Christian Kings and Stolen Cars

Issue 50 • Fall 2024 • Fiction

Odin sits in the hall of King Olaf Tryggvason. Tomorrow is Easter, and tonight Odin is a poet, thin-necked and slope-shouldered, walking with his toes pointed out as if worried he might fall over. He claims to have traveled from Iceland to give himself in service to Norway’s Christian king. Olaf, bored, offers ale to the stranger, who responds by offering Olaf a gift of wine, smuggled, the poet says, from Germany. The Christian king perks up at this. He calls for his bishop, whom he makes taste the wine. Then, observing that the bishop does not fall down dead (praise Christ), King Olaf takes a cup for himself, draws deep, and asks the poet to tell him a story.

Odin begins with the tale of King Augvald and his magic cow. Augvald ruled the isle of Karmøy, and, being lazy, was content to be lord of its chalk sands and heather moors and not much else. Then one day he discovered among his herd a magic cow whose milk imbued the drinker with fantastic strength. Soon, Augvald, his ambition stoked by unfair advantage, had his men doing magic-milk keg stands and sailing shirtless across the strait on their way to conquer western Rogaland, doing chest bumps and more keg stands the whole way. With their great strength and keen ability to digest lactose, Augvald’s forces made quick work of his rivals. But one day, men sent by a king in eastern Rogaland infiltrated the court and kidnapped the cow. Augvald wept. “Damn these cownappers,” he cried. When his men met the eastern king’s in combat, both sides were fueled by magic milk — Augvald, who liked his tipple, having fermented and stored a great deal of it. The two sides were so powerful, so well matched, so wild for dairy that every living thing on the battlefield was destroyed, including the cow, and including Augvald. The king’s family buried him with his cow, knowing that he would have wanted this, because he was weird.

King Olaf, upon hearing this story, laughs and laughs. “A magic cow? Magic milk?” These concepts delight him, which surprises the bishop, as King Olaf is not someone who tends toward delight. But the poet’s wine warms the king, and when the king asks to be topped off, the poet, whose jug seems to hold an endless supply, tops him off. Feeling festive, King Olaf demands more stories, then more wine, then more stories, then more wine. When the bishop tries, unsuccessfully, to remind King Olaf that tomorrow is Easter, that “you have a big day ahead of you, and you need a good night’s sleep,” King Olaf tries, unsuccessfully, to shove the bishop into the fire. King Olaf and the poet laugh together as the bishop leaves the room in a huff, pawing at the embers on his cloak. More wine is poured, more stories are told, and when King Olaf finally retires, he does so on the floor of the hall. When his servants attempt to relocate him to his bed, where his wife waits, Olaf slaps at them. “Leave me be,” he says, without forming all the consonant sounds involved. “I’m a big strong man and I sleep where I want.” Then he announces that the poet should go sleep in the bed with King Olaf’s wife, which will certainly be a surprise for her.

When the Christian king wakes, his mouth tastes like rotten cherries and his head feels like the smith’s anvil and oh, wow, did he wet himself? The light is not right in the window. “Lovely, you’re awake,” the bishop says when he enters. “You missed Easter mass. Your friend the poet seemed good, though. He left before sunrise. And your entire cattle herd is gone. I’m heading downstairs to bless the poor. Enjoy your afternoon, heretic.”

It takes Odin a good hour to get home on the Bilröst, not because of traffic, but because he stops along the way for Red Bull and mints. Also he uses the bathroom. He keeps to the right-hand lane and tries to stay under the speed limit, but not too far under.

At home, Frigg is in bed, watching The Wire.

“This is so good,” she says. “Have you seen it?”

He sits on the edge of the mattress and takes off his boots, appearing to put as much effort into the task as he did into crafting the cosmos from Ymir’s slain body.

“Is this the newspaper season?” he says. “That’s my least favorite one.”

“Don’t spoil anything. Anyway, how was it? Did you have fun?”

“Sure, it was good.”

“And how was Loki?”

Odin pitches one boot into the closet, then the other.

“Loki’s fine. You know Loki.”

Frigg makes a noise to confirm that she does, indeed, know Loki. Then she says, “I’m glad you had fun. I think it’s good for you to get out of the house and see friends.”

Odin says that yes, it is good for him to get out of the house and see friends, and he had a good time, but he’s tired now, and could she please put on the bluetooth headphones, because he’s going to close his eyes. He’s just heading to the kitchen for some water first. Frigg digs around in her nightstand for the headphones and tells him fine, just be careful and quiet out there. Baldur took a long time getting to sleep, and she doesn’t want him to wake. When Odin returns with a half-drunk glass of water, Frigg tells him that she loves him, and he says that he loves her, and then he rolls over with his back to her and tries not to think about the end of everything.

Odin stands beside King Richard III, atop the hill at Bosworth Field. Tomorrow is the first day of the reign of Henry VII, and today Odin is a servant, balding and without armor, but straight of back and broad of shoulder in a way that would make Richard hate him, if Richard were unkind, which he’s not. The king fails to notice that the face of the man beside him is one previously unseen in his household, not because Richard is the type to overlook his lessers, but because he’s got a lot going on.

