My friend Lackey always said we were Cinderella stories waiting to happen, except the universe didn’t make fairy godmothers. If it had, he reasoned, ours would’ve visited before our failed attempts at college. Before fate plopped us into the inescapable, yet not entirely unpleasant, hole of retail computer repair.
I dragged my attention deficit disordered mind away from my fate and back to the task at hand: Gail Prote’s computer problems. She and her computer were terrified of each other, both for good reason.
“What’s your name again, honey?” she asked, fingering her doily-laden dress. Our five minutes of fearful inquisition had been arduous on both ends; there was something almost unsettling about the way she peered at me like a shortsighted, suspicious lemur the whole while. Her voice was a husk of its former self, having failed at suicide by Marlboros at least twice.
“Simon, ma’am. Simon Broadhead.” I said. “And I just want to reassure you: no one is hacking your computer. If people wanted to hack your computer, it would be to make money. Hackers don’t waste time with people like you and I.”
“Well, there are those nude photos…” She had to be seventy.
With some effort, I forced my face neutral. “That’s a very small niche,” I muttered. Just after I said it, I was glad she didn’t hear. Sometimes the truth, while painful, had to be said. Just not so loud the elderly could take offense.
“Is there anything else I can help you with? We’ve cleaned your mouse, checked your security settings, figured out how to create a musical scrapbook and gotten your email working.”
“No, Simon, nothing more,” she said, “You’ve been amazing.”
My nice, cleansing flood of summarization did the trick. She tottered off toward the big glass entryway. Her cute little portable computer dangled in its red case all the way out, as much a fashion statement as her huge gold purse. I looked at the next name on my list of people waiting for tech support and hoped for something normal.
I didn’t get it.
Bartleby Wisticuffs, it said.
“Bartleby Wisticuffs?” I yelled. He didn’t answer immediately; I could see a man fiddling with his computer, though, at the side of my kiosk.
So I yelled, “Bartleby Wisticuffs?” louder into the, uh, under-knowledged mass of patrons seeking their next computer purchase. I got some laughter. Most techs called our customers stupid after dealing with them for a while, but I tried to see them as just people who hadn’t gone into computers as their livelihood. I appreciated people who didn’t like technology. I didn’t like it either.
Something proud unfolded from the huddled fellow tinkering with his machine; he looked a lot different standing up. A sleek grey suit adorned him, a destroyer of wrinkles that starched itself for fun when it was bored. If outfits drank energy drinks, this one snorted cocaine.
His face was aquiline and wizened, his eyes blasted supernova green, and his computer wasn’t turning on at all.
I did all the reset-ish stuff while we made the initial pleasantries and shook hands. Hopefully my questions wouldn’t turn up any embarrassing secrets.
“Did anything in particular happen to start this? How long has it been doing this?” I looked him in the eye when I spoke; otherwise, I’d look shady. A long line of asshole mechanics had ruined it for the entire service industry by bilking customers whenever they got the chance. People expected to get ripped off when they were getting anything fixed.
He eyed me, smoothed his long, pianist’s hands over his suit jacket and sighed. “I guess I should probably tell the truth.”
I drop into therapist mode when I hear something like this, ready to hear about him pitching it into the toilet or spilling an unlucky glass of wine. Or maybe the glass had spilt itself, as is so often the case.
I realized Bartleby had been wearing the worried-old-man look I was used to seeing when one was afraid they’d screwed something up. The look of an old man caught surfing porn.
“So I was casting a spell to summon a demon, sitting in my sanctum, and I don’t know if this has anything to do with it really but I tripped over the line, screwed it up a little and, well,” Bartleby rambled, “It won’t turn on anymore. I have some stock trades I need to do.”
This was a non-sequitur to me, fitting in somewhere between a ferret reciting medical terminology and a caterpillar with a drug problem. Even the people that came in to talk about magic didn’t claim to actually do it.
My state, New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, did not have that moniker because any magic happened there. Quite the opposite, if you asked most of the residents.
“That’s gotta suck.” I churned through the details he’d provided, looking for hints as to what the issue might be. “I have a stock trading account too, so I know how frustrating that can be.” This last was a canned answer my built-in empathetic statement machine provided, always stocked with ready-made commonalities. Empathy was part of being a technician; the hardest part, for many geeks.
“So you say you were trading stocks when it happened? When was the last time it worked?” I asked, for some reason still considering this a standard appointment, brain on technical autopilot.
“No, I was summoning something. Not trading stocks,” Bartleby corrected.
“You were summoning something. Like ordering groceries online?”
“Not exactly like ordering groceries online. More like a magical spell that summons something,” he said.
“Not trading stocks, and after this summoning the computer isn’t powering on anymore.” I know, I should’ve gotten it by now.
“Exactly,” Bartleby said, looking relieved that I understood, which I didn’t. “You think it can be fixed?”
