Neil Gaiman - American Gods

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Gaiman, Neil - American Gods (rtf, v3.0)
***************
Revision History
1.0 - extremely rough UC scan
2.1 - still UC, but paragraph breaks fixed?
3.0 - proofread against DT, meets abeb version 3 standard
****************
ebook based on first hardcover edition, ISBN 0-380-97365-0
***
American Gods
a Novel
Neil Gaiman
***
Caveat, and Warning for Travelers
This is a work of fiction, not a guidebook. While the geography of
the United States of America in this tale is not entirely imaginary-
many of the landmarks in this book can be visited, paths can be
followed, ways can be mapped-I have taken liberties. Fewer
liberties than you might imagine, but liberties nonetheless.
Permission has neither been asked nor given for the use of real
places in this story when they appears, I expect that the owners of
Rock City or the House on the Rock, and the hunters who own the
motel in the center of America, are as perplexed as anyone would
be to find their properties in here.
I have obscured the location of several of the places in this book:
the town of Lakeside, for example, and the farm with the ash tree
an hour south of Blacksburg. You may look for them if you wish.
You might even find them.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that all of the people, living,
dead, and otherwise in this story are fictional or used in a fictional
context. Only the gods are real.
***
For absent friends-Kathy Acker and Roger Zelazny,
and all points between.
***
One question that has always intrigued me is what happens to
demonic beings when immigrants move from their homelands.
Irish-Americans remember the fairies, Norwegian-Americans the
nisser, Greek-Americans the vrykólakas, but only in relation to the
events remembered in the old country. When once I asked why
such demons are not seen in America, my informants giggled
confusedly and said "They're scared to pass the ocean, it's too
far," pointing out that Christ and the apostles never came to
America.
-Richard Dorson, "A Theory for American Folklore," American
Folklore and the Historian (University of Chicago Press, 1971)
***
Part One: Shadows
Chapter One
The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are
bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by
the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of
the Equinoxes, and on the west by the Day of Judgment.
-The American Joe Miller's Jest Book.
Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and
looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was
killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin
tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.
The best thing-in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing-
about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he'd
plunged as low as he could plunge and he'd hit bottom. He didn't
worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got
him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring,
because yesterday had brought it.
It did not matter, Shadow decided, if you had done what you had
been convicted of or not. In his experience everyone he met in
prison was aggrieved about something: there was always
something the authorities had got wrong, something they said you
did when you didn't-or you didn't do quite like they said you did.
What was important was that they had gotten you.
He had noticed it in the first few days, when everything, from the
slang to the bad food, was new. Despite the misery and the utter
skin-crawling horror of incarceration, he was breathing relief.
Shadow tried not to talk too much. Somewhere around the middle
of year two he mentioned his theory to Low Key Lyesmith, his
cellmate.
Low Key, who was a grifter from Minnesota, smiled his scarred
smile. "Yeah," he said. "That's true. It's even better when you've
been sentenced to death. That's when you remember the jokes
about the guys who kicked their boots off as the noose flipped
around their necks, because their friends always told them they'd
die with their boots on."
"Is that a joke?" asked Shadow.
"Damn right. Gallows humor. Best kind there is."
"When did they last hang a man in this state?" asked Shadow.
"How the hell should I know?" Lyesmith kept his orange-blond
hair pretty much shaved. You could see the lines of his skull. "Tell
you what, though. This country started going to hell when they
stopped hanging folks. No gallows dirt. No gallows deals."
Shadow shrugged. He could see nothing romantic in a death
sentence.
If you didn't have a death sentence, he decided, then prison was, at
best, only a temporary reprieve from life, for two reasons. First,
life creeps back into prison. There are always places to go further
down. Life goes on. And second, if you just hang in there,
someday they're going to have to let you out.
