Very Last Gig!
(August 10-13, 2017)
22: Highway to the Danger Zone
The Shack was closed on Sundays, so all that morning a still-weary Ford had time to drill Teek, Wendy, Dipper, and most of all Mabel in ways of warding off the power of Mammon and—he hoped—of outright banishing him to the outer darkness. The only trouble was that he did not have time or resources to do the research that would prove whether any of these actually worked.
He had printed out, on clear decal sheets, circles about the size of a quarter with a hand-drawn symbol, which looked like a somewhat misshapen capital B with extra hooks and flourishes at the top and bottom of the vertical stroke. Mabel had cut them out and gued them to cardboard circles to which she attached pins, so they could be worn like buttons.
"This is the sigil of Mammon," Ford explained, holding his up. "There's a whole ritual, but it seems little of it is necessary. The candles, magic circle, incense, all that we can dispense with, but this and the chant really are all that is required. By the way, this symbol isn't a repellent—it's just to get his attention. He's supposed to be a vain demon."
The chant, for a change, was in English, not some old dead language. It wasn't too hard to remember:
Mammon, spirit of greed, you have no hold on me. May the forces of Good counter your evil intent. With Right on my side and trust in Heavenly powers, I banish you. Leave this place and trouble us no more.
"Seems kinda tame," Wendy observed as they all memorized the words.
"The literal meaning isn't as important as the intent behind it," Ford said. "Use this to focus your mind. Your purity of motive is crucial. That's what will prevent Mammon from controlling the situation, not the mere words."
At breakfast, a shy Wilmer Gunzell tried to help, volunteering to clean up, wash dishes, and do anything else to earn his keep. Soos, all kindness, said, "Dude, you've had like a hard time or some junk, we can tell. Leave it up to us, OK?"
And when Soos invited Wilmer to Mass with the family, the man had to turn away to hide his expression. When he finally answered, Wilmer said hoarsely, "I don't have any decent clothes."
He wore his usual outfit—jeans and a short-sleeved chambray work shirt, with a BRATZ PRODUCTIONS tee shirt under it, the one he wore when he was Bratsman's only roadie.
"Aw, man," Soos said, "our church is, like, not all that formalized, you know? But if you want, you can, like, have one of our ties to wear. They're great, black silk-like material with a bright yellow question mark on them, and you can turn 'em inside-out and the reverse has this picture of the Shack! See, the question mark means 'What is the Mystery Shack?' and turning the tie inside-out, like, answers that question! But it's a secret, dude. Don't tell people I told you."
"Well—I'm not Catholic," Wilmer said reluctantly.
"Dawg, everybody's welcome!" Soos said cheerfully. "We once had a Gnome come, and you're closer to Catholic than he was!"
In the end, he shyly agreed—after Ford had privately told him, "That's one place Bratsman would never look for you." And although it was a little tight on him, he borrowed a dark-blue blazer from Dipper—it was close, maybe only one size too small, and it didn't look half-bad.
"Is he going to be OK alone?" Dipper asked after Wilmer and Soos's family had left.
"Stanley is going to take care of him today," Ford said. "I think until this demon business is settled, no one's going to be completely safe—but we'll take every precaution."
Love God was up and about early that day. He and Mammon conferred once more.
"You can't just drop this?" Love God asked.
"Not with all the paperwork completed and filed. There would be serious questions from lower down."
Love God shook his head. "I'll bet now you wish your guys had never invented bureaucracy."
"It comes in handy," Mammon said. "The devil's henchmen. Suits and ties. So boring and ordinary no one suspects."
"Megadeath?" asked Love God.
"Pardon?"
"You just quoted Megadeath."
Mammon frowned. "I don't even know what that is. Anyway, to answer your question, no, I cannot call it off. The moving finger writes and moves on. Now, that was a quotation."
Love God asked, "Was it? Not very cadenced. What group?"
"Omar Khayyam, by way of Edward FitzGerald," said Mammon.
"Edmund FitzGerald," corrected Love God. "Gordon Lightfoot. But I don't remember that lyric."
"I think," Mammon said, closing his eyes, "we are talking about at least two different things. Anyway, ideally everything would consummate at midnight. I've arranged a null time space, and that should accommodate everyone."
"Well, of course it will," Love God said. "It's infinitely expandable and out of the time flow. You realize that if you let Bratsman sacrifice Mabel you'll be on the shortlist for ultimate retribution."
"I'm always on someone's list," Mammon said. "I'm trying to deal with that. I need luck on my side, but I have slim hopes."
