Snakes and Ladders and the Destinies of Unborn Universes: Chapter 27
A Novel
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Chapter 27: Pole Position
Still rocking a red tank-top and looking for all the world like the buffest twink in Boystown, Evan stepped down from the flashy club-cube at the back of the pride float he’d been performing on. He had cycled through every dance move he knew and was now starting to feel a bit fagged out.
He leapt to the ground and marched with the other parade-goers through the red-rock canyon, the walls of which were unwrinkling in an eerie fashion and turning from a Lovecraftian rugosity to the comparative smoothness of sandstone.
The revelers’ sparklers were fizzling out and their jubilation had grown subdued as everyone emerged from the canyon onto the gorgeous Australian Outback.
It was a thistle-colored twilight. The flat expanse was carpeted with tawny grass and dotted with clumps of green scrub and purple mint-brush. Evan turned and saw that he had walked out of the Astral Plane’s interpretation of Ayers Rock, which was much more porous and hollow than the one on the planet Earth where the sun rose in the west.
He knew that he was still in that part of the Astral Plane called this Hilbert Space (a.k.a. The Red Zone), an infinite-dimensional continuum of geometric positions and directions that contained everything in the known universe, including (confusingly) the Astral Plane—which the same continuum was technically contained in. For this Hilbert Space was the cosmic dumping ground for every imaginable idea that could ever be thought up, as well as every unimaginable idea that could not.
Inside of Evan’s gut, the unborn universe (his spirit guide) was hard at work reprogramming his “good” bacteria, because there was something these wily organisms needed to do in order for Evan to fulfill his destiny. At least that’s what the inert singularity had told to him.
Meanwhile, the astral form of Niyati (whose name meant Destiny) had climbed up out of Evan’s diaphragm into his rib cage (where his meditating Purusha had been earlier in the dream). Niyati’s astral form was now fanning itself on a plush divan. Evan wasn’t sure whether astral forms were hes, shes, or its, which was why he had imagined hers fanning itself.
He was fairly confident that his own astral form was a hot-blooded he, since the horn-dog had been lusting after the curvy drag queen, L.A.—Come to think of it, Evan’s wasn’t even sure whether the astral form in his heart was Niyati or some epiphenomenonological illusion cooked up by the unborn universe. He decided to test the waters to see if it was really her.
“Are you still refusing to talk to me?” he asked aloud.
The people standing around Evan wondered if the Chosen One had suddenly gone mad.
“No,” Niyati replied. “I’m not refusing to talk to you. But there are constraints on what I am permitted to say.”
“I haven’t seen you in over a billion years,” Evan groused, “which I think is a shitty way to treat someone you love. Are you mad at me?”
“Of course not. I’m just bound to the rules of the game.”
“This is the longest game I’ve ever played in my life—or in any other version of my life that’s ever played out.”
“You’ve just used the word ‘play’ in two importantly distinct ways. Some mystics posit that every self-aware entity which exists—or has ever existed—is an unwilling participant in an elaborate cosmological game.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. This is your dream, not mine.”
“What about those self-aware entities that don’t exist, like the Jungian archetypes and unborn universes I keep encountering? Are they playing the game, or are they the ones running it?”
“Evan, you ask the weirdest questions. Do you hear that?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Astrud Gilberto singing ‘The Girl from Ipanema’.”
“My mom and dad like that song ’cause it’s old and stuff and was played at their wedding. They’ve got it on LP and dance to it in the living room sometimes.”
“That’s so romantic. I wish I were in front of you right now instead of in your rib cage. Then we, too, could dance the bossa nova. Please, Evan, for my sake, try to have fun. Mingle with the friends you’ve made.”
He looked around. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The crowd was made up predominantly of drag queens. The scent of Aquanet hung thick in an atmosphere crackling with catty insults and bitchy comebacks. Campfires sprang to life in the distance as trillions of vehicles (scuffed-up station wagons, military Humvees, beat-up Winnebagos) came rolling toward them, exhaust pipes expelling thick plumes of mauve and lavender balm.
