by Cedric Nye
25
Before joining Jango, Ian leaned in to kiss his wife, and felt her slide what he knew was a bag of tobacco that would buy more for their family than a month of their combined wages. One of those cigarettes would buy thrice-over the food on the tray.
“Give it back to him, Ian. It’s too much.” His wife whispered as he pulled away from their kiss.
He opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it shut when he saw the set of her jaw. He knew better than to argue when she looked that way, so he groaned, “Fiiiine.” He walked over to the table, sat down, and slid the bag of tobacco over to Jango, using his body and hand to shield it from view. “We can’t accept this, it’s way too much.”
Looking at the bag of tobacco, Jango estimated that the meal had cost him less than a quarter of one cigarette. He filed the information away for later trading, and said, “Look, no offense, but I want you to take it, and I want you to know that you owe me.”
Seeing a look of offended consternation on the bespectacled man’s freckled face, Jango added, “You don’t owe me goods, or an hour with your wife; you owe me. Like loyalty. You dig? My Sis, Vanessa, she said someone tried to kill her, and that she has enemies. So, she needs friends, and I need information and eyes. I ain’t giving you anything. I am trading.” He slid the bag back over to the silent man, who looked around, nodded, and then slid it into an inside pocket of his uniform.
They ate in silence after that. Jango packed away several pounds of meat, almost all of the potatoes, and the entire loaf of bread.
Ian ended up just watching in fascination as the average-sized man ate enough food to feed ten or more people.
When all of the food was gone, Jango leaned back, and noticed Ian staring at him. “Man, all I have eaten in the last year is beef jerky. I hadn’t even thought about it until now. This food is so good. I guess I was just in survival mode, and I was just eating to live. This was so good.”
Straightening up, he said, “You know what? I want to finish getting armed. I am getting fidgety for some reason. You ready to move?” He asked.
Nodding, Ian said, “Yes, yeah. Let’s go.” He waved to his wife, and decided that he would explain about the tobacco and the man’s requests later.
26
Threading his way through the booths, Ian tried to think of where he could find a stick, but came up empty. He knew where they could find good knives, though, over near Tubal Cain’s Corner. Tubal Cain’s Corner, or “The T” as it was called, was an area devoted to metal-working. He led Jango there.
When they arrived at The T, Jango instantly started racing from booth to booth, shanty to shanty, eyeballing every blade as he looked for the perfect knife to replace the broken Spinecutter.
He stopped in front of one particularly ramshackle structure that appeared to be put together from a mixture of lumber scraps, cardboard, and aluminum cans that had been cut and pressed flat.
The sign out in front featured a crude painting of a scimitar with blood dripping from it.
“Can I help you, Guv’?” A tall, unshaven man with an English accent had emerged from the hut, and now stood behind the table full of knives.
Jango reached behind his back, and unclipped his knife. “Yeah,” he replied, “I want to find a replacement for this.” He slapped the Spinecutter on the table while watching the man closely.
“Hey!” the man pulled the knife from the sheath, and seen that about ½” of the tip was broken off. “How in the name of my sweaty balls did you break this heavy assed blade, mate?” He asked Jango.
He retold the story of how the blade had been damaged exactly as he had told it to Ian. Instead of being shocked by the story as Ian had been, the Englishman laughed merrily at Jango’s description. “My name’s Jarvis, by the way,” He said when he had finished laughing.
“I’m Jango,” he replied, “and this is Ian. He’s showing me around.” After a moment, he asked, “Would you be able to make me a knife if I draw you what I want?”
Jarvis said, “Yeah, I suppose. Unless it’s something that’s going to be a worthless piece of shit.”
“You have a pencil and paper?” Jango asked.
The Englishman humored him, brought a large piece of brown paper and a pencil stub out of his shack, and handed them to Jango.
After several minutes of leaning over the table, muttering to himself, and drawing, he stood up and handed the paper to the man.
The knife that Jango had drawn had a large, heavy blade with an odd-shaped tip, and a long grip that ended in a steel pry-bar for a pommel. The over-all size was about eighteen inches long.
He looked it over for a few minutes, and said, “Yeah, I can make this, but it will cost you.”
Jango reached into his pocket, felt for the bag of gems, fingered a few gems out of the bag, and then cinched it tight again. He pulled his hand out, and, holding his hand low, he opened it slightly so the man could see the shimmer of the three top-grade diamonds there.
“Holy hell, man!” Jarvis exclaimed with his face frozen in disbelief.
“Will they cover the work?” Jango asked him.
Recovering, Jarvis replied, “Fuck, mate, just one of those will buy my whole table of knives, and me with it.”
Jango carefully separated one gem from the rest, replaced the other two in the bag in his pocket, and palmed the remaining one to the English knife-maker. “Then maybe my knife gets priority. Sound square?”
Barely able to keep still, Jarvis stood there with his hand clenched around the diamond, unmoving. The diamond represented enormous wealth down in Bartertown. He had not sold a knife in a while, and had been doing odd jobs to feed his family for months now. The diamond represented a fresh start, and he could not bring himself to believe it was real.
“Englishmaaaan,” Jango sang, “what about my knife, man? Yes, or no?”
