“That’s not what I’m trying to say at all. All I’m saying is I was here the whole time and I didn’t hear a single sound come from that box. Maybe you dreamed you were makin’ all that noise, because I didn’t hear a thing.”
“You were here the whole time?” A grain of doubt had now crept into his voice. Maybe the old man was telling the truth.
“Well I did take out your garbage, but I couldn’t have been gone for maybe a second.”
“And you were here the whole time, except for that?”
“Yes… you didn’t make a noise.”
He sat down relieved to believe the Old Soldier and his adamant replies. He didn’t want to have to be furious with the old man, but he couldn’t help it. He had been on edge ever since they had decided he was a vampire.
The Old Soldier stood up and surveyed the state of the coffin’s interior. The inside of the box was covered in a stew of bodily fluids. The heat had ripened it quickly, and he could almost see waves of stench coming from inside like looking down a long street in the middle of the summer. At least he finally knew where the smell had been coming from. He had almost taken a shower earlier in the day, because he thought that he might be the source of the smell.
As the Old Soldier surveyed the inside of the coffin, his friend moved to scoop up the blanket, trying to avoid touching any of the contents himself and at the same time avoid spillage. He managed to scoop the blanket up without making a mess and he ran down the stairs in a manner not all that different from the way the Old Soldier had run down the stairs earlier in the day. He held the blanket, folded in half, with the waste sagging in the middle of the folded blanket. He ran as fast as he could down the stairs, leaping from one landing to the next, causing the iron railings of the stairwell to ring and vibrate in a deafening tone.
He reached the bottom in no time at all and skidded to a halt. He only stood for a second, long enough to assess the picture that lay sprawled before him. On the ground, rat carcasses lay in a pile as flies buzzed nonstop in tiny gliding circles. A maggot looped, like a giant sea serpent, swimming through the openings in the rat's jellified eye.
His second was up; he tossed the blanket in the garbage, successfully avoiding making any more of a mess on the dumpster’s already soiled façade. He turned and ran back up the stairs, trying to put the sights and smells of the recent past out of his mind. When he got upstairs, he saw the old man liberally scrubbing the inside of the coffin with a washrag. The smell was already starting to dissipate as a nightwind was making its way through the apartment. He watched the tendons ripple underneath the Old Soldier’s skin. He may not be the strongest looking man, but there was no denying that there was some sort of untapped strength underneath the old man’s homeless veneer.
He stood in front of the window, enjoying the cleansing gust of the night, and admiring the simple lives of the people in the apartments across the way. His old friend had just finished another set of lifting weights, and had decided to treat himself with another five knuckle shuffle. By the time he realized that he had been staring at a man jerking off, the Old Soldier was standing at his side.
“C’mon, you pervert. We got a lot of work to do. Maybe we can find your ass some rubber sheets, until you can keep from wettin’ the bed.”
He punched the Old Soldier in the shoulder as hard as he could and that made him feel better. The pain in the Old Soldier’s eyes was satisfying. He wanted to see more of that look.
The Old Soldier rubbed his arm as they gathered their things and discussed the plan for the evening.
Chapter 35: Johnny Punchingbag
He walked up to the front of Beelzebub’s with the assumed air that he had been using for years just to get by, the air of the old veteran with a chip on his shoulder, the air of a man whose country had forgotten about him, the air of a man that had nothing to lose and everything to gain. But most of all, he had the air of man that was looking for trouble. As he walked up to the front of Beelzebub’s, he spread his attitude thick, wondering if anything he was going to do tonight would make a difference? Would anything he did tonight make him feel better? Or honor the memory of the men that had disappeared at his side?
He sized up the man that guarded the front entrance of the bar or club or whatever it is they called the things these days. He wasn’t much more than a pile of shit, some 300 pounds of it, stacked into a 6-foot 4-inch frame. He stood with a serious face, glowering out at the world and making sure that whoever cared to look would know he meant business. He noticed the deep laugh lines that had started to form around the edges of his mouth and that whatever impression he was trying to give off was completely ruined by the softness of his face. He wore Doc Martens, steel-toed probably, the trademark of many a worthless bouncer, some faded blue jeans and a leather vest over a white t-shirt that clung to his healthy beer gut. As he moved closer he saw what he needed to see, green-flecked brown eyes.
He moved to go into the bar and the bouncer let him stroll by. Once inside, he looked around, trying to find the best, quickest way to get the bouncers attention without getting the cops involved. Bouncers were a tricky thing. On one hand, they were simply another part of the whole fucked up capitalist system, underpaid workers with remedial talents who were expected to do more than their meager wages should rightfully entail. In certain situations, a bouncer would simply tackle you to the ground and boot your ass out the front door. A lot of times they would simply call the cops, and hand you over to them. It was a lot simpler than handling the problem on their own, and it gave them more time to stand around and look tough. However, if you wanted the extra special, back alley treatment, you had to press the right buttons. You had to dishonor the bouncer. You had to give the bouncer a reason to make a special occasion out of your face. Bouncers were trickier than they had a right to be.
