Bartender

New Here?

2010-10-15T10:43:00.001-07:00

Hey there! I'm Daniel O'Brien, the Senior Writer for Cracked.com. This used to be a blog, but now it exists solely as the online home of my free novella, "Bartender." The blog that used to live here now lives over at ThisDanOBrien. Check it out.

About Bartender

I started writing this in 2007 while studying Creative Writing at Rutgers University and working, appropriately enough, as a bartender. It was originally written to entertain my friends, (the real-life Mike and Joe, and my brothers, David and Tommy), and I'm proud to say that I've just barely accomplished that, (Mike still hasn't read it). One day I would like to fix all of the typos, clean up some of the plot issues and generally make this a better version of itself, but Cracked keeps me pretty busy. Some day.

If you haven't read it yet, start here.

Chapter Twenty: The End.

2007-12-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

“I’m gonna switch things up today,” Mike said. “Gimme an Amaretto Sour.”
“Interesting,” Joe said. “My mom like Amaretto Sours.”
“Hair-pulling and the reverse cowgirl,” Mike said, and we both stared at him. “On the subject of ‘Things Your Mom Like,’” he clarified.

Things were pretty much back to normal. It had been four months since...well, everything. We were sitting in my fully-repaired bar. It looks the same as it used to, but a couple of the smells inherent to a building that’s seen its fair share of guests from all walks of life are missing right now. I didn’t think I’d miss those smells. I didn’t even notice them, in fact, until they were gone, but now it’s all I think about when I’m in here. Sawdust and some kind of lemon-scented furniture polisher: that’s not what my bar’s supposed to smell like.
We’ll be reopening the bar tomorrow but, until then, we’re taking the opportunity of an empty bar to sit and drink. A lot of people are excited about the reopening, which is great. Hopefully, we can take care of the awful smell of a new, untouched bar and give this place some character again.
I looked over my friends. To be honest, very little has changed for us, except our uniforms. Joe wears a suit a lot more often now that he’s back to practicing law. He specializes in Immigration Law, fighting for people who came into the country illegally to stay here. A kid’s family is murdered, they run to America, and Joe fights like hell to keep them here. It’s noble, but it’s also exhausting. He doesn’t like talking about it. Every once and a while, he still drives his ice cream truck. He looks great in a suit.
Mike is a mail man now, I guess. He certainly has a legitimate postal worker’s uniform, and I often see him carrying a bag full of mail, but I’ve never actually seen him deliver any. If he truly is a mail man, he is an awful, awful one who never should have been hired in the first place. He will, presumably, keep cashing the government’s checks until he is inevitably fired.
I’m fine. My chest hurts every once and a while, but the doctors say that’s natural and will most likely never stop. I spent a month recovering and the remaining time bartending with Dave while my bar was under construction. It was nice, working with both of my brothers, and for the brief four months while my bar was nonexistent, Dave officially had the #1 spot. I will never stop reminding him of this.

With the Emperor of Spain’s (okay, excessive) execution, the International Mafia underwent a total redesign. A whole lot of smaller factions emerged under leaders that had studied and worked directly with the Emperor or Rebecca. The massive destruction made headlines all over the country and sent the message that the Emperor’s brute force negotiation tactics are a thing of the past. These New Mafias are more businesses than gangs. I don’t really give a shit. They’re staying away from me and my bar, and that’s what’s important.

Joe was reading a Time magazine that Mike should have delivered a few days ago, and Mike was going through his bag looking for checks. We don’t talk about Rebecca or the Emperor too much these days. For one thing, we’re a little busy, what with law firms and mail-tampering and all. For another, this whole situation, with a little bit of time, just becomes another strange thing that’s happened to us. “Remember that Emperor guy,” we might say in a year or two. “He was fuckin’ weird.” Sure, I have the scar from the Emperor’s bullet to remind me, but I have lots of scars, each with their own story. If I dwell too long on any one scar, I might miss somethings that are happening in real time.
“Hey, if I was having sex with a chick that was a quarter black, but we were interrupted midway through, can I still technically say I nailed a black chick,” Mike asked. Mike directed his question to Joe, which just proves that Mike doesn't actually have a clue what a lawyer is responsible for knowing.
“No,” Joe answered. “The non-black percentage needs to be inversely related to the amount of times you have sex. So, one-fourth-black chick....you’d need to have sex with her three full times before you can say you nailed a black chick.”
“Dammit,” Mike said.

These are the things I would miss.

Chapter Nineteen: Shot

2007-11-11T22:37:00.000-08:00

You’ve probably never been shot. If you have, you already know what I’m about to say. It totally fucking blows. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been raised on a steady diet of action movies where, when the hero gets shot, he keeps moving. Maybe he’s limping or clutching his wound, but he keeps going. While I never really thought I could, Schwarzenegger-like, simply walk off a whirling shitstorm of bullets, I always felt that the idea that the combination of adrenaline, willpower and shock could keep my legs moving after being shot was at least vaguely grounded in reality. It isn’t. It isn’t at all. I didn’t rip out the bullet and throw it back, I didn’t flex my shirt off and spin kick my assailant, I didn’t even turn around. I fell. I dropped first to my knees, and then just fell forward, my face against the side of the van, my arms at my sides refusing to listen to my commands.
I could still blink and groan, but breathing was becoming slightly more difficult. Every time I tried to inhale, my chest tightened up. It was strange; it felt like it was tightening but expanding at the same time, pressing up against my chest. With breathing and moving being such an issue, I certainly couldn't fight my way out of this and I couldn't even unleash the string of obscenities intended for the Emperor. All I could do was listen. My back arched uncomfortably and my cheek pressed hard against the van, I listened. I heard the Emperor opening a small case, the click of a little button attached to a spring lock being pressed. A cigarette case, I guessed. Too much of an asshole to keep his cigarettes in the regular box. That sounds like the Emperor. My suspicion was confirmed when I heard a zippo lighter flip open and ignite. Then, I just heard the Emperor’s breathing. Officially, my least favorite sound.
“Do you know what makes me a better man than you, Mr. Donahue?” Nothing, I wanted to say. Get over here, I’m gonna bite your face off. His voice was getting closer, so I assumed he was squatting or leaning towards me now.
“Discipline, Mr. Donahuge. It is discipline that makes me a smart business man; I can recognize when to buy and when to sell regardless of personal bias or pride. It’s why I’m so wealthy today.” You smell like shit, I want to rip your throat out with my teeth. “It is discipline, Mr. Donahue, that keeps me from, as you have done, running blindly into a fight for which I am unprepared.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around so I was facing him, dropping me roughly back against the van.
“It is discipline that keeps me Untouchable. A disciplined man is free of personal attachments. Your personal attachment to Ms. Venom has led you here, while my lack of attachment puts me, as usual, in a position of considerable power. It is discipline, Mr. Donahue, that separates us. It’s what makes you the bleeding man with the hole in his chest, and it’s what makes me the man with the gun. I am always the man with the gun. Do you understand?”
“Gimme…Gimme one of those cigarettes.” It came out as a wheeze, slightly louder than a whisper. And, if that was my last breath, perhaps it could have been used for something nobler or, failing that, something much, much cooler. But I gotta tell you, I really wanted a cigarette. More than that though, I wanted a little bit of time. That shock and that numbness I was looking for earlier was just starting to creep in and kick out the paralyzing pain that had previously settled in. My arms were ready to listen to me again and my legs were begging for a set of genitals to kick. I was twitching my fingers while the Emperor rambled on with his clearly practiced Douchebag Discipline Manifesto for Nerds, and I just needed another minute or so to develop one more big burst of energy. He was laughing, like a stupid dick.
“That ego of yours, Mr. Donahue. It is incredible. But, no. You cannot have a cigarette. Do you know why I won’t give you one?” If he says “discipline” I’m gonna shit, I swear to God.
“It’s--” he stopped himself from answering and quickly redrew his pistol. He wrapped his left arm under my armpits, pulled me up violently and jammed the pistol into my temple with his right hand. Mike, Joe, David and Tommy were running toward us, and he knew it. I made myself as limp and motionless in his arms as I could.
“Stop,” he said when they were about 10 feet away. “I will shoot him.”
“Go ahead,” Mike said. “Hank’s a robot.”
“I will shoot him,” The Emperor repeated. “Right now, I am going to walk away. You are all going to put your weapons down and walk back towards the warehouse. I am going to walk away, and you will not follow, unless you would like Mr. Donahue to die.” I nodded, and they all put their weapons down.
“He’s not programmed to die,” Mike maintained. “Only to fight. And nail your dead girlfriend.”
“Exgirlfriend,” Joe corrected.
“Enough,” The Emperor said.
“Tell them the thing about discipline,” I whispered. He pressed the gun harder into my temple.
“Hank, quickly: initiate self-destruct sequence.”
“Turn around and walk away,” The Emperor said, his voice getting louder.
“Okay, calm down,” Mike said, and began to loosen his pants. If there’s one thing you can always count on that guy to do…
“Stop that,” The Emperor said.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Joe said.
“Great,” David said. “All this over a bartender?”
“The best bartender,” I pointed out.
“See, now, that’s what I take issue with,” David said, moving forward. “Emperor, how exactly did you decide on him as the ‘best’ bartender? Is it the Schulmanac? I mean, the Schulmanac is deeply flawed. Please don’t tell me that’s all you’re going on.”
“Dude,” I said. “You’re number two. Just live with it.”
“It’s just, I feel like you didn’t really look closely at all the bartenders, you know? I mean, I happen to have my sales from the past quarter as well as Hank’s sales. Have you seen these numbers?” Mike was stepping out of his pants, Joe was questioning whether or not Mike was man enough to take off his boxers and throw them at the Emperor, and Dave was reaching into his back pocket, presumably to produce his top sales record. Meanwhile, Tommy was quietly edging his way closer, taking advantage of the shadow that the fallen streetlight created. Even more meanwhile, I was slowly regaining my strength.
“You’re not gonna do it,” Joe said to Mike. “Because you’re a Pussy McPusskerson. You’re Puss in Boots.”
“Dude,” Mike said grabbing the top of his boxers, “you’re in for so much dick and you don’t even know it.”
“You’re a vagina. You’re the Jolly Green Vagiant.”
“Oh man, all aboard the cock train, a one way express trip from here directly to Dick Central. No stops, just cock.”
“Enough,” The Emperor shouted.
“Here, look,” David said, his hand still in his back pocket. “I think, once you see these numbers, you’ll reconsider which bartender you want.”
“Those numbers don’t take style into account.”
"You're former Italian prime minister Benito Pussolini. You operate on a campaign of fascism and monthly bleeding."
“This is Ground Control to Major Dick, you will be forcefully penetrating the atmosphere in T Minus 10 seconds.”
“You’re George Orwell’s Vagineteen Eight Four.”
"Becase, I mean, if you really want the best..." David was moving closer.
“Enough!”
And then it happened. The Emperor removed the pistol from my head and was going to aim at someone and, no matter how distracted we all seemed, that was what everyone had been waiting for. As soon as the barrel was no longer against my head, David quickly pulled a handgun from his back pocket, and trained it on the Emperor, Mike produced a gun from somewhere within his boxers, Tommy emerged from the shadows to the Emperor’s right, and I mustered whatever strength I had left to throw my head backwards, right into the Emperor’s stupid fucking nose and took his confusion as a chance to slide behind him, out of his grasp. Before he could even decide which annoying asshole he was going to point his gun at, we had him surrounded, each of us with a firearm and a steady hand. The Emperor froze.

I looked around. My best friends and my two older brothers all temporarily putting their own lives on hold so they could train their guns on my lunatic enemy. He smiled.
“What are you smiling at assface?” Mike asked. “You’re cock-deep in shit sandwiches. Nothing funny about that. Not for you, anyway.” The Emperor handed me his pistol.
“Do you see what I did? That is discipline, because this is a fight that I know I cannot win with a gun. I have made a smart choice. Do you know what it is that I have, Mr. Donahue?”
“Too many speeches,” Joe answered.
“A ridiculous name,” Tom offered.
“Horribly skewed bartender information,” David suggested.
“Ooh! You have…what is it when you don’t have a dick,” Mike said. “That’s what you have. Not a dick. Not a vagina, exactly, just, like, a total absence of dick.” The Emperor’s eyes were trained on me.
“Money, Mr. Donahue, and power. More than you can imagine, and I am big enough to realize when to use it. Come now, Mr. Donahue, I can recognize when my pride needs to come secondary. I have enough money to make all of your problems --and all of their problems-- go away. I will leave you alone, because I am a man of my word, and you can have anything. Pride is one thing, Mr. Donahue, but there is much I need to accomplish, none of which I can do if I am dead. Whatever you want. Do not repeat your mistakes, Mr. Donahue. You have already turned down an incredibly generous offer this week, and just look at how much trouble it’s caused. It is the smart choice, Mr. Donahue, and there is no shame in being smart. Think about it. All of your problems. Gone.” I looked at Tommy and David, and I looked at Mike and Joe.
“Way I see it,” I said, “is I have a pretty great life. Really, I just have this one problem. One persistent, irritating fucking problem, and I don’t need any money to take care of it. " I took the cigarette out of The Emperor's mouth and took one. long. drag. I cocked the pistol. "Gentlemen?”
The Emperor stopped smiling.
The gun blasts lit up the street.

Chapter Eighteen: Brothers to the Rescue

2007-10-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

The explosion was much bigger than I expected it to be. We were out of harm’s way in time, I guess I just didn’t know just how conducive to explosion Patron Tequila was. I’ll remember for next time. Mike and I were safe behind a couple of barrels that I hoped weren’t filled with oil or gasoline, and Joe took the opportunity of the explosion to run to our van. And there’s a crucial difference: when Joe sees a bomb coming, he utilizes it and does something useful with the extra time, and I dive, (face first), behind an enormous, potentially flammable barrel. Joe’s so much Goddamned smarter than me it’s not even funny. Mike was sitting up, his head over the top of the barrel, mesmerized by the flames towering over us. The glow of the fire lit up his face, and I’d say he looked just like a little kid going to see fireworks for the first time if it wasn’t for the beard and all the blood drying around his mouth. I hope there’s no kid that looks like that, anyway.
Joe came running up, his arms full of guns. He had to sidestep at one point to avoid a man on fire running around like…a man on fire.
“Joe,” Mike said. “Did you fucking see that explosion?”
“What explosion?”
“The- Oh, got it, you’re being an asshole.” I turned towards the door where we came in just in time to see it swing open. Dave entered first and Tommy followed right behind him; they moved like an efficient, two-man-SWAT-team, covering each other, surveying the entire room, calling out to each other, (in little codes, I liked to believe). They each carried two handguns and wore backpacks, presumably full of weapons. Tommy spotted us and ran towards us while Dave covered him.
“Hey, man,” Mike said. I was relieved, but furious.
“Tom, man, thanks, but…how did…I told you guys to stay away, you said-” He put his hand up to stop me.
“If you knew we were coming, you’d have figured out a way to stop us.”
“But-”
“Deal with it.”
“Wait, Hank- you didn’t see this coming?” Mike asked.
“Jesus, man.”
God dammit.
Dave caught up to us.
“Hey guys.”
“Dave,” Mike said, advancing with his arms outstretched. Dave pointed a gun at him. “OK, you’re right…Too soon.”
“What are we dealing with, here?” Tommy asked.
“Uh… a bunch…a lot of guys. I didn’t…” I trailed off. They probably expected me to have at least a rough estimation of how many guys we were up against, and possibly what they were carrying. Efficiency does not, apparently, run in this family.
“Fantastic.” A shot rang out, the first shot since the explosion. They were getting their bearings and remembering how much they wanted to kill us. A second shot rang out and, as if it was a starter pistol in the most dangerous race in history, we all took off running in various directions.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a closed space while a whole shitload of guns were going off. Probably not. I’m sure you’ve seen similar scenes in movies and, if you saw the movie in a theater, and depending on whether or not the particular theater had Dolby Surround Sound, you may have thought, “Goodness, that sure is loud.”
It is nothing- I can tell you better than most- nothing like the real thing. You can’t think, you can’t hear your own voice, so you just shoot. You can’t tell if anyone is running up behind you, you can’t hear your friend or brother warning you, you can’t even hear the little click that tells you you’re out of bullets. At first, there’s just a whole lot of “boom”-ing going on that drowns out all the other noise. You pray for it to stop, just so you can get a moment of peace to gather your thoughts, because you think this is the worst part. But soon enough, the noise stops completely. The shooting continues alright, and the screaming continues, but the noise just stops, and now you’re deaf. The only sound you hear is your heart, which is pissing its pants right now. That’s the worst part.
So I ran around, temporarily deaf, and shooting anyone I didn’t recognize but, really, looking for The Emperor. The flames were getting bigger and, in my frantic shooting spree, I tripped over my own feet, which is why I never played soccer. Also, soccer is for boring losers. As luck would have it, I landed face to face with Rebecca Venom. She was still wearing that smile she had on when The Emperor shot her. I picked myself up off the ground and surveyed what was going on around me. I don’t know when they did it, but Tommy and David dropped off extra guns and ammo in various places around the warehouse. They constantly moved while they shot and timed their movements so that, whenever they ran out of ammo, they ended up right in front of one of their pre-placed guns. I remember earlier when I’d run out of bullets, my response was to throw my gun at the nearest henchman and discuss in graphic detail a few things I would do to said henchman’s mother while running for cover.
My brothers are slightly more useful in battle than I am.
I saw Joe sniping from behind a very tall stack of boxes, and I saw Mike behind a fairly large henchman twisting his neck. If I wasn’t temporarily deaf, I imagine I’d be able to hear the snap from here. So, every member of my team was accounted for and doing well, (except for me, tripping over my own damn stupidity and rubbing the cramp in my side). We might have actually been winning, but none of that would have mattered in a little while, not with all these flames spreading. Jesus, that Patron must be strong. I wonder if I could power my car with it. Some of the Emperor’s men were already heading for the door, but I still couldn’t find the Emperor. Then, I was struck hard, right in the temple, and I went down.
If it was a bullet, I imagine I’d be slightly more dead right now. I looked around and spotted a rusty, bent, tin can rolling away from me. Joe, trying to get my attention and, apparently as deaf as I was, thought the best way to catch my eye would be to throw a can at it. I started to get up when another can, from Mike, bounced off my forehead. He laughed. Meanwhile, Joe was directing my attention to our van. It was pulling out of the warehouse with some difficulty. I saw Joe mouth the word “Emperor.” I took off running as Mike kept pelting me with garbage.
As soon as I got outside, my ears started ringing. Not the most pleasant sound, but a welcome replacement for total deafness. One of The Emperor’s men followed me out, and I quickly turned around and fired. Two shots, and he was down. I scanned the road for the van and saw it, about 10 yards down the street, swerving around and scraping up against parked cars on the side of the road. I checked my bullets. Three left. Gotta make them count. I lifted the gun and aimed for the back-right tire of the van. The first shot missed completely when the van swerved unexpectedly and the second hit the bumper.
“Come on, God dammit,” I yelled, because I couldn’t really hear myself otherwise. I closed one eye and pulled the trigger. Contact. The van skidded for a while and I was already running towards it. It almost tipped over a few times and finally came to a stopped when it collided, hood-first, with one of those steel poles that holds up a streetlight.
I ran up to the car and grabbed the door handle for the front seat. I pulled it open.
“Alright you son of a- What the fuck?” The driver seat was empty, and the passenger side door was open. Someone smarter, which is to say, anyone else on my team that wasn’t Mike, would have been able to anticipate this and would have put some distance between himself and the car. I didn’t see it coming. The possibility that the Emperor would sneak past me at any point never occurred to me, which is why his voice surprised me so much. That, and it was one of the first noises I heard that wasn’t a ringing sound. I was still facing the car, trying to figure everything out, when he came up behind me.
“Mr. Donahue,” he said, and then I heard the shot.
Then, I fell down.
You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Chapter Seventeen: The Emperor of Spain.