“Yeah, yeah, hell yeah, Guv’! I’ll buy machine shop time, get it done fast. Say, day after tomorrow?” Jarvis replied. That would give him time to make sure the diamond was real, and to get it sold so he could buy what he needed to make the knife.
“Sounds good to me, man.” Jango replied, “I will be back. Oh, and don’t even think about fucking me and stealing my shit, because I will set you on fire while you sleep.” He smiled at Jarvis and walked away with Ian in tow.
27
The man named Jarvis stood still for a long time after the stranger had left his booth. He stood with his hand clenched around the diamond, which, if real, would create a future for himself and his family. He shook himself out of his thoughts, rubbed a grimy hand over his face, and then went back into his shack.
Once inside, he closed the piece of fabric which served as a door, and lit a candle. His wife came from behind the curtain which separated the shack into two rooms, and asked, “What are you doing, babe?”
He looked around, and then motioned for her to come closer. “Look at this, babes, will you look at this?”
He opened his dirt-blackened hand, and the diamond, which was well over two carats, suddenly came alive with fire as it caught the light of the candle-flame, and lit up the room with scintillations of refracted light that danced around the small room like high-voltage fireflies.
They both gasped in unison, as Jarvis clamped his hand shut to stop the light show. He was panting as he looked around wildly to see if there was any way that someone could have seen the flare and flash of the gem-stone. The curtain was in place, though, and he let himself calm down.
“Where did you get that?” His wife demanded, “Are you going hoodlum again?”
“No, no, no!” He whispered, “Nothing like that, love. This maniac just hired me to make him a knife, and he paid me with this!” He tentatively opened his hand again, only to shut it when the diamond lit up the room again. They both gasped again.
Jarvis knew that it had to be real. No other stone would catch fire like that; only a diamond.
“People get killed for a rollie down here, Jarvis, what do you th
ink will happen if people know you have that? You have children, it’s not worth it. Go find the man and give it back.”
He could see the wisdom in her words, but he was loath to give up this chance to get his family a better life. Because of the huge number of craftsmen that had been at the convention, there was never enough work for any of the regular folks like himself, so they all had to resort to peddling in Bartertown, and working odd jobs.
He set his jaw, and said, “Babes, I love you, but I am not giving this back.” He continued, “First off, the man is a nutter, and I don’t know how he would take it if I tried to cancel. Secondly, this is a chance to get us out of Bartertown! This is enough to move us upstairs to Builder’s Square. Get a real feckin’ room, clean air, and real food!”
His voice had started to rise, so he calmed himself and finished with, “The little one has been sick, and you know it’ll only get worse down here in this damp, dirty air. I just have to figure out how to turn this stone into useable money.”
“You’ll have to go upstairs for that, Jarvis.” His wife said softly. That was her way of letting him know that she knew he was right, and that she agreed with him.
His dirty face split into a huge grin at her show of support, and he said, “Yeah, you are right!”
Then, his face fell as he realized that going upstairs with a diamond like the one in his hand would present a whole new set of problems.
“They’ll mark me a thief up there, sure as shit, if I go up with this diamond and no proof of ownership. Some Black Coat thug will jack me, or something will happen. Fuck!”
Thinking quickly, his wife said, “Go! Go find the man who paid it to you and tell him the problem. Then, if he really wants your work, he’ll help, if not, he can choose to have the stone back. Either way, it gets sorted.”
Instantly seeing the wisdom in her words, Jarvis gave her a fast kiss, darted out through the front door, and headed off in search of the strange man.
28
After leaving the booth that belonged to the English knife-maker, Jango and Ian had wandered around in search of a stick without any luck.
“This blows,” Jango muttered darkly as he reached back over his right shoulder and felt the empty space where his stick had once been. Then, he remembered something he had seen in Tubal Cain’s Corner. “Come on, man!” he said to Ian as he started jogging back the way they had come.
Grumbling under his breath about untreated mental illness and how it affects everyone, Ian followed reluctantly.
Jango found the place he was looking for quickly, and skidded to a stop in front of the display. What had made him hustle back was a three foot long piece of ¾ inch solid steel rod. His face broke into a grin as he leaned down and picked up the heavy piece of steel.
Moving slowly to test the heft, he began moving around with the rod held up in front of his face, both hands gripping it about one foot apart. He snapped it out in an experimental stick-punch, and, satisfied with the heft, he began to move more quickly.
What followed was an awe-inspiring display of brute-strength and deadly finesse. He wielded the heavy bar like a conductor of symphonies would wield their baton. The steel flashed out blur-fast in a series of strikes, and his face lit up with a lunatic’s grin as he danced his stick-dance in the midst of the now-still and silent throng of people.
He flashed and spun, and laughed out loud in sheer joy as he found peace in the familiar movements of combat. After several minutes, he stopped, walked back to where he had found the rod, and asked the gaping man behind the blanket, “How much for the bata?”
“The what?” the man asked stupidly.
“The bata, the rod, the staff, the stick, the slam-a-lam-a-ding-dong.” He shook the rod in front of the man’s face. “This, man, this.”
“Oh!” The man exclaimed, “Yeah, uh, four Tags, or we can trade.”
