Crick nudged his mother’s arm gently, and she let out a grunt as she rolled awkwardly onto her back on the couch. “Coffee’s ready, Ma,” he said quietly, quirking his left foot to readjust his slipper. “Vel’s just out of the shower, so the bathroom’s free.” His mother had arrived the previous afternoon, having arrived at MSP Airport in a mood that would have been considered foul even by the standards of an alcoholic stuck in a dry town for several days. That she had even agreed to fly out from New York had been something of a miracle, but Crick considered that for the moment, with his brother being in his own self-imposed hiding for the time being, she might be more inclined to come visit the one son who wasn’t keeping his head down for the holidays. It made sense to him, at least.
His mother slipped by him on her way to the bathroom, leaving the goblin cook to shuffle his way back out to the kitchen, where Velis sat in her fluffy purple bathrobe, her eyes bleary but a smile on her lips. “Whoever said that a shower first thing in the morning helps wake you up is a goddamn liar,” the dispatcher woman said, sipping her coffee. She waggled her half-empty mug slightly and set it down, then lit up a cigarette. “Now, these? These are the jolt a body needs in the mornings.” He leaned down, gave her a quick kiss, and moved to fetch his own coffee. “Chef Taylor and Cody need you to help out with any final details?”
“Thankfully, no. Cody managed to talk Shawna into helping out, too,” Crick replied. “He’s a good kid. I kind of miss working with him on second shift, but apparently he’s stepped up since I moved over to first.” He stirred in his requisite sugar and creamer, came over to the table, and sat to her left, taking her hand in his. “So, did we want to exchange one gift today, just you and I, right now? Before Ma barges in here and ruins the peace and quiet?”
“I’ll remind you that you insisted she stay with us instead of getting a hotel room, so that ruined peace and quiet is your own doing, dear,” Velis responded playfully. “And sure, one gift.” Crick hopped up and ducked back to their bedroom, reaching under the bed and drawing out one of the few gifts that he had picked up for her, cringing at his own terrible wrapping job. As he came out of the room, Velis slipped by him inside, and he returned to the kitchen to wait patiently for her return. When she came in, her own package barely larger than the palm of her hand, he slid his package across the table to her, and she seized on the wide, square parcel with almost child-like abandon. When she had torn free all of the wrapping, she let out a long, low whistle, smiling almost from pointed ear to pointed ear. “Wow, hon; this thing is gorgeous,” she said, having revealed a large, hardcover coffee table book entitled “Bold North: The History of Hockey in Minnesota”.
“Well, I figured, ‘get her something she wants, instead of what I think she needs’, you know? I can’t always be a practical stick in the mud,” he said, sipping his coffee. She nodded, set the book aside, and then slid her own small packet over to him. He carefully peeled away the wrapping, which was neat, straight, and almost picturesque; he felt a little guilty even removing it. What was revealed within appeared to be a small, slim box, the sort usually used for storing necklaces. He popped it open, revealing a thin paper card, with the name of a nearby medical clinic, a doctor’s name, and a date and time hand-written upon it. He had no idea what this was supposed to mean, and his confusion clearly registered on his face. “Um, huh?”
“That, my dear, is my primary doctor’s name and office. You should probably familiarize yourself with them at some point,” Velis said dryly, but with the trace of a smile on her lips. “The date and time are my next scheduled appointment for my birth control shot.”
“I, I don’t get it,” he said, flapping the card back and forth.
“Well, I’m leaving it up to you,” she said, reaching over and putting one hand on his right forearm. “Crick, we haven’t set a date yet, but I imagine we’re going to be getting married in the next 3 to 6 months, yeah? Nothing huge, just a small ceremony, right?” He nodded silently. “Okay. Well, the next step, I should think, would be to figure out when we want to have a family that’s more than just the two of us. And that’s my gift to you, honey; if you want to start trying, you hold onto that card, and I don’t go. If you think we need to push it back a little bit, then you give me the card before that date, and we revisit when you’re ready.”
Crick felt, in that moment, like a supernova had just erupted in his head and chest. For almost two full minutes, he could think of nothing to say, nothing to do, but stare at her in abject wonder. What kind of person just hands over this kind of power of agency to someone else, he thought, looking down at the appointment card, turning it over and over in his knobby green fingers, knuckles scarred from culinary knife knicks and small burns in kitchens over the years. Who so surrenders themselves to another person, and why?
When his mother came into the kitchen a minute later, Crick stood up, fetched his keys from the front hallway, and brought them to her, pressing them into her hands. “What’s this,” she asked. “What’s going on, honey?”
