5
From: The Big O
To: James
Leave the bus when you wake. Travel to 4801 TBD Ave (Boston obv.). If you’ve done this correctly, you should be standing in front of Baulhayr’s Men’s Fashons, minded by one Ada Baulhayr. Ms. Ada will probably offer you a fine pair of trousers to try on. Do not oblidge. Such an action will identify you as not legit. This goes for Barney and Mars as well. DO accept her offer of socks. It’s an embarrassment that you’re without a reliable pair. Reflects badly on me. Then present the tin of losenges and offer to share. Everyone must partake in a losenge, incl. Messrs. Mars and Barney. It’s something of a stupid tradition w/ Baulhayr. If all is well, she will present a passage. Take the passage.
You have a solid quality to you, but your mind could use sharpening. Do everything Bro. Graisse tells you. Learn as much as you can as fast as you can. Your task will be fulfilled through an exam from Graisse. You’ll also need to keep rounding out your Combo. Work it out with Graisse.
NB: Whip’s apparently taken an interest in you, meaning he could show up to cause trouble. Jinn are the sneakiest race out there and Whip is the sneakiest of the jinn. So you’ve got like an exponential multiplier of mischief at play. Trust him only as much as you have to, not a fly’s dick more.
Yours in Mentorship,
Oz
Oz had taken over driving the last few hours, leaving Jim, Barney, and a still-spurned Mars to sleep. They’d awoken in an empty parking lot in a seedy part of Boston.
“Lozenge is with a z, isn’t it?” Barney asked, peering over Jim’s shoulder at the typo-heavy note taped to a round tin of Doctor Quack’s Cauliflower Brandy Lozenges.
“Looks like he also missed oblige. I don’t think it has a ‘d,’ and fashions has an ‘i’ in it. Somehow, he got confectionary right though. I’m guessing Baulhayr has got to be a mistake,” Jim said, sharing a laugh with a blushing Barney as they began their walk to TBD Avenue.
Mars froze mid-step and stuck his nose in the air. Hot on the trail of something, he trotted to the next intersection.
Jim and Barney rounded the corner to find Mars staring down—but keeping his distance from—a homeless man. A soft growl vibrated in the dog’s throat.
“Mars, c’mon.” Jim frowned. “Sorry, man.”
“It seems I underestimated your dog and overestimated you,” the man said, pulling down jet-black sunglasses to reveal glittering emerald eyes.
“Oh no,” Barney moaned. With no capacity for rudeness, he quickly added. “Hi, Whip.”
Whip stood and grinned impossibly wide, his bleached teeth a sharp contrast from the grimy face that surrounded them. The expression gave Jim an uneasy feeling. Whip bowed low then brushed aside the shaggy and matted hair that spilled over his face. Hints of intricate tattoos snaking up his neck and arms peeked out from under the heap of ratty clothes he wore. “Here we are in Boston,” he said. “Your lunkhead Mentor wouldn’t tell me where you were headed, even after I gave up the lizard bitch. Fortunately the JRN was buzzing about Nero’s play, which I think was a great move by the way.” The jinn beamed his megawatt smile.
“I was gonna say thank you for that, for getting Oz. Thank you, Whip.”
“Ah, I wish I could’ve been there, you know? Bet Nero just about shit his track suit when that big snake of his slithered through the door. Max did some great reporting even if he is a boob. He’s a reporter for JRN, little spider jinn.”
“Yeah, I met him. And the snake came through the ceiling, actually.”
“Oh oh oh!” Whip danced giddily in his tattered loafers for some time before settling down to catch his breath. “Hiya, matey.” Whip tapped Barney’s peg leg. He pulled open his trenchcoat to reveal a bright blue lining inside and held it out like a bullfighter’s cape.
Barney’s eye twitched a bit, but he kept his composure.
Disappointed, Whip turned his attention back to Jim. “Alright. I don’t want to get too involved just yet, but you kids are gonna be dynamite, that’s obvious already! Where ya headed?”
“Baulhayr’s,” Barney blurted out before Jim could stop him, Oz’s typo-spotted warning still ringing in his head. Then again, he could use all the friends he could get, and his Mentor did have an admitted bias against the jinn . . .
