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"I'll get an order of pancakes, sausage, two eggs sunny side up, and white toast. Coffee, black." Mark folded his menu, and pushed it across the table to the waitress. "Thanks." She collected it, giving him a practiced wink and a grin, and turned to Seneca. "How 'bout you, sweetie?" Seneca continued studying the menu for a few moments, then glanced up over its top, his warm brown eyes heavy with lack of sleep, "Uh ... give me a breakfast sandwich. Ham. Hash browns instead of those little potato things you normally serve, and wheat toast." "Anything to drink?" "Whiskey?" The waitress gave him a brassy laugh. "We don't serve whiskey, hon. Anything else?" "Damn." Seneca ran a hand through his messy hair. "Uh ... a Coke, I guess." "Gotcha." She collected his menu, jotted down their orders in her notepad, and walked back to the counter, a saunter in her step. Seneca watched her hips sway, hypnotized by their slow, rocking motion. "I thought you were vegetarian." Seneca blinked, and turned back to his roommate. "I was." He grinned wolfishly. "I'm not any longer." Vulcan-like, Mark raised a single eyebrow, something he'd spent hours in front of the mirror practicing. "When did this happen?" "Last night." "Ha, I knew Chloe'd change you." "It's nothing like that." Seneca began meticulously tearing a napkin into tiny shreds while he talked. He couldn't have said why he did it: he was just more comfortable with his hands busy. "It's been years since I was passionate about being vegetarian. The only reason I kept it going for so long was because I'd adopted it as a Buddhist, and you know how seriously I take my oaths. But it's been a long time since I was a Buddhist, and that oath was keeping me from experiencing a lot of things. Like the pleasure of a good steak." He laughed, flashing his teeth again. "And it's a lot more honest. I'm an animal. I fuck and kill and shit and die. And when you come right down to it, that's what life is about. This beautiful, intricately woven web of life and death, one creature dying that another might live, that he in turn might give his life for the life of another. You can't escape that. You might think you can by only eating vegetables. But in the end, your hands are still as red. Much better to accept it, acknowledge it, see the beauty in it, and celebrate it. Or at least, much more Dionysian." Seneca dropped the shreds of paper into the ashtray, and spread out his hands in a shrug. "And in the end, that's what matters. I mean, how can you be a good Dionysian without eating meat? Totally closes you off to omophagia, the God's red, raw feasts. Not to mention that it's a form of restriction, of hindrance, a habitual practice devoid of spirit. Lysios dissolves those boundaries and is the enemy of every form of stagnation and inauthenticity. Plus, Chloe is a fucking great cook, and what kind of Sicilian won't eat his woman's cooking?" "You've got a good point there." "Yup." Seneca dug out his pack of clove cigarettes and lit one. He took a couple drags, slowly exhaling the sweet smoke, then asked Mark about his poetry. "It's going great." Mark opened his wire-bound notebook to the poem he was currently working on, and traced the neatly scrawled lines with his finger. "I'm trying to communicate what Apollo feels like to an outsider, to someone who has never experienced our Gods, never even considered that there are Gods other than Jesus out there." Seneca ashed his cigarette and nodded, meditating deeply on his friend's words. "When Dionysos appeared in your life, you already had some experience as a Pagan, some context in which to put the epiphany. But me ... I was an atheist and a college professor. I'd taught the Classics in my World Lit courses, but I sure as hell never believed this stuff. And then, all of a sudden, I start having these strange dreams, these weird experiences, this intense compulsion to research Apollo. His name haunted me even before that: I filled a whole notebook page with his name, writing it out as many times as I could, before I even realized that it was the name of a God. One day I'm walking along the campus, and I get an inexplicable urge to go down a hall I've never been before, and bam, I almost walk right into this huge statue of Apollo lit by the sun coming through a window. Absolutely took my breath away. It was a life-changing moment, let me tell you. In that instant I knew he was a God, and more than that, he was my God. That's what I'm trying to communicate with my poetry." "Wow." "Yeah ..." Mark slumped back in the overstuffed leather chair, a little surprised at how passionately the memory of that day stirred him. "And if there's any medium that's made for communicating those experiences, it's poetry." "Definitely. I don't think most of the people on the lists truly realize that, either. They've got a very amateurish approach to their writing. It's just about expressing how they feel. They're not really conscious of being part of a literary tradition, of being heirs to the great Hellenic culture. Which is