Richard sits in the saddle and scowls at the approaching line of Henry’s army, all Welshmen and traitors and French mercenaries. The servant beside him holds the bridle, soothes Richard’s horse.

A rider approaches.

“So?” Richard asks the rider. “Is he coming?”

“No, my lord.”

“Did you tell him I’d behead his son if he didn’t come?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And what did he say to that?”

The rider’s left eye twitches.

“He said, my lord, that he has other sons.”

At this, Richard nearly falls from his horse. It’s too much, he says. How can anyone run a country when you have to deal with people who don’t even care if you behead their sons? Somebody asks Richard if they should get started with the beheading, but Richard says no, no, we’re not doing that. Who would do that? We were never going to actually do that. Do I look like some kind of monster to you? Then Richard calls for his bishop, and Odin, still playing the dutiful servant, fetches him. Richard asks the bishop that they pray together for God to deliver not Richard, but the nation — especially his men, his friends, his family who will suffer if that French-loving Henry Tudor over there wins. “Tell God that I do not care if I die today,” Richard says. “I only care that England and her people be spared the abuses of a cruel enemy.” The bishop, looking annoyed, spits out a prayer, waves his hand around, then takes off running. Richard watches him go, then sighs.

“We’re so screwed,” he says.

Then Odin tugs at the reins, and shouts for the king’s attention. Look, your highness, look. Off in the distance, far behind the main army, there’s Henry, hiding. Where? There, way out there. Don’t you see? Richard doesn’t see, but this is unsurprising. God, in his infinite wisdom, Richard is fond of saying, gave Richard many blessings, but also many challenges — poor eyesight among them. He asks his men if anyone else sees Henry where the servant sees him. Sort of, says one. Maybe, says another. I think so, says a third. Finally, the men all agree that yes, totally, that is definitely him hiding back there behind his armies. The servant now tells Richard, sir, if you lead a charge around the main lines, you can capture the usurper. You can end this now. You can save England.

So Richard does this, and when he fails, he is captured. His helmet is taken from him. Welshmen bearing halberds bash in his skull. His body is dragged to Henry, who is hiding in the middle of a circle of French mercenaries. Somebody takes Richard’s circlet and puts it on Henry’s head. Henry, feeling very brave now, shoves his sword up poor, dead Richard’s butt. Everybody laughs. They bury Richard in an unmarked grave with his hands tied behind his back. Henry and his children rule England for 200 years.

“Where were you?” Frigg says when Odin gets home.

“I was out,” he says. “With Loki.”

“I thought Loki was traveling for work,” she says. She is watching Pride and Prejudice. She pauses it.

“He got back a couple nights ago. He finished up early.”

Frigg asks him no more questions. She turns the movie back on and the volume up. Odin tries to sleep. Twice he comes close to asking her to put headphones on, but stops short. When the movie’s finished, she turns the TV off and rolls over, away from him, making a show of tugging at the sheets and comforter.

When Odin is sure she’s asleep, he texts Loki, says that if Frigg asks, they went out for a beer.

“LOL got it bro!!” Loki writes back, then adds a devil emoji. He does not ask Odin where he was or what he was doing there.

It becomes habit, but why? Odin can feast and fight in Valhalla as much as he likes, forever and ever. He has a patient wife, muscular children. His life is good. He’s not busy, no. He hasn’t been busy for a while now. There are no giants left to kill, so, you know, that’s good. No giants is a good thing. And Asgard is fortified, and Midgard has moved on. The mortals pay tribute to others now and that’s fine — there’s nothing wrong with that! As Frigg reminds him, he has more time now to spend with the boys, to spend with her. She begins plotting a trip to Italy, two weeks. If they start making all their incidental purchases on this credit card she just applied for, they can earn enough points by next fall to cover the flights and the first week of the hotel.

But at night Odin dreams of the wolf. He dreams of the serpent. He dreams of his son, Baldur, run through with a spear of mistletoe, and he is horrified at these visions of his gentle, glowing child, his most beautiful son — the one who reminds him most of Frigg, when she still loved him, or when he was still able to receive love from her. He drinks and sits while Loki mutters in his ear. In Midgard the world drifts on, but in Asgard time moves differently, or not at all, and the days are always the same and the nights are never long enough. Quarrel with Loki, send Thor off in search of giants that can’t be killed because they can’t be found, try not to get caught looking Freyja up and down. There is no movement. Odin could toss a thousand eyes into Mimir’s well, hang himself from the world tree for a thousand days, and still he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about his own creeping obsolescence. He wakes one morning and looks in the mirror and is astonished at the face looking back at him. One-eyed and haggard, but he’s always been that way. What shocks him is how lifeless the face is, how unburdened by curiosity. Did he not trade old Mimir one form of perception for another? Did he not sacrifice himself to himself so that he could understand the runes? The face that looks back at him doesn’t care for sacrifice or knowledge, could do without both, thank you. Odin sits on the toilet, lid down, and stares at the tile beneath his feet for a thousand years. Eventually he stands and wanders off to Valhalla. Some Swedes challenge him to a round of toga honk, but his heart’s not in it. So he ventures down to Midgard, in search of more Christian kings to mess with.