“Head over to Hyvee for a few things for us, Ma,” Crick said in a firm tone, taking his mother by the arm and moving her toward the apartment door. “Don’t leave the store until I call you to come back.”
“What are you talking about, Crick,” his mother asked, flabbergasted. “What is going on here?”
“Just, I’ll call you, take my car, it’s the one we picked you up in from the airport yesterday, Ma. Just, go,” he said, opening the apartment door and gently ushering her out, tossing her coat to her before clapping the door shut and locking it. He moved with an almost machine-like cadence back to the kitchen, where Velis sat snickering, shaking her head at him.
“You’re a character, Crick Solomon,” she said, falling silent as he tore up the appointment card and tossed it in the trash. He sauntered over to her then, taking up her hand and guiding her up from the table. “Um, my current shot is still active, you know,” she said.
“Practice makes perfect,” was his only reply.
**
Sam pointed over toward the open double doors, waving to a slightly older-looking pair of lizardfolk who had just strode into the community center’s assembly room, making their way toward him, Libras, Eddie, Crick and Velis. Cody offered them each a paper cup of warm apple cider as they passed by the refreshments table. “That’s my folks right there,” the lizardman mechanic and mage said, clearing his throat. “Wasn’t sure they were going to make it at all, let alone this early on into this shindig.”
“Your mother is quite a bit taller than your father,” Libras observed, tugging at the hem of the oversized, puffy red Santa coat he had donned for the get-together on this Christmas Eve, his floppy Santa hat perched precariously atop his pyramid-like head. “That is, unusual, is it not?”
“It is, but try not to make a big deal of it,” Sam replied in a half-whisper. “Dad’s always been a little self-conscious of it. Heeey, Mom, Dad,” he called, taking a few steps forward to greet them with a quick embrace. Crick and Velis offered handshakes and brief introductions to Sam’s parents, just before Eddie Rygar’s mother and father approached, towering over all of them, practically casting a shadow on everyone in their clutch except for the golem.
“You are a broad man,” Crick observed to Chofah Rygar, a statue of a minotaur man whose blue-checked chambray shirt looked like it had served as a circus tent in a former life. The big man offered his hand down after bending a little at the waist, his palm swallowing both goblins’ offered shakes whole.
“This is known,” Chofah boomed, his voice like rolling thunder. “Eddie, I’m sorry about your sister not being able to make it.”
“We all knew it wouldn’t be easy for her, being in the service,” the paralegal replied. He gave the others a quick look and said, “Navy.” Crick signaled for his own mother to come over from the appetizers table, and he made a quick round of introductions between her and his cohorts of the group, and soon enough, as more and more members of The Children of Outworlders filtered in with their parents and siblings, a lively and cheerful atmosphere took hold. Over the course of about an hour, Crick and Velis ended up telling everybody gathered about their engagement, with the dispatcher goblin woman showing off the ring (mostly to the other ladies gathered) while the menfolk mostly asked Crick when he planned on fathering some more goblins to add to their paltry global population. For the most part these inquiries were asked in good humor, though one of the hobgoblins from the support group was almost deadpan serious about the question.
“All of our peoples here have an obligation, my friend, to make sure that the next generation is bigger than our own,” the hobgoblin rasped, taking a quick swig of spiked eggnog from the refreshments table. “You and your lady, you will have to produce as many children as you can, and quickly.”
“I’m not a broodmare, Tilik,” Velis half-snarled at the hobgoblin, who just rolled his eyes at her. “If we have kids, we’ll have as many as we have, or as few, and that’s just that. Now make yourself useful, and get me one of those,” she huffed, pointing to his mostly empty cup. Tilik muttered darkly to himself and shuffled away, though he did return a minute later with two more cups, one for himself and one for her. Eventually, the happy goblin couple ended up speaking in one corner of the large assembly room with the magic-using members of the group, with Sam explaining how they had already arranged to have a few local journalists join them at the ‘power spot’ that Sam had discovered. One of the others, a young half-elf named Jerund, had made contact with a few folks online who had shown him their own pockets of such power in other places throughout the country, and similar exposes were being arranged as well.
“We all agreed that you had the right idea, Crick,” Jerund said with a nod, though he looked nervous even speaking about such things with a non-magic user. “We let everyone see what’s going on, and that way, if and when the government steps in to deal with it, they can’t just sweep it all under the rug, but they’re likely better equipped to handle the ramifications of these pockets, whatever they are.”