a shame, because there are some really fine writers in our ranks. I wish they'd take their poetry more seriously." "I think they take it as seriously as they need to." "Maybe. But just think how good Timotheus could be if he put a little more thought into his writing. Worked on it just a little harder. He's said that he writes it all in one sitting in a single creative flurry. And when it's done, he leaves it exactly as it is and doesn't go back and edit it. To me, that's just laziness. He could be as good as ... well, as you ... if he just put a little effort into his writing." Seneca grinned and ashed his cigarette. "I never edit my stuff either." Mark was going to respond to that, but their waitress arrived, carefully balancing their plates. Both men were hungry that morning, and the food smelled especially good. Seneca poured almost half a bottle of green tabasco on his hash browns, and then dug into them with great Dionysian gusto, licking his lips after each bite. Mark was a little more reserved as he attacked his sausages, spearing them with his fork, then dipping them into the runny yellow yolk of his eggs - but not by much. "Think about it," Mark said, pointing a half eaten slice of toast at his friend. "Imagine what it would be like if we had a whole bunch of Hellenic poets, with real quality work, to do readings. A night of Hellenic poetry - hell, of Hellenic art. Why limit it to just poetry? We've got painters, writers, actors in our midst. Imagine if we could get all of these people together, and get them to share their work. Imagine how great that would be." "Damn, that would be pretty cool." "Yeah, it would be. Just imagine how that would influence people. I bet we'd convert the whole audience!" Seneca laughed and lit up another cigarette. It always came back to that with his friend. The Hellenic Polytheist community is a small one, and Mark found this an intolerable situation. He wanted the comfort of large numbers, wanted to celebrate the ancient festivals in the way they were meant to be celebrated - with huge crowds, people flooding the streets to watch the processions, watch the dances and dramatic performances, the speeches and spectacles, the sacrifices and lavish displays. There was a missionary zeal to the man, which no doubt came from his family's long history in Charismatic Christianity. Sometimes when he got going on the topic of their community's need to expand, Seneca expected him to break out in hand clapping and amens and display the full anointing of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, Seneca appreciated his friend's passion, and shared his desire to see a larger Hellenic community. "What? You think I'm kidding? Poetry has the ability to move people in a way that argument and apologetics never can. I've seen it at Café Roma when I read my poetry. There's a great need in these young people, a religious yearning that isn't being filled by Christianity or materialism or Wicca or anything else out there. But our religion, our Gods, can meet that need. They think my poetry's cool, a little weird but cool. They don't really know how to take it at first. It's so different from the depressed Goth or angry Hip Hop stuff they're used to. They just kind of sit there, going, 'What's this guy talking about?' But then it sort of sinks in, and they get it, they feel the truth. They're the future of our religion, these students and artists, this great untapped resource of youngsters. Not the Pagan community, like so many of you seem to think." Seneca shrugged and blew a perfect ring of smoke, which hovered over his head for a few moments. "I don't particularly care where the people come from, I'd just like to be able to celebrate the Oskhophoria in style." "It isn't going to happen by itself. We need to get out there and be seen. Especially at Café Roma. They need to see that I'm not just out there doing this stuff by myself, but that we're part of an actual community, an actual religion." "Hey, now that I've got a job, and don't have to put all of my energy into worrying about money and bills, I'd be willing to tag along when you go to your next poetry reading. Might even read some of my stuff." "Would you?" Mark's eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning who's found a whole room full of unexpected, shiny packages waiting for him under the tree. "Yeah, sure. I don't know if any of my stuff is good enough to read in front of an audience -" "Believe me, it is." "You sure they'll dig my stuff? I mean, it's got a strong liturgical feel to it. I'm not sure that's the kind of stuff a poetry slam audience is really going to be into." "These are my people. I know what they like. And I know that they're going to be blown away by your writing. There's real power in your words." "You've twisted my arm enough." Seneca laughed. "I'll come and read." "Excellent! It's going to be incredible having you on stage with me." "When's the next open mic night?" "Tonight." "Shit. I've got to work tonight." "What time are you off?" "Seven." "That's great. It doesn't start until eight." "Yeah, but I was going to chill with Chloe tonight after work." "Bring her along! I'm sure she'd love to see you up on stage." "Maybe. I'll see if she's up to it." And with that, the two men went back to eating. * * * Seneca knocked on the door as he carefully opened it. The room was totally dark, and it took his eyes a couple moments to adjust. But then he saw the four-poster bed in the corner of the room and his girlfriend in a tangle of sheets and blankets. "Good morning, sunshine ..." He sang, closing the door behind him. Chloe stirred in the bed, blinking herself awake. It took her a couple moments to focus on the figure approaching her, and a couple moments longer for her to realize that it was Seneca. