“You want it?” I said to them.
The closest man plucked it from my side and squinted into the glow.
“What is it?” he asked, huffing on the glass.
“I don't know.”
“Says 'ere it's faerie juice. What's 'at mean?”
“Just a joke.”
“Is it booze?”
“Maybe. I don't know. Can't get it open. If you want it, it's yours.”
“Says 'ere it costs five pence. I 'aven't five pence.”
“Just take it. I don't care.”
“Oh. Oh, all 'ight, then.”
He shook the bubbles around and showed them off to his companions. I got up and began to walk away.
“Hey, gent!” another vagabond shouted out to me. “Where'd ya get them fancy boots?”
I glanced back and shrugged. “They were a gift.”
“Buy those in town, can ya?”
“No,” I replied. “They were, well, specially made, you could say.”
The men let out a chorus of whistling.
“Lookie here, blokes!” the man with the bottle laughed. “We got ourselves a regular modern man among us! I salute you, modern man!” He made an elaborate bow. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be sincere or mocking, but I didn't care either way.
“Hey there, modern man!” another of the lot spoke. “What have you to say about this modern age?”
“What?”
“Yeah!” a third guffawed. “Enlighten us on the ways of this world, this time of fancy, goldy boots.”
“I don't have anything to tell,” I said glumly. “I didn't make these boots. I just ended up with my legs in them. Same as you ended up with that bottle.”
The one with the faerie juice frowned, looked at his prize, and then back to me. “Ya mean ya haven't any knowledge to share? Nothin' at all?”
“I don't.”
I would've turned and moved away from this gathering right then, feeling numbed and worthless and pitiful, had the vagrant not voiced the following question.
“What is it then that you live for, gent?”
I looked into their pack of glazed eyes, running noses, and spotted complexions. Without anything grander to say, I spoke only a word.
“Love,” I said, unsure if I still even meant it. The sound of it in my voice sounded instantly hackneyed.
The group laughed in an embarrassing register. A few slapped their knees.
“Is there something funny about love?” I asked, not a challenge of their response but a hollow confusion of its meaning.
“Just not very modern now, is it, modern man?” one laughed.
“We all've lived for love!” another chimed. “What insight is there in that?”
“I wasn't trying to be insightful,” I responded. “Just answering your question.”
“Pah!” the one with the bottle said. “You're too young and stupid! I'm not sure I want this green juice if-in’ it came offa someone young an' stupid. See me, I'm old an' stupid. That means I'm experienced. Been living with the old long enough to get sick of it, long enough to want somethin' newer. Love's old, boy. Get to my age and you'll see. I'm the more moderner here, lad, it seems!”
The others voiced their agreement.
“Can you really dismiss love so easily?” I had to ask.
“Lad, I loved whiskey,” one said to me, “and look where it got me today!”
They broke into another fit of laughter then began scurrying away.
“Come on!” the one clutching the faerie juice said as they departed. “Let's find a way to break into this thing.”
And I was left standing there, another piece of myself lighter, with that silly word still baking on my tongue.
“Love,” I whispered to myself.
Love. The word itself seemed an antiquity before it had finished passing through my lips. And I suppose it was. Love in my day and age, I felt, was becoming obsolete, much as the ink and paper I had so often written the word upon had become. I pulled a folded piece of parchment from my coat and saw that the words of some poem or prose I had scribbled forever ago were now too smeared to determine. I thought suddenly of typewriters, another great advance that was quickly turning me and my papers into relics. Convenience, that’s the flavor of this age. I remember being a young boy of about seven or eight and learning from my parents of three American men who were bringing the miracle of printed type to commercial success. My father would read the headlines to me just after breakfast.
“Click! Tick!” the papers used to say, printed in this very ink of revolution. “Oh, watch those magic hammers go!” Tomorrow’s horizon was absolutely flying in on swinging, inked hammers dropping in time, capturing words, thoughts, at the speed of their conception.
I’ve since heard from a source I can’t even recall that one of those three Americans has disowned his life’s work, and to this day refuses to use a mechanical typewriter to create even the simplest word. I’d like to sit down with that man over drinks someday and ask just why. But even if such an interaction could take place, even if the man sat across a table from me, perhaps giving off a smile both regretful and wistful while emptying a mug, and even if he had spoken an answer to me, I doubt I’d be able to hear it over the loud, clacking tone of this age. This is indeed the time of fast-hinged typewriters, well-oiled and dutifully able to snare at moment’s notice the epiphany of affection from a young lover’s head, an epiphany that was dared to be forever lost by more archaic methods. A boy with a slower hand dragging ink across paper stands more vulnerable to lose the entirety of his romantic vision before he can finish his penning.
Yes, modernity is swift in its assistance. The dreamy gods of old, the figures of love have been fitted, polished, and enhanced. Eternal Venus now stands poised on the teeth of a machinist’s cog, the snowy white of her breasts clad, bound, and supported in the firmest vulcanized rubber.
But I fear such an existence is not for me.
I fear I am a half-formed page of dribbles and ink. Flecks of dirt and a spot of over-dramatic blood. I am a poem half-realized in this world of instant conclusion and—
“Pocket?”
