They were settled around the old familiar table in the old familiar dining room whose decor seemed grimmer and the walls closer together than memory had placed them. Even before Graveyard took his customary place at the table, his entire body was unexpectedly seized by a pervasive, under-the-hood, all but unscratchable itching sensation. Home. His parents had also shrunk appreciably in size since he’d last seen them, on one of their rare daring visits to Mammoth City some three years ago. Once they’d been giants. Now more dwarflike.
“House look any different?” said Carousel.
“No, strangely enough,” Graveyard said. “Aside from an overall surprising reduction in size, everything seems pretty much the same. Why? Was there something I was supposed to notice?”
“No, not really. Just can’t remember what’s changed since you were here last. It’s been so long.”
“Well, there is one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That godawful reproduction hanging above the couch in the living room.”
“Angler’s Afternoon? Your father’s favorite picture. I had to send away special for that.”
It was a famous watercolor from BuffetPalette’s late rustic period. It depicted a barefoot boy wearing a straw hat and seated beside his trusty Dalmatian at the end of a rickety wooden pier. He held a bamboo fishing rod in his freckled hands, its thin white line dropping vertically into the dead center of a series of white concentric circles spreading symmetrically across the mirrored surface of a secluded country pond. The boy’s cheeks were madder lake, the dog yellow ocher, the pond sky blue number 1.
“Get rid of it,” said Graveyard. “Immediately.”
“It’s a great work of art,” said Roulette. He was already half finished with whatever it was they’d all been first served on matching scalloped salad plates.
“It’s not good for you,” Graveyard said. “It’ll make you sick looking at it. It’ll make you sick just sitting under it.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”
“No one asked you to.”
“Can we please just stop?” said Farrago. “We haven’t even had our jiggerydoo yet.”
“Yes,” Carousel said. “You know how much better it tastes before the middenage wilts.”
Everyone fell silent for several whole minutes. Studious scraping of cutlery across the tableware.
“One thing I can tell you I certainly did notice,” Graveyard said. “The TV.”
“What about it?” Carousel said.
“It’s the same one I watched when I was ten.”
“So?” said Roulette. “It still works fine.”
“That may be. But it’s too damn small. I don’t know how you manage to make out anything on that mini screen. It’s like peeking through a keyhole. You need a bigger set. A much bigger set.”
“What I’ve been saying for years,” said Carousel. “It’s not good for your eyes.”
“My eyes are fine,” said Roulette. “Good enough to catch all your folderol.”
No one spoke. More clinking and scraping.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” said Carousel. “We haven’t been all together for a genuine sit-down dinner since I don’t know when. Like a real family.”
“Or a ghost facsimile of one,” said Graveyard.
“Well, minus a member,” said Farrago. She glanced meaningfully at the vacant chair beside her.
“Oh, please. You know your brother. When he says he’ll be here, he’ll be here.”
“As if that promise ever means anything.”
“He’s got business,” said Roulette. “He’s making money. Pass that brown stuff in the green bowl.”
“This reminds me of that famous dinner party in Mountain Manna,” said Carousel. “Remember that scene where Prettybone, who’s under a ton of makeup and looks ultra old and ultra ugly in this movie, invites all his relatives to a big farewell dinner in this huge mansion on the top of a hill where only rich people live cause he’s dying and—”
“We’ve all seen the picture,” said Roulette.
“The big surprise is that what he really wants is for them to simply enjoy one another’s company and celebrate his life and their own lives and just life in general.”
“So what’s all that got to do with us?” said Farrago.
“The dinner scene, honey,” said Carousel. “Remember, the entire scattered clan’s back together for their first reunion in years and everyone’s talking and laughing and having this fantastic time and gorging themselves on heaps of food that probably tastes as good as it looks and it’s so perfect and homey and warm, it just makes me feel all wholesome and buzzy inside. Of course, that’s before the knives come out, but still—”
“Piece of ridiculous crap,” said Roulette.
“This is a fabulous dinner, Carousel,” said Ambience. “And these astonishing potatoes. I don’t believe I’ve ever had anything quite like them before.”
“They’re spackles, dear. No trouble at all. Wahoo indigo rounds parboiled in sugar water, then oven-poached in a creamy bath of frolic oil and wester butter. I swear Graveyard ate them just about every day for a whole year when he was little. Couldn’t get enough.”
“Well,” said Graveyard, “tastes like candy, right?”
“I suppose,” said Ambience. “But healthier.”
“That’s what I was raised on. Healthy candy.”
“Guess I got the unhealthy kind,” said Farrago.
“So dramatic,” her mother said.
“You always jabbered on all the time about how good potatoes were for us, full of fiber and potassium and vitamin B and vitamin C and how they make you smart and lower your blood pressure and we should all eat them every day.”
“Until the next day, when they tell us that was wrong, a big mistake, and we should never touch a potato again for the rest of our lives,” said Carousel, as though she were reciting something she’d recently read. “Once that media light hits a fact of any kind it shrivels right up and dies. Truth only prospers in the dark.”
