Lou says. “We can’t save every stray on the way, we don’t have the time or the supplies, don’t make me the bad guy because I state the obvious.”
“I’m going to help her.”
“Would you help her if she was a fat ugly man?”
David says. “I’m helping you, aren’t I?” He removes Lou’s hand from his shoulder.
Delilah watches David and Lou, says to Ava. “What’s that about?”
Ava says. “Don’t ask.”
9
On a bright and sunny day, a surly Lou swallows hard and methodically taps the swollen lump under his right eye. He’s sitting inside The Albatross groggery at the L-shaped bar, parallel rows of small tables are in the back corner, and a pool table is near the front door. The quaint and dusty establishment has a last century decor, not out of choice, but from consequences. Rusted wheel barrels are throughout and a small motorcycle is parked inside the wall. An aroma fog of sour cigarettes and grease lingers. Persistent low thrumming of a tune emanates from the jukebox, off in the corner like a stranger from the past. The clank-clank of the billiards snaps Lou’s head up and into the view of the television, static lines are rolling down the screen. Bums travel by this place everyday, but choose to walk that extra block down the street to use the restroom. Encroaching gentrification has forgotten about this place. Downtown is only a mile away over the crisscrossing of freeways, but this neighborhood is the last holdout to have class, making it Lou’s favorite place to find peace from the real world.
The Bartender/Owner leans over, scratches his bushy handlebar mustache. “How’s the other guy look?” Not the first time he heard this classic joke today.
Under his breath and onto the rim of the glass, Lou says. “Keep yapping and find out.” He sinks back into his chair, beginning to see the TV.
The Bartender lets out a diffident sigh and turns his back to take a shot from a stale beer left behind, he looks at himself in the cracked mirror facing the bar afterwards for a moment, then Lou again, the only customer he’s betting will tip. He had to eliminate the tab system and lost all his customers, what’s left is strays and those glutton for punishment.
Lou taps an empty glass. “Less talking and more action.” You’re a fucking cliché, drinking when you feel sorry for yourself. Don’t hate a thing that works. You always say one drink, but it turns into one night.
A frail woman that sags in all the right places, passes through the doorjambs rubbing her tract marks, steps back outside with one leg, but then spots Lou hunching over. He’s the cleanest with clothes from this decade. She strolls and whistles over the erupt slamming of the heavy oak door. Not up to fire code. The Bartender looks up from wiping the counter with a brown rag, which came with the place. “Missy, you’re letting all the cool air out, shit.” The off-balance ceiling fan struggles with each cycle. Blades are coated in dust and hair.
She hunches up her short jean shorts that were clearly supposed to be pants and says off the cuff. “Eat a dick pops.” She has a local accent.
After a brief hesitation, the Bartender says. “I don’t like no sissy business.”
She smirks and wipes her armpits with napkins left behind on the tables. “Who you telling? I heard you tell a cute young man, ‘my dick’s dead, can I buried it in your ass?’” She thumbs behind her. “Over in that fag park. Don’t have no shame. I have no shame in my game, honey. If you wasn’t a homo I would throw some pussy your way, on the house.”
Lou laughs to himself at the conversation he’s having with himself.
The Bartender avoids eye contact and quickly fiddles with the TV knobs, bangs his fist on the side. “It’s alive...it’s alive.”
A few chairs down from Lou, the oldest customer at the bar shifts in his seat. “Damn, this stool is making my ass cancer hurt again. This is the last time I come here, I swear.” He bellies up to the bar. “You should burn this bitch to the ground and do us all a favor.”
Insults easily slide off his back like shit through a goose. The Bartender stands with hands on his hips like a superhero. “Can you believe this shit?” He says as he fumbles with the remote. “Some prick smashes his wife’s head in with a fucking Disney snow globe. He’ll probably plea the Affluenza defense. What’s this country coming to? I pray he dies a horrible death, if there’s a God.”
The oldest customer looks up quickly as if startled from sleep and chimes in. “Maybe she loved being a bitch a little too much. His wife that is. Not everyone is as nice as you Mr. Bartender.” He leans over the bar to grab a bottle. “You have to watch what you say and do around everyone until you’re dead or else…There’s always going to be some loonies out there waiting for their chance to hurt you for any reason.”