2007-09-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

Mike ran up to me, escorting Rebecca, who still refused to touch him. Rebecca looked unharmed, but Mike had a couple of fresh gashes and, I learned, a loose tooth from getting hit in the mouth with the butt of a gun. He fumbled around inside his mouth for awhile and eventually pulled his tooth out. He pulled his own fucking tooth out of his mouth and didn’t scream or anything.

Mike was like that.

“Hanker Sore, did you see me?” He was bouncing up and down, like a kid asking his mom if she saw his dive. “This guy hit me in the face with his gun, right? And I just gave him a look, like, ‘Fuck you,’ right? And I grabbed his shirt and I said ‘Big mistake, buddy.’ It was fucking great.”
“It sounds great, I’m very impressed. You’re so brave.” Mike ran over to the Specialist’s lifeless body.
“Holy Tits, Hank! I totally thought this guy was gonna kill you.”
“Thanks for your support. He broke my hand, and he was about to kill me, and-" There's nothing wrong with embellishing a little. "And then I said ‘C’mon, can you just give me a hand?’ and chopped him in the neck.”
“Yea. I bet you didn’t say that.” I turned to Rebecca. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine but, Hank…your hand.” I looked down. It didn’t even look like a hand anymore. It looked like someone was trying to make a hand out of clay, then got bored and threw the clay in the microwave to see what would happen.
“Yea, it sucks, but I’ll live. Where’s Joe?” I surveyed the room. Around eight or nine bodies littered the floor. Looks like everything was working out. I spotted Joe, his gun trained on…someone.

“Joseph, what’ve you got goin’ on over there?”
“Hank,” he said. “I’d like you to meet the douche canoe that had your bar burned down.” The Emperor. Mike, Rebecca and I joined Joe in a semi circle around the Emperor, Mike tossed me a gun.
“Should we say any kind of, like, badass ending line? Like, ‘this’ll teach you to burn down bars, Shit Parade‘? Something like that?”

I stared at the Emperor.
This is the guy. This is the guy responsible for the worst few days of my life, to put it very, very lightly. A stubborn little rich boy with too much free time who isn’t used to being told no. He had every quality of every asshole I’d ever met. A suit that cost more than my car. Well-trimmed hair, black with a streak of silver. A pretentious goatee and a slight smirk, despite the fact that four guns were currently pointed at him. Mike’s, in fact, was trained on his crotch. That god damn smirk. That's the smirk of someone who's never had to answer to someone else. Someone who's never been held accountable. That fucking smirk.

“No, Mike, we don’t say anything. We just shoot this motherfucker.”

But we waited. Maybe we wanted to savor this, or maybe we were waiting for him to say something. Anything. I know my boys. Joe wanted him to provide a reasonable explanation, and Mike wanted him to beg. I wanted an apology for Rebecca. He just kept staring at me with that damn smirk. Mike looked him up and down. Rich, showy people sometimes made Mike feel intimidated.
“My dick’s bigger than yours,” he said to compensate.
“Mine’s smarter,” Joe added.

“Mr. Donahue.” he said. His voice wasn’t cracking, there was no quiver to it or anything. He certainly wasn’t behaving like someone who was about to get shot. “I suppose you feel pretty good about yourself, yes?” I did, truth be told. Things were going well. It was around 12:30 and I was still alive. All things considered, we were doing phenomenally better than I thought we would.

“Well, actually, I feel great, Mr Emperor, but, I gotta tell you, not half as great as I’m gonna feel when I pull this trigger.”
“You had better put your gun down, Mr. Donahue,” Rebecca said, aiming the shotgun that I fucking gave her right at my chest. My chest. I lowered my gun. You've got to be kidding me. Mike smiled and didn’t put his gun down. He winked at me.

“Why, Becky? Because as we all know, there aren’t even any bullets in that gun. Isn’t that right, Hank?” He sounded so confident. Joe was laughing, too. If this was a plan, I was not made aware of it.
“Uh...What? Of course there are, Mike, put your gun down.” Mike lost his smile, and with it, the color in his face.
“You gave her a loaded gun? A gun with fucking bullets in it?” Joe spoke next, his eyes wide. “Hank, please tell me you’re kidding.” I was silent.

“You gave her a weapon?”

Everyone was staring at me. I remembered the looks they were giving from when I used to play little league baseball. It was the looks I got when it was a tie game, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, two outs, and I struck out. I just lost this game.

“She’s a traitor! She used to work for him, remember? Like, a day ago? How did you not see this coming?!”
“I…well-”
“You fucking moron.” Mike moved his gun from the Emperor and pointed it at me. “Haven’t you seen any movie ever? She’s the Sexy Stranger!”
“I thought-”
“Of course she’s a bad guy, for fuck’s sake!”

“I am so pissed at you right now,” Joe said, shaking his head. “Irresponsible, really. I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming.” I swear to God I didn’t. How could I?

“You guys did?”
“Yea, totally,” Mike screamed. His face was red now and spit was flying out of his mouth.
“Well then why didn’t you tell me?”
“We figured it was so obvious, jackass. I mean, once or twice I thought about bringing it up but I figured ‘you know what, Hank’s a smart guy, he doesn’t need me to insult his intelligence by pointing out this totally obvious issue. I‘m sure he’s got it under control.’”
Mike smacked his head in mock-realization.
“Ooh, Hank, she’s got red hair too, and great tits and a face. Figured I’d fill you in on some of the trickier details. Idiot.” Joe threw his gun away and folded his arms. I’ve never seen him so disappointed in me, and I practically made a career of disappointing him.
“Honestly, Hank, I was sure you were gonna be prepared for this, there wasn't a doubt in my mind. I was really counting on you having a plan that depended on her doublecrossing your ass.” Rebecca and the Emperor stood quietly, staring at the floor, like neighbors afraid to get involved in a domestic fight on game night.
“Guys…I…I’m sorry. I thought...I figured…we could trust her, I mean-”
“But why?! We just met her! She’s such an evil bitch, how could she have convinced you she was legit? What could she possibly have said or-” Mike stopped. He looked first at Joe, then they both looked at me. Mike nodded, and they both seemed to have calmed down.

“Oh. You guys banged.”
“There it is.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Hank, be serious. It has everything to do with it. Red heads, man, that’s your kryptonite. A good-looking bitch could get you to do or believe anything. Anything,” Joe said.
“That’s not true.”
“Shut up. This is just like that thing with Lexie Murphy.” Joe turned to address the Emperor. “In high school, this girl Lexie looked, just looked at his balls for, like, six minutes, and he gave her his fucking car.”
“I didn't give her my car, she said she only needed it for the weekend.” I should call her.
“Irresponsible.”
“You know, if we’d have known, we would have been able to see this coming You really shoulda told us you nailed her, Hank.”
“I was gonna.”
“Ooh, a gentleman,” Rebecca said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Mike yelled.
“Enough!” It was the Emperor. “That. Is. Enough.”
“One more thing,” Mike said.
“No. No more. No more words at all.” He pulled a perfectly polished, silver pistol from his jacket pocket. He turned to Rebecca who, I swear to God, looked just like a little kid. Like she’d saved the change from her lunch money for a whole year and bought Daddy a brand new watch.
“You’ve done very well,” he said, advancing toward her, and she closed her eyes. Her entire body relaxed. Her mouth moved to say ‘Thank you’ but no sound came out. He put his left hand on the small of her back and took her gun (my gun) with his right. He kissed her on the temple softly and she melted onto him. Her eyes still closed, she opened her arms.
“Darling,” he said, and he shot her in the head.
Right in the same spot where he’d kissed her, he put a bullet.
His eyes were off her before she hit the ground.

“Whoa.”

It was Mike, and it pretty much summed up how we all felt. There was a serious amount of time where no one said anything. The Emperor saw we wanted an explanation and eventually spoke.

“She failed me.”
“Fuck you,” Joe said.
“She failed me.”
“But- No, she brought us right to you-”
“She retrieves you at the cost of several men as well as my Specialist, and this is a success? No. She was pathetic.”
“All she wanted-”
“Mr. Donahue-”
“All she wanted-”
“Excuse me.“ It was the first time he dropped that smirk and the first time he raised his voice. “Let me tell you something: what she wanted is not important to me. Neither is what you want. Neither is your perception of what is ‘fair,’ or anyone else’s perception. It does not concern me. Do you understand? I have never, ever had to justify a single decision I have ever made to anyone, Mr. Donahue, I can’t imagine why I’d start. No. Not now, not with you.” He spoke like he was a professor, giving a lecture on being an enormous dick. The smirk was back.

Several more men in black suits were slowly entering. The receiving end of that distress signal we tried so hard to stop. There was just too much right now. Bewilderment about Rebecca, unyielding pain in my hand, our impending doom, and a seething rage for the Emperor. I didn’t think I could hate that bastard any more than I already did. He was a bad, bad guy. I looked at Mike and Joe as the men surrounded us, because this is it. This is how we die. Mike smiled.

“It’s a cool way to go.”

I was about to say something, something, we can pretend, that would have been profound and memorable. Something deep and powerful, but I didn’t. Instead, a crash, the sound of something being thrown through one of those big, rectangular windows about a foot shy of the ceiling, interrupted what would have been the most badass ending line you’ve ever fucking heard. Something was flying down toward us and everyone was squinting to see what it was.

I have pretty good eyes, myself. The label on the bottle was what set it off for me. Bright, lime green with silver letters. It was about half full with a clear liquid, a liquid that big spenders like thrown into their margaritas, despite the fact that the slight taste improvement by no means justifies the ridiculous price increase. It was a bottle of Patron Tequila, (perhaps you’ve heard about it in rap songs).
This was a special bottle.
Instead of the tan, spherical cork that normally seals the Patron, this particular bottle is topped with a damp rag, lit on one end. The result is the most needlessly expensive Molotov Cocktail you’ve ever seen. I don’t know if you know too much about what happens when a strong alcohol and a flame meet. The Cliffnotes version is “a pretty big boom.” As some of the other men were slowly realizing what was happening- when they realized that, upon impact, the tequila and the fire would combine for a very unpleasant, very pricey explosive distraction- they ran in every direction. My eyes are great, so I recognized it immediately and was already out of harm’s way while some of the slower henchmen were just catching on. If my eyes were a little better, I’d have smiled, because I’d have noticed the three pink jelly beans at the bottom of the bottle.

Chapter Sixteen: The One About Fighting

2007-07-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Before we fuckin’ did this, I had one other thing I need to fuckin’ do. While Joe was heading up the stairs of what was once the Olde Towne Bank, I had Mike wait outside of the van so I could tell Rebecca…something. I hadn’t exactly figured that out yet, just that this is the time in the movie when our hero says something sexy and dangerous and memorable. My palms were sweaty and something was doing backflips in my stomach. I decided not to open with that. I was about to kill a whole bunch of guys, I wasn’t too prepared for or thrilled about it, and I’m sure that’s exactly how I looked. Rebecca Venom, comparatively, looked terrific. Calm, strong. She was nodding even though I wasn’t saying anything, like she understood all of the wonderful things I was too dumb and nervous to come up with.

“Don’t try to say anything clever or meaningful,” she said. “Don’t say anything at all. Thank you.” She leaned in and kissed me. She managed to open the side door behind me while we kissed without skipping a beat.
“It’s time. Right now. Don’t miss.” Strong women.

God damn.

I closed the door before I could say anything stupid, and Mike and I started jogging as quickly and as quietly as we could across the street.

“I can’t wait till blowjobs get just a little bit more acceptable to the mainstream, know what I mean?” Mike whispered.
“Of course not, Mike.”
“Well, I mean, when we were in high school, parties were parties. Some pong, a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade to get nine freshmen drunk, and shitty music. If you were lucky, maybe, maybe you hooked up with someone by the end of the night, right?”
“Go on.”
“Right, that was our high school scene. Hooks up sometimes if you're lucky, consistent blowjobs if you're legendary. Now at high school parties, these kids are just fuckin’ hookin’ up with everybody all the time for no reason. It’s like, ‘Ooh, Becky, did you fuckin’ hook up with Timmy yet?’ And Becky says ‘No,’ and then Becky and Timmy just start fuckin’ make out, and then, like ‘bye,’ ya know?”
“Why are you still going to high school parties?”
“It just seems like high school girls when we were in high school weren’t as easy or…no, that sounds mean, not easy…accommodating. They weren’t as accommodating when we were in high school. High school guys now, man, they have no fucking idea how good they‘ve got it.”
“Yea, good for them, can we focus-”
“Anyway that wasn’t really the point. Like, here’s the evolution: For us, hooking up randomly at high school parties was unacceptable. This new generation, it’s totally cool. You’ve gotta figure in a few years, blowjobs will be just as fucking acceptable as hooking up is now, ya know?”
“You really put a lot of thought into this.”
“I made a few charts, but doesn’t that sound awesome? Like, just think about goin’ to some high school graduation party in a few years.”
“When you’re thirty?”
“And this girl’s like ‘Ooh, Sandra, did you blow Mike yet?’ And she’ll be like ‘No.’ And the other girl will say ‘Oh, you should totally blow Mike.’ And I’m like ‘FUCK YEA YOU SHOULD.’ Ya know? That’s what it’s gonna be like, man.”
“I can’t believe this might be the last conversation I ever have.”
“You have to guess that even at a party with like, twelve chicks, you’re still gonna get fuckin’ twelve blowjobs. Jesus. I might get tired of them.”
“Mike-”
“That’s ridiculous of course I won’t.”
“Mike. We’re here.” We were at the front door, my hand on the doorknob, Mike up against the wall. We were waiting for a sound, the sound of a bullet flying through the glass window above us. When that happened, the plan would be to-

Crash

Oh, shit. I pulled open the door while Mike spun around and calmly fired into the room. I swung out from behind the door and hesitated, just for a second, to look at the room before I started firing from my kneeling position. These motherfuckers never saw us coming. Two of them were already down, thanks to Joe, by the time I first surveyed the room, and more were going down, it seemed, every second. No one knew where the bullets were coming from; they saw Mike and I firing but there was the sound of glass breaking and Joe’s shots to confuse the whole situation. We couldn’t afford to shoot and duck, then shoot again, so we just shot. I looked at the seven that would be out of Joe’s line of sight and counted them down whenever one of us took one out.
Six. Five. Mike got two, both in the head.
Four. Right where I hope the heart is, though biology was never really my thing.
Three. Mike made sure that guy didn’t have a face anymore. Shit, one of Joe’s targets caught on and dodged out of the sight of the window. That’s one more for us. It took me two bullets to get him, and I’ve never been more disappointed in myself.
Two. Mike is a great shot. I aimed for the head and got the throat. Still effective, totally gross; he let out exactly the kind of sound you’d expect someone to make if they got shot in the throat, and blood sprayed everywhere like the world’s most terrifying sprinkler.
One left, and he looked terrified. Mike and I walked like total badasses into the lobby as the guy backed into the corner. He was holding one of those signal-sending transmitters that we do not want activated and Mike soundly shot it, right out of his hand, taking a few fingers with it. We each aimed at him.
This room was clear.
I quickly went to work picking up their guns and ammo, Mike quickly went to work placing the hand of one corpse onto the crotch of the corpse next to him. He couldn’t stop laughing.
“Everybody's gonna think they died like that.”
“You’re a superstar, Mike. Let’s keep moving. What‘s on the other side of that door?” Mike closed his eyes.
“Long hallway before the garage. No telling if there are any guards in there.” I put my hand on the door handle, without a clue of what I should expect, and almost shrieked like a tiny girl when Joe’s voice on Mike’s walkie talkie shattered the tense silence.
“Uh, guys? Guys are you dead?”
“Oh, yeah, we’re fine. You scared the shit out of Hank, he seriously won't stop pissing. Over.”
“Great, that’s great. You guys were supposed to call me when the room was clear, I have no fucking idea what’s going on down there and you forget to call me. Awesome. That’s not irresponsible or anything. Christ.” I am just always disappointing that guy. We opened the door.
“Fuck!” Mike yelled and he shot the one guy in the hallway. The yell seemed like kind of an overreaction for just one guy.
“Why did you scream?” Mike walked over to the body.
“Look.” He held up the left hand of the dead henchman. The transmitter was in his hand, and the button had been pressed down.
“Fuck.” Joe came running in, scaring the balls off me, yet again.
“Why are you guys just standing around?” Mike showed him the same thing he showed me, the indication that we were screwed in a little while.
“Fuck.” Glad to see we were in agreement. I switched the channel on my walkie talkie to the frequency that I knew Rebecca was on.
“Rebecca, can you hear me?”
“Hank, say ‘over,’” Mike was whispering. “Hank, over. Over.”
“I can hear you, are you alright?”
“Yea, we’re fine. You’re gonna need to do a little bit of driving, like we talked about..”
“Over. Haank, over!”
“OK. Alright. Less than a minute.”
“Good.”
“Over. Hank. Hank, can you-”
“Shut the fuck up, Mike.” We crowded around the door that leads to the garage. We’re going to be in there soon and we are going to face a shit ton of guys. Or maybe we're wrong, maybe there’ll be no one in there, and we’ll all feel very embarrassed. Honestly, I can live with a little embarrassment. I had my ear pressed to the door, listening for the sound of a van driving through a flimsy garage door. After a few seconds that felt like eight weeks, the van exploded into the garage. I hoped she was okay, but I didn’t dwell on her too much because Mike was already shoving his way into the garage. As soon as we got in there

“Fuck.”

