“I was not a natural contender for the Challenges—glitz and glamour have never been the birthright of our class, and the entire phenomenon was the misbegotten brainchild of a mad impresario. One who saw, in the ancient struggle between good and evil, little more than a vehicle for corporate advertising.
“You may not recall, but in the years before your birth Toob featured newsworthy content, often streamed live, in place of spectacles like your husband’s hormonal posturing and the dreary parade of dated rerunamenta that greets us there today. One of the last new programs of note was produced by Jim Danger, an aggressive self-promoter whose smile suggested a flossing shark’s. It was his idea to fund, follow, and film the doomed heroics of a phalanx of so-called Weekend Warriors, hapless Everymen who attempted, with touching hubris, to eliminate the menace in our skies. CHALLENGER, as the show was called—the announcer spoke the name in all capital letters—became a sensation as Warrior upon Warrior stepped up only to plunge to televised besplatterment. I heckled their mortality from the couch, until one day derision brought me to my feet. While my father and brother applied themselves adroitly to the most existentially distressing of tasks, here the problem was reversed. These common joes had an unimpeachable answer for why, but they failed at how miserably. I was indestructible with adolescence; I would fast put them to rights.
“I set about filming my video application with care. The models, built to scale from balsawood and taxidermied geckos, may not have been strong indicators of my prowess in battle, but the judges were amused. And once they found out my age—the previous contenders had two decades on me at least—they grasped the delightful gimmick instantly. Comical, precocious, and unmistakably wellborn, I was the type of privileged savant that would be singled out for depantsing by my peers in any proletariat schoolyard. That lent me an unlikely appeal. Every Weekend Warrior carried our city’s fate in his hands as he hearkened to the holy call of CHALLENGER. But if the dragons got me, it would, in the sickly parlance of that time, ‘go viral.’
“I see that now, of course, but at the time I was entirely oblivious to the ulterior motives of my handlers. After I was selected as a contestant, I spent the filming period—with their encouragement!—declaiming hawkish poetry and rubbing my mother’s feet in front of the cameras. All the while, the state-of-the-art HowTank I had requested awaited me on the roof, a strange, hostile emissary from a realm I didn’t dare to contemplate, for fear that my cowardice would prove both visible and untelegenic.
“The night before I took up the Brand Sponsorship Mantle and boarded my ill-fated craft, Humphrey visited me in my room. ‘Did Father send you?’ I demanded. He eyed me perplexedly, as only a lunatic’s brother can. ‘Why would Father send me?’ he asked. ‘I’m here to talk you out of killing yourself tomorrow.’
“Once I gathered the fortitude to expel dear frère from my suite, I fell unabashedly to pieces. I hadn’t known I was bluffing until the bluff was called. My father did not care whether I lived or died; no further humiliation was possible. I drifted off to sleep resolved to drop my Challenge and slink, as best I could, into the blessed shadows of obscurity, where I could rediscover the quiet joys of self-pity and other pleasurable forms of self-abuse.
“Yet that night, I dreamt a dream, one that, more than any waking action, has determined the course of my existence.”
Osmond quaffs deeply from his doppelbock, his silence for once uninflected with the tacit hostility of biting one’s tongue. Swanny, now wide awake, cranes forward on the couch.
“So?” she prompts him at last. “What did you dream?”
Osmond waves his hand as if relating a magician’s trick in dismissive summary. “Everyone knows that only a terrible bore tells his dreams.”
“Everyone knows that only a terrible boor leaves off at such a crucial narrative juncture. Don’t keep me guessing. I quite seriously implore you.”
Osmond sets his half-empty glass on a bookshelf. He smiles.
“What do you think I dreamt of?” he asks. “I dreamt what every lowbrow ‘Weekend Warrior’ before me did. I dreamt of the dragons.”
“And?”
“I dreamt that they confronted me, and that I emerged from the confrontation victorious. I dreamt…”—he gazes foggily into the room’s haze—“of heroism.”
Swanny sinks back to contemplate this. “I’m surprised, somehow, that you wanted to save the world.”
“It was mainly the glory I sought. But the world—yes, I liked it better then.”
“Mmm.” In the city of Swanny’s fantasies, the lights are winking off, one by one, a grand imaginary architecture erasing itself, until only this room remains. She presses the cold beer bottle to her forehead. “I know just how you feel,” she says.
* * *
The bed boat floats on a sea of night. Never has Abby known the small hours to be so silent, so scentless, as they are in this place. She touches Ripple’s back, the smooth dreamful expanse of him that flexes unconsciously at her touch, then crawls down to the bed boat’s prow, where Hooligan sprawls on his back. He tilts his head at her, curious, his liquid brown eyes shimmering in the nightlight’s glow, transmitting the question to her without a sound.
—awake?
—Uh-huh.
His tail thumps on the mattress, and he stretches his arms above his head, offering his chest and belly for her affection. She pets him. His soft black fur is indistinguishable from the darkness, except by feel.
—yes. nice touch. touch more.
—I love you.
—love. love.
—Do you love Dunk too?
—love. love. love.
—When did you start to love him?
—always love.
—I know what you mean. I loved him as soon as I saw him. But when did you come to live here?
—happy day. wore bow. licked dunk’s face. ate chocolate cake. barfed on rug.
—Where were you before?
—before?
—Where were you born?
—crowded. smelly. scary. bitey. too many voices. nicer here. with dunk and love.
—I guess it is.
—yes.
—You’re so good. So much friendlier than the vultures.
—vulture strange.
—Cuyahoga likes you!
—vulture hungry.
—How can you be scared of her? You’re twice as big.
—vulturrrrr…
The growl becomes audible. Abby stifles a giggle.
—Shhh, it’s OK. She won’t come back for a long time. She has to tend to a sister’s brood on the Island. Her sister was burned in a fire.
—fire warm.
—But it burns. You must never go near a fire.
Abby stops petting him for a second to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. He takes her hand in one of his and guides it back toward his armpit.
—nice touch. more love.
—OK, OK.
She resumes. He squeezes his eyes shut in pleasure.
—Hooli?
—uh-huh.
—Can you talk to Dunk? The way we’re doing? With your mind?
—he no listen.
—Can you do it with any other humans?
—they no listen.
—The Lady could never do it either, with the vultures. She said I was the only one who knew their language.
—mmm.
—But I couldn’t talk to all of them. Only certain ones. The magic ones, I guess. Are you made of magic?
—must be.