by Set Sytes
What about the hair? You could have put a hat on.
The hair stays.
Mr White’s face was once again taking on rainbow colours as they passed the neon-lit brothels and gun-shops and emporiums and spirit shops and pizza parlours and massage parlours that were not massage parlours at all, and all of them run-down and grimy and sleazy as if by design.
Are you saying there was no risk at all back then?
Oh man, chuckled Red, pointing and clicking his fingers at the shadows around him as if he was imagining himself to be firing pistols to ward off the darkness. There was loadsa risk. A drone coulda ID’d me escapin. The cop coulda had a good enough description for them to match me, say of a sexy young hombre with fuckable hair. Hell, the cop could have been one of those mannin the checkpoint tonight.
Goddamit. Do you know what would have happened to you had you been caught?
Us, Red replied helpfully. They’da took you too for bein with me.
Us, said Mr White irritably. Do you know?
Red shrugged.
I do. We’d have been immediately arrested, imprisoned without bail, sentenced in court the next day with no defence counsel or even case for defence. No jury. No appeal. Then the same day we’d be shot. And if this district is one of those that employ torture, well we’d have that to look forward to as well before we die.
Red shrugged again. Chill man, these things happen.
Mr White put his hands up in the air as if calling to the gods and then put them back down again. Only in Rule Red! Only in Rule! Which is why we have to be more careful! They say that the punishment fits the crime but most of the punishments here seem to be death.
May as well go for the biggest crime then, Red grinned, his teeth reflecting lime green in the glow of the latest sign.
Mr White sighed. Just what were you doing anyway.
Nothin much.
No, really.
Just havin sex.
With who?
I dunno.
You do know though, don’t you?
Yeah.
Mr White shook his head. Red, the risk . . .
Red waved his hands dismissively. That’s why we’re here ain’t it? Without risk what do we have? Without risk we’re nothin doin nothin. What’s the fuckin point? Why are you here?
Mr White paused, not understanding, either what Red was saying or his own reasons for being in Rule. He tried to think. I’m here . . . to escape. The words came difficult and strange, as they always do when trying to put words to something where mere words could not do the job.
Red looked at him as if taking measure of this, and then nodded slowly. Right. See, I dunno where you’re from, but for me, well, back home rules and laws are mighty fuckin thin on the ground. Mighty fuckin thin. Long as you don’t impact on the rich and powerful you can get away with all kindsa shit. That’s cause where I’m from the less you got the more of a fuckin commodity you are. But only en masse, shits ain’t given bout the individuals, see? Drops in the fuckin ocean. The less value they give you the less protection they give you. They look out for themselves and them alone. Like us all. That’s what got built up over time, the instinct to fuck another over. And so you think, right, well it’ll be fuckin chaos right? No sir. No. As each law dropped off the fuckin chart, meaningless in these . . . new ages of the predator and prey, as each law vanished to fuck the people grew more tired. I seen it. I’ve walked amongst the underclass outside the factories and workhouses and old underground bars stinkin from the sewers, and there ain’t life in their eyes no more. They been shit upon so long and it’s been dog-eat-dog there so goddamn much that they got nothin left to chew on.
See, a man gotta have somethin to rail against man. He gotta have a wall to push against else how is he gonna feel strong, how is he gonna feel like his sorry life can get some fuckin remedy to it? Anger’s a powerful thing in a man’s life if it can just get some fuckin direction. Take away that and it’ll just fade away or be turned upon yourself. Rob a man of all controllin forces and you rob a man’s soul. That’s what I think anyhow. That’s what I see. Red ran his hands through his hair and then shoved his fingers in the pockets of his jeans. His lip curled a little and then fell.
Mr White looked confused. But the government, well, uh, the upper classes . . .