“Uh-oh,” said Farrago. “Here we go again.”
“Where’d you get that?” Graveyard said. “Dad?”
“Where else?”
“Where does anyone in this family get anything useful?” said Roulette.
“What’s SideEffects up to these days?” said Graveyard. “I’ve lost track of our brother these last few months.”
“He’s good,” said Carousel. “Just sold a house over in Guffaw Estates for three hundred fifty thousand. That’s a record in this area.”
“I was offered a buy-in on the original investment in Guffaw,” said Roulette. “Turned ’em down cold.”
“Bet you regret that now,” said Graveyard.
“Bunch of developers from Mammoth City. Coming up here to destroy Randomburg same as they did that town. Close-talking assholes, all of ’em.”
“You did well on the CrossHair-BingoBango deal,” said Carousel.
“Only because our nearest competitor, MahoganySands, got indicted a week before signing. And even then the payout wasn’t all that stellar. Should have just taken that money and played the lottery.” He looked at his son.
Graveyard refused the look. “So anything new in the neighborhood?” he said.
“Not much,” said Carousel. “Old TireRetread finally died. You remember him. The man who wrote that nasty letter to President MadeForYou and next minute the street’s swarming with Secret Service. With guns.”
“The man was an idiot,” said Roulette.
“Yes. Well, now he’s gone. Mizzen’s disease. The absolute worst. Took him forever and by the end he was licking the grapes off the wallpaper for breakfast. Horrible. I saw it and wished I hadn’t.”
“I hear the widow got three hundred for the house,” Roulette said.
“She wishes she got that,” said Carousel.
“SideEffects would probably know,” said Farrago.
“Both sons on opioids, too. Terrible tragedy.”
“Crankcase called,” said Farrago.
“Yeah?” Graveyard said.
“He wants to see you.”
“I haven’t talked to him in years. How’d he know I was here?”
“In this town,” said Roulette, “everyone knows everything.”
“He still on over at Bullets ’N’ Brunch?”
“He’s the manager now.”
“Maybe I’ll drop by there sometime tomorrow.”
“But you’ve got to tell us all about your trip,” said Carousel. “We’re dying to hear.”
“What trip?” said Ambience.
“The one you and Graveyard took overseas. To Bullionvilla.”
“Oh, that.”
“Doesn’t sound like you had much fun.”
“We experienced various complications.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope.”
“I lost some money at the tables,” said Graveyard.
“Depends on how you define some,” Ambience said.
“But what were the people like?” said Farrago. “Do they really eat fried omicrons in red sauce for breakfast?”
“Yes,” said Ambience. “With the beaks still on.”
“Eeeeeew,” said mother and daughter in unison.
“They wear shoes with soles made out of gold leaf?” said Roulette.
“Only the most flagrant assholes,” said Graveyard.
“I’ll bet the women all have mustaches,” Farrago said.
“Just the ones who kiss toads and drink beer out of a glass.”
“Don’t they all follow that religion that demands all unbelievers be branded with an X on their foreheads?” said Roulette.
“No, they follow the other one.”
“Is it true they can’t pronounce the letter t?” said Carousel.
“The whole country is noted for its near-flawless elocution.”
“They drunk pretty much around the clock?” Farrago said.
“Only in certain districts.”
“They hate us, don’t they?” Roulette said.
“Not really. They do, though, seem to regard us as a terminally silly people.”
“What a deeply strange land,” said Carousel.
“Sounds fun,” said Farrago. “I want to go there tomorrow.”
“Extraordinary crust on these beef duds,” Ambience said. “Such perfection. I’d kill to get a crisp that flavorful.”
“Oh, God,” said Roulette. “Don’t get her started.”
“The crust is the least of it, honey. I rub them first with garlic, paprika, and sea salt. Then I boil them in a vacuum bag for about thirty minutes.”
“In water?”
“It’s something she saw on Too Many Cooks.”
“I didn’t notice anyone turning away from the table.”
“We’re afraid of getting something worse,” Roulette said.
“Well, you’re certainly free to tie on an apron and whip up a yummy feast for all of us any damn time you please.”
“No, not that,” said Farrago. “Last time Dad took over the kitchen he set a towel on fire and I got the pukes. He doesn’t know how to cook a hot dog.”
“Exsqueeze me,” said Roulette. “I can prepare anything a master chef is capable of. Long as I got a written recipe.”
“I saw a moving van parked outside the Crepehangers’ the other day,” Carousel said. “Looks like they’ve had enough. You know last spring he got fired from IncredulitySystems. I hear they’re moving back to Morning Glory. Bought an avocado ranch or something.”
“That that child molester with the withered arm?”
“No, that’s TwelvePoint over on Ratchet Heights. He’s still there. He never comes out of his house.”
“Neighborhood’s not what it used to be,” said Roulette.