I don’t even remember which one of us said that. There was a fuckload of guys in there, and not nearly enough of them were distracted by that van. We split up, like an elite special forces unit and screamed, like a pack of wild thirteen year old girls at a Fray concert. I fired. I fired blindly, but it didn’t matter at this point because there were so many fucking guards that if you fired a random shot, it was more likely that you’d hit someone than you wouldn’t. I dove behind a dusty crate that was full of, I hoped, bulletproof vests. I stuck my head out whenever I stopped hearing bullets flying and tried to shoot as many as I could. In times like these, instincts developed from watching every action movie ever made kick in, they just have to. There’s no time to think when all you hear are gunblasts and Mike screaming “I’m gonna fuck you” at the top of his lungs, so you just have to trust that you’re the good guy and you’re supposed to win. I ran out of bullets in my two beloved handguns a lot sooner than I thought I would and switched over to the automatic machine-gun-type thing that I’d take from one of the dead guards. I pointed it where all the noise was coming from, fired, and ran to another set of crates to hide behind. I don’t know how it was happening, but we were actually doing pretty well. We did have the jump on these guys and they were pretty much in one general area. I started to consider the possibility that we were going to make it as I made my way to Joe, who was very calmly firing from behind an emptied out oil barrel and not missing a single shot. He covered me while I dove behind him.

“I’m so fucking good at this it’s not even funny.” We hid behind the barrel and reloaded while the surprisingly silent henchmen fired at us. Mike was a few feet away, on top of one of the guards, slamming his face into the ground.
“So Hank,” Joe said, shoving a clip into his pistol. “I’ve been thinking- I think I’m gonna be a lawyer. Do the law thing. I’ll miss the truck of course, but, yeah. Immigration Law. I think that sounds good for me.” This was a huge change for Joe, who’d spent such a long time ignoring this path in favor of giving Flintstones Push-Pops to preteens. I answered him the same way I did when he told me the day he graduated law school that he was going to drive an ice cream truck instead of signing a contract with any of the firms that wanted him.
“Cool, man.” Mike crawled up beside us.
“Hey, Vice, I’ve been thinking. I think I’m gonna be a doctor. Just fuckin’ get my shit together and be a doctor, ya know?” I answered him the same way I always do when he announces his big plans.
“Shut the hell up, Mike, your fly is down.”
“Ah hah, Hank!” We fired off a couple of more rounds and checked our ammo. In the movies, ammo is never really an issue. We were, as I kept forgetting, not in a movie and therefore did not have too much. The van where the rest of our guns were stored was currently blocked by The Emperor’s henchmen. It didn’t look like they’d gotten inside it yet, so that was good, but they were shooting the hell out of it. Mike surveyed the room.
“Alright, about eight or nine guys blocking the van, and that looks like its all that’s left right now.” We felt the floor shake and all turned to see The Specialist, about ten yards away, advancing towards us. “Fuck. And, uh…him.”
“Any sign of anyone who looks like an Emperor?” I asked.
“Well no one was wearing a sash with ‘Spain’ in big red letters, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Asshole. The group guarding the van was talking and getting organized, The Specialist was getting closer, moving quickly and dodging behind boxes the whole way.

“OK, plan time. There are two guns with ammo between the three of us right now. Two of us need to go after those, what is it, eight or nine guys, get to Rebecca and the van, and get some more guns. Because eventually, more will show up. We know that. And someone’s got to fight that huge bastard. Probably hand to hand.” Joe said, and they both looked at me. The Specialist was advancing with no weapons. I suppose I wouldn’t carry them either, if I was one. They were both still staring at me. “OK, Mike, get the Specialist,” I wanted to say “and I’ll take a nap.” But, of course, I couldn’t. I got us into this.
“I’ll have ‘the special,’” I would have said if I was in Die Hard. But I’m not, so I just barely wheezed out
“I guess…I guess I’ll take that big guy unless one of you guys wants-” but they were already running away. Fantastic.

Guns were being fired and people were screaming. I didn’t want to turn back and check on Mike and Joe; I couldn’t take my eyes off the gigantic hitman heading towards me. He knew I was unarmed, he knew this was going to be a one-on-one, hand-to-hand fight, and he knew he was going to beat the shit out of me.

I thought back to when I was about fourteen years old, an awkward kid talking to his dad about fighting. My dad had taken a pretty ridiculous amount of martial arts classes in his day, and he took them very, very seriously. He was an ideal candidate for these classes, he understood the importance and responsibility inherent to possessing the knowledge and ability required to straight up murder someone. At fourteen, I did not. I was just a little punk asking my Dad if it was possible to kill someone with one hit and, if so, how. I wanted to know a super secret ninja combination to impress my friends, by murdering every single one of them.

“It’s about commitment,” he had said to me. “Find out how committed you are willing to be. Commitment means understanding the consequences. Yes, legal, but especially moral. To know what an attack does and what it means. What it means for him, and what it means for you. Once you understand the commitment, you decide if you want it or not. And then, you stick with it. If you’re committed, then you’re committed. Because if you want, I can show you some things. If you understand the commitment, I can show you moves that will stop a fight. One move and the fight’s over. And I can show you some moves that would stop a man. Doesn’t matter how big, or strong or fast. One move and that man is done.” He then talked me through a couple of moves from both categories that, at the time, I was too frightened to ever attempt. Commitment, responsibility, and consequences were things, at fourteen, I didn’t understand. Now, I do. I’m in this fight now, with my Dad’s voice in my head, reminding me of his instructions from almost a decade ago, hovering above me like Obi Wan Kenobi. Except my dad isn’t dead, or British and there are no space monsters. There is one giant, though. I considered first the moves to end a fight.

“It sounds stupid,” my Dad’s voice in my head, “but the eyes. Ignore all the complicated moves they’ll teach you in any class. In a real fight, no one is going to wait for you to get any proper moves done. In a street fight, you’re just two guys throwing blind punches. So poke the eyes. Not three stooges stuff, but if you get your fingers in the eyes -jab them up there- just throw four fingers at the eyes and if you get a few in there, the fight is over. You don’t rub off getting jabbed in the eye. He’ll be blind, and you’ll walk away.” The danger in this was getting close. I knew my distance. I could reach with one lunge forward. Step into it now. He’s not expecting you to be any kind of fighter, so move quickly and efficiently. Step in and throw that hand up there. I stopped thinking and started doing. I stopped forward and, to my surprise, he did too. This was not according to plan. He was closer than I expected, but I shot my right hand up anyway. I definitely felt something soft and I definitely sent him back a few steps. I pulled my hand back; blood on my index and middle finger. A good sign. Also, gross. The sudden shift in our positions was too important of a change that I just wasn’t skilled enough to make the proper adjustments for. I’d only made contact with one eye, his left, which he now kept closed. So he was partially blinded, but his pissed-off-at-me status was not partial at all. It was full, I guessed, though I don’t really have anything that could measure…something like that. He was advancing on me now and most likely expecting and preparing for another facial attack.

“A shot to the kidney,” Memory Dad told me, indicating where exactly the human kidney was located. “That’d stop someone right in his tracks.”

As this angry, enormous brick wall with a face approached me, I faked another jab to the eye with my left hand and punched with all my might, right where Memory Dad told me. The brick wall laughed derisively.

“Unless he’s in really great shape,” Memory Dad quickly added. Fuck.
“Fuck.” Leonard The Specialist grabbed me by the throat and tossed me several yards away. I landed hard, my back bending over a sharp, steel crate that was placed, I can only assume, for this exact purpose. The pain was excruciating.
“Get up. Stop being such a pussy,” Memory Dad screamed. That wasn’t from our karate lesson, actually, my subconscious accessed his words from when I was 9 and he was lovingly teaching me how to ride a bike. Wildly inappropriate at the time, but fitting advice for my current situation. I did as I was told with an out load “Yes, sir,” that seemed to confuse the Specialist, if only for a second. There was still about nine feet between us, so I decided to back up, like a man. He moved faster than I would have predicted based on his size and all known laws of nature. What was left of his eye was still dripping blood, but he seemed unphased. His expression implied “I’m going to murder you slowly and painfully and probably get a boner over it.” I didn’t have a mirror, but gun to my head, I’d say my expression screamed “I’d be pissing my pants right now if I wasn’t so certain that you just paralyzed my dick back there.”

My backpedaling, manly and brave though it was, was no match for the speed of this Mobile Home with arms. At a temporary lack of fatherly advice, (Memory Dad was most likely off getting a Memory Beer), I took my cue from every boxer I’d ever seen and threw a punch with the intended destination of the Specialist’s face. He caught my hand easily and, with an equal lack of substantial effort, broke my fucking hand. Just crushed it.

I don’t know how many bones are in the human hand. I couldn’t count the amount of cracks that occurred, mostly because I was shrieking, (like a man), far too loud to pick up any other sounds. Let’s say, a lot. There are a lot of bones in the human hand, and he broke them all. He broke a lot of bones in my hand, a whole bunch. And breaking my fucking hand (my fucking hand!) wasn’t enough. You break someone’s hand, you let it go. That’s just common courtesy. This asshole was not letting go of my hand. He clutched it and pulled me in closer. The pain was lowering me to the ground, my knees were bending and he was looming over me. Blood and some other eye juice dripped from his eye socket onto my forehead. Not in my mouth, not in my mouth. Do not let it land in my mouth.

It totally fucking did.

He was crushing my already brokenfuckinghand (fuck!). Would I have to lose this hand? I think this damage is beyond anything a cast could fix. When he just eventually turns my hand bones into powder, would I just lose it all together? Do I get a new rubber hand, or can I get it replaced with a robot hand? Because I’m actually really OK with that. I suppose these questions don’t need answers. I’m going to die very soon. He was towering above me, and I was ready to blackout, sitting on an invisible chair.

“Some moves can stop a fight, some can stop a man. Dead. But that’s up to you, if you have the commitment. Are you committed?”

I was.
I closed my eyes and remembered exactly how the move went. The one move my Dad taught me in the second category. I made the fingers on my left hand as stiff as possible, spreading my thumb and forefinger wide and pressing the rest of my fingers together. He didn’t notice this preparation; he was relishing what I’m sure he knew to be my last minute alive. He took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, presumably to say some typically super villainy cliché about how I was no match for him or how he was going to fuck my corpse till Christmas, but I wasn’t going to give him the chance to get a single syllable out. I summoned what was left of my strength. My position, the bent knees, gave me an advantage for this particular move. I shot up quickly and swung my arm up, using all my strength and my own momentum to focus all of my force straight into his throat. The little nook formed between my thumb and forefinger connected with his trachea. I pushed. I pushed with everything. I pushed like pushing was my motherfucking job and I motherfucking loved it. Dad described to me, nine years ago, what collapsing a person’s windpipe might feel like.

He had no idea.

I saw the Specialist’s good eye widen and I heard a mix of gurgling and gasping sneak out of his mouth. When his grip on my brokenmotherfuckinghand loosened, I sidestepped out of the way, just in time for his falling, gigantic body to miss me on its way down. He hit the ground with a thud that probably woke everyone in a two mile radius.

He didn’t struggle or call for help, he didn’t get up and eat me, he didn’t even breathe. He laid there on the floor of the warehouse. They’re gonna need two coffins.

“Doesn’t matter how big or strong they are,” I said, echoing my Dad’s guarantee, “Hank Donahue can murder the fuck out of them with one god damn hand.”

He never said that last part, but I’m certainly going to include it in the lessons I teach to my kids.

Chapter Fifteen: Crazy Jeremy's, Crazier Ambush

2007-07-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

The drive back to Eddie’s was pretty haunting. This is usually a fairly busy town, but not tonight. Tonight, everyone’s indoors for the night. Like they already know what a warzone this town’s about to turn into, and no one wants to be caught in the crossfire. Rebecca blew smoke out the open window and I tired to focus on the road. She was quite a distraction. There’s just something about a beautiful woman with careless, just-had-sex hair smoking a cigarette.
Probably the sex.

I almost didn’t notice Joe standing in the parking lot of Eddie’s.
“We need a different car,” he said when I stopped about six inches short of hitting him. “A van. Something that isn’t already tied to us and something that can hold a lotta shit.” Joe’s the smart one. Dammit, why didn’t I think of that? What was I doing instead of planning this damn war? Oh, yeah.
Booya.

Mike arrived shortly after we did, covered in fresh scratches and with a grin that took over the entire southern half of his face. This was Mike’s answer to just-had-sex hair. All of the scratches on him aren't from his stint in prison, his meeting with the Specialist or his time in a spider pit; they're all love bites from whatever it is that Mike has sex with.
“Whew, some of those girls really know how to say goodbye,” he said.
“You smell like the zoo,” Joe noted.
“And there’s a fish hook in your ear,” Rebecca added. He rubbed it affectionately.
“Caryn. Loves fishing, God bless her.”

We drove to “Crazy Jeremy’s Car Dealership.” Jeremy wasn’t crazy, not even a little bit. In fact, he was just a tool with a fairly uncreative marketing ploy.( “Check out the deal on this Honda, I must be crazy!”) We knew Jeremy back from high school and that, in conjunction with some of the other benefits inherent to our unique position as the unofficial underground kings of this town, normally got us free rentals, whenever we wanted. Tonight, as I should have already guessed, was going to be a problem.

“No,” Jeremy said as soon as we pulled up. He was always nervous, but today it was in overdrive: pit stains, coffee stains, circles under his eyes. He looked like someone who, like everyone else in this town was ordered to stay away from me. Ordered by a very large man.
“Jeremy, we need a van.” I saw a plain white van. “That one. We need that van.”
“No, no, no. Guys, come on. I-I-I-I just can’t help you out, not tonight, no. I’m sorry, but no.” He looked like he was about to cry. On one hand, the Emperor most likely put the fear of God in him. On the other, Jeremy was always horribly concerned with what people thought of him. All he wanted to was please everyone in the world so everyone everywhere would like him. All the time. Must be stressful.
“Just give us the keys, Jeremy, to that van, and we’ll go. You’ve done it before. Come on.”
“Please, it’s different this time, he-” His face went white.
“Somebody important show up, Jeremy?” He nodded. “Someone big and mean, making all kinds of threats? ‘Stay away from Hank, or else.’ That sort of thing?” Jeremy lowered his head.
“He showed me what he did to your bar. I just...I just can’t risk it. I mean, I’m- I can’t really lose this place. I’m just pulling myself out of the red, here, you guys. We’re...we’re still friends, though, I just...I can’t tonight.”
“Think we’re gonna have another chance to ask you again?” Jeremy closed his eyes. Joe stepped up to the plate.
“You’re afraid, Jeremy. That’s all, right? You don’t want the big mean guys messing up your shit-in-a-box car dealership?”
“Yeah.”
“Scared. Huh. Tell me, Jeremy, about how tall are you?”
“Uh...5'11", maybe 5'11" and a half?”
“I see. So, I guess Costco, then?”
“What?”
“Was it Costco? They usually deal in bulk or ridiculous sizes, so was it Costco that sold you a five-foot-eleven-and-a-half-inch tampon?” Jeremy was trying to catch up.
“Are you..are you-”
“A vagina, yes, I’m calling you a vagina, Jeremy. A large, man-sized vagina.”
“A vagiant,” Mike added.
“Thank you, Michael. A vagiant. So...Costco?”

Jeremy produced a ring of keys from his coat pocket and started searching through them.

“You guys are assholes.”

We packed the van with almost everything Eddie’s basement had to offer. Guns, explosives, Samurai swords. We’d be outmatched and outnumbered, but we’d be prepared. Joe drove, Mike sat in the passenger seat memorizing the blue prints of the warehouse, something else Joe thought to get while I wasted the last few hours spooning, and Rebecca and I sat in the back, amidst a cargo van full of very dangerous objects. She studied her shotgun, and she looked great doing it. But she was just naturally beautiful, so I imagine she’d look good doing just about anything. Get a picture of her wearing a stained sweat suit and feeding stray cats and I guarantee it could end up in Maxim. Did I mention we had sex?

I guess I spend too much time staring at Rebecca and trying to figure out where I could get cats for the photo shoot because, the next thing I knew, we were there. Across the street from the warehouse, right in front of a building that used to be an Olde Towne Bank, but was now just a building. As Joe and I were checking to make sure everything we thought we were going to need was loaded, Mike ran across the street and quickly disappeared in the shadows. He’s messy and classless and painfully loud, but when it’s time for business, it’s time for business. Just as quickly and quietly as he’d left, Mike was back in the van.