Red pulled his fingers out of his pockets again. The families, yeah. Just the one class at the top y’know. But they’re untouchable. The wall they put up ain’t the kind to push against, it’s the kind that’s been there all your life and all the lives before you. You don’t even notice the fuckin thing, it’s like the sky. You go your whole life and until someone points it out to you . . . well you just don’t think. Well I didn’t. None of the hollow bastards I seen back home would. And it don’t matter if the absence of laws are absent cause the fuckin families steadily made it so, cause the fuckin Elite wanted to fuck with – literally too, y’know – every man woman and child of the underclass. Hell, of everone not them. Even them too if they thought they had the upper hand to fuck one over on one of their own without getting fucked over in return. I’m talkin real sick gangster shit man. But that’s just the way of the world ain’t it? A guy could walk about and kill a dozen workers or prostitutes or fuckin orphan kids and there’s no kind of authority to stop him and the families would do jack shit unless it harmed their production. But they can make em breed so damn fast I can’t see why it would.
Red breathed deeply. He was kicking every loose stone and piece of rubbish he saw along the street, his face shifting to every colour as if some magical being torn between every emotion and sin, or some chameleon shifting to become one with the goings on around him.
So a guy like me, he continued, as if it all had to come out if any of it did. A guy like me feels like one of those selfsame hollow bastards, cause everthin on my level is empty, no sense of fuckin danger or immorality to get you hot inside, cause morality itself is like some ancient word it’s used so little and there’s lots that don’t know what it means. Everthin around me is washed fuckin clean of fun and that . . . that evil spark of livin that makes bad men do what good men dream. Y’know? Ground level’s not a playground no more, it’s fuckin sterile, and the ceiling’s so high to reach it may as well be the fuckin sky.
Red sighed and coughed. He reached in his pocket for cigarettes and lit one and smoked it, tilting his head right back and breathing it out as if was nectar to share with the gods, as if every cloud of the day was formed from those who smoke at night. He held the cigarette burning in his fingers and spoke again, as if there was some need in him to explain that he had not hitherto felt.
So you know what happens when you can do anythin and not have any threat of punishment, and that state of things ain’t just a temporary hole in things but it’s the real fuckin state of things? When you can do anythin you end up doin nothin. We thrive on conflict man, on the fuckin risk you are gaggin for me to avoid. Crime drops from all but that which the Elite do, which ain’t measured just seen by all. The upper class are gods, the middle class are escapists and the underclass are fucked. You don’t wanna see the kind of shit I’ve seen people from the families or employed by them get away with. Makes some of these people in Rule look like goddamn fuckin saints. Hell, everone else are just things to the Elite. The lower you are the more of a fuckin toy you are. Y’know? Shit.
Red took a deep breath and smoked. So you see why I’m here, why any-fuckin-body’s here. We’re here to live man. And it’s worth the risk of inconveniencin ourselves.
I didn’t realise death was an inconvenience.
Red laughed. It ain’t that bad.
Tell that to the dead.
I have done.
Mr White yawned and suddenly felt very, very tired. Alright. Let’s find a hotel and find some relatively comfy sheets to die in.
What do you think we been lookin for this whole time? Red rolled his eyes at him. Neither of my eyes are on this conversation amigo.
He stopped right
there in the middle of the street and turned to his right and looked up. Let’s just take this one man.
Mr White looked. No way, he said.
HOTEL
Unidentifiable insects roamed the walls with sneering abandon. This place was theirs first and would be theirs still after the humans and semi-humans and all their creations were long dead. Even the moments when you couldn’t see them you could hear them, tickling the inside of the walls, and in the silent seconds each of their tiny legs resounded like clacking boots.
The last attempt to paint the place must have been in some previous age of humanity, when humans cavorted naked and whooping as nought but shaved apes. As if we had only regressed since then, evidenced in this maggot’s palace. The water ran, just about, and the plumbing worked on occasion, but any upkeep and maintenance more than that was the stuff of fancy. Was the place ever liveable? Perhaps in that previous age. Before whoever owned the place had turned their attention to things of greater import, such as dealing, gambling, prostitution and snuff rackets.
