My finger catches on a nail that protrudes thru the side of this... conveyance? Ship, carriage, regatta, vehicle, litter. How much of the original Argo was left in this machine of steel anyway? Supposedly it was powered by horses. Are they using their teeth? Is it the strength of their necks? If then, why not a giraffe? I never though of putting horses to the ore, but I myself had entertained stranger ideas. I can hear Hercules talking on and on and on about something as I stop active listening to him, rubbing the spot of blood on my finger. It wells up to a crimson droplet refracting in the brilliance of the street lamps glistening in an endless well of darkness, as we drive along the ribbon of highway in the clouds.
This vessel had once been the Argo. Or perhaps still the Argo... since now it is back together again. Here we find the paradox of the ship of Theseus. After the fall of Rome, it was split up into a Regatta to defend the last stand of the Grecian States and turned into four oars of boats. One had inevitably sunk, a second set afire to blind the enemies, and the others took on a lives of their own. Like most things of that time, the urge to use and make thrift of all things was prevalent. Especially the lead pipes that fed the city to it's stupor of Pax Romana: The Bread and Circuses for all in a lead-induced malaise.
Prow became a Clipper ship transporting treasures and spoils of war. Slowly the war spoils turned into captured slaves and human chattel. The thing about great ships is they remember being great. So it turned over a new life into improvised weapons to free its cargo. Then a barrel stock for a line of great cannons for the battle of Kingston. There were still battles left to be won, it seemed. So it gained wheels and blazed across the expansive uncharted west carrying adventurers, settlers, and vagabonds alike.
Soon technology broke thru and the carriage spurred on, to drive on iron wheels steeling down a metal path to lands claimed by four nations at once. It relinquished itself to an army becoming the butt stocks of 100 rifles. Then as most things are consolidated and reused, peace came. And it, as great shipping crate, brought a new repeating rifle to win wars. The industrial revolution modified the passions of man weapons to be bought from the Sears Roebuck Catalog for 9.95 (plus shipping).
A new front line was drawn, this one between lines of living and death as plague swept thru the lands. It was the only thing that could save some as she took to wheels again, but this time made out of the new vulcanized rubber. A lone light held aloft. Argo became ambulance. Sadly, man grows greedy in times of peace, leading to new and more inventive, clandestine ways of killing each other. Argos new name Arubot. The Red Baron once used to carry the honor of the skies, while now he sells pizzas. An Italian invention, but sold by Germans. It was sad but efficient.
The ground was no place for Argo as she took to the new blue in the skies. Finally she was able to cut thru the air, forming a new sort of battle. In a wild dance she had long ago played only in water, now pirouette flawlessly in a new endless sea of azure blue. Cadillac rolled off of the line in the next post war world promising adventure and danger at every turn. Peace was never satisfactory a large enough engine. A firm riveted iron clad hull transporting Lords and Kings across the state known as Texas. It was here that The Shot rang out, and the common denominator came for one of the best of men. Gods and Kings stood still that day as I stood on the grassy knoll. The flavor of the day was Mint Chocolate Chip, a flavor foreign to my tongue. Her dress covered in the thoughts that once dotted the page and much like one of my brothers, of unsound mind and looser morels; his echoes found their way to every chamber of the district of Colombia.
“Where do you put the sails on this thing?” I ask him out loud. The cabin is roomy and the ship stretches back behind us for about 50 cubits. It was a fair bit of trickery with light and fire . Mirrors were able to see true in all reflections, showing me the very end of the boat.
He pulls to a stop right before the on ramp, “Have you been listening to anything I have been saying?” His visage furrows, highlighting the scars near his eyes he acquired from the hydra battle in his younger years. One of the many bastards to be slain to tie up loose ends for the Lord of Skies.
“Oh no Child of Lightning. I am just musing to myself, I could not expect you to understand the subtleties of a philosopher.” He still wore the costume of authority that had been bestowed upon him from his station. 'Security' it read in gold stitchery and more pockets than what I had thought necessary for any man, or not enough. The advent of pants over the tunic had always confused me. Putting a lord in pants made his legs pigeon-like in appearance, open to wounding strikes, besides also suffocating the legs.