In the beginning it was too far away for Shadow to focus on. Then
it became a distant beam of hope, and he learned how to tell
himself "this too shall pass" when the prison shit went down, as
prison shit always did. One day the magic door would open and
he'd walk through it. So he marked off the days on his Songbirds
of North America calendar, which was the only calendar they sold
in the prison commissary, and the sun went down and he didn't see
it and the sun came up and he didn't see it. He practiced coin tricks
from a book he found in the wasteland of the prison library; and he
worked out; and he made lists in his head of what he'd do when he
got out of prison.
Shadow's lists got shorter and shorter. After two years he had it
down to three things.
First, he was going to take a bath. A real, long, serious soak, in a
tub with bubbles. Maybe read the paper, maybe not. Some days he
thought one way, some days the other.
Second, he was going to towel himself off, put on a robe. Maybe
slippers. He liked the idea of slippers. If he smoked he would be
smoking a pipe about now, but he didn't smoke. He would pick up
his wife in his arms ("Puppy," she would squeal in mock horror
and real delight, "what are you doing?). He would carry her into
the bedroom, and close the door. They'd call out for pizzas if they
got hungry.
Third, after he and Laura had come out of the bedroom, maybe a
couple of days later, he was going to keep his head down and stay
out of trouble for the rest of his life.
"And then you'll be happy?" asked Low Key Lyesmith. That day
they were working in the prison shop, assembling bird feeders,
which was barely more interesting than stamping out license
plates.
"Call no man happy," said Shadow, "until he is dead."
"Herodotus," said Low Key. "Hey. You're learning."
"Who the fuck's Herodotus?" asked the Iceman, slotting together
the sides of a bird feeder and passing it to Shadow, who bolted and
screwed it tight.
"Dead Greek," said Shadow.
"My last girlfriend was Greek," said the Iceman. "The shit her
family ate. You would not believe. Like rice wrapped in leaves.
Shit like that."
The Iceman was the same size and shape as a Coke machine, with
blue eyes and hair so blond it was almost white. He had beaten the
crap out of some guy who had made the mistake of copping a feel
off his girlfriend in the bar where she danced and the Iceman
bounced. The guy's friends had called the police, who arrested the
Iceman and ran a check on him which revealed that the Iceman had
walked from a work-release program eighteen months earlier.
"So what was I supposed to do?" asked the Iceman, aggrieved,
when he had told Shadow the whole sad tale. "I'd told him she was
my girlfriend. Was I supposed to let him disrespect me like that?
Was I? I mean, he had his hands all over her."
Shadow had said, "You tell 'em," and left it at that. One thing he
had learned early, you do your own time in prison. You don't do
anyone else's time for them.
Keep your head down. Do your own time.
Lyesmith had loaned Shadow a battered paperback copy of
Herodotus's Histories several months earlier. "It's not boring. It's
cool," he said, when Shadow protested that he didn't read books.
"Read it first, then tell me it's cool."
Shadow had made a face, but he had started to read, and had found
himself hooked against his will.
"Greeks," said the Iceman, with disgust. "And it ain't true what
they say about them, neither. I tried giving it to my girlfriend in the
ass, she almost clawed my eyes out."
Lyesmith was transferred one day, without warning. He left
Shadow his copy of Herodotus. There was a nickel hidden in the
pages. Coins were contraband: you can sharpen the edges against a
stone, slice open someone's face in a fight. Shadow didn't want a
weapon; Shadow just wanted something to do with his hands.
Shadow was not superstitious. He did not believe in anything he
could not see. Still, he could feel disaster hovering above the
prison in those final weeks, just as he had felt it in the days before
the robbery. There was a hollowness in the pit of his stomach that
he told himself was simply a fear of going back to the world on the
outside. But he could not be sure. He was more paranoid than
usual, and in prison usual is very, and is a survival skill. Shadow
became more quiet, more shadowy, than ever. He found himself
watching the body language of the guards, of the other inmates,
searching for a clue to the bad thing that was going to happen, as
he was certain that it would.
A month before he was due to be released. Shadow sat in a chilly
office, facing a short man with a port-wine birthmark on his
forehead. They sat across a desk from each other; the man had
Shadow's file open in front of him, and was holding a ballpoint
pen. The end of the pen was badly chewed.