The place was a front, that was clear. But Mr White kept his head down and his eyes blinkered and he made sure he knew nothing. They walked to their room on the ground floor, and any of the rotting wooden doors left open slammed shut as others heard their approach. Red narrowed his brow as they passed one, and evidently he heard something salacious for he smirked and shook his head. Mr White was not listening. He just wanted to sleep.
They entered the room and were surprised to find it no worse than the hotel in District Five. Sure, the curtains were rags that had at no point ever been actual curtains except when defined by their use. Sure, the bed was grubby as muck and painted in a thousand stains, not just the sheets but soaked through into the broken-springed mattress, all those essences of soul and sickness that leaked down into the barrel of the world. But it was a place to sleep, and it was dirt cheap, and that had suited Red, at least, fine.
Mr White looked around the small room, as if expecting something tucked away, as if the room could hold big secrets in its corners. He put his hands on his hips. There’s only one bed. I thought there’d be two.
Shotgun the bed.
What.
You can take the floor. Here man, take the second pillow and the extra sheet.
How thoughtful.
No worries. I’m goin sleep now. You alright?
Yes. Okay.
Guess what we’re doin tomorrow?
BAR
As soon as they entered the bar Mr White knew something was different. The lighting was the same, and yet the room appeared darker, shrouded and close. It seemed as though the space within was trying to escape the walls, push away from claustrophobia or some dark energy, as though something within was a force without reckoning, something foreboding and fearful that all other matter and empty space shifted imperceptibly away from. The walls showed strain, buckling towards another dimension.
The whole area was a bubble and it swallowed them up. Inside even the air felt sharper, daggered and skeletal. Air colourless as always and yet inexplicably blacker, swaying with dust and decay and creaking soundlessly. It made its place there not as a giver of life but as though it were a saw upon the human soul. The soft lights, still and yet aching under invisible duress, cast shadows upon the wall so dark as to be empty forms in the universe, empty souls and holes in the world. Looking and losing oneself in those small oblivions turned the inconsequential animate and malicious, lengthening such casts to gangling monsters and cage bars.
The bar smelled of whiskey and smoke and death. This was not intangible, a phantasm of the world under the scope of the mind. This was something real to them and they breathed it in as one might breathe in anything that was there.
They found themselves moving towards the epicentre, and that which pushed all around it pulled them in as though they were at the end of a rope.
Rum and mixer. Red was leaning over the bar. Yeah, anythin. No, that orange one. With the pirate. Yeah. No ice. Cool.
Mr White stood by him and shivered though it was not cold. He turned to the man next to him.
Johnny Black’s face was not as conventionally handsome as Red’s, and certainly possessing none of that effeminate prettiness, none of the cleanness or smoothness, the jovial cheek. His face was hard and weathered, as if dashed by sandstorms. His nose was lean and pointed like a weapon. His jaw was tough and grizzled and leant his features a grim mood, as though the grit of it ground his teeth from a life of too much death. His hair and eyebrows were black as the night and his eyes were pits of surging darkness. His was a face of authority and command, of beckoning attraction and obsession. From the feel of it all, from how weak and silly you felt in comparison.
He was sitting at the bar smoking and he turned to look at his witness and Mr White shared a gaze that locked his limbs. It went right to his gut and his heart and the soul of his groin tore like paper.
Um. My name’s Mr White, Mr White said. He was stiff and self-conscious of trying to act normal. Self-conscious of sweating. He curled his toes tight.
You got a first name? The man’s voice was hewn and leathered and edged in Death’s whisper.
Mr White hesitated. We . . . don’t need first names.
Fuck that. The man held out his hand, hot and rough. The name’s Johnny Black.
Kidd Red pushed in front of them, holding his drink sloshing the sides of the glass, and the man whipped his hand back, sheathing the thumb into his belt.
I heard of you.
Well. Ain’t that something.
You murdered three people out in Seven. We were there and I was talkin to some folks and your name kept comin up. They said the cops were raidin places lookin for you.