I clear my throat after licking up the droplet of red, realizing he was blathering on about nonsense the whole time I was in thought. "You have always been closer to mortals than gods. I can understand your trappings and attachments to them. I just don't think that humanity is ready for the concept of the gods existing in spite of their non worship. Humanity makes a good job of ripping themselves apart every election cycle I don't know what they would do if they knew.” Those actors were a sad strange pantheon for the new age. I myself can't keep up with the Taylor Swift lore alone.
Seasonally, when their Gladiators fought and some won and others failed, they destroyed their cities in equal pieces. Chicago was fraught in it's many contradictions: being on one hand metropolitan but the most divided and red lined a city as I had ever seen it. In destruction they found joy and power. Celebration and destruction hand in hand with discordance. It was home.
“You would have been forbidden from running if any kind of this public lobbying happened under their direction in Rome.” The thought of using money to stray or sway the means of humanity was a deplorable action, but it seemed to be a rich mans sport here. It had been evident with such regularity that to be seen without a lobbying purse of a titans weight, to be freely doled every four years now seemed an irregularity. But it could make Midas blush.
Hercules pulls into the stream of traffic. Still the thought plagues me, where in the world he has put the horses and how many oars actually are in this vessel. In my own day I remember the Argo being lousy with barnacles and sea louse. Every hole plugged with fat wads of tar soaked wool and it still leaked faster than the bilge pony treadmill could keep up with the flow. Barnacle anatomy was something that racked my mind, too It kept me up late nights in a cold sweat questioning my existence.
“Man... All I'm saying, My Liege, is that we need to be seen more and do more for our communities. It's a progressive time now they don't go huntin' gods. The christian church is more of an Ill-used cult that humanity has become disillusioned with. It's an archaic institution with gallows deals preying on the poorer elements of humanity. You and the gods need to flex your abilities. Make them see the way; make them worship you . Demand your just tributes.” He prattled on.
I could feel a stirring in my robes as familiar whiskers brush the side of my cheek. I already know the answer as it had been lived thru over and over again. I calmly put my hand into the extra dimensional space of my mind and pull out Euridicine. Many of my followers had come with me and though I could never give them immortality, as ambrosia was quick to go sour. I had my own machinations.
She speaks softly as I translate, “Gods are meant to mind gods affairs. Humans have their own rulings and running on. We all know how well things went when fire was given to man and the presence of the gods were made known. We stretched ourselves out far and wide. We demanded thrones. Stations above all ignoring everything except for the thrill of the flesh. You, more over than anyone; would know what happens when a god ignores their duty.” I think It would have been better to give mortals two sticks and let them figure out the rest but they would have stabbed out their own eyes.
“Euridicine you make a flat and valid truth. I did kill my sibling for less.” The nail had caught on the fur of my robe as Hercules went on with his solid droning. There were mirrors and glass on the Argo now. “When did the Argo get glass windows?” The streets and lampposts ran in the silent dark. Beasts of the night taking to the street in great numbers now consuming the roads in their death machines.
“Rat King, listen. Artemis has her own twitch stream and she connects with worshipers. They pay her tithing. She patrons them and ceremoniously takes their lives in metaphor. There they are worshiping her out in the open in front of lesser gods. She is the one god that did not waver. She has the ability to bring the entire Pantheon into the common age.”
He began to stutter over simple words as I ran my finger over the cheek of my friend, tucking her softly into my pocket. She was in fact invaluable as an aid in this moment. I just wished I had been able to find Arache before the accident. I had enough of his madness of men. My fingers grazed over a glint of silver drawing out my own ambrosia. The flask opened with a twist. Spices of the orient and only the most fine spirit of Malort.
“Constintanious Dukhas, This is a serious matter. Gods out there are taking advantage of humanity and need to take on the rightful mantle of a ruling class of beings. Old gods still hold their self in high esteem and as one of the first bourn of the second generation of sons. I say you need to rein in the new gods. Place them on their thrones and restore order to the pantheon. It is your title and your duty. I will not tolerate no for an answer.”
The pause was long as Argo hurtled into the night thru the sleeping city under Nyx's endless slumber. The city slept the roads and thoroughfares opened up before us under an urban sprawl of long unyielding inken darkness. Iron buildings had long replaced marble and clay. The great equalizer was never made by Smith and Weston. It was forged deep in the earth and made of the alloy of steel.