“So?” He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then unrolled the large blueprint. He pointed to what, I guess was the first room in the building.
“Twelve guys in here, and none of ‘em looked very Emperory.” He pointed to one of the warehouse’s many large windows, this one facing the street. “If we get someone on the roof the Towny Bank, they can get a few through that window. Five, the rest of ‘em won’t be visible. I’m thinkin’ Joe on the roof with a sniper rifle, and Hank and I in that lobby, with just our fucking hands.”
“No, to the end of that. What about the rest of the place?”
“All of the other rooms were empty, except, I guess, the big storage garage.”
“You guess?”
“Yea. All the windows around the garage were too high for me to reach, they’re all, like, a foot below the roof. Too high for me to see, and there’s not a building tall enough with a good enough angle where we could see in from a roof. The lights are on in there and nowhere else. We’re just gonna have to assume the Emperor, the Specialist, and everyone else is in that garage. Which is good for us; the garage door is weak.”
“Weak enough for, say, a white cargo van to drive straight through it?” Joe asked.
“Any color, really. But yes. So first, we gotta take care of those twelve. In the lobby. They look like guards; all carrying guns, all dressed alike, all lookin’ like total pricks. All standing in the room right before the garage. They’ve all got walkie talkies and some other little electronic devices. I don’t know what they are, but we probably don’t want them activated.”
“They give a signal,” Rebecca explained. “When the signal goes off, a great deal of the Emperor’s associates will arrive.”
“A great deal?” I asked.
“About how many assloads?” Mike wondered.
“Several.”
“Kay. So we don’t want them to hit those buttons. We want to get in there fast and quiet. Joellerskates, you need to get every single one of those guys you can. Hank, we need to take out the remaining seven. Don’t miss.”

“OK.”

‘OK,’ I say, like I’m not terrified. Like I go to war all the goddamn time. Like I'm not a cricket’s wink away from shitting my pants.
Did I just say ‘cricket’s wink’? I must be really losing it.

“Hey,” Mike said, cracking his neck. “Let’s fuckin’ do this.” I loaded my guns.

Let’s fuckin do this.

Chapter Fourteen: Air Supply

2007-06-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Rebecca and I took Joe’s car and left the shop, for the time being. We were going to my apartment because the motel seemed unnecessary at this point; now that I knew that the Emperor’s plan for me began at midnight, there wasn’t much sense in traveling incognito or hiding out. I took the long way home, slowing down as I passed some of the town’s unofficial landmarks and a few important stops in my own personal history. I might never see these places again, and Rebecca was kind enough to remain patient and silent during my little Goodbye Tour. Eventually, after a trip that involved old schools, apartments, diners and parks, we made it home.

I grabbed the wallet of CD’s that sat on the floor of the passenger seat in Joe’s car and we headed up stairs. All of my CD’s were burned up with my bar, and I may need music for…well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I have a feeling about tonight, and with feelings like this, it's good to be prepared. With both of us probably dying in a few hours, the probability for a last-night-on-Earth-sex-bash are incredibly high, and it’s always good to have mood music for bashes of this nature.
Also, I like to measure the length of my sexual activities in songs or, someday, God willing, albums.

Rebecca started brewing coffee the second she got inside and I grabbed a bottle of Jameson out of my bathroom. As we waited for the coffee, we discussed our various childhoods and watched foreign porn out of the corners of our eyes.

“You have an awful apartment,” Rebecca said. She was right.
“I don’t really spend too much time in one place, you bitch, so I don't really decorate or clean. I mean, I always come back here, but I’ve done so much moving around that I eventually just got sick of trying to make everywhere I end up feel like home.”
“Eases homesickness,” she added.
“Exactly,” I said. The coffee was finished, so I filled two cups. “Milk or cream?” I asked, adding Jameson to each mug.
“Black.”
“Good, I don’t have either.”
“You have no milk and you don’t get the news, but you have whisky in your bathroom, and a pornshop full of guns?”
“Yea. The essentials.”
“And I almost forgot about the Russian pornography.”
“That is Croatian, Ma’am.” She squinted at the screen.
“I see that now...What exactly is going on?” If I’m an expert on anything...
“Well, now the film doesn’t have my full attention, but it looks like it follows the classic porn staple of pizza delivery boy shows up, sexy pizza-eater is out of cash, so they work out another arrangement that involves both a metaphorical and literal buttload of sex.”
“OK..But I don’t see any pizza..”
“Right. The typical difference here is that Croatia is slightly behind the times and considerably less wealthy than America, so its people can’t really afford to waste their concentration on greasy fast-food. So instead of pizza, our sexy delivery boy is bringing a wheelbarrow full of coal to heat the sexy woman’s house. He gets some mind-blowing sex, and she gets lights and hot water for about a week.”
“Wow. Really puts things in perspective. We are worlds apart, in terms of our pornographic concerns,” she said with a smile.
“Yea...Different strokes for different folks.”

Zing.

She laughed.

I can’t throw a baseball to save my mother. I can’t fix a car and if I was suddenly thrown into the wild without supplies, I’m confident that I would die almost instantly, unless wetting myself would somehow detract all predators as well as provide food and build a house with an internet connection.
But I have always been able to make a woman laugh.

I was actually getting worried about my abilities; in the day I’ve known Rebecca, I couldn’t extract even a pity-smirk out of her, but this proves it: I can make even the coldest, bitchiest woman laugh, given the right circumstances. In this case, porn.

It was unclear exactly how we got started. Was it my charming wit? The erotic, coal-themed sexploits of a poverty-ridden, post-communism country? Our impending death? These fucking biceps? Perhaps a combination of all of these elements. Perhaps I’ve stumbled upon a sure-fire, fool-proof recipe that men have been searching for for hundreds of years. I’d need to do some more research before I could conclusively say that all of these factors can %100 guarantee success, but tonight, the results are indisputable:
We were getting nasty.

Normally, I have mixed CD’s strictly designed to accompany fornication; a series of tracks expertly crafted for such an occasion. But, like I said, Hank Donahue’s “Now That’s What I Call Fuck” Volume’s 1-18 burned up hours ago, so I had to make due with whatever I could find in Joe’s CD wallet to serve as background music. In my, at the time, pants-less haste, I grabbed the first CD I came across that involved the word “love.” It was Air Supply’s Lost in Love.

I learned, far too late in the game, unfortunately, that Air Supply has a whole lot of bad songs. If you think “love” or “woman” are words whose usage-per-album should be limited to, at most, ten each, then you were obviously not in Air Supply. This is a really bad band. I didn’t think I could listen to a band who sang songs that dealt exclusively with love and still be filled with so much hatred. Joe and I were going to have to have a talk about this. Those light-voiced bastards use the word “Love” like it was going out of style. Pick any song by Air Supply and see if you can go one verse without seeing the word appear at least once. Go ahead, pick any song. Any song out of their entire catalogue, I fucking dare you.

It would be ungentlemanly of me to elaborate on the exact details, but, four Air Supply songs later, (thank you very much), we were lying in my sheet-less bed, her smoking a cigarette and me trying not to smile and trying even harder not to text message Joe.

“Would you like mt to make breakfast?” She asked in between drags.
“Absolutely. But I don’t have any eggs or toast. Or butter, cheese, or pancake mix. Strawberries. Waffles.”
“I get it.”
“A spatula.”
“What do you have?”

We sat on the floor of my kitchen, wrapped up in the same blanket sharing a JELLO cup and cold pizza. I tell you, I never remember ordering pizza, but there is always, without fail, a few slices waiting for me in the refrigerator.
“I haven’t had pizza since I was a teenager,” Rebecca said. “And never cold.”
“What? Man, you have been missing out. Cold pizza is the only way to have pizza. Let it sit in the fridge a few days, aging to perfection. You have not lived until you’ve had cold pizza.”
“Well I’ve had it now, so I suppose my life is complete, then?”
“Yep.” Which was a good thing. Because we were probably going to die in a few hours.
I'm glad I didn't say that last part out loud. Nothing spoils the mood quite like “We’ll be dead before the late night encore of Everybody Loves Raymond, Baby.”

***

I assume we fell asleep because, at some point, we woke up. Still wrapped in a blanket, still on my kitchen floor. I grabbed one of the pizza crusts Rebecca left and chewed on it instead of brushing my teeth. (Fuck it, ya know?) I rubbed Rebecca’s back until she woke up.

“Is it late?” sh asked without opening her eyes.
“It’s ten. If you want to shower...huh...I don’t have any shampoo.” My entire life could use a woman’s touch. She opened her eyes, ripped the blanket off of me and stood up in one, impossibly fast move. She turned my blanket into a fuzzy, blue toga and padded off to the bathroom without looking back. I heard her turn on the shower while I put on the same clothes I was wearing earlier and, just for a second, I pretended that this was my life. Cold pizza. Mid-evening naps. A beautiful woman in my shower.
Simplicity.

I removed her clothes from their previous position in a wrinkled pile on the floor and folded them neatly on a chair outside of the bathroom. I scanned the floor of my bedroom. It’s nice to forget for a while and pretend my biggest problem is finding her other sock. She was humming Air Supply in the shower. This was a life I could get used to.

But it wasn’t my life. In my life, her other sock is hidden behind a bag full of handguns and explosives, all destined for her egotistical exboyfriend/former father figure/total maniac who also happens to head the biggest and most powerful international mafia in history.
All because I can pour one Hell of a martini.

Chapter Thirteen: Eddie's, Part Two

2007-06-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Eddie’s basement was incredible. Every wall was covered in shelves, and every shelf was loaded with weapons and ammunition, and not a single piece of it was paid for. Sometimes I liked to come down here for a personal history lesson, because every piece of firepower had a story behind it, the story of however we acquired it. My eyes landed on a box labeled “Grenaids,” written by, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious already, Mike. Next to the box was a milk crate full of handguns.
About two years ago, a couple of assholes thought it’d be a good idea to revive the mafia in New Jersey. These four brothers, (The Fredo Four, as we affectionately referred to them) had wild delusions regarding this Italian Mob Renaissance and decided that their first order of business would be to muscle their way into the bar scene; offering protection from nonexistent enemies in exchange for a substantial cut of the profits. They decided that their strategy would begin with my bar. I decided it would end there. A very short-lived revival, but that’s a different story for a different time. I picked up two of the handguns, formerly owned but never fired by the youngest Fredo, and slid them into my pockets.
I wasn’t here for a history lesson today.
I turned to see Mike wearing a motorcycle helmet full of bullet holes and wielding a giant sword.
“No, Mike.”
“‘No’ to the sword or the helmet?”
“‘No’ all over the place, Mike. No to both.” He mumbled something about how I never let him have any fun and put the sword down. We have to keep our eyes on Mike down here. If it were up to him, he’d face an army with nothing but grappling hooks, throwing stars and his homemade wolverine claws.
Joe picked up a Mark 12 Mod 0/1 Special Purpose Rifle, which, if his sniping ability in video games is any indication, he will know how to handle. Rebecca just stared.
“I don’t have the slightest idea what I should take.” Mike walked up to her with an H&K P7M8 9mm handgun that used to belong to a New Jersey State Trooper.
“Well how’s your aim? Are you a good shot, or is your aim pretty pretentious?” Mike asked before shooting me the least nonchalant wink in history. Wow. Way off.
“Who taught him ‘pretentious’?” Joe asked.
“Did I use it right.”
“No, not even close. In fact, it’s fairly obvious you weren’t paying attention when I defined it for you.”
“Who?” Idiot. I gave Rebecca a UHC 870 Shotgun. It’s small with an easy pistol grip, but it’s effective. It packs a huge punch and for quite a distance. Built for a woman, but strong enough for a man. That sort of thing.
Mike was filling his bag up with extra bullets, grenades and that damn helmet, when he thought I wasn’t looking. There were a few other empty backpacks for occasions just like this, and Joe was loading one of them with a lot of this tough nylon rope.
“Why are you doing that?”
“I don’t know, man.” He was frustrated. “To be honest, I have no fucking clue how to pack for this trip.” To be honest, neither did I. “So I’m taking as close to everything as possible. No matter what kind of fight we’re in for, we’re gonna have a whole lot of shit.”
“Rebecca, where and when do you think this should go down? What’s our best shot?”
“I managed to acquire some information from a former employee. Someone I trust, someone still on the inside. There’s a warehouse–”
“A Whorehouse?” Mike asked hopefully.
“Warehouse.”
“A Werewolf?!” Mike asked with, disturbingly, more enthusiasm.
“Ignore him. What about this warehouse?”
“Whorewolf?!”
“Not too far from here. It’s abandoned now, on highway 36.”
“I know the one,” Joe said. “Used to be the East Coast Shipping Company. I used to bring girls there for sex when I was in high school...and then again, years later, when they were in high school.” Mike and Joe high-fived. My army, ladies and gentlemen. Whorewolf and the pedophile.
“At midnight, something will be happeneing there. I don’t know for sure, but based on the number of guards my source told me would be on duty, I’d guess the Emperor himself might be there.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Guess.” She was taken back by the forcefulness in my voice. I don’t think it would be going too far to say that I turned her the eff on. She took a deep breath.
“Planning your slow and painful death, I’d imagine,” she said, ruining the mood as efficiently as if she had said ‘and sometimes I fart scorpions.’ “He’ll meet with his informants who will provide him with information of who you’ve been in contact with and where you’ve slept for the last month, then he’ll give out assignments. He’ll tell various employees what they’re responsible for; some will torch your apartment, some will get your family, your friends and so on in this fashion.”
“And you think this is a reasonable guess?”
“I’ve seen this before. The Emperor never meets personally with so many of his associates unless he wants something like this to happen. Something huge.”
“OK then. So midnight. If we don’t stop this completely at midnight...” I stopped talking. Everybody knew what happens at midnight. Joe checked his watch.
“Six hours. What are we doing for the next six hours?”
“I’ve got a couple of places I’d like to toss my dick around, as long as no one minds,” Mike said.
“As long as we’re not any of those places, I’m sure we’re all fine with that.”
“Great,” Mike yelled, and ran upstairs.
“We’ll meet back here at eleven,” I called after him. He made a couple of farting noises with his mouth and disappeared.
“I’m just gonna stay here. Load up on ammo, maybe do some target practice out back if its cool with The Good Reverend Poon.” I really had nowhere else to go. I was about to tell Joe I’d stay with him when Rebecca grabbed my arm. The first time she had willingly touched me.
“Shall we rest at your apartment, then, Mr. Donahue?” I glanced at Joe, who looked as stunned and confused as I probably did, and then I noddded with my mouth open and my eyes wide, as if we were at a middle school dance and she just asked me on to the gym floor for Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
A slow song.

...

Are we gonna have sex?

Chapter Twelve: Eddie's, Part 1.

2007-05-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

We walked back from Dave’s for about six blocks without saying a word. Mike was displaying totally un-Mike-Like levels of respect and consideration. I must have looked pretty miserable. Finally,
“Do you...do you wanna talk about...anything, or...”
“No. Thanks, Mike, but no.”
“Thank Christ. OK, buck up. We need your a-Game on this.” He thought for a second. “Ya know, this feels a lot like that movie 300.”
“Why?” I asked. We’re not wearing diapers or battling monsters and nine foot tall transvestites in slow motion.
“I don’t know, it’s like, we’re a small group, ya know? Me, you and Joe goin’ up against this guy’s fuckin army, ya know? Totally outnumbered. Totally badass. I’m already shirtless.”
“I guess our movie would be called 3 then?”
“Yea! I’m Leonidas.”
“Fuck you.”
“My idea.”
“But I’m leading us.”
“Too bad, I called it.” Dammit. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Don’t all the Spartans die at the end anyway?” We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other.
“There was that one guy who lived.” I remembered. “With the eyepatch.”
“I’m that guy,” Mike said quickly.
“Fuck you.”

***

After a few more blocks, we came up to the building just as Joe and Rebecca were arriving.; Eddie's was the only shop still in business in a small shopping center that used to boast a four dollar unisex hair salon and a pet store that dealt mostly with fish, but I think had a frog one time.
Rebecca had changed into a white women's button down kind of blousy thing...look I don't know shit about women's clothing. She looked great. When she realized that we weren't leaving the shopping center and, further, when she realized what Eddie's was, she closed her eyes and massaged her temples. We're a lot to take in. She was frustrated.
"You're kidding me," she said indicating Eddie's. "This is the place?" I nodded.
“Ah, the Adult Literature Emporium,” Mike said, attempting to sound sophisticated. “My old stomping grounds.”
“’Old stomping grounds?’ My ass. 20 bucks says you’ve been there at least twice this morning,” Joe said. I’d put forty on three.
“This is it,” I said to Rebecca. “Eddie’s Adult Bookstore.”

Eddie inherited the bookstore from his father, who was somewhat of a celebrity around this town. In addition to owning the only store where you can get filthy smut at a reasonable price, he was just an all-around decent guy. He gave to charity, volunteered at the local soup kitchen and was always around when you needed someone to help you fix your car or move a stove or paint a house. Whatever you needed Eddie Sr. for, he was game. With his generous nature, it was no surprise that his son turned to a life of worship and servitude.

Eddie Jr., due to his father’s generous, selfless examples and despite his father’s barbaric, detestable career, developed an interest in the Bible at a very early age. The interest grew into a strong enthusiasm, which in turn grew into obsession. No one was surprised, then, when Eddy announced on his 18th birthday that he was going to school to be a priest. Eddie Sr.: smut-peddler, couldn’t be more proud. The feeling, sadly, was not mutual. Junior hated his father's profession and dedicated the free time of his early twenties to convincing his father to close down the shop in an attempt to “save” him, but Eddie Sr. would not be swayed by any man’s God. Everyone has a purpose, Eddie Sr. thought, and his was providing access to pornography that the Everyman could afford. So devoted was he to his bookshop, in fact, that he left it to Eddie, his only son, when he passed on. The stipulation to the inheritance read that the shop must not, under any circumstances, be torn down or closed or converted or changed in any way. It was to remain a pornshop under Eddie Jr’s control.

While such a ridiculous and bizarre, -dare I say- sitcom-esque stipulation is hardly legally binding, Eddie Jr was obligated by an entirely different law to honor his father, no matter how morally opposed to the work he may be. So, when Eddie Jr was 23, he buried his father and became the proud owner of Eddie’s Adult Bookstore. He was a month shy of completing his Holy Orders when he dropped out of the wannabe priesthood.

And that’s how Eddie the Holyman became owner of the adult bookstore.

