DUM SPIRO, SPERO
Part 36
 

"Ah well, if nobody has played you foul
there in your lonely bed, we are no use in pain..."

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 9, Lines 446-447. Used without permission.
 

LANGLY:

Ally tells me we're having company.

I'm not in the mood. Wish she'd told me sooner, but says she only found out last night, and I was out of it, and she said it was kind of short notice.

I know, I know. I'm being a bastard about it. It's her ex-sisters-in-law, which, I mean, I got nothing against them. They're all right ladies and all. It's just, I got stuff to do on TMB, I got a rotten cold, I promised Patrick I'd play with him...

All I wanna do is crawl back in bed and veg. And I want Ally to come and sit with me, not go and do girlie stuff with her homegirls.

Least they're not staying in the house. Ally got 'em a hotel suite, which is cool. This place is already so damn crowded it's not funny. And Miranda might go with them, and that'd be good, give her a chance to hang with the aunties, and we'd have a little peace and quiet.

Wonder how much I'd have to pay 'em to take Patrick, too.

Hey, I love the little guy. I just feel like shit, that's all, and when I feel like shit, I don't feel like moving a thousand miles an hour, which is about half his ground speed.

Christ, this is gonna be awful. Fro's laid up for God knows how long, Byers's head is with getting married and buying a house, Junior's back in school, I work insane hours...

We gotta get some help out here.

Wonder if Ally'd be willing to pull some weight here. She's been a guest contributor a couple times, she proofs stuff regularly, and sometimes she does some research on background. She can write, too. She's not bad. I'm always kind of schizy about bringing her in on it, but when she does stuff, she does it right.

And she might quit complaining her brain's turning to mush. I got no idea what she's talking about. Her brain works fine.

Mine, on the other hand, is rapidly turning into a small puddle of goo. It's carrying out basic life functions, but not even those very well right now.

What I really hate on this job, I got no idea what I'm doing. You think, something's encrypted, you figure out the algorithm, you break it, you know all.

Not even!

It's like Russian dolls, encryption within encryption. Something goes to about seven people before anyone sees it in English, and then only like three people see it, the 'essential' people.

Who, if they're like the people I've met running the place, are total bozos.

I got to figure out how I can get further without getting caught. I'm dying to know what's going on in these things. I'm like a first or second pass guy, so I do the fundamental math on the thing...and then it's gone.

I don't like that. Sorry to sound like such a control freak, but it's like, at the Pent, you didn't have that much security, you could work the entire thing start to finish. That was cool.

And hey, I managed to do a few fun things while I was there. Like there was this shipment of plutonium that was supposed to head for Israel?

I got to divert it to Alabama. Way cool.

Never got caught, either. Either that, or everybody was like so embarrassed they never called me on it.

It's kind of like a game to me. I've always liked that.

Except for, these days, it's no game. It's survival...and not knowing stuff gives me the creeps. I try to hack into stuff in my copious (ha ha) free time, but the stuff I need to do for TMB, that's like about all I got time to do. And even that, the nights I work on it, I give up some sleep time.

Plus I REALLY hate my boss. He is just an indescribable bastard. I thought Nathanson was a jerk until I met this asshole. But as much as I didn't like Nathanson, still kind of bugs me about what might have happened to him. He's like just GONE. Like he was never here or something.

I know my brain is dying, and I'm warped to begin with, but I keep thinking: Wonder how much Zupancic has to do with all this.

I miss Sheridan so much. He was so cool to work for. He was like not even really a boss. He let you do your stuff, yelled at you once in a while for being stupid (when you deserved it), and joked around with you all the time. And it was like everything got done. No big deal.

And he was smart. You got stuck (hey, even I get stuck once in a while!), he could help you.

I owe him.

I owe a lot of people right now...and I haven't been paying on any of it.

I'm so fucking depressed.

Maybe I should just live on Ally's money...let her go back to work...

Forget it. That's like saying, you all won.

Fuck that.

I need a beer. Ally always says, alcohol's a pretty good disinfectant.

