Jonah Read online

  A feather brushes across Jonah's face. He snorts, scratches his nose, scowls deeply.

  “Yoo hoo…” Q hoots.

  Jonah rolls on his side, brings his knees up, curls like a baby.

  “That won't work.” Q sticks the tip of his wing into Jonah's ear, corkscrews it.

  Jonah angrily swipes at his ear, tightens the fetal curl.

  “UP PERISCOPE!”

  That always works.

  Jonah slams upright, his eyes radiating animal fear.

  “Afraid of an owl?” Q sweeps a wing.

  The sound Jonah makes is half scream, half laugh.

  “Put your sense of humor to the heat.”

  “Ohmigod—HUH?”

  Jonah has all of the covers balled at his chest. He peers around his cotton shield. Major nightmare! Big purple owl hovering in the air! Greenish air! Big round yellow eyes! Pearly beak! Wings would touch both walls if he spreads those mothers—

  The owl floats over to the stuffed chair in the corner, perches on the back, surrounded by phosphorus green light. He cocks his head like a man, folds his wings, not like a man.

  Q can appear in any form he likes. He is particularly fond of the owl form, feathers toned in the purple band, signifying royalty or spiritual advancement, which will imprint like a Magic Marker on the novice's mind as a significant event. Although the novice won't retain conscious knowledge of the event, his psyche will work like a rabid reporter, trying to alert the conscious mind of the breach. Some vandal has broken into the sacred files of reason and inserted unapproved information, overwriting old agendas, scrambling beliefs and intents, in general, making a mess and a racket, to stir the soul to begin its journey through the physical-emotional-mental labyrinth created by the will and experiences of the man. To help the psyche, Q will leave a provocative marker of his visit, something the rational mind won't be able to explain—or wash away.

  It is to laugh at, Q muses, the human perspective of conscious awareness like a brick house without windows. Remove a block of bricks, open a window, and these creatures so proud of their intellects shiver and shake like lobsters held over pots of boiling water. While they speak and write of consciousness with the aplomb of geniuses, give them a dose of a different reality, they come unglued, comic relief for a guardian with the otherwise dull job of calling a soul to duty. This subject promises to provide a tickling, with his ego so big and splashy, vibrates like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Big horn tooter, let's see the music he makes, encountering a fine-feathered friend.

  “It's time we had a little talk, Jonah.”

  Squawky, talking purple owl. Beak snapping!

  “Can I ask you, Jonah—what was in your head, doing the wild thing with that woman tonight?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Jonah says hotly.

  “They don't call me Q for my tact. I cut straight to the quick. I'm your quiet man.”

  “Get outta here!”

  “I am casting no aspersions on the woman. She's an apprentice oracle, doing fine. But don't you get the big head, your charm is so powerful, you can cause a woman to forget her own name, and the hell with activating you into service. That little detail slipped everybody's mind, didn't it? Because she does that, maybe you'll be too busy to do the wild thing. Women are the weaker sex, you know that, Jonah. You let her lead you around by your little man, you not only fail your highest calling, you allow her to act on the primal cunning women use to harness the best in a man. You have to lead her, Jonah. What's a man, he lets a woman reduce him to the temporary thrills of the flesh over the divine mandate to dominate the world? No wonder a comet can come in and destroy dinosaurs, wreck the whole lithosphere, set man back eons, cowering in caves. You could have harnessed the dinosaurs, rode them instead of puny horses. Imagine the battlefield, men mounted on dinosaurs! But no, even when the oracles told you there was a comet headed for Earth, where were you? Humping some nubile woman, sinking your seed in her with the same conceit that is always your downfall. You would let the planet disintegrate just to rediscover a mirror you can gaze into and admire your own reflection. Because that's what a woman is, Jonah. A mirror. She turns her gaze on you, you wallow in self-admiration. Well, that mirror regularly gets shattered, doesn't it? You hitch up your drawers, go to work, brag up your exploits, you come home and your woman is as fat as a sow, swelled up with an offspring you have to support. And now the little lady pressures you to leave your simple job, which you enjoy, put on a tie, buy a briefcase, hook into Internet. After a dinner of Hamburger Helper, you're so tired, you sit like blubber on the couch, and watch repeats of Highlander, because that is the legacy you created, heroics acted out on a screen, remind you of what you could have been, had you resisted that shiny apple.”