The attitude outside had only been for the bouncer’s sake. He simply wanted to be noticed, and if there was one thing in the world that could make a person get noticed it was the lean of a man with a chip on his shoulder. To some the lean signified danger, to others it signified a challenge, but they always remembered the face, no matter what.
He shambled over to the bar, trying to make himself look as wretched as possible. If you wanted to make yourself some trouble you had to deflate yourself, make yourself look like a target. You had to become like the kid in school that always got picked on; assume a slouch, turn your confidence knob to zero, and be as meek as a choir boy. You had to put a look on your face that said, “Look at how worthless I am; doesn’t my face need a punch? Wouldn’t I look a little less pitiful with a swollen lip, a bloody nose, and maybe a black eye or two?” You had to become Johnny Punchingbag, and then you had to give them an excuse.
He moved to the bar for a likely mark, someone to give him a little tit for his tat. There wasn’t much potential in the bar tonight. It was not fetish night, and the bar was anything but packed. The bar was situated on the east wall and was packed with customers that sat with the ease of regulars. Others customers lined booths that sat around the remaining perimeter of the establishment. The stage and the big floor in the middle of the room were empty, except for the occasional customer making their way across the bar. The place was smoky and filled with industrial music that was just loud enough to drown out the conversation of the person that was sitting two seats down. Apparently, Tuesdays weren’t the best nights to try and get a bar brawl going. He was going to have to change his strategy. That was just fine with him. He could switch personas the way Mr. Rogers switched shoes.
His new plan was more fun anyway and it had the added bonus of allowing him to down a few before all the fun. It was no good trying to fight regulars; that would not earn him the blue ribbon beating he was looking for. When a regular gets into a fight, the bouncer’s reaction is to throw the offending party out as quickly as possible. Management doesn’t want one off their customers getting hassled; they know where their bread is buttered, and regular customers translates into a stea
dy stream of cash in the language of business. Quite often, the bouncer will call the cops to ease the herd and let the regulars know that they are important; they’re not just another customer in the establishment. They are a part of the family, the drunken uncle that loves to spend his or her hard-earned cash on things that make the pain go away. It was no good picking a fight with the people in the booths either. The people in the booths were there for privacy. People in booths are there to be left alone, ignored, and forgotten. To pick a fight with a person that is minding their own business is to tell the bouncer, “Hey, I’m a crazy dangerous fuck that wants to start some shit.” These are the type of offenders that bouncers dread. These are the offenders that you will see dragged out of clubs through thick crowds of people, there arms twisted behind their backs and their faces twisted with rage. These offenders could go either way. The bouncer might simply throw them out and tell them not to come back out of fear of reprisal, or they could just as easily call the cops and have them put away for the evening. The second option is usually taken when the bouncer is afraid that the person may go home and get a knife, gun, or maybe some friends and come back later.
That only left one other option, the bartender, and wouldn’t you know it? The bartender was a lady tonight. It looked like there was some luck to be had tonight after all. The bartender, you see, is the lifeblood of the bar. Without the bartender, the drinks don’t get poured, the money doesn’t get made. Without the bartender, there are no regulars, no steady stream of cash. The owners of the bar know this. The bouncers of the bar know this. A male bartender is treated like royalty if they’re good. A female bartender is treated like a goddess no matter what.
He ordered a beer, a Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR in normal speak. The bartender delivered it with a smile and he smiled back as he handed over the little amount of money that his friend had given him for their ruse. She was definitely likeable, which worked to his advantage. She bantered back and forth with the customers as if they really were her friends and not just some people she was trying to weasel tips from. She was good all right, and she was loved. He suspected that quite a few of the regulars came here just to be in her presence. He surveyed the regulars and noticed that quite a few of them caressed her with their greedy eyes when she wasn’t looking, quickly averting them when she was looking. He wondered if any of those people sitting down the line of the bar were vampires like his friend.
He doubted he would ever be able to find out. Hell, he wouldn’t even know that his friend was a vampire if it wasn’t for those two happenstance evenings, the one with the rat and the one where he had tried to commit suicide. He had no marks, no teeth. He was unusually pale, but he hadn’t been in the sun for a little while and he got the feeling that his friend had never really been a fan of the sun in the first place. He didn’t look physically intimidating. There were times when he looked at the wasted shell of his friend and felt, that if it came down to it, he could probably take him in a fight. He hoped his friend could tell who the vampires were, because everyone here looked just as pathetic and worthless as he did on most days.
He produced one of his beauties and lit it with a match, wreathing his head in a haze of sulfur and smoke. He imagined that the way he was at the moment might be how Beelzebub would look if he was standing right in front of him, all smoke, stink and mystery. He drained the remainder of the PBR that he had been working on and waited for the bartender to make her way down the line and get him another.
