Sourmouth

by Cyle James

  Riley stepped forward to see it better, his lead foot placed almost directly on the line of tape on the floor, “But...why?”

  “It’s called ‘going rogue’,” started the man behind the tool cabinet, “It’s what we do in our free time. You take a few seemingly unprized animals, in this case a varmint and a wild dog and you combine the two into something more exciting. Others like to take to the fantastical, like griffins and chimeras but we choose to make the ordinary into the extraordinary”.

  “Could you make me a mermaid?” Violet asked half-heartedly, her eyes flickering as she scanned the other creatures on display.

  “We’ve never done it before, but it has been accomplished already. Those types of fakes are often found in roadside museums rather than humble businesses like ours,” answered the other man.

  “Now how can I help you two today?” asked the first man who was now standing at attention, his eyes nearly obscured by his bushy brows.

  “May we ask you a few questions?” Violet asked.

  The two men cut each other a look that gave Riley the impression that they were about to be told to go to hell. So much for their plan of attack.

  “She has a dead cat...” Riley blurted out urgently.

  Violet slapped her husband on the arm and ignored his stupidity, “Please. We’re looking to ask a few questions about Squamish history which we’re really hoping you know something about. We keep getting directed from one person to another. And right now you’re our best bet. Or so we’re told”.

  “We’re your best bet? You sure are in trouble,” laughed the man at the table as he took a drink from a flask before turning back to the bird that he had been working on previously, drips of alcohol falling from his mustache on top of the corpse as he worked.

  The man by the cabinet stared at both of the Tylers, his expression unchanging.

  “Come on, Bill. What else are we doing that we can’t indulge these kids for a little bit?” he asked his partner.

  The man at the desk looked at his friend and then back to the couple before gesturing for them to take a seat on a small bench to the left of the work area against the wall.

  The Tylers strolled over and plopped themselves down, putting them a little bit too close for comfort to the filthy ground.

  “What did you want to know?” Bill asked as he stood up and approached the pair, his size hulking over them.

  “They want to know how we get our facial hair so prim and proper,” said the other man with a chuckle.

  “Shut up, Stanley,” Bill said almost strictly.

  If Bill was serious the other man didn’t care, as he just made a playful pouty face and dived back into his cabinet to finish whatever it was that he was doing before.

  “We were speaking to Anna at the museum-” Violet began.

  “Not familiar with her,” Stanley barged in from afar, his voice muffled by the metal he hid his head in.

  “You’re not familiar with anyone,” Bill said as he looked back at his friend.

  “For better and for worse I’m familiar with your wrinkly old ass,” Stanley responded with an echo.

  The more that the two men interacted with one another the more the Tylers could tell that the vibe between them was more akin to bickering lovers than merely friends or family.

  “We were trying to get information about a house or a family or a book,” Violet rambled.

  “That’s a lot of things to want information on,” Bill stated back as his arms folded in front of his chest.

  “You’ll have to forgive us, things are confusing right now,” Riley interjected, putting their situation lightly.

  “Is that right? And what about it all is so confusing for you?” Bill questioned, his voice clearly mocking.

  “Our situation is confusing because it’s not actually possible,” Riley answered with the best combination of puzzlement and excitement that he could manage to convey.

  Stanley stood up from his position and came forward apparently intrigued, “You came to two old drunkards to ask about the impossibilities of the world? Boy, you’re either a nimrod or a genius. Which one depends on whether or not you can believe anything that we’d even tell you”.

  “I don’t think we have a choice. I don’t think there are many people on this island that know about what we need to find out about, so you two are probably the best of the bunch,” Violet said.

  “Colour me curious then,” Stanley replied as he tipped backwards on his feet, both hands resting on the back of his head over a bald spot as if he were trying to keep it warm.

  “I believe that ‘curious’ is a bright shade of red if you’re looking for that particular colour of paint,” Bill hinted.

  Riley’s eyebrow shot up, “I don’t understand”.

  “He’s asking for a bribe, kid,” Stanley explained with a sigh directed more so at his partner than the Tylers.

  “How was I supposed to understand that?”

  “A fifty dollar bill is coloured red, is it not?” Bill chuckled as he looked down at the pair.

  “We’re American, our money isn’t coloured the same. And what the hell? A fifty is a bit much,” Riley complained as he reached for his wallet.

  Stanley extended his hand in a stopping motion, shaking his head softly, “Just ask your questions”.

  Violet took that as her cue to bring the men up to speed on the situation.

  “Do you know a woman named Poyam?”

  Bill nodded and Stanley shook his head once more.

  “We rented her house a few days ago”.

  “The rickety one up at Killarney?” Bill questioned.

  “The haunted one, you mean?” Stanley piped in, honestly asking for himself. He might not have known the owner but he seemingly knew of the house.

  “It’s not haunted, you fool,” Bill responded plainly.

  “It might be, based on the things that we’ve seen,” Violet said just as her husband finally chose to stand up, probably because he felt like a child being scorned by his parents.