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and let her come more fully awake. Chloe stretched and yawned, and stretched some more, and yawned again, and blinked a lot, and finally managed to prop herself up in a sitting position. "Good morning." She smiled. "I brought you breakfast." Seneca pushed the white styrofoam box across the bed towards her. "Awww, thanks, sweetie. You're so good to me." She opened the box and the delicious smells of bacon and omelet rose to greet her. Her tummy growled in anticipation as she dug into the eggs with the plastic fork he'd picked up for her. Seneca lay down on the bed near her feet and watched her eat her breakfast. Even with the sleep still in her eyes and her hair an unruly tangle, she was beautiful enough to take his breath away. The blanket was wrapped about her waist, exposing her full breasts and softly rounded shoulders to his gaze. Her long black hair was all pushed to one side, revealing her graceful swan's neck. There was a flush to her cheeks still, and the filtered light that came through the tapestry which hung over their window made her look like some heavenly creature. Chloe smiled back at him, swallowed her mouthful of toast, and asked, "How was your breakfast with Mark? What did you guys talk about?" "Oh, the usual stuff. Politics. Converting the masses. Poetry. He talked me into doing a reading at Café Roma tonight. Wanna come?" "To hear you read your poetry? I wouldn't miss it for the world." Seneca kissed the side of her foot, and thanked her. His beard tickled her, and she giggled, pulling her foot away. "Careful. I'm still eating!" He leaned forward and nipped the arch of her foot. "What kind of Dionysian talks about being careful in bed?" "The kind of Dionysian who doesn't want crumbs in her sheets!" She held the plastic fork up menacingly, and Seneca took the hint. Seneca got up off the bed and started pacing around the small room while Chloe ate. He rubbed his chin, the way he did whenever he was thinking deeply about something. Chloe watched him in between bites of omelet, and then finally asked, "What're you thinking about, hon?" "I don't know which piece to read tonight." "How about the one with the line, 'I've traveled the sorrowful shores of dream'? I always liked that one." "That's because I wrote it about you." Chloe stuck her tongue out at him, and Seneca went back to pacing. "Besides, Mark wants me to read something Hellenic. He's convinced that once the Goth kids hear our work, they'll be singing the praises of the Deathless Gods." Chloe cocked an eyebrow at Seneca in unintentional imitation of Mark and Seneca shrugged. "Hey, stranger things have happened. And besides, it'll give me a chance to read my stuff in front of an audience again. I haven't done that since I got to Vegas." "You read for me." Chloe looked down at her breakfast, and pushed the bulk of her omelet around with a slice of toast. "Well, yeah, but you're different. You're my girlfriend." She grinned up at him. "That doesn't mean I automatically have to like your stuff." Seneca kept pacing, as if he hadn't heard her. "What about 'His Eyes Look Out Upon Endless Ages'? That one really captures Zeus." "Yeah, but is Zeus the best subject for a place like Café Roma?" "I'm sure Zeus wouldn't mind being worshipped by some sweet little Goth chick." "When you say 'worship' it sounds so dirty." Chloe winked at him and ate a forkful of omelet suggestively. "Oh! How about the one with the dancing satyrs? Everyone loves satyrs." "You just want to watch me say 'cock' in front of all those teeny-boppers." "Hmph. Figure it out yourself then." She folded her arms over her naked chest and pretended to sulk. By the time her lip had started quivering Seneca was already in bed with her, leaning over the discarded omelet to kiss her forehead. Chloe smiled up at him, and then exclaimed, "In a Bed of Ivy, Softly! You have to read that one. It's my absolute favorite. I fell in love with you because you wrote it." Seneca laughed. "Really?" "Well, no. I fell in love with you long before that. But that poem just confirmed everything for me." Seneca smiled, and kissed her forehead again. "Then that's the one I'll read tonight." Chloe grinned, which gave her nose the cutest wrinkle, and leaned in to kiss Seneca. The kiss stretched on for moments, and when their lips parted Seneca was breathing