The Prom Goer's Interstellar Excursion (12 page)

Having lasted more than a decade, Cad was now the longest-serving member the band had ever employed, during which time he'd seen endless musicians come and go.

“But the worst was getting rid of Ferguson,” said Cad.

“Who's Ferguson?”

“Ferguson is who Skark was howling about out there tonight,” said Cad. “Ever since we kicked him out, he's been in Skark's head.”

“What did he play?” I said.

“Triangle.”

“You had someone in the band just to play the
triangle
?”

Ferguson had already been in the band when Cad joined, because Skark had thought some of his songs could use a little
ding
from time to time. Skark was a madman, but to his credit, he was against bringing in session musicians to lay down a track or two, instead reasoning that if he made music with somebody, that person was his
brother
, at least until Skark let him go. (Or his sister, as it turned out. Skark had had a handful of talented female artists join the band over the years, all of whom were too smart to put up with his crap for more than a few days.)

When Cad was hired, the band's popularity had been growing steadily over the previous decade. With the fame, Ferguson's
ego ballooned, which made touring miserable for a band already dominated by Skark's life-guzzling personality. Ferguson started fighting Skark for the microphone, missing his cues, insisting he be in the foreground of band photographs even though he was, as Cad described him, a scoliosis-ridden troll.

“We were riding high back then, and the lifestyle had gone to Ferguson's head,” said Cad. “All he had to do was hit a triangle with a stick, and he was too screwed up to even do that. Eventually we just left a bus ticket at the brothel where he was staying, with a note that he wasn't in the band anymore. That was nine years ago.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Skark claims to see him all the time, but I never have. He thinks Ferguson has been trying to kidnap him and get some sort of revenge. He's written us mail for years—in one sentence he talks about how much he hates us, and then he begs to get back in the band in the next.”

“Is he actually a threat?”

“He hasn't been yet, as far as I can tell.”

A burst of air nearly knocked Cad and me off the bench. We looked up and saw the Interstellar Libertine hovering over our heads, Driver hanging out the window and looking down.

“If you're not on this bus in the next
eight seconds
, we're leaving you behind,” said Driver. “We're already late to our next gig because of you malcontents.”

“Does this mean Skark still needs a bassist?” said Cad.

Skark lowered a window and looked outside.

“All it means is that I've decided to temporarily forgive you for your insubordination,” he said.

“I never said I was sorry,” said Cad, looking at Skark. He turned back to Driver. “Did we get the Chinese food order?”

“I'm holding your pork fried rice as we speak,” said Driver.

Cad turned to me. “One of the advantages of playing out here is that Berdan Major has terrific Chinese.”

“How is it possible there is Chinese food in space?”

“Everybody loves Chinese food,” said Cad. “Why wouldn't there be Chinese food out here?”

Driver opened the door, and metal steps lowered from the bus, accompanied by an ear-rupturing
creeeeaaak.
The smell of lo mein was overpowering.

“Does this mean you and Skark are cool?” I asked.

“Only until the next gig,” said Cad. “Which—I forgot to mention—is inside the belly of a Dark Matter Foloptopus, one of the largest and most unpredictable animals in the universe. Not to freak you out.”

“That
absolutely
freaks me out,” I said. “Why would you play a gig in a place like that?”

“Skark is trying to toughen up our image,” said Cad, stepping up the stairs. “This is what we have to do now to get attention, because he's forgotten how to write new material.”

“Because your negative attitude sucks me
dry
,” said Skark, shouting from inside the bus.

“You can't be sucked dry if you have nothing left creatively.”

“You're a parasite.”

“You're a wax figure of your former self.”

“Churl.”

Cad had been right about the Chinese food being good—a little salty, but considering we were hundreds of light-years from Earth, it was nice to have a taste of home. I gobbled it down and looked around to see if anyone in the band had leftovers, but they didn't. Our stomachs full, everyone headed off in different directions to go to sleep.

Though I'd been up close to fifty straight hours, I couldn't inch my way over the threshold of exhaustion into unconsciousness. The band had climbed into their beds and passed out instantly—Cad in a hammock hanging from the ceiling, Skark in a cryogenic pod at the back of the bus designed to keep him young, Driver in an oversized bassinet, where he was snoring like a terrarium toad—but I was on the couch, which was
covered in crusty stains and pungent smells that lingered no matter how many times I scraped at a crumbly spot or flipped a cushion. It was a couch that had clearly been sat on and spilled on and God knows what else, and now I was paying the price for all the idling and snacking and gas passing that it had experienced.

