Micro-managers trying to tell people how to live their lives. Telling you to not drink a simple man’s opiate, all while they got one of them snazzy rich-man pendants around their necks with the cocaine-filled hidden compartment.
No idea if that’s a real world thing or just a movie thing.
Either way . . . fucking hypocrites.
Selfish hypocrites ain’t sharing the Happy Snort Dust.
Not that you should ever do that shit . . .
Drugs are bad for you, kiddies.
What ya know, I’m a hypocrite too.
Should’ve never doubted it.
Actually never was into the hard shit. Booze, I like some booze. Smoke a joint or steal one of the Lady’s legendary knock-you-on-your-ass brownies. Not the hard shit. No place to find the hard shit at the Asylum anyway and if you did find some hard shit and got caught with it . . . might get you expelled.
Or win yourself a month in the Holding Room while you Detox.
Which is way worse than escaping this madhouse.
Punishment that harsh means there’s no drug problem at the Asylum.
Just a crazy problem.
Ingrained in every cell of a mancer’s makeup; can’t escape it even with the opiates, rich or poor.
No drugs, but occasionally some student steals a bottle of booze or sneaks a few cans in . . . ends with them having a party. Teachers look the other way as long as said party don’t get too rowdy. No streaking through the Park naked. For example. Maybe a bad example, since the only time I streaked through the Park I was as sober as I’ve ever been in my life, with a screaming Keith Gullick chasing right after me. Had my underwear on and my pants wrapped around one ankle. Think that still counts as naked?
Close enough, right?
Night this story began wasn’t too long after that infamous event.
Few months maybe.
Pent.
Fifth year at the Asylum.
Getting deep into the system now, deep into the story of my stay at that peculiar institution. Five years. Fuck me. Fuck you too, kiddies, you still listening to this after all the tapes came before it. Last one sure was nice, wasn’t it? Happy moment in my life. Quilt’s bachelor party, his wedding. Ending on that perfect ‘I do.’
One before it . . . not so nice.
Three Queens.
Welfs.
Plutarch. Okay, maybe he ain’t so bad. Or maybe it’s just that after a year dealing with him, I’m used to his unique brand of birdshit-coated statues.
Same year for all three of those stories. Happiness in the middle, but on the edges . . .
Especially that last edge. That last edge cuts.
Bleeds.
Kills.
Splat.
Yank.
Crush.
That last edge . . . it ain’t right.
That last edge . . . begins with booze.
Just after the ‘I do.’
Just after the cheers.
It begins with four graduate students sitting on a bench, passing their second bottle of rum back and forth.
Raj Malik, Pocket Landry, Jesus Valencia, and of course . . .
King.
Fucking.
Henry.
Fucking.
Price.
What can I say?
I’m a bad influence.
[CLICK]
“It was so beautiful,” Raj blubbered for about the seventh time. Seventh—maybe eighth—I lost count somewhere around the third cup of rum.
. . . was it the third cup of rum?
Think I lost count of that too.
Good thing about rum is that it comes in cups. None of that itsy bitsy shot-glass shit.
Okay, so maybe that’s just a personal rule, but it’s a good personal rule to have.
Raj held liquor surprisingly well for someone who had to be peer-pressured into his first cup of the stuff. Think he was on two or three. I never even bothered counting that shit. “So beautiful,” he mumbled some more, with a wet belch as an exclamation point.
Jesus was next on the bench, my bench on the Mound, overlooking the breadth of the Asylum, especially the Field down below with the smolders of the bonfire still going strong. Not sure if I’d call it a beautiful wedding, since I don’t know a thing about romance or relationships—proven it time and again with Val or Naomi or whoever else, ain’t I?—but it was a beautiful night.
An Asylum May is something to be treasured. Even for a cynical fucktard like King Henry Price. Perfect weather. Not too hot, just cold enough to remind you of the winter fading behind. Makes your mancer’s coat, whatever the color, feel good on your shoulders. Not that I was in a mancer’s coat, geomancer or otherwise. Was in the same shitty tuxedo they force all the guys to wear to the Winter Ball.
