Rafe Garcia looked in the rearview mirror of his old Chevy pickup. “Well I’ll be hornswoggled,” he said and grabbed the sleeve of Slim’s shirt. “Slim, Slim, wake up, mon, you won’t believe your eyes on this one.” Slim snorted a couple of times and began opening his eyes, fresh waking up from his dreams. Slim had seen so much with his eyes lately that he didn’t know what was a dream and what wasn’t. He sat up straight and turned to look out of the sliding back window, wiping off the dust so he could see better. Rafe was already getting out of the truck. “Jenny, Jenny!” he started off down the road and Slim opened his door putting one foot on the ground and keeping the other on the floorboard. Slim was still a little groggy. He saw Jenny Linn and someone else coming down the dry dusty road looking a little bedraggled. Slim couldn’t quite make out who the other person was but he could see that Rafe was about to reach the two of them. The Kansas heat was intense now and Rafe had broken beads of sweat on his brow as he reached Jenny, arms outspread and her likewise. She was genuinely glad to see Rafe this time and suddenly realized that she was a little bit scared about all that had happened. They hugged each other and Rafe looked over at Jack.
“Howdy, preacher,” Rafe stuck out his hand. He knew Jack from the bar in Jetmore when Jack would come in late at night for a scotch on the rocks unbeknownst to his congregation. He had to relax more than a little, sometimes from the rigors of ministering to so many people who thought they were suffering. Some were but there was always that fringe that just needed attention. He checked out Rafe and Jenny and realized then that they did care for each other, even if it was a curious kind of care. He had seen them arguing more than once at Wild Willie’s but often wondered if it was anger or just antagonistic playfulness. He stood there in the heat and shook Rafe’s big hand, smiling at him and giving him and Jenny some room as he began walking toward the brown truck and Slim who was now standing in the open door of the passenger side with his hand on the side rail. Slim was shielding his eyes with his other hand still trying to make out who it was with Jenny.
“Hey, Slim,” Jack called out as he closed the distance, “What are you two yahoos doing out here?”
Slim knew who he was talking to now and he was a bit reticent to be too overly friendly. He and the preacher had had a run in or two at the bar when their conversation turned to theology. Slim was very opinionated about the parallel relationship between the Buddha and Jesus Christ and had tried to swing the Lutheran pastor toward the Eastern approach to compassion. He even suggested that he, Slim, would invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Jetmore to preach at the Lutheran church. Jack had laughed at him and that made him mad. It wasn’t that big of a deal to Slim so he decided that he would let bygones be bygones. He stuck out his hand and smiled as Jack approached. Slim, too, was more than a little concerned about the events of the day, and seeing a human being that he knew was comforting in and of itself, let alone the fact that this was a man of the cloth who may be able to offer some spiritual protection if they needed it. Slim was constantly surveilling his spatial surroundings for any indication of spiritual intervention. He knew he had not only witnessed, but had participated in a higher level of consciousness and spirituality than ever before. He was a Christian, but not of the mainstream kind. He relied on more than just the Gospel for his Christian needs, and most recently had embarked on a study of the Gospel of Thomas which was more Eastern in its philosophy and that agreed with him and his studies of Buddhism.
Rafe pushed Jenny back and looked into her brilliant green eyes. “You won’t believe what happened.” They both spoke the same words simultaneously and looked again at each other, somewhat embarrassed. “You go first,” they did it again. “No, you,” it happened again and this time Jenny remembered what Darjeeling had told her about his Theory of Glossosimultaneity. She knew if they continued from that point that they could be locked into Simul-Speak where they would continue to utter exactly the same words at the same time. Jenny quickly broke Rafe’s hold and his gaze which had become unblinking and glassy-eyed. She turned her back to him and began a series of thoughts that had nothing to do with where she was or what she was doing. She felt Rafe’s hand on her shoulder and quickly pulled it away as she walked back up the hill thinking of Mom’s Apple Pie and the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series in ’85. Finally the linguistic link broke and she felt the urge to speak recede. She would have to remain silent now for about ten minutes. This would probably be a problem with Rafe who was insistent on getting her attention and talking to her. She turned back around and looked at him as she pulled her thumb and index finger across her closed lips, making the gesture of turning a key in a lock when she had “zipped her lips” and showing Rafe the imaginary key as she faked putting it into her pocket, just like a little kid who played the same game. This game was serious. She couldn’t afford at this time to go into glossosimultaneity with Rafe, it was just too maddening and dangerous. Of course, Rafe thought she was still mad at him and didn’t understand. He turned around to head back to the truck where Slim and the preacher were having their own discussion without the interference of glossosimultaneity.