Skark had conveniently left a bottle of Spine Wine at the base of the couch, so I swigged a mouthful in the hope that it would help me sleep. The liquid burned my throat, but I gagged it down before my body forced me to spit it out. My sleepiness turned to queasiness. Instead of thinking about how I couldn't pass out, now I was focused on the astringent aftertaste and my bubbling stomach.

That's when the closet spoke to me: “I really don't blame you for drinking alone.”

“Hello?” I said.

“In the closet,” said the voice. “I can see you through the crack at the bottom of the door. Do me a favor and open it. I need some air. Everybody is asleep.”

I double-checked the bus to make sure everybody was indeed unconscious, and then turned the handle to open the door.

The ram was staring at me. The sides of his face were brown, and a thick white stripe ran down the middle of his nose. He had two spiraling gray horns, and an uncombed white beard hung from his bottom lip.

I hadn't been face to face with an animal other than a dog or a cat since I had reached up to touch a petting zoo pony
when I was five years old. I found the ram's stare unsettling—he seemed to be pleading to me with his eyes, but I didn't know what he wanted.

Then he spoke and told me exactly what he wanted.

“My name is Walter. You're from Earth, right?”

“Right.”

“
You need
to take me back there. I have a job. I have friends. I have responsibilities. Skark has
destroyed my life
by keeping me on this bus.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“
Sorry
doesn't help get me out of here. This band is about to break up, and when the last gig happens, I don't want to be stuck in some wasteland millions of miles from home. I've been on this bus for
four years
, and I already had a touch of claustrophobia before I even got here. I'm going to need twenty years of psychiatric analysis to unwind all the issues I've developed because of this.”

“Four years?”

“Skark picked me up in northern Nevada and said I was his spirit guide, which I am
not.
I'm not even religious. I thought he might let me go, or at least let me see my
wife
, when the band made that pit stop at the In-N-Out where we got you, but nope—he didn't even think about me. Which is typical. That guy
only
acts in his self-interest.”

“As I'm learning.”

“Right right right, how could I be so insensitive?” said Walter. “I'm sorry about your prom date. I have fond memories
from my own prom. I went with this plump little golden-furred girl. You should have seen the thigh hair on her.”

At the back of the bus, Skark's sleeping pod popped open.

“
Quick
, close my door,” said Walter. “We'll talk more later. Pretend like you're asleep. If you think he's moody before a show, you have no idea what he's like when he can't sleep.”

I shut Walter's closet, flopped back down on the couch, and kept my eyes shut. I heard Skark stumble down the center of the bus and grab the bottle from my side.

“Freeloading human,” I heard him mutter. “Find your own wine and leave mine alone.”

Once he had the bottle, Skark shuffled his way to the kitchen. I heard a chair scrape the ground and the refrigerator open and shut. I heard the wine hit the bottom of a glass and Skark take a long gulp. Then I heard nothing at all, so I peeked.

Skark was sitting at the small, round kitchen table, without any makeup on, donning none of his typical tight, fancy clothing. He was shirtless, revealing his bony frame, and he was wearing a pair of beaten yellow track shorts. His hair was uncombed and hanging loosely down his back, and his limbs were cadaverous.

He pulled a pad of paper out of a stack of fashion magazines and picked up a pen. He licked the tip of the pen, took another gulp of wine, and then…nothing.

“Come
on
,” I heard him mutter. “Dondoozle is
Friday.
”

He was trying to write a song.

“Useless petrified lump of a brain,” he said.

It was an odd feeling, but in that moment I felt myself
identifying with Skark for the first time. He had a few more vertebrae and ribs than I did, but underneath his makeup and flashy reversible gemstone jackets, he was simply an awkward guy, same as any other musician who started out playing songs by himself in a bedroom. Even the way he was
sitting
seemed familiar—slumped over a table, holding a pen, staring helplessly at a pad of paper, disbelieving that anything was achievable. I heard him hum a few notes, scribble a few lines, stare at what he had written, and then cross it out, frustrated.

“Dammit,” he said. “Come on, come on…”

I watched him repeat the pattern for as long as I could stay awake—scribble, cross out, scribble, cross out—but soon a combination of exhaustion and momentary distraction from my nausea overtook me, and I closed my eyes.

Walter the ram whispered to me before I passed out.

“If I were you, I'd get myself home as soon as possible too,” he said. “And if you could find me some fresh grass, that would be great. I'm
so tired
of Chinese. I used to be gluten-free.”

I awoke to find Driver yanking a skintight yellow latex jumpsuit over my half-naked body, putting his scabrous foot on my chest to give himself extra leverage for the pulling.