Least it wasn’t a white tie, extra-special torture suit.
Dodged that bullet by not being part of the wedding ceremony, just being in charge of the bachelor party.
And what a bachelor party it was! Raj is still picking the stripper glitter out of his beard!
“Beautiful,” Jesus echoed Raj. He raised his hand up into the air to wave at the moon. “A beauty worth howling and running to the ends of the Earth for!” At least that’s what I thought he said. Every third word was Mexican and every fourth word was indecipherable mush. If Raj was drunk off his ass then Jesus no longer had an ass.
“Don’t see why we couldn’t go dancing,” Raj pouted while taking another sip of self-pity.
“Wedding panocha,” Jesus grumbled back at him.
“Strings attached,” I agreed, swaying a little bit. “Have to stay away. Too dangerous.”
“But they were so pretty in their dresses . . . did you see Miranda?” Raj whined, still burning the torch despite denying it for a good three years.
“Almost blinded me,” I complained about the Ginger Nemesis. She complained about me all the time, only fair, right? “Shouldn’t be allowed to show her shoulders in public. Not sanitary.”
Pocket was on the other end of the bench, the only one enjoying sobriety. Being he was a floromancer, a one-minute burst of floro-anima weeded the alcohol out of his system in seconds. He’d drunk about a bottle and a half so far and wasn’t showing the least bit of buzz. Good thing I dated Naomi before Van Houten taught them that shit.
Since Naomi my love life had been more casual in nature than ever. Hadn’t worked up the strength to tackle emotions and all that shit, not since Keith Gullick had scared them out of me. Good thing he’s out of shape and couldn’t catch me . . . good thing Naomi talked him down from throttling me once he ran out of breath. Although, I don’t care what Pocket says, the flowers in the Park follow me now.
“Boomworm looked nice too,” Pocket commented with the grace of a cactus.
“You evil fucker,” I warned him.
Raj and Jesus both chortled.
“Just pointing out facts, dude.”
“Evil,” I repeated while taking another slosh of simple man’s opiate.
“Mimi’s dress was . . . very proper,” Raj kept up the girl discussion, using his nickname for Naomi. It was weird being in a world where Raj and I had been with the same woman. Although—given it was Naomi—half the school was probably in the club with us.
. . . What?
I can’t help it if she’s so affectionate!
I would never call her a slut or anything.
I reserve that euphemism for my sister!
“Mr. Gullick even let her come alone,” Pocket said, “think she’ll get to move back into her dorm by the end of the school year?”
“Wasn’t my fault,” I protested my innocence.
“Sure, dude, anyone could’ve got caught, just not with all the style you added to the occasion,” Pocket agreed.
“Let’s talk about how awesome I am for having snuck all the strippers into the Asylum again,” I tried to change the subject and pump up my ego at the same time.
“You’ll just hold back on that one too,” Jesus mumbled to an in
visible person standing three feet to my right. “Can’t talk about Boomworm, can’t talk about the Naked Chase, can’t talk about how you did the stripper thing. El Rey is too sensitive this year.”
“Hey, look at that pretty moon . . .” I tried.
“So beautiful!” Jesus called.
“Beautiful!” Raj agreed “Like Miranda!”
“You should ask her out,” Pocket tried to start even more trouble. “We’re older now . . . you date, she dates. Her father is in Texas, so he can’t catch you in the act.”
“Women run the Daniels family anyway,” I pointed out, “so it would be her mom you want to worry about.”
“No,” Raj mumbled with more self pity, “I said I never would. No looking back! No matter my bodily desires!”
Pocket nodded. “Wise, I suppose. You’d just end up like King Henry and Boomworm with all the overdramatic break-ups.”
“If I stick the bottle up your ass and bypass your liver, you think you might get drunk that way?” I growled at him.
“Works for my whole body,” Pocket winked at me, enjoying his edge at having a working brain while mine was half pulp. “And that’s not a dare for you to start poisoning me as experimentation.”