“A summoning. Really.” Incredulity bloomed red on my face – I was caught somewhere between shame at wanting to believe this and wonder at something I hadn’t considered possible. Hold some wonder, extra shame.
“Yes. Nasty little creatures when you get right down to it. Not the religious sort – those never come when you call them. Just run of the mill, the kind you get to do your laundry. I accidentally left the machine on the edge of the circle and I think the demon just ran right in and started messing about. These critters respond to the presence of magic, and they’re notoriously hard to get rid of.” Bartleby hung his head. “I can’t believe I was so careless.”
The computer chimed when I next reset it, and powered on.
“You’re sure it wasn’t just some kind of electrical surge?” The computer booted up. Some kind of startup program lit up the screen: a very realistic little blue-skinned creature dominated the picture, frolicking amongst the pixels. “It seems to be working after I reset it a few times.”
I glanced up from the screen at Bartleby when I got no answer and discovered him looking me over with a curious expression. “Was something wrong, sir? I don’t think it’s actually possessed. We call that a myth around here.”
“Oh, it is very well possessed. It happened a couple weeks ago. I just don’t know if you know what you did.”
“I fixed your computer,” I said. The time for Bartleby’s appointment was drawing to a close, and I needed to get on with the next customer, and I was so distracted by the appointment that I couldn’t think. I focused: the next one was a college student, from the letter jacket, and wore an impatient frown. College kids were a crapshoot – they’d be either super-nice or whiny pains depending on how much money their parents had.
“Technically, yes. You fixed it. The blue guy on the screen is the creature I summoned. You made him let the computer start up. Wave, little fellow,” Bartleby said, a smile growing on his scholarly face.
The creature on the screen waved with just one finger.
I stared.
“They have no manners,” he explained. “When they go down, they’re hopeless until intimidated into working by specific types of magic, as I said earlier. Either you’ve got something very special behind that counter, or you’ve got some powers you aren’t aware of. I can see you have other things you need to do, so here’s my card,” he handed it to me. “Give me a call when you’re ready. I’ll be hearing from you later tonight. And here I didn’t expect you’d have a solution. Hmm.”
I would have thanked a God if I knew which one watched over technical support transactions, because no one else at the kiosk noticed our strange talk. It was always embarrassing to help the insane.
With his hmm, Bartleby Wisticuffs swept his computer up and vanished amidst the crowd before I could say anything else. It was rare to have a conversation end without my express approval. I missed fixes and acted like a preoccupied idiot until I got off a little after seven.
This trend continued; I almost got in a wreck turning left onto Menaul from Louisiana. Bartleby’s business card sat in my lap the whole way, tugging my eyes toward it. The rags to eldritches story this suggested fought a lively war against “it was only very advanced software”. Maybe I had been adopted by a mundane family, and my real one was out there somewhere fighting fantasy battles?
I finished the drive home more carefully in my little blue car after the near-accident and opened the front door to my apartment, drained.
I managed to accidentally fling one of my shoes across the room to hit the little MacBook I kept near my bed, then rushed over to check out the computer to make sure it hadn’t been hurt. Though scuffed, the hinges still worked and the display wasn’t cracked. I was a pretty lucky person where technology and its breaking (or lack of) was concerned, but after today, I wondered at the reason. After seeing so many of the moisture farmer from Tattoine types turned heroes of the galaxy on television, what I wanted, on closer examination from my unique vantage point, was to win the lottery or something. I didn’t have to save anyone if I won the lottery.
The business card glittered in my hand. The sans serif font beckoned me to call it. The characters moved around and cast silver light every which way like liquid diamond ink on sun paper. Er, sun cardstock.
This was too much for me. I raised myself, in my adulthood, as a goddamn agnostic, a reasonable person who didn’t believe in invisible sky wizards and flying spaghetti monsters and magic. The closest I ever came to magic was when I was six years old and my mother and I were on another interminable road-trip to frighten my dad into doing whatever she wanted.
I had a game of pretending the squishy motions I made with squinted eyes and pinched fingers at other cars would crush them and their inhabitants. Hey, I just liked action movies a lot. In retrospect, it was good that I never succeeded: I would’ve been locked up in a tiny room and studied until the universe collapsed.
But here I was, two decades after my squishy motions failed to pulp cars, staring at a business card that had overactive numbers and letters and a sparkle like a television commercial smile, thinking about Jesus and Buddha and all the crazy stories that populated religious texts around the world. Thinking about Mormons and Tibetan monks and Bruce Lee and all the magic they did.
Here I was, in my dingy little apartment with the beaten up charity-leather couch and the old computer desk and the overly expensive lamp that didn’t belong. These things contradicted what I had just been through, told me I was normal.
I lacked any evidence but a business card and a weird old man, but every fantasy geek inch of me wanted to believe it.
Here I was, thinking I might be special.
Not high-IQ special or freak of nature special.
Freaking special, like the X-men and shit.