“What is?” said Graveyard.
“Did you hear they’re laying off about five hundred workers at Corrugated this month?” Carousel said.
“Gee,” said Farrago, “what’ll I do? I was planning on applying there when I graduate. Looking forward to that liver cancer everyone gets who works there.”
“By the time you graduate,” Roulette said, “there won’t even be a Corrugated plant to apply to.”
“And it was my dream job, too, but you know, Dad, you always advised me to never go anywhere without a backup plan, so if worse comes to worst, I guess I’ll always be able to get on at the Whirly Ball. They know me there. They like me.”
“And a fine future for you in that prime establishment. I’ll not have my own daughter working as a carny barker in a traveling show.”
“Leave her alone,” said Carousel.
“I could always go back to my first choice.”
“And what was that again, dear? You’ve gone through so many occupations already.”
“White sex slave.”
“See?” said Roulette. “That’s what I’m talking about. And I won’t shut up until each and every member of this family achieves sufficient brainpower to realize that outside these walls existence is brutality and the only protection against painful and lasting damage is the cushion money provides. Life is poison. Cash is the antidote.”
“Thank you, Dr. Warmth.”
“If anyone at this table should be able to comprehend the hard truth of what I’m saying, it’s you, Mr. WiseAss. With your mystery lotto. Your mystery win. How much was it, anyway? Your mystery haul?”
“Whaddya want?” said Graveyard. “A piece of sheer luck. I bought the ticket when I was drunk and didn’t even remember I had it until Ambience reminded me.”
“That’s cute,” said Carousel.
“So what was the total?” said Roulette.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Graveyard.
“It can’t be all that much,” said Carousel, “or we would have heard about it on the news.”
“Or the internoodle,” said Farrago. “I’ll look it up right now.” She whipped out her cell phone, a brand new chocolate-model BurningWonderPOS. She began punching buttons.
“Are these actual filigreed baby serpentines?” said Ambience. She pointed to a messy pile of green, slimy-looking, pastalike objects on her plate. “Haven’t even seen any in ages. They’re hard to find.”
“Sure are,” said Carousel. “I get mine from VeggiesToYourDoor. They’re hydroponically grown in a secret greenhouse somewhere in AnglesBent.”
“The few times I’ve managed to get my hands on a bundle they always ended up tasting like a kitchen sponge.”
“Secret is to fry them in extra virgin hallelujah oil, then throw in a pinch of lemon quill about a minute before they’re done. When the edges are turning up in that nice golden green curl.”
“The ones she made for The Crevice employee picnic last month were better,” said Roulette.
“You’re not here,” said Farrago, looking up from her screen. “On the winners list.”
“Maybe he didn’t win enough,” said Carousel. “They do that sometimes. Only publicize the big winners.”
“Well, what do you expect?” said Graveyard. “State bureaucracy. You know how well that works, huh, Dad? It’s a wonder they get anything right. But I did win and win big.”
“It’s true,” said Ambience. “I couldn’t believe it, either. But really, we are now actual members of the ‘filthy rich’ club.”
“How exciting,” Carousel said. “Maybe some good luck’s finally coming this family’s way.”
The wall phone in the kitchen started clattering and Roulette went to answer it.
“When’s he gonna finally crack and spring for a cell phone?” said Graveyard.
“He doesn’t want to throw away good money on a trinket he considers just a passing fad,” said Carousel. “You know how he goes.”
“The police were here last week,” said Farrago.
“Yeah?” said Graveyard. “What was that about?”
Carousel sighed. “The property dispute with TimeDelay.”
“He still on about that?”
“So weird,” Farrago said. “They’re talking out by the driveway, real neighborly friendly-like, when suddenly Dad comes back in, grabs his gun, and takes it out to show TimeDelay, tells him if he, his scraggly-ass wife, or his mangy dog sets one foot or one paw in our yard he’ll give them an airing they won’t forget or probably even survive.”
“Was it loaded?” said Graveyard.
Carousel opened her mouth to respond when a sober-faced Roulette returned. “It’s for you.” He was looking at his son.
“Me?” said Graveyard. “Is it Crankcase?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Who else knows I’m even here?”
“He does.”
“Who?”
“The man on the phone waiting to speak with you.”
Graveyard excused himself, walked into the kitchen, picked up the handset lying on the counter. “Hello,” he said.
“Sounds like those beef duds must be mighty good,” said the voice in his ear. “I’m jealous. Don’t believe I’ve ever even had a beef dud myself. What is it, anyway—a bull testicle or something?” Followed by a snort of laughter. It was BlisterPac.
“How’d you get this number?”
“How’s the family? Sound like good folks. I imagine they’d be plenty disappointed to learn that their favorite son and adored brother had acquired his newfound riches not by an impartial turn of a bureaucratic wheel but as the result of a fluke accident that can, must, and will be corrected. Understand? Let’s repair my client’s unfortunate loss, alleviate his suffering. He’s in real pain, you know.”
