Ignorance & Bliss

The hotel room is quiet. No TV, no music. Just the two of is in chairs, a coffee table, shot glasses and a bottle. I pour drinks, handing the wandering magician one. Neither of us drink often, for all sorts of reasons, but he bought me the bottle as a birthday present. I told him his present had been making sure Jay only gave me one present. I have a lightsaber in my pocket that is made from a quasar: some things it’s hard to think about at all.

We gulp back the drink, and he pours port into two wine glasses, hands me one. “It’s also time alone. Jay is off having an adventure with Dogmeat, which I think is a real dog.”

“And yet,” I say with a grin, “everything turns toward Jay.”

The magician starts, then laughs softly and sips his drink. “It’s hard not to. So much of what we do is for him, with him – shaping him.”

“For the future.”

“You’ve met him, then?”

“Future Jay? Once. Twice, maybe. It’s hard to be certain: his personality varies a lot, and I don’t know how much of that is Jay changing over the years – his years are nothing like ours, after all – or because visiting his past changes him. To know the future is to change it. You told me that once.”

“And Jay can’t know his.” The magician has another sip. “Even though he has changed his future several times that I know of. In the interests of jaysome. I suspect most entities with the power of time travel do not use it solely to do self-help on themselves, but this is Jay.”

“He didn’t look at me, when he came back.” I don’t mean to say the words, not in that form.

The magician just nods.

“Fuck.” That one I mean to say.

“It is difficult to be innocent as Jay, Charlie. Jaysome requires certain – suspensions, for him to operate within it. Things he must never know. Truths he must hide from.”

“I know that. But I also know innocent isn’t bliss. Everyone knows that, magician.”

“I think,” he says slowly, “that you’re confusing ignorance and innocent. Jay isn’t ignorant – depending on the subject – but he is more innocent than we are. So innocent that he is arrogant with it. It is an armour as much as anything else, but every way of seeing the world is an armour against it. I suspect that, devoid of it, he would have no armour. And he has more than power enough to make the world more innocent if he wanted to. Jay doesn’t want to be a monster; we owe him to him to make sure that does not come to pass.”

I pour myself some more port, fingers shaking only a little. “What happens after us? Who does this once we’re gone?”

“I don’t know.” And the magician pours himself more port as well. “I just know it will turn out fine, because he is Jay, and quite jaysome and we’ve been friends enough to help with that.”

“Not the best we could be,” I whisper.

“That’s an important lesson, too. I hope.” He lets out a breath. “And you brought this up on your birthday for a reason.”

“You know the gift I want.”

He nods, and the magician looks so, so tired for a moment but I don’t back down. “Once. Just once, long and far from here, you will meet Jay again. I can arrange that much.”

“All right.” I pour myself the rest of the port. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. “I think I need help.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, I asked that my birthday present from you be one that is, technically, for Jay.”

He laughs softly at that and finishes his glass after. “You really think that?”

“No. But sometimes I wish I could be innocent like Jay is, in the bliss he is in. Only I don’t think it would be a gift for me at all.”

I text Jay that we’re done and he gets to order the pizzas. The kid is back in the hotel room in under five seconds, so the magician gets the last shot to drink as Jay asks if I got a good gift, tells me about adventures he had in allll those minutes and asks how many pizzas we want to order.

I ask Jay to pick a number between one and ten.

“That’s not fair to all the other numbers though,” he protests. “Cuz twelve wants to be picked a lot!”

“You want us to eat twelve pizzas.”

“Oh, nope! That’s just for me,” he says happily.

The wandering magician grins as I pull out my credit card with a sigh and Jay takes it, bounds into the kitchen to get pop and snacks and chats to the poor pizza place on his phone.

I don’t understand the grin until the pizzas arrive and I realize Jay got a pizza for every year I’ve been alive.

As a present to me.

Sometimes birthdays are scarier than we like to admit. The rest of the time they’re far more jaysome than anyone can bear.

I let Jay eat all of the pizzas, despite his protests that they are for me.