It was now time for the grouch to make his triumphant comeback to Ithaca. Andy and Gary had a great plan: the grouch would disguise himself, so as to feel out how the people of the land thought of him after twenty years of absence. After acquiring rapport with some sympathizers, he would storm in and kill everyone who was disloyal to him, and reclaim his family and his home. This was a good idea, because it was written in The Odyssey which was about the grouch’s life.
There was only one issue: the grouch did not want to do this. In fact, he spent most of his day eating lotuses, wishing he were in love and in harmony with his American wife again.
Andy and Gary had no choice. They created a contraption made of sticks and wires, puppeteering the grouch, who then told the crew his idea.
Homer thought this plan was very convoluted. Andy did not think it would make good fiction either, but, alas, here we are.
Homer, possibly influenced by past events, did not think the plan required so much blood. Andy was shocked. That’s your contention?
There are many suitors for the grouch’s wife, Penelope, as he had not been home for twenty years. The suitors, on account of enjoying his wealth however so many years, will kill the grouch.
But it couldn’t be the case they all think the same way and will act for the same result?
One would naturally think that.
Homer refused to participate.
So you mean to tell me, after participating in so many adventures with us, on this last one you will merely be a bystander?
Yes.
Let me rephrase that. So you mean to tell me, that having undertaken so many adventures in which we succeeded, you will remain a bystander?
Homer said nothing, for he understood the point.
Andy tossed aside the puppet of the grouch, for he was furious, as all of this effort was on Homer’s behalf. Whether you participate or not, the thing will happen, and your sudden squeamishness will be pointless. As it were, there are one hundred and eight dead men now as there will be in, say, a week, mostly because I’m tired of this.
Therefore, unless you stop us, you are a bystander to this bloodshed you decry, and, in fact, a participant, because your silence is essentially complicity.
Homer mused, then replied, no, he was not complicit, as he was doing nothing.
Andy said nothing, for he had long known that humans believe they are actors of their own and others’ lives and therefore capable of changing the texture of their lives until they suddenly aren’t, and thank goodness for that, otherwise how would human history proceed?
And so, when they met Eumaeus, Homer said nothing. When Argos died loveless, he said nothing. When the grouch, sedated out of his mind, was assailed by Antinous, he said nothing. And when the crew geared up – the exile put on a helmet, the know-it-all evaluated swords, the despondent held up a shield, the thinker donned armor, the prophet practiced with spears, and the gadfly looped an ax to his belt – he said nothing.
And when this same Antinous had his throat pierced by Andy’s arrow, and this man turned, for he knew not what struck him, and yet he felt, preternaturally, death was at hand quicklier than the pain, blood streamed thickly out of his nostrils, and sprayed Homer in a fountain of blood; when Eurymachus, who begged for mercy, was perforated by arrows, Homer said nothing and was showered in his blood; when Telemachus, really Gary, thrusted his spear into Amphinomus, Homer did nothing and was splashed in blood; when the suitors fled, chased by the crew, they knocked Homer down, bathing him in pools of blood, before they were cut down, Homer imprisoned within the timbers of their bodies; et cetera, et cetera, until Homer was dyed head to toe in blood, really he did not know why he visited the site of the slaughter, but who doesn’t love a good car crash.
Now this long odyssey was over. Andy and Gary gave the incapacitated grouch over to his wife and son.
Any and Gary breathed a sigh of relief, walked over to the blood-soaked Homer, and said to him, Boy, the poems you have to sing now, huh?
Homer said nothing, as if he were made of stone. Then, he responded. He would sing an epic, aye, based on his experiences, but he wouldn’t, O foolish youth, use it to sing praises for war and death; he would instead sing songs denouncing violence, denouncing bloodshed, decrying man’s hateful, cruel, spiteful, petty, crude nature, lambasting Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Ajax and all that lot not as heroes but as monsters who only lived and fought for their own selfishness, using the death of one man to redeem their own fortune in life. If I must be complicit, Homer avowed, and if I must be dyed in blood ever, I shall use my time to warn men not to be like me.
And if no one shall hear my plea, then let my plea be transmogrified into a curse, an expectorant on the name of all humanity, ever and ever, until Father Zeus returns us back to the loveless dirt.
Something hard was thrusted into the back of Homer’s head, beneath his temple. This was the barrel of the gun meant to shoot Hitler. Andy pulled the trigger, bursting Homer’s brains into a bloody flower; he, for a brief time, saw pieces of his grey matter all around, before wordlessly sinking to the ground, entering Hades.
Gary sighed. We have to sing the Iliad and the Odyssey, don’t we?
And we only have nine bullets left, Andy said, glaring at the magazine.
© 2025 Jay Lee