American Gods

After a few moments the noise began. It took him a few moments to figure out what it had to be, then he unlocked his door and walked out into the hallway. It was the fat kid, now back in his own room. It sounded like he was throwing something huge against the walls of the room. From the sounds, Shadow guessed that what he was throwing was himself. “It’s just me!” he was sobbing. Or perhaps, “It’s just meat.” Shadow could not tell.

“Quiet!” came a bellow from Czernobog’s room, down the hall.

Shadow walked down to the lobby and out of the motel. He was tired.

The driver still stood beside the Humvee, a dark shape in a peaked cap.

“Couldn’t sleep, sir?” he asked.

“No,” said Shadow.

“Cigarette, sir?”

“No, thank you.”

“You don’t mind if I do?”

“Go right ahead.”

The driver used a Bic disposable lighter, and it was in the yellow light of the flame that Shadow saw the man’s face, actually saw it for the first time, and recognized him, and began to understand.

Shadow knew that thin face. He knew that there would be close-cropped orange hair beneath the black driver’s cap, cut close to the scalp. He knew that when the man’s lips smiled they would crease into a network of rough scars.

“You’re looking good, big guy,” said the driver.

“Low Key?” Shadow stared at his old cellmate warily.

Prison friendships are good things: they get you through bad places and through dark times. But a prison friendship ends at the prison gates, and a prison friend who reappears in your life is at best a mixed blessing.

“Jesus. Low Key Lyesmith,” said Shadow, and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. “Loki,” he said. “Loki Lie-Smith.”

“You’re slow,” said Loki, “but you get there in the end.” And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.

They sat in Shadow’s room in the abandoned motel, sitting on the bed, at opposite ends of the mattress. The sounds from the fat kid’s room had pretty much stopped.

“You were lucky we were inside together,” said Loki. “You would never have survived your first year without me.”

“You couldn’t have walked out if you wanted?”

“It’s easier just to do the time.” He paused. Then, “You got to understand the god thing. It’s not magic. It’s about being you, but the you that people believe in. It’s about being the concentrated, magnified, essence of you. It’s about becoming thunder, or the power of a running horse, or wisdom. You take all the belief and become bigger, cooler, more than human. You crystallize.” He paused. “And then one day they forget about you, and they don’t believe in you, and they don’t sacrifice, and they don’t care, and the next thing you know you’re running a three-card monte game on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third.”

“Why were you in my cell?”

“Coincidence. Pure and simple.”

“And now you’re driving for the opposition.”

“If you want to call them that. It depends where you’re standing. The way I figure it, I’m driving for the winning team.”

“But you and Wednesday, you were from the same, you’re both—”

“Norse pantheon. We’re both from the Norse pantheon. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Yeah.”

“So?”

Shadow hesitated. “You must have been friends. Once.”

“No. We were never friends. I’m not sorry he’s dead. He was just holding the rest of us back. With him gone, the rest of them are going to have to face up to the facts: it’s change or die, evolve or perish. He’s gone. War’s over.”

Shadow looked at him, puzzled. “You aren’t that stupid,” he said. “You were always so sharp. Wednesday’s death isn’t going to end anything. It’s just pushed all of the ones who were on the fence over the edge.”

“Mixing metaphors, Shadow. Bad habit.”

“Whatever,” said Shadow. “It’s still true. Jesus. His death did in an instant what he’d spent the last few months trying to do. It united them. It gave them something to believe in.”

“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?”

“Damned if I know. You were important to us because you were important to Wednesday. As for the why of it . . . I guess it’s 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. “You coming?”

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

They walked down the dark motel corridor until they reached room 5.