An I-don’t-give-a-crap shrug signaled the guilt of my first thought. “Not like I’d go for the VX gas . . . just laxatives or something. Also, would’ve had the grace to start up a betting pool first. Wouldn’t let my curiosity rob the school of that much entertainment value, ya know?”
“And now I’m not eating waffles for the next month,” Pocket stated an obvious precaution.
Jesus shot up from the bench and started taking off his tux. “I’m chasing the moon, who’s with me?”
“This time would you please stop him before he gets his pants off?” I begged Pocket.
[CLICK]
Hot tip for you, kiddies: getting drunk on the Mound is a really bad idea.
Most people don’t think about inclines or declines when they’re drunk . . . because the vast majority of humanity lives in a flat world, no matter how many skyscrapers we build trying to touch the clouds or how many times the ship sinking over the horizon proves otherwise.
All flat.
Easy being drunk when it’s flat.
Okay, not easy. But the fall ain’t so far.
And you wanted to puke in the gutter anyway.
No gutters on the Mound. No flat either. Just a whole lot of sloping ground leading to more sloping ground. Don’t go flat until you reach its base and then you ain’t on the Mound, you’re on the Field. Or behind the Mound with all the trees and the wild animals . . . with the bears and the King Henrys shitting in the woods.
No flat is why when Raj stumbled, my ass tumbled with him about twenty feet. Jesus came along for the ride. Only Pocket missed out on the experience, serenading our inglorious plunge with a perfectly timed, “Oh shit!”
How I ended up snorting some dirt out of my nose. Like dirt on most days, but not inside of my body. Especially if it’s with three other guys around and not a single woman. I’d never actually had sex on the Mound or in the dirt now that I thought about it . . . not even with Val when she was at her most horny. Should do that before I graduate. Not with Val of course, put dirt and fire together and all the world is made ashes. Too bad all the geomancer girls are wider than they are taller; be okay it was in the badonkadonk, but it’s always in the shoulders or their foreheads. Think I can convince Sabine to join me making some mud?
“I landed on a bush,” Raj giggled, his turban askew and his fine-haired beard dotted with leaves in addition to the impossible-to-remove stripper glitter.
Jesus just groaned in pain.
“You break anything?” I asked. Don’t think I’d broken anything, but it wasn’t like I could feel most of my face, much less the rest of my body.
“My cojones, El Rey, the bush bludgeoned my cojones,” Jesus groaned some more.
“Blame Pocket . . . that’s his area of expertise, not mine. The bush . . . not the cojones. Don’t think he has any of those.”
Said bush expert made the journey to join us a lot slower than we had. “Too bad they don’t let us have phones, huh? Would’ve made an awesome YouTube video; might’ve even paid for the hospital bills,” he teased.
“That’s all I need,” I spat out words with some extra dirt, “recorded evidence of how much stupid shit I’ve done at this school.”
“Some awesome shit too, dude. Don’t sell the Legend of the Foul Mouth shorter than you already are.”
“This bush feels so comfy,” Raj whispered as his head tilted backwards, turban even more askew, “just leave me here, I’ll be fine . . . me and my comfy bush . . .”
He started snoring.
I shared a glance with Pocket, who shrugged. “I’m not arguing.”
“You want to leave him in a bush?”
“He’s enjoying it.”
Raj burped in his sleep.
“Fine, get Jesus and his cojones free and back into his dorm. I’ll make my own way back.”
Pocket looked doubtful. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Not saying I’ll make it home in the next few minutes, but . . . should manage before the sun comes up,” I decided as I set off down the Mound by myself.
One foot in front of the other.
Mind the slope.
Focus on the ground.
You’re a mancer, right? Geomancer in fact, shouldn’t be too hard to know where the ground’s at.
Made it about ten feet before I was back on my knees.
Okay, Try Number Three it is . . .
No more kneeling.
Foul Mouth don’t kneel for no man, not even his own drunk ass.
[CLICK]
Somehow I made it without killing myself.
No idea if anyone has ever actually died on the Mound.