“Look, Mr. BlisterPac, if that even is your real name, I’m sorry about your so-called client’s difficulties, but let me repeat, frankly, I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you quit badgering me and my family. Do you understand? Don’t call here again.”
“A person should own up to his debts, don’t you think, Mr. Graveyard? Which, we both know, is indeed your real name, a name that shall be appearing shortly on several legal documents served personally to you.”
Graveyard hung up the phone. He walked over to the sink, turned on the tap. The water, he noted, was a slightly off-beige color. He splashed some cold onto his face with hands he couldn’t stop from trembling. He turned off the faucet and stood leaning stiff-armed against the kitchen counter. He looked out the window into the backyard and the woods beyond. Where he had played for infinite hours as a boy before he knew much of anything about money, its terrible demands, and the need to get some fast.
Back in the dining room Roulette and Carousel had descended into one of their circular arguments over who, exactly, had allowed their health insurance to expire a month before SideEffects took a nasty hit on the thirty-two-yard line during a Chisels homecoming game and suffered a major concussion, a broken collarbone, and a ruptured spleen and was partially paralyzed for half a year, requiring a four-month hospital stay.
“I wrote the check,” said Carousel. “I put it in the envelope. I licked it. I left it on the side table in the hallway for all to see. I assumed you’d pick it up and mail it.”
“It had no stamp on it.”
“You can’t go and buy a stamp?”
“When am I ever near a stamp-buying place?”
“You get in the car and you drive to one.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Make time.”
Graveyard retook his place at the table.
“Who was that?” said Roulette.
“A friend.”
“Didn’t sound particularly friendly.”
“He wants some money I owe him.”
“What friend?” said Ambience.
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
“You owe people money and you come waltzing in here like you’ve broken the bank at Monte Heighho or something?” said Roulette. “I don’t believe it.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
“Never leave your creditors hanging, son. Extremely bad business form.”
“Let’s just drop it, okay? Where were we, anyway?”
“Trying to find your name on the list of winners,” Farrago said.
“There were others who won much more than we did,” said Ambience.
“Were those the ones who got on TV?” said Farrago.
“I don’t know who got on TV,” said Graveyard. “And who the fuck cares, anyway?”
“Stop,” said Farrago, “or I’m leaving the table.”
“We’re discussing,” Carousel said. “That’s all. Nice and calm. Discussing.”
“If your mother weren’t so fond of certain obscenities, we might never talk at all.”
“And is it always required that we all must be forced to bear witness to these demonstrations of ‘love’?” Graveyard said.
“Public displays of affection are the bonds that hold the family together,” said Roulette.
“Maybe we’re better off just coming apart,” said Farrago.
“Hasn’t that already happened?” Graveyard said.
“For you, maybe. I’m still stuck here.”
“Did everyone hear that SnowGlobe finally got her fat surgery?” said Carousel. “Last week. She had her stomach reduced by eighty percent. About the size of a walnut now. Wonder what she can eat with a belly that tiny.”
“Birdseed,” said Farrago.
“She’s probably got the runs around the clock now,” said Roulette. And to the assembled groans, “Well, I’ve read that happens.”
“And for variety,” said Graveyard, “a handful of multicolored paint chips. Especially the gourmet kind, the ones with the lead.”
“That’s just sick,” Roulette said.
“No crazier than eating the moon.”
“Well, what the hell else is it there for?”
“Same reason, I suppose, everything is there for you. To be consumed.”
“Not the green cheese again,” said Farrago. She pushed back her chair. “I’m outta here.”
“You haven’t had any dessert,” said Carousel. “It’s chocolate duffy. Yum, yum.”
“I hate chocolate duffy.” She stood up. She stomped off.
“Let her go,” said Roulette. “She doesn’t want to sit here with us, let her find people she does want to sit with.”
“It’s that pipe of hers she wants to hang out with,” Carousel said.
“Did she say green cheese?” Ambience said.
Graveyard nodded toward his father. “Ask him.”
“Facts are facts,” said Roulette. “There’s no disputing that.” Roulette was a lifelong member of the Frightened White Man’s Flying Freedom Freedom Party. There was no talking to him about anything.
“Depends on what you mean by the word facts.”
“A fact is something that everyone knows to be true.”
“Who’s this ‘everyone’?”
“A person who’s woke, as the kids say. And let me tell you, there’s precious few of us.”
“But you’ve seen the pictures, right, the tapes?” Graveyard said.
“What you see is not necessarily what you get.”
“But you saw men in space suits climb into a spaceship, blast off, jump a quarter of a million empty miles to this big empty rock in the middle of a vast emptiness, where they got out, hopped about for a while, schlepped around in a golf cart, planted a flag, snapped a few candid shots of each other, and—I want to italicize this detail—pressed their very real human footprints into the bright silvery sand. The mineral sand.”
