Be It Ever So Humble

He reduced speed on his two-wheeled intergalactic cruiser with butterfly handlebars from interstellar to suborbital and gracefully soared up the cracked cement driveway and into the cinderblock spaceport. He shut down the power drive, which got its source from thought waves, and disembarked, putting down the kickstand. He reached down and activated the invisibility screen on his belt. He walked around the side of the house, and went in through the front door.

He walked quickly through the living room, barely observing father's gold recliner and the matching sofa, on the wall, above the sofa, a velvet painting in a carved frame of an old Jewish man, robed in a blue and white striped prayer shawl, sounding a twisted ram's horn. He crept past the veneered shelving unit that displayed mother's bric-a-brac, the blonde-wood console TV in glorious black and white, the hanging lamp with amber-colored, plastic prisms, and the gold pile carpeting his feet were compelled to touch (he was still working on his levitation device). He didn't like to touch the carpet - mother was wired to the whole house and if you touched anything she could detect you.

He noted the absence of plants, animals, and people in the living room.

He heard mother in the kitchen fixing dinner. It was Friday night – she would be making roast brisket, kishke, matzoh ball soup, and mandelbread for dessert. She kept a kosher home. Rabbi, who was a widower, would be coming home with father for Shabbos dinner. Children had to wear skull caps and recite the Kiddush. This reflected well on father and mother. He hated Friday nights.

He silently slipped down the hall past the open bathroom door, smelling the pungent, powdery air in the pink porcelain-tiled room. He didn't like the bathroom. It made him feel nauseous. This was where father washed his mouth out with soap for talking back at the table, and  for saying dirty words.

He placed his hand on the doorknob to his control room. Entering swiftly, he shut and latched the door, turned on the blacklight, turned on the music that his parents hated. He lay down on his bed and lit up a joint. He looked at a poster of a magic castle on an inaccessible mountain peak rising out of a mysterious forest. A crescent moon hung in an inky sky, impaled by a turret. He watched the banners flap in the wind that the storm he knew was coming brewed up. He walked under the shadow of the trees, the cold ground beneath his bare feet. Being the son of god on earth was hard work.

His will held the planets in their orbits and the cosmos in its forward rotation, no matter how many times the Evil Maldo tried to kill him. The Evil Maldo – arch rival, but far, far older. The Evil Maldo was the Great Director of all the ignorant actors who performed on the decaying stage of life and carried out the drama:

“To be or not to be? . . .”
And a zillion other questions . . .
And a zillion other quests . . .
And a million billion secrets . . .
And a million billion lies . . .
And a million billion zillion stars in the sky . . .

Yet he had, as always, escaped – barely – to live out another day another second another lifetime. How long would his sword remain sharp, his lance keen enough to repel the advances of the Evil Maldo? Only he stood in the way of the Evil Maldo claiming all existence as his tribute.

“What is it?” he responded to the pounding on the door.

“We're eating!” bitch little sister said.

He set the controls on automatic so that the heavens would not run amok in his absence, and went out to dinner. “Oh, finally decided to join the human race?” said father.

Being the first born, he was expected to say the blessing over the fruit of the vine, but he did so mechanically, which was appropriate since he wished he was a robot.

Younger brother made faces when no one was looking, trying to get him to laugh while he was reciting or spill his shot glass of Mogen David wine. Younger brother was good at sports (he always got chosen first for pick-up games at the park, instead of last. Sometimes we were a package deal. You could get the best player for your team, but you had to take the worst). Younger brother had friends. Younger brother had girlfriends. Younger brother went outside and had fun. Younger brother didn't have to worry about holding the universe together.

Mother brought food to the white-linen covered table. The flames of the two Sabbath candles in their brass candlesticks flickered as she set down the dishes. Rabbi broke bread, slicing pieces of the moist, egg-rich, braided challah, and everyone began to eat. Father asked bitch little sister about school, asked younger brother about baseball, asked mother about housewivery. Mother replied, “I polished the silver.” He wondered if she meant the shackles around her neck and ankles and wrists that were obviously the cause of the back pains mother complained about as she slumped around the house stopping occasionally to rub her varicose legs. Mother's breasts were veiny too.

Father then asked him how school was. “Stupid,” he replied.

He was terrified of school. Everyone there was an agent of the Evil Maldo. School took a lot of ingenuity to get through. After school he would fly to his sanctuary, his intergalactic cruiser with orange banana seat traveling at incomprehensible velocities down the avenues of space and time. He would park in the spaceport and retire to his quarters till the next morning when the never ending - never changing parade charade of life would begin again. Why couldn't they just let him attend to the universe in peace?

“Dear,” said mother to father, “we've got to do something about that attitude of his.”

“Why don't you take your fucking attitude and stick it!” he shouted at mother.

“Alright! That does it!” yelled father. “Get in your room and don't come out!”

He trembled as he closed and locked the door. He laid down on his bed and used his psychic energy to set up a force field. He shut off the automatic controls and took charge of the universe once more. He felt the presence of the Evil Maldo mocking him, tempting him, chiding him, deriding him. He saw the leering face of the Evil Maldo hovering in clouds of fog, crowned with a halo of fire. He felt the pressure increase and beat upon him, tossing and turning him in his bed, drawing tears from his despair inflicted, despair inflicting eyes.

“Open up, please open the door. I just want to talk to you,” pleaded mother.

He focused his entire psychic radiation into a beam. The beam smote mother in the heart. She stumbled back at the onslaught. Father sensing the intensity of the attack came to her aid.

“OPEN THIS DOOR ON THE COUNT OF THREE OR I'LL BREAK IT DOWN!”

He quickly drew up the blinds, punched out the windowscreen and jumped out into the backyard. He raced around the house to the spaceport, boarded his intergalactic cruiser feeling the strength return to him as he firmly grasped the dirty white handlebar grips. He launched his vehicle out into the night and sailed past the opening back door.

He increased speed down the driveway, out into the street. He soared madly past rows of flashing houses cursing everyone and everything to eternal suffering. Turned once more to look back at mother, father, younger brother, bitch little sister, rabbi in the driveway.

Turned to meet the oncoming eyes of the Evil Maldo, smiled, said goodbye, and kissed the front end of a Mack truck.