  “What exactly have you seen? Ghoulies and ghosts?” Stanley chuckled in a way that made his whiskers twitch with delight.

  “I don’t think we can say for sure what we’ve seen”.

  “Try,” Bill replied simply, annoyed by the dancing around that the pair was beginning to do as they searched for a way to talk about it.

  “Something seems to be living in our mirror, some sort of animal-man,” Riley answered bluntly, his face stone still.

  “Animal-man? Like the yeti?” Bill quipped.

  “Yeah, even for two guys who spend their time trying to make hydras that’s a little farfetched of a tale,” Stanley added.

  “No. More like Sourmouth,” Riley said hoping for a more serious reaction.

  And a serious reaction was what he got from Bill, whose face almost turned pale.

  “You know what that is, don’t you?” Violet asked when she noticed the physical response.

  The man nodded as he took a mouthful from his flask.

  Stanley looked at his friend as eagerly as the Tylers did, clearly not knowing anything about what they were inquiring about.

  “It’s big, skinny, long claws, yellow eyes. As far as we can tell it’s stuck in the mirror. But we don’t want to stick around ourselves to disprove that theory,” Violet explained.

  “We’re leaving. We’re finding out what we can while we’re here and then getting off the island to somewhere safer,” Riley continued.

  Bill raised his hand to silence the couple from speaking.

  “I’m sorry that I need to ask this before we even bother continuing but...are you fucking with me? Is this some sort of joke that someone asked you to do?” Bill asked with a face firm, years of tired jokes had taken its toll on his gullibility.

  “We’re deadly fucking serious,” Riley replied.

  Bill seemed uncomfortable as he stood, first standing straight and then leaning forward before slinking back like his spine was in pain. He w
ould take a drink from his flask, motion his mouth to speak and then decide to take another sip instead. If it could be believed, Stanley was even more agitated by the procrastination than the Tylers were.

  “I don’t know anything about your mirror quandary. All I can tell you is the back story from what I was told when I was a kid. I can share what my father told me, about how Sourmouth came into existence. Of course it’s all word of mouth; my father was a bigger drunk than I am”.

  “We’ll take anything at this point,” Violet clarified in case the man thought about leaving any of the trivial details out.

  “Are you seriously going to pretend that what they are saying is a real thing?” Stanley asked concerned. It wasn’t apparent whether he was doubting their story’s validity or choosing to pretend that it couldn’t be true because he couldn’t accept it.

  “What do you already know about him?” Bill questioned, opting not to answer his friend’s query.

  “Not much. The woman at the museum told us a bit about the Squamish legend on how the world was created and the Wolf Star’s involvement. Or lack of involvement. And how that didn’t sit very well with it,” Riley replied with his own arms crossed.

  Bill nodded, apparently happy that he didn’t have to explain every aspect of the story from start to finish. Or perhaps the nod was in recognition that someone else on the island at least had something right for a change.

  “Good ole Sourmouth,” Bill started, “My daddy used to tell me a tale about him when I was a young lad. And if you already know about the Wolf Star then you know that he was extremely upset at the injustice that had been done to him. Extremely being an understatement. But what you don’t know is that he had a change of heart”.

  “What brought about this change? From what we were told, he was pretty damn upset,” Violet asked.

  “There was a time that the Wolf Star was consumed by the idea of vengeance, overtaken by his need to punish his former friends in the big black sky and all of those who lived below it. But you see, the Wolf Star was intelligent. He was far too wise to allow himself to be overcome with jealousy and anger over what had been done in the past, way back in the storm of creation. You need to realize that for a godly being, the passing of time is barely acknowledged. It’s a concept that we invented to organize our own lives and to put our deaths into perspective. We live for whatever many years and achieve whatever amount of things and to us that’s important. It’s imperative to have something to put on our epitaph for everyone left behind. But to the gods our world moves so slowly, so insignificantly. Their achievements aren’t the same as ours. They look at the world and think about leaving a legacy that will last forever as extension of their selves. So as you’d expect, the Wolf Star was hurt and insulted by what had occurred. But eventually, within his infinite timeline he learned that he didn’t want to be a god of fear and war. He wanted the respect that he had lost after being ejected from the creation of the world. So the Wolf Star decided that he would get that respect by being the formidable protector that his skills always were meant to allow”.

  “So you’re telling me that Sourmouth was a good...god?” Riley asked unsurely and slightly off-put by his own wording.

  Bill made a face like he had eaten something that disagreed with him and continued on like a question had never been asked.

  “There was a man, a Squamish named Eslahan. He was a villager on this island so many, many years ago, a gatherer in a small tribe. He lived with his wife in a lesser hut on the outskirts of the tribe, a wife who had a sickness and two young children who he was trying to teach the ways of their people. One day, Eslahan took his children out for a trip into the woods, to find berries and other fruit to take home. It was a normal day as far as he could tell. The sun was blazing, the birds were chirping and the rodents scurrying. He was enjoying spending time with his little ones as they were enjoying learning from their father. And then they heard it, off in the distance, the growls”.