harder. He pushed the styrofoam box out of the way, and it tumbled to the floor, spilling eggs onto the carpet. "Fuck," Chloe said. "You made a mess!" "Don't worry about it, I'll clean it up afterwards." His lips found hers again, closing off any further protest. Her soft body moved against his, her hands sliding under the flannel shirt he wore to explore the contours of his back. She slid her fingernails down his spine, causing him to moan and shiver, and he pulled away to unbutton the shirt. "Yes! Get rid of those things. Clothes are evil." Chloe pushed the bedspread off of her hips and stretched out completely nude on the bed, looking like Aphrodite reclining. She watched him struggle with the button fly on his black denim jeans, watched him comically hop up and down on one foot as he tried to get them over his ankles. Then he stood naked before her, hands on his hips, his manhood already starting to stir into life. Her eyes hungrily drew in his frame: his hairy chest, his beard and long hair, his deep, soulful eyes, and his slight pot belly. He wasn't the perfect emblem of manly beauty, but that just made him more attractive in her eyes. He looked like a sinister, sensual Christ, a softer, cuddlier Rasputin. And when he looked at her in just that way, she found herself getting wet. "Well, are you going to stand there posing like a peacock all day or are you going to come and take me?" Seneca growled in response, sending a shiver through her body, and climbed into bed with her. * * * Seneca kept the front door propped open with his foot, just in case the phone rang. He was standing outside the 7-Eleven on Buffalo and Washington, smoking his last cigarette and enjoying the incredible Vegas sunset. There's a ring of low mountains around the city, which dominate and define the horizon. The blood of the dying sun had stained them the most incredible pinks and yellows and golden oranges, and above that the sky was darkening into purple, like a bruise in heaven. There was a slight breeze in from the west, which kept the heat from being too unbearable, though his brow had already started to glisten from just being outside these few, brief moments. Seneca took his final drag and flicked the cigarette butt across the parking lot. It sparked and spun, and came to land in a black stain that might have been oil. Seneca was disappointed when the parking lot didn't go up in a ball of flames, then resigned himself to going back to work. He had a thing of Slurpee cups to stock, and probably needed to change the bag of cheese in the nacho machine: none of his co-workers ever did it, and that shit got nasty when it was left too long. As he walked into the store, strains from some unrecognizable Celine Dion song met him. Seneca shuddered, and cursed his boss for the millionth time. For some ungodly reason, Mr. Marcos insisted on playing the light music station in his store. The radio was in his office, and the office was locked so the employees couldn.t even change it when Mr. Marcos was gone. Each night Seneca was forced to listen to the same sappy, saccharine drivel over and over again - often the same twelve songs in rotation. He was no fan of the genre, but a little variety would have been nice! It had gotten to the point where he knew the lyrics to all of the Carpenter's songs by heart - and that frightened him. As Seneca was reaching under the counter to grab his rag - someone had left the nozzle on the chili open, and there was a huge goopy mess to clean - the buzzer rang and a customer pushed open the door. Seneca started to give his automatic greeting, actually glanced at the woman who entered, blinked, blinked again, and recovered enough to say, "Welcome to 7-Eleven. Can I help you?" "I think I can handle it." The old woman said with an accent out of some bad 70s Hammer Dracula flick. She winked at him behind her sunglasses and headed back to the beer cooler. Seneca watched her for a moment, shook his head, and walked over to the nacho machine to clean up the chili mess. He wasn't even fazed by the woman: he'd clearly been in Vegas too long. She was an older lady, of indeterminate age, somewhere between 60 and 90 though Seneca would never have been able to say for certain. She had short, spikey white hair cropped in a punk style, at least five earrings in each ear, and she was wearing so much make-up that she looked like a clown. To complete her ensemble she was dressed in a Catholic school girl uniform: red and black pleated skirt, which came about mid-thigh, white stalkings up to her knees, shiny black patent leather shoes, and a little matching handbag. She grabbed a 40 oz bottle of malt liquor from the cooler and then strolled through the aisles of the store, finally snagging a handful of Bazooka Joe bubblegum and a package of Slim Jim beef jerky. "My, but you're a cute one." She said as she set her items down on the counter. "We knew what to do with boys like you when I was younger!" Seneca repressed a shudder, and tried not to feel queasy as he rang up her purchases. There was something very odd about the woman, aside