Christopher Moore - Coyote Blue

Sam walked into the bedroom, hair wet, a towel wrapped around his hips. "Nice shot," Sam said.

Coyote glanced up from the video game. "The red ones have killed me three times."

"Those are cardinals. You have to hit them twice to kill them. Wait until you get to the Vatican level. The pope has guilt-beam vision."

Before Coyote could look back to the screen the cathedral doors flew open and St. Patrick fired a wiggling salvo of heat-seeking vipers.

"Hit your smart bomb," Sam said.

Coyote fumbled with the control, but was too late. A snake latched onto his leg and exploded. The screen flashed GAME OVER , and a synthesized voice instructed Coyote to "go to confession."

Coyote dropped the control onto the bed with a sigh.

Sam said, "You did good. Gunning for Nuns is a hard game for beginners."

"I should have brought some cheating medicine. My cheating medicine never fails."

"This isn't like the hand game. This is a game of skill."

"Who needs skill when you can have luck?"

Sam shook his head and turned to go back to the bathroom. During the night something inside him had changed. Each time he thought things had reached a plateau of weirdness, something even weirder had happened. The result, he realized, was that he was now accepting anything that happened, no matter how weird, without resistance. Chaos was the new order in his life.

The phone rang and Sam, hoping it was Calliope, grabbed the receiver off the vanity. "Samuel Hunter," he said.

"You low-life, scum-sucking shithead!"

"Good morning to you too, Josh."

"You win, dickhead. There'll be a meeting of the co-op association tonight. They'll vote you back in. You can keep your apartment, but I want your guarantee that this is over."

"Okay."

"I hope you know I've lost all respect for you as a professional, Sam. The doctor says I'm going to walk with a limp for the rest of my life."

"There was a crooked man who had a crooked-"

"You broke my legs! My house is destroyed."

Sam peeked into the bedroom where Coyote was attacking the Sistine Chapel with a helicopter gunship. "Josh, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm glad you came to your senses."

"Fuck you. I'm using up years of collected dirt to get your apartment back."

" Townhouse ," Sam corrected. "Not apartment ."

"Don't fuck with me, Sam. I'm in a cast up to my nipples and a sadistic nurse has been force-feeding me green Jell-O for an hour. Just tell me it's over."

"It's over," Sam said.

The phone clicked. Sam walked back into the bedroom. "What did you do to Spagnola?"

Coyote was rolling on the bed in exaggerated body English to tilt the gunship. "These birds are eating my tail rotor. I can't control it."

"Uh-oh, St. Francis released the doves of death. You're dead meat." Sam took a cigarette from the pack on the dresser and offered one to Coyote. "What did you do to Spagnola?"

"You said you wanted your old life back."

"So you broke Spagnola's legs?"

"It was a trick."

"You can't just go around breaking people's legs like some Mafioso fairy godmother."

The gunship spun out of control and crashed on the mezzanine. Coyote threw the joystick at the screen and turned to Sam. "How can I win if you keep talking to me? You whine like an old woman. I got you your house back!"

"I wouldn't have lost it if you had left me alone. Be logical."

"What gods do you know that are logical? Name two."

"Never mind," Sam said. He went to the closet and pulled his clothing out for the day.

Coyote said, "Do you have a light?"

"No."

"No? After I stole fire from the sun and gave it to your people?"

"Why, Coyote? Why did you do that?" Sam turned to point out the lighter on the dresser, but the trickster was gone.

Calliope's upbringing in the Eastern religions, with their emphasis on living in the now — of acting, not thinking — had left her totally unprepared to do battle with the future. She'd tried to ignore it, even after Grubb was born, but it had become more and more difficult to function on karmic autopilot. Now, Sam had entered her life and she felt like she had something to lose. The future had a name. She wondered what she had done to manifest the curse of a nice guy.

"It feels wonderful, but I want more," Calliope said.

"I don't get it," Nina said. They were cleaning up the kitchen. Grubb was scooting around on the linoleum at their feet, tasting the baseboards, a table leg, a slow-moving bug.

"I've always felt separate from men, even during sex. It's like there's this part of me that watches them and I'm not really involved. But it wasn't that way with Sam. It was like we were really together, no barriers. I wasn't watching him, I was with him. When we were finished I lay there watching the pulse on his neck, and it was like we had gone to some other world together. I wanted more."

"So you're saying you're a hosebeast."

"Not like that. It was just that I want to feel that way all the time. I want my whole life to feel — complete."

"I'm sorry, Calliope, I don't get it. I'm happy if Yiffer doesn't pass out before we finish."

"I guess it's not a sexual thing. It's a spiritual thing. Like there's a part of life that I can touch but I can't live in."

"Maybe we just need to find a house where your ex doesn't live downstairs."

"That was pretty awful. I couldn't believe Sam didn't just leave."

Nina threw a dish towel at Calliope and missed. "You had a little good luck for a change, accept it. Not every guy has to be a creep like Lonnie."

"I'm a little afraid to leave Grubb with him when I go to work today."

"Lonnie won't hurt Grubb. He was just pissed that you were with someone else. Men are like that. Even when they don't want you, they don't want anyone else to have you."

"Nina, do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"No, you're just not very good at worrying. You'll get the hang of it."

"I've got to get back to the house," Lonnie said to Cheryl, who was pouring peroxide on his damaged chest. She wiped away the foam with a tissue, then poked the wound with a broken black fingernail.

"Ouch! What are you doing, bitch?"

Cheryl got up from the bed and pulled on a pair of leather pants. Lonnie could see her hipbones and shoulder blades pushing against her pale skin as if they would poke through any second.

"You're always thinking of her. Never me. What the hell is wrong with me?"

She turned to face him and he stared at her breasts lying like flaps against her ribs. She pulled back her lips in a snarl and Lonnie knew his face had betrayed him. "Fucking asshole," she said, pulling on a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

"It's not her, it's the kid. He's my kid. I have to watch him when she goes to work."

"Bullshit. Then why won't you fuck me?" She tossed her head and her long black hair fell into her face like seaweed on the drowned.

Because you look like you just escaped from fucking Auschwitz , Lonnie thought. He'd been with Cheryl for three months and had never seen her eat. As far as he could figure she lived on speed, come, and Pepsi. He said, "I worry about the kid."

"Then get custody. I can take care of him. I'd make a good mother."

"Right."

"You don't think so? You think that vegetarian bitch is a better mother than me?"

"No…"

"You start treating me right or I'm gone." Cheryl took a purse from the floor and began digging in it. "Where the fuck is my stash?" She threw the purse aside and stormed out of the room.

Lonnie followed her, carrying the denim vest sporting the Guild's colors. "I've got to go," he said.

Cheryl was dumping a bindle of white powder into a can of Pepsi. "Bring back some crank," she said.