26: Missing Me

Out in the back yard, Ira was in tears. “You never knew Skeeves like he was back in the day,” he was telling Ginnie. And now Ira turned to me. “You remember Skeeves out on Four Mile

Beach, right, Jim? He was so hard, so outlaw, so gnarly.” “All of that,” I said. In some respects I’d been in awe of Skeeves myself. But I was very glad that he was gone. “What about that beetle?” asked Ginnie, peering into the basement past the snail.

“Fuck the beetle,” I said. “My body’s missing.”

“I was meaning to tell you about that,” said Ira, rubbing his insubstantial eyes. “Those other bodies in the casket with you—Weena and that dude with the beard? They turned to stinky mush all of a sudden. I guess that was yesterday. It was super foul, you could smell it all through the Whipped Vic. Skeeves was mad about it. He got me to help him carry the casket out of the maze and dump all the crap into the street. And then we hosed it off and brought it back inside.”

“All the crap,” I echoed. “And that included me?”

“Well—you know,” said Ira. “Skeeves didn’t really like you anymore. He said that when you were talking to him at the party, you called him an asshole.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize he was so sensitive. What happened to my body after you guys threw it into the street?”

“The pigs showed up,” said Ira. “I think they took you to the Santa Cruz hospital. You were still breathing. I heard them talking about it through the maze. I figured you’d be fine.”

“This is bad,” I said, thinking it over. “That sarcophagus has a vibe on it, you know? I’m only out of my body because of some Egyptian magic spell that Weena knew. I bet my body’s not doing very well on its own. And those doctors might start in with their so-called heroic measures. Shock treatment. Surgical interventions. We’ve gotta get my body back, dude. It was much safer in that sarcophagus.”

“But what about the beetle?” reiterated Ginnie.

“He merged into those hammered golden patterns on the side of the casket, okay? I’ll take my chances with that beetle over any frikkin’ gang of doctors. Anyway, the beetle was only after Skeeves.”

“He might turn on you next,” said Ginnie. “In case you hadn’t thought of that.”

“Relax, would you?”

“I’m thinking the beetle is the angry soul of Amenhotep,” said Ira. “Do you guys know the story about Skeeves burning Amenhotep’s mummy in a fireplace? He said the mummy-smoke got him higher than he’d ever been.”

“And he said the smoke killed Crocker—the guy he got the sarcophagus from,” I added. “Skeeves said that made Crocker a lightweight.”

“Skeeves was no lightweight,” said Ira, smiling and shaking his head. The conversation came to a pause.

I could see the old van sitting in the Whipped Vic’s driveway. “Do you have the keys for Skeeves’s beater?” I asked Ira. “I want to move my body before it’s too late.”

“Okay, but you drive,” said Ira, fluttering his insubstantial hands. “I’m too ghostly.”

“Take some of this, poor Ira,” said Ginnie, digging a handful of kessence out of her side and handing it to him. I gave him some of my substance as well.

“That’s so kind of you,” said Ira, his voice flooding with emotion. “I’m fading away here. There’s not much reason for me to stay any longer, now that, now that—”

“World’s smallest violin,” said Ginnie, making that rubbing gesture with her thumb and finger once again. “Crack!”

“Keep it together, Ira,” I said. “With any luck, we’ll all be going to Flimsy really soon. But first I’d like you to help Ginnie and me load the sarcophagus into the back of Skeeves’s van.”

“What for?” said Ira. “I don’t want to touch it now.”

“The Whipped Vic is gonna disappear,” I said patiently. “When we go back through the tunnel to Flimsy, I’m pulling the snail and her shell after us. So I have to park the sarcophagus and my body somewhere else.”

“Like where?” challenged Ira.

“We’ll talk about that later. I’ve got a plan.”

Ginnie, too, was reluctant to touch the sarcophagus, now that the scary beetle was hiding in its bas-reliefs. But I gave them a pep talk, and finally we three specters managed to lug the sarcophagus out to the van. I did most of the heavy lifting—my new yuel-built kessence body was pretty solid.

There was an odd kind of interface between my kessence body and the physical world. Although my body barely cast a shadow, if I focused on my hands or my feet, I could firm them up. And, if I paid close attention, I could move physical objects around.

In particular, I was able to manipulate the van’s steering wheel and pedals well enough to drive. As I cruised towards the hospital with Droog and my two friends, I noticed a remarkably vivid balloon bobbing above a car dealership that lay a couple of blocks to one side of our route. I could see that the balloon was in the shape of a huge green beet, with a wriggly band of gold around its waist and a floppy purple cap on top—

“That’s Sukie,” I said softly. The sight of the big jiva made me feel agitated and quavery.

