American Gods

“Perhaps.” Loki shrugged. “As far as I know, the thinking on this side of the fence was that with the troublemaker out of the way, the trouble would also be gone. It’s not any of my business, though. I just drive.”

“So tell me,” said Shadow, “why does everyone care about me? They act like I’m important. Why does it matter what I do.”

“You’re an investment,” said Loki. “You were important to us because you were important to Wednesday. As for the why of it…I don’t think any of us know. He did. He’s dead. Just another one of life’s little mysteries.”

“I’m tired of mysteries.”

“Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like salt in a stew.”

“So you’re their driver. You drive for all of them?”

“Whoever needs me,” said Loki. “It’s a living.”

He raised his wristwatch to his face, pressed a button: the dial glowed a gentle blue, which illuminated his face, giving it a haunting, haunted appearance. “Five to midnight. Time,” said Loki. “Time to light the candles. Say a few words about the dearly departed. Do the formalities. You coming?”

Shadow took a deep breath. “I’m coming,” he said.

They walked down the dark motel corridor. “I bought some candles for this, but there were plenty of old ones around too,” said Loki. “Old stumps and stubs and candle-ends in the rooms, and in a box in a closet. I don’t think I missed any. And I got a box of matches. You start lighting candles with a lighter, the end gets too hot.”

They reached room five.

“You want to come in?” asked Loki.

Shadow didn’t want to enter that room. “Okay,” he said. They went in.

Loki took a box of matches from his pocket, and thumb-nailed a match into flame. The momentary flare hurt Shadow’s eyes. A candlewick flickered and caught. And another. Loki lit a new match, and continued to light candles: they were on the windowsills and on the headboard of the bed and on the sink in the corner of the room. They showed him the room by candlelight.

The bed had been hauled from its position against the wall into the middle of the motel room, leaving a few feet of space between the bed and the wall on each side. There were sheets draped over the bed, old motel sheets, moth-holed and stained, which Loki must have found in a closet somewhere. On top of the sheets lay Wednesday, perfectly still.

He was fully dressed, in the pale suit he had been wearing when he was shot. The right side of his face was untouched, perfect, unmarred by blood. The left side of his face was a ragged mess, and the left shoulder and front of the suit was spattered with dark spots, a pointillist mess. His hands were at his sides. The expression on that wreck of a face was far from peaceful: it looked hurt—a soul-hurt, a real down deep hurt, filled with hatred and anger and raw craziness. And, on some level, it looked satisfied.

Shadow imagined Mr. Jacquel’s practiced hands smoothing that hatred and pain away, rebuilding a face for Wednesday with mortician’s wax and make-up, giving him a final peace and dignity that even death had denied him.

Still, the body seemed no smaller in death. It had not shrunk. And it still smelled faintly of Jack Daniel’s.

The wind from the plains was rising: he could hear it howling around the old motel at the exact imaginary center of America. The candles on the windowsill guttered and flickered.

He could hear footsteps in the hallway. Someone knocked on a door, called, “Hurry up please, it’s time,” and they began to shuffle in, heads lowered.

Town came in first, followed by Media and Mr. Nancy and Czernobog. Last of all came the fat kid: he had fresh red bruises on his face, and his lips were moving all the time, as if he were reciting some words to himself, but he was making no sound. Shadow found himself feeling sorry for him.

Informally, without a word being spoken, they ranged themselves about the body, each an arm’s length away from the next. The atmosphere in the room was religious—deeply religious, in a way that Shadow had never previously experienced. There was no sound but the howling of the wind and the crackling of the candles.

“We are come together, here in this godless place,” said Loki, “to pass on the body of this individual to those who will dispose of it properly according to the rites. If anyone would like to say something, say it now.”

“Not me,” said Town. “I never properly met the guy. And this whole thing makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Czernobog said, “These actions will have consequences. You know that? This can only be the start of it all.”

The fat kid started to giggle, a high-pitched, girlish noise. He said, “Okay. Okay I’ve got it.” And then, all on one note, he recited:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…”

and then he broke off, his brow creasing. He said, “Shit. I used to know the whole thing,” and he rubbed his temples and made a face and was quiet.