  “Excuse me!” Jonah thrusts a finger in the air. “Talk about chauvinistic, you are off the scale! She's not that kind of woman, and I'm not that kind of man. What we shared tonight was real and deep.”

  “Of course it was deep. She's an Indigo Veil. But you are a prototypical mix of Mahogany Bow, Sanguine Arrow, Honey Bee and most potent, pertinent, and portentous—Provocative Quill. Thought you could sidestep your fate, switching Arnold for Quiller? Joke's on you! You are quintessentially Quill, Boy. It's in your blood. You can't change that story.”

  Q sweeps a wing and sky-writes red smoke in the air, J-O-Q-U-I-M-A-H.

  “Or perhaps you prefer to densify to Joke Man, provoke some funny fellow fruit fermented on the vine for demented minds. God knows we don't want to force you out of your fleshy training pants into silky, purple soul britches.”

  “You're cracked!” Jonah spouts, pretty sure he's the one who's cracked, as he watches the letters JOQUIMAH dissipate like wisps from a smoker's pipe.

  “There are two kinds of men, Jonah, those who are sparked by their own volition, and those we got to light their pants on fire. It's not too late. There's a slender crack before the doors of destruction slam on your manhood. You're going to take a little all expense-paid journey. You're going to meet some real men who will outline for you a hero's quest, you mind your P's and Q's, you get your imperial quill, write you into the Queendom where our Mothers in Heaven reside. Time comes in every man's life when he's put to the test. You a parakeet or a hawk?”

  “I happen to be a lion,” Jonah says, realizing how stupid that sounds. But this is another one of those hyperlucid, virtual reality dreams he's supposed to control. Something like this happened the last time he ate one of Merl Betsyboy's pizzas! What does he put in them? Maybe something that works as an aphrodisiac on a woman…

  Something similar to this happened the other night, a nightmare about the mythical Green Man…now a purple owl? Must be due to whatever it is Betsyboy laces into the pizza….

  “You sneer at the fowl motif? You meet some birdmen, pulverize your lion with one look. You see any kitty cats leaping in the air, swatting at birdmen depicted on the walls of those pyramids, impress you so much? The Egyptians had their chance. You have to wonder what was driving them, exerting all that energy to erect those big statues of themselves, penises poking straight out. Fertility rites, my beak. Women got to them. Those statues are evidence they fell for the same old trick. Why do you think the planet is overpopulated today?”

  “I doubt it has anything to do with pizza! I don't think it's a main course in China.”

  Yeah, talk back to him. Purple owl invades his dreams on a night he needs sleep in the worst way. Where the hell is Thunderpaws? Swallow that phantom bird in one gulp.

  “Who's going to save the planet?” the owl motif is going on. “Men with their pants down? Proliferate a bunch of mutants to clean up the mess and start over. By now evolution is so taxed, you're lucky if men look as handsome as those pumpkin heads with wraparound eyes, carting off your nubiles to create a species who can survive conditions after you have ignored all the warnings, too busy dipping your wicks for pure pleasure, feeding your faces, playing king of the mountain. You want wings, you learn to fly, Boy.”
r />   Q sweeps a wing and Jonah sees a swath of stars and hears a rush of wind. He feels really strange, light as a feather, floaty, and pinprick sensations all over his body. He snaps out; everything goes black; snaps back, colored lights swirling his eyeballs.

  “Whoa…this some kind of epiphany?”

  “For you, maybe it is. Maybe I am God's messenger. God is infinitely patient and merciful. He's got time. He'll let you fool around, take multimillennia to wake up to your potential. You want to bow out, let some species, looks like mutant fetuses take over the planet, sire some intelligent robots, fine with God. Maybe he's a little disappointed his favorite sons declined stewardship of the planet. But he's got to take it in stride, because he gave you will. If he wanted a bunch of robots, he would have made them, instead he has to watch you go through all your harebrained experiments, like you can improve on God's handiwork, I'm sure. Clones and robots take your place, turn the planet into an efficient machine environment, your souls are off looking for a new habitat, so you can pick up where you left off, now a bunch of amebas, splitting cells for eons, no memory of the cheap thrills kept you in bed, destiny flying in silver discs over your heads, collecting your eggs and sperm.