“Baulhayr, huh?” Whip interrupted Jim’s thought process. “Hey, wait a minute. That’s where those ugly priests live, right? Some big hole in the ground? Yeah, that’s interesting I guess. Well, whenever they let you out to play come look me up at my place.” Whip swung a lazy kick at Mars, who jumped nimbly aside.
“Your place?” Jim asked.
“Bought a bar. In the garment district. I sorta haunted the joint until the guy sold for peanuts. Think I’ll rebrand. It’s bad luck to name your own place so . . .”
“Bar Mars,” Jim said, trying to score some points with his Companion.
“Isn’t that a candy bar? Ah whatever, fine. You’re famous, mutt!” Whip kicked at Mars again. This time the dog gave his foot a quick bite. “Ah shit!” the jinn hopped gingerly on one leg.
The brake squeal and metal crunch of a car accident echoed from a block away.
“Cool!” Whip said. He took off across the adjacent lot and vaulted over a chain-link fence. As he dropped over to the other side, the greasy purple scarf around his neck caught on the fence and he let out a garbled shout of strangulation.
Mars smiled.
“We should probably help him, right?” Barney asked. Brief hesitance to act was the strongest condemnation one could get from Barney.
Whip tensed all of his limbs outward in a starfish formation. His rags held their human shape for a comic second before falling to the ground, expelling little plumes of smoke. Moments later, a bumblebee muscled its way out of a coat sleeve and corkscrewed off into the midday sky, eager to see some carnage.
* * *
Ada Baulhayr hadn’t been embarrassed for thirty-six years and hadn’t been tricked in over fifty. The last time she changed her mind about something was the same day Hawaii became a state. The decade previous had been the last to see her shed a tear over a man (or woman if certain accusations were to be believed). She’d never entertained any levity about her family name and ten times out of ten would introduce herself as “Ada Baulhayr, at your service—type-A personality, type two diabetes, let’s see if we can’t get you into a new pair of trousers” without pausing for a breath in between.
Suffice to say she was a woman confident in her habits and actions.
When two men and a dog came through the door, she decided not to turn them out as would have been in line with the store policy posted on the window:
Rule #8: Animals of any and all kind are expressly forbidden. Seeing-eye dogs and the like are not exempt as this store operates with the finest of material that demands to be appreciated by the wearer through all senses (withholding taste in the gustatory sense). If the disabled intend to purchase clothing as a gift, their guide can take five outside, as Mama Ada is more than happy to show them around.
Cryptofauna folk, as Ada liked to call them, came in from time to time and were almost always instantly recognizable as indefinably extraordinary even at the briefest of first glances.
Strong shafts of dusty sunlight poured through huge front windows painted with old timey type that spelled out 'Baulhayr’s Men’s Fashions’ in black and gold. The haberdashery was a good deal nicer than its derelict surroundings, featuring impeccably swept floors of polished Black Cherry lumber that glowed in the light of several oil-burning lamps. But it was the wares that made Baulhayr’s unique. V-neck turtlenecks, sweater vest rompers, individually-toed dress shoes, tank top tuxedos, mesh Chesterfields, nickel-slotted penny loafers, flood pants, drought pants, pornographic cufflinks, bifurcated neck ties, and a hundred more pieces of clothing done in the categorically worst possible combinations of colors and styles. Jim gazed in wonder at the eye-watering clash that surrounded them, feeling sympathy for the featureless mannequins forced to don the stuff.
“. . . a new pair of trousers,” Ada finished shaking hands and paw. Jim was immediately reminded of Nurse Gail: no-nonsense while simultaneously nurturing. Words were dispensed curtly but not without sincerity. The stout body-type invited further comparison.
Barney had opened his mouth to accept the offer of pants when Jim interrupted. “We brought Doctor Quack’s Cauliflower Brandy Lozenges,” he blurted.
“Oh?” The plump woman turned her considerable attention to Jim. Her still-soft gray hair sat in a tight bun atop her head, crowned with a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses. A bejeweled chain ran around her neck, descending helplessly into the ample bosom below, which, much like the hair, appeared surprisingly resilient to the negative effects of aging.
As Ada’s powerful gaze settled on him, Jim’s mouth dried just a little. He presented the tin of hard candies, a stethoscope-wearing mallard, mid-wink, printed on the lid.