“So does Jason know what you did to the Argo?” I asked wondering how the block and tackle or some kind of gear with differentials worked to make the Argo the Argo. And how many pieces had been replaced, was it still the Argo? Did it need a harbor permit? Could it still withstand ocean voyage to the African continent? What was that the smell falafel? No. Some kind of cheese. My mind trailed around the edges finding the ends of flea bitten thoughts and temporal rivers that ran in to oblivion. “Oh Popeye's has a sale this weekend did you want to?” I was cut off as Hercules brought the carriage boat to an abrupt stop.
“Get out.”
“No I mean really it's a buy one get one sale and you know that they make those biscuits and I can't abide by new world grain so I'm sure if we bought some for the noble steeds that pull this conveyance we can make them work at twice their rowing speed.” I grinned widely pulling the script tome from my robes infinite space the advertisements of the Tribune, heralding a sales in a missive I found while passing park benches.
“Get out of my car. I don't want to see you.” He said sullenly the locks somehow opening on the door that only made me puzzle anew. This was probably the reason why you didn't see any highwaymen. If the carriages locked, that means with it's shell it was impenetrable. Like a turtle. I owe Da Vinci a few Denarius coins.
I acquiesced. stepping to one side of the thoroughfare. Hercules always had himself a temper, “You know your sounding like your Uncle Aires. Didn't Artemis change her name to Diana in the fifth century I mean dead naming her is absolutely Gauche .You don't see people calling me Rasputin anymore.”
“Mark my words Godson. You meddle in the ways of this, it will drive you to your own end like your father. He died by human diseases. You don't want to end up like..” He gave me no time to finish as he accelerated off into the darkness. Those horses worked so hard.
I shrugged to myself , “He shouldn't kill the messenger. Isn't that right Euridicine?” I asked softly petting the pale fur of her head. It has to be hard to be a rat. An endless life in a kingdom of follies to serve a god? There was merit in that. A sacred duty. Like fried chicken and the speed of a horse.
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Archer Avenue was not a horrible kingdom to be left marooned into the ocean. He probably never told Jason about what he's done to his boat. What happened to Jason and the rest of the Argonauts? Everything gets muddled around the fire. Bodies and parties and parties with bodies. Rome despite all of it's gorgeous marbles did burn so brightly. You would think that it was semi coordinated.
“The fire could be seen all the way to Constantinople. “ I took a noble draft from my flask the water of life flowing within. “Heeeeerrrmese. Your stars are slinking below the horizon. Persephone is going to see, that's no good.. .. good... good riddance. A pittance, a penny, and a lie. Soon we will all be next in line to die. Hermes you were the only god I would have died for. Not like this riffraff. Delinquents chasing their tails grasping at fractions of straw while looking to spin gold from borrowed grain.
You can't walk three feet without finding a brat that can make a zot across ...wool socks and the whisper of copper blood and iron blooded men. These drinks are all for nothing, and for you, you ...You...” I held the flask aloft dumping the entire flagon on to the street corner.
“Here's to you, Hermes, to me, and here's, to friends we shall ever and will always be. But if by chance we disagree? Fuck you, here's to me.” I shook the last drops from the silver, capped it then raised it back to my lips for a second cheer.
It was hard to mourn Hermes. He was a compatriot. One of the few gods that after the crumbling of Olympus I would ever converse niceties into my offal brain. Greatest friend and greatest weakness. He did not deserve the death that was offered up to him. I was a weaker man and still believed in formalities and respect. He had left me with a magic to always get home. Now was any a good time as ever. The Orient may be an excellent place but the damned pigeons are spying on me …. again.
“Homeless unwanted scourge pigeons. You were once loved now the down trodden wastes of man bring you life from the gutter. See how your gods have abandoned your rainbow feathers to make your homes in stone rookeries and holes.” The pigeons scattered, looming with their all seeing eyes from the orange light of the lanterns on high.