from her attire. This was Vegas, after all: he was used to odd. But this woman brought odd to a whole new level. She paid for her items with a handful of coins, dropping them into his outstretched palm and giggling like the schoolgirl she was pretending to be. Before Seneca had finished counting, the lady picked up her bag and left, pausing at the entrance to shake her ass for him. Seneca clamped his eyes shut, and prayed for the image to be burned away from his retinas. Once Seneca had recovered, he began sorting the coins again. He stopped, looked at the coins in his hands, dropped the rest of them on the counter, and examined the remaining one closer. What he'd originally taken to be a dirty nickel proved to be something else entirely. It had strange German script on it... and an eagle and swastika. Seneca blinked, and looked closer at the coin. It was a 1938 5 cent Reichspenny. Seneca just sat there for a moment, letting the full strangeness of the encounter wash over him. Then his mind began constructing elaborate scenarios about the coin: how it may have once belonged to a guard at Auschwitz, or to Herman Goerring, or Adolf Hitler. How it had been used in some diabolical black magic ceremony by high ranking members of the SS. How the coin could possibly be cursed, soaked with the blood of millions of Jews. Then he began to wonder how the old woman with the Eastern European accent had come by it. Had she been an actual Nazi? She seemed old enough to have been around back in 1938. Had she been one of Hitler's avid followers, one of those pretty little blond girls in the white dresses, passing a bouquet of flowers to Der Furher. Now look at her! And why the hell had she given him the coin? By accident - or as some cryptic threat to the vaguely Semitic looking man behind the counter? Her comment "We knew what to do with boys like you when I was younger!" took on a certain ominous undertone now. Seneca dropped a nickel from the change dish into the till and then tucked the Reichspenny into his pocket. "Fuck, I need a smoke," He palmed a pack of cigarettes in such a way that the security cameras wouldn't catch him, then walked back outside. Seneca propped the door open so he could hear the phone and squatted down on the grimey sidewalk to watch the traffic speed by on Buffalo and meditate on the strangeness that was Las Vegas. *** Café Espresso Roma was situated in a small strip mall just off the UNLV campus in the middle of downtown Vegas. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you might have missed it among the vacant office spaces and cheap restaurants that surrounded it. Even with all the black-clad youths huddled in the parking lot, Chloe and Seneca wouldn't have been able to find it if Mark wasn't driving. "This is it, guys." Mark said, tucking his wire-bound notebook under his arm and slamming his truck's door. "My home away from home." Chloe looked less than impressed, but kept her comments to herself. "How's it going, guys?" Mark asked a group of teens lounging in the corridor between buildings. "Any decent poets tonight?" They didn't even acknowledge him, engrossed as they were in a heated debate on Greenday's cred as a punk band. Mark, nonplussed, walked inside, and Chloe muttered under her breath, "These kids would get their asses kicked back in New York. Just because." Seneca laughed and held the door open for her. Far from the Bohemian oasis they had expected, Café Roma looked exactly like what it was: a campus coffee house with a shoddy stage up front, currently occupied by a militant lesbian, buzz-cut and Doc Martened, ranting about the patriarchal implications of the word "wo-man". The place was seriously lacking in ambiance - unless the battered couches, poorly mimeographed posters for local bands, videogames from the 1980s, and strings of flickering Christmas lights counted. Which it didn't. The hot, sweaty press of young bodies - an odd mixture of Abercrombie and Fitch and uniformed black - didn't help things. The trio had to stand in the back by the women's restroom and a Ms. Pacman game that had clearly seen better days. "What do you mean we can't smoke?" Chloe asked indignantly. "What kind of poetry club won't let you smoke?" Mark shrugged. "It's the rules. Campus policy." "Ginsberg is probably rolling in his grave, man." Mark set his notebook down on the Ms Pacman machine. "You guys want anything?" "Shot of Jack?" Seneca asked, stepping out of the way of a dog-collered Avril Lavigne clone. "They don't serve alcohol here." "Oh." "I'll be right back." Mark disappeared into the crowd, or as much as a six foot three black man could in a sea of white suburban college kids. "You owe me." "Oh come on, he's our friend and co-religionist. We're here to support him." "I've seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by Britney Spears and Barbie dolls!" Howled the poet from the stage. "You owe me. Big time." Seneca slumped against the machine and sighed. "Let's give him an hour, then we'll beg him to take us home." "If he won't, I say we steal his truck." "Burn your bras and fight