“You boys could do with some nicer socks I think.” She studied Barney and Jim’s ankle regions, rapping a knuckle on the peg leg. “Guess we’ll be doing pair and a half. I’ll have ‘em ready when you leave. More presently, make with the lozenges.”
Jim popped the lid off, revealing a bed of milky candies. He offered the first to Ada, who popped it in her mouth without delay. Then he, Barney, and Mars followed her example.
“Bastard still knows the quickest way to my soul, and oh they’re as good as ever,” Ada moaned, savoring the lozenge. Jim and Mars both wrinkled their faces. The good lord never intended for the taste of cauliflower to be reproduced in candy form.
“You know Oz well?” Barney asked, politely suppressing his gag reflex.
“God, yes. One of the more formidable sexual conquests of my life. We shattered two bed frames in as many months. Keep in mind these were Amish-made, oak, not the toothpick bullshit that passes for furniture these days. He was the only man I let get away with certain things between the sheets,” she grinned devilishly before going on to describe each forbidden act in disquieting detail. “You’re beet red, son,” she said to Barney.
“Do you still see him?” Jim hesitantly asked, risking further mental scarring.
“I haven’t performed the sex act in over two decades now, I see it for the hassle it is.” A relaxed and dreamy look spread on her wide face. “Give me candy over sex any day.”
Jim reached the center of his lozenge and a flood of sweet brandy released into his mouth, mercifully overpowering the imitation cauliflower. A warm haze settled over him as the potent liquid did its work.
“Drunk drivers are usually the survivors of car accidents,” Ada mused. “That’s the idea here. Otherwise you could break your neck on the way down.”
Jim and Barney shared a concerned look as Ada stumbled to a pile of tie dye plaid ascots stacked atop a square dresser. She drunkenly shoved the offending garments aside, revealing a trap door underneath. From between her breasts, she pulled a silver key threaded by a chain adorned with Star of David and swastika charms, and noticed Jim’s concerned look. “I’m not denominationally picky. Judaism and Buddhism both taste pretty good for me.” Jim’s fears of an ironic Nazi were quelled. While the specific danger of such a combination was hard to guess, how could it ever be a good thing?
Ada slid her key into the dresser, and the square door popped ajar. Warm, dandelion-scented air rose from the darkness inside.
“No way,” Jim said. “We’re not going in. Last time something like this happened I ended up in Texas and took a billy club to the head.”
“The only place this goes is down, young man, and leprous holymen rarely subscribe to blunt force trauma as far as I’m aware. I assumed you knew where you were going.”
Jim looked at her, unsure. With an impatient sigh, she popped a highlighter pink button off a brown cardigan adorning one of the plastic mannequins, then tossed the button into the vertical tunnel. It fell into the darkness, clinking off of metal surfaces for some time before reaching a mute finale below.
“Well, the bottom is padded, obviously,” Ada said, a hand on her generous hip. “How else do you expect to survive the fall?”
“Then what was the point of throwing the button in?” Jim asked.
Ada threw her hands up in exasperation. “I dunno, I’ve never had to convince anyone to go in! You should know I get a little pissy when the brandy wears off. Are you going in or aren’t ya?”
If all is well, Ms. Ada will present a passage. Take the passage.
Oz's guidance had gotten him out of the first task—maybe it would work again. Jim sighed and turned to his friends. “You guys stay here. I’m going in first. If everything is fine, I’ll call up to you. Okay?”
“We should have a code word if it’s okay,” Barney said, pulling nervously at his shirt collar.
“I’ll just say everything’s fine.”
“Yeah but maybe we need a code word.”
“Okay um . . . filibuster.”
“Filibuster? I hardly know her,” Ada elbowed Mars playfully in the ribs. The dog chuckled a bark despite himself before putting his game face back on.
Jim sat, stuck his legs into the open passage, and dropped in.
Dandelion air rushed up his face as he fell faster and faster. This portal proved much less metaphysical than the obelisk void as Jim’s body glanced off angled panels of sheet metal that whomped as he bounced from wall to wall, falling deeper and deeper into the earth. He was traveling so fast he thought nothing could break his fall except a massive pile of pillows.
Jim landed on a massive pile of pillows sheathed in pillowcases the pastel colors of after-dinner mints.
After an embarrassingly long time spent wriggling out of the pile, he scoured the cavernous room of ax-scored rock for any waiting threats. There were none to be found.