  “You think the story about Noah's ark is some fairy tale make you think you can survive anything? Maybe you do survive. But in what boat, on what sea, and can you depend on a whale to save your dignity this time? Nothing like the innards of a whale to persuade a man to change his stubborn mind. But your humility is gone faster than you shoot your sperm. ‘Why me?’ you cry like a baby, God explaining one man can save a whole city, a whole planet, he's bird enough.”

  “Wait just a minute. I am not that Jonah. You got off on the wrong time-space continuum. That Jonah…this is crazy. That's just a myth. No man could survive getting swallowed by a whale.”

  Q claps his wings, pud pud pud. “You get an A for logic. I am impressed. And to show you how compassionate I am, I will veil my visit tonight, because what's going to happen to your impressive reasoning powers, tomorrow you remember talking to a divine owl?”

  “I have weird dreams, so what?”

  “Jonah, your dreams are going to get weirder. I advise you pack a bag for your psyche, because you are going to travel.”

  Jonah scratches his head. “Is this why Zion and Aunt Triss showed up? To watch Coral while I'm gone?”

  “That's why we like you, Jonah. Such a reasonable, practical man. You hang on to that. It'll help you stay sane, where you're going.”

  “I'm panting to know where.”

  “Where heroes are made, you bird enough. You want to be more than a thorn to the Rose, you bring back the imperial quill and the indigo veil. Men are like birds, many varieties, predators and scavengers, seedeaters and messengers. Some are bound to the ground, some made to soar. You admire a lion for his power over other animals, but what can compare to a hawk soaring to touch the tip of a star? Put wings on a lion, now you have something takes your breath away, a beast with potential to break the cage, keeps your heart a prisoner of your mind.”

  “Well, you sure do talk pretty.” Jonah claps.

  Q bows. “Pure Provocative Quill at your service, if I may brag.”

  “What service? I need to bag some serious Z's. Big day ahead. U-Haul to unpack, Triss—and I do have a business to run. I'm the head of the household.”

  “Jonah…pack an extra pair of shorts. You're going to need them.”

  Jonah wakes up with sheets and blanket wound in a lump on his midsection. Sunlight fills the room like glint on a glass of sparkling ale. Shivering, he knocks the lump of bedding to the side and sits up with a nervous laugh. Memory of last night brings a smile so wide it practically splits his lip. From the looks of the bed, his body re-enacted the acrobats of love after he fell asleep. Even the fitted sheet is lumped in the ball.

  Whistling, he bounds off the bed and grabs his jeans off the stuffed chair. A purple feather pirouettes in the air, landing on his toe. He picks up the feather.

  “Was Rufus in here?” It would help if Jonah had seen a bird with purple feathers around Apple Valley, but he hasn't, and he knows it's as likely as spotting a kangaroo. So it was someone's pet parrot, escaped the cage to meet fate in the maw of the most ferocious feline in the Valley.

  He whistles, sticks the feather behind his ear, gets clean underwear out of the drawer, grabs his second-best shirt off the hanger in the closet. He heads down the hall, pausing to crank up the thermostat on the wall.

  Sure is quiet. Is everyone else sleeping in? He forgot to check the clock, but it must be at least seven. He taps on Coral's door, opens it, peers inside. She's not there, and her bed is made. Not the usual, covers muddled around the pillow, bedspread hanging haphazard. But perfect. Could bounce a dime off the center. Her Barbie dolls are in a neat row along the pillow, and you can actually see a path through the toys from her bed to the pink dresser drawers.

  “Zion or Aunt Triss shamed her into it,” he says.

  Across the hall, the door to paradise looks very shut. He bets Zion is still asleep. It was probably Aunt Triss up at the crack of dawn, fixing breakfast for Coral….

  He notices the boxes—U-Haul boxes down the hall.

  Clothes clumped at his chest, he barefoots down the hall to investigate. More boxes in the kitchen, stacked near the back door. Kitchen looks spic and span. Even Thunder's dish is spotless. The clock reads ten-fifteen.

  “No way!”

  He yanks the phone from the cradle mounted on the wall next to the refrigerator, and rings up Frame. No answer. Frame is probably taking his break down at the Grill with every other serious coffee drinker in the Valley.

  Suddenly he remembers…it's Sunday. Where the hell is everyone? Sunday school?

  Resettling the phone, Jonah spots something on his upper left arm.

