Impish

CHAPTER 13: BLAST TO THE PAST

I try not to scowl. On the way to the office, Doug dumps a bunch of information on me and I retain almost none of it. The gist of it is, the guy who runs this place is an old friend of his. The two of them were close back in the 1890s and again in the 1970s, and this guy has always been obsessed with amusement parks and carnivals. The exact aesthetic of all of it has changed from time to time. Back in the 1890s, Jeb, Doug, and Gaz all collaborated on an old-fashioned murder circus. The Blast To The Past Amusement Park is certainly more retrofuturistic than any of the previous projects Doug describes to me.

I can't help but notice that there's almost nobody here. There's one crew member, who is emptying a trash can and smoking a cigarette at the same time. Some tired, dejected, middle-aged man in a long white robe, leather sandals, and a perpetual blank expression, stands by a massive arch that reads The Bible Experience. There's a rotating ride called The Spindle that stands between where I am and where that arch is. This place seems to be just as devoid of workers as it is of patrons.

Doug knocks on the door and leans against the wall next to him. He shoves his thumb into his pockets. I'm not sure how he does it, given how tight his pants are. It's obvious to me that he's trying to seem nonchalant. He's more stressed than he's trying to appear, though. He taps his fingers against his leg; his smile, full of sharp teeth, is closer to a tight-lipped grimace. I'm not sure what's making him be so on-edge. I'm not sure if I should ask him, either. In the end, I don't.

I look around me. The entire world is bright under the cloudless Nevada sky. The door in front of me is white, with a circular faux-gold knob. The majority of its middle is taken up by a massive window with thick, white, wooden blinds filtering light both in and out of it. Over the door is an epitaph reading, simply, GOD IS WATCHING YOU! BE SURE TO SMILE! Under the words is a bright orange-yellow smiley face with red cheeks and a halo.

After a long moment, the door opens outwards, revealing the office's interior. The inside of it is cluttered with filing cabinets. Every surface is covered in little porcelain baby statues that come in so many different shades of angel and farmer. Sitting at the desk, which has more papers than anything else on it, is a man in a white button-up shirt with his collar undone and his sleeves rolled to his elbows. He has the overgrown version of a blonde military-style crew cut and the back of his inflamed neck is pocked with craterous acne scars.

When he sees that Doug is the one who knocked, a bit of the stress in his furrowed brow melts into a toothy smile. "Dugmithz!"

"Hey, Ornizeg!" Doug slinks into the office, led by the space between his hips and his knees. His wild grin reeks of insincerity. "Long time, no see!"

"You know I go by Jeb these days. Helps with the image and all." Jeb smiles. It doesn't seem genuine. He and Doug are putting on an act. I'm not sure why or what the point of all this pretense is.

"What a coincidence, then," my father says, through gritted, grating teeth. "I go by Doug."

"Well, Doug, what can I do ya for? Are you here to pay your dues or to do... something else?"

"Something else." Doug reaches his arms outside of the room, grabs me by the shoulder, and steers me in. I don't go willingly. He puts me in front of his body like a flesh shield and announces, "Jeb, meet my daughter!"

"Doug, you sly dog! What demon woman do we know who would be willing to do anything with you?"

"Not a demon," Doug says, with one hand squeezing my shoulder.

"A human woman? Mithzy!" Jeb leans across the desk to high-five my father in some weird display of bro-type camaraderie.

Through it all, I stand there, ramrod-straight and seething. I don't feel cool. I don't feel subversive. I don't feel like I belong here. I just feel weird and out of place, and like they're dehumanizing my mom just a little, treating her like a trophy to be won. I feel uncomfortable and stiff.

"How'd you manage to pull that one off?" Jeb asks, sitting back down in his office chair.

"Olive Garden," Doug jokes, "and my classic moves."

Jeb's voice drops to almost a whisper. "This wasn't intentional, right? You didn't mean to make a cambion?"

"I mean no, but I'm glad I did. And you know we don't call them that anymore. We just call them imps. Anyway, this kid's a riot." He ruffles the back of my hair in a way that upsets the headband.

I can't keep myself from flinching. When he moves his hand, I smooth my hair back down and fix what he messed up. I'm confused and disgruntled. Is it anxiety that is hiding in that deep, murky, and obscured part of my chest? Or is it anger? It has gotten to the point that I can't tell them apart anymore.

"Take a seat, both of you." Jeb gestures to the seats by his desk. They are piled high with files and manila folders. He looks over, then grimaces. "Right. Sorry. The couch on the other side-- behind you, Doug-- it should be clean."

Sure enough, there is a couch tucked between two filing cabinets and under a window. It's more of a loveseat, with no throw pillows and exactly one armrest cover. The floral fabric reeks of mildew, mothballs, paper, and sickly-sweet tropical air freshener.

Doug and I sit on separate cushions. He rests his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. I sit with my legs apart. I was never one for crossing my ankles, not even on Easter Sundays at church with my grandmother. Briefly, I wonder if I will be able to step foot in a church after this. Does my own existence invalidate my lack of a belief in some deity? Like I did before and like I always do, I shove the questions back down, through all the viscera in my body until it rests in the small of my back, where I keep all my worries. Some things don't need to be addressed. Some boxes don't need to be opened.

Jeb keeps working while he talks to us, sorting papers into different piles with a confused look on his face. "So, Doug. What brings you here today?"

"We need to get some humanskin for Mikey, here."

"You want that?" Jeb looks me in the eyes. There's some emotion I can't place. It lives in his endlessly-dark pupils. I can't tell if he's coming from a place of concern, judgement, or some other cloaked alternative.

Tentatively, I nod. "Yeah. I think I do."

"You think? Thinking isn't knowing, and I'm not going to give you anything to make you look more human unless you're sure," he scoffs. Under his breath, he mutters something about how girls never know what they want.

I try to pretend like I didn't hear that. "What would you even give me?"

"A glamour. Humanskin. Like what your dad has, like what I have, like what every demon on the face of the earth uses to disguise what they really are. It's just demonic magic. It's just another form of manipulation. I'm sure he told you about all this?"

I open my mouth to answer in the affirmative, but he cuts me off. "If you really want this, we're going to have to test you for strengths and weaknesses both physical and spiritual. The humanskin glamour has to be attuned to you and your essence."

Then he starts listing off some spiritual-scientific jargon that I can't comprehend or reasonably repeat. It's about how it all works. I don't really want to know. I'm tired of him treating me like I'm stupid, but it's hard to fight back when it feels like he's proving himself right.

When he's done and looking at me like I'm some sort of stupid little baby, I narrow my eyes and ask, "How would you test me?"

"Fantastic question! How about I give you ten bucks and send you to the snack stand while I talk to your dad, young lady?"

"That doesn't answer my question, and-- are you sure?" I look at Doug for an answer or an okay.

I don't get either. All I see in his eyes is some sort of fear. It's restrained, concerned-- and I realize that Doug is terrified, not of me or what's happening, but of Jeb. He's terrified of Jeb. That's where all the conflict has been coming from. The question flashes through my mind of why he would bring me to a place to see someone he so obviously dislikes. I don't have an answer. I tack it to the corkboard in the back of my head.

But his face is smiling with all those sharp teeth and his mouth is saying, "Go on, Mikes. Let two old men catch up on things and we'll explain more later."

With Doug's blessing and tense eyes focused on me, I take the ten bucks from Jeb and I leave the room, shutting the door behind me. As I do so, I can't help but think and wonder, how could being this close to freedom feel so horrible?