The story I wrote for Masterpiece in a Day. The three elements that had to be included were: a boardwalk, a spotlight, and a police officer.
God of the Revels
By James L. Wilber
I am a blessing. I am a curse. When the dancers shake the streets of Rio in the light of the parade floats that look like fireworks in still-life, I am there. When the British tourist puts up his fists, fueled by too many beers sold cheap in plastic cups, I am there. On Bourbon Street when the girls “go wild” for trinkets and strings of beads, I am there. In Munich, when they go stumbling out of the tent to vomit in a trash barrel, and then stumble back for another stein, I am there.
But in the off season, I can usually be found on the Jersey shore, on the boardwalk. The party is a lot smaller but the pickings are easy. I’m the cute young guy, girlish, with my curly hair and long eyelashes. I’ve taken to wearing red cat-ears and a fuzzy tail. It helps me fit in with the kiddies who watch Japanese cartoons and play dress up, taking pills and dancing for hours while waving glow sticks in front of their eyes. It’s more fashionable than a fox-skin and the authorities looking for trouble-makers mark me as mostly harmless. Makes it easier for me when I top-off their soda bottles with vodka from my hip-flask which never seems to run out.
But this night, I bypass the usual crowd around the arcade and the teenagers outside the liquor store waiting for me to come along and buy them beer. This night is special. Nights like this have been special for thousands of years. Tonight I get a sacrifice.
In the old days, after all the grueling work of the harvest was done, as the sun set behind the mountains, they would lead a procession up the trails bearing torches and skeins of wine. They would light fires and drink and dance and lose their minds. When the madness overtook them, my satyrs and maenads emerged from the woods and joined the party, mixing with the people who had lost track of who was human and who was not. The satyrs picked out a young one, I prefer a boy, and fed him so much wine he didn’t know his name anymore. The party would get so loud and so wild that the spirits of the dead would come, lurking on the edge of the firelight, jealous of the living. Then the maenads took the boy beyond the ring of dancers, and bashed his head on a rock, offering the blood to the ghosts. Through its warmth the dead could feel again. In the morning, the revelers would find the boy and it would look like an accident, but the priests and the priestesses knew. The boy had been given to me.
Down the boardwalk I can see the spotlights rising into the air like they have at movie premiers, the big event. I follow them, slipping through the crowd of gawkers, right up to the barricade.
The man-child holds to the metal bar, still unsure. His white t-shirt wraps around his body, damp with sweat. He had come down to this end of the boardwalk, where the wooden platform rises high up over the rocky beach below, to test a theory.
If he died before losing his virginity, would he become an angel?
So he downed his entire stash and stepped over the rail, but he’s clinging to that thin ledge, waiting for the chemical courage to take effect.
He’d been standing there long enough for the police to cordon the place off, push-back the onlookers, set up the spotlights so that everyone could see.
As I press up against the blue saw-horse, wide eyed and bushy tailed, one of the policemen walks up to me, but I can tell right away he’s not really a policeman, there’s no swagger in his walk. He doesn’t need to intimidate anyone. The uniform makes it easier to get close to his work.
He gives me a knowing look, tinged with sadness. It says, “Did you sell it to him?”
Of course I did.
“Dion,” the not-policeman speaks. I’m lucky, my moniker can be shortened, even sounds like a modern name.
“Hey Thanatos.” He’s not so lucky, but I think even if there was a suitable abbreviation for his name no one would use it. The man gets respect.
“He’s one of yours?” His whole body sags when he says it. He hates his job.
“Sure thing.” My chipper response belies my troubled thoughts. I just don’t know if I’m enjoying this constant carnival anymore or not.
I look down, mulling it over for a second and as I do the crowd gives a collective gasp. I look up and the boy’s gone, disappeared into the inky blackness. The daemon of death is gone too, probably at this moment standing on the rocks, next to the broken remains, a hair’s breath away. He moves so fast he could have caught the boy before he landed. But he didn’t.
I turn and walk away, pushing through the bewildered mourners, back to the revels where I belong.