  “AAAHH!” he screams, jumps, and swats his arm. The tattoo does not fall off, but the purple feather flutters to the floor. Dancing around the kitchen, he whacks at the tattoo again, gives it a good brushing, scratches at it.

  “It's a tattoo!” he says loudly, as if announcing to a room full of spectators. “A rose tattoo!”

  He stands in the center of the kitchen for several minutes, his jaw hanging long, eyes glazed, as if trying to remember who he is and how he got here.

  “That's impossible.” There was no frigging tattoo on his arm yesterday! What's the wildest possibility? A tattoo artist, hired by Frame, sneaks in, punctures his arm while he's sleeping? He wasn't that tired.

  And where are Zion and Aunt Triss? Feeling faint, Jonah drops into a kitchen chair. If he hadn't spotted the red light on the coffeepot, indicating there is hot brew to save his soul, he might have lost his mind right there at the kitchen table.

  Not looking at his arm, he hobbles over to the counter, grabs a mug off a hook, and fills it up. Taking a hit, he spots the purple feather on the floor. He envisions a goofy-looking purple owl, laughs. Maybe with an edge of hysteria. “There's an explanation for all this,” he says firmly, and takes himself down the hall to shower.

  The day begins to make sense around noon when all three females descend upon Jo's Abode. Not that their homecoming happens in a way that pleases Jonah, but at least they are still on the planet, saving him from seriously contemplating various strange scenarios that could have led to lockup if he were to let his imagination run.

  All three show up in Avery Bogart's fancy-wancy Honda van. It's a baby-blue color with dark-blue-and-white swirls on the sides, supposed to look like ocean waves. Bogart's love boat. Avery Bogart, the photographer—pornographer, rumor said.

  Jonah gets the story of what happened to the women in bits and pieces while he stands outdoors, hands on his hips, assaulting Bogart with dirty looks.

  Avery is out of the van and around to the passenger door, leaping like a ballet dancer. That is the repulsive thing about Avery. He has this reputation for wooing woman to pose scantily clad for him, but he is creepy cute. Jonah never feels this way abo
ut a gay man who is honest about what he is, but these men who look so sweet and act like they are God's gift to women, these guys really piss him off.

  Bogart is tall and skinny like Frame, but Bogart walks with a graceful swagger. He has a mop of silky, straight, light-brown hair, hangs off his head in one piece. He's always swinging it, or tucking it behind his ear. Always dresses like he ordered his clothes from ads in Gentlemen's Quarterly, delivered to him fresh every day by Federal Express. Expensive leather jacket, not a wrinkle on his button-down shirt or slacks, and dust never clings to Avery Bogart's pointy-toed patent leather loafers.

  Leaping around the van, whipping open the door. If there had been a puddle, Avery would have laid down in it, invited the ladies to walk on him like a polished plank.

  Zion looks weary but dreamy-eyed, like she's bedazzled by Bogart's Don Juanian antics. The creep takes Zion's hand, his other hand resting at the small of her back as he delicately helps her step down from his coach. Coral Kay tumbles out of the back, shaking a crayoned picture at Jonah, and Aunt Triss is Duchess Beatrice, hanging on Bogart's arm, the Prince of Bedevilment delivering up the ladies to Jo's Abode.

  Zion's car broke down on East Third after the women delivered the U-Haul, and Avery just happened to be behind them. He steps over to Jonah to remark on how it was no trouble helping the women. Jonah rears back his head against a potent sniff of fruity cologne stronger than Zion's perfume. Avery confides he can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning. Creep is undressing Zion with his queer blue eyes.

  Why don't you come out, you faker? Jonah wants to yell, but he holds his tongue like a knife between his teeth.

  To top it off, Avery is now single-handedly bustling four bags of groceries into the house. Wasn't he the dearest thing for stopping at Clyde's Market? Jonah just stands there, lets him pack in the four bags. Maybe he'll stay a while, sauté them lunch, mop a floor, do up a load of washing.

  But never mind Avery Bogart and the hurly-burly of the women and Coral Kay catching him up on their adventure…Zion is showing no indication whatsoever, in her eyes, body language, nothing, that they merged last night in the most fantastic lovemaking Jonah has ever experienced. It doesn't have to be bells and stars for her, but the least she could do, give him one little knowing glance, some tiny acknowledgment that something happened last night besides sleep.