He made his way through the crowd toward the music and entered a clearing in the center of which stood a pickup truck with its tailgate down. The music had come from a stereo system in the bed of the truck. A tailgate party was in full swing, but this was unlike any tailgate party Evan had ever been to. Instead of styrofoam coolers full of beer, a uniformed bartender wielded a cocktail shaker behind a Tiki bar. No hamburgers sizzled over a portable grill, but a celebrity chef stood at a stainless-steel table, garnishing plates of steak au poivre.
“Mmmm! the steak smells delicious,” Niyati remarked.
“Aren’t you a vegetarian?”
“Oh, I am!—It was that cheeky unborn universe ventriloquizing my voice. It’s finished whatever it was doing in your stomach and has wormed its way into your ribcage. It’s sitting next to me on the divan, laughing at its little prank.”
“Hands off, bud.”
“Evan, its motivations are not human.”
“Well it had a very human inclination to be a smart-ass just now.” He frowned. “I don’t know anyone at this party. Why are these drag queens tailgating?”
“They’re ‘gearing up’ for tomorrow’s event.”
“Why? What happens tomorrow?”
“The biggest drag race in the history of the universe.”
Not only were Levi and Marcus absent, but he couldn’t locate Madame Blavatsky or the “loud proud Hoosier” from Indiana. However, he did recognize the powder-blue aliens of the desert planet of Satcitananda, those sentient moments of Absolute Time now huddled together like wallflowers at a prom, trying to look inconspicuous by drinking ginger ale through flex-straws.
Someone in the crowd commented that the Emcee of the Astral Plane was expected to be the victrix in tomorrow’s race.
The Emcee’s float, which had been at the front of the parade, was now parked a few yards away and surrounded by an admiring crowd. Evan went to it, and saw that the float was a stage once more, and the Emcee of the Astral Plane was now in drag. Interwoven into her braids were an infinite quantity of unborn universes, winking off and on like Christmas tree lights.
Welders had raised the chassis as well as the cow catcher mounted to the front of it. Engineers at the rear of the vehicle were rigging up canisters of NAS to lend the float propulsion. Mechanics were underneath the vehicle, making adjustments to the undercarriage, which elicited crass jokes from a few queens, including comments about tucking and duct tape that were lost on Evan.
Gordon, still in the guise of the Scandinavian drag queen Iva Sofftøsh, was at the base of the stage, insulting the Emcee and boasting that it would be she who would take home tomorrow’s tiara.
“She thinks I’m listening to her,” the Emcee remarked. “But I can’t hear that which does not exist.”
The crowd laughed.
Gordon staggered away, clutching his chest, stung by the sally. It made Evan wonder if his old pal, whom he had not yet met in his waking life, was in fact real. He knew that one of the attributes of the Emcee of the Astral Plane was that he was incapable of hearing what Jungian archetypes—or entities without souls—said to him.
“Gordon is real,” Niyati reassured Evan. “They’re both just reading each other. It’s a kind of modern-day flyting.”
“What?”
“It’s part of the show. The Emcee would not have said ‘she thinks I’m listening to her’ unless she had heard Iva speak in the first place.”
Evan was reassured by this.
The orangutan shaman Prometheus, who had been sitting in the lotus position on the float, spread his wings and launched himself into the air. Evan lifted his eyes and saw a massive spacecraft stretched out across the sky, like a cigar—or like one of those coyly-jiggling phalluses his Comp. Lit. Professor had been overly fond of discovering in every elongated item an author happened to describe.
“What’s that spaceship doing up there?” Evan asked.
“It’s a gay dance club of infinite magnitude. That’s where Levi and Marcus are at the moment. Tomorrow’s event will be televised from its broadcast booth.”
“Oh,” Evan said. He no longer bothered to ask how it was that his eyes could observe objects in the Red Zone that were supposedly of infinite magnitude, but whose surface areas and edges were mathematically delimited.
