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DOOM MAGNETIC!! - CHAPTER NINE:
TOUCH
William Pauley III
Well, goddamn! Looks like the entire desert is one giant freak ass storm cloud, the way Banta and I are boltin’ through the stale summer air, as if we got a couple a hot coals shoved up our asses.
Banta taught me to control the Doom Magnetic, but I sure as hell can’t describe exactly how it is to do it. He said the Starman way is to teach through touch, but he doesn’t say touch like how I say touch, he says it in a way that makes yer bones shake, makes you feel it down deep inside.
TOUCH.
Reminds me of when Z taught Vonna and I how to use the Doom Magnetic. He reached out to us and said, “Lovies…TOUCH.” And he said touch the way Banta says touch. I’ll never forget that moment. It felt like a thousand volts of electricity emptyin’ into me, all in one half a fuckin’ millisecond. It was as if the tip of my finger had been crushed, set, and healed quicker than my brain could even process that I was in pain. And then I knew. The Doom Magnetic. I just fuckin’ knew.
TOUCH.
Banta explained a few things to me just before the TOUCH, things ‘bout Stardust Mechanics or something, the universe, and our place inside it. I didn’t really understand it all, but he didn’t seem too concerned ‘bout it. He said I’ll be learning plenty in the next few hours and the more it’s explained to me, the more it’ll sink in. I just said sure and asked him t’ get on with it.
Hands, elbows, knees, and toes all appear and vanish within seconds. Purple smoke swirls on around us, clingin’ to our skin like some soul suckin’ phantom. I’m sure if there were anyone watchin’ us from a distance, they’d have thought that maybe we was a pack of stampedin’ demon buffalo, straight from the bowels of hell, or maybe even Death itself. Hell, that’s what I’d think if’n I didn’t know any better.
The sky was beginning to turn pink, the first sign of daylight fadin’. Banta stops and appears in full form, outside of the Doom Magnetic, something he hasn’t done since the moment we met. He is a tall man, dressed in a dusty black suit, all cut up, full of holes. He has several bandages wrapped around his hands and blood-soaked gauze covers the top half of his face, which he tries to hide under a pair of black sunglasses and a black Stetson. His lips are cracked and busted up. Looks like he’s been in a serious fight. Or, shit, maybe three.
“Maundin, I must go,” Banta says, “It’s time for your visit with Stahl.”
“Stahl?”
“The second Master of Stardust. You must continue your training. And I must warn you, he won’t be as gentle as I have been.” He chuckles, deep and throaty. Smoker.
I dig into my pockets for a cigarette, push one to my lips, and light up. “Alright then. Wanna smoke b’fore ya go?” I extend my hand, offerin’ for him to dig one from the pack.
“Sure, don’t mind if I do, but I’ve got my own. Thanks.” He pulls out a long-stemmed pipe and stuffs it full of t’bacco. He’s wincing. The wounds on his hands look painful, even through the bandagin’.
“What happened to you? You look banged up. Someone get the best of you?” I ask without even thinkin’. I’m usually pretty good about keepin’ my nose outta other people’s business.
“I don’t know if I would say that, exactly,” he says, as he lights up his pipe and takes a deep puff. “Trouble just always seems to find me, that’s all.”
I choke on a lungful of smoke, laughing. “Heh, shit yeah, that’s a good way of puttin’ it. Trouble always seems t’ find me too,” I say, holding up my hands, displaying a palm full of scars I got from cuttin’ off Qoser’s head.
“It comes with the name, I guess,” he exhales and the smoke swirls into the pink desert sky. “Starmen have always had this problem.”
“Yeah, I reckon you’re right. So, this Stahl character, he’s a Starman too, right?”
“Of course, all the Masters are Starmen. I’m Banta, or B Starman, and he is Stahl, or—”
“Let me guess,” I interrupted. “S Starman?”
“Yes, exactly! And, you know, after you complete your training, you’ll be M Starman.”
“That right?” I take another draw from my cigarette. “M Starman,” I nod, repeating the name several times in my head, “Yeah, I like it. I could get used to a name like that.”
I look up at the sky, it’s beginning to turn red. The sun is trying to bury itself behind the horizon. I nervously kick around some dust with my boots. I’ve got somethin’ on my mind. I can’t shake it.
“I guess you must get this all the time, bein’ one of the Masters and all, but I hafta know…why me?” I ask.
“You’re right, they’ve all asked that very question and I always give the same answer: just cause.”
“Just cause?”
“Just cause,” he says, takin’ another hit from his pipe. “You know that saying, ‘it’s written in the stars’?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that b’fore.”
“Well, that’s it. It’s just written in the stars. Z’s our leader. He knows what’s best for us. He sees something in you that you probably don’t even see yourself. That’s why he’s chosen you to be his successor. You’ll be great one day. You’ll see. You’ll discover things inside of you that the rest of us Starmen haven’t even dreamed is possible. It’s been an honor to train you, sir.”
I nod and nervously brush my hands along the scruff of my two-day beard. I’m flattered, sure, but I don’t really know what t’ say, I guess. He gives my shoulder a taut squeeze.
“Time to go, my friend,” he says, emptying out the ash from his pipe onto the sand. “Good luck.”
In an instant, he disappears.
“Thanks,” I say, takin’ one last draw from my ciggy before tossing it to the earth. I nod, exhale.
Just then the most god-fuckin’-awful sound tears into my ear canal like a goddamn razorblade. Sounds like a fuckin’ jaw harp through a distorted megaphone. I turn and standin’ right b’fore me is the wildest goddamn thing I think I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot, I tell ya.
It’s a goddamn golden robot cowboy. And even though he ain’t speakin’ American, I don’t think what he’s tryin’ to tell me is somethin’ I want t’ hear.
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Touch
© William Pauley III, 2011
All rights reserved.
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