“Blessings be unto you, Father Tit-Provider,” Mike said as we entered. Eddie Jr rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He sighed deeply.
“Welcome to Eddie’s Adult Bookstore, I’m Eddie, you’re helpful, horny Sexpert. What can I get you today?” No sentence was ever uttered with less enthusiasm.
“What kind of authority could you possibly have as a sexpert? Seriously. Aren’t you celibate?”
“Shut up, Mike.” Mike smiled and wandered off into the store to, presumably, sneak copies of Mike Likes Dikes onto the shelves. He does the same thing in the Christmas section at Blockbuster.
“Sorry about him. We’ve got a problem, Padre. Mind if we use the back room?” Eddie handed me a single key.
“Make sure no one sees you and lock up after you’re done.” His eyes moved to Rebecca.
“She’s cool,” Joe says. “Rebecca, this is Eddie Jr.” She nods, afraid to touch him or, really, anything here. He performs the sign of the cross above her forehead.
“I nomini patri, I figli, I-” his blessing is interrupted by Mike shouting from somewhere near the “Hardcore” section.
“Who the fuck stuck a Bible on the Gang Bang shelf? I got 12 pages deep before I realized there weren’t gonna be any tits.” Eddie Jr. closed his eyes.
“Father in heaven.”
“I can’t believe I almost masturbated to Genesis.”
“Sorry again, Father. Thanks for the key.”
“Just go.”
We made our way to the back of the store, stopping off to retrieve and subsequently smack Mike on our way.
“You’re gonna give that guy an aneurism, Mike.”
“Oh, the guy is long gone already, Hank. You know, last Sunday I saw him at the park trying to convert pigeons.” This was entirely possible. “Next thing you know, he’ll be reading scripture to our microwaves.”
“Can we just get what we came for and leave?” Rebecca was losing her patience with this place. Women. The four of us walked through the shop. With a lady present, I fought like hell against every instinct I had to stare wide-eyed at the magnificent videos, books and posters lining the walls. Mike and Joe knew no such manners and began sword fighting with, what I can only imagine, were the two most needlessly gigantic dildos a woman could ever ask for. Mike was being a pirate, Joe some kind of Samurai and Rebecca and I just tried not to notice.
“Arr,” Mike yelled in between thrusts, “Yar just after me booty.” I smiled at the pun. Rebecca rolled her eyes. That was pretty funny. She’s just a bitch. Joe dodged a stab, spun around and whomped Mike right on the forehead with his veiny, purple dagger.
“Arr!” Mike dropped his sword. He spoke quietly and nursed his rapidly forming bruise, the shape of which was fairly incriminating. “Now thar’s a difficult-to-explain penis shape imprinted on me forehead…arr.” He was unhappy, but, God bless him, still dedicated to character. Joe put his hands together and bowed to his fallen opponent.
“It was truly an honor to cock-stamp you, brave Grasshopper.”
“Arr, I’ll beat you next time…You won’t be able to pull a dirty trick like that.”
“Twas no trick, young warrior, my staff is simply longer.”
“Arr! Size had nothin’ to do with it, Matey, it was just a stroke of luck!”
“Trust me, young one, on the battlefield, your blood will run first; be it through fatal jab or merely a prick of the finger.”
“GAR! I’ll…penis you right in the face.”
“Ok, that’s enough, guys.”
“Spank Donahue, ladies and gentlemen.” Rebecca still wasn’t smiling. Masturbation euphemisms out of the way, we reached the back of the store and found a giant barrel, the “discount section.” Mike and I lifted the heavy jug of cheap, previously owned porn and moved it aside, revealing a trap door below. I inserted the key and turned the handle.

Remember earlier when I said Eddie Sr. would help anyone out with anything? I was no exception. I told Eddie Sr. some years ago that I had some special items and information that I needed kept hidden by someone I could trust, someone reliable. Eddie Sr. gave me the entire basement of the bookstore and never asked a single question. He agreed to give the key only to Mike, Joe or myself and expected no payment in return. He was a good man.
We lifted the door and went down the steep, cracking staircase. We kept everything important here. Every bit of dirt on every cop or corrupt politician Joe heard about went on file and went down here. If someone was getting tough around the bar and Mike needed to take them somewhere and remind them how to get their ass kicked, he took them here. This is also where we stored our just-in-case weapons which, until recently, never seemed necessary. We kept them here because it’s hard to explain why I’d need an automatic rifle at home or the bar, and even harder to explain how I came into contact with it.

I keep rifles, machine guns and hand grenades in the basement of a porn shop run by an almost priest.

I do not live a conventional life.

Chapter Eleven: Goodbye.

2007-05-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

When we were kids, our parents would send us down the street to play at the local park. We’d fool around with the basketball, play in the forest or just run around, as kids often do. Usually, we would each be given a bottle of water or juice, always the same brand or flavor. Tommy would make certain, by peeling off his label, that he always knew which was his. While Dave and I would argue over which bottle belonged to which brother, (with both of us claiming ownership to whichever bottle had more), Tommy was already sipping away at the bottle that was undeniably his. He was the smart one, and the playground was littered with Poland Spring labels. A creature of habit, he sat in the back room of Dave’s bar staring at his bottle of water, meticulously peeling off the label, (using caution to ensure that the label remained intact) as he tried to absorb everything I’d just told him. I was sipping the orange juice that Dave poured for me, trying to regain some moisture in my mouth having spent it all recapping, in an extremely rushed manner, all of the events of the last 24 hours. The abridged version of the worst day of my life was quite a taxing story.
“Where is everybody now?” Dave asked.
“Joe and Rebecca are finding a change of clothes, and Mike’s here.”
“What?!” Dave’s eyes widened and he clenched his fists.
“Well, not here here; he’s outside.”
“Still not forgiving him?” Tommy asked. Dave stared off, lost in disgusting memory.
“There was a gerbil in his mouth, Tommy. A live gerbil.”
“That was two years a-”
“It was crying.” Fair enough.
“Anyway, we’re all going to meet up pretty soon. At Eddie’s.”
“Eddie’s, huh?” Tommy said quietly. They both knew what a trip to Eddie’s implied. They both knew the punchline was bloodshed.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t have a better chance running off? Hiding out somewhere?”
“From the sound of it, this guy’s influence goes pretty much everywhere. Running would be, at best, a stall. Plus, hiding? That’s no life for a Donahue.” They nodded in agreement. Dave clapped his hands together.
“Alright, so we’ll go to Eddie’s. I’ll close down the bar. Let’s do this. Tell Mike he can’t make eye contact with me.”
“No. I don’t want you guys involved.” About five seconds passed by as they stared in open-mouthed shock.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tommy said, standing up. “You’re not going to face this guy alone.”
“I’ll have Joe and Mike.”
“Joe is an Ice Cream Truck Lawyer, Hank, and Mike’s a little retarded.” A little bit.
“You’re our little brother,” Dave added. “This is not negotiable. Remember that little punk who used to push you around in middle school?” I thought back. I vaguely remembered a little rat-faced bastard a year younger than me who would, in an effort to impress similarly rodent-faced bastards, would shove me in the hallway, whenever the mood struck him.
“Matt Laman? Yea. You guys told me not to fight back no matter what. You said ignore him and eventually he’d go away.”
“Right,” Tommy said.
“We broke both of his arms,” Dave added. “Ignored his stupid ass right into the emergency room.”
It’s good to have older brothers.
“The point is, we’re not going to sit here while you do...whatever it is you plan on doing. You told us. Now we’re involved.” I stood up.
“Guys- No. Just listen, and believe me, we thought about this. We thought about every possible scenario. In under a day, The Emperor took out my bar and tried to take out Mike. The longer this takes, the more digging he’s going to do, and the more he’s going to do to get to me. If I run or hide, he’ll just take away more until he finally reaches me. If I face him now...It stops. I take him down, or he takes me down. Either way, you guys would be safe afterwards. The rest of the family, former roommates, old friends; they’re all safe if I face this guy now.” They weren’t accepting this. “Tommy: you’re engaged. Think about that. Dave, my bar’s gone. You can finally be at the top of the list again.” Without missing a beat, he punched me in the arm again. The exact same god damned spot. I don’t know how he’s managed to consistently find the same spot for the passed 23 years, but he does.
“Just for the record,” he says, “this year would have been our year, regardless.”
“Oh Dave. Naive, pathetic Dave,” I said, shaking my head and dodging another punch. “But guys, seriously. I need to do this. If you guys get caught up in this and...and the worst case scenario happens...well shit, what am I doin’ this for? Think about Mom if we all end up on the obituaries page together.” They did. There was a long silence, like we were mourning me already. I could tell from Dave’s tensed arms and constant pacing that he wasn’t accepting any of this. He’s a fighter from way back, and every reason I was providing was just an excuse. You could see by looking at him that he was already planning how he was going to ambush The Emperor and anyone else who stood in his way. Tommy crumpled up his perfectly whole Poland Spring label and gave Dave a look that stopped him in his tracks. Some conversation happened in that look, one that I didn’t understand. Tommy looked back at me.
“We’ll walk you outside.”

We left the bar to find Mike locked in a battle of wits with a homeless man. Mike was losing. Hard.
“Mike,” I said, interrupting the worst philosophical debate since Joe got drunk and started quizzing my toaster about existentialism, “It’s time to go. Anything you want to say? Apologize to Dave, maybe?”
“For what?” He totally meant it.
“I hate you,” Dave said.
“Fine. Dave, I’m sorry if you were, for whatever reason, offended. I really fucked the butler on that one.”
“That’s not a phrase,” Tommy quickly pointed out.
“You can start walking, Mike, I’ll catch up.” He didn’t.
“Well...well I don’t really have anyone to say goodbye to. I kind of...Is it alright if I just give these guys some advice before I go? I mean...I don’t have any family that’s still alive. And I don’t have any kids that, legally I’m prepared to acknowledge as having actually come from me. So...can I just say what I would say to these kids, were they proven to really be my kids in a court of law? Just in case of...whatever?” This was actually kind of touching.
“Sure Mike, go ahead.” He put one arm on Tommy’s shoulder and one on Dave’s, who quickly shrugged it off and raised a fist. Mike dropped his smile.
“OK. Alright. Sons- Mike Jr. and Fuckmachine- remember this: Just be a good person, do what makes you happy and, ya know, try to nail a black chick if you can.”
“Inspiring, Mike,” Tommy said.
“It’s the advice my grandma gave me on her death bed. Alright, later.” He walked off.

I don’t know how to say goodbye to my brothers, particularly when its probably the last time I’ll see them. Saying “Peace” and jogging off seems too casual. A hug might be too dramatic. A kiss would be strange on several levels. We just shook hands. No one said a word, we just shook hands and nodded. They knew that what I was doing was the only possible solution, the only way to end this. We stood in a circle, gave one last nod and I turned and walked down the street, moving quickly to catch up with Mike.

There was still a lot of work to be done.

Chapter Ten: Dave's

2007-05-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

It was a nice night and I could use the clean air to clear my head, so we decided to walk to our next destination. Also, we didn't have a car. It was only a few blocks, but even a few blocks is a pain in the ass when you've had the kind of day I've had. The run-from-fake-cops, get-your-ass-kicked-by-sasquatch, swallow-half-a-dozen-spiders kind of days.

Those days.

Despite the ridiculous circumstances of my day, there was a certain eagerness to my walk. We were going to Dave's after all. It's always a good time for me, and Mike could sense my excitement.

"What's got you actin' like the prettiest girl on the squad?" He asked. That's not even an expression.
"It's Dave's, Mike."
"Yea. So?"
"Well...I just like going there. Not to sound pretentious or anything, but-"
"What does that mean?"
"What? Pretentious?"
"Yea. Does that mean, like, loud?" New Jersey public school systems, ladies and gentlemen.
"Nope, not even close. It's like...faking an image of importance, ya know? Like Victor always had."
"Before he got killed."
"Yes. Yes, Mike, before that."
"Cool. Hey, do you think Dave will have something for that arm of yours?" I hadn't realized until Mike pointed it out, but I had a pretty gash on my arm. I've been so caught up with either spiders or our plan for the Emperor lately, that I haven't had time for the little things. Like making sure I didn't have any giant, hideous injuries. It wasn't the longest cut in the world, but it was certainly deep. Could have happened in the spider room, could have been one of the guards. Maybe it happened when that beast of a guy was dragging me around like a rag doll. Who knows? At any rate, it wasn't bleeding too bad and we made it to Dave's. I moved towards the door and put a hand on Mike's chest to hold him back.
"You know you're not allowed in here, Mike."
"Oh, come on. It was two years ago, I'm sure he's not still pissed at me." I considered the story I heard Dave tell me those two years ago. Mike, I mentioned, had full access to my bar and he would occasionally bring a girl there during after hours for...whatever the hell Mike does with the girls he finds that has him permanently banned from every bed in breakfast in the tri-state area. Dave walked in on him once, expecting to find me cleaning up the bar, perhaps. He certainly didn't expect to find Mike hanging naked, upside down and with his foot in a beartrap while a trio of Korean girls in gold bikinis screamed at him. No one really expects that.
"He might still be a little pissed, Mike. Just stay out here."

You’d be lucky to find an empty stool at Dave’s bar; The location was great. The town itself wasn’t all that big, but there were certainly a lot of hotels in the area. He managed to get a consistently huge crowd without having to spend any money on advertisements, with the hotels in such close proximity. Travelers with nothing better to do were in every night. Tonight, I was lucky; I walked in to find one empty seat next to two painfully attractive brunettes.
I was very lucky.
I sat down and pretended not to notice them, because I’m so god damned casual it’s not even funny. I made eye contact with Dave who nodded and flashed me the “one second” signal. I made sure to rest my arm on the bar and lift my sleeve a bit to reveal my newly discovered gash. Bait, I call it.
“Oh my gosh, what happened to you?” Attractive girl to my right said. Fish, I call her.
“Oh,” I said, pretending I’m just noticing her for the first time, “I’m not really sure you’d want to hear about it. Let’s just say I used to run with some…not-so-nice guys.” She went wide-eyed.
“What happened to them?” I looked over my shoulder, returned to her gaze and leaned in.
“Let’s just say I can still run, know what I mean?” Personally, I think I overused “Let’s just say” a little bit, but the two vixens didn’t seem to notice, preoccupied instead with the mysterious, battle-worn stranger who maybe just crippled a few people.

When you work in a bar as long as I have, you see it all. These girls next to me- I know them. I know their type, I know what they’re interested in, and I know how to act like what they’re interested in. These girls- their coach bags, their hair, their body language- it all says the same thing: They’re a couple of upper class something or others, out of place in a regular bar like this. They’ve strayed from the country club for a night and they’re looking for some dangerous, dirty local to show them what they’ve been missing. And with my scars and my stories, I’m a steroid-fueled Rambo after eating a fucking Steve Seagal Sandwich.
Seduction is a crazy thing. You don’t need to be attractive or particularly talented in any way. You need to know what someone wants, and you need to know how to give it to them. I’ve seen the best and the worst parade through my bar. I’ve observed it all, and as such, I consider myself a seduction expert. I could write a god damn thesis on the subject. Instead, I’m going to selfishly hog all the knowledge I’ve accrued and use it to score vapid, shallow chicks for emotionless one night stands. And I'm going to do that as often as possible. Even on a night like tonight, when I have an irregularly long list of things that are so obviously more important and require more of my attention, I'm going for it. These two debutantes out for a night of slumming: they’re mine, tonight. I can be the tough, broken soldier they’ve read about. I can be whatever anyone wants, if boobs factor into the equation.
Dave finally makes it over.
“Hey, Little Man. The usual?” I nodded. He disappeared for just a second and returned with an appletini, complete with two umbrellas, extra cherries and a shot glass full of Jellybeans, all pink. The gawdy, fruity monstrosity extracted condescending looks and giggles from the beautiful girls that, until just then, I had eating out of my god damn hand.
Remember all of that stuff I said about seduction? You can throw it out the window if your big brother shoves two ounces of pink jellybean in your face and calls it “the usual.” Gruff, wandering thugs don’t drink appletinis; they drink motor oil and sex. The two formerly-snagged fish princesses promptly got up to leave. Dave smirked his smirk. He has a habit of making me the most overtly feminine and pathetic drinks imaginable and calling them my “usual.” He only does this when attractive women are around, and I never see it coming.

“Asshole,” I say.
“What? Not enough umbrellas?” I’m 23 years old. I’ve been in and out of college. I’ve traveled, been outside the country. I’ve slept with women. Lots of women, older women, married women, fat women. One tall girl. But I’ll tell you: You never stop being a Little Brother.

“So, what brings you out here? Wanted to see a bar that actually does some business? Oh!” He said, smacking his forehead. He pointed to the crowd sitting around his bar. “These are customers, Hank. I’m sure you’ve read about them before.”
I began treading a path that I know leads to me getting hit in some way.
“I haven’t read anything about them, actually. I’ve been a little busy reading the 2007 Schulman’s Ranking. Have you…have you read it yet, Dave?” He lost his smile. Of course he did. The Neil Schulman’s Schulmanac was an independently published, brief bar guide with a circulation of about 200 that gets printed every December. You won’t be able to find it in any bookstore or convenient store; it is exclusively for bartenders. There are interviews, funny bar stories, sections dedicated to new drinks and new bars, the best and worst liquors, and, most important, The List. The List is a ranking of serious bartenders. If you meet the simple criteria, (you own your own bar and you tend it full time), you are welcome to submit yourself and your bar, and the Schulman Team will come in, unannounced and incognito, and judge you based on technical skills, (the speed with which you mix, the accuracy, garnish, ability to handle a crowd), visual skills (the “flair” you present; flipping bottles, etc) and the overall atmosphere. The scores are compared and The List goes out. You don’t make any money for making it on to this list, and you don't get media exposure or trophies or anything tangible.
Just the bragging rights. The personal glory of knowing you’re the best of the best. I have been number one on this list since the very first time I submitted myself, four years ago. David, the older brother, the first bartender in the family, the former holder of the number one spot, is now number two on that list.
He is upset about this.