  “A wolf?” Violet asked.

  The older man shook his head, “Wolves. Eslahan picked up his children and ran back to their home, dropping everything they had brought with them. When they arrived they found a pack of wolves surrounding their hut. It was only seconds that they were there, but it felt like a lifetime to Eslahan, as he got close enough to spot what was left of his wife’s lifeless body on the ground in their home, ripped into shreds by the hungry animals. Gripped with madness, Eslahan attacked the wolves with his bare hands, intending to rip their heads from their bodies as they had done to his wife. But he was quickly taken down by the pack, his legs bitten into from every angle until he was left helplessly bleeding on the ground. It was only then that he remembered his children, who were both terrified and crying for their father not twenty feet from where they were born and raised...and where they would soon die. Eslahan tried to call out for help, his village within shouting distance from his home. But as the scream grew from his throat, the wolves lashed out violently to halt his noises. In fear of angering them further Eslahan remained quiet, save for his pained weeping. The boy was taken first. A wolf leaped from his side and gripped his throat in its jaws. Landing on top of him on the ground, it was only a few seconds of fear before the wolf snapped his neck like a twig, ending what was the worst moment in the boy’s young life”.

  Bill made a grand gesturing motion with his hands as if he were breaking a large branch of his own, his flair for the dramatic clear in the both the story and in style as he sacrificed drink by spilling it over the ground as he acted out.

  “The little girl however remained, quivering in fear unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She was barely old enough to understand what was about to happen to her, and yet, that made it so much worse. She cried out for her daddy, who did his best to hold his head up high enough to look her in the eyes, his body weak from the loss of blood. It was a small blessing that at least they were able to share one final moment together before she was pounced upon, her frail little body crumbling underneath a tide of muscle and fur”.

  Bill made a slow, falling motion of his upright hand, nearly tipping out his drink entirely.

  “Within seconds her screams were silenced as her throat was ripped out. Eslahan wailed out in agony, crying to the stars for allowing his family to be taken so cruelly. It was that echoing, earth-shattering cry that was finally noticed by the Wolf Star, who responded in a rage. The Wolf Star blamed Eslahan for being weak, for not being able to take care of his own family. But most importantly, he condemned his wolves for behaving without honour. As repentance, the Wolf Star permeated Eslahan with his own life force, which healed and strengthened the man beyond anything that this Earth had seen before. Eslahan become part-man and part-wolf and more than either could ever be on their own. The newly reinvigorated beast set forth immediately to destroy the pack that killed his family, tearing out their throats with his teeth as they did to his kin. As the story is told, Eslahan, whom you know as Sourmouth, continues to stalk this island to correct the injustices that he sees. The problem is that after all of these years living as an animal, as a man with the powers of a god...Eslahan has gone irreversibly insane. It’s said that the beast no longer can tell friend from foe, right from wrong, and that what he sees as unjust no longer follows the rules of man”.

  The silence could virtually be felt in the air. The radio sang and the wind whistled in the trees outside. But none of the four were saying anything beyond their heavy breathing.

  Riley thought about what he had heard. It certainly was intricate. Bill was a natural at story telling. But not much was actually learned that could possibly help their situation.

  Violet was lost in thought, trying to decide whether or not she believed that any of the story was actually true.

  “Did your father ever tell you anything about whether Sourmouth was dangerous? Now I mean,” Riley asked as he finished the last of his beer.

  “Dangerous how? Dangerous like a bee sting or dangerous like a beheading?”


  “I want to know if we are in danger. I want to know whether we need to escape as fast as we can or whether we can stick around investigating this thing”.

  Bill’s shoulders rose and fell, his mustache twitching with his facial contortions.

  “Again...it depends on whether or not you believe in the story an old drunk tells. I don’t pretend to know that I’m telling you the absolute truth. I’m just telling you what my father told me, for what good his word was”.

  “Did he tell you that story with as much blood in it?” Stanley asked.

  Bill turned to his friend, “He told it with much more”.

  “Is there anything else you could tell us? Anything at all,” Violet inquired with her best doe eyes.

  “Me? No. I’m fresh out of stories. But I might know someone who can”.

  “Who’s that?”

  “He’s a student at the University of B.C studying some sort of biology. He’s the grandson of an old friend of mine. Goes by the name of Tsitusem. He likes to hang around the cultural centres on the island and in the city. He’s got himself a personal project where he’s attempting to preserve Squamish history on paper and in internet. Of course he doesn’t get very far, a lot of the old guys like us don’t like having our stories being written down; goes against tradition. But Tsitusem is trying to drag us into the 21st century whether we like it or not. I’m sure that he’s heard something or other about what you’re looking into”.

  “We’d love to get in touch with him if we can,” said Violet.

  Bill nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out his old-timey flip cellphone.