The Bartender licks his moist lips, “it sounds exhausting,” and puts down an empty glass.
The elderly man takes a sip of what he thinks is bourbon. “Why do you think I drink all the time?”
“Why do you think I own this bar?” Both men smile and then the Bartender changes the channel to baseball. A woman wearing a faux fur coat, who has been smoking and watching the pool game, approaches the bar and says to no one in particular. “Why is this bar and every other bar so dark? For the love of God, turn on the fucking lights.” She slams a penny on the bar.
The old man spins on the stool towards her and lets out a whopping cough into his hand. “People like to hid, sweetie.”
She cuts in. “You can’t hide ugly forever. Can I have some money, to play my favorite song,” looking over her shoulder at the classic juke box. The old man stares into her eyes like he forgot his bifocals, studying her expression. “I’ll do you one better. Give the lady whatever she wants.” He scuffs his white trash beard. “As long as it’s not imported and comes in a can.”
The Bartender says, “cheap bastard,” and some patrons chuckle in the shadows. The old man testifies, “she looks good from the neck up,” as she leans over to play with the juke box, he licks his fingers, counting his money. “Hey get these rat shit peanuts outta my face, are you trying to kill me.”
The Bartender says. “You don’t have long.”
The frail woman with the tract marks finally walks behind Lou and dances her fingers across his back; she strides down the dark hall and goes through a door near the exit. It couldn’t be the women’s restroom, nonexistent. The Bartender acts busy and the old man looks pleased. Dirty old man.
In the prosaic restroom, the woman helps Lou take off his black blazer, one arm at a time. She moves in to kiss him, but he sways back, her teeth are black where they meet the gum line and she has years of acne scars pancaked over her gaunt face. She sees a gun on his hip. A bitter laugh escapes her lips; she’s not deterred from her job. “Being a cop is a lot of paperwork and everyone hates you. Why do it?”
Lou carefully folds his blazer and hangs it over a stall door. “Because of the power.”
The frail woman says. “I thought it was illegal for Indians to be cops just like for Middle Eastern people to be pilots.”
Lou spins her around; spreads her legs apart by kicking the inside of her feet with the outsides of his polished shoes. “Shut your fucking trap, you ignorant bitch.” The woman parts the hair away from her eyes. “Jeez, I didn’t know you’ll be so sensitive, are you going to cry afterwards, like our friend, the owner.” Lou wraps his hand over her mouth; his fingernails dig into her cheeks, her eyes slam shut. Lou unbuckles his pants and shoves his penis into the younger woman; their hips furiously bounce off each other for several minutes. Her sweaty palms slip up and down the graffiti-laced door.
She moans and says. “Is that all you got?”
Lou pulls out.
She watches him take something out from his blazer pocket. “O-Ok.”
He wipes the decaying porcelain surface with his handkerchief, breaks apart white powder on the sink countertop, bends over, and inhales it all with a swoop of his face. The woman walks bowlegged like a pregnant woman, pushes him aside, and looks up at him
suspended over the sink like a pleading dog. Lou makes her a line. Gets behind her again, squeezes her thighs with both fists. She inhales the drugs with all her might, her nose flies off the edge of the sink and her eyes flutter like the bathroom lights. Lou strokes his penis and jams himself in her; she spreads her legs and arms wide, her chest is against the porcelain and it’s keeping her upright. She wildly pulls out the rest of the paper towels from the box and smacks the stall door each time it swings towards her.
Midpumps, she mutters, “backdoor is extra.”
Lou lets out a savage grunt and speeds up. She arches her back and her head up high as Lou holds her throat, and pushes his forehead down between her protruding shoulder blades. His body shakes, and his breathing becomes low.
The frail woman picks up a few rough paper towels from the floor and wipes her groin, from front to back, then with the other hand wipes her armpits. “This ain’t sex, it’s mutual masturbation, every job wears and tears away at your body and soul. Why is this one so bad? I have good days too, like today, hear me Mister?”
Lou swings on his blazer, buckles his slacks, and crumbles up money into a ball and flicks it upwards. “Whatever.” She watches the money like a hawk, land on the sticky floor and says to a closing door. “You liked it.”