“I know,” said Ira from the back seat. “She’s been there all week. I guess it’s, like, a kind of camouflage? Like in that mystery story where the guy tacks a stolen letter to his wall and nobody sees it?”

“Swing over there and nail her with a yuelball right now, Jim,” said Ginnie. “I hate those frikkin’ jivas.”

“Let me focus on saving my body first,” I insisted. I felt like too many things were happening too fast. And just then the guy behind us started honking and pointing at our van. Maybe he thought the van was empty and that it was randomly rolling along. I accelerated and ditched him. Frikkin’ busybody.

I parked in the lot of the Santa Cruz Hospital. I left Droog in the van with a window half open. Ira and Ginnie came into the hospital with me. Although a few of the more zonked patients could see us, most of the employees couldn’t, and it was pretty easy for us three to breeze past the checkpoints and through the corridors.

On a hunch, I led us to same floor where I’d gone with my brain attack. Just like before, nurse Alice was sitting behind the counter. Her short hair was blonde with black roots. She wore a trim white uniform with a wide skirt. Right now there weren’t any other nurses around. Alice was busy with her computer.

“Hey,” I said, leaning close to her.

She looked up and, blessedly, managed to see me. “Can I help you?” Her face was plain but, in its kindness, beautiful.

“I’m Jim Oster?”

Alice cocked her head, studying me. “I don’t think so. Mr. Oster’s in a coma. And you’re—” She groped for the word.

“Not flesh,” I said. “I’m Jim Oster’s spirit in an astral body. And these are my ghost friends Ginnie and Ira. Most people can’t see us. We want to move my body to a safer place.”

“Delusions,” said nurse Alice, as if speaking to herself. “Lack of sleep. Way, way too much coffee.”

“You’re sensitive and empathetic,” I said. “A wonderful person. That’s why you can see me. I’m a spirit, but I’m real.”

“Go away,” said Alice, making a shooing motion. “Begone. I don’t need this.” She leaned her face into her hands and stayed like that, as if taking a time out.

So, what the hell, we started down the hall, looking in the rooms. Soon I found my poor, abandoned bod, lying alone under a sheet—a melancholy and pathetic sight.

“Wait in the hall,” I told Ginnie and Ira. “I want to do this alone.” I went into the room.

My body was pale and somewhat emaciated. They’d shaved my chin and my head, and a few dozen wires were taped to my bare scalp. A feeding tube snaked into my forearm, and a catheter drain ran from my crotch. Next to the bed was a quietly beeping machine with a monitor drawing wiggly green graphs. Breath and pulse were regular, my brain waves were flat-lined. I was stupid to have left my dear flesh for this long.

“I’ll unplug you from the heart-attack machine,” I said softly. I began peeling the wires off my forlorn, bald head. It was terrible to see my face from this perspective; it was like looking into some mad, crooked mirror. My body twitched and fluttered, as if reacting to my spirit’s presence.

I was seized by a sudden fear that I’d been in the hospital continuously for weeks, and that my elaborate recent adventures were the hallucinations of a dying man. I was tempted to dive down into my clammy, long-suffering flesh—and never mind my pipe-dreams of saving the Earth and resurrecting Val.

“You’re absolutely right to move your body,” said nurse Alice, cutting off my despairing thoughts. She was in the room’s doorway with a wheelchair. Ginnie and Ira stood beside her. “The hospital’s gotten court approval to remove your life support tomorrow. I’ve decided that I’ll help you get your body out of here. I’ll write up a release form later on. The admin will be glad to have you gone.”

“How long have I been in here?” I asked.

“The police brought you in yesterday,” said nurse Alice. “I recognized you right away. You’re a nice man. That high-strung woman who picked you up before—she’s gone?”

“Gone,” said Ginnie, speaking up. “And now Jim’s on a big quest to save Earth from these evil aliens called jivas.”

“A jiva killed my wife,” I told nurse Alice. “Do you still remember her? Val?”

“I do,” said Alice, her voice low and thoughtful. “I saw what was inside her that day. And that’s why I want to believe you now. It kind of fits that you showed up here now. It’s as if everything’s coming together. As if it’s the end of the world.”

“You never told me what you saw that day,” I said tensely.

“It wasn’t an embryo at all,” said Alice, stepping into the room. “It was more like a kind of root, only rounded in the middle, and with nasty, slick colors. Orange and green. I still dream about it sometimes. And here’s the crazy part. This week, on my way to work, I’ve been seeing a shape like that in the sky. Supposedly it’s only a car lot’s advertising balloon. But I’m scared.”