“Cheese dust,” said Roulette.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. Cheese dust. The stuff that flakes off a big block of cheese when it gets too dry. There’s no water up there, in case you haven’t heard.”
“I’ve been informed. So tell me, Mr. Science, what possible reason is there for the moon, this huge, airless, lifeless object flying around us for no particular reason, to be constructed—and I can’t believe I’m even saying this—out of a common foodstuff? And I assume, of course, it’s colored green?”
“Why not?”
“Cheese is an organic product derived from the milk of living animals on the planet Earth. So it’s degradable. It ages. It decays. It rots.”
“Not in space. In space cheese is immortal. Preserved forever inside the cold vacuum of a giant refrigerator. It’s soft. It’s strong. It’s pliable. The perfect building material. That’s why they chose cheese to make the moon out of.”
“Who’s this mysterious ‘they’?”
“Those who do everything in life you don’t want to know about.”
“Like tying a Windsor knot or filling out a tax return?”
“When you were a boy you couldn’t get enough of my stories.”
“I believed them then.”
“Until you fell in with Crankcase and that crowd.”
“You mean when I started learning how the world works and how the universe is actually put together?”
“Just opinions. Don’t mean any of them are true. Besides, you know as well as I do they’re all on the payroll anyway.”
“Whose payroll?”
“Remember me talking about the Link?”
“No.”
“The government behind government. Where all the decisions that really matter are cooked up. They’re the ones built the moon.”
“The moon’s phony? It’s not even a natural object?”
“Of course not. I’m surprised you’re surprised. And it’s not as far away as you think it is, either.”
“How far away is it?”
“Couple hundred miles.”
“That’s preposterous. But I’ll play along. Why so close?”
“For beaming down their rays.”
“What rays?”
“It’s the control room.”
“For what? The Galactic Funnybone Network?”
“Pretty much everything.”
“That’s a lot of things.”
“World’s a big place.”
“And who, exactly, sits at these mysterious controls?”
“Many you would recognize, but many you would not.”
“So what does the Link get out of all this busybodying?”
“Gosh, I don’t know. Money and power?”
“See?” Carousel said. “The story does make some kind of sense.”
“Fractured rice and sticky beans,” said Graveyard. “Don’t tell me you subscribe to this nonsense, too.”
“I don’t know. The more you learn, the clearer everything becomes.”
“Examples?”
“The Fickleburg Four conspiracy. CasterBlock was never really involved. He didn’t even know the other three. That’s just another internoodle doodle.”
“The surprise installation of PilferBox as head honcho at Tatterdemalion Enterprises,” said Roulette. “With, of course, the subsequent trickle-down at SullenGlobe.”
“Remember the dirigible fish poison sex-gland assassination of MoebiusParfait? And right in the street in the middle of the capital in the middle of the day. Directly across from police headquarters. Horrifying.”
“And, of course, the value-added oxygen tax on every individual over the age of twelve.”
“You two having fun?” said Graveyard.
“And don’t forget the ladies,” Roulette said. “What about the well-regulated female body empowerment act?”
“How could I?” said Carousel. “Or the institution of national cheerleading liberty squads in every public school from elementary level through secondary?”
“When did all this happen?”
“As we speak.”
“Well, pretty chilly picture you paint of our impending future,” said Graveyard. “Guess we should all bundle up.”
“Betcha that nice ol’ man in the moon don’t appear quite so kindly anymore,” Roulette said.
“I’ve always done all my wishing on a star.”
“You don’t believe stars are real, do you?”
“What? They’re not giant balls of flaming gas millions and millions and millions of miles away?”
“Hardly. It’s a freaking light show to distract the monkeys.”
“The monkeys?”
“Us.”
“Oh. A fine job they did of it, too, I must say. And all part of an elaborate sinister plot to keep us from looking too closely into what’s really going on, right? You realize how delusional this sounds?”
“Well,” said Carousel, “reality’s not as real as it used to be.”
“So,” Graveyard said, “while Ambience and I have been living it up in the big city, the two of you have been sitting up here quietly going bonkers.”
“We’re not all that different from our neighbors. You’d be surprised what’s going on out here in the sticks.”
“Frankly, what everyone in this area is in obvious urgent need of is money, lots and lots of money.”
“That’s what your father says,” Carousel said.
“Looked awfully bleak driving in.”
“Hang around for a while,” said Roulette. “You’ll have more than enough bleak to fill your plate.”
“Is there a service fee for extra bitterness?”
“Listen, Mr. WiseAss, you and all your snotty friends are going to be absolutely blown away by what happens at the big reveal.”
“What?” said Graveyard. “A giant mouse gonna come scurrying in from Mars and gobble the whole moon all up?”
“You won’t be talking that way in the aftermath.”
Catching Ambience’s wandering eye, Graveyard said, “It’s not everyone’s father who has unlimited access to the secret vaults of the universe itself, all those classified folders that reveal how things really work.”