And her dad always used to say, it's noon somewhere in the world.
 

Junior's got Kelly's car in pieces in the driveway, and he's got more curses running out of him than he is spilling oil everywhere.

"Having fun?" I ask him.

He looks up at me and gives me this look of death. I really shouldn't hassle him right now, but I just couldn't help myself.

"Fuck you, Langly."

"You wish."

"Aren't you starting a little early?" I think he's referring to the Corona I'm carrying.

"Hey, it's for medicinal purposes."

"Listen, you fuckrag, either help me put this water pump on, or get the fuck outta my face, you understand?"

I suppose I could help him. I hate working on cars, I'm getting too old for that shit, but putting on a water pump's a pain in the ass.

And the stuff on the magazine...well, maybe we get this car done sooner, we'll get something done there...

"How's your dad?" I ask him. Really bums me out that I can't see Fro while I'm sick, but Byers says, I'm not missing much, unless you count abuse.

"He's being an asshole, thank you very much!"

"You gonna see him today?"

"Yeah. But he better not give me anymore SHIT or I'm gonna pound him!"

I give Junior a once-over. I think it's possible he looks even shittier than me. I mean, I've got the stupid red nose and all-I get a cold, I look like fucking Rudolph-but he just looks totally thrashed.

He keeps this up, he's gonna be a dead ringer for his old man in no time.

"How's his private 'nurse'?" I'm sorry, I'm being a bastard...but I'm just in such a mood, I can't help it.

I'm kind of surprised when he doesn't throw something at me-I mean, I deserve it, I know I do-but he just kind of groans.

"Y'know, only time he's calm is when she's there. Wish we had the money to pay her just to babysit him."

"Ask Ally." She'd do it.

"He'll fucking kill me."

This is also true.

"I mean, like, I know he's real scared and all. And he hurts big time. But why does he always gotta be wailing on me? Jesus!"

"Hey, you're not so special. He apparently likes to go after Byers with fists and feets. Maybe it's good I can't see him right now. Probably pull my hair out."

"Or make it fall out faster."

"Junior, you are cold." I'm kind of sensitive about my hair. I don't need any reminders it's going south.

Least he doesn't know about my love handles. I don't think. He's pretty blind in the water. Otherwise, he'd notice that living with Ally has had some slightly negative effects on my waistline. It's her fault, she's such a damn good cook. Sort of destroys any motivation I might have had about not having seconds.

"Where's Kelly?"

"Went inside to write her lab report. Which I got two of 'em to write up this weekend, and I haven't even started 'em!"

"Sucks."

"Yeah, tell me about it. And I wanna see Jo. She comes by to see Dad, but she doesn't stay all that long. So like I never get to talk to her. And she's cool. Plus, I got no idea-"

He doesn't finish that thought.

"You want a beer, Junior?"

He glares at me. "Listen, you fuckrag. You wanna get smashed before noon, that's your problem. I got stuff to do."

God, when did he start getting so fucking self-righteous?
 

The sisters-in-law are here. I mean, they're not really Ally's sisters-in-law anymore, but they're still Miranda's aunties, and Ally likes to think she's still close to 'em.

The homegirls, and that includes Shelby and Miranda, are all hanging by the pool, sipping Coronas and laughing their asses off about some girl thing, I got no idea what. They seem to think Patrick's really cute.

He is. He's totally cute.

Easy for them to say. They don't got to deal with him, day in, day out...they can play with him a few days, then say, kiss off.

I was so jazzed when we got Patrick, I didn't think about how 24/7 this was gonna be. I mean, I should've known...had Miranda around for quite a while now. And yeah, it's like, you worry all the time, but with Miranda, she's like so independent (except for cash and transportation-oh Christ! She turns 16 in October...I'm never gonna sleep again...) that you really didn't
have to sweat it that much with her. You hang with her a little, she does her own stuff, she's got her own buds, she's happy.