“It’s not a balloon,” I said. “It’s a jiva. And I’m going to kill it.”

Nurse Alice laughed uneasily. “If only you can. I haven’t been able to sleep this week at all.” A ping sounded in the hall. “Hurry up and wrestle that body into this wheel chair,” she said. “Your clothes are in the drawer. I’ll find someone to watch the desk. I’ll take you and your friends out through the staff elevator.”

We got the hospital gown off my body and dragged my jeans, red T-shirt and blue-checked flannel shirt onto it. Onto me. It was wildly unpleasant to be seeing myself this way.

With nurse Alice along, nobody paid much attention as we wheeled my body across the lot and lifted it into the van. Droog pranced around, getting in the way.

The moment I laid my body in the sarcophagus, it looked better. My cheeks regained some color. My whole form seemed to relax and fill out. It was like tucking someone onto their own comfortable bed—instead of leaving them on a padded bench in a death-row cell.

I had the feeling that Alice was still wondering if this was for real.

“You’re wonderful,” I told her. “And just wait, that jiva will be gone later today.”

“Good luck,” she said with a tight, anxious smile. And then she was on her way back inside.

Thinking ahead, I rooted in the van’s accumulated mounds of grunge and found a jeans and T-shirt combo that could fit Val, should she return. I stuffed them into the casket with my clothed body.

Taking the wheel, I drove fast down some back roads and made it to a pull-out near Four Mile Beach. And then we had to maneuver the sarcophagus and my body across a meadow of summer-yellowed grass and Queen Anne’s lace—tall stalks with intricate green leaves and big compound flowers like white doilies on top. Droog was sniffing everything. By now the morning fog had cleared away—it was a sunny July day. Butterflies drifted across the flowers; grasshoppers buzzed and leapt.

As I didn’t want my body to be out in the sunlight where everyone could see it, we were pushing the closed sarcophagus across the meadow like a sled, with the plants tip-tapping the shiny sides. The ancient casket was gorgeous in the full sun, with its bands of hieroglyphs in gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli. Although the face of Amenhotep on the lid was serene it seemed in some sense watchful—with its large, embossed eyes. But there were no signs of that dark beetle who’d disappeared among the hammered ankhs and ibises along the base. Now and then the heavy box would fetch up against a tuft of grass and we’d have to redouble our efforts.

“This is ridiculous,” complained the feeble Ira at one such pause. “It’s way too hard.”

“Jim and I are doing the real work, bitch,” said Ginnie. “Why don’t you just walk along behind us and straighten up the plants. We don’t want to be leaving a big obvious skid track.”

“But why the fuck are we doing this?” asked Ira.

“Because I buried my wife’s ashes on the bluff here,” I said. “Okay? I want to be next to her.”

“How goth,” said Ginnie.

And so the two of us pushed on, bending down nearly parallel to the ground, making our legs firm and fat. The intense physical effort was depleting my supply of kessence—but my astral body still had plenty to spare.

We reached the bluff with its sandy hollows. In the midday sun, the glassy ocean waves were a brilliant shade of ultramarine blue. Droog seemed to remember about Val. He made his way to the little pyramid-rock that I’d set in place as her gravestone. Waving off the dog, I knelt down and dug with both hands until I’d reached the first dry white flecks of my wife’s cremated bones. I sat on the ground beside the little hole, collecting my thoughts. And then I drew the tube of Durkle’s ultragrow from within my left thigh.

“A method to his madness,” said Ginnie, understanding what was up.

“I’m hoping this will get Val’s body to start growing here,” I explained for Ira’s sake as I squeezed silvery goo from the tube. “I want to get her body ready for when I bring her spirit back.” I stirred the ultragrow into the sand, feeling a tingle in my hands. And then I covered the hole with a low mound of sand.

Ira and Ginnie watched, sitting on the ground and leaning against the sarcophagus. They seemed to have forgotten any worries about the beetle spirit.

“Now we get that thing out of sight,” I said. “I don’t want some gunjy freak to be stealing it. And I don’t want my body to get cooked by the sun. Look, there’s a long low spot right here. All we have to do is scrape it a foot or two deeper. Please?”

Ginnie, Ira and I got it done, with Droog joining in. The digging wasn’t all that hard—the sand was loose. And Ginnie found that we could reshape our kessence hands into trowels. The sarcophagus fit readily into the trench, and we heaped the sand up along its sides.