I sucked in some air, and the voice spoke again.
“Pocket!” a voice piped up beside me.
I looked up, surprised.
“Gren?” I stupidly asked, as if it could be someone else wearing his skin.
“What the hell are you doing way out here?!?” he complained. “I’ve looked all over this dirt pile trying to find you!”
“Look—“
“My feet are killing me now!”
I clucked my tongue. “I thought I was providing you with a much-needed break.”
“You were,” Gren fussed, “but as history shows, I’m not allowed to enjoy anything. Ever.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This!” He produced a sealed, brown envelope and threw it at me.”A telegram arrived for you.”
“What?!?” I exclaimed, gripping the document. “That’s impossible! Who would know where we—”
“Yeah,” Gren scowled. “My thoughts exactly. You now see my concern.”
I tore open the envelope and read the message inside.
MEET ME AT THE ADDRESS BELOW. MIDNIGHT.
TELL NO ONE, BRING NO ONE.
YOU NEED MY HELP AND I NEED YOURS.
- LA PETIT RENARD
A cold line of sweat slid down my brow.
“What’s it say?” Gren asked, stamping his foot.
I faked a smile and stuffed the telegram into my coat.
“Just gibberish,” I lied. “Probably someone trying to scare us.”
“Someone who knows where we’re hiding out?”
“I wouldn’t think too much of it. I bet whoever’s behind this sent a line out to every inn, tavern, and boarding house in England, hoping I’ll reveal myself.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Gren declared, darting his head nervously about. “We should probably get on the move so
on. Just to play it safe.”
“Sure, Gren,” I said, looking at the ground. “But what do you say we wait for morning? Get some sleep and make a fresh start?”
“I guess that’d be best,” he responded, hesitation clinging to his voice. “Not that I’m counting on being relaxed enough to sleep, now that we’re receiving messages.”
I said nothing to this, so Gren just snorted. “I’m just saying,” he grumbled, “that we could be in for a long night.”
From within my coat, the telegram felt like lead against my chest.
“Longest night of my life,” I said.
“Pocket.”
“What is it, Alan?”
“I…uh…”
“What?”
“Did you really do it?”
“Lie to Gren? I didn’t think I had much of a choice.”
“No, no. I mean, earlier on.”
“Earlier on, what?”
“I mean…you gave it away. Your faerie juice, just like that?”
“Oh. Yeah, I did.”
“But all that talk about holding on to whatever you had left…”
“I talk a lot, Alan. Doesn’t mean it’s all worth listening to.”
The hours before nightfall passed miserably slow. I tried to hide my anxiousness as I spent the afternoon and evening mulling about the parlor, watching the clock turn and dodging Gren’s questions concerning my suddenly missing bottle of green. Night rolled on and I found myself loafing at the bar, scratching my fingers against the wood counter. I picked up a matchbook sitting there, flicked it around, put it in my pocket, and yawned.
I crossed my arms upon the sticky bar top. Bars, bars, taverns, and bars! I was absolutely sick of them. Tired of hiding in bars, searching in bars, finding fights and strangeness and mysterious little diaries written by mysterious little women who can’t stay out of my dreams. I was sick, completely sick of it. But here I was, on another damn barstool in another damn hole. I put my head down on my arms.
“Hey,” the bartender said to me, “you all right, there?”
“Nope.”
“You want something to—“
“I’m fine.”
“Fair enough.” I thought he’d taken the hint, but a moment later he threw some more conversation at me. “You like absinthe, eh?”
“What?” I said, lifting my gaze.
“Absinthe,” he repeated. “You know, the French stuff.”
“No, I don’t know,” I muttered. “Only thing I’ve ever gotten from a Frenchman was a green, glowing headache.”
“Green, right. Absinthe.”
He produced an odd, little glass and took a dark bottle from a shelf.
“Wait,” I said, tapping a finger against the unusual glass. “Hey, I’ve seen a few of these before. Somewhere.” Then I remembered the bubble-bottomed glass teacups, as I had called them, strewn about that dilapidated Electric Bohemia.
“Have you?” the bartender said. “You don’t seem too sure.”
“I’m not.”
“Heh. Maybe you’ve been partaking a little too much of the Faerie.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
“What did you say?” I asked, eyes wide.
“The Faerie,” he said, uncorking the bottle. “This.”
And then, the man…he…I could hardly believe it. Into the little glass he poured a wet stream of emerald green. It had a fragrant, bittersweet aroma, and as it filled the cup, I knew it was unmistakably the same familiar substance I have known.
“Where…” I breathed, “…where did you get that?”
“Oh, it’s getting around,” the bartender replied. “Last I’ve heard, it’s really catching on over here.”
“Over here?”
“Britain. Like I said, it’s French booze. Potent stuff. Some drunks, they say it makes them see funny things. Apparitions and the like. Power of the Green Faerie.”
“French booze,” I sickly repeated. I wanted to vomit. Not out of response of this revelation, but at my own damnable stupidity. Magic bottle of juice, the old man said. Your true essence. My essence. Some old, leftover booze. This was the great center of my being, the epitome of my living soul. My purple-fingered magic, sent awash in the rain.