“Slim, I believe you, I believe you are telling the truth. Something happened to Jenny and me today, too, and I really can’t explain it in logical terms. There was a voice.”
Slim cut in, “Was it Star-Brinda?”
Jack looked astonished as Rafe joined them overhearing their conversation. “No, it was Star-Laren.”
“Who are these star people anyway?” Rafe asked.
“I believe that is just who they are, star people, people from a different part of the solar system or maybe even galaxy,” Jack looked at the two of them for confirmation.
“Yeah, I could go with that,” Slim said. He was rummaging around in the cooler for a cold beer. “We’ve got to get to town for some beer.”
“Can’t you think of anything but beer?”
“Oh, yeah, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to mention it in front of the reverend,” Slim slammed the cooler lid shut and twisted the cap off of the next-to-the-last bottle of beer. He had a serious look on his face as he took the first sip, dragging the beer down about one third of the way. He looked over the top of the bottle and saw that Jenny was just about to join them. “Hey, Jenny, what’s hapennin’?” Slim tipped the top of the bottle towards her in acknowledgement.
“Hey Slim, I don’t know for sure, maybe we are all going nuts.” Jenny joined the group, avoiding Rafe’s steady gaze. He was still under the influence it seemed and she didn’t want to have a relapse. She stuck her hands in the front pockets of her jeans. Just then, the four of them perceived a glowing object about chest high in the midst of them. Then the voice came to all of them at once. It was Star-Brinda and Slim grinned from ear to ear.
“The four of you will now take this manuscript and drive to Kansas City where you will meet two others on motorcycles, Nuke Dimmitis and Sunny Day. Your truck will guide you to where they are.”
“My truck don’t run since you interfered with us,” Rafe spoke out loud. They all heard a laugh even though there was no one around them. Just then the truck started up on its own, put itself in gear and drove off driverless over the hill. They stood there bewildered and watched as it reappeared and stopped right next to Slim. “Slim, you drive,” the voice told them.
“No problem, lady, any chance we can stop for beer?”
“Look in the cooler, Slim” Slim lifted the cooler lid and beamed. It was chock full of Mickey’s green bottles and at least two bags of ice.
“Say Star-Brinda, how’s about you and me going and you can send these other folks another car, like maybe fix the preacher’s car and send it on over to pick them up?”
“Don’t push your luck, Slim,” the voice said and the truck revved the engine. “You all need to be in Kansas City today.”
The four of them looked at each other. Then Rafe shrugged his shoulders. “Might just as well, we can’t dance and it’s too dry to fly.”
“Too windy to sort rocks,” Slim chimed in. They walked toward the truck and Slim jumped in behind the wheel. This irritated Rafe to no end. He walked around muttering to himself as the three others climbed in the cab. He took off his hat and slapped it on his coveralls, dust flying around him as he spoke:
“Posterity will n’er survey
A nobler grave than this
Here lies the bones of Castlereagh
So stop, traveler, and piss.” **
With that, Rafe unzipped his fly and pissed on the truck tire before he rezipped and jumped into the back of the truck. He was ok now, Lord Byron’s poetry always either calmed him down or revved him up and now he was calm.
“To Kansas City!” Rafe shouted and thrust his arm in the air toward the east where they would meet Nuke and Sunny. The Brown Chevy truck moved jerkily forward then stopped and died in the dust. They all looked at each other. Jenny turned to the preacher who had remained relatively calm and silent.
“Got any ideas, Jack?” She asked.
“Yes, behold the Four Horsemen,” It was Jack speaking but it was not his voice. In front of the truck stood four steeds of different colors: red, white, green and black. They snorted and stamped and lightning crackled all around them as they beckoned their riders. One by one, Jack, Rafe, Slim, and Jenny found themselves on the back of one of the horses. At once they were off, lifted from the surface and flying through the air toward the sun. Jack the Preacherman held tight to the glowing manuscript and wondered what it contained.
**
From: Lord Byron’s epigram to Castlereagh.
