JUST RELEASED
An Excerpt from “New Year’s Eve, 1999”
A new “Holidazed” novel by Gregg Sapp
For months, in anticipation of the Y2K apocalypse, Aeons had been proselytizing at locations across Columbus, at bus stops and crosswalks, on freeway entrance and exit ramps, in parking lots outside shopping malls, in the middle of the street at Broad and High at rush hour, and in front of businesses from upscale restaurants like the Kahiki to dives like the Booti Tooti Gentleman’s Club. Dressed in their rainbow-colored sackcloth, which Valterra joked made them look like an army of old hippies, they’d make a scene chanting “Control Alt Delete!” It wasn’t unusual for somebody to stop in their tracks, shout “hallelujah,” and put on the rainbow garment right then and there. Aeons contended that sudden, overwhelming conversion experiences were proof of miracles. Erasmus thought it just proved that nothing was too stupid for people to believe.
One early spring Saturday night in 1999, Erasmus took his girlfriend, Maricela Gonsalves, to their favorite hangout, Club Good Dog. They arrived to find a human chain of Aeons blocking the entrance. They’d locked arms and dug in their feet, while chanting “Control Alt Delete” and swaying side to side. In their ridiculous pastel robes, they looked like a chorus line from the psych ward.
Disappointed, Maricela whined, “Oh aww.” In her red slip dress, she was attired for dancing and eager to show off her moves. “Maybe if you ask nicely, they’ll let us through.”
“Who the fuck do they think they are?” Erasmus wondered aloud.
“A bunch of fucking sociopaths, that’s what they are,” a gruff voice answered.
It was Vader, a fellow member of the X Posse, who sidled up to Erasmus. They exchanged the Posse’s secret handshake, locking fingers and rubbing thumbs together.
“How do we get past these cretins?” Erasmus asked him.
“Let’s go have a few friendly words with these charming folks,” Vader said.
Erasmus advised Maricela to stand back while he and Vader went to confront the apparent leader at the center of the Aeon line — a black man with, of all things, a calculator in his breast pocket. Vader looked down at him and said, “Look out, bro, ’cuz we’re coming through.”
The man did not acknowledge him. Instead, he chanted louder, “Control Alt Delete,” and the rest in the line likewise raised their collective voices.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough,” Vader snarled. “Whether you let us go or we go over you, we are coming through.”
Vader walked back ten steps to give himself a running start, then barreled straight ahead into the arm link between the leader and the Aeon to his left. As bones cracked, Erasmus fell in behind Vader and pushed. The Aeon defenses converged around the point of impact and formed a secondary, although loosely coupled barrier between themselves and the entrance to the club. Vader had half a dozen Aeons clinging to various parts of his body, while he dragged them slowly forward. Erasmus held back, reluctant to engage so many at once. For a bunch of pacifists, those Aeons had a lot of fight in them.
Meanwhile, like the cavalry in a cheesy old Western move, bouncers from Club Good Dog came rushing to help. Full-blown fisticuffs broke out. At the center of the scrum, the bouncers pummeled Aeons with a mixed martial arts repertoire of punches, elbows, jabs, knees, and karate kicks. Fallen Aeon bodies piled up, while the rest of the congregation broke rank and fled. Vader reached the door to the club and pounded his chest, emitting a gorilla roar.
Emboldened by the momentum turning in his favor, Erasmus targeted a scrawny Aeon whose back was turned to him, and he lunged, lifted, and pile-drove the hapless Aeon headfirst into the ground. That was the first act of intentional physical violence Erasmus had committed in his adult life, and he whooped with elation. The Aeon tried to crawl away, but Erasmus pulled him back by the cuffs of his pants and stood straddling him, with his hands on his hips in a Superman pose. He lifted his foot, preparing to ram it down into the center of the smitten Aeon’s rib cage.
A female Aeon swept over the fallen body, shielding him from Erasmus’s foot. “Forgiveness is recursion,” she cried.
Her voice staggered Erasmus. He withdrew his foot, but when he planted it on the ground, his knees buckled.
The female Aeon tried to coax the other onto his feet. “Let’s leave this place,” she said.
The second time she spoke, the sound of her voice removed any doubt from Erasmus’s mind. He reached out and pulled back the female Aeon’s cowl.
“Celeste? What the fuck?”
His sister, Celeste, was ashen pale with wildly dilated pupils; her cheeks drooped, as if melting. It looked like she’d lost about thirty pounds since the last time he’d seen her, at their father’s funeral. Erasmus grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her toward him.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Because you can’t possibly be my sister.”
Celeste stiffened her back. “I’m sorry you found out like this. You were going to be the next person I told.”
“What do you mean — the next person?”
“I have already told Mother.”
That revelation slapped his face. Erasmus had visited the Old Lady just the other day, and even asked how Celeste was doing, but she didn’t say anything about her joining a cult. He’d have thought that was a piece of information their mother would feel relevant to share with him. Was she hiding it from him?
From behind them, Maricela called out, “Heeeey, chica. Hola.”
Celeste sidestepped Erasmus to hug Maricela. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said.
“I hadn’t heard from you for so long, I thought you were mad at me.” Maricela stepped back and looked Celeste up and down. “What’s up with this?”
“It’s what I believe. We should get together some time and talk about it. What I have to say could save your soul.”
Erasmus stomped his foot between them. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said to Celeste, then put his arm over Maricela’s shoulder and said, “Tonight, we’re going dancing.”
Maricela squirmed free and asked, “Are you even, like, allowed to dance?”
“Of course. Dancing is one of the best ways to worship.”
“Bueno,” Maricela said, rolling her hands so her bracelets jangled. “Dancing is good for the soul.”
Erasmus was beginning to feel marginalized in this conversation. It bothered him that Maricela and Celeste agreed on something, even if it was just dancing.
“If you like dancing so much, then why don’t you get rid of that silly bathrobe you’re wearing and come clubbing with us?” he asked Celeste, expecting her to refuse, then to ensure her refusal, he added, “Hey, Valterra will be there. Wouldn’t you like to see him again?”
“No,” Celeste insisted. “I would not.”
Erasmus made a whirling motion with his index finger. “Listen, Celly. This is not okay. These people are a bunch of fucking loonies. You know that, don’t you?”
Celeste blinked loose a tear. “I have to leave now.”
As she turned, Maricela made a thumb-and-pinky “call me” gesture, and Celeste blew her a kiss.
A scream swelled inside Erasmus, but while his chest and lungs burned with indignation, he couldn’t find words to fuel these feelings. Instead, all that came out was the same sound that he’d always made, ever since he was a child, when he couldn’t get his way. “Arrrrgggghhh.”
More from Gregg Sapp on Medium:
