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Paper Airplane on the Moon

Approx. 75,000 wds.

Novel by Michael Lee Smith

PROLOGUE

Fate's Amusing Little Plaything

I feel at home here and I shouldn't.

A long time ago, yesterday morning in fact, I, Mickey Constant, staggered up Waianuenue Avenue to Hilo Medical. Grand audition for the psychiatric staff! I passed the audition with flying colors. I've had lots of practice.

Then: Fifty two-year old rock & roll burnout. Once-famous-nobody. A survivor by the most slender of threads -- one who whistled an arrogant whistle through the darkness of many a spontaneous act of dangerous absurdity. Scared? Somehow this one, this . . . time, seems less absurd than it should -- this absurdity winds up and wraps me across the knuckles with brutal zeal. Mocking me because I've done it before. A lot! The proverbial shine's definitely off the monkey!

Now: Institutional dining room, bolt upright, ass pressed against cold slick metal chair, the accordion music transforms into a snappy polka and across the dining room afternoon sunlight presents an interesting trio undoubtedly placed here for my entertainment. My excitement! Kid who calls himself Satan. Another one, a female, they call Akua, which I've learned is Hawaiian for God. And a third, an Elvis-impersonator-Jesus-Elvis. Of course! What charming little . . . blasphemers.

Future: There's a hand on a rope somewhere close, waiting to raise a certain curtain, with orchestral accompaniment that will drown out the little accordion. I sense it. Feel it. Pounds in my ears. A foreboding so ominous that it grows scales and slithers slowly up my spine. Cold scales. Tongue flicking in my ear . . . No! It's the edge of a Tarot card, I see from the periphery of my vision, held between grinning reptilian lips. An old card. With frayed edges. A card that has been around. The serpent spits the card at the side of my face. Ricochets off and flutters to the tiled floor face down. A quiver wracks me, looking down at it, debating whether to turn it over.

I know that if I turn the card over, a scene will develop. And like scenes so often turn out, Mickey Constant's anyway, it will be a scene with a script gone terribly array. One I'll have absolutely no control of. One composed in lizard's blood, via raven quill.
My old dead friend, my mentor, Coleman Jones will tell me to turn the card over. He'll chime in, sounding anciently hip -- growling something like a lyric off the B-side of some obscure Stax record, always trying to come off profound: "That what life about, man. Turning the next goddamned card over."

Cole's stink eye tells me that if I don't turn it over, there'll be no horror story, no love story, no tale of redemption, no blood spilled, no BIG SURPRISE, or most importantly, no finding out why Zippy, my one-and-only-ex-wife's poodle, is currently sporting a flat-top. In other words, no reason for either you or me to continue. So . . . fuck Cole, I'll turn the card for you.

And for me.

Actually, I have no choice in the matter. I am, after all! . . . Mickey Constant, Fate's Amusing Little Plaything.

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