Leaning against the wall of Ayers Rock, the leather daddy who had been monitoring the Man-Cub’s every move felt his dimpled cheeks twitching. The face tattoos of Dhabu’ Abd al-Manat usually formed a veil of light that hovered inches from the wizard’s face, reflecting his volatile moods through a shifting palette of colors (most of which were invisible to the human eye). But in order to disguise himself for this special mission, Dhabu’ had buried his magical tattoos beneath a pancake foundation of equally magical concealing cream.
Without warning, the ink broke from its epicutaneous restraints and swirled in an Archimedean spiral before his eyes. In the center of the spiral a state-of-the-art liquid-crystal display screen manifested itself.
The Three Magi stood before him in the topmost tower of their stellar observatory overlooking the infinite city of Samarkand in a remote corner of the Astral Plane hundreds of millions of light years away.
“Why have you disturbed me?” Dhabu’ asked.
Melchior bowed and unctuously lifted his palms. “My Lord, we have made a discovery of cosmic significance.”
“Go on.”
Caspar stepped to the screen with an ancient tome in hand and addressed the wizard in a thick Brummie dialect. “So I find soomfink in this book, which saiys, so long as the Man-Coop’s in this Hibberd Spice (ay-kay-ay the Red Zoon), he cain’t be copped propply. But, the royt o’ SAIN-chu-wairy is oo-ny APP-i-cable so long as he staiys in the Red Zoon, which is TECH-ni-kly oo-ny an ofah-leppin’ paht of this Hibberd Spice.”
“Which means. . .” Balthazar said, pushing Caspar aside, “that, so long as the Man-Cub is in this Hilbert Space (also known as the Red Zone), he cannot be attacked. But the rite of sanctuary applies only to the Red Zone, which is technically only an overlapping portion of this Hilbert Space.”
“I see,” the wizard replied.
“’Swat I fookin’ said,” Caspar sulked.
“We have scanned the night sky,” Melchior explained. “Venus is in the Twelfth House. Mars is aligned with Jupiter—”
“And Harrods is havin’ a sale!” Caspar interrupted.
Balthazar stepped in front of Caspar. “We have inferred from these portents, that, during tomorrow’s race, the Chosen One shall exit that part of this Hilbert Space known as the Red Zone, the border of which lies at the Astral Plane’s gas station, which, according to our calculations is currently situated 40 miles west of Route 66 deep in the Australian Outback.”
“I must alert Manat to this development. Stand by and await my orders.”
With a wave of his hand the screen went black. He attempted to contact the demon goddess of Fate via a dial-up modem. But because it was 1994, he only had a 14.4 kbps connection. “C’mon, c’mon,” he growled, as he listened to the hiss of static punctuated by absurdly jaunty boings. At last, a dithered and airbrushed photograph of an older version of Manat, index finger on lower lip, filled the screen.
“My Queen—”
“I already know!” Manat replied.
The wizard was oblivious to the fact that he was only a psychic extension of Manat, who had created him in her loneliness but dared not give him independent thoughts or a will of his own.
Dhabu’ blinked in perplexity. His voice faltered. “What are your orders, my Queen?”
“Once the Man-Cub leaves the Red Zone, kill him.”
Evan was walking behind Gordon, who no longer seemed upset by the Emcee’s insulting behavior. He was now amiably sauntering toward a cream-colored RV and passed by a quorum of drag queens playing cribbage at a picnic table.
“Hey, girls!”
“Hey, Iva!” they replied, all four smoking Virginia Slims.
The side door of the RV swung open and Evan’s sister Julie stepped out. At that instant, a cock crew, the sun rose, the sky was blue, and Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood” filled the Astral Plane.
“Julie! What are you doing here?”
“I’m Gordon’s driver.”
“Iva’s driver!” Gordon shouted.
Julie side-eyed Ayers Rock.
The auburn-bearded drag queen had climbed up the RV’s roof and was preparing her voluminous cape so that it would billow majestically behind her as the vehicle sped through the desert.