Jango turned to Ian, his face questioning. “What in the hell are ’Tags,’ man?” he whispered.
Ian reached into his pocket, and produced a thin sheaf of colorful paper roughly the size of playing cards. He counted off two of them, and handed them to the man. “That rod isn’t worth more than two Tags. Take it or leave it.”
The man snatched the paper from Ian’s hand, and inspected it closely before he stuffed them into his pocket.
In answer to Jango’s question, Ian said, “Tags are what we call the scrip, man. It is the only currency we have, and some people won’t even accept it. It is good for food, and anything from the main canteen upstairs. It’s what I get paid in.”
“Thank you,” Jango responded. “I will pay you back as soon as I can get some shit figured out.” He realized that he was flying blind. It took him back to his first time in foster care, and then reform school. He knew he needed to figure out the rules here, or he would end up in trouble.
He slid the steel rod into the scabbard on his back, and sighed with contentment. “Hell yes,” he said, “this will do until I can figure something else out.”
Turning to Ian, he asked, “Where can I change some of my goods for Tags, and other shit to barter with?”
“Upstairs is the only place to really get a square deal, and to make sure you get real Tags, and not some funny money.” Ian replied.
Just then, two things happened simultaneously; Ian’s face darkened, and the Englishman hailed Jango.
29
Due to the knife-maker hailing him, Jango did not see Ian’s facial features tighten as he watched a group of four large, heavily armed men swagger around the corner and into sight.
The men were carrying side-arms, slung rifles, and short truncheons, and had the look of men who would like nothing better than to use them for no other reason than to use them. The men were thugs, often called “Black Coats”, and they belonged to the men upstairs who wanted to extend total control over the Center, and everyone in it. They had set up a Mafia-like organization, and these men were part of their protection racket. They collected from everyone who tried to set up shop, and if someone refused to pay they would get beaten up, or even turn up dead.
Ian was thinking about what they would do when they saw the fresh, pure tobacco in the till of the Green Bus, and he felt like he would vomit from the fear he felt at that moment.
Jarvis sidled up to Jango, and whispered from the side of his mouth, “Look, mate. I hate to ask, but can you go with me when I go to change this diamond? They’ll give me grief, and maybe even kill me for it.” He finished.
Groaning inwardly at his own stupidity, Jango replied, “Yeah, man. Absolutely. I have to get some change myself, so it’ll work out good. You cool to go now?” He had not stopped to think about how difficult it might be for the man to turn the diamond into currency.
Before Jarvis could answer, the four men had swaggered up. One of them grabbed the knife maker roughly by his arm, and said, “We heard you had a customer, you dirty Limey. You trying to skip payment?” The man asked menacingly.
Jarvis saw his entire life flashing before his eyes. He saw himself dead, his family broken and starving without him to care for them, and he inwardly cursed Jango for ever coming to his booth as he said, “No, mate, no! I was just looking for you.”
The man who held his arm let go, and then sunk his fist into Jarvis’s stomach. He dropped to his knees, retching and gagging while the four men laughed at him.
30
Ian whispered to Jango, “Aren’t you going to do something? Speak up, man!”
“What do you want me to do? I don’t know the law down here. Does he owe something?” Jango asked Ian quietly.
“No!” Ian replied vehemently. “There is no damned law, and he doesn’t owe. This is just a “might makes right” world now, and that is wrong.”
“Ahhhh,” he said, as he realized the truth of this place in which he found himself. “Jungle Rules,” he said smilingly.
The Jungle Rules were what Jango lived by out in the world, and he had been convinced that those rules did not apply here in
what he thought would be polite society. He now saw that this was just an extension of the jungle, and that these men were dabbling in what had become second nature for him.
His eyes had gone empty and bright, and his head was cocked slightly to the side, like a bird that has seen a worm. His veins had swollen, and were writhing beneath his skin, and his facial features had hardened, and become more angular as his personality underwent the transition from man to man-killer.
Keeping his head down, Jarvis tried to figure a way out of his predicament. He couldn’t bring himself to involve the stranger now, even at the cost of his own life. He had his own code, almost as primitive as Jango’s, and he would not give the man up to these tax men.
Raising his head to speak, Jarvis was just in time to see the man who had punched him get pulled off his feet, and then flung to the ground by the much smaller man, Jango.
The other three thugs reacted with the slowness that comes from arrogance and a lack of opposition. Their reactions were not enough to save them.
After flinging the man to the ground, Jango leaned over him, gripped his head on both sides in an almost casual way, smiled, and then broke the man’s neck with one savage twist.
He came up faster than a striking snake, his hands clenched into sledge-like hammers of bone and gristle. His fists flew like pistons, and he seemed to be in more than one place at once, so swiftly did he move.
Two of the three remaining men had been knocked to the ground before they could even move to protect themselves. The third managed to draw his side-arm, and had started to bring it to bear, when Jango slapped it out of his hand, and then drove his knee into the man’s groin with such force that the large man was lifted bodily into the air. He came back down, and when his feet hit the ground, he seemed to melt into a puddle, and a high keening sound burst from his mouth as the trauma of his mashed testicles hit home.