Imagine a thirty-two-year-old man born with the ability to be all things to all people but nothing to any one person. Imagine the look on his face when he steps out of a bar, a multitude of him, and sees the woman he, for a short time, always loved fifteen years ago.
Imagine the look on his face when he sees a boy he does not recognize, but knows exactly who he is.
Imagine his mouth opening slightly. Imagine the crack of verbal thought widening across his many countenances. Imagine the words visible in his eyes as he looks up, trying to shake out the logic and dislodge the emotions as the crack opens wide and humid breath hums in to prepare for a flood of words.
“Shut your mouth,” Diane said. “Don’t say a word.”
She extended her arm in front of Josh, who had also stepped forward to speak.
“I will let you speak in a moment, Josh.”
Diane looked at Troy. She looked at each and every one of him. Stay there, her eyes said. If I can see you, you cannot move.
“This is your son: Josh. I call him your son because words can mean certain things. It is not the right word but it is the correct word. Behind you is your daughter: Jackie.
“I am not here to ask for support. I am certainly not here to ask for anything on behalf of Josh or Jackie. I am here to tell you something on behalf of me and all those you are affecting.
“You are to come home, Troy Walsh. You are to come back to Night Vale and leave this town. You are many, and you are helpful, and you are kind. But meaning well is not doing well. You mean well, but you do not do well. You are destroying this time and space by bringing the strangeness of our time and place into it. We belong in Night Vale, all of us. It is our home. Go home, Troy.”
The Troys all glanced at each other. Some had looks of sincere grief and shame. Some had doubtful grins and smug elbows. One waved her away and staggered back toward the bar, but Jackie kicked him in the shins and shoved him back to the group. Diane persisted.
“You have helped many people with your many skills, but also you’re an irresponsible little shit. Both of those are true. Truth can be contradictory. You are not forgiven your lapses by your nonlapses. How many children do you have? How many have you left behind? Forget it, I don’t care. What I care about is: What is Jackie’s mother’s name? How old is Jackie? What does your son look like? Behind all the physical forms, what does your son look like? What’s his favorite food? Is he dating? What’s the person’s name?”
Troy looked at each other. One scratched his head, one burped, one stood straighter, uncertain but willing to give the questions a shot.
“No, don’t try to answer. You don’t know the answers. Don’t waste our time guessing. Here’s another question you can’t answer: What does a father do? What kind of job is that? In all your infinite incarnations, is there one single good dad or partner in there?”
“Hey now, hey.” The Troy who had tried to leave was stumbling forward, the sober Troys unsuccessfully trying to restrain him, shaking their heads and muttering discouragements. “No, hey, I’m going to respond. I’m not just going to listen to this. I did come back. I’m living in Night Vale again.”
A few of the other Troys nodded, although they said nothing.
“I was going to come see you guys, come see Josh, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. There were some other jobs to do first. People needed my help. But I was coming. I would have been right there.”
“No one needs your help,” said Jackie, sneering at her father, a man who expressed multitudes but contained nothing. “It’s you that needs the act of helping. You do it for yourself and not for anyone else, or you would have left this town when your ‘help’ knocked it off the map. Instead you nudged a smatter of you back to Night Vale, like crumbs at birds. That’s not a return. That’s a toe in the water. That’s a minimum of effort. You help and help, but you’re lazy. You’re goddamn lazy.”
The more drunk Troys glanced at each other, nervous. One of the sober Troys stepped forward.
“I didn’t feel I had earned that yet,” Troy said, looking only at Diane, who he seemed less intimidated by. “I didn’t feel I was ready to see you. I was really young, you know, and that’s a terrible excuse, but it’s what I was. And now I’m older. I can be many things. I’ve learned I don’t have to run. If you would have me. All of me.” He gestured to all of him around him. “I would happily be part of your lives again.”
“This is not an invitation to be part of our lives,” said Diane. “This is a demand that you return home.”
“Asshole,” said Jackie.
The Troys, en masse, turned to Josh. “Josh, this is a strange way to first meet, and you don’t have to let me be your father. I need to earn that, but I’d like to earn it. I will be there. I will do my best, much better than before, to be a man you can trust as a father. Or whatever relationship we can build. I owe you that.”
Diane allowed her son to answer for himself, against every instinct. Jackie nodded reassurance at her. Josh didn’t answer, instead turning to Diane, his eyes pleading, his face looking similar to Troy’s for the first time in his life.
“You don’t have to ask permission,” she said. “Speak your mind. Say what you want.”
Josh swallowed. He was quiet. The Troys were quiet. Everyone waited. When he spoke, the words were soft but clear.
“Okay,” Josh said, and the Troys flashed proud grins. “But you’ve been gone fifteen years. She raised me just fine without you, so it’s a little, um, it’s a little shitty for you to talk to me like I need you. Sorry, Mom, for saying ‘shitty.’
“I mean… Jackie. Jackie runs her own store, and she’s awesome. She’s doing great. Right, Jackie?”
“You tell him, antlers.” Jackie smiled with her voice, not her mouth. Josh blushed, one hand gently and unconsciously touching the structure coming out of his head.
“I’d be interested in getting to know you,” Josh continued. “But you don’t get to send four or five of yourselves. You don’t get to be everywhere. You live in Night Vale or nowhere. And when you’re there, it’s all of you or none of you.”
Troy opened his mouths. He closed his mouths. He looked, with sober eyes and drunk eyes, around at himself.
“Lucinda,” Jackie said.
“Huh?” he said.
“My mother’s name is Lucinda,” Jackie said. She turned and limped away, having nothing left to say or any desire left to hear.
A few, but not all of the Troys, nodded knowingly at this. A few, but not all of the Troys, looked at their shoes.
“Is this all of you?” Diane said.
“Most of us,” the Troys said, in unison.
“Get the rest of you together. You’re moving home. Now, Troy Walsh.”
Diane followed Jackie, but Josh stayed, watching the men, all of them gaping at him, doing nothing. Then, one by one, they went back into the bar. The especially drunk one leaned on the doorframe and held his son’s stare for a moment, then he was gone too.
“I don’t think he’s coming, Mom.”
Diane and Jackie just kept walking. There was nothing left to say. Either the right thing would be done or it wouldn’t.
Josh stayed where he was, watching the empty outside of the bar. He felt like crying, but his current physical form wasn’t able to do that. He had thought for a moment that things would be different, but they were the same. He looked down at his hooves for a long time, trying to gather himself enough to give up and leave. He brought his head up at the sound of a door opening.