“You asked,” said Roulette.
“Well, no, actually I didn’t, but thanks anyway for the info.”
Roulette nodded. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Graveyard had long believed there were emotional viruses as real, as potent, as the physical, cellular ones. Of unknown origin, they invaded families and grew and thrived through generations, feeding on the various hosts’ unconscious, which provided the food for the viruses. There was no cure. There was only treatment, and the treatment was vigilance, constant and pitiless. Symptoms needed to be recognized and quarantined and allowed to wither. Every perception was an antibody. And with luck (whatever complex of obscure forces that curious word shielded), you might be able to produce a sufficient quantity of antibodies to at least weaken the virus, diminish the discomfort, liberate yourself from the most noxious strains of family. He had always hoped that if he ever had any children himself he would be able, through such a dedicated regime of inner attentiveness, to pass on to them a degraded form of the disease. And they in their turn would do the same for their children and then their children’s children and over time, perhaps great swaths of time, the effects of the virus would be at last rendered less and less painful and destructive and finally, perhaps, harmless. Or so he liked to believe. As for himself, like everyone else, he was an ongoing, unfinished project. Prognosis uncertain.
“All right, everybody,” said Carousel. “Time for the duffy. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it may not be exactly as you remember. They were all out of the Cavalier bittersweet at Bumblebee’s. I had to get the Roundhead.”
But when she brought out the plates there were the usual oohs and aahs. Graveyard had two servings.
“It’s absolutely saporous,” said Ambience.
“Saporous?” Graveyard said.
“I heard it on Tell It to the Chef.”
Roulette said she’d served a better version at The Crevice’s thirtieth anniversary party.
“I used glamour fat in that one,” Carousel said.
“Use it again,” said Roulette.
They finished their desserts in glum silence.
“Who’s for coffee?” Carousel said.
They all were. Dunking solvent for neighborhood gossip.
“Remember TeakVestibule?”
“The woman who won twenty million in the state lottery when I was a kid?” said Graveyard.
“Just like you,” said Carousel.
“Twenty million’s a hell of a lot of money. I haven’t got quite that much.”
“Well, anyway, after being so rich for most of her life she got curious about who she actually was. So couple years ago, she sent off five hundred dollars and a sample of her spit to FaceYourFounders and a month later discovered she was thirteen percent black. I mean, can you imagine?”
“Little dab’ll do ya,” said Graveyard.
“So she locked herself in her bedroom for the whole summer. With the shades drawn. Wouldn’t come out until her mother died and she had to go to the funeral.”
“She all better now?”
“Killed herself last spring. Came down with a cancer and then sat in her garage with her ChequeredRevenant running for about an hour and a half cause she couldn’t bear the thought of being eaten alive by her bad body parts.”
“What a colorful neighborhood you live in,” Ambience said.
“Not really. We’re a pretty average lot around here. Course there are exceptions. Like the LandGrabs. That horrid red barn at the end of Duvet Drive? You know they actually named their dog Dog? Can you believe it? Dog. D-O-G.” She shook her head. “Some people.”
“Hashbrown told me the other day,” Roulette said, “that her son’s preschool is considering a new rule to limit children’s names to ten letters or less. Seems class lists are getting out of hand. Teachers are finding them almost impossible to read.”
“We should all just be named BuyMyStuff,” said Graveyard. “And be done with it.”
“Like the LandGrabs,” said Roulette. “Boy. Girl. Dog.”
“I think there’s already a lot of those,” said Carousel. “Among, you know, the less affluent families.”
“What?” said Graveyard. “They can’t afford the extra letters?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
“From the financial altitude he now occupies,” Roulette said, “such distinctions are practically invisible.”
“Rich people can’t be bigoted?” said Graveyard.
“I think,” said Ambience, “they tend to be even more prejudiced.”
“Drop me a pile and I’ll report back to you,” said Roulette.
“I was getting to that,” Graveyard said. “When Fortune smiles, says the gypsy, her blessings should fall indiscriminately. Why should Ambience and I be the only ones to enjoy this miraculous gift? Everybody gets something. So let’s start with Mother. Okay, tell me, Mom, whaddya want, whaddya need? No holding back. Don’t be shy.”
“Well, gosh, Graveyard, really nothing, nothing at all. I’ve already been so blessed many times over. I don’t need anything.”
“All right, I haven’t been clear. What do you want that you don’t need? Open up that storeroom where all the stupid dead wishes are locked. What have you always secretly desired but never believed you’d ever actually get or deserve to get? Go nuts. Take a break from propriety. This is about that extra piece of pie. The hell with your waistline.”
“Well, Graveyard, you put it that way, I guess I have to admit, and I’m embarrassed to say so, but I’ve always wanted to go on a luxury cruise to Cantaloupe.”
“Cantaloupe?” Roulette said. “That tropical backwater ghetto driven into bankruptcy and ruin by a gang of coddled pirates who should’ve been chained and hanged decades ago? That Cantaloupe? Why the hell would you ever want to go there?”