Different with Patrick. He's little, so you can't like leave him alone for very long, and if you did, he'd have everything in the place disassembled in five minutes or less. He didn't have this calm consistent background of Mom and Dad always being there, Scott was sick for quite a while and he's had lots of different people taking care of him, so he's not quite so easy about
stuff like Miranda is. And Miranda's still got her mom. And her mom never lets her down. Patrick's starting to figure that one out, but he's still weirded out about things. Like when I'm late from work, which looks like it's gonna be usually, he's real awful for Ally. Like he's freaking out that I won't ever come back or something. He absolutely won't crash out till he gets his snuggle time with me.

Before all this happened, me getting moved to Langley, Ally and me, we were gonna take our long put-off vacation to Cozumel. Don't think that's gonna happen soon. We could take Patrick, but if I'm gonna go to Mexico with Ally, I'm gonna go to Mexico with Ally, and nobody else, and I don't wanna worry that Patrick's gonna barge in and find us screwing our brains  out. Which, by the way, is what you go to Mexico to do. Yeah, we do a little snorkeling and some boozing, too, but mostly, you go to places like that to be with someone, real close with someone.

Having kids around makes it HARD.

If you wonder if I'd trade him back, answer to that is: no fucking way. All I got to do is hug that little guy, and it's like, I wonder why I get so annoyed with him.

Ally laughs at me when I tell her this. She says it's just part of the drill, get over it. Says there's something wrong if your kids don't aggravate the hell out of you sometimes. Miranda's got this poster in her room, it says, Have You Bugged Your Parents Today? I think it reminds her in the remote event she'd ever forget it.

Time for another Corona.
 

I'm trying to string some stuff together for October (which really goes out late September). Thank God we got September out, and it was pretty chunky with stuff. Actually got a tiny bit of calm in there to put out a good issue. October's gonna be a little thin, probably, but maybe if I get started now, there'll be something in there. November, we can get away with that being kind of light, but December, you don't give the readers a nice fat Christmas stocking full of goodies, they bitch. Year Frohike was sick last time, we had kind of a skinny Christmas issue...you'd think Santa forgot to leave toys or something. Something about the holidays and conspiracy buffs. Seems to bring it out in them, and they want their fix.

It's not like we have lack of material. Part of the trouble right now, we got SO much shit waiting to come together...I got to get Ally on this. And maybe Juliet. She's like doing some work for Lu Russell right now, but Lu's keeping her on a pretty limited schedule...well, Juliet'd probably do it after the wedding. I don't think she's good for much right now.

I got to say, Junior did real well over the summer, keeping it tight. He almost singlehandedly put out two issues himself, and he did real good on them. And the readers were happy. He got positive feedback from lots of them. But now he's back in school, he's got two lab sciences (idiot), and he works over at school, I guess he's like the God of Tutoring or something,
least if you listen to Kelly talk about it. He's good (if he runs spellcheck), but now he's so busy, it's like we'll be lucky to get one day a week out of him. And what's real bad is, Frohike's like, he was proud of the boy for doing it over the summer, but I think Fro wants his little guy doing something else.

Too bad. Kid's got talent.

I really ought to try and be nice, go out and talk to Emma and Lydia and be sociable...

I'm just not in the mood. For some reason, her having her family around, it's like, it just doesn't feel right.

Maybe because I miss my own. I mean, both Joanie and Scott, in one summer...I've gotta do something about their things.

Maybe Ally can do that, too. I haven't asked her, but sooner or later it's gotta get done, and I'm just not making it happen right now. I get home late, I'm tired...OH SHIT. I damn near forgot!!!

Junior and me promised Mulder we'd head up to NJ with him tonight!!!

Oh Christ.

Wonder if Junior even remembered.

It's 2:30. Damn.

Maybe Mulder changed his mind...maybe we can do this next weekend...maybe he forgot...

New mail message from the bastard. Sent five minutes ago.

I open it.

"Ready for a night on the town? Remember, black and sexy's the word. M."

Damn.

Junior, where the fuck is he?

Probably went to go see Daddy Dearest.

Crap. I feel like hell. I don't wanna do this tonight. I got nothing against funky poaching, but NJ?