Hours before Lou arrived at the bar, two college aged guys kicked open the front door and the sunlight highlighted all the nooks and crannies in this place especially in the Bartender’s deep-set wrinkles. One guy says to his friend. “I thought this was suppose to be a Retro Speak Easy. You know to prove online that I like hanging out with poor people.” The other guy belches, then says. “This isn’t a hole in the wall, it’s a outhouse with a doorman with a rattail.” The Bartender self-consciously grabs his thinning ponytail.
One of the men playing pool twirls the cue at the young man with a university logo T-shirt. “Pegar esto en el culo, a la mierda.” (Stick this up your ass, fuck off.)
The college guy says. “Sorry, I don’t speak beaner.”
The other pool player throws the cue stick; it hits the frame of the door. “Es mejor que correr perra.” (You better run, bitch.) He rapidly fans his chest with the inside of his shirt.
Lou exits the restroom, and raises his index finger towards the Bartender.
“Coming right up, Mister.”
Lou takes his seat looking into the mirror. A rack of pool balls is snapped and the potbelly pool player breaks a cue stick over the cheekbone of the same college kid from earlier, who stumbles in without a word.
Lou looks straight ahead into mirror and finishes his drink. The Bartender shouts with his head over the bar island at the two people tussling and bear hugging each other. “Not in my joint, take that shit outside.” The old rock song fades off and there’s a loud echoing crunch. “Oh Dios mío.” (Oh my God.) The potbelly pool player pushes away the zombie in the T-shirt and rubs his neck as if that would erase the wound. Alcohol in the man’s system dulls the pain.
The bitten man then rushes forward with half a pool cue. The zombie turns to face him head on, and is speared up through its ribs, biting the man again, this time in the cheek. The man runs with the zombie through all the tables, propelling the zombie off and into the darkness.
The lovely woman with the fur coat at the bar spins on her stool. “Jesus Christ.”
The zombie is lying on the ground and the Mexican man is looking at the Bartender as he approaches the zombie, the Bartender’s eyes go wider, and the zombie springs upright and bites the man in the thigh. The other pool player knocks over a chair to get over to his friend who’s bleeding from head-to-toe. Who’s a half eaten fruit with no juice left. Light from the opening of the door blinds the rescuer, and he raises his arm then falls to one knee intensely screaming from a love bite from a hated foe.
The Bartender aims his retrofitted pump action shotgun at the four men intermingled. “Let the fuck go of my customers.” His shotgun moves erratically up and down, the gun is heavy in his arms, Lou can tell by the way he’s holding it.
The old man at the bar grabs his new female companion by the wrist and turns for the exit.
A restive feeling is boiling in Lou’s gut, his legs are trembling, and fists balled up, “fuck,” he grabs the stool next to him and hits one zombie behind the head and the other behind the knee. The lying Mexican grabs the pool cue and stabs his zombie in one ear and it comes out the other. His friend grabs the second half of the cue and stabs his zombie through the throat, it falls back, ancillary tables avalanche over it. The skinny man’s bone in his arm is visible and the potbelly Mexican is no longer moving on the floor.
Lou says to the Bartender. “Call someone, when I leave.” His blazer is ripped at the under arm and down the back.
The prostitute says over the woman’s crying in the hallway. “Watchout.” Lou ducks low and feels a chin skid across his back. The bar is equally divided by upturned chairs, the living and the dead on opposing sides.
All the foes now pace forward together as friendly zombies with new enemies. The Bartender fires two shots, the blast knocks him black into the shelves, bottles shatter everywhere behind the bar. One blast explodes the zombie head over Lou, and the other shot dislodges the ceiling fan, it wobbles down into the head of the zombie teenager with pellets peppered all over his face like pimples. The Bartender uses the butt end of the shotgun on the bar to stand up; his feet slide like ice skates on glass. “I’ll be damn.” He looks at the old man walking back towards the bar.
Lou is rolling up his long sleeves. “You almost killed me.”
On the TV, it says. “ Breaking news, stay in your homes. Don’t engage anyone acting strange.”