Wowee, Johnny Black said blankly, his voice low and guttering. Wasn’t me. I distinctly remember not being there. I was out in Nine, killing six. He smiled, and his eyes burned, and he put that fat black cigar of his back twixt his white lion teeth.
You’re joking, right? Mr White said.
Now why would you ask a question like that? His deep southern accent was almost well-spoken beneath the cracks, as though he could belong both at a dinner party and on a ranch. He spoke like a hard-living man well-read.
Johnny Black puffed on his cigar, and crackling desert smoke broiled out in front of them, making Mr White cough. Johnny twisted on his barstool and beckoned the bar girl over.
Three whiskeys. The one with the holocaust on the bottle.
She swamped and fired the little glasses so the liquid was hot on top like bubbling blood. She banged them down in front of the three of them and each one sounded like a gunshot.
He laid out a note on the bar top without looking, wrapped around a knife. His eyes were intent on the floorboards.
The bar girl glanced at it, and walked faltering to serve another. He walleted the note and the knife was hidden.
Have you ever seen someone with their guts out around your ankles? Johnny leaned in close all a sudden, his voice drizzled and sweated in coal. You ever killed someone you were fucking, or fucked someone you were killing? You ever seen the limits of human emotion? He withdrew a fraction, a sideways smile stamped on a suave face and a look so hard and penetrating and mordant that Mr White felt like he was reaching in and fingering his soul like a plaything, like a puppet thrashing on his hands.
You’re a psychopath, Red said.
Is that what you think I am? A dance of amusement played about his eyes, a lip curl rocking on his mouth like a boat.
You are. Red leaned against the bar.
Some are quick to judge. Where’s your latest underaged conquest?
Red’s eyes widened.
Yes. I’ve seen you about. Such a fine stallion of a man. It’s a wonder you ain’t hailed as a saint. Johnny Black grinned, his teeth glinting.
Red looked about to start up, but Johnny raised his hand. Easy. We’re all sinners here. Drink up.
They all did the shots and Kidd Red and Mr White were left spluttering with
mouths of brimstone. Johnny Black had drunk his down like water, and the only fire was in the darks of his eyes. He watched the other two recover without expression.
What’s the problem with murder and torture here? he said, judging their faces intently. These people ain’t anything to us. And I’m going out of my way to bless them with something so potent they can’t even handle it. I’m an experience-giver.
Something a psychopath would say. Red clacked his jaw about like a wounded animal.
You don’t have the capacity to understand.
Definitely something a psychopath would say. Red spat out his trouble, and the whiskey-soiled shine spattered near Black’s polished boot.
Wipe it up.
I -
Wipe it up.
There was a chill silence where Johnny Black and Kidd Red battled it out in a stare and Johnny won by a landslide. Red crouched, muttering, and rubbed up the spit with the knee of his jeans. He straightened and tried to regain himself.
What do you think? Red turned to Mr White. Do you think he’s a psychopath?
Mr White looked down, avoiding Johnny Black’s gaze. No, I don’t think he is, he mumbled. I don’t think you can call someone a psychopath here, not in any honesty, not in a place this screwed up. The whole system is one sprawling sociopath. Either none of us are or we all are. Johnny . . . he beckoned mutely to him, Is just doing what he wants.
Johnny tipped his hat to him, his crooked smile drawn and hunting. Nobody’s safe, he said, and winked, just an iron shutter of his eye, held long to point of parody. His other eye flared like sunspots. He opened them both wide, too wide and maniacal, and laughed at the discomfort of the other two.
I end these people, he said, leaning in once more, as if he was letting them in on a secret. I end them in the best way possible. Even those that don’t die get ended in some way. You don’t get people liking it, not liking it like you like a steak or a kiss, but they are crazy for it. You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen them writhing like that, like these beasts, these stuck pigs. Even they know it’s something unparalleled, unconquerable. It’ll always be everything. But you, he pointed at Kidd Red, You keep them going, sharing the corruption. You are sick if any of us are.