We were originally gonna do it last night, but I guess Scully was feeling lousy and Mulder decided to be a good boy and stay home. So we rescheduled it.

Maybe she'll feel lousy again so we can all stay home and feel lousy.

Shit!

I gotta talk to Junior.

And I really gotta see Fro, even if it's just from the doorway.

Which according to Junior, is probably closer than I really wanna get, anyway.
 

Least the Fro's not in the CCU anymore. He's gotten moved to a room that's rumored to be for real people. Nice if the desk people had a clue which room he was in, in which wing.

I gulped down some Sudafeds before I came, thinking it'd dry up my nose, but mostly what it did was give me medicine head, and it doesn't mix real well with beer.

I get there, and Martha's there with Frohike, but no Junior. Looks like Fro is sleeping.

"Hey, did you see the kid?" I ask her, trying to keep it down so I don't wake up the sleeping grizzly bear.

"Michael?"

"Yeah, that'd be him."

She shakes her head. "He was here...but Mel was so rough on him..."

Oh, it's Mel now, is it?

Maybe things are progressing faster than even Junior let on.

"...and he really shouldn't be..."

Obviously, you don't know Junior that well, ma'am.

"You're Langly, right?"

"Uh-huh. Least I was when I left my house."

"Do you have a cold?"

"Yeah."

She smiles, but she gives me this look and shakes her head. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave...I don't know if you know this, but I was put on private duty with him this morning, so now I'm actually responsible for his condition."

"Really. How'd that happen?"

She just shrugs and looks baffled. "You're asking me?"

Well, you'd think she'd know something about it...

"Do you have a message for him?"

I shake my head. "Just tell him I was here-nah, on second thought, better not."

She looks a little puzzled. "As you said, he's in a pretty raw mood."

"I know, but I think he should still know you came by."

"And if you see Jun-I mean, Michael-" God, I never call the kid that-"tell him I'm looking for his sorry ass."

She smiles a little bit. "What did he do this time?"

Well, maybe she does know a little about him.

"Well, not so much what he did...but what he's gonna do..."

She looks confused, but if she's gonna travel in this circle, she better get used to it.
 

Least the Fro didn't look so bad this time. Last time, he scared the shit out of me, looking like the Bionic Man in there...but this time, mostly, he just needs a shave, big time. Guy is positively shaggy.

Then again, maybe the lady likes full beards. I got one (well, as full as mine ever gets!) when I got nailed in the hospital for a few weeks a couple years back...Ally told me I had to get rid of it first thing when I got home.

So I did what any reasonable guy does. I got rid of it.

I get back to the ranch, and the aunties are in the water with all the kids. This is good. They seem to think Patrick is cool, even if he's not their blood. Lydia seems lots better-she's tossing him up in the air and in the water and they're playing shark.

She better watch it. She just created a monster.

Ally's getting another beer, she asks me if I want one, I'm like, sure, why not?

I only have to go up to the most hideous state on the Eastern seaboard, help break into a fucking pharmaceutical warehouse (yeah, I've done it before, but it's not one of those things I do enough to get up a lot of confidence at), grab about a million inhalers, get them out, and all the while make sure Mulder and Junior don't fuck up.

I'm not that worried about Junior...but I've done these jobs with Mulder before. They have a habit of not going well.

I need to find Junior, see if he's gotten the schematics and floor plans for this place...we need to know what to bring and how we're gonna do the job. If he hasn't, this is gonna be like cramming for an exam.

I used to be an expert crammer. I'm not so good as I used to be.

I used to be 25, too. I'm not so young as I used to be.

Ally says we're going out for chow later. I tell her I'm gonna pass, probably gonna do something with Junior, why doesn't she ask Kelly? This way, maybe Kelly won't ask so many questions. Ally pretty much leaves it alone, when I wanna do stuff, but Kelly's not so cool about it.

"They love Patrick," she says, handing me a popped Corona. With a lime. My girl. She adds all the nice touches.

"Cool." Any other time, it'd be like, I'd be okay with seeing the homegirls. It's just today...

Today, all I wanna be is drunk.

END OF PART 36