It doesn’t help the situation that I bring up my superior ranking every god damn chance I get. Hell, I give away copies of The List to various family members as well as his girlfriend every Christmas.
David stared at nothing in particular, but his eyes were focused.
“That rating system is flawed, god dammit. I just know it,” he said, grinding his teeth. When we were younger, the focused-staring/teeth-grinding combo was the immediate precursor to a sharp punch in the arm. David turned and punched me in the arm, sharply. Very little has changed throughout the years. In the past few hours, I faced some fake cops with real guns, about 900lbs of solid muscle, and an Olympic swimming pool‘s worth of spiders. When David raised his arm to hit me again, I shielded my face and cowered a little bit out of instinct. Like I said; Once a Little Brother…

“So seriously, what brings you here. Something wrong?” He indicated my arm.
“Maybe. Probably. Well, definitely for me, maybe nothing for you. Is Tommy around? I kind of wanted to talk to both of you.” David nodded and pointed to the corner in the back of room, the corner opposite the entrance door. A small stage, maybe a foot off the ground at most, was built into the wall, just big enough for one guy and his piano. Tommy sat, but he didn’t sit still, on a small black stool in front of his baby grand Steinway piano. In the years I’ve seen him play, which is to say, every year I’ve been alive, I’ve never known him to remain motionless through a song. He doesn’t sit upright and stone-faced like some of those other pianists you might have seen, he moves for every song. His shoulders follow the melodies that he plays, he dances between being hunched over, practically hugging the keys and leaned as far back as he can, as if he’s avoiding an imminent explosion coming from the keys. His head bobs and sways in every direction. When he plays, he experiences. He’s living through every single sound coming from the belly of his instrument, and in every key he strikes you can see the surprise in his face. It’s as if he’s discovering each note for the first time when the truth is he knows the piece of equipment in front of him better than anyone else.
He plays at Dave’s bar, five nights a week, last time I checked, and has since the place opened. No need for a DJ or any other acts or artists over the years, Dave won’t get tired of him and the customers certainly won’t either. A good deal of Dave’s repeat business comes from fans of Tommy; people who see him once and have to keep coming back to make sure he’s as incredible as they remember. 9 times out of 10, he’s more.

I don’t know enough about music to accurately describe what he does. I mean, literally, he’s playing piano, sometimes singing, but mostly just telling stories while accompanying himself with his own soundtrack. People love the stories. I can never figure out how he plays the way he does. It always seems like he makes more sound happen than the piano is capable of producing. Sometimes I think I’ll hear chrods featuring upwards of 12 keys being played at once, despite Tommy’s fingers quitting, like everyone else’s, at ten. His Physics-defying ability to simultaneously hit every note on the piano is just the start of his unique mutant power. He can make you feel something with a melody. Not just "something," whatever the hell he wants you to feel, he can do it. There's some secret he knows about chords that he isn't sharing.
Right now he’s playing a beautiful original that could have been written by Bach and studied in advanced music theory classes. Instead, he probably composed it in his head on the drive over. He tells a story without words and I’m watching, like everyone else in the audience, dumbstruck. It never gets old, watching him play. He finally finishes and the crowd claps like clapping might be outlawed soon. He bows modestly and thanks everyone individually when they drop money into his tip jar, usually shaking their heads in disbelief. The poor piano players in the audience.
They won’t be able to sleep tonight.
He notices me, quietly says “Five minutes” into his microphone and stands up.
We shake hands and he notices the gash on my arm.
“Hey, man. Everything alright?
“Maybe. That’s kind of what I needed to talk to you guys about.” We headed towards a door labeled “Employees Only” and I signaled for Dave to follow us. When he entered, a few seconds after us, Dave tossed a bottle of water to Tommy and sat down at the only table in the room.
"So what's up?" Dave asked. Where the hell to begin...

Chapter Nine: Omelets

2007-04-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

We checked into the closest motel we could find so we could all shower, relax and make some kind of plan. It was a very cheap, very tight room, the kind of room that, if you position yourself just right, you can piss in the toilet without having to get off your bed. And that isn’t a hypothetical. Mike put this theory into practice the instant we checked in.

Once she had a long shower and a cup of coffee or two, Rebecca had calmed down considerably. Sitting at the room’s small round table and clutching her coffee mug, she was already beginning to regain the “all business” atmosphere she affected when I first met her. I could tell how important it was to her; appearing confident and controlled. She sat up straight, spoke slowly and quietly and as efficiently as possible. A total businesswoman, even if she was wrapped in a motel-issued, previously worn cutton robe and sipping instant coffee.

Joe was in the kitchen, (I use the term loosely; there was a stove in the living room), cooking up Joe's Anytime Omelets for everyone and Mike was there, too, ruining everyone’s omelets and aggravating Joe to no end. I sat and talked with Rebecca, breaking focus only due to the occasional, profanity-laced culinary disputes flying out of the kitchen. She wasn’t crying now, and she wasn’t stuttering or rambling or interrupting herself as before; Rebecca was ready to talk.

“Let me apologize again for my outburst earlier.” I bet she wanted both of us to forget that little scene ever happened. But I’m gonna remember the fucking shit out of it. It made her human. You’re a frightened, vulnerable girl, just like everybody else. Well, not everybody else.

Just the girls, I suppose.

“It’s fine. You can continue, if you’d like.”
“Thank you. The Emperor raised me, as I said, and sent me to all of the most exclusive schools. He was grooming me from the very beginning. I received an incredible education and that in conjunction with some of my other…assets made me, I thought, an invaluable member of his organization. Business and strategy; those were my real strong points, but I am also fluent in several languages, I am trained in-”
“Do I tell you how to sit on your ass all day and drink cheap vodka? Do I? No, no I don’t. So don’t tell me how fucking to cook, Cracka!” It was Joe, in the kitchen, yelling at Mike.
“I don’t need your resume, Ms Venom. I’m assuming we don’t have a whole lot of time. Let‘s keep this about the Emperor from now on.”
“You’re right. My understanding of business kept me at his side for all of his peaceful takeovers. He disclosed all matters of business with me first, there wasn’t a single transaction of any kind that was made without my advice. And if there was someone who he couldn’t acquire by appealing to their logic, or their wallet, I was sent in to convince them in my own way.” OK. That’s what she meant by “assets.” We’re talking about boobs.

“When I wasn’t helping him acquire businesses and clients in one fashion or another, I was advising the Emperor financially or arranging his travel plans or screening hopeful employees. An executive business secretary, I believe we decided was my official title.” She said that last part with a smile.

“Was it strictly business- your relationship with the Emperor?” She paused.
“No. No it wasn’t.” Sexecutive business secretary? I’ll bring that up later. “Well I didn’t think it was business but…here I am.”
“Yes. Why are you here?”
“Because of you, Mr. Donahue. It was my job to obtain your services and I failed. So I was terminated.”
“As…”
“As everything. Everything.” She let that implication settle in. She was like a daughter and a girlfriend to the Emperor, but he still had no problem whoring her out or throwing her out. Jesus. He was a bad, bad guy.

“That just seems so sudden.”
“The Emperor is not used to being told ‘no,’ especially with such a small, seemingly inconsequential takeover like this one. With his bigger ventures, he expects to wait, to bargain to get what he wants. But he thought of you as he would a very fine, very rare bottle of wine. Difficult to find but, if one has the resources, simple to acquire.”

“You want to put Baco’s in my eggs? Fake Bacon?! Why don’t we just serve up fucking hot pockets, Mike?”

“So why did I wind up being such a big deal?”
“You’re not, really.” What a bitch. “It’s just that the Emperor is so used to having his way. When he doesn’t get it, he likes to send a message. A strong message to ensure he won’t have to send another one for a very long time.” She studied my expression. “I know he must sound like an irrational monster, but I assure you he is quite brilliant. You don’t get to where he is by behaving like a spoiled brat.” Whatever magic this Emperor works, it was still over her. She still had some kind of twinkle in her eye; the idea that she can still make it work with him. But that wasn't my concern.
“Fine. How do I stop him?”
“Stop him?" The question seemed to surprise her. You don’t, Mr. Donahue. You run. You run as long as you can until he finds you. Then, you die.”

“Get out. Get out of the fucking kitchen. Get out. That’s it,” Joe screamed.
“You gotta take chances, man. Live a little. Life is about the risk.”
“What you were going to do to my omelets wasn’t about risk, you jackass.”
“Coward.” Mike entered, red spatula marks all over his arms and shoulders, buttoning up his pants. “What’s going on in here?”
“Ms Venom was just telling me how dead we’re all going to be.”
“Oh yeah? Me too?”
“Yes.”
“Why, just because of his association with me?”
“Mostly, but not entirely. You’ve been stirring up a few problems for the Emperor in your own way, Mr. Russo, whether you know it or not. You had, before the Emperor moved in, a great deal of connections in this town. Informants, hirable hands and so forth. The Emperor doesn’t like to see anyone else wielding a substantial degree of power other than himself. Especially if he thinks its undeserved, as was the case with you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, your lack of education and tact.”
“No manners,” Joe added from the kitchen.
“Also, your fly is down,” I threw in. Mike smiled and nodded, but made no attempt to zip up his pants. Conversely, I had no intention of taking anything with my pants down.
“Come on Rebecca,” I said trying to steer us back on task, “think. You know this Emperor guy better than anyone. Anyone. There’s got to be a way to get to him, a way to stop him. Something.”
“There isn’t, Mr. Donahue, and given my current position, it would appear that I don’t know him quite as well as I thought I did.” Rebecca looked off, and suddenly the conversation was about something else. Great. No one wanted her to cry again, so we just shut up and ate Joe’s omelets when he brought them out. Joe’s Famous Anytime Omelets are usually a joyous occasion; tonight, we ate in silence.
“What about caving?” I finally asked. “I apologize to him and I work for this guy, work it off or…whatever I have to do.”
“Out of the fucking question,” Joe said. “We wouldn’t let that happen. Come on, man, you know that.”
“Yeah, that cock-socket had your bar burned to the ground.” I was relieved that they felt this way, so strongly about my principles.
Friends like this, you don’t find everywhere.
“It wouldn’t work even if you did ask. You’re just a bartender; acquiring you was supposed to be a quick, in-and-out job. Jobs like that, the Emperor doesn’t offer twice. You have to drop this. He can’t be reasoned with and he can’t be stopped.”
“Then…Then what the fuck? What are you doing here? Why bother telling us if you didn’t think there was even a tiny chance of getting out of this?” Rebecca took a sip of coffee.
“I grew up in the Organization surrounded by the Emperor and his men, Mr. Valenzuela. I have no one to say good bye to. I imagined the three of you might, and I just wanted to make sure that you had the chance.”

Christ.

We all thought on that for a moment. That was heavy. That was heavy because we believed her. We believed that she really only contacted us to tell us we were already dead and to make our phone calls. Mike was the first one to speak after what felt like an hour of silence.
“Ok, so we just have to fuckin’ kill this guy.” Rebecca stared at him. Shirtless and with his fly down, Mike was tossing out the idea of murdering Rebecca’s former lover/father, right in front of her over Joe’s Famous MotherFucking Anytime Omelets, which, as a sidebar, are goddamn incredible. I can't stress this enough; the man is gifted in the kitchen.
“You can’t get close enough. Ever.”
“Ignore that, though. How devoted are his employees? I mean, all of his decisions went through you, you were his right hand lady, dig?” She dug. “It just seems with you out of the organization and him dead-”
“You can’t. He’s untouchable.”
“Let’s just say he isn’t. Let’s just say we touch him.”
“Touch him right on his fucking face,” Mike added, “with a power drill.”
“Right. Touch him right on his fucking face with a power drill. If the two most influential and respected members of this organization are out of the picture, could the rest even function?”
“No,” I said. “Rebecca said it herself, he didn’t trust anyone like he did her. Doesn’t sound like he’s got a second in command.”
“If we take him out,” Joe said, “problem solved.”

“Ok then. I’ll get my power drill.”

“Excuse me, but we’re all speaking in a strictly hypothetical sense, right?”
“Does ‘hypothetical’ mean ‘faster’?” Mike asked. He was serious.
“Because, the truth is, we won’t be able to get to him. You all will never even see him.”
“There’s got to be a way to get his attention and bring him out here personally. We got Mike outta jail, we kicked the asses of his damn fake cops, we escaped out of that Spider dungeon…he’s gotta be getting antsy.”
“Rebecca,” Joe started, “just think about it. I think, right now, you’re still too attached to him to think about this as a reasonable plan. You don’t really want to think about him with a power drill and, inevitably, Mike’s genitals going through his temple.” Mike smiled. “But I think there’s got to be a way. And it would probably be easier if you helped us, either telling us how to find him, or getting his attention, or whatever. If you do, that'll be great. But if you don’t want to help us, which I would completely understand…well I think we’re still gonna go ahead and try anyway, dig? We have to.”
“Yea, and don’t you worry about nothing‘, either. You’re in good hands. Me, Joe and Hank; we’re professionals. We’ll take care of you.”
“Don’t worry about ‘anything,’” Rebecca corrected.
“Also it’s ‘Joe, Hank and I.’” Joe said.
“And even though it’s a spoken conversation, I’m pretty sure if, given the chance, you’d choose the wrong ‘you’re’,” I added. Rebecca was confused.
“How could you even-” Mike interrupted her.
“No, no- He’s right. I would have.” Rebecca was thinking. I knew what we were going to do. We were going to get a whole lot of guns and make a whole lot of noise and kill bad guys until one of them is the Emperor. And if we die doin that, well at least we die doin that. Sure would be easier if we had Venom’s help though. She closed her eyes.
“Alright. We’ll try this. We’re all going to die in the end, anyway, right?”
“I’ve been saying that for years. OK, so this’ll be great, we’re gonna kill the Emperor until he’s dead and then we’ll be square, alright? Great. We‘ll split up for now; I‘ve got a couple of things I need to check up on and Rebecca, you should probably get some different clothes. We‘ll all meet up at Eddie‘s in an hour. Sound good?”
“Eddie’s?!” Mike’s eyes lit up. “Sounds great.”
“OK. Joe, you’ll come with me. Mike, you take Rebecca.”
“No problem, boss.” He put his arm around Rebecca’s shoulder and started leading her towards the bathroom. “Look; you’ve got a couple of places I’d like to put my dick in, and I really think we should sit down and talk about this before we do anything else.”
“Right. Mike’s out.” He rolls his eyes.
“OK, you’ve got some places in which I’d like--”
“The grammar was fine, Mike. You’re with me now.”

I don’t know what I was thinking in the first place.

Chapter Eight: The Pier

2007-04-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Our first order of business upon emerging from the snake den was to find Mike some clothes. I say "our," but I should say "my." My didn't care about finding clothes for the same reason he didn't mind leaving them in that snake basement in the first place: Certain things of considerable importance to most people rarely concern Mike. Things like pants, for example.
We were in a part of town that I didn’t recognize but that Mike, of course, knew like the back of his hand. With my shirt wrapped around his waist like an uncomfortably tight, fairly see-through man-skirt, Mike led us down a series of shady alleys. He didn’t look lost, but we certainly seemed to be drifting farther and farther from civilization.

“Mike, where are we going?” I finally asked.
“The pier,” he answered without turning around.
“I thought we were gonna head back to my apartment, or to get Joe or…to go somewhere that wasn’t a pier.”
“Nope. We’re going to the pier,” Mike said, as if that was the obvious plan from the beginning. I want to take this opportunity to stress that “the pier” isn’t the name of some club or hotel or anything. That would be normal, and frankly, not Mike’s style.

We arrived, sure enough, at a time-worn, now-abandoned pier. The pier was a few towns over from mine, the same town that holds my older brother‘s bar. I should probably check on him while I‘m in the neighborhood, provided Mike finds some pants first. The few docks that were still standing were doing so just barely. There were cracks and loose boards and the posts were sinking. Mike walked up to the least destruction-bound-looking pier and lifted one of the planks. He pulled out a plastic bag that contained a burrito, a half empty bottle of Vodka, and a pair of pants. He tossed me the Vodka as he slid on his blue jeans.

“You keep spare pants at an abandoned, sinking pier?”
“Yea. Pier Pants. I have some in an old shack in the woods, too.”
“You’re just so damn creepy sometimes, Mike.”
“Well, to each his own. Hey, there’s a phone booth over there,” he said pointing. “See if you can get a hold of Joe, get his ass down here.” I looked in the direction Mike was pointing and found a phone booth below a streetlight that refused to commit to either off or on. It blinked without any discernible rhythm and, I learned as I got closer, buzzed with every flash. I dialed Joe’s cell phone and found myself praying, for the second time that day, that he would answer, sparing me the unsettling task of inventing a series of sickening scenarios to explain his lack of response. For the second time that day, I was relieved to hear him pick up after two rings.

“Hello?” He sounded as he worried as I was.
“Joe, man, it’s Hank. I’ve got Mike, and we’re both safe.”
“Jesus Christ where the fuck are you?”
“At…some pier, I think.”
“Why, did Mike lose some pants or something.” What the hell?
“Yea. Any sign of Rebecca?”
“She’s with me. Christ, man, I was sure you guys were both done for when that guy walked off with you.”
“Yea, so was I. So can you be here soon? We’ve got some work to do.”
“As soon as I can, I’m on my way already. Hey, I gotta tell you man, I’ve got an ice cream shift tomorrow, do you think whatever the hell we’re doing is going to interfere?”
“If it does, it does.” He sighed on the other end.
“Fine. But you owe me.”
“Right. Oh, bring a shirt for Mike, too.” I hung up the phone and turned to see Mike, his beard full of Burrito crumbs, crossing the street to join me.
“What’s goin on?” He tossed me my shirt.
“Joe’s on his way."

Mike and I worked on that bottle of cheap Vodka and made smalltalk while we waited for Joe. He arrived in Rebecca's car in about twenty minutes. Joe got out of the car followed by Rebecca. Her eyes were tired, her hair was a mess and mascara lined her cheeks. Rebecca Venom looked like complete hell.

“You look like shit,” Mike told her with a wink. Not the most sensitive greeting, but Mike and I aren’t too far from cleaning spiders out of our asses. Formalities can be set aside for the time being. Joe tossed Mike his bag along with a shirt, which he declined. They walked off to catch each other up and I moved towards Rebecca.

Everything about her now was so much weaker than when we first met. She even seemed shorter now, somewhere between 6 1/2 feet and 32 inches. Her face, without the makeup or the confidence, looked like cheap porcelain. Like if I’m not careful, I just might break it. Seeing a woman like this always initiates my instinctual protection glands. I’m not a sexist by any means, but it takes times like these to remind me that all women are biologically designed to be inferior to men. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to yell at her, to scream at her, maybe even spit on her a few more times, and for all the shit that I’ve gone through in the past two days, I know I've earned it. I wanted to, but I didn’t stand a chance. Those big snake-eyes filling up with snake-tears; she needed someone to take care of her.

