Universal Monsters Chapter XVII
We slept that night in a junior college planetarium with the “Sunrise” presentation on a loop. We had no idea if it would work on the vampires, but we had high hopes. We had high hopes, also, that bloodsuckers couldn’t come in unless they were invited. There really doesn’t seem to be any kind of consensus on the matter amongst fiction writers or inmates and, at the time, documentaries on vampires were difficult to come by.
Jackson was a big Buffy fan growing up and he did a lap around the perimeter to make sure there were no signs that said, “Enter all who seek knowledge” or some irresponsible shit like that. On the south lawn he found one sign that said, “Omnia mea mecum porto” but he didn’t speak Latin and couldn’t take the chance it said “Come the fuck in and drink us.” so he he broke it into about ninety-three pieces and brought the shards in with him. Some of us learned to whittle that night.
Space was the man of the hour. The man with the daylightsaber. And while Frank sulked and Brinkmire tried to bandage a frankly crybaby Jack Quietly with the remnants of a campus-issue first aid kit the rest of us asked Space to tell us his story. Some of us knew a little but most of us didn’t. MGD wasn’t so big you didn’t know most everyones face, but prison is not a socially progressive place, even by Civil War standards, and if you were white you probably only knew the Hispanics and African Americans by various racist slurs and you sure as hell don’t know where they come from. And vice vice versa or however you say might that. And we all wanted to know what brings a man like Space to a prison like that.
He was younger than most of us but he’d been on the inside longer, too. Space was the only proper genius any of us had ever seen in real life and he did everything accelerated, like a cheetah wearing rocket skates. Graduated high school by 12, college by 14, had his PhD when he was 16 and by 19 he was Inmate 9932033-A in the Florida Department of Corrections.
Pretty much we all knew that much. Space was a legend at MGD. He did all the guards taxes and shit because they saw that movie once. He got his law degree on the inside and he’d represent anyone who wanted him to the extent that he could from a prison cell. Also, he wrote a one-act play the New York Times called “The funniest dissection of ichthyology you’re likely to see this year.” We knew his thing was the shouting and the crazy, but most of us figured he did that just to fit in. Nobody would hurt Space because probably you’d need him at some point. We knew he taught classes in the yard on…anything. Everything. You could go to Space and ask him what was the deal with Wonder Woman and her rope and he’d tell you her creator believed that sexual bondage was the path to world peace. He would teach. He would preach. Space was 34 when we walked over the walls and we all knew the legends and some of us knew the man but knew almost nothing pre-MGD. Just the degrees. And even that we only knew because they hung in glassless frames on the walls of his cell. Frames he made himself out of fashioned, painted paper and memories he couldn’t seem to leave behind.
He folded them and took them in a knapsack when we left for the last time.
Pretty much everyone at MGD liked to say they were the only guilty man in prison but that makes pretty much everyone in prison guilty. In fact, most of us admit we did what we did and at least half of us brag about it and more than a lot of us were pretty glad to be inside. Nine times out of ten running is way worse than being caught. It’s true what they say, a guilty man can sleep in prison.
But Space, he never said if he was guilty. Never even said what he was rung up on and I guess we never asked. Until that night in the planetarium, I mean.
“I’m guessing he split an atom in his guest bathroom,” Lucian said. “With a knife and fork. Took out a whole village.”
Jackson answered with, “I’m thinking he might be dead, too, that were the case.”
Brinkmire spoke loudly to be heard over Jack Quietly who was mumbling something about, “Seriously. Seriously” over and over.
“Maybe,” Brinkmire said, “Maybe he hid in a refrigerator.” And then most of us threw whatever was nearby at Brinkmire because we all kind of agreed to pretend The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn’t exist.
Lucian threw Hancock at him which Hancock didn’t really appreciate but the rest of us thought was awfully funny.
After he landed Hancock said, “I’m betting he melted a bunch of Smurfs down for gold and he’s inside on Smurficide,” because Gargamel was Hancock’s only reference point for a mad scientist.
Space turned his flashlight over in his hands and looked around at us and smiled like we don’t usually see, like he was having a pretty good time.
Someone said, “Well, what was it, then?”
And Space said, “Nothing as special as Smurfs, though I bet we find some before all this is through. Bet we find a Thundercat or three, too. Nah. Just murder. Pretty simple. Pretty pedestrian. I’m just like all the other boys in here.”
“Well,” someone else said. “D’ja do it?”
“I did it,” he said. “Sure I did. Of course I did. I murdered a young family and I’m not sorry. Probably they’d send me a thank you card and maybe a nice basket of mini-muffins if there were post between here and hell.”
And it wasn’t until right then that it occurred to any of us that we really aught to be able to at least write to our dead what with them walking around and trying to stab us with other peoples teeth and all.
And it wasn’t until right then that we all realized that we all really wanted some damn mini-muffins.
And Space looked down at the ground and his smile kind of left him and so did his posture which, generally, was pretty impeccable. And finally he looked up and he grimaced just a little and he squinted and he said, “It starts like this.”
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