“Barney!” Jim’s voice echoed up the square hole in the ceiling. “It’s alright!”
“Code word! You didn’t use the code word,” Barney’s voice was thick with worry.
“Oh uh . . . filibuster. Filibuster!”
Wobbly metal crashes emanated from the hole, and a second later Barney fell into the pillow pile, Mars in his arms. Mars jumped from his grasp and promptly sank into the rainbow pile of padding. Jim helped pull them out, earning a gush of thanks from Barney and a haughty cold shoulder from the dog. The grudge continued.
“Such a delightful ride!” Barney exclaimed, squeezing a pillow in his hands like an accordion.
“Bonjour!”
The loud greeting startled Barney enough that he involuntarily threw the pillow at the bearded fat man who’d entered the room.
“Ooh! It’s a pillow fight you want, is it? Perhaps later, there’s much to do first!”
Jim’s first impression was of a hue-shifted Santa Claus, brown beard instead of white, yellow robes substituting for red.
“Brown was getting depressing and the Buddhists pretty much own orange at this point,” the man said, hugging each of the rigid new arrivals. “I am Brother Graisse, head of this humble order! My name means fat, yes? All our names are descriptors for your convenience, though they won’t be much help if you don’t speak French. Cribbed by the Seven Dwarves, but we are not ones for holding grudges! I do not know what Oz has informed you of, so please allow me a humble orientation.” He clicked his sandaled heels together. “Welcome to The Abbey, a humble monastery dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge. You three are to learn, as I understand, as much as possible as quickly as possible. A tall order we Brothers are thrilled to help you fill! A large quantity of learning awaits all of you, but only Jim is tasked with passing an examination of wide-ranging subjects. I hope you are not staunchly opposed to carrots or dandelion wine, as they are our sole sources of nutrition and culinary comfort. Wow! I must acknowledge my success at being so succinct. This is the quickest welcome I’ve ever given! Which one of you is Jim?”
“I am,” Jim said.
“Yes, of course you are! You are also tasked with expanding your Combination. I suggest visiting the world above once a month in order to allow for ample study time. The passage is open during the full moon. Now then, any questions that absolutely cannot wait?”
Shrugs from the newcomers.
“Merveilleux! Please do not be afraid. This is a safe place of study. You are meant to enjoy yourselves in the pure pursuit of knowledge. Jim, you will please come with me. Your friends Barney and Mars—” He shook hand and paw again respectively. “—will please follow Brother Petit to their quarters, where they may change and prepare for dinner.”
An identically yellow-robed monk much smaller than Brother Graisse came forward from a corridor framed with a huge wooden archway. Brother Petit greeted them with a low bow. Jim was briefly startled by the monk’s leprous right ear but played it cool.
In an effort to change the subject (even though it was only a subject being discussed in his own head), Jim butchered the inscription on the wooden archway aloud. “La connaissance vient, mais la sagesse traîne.”
“You speak no French I assume?” Brother Graisse clicked his tongue. “Knowledge comes but wisdom drags. Be patient in your studies and you shall be rewarded.” The monk clapped his hands together in excitement. “Off we go! No, how is it said, lollygagging? Lollygaggers are not welcome here! Oh, that sounds terrible. All are welcome but let’s get a move on.”
Jim, Mars, and Barney followed Brother Fat and Brother Small into the Abbey.
* * *
The Abby’s structure was much like a beehive carved into rock, small passages opening into rooms that connected to more rooms and those to others and so on in an unmappable network governed by no discernible mode of organization.
“You will get used to it,” Brother Graisse told Jim as they crawled along a macaroni curve passageway, carpeted on all sides with patchwork quilts. Jim hustled to keep up with the surprisingly quick monk as they traversed one blanketed passageway after another, some up, some down, some inexplicably figure eight.
Despite the close-ish quarters and the knowledge that they were deep underground, there was never a feeling of claustrophobia. The spaces were well lit, comfortable, and the dandelion air had no stagnant quality. The Brothers definitely knew what they were doing.
“It’s beautiful, Brother Graisse,” Jim breathed. “Are you sure you want me calling you that?”
“It’s the foolish tiger who denies his own stripes,” Brother Graisse grinned. “Ah, here we are.”
