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“Yes. No. Well … would you believe me if I said it was complicated?” He braces one hand on the bar top, the other on the back of his stool, then plants his feet on the sticky tavern floor. “The name is Blue. True Blue, as they call me!”

“It’s True! True Blue!” the bar shouts and lifts their glasses.

“I’m a regular around here. They know me as Blue.” He stands up slowly as if he doesn’t quite trust his balance. “Years ago I was better known…” He pauses, wrinkles his nose, and belches. “Sorry.” He shakes his head. “Years ago, I was better known as the God of the West.” He spreads out his arms as if to hug me. “Dorothy, I’m your father.”

Then he takes two shuffling steps sideways and crashes into a table.

TWENTY-SIXDorothy

Internally, I’m screaming.

What the fuck is happening?

God of the West?

Daughter of a god?

All of this is running through my head as Tin and I each take one of Blue’s arms and try to yank him back on his feet after he careened into a table and sent drinks and plates crashing to the floor.

“He does that sometimes,” a woman says behind us and comes around to right the table with a group of patrons. “You owe me for the broken glasses, Blue!”

“Yeah. Yeah.” With our help, Blue stands upright, but sways on his feet. “You know I’m good for it, Nadine.”

“Nadine is the owner of the Jolly Emerald,” Tin tells me. “I don’t know why you put up with him,” Tin says to her.

“Because his pockets are bottomless” is what Nadine says as she takes a bucket from a worker and starts tossing in broken glass.

Blue smiles down at us. “A perk of being the God of Metal and Minerals.” He steadies himself, then puts out his hands, palms up, and gold coins rain down from him, plinking to the hardwood floor.

Suddenly, the patrons are swarming him, scooping coins into their pockets, shouting out blessings and prayers to him.

“Stop that!” Nadine clucks her tongue at him. “You know I don’t like frenzies!”

Blue chuckles and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking sheepish.

“Wait, have these people always known you’re a god?” I ask.

Blue shrugs.

“Yes,” Nadine answers for him. “Though he’s never explicitly stated it until you. But when a man has bottomless pockets, no job and little to no ambition, and bestows gifts on the patrons at the drop of a hat, you start to catch on.” She drops another chunk of glass into the bucket. “I suppose that’s another reason I’ve let him stay around.”

“And my sparkling charm,” Blue adds.

Nadine snorts, but her mouth quickly spreads into a grin telling me that yes, he is charming and entertaining enough that a few broken glasses or spilled drinks won’t get him banned.

“I’m confused,” Tin says. “If you’re a god, why are you so fucking drunk all the time?”

Blue manages to look offended by this. “You think gods shouldn’t get drunk?”

“Not what I said.”

“He means why can you get drunk,” Nadine offers.

“Yes, that,” Tin clarifies.

“Secret,” Blue answers.

“Crice,” Tin says.