the power!" "Deal." About ten minutes later, Mark returned, sipping an iced coffee. "This is great. I talked with a couple people and they're really excited to hear our stuff. These kids are ripe for the picking. There's a real energy here, an enthusiasm. These kids are on the cutting edge, and what could be more edgy than worshipping our Gods? All they've got to do is hear about us and they'll be busting down the door to offer libations alongside us. I'll say it again: this is the future of our religion, right here in this room. Can you feel it?" "I can feel something." Chloe turned and glared at a frat boy with his baseball cap on backwards who'd gotten too close. He gave her a disarming smile and her scowl deepened. He sheepishly backed off. A young man with perfectly coifed hair and a neatly trimmed goatee took the stage. "Wow, definitely some things to think about there. Thanks Amanda X. Everybody give her a hand." There was a smattering of applause from the audience - most of it coming from a table in the front where a group of similarly attired women sat - and the poet raised her fist in a Black Power salute, then left the stage. The emcee told a lame joke, reminded the crowd of the upcoming cd release party for local band Goodman's Martini that was happening here next Thursday, and then shuffled through his notes. "Our next poet is an old favorite. Everyone give a warm Café Roma welcome to Jared McClinton!" A kid with spikey blond hair, retro horn-rimmed glasses, and a faded Violent Femmes t-shirt took the stage. His reception was a little more lively than the last poet's, but most of the audience stared on indifferently. By way of an opening, Jared talked about the banalities of his week and how he was just beginning to get over the devastating break-up with his girlfriend that had started off the semester. "Anyway, this one's for her. It's a work in progress that I call, 'I always hated that stupid bitch'." "This one's good. He reads it every week." Mark sipped the last of his iced coffee, the straw making a low slurpy noise. "I signed us up earlier: only two more poets, then it's our turn. You ready, man?" Seneca buried his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Don't have much choice, do I?" Mark looked hurt. "If you don't want to do it." "Oh, it's not that. I just haven't read in front of anyone in - a while." "You'll do fine." "Yes you will, sweetie." Chloe kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear. "You're going to look really sexy up there on stage. I may have to rape you on the way home." Seneca grinned hugely, and almost pushed his way through the crowd right then. But Chloe licked his earlobe, and he found himself immobilized by a paroxysm of shivers. Jared read three more poems - a depressing piece that compared death to a lover, a protest poem about the war in Iraq modeled after the Twelve Days of Christmas, and a rhyming couplet about a homeless man getting drunk in the lobby of Circus, Circus. He was replaced by a pretty blond in baggy sweat pants and a hoody, who read an account of her first sexual experience from her journal: clumsy groping in the backseat of her boyfriend's car, and she didn't even cum. The guy who took her place didn't even look human. He was close to seven feet tall, completely bald (including eyebrows) except for a braided topknot. His teeth were filed to piranha-sharp points, and he wore dark black lipstick and blush on his cheeks to highlight the deathly pale pallor of his flesh. He wore a leather jacket with bits of mechanical wiring hanging from it and silver lame pants. He looked like a Hare Krishna Hell's Angel or the love child of Locutus and Joey Ramone. His poetry made about as much sense as a Radiohead song, and he read it in a robotic monotone, which might have worked if he didn't have a castrado's high-pitched voice. "Well, we're up next." Mark picked his notebook up from the Ms Pacman machine. "I'll go first to set the stage, and then you can knock 'em dead kid." "Make Apollo proud." Seneca patted his friend on the back. "I'll try!" Mark strode through the crowd like a conquering hero, and then Seneca turned to Chloe. "It's not too late to escape, is it?" "It is. Besides, Mark's given them your name. Do you want the poetry mafia to show up on your doorstep one morning? 'Read for us, or you'll sleep with the fishes?'" "This is Vegas: there aren't any fishes in the desert." "There are in Lake Mead." "Damn, you've got a point there." Chloe grinned, and Seneca kissed the tip of her nose. "Course, I wouldn't mind that blond showing up on my doorstep. Bet I could make her cum." Chloe punched him in the chest. "Kidding!" The frown didn't go away. Seneca kissed her nose again. She pulled back. "I'm going to go scratch her eyes out." "Ooh, can I watch?" "No, you're going to be up on stage while I do it." "Okay." Seneca leaned in for a kiss and Chloe returned it vigorously, her tongue teasing the inside of his mouth until the world around him melted away. "What girl?" "That's better." The emcee had just finished introducing Mark. He seemed