I slid my iPhone out and punched in the number from the card. Without hitting the call button, I went to the bathroom and had some thinking time. The white throne was a place of no-mind for me. Close the door and the universe shrinks down to a fifty square foot box of solitude where one ritualizes cleanliness and hygiene.
A perfect place, the toilet.
I emerged from the water closet a little more open to calling the number on the magical business card. I couldn’t find any reason not to. At the very least, Bartleby might be able to hook me up with one of those suits. It was an old guy suit, but it was so sharp. Maybe I could get a girlfriend with one of those suits at my back.
My sporadic friend Captain Morgan called. I had a bracing swig before I dialed Mister Wisticuffs.
“Hello?” The same voice from earlier, crisp and English and in command.
“Mister Wisticuffs?” If someone had a funny name in my vocation, you had to preface it with a mister.
“Ah, the fellow from the computer place. You were almost late calling me. Have you been drinking?” Mr. Wisticuffs seemed almost jovial.
“How’d you know I was drinking?”
“Simply an inference from the few shots of Captain Morgan Parrot Bay spiced rum you had earlier.” The long name of the cheap rum came off Bartleby’s lips like a wealthy second grader mocking his poorer friend for a crappy second-hand Christmas present. “I would think a man like you would be inclined to real alcohol, not that sugary good-for-nothing swill. Real alcohol doesn’t need all those adjectives.”
“How’d you know I was drinking Captain Morgan?”
“You’re not very quick when you’re not working. It might have been a mistake, giving you my card.”
“Are you stalking me?” This was a foreign idea to me – I didn’t think a tech support customer had ever stalked their tech. If they had, it would’ve been a much better looking technician. I couldn’t put stalking past someone named Bartleby Wisticuffs, though.
“First rule of magic, lad. Never accept anything from anyone you don’t know. Did you know debit cards were invented so paranoid magicians wouldn’t have to take change from grocery clerks? Those low wage jobs are always so depressing, there’s bound to be an unknown talent somewhere impressing his angst on all his money. Can destroy a man’s life, getting money from the wrong person,” Bartleby warned.
While Bartleby talked, most of me looked around for the business card all of me had put on my computer desk a few minutes ago. It was simply not present. I walked around the desk holding the phone to my ear without comment, mostly ignoring Bartleby in my search for the espionage-inclined stationery. I fumbled my expensive lamp onto the floor; I wasn’t hugely fat, but I also wasn’t proud of the extra pounds that made me bad for fine china shops.
A headache declared untimely war on my light rum-fed buzz.
“…of course, it can destroy a man’s life if he doesn’t know what he is, fixing people’s stuff and never knowing quite why he’s good at it, or why he gets believed when a coworker could shovel the same crap down a throat and end up covered in it. Or it could just never occur to him that there might be something special about him. There’s something special about you, Simon.”
I only caught up on the last line. I spooled back through all his words and came up wanting for a witty response, though the thought did occur that it’s almost impossible for an angry British man to say the word crap properly.
“What’s special about me?” I asked, giving up on finding the spy card and settling into my high-armed computer chair with a sigh.
“You’re a wizard. Maybe a very special one.”
“Awhuh? Humph?” Even I could hear my stupid shock. I sounded like I’d been slipped a roofie. No way in hell was this happening.
But then, this was a fantasy nerd’s ultimate dream. How could I not believe him?
I would have given up the lifelong possibility of ever having two chicks at once for the opportunity to learn magic.
“You’re a wizard. I’ve done some research since we parted ways earlier.”
“Mmhmm?” My brain was on autopilot, having succumbed to the fantasy.
“Descended from a demon. Or angel, whichever you want to go for. Personally I’d be more inclined toward the demonic half: angels are boring. But,” Bartleby rushed to assure me, “that doesn’t mean you’re evil. Demons aren’t any more evil than angels are good. It all comes down to a couple of biker angels from the future going back in time and inventing a good reputation so they wouldn’t seem such scalliwags.”
“Are you crazy?” I started to get angry. It sounded like a call from an In Nomine sourcebook.
“Me? No. Quite sane, thank you. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I were crazy. I’d probably be well on my way to creating another Chernobyl.”
“What’s Chernobyl have to do with this?”
“Crazy wizard, name of Eggstrom, tried to summon a black hole and ended up irradiating everything within a hundred miles.” A pause. “Well, he did get the black hole too, but that’s a story for another time.”
“Okay, aside from all that. Why did you come to Bella’s today?” Bella’s was the name of my job. My heart was bursting with excitement, but my soul was hurt by the joke, the necessary unreality.
“I was trolling for wizards,” he replied.
End Call.
My eyes glossed over the glittering, limboing business card whistling at me from beside my knocked-over lamp. There was no way I was giving the business card the satisfaction of my finding it after it’d played hard to get for so long. I went to the kitchen to drink my swiftly developing neuroses away.