At the last minute, I opened the sarcophagus lid for a final check. My body was looking much, much better than in the stroke ward.

“Good night, Jim,” said Ginnie. I closed the lid and we scattered a thin layer of sand across the top. With any luck, I’d be back to reclaim my body quite soon.

We went across the meadow and got back in the van.

“Now for Sukie, and then it’s back to the Whipped Vic,” I said.

“Check this out,” said Ginnie. She’d found a couple of filthy old towels on the floor. She draped one over her head and tossed one on me. “This way it won’t look like the van’s empty while we’re driving around town.”

“Salaam.”

On the drive into town, Ginnie and I taught Ira how to sing the yuel lullaby. We found it pretty easy to teep with Ira, maybe because he’d absorbed kessence from both of us. The three of us were in synch.

I hadn’t been exactly clear on which car lot Sukie was hovering over, so when I pulled up to it, I had a jolt of surprise. Sukie was above, of all places, Simly The Best—the car dealership owned by my landlord Dick Simly, the very guy that Weena had—

“Is Dick Simly dead or not?” I asked Ira.

“What?”

“The guy whose body Sukie and those other jivas hatched from?”

“I’m way outta the loop,” said Ira, hunching down low in the back seat. “Don’t bother me right now. I want to be sure I remember that yuel lullaby.”

I threw off my towel and got out of the car, invisible to most of the people here. Sukie’s long tapering tail trailed down to the ground where it was rooted in the asphalt of the lot. She was a sitting duck. And sure enough, there was sleek, earnest Dick Simly inside the dealership, showing an electric car to a granola yuppie woman with frizzy hair.

So far, neither Dick nor the jiva had noticed me. I set my yuel lullaby to vibrating within my mind and body. I scooped a glob of kessence from my belly and I molded it into a yuelball. I had a teep connection to the yuelball, and I was able to keep the yuel lullaby going inside it. I was about ready to—

Oh shit, here came Dick Simly, striding across the asphalt, wearing his full-gospel salesman’s grin. A slender tendril from Sukie ran into the center of Dick’s scalp—like a remote control cable.

“Haven’t seen you around,” boomed Dick. “Diane and I assumed you’d left town. Did you know that your eviction went through? The papers are on the front door. The sheriff put your stuff in a warehouse. I hope you’re okay with this.” He stepped forward as if to lay his hand upon my shoulder.

I took a quick step back. I didn’t have time to think about the eviction. “I know what happened to you with the jivas,” I said. “I’m surprised you survived.”

“I’m a latter-day jivaic saint,” said Dick. His manic grin grew still wider and he pointed to the heavens—or to Sukie.

And now the big jiva took action. Like a smooth-moving snake, her tail wriggled free of the ground. She sent an odd, slide-whistle chirp in my direction, an unpleasant sound that cut through my yuel lullaby and dug deep into my head. And then the giant beet began rising into the sky, perhaps hoping to get out of range.

Quicker than it takes to tell it, I let my body go slack and opened my mouth wide. I merged my kessence legs into my butt, taking on the shape of a cannon. I shoved my singing yuelball into my mouth and swallowed it down.

Dick Simly guessed what was coming. He crouched as if to tackle me, but Ginnie and Droog were at my side to back me up. Droog sank his teeth into Simly’s calf, and Ginnie began singing a yuel lullaby right into the man’s face, driving Sukie’s tendril from his head. Dick Simly gave a sharp yell—but then he looked relieved.

Not wasting any time, I pulsed an intense washboard of ridges along the length of my throat. My yuelball shot upwards at the speed of sound.

Sukie veered to one side. But my yuelball had a stubby pair of fins, and I used my teep to steer it directly for the jiva, no matter how she zigged and zagged.

The impact was good, even orgasmic. I could feel my yuelball blossoming into the crannies of Sukie’s ungainly form. And now the stinky tinkle of my lullaby tore her into flaming chunks. The lumps of kessence rained like brimstone upon Simly’s fuel-efficient cars.

Victory!

Dick Simly had run inside. Ginnie and Ira began scavenging among the fallen scraps of kessence, stamping out the flames and eating what they could. I returned to my humanoid shape and followed their example, bulking up for the rest of my mission.

But hold on—something was wrong. The slide-whistle sound that Sukie had made—it had started a change way down inside me. Something was awakening within the sprinkle that lay at my core. The jiva eggs. They’d been hiding there in infinitesimal form.

My neck swelled into a spiky ruff. Jiva eggs flew from the ruff ’s tips like popcorn from an overheated pan, like sparks from a log, like glowing thistledown.