“I don’t know. The place has stuck in my mind ever since that miniseries Encore Holiday! You know, the one with Rattlesticks? From his book I read, Roasted Nuts: My Life As an Ex–Comedy Legend. Very funny book. I know it’s not fashionable to like him, but when I was a little girl I thought he was funny, and I think he’s still funny now. Anyway, what happens is, while he’s on the road his beautiful wife leaves him for another, more successful, comic, and he starts drinking and living in his car and on stage starts forgetting his act so he doesn’t get hired much anymore and just when he’s about to throw himself into Lake Teardrop his shady grandfather dies and leaves him this rum factory in Cantaloupe that’s also a front for a lucrative meth operation some not-so-nice people are disappointed they didn’t get their hands on and, well, hilarity ensues. There’s also some voodoo thrown in, and a couple unfortunate sex scenes and a great bit where Rattlesticks tries out a shift on the bottling line and you can imagine the zaniness. But the country’s so painfully beautiful and basically so quiet, there’s much less shouting than here, and the people move around much more slowly, naturally, like real people, and the weather is always nice. It made an impression. I just always wanted to go there. It seemed like a good time waiting to happen.”
“And how much do you think you’d need for a good time down there?”
“How should I know, Grave? I’m so bad with money.”
Graveyard pulled from his pocket a roll of bills larger than it seemed any pocket could contain. He began counting off the bills onto the table. “Five thousand?” He paused for a moment, then began dealing out in quick succession a large number of crisp hundreds. “Ten thousand? How’s that? That seems like a reasonable good time’s worth.”
“Really, Graveyard, I wouldn’t even know what to do with such a ridiculous sum. I can’t take your money.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much.”
“Not for my own mother.” He shoved the pile toward her.
“Take it,” said Roulette.
Carousel cautiously eyed the thick stack of new bills. “But what does a woman like me do with a bundle of cash like that?”
“Spend it,” said Roulette.
Graveyard took his mother’s hand, pressed the green notes into her palm, and closed her fingers over them. “Send me a postcard from Cantaloupe.”
“So what am I, chopped liver over here?” said Roulette.
“Best for last, naturally,” Graveyard said.
“What about Farrago?” said Carousel. “Doesn’t your sister deserve a goody or two also?”
“I was planning on something special for her—like how about a fresh bale of dank trainwreck?”
Roulette produced a short snorting sound his family had, over the years, learned to interpret charitably as a laugh.
“I’m not comfortable with that,” Carousel said.
“Novus ordo seclorum,” said Graveyard.
“And just what the hell is that foreign crap supposed to mean?” Roulette said.
“Read the back of your money sometime, Dad.”
“Really, Graveyard,” said Carousel, “I never thought I’d ever live to see my own son acting as a pusher for his baby sister.”
“It’s leaf,” said Roulette. “Harmless enough.”
“Maybe in your house. Not in mine,” Carousel said.
“Let’s not get on that merry-go-round again,” said Roulette.
“Which one? We ride so many of them, sometimes simultaneously.”
“Dizzy at any speed.”
“I paid for Forevermore, me alone, every damn dime of it, with absolutely zero help from you, not that I would have ever wanted it, not a single one of your precious little pennies.”
“Here we go with this story again.”
“You’re still arguing about that ancient business?” Graveyard said.
“We’ve never stopped,” said Carousel.
Roulette continued. “And then to have the brainless gall to actually name the place Forevermore in order to apply an extra coat of pretension to that studs-up rehab is beyond forgiveness. Forevermore. What the fuck is that supposed to mean, anyway?”
“I like it.”
“Well, good for you. You’re the one living inside it.”
“Dad,” said Graveyard, “could we please, for the moment, return to the topic at hand, that is, making your dreams come true?”
“You don’t have enough treasure to make my dreams come true.”
“Try me.”
“All right. Then what I want is a brand new KemosabeXL5000 in SolarGlide.”
“C’mon, Rou, don’t be so greedy,” Carousel said.
“He asked.”
“What’s a beast like that go for these days?” said Graveyard.
“How should I know? Well out of my price range, I’m sure.”
“Seventy, eighty, somewhere in that general vicinity?”
“So they say.”
There was a slight pause, then, “Okay, back to the wall. You got it.”
“Show me.”
“I’m not buying the car. You are. I’ll have the total for you sometime tonight.”
“Why not just write out the check now?”
“I’m giving it to you in cash. Takes a while to count out a sum that large.”
“You travel around with those kind of amounts on you?”
“Fat stacks, Dad. Fat stacks.”
“You’re a damn fool.”
“Not so much. Never know when, on a mad whim, I might want to purchase some uselessly extravagant trinket like the twelve-year-old handle of Ballymoss Court’s Devil’s Offscourings I’ve been drooling over for three weeks or a bioluminescent wastepaper basket or a pair of jellyfish earrings for my Ambience, whose appetite for such baubles has, in recent days, enjoyed a remarkably healthy boost.”