He sat thinking as she poured liquor into shiny bar equipment, mixing and shaking without measuring. She appeared to pour some very strong drinks for her customers, and none of them looked like they were leaving anytime soon. She whirled, still mixing up a drink and placed a pitcher underneath the tap, strained the drink she had been working on into a glass full of ice and placed it before her customer just as the pitcher filled to the brim with semi-sudsy brew. She topped it off and slid it to one of the booth customers that was waiting at the end of the bar. He wandered off contentedly upon receiving his prize and left a considerable tip for a pitcher of beer. The bartender made her way down to him.
“You ready for another?”
He made a big show of downing his nasty lasties and slid the empty can towards her. “You bet.”
She took the empty can and tossed it in a bin. She walked halfway down the bar swung open the refrigerator door, grabbed a beer and swung the door closed all in one fluid, well-practiced motion. She popped the top with one hand and placed it on the bar in front of him. He already had his money and tip in his hand ready to pay her, a couple of bills and some change. She grabbed the cash from his hand delicately and held her hand palm up for him to deposit the change. He placed the change in her hand, calculatingly leaving his fingers on her wrist just long enough to feel uncomfortable.
“Thank you, beautiful.”
She gave him an uncomfortable smile and turned to walk down the bar towards the cash register. She walked a step quicker than usual. She placed the cash in the cash register and his soiled tip in the tip jar and then went about her business as usual looking as calm as she had been before, as effortless and carefree as when he had come in. But her face showed it. Her face showed the seed that he had planted. He smiled into his next sip of beer and asked himself the question, “Why does it feel so good to be scummy?”
The patron next to him thought the question had been for him. He gave the Old Soldier a look and decided that the old bastard was probably already three sheets to the wind and talking to himself. The patron wasn’t surprised when the crusty Old Soldier next to him blew gas out both ends at the same time and laughed. The patron looked down the bar for an empty seat, but there was none to be found.
The Old Soldier noted the man’s reactions and laughed on the inside at his spinelessness. The first beer had lightened his mood a little bit and he was beginning to enjoy himself. He figured it would be better to go through tonight with a little buzz than sober and doubtful.
Everything was going like he had planned. It did no good to just go up to a bartender and fuck with them. They were used to it. In a place where your job is to get people drunk, a little belligerence never bothered anyone. You would be asked to leave or thrown out, but that was about it. If you wanted to shock a bartender, you had to creep them out. You had to get them out of their comfort zone, shock them into action. Belligerence was comfort, belligerence was normal and it could be handled. You had to make them feel that something was wrong, something was sinister and out of place, and often, it had to be done in stages. The tension had to be ratcheted up, until the nerves break and the reaction explodes from someplace unseen.
He had already started the game. A simple touch, an out of place word, these were little things, and if he quit the game early they would be forgotten in half an hour. He had no intention of quitting. He wanted to see her break.
He lit another of his beauties and thought that maybe tonight he was Beelzebub, covered in smoke and stink. The sweating can of beer in his hand beckoned, and he downed as much as he could in between drags of his cigarette. The smoke burned thick and he laughed on the inside as he watched his neighbor’s head look down the bar periodically for an empty chair.
He plunked his empty sixteen ounce can on the counter and tried to catch the attention of the bartender, which was a lot more difficult than it had been the first time. She took care of the other customers at the bar, until they had all been satisfied and when she had no more excuses, she made her way down to his end of the bar.
“Can I get you another?”
“Why the hell not? I got no place else to be.”
She took his empty can and tossed it towards the bin where it bounced off of the rim and onto the floor. She hissed between her teeth and moved to pick it up. He wasn’t the only one to stare at her shapely bottom as she bent over to pick up the discarded can, but he was the one that she saw. She popped the fridge open again and brought him the beer, not even bothering to open it for him this time. He
had his money ready to go, all bills this time.
She reached to take the money from him and turned to leave at the same time. It was not unlike a child snatching candy from a stranger. He did not let go of the money, and she turned to question his reticence.
“Before I give you this money, I’d like to know the name of the lovely lady I’m giving it to.” He smiled his most charming smile.
“My name is Lucinda.” She tugged on the money expecting him to let go as soon as she gifted him with her name, but he didn’t.
“Mmmm, Luuuucciiindddaaa.” He enunciated the name in a sort of sexual tone, wiggling his shoulders like a snake crawling through sand. “I like the way that feels on my tongue. But you know what Lucinda? I think I’d like the way you’d feel on my tongue a whole lot more.”
She jerked the money out of his hand and set her jaw. “You better cut the shit, or you’ll find yourself kicked out of here.”
He raised his hands in mock apology and surprise. “I’m sorry, I was just tryin’ to give you a compliment. I’m just a dirty old man; don’t mind me.”
She accepted his apology with silence and stalked to the cash register, slamming the drawer shut after placing the money in it.
The man next to him regarded him with a look of disgust. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t the type to do anything about anything. You could shit on his mom, and all he would do is give you a dirty look and take another sip from his beer. He opened his beer and took a gratifying sip. He lit another beauty and smoked it slowly. When he was done he chugged his beer and crushed the can placing it on the counter as loudly as possible to get the whole bar’s attention.
Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale Page 12