5.1
In Jesus’s beat-ass, rusted-to-shit, powder-blue 1979 Lincoln Town Car, the ample legroom allowed Rupert to recline with uncommon comfort.
“I didn’t know they made these in this color,” Rupert noted.
“They didn’t.” Jesus grinned, indicating that he’d chosen and paid for this color himself.
They had just left The Buttery Mollusk, an unglamorous joint, but the seafood was great and Rupert was now stuffed with shrimp, scallops, and pasta, all lovingly slid down his gullet with a hardy helping of butter, as advertised. He felt better. C-A-R-B-S spells comfort.
“I don’t know how far we are, but if you could drop me off at the Royal Court—”
“Ah, no, ese. I’m taking you to meet my associates.”
“Your bosses.”
“My associated bosses.” He grinned again. “Here’s what you need to know.”
Jesus then gave an articulate and informative lecture on Crack Planet, the Golden Tickets, and his employers.
Crack Planet is the tenth planet in our solar system.
“Tenth?” Rupert asked.
“Yeah, tenth.”
“Is Pluto a planet?”
“Yeah, it was, then it wasn’t, but now it is again.”
“I must have missed that issue of Discover.”
“Dawg, you gotta read. Do you mind?”
“Go on.”
It lies way, way past Pluto, and a little to the left. Jesus theorized that it was the “little to the left” part that had kept it off astronomers’ radar so far, which was good, because you know the human race couldn’t rest until it figured out a way to kill it and everything and everyone on it.
“Crack Planet has everythings and everyones?” Rupert asked.
“Well, we don’t need to get into the everyones, but I can tell you about the everythings.”
The sell-line is that Crack Planet is a planet made entirely of crack. And if that doesn’t get your water boiling, the crack on Crack Planet? It’s free. Free crack.
“You’ve never seen a Tweaker’s high beams flick on faster than when they hear the words ‘free crack.’” Jesus steered the massive boat of a car right, then left.
For a moment, Rupert thought that was the end of the story, and he supposed, to a Crackhead, that was all they’d need to hear.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Jesus began, “what is it you do for a living?”
“I’m an entropologist at the Spliphsonian Museum in Washington, DC.”
Jesus drove in silence for about a half-mile.
“Well, then I suppose you’re qualified.”
“For what?”
“Helping us boost business. We need to sell more tickets.”
“Tickets,” Rupert said. “Oh, tickets. Golden Tickets to Crack Planet like you tried to sell me behind the FFG.”
“Man, I told you I was testing you,” Jesus said, laughing. “Check it. A few months ago, I was behind the FFG, doing my thing, when these two Junkies—I recognized one of them, Tito, used to be a clucker for another organization. I hadn’t seen him for a while, so I figured he’d been down the rabbit hole enough to buy this shit. He had a Tweaker with him, his wife, I think, but she was nice enough. She was more hard up than he was, so I knew she needed a ticket.”
Palm trees and pastel-painted stucco sped by. A pelican flew down between the lanes of cars, worringly close, but it was Rupert’s first pelican sighting, ever.
“So, after a little back and forth, they don’t just want to buy, they want to sell. Get in on the business. And well, I’m the only one out here shilling for these gringos, and I’m spread a little thin. Anyway, shit gets worked out and next thing I know, these two slags are arrested and Crack Planet’s in the national papers. I was like, fuck.”
“I hadn’t seen it.” Rupert consoled Jesus.
“You didn’t know Pluto was back in the Solar System Club.”
“Fair point.”
“So Tito is telling the cops that he didn’t care what they said, those tickets were pure gold, not the cut up two-by-fours them idiots used. Two-by-fours! Painted gold, with ‘Ticket to Heaven – Admit One’ written on them in marker. I mean, that’s pretty much what we do ‘cause these folks aren’t exactly Jack Parsons, but two-by-fours? Come on.”
Rupert was surprised at how much fiberglass marine life populated the store and restaurant fronts here, whether the establishment was marine related or not. Mucho Mattresses had a giant squid on their roof squeezing a mattress in its cephalopodian grip. “Even the Kracken can’t Krack these deals!” was painted across the windows. Rupert decided he’d absolutely buy a mattress from those people.
“But dude even ratted me out—told the fuzz that Geez-zus behind the FFG told him he should sell these ‘tickets,’ get some money, and go to Crack Planet. Then he said he’d met an alien named Stevie, and let me tell you, I don’t know any alien named Stevie. Stevie told him that he’d give this cockrocket and his woman a lift on his spaceship to Crack Planet, and I am telling you . . . that is not how you get to Crack Planet.”
Rupert turned his gaze to Jesus for a moment, studying the side of his face, trying to see what was under the double blockade of sunglasses and bandana.
There’s a certain way to get to Crack Planet?
“Anyway, I never did find out who this Stevie was. I think he was a crack hallucination, but the guy went and blabbed to the cops that Crack Planet was a place you could go and smoke all the crack you want for free.”
“Wouldn’t that be good for business?”
“Rupert, we want to push sales, but we don’t need the whole world knowing about it.”
“Crack’s pretty awesome, huh?”
“Man, crack is whack. Well, some crack is. Crack Planet crack, though . . . primo.”
“You believe there is a Crack Planet.”
Jesus smiled this time, not a grin, and Rupert could see that despite the fact that he looked like he might launch into a rendition of “You Can’t Bring Me Down,: he was maybe a pretty honest guy. But he didn’t answer.
“It gets worse. Tito told the cops they arrested the wrong guy, and that he’d be willing to wear a wire to help them nab this Geez-zus character. Man, dude was gonna set me up! Meanwhile, his old lady, I felt bad for her. She just wanted to leave earth, go to space, and smoke rock.” Jesus laughed hard here. “Then she was like, ‘Tito done sold the damn tickets to heaven. I only watched.’”
Rupert laughed. This was pretty funny if you thought about it.
“The weird thing . . . ?”
“There’s something weird about this?”
“Ha! When they got nabbed, cops confiscated over $10,000 in cash-money, some pipes, and a baby fucking alligator.”
Rupert felt a little queasy at the thought of the pipes, but the baby alligator was peculiar.
“$10,000 in cash. Do the math. That’s like a hundred tickets to Crack Planet. And they never even went!”
Rupert watched Jesus drive a little. Most of the time he didn’t seem crazy. Most of the time.
When they stopped at a light, a wild-looking man came out of nowhere, jumped onto the hood of Jesus’s car, and assumed a wide stance facing away from them. Rupert screamed; Jesus was unaffected. The man bent over and shot them a look from between his knees, waggled his tongue from side-to-side, then straightened and stomped three times with his right foot.
“What the fuck?” Rupert yelled.
“Don’t panic,” Jesus watched the Tweaker. “He’s probably just warding off vampires.”
“What?” Jesus didn’t seem crazy some of the time. Apparently, only some of the time.
Jesus rolled his head toward Rupert. “I didn’t say I believed in the vampires he’s trying to elude. But he does. Let’s just hope he’s done before—”
The light turned green.
“Nope. He’s a Spoosh Surfer.” Jesus accelerated and the man immediately lost his balance, rolled off the hood on Rupert’s side of the car, and disappeared into traffic.
Rupert craned his neck out the window, expecting to find the man wearing several sets of tire tracks, but he was gone. He pulled his head back into the car but could say nothing.
“Relax,” Jesus said. “It happens.”
Rupert stared at the road.
“Hey,” Jesus got his attention. “Seriously. You might as well reconcile yourself to this now.”
For the first time in weeks, Rupert thought he might cry.
Lee Harper Oswald 
Sock it to me...