They dropped into a room filled by a giant hydraulic press whose brass gears and steam pipes indicated a manufacture date of a previous century. Teal sponges covered the machine’s rectangular bottom, with an identical set of sponges hanging directly above.
“In order to maximize the effectiveness of your time here, you will forgo the process of sleep,” Brother Graisse said as he approached the apparatus. “This is not something we generally administer, but Oz has made the request, assuring me your physical constitution is up to the task. The process is mostly painless, although not everyone transitions to a sleepless schedule easily. With Oz’s insistence on an abbreviated schedule we must employ creative methods like this. Now fill that bucket from the tap there, you’ll need to do this yourself once a week.”
Jim dragged a hefty wooden bucket along the metropolis of bronze piping until it was under the tap. With a turn of the handle, water (the same bluish-green shade as the sponges), splashed into the bucket, and a minty aroma filled the room.
“You have no doubt heard of our great friend, Professor Armauer?”
“S’that the scientist guy? Back in France?” Jim asked, trying not to pass out from the water’s olfactory uppercut.
“Yes! The blessed man who concocted the mixture that has kept us around for so long. He is no longer with us, bless his soul, but his daughter has created this modified and greatly diluted version that allows the user to abstain from slumber. A diet version of immortality, if you will. Pour it over the sponges, please.”
Jim did. Brother Graisse then instructed him to fill the bucket again and pour the contents into a funnel on top of the press. Still stringy from the lifeboat starvation tour, Jim nearly threw his back out lifting the bucket, but he managed, and the pungent liquid trickled through unseen channels until the hanging sponges were dripping.
“Now, off with the clothes and onto the sponges. When you are ready, pull the lever by your head.” Brother Graisse turned his back to give Jim some privacy. After a moment’s hesitation, Jim stripped his clothes off, wondering what about Oz's tasks absolutely required him to be naked at some point.
He lay on the springy layer of supersaturated organisms. The liquid was cold against his bare skin, and not just in temperature: the hollow cool of menthol made him gasp.
Brother Graisse let out a laugh. “Chilly, I know! Don’t wait too long now, pull the lever!”
Jim stretched out his long arm and released a heavily tarnished lever. With a rhythmic clicking, the sponges overhead began to descend and the shivering janitor was soon the meat in an ancient French-elixir-soaked-sponge sandwich.
The upper panel pressed tightly against the bottom, and even with the give of the sponges, the pressure was substantial. The breath fled from Jim’s lungs for a second, partly from the pressure, partly from the menthol. It was one of the most exhilarating, if not entirely comfortable, experiences he'd ever had.
“The press will release in about five minutes. The passage on your right will head in the direction of your quarters. One down then right, up two levels, left, round the bend, then another left, and you should find your room. Careful you don’t go right on the second left as we recently built a thresher in the study of agriculture and haven’t figured out how to turn it off yet. Robes and a rope belt await you, then please come to the mess hall for dinner. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” Jim gasped. Working hard to keep the in/out of his lungs going, he’d heard almost none of the directions. Something about deadly farm equipment? Maybe that was worth some clarification. But Brother Graisse had gone.
A steady buzz, never overpowering or sloppy, built inside Jim’s brain. He closed his eyes, and surrendered to the effect of the sponges.
“Mmmmmmm that looks . . . good,” a little voice came from above. Max the spider glided from point to point on the ceiling in the same lazy astronaut routine he’d performed at the Supercomplex. This time his fuzzy body was TV-static-black-and-white.
“Hello, Max.”
“Mmmmmmm I’m envious of what you must be feeling right now. Very . . . envious.”
“I think you may have a substance abuse problem.”
The spider chuckled to himself. “You too will soon know the meaning of the word . . . addiction.”
“What’s Boyd been up to?” Jim asked, his mind running clear of all encumbrance as the serum soaked in deeper and deeper.
“Oh, no no. I am at all times . . . impartial.” Max’s limbs frantically scratched notes in his journals as always.
Jim tried a different approach. “How you doing today?”
