One Door From Heaven

whether they peed themselves, all sorts of kinky stuff."
        The girl put down the beer-on the far side of her plate, out of Micky's reach. Her manner was casual, but her motive was nonetheless clear. She had appointed herself guardian of Micky's sobriety.
        "Maybe," Leilani continued, "you think that would be interesting conversation, even if sort of gross, but let me tell you, it loses its charm pretty quick."
        "What's your pseudofather's real name?" Geneva asked.
        Before Leilani could reply, Micky suggested, "Hannibal Lecter."
        "To some people, his name's scarier than Lecter's. I'm sure you've heard of him. Preston Maddoc."
        "What an impressive name," Geneva said. "Like a Supreme Court justice or a senator, or someone grand."
        Leilani said, "He comes from a family of Ivy League academic snots. Nobody in that crowd has a regular first name. They're worse about names than old Sinsemilla. They're all Hudson, Lombard, Trevor or Kingsley, Wycliffe, Crispin. You'd grow old and die trying to find a Jim or Bob among them. Dr. Doom's parents were professors-history, literature-so his middle name is Claudius. Preston Claudius Maddoc."
        "I've never heard of him," Micky said.
        Leilani appeared to be surprised. "Don't you read newspapers?"
        "I stopped reading them when they stopped carrying news," said Geneva. "They're all opinion now, front page to last."
        "He's been all over television," Leilani said.
        Geneva shook her miswired head. "I don't watch anything on TV except old movies."
        "I just don't like news," Micky explained. "It's mostly bad, and when it isn't bad, it's mostly lies."
        "Ah." Leilani's eyes widened. "You're the twelve percenters."
        "The what?"
        "Every time the newspaper or TV people take a poll, no matter what the question, twelve percent of the public has no opinion. You could ask them if a group of mad scientists ought to be allowed to create a new species of human beings crossed with crocodiles, and twelve percent would have no opinion."
        "I'd be opposed," said Geneva, brandishing a carrot stick.
        "Me, too," Micky agreed.
        "Some human beings are mean enough without crocodile blood in their veins," Geneva said.
        "What about alligators?" Micky asked her aunt.
        "Opposed," Geneva responded with firm resolve.
        "What about human beings crossed with wildly poisonous vipers?" Micky proposed.
        "Not if I have anything to say about it," Geneva promised.
        "Okay, then what about human beings crossed with puppy dogs?"
        Geneva brightened. "Now you're talking."
        To Leilani, Micky said, "So I guess we're not twelve percenters, after all. We have lots of opinions, and we're proud of them."
        Grinning, Leilani bit into a crisp dill pickle. "I really like you, Micky B. You, too, Mrs. D."
        "And we like you, sweetheart," Geneva assured her.
        "Only one of you was shot m the head," Leilani said, "but you've both got scrambled wiring for the most part in a nice way."
        "You're a master of the gracious compliment," Micky said.
        "And so smart," Aunt Gen said proudly, as if the girl were her daughter. "Micky, did you know she's got an IQ of one eighty-six?"
        "I thought it would be at least one ninety," Micky replied.
        "The day of the test," Leilani said, "I had chocolate ice cream for breakfast. If I'd had oatmeal, I might've scored six or eight points higher. Sinsemilla's not a boffo mom when it comes to keeping the fridge stocked. So I took the test through a sugar rush and a major post-sugar crash. Not that I'm making excuses or complaining. I'm lucky there was ice cream and not just marijuana brownies. Heck, I'm lucky I'm not dead and buried in some unmarked grave, with worms making passionate worm love inside my empty skull-or taken away in an extraterrestrial starship, like Lukipela, and hauled off to some godforsaken alien planet where there's nothing worth watching on TV and the only flavor of ice cream is chunky cockroach with crushed-glass sprinkles."
        "So now," said Micky, "in addition to your perpetually wasted tofu-peaches-bean-sprouts mother and your murderous stepfather, we're to believe you had a brother who was abducted by aliens."
        "That's the current story," Leilani said, "and we're sticking to it. Strange lights in the sky, pale green levitation