Probably.
You’d think some dumbass must have during the Winter War, but I couldn’t see it, being if some dumbass had died during the Winter War, I doubt the parents would still stand by and let us do our thing with a death toll hanging over our heads. That level of danger only happens on school grounds when it has a one-hundred percent safety record.
But someone at sometime, dying on the Mound?
Has to have happened, right?
“I have fucking drunk way too much rum,” I grumbled aloud, thankful for the cool night air on my face. I get extra cynical when I’m drunk. Could be worse. Could be a break-up boozefest, then I’d be emo too.
Oh, Valentine, why hath thou forsaken me? I mocked myself with a canine grin.
Got to laugh at yourself, kiddies.
Girl had been beautiful today. Was every day, really. Not that I was interested in dealing with her shit. Last time I’d had a shot with her had been when she showed up naked in my dorm, that time I spent most my day running around the woods shitting with the bears. Hadn’t been in the mood for her crazy on-again-off-again. Just friendship between us since. No sex, just talking and joking and . . . like we were Singles again or something.
Rather be confused over me not being with her than back to confused over why she’s throwing herself at me one minute and acting like the blushing maid the next. Not enough rum in the world to cut through that confusion.
Especially with Plutarch and the Three Queens and having my own History class to teach and then there was Quilt’s bachelor party and then there was Quilt’s wedding and now I was here . . .
I’ll be graduating before I know it.
Guild of Artificers Member No. 62523 before I know it.
Forget Val. Forget celebrating the nuptials . . . that thought needed rum more than any other.
The Guild . . .
“Fucking cocksuckers,” I snarled out a pretty good Al Swearengen expression.
Managed to come out on the Field as planned. One thing going right tonight. Mostly things had been going right for me. One of those stretches you get at the Asylum where it decides to just be the N
ice, Quiet One. No kicking you in the face. Or the balls. Or putting stuff up your pee-hole when Mary O’Connell is around.
Been learning a lot under Plutarch, even following his advice on occasion. He hadn’t stuck me back into a dirt hole again, so I considered that progress. Even liked a few of the Intra students in my History class, though one of the prudes among them had ratted me out to the faculty for my ‘anti-authoritarian lesson plans deviating from the standard curriculum.’ Hadn’t been able to draw a sexually-charged chalkboard display since.
I was getting really good at them too!
Last Winter War had been awesome. Sure, I didn’t get to compete myself, but seeing Vicky Welf and the other kids in Class ’10 win the trophy had been fun. Went stag to the Winter Ball. Went home with one of Vicky’s friends . . . pretty sure it was Genesis this time. Rum had been involved that night as well . . .
“Should give you up . . . if only you didn’t make me feel like a squishy radio signal . . .”
I paused in my progress through the Field, bonfire somewhere to my left, other students visible as they caroused and celebrated. Don’t need reason to celebrate when you’re a teenager, being young and invincible is enough.
Cared less about them than I did the sentence I’d just uttered.
Squishy radio signal?
“If only you didn’t take my ability to make decent metaphors away from me too . . .”
On I trundled.
That’s right, kiddies.
Trundled.
Education, it’s a bitch.
Might have even been doing some sauntering with an occasional meander.
Drunk off his ass and sleeping in a bush or not, Raj was right about the evening. So was Jesus about the moon. What a night . . . the mountain breeze was cold on my face while the heat from the bonfire wafted across the breadth of the Field. I could hear music echoing all the way from the Hall, something heavy with a quick beat. Nearby were the sounds of laughter and shrill conversation.
I grunted as a pair of Tri girls ran past me giggling, a shirtless Quad boy chasing after them. “Not drunk enough to beat his ass and take his place . . .”
Kind of sucks being a graduate student. All the Intras are younger than you . . . sure, you can get away with dating a Quad when you’re a Pent, but even that excuse would elude me next year. No Tri’s unless you wanted some teacher having a word with you, definitely no Bi’s. Romeo and Juliet laws don’t even cover that shit.
The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 5