“OK, Lady. Let it out.”
“Are you sure? I mean…I’m sure you still have some unanswered questions for me.” Bless her heart she was trying.
“I’m sure. Tell me about you and about this Emperor guy. And about how he's got you tearin' up. Let it all out.” It’s what she’d been waiting to hear.
“Both of my parents died when I was very young,” she began.
“Well, that’ll happen,” I said. I wonder if that was insensitive. She stared at me, as if to say, “It sure was, Jackass.”
“As I’m sure you know, the Emperor is an incredibly influential force in the International Mafia.” Her confidence in my ability to know things was admirable, but misguided. Not only did I not know jack about what the Emperor of Spain does, this whole “International Mafia” tidbit hit me like a truck out of left field. These are the kinds of things you miss when you spend all your time watching Eskimo porn instead of CNN.
“My father, before he died, had accumulated a fairly large debt to the Emperor, a debt he couldn’t possibly pay. After the funeral, the Emperor got everything, which included my mother. And me.” She closed her eyes.
“Look…I knew, even as a little girl, I knew that the Emperor was doing something wrong, something illegal, maybe immoral, even if I was too young to know exactly what it was or why it was wrong. I knew that he stole, that he destroyed, that he had people killed and he may have even had something to do with the death of my father…But he…The Emperor, always took care of me. He was always very tender with me growing up. Always.

“You have to understand, Mr. Donahue, I was four years old when...He had more of a hand in raising me than my father did. You just don’t know…Oh, and there was so much traveling, and he introduced me to such wonderful people, it was all so…He kept me in the dark for most of his ‘business,’ but I got older. Once he couldn’t fool me anymore, or couldn’t distract me with another trip or a present, I started to figure things out. People were dying, and it was his decision. But…but he was so tender with me, Mr. Donahue, that…I suppose I might have been able to look past some of those…” She cut herself off. She was disgusted with her own attempt at justification. I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood on the matter. Joe and Mike were returning from their own discussion.

“What about your mother, Rebecca? What happened to her?”
“She…committed suicide not long after my father died.”
“Well, that’ll happen,” Mike said. OK, good, so it’s not just me.
“The Emperor tried to hide it from me for awhile, but I found out. I was very smart, he always said so.” And there it was. She’d gone on for too long as the powerful, worldly, confident snake-woman. The tears were pouring now.

The three of us stood over her, no one really sure what to do. We’ve never really been spectacular when it comes to stopping a woman’s tears. Starting them, well, we’re all experts in our own unique ways. Comfort, however, was not our game, and Rebecca was really bawling. The make-up-running, shoulders-heaving, short-of-breath kind of crying. The snot-out-the-nose-and-I-don’t-even-care kind of crying. That’s how you can tell someone really means it. If there’s disgusting snot shooting out of their nose and they don’t give a damn if you see it or not- Yea. They mean it.
Mike was finally the one to speak up. He looked to Joe and I first and nodded, and then he raised up an extended hand, indicating that we should give him some space. We did. He knelt down next to Rebecca and put his hand on her chin, lifting her head so her eyes were even with his.
Mike can be a great guy. I forget sometimes, because of his lack of tact, sense and deodorant and his fascination with biting preadolescents. If you can see past all that, which few people can, you’ll see what a genuinely good guy he can be. His knees on the ground even though it’s muddy, his hand on her chin even though it’s covered in snot and mascara; it’s not hard to see him as a caring father somewhere down the line. He reached into his bag and removed a small, thin rectangular case that he held close for a moment before offering it to Ms Venom.
“Rebecca,” he said quietly. “I want you to have this.” He handed her the case. She sniffed away some tears.
“What is it?”
“It’s a DVD of me having sex.”

She stared at him, her mouth wide open. At least the tears stopped.
“The Emperor’s a douche. Whenever you think of this asshole, of this moment, really, whenever you get depressed over anything, or bored or whatever, I want you to pop this baby in and watch it. All of it. The whole damn thing.” He licked his thumb and used it to clean off the smeared makeup all over her terrified face.
“The story goes,” he continued, “that there is this planet of Lesbians, right, and me, the President of Earth, I need to get over there and teach them how to love men again. Sexually speaking. I don’t want to spoil it for you…but let’s just say, uh, Mission Accomplished.”
“I can’t even-”
“I nail a whole buncha chicks,” Mike clarified excitedly, even though we all pretty much knew what “Mission Accomplished” meant. He went on, like a freight train without breaks going down hill on ice, in his self-congratulating review of his own movie.
“This video will cheer you up whenever you’re down. It’ll be like a rainbow for you on a rainy day. A sweaty, panting, Italian rainbow with a whole lot of cursing and a little bit of anal near the end.”
“Jesus Christ,” she squeaked out, the signs of crying clear in her voice.
“Yea. The lighting isn’t that great. I wasn’t responsible for the lighting, so don’t blame me. I know how to operate a spotlight, unlike some other people I know.” With this, he looked directly at Joe who promptly looked away.
“Just leave me out of this, Mike. Please.” Joe was tired of revisiting this memory.
“Whatever. If you can get passed the amateurish, unforgivably bad lighting, you’ve got yourself a hell of a good Sunday afternoon in your hands.” She shook her head, unable to utter any words to properly express her rage and threw the DVD across the road. Mike laughed as he stood up, brushing off the mud.
“Don’t worry, I have plenty of copies.”
“We all do,” Joe added bitterly. I nodded in agreement, reflecting on my own embarrassing stash of Mike Likes Dikes DVD collection stored safely beneath the floorboards in my laundry room. I wouldn’t have so many, but he has given out that same uncomfortable porn as Christmas, Birthday and Valentine’s gifts for the past four years.
“I can’t imagine why you thought a DVD of you sleeping with whatever disgusting women will touch you would ever cheer me up.”
“Well,” Mike replied, not to be discouraged, “if you change your mind-”
“I won’t.”
“But if you do…” He handed her a business card that read “Mike Russo: ‘Get in the Fucking Van’ ” followed by my cell phone number, for some reason.
“If I can interrupt this sexual harassment case begging to happen,” Joe said, “it’s getting dark. We should take this someplace else.”
We agreed.

Chapter Seven: Spiders.

2007-04-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

“Hank…”
Someone whispered somewhere.
“Hank, wake up man.”
I opened my eyes slightly. My head was still pounding, nothing was quite working. I knew someone was talking to me, I knew it was a voice I recognized, but I still couldn’t tell who it was. I was dizzy, even lying on the floor I was dizzy. My motor skills weren’t quite what they used to be, I learned, as I tried to push myself up off the cold floor. I was losing strength and balance when someone above me grabbed me.
“Easy, easy, easy now, man. I gotcha.” I was being pulled up by…someone.
“Alright, Hankonia.” Mike. It was Mike. “Can you talk?”
“Yea. Yes. But I can‘t really see, I don‘t think, I‘m not really takin‘ in any light.”
“There’s not a whole lot of light to take in, man. It’s pretty dark down…wherever the hell we are.” I looked around trying to decipher the blurry shapes of varying shades of grey, and I was unsuccessful. I gathered from the cold floor and the musky stench that we were in some wet basement somewhere, but that was as far as I got.
“How did we get down here?”
“Don’t know. Back at the prison, some fuckin’ huge god damn guy broke into my cell and knocked me out with one of the bars he ripped outta the wall. Next thing I know, I wake up here, next to you. You were saying my name in your sleep again, by the way.”
“I couldn’t have b-”
“You were screaming it.”
“Shut the hell up, Mike. Any way out?”
“No. There is no way out.” It was a voice that wasn’t Mike’s coming from a speaker somewhere in the room. A voice that was quiet and powerful at the same time. A voice that could belong to the giant man who presumably carried Mike and I here in the first place.
“Ok, so what do you want with us here? What do you want us to do?” Mike asked.
“Nothing.”
“What, are you just gonna let us starve to death? Because I have no problem eating the shit out of Hank the second I get hungry.” Loyalty.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary.”
“Are you sure? Cause I’ll do it.”
“I’m sure. It will take far too long.” I heard the faint sounds of motors working, I could even feel tiny vibrations in the floor. Something was going down.
“So what the hell are you gonna do?”
“Let’s just say, I’m going to cover you with thousands of spiders.” The slight radio static that accompanied the voice disappeared, so I imagined he shut off whatever communication device he was using.
“Well, that could mean anything.” Mike said.
I didn’t even get a chance to tell him to shut up. The first spider bounced off the top of my head before it hit the ground, and suddenly silencing Mike was the least of my worries. They were pouring in, directly above us from vents in the ceiling, hundreds of them, all kinds. All live spiders. Some of the heavier ones, the bigger ones, bounced off. Others latched right on and started crawling all fucking over me. I couldn’t even see exactly what part of the ceiling was oozing spiders and what part wasn’t, so I had no idea where to stand. I wondered if there were enough spiders to pack this entire room, bottom to top. I didn’t really want to wonder about that anymore.
“Hank of America,” Mike said, “I think it’s time we start thinking about permanent nicknames for each other.”
“Can we do this another time? Like, at a time when I’m not covered in spiders, for example?” I could feel some of the smaller spiders crawling into my shoes. I could see Spiders pouring through the vents above us, but I was sure there must be some other spider chute on the ground ejecting arachnids at a similarly alarming rate. There were just too many spiders. Larger spiders, spiders so big that they had hair on them, moved up my legs on the inside of my pants, beginning their pilgrimage to the holy shrine known as my genitals. Their legs moved so fast, it was difficult to tell how many there were just by feeling them. The fuzz on their legs and backs brushed all over my thighs. It would have been ticklish if it wasn’t so Goddamn terrifying. Oddly enough, not one of the spiders was biting. They were all just crawling, just exploring. Waiting, I guess, or establishing control.
I pinched the front of my pants and shook my entire lower half rapidly in an attempt to shake some of the spiders loose. I felt a few fall, but I also felt a few just starting the upwards crawl, so I guess that’s a tie. I tried to remain as absolutely cool as possible, but the second I felt one hit the back of my neck I spun my whole body around and slapped furiously at the fuzzy, eight-legged offender. I’d like to say I didn’t scream like a girl, but I don’t want to get into the habit of lying. There was a lot of high-pitched shrieking and a whole lot of cursing. “FuckingCockSpider,” all one word, was generously thrown around as I spun and spun.
Mike was handling himself quite differently. Like a man, one might say. He took his time and casually picked off each spider individually. He didn’t jump at their touch or pointlessly karate chop thin air, like some of us, he just dealt with the situation calmly, like this happens every Tuesday. A few crawled into his shoes, I noticed, so he slowly slid them off and tossed them aside. He continued, spiders be damned, his nickname discussion.
“Because, I mean, we’ve known each other awhile, the three of us, and I think it’s only natural that we come up with nicknames. Don’t you think it’s about time?”
“Really, Mike? Really?!” The light tan that was the skin on my arm was quickly being replaced by the grey, black and brown of an assload of spiders. All large, all hairy. My bare arms now resembled bear arms.
“Yea, really,” Mike said. As he spoke, he casually unzipped, unbuttoned and removed his pants as spiders found their way in. The Spiders still on his exposed legs he just gingerly plucked off.
Watching how collected and nonchalant Mike was just made me more aggravated as I considered rolling around on the ground, as if the spiders were flames I was going to put out.
“Mike, nicknames are not really at the top of my list of important things right now, so if you-”
“I was thinking we might call you The Vice, ya know? Cause alcohol’s kind of a vice and it just sounds cool, ya know? Like, ‘Oh, hey, how’s the Vice? The Vice is nice.’”
…
“OK. Yes.” Spiders aside, that was pretty badass.
“Nice, I knew you’d like it.” Mike slid out of his underwear, even though I knew for a fact that spiders didn’t crawl in there. “Just take off your pants, Dude.” I’d have listened to him if it wasn’t for the fact that that was his advice for all of my problems.
Then, all at once, and without warning, the spiders started biting.
I’m sure you’ve been bitten by a spider before. Or stung by a bee. Or at the very least, I’m sure you’ve carelessly pricked a finger on a needle, or a loose staple, or a poorly placed open paperclip. It didn’t hurt much, you’ll agree. But when you’ve got that sharp little jab, that miniscule, irritating prick, hundreds, literally, hundreds of times all over your body, it adds up. Tiny little daggers jabbing in and out, in and out, not stopping. These spiders weren’t biting to hold on, they were just chomping. Digging, or maybe just chewing for the sport of it. And I just didn’t know where to begin with them. The ones on my neck get priority, I decide, but as I’m peeling them off as delicately as I can, I feel that a few of them have just found their way to Testicle City, a town of which I am the sworn protector, and suddenly I have a brand new priority that requires my full attention. And while I’m tearing my pants off as fast as physics will permit, I feel a big one, right on top of my head moving towards my face. My eyes. Priorities shift again. I try to spin free, to shake my head until the spider flies off, but with my pants around my ankles I trip. The fall to the ground is terrifying. I was right, earlier, when I suspected that there was some other vent or shaft that was shooting out spiders on the floor. There was a large chute at the base of the wall, and I was about to land roughly two inches in front of it. I hit the ground hard, my face dangerously close to that spider chute. More and more spiders, coming from everywhere march towards me. One of them crawls in my ear, and I’ll say that that was the worst sensation in recent memory. Every move, every step that the spider makes with those eight legs, the sound is magnified by %1000. It’s deafening; the frantic scrambling of a spider that wandered down the wrong tunnel and can’t find it’s way out. The spider trapped in my ear canal. So desperate its chomping away inside my damn ear, doing hundreds of dollars in medical bills worth of damage, I’d imagine. The constant, thunderous scratching of eight terrified legs completely overpowers any bit of control I might have had, from my position on the floor with my pants around my ankles. I can’t hear Mike. If I’m screaming, I can’t hear it. I can’t concentrate on anything else other than that brain-shaking ear-spider. I’m covered in spiders, face down in spiders, blood pouring from my forehead from the fall and I know I don’t want to scream because that’ll just give a new opening for the spiders to crawl into.
I freeze.
I do not know what to do. It’s all blackness now. I can’t think. I don’t know if I’m blind because my eyes are close or covered in spiders or full of blood. The spiders cover me like a hairy, leg-having blanket that keeps getting heavier. And also, the blanket is biting me. I can feel spiders fighting to get into my mouth, and I can feel some fight their way inside. Inside my fucking mouth. I can’t even breathe any more and I’m afraid to move when suddenly, what must be the biggest spider of all grabs me, really grabs me, by the back of the neck and pulls me up into the air.
Wait.
It wasn’t a huge-ass spider. It was Mike. He pulled me up from the ground and brushed off as many spiders as he could, all the while trying to calm me down and get me through this, “you’re doing fine,” being his mantra.
“You’re doing fine, you’re doing fine. No sudden moves, try to brush a few off, if you can. Step out of your pants, one leg at a time. There you go. You’re doing fine. Now can you hear me? I found a way out of here, let’s go.” He led me by the hand as I regained some composure. Once I could see again, and with my pants off, it was easy to see exactly how many spiders were on me and much easier to isolate and pluck them off. I was a little embarrassed looking at my legs, noticing that there was not nearly as many spiders covering me as I thought there were. Uncertainty is a hell of a thing, I suppose. Mike hoisted me up to a window in the corner, a window that once was boarded up. I assumed he ripped the boards off and I climbed through. I rolled out onto the street, kissing daylight and feeling like I could finally breathe, see and move again. I shook the ear-spider loose the instant I could stand and then squashed him with authority. I brushed a few more spiders off and stomped on as many as I could. The few that survived ran back to the basement. Mike crawled out of the basement window, naked except for his socks, and smiling.
“What a rush, eh, Vice?” I spit out several spiders onto the pavement.
“The Vice could use a shower, Mike.”

Chapter Six: Holy Fuck

2007-04-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

I answered my phone picking up what might have been Rebecca’s 12th call.
“What the hell is so god damn important?” I whispered as I made my way down the corridor, already unsure of how I was going to sneak by Jimmy Robocop yet again.
“You’re OK? Christ, Hank, I thought he got you.”
“Who? Jimmy? I don’t even think they let him carry a gun.” She sounded crazy on the other end of the phone, liked she‘d been crying and screaming and puking, all at once.
“No, Hank, the guy that came in. Those two guys escorting the bigger guy-”
“The cops?” She danced between whispering and shouting and I had a hard time keeping up.
“Not cops, Hank. Those guys work for the Emperor, and that guy they were bringing in was The Specialist I was telling you about.” I started to slow down my jog. This wasn’t making any sense. Why were fake cops arresting The Specialist?

“Wait, those guys weren’t cops? But they were trying to book that guy, they wanted him behind bars, I saw them argue about it. They were fighting with Jimmy, screaming at him really, to get their monster into a cell.” I was just a few feet from the front office, still not entirely sure what was going on.
“They were what? Hank, did you get Mike out of there?” I pushed open the door with not enough caution, considering the situation.
“No I couldn’t, those-”

Everything hit at the same time like a giant explosion in my brain. A tornado of bad news, but it all made sense. I stepped through the door and saw what was left of Jimmy Robocop, mangled and disfigured behind his desk. His back was bent. His neck was broken, several times by the looks of it and his right hand was crushed beyond recognition. There was a look of horror on his face. He was making the face I’d make if the biggest man I’d ever seen put his hands on my throat. He was making the face Victor probably made, right before said face was punched in. I’d almost forgotten that I still had the phone to my ear.