“You make it sound like I’m Lady Poofter or something.”
“My mistake. You should, of course, be addressed as Duchess Poofter.”
“You’ve bought tons more stuff than I have.”
“That’s why I’m the Duke of Poofter. And should I be abruptly seized by an overwhelming impulse to purchase some big-ticket tchotchke I don’t really need, I have at my immediate disposal a more than adequate store of government-printed paper to provide in exchange for such an amenity.”
“You only deal in cash?” said Roulette.
“I need to see my money. I need to hold my money.”
“The whole world’s moving on to cashless transactions.”
“Good luck to them.”
The ensuing silence was broken by the recognizable rattle, rumble, and roar of an approaching motorcycle, its plummy cry placing it instantly among the upper branches of cycling’s genealogical tree.
“SideEffects,” said Carousel. “I knew he wouldn’t let us down.”
There was the clap of a backfire, then ringing silence.
“Sounds serious,” Graveyard said. “He get a new bike?”
“And already two accidents,” said Carousel.
“Those were nothing,” said Roulette.
“I would hardly call a broken wrist and three cracked ribs nothing.”
“Nothing.”
The back door slammed, followed by a series of heavy footsteps until the rider, clutching shiny black helmet, stood immanently before them. Yes, it was SideEffects.
“If it isn’t the realtor from hell,” said Graveyard. His brother was clad from neck to soles in tight, tailored black leather.
“Even demons have money,” SideEffects said.
“Yes, I suppose. Stiff bridge and tunnel fees going to and fro. How you doing?”
“Okay.”
“What’s the bike? Sounds like a monster.”
“WhangoDuran1400.”
“Frankenstein. How’s the ride?”
“Creampuffy.”
“I’d like to give it a spin sometime.”
“Just let me know when.”
“You seem a bit skinnier than the last time I saw you.”
“Maybe a few pounds.”
“Diet?”
“What a waste of life.”
“Allergies?”
“Basically just been having some trouble with the whole concept.”
“Of what? Eating?”
“The deciding, the searching, the getting, the preparing, the cooking, the serving, and then all that damn chewing.”
“He was always such a finicky boy,” said Carousel.
“Hi, Ambience,” said SideEffects. “You’re looking especially fine.”
“Thank you, SideEffects. But don’t be too deceived. It’s all a wonderful illusion. A masterly coating of UggAway. By PerfectAll.” She paused, studied him closely. He was tall, about a head taller than she was, and, yes, relatively thin, with a strangely yellowish face that had a slightly used look about it, as if its repertoire of expressions had been exhausted some time ago. On the Fuck-O-Meter he registered at about a 5 or 6, with an extra point for the leather. “Didn’t you used to wear glasses or something?” she said.
“Ditched those goggles last summer. These are new contacts. Here, check out the color.” He bent down, moved his head to within inches of hers.
Ambience looked. “Mantis green,” she said.
“They called it reseda at the optometrist’s.”
“That, too.”
“You should see his clients,” said Carousel. “All women. All beautiful.”
“C’mon, now. There are a few guys.”
“And they’re all butt-ugly,” Roulette said.
“But they’ve all got fat wallets.” He scanned the wide assortment of dishes on the table. “See you’re having Mom’s famous beef duds. How are they?” He leaned over and scooped up a sample off Ambience’s plate. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “Flavor explosion,” he said. “Y’all be sure to scarf up each and every one of those, you hear? Crime to let a single dud go to the dump.”
“She made better ones for the Founder’s Day street fair,” said Roulette.
“SideEffects, honey,” said Carousel, “why don’t you sit down and have a helping or two? Plenty for all.”
“Like to, Mom, but unfortunately just got a minute or two to drop in and say hello to everyone. Big closing in an hour. I’m certainly up for leftovers, though. How long you two planning on staying, anyway?” This last directed at Graveyard and Ambience.
“Till you all get sick of us or we all get sick of you,” Graveyard said.
“We’re fluid,” Ambience said.
“Until the money’s gone,” said Roulette.
“Yes,” Carousel said to SideEffects, “you’ve missed the big excitement around here,” and she proceeded to explain how Santa, in the form of Graveyard’s sudden good fortune, had arrived early this year, each family member being offered the generous gift of a single heart’s desire fulfilled. “Dad got a new Kemosabe. I’m going at last on my dream trip to Cantaloupe, so now it’s your turn, honey. We all want to know, what’s your secret wish?”
“This for real?” said SideEffects.
“Whaddya want, whaddya need?” said Graveyard.
“Okay.” He considered his options for a moment. “All right, how about this? A get-out-of-jail-free card and four hundred dollars every time I pass Go.”
“Sure. I can swing that. But isn’t four hundred about double the usual amount?”
“Somebody’s always got to have an edge.”
“Merry Christmas.”