blame on my brother, a sweet kid who would talk to Julia, his now wife, from time to time. The kids were all his from a marriage that ended in tragedy. That’s not my story to tell though.

He practically begged me not to sell him to the mob. I looked at this guy, who I haven’t seen for years, who I cared about so god damn much, who I was furious for leaving me alone with only the cruel awful world to keep me company, and I said to him, “Of course I’ll keep you safe. What are older brothers for?” He broke down in tears.

When I arrived at the empty church, it was… empty. People had once lived in the church. Some of the fires were still charred with ash and embers. But those who were there were just ghosts haunting the church like God did. I looked around for something, anything to help me find my missing person. Providence came in the confessional. There, he must have been sleeping. Because it was in there that I found his wallet. It had two hundred woolongs, which I pocketed, a picture of the guy and Claudia Valespie (and it was indeed the guy I was looking for) and a photo ID with his name on it. It was the first name that Claudia had given me, the name I thought couldn’t possibly be his. How could two people both be named “Ryan Chack?”

More As It Develops

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