"You cold, Shadow?"
"Yes," said Shadow. "A little."
The man shrugged. "That's the system," he said. "Furnaces don't
go on until December the first. Then they go off March the first. I
don't make the rules." He ran his forefinger down the sheet of
paper stapled to the inside left of the folder. "You're thirty-two
years old?"
"Yes, sir."
"You look younger."
"Clean living."
"Says here you've been a model inmate."
"I learned my lesson, sir."
"Did you really?" He looked at Shadow intently, the birthmark on
his forehead lowering. Shadow thought about telling the man some
of his theories about prison, but he said nothing. He nodded
instead, and concentrated on appearing properly remorseful.
"Says here you've got a wife, Shadow."
"Her name's Laura."
"How's everything there?"
"Pretty good. She's come down to see me as much as she could-it's
a long way to travel. We write and I call her when I can."
"What does your wife do?"
"She's a travel agent. Sends people all over the world."
"How'd you meet her?"
Shadow could not decide why the man was asking. He considered
telling him it was none of his business, then said, "She was my
best buddy's wife's best friend. They set us up on a blind date. We
hit it off."
"And you've got a job waiting for you?"
"Yessir. My buddy, Robbie, the one I just told you about, he owns
the Muscle Farm, the place I used to train. He says my old job is
waiting for me."
An eyebrow raised. "Really?"
"Says he figures I'll be a big draw. Bring back some old-timers,
and pull in the tough crowd who want to be tougher."
The man seemed satisfied. He chewed the end of his ballpoint pen,
then turned over the sheet of paper.
"How do you feel about your offense?"
Shadow shrugged. "I was stupid," he said, and meant it.
The man with the birthmark sighed. He ticked off a number of
items on a checklist. Then he riffled through the papers in
Shadow's file. "How're you getting home from here?" he asked.
"Greyhound?"
"Flying home. It's good to have a wife who's a travel agent." The
man frowned, and the birthmark creased. "She sent you a ticket?"
"Didn't need to. Just sent me a confirmation number. Electronic
ticket. All I have to do is turn up at the airport in a month and
show 'em my ID, and I'm outta here."
The man nodded, scribbled one final note, then he closed the file
and put down the ballpoint pen. Two pale hands rested on the gray
desk like pink animals. He brought his hands close together, made
a steeple of his forefingers, and stared at Shadow with watery
hazel eyes.
"You're lucky," he said. "You have someone to go back to, you got
a job waiting. You can put all this behind you. You got a second
chance. Make the most of it."
The man did not offer to shake Shadow's hand as he rose to leave,
nor did Shadow expect him to.
The last week was the worst. In some ways it was worse than the
whole three years put together. Shadow wondered if it was the
weather: oppressive, still, and cold. It felt as if a storm was on the
way, but the storm never came. He had the jitters and the heebie-
jeebies, a feeling deep in his stomach that something was entirely
wrong. In the exercise yard the wind gusted. Shadow imagined
that he could smell snow on the air.
He called his wife collect. Shadow knew that the phone companies
whacked a three-dollar surcharge on every call made from a prison
phone. That was why operators are always real polite to people
calling from prisons, Shadow had decided: they knew that he paid
their wages.
"Something feels weird," he told Laura. That wasn't the first thing
he said to her. The first thing was "I love you," because it's a good
thing to say if you can mean it, and Shadow did.
"Hello," said Laura. "I love you too. What feels weird?"
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe the weather. It feels like if we
could only get a storm, everything would be okay."
"It's nice here," she said. "The last of the leaves haven't quite
fallen. If we don't get a storm, you'll be able to see them when you
get home."
"Five days," said Shadow.
"A hundred and twenty hours, and then you come home," she said.
"Everything okay there? Nothing wrong?"
"Everything's fine. I'm seeing Robbie tonight. We're planning your
surprise welcome-home party."
"Surprise party?"
"Of course. You don't know anything about it, do you?"