"I'll stop you if I can."
"Yes, well, let's talk about that. First, you understand that if I violate the agreement, I'll be yanked back down so fast that I'll probably crash-land in the ninth circle. And stay there. I mean, I hate to piss off the good guys, but upsetting my crowd doesn't even bear thinking about. Here's exactly that I'm trying to do . . .."
Had they been conversing in normal circumstances, they would have chatted for four hours, and Lazy Susan probably would have chucked them both out of Greasy's. But null time doesn't work like that. Physically, they sat in a corner booth of Greasy's Diner that morning, having each ordered a coffee. Subjectively, they nursed their two coffees for four hours and a few minutes as they talked. Objectively—to Susan and the diner customers around them—they sat for five minutes, drank their coffee, and left, Love God leaving Lazy Susan a tip of five dollars and Mammon clandestinely pocketing the bill as he left the table.
However, that was just the kind of thing that Mammon did, and Love God, though he did not witness the snitching of the five-dollar bill, had expected it, so he stopped, complimented Lazy Susan on the coffee (which was not in fact all that good) and slipped her a ten.
Then cherub and demon paused for a moment in the bright morning sunshine outside the diner. Mammon said, "Looks like a good day for the concert."
"Quiet right now," Love God said. "But I see the storm getting closer. Let's hope we can both weather it."
Sev'ral Timez rehearsed its last set of the show that morning. The guys had more hope now—they had not spotted Bratsman, and they were starting to think they might get out of this with no ugly encounters.
After some negotiations with Tad Strange, Stan had scheduled them to close out the festival, taking the stage at midnight for a ten-song wrap-up of their career, starting with two golden classics from their Bratsman days, "Cray-Cray" and "Come On, Baby," and then four from their comeback year (including two lesser-known songs they composed while living with Multibear, "Sticky Honey" and "Just Woke Up"), and finally their three biggest hits from recent years, ending with a farewell anthem.
"Yo," Deep Chris said, "this is gonna be straight sad, guys."
Chubby Z. said, "It won't be cool unless everybody's like all crying and junk, yo!"
"What are we gonna do?" Leggy P. asked.
They all were ready with the answer. "Crush it!" they said.
And then they broke for lunch.
When the Ramirezes returned home at 11:30, Stan and Sheila were in the Shack to meet them. Sheila had cooked brunch for everyone. Stan said, "Yeah, yeah, gotta hurry, gonna be late as it is. OK, Gunzell, you're gonna stay in my office until the festival's over. Got a john in there, we can send out for food, your old boss won't know where you are."
Though Wilmer was nervous about the whole idea, he went along with it. He took off the borrowed blazer, but Soos made him keep the tie. "Just a friendship gift, dude," he said cheerfully. As a disguise, Soos gave Wilmer a fake beard, one of his old flannel winter shirts to wear as a jacket—it swallowed Wilmer and hung down to his knees—and a novelty straw hat Soos had brought back from Mexico. Looking at him from any distance, no one would have known the figure as Wilmer. They might have called the police or a mental-health facility, but they wouldn't have recognized Wilmer.
Sheila, who'd expected Stan to need a grab-and-go meal, packed a lunchbox with muffins containing cheese, eggs, and veggies, along with strawberry and peanut-butter quesadillas (Abuelita's invention, originally meant for the kids, but Stan loved them), and a large thermos of coffee. "Let your guest share these," she warned him. "And you be careful." She kissed him.
Wilmer stayed low in the Stanleymobile on the drive over. Exercising his privilege as festival promoter, Stan parked not eight feet from the office door, got out, unlocked, and then surveyed to make sure the coast was clear before motioning Wilmer to hurry inside.
First, Wilmer took off the uncomfortable disguise, and then they ate. Then Stan had Wilmer sit in the visitor's chair. "OK," he said. "I know you already talked to my brother about all this tsuris. Now you had a night's sleep, you been fed, you're outa danger, I want you to go through it all with me."
"There's not much to say," Wilmer told him.
"One thing before you start, though." Stan reached into his pocket and took out a pair of brass knuckles, which he set on the desk. "I understand somehow my niece Mabel is in danger. That, I want to know all about."
He casually tried on the brass knucks. Wilmer's gaze fastened on them.
"Relax. I ain't gonna use these casually," Stanley said. "So tell me the story. Just don't make me angry. We clear?"
Wilmer nodded.
"OK, now spill everything."
And trying hard to recall every detail of what he knew—not all that much—Wilmer spilled it.