FIZZLE'S FOLLY - NOON

Kevin sat up in bed in his room. He was listening to the overture to Don Giovanni on his noise-canceling headphones and revising his notes on the demon tablet, removing useless material. For some reason, thrown in with God's dictation, there was a long passage in Metatron's personal brand of shorthand that looked like it was directions, maybe the location of something important. But on further inspection, all laid out, it was clearly just flowery imagery - comparing the gates of hell to a goat in the forest, and waxing poetic about a bloody mound of earth in Megiddo, calling it a garden of lost children. Kevin growled to himself as he read about friendship and isolation, and Metatron's prayers for all God's creations to come together. And "as I write this, I'm reminded of a story about three birds..."

"What the hell, man?" Kevin said to his notes. He tore an entire page out of his binder, crumpled it and tossed it at the wall. "Thanks for the eye-banshees,... jackass."

Every time Metatron tried to create atmosphere, Kevin had to throw out a day's work. He tried to scratch his ear under his headphone with the eraser end of his pencil. I wasn't working, so he took the headphones off and was startled by the booming of loud, muffled music.

Garth was back.

Kevin set his work aside and headed out of his room. When he opened the door, he got the full blast of New Edition's "Candy Girl" coming from the mini boombox in the galley. The desks were pushed against the walls. Garth had just set a chicken and rice casserole on the hot plate and was now tossing old take-out boxes in the trash, whilst doing the Ed Lover Dance in front of the sink.

"Garth?!" Kevin yelled, trying to get his voice to carry over Ralph Tresvant. No mean feat. "Garth!" he yelled again.

Garth turned around, lip-synching to the the music. He cupped a hand by his ear.

"Could you turn it down?!" Kevin shouted.

Garth shrugged and shook his head, started dusting off a few old Michael Jackson moves.

Kevin glared. He yelled, "I'm not doing it again!"

Garth smiled and kept on popping and locking.

"Okay, fine," Kevin said, inaudible over the music. With deep resignation, he went to the center of the room and count to three on his fingers. And then, something magical happened. Something majestically dorky. Kevin and Garth started doing the Kid 'n Play. They didn't have much room, but damn, they had to have practiced this. Garth grinned merrily as they danced, and Kevin frowned like he was having serious murder-thoughts.

As soon as Kevin had danced over to the boombox, he turned it off. "Can't you use your headset or something?" he asked, still yelling a little. "I can feel my heartbeat in my ears."

"Dang, pilgrim," Garth said. "Is that all you gotta say to your boy after a week? I brought Tex-Mex."

"Excuse me," Kevin said, "but I've had a crap-load on my plate lately, and I really don't need to get roped into a dance-break on the rare occasions when you decide to swing by."

"I beg to differ," Garth said, leaning against the counter. "Take it from somebody who knows, you get a calling this rough and don't balance it out with a little joy, you'll end up like Batman. If we're gonna come out the other side of this monkey storm, we gotta feed our souls. Unclench a little every now and then. Don't shut me out."

"It's not like I have a choice," Kevin said. "Do you get carrots?"

"Tomatoes," Garth said. "Hell, even Batman had friends."

"Batman had staff," Kevin said, cracking a smile. "He was a rich, muscular white guy who liked to dress up in rubber pajamas and punch guys in bowler derbys, then drive his hotrod back to his mansion in total anonymity, with nobody chasing him. He was fine and I'm boned. Did you get oranges?"

"Apples," Garth said.

"I need vitamin C," Kevin said. "I think I have scurvy."

"No," Garth said, "you're just orange 'cause ya ate all the carrots. Besides, you can't make bunnies outta orange slices."

Kevin sighed heavily. "You already made them, didn't you?" he asked.

Garth picked up a green tupperware and gave it a gentle shake. "Face it, pilgram," he said, "dark needs light. Moon needs sun. Frowny Prophet needs little apple bunnies."

"Stop calling me Frowny Prophet," Kevin laughed. He took the tupperware. "Is there new peanut butter?"

Garth moved out of the way to reveal the JIF on the counter. Kevin took it, got a butter knife and went to a desk to start PBing the apple slices. One of Garth's phones rang, (with "This Is How We Do It" as the ringtone) and he turned away to answer it.

"Yo, Red. Hey,... take it easy, dawg. Oh, man, okay. Yeah. 'Buttermere,' where's that? ...Dude, it's a long ways off-. Granted... Where are you now? Good, I got some pals in the vicinity, they're old hands, you're gonna be five by five. Yeah, just sit tight. Hasta." He hung up and turned back the Kevin. "Hey, Tranman, Imma be back in a little while, alright?"

"Wha' happened?" he asked, through half a mouthful of apple.

"Usual stuff," Garth said, looking worried enough for it to not be the usual stuff. "I just gotta go sort my amigo out, reconcile some patterns of demonic activity."

Seeing as he wasn't headless, Kevin could tell something was up. Not much he could do about it, though. "Okay," he said. "Thanks for-." He held up a little apple slice that had bunny ears and a face carved into it. He smiled and laughed under his breath. "Whatever this crazy crap is."

Garth nodded, forced a smile. "Don't let the Tex-Mex burn," he said, before slinking out the door.