"Not a thing."
"That's my husband," she said. Shadow realized that he was
smiling. He had been inside for three years, but she could still
make him smile.
"Love you, babes," said Shadow.
"Love you, puppy," said Laura.
Shadow put down the phone.
When they got married Laura told Shadow that she wanted a
puppy, but their landlord had pointed out they weren't allowed pets
under the terms of their lease. "Hey," Shadow had said, "I'll be
your puppy. What do you want me to do? Chew your slippers?
Piss on the kitchen floor? Lick your nose? Sniff your crotch? I bet
there's nothing a puppy can do I can't do!" And he picked her up as
if she weighed nothing at all and began to lick her nose while she
giggled and shrieked, and then he carried her to the bed.
In the food hall Sam Fetisher sidled over to Shadow and smiled,
showing his old teeth. He sat down beside Shadow and began to
eat his macaroni and cheese.
"We got to talk," said Sam Fetisher.
Sam Fetisher was one of the blackest men that Shadow had ever
seen. He might have been sixty. He might have been eighty. Then
again, Shadow had met thirty-year-old crackheads who looked
older than Sam Fetisher.
"Mm?" said Shadow.
"Storm's on the way," said Sam.
"Feels like it," said Shadow. "Maybe it'll snow soon."
"Not that kind of storm. Bigger storm than that coming. I tell you,
boy, you're better off in here than out on the street when the big
storm comes."
"Done my time," said Shadow. "Friday, I'm gone."
Sam Fetisher stared at Shadow. "Where you from?" he asked.
"Eagle Point. Indiana."
"You're a lying fuck," said Sam Fetisher. "I mean originally.
Where are your folks from?"
"Chicago," said Shadow. His mother had lived in Chicago as a girl,
and she had died there, half a lifetime ago.
"Like I said. Big storm coming. Keep your head down, Shadow-
boy. It's like...what do they call those things continents ride around
on? Some kind of plates?"
"Tectonic plates?" Shadow hazarded.
"That's it. Tectonic plates. It's like when they go riding, when
North America goes skidding into South America, you don't want
to be in the middle. You dig me?"
"Not even a little."
One brown eye closed in a slow wink. "Hell, don't say I didn't
warn you," said Sam Fetisher, and he spooned a trembling lump of
orange Jell-O into his mouth.
"I won't."
Shadow spent the night half-awake, drifting in and out of sleep,
listening to his new cellmate grunt and snore in the bunk below
him. Several cells away a man whined and howled and sobbed like
an animal, and from time to time someone would scream at him to
shut the fuck up. Shadow tried not to hear. He let the empty
minutes wash over him, lonely and slow.
Two days to go. Forty-eight hours, starting with oatmeal and
prison coffee, and a guard named Wilson who tapped Shadow
harder than he had to on the shoulder and said, "Shadow? This
way."
Shadow checked his conscience. It was quiet, which did not, he
had observed, in a prison, mean that he was not in deep shit. The
two men walked more or less side by side, feet echoing on metal
and concrete.
Shadow tasted fear in the back of his throat, bitter as old coffee.
The bad thing was happening....
There was a voice in the back of his head whispering that they
were going to slap another year onto his sentence, drop him into
solitary, cut off his hands, cut off his head. He told himself he was
being stupid, but his heart was pounding fit to burst out of his
chest.
"I don't get you, Shadow," said Wilson, as they walked.
"What's not to get, sir?"
"You. You're too fucking quiet. Too polite. You wait like the old
guys, but you're what? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight?"
"Thirty-two, sir."
摘要：

Gaiman,Neil-AmericanGods(rtf,v3.0)***************RevisionHistory1.0-extremelyroughUCscan2.1-stillUC,butparagraphbreaksfixed?3.0-proofreadagainstDT,meetsabebversion3standard****************ebookbasedonfirsthardcoveredition,ISBN0-380-97365-0***AmericanGodsaNovelNeilGaiman***Caveat,andWarningforTravele...

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