“Mmm I’m down. Way down. All turns to dust. Opposing forces swirl for millennia but in the end they become . . . indistinguishable. Dust. All dust. Man thinks he knows conflict. Thinks he knows friendship and love. I’m sorry. I don’t like being a downer. I simply wanted to take in some of this lovely . . . aroma.” Max floated directly above the press and inhaled with an adorable squealing sound. His black and white fuzz cooled into a deep turquoise. The elixir apparently worked on jinn too, as Max’s mood immediately improved. “Mmmmmmm! Yet one must always consider . . . floccinaucinihilipilification. Such a silly word, hundreds of years old. Whoever constructed the word has long since died, as has everyone who was alive on the planet at the time. But more humans have taken their place and carried the word on like . . . a torch. Generations have . . . crashed upon the shores of time, and yet floccinaucinihilipilification remains. If a thing as vulnerable and nonsensical as floccinaucinihilipilification can survive, surely there is hope for other things as well. Mmmmmmm.” Max moaned as he melted into the air.
“I’ll have to look that one up,” Jim said.
The hydraulic press gave a colossal cobra hiss as it retracted toward the ceiling, just as Brother Graisse said it would. Unaffected by the arachnid’s gloomy diatribe on meaning and whatever his big show off word was (flaccid-pillow-vacation wasn’t right but it was close), Jim sprang with vigor from the sponges.
He looked around at the half dozen points of exit and entry into the room. Though his janitorial clothes were gone and he had no clue which way to go, Jim clambered with vigor into what he hoped was the right passage.
In an amazingly short amount of time, Jim was lost. He’d been through six different libraries, a boxing gym, a soap factory, a highly-illegal minting press spitting out dimes, a pipe organ theater (complete with a Phantom of the Opera half-mask), a den of rocking chairs accompanied by hay bales of yarn for more tunnel quilts, a god damn cat museum, and nine more libraries. Aside from the phantom mask (which could hardly improve the situation), none of the rooms offered any sort of clothing or indications of where clothing might be found.
After getting stuck in a Möbius Strip of tunnels, Jim somehow got free and headed down a long passage that ended in a plastic tarp. He pulled the tarp back.
Two things happened next: Jim fell head over heels, and Jim fell in love (separate incidents). The ground below his knees gave way, and in an unsuccessful effort to grab the side of the tunnel, Jim did a forward flip into a bottomless pit.
A leather-gloved hand snatched his wrist and arrested his almost-fatal plunge.
Time slowed to a crawl, and Jim looked into the face of his savior: fair skin pinked from exertion, cow-spotted with smudges of soot and grime, big brown eyes, a strong but proportional nose, the faintest bit of stubble below that, and two pale pink lips, crimped at one end in a friendly smirk. Three doublewide braids dangled from the woman’s inverted head. Jim’s heart sped up each time the thick brown hair obscured her face and he was gripped with the irrational fear he would never see her again. Her scent made Jim feel like he’d just taken a shot of something strong. It was at the same time sugary and earthy, like the B.O. of a soundly exercised fruit tree. Jim wished he had his own signature vanilla scent to offer, but it still hadn’t recovered from the turpentine incident at St. Mili’s. She had his heart immediately. She could have any organ she wanted. Jim was about to weirdly offer the woman a kidney when he was mercifully interrupted.
“What in ze ‘ell is happening up zere?” a thickly Parisian voice echoed from below.
“A naked boy,” the woman called back with a smile. Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she kicked off from the wall.
Still very naked, Jim swung above the abyss as a dual skin pendulum. As they got closer to the passage Jim had fallen from, the woman’s arm tensed and she tossed him back into the blanketed tunnel with surprising grace. She hung in midair, wiping sweat from her face, and despite the obvious nylon rope that ran taught opposite gravity, Jim could have sworn she was floating. Cryptofauna might not have dragons, but it sure as sugar had angels.
A heavily cratered face ascended into Jim’s field of view. “Jezus, you are not joking.”
The odd pair showed Jim to a nearby alcove full of robes that Jim would have passed through if he’d followed the twenty third left with a down-right-up, instead of an up-right-down, which had taken him through the god damn cat museum a second time. The red-faced janitor quickly adorned the yellow cloak the woman gave him. He could stomach nudity while stranded on a lifeboat or in the presence of a back-turned monk, but nudity in front of the love of his life and her tool shed-sized colleague gave him indigestion.
The tool shed nodded his greeting. “I am Deegger.” The monk’s head had seen the worst of his leprosy, leaving behind a face topographically similar to a Lunar proving g