“That’s my man,” Velis said, patting his cheek and running one finger along his pointed right ear. “Sexy and wise,” she added with a giggle and peck on the cheek. Ch’gar Harper, the Caldean-born of the trio of minotaur brothers who had disrupted the H1st attack at the Loon Café, made his way over to Crick and Velis as they disengaged from the magic-users, wearing a heavy black puff jacket and black knit skullcap with holes for his horns, offering them a quick nod.
“All’s still pretty quiet around the center, guys,” he said evenly. “My brothers are making a wider sweep for any signs of trouble, but I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about. Between the three of us, plus Siff, Warner and Bobinski, you’d have to be either a raging maniac or suicidal to try something stupid here today.”
“Well, we appreciate the protection, regardless,” Crick replied to the bigger man. “And Bobinski, he’s not, uhhhhh,” he said, letting the question hang unspoken.
“No, he hasn’t thrown any random fireballs at anything, which is a surprise, really,” said Ch’gar, casting about the room. “Most hobgoblins, they get a handle on magic, they start just blowing stuff up, I know. At least, that’s how it always was back home, anyway. I guess Earth hobgoblins are built a little different.” He smiled down at Velis and Crick, pointing at the ring she wiggled on her left hand. “Earth goblins too, congratulations, you two! You set a date yet?”
“Some time in March, second or third week,” Velis replied. “We’re hammering out the details before the new year.”
“Well that’s excellent,” Ch’gar said, clapping Crick on the shoulder lightly. “Good on you, my man!” He leaned down then, lowering his voice. “So hey, is the Loon closed until after New Year’s?”
“Yeah, the owner’s an old-fashioned kind of guy, but he makes sure he pays us all a full 40 for the two weeks we’re closed.”
“That’s a good boss, man,” Ch’gar said. “Well, I’m gonna just grab some quick grub and get back outside, we’re going to be rotating each of us in to get something to eat and drink, warm up a little.” Crick and Velis thanked him once again for the updates, and he headed over toward the food table, chatting up Chef Taylor and his hume girlfriend, who’d volunteered to come help at the function.
“How far along is she now,” Velis asked him, and Crick squinted over, trying to discern by pure intuition.
“No idea, and I think asking might be considered rude,” Crick answered.
“Oh, gods, am I going to end up bulging out like that?”
“Kind of goes hand-in-hand with the whole ‘carrying a growing child in your womb’ thing, dearheart,” he said. “It’s not as noticeable with our people, but you’ll feel it.”
“Well, however many kids we end up having, we’re having them close together, get that particular hell out of the way nice and quick in the grand scheme of things, ‘kay?”
“I’m amenable to that, sweetheart. Another drink?” She nodded, hooking her arm through his, sauntering through their gathered comrades as Peter, serving as deejay for the holiday gathering, moved from one soft, ambient Christmas tune into the next over the sound system. When they got to the drink table, they grabbed a couple of the cups, clacking them lightly together.
“Merry Christmas, Crick,” she said. “To the Children of Outworlders.”
“And to the next generation of them,” he said, gently poking her belly. “As soon as we can.”
No, You Didn’t Miss Something
Rather abrupt, eh? What’s going to happen with the Humanity 1st people? And those ‘power pockets’, how many are there? Are they going to become a problem? What about Crick and Velis’s wedding? Did they have any hijinks make a mess of things that they overcame just in the nick of time? Friends and neighbors, this story isn’t about that kind of thing. Moreover, a better question remains: would it really matter? Would it change the value of Crick Solomon in your life? Since when has everything in any of our lives wrapped up nice and tidy? To quote BoJack Horseman, “Closure is just a concept that Hollywood tries to sell you to get you to watch the next Steven Spielberg flick!”
I’m not that pessimistic. I also wasn’t in a very famous TV show back in the 90’s….
Don’t get me wrong, folks, I am a big fan of Crick Solomon. I’m rooting for him, really I am. But I think it’s only fair to point out that, for the most part, his story could very well be your story. Or my story. Or most people’s, really. I’m just grateful I caught a glimpse of this part of his life; it seems like a pretty good one. Sadly, my window into his life has been obscured for right now, and I can’t tell you more for the time being.
I might get another peek later on down the road of his life. Who knows? Until that happens, there will be other stories, from other worlds, and I’ll be sharing those with you. I only hope you’ll get as much enjoyment out of them as I got out of sharing this little bit of Crick’s life with you. I hope those tales, and this one just wrapping up now, find you well.
-Joshua T. Calkins-Treworgy
November 10th, 2022