a little out of place on the makeshift coffeehouse stage: a handsome, older black man, dressed in conservative slacks and a button-down white shirt. Holding his notebook in front of him, Mark adopted a professor's stance, looking for all the world as if he were about to give a lecture on economic theory in the post-Cold War era. "Hey guys. This is the poem I told you about last week. I've been working on it for almost a month now, and it's finally ready for the public." A couple of the Café Roma regulars seemed to perk up, but most of the audience continued talking rudely. "As you know, I worship the Old Gods of Mount Olympos. Tonight, you're going to see them represented by two poets. Myself, honoring Phoebus Apollo, and then my good friend who's come all the way from Washington State to read for us, Seneca the Dionysian." Seneca cringed. He wanted as little attention on himself as possible. Mark cleared his throat and began to read. * We walked the grass two hundred thousand years before the city rose. At least at night, if the fire was high and red, There were no places then toward which one might
walk, Here, behind cut stone, to have one's name. As Mark read, he began to undergo a transformation. Gone was the awkward professor out of place among the misfit youth of Café Roma. Gone was everything but his love for his God and the power of his words. He stood transfixed, possessed by the spirit of poetry, confident, magical, a prophet of Apollo whose beauty and light flowed through him and touched the listener in parts of their soul they had forgotten, or never knew, were there. This was what he was meant to do. From his very first breath, everything in his life had led inexorably to this moment, to him standing up there on that particular stage, reading the poetry he had worked so hard to craft. "Damn." Seneca said, words failing him. "Yeah." Chloe almost hated to admit it - but he was good. Damn good. Mark shined. There was no other way to describe it. Once only you knew the number of the stars. Easy, in a poem, to bemoan the day. Rain, Thargelios, Cool wet beads in my eyebrows, I will witness. That we are strong together, I whistle round the Sun, Rain, Thargelios. After he finished, Mark stood there for a couple moments, as if coming back to himself. He blinked and looked around: the emcee was standing behind him. Mark awkwardly stepped back, letting him take the mic. "That was Mark Reginald, everybody. Give him a hand." Unbelievably, Mark received even less of an ovation than the militant lesbian. His poem had gone on too long, and when there had been no mention of breasts, violence, or melancholy emotion, most of the audience had grown bored and lost interest. But Mark failed to notice, caught in the blissful afterglow of poetic ecstasy. The emcee read off Seneca's name, and he reluctantly took the stage. "So you've come all the way from Seattle to read for us tonight?" "Everett, actually. And I've lived here six months." "Oh." Annoyance flashed across the emcee's face. "But you're a Café Roma virgin, right?" The audience laughed. "I guess so." "I promise, we'll be gentle." He winked. Seneca just stared at him, contemptuously. "So, what've you got for us?" "It's - uh - called 'In a Bed of Ivy, Softly'. I wrote it a couple years ago." "Alright then. Any time you're ready." And the emcee relinquished the mic. Seneca stepped forward and adjusted the mic-stand. He stared out into the sea of strange faces, the stage lights temporarily blinding him. He cleared his throat, causing a crackle of feedback. Someone in the audience laughed. Seneca swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly gone dry, and then he began to recite the poem from memory. "Louder!" Someone screamed. "We can't hear you!" Another person added. Seneca stumbled over his words, cleared his throat again, and leaned closer into the mic. What the hell had he let Mark talk him into? He hadn't stood in front of an audience like this since he'd been his high school's representative to the school board. He had no business being up on stage. He was going to make a fool of himself. The magic and confidence that came so easily to Mark was completely lacking in Seneca. He wanted to bolt, stopping only to knock the smug, shit-eating grin off that preppy puke's face in the front row as he pushed his way through the crowd to the exit. And then Seneca caught sight of Chloe, noted the proud smile that she wore as she watched him. The wild beast that dwelt in his heart lay its shaggy head down and slept once more. A stillness and peace washed over him, and he could breathe again. Seneca closed his eyes, keeping the image of Chloe's face fresh in his mind, and he began to recite his poem. In a Bed of Ivy, Softly was his best work, there was no denying it. Seneca had written it in a single evening, shortly after meeting Dionysos. It was almost as if the poem had written itself, the words appearing writ in burning script upon his heart. He had jotted the poem down in a mad frenzy, hardly stopping to read what he'd written for fear that the words would get