Lou looks up. “No shit.”
The elderly man removes the ceiling fan from the dearly departed. “I’m never coming back here.” The darkness is a handicap for the living, they’re reactive to the danger.
The Mexican zombie swipes its head across the old man’s stomach taking the man’s belly button between its teeth, clogged innards plump down and bath the zombie’s body.
Lou wide steps backwards, spins his arm over his head, and says. “Everyone out.” Back door is down the dark hall that leads to the alleyway.
A few heartbeats later, the prostitute grabs the other woman by her wrist, who’s running to help the elderly man, snarling on the floor. The elderly zombie rises slowly like a vampire from its coffin. The Bartender fires into his friend/zombie, the hole in its chest is as wide as a soccer ball, and it spins fast like a can hit by a BB gun, out the front door. The Bartender blind fires into the five corpses intertwined like a rubberband ball in the doorway. Limbs sweep into the parking lot. “Now lets go.”
Lou holds his handgun and watches the front door squeaking to a close, a hand from outside grabs it right before it does and immediately pulls it wide open. Four bag lady zombies flood in. The Bartender fires, cutting arms off and with the last shot in the gun, takes off half a face, the zombie spins on one leg and falls into the arms of another zombie. Lou holds the gun with two hands and lets the three zombies get close, and fires left to right, hitting each in the face. He doesn’t breathe. The prostitute is reloading the shotgun for the Bartender; he’s squeezing his heart and leaning against the bar. The other woman runs for the back door screaming, then runs back screaming.
Lou checks the ammo, shoves his gun into the prostitute’s chest, and grabs a different pool cue. More maniacs come into the bar like it’s some sadistic happy hour.
The exit door vibrates off the wall, two brooding zombies run through the somber hallway, faces in and out of the shadows. The living is sandwiched between the hungry. One zombie punches its way into the restroom and the other jumps towards Lou with his arms spread wide like a bird’s wings in flight. Lou recognizes the man from a wheelchair across the street. He backsteps and beckons the zombie forward, then snaps the pool cue over the zombie’s head with one swing against its throat; the zombie falls to its knees and swiftly gobbles at Lou’s groin.
Drawn to blood.
From behind, the screaming woman runs up to Lou kicking the zombie in the face like a football, her high-heel hits the roof. The zombie’s head recoils back and the woman kicks at it again, the zombie grabs and digs its teeth into her heel bringing her down to its level and breaking its front teeth off in her flesh. She reaches for the chair behind her and brings it down as well. The woman twists on the floor as if getting stab in the back repeatedly. “Shoot the fucker.”
Lou hits the zombie on its knees, puncturing the eye and pulls the stick out of its head from the back. The blunt force cuts Lou’s palms.
The Bartender twirls a beer bottle in his hand and slams it into a zombie’s face, grabs it by the hair and quickly stabs its nose inward with the jagged half of the bottle as the prostitute fires the shotgun with better composure. All that remains of the front door is tiny chunks of wood hanging on for dear life on the ancient hinges.
An ireful Lou grabs the screaming woman by her bruised wrist and slides her back to the middle of the bar with one hard thrust.
Lou kicks in the restroom door, the lights go dark for a few seconds, and the lost zombie bum-rushes Lou into the stall walls. All stalls collapse to one slide like a flush deck of cards. Dingy toilets crumble like sand. The zombie gets on top of Lou, he slides down the side on the stall wall. There’s flushing water out from underneath of the doors like a sinking raft on the sea. He spots his pool cue floating on the toilet water and stretches for it. Lou waits; concentrating on the red veins in the zombie’s eyes then shuffles his head to the side, resulting in the zombie banging its forehead into the stall.
Lou stops the zombie’s bite an inch from his face, by clutching both of the zombie’s stretching cheeks; he turns its face, a string of drool curls on Lou’s temple. The zombie ruthlessly shakes its head like an annoyed dog with a bone, with Lou still hanging on.
“You…piece…of…shit…”
Lou closes his hands, ripping through both cold cheeks, his bloody grip slips away and the zombie falls forward, Lou quickly catches the head with both hands like a bouncing basketball. Teeth rebound off his lips.
Genesis Virus Page 16