I woke to find yet another leprechaun orgy on my front lawn. After walking through the wiggling freckled flesh and ginger pubic hair, I grabbed their pot of gold and tossed it in the back of my truck. I then turned on the sprinklers and began composing a sternly worded letter to the home owners association.
As I watched the wet naked wee folk scurry down the cul de sac, cut through Jason Singh’s yard, and disappear into the forest, I decided against writing that letter. Condoms littered my lawn. This was new. I had always assumed leprechauns rode bareback.
I made a note to make my eldest son don a hazmat suit and dispose of those used rubbers. That was a dick move on my part. I could have easily handled it myself. But he was reaching the age where he needed less protection and more character building.
Convincing my gated community to erect a perimeter fence to protect us from the creatures in the forest had proved futile. My lawn was the only lawn being defiled. It was a me problem, not a we problem.
Like most of North America, my neighborhood was evenly split between various factions gathered under two umbrellas, Communist or Nationalist. I was one of the few dissidents in a faction one might label the Get Off My Lawn Party. My neighbors saw my leprechaun problem as karmic payback for refusing to choose one of their teams and play.
When I first raised the perimeter fence issue, they rewarded me by electing me captain of the Vista Montero Estates Phase II Militia. Once a month, I led the larping menfolk of my neighborhood into the forest. They would drink beer, smoke weed, and shoot each other with the plastic bullets. I would scout the forest for leprechaun camps. I had considered issuing my troops live ammo and clearing the pests out of my neck of the woods. But ammo was more valuable than the gold the leprechauns left me. I also had no confidence in my neighbors. If Phase III’s militia ever made a move on our Community Center, we were screwed.
When I walked back in the house, a red laser dot hit my chest. I followed the beam down the hall. The beam grew shorter, pulling me in. Maggie stood outside our bedroom wearing nothing but my discarded t shirt. She lowered her glock as I took her in my arms.
“Center mass,” I told her. “God, you’re beautiful.”
“I was aiming for your cock,” she said.
I leaned in to kiss her and then stopped. I whispered in her ear, “I want to put another baby in you.”
She grabbed my balls and brought me from semi to full mast. Then she handed me my phone.
“Brian called. Says it’s urgent. I’ll make coffee.”
The thought of another job for Brian Lennon and his company Narrative Repair Solutions rapidly deflated me. I began making excuses in my head not to return his call. Maggie’s telepathic powers interrupted me.
“Call him. We need the money and, more importantly, I need you out of the house for a while. The new poolboy is hot.”
I swatted her ass and she spilled ground coffee all over the kitchen floor. We both laughed. “No but seriously,” she said. “Call him. Save the world. Have some fun. Derek can handle the leprechauns.”
I decided to keep Brian waiting long enough to grab a quick shower and put on a suit. Best piece of advice my dad gave me. Always wear a suit and tie when meeting a client. They will take what you say seriously and you can charge them more. Dad’s advice was especially effective with Brian. He always wore a blue polo shirt and khakis. His clients, however, wore suits, much more expensive suits than mine. I doubted he could tell the difference. He would see my suit and tie and conflate me with the guys paying him.
I checked myself in the mirror before sitting down for the call. My beard was beginning to give me the appearance of a Civil War general. I had slacked off on trimming it for the past few months. No complaints from Maggie. If anything, we had been locking our bedroom door more often as my whiskers had grown longer. I nodded at myself and considered keeping it this long.
Brian had called three more times while I was in the shower. He rarely thought my services were that urgent. I paused before starting the call. I was already following another of my father’s rules. Never answer the call. If you do, you will be on the back foot, reacting to them. Wait for the message and call back when you are prepared.
I hit the call icon and Brian’s puffy face filled my screen. It seemed redder than I remembered. He answered on the first ring. Dad would not approve.
“Jake! Where you been, man?”
“I had a leprechaun issue to deal with.”
“Leprechauns fucking on the front lawn,” he said. “That is a uniquely Jake Torres problem.”
He was taking time for small talk. So we weren’t dealing with a Defcon 1 situation.
“Yes it is,” I agreed. “Suspiciously unique.”
“After everything you have unleashed on your neighbors, heck, not just your neighbors, the whole goddam planet, a few leprechauns aren’t much of a challenge for you, are they?” He was looking for agreement from me.
I said nothing.
“Whenever I see any story about a spontaneous anomaly, one that challenges the fundamental laws of the spacetime continuum, or more importantly, the dominant narrative, in your neck of the woods, I can smell you on it.”
I said nothing.
“Loved that Old School Soviet May Day Parade you staged on the 405 last year. Tanks, missiles, Ukrainian peasant girls with hula hoops. Backed up traffic for hours. Ended up overthrowing the Governor in Sacramento. How did you do that?”
I said nothing. Why was he reciting one of my greatest hits? That job was for another client.
“Got to give you credit though, much more original than your standard Civil War reenactment. You invented that.”
“I didn’t invent Civil War reenactment. I just repurposed it.”
“That’s right. Your Grandfather invented it. Sometime after he faked the moon landings.”
When he brought up my grandfather, I frowned. Growing up, I never knew there was a family business. I assumed my father and his father before him just put on a suit and left the house to do some incomprehensible thing called business just like everyone else’s dad. I thought about Derek sleeping in his room down the hall. What does he think I do?
I had always been somewhat resentful not of the family tradition I was continuing, but of the condescension I received from people like Brian and his clients. They needed me but also treated me like a Shabbos Goy. I wondered if my dad and grandfather felt likewise.
“So you going to keep jacking me off, or are you going to tell me what your problem is Brian?”
“Something big is going to break up here,” he said. Up here. Not out here. I had assumed he was in Virginia where most of his clients were.
“Big things break all the time,” I said. “You don’t need me for that. Lot of guys can put on a These are not the Droids you are looking for donkey show cheaper than me.” I waived my hand as I said these are not the droids.
“What does that even mean? What’s a droid?”
“Not sure,” I lied. “Just something my dad used to say.”
“Blame the Russians.” I had a hard time offering that suggestion with a straight face.
He just shook his head.
“The Chinese?” Everyone was terrified of China. Everyone had their own unique reason for being terrified of China. But in the end fear is fear.
“Too close to the truth.”
“What kind of truth we talking here? Air Quote Truth or actual truth?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we need you up here asap.”
“It’s Tuesday. I don’t think Southwest has another spaceflight until later in the week.”
I heard a helicopter overhead. “We have a special charter scheduled,” he told me. “See you in 2 hours. And Jake, don’t forget to cash in that bucket of magic gold at the airport.”
When I stood up, Maggie pressed a packed backpack into my chest. She handed me a travel mug of coffee and kissed me.
The chopper had awoken half the neighborhood setting off car alarms and barking dogs. My kids staggered down the hall. They looked like the cutest zombies I had ever seen. I knelt down and kissed my two daughters, Beth and Amy. Todd grabbed me around the waist and I ruffled his hair.
Derek stood aloof. He rubbed sleep from his eyes. He was 14. It was his duty to see me as an obstacle and an embarrassment. It was my duty to meet those expectations. I didn’t know what to say. I reached in my pocket and handed him my keys.
“Take care of things while I’m away,” I told him
He jingled the keys. I remembered jingling the keys for him when he was a baby.
“Dad,” he said. “Those are not the Droids you are looking for.”