I didn't sleep a wink. From sunset to sunrise my imagination was held captive by a gripping account of Sol Invictus and his less than honest affair with a sultry sea nymph. Sol gave the beauty of the sea a high-hard-one in her enchanted cave. Those were the days. What's the point in being God if you can't seduce the odd sea nymph now and then? I give the ancients credit. Their gods had real gusto. Destroy cities, tell lies, take sexual advantage of mortals; those are my kind of gods. Modern deities? Who needs them? I mean, what good are they? Floating about strumming harps and waxing piety? Fuck that. If I'm God, I'm banging the hell out of every sea nymph I can get in my deified hands. I suppose there is always a slim possibility I might encounter a woman so beautiful she would freeze me in my tracks; a lady of such stunning perfection she would force me to set aside my philandering ways. Nah, no way.
I will say one thing for my absent father; he constructed one hell of a library. We had books no one else even heard of. His library stood fifty meters from the floor to the ceiling with shelves stuffed full of rare volumes and wonderful manuscripts. Lucky for me I loved to read. The library was the only room in the house with a lock. My father frequently tossed me inside and sealed the door. What can I say? I enjoyed soapy showers with the servant girls and I never heard a single one complain. If my behavior was particularly out of line, into the library I was tossed where I spent many days and nights doing nothing but reading.
So anyway, I was up all night and then I had to work on my model of the Pantheon. I don't mean some chicken shit plastic model. I mean a genuine scale recreation of the Pantheon to the very last detail. I learned about ancient mathematics, architecture, and engineering from these models. I constructed boats, amphitheaters, the Cirrus Maximums, the great pyramids, and so on and so forth. I had a fondness for high ceilings and marble floors. My Pantheon was perfect and I almost had the last block in the roof when Mason interrupted me.
"Good morning sir," he drawled in his monotone voice. "Sleep well did you? Dreams keep you awake?"
He offered me a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. Mason looked exactly the same all the time; rain or shine, good or bad; he was a poster child for regularity. He must have leapt from his mother's womb at the age of fifty-five and never aged another day. Mason was an adroit, thin man with a rather long nose and a buffed bald head. I have no idea if he simonized his cranium or if the sheen was entirely natural. His ever-searching eyes called to mind a futuristic robot forever on the prowl. Like a buzzard, he endlessly circled looking for trays and teacups to collect. He wore a black tuxedo and a pressed white shirt with sufficient starch to deflect an anti-tank round. His movements were predictable and precise. Mason straightened his spine and made an unexpected announcement.
"Your aunt wants to see you, sir."
"Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed.
Although we lived on the same grounds, I hadn't seen my Aunt in ages. She had the good sense to stay on her side of the compound and I stayed on mine. This separation was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
"She will receive you in her breakfast room sir, if you don't mind."
"Mason, did one of my cousins sneak into the compound? Did one of them put you up to this?"
"Your cousins are forever banned from the estate sir, if memory serves."
I finally put down my glue gun and gave Mason a hard stare. He stood rigidly at attention as if expecting an order.
"My Aunt wants to see me?" I asked with a questioning gaze. "Mason, are you serious?"
"When am I ever otherwise, sir?"
My Aunt wanted to see me? That could only mean one thing; someone died and I had to go to the funeral. I detested funerals because the entire spectacle was such crap. Does anyone really believe deities concern themselves with mortal funeral orations? If the priest mumbles the correct words, the pearly gates open to an eternity of bliss; otherwise it's off to hell? The guests are so mournful of the dearly departed except no one bothers to notice the dearly departed themselves don't give damn. The person in the casket is in fact dead; as in no more, past tense, formerly alive. Shed those precious tears for people while they live, don't wait until they are room temperature.
"Your Aunt is waiting, sir."
Mason had a way of looking at me while not looking at me. His eyes averted a direct line of sight, yet still he stared at me. I tried to ignore him and work with my glue gun, but I felt his eyes creeping along my skin.
"Get out of here Mason, I'm busy."
He refused to move. He stood like a dime store mannequin. I guess he was serious after all. I tossed on a pair of jeans, a fresh shirt, and walked with old Mason across the tennis courts, past the swimming pools, around the horse stables, over the polo field, and through the garages. When we entered the breakfast room, I feared for a moment my dear old Aunt had crossed the great divide. She was frozen in mid-pose pouring from her china kettle. Her cup was full and brown tea was splattered all over the floor.
"Too much Sweet and Low," I observed. "Finally killed the old gal."
Her face snapped to life and her little black eyes peered at me like a barn owl studying a mouse.
"Griffin, you look terrible. Do you ever eat? Do you ever brush your hair? Do you ever go outside? All your color has faded away. You are white as a ghost. If you lie down, someone will pull a sheet over you."
"Nice to see you too Aunt Roslyn."
"Rose Ann," my Aunt yelped. "More tea."
Rose Ann was more infinitely entertaining than old Mason. She was older than time and deaf as a post. She ate apples and plums all day giving her a stomach that generated rumbles even construction workers would find offensive. My Aunt would never think of firing any of the staff, let alone her beloved Rose Ann.
"Rose Ann," my Aunt called again. "More tea."
The old woman burst through the two way door clutching a silver tea tray in her wrinkled hands. If there was an Olympic sport for trembling fingers, Rose Ann would set a performance standard never to be surpassed. Every spoon and cup on the tray rattled as if Vesuvius was about to bury the house in ten meters of smoking ash. Not only was the old girl deaf, but her right eye had gone solid white. Like a tower with a bad foundation, she leaned a little to left as she walked. I kept thinking she would topple over and send the tea tray crashing to the floor. She found her way to my Aunt by force of habit. When she turned to leave, she blew a blast of day old apple exhaust at me. I had to check my eyelashes to see if they were still there.
"Griffin, you're a disgrace," my Aunt dryly observed while she again poured tea all over the floor.
"Aunt Roslyn, your tea cup is full."
She thrust her little index finger at me. "Don't change the subject. Your cousins are gainfully employed but you never worked a day in your worthless life. You're pathetic. What would your father say?"
Actually I didn't know much about my cousins. Some long ago family feud, of which I had but sketchy details, resulted in most of my relatives being forever banished from the compound. I did know two of my cousins had jobs. My cousin Ted, was a porn star of some renown. He frequently lauded his giant appendage and he was no braggart; I'd seen a few of his movies, if one can refer to such personal exploits as a movie. I'm glad his artistic efforts weren't filmed in 3D; I might have lost an eye. My cousin Frank, had a job touring with a Pentecostal minister. At a key point in the sermon, old Frank was touted onto the stage and presented to the audience as an example of the deleterious effects methamphetamine had on the adolescent mind. As a child Frank hid in his closet, drooled at pictures of naked girls and whacked off until he was dehydrated. When he reached a state of exhaustion, he imbibed large doses of methamphetamine so he could keep pounding the monkey. Now he sits on a stool and drools into a tin cup. Doing God's work, I suppose.
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