caught, and he'd be destroyed by them, consumed in flames like a holocaust on the altar. It was a narrative poem, describing how Dionysos discovered Ariadne close to death and wracked with grief, abandoned on the rocky island of Naxos. Awakening to joy in the arms of her God, Ariadne becomes his bride, and is welcomed by the loving thiasos of nymphs and satyrs on Mount Nysa, who celebrate her as their Queen. More than just a poetic account of a mythological scene, it was a metaphor for Seneca's own spiritual experience, how Dionysos had rescued him from despair and emptiness, reawakening that sense of joy-in-living and child-like wonder that had been missing from his life for so long. It was his most personal work, and the first time that he had read it for Chloe over the phone he had been embarrassed by the intensity of emotion that it conveyed. When he finished reading it he was met with silence on the other end of the phone, and he began to wonder if the line had gone dead, if Chloe had found it terrible and boring and hung up on him. Then she said, "Wow," and said it a couple more times, and Seneca had never felt so alive as he did in that instant. It scared him how much her opinion mattered to him (nobody else's ever had) and excited him that she liked it. Seneca finished his poem, and didn't even wait for the emcee to give his canned closing. He climbed down from the stage and rushed through the crowd, his cheeks flushed, stomach a little queasy, and spirits soaring for having overcome his stage fright, no matter how poor his delivery had been. He found Chloe and Mark back by the Ms Pacman machine, talking with a blond teen-ager wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with a silver anarchy symbol. Chloe hugged Seneca, smothering him with kisses. "You were great! See, I told you you'd be." Seneca simply enjoyed her kisses, and didn't correct her. "Awesome, man." Mark informed him. "That was the perfect choice for this audience." "Dude, I was nothing compared to you. I had no idea you could read so well! You were alive with poetry." Mark grinned, clearly pleased with his friend's praise. "You were both really good." The blond interjected. "I had no idea there was anything like you guys out there." "Seneca, this is William. He wants to learn more about Hellenismos. William, Seneca." William reached out his hand, and Seneca shook it. William was model-handsome, with large blue eyes, sensual pouty lips, and curly blond hair artfully disheveled. "Mark was telling me a little bit about your religion. So you guys - uhm - really believe in the Gods, and stuff?" "And stuff." Seneca smirked. Chloe slugged him in the shoulder. "Be nice." "What?" Seneca rubbed his arm. "I am." "Good." "Like what kind of stuff?" "We're Reconstructionists. I guess you could say we try to worship the Gods as close to the way that the ancient Greeks did as possible." "Woa . I always liked history." A group of giggling girls made their way to the restroom, between them all the colors of the rainbow represented in their hair. "So, what kind of stuff do you guys do?" "We perform rituals. Sacrifices, libations, festivals and things of that nature." "And I read my poetry here at Café Roma." "Do you guys have a group that you worship with?" "There's about eight or nine of us here in Vegas." Chloe said. "So it's sort of like a Church?" "Sort of. Except that we don't pass the collection plate." Seneca grinned. "Although I'm sure that Aristeas would like to change that." Mark and Chloe laughed, but only because it was true. In his day job, Aristeas was an accountant, and he was always complaining about the way that the demos squandered its money. "Fascinating. I've got to go now, my friends are waiting for me. But I just wanted to tell you guys how much I liked your poetry. It was so original." They both thanked him. "I've always been interested in the Gods. Where can I find out more about you guys?" Mark tore a sheet of paper from his notebook and jotted down a couple web addresses, including the demos' own personal site. Then he added his address and phone number. "Here you go," he handed it to him. "Give me a call any time if you ever want to discuss Hellenismos. I'm never too busy to help someone take their first steps along the path of the Gods." "Thanks, I will." William folded the piece of paper in half and tucked it into his jeans' pocket. "See you later." The trio watched him vanish into the crowd, and then Mark exclaimed, "That was awesome! I knew our poetry would reach these kids." "Looks like it. Man, what a night." Seneca dug the 5 cent Reichspenny out of his pocket, and handed it to Chloe. "What's this?" She held the coin up for closer inspection. "Have I got a story for you! Come on, guys. I'll tell you about it over a round of beers at Beano's."
* The poem that Mark reads is actually Arkhegetes,
written by the talented poet Todd Jackson, who has kindly
given me permission to use it in my story. Astute readers
will notice certain superficial similarities between Mark
and Todd. These are, I assure you, purely coincidental. |