“I've never seen anybody with a body as
weird
as this kid's,” said Driver. “He's tall, and he's thin, so you'd think that a jumpsuit would be fine, but his calves are disproportional to the rest of him, so the pants are too tight.”

“The pants are
supposed
to be tight,” said Skark, himself
wearing bright orange lipstick and a mirrored unitard. “Remember—it's a jumpsuit. It's supposed to highlight one's figure, and the best way to do that is by making it as formfitting as possible.”

“Get your foot
off
of me,” I said. “I was
sleeping.
”

“Ah,
now
you've woken him up and he's cranky,” said Skark. “At least we got it on him before the theatrics began.”

“Now. Foot. Off.”

“Let him go, let him go,” said Skark. “I can't handle hearing humans complain. They always skip reasonable discussion and go straight to melodrama.”

Driver took his heavy foot off my body, lifted me up, and sat me down on the couch.

“Don't act like it was an assault on your modesty or some such stupid thing,” said Skark. “I couldn't bear looking at your awful clothing anymore, so—though you have been a
profound
nuisance during your time on this bus—I magnanimously decided to give you a jumpsuit from my personal collection. An archival-quality item, I've been told by the curators of various museums' fashion collections. Driver did the alterations to make sure it would fit. He's a wizard with a needle and thread.”

“To tell you the truth, I've always wanted to start a menswear line,” said Driver. “Suits, ties, but my own haute couture version of—”

“Enough, Driver. On this bus, only my dreams are worth discussing,” said Skark.

“You could have waited until I woke up instead of
manhandling me,” I said. “Or even better—you could have
asked
me if I wanted to wear something new and given me the chance to say no.”

“Why waste the time trying to convince you to put it on if I was going to make you wear it anyway? My bus, my rules. Now stop complaining and look at yourself. You're
marvelous.
”

I looked in the mirror. Banana-yellow latex hugged every bump and ridge of my skinny body. The jumpsuit had sequined cuffs, and its neckline was cut into a sweeping V that extended to its lightning-bolt-embroidered belt, placing maximum attention on my understuffed groinal region.

“That jumpsuit is a collector's item from our 2005 tour of the Pindino Nebula,” said Skark fondly. “You wouldn't
believe
how much sweat I shed in that outfit. It was murder to find a dry cleaner who could get out the stains, but it was worth it to restore it to its former majesty. Though the ensemble does seem to be missing something. Driver, are you
sure
there isn't an accessory you forgot to put on him? Some sort of bauble? I seem to remember there was more to it than just the belt with the lightning bolts.”

Driver searched his pockets and pulled out a yellow headband.

“You're right, I forgot to give him this,” he said.

“I
knew
there was something else,” said Skark. “Wonderful.”

Driver grabbed the top of my head to keep me still and pulled the headband over my ears.

“Oh God yes,
now
it's perfect,” said Skark. “Details are so
important
to an outfit, don't you think? Now don't let me catch you trying to take that jumpsuit off, Bennett. That's a
personal gift
and I would be insulted. This is my peace offering for our arguments, by the way. Outsiders should never be exposed to a band's internal drama.”

Skark marched to the back of the bus. Driver returned to the wheel.

I stared at myself. The jumpsuit's V-neck exposed my hairless, nonmuscular chest, while the latex made my elbows seem bonier and my legs look positively giraffelike. Hideous.

Then:
BOOM!

The bus was walloped by a blow that flipped it on its side, followed by a second impact on the ceiling. I was hurled end over end toward Cad's pull-up bar, which I grabbed the moment before it beheaded me. One of Skark's decorative canes whizzed past me and burst open the True-Atmosphere Atmosphering Apparatus like a piñata, scattering purple powder through the room. Skark apparently had a taste for harder intoxicants than mere Spine Wine.

“Looks like we found the Dark Matter Foloptopus,” said Driver. “Hold on, I'm going to try and take us in without making it mad….”

“You could have
warned
us you'd come upon the Foloptopus
before
it started trying to kill us,” said Skark.

“You asked me to help you with Bennett's jumpsuit….”

“I would have
waited
had I known we were in a dangerous area….”

BOOM BOOM BOOM

A mass blotted out the windows on the left side of the bus, and I realized it was just the
pupil
of the Foloptopus's eye. I felt like a goldfish in a pet store aquarium being scrutinized by a customer who was
really
eager to tap on the glass.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

“Driver, while this dance with death is lovely,” said Skark, bracing himself against his sleeping pod, “do you
think
you could
possibly
get us into the stomach of this Foloptopus
without
letting it crack the bus open?”