Evan scratched his chin. “I think I’m supposed to ride with you guys.”
“Only two people are allowed per vehicle,” Julie explained.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do then?”
Julie pointed to a drag queen near the Emcee’s float who was holding a clipboard.
“Looks like he’s in charge.”
—“SHE’s in charge!” Iva exclaimed.
Julie went back into the RV and slammed the door.
Iva would not so much as acknowledge Evan’s presence.
The sound of revving engines rippled through the desert. Evan sensed that he had better hurry, so he jogged over to the drag queen whom Julie had indicated.
She wore a pair of tacky butterfly sunglasses, as well as a plastic butterfly pinned to her coral-pink wig, which periodically came to life and flapped its silken wings.
“Can I help you, hon?” the queen asked without looking up from her clipboard.
“My name’s Evan. I’m supposed to be in this race.”
“Evan, Evan, Evan. . . Hmm. I don’t see you on the list.”
“Oh my God. Just check it again.”
She cocked her head and looked at the clipboard. “I just checked it again. And you’re still not on it. . . Biff.”
“You’re being a jerk.”
The queen removed her glasses and looked at Evan. “Listen. This is a drag race. That means there has to be a queen in the car.”
“He’s riding with me,” L.A. said, approaching them. She threw Evan an appraising look. “Can you manipulate a stick?”
The queen with the clipboard snorted. “You so nasty, L.A.”
“Can I ever!” Evan exclaimed, oblivious to the double entendre. He recalled the haunted house ride, where he had learned to drive a clutch within seconds.
The officious drag queen put a check mark next to L.A.’s name. “Well, well, L.A. Looks like you’re the pole sitter.”
“Now who’s being nasty?”
Evan looked irritably left and right. “Where’s our car?”
L.A. pointed behind Evan’s shoulder.
He turned and saw an up-armored jeep, machine gun ports on both sides. Atop the jeep was a laser cannon on a swivel mount. The muzzle extended over the hood.
Evan’s eyes narrowed. “YUSSS.”
Dhabu’ Abd al-Manat had reappeared on the Magi’s screen.
“Ready Stage 1,” he ordered.
“What’s Stage 1?” Melchior asked.
Balthazar shrugged.
“Found it!” Caspar exclaimed.
The two Magi joined their colleague at a brass-plated console, which had a row of red buttons labeled Stage 1, 2, and 3.
Balthazar and Melchior looked uneasily at each other.
Caspar pressed the “Stage 1” button without so much as blinking an eye.
The interior of the observatory transformed into an operations center. Outside, the infinite city of Samarkand vanished; and in its place appeared the stainless steel surface of the gay dance club of infinite magnitude. The Magi were now commanding the bridge of the ship. Trillions of robotic probes and cameras, all under the wise men’s control, flew through the clouds and locked their sensors onto the Chosen One’s location. The race was about to commence.
Evan opened the door of the jeep and climbed into the driver’s seat. The red tank-top he had been wearing was now a camouflage shirt whose sleeves had been painstakingly torn at the edges to make them look as if his swollen biceps had shredded them naturally. On his right cheek was an artificial scar made of latex. A tattoo ran up his left arm. Hair mousse had been artfully applied to his mop to lend him a sexy disheveled look.
L.A. took her seat on the passenger side, pulling the door shut with difficulty.
“Oof. That door is heavy.” She looked at Evan. He was sweating. His face was flushed and his nostrils were flaring. “Are you OK?”
“This is the first time since my dream began that I’ve been given a weapon. And now I have not just one, but, like, lots of them!” He licked his lips and stared at the lethal switches on the dashboard. “I think my sleeping body just popped mahogany.”
“Goodness,” L.A. remarked, looking away. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that, since they were in the Red Zone, violence was not permitted, so the only ammunition these weapons would fire were rainbows and fairy dust.
Evan tilted his head until his neck cracked. Then he gripped the steering wheel and contemplated the mirages on the horizon. “This drag race is gonna be fabulous.”
Previous Chapter | Continued to Chapter 28