The stage was finally clear enough to make the spell, I rounded the avenue three times disregarding the ominous red eyes that police the corner under the pretense of order. Stop signs, they called them. Exercises in futility at best. Then do the opposite of the road signs that beckon and sway. There you will find a great steel road take the last carriage. The glow of the train mimicking the high pressure sodium lights. There once was a time when Orange stood... for a cause now it's all carrots and fruit. Take a rest as long as it takes to count all of the stars. Then you pick up an Obal, looking up to it's visage with the one eye that leads, and you're home.
I pulled the half dollar from my eye and the smell of the sacred chambers of Parnassus scorched my nose as the speeding death chariots raced around the darkened bend. It was sparse and few at this hour. The city slowly rolling back into the bottle of it's stupor for another night. It was the ways of highway men and bandits to bother with such places: my beloved Wacker Avenue, but here was the secret places I kept my family and kin.
Musing over the degrading pavement my vestments billowed in the wind as I came to the steps of my Parnassus. I had found that in all of my travelings and musings not many had been able to catch up on the night or the thoughts of thinking, the mechanics of a fine sentient gray paste kept between the airs of most men, it had all gone to fat and not a muscle to waver on.
Here the city was different. It pissed equally on all some called it rain others took pride in consuming by the cask and demanding for more, the bloodied heathens. Here is where Heroes sleep under the cover of the reader peddling Street Wise. It was never lost on to myself that every monster was once young and new, liken in hand the heroic strength in the face of tragedy. Yet another reason to both love and hate the hell forsaken gods. That were powerless to man's choices.
Out of the harsh shine of lights, wrapped up in her blankets of cardboard, Sybil reads law books occupying her niche. I give her a warm tuna fish sandwich. She has been forsaken by her law men over the murder of her family. One day the Drakes' lights will go out. On that day she will find her murderer in a business suit hands bloodied, walking out of a private restroom. She will be there. This time the stewardess will live, Justice will come swiftly. The taste of hot tuna fish sandwiches will be the reward she will turn to, and I will accept the worship.
Gault shakes in his sleep. The war is over. He lost to policy of indecisiveness like Nero to the sea. I pull a bag of dog food from my vestments resting them against his spartan issued bag. The same bag that they marched him off base with after he was found to be the effective tool that they made him to be. Unfortunately he took their knowledge to use against them. He will find his way. The ball of brown fur wrapped under the felted blanket stirs, extending it's neck over his.
The doe-eyed dog looks up with a yawn as I place my finger to my lips. Dogs know. It's in the blood of the wolves that made a pact with men. The deal to hide their teeth and open their hearts. They are better in the judgment of men than any Lord. Politics would be different if dogs could eulogize. The two of them will destroy empires. If only they could unionize the shrewdness of cats there would be a new world to awaken to.
“Hey you feta cheese faced Macedonian! Tell me the puzzle of Airelas or I will knock the bloodied crown from your head! You damp marsupial leaving! King of Guano!”
The shouts came from a man that was more rust and dirt than he was flesh. Airin the Cynic. He dropped his trow' and flapped his pride like the gunge lord he idolized. He lived in a cabin of ply wood he had made between the iron oxide rungs of the overpass as he grinned his bald gumed leer.
Airin was prone to violence. It was not his fault. His generation marched for equality at any cost. Then once the sword of words was near ready to be cast aside, came a pause, while they cut off as many of their dreamers that could have benefited from their work. Progressively cutting and cutting bring on their own crippling demise after the rise of the next furious generation.
I pulled out a tabard dyed in a melancholy dusty tint of green and pink. His clouded eye flashed over with thoughts of a nostalgic past. The circle rune used to have meaning: something that he had once fought for. But then they cast him aside like a single use Dixie cup. He settled and calmed upon looking to the sigil surrounded as was tradition by dancing bears. The song of the Bard Grahm Nash dragged many frustrated disenfranchised men out of their homes to fight for change. Airin was part of this generation.
“We wore black.“ Tears welled in his eyes as he snatched the bit of cloth away “Hanrahan Fired Ninety shots into the apartment that day.” His shoulders heave as his breathing catches in sobs. I would hold him, but that's how the bright beautiful sun stabbed me twenty-seven times and threw me in the canal. Twice.