I dropped my head down again. French booze. I’d always counted myself a fool, but I had gravely misjudged to what degree. The world was laughing at its foppish clown now, a fop not mindlessly sewn to his own fashion and posture but to a nursery poem without a rhyme scheme. Oh, glorious show, Clown Pocket! You have them rolling in the aisles!
French booze. I wanted to vomit.
“You sure you’ve never had this?” the bartender asked.
“Never known a drop.”
“Oh. See, I figured from the spoon…” He reached over and plucked the slotted utensil from my hat. “Look, I show you how this works,” he said.
With dead eyes, I watched as he placed the spoon on top of the little glass and dissolved a sugar cube through it with some water. I was surprised. The emerald hue of the faerie juice quickly changed to a grand, milky white-green, twisting and swirling like sea foam in a tempest. I found it momentarily beautiful before I again remembered.
It was just French booze. It made no more difference than the perpetual changing of my blue blood to red. Appearance was all that ever changed.
The bartender chuckled as I eyed the silly, little glass. He returned my spoon and wiped his hands on a cloth. “You look like you could use a taste,” he said.
I stared up at him, blinked, and just nodded. He slid the glass to me and I reached out for it.
“You do have money, right?” he asked.
I stopped, frozen, and then quietly pulled my hand back. I shook my head glumly.
“Ah,” he said, as my eyes hit the floor. “Pity.”
He took the drink away. My eyes were still on the floor, watching my shadow stretch into a foreign shape. How about that, I thought. Even without a cork, I couldn’t even coax that flavor to my mouth.
I stood up and chortled. Oh, those fiendish faeries and their cruel flirting game.
“Pity,” I said jokingly to the bartender. “Damnable pity.”
He frowned and scratched his neck like he was trying to find the right words of comfort. I waved his attempts away with my right hand.
“For the best, anyway,” I said to him as I moved for the door. “I have an appointment to keep.”
He wished me well as I left, my left hand pocketed and gingerly patting the loaded pistol I had found earlier that day. It had been sitting by its lonesome in a cigar box marked “IN CASE OF INTRUDERS” in the back of the parlor’s office.
Damnable pity, I thought to myself once more as I walked out the front door for the very last time. But at least a gun weighs less than a bottle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Catch
Night.
The address typed upon the bottom of the telegram sat patiently beyond a long stretch of nothing far past the air docks. It had to have been sometime well after twelve when I at last arrived, but I doubted that the one who had sent for me would care.
The place was a junkyard, with aerial and industrial scrap the size of boulders filling the landscape. In the distance there sat a giant, overturned black tire, the type one sees attached to the underside of steamships.
Sitting crosslegged on that tire was a lone creature. He did not run when I approached him.
“Hey Kitt,” I said, quietly and without inflection.
“Hey,” the cutpurse said, looking down at where I stood. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sure.”
He climbed off of the tire and addressed me face-to-face. “It’s been awhile.”
“Yeah.”
“You came alone?”
“Do you see anyone else with me?”
“I figured Gren might—“
“I don’t want to involve him in this,” I said bluntly.
Even in the low light, I could see Kitt fro
wn.
“You look like you want to punch me,” he said.
“Do I?” I dryly asked.
“Are you going to punch me?”
I shrugged. “It won’t solve anything.”
“I’m glad you see it that—oof!”
I had planted my fist into Kitt’s stomach. Hard.
“Didn’t solve anything,” I explained, “but I still wanted to do it.”
He winced and exhaled. “I guess I deserved that.”
“No, you deserve a bullet in the back!” I snapped, losing my calm. “So you’re lucky I’m nearly as big of a coward as you!”
“Coward?!? Whoa, wait a minute! Remember, I cut you free in that mill!”
“And why did you, Kitt? So you could get the turnkey away from me?!? So you could run off again and leave me empty-handed?!?”
“All right. Just let me explain myse—”
“Where’s the Doll?!?”
He looked away from my eyes and into the dirt. “I don’t know,” he said.
Enraged, I grabbed the thief by his leather jacket and slammed him against an old pile of engine parts.
“If you’re fooling around, you’ve picked the wrong man to test.”
“I swear, Pocket! She’s gone!”
I leaned it close and spoke with absolute certainty. “Then you are a corpse.”
Kitt struggled against the hold, popped an elbow to my chin, and drove his wrench at me. I dodged, but as my head swung back around, he released the tool’s hidden blade and put it to my throat. I froze, hands still sunk like claws into his skin.
“Pocket!” Kitt gasped, catching his breath. “I need your help! Listen to me!”
“Why should I? Why should I believe a word you roll off of that lying tongue?”
“Because if you don’t, we’ll be in more trouble than you know!”
“Fine by me! What’s a little more heat when you’re squatting in the center of Hell?”
“You don’t want this. It’s—”
“What I don’t want, thief, is anything to do with you! Ever again! You hear me?”
“I’m trying to help you!”
“If you really wanted to help me, you’d push that blade an inch further until you saw a little color.”
Kitt stopped for a moment and just looked me over.
Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) Page 57