He slips General Grant a bottle before Shiloh. He gives José Martí a revolver and a horse. He advises Ramsay MacDonald to let the Germans build new U-boats.

One night in bed with Frigg, he is reading and she is watching a John Mulaney special. She takes off her headphones and without looking at him says, “You used to be funny. I miss when you were funny.” A moment passes before he realizes she’s talking to him, not Mulaney. He’s surprised that he doesn’t get mad. He knows what she means. When they talk now, it’s only about the boys: Who will take Thor to Kumon? Should Baldur see a therapist? Or they talk about Ragnarök. More like they argue about Ragnarök. More like they argue about why he spends all his time thinking about Ragnarök, worrying about Ragnarök, why he grows so irritable and lost in thought that he can’t sit still long enough to watch a movie with the family, to play a game with the boys. No, he used to be funny. He used to be present. Her meaning is so plain that he can’t be mad, so grateful is he for this rare moment of clarity between them. She doesn’t say that she wishes he’d never thrown his eye into that well, that she wishes he’d never hung himself from that tree. She doesn’t have to.

Whatever Christian kings once walked the Earth are all gone. If Odin wants a sign that Ragnarök is coming, he need only look to Midgard. Nine worlds, but only one full of nihilists. He thinks about rigging an election, starting a riot. But they are managing their own undoing just fine, and their undoing was never what he wanted, anyway. He was just mad. He was just feeling cranky. Everyone feels cranky sometimes. He was just in a bad place, and not being honest with himself about his feelings, and needling their Christian kings had been a serviceable entertainment, a filthy little habit to divert him from the darkness always hovering at the edge of his thoughts — from the wolf and the serpent and the spear of mistletoe. But it no longer sates him. He needs filthier habits.

One night he tells Frigg he’s going to Valhalla to meet up with Loki, and she doesn’t even look up from her sudoku. Then he goes to New Jersey and steals a car.

Odin stands in the parking lot behind the Church of Saint Ann in Lawrence Township. Tomorrow is just another day on Earth, and today there are two cars parked outside the church. One is a Toyota Camry with a bumper sticker that reads “Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Punch the Devil in the Face.” The other is a 1972 Pontiac GTO, gold with black striping over the wheel wells. Across the street from the parking lot, on the other side of Eldridge Avenue, the houses facing the church are all dark. Odin makes for the GTO. He has mastered the runes and gained knowledge of Ragnarök, so popping the lock on the GTO isn’t a challenge. Neither is getting the engine to turn over. As he presses his left foot to the clutch, shifts into reverse, and lets the car roll back, he looks over his shoulder. Then he puts it into first and eases out onto Eldridge, looking left, then right, then left again. There’s no traffic, but as he moves onto the darkened two-lane street, he feels a thrill that is familiar and far away. He can’t place it. He takes the GTO around the block, just once, then returns it to the parking lot, to its spot a few spaces from the Camry. He’s hooked.

Odin returns the next night and the night after, and both nights it’s the same. He takes the GTO around the block, returns it to its space, then heads home to Frigg, to bed, to another day closer to Ragnarök. On the fourth night, instead of returning the car, he heads down Eldridge again, turns right on Drift, and this time keeps going all the way up to Eggerts Crossing. The air is cold and damp, just above freezing, but Odin doesn’t turn the heater on. He likes it. It’s a nice, wet, Atlantic cold, and he thinks for a moment that he should have worn a hat, but then just as quick is ecstatic to not be wearing a hat, to roll down the windows and let his knuckles whiten around the Lucite ring of the steering wheel, to watch his breath crystalize mid-air in front of him. He rolls the GTO by the VA building, then turns left on Township Road, rides up toward 295. The police station is ahead on the left, and the on-ramp for 295 is on the right. A cop car pulls up next to him — not Township PD, but a state trooper. Odin looks out the open window and makes eye contact with the trooper, who only stares at him.

“Good evening, officer,” Odin says. He winks his one good eye.

The trooper gives him nothing but the hardest look. Then Odin feels it again, that thrill, and finally he can place it. He felt it at the well, as old Mimir told him the price of cosmic knowledge. Then Odin had carved out his own eyeball, had tossed it into a well just so he could take a drink. And what Odin realizes at 1 a.m. in Nowheresville, South Jersey, is that it’s not what happened afterward that he wanted, not the searing of his mind, certainly not all the responsibility that came with knowing. Not the wolf or the serpent or the spear of mistletoe. It was that moment just before, when old Mimir asked for his eye. There’s nothing left now that Odin wants to know. What he wants is to not know what happens next. So Odin smiles. He winks again at the state trooper. Then he guns the engine and takes off under the freeway overpass, pumping the clutch and shifting into second, third, fourth. He hears the trooper’s siren howl behind him. He smashes the accelerator to the floor.

Issue 49 • Spring 2024

Fiction

Poetry

Fiction

Poetry