Read Pluto Walks the Earth, Chapter 3: Carpal Diem
Welcome back to Pluto Walks the Earth, my mystery novel/social satire serialized here over the course of approximately 60 weeks. This is the fourth of five free chapters. Thereafter, Pluto will become a premium for paid subscribers only. A better reason to pony up, however, if you ask me, is to support my work in the shrinking speaking-truth-to-power sector (which will continue to be published at the beginning of every week and remain available to ALL subscribers). Pluto, for its part, is a picaresque adventure, narrated by an eccentric cast of characters in the telling of some positively strange events. Should you decide to give me your financial support, I shall be most grateful: BullyPulpit.Substack.com.
Gus
My name is Constantine “Gus” Demetriou. You may know me as the executive director of the Shamanic Energy Co-op and flow leader of the Sangre de Christo Chanting and Meditation Circle. In those capacities — as well as at my weekly drum stretching workshop in the plaza — I seek spiritual and physical wellbeing for the Santa Fe region and beyond. My videos are available for free on my website, and a selection of totems, fetishes, touchstones, vibrational media and implements of the Sacred Geometry can be purchased. What are our most popular items? Our Chakra Sets, our Amethyst Rough Stone Aura Energy Generator and our Circle of Life Orgonite Pyramid (on sale now, $15.99). Our black tourmaline Rosewood Pendulum Isva Stones? Those fly off the virtual shelves, I’ve gotta say.
All right. Enough of the commercial.
Why was I put on Mother Earth? I think I was put here to guide seekers in their sacred journey. In addition, I have a position as a “transactions associate” — uh, cashier, ok? — at Mary Lou’s Chakra ’n’ Awe in downtown Santa Fe. Your holistic wellbeing one-stop shopping. It was in that capacity that, in the spring of the year in question, I became acquainted with Pluto McDowell.
What a dick. Obviously. From the get-go.
I meet him for the first time on a Saturday morning, our busiest day at Mary Lou’s. I’d opened up the store as usual, switched the lights on, gotten the produce mister running, double-checked that the nut pyramids were still standing … the regular drill. It’s probably 60 degrees outside at 8:30 in the morning, but there’s still the usual chill in the store, where the coolers match the desert temperature in the 40s and require hours to crawl back in sync with spring. This is more or less what goes on outside, too: the slow dance between light and heat. It’s a bracing thing, a Santa Fe morning, with a cloudless, backlit, forever sky refusing to thaw your skin. I’m slow to warm up myself, truth be known.
The place isn’t open to customers ’til 9. But in strolls this teenager who looks right at me, points right at me, and says, “You Gus?” No, son, I’m the Phantom of the Opera. I try to be kind, but sometimes my thoughts can be a little sarcastic and this boy just rubs me the wrong way.
I say, “Yeah. And you are … besides trespassing?”
And he says, with an irritating chuckle, “Hey, sorry! I’m Pluto, and Mary Lou says you need to talk to me about my journey.” I need to talk to him? Who died and made him Krishna? This is when he notices my ink. What ink? Well, I have tattoos on my face, neck, chest, back and calves. Ever since I was in the Air Force, my body has been a canvas, and these past 10 years or so it has been a canvas for my soul. Or like a diary of my journey. My tattoos aren’t just my decoration; they are my children. The thing is, in every possible way, my children have been both my joy and my heartbreak. My most recent tattoo — on my forehead — was meant to be the final chapter of my body-art memoir 22 years in the making. And the kid doesn’t miss it. It’s a three-color image of a groundcherry, also known as a husk cherry (Physalis pruinosa), which is a tomato-ish berry in the nightshade family. The groundcherry is embedded in a fibrous husk, and when split open looks like a heart bursting out of a chrysalis, which happens to be my interpretation of love liberated from spiritual repression. You know how Jewish people put those mezuzah things on their doorposts, encasing sacred scripture? The groundcherry is the sacred verse that I wanted on the doorpost of my crown chakra. That was my thinking. What never occurred to me, unfortunately, is that to everyone else, my groundcherry tat looks like a vagina with an engorged clitoris. I’m sorry. That’s just how it is. Nobody doesn’t think so. Google it, if you must. It’s fucking everywhere. And I have to live with this forever.
There is no need to deceive you. I am at peace with this misfortune and believe that it was meant as a reminder to be wary of hubris. To never stop questing. To never believe the journey is complete. Unfortunately, most people are just super grossed out. And you can see that they think I’m a sicko. Why do they think I’m a sicko? Again: their assumptions. So I always wear a ball cap, brim tilted low, to minimize the horror to innocent civilians, especially kids, naturally. The hat rests a little uneasily on my dreads, so it happens that the moment Pluto McDowell enters the store, I’ve just taken it off to put on my smock. And he zeroes right in.
“Yo, Gus. I love the vag.”
Look, I know he’s just being friendly. Trying to be attentive and complimentary. But, please. He doesn’t love the vag, because nobody loves the vag. Because what I wanted to symbolize spiritual metamorphosis looks like a sex organ on my forehead. But why even bring it up? Why call attention to it? I’m a total stranger at this point, and he just assumes I’m proud of my face vagina? I’m a grown man, a shamanic guide, and here’s this snot-nosed pretty-boy — who by the way is demanding my guidance, probably pro bono — and his opening move is to lie to me? That is why “ingratiating” is an insult. The universe is fragile and disturbed by dishonesty emanating from the pie-hole chakra. He’s seeking my help and initiates our relationship on a foundation of mistrust? Annoying. How annoying? Extremely annoying.
Now, lookit. I say, “annoying.” I do not say, “I resolve here and now to ruin this kid’s life.” I’m not Vineeta, for crying out loud. But can you see how I might not be champing at the bit to consult on his enlightenment quest? So I change the subject.
“What are you doing here so early? Store doesn’t open for a half hour. Mary Lou won’t be in before 10.”
“I know. She dropped me off. She and Candy are going to Denny’s for breakfast. Because Candy …”
“I know, I know. I don’t eat this shit either.”
I’m surprised that the kid laughs at that. And I might’ve warmed to him some if I don’t glance down and see he’s barefoot, which is such a rookie move. First of all, it’s against Santa Fe County health regulations to be in a food establishment without shoes. Also, with no training, no education, no processing and no polarity work, no way he’s going to get any benefit from being shoeless. He isn’t going to get in touch with the healing vibrational energy of the high desert. He’s going to get hookworm. And unless I miss my bet … the shininess of his toenails … I believe he’s had a pedicure.
“Look here, fella,” I say. “If Mary Lou wants for me to work with you, I will work with you. But I have no idea what kind of expedition you are on. This will require time, and it will require hospitable conditions, which this place certainly doesn’t offer. We’ll have to find a time to meditate on your circumstances.”
“At the ashram?”
“Huh?”
“Will you see me at your ashram?”
“I don’t know who told you anything about an ashram. I rent two rooms over the vaping store.” Which is the absolute truth. My divorce hit me hard. But anyways, I’m ready to compare calendars with him when he starts going on and on about MacGyver, that old TV show, I guess. I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. Then about some other show, Live from the Apollo or some shit.
So maybe I was a little harsh. Truth is, as I got to know Pluto, I could never really say he was a dick. I actually pretty quick took a shine to him. Dick? Nah. I’ll go with imbecile.
When will the audio version come out because I can hear the funny in my head.