I leave him with his mesmerizing memories and visions of technicolor bears, Dyed by the hands of bare-foot women, in the Summer of Sweeter Times. Times when his brothers were all alive and fighting for a cause. When gangs were heroic in the face of government suppression enforced by the black and white chariots, and brave panthers openly walked the streets of Chicago.
Kariann looked up as they packed their rucksack “Every cynic is an idealist that got their teeth knocked in too many times for their cause.” They said wrapping their feet in woolen socks. Kari never stayed often owning the ground under their feet never the same the same way twice. They reminded me of a sibling that was never there in the heat of adversity and violence of childhood.
“George Burns?” I ask passing her the few cassettes that I had found in the great abandoned scrap heap of the Dan Ryan.
Their sunshine face beamed up, freckled and sun spotted a red-haired child blessed by Apollo to never know the harshness of cold. “Carlin.” They whispered eagerly accepting the bricks of plastic taking out hard day-old bread that they had retrieved in their travels. “The kings pumpernickel. Now if you excuse me... I'm going to follow the setting sun to a place of warm sand .. Care to come with?” They tilted their head ribbons and curls in a tangled beautiful mess just as deep as their heart.
“And abandon my kingdom” I asked with a mouthful of their offered bread that was brown, so it was obviously a greater quality. “I have Armies to inspect in the morning. We're past equinox. The moon cakes go on sale in the Orient.... if you can't find them sooner....” I trailed my voice getting lost in the thought of what it was that was most prized to that crooked baker. Thumbs no, sports ball brokers, and that venom of puff adders and soju? I have a fist full of glass marbles around here somewhere.
Kari was helped up by the sea captain Levi, Lord of the North Shore. His thick woolens and back pack filled with his aquanaut equipment to plunder the booty of the harbor's riches. Soon the fat cats playing in their high towers will forget all about their sea vessels, as they sink below an angry lake, but not before being expertly looted. Levi, as the brave Captain, will plunder their riches soon taking back his high heels and crown, as the spotlight will shine down on his stage as Patty O'Furniture. Only to spend every cent of it all, and come back under my wing, when comes the long hard winter. To be a drag queen scuba diver was a nice hobby, but it was Levi.
Iman buttons his business suit. He emerges resplendent from his skein canvased tent. “Mark my words King and listen well to that of The World Traveler; Change and a great disaster is coming.” It was not often that Iman was one to feed the bellies of the heroes and give portent. Then again, he had owned the world twice, and he was destined to chase fortune in the buildings of steel for the rest of his life.
“Men and gold mean fairly little to me, Kalos Kathogos . I keep my riches where they may.” Marie stirred from my coat as she ran her fingers across my cheek reminding me that even a god needed to rest. Her spindly fingers emerged from my cloak, resting her chin on my shoulder her mask brushing my ear.
To anyone else she would be another rat but in the shadows and stillness of my home she spoke up, “Dukkas? It's time for rest. Lets play cards. Your heroes have to fight their own battles. We can bet the stars in the sky and the names of galaxies yet to be discovered.” No one would know her to look at her. She would just look like yet another of my many pets.
“Anyways.... it's not my place to meddle. Pushing my finger on the scale one way or the other won't end in any more fruit for the long run. It is not as if I was called by name or needed to change anything. Times comes, and they go. Airin is proof of that. Now if you will excuse me. The walk back to the castle is a long way yet and I don't want to see that fatuous meter maid. 'Karens' I believe they call them.”
They wave me away talking among themselves in hushed tones as they made their way to the bakeries late at night starting their first batches of bred for the morning. They were all pretty good on their own. Together they could quite possibly change the world, but if they could only agree on a way to actually follow thru. Damn cats and their stupid indecisiveness.
The rest of my walk was uneventful. Unlocking with my key those tunnels under the water front arcade near the Wacker Mall. A discarded ornamental potted ficus tree long ago died here in the cold sad tunnels alone. It's wooden skeletal remains shivering in the wind. I shake my head staring back over the river. Boats will soon leave all of the water. Then will come the ice, and worse to come: the horrors of winter.
Then turning and looking out to the sky lighting up golden with a spray of light in the darkness washed across the moon. Turning back I finally see it. The omen as I fall to the ground cackling. The tree, the dead ficus, was growing a large round golden apple.