Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2011 Playing Kazoo: Scales Jason Arbogast Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Arbogast, Jason, "Playing Kazoo: Scales" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 12150. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/12150 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Playing Kazoo: Scales by Jason Arbogast A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Major: Creative Writing and the Environment Program of Study Committee: Barbara Haas, Major Professor Michael Mendelson Carla Fehr Mary Swander Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2011 Copyright © Jason Henry Arbogast. All rights reserved. 1 1. Kalamazoo. Say it. What does it make you think of? Rolling hills covered in trees as thick as time, maybe. A mist-covered valley or two, filled with busy industry, perhaps. If you’re particularly imaginative, you might think it sounds like something out of a fairy tale, with monsters and heroes. And you’d be right. Kalamazoo has trees hidden away in it that remember the arrival of the first dark-skinned Americans. Businesses fill the valleys the town was built in, but not everyone is ready, or able, to see places like the Forgotten Bar, stuck between real Kalamazoo and imagined Kalamazoo. And the city is something out of fairy tales. It has the monsters, and a few heroes, like any fairy tale. But mostly it has the blood. Because Kalamazoo is an old story, from when fairy tales were there to warn people of the things that’d happen to you if you didn’t do what you were supposed to. Kalamazoo is a reminder that, no matter what people think, the old things in woods, with their sharpened teeth and bloodied claws, are still out there. Some of them might have put on human faces, but they still want nothing more than to pull you off of the trail and into the darkness, so they could suck your skin hollow, and wear it until they find another victim. Don’t get me wrong. Lots of people like Kalamazoo, myself included, once upon a time. It has a lot to recommend itself: two very good colleges, many great coffee-shops, various festivals over the summer, and an amazing night-life; Western Michigan, Zevon’s Warren, Ribfest, and wherever there’s free beer being my respective favorites on that list. If you’re lucky, you’ll live in the town all your life, and that’s all you’ll see of it. Because what most travel brochures don’t mention is that Kalamazoo is also one of the biggest playgrounds for supernatural things in existence. If enough people worshipped, feared, or just plain believed in it, it’d made its way through town at one point. This means more ghosts than you could shake a 2 Ouija board at, assorted supernatural critters and beings taking up residence in just about every nook, cranny, and sewer, and booming sales in New Age paraphernalia. It was probably one of the idiot New Agers that gave Kalamazoo the nickname Kazoo. Their kind like things quick and easy, preferably with incense. Just don’t ask me why the city is the way it is. It’s not something I like thinking about for too long. There are worse things in the world than the monsters in the dark. Kalamazoo’s founding is one of them. My name’s Roger. Don’t worry about my last name. It’s only important to me. What is important is that I’m Kalamazoo Detective, a sort of supernatural peacekeeper and straightener of mystical messes. I try to keep the city, and sometimes its people if I get lucky, safe from the old things that everybody thinks, and hopes, are gone. Sometimes, though, cases come up that surprise even me. Like helping a god die. In my seven years as Kalamazoo’s Detective, I’d seen and done just about every kind of random sci-fi/fantasy cliché you could think of. Some bored or lonely god trying to end the world? Loki tried it last week. Indra a month before that. Vampires? Nice little community of them on the local college campus. Their leader and his girlfriend are pals of mine. Time travelers? Got one of them that hangs out at the coffee shop just down the street from my office. He’s not always the most stable of guys, but he’s all right when he’s sober. And don’t get me started on the damn faeries in Bronson Park. Assisted deicide, on the other hand, was something else. I’d killed a few gods, of course. Part of the job. But I’d never helped one go willingly. The goddess Vesta had come to me to find a dignified way to end her life. Her Vestal Virgins long gone, most of her worshippers dead for centuries, and her function as goddess of the 3 hearth and home made irrelevant in the modern world, she was seeking a way out that was as quiet and as peaceful as herself. Normally, I disliked gods and their haughty attitudes toward humans. Name a bad trait, and most likely any random god would have it. But not Vesta. Her quiet strength was always enough. The one time that I’d run into her before, she seemed more like the cool, unmarried aunt everyone had who let you get away with anything, but you were never rude enough to try because you didn’t want to disappoint her. And now I had to find a way to kill her. She’d asked me to meet her in Bronson Park to talk about the situation. Bronson Park, with five churches on three of its sides, the Crypt of the Future some fifty feet below the ground, and the Church of the Lost Moon hidden in the clouds a few hundred feet up, would have qualified as the most sacred location in the city if it weren’t for the small Faerie mound in its northwest corner. It didn’t necessarily profane the park, but it definitely dirtied the place up. We were sitting by the park’s drained water fountain. The hideous thing always made me think of a garbage scow, with its unnecessary tower of concrete jutting up like a rudder from behind its pock-marked, rectangular basin. The layer of coins littering the basin in the warmer months only added to the effect. But, ugly as it was, it marked the location of Kalamazoo’s first home, which made it the ideal place for us to meet. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, shoving my hands in my trench coat’s pockets to keep from fidgeting and revealing my discomfort at the whole situation. “You’ve probably got enough power left to last a few more centuries before you fade out. And you don’t have enough believers left to come back if you change your mind.” Since Rome had fallen, Vesta had been considerably lacking in the belief department, and for a god belief was the name of the game. The more followers they had, and the stronger those 4 followers believed in them, the stronger the god became. With enough belief fueling them, gods could do whatever miracle you name. Water into wine? Simple. Raze a city? You got it. Resurrection? It was a biggie, but not impossible. A warm, late autumn breeze, ruined by the burning chemical smell of the paper mill to the east, blew a lock of Vesta’s long, black hair into her face. Silver streaked it in a few places. She brushed it away and smiled at me. Dimples appeared in her olive colored cheeks. For just a moment, I had that warm ball of pride in my chest that you get when you’re a kid and your mom tells you that you did a great job on something. “I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, a few months ago, Roger. Have you been there?” “No. Never really had a reason to.” “It’s nice. You should go sometime. Personally, I love the South. They still know how important family is there. There’s always someone who’ll invite you over to talk about their kin over some iced tea or lemonade.” “Sounds perfect for you.” “It is. But it won’t last much longer. Internet, satellite TV, and all of that will see to that.” “I don’t know about that,” I said. “I do. It’s important to know your time, Roger. And mine’s up.” The simple honesty in her voice, along with its obvious pain, convinced me more than the words could. I took a hand out my pocket and rested it on one of hers. “I wish the other gods had your sense. Give me a day. Do what you need to, talk to whoever you need to, and then meet me at Bronson Hospital in two hours.” I got up and started walking away. 5 “Thank you,” she said to me. I turned, trying not to show any emotion that might upset her.