“Hank, what cell would they take The Specialist to?” I didn’t answer. Jesus, that guy’s hands. They were big enough to palm a Volkswagen, I thought. Or bend a man in half.
I knelt down and grabbed the late Officer Robocop’s wallet and ran back out the door, down the hallway. I hung up my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. God Almighty. That’s why they wanted to book the bald man: They were just gonna lock up that thing in a cell with Mike. I hoped I wasn’t too late.
I ran down that corridor faster than I thought my legs could handle. I’ll certainly be sore tomorrow, provided I’m still alive. I was all “action and intensity” as I charged the hallway, but my confidence faded when I reached the corner. I was terrified of making that turn. Maybe I’d see Mike getting crushed to death right in the hallway, or I’d see his limp body in a heap on the floor between some low level thugs in Rent-a-Cop uniforms. Or maybe I’d see nothing at all, and that would mean that the two fake cops and a metric ton of mercenary were in the cell with Mike. I paused at the corner, slowing down my breath in case I’d have to sneak up on anyone. I struggled past the sound of my own out-of-shape heavy breathing and the deafening pounding of my heart, and I tried to make out the noise. It wasn’t screaming. That was promising. It was footsteps, getting louder, coming towards me. Why are they coming back here? I tried to make out what was being said, but it was too faint; they were too far away. Two people were arguing back and forth about something, neither of them were Mike. The tones lacked his patented, tactless shouting. What were they saying? Something over and over again.
“Fuckin’ keys,” I finally heard them say. Fuckin’ keys? Fucking keys! I had the motherfucking keys! They couldn’t get into that cell without the keys, and I fucking had them! I ran and put my back up against the left wall, as close as I could come to the corner without being seen. This is a move I often see in video games, but I have no idea why I’m doing it. In the games, whoever backs up against a wall like this generally has a plan, a gun and unlimited lives. I have none of those things. I just had these keys. Ok, what would MacGyver do if he needed to bail Mike out of jail and only had keys?
I put the keyring inside my palm and proceeded to stick a key out between every finger. When I make a fist, the result is a sharp, jagged, brass knuckle, (you can do this at home, too). The plan was to use my new weapon, (which made me look like Wolverine, if he were a locksmith), on the very first non-cop I saw. If every action movie I’ve ever seen is any indication, I will theoretically be fast enough, strong enough and calm enough to take his gun away from him and cap it all off with a spontaneous and badass catch phrase.
They were getting closer. I tightened my fist as the footsteps got louder and louder, and I let out a smile when I heard them talking about Mike.

“Creepy bastard.” That’s our Mike.
“Why do you think his pants were off?”
“I don’t…I don’t really want to think about it.” Mike willingly faces death with his pants off. He’s either missing a chromosome or has a surplus of testosterone. Either way, I’m sure whatever explanation he has would be infinitely more disgusting than whatever the cops could come up with.
“Hey, do you remember the two guys hanging around the office back there?”
“I didn’t really get a good look at them, but yea. They left before the Specialist did his thing; I know they weren’t in the room for that.” Getting closer.
“Right, I know that, but they couldn’t have come out through the front door, we were standing right there…so where do you think they went?” The footsteps stopped and, from the sound of it, they were about a yard away from the corner. Dammit. Keep moving, boys.

“Huh.”

Alright now. They don't know who I am, but they know I was here and am now missing. If these guys are smart, they’ll split up or call someone or search the building and eventually find and kill me. If they’re stupid, they’ll ignore the peculiarity of the situation and continue on their path where I will get the drop on them in a Die-Hard-esque display of machismo. Come on.
“Whatever.”
“Yea. Fuck it.”
Booya.
A few more steps. I remember seeing the front of the left shoe of one of the cops rounding the corner. With the next step, enough of him will be visible to get one solid punch in. I try to remember how to throw a punch the way my dad taught me. I'd have to skip taking a shot of tequila, the step that begins all of the lessons my father taught me.

I saw the cop before he saw me, just by a second. It was enough time to swing up my arm and connect my key-fist with his face.
“Meet my Key Witness!” I fucking screamed. I could feel the keys sinking in just slightly deeper than my totally wicked burn, and when I pulled my fist back, blood started to pour. He grabbed his face as officer Neck Tattoo looked on confused.
“Fuck! What the Fuck?!” What the fuck indeed, Motherfucker. He sank to the floor as Neck Tattoo and I locked eyes. In my eyes, there was the realization that I no longer had the drop on them and thus no longer had the element of surprise. In his eyes there was the You-just-maybe-blinded-my-good-buddy look. I tried throwing another punch, which he easily blocked. He grabbed both of my arms and pinned them to my sides.
“Fuck, man, my fuckin’ eye!”
Fake Officer Neck Tattoo is much stronger than I am. He indicated this by rendering my entire upper body motionless as he tossed me, almost effortlessly, into the wall. The back of my head smashed the concrete and I went down. I landed face down and I could hear Neck Tattoo saying something into a phone or walkie-talkie.
“It’s me. We’ve got trou-” but he was cut off. I was still face down on the floor, so I only had the soundtrack of what was happening. Something was cutting through the air and making that “whoosh” sound, followed by a thud. Then a grunt. Then a body hitting the floor. I was still fading when someone lifted me up, shaking me the whole time.
“Come on, come on. Work to do,” the voice said.
My eyes focused as much as they could, which is to say, not a lot, but enough to realize that Joe was the one lifting me up. He had Mike’s satchel bag and on the floor next to him lay an aluminum baseball bat which he used, presumably, to knock out Neck Tattoo just seconds earlier. I was clearing up.
“Where were you?”
“Evidence and Confiscated Items room, for this,” he answered as he indicated Mike’s bag. “We have to get Mike. Now.” He was right. I imagined that whoever our fake cop tried calling would be sending a lot of help, very shortly. Both of our non-cops were passed out for the time being, one because of a solid key-punch to the face, the other from Joe’s patented homerun swing. I picked up the keys and we ran at full speed, directly into what Rebecca called “The Specialist.”

Right into him.

The collision knocked both Joe and I on our asses while the Specialist reacted the same way he would to a light breeze. I remained silent from my position on the floor because I didn’t know how to adequately express just how terrified I was to have this beast looming over me.
“Holy Fuck!” Joe did. The bald, smirking refrigerator of a man had something over his shoulder. It was Mike. He wasn’t crushed to death, which is always a promising sign, and there was no blood. The Specialist, I assume tired of waiting for the non-cops, tore the cell’s door right off. He looked like the type of man who could totally do that, should he feel so inclined. Mike was a fairly average-sized guy, just a shade taller than me at 5’10”, and his shoulders were a little broader, but he looked just like a kid compared to the massive man-mountain towering above us. Joe started backing up and scrambling to his feet, but I just sat there. In retrospect, I think I may have had a concussion. I could only see what was directly in front of me; everything in my peripheral was blurred and jagged, like watching a television with bad reception. My motor skills were decreasing; holding onto the keys was taking up all of my concentration at the time, even though I didn’t even need them anymore. I felt like a shell of myself, like I couldn’t quite think or speak like me. Were I in perfect health, I imagine I’d have jumped up and ran away screaming, possibly urinating. One of the good things about concussions, though, is that it knocks a little sense out of you. I understood what was going on, but I was too dumb to register just how terrified I should be. I laid on the floor with what looked like a controlled calmness, but what was in actuality a mild concussion. My vision was decreasing as little blurry lighting bolts of distortion started striking their way into my small window of sight.
“Hank, get up!” I could hear Joe shout. It sounded like he was in another room, or like I was underwater.
“No, man. I’m gonna…I’m gonna stay right here,” I replied casually. I must have seemed pretty badass, relaxing and yawning in front of that gigantic, back-bending murderer.
“What?” I heard Joe scream, and it was the last thing I heard before I completely lost consciousness.

Chapter Five: Sentras and Prisons

2007-04-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

Rebecca led me to a parking garage two blocks east of my apartment to her rental car. It was a 1997 Silver Nissan Sentra, the kind of car that everyone’s mom somehow bought the same summer. Coming out of a supermarket and looking for that car was like looking for a needle in a stack full of needles, but you only had keys to one of the needles. I decided that I would be driving and she would be talking. And I decided that before anything else happened, we were going to get Joe.

“Joe is fine,” she told me, “We have bigger problems.” If she was trying to insinuate that Joe wasn’t very tall, she was just being ridiculous. He’s incredibly tall.
“As long as I’m driving, we’re going to go where I want to go. How do I know I can even trust you? You let a bunch of Spanish thugs burn my bar to the ground.”
“There were no Spanish thugs, it was just one man. His name is Lincoln, but everyone calls him The Specialist. And that’s who we have to watch out for, because he is very good at what he does.” I was speeding while simultaneously fishing my phone out of my pocket. I realized I had no idea where Joe might be staying tonight.
“And what exactly does he do.” Rebecca opened a small manila folder containing several photos. I would occasionally break my focus on the road briefly to glance at whatever picture she was holding. A picture of my burning bar. Back to the road. A picture of Mike, his hands cuffed behind his back as a couple of police officers I didn’t recognize led him to the station. He was smiling. Back to the road. A picture of some wet clothes, and I couldn’t really make out their relevance to this situation. Back to the road. I glanced back at that third picture, the one of the clothes, and-

Jesus Christ.

I recognized the ascot first. If you think that "ascot" is the gayest way of describing that particular article of clothing, try “flowing necktie” on for size. Or Scarfmosexual. It’s an incredibly pretentious piece of cloth to tie around your neck; it’s not necessarily useful or comfortable, but it lets everyone around you know that you think you’re better than they are. It’s the neck’s answer to the monocle. They’re very popular in England.
Ohio, too. There was only one person I knew who’d be caught dead wearing one of those, and there he was, literally caught dead wearing it. Victor Pennington, more blood than clothes in that picture. His face wasn’t there anymore, it just…wasn’t. It didn’t look like it was ripped off, exactly, just hit so hard that it went…inside. A face implosion, I suppose. I identified him by his outfit and a ring he always wore. The ring was visible on the hand that was actually intact, but there was not much else to identify him with. If you didn’t know that Victor Pennington dressed like a complete fucking tool all the time, you’d have no idea it was him. Good luck to those forensics boys.
“What the hell did this to him?” My personal guess was either a herd of Rhinos or a herd of Jeep Wranglers.
“The Specialist.”
“One guy did this?”
“With his bare hands. I tried explaining-”
“We’re getting Joe. Call him.” I tossed her my phone. She sighed, but found his name in the list of contacts and hit “send.” She put the phone to my ear and my heart stopped. What if he didn’t pick up?
He did.
“Hank where the hell are you?”
“I’m driving, I’m on Mercer with Miss Snaketown.”
“…I don’t know who that is. I’m in the parking lot of the prison, I figured you’d be here already. Don't you watch the news?”
“Not till they make a Croatian porn about it. I‘ll be there soon, don‘t go in without me.”

There’s just one prison in this down, though it barely qualifies as a real prison. It’s really only equipped to temporarily hold a few people at time, about 8, max. Usually drunks, and usually only for a couple of days at the most. Inmates are either released overnight or transferred to a proper prison after a few days. There’s generally just one guard for the whole building, whoever drew the short straw that morning.

Joe and I met up in the parking lot and we decided that Rebecca would wait outside in the car, and we would get inside, get a set of keys off the one guard and figure out which cell they were keeping Mike in. Shouldn’t be too difficult. There were only two cells. I suppose to separate drunks from the other, more serious offenders. Jaywalkers, mostly. And suspected arsonists, in Mike’s case.
Joe and I walked in the front door and made our way towards the head office. If the guard at the desk had been on the force for a few years, it shouldn’t really be a problem. Most of the cops here know me, I’ve got a clean record, as far as they’re concerned, and I’ve never charged a single cop for a drink. Also, I’ve never said a word about a few high-ranking officers who may have had a few rounds while on duty before hopping into their cruisers. But I will, if it means getting my in-this-case-innocent friend out of prison. If it was a younger cop, a new guy, there’s a chance he won’t know me and will therefore be less inclined to give me any special treatment.

We opened the door to the office to find an eager, young, clean-shaven little prick sitting up straight, alert and attentive, behind the desk. A rookie. From the look of his $2 haircut and smile-less face, I’d say he was one of those by-the-books, fresh-out-of-the-academy-and-ready-to-make-a-difference kind of rookies. This was going to be tough, and, evidently, would require a lot of hypens. I put on a smile and extended a hand.

“Evening, Officer.” He nodded at my hand and didn’t get up from his seat. Great. “My name’s Hank Donahue. I’m the guy who’s bar was burned down.”
“Good evening, Mr. Donahue. I’m sorry to hear about your bar,” he said, his voice completely devoid of emotion and personality. There are two kinds of cops, as far as I'm concerned. One is the type that was top dog in high school, your Alpha Male. He didn't get into college but he still wants to cling on to some kind of power so he can continue to oppress innocent nerds with ridiculous traffic tickets. The other type, ironically enough, is the type that was picked on in high school. Once he has a badge, everyone is legally obligated to respect him. Believing, as we all do when we're fourteen, that High School represents the entire world, Officer FormerNerd will take out his frustrations on anyone and everyone, presuming that, if someone didn't pick on him personally in high school, they probably picked on someone similar to him in their own high school, and therefore deserved a taste of their own medicine. This cop struck me as the nerd kind. He kept his eyes on Joe the whole time, who matched his gaze with a mirrored intensity.

“Yes, thank you. This is my attorney, Joseph Valenzuela. I saw on the news that you caught the guy responsible for the fire, is that true?”
“Yes, Sir, it is,” he responded with the soul of a radiator.
“Ok. We were wondering if we could go back and see him, maybe, just to get a look at him.”
“I’m sure you can catch him on the News, it’s the top story.” No nonsense.
“Yea, well, we were actually hoping to have a few words with him, ask a few questions. It was my bar, after all.”
“I will be questioning the prisoner, all of his answers will be available in his prison file that I will file after I question him.” Christ.
“Listen, Robocop,” Joe said. “We don’t have time to waste. But do you know what we do have? An indisputable right to speak with the accused, not strictly because this is America--stars and bars--but particularly because my client has both a personal and professional interest and stake in this case. Let me begin by-” I surveyed the office as Joe eloquently tore officer Robocop a brand new robo-asshole. A ring of keys was hanging on a small hook above a computer, unreachable from the outside of the desk. I’d need to get behind there, which meant a distraction. I finally tuned back into the People v. Robocop, which was really just a back-and-forth battle to see which side knew more legal terms and police procedures. I was just in time for the Defense’s closing statement.
“Your stake in the case, Mr. Valenzuela, is irrelevant. If you wish to meet with a prisoner, you can fill out the proper paperwork and come back tomorrow morning during visiting hours. Like everyone else.” Joe looked at me, frustrated.
“Fine.”
We took the two stacks of papers Robocop offered us and sat at a small circular table in the corner of the office. This was aggravating. Time was I filled out forms in this town, just like everyone else, but those times are behind me. Someone needs to teach this Roboturd the score.

We finished the ridiculous amount of forms and made our way back to the desk when the front door opened. Two officers I’ve never seen before entered escorting a very large, very angry-looking bald man with a goatee. Arguably the biggest man I’ve ever seen, and I could tell that this fact made Joe uncomfortable. It was important for him to be the tallest individual at any given time. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I silenced it as I tried to figure out who these cops were. One of them had long sideburns and a moustache, he looked like he was straight out of the seventies and the other had a black tattoo of something Japanese on the back of his neck.
“Evening, Jimmy,” officer Neck Tattoo said. “New Inmate, already checked him, he’s ready now so we’re just gonna go lock him up. Burglary.” The two cops started walking towards the hall and the giant man glared right at me the whole time, like he knew me.
“Hold on, now,” Officer Jimmy Robocop said. “I still…I still need to search and formally book the prisoner first, and I need-”
“Jimmy,” Officer Sideburns-Moustache interrupted. “Didn’t we just say we already searched him?” The man stared at me. My phone buzzed. I silenced it.
“Yes, Sir, you did, Sir, but procedure says-“
“Fuck procedure, Jimmy.” RoboJim was starting to sweat. He kept shooting Joe and I glances, as if he was worried he was losing some authority by being chewed out and undermined right in front of us. “Jimmy, we’ve been doing this awhile; we know what we’re doing, now give me the keys.” RoboJim’s face was getting red.
“It’s just…I don’t even…I can’t let you in without-” Officer Sideburns-Moustache was getting angry. It looked like he was ready to charge the desk when Officer Neck Tattoo, the obvious ‘Good Cop’ in this scenario intervened.
“Look, Jimmy. Just let us drop him off in the cell. We can all sit down and talk about this without his ugly ass distracting us. Then we’ll fill out all the paperwork you want.” He smiled. “OK?”
“OK.” The two strange cops started forward but were stopped by Robocop’s extended robohand. “But I still need to search him.” Jimmy Robocop was the portrait of By The Book. It was almost admirable, his dedication. Here was a kid, about 22, looked to be a lonely, kind of socially awkward kind of kid, and he’s not budging, not moving away from procedure even if it means severely pissing off a few coworkers. These were two more experienced, certainly more aggressive officers screaming at him, undermining him. Really just picking on him at this point. He looked like he was about to cry, but damned if he was going to deviate from the rulebook.

“If I said I searched him, it means I fucking searched him, Jimmy, you got that you little shit?” Jimmy was developing a stutter, maybe a recurring tick he’d repressed when he entered the academy.
“It, it c-c-couldn’t hurt t-to, to….if I searched him, it c-couldn’t hurt. We’re w-w-wasting more time arguing than-” Officer Sideburns-Moustache was yelling now, warning Jimmy that he would make sure Jimmy’s “stupid ass gets fired.” Officer Neck Tattoo was trying to think of a reasonable compromise in this weird Ego Cop Fight. The Giant Bald Man kept staring at me, smirking now. Christ. Heterosexuality to one side, that man had some enormous hands. He looked like he could palm a Volkswagen with those hands. Kudos to the two cops who caught him. My phone buzzed. I was about to check it when I felt Joe nudging me. I followed his gaze to the keys. Officer Jimmy Robocop was ready to burst into tears with a panic attack, Officer Sideburns-Moustache was ready to eat him, and the keys were completely unsupervised. Joe moved a few feet forward and turned, standing at an angle that completely blocked me from the line of sight of the angry officers. So Jimbocop had his back to me, and I was safely hidden behind Joe, the second tallest man in the room. The only person who could see me was the huge bald guy, and I don’t think he was going to say anything. As quietly as I could, I pushed open the waist-high door on the side of the desk and quickly slid off the key ring. I backed up towards the door and Joe followed me. We pushed open the only door in the office that didn’t lead outside and hurried down the corridor.

“Did you see the size of that guy, Joe?” We ran as we spoke, both of us assuming we had maybe two minutes to get Mike and get out of there.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Joe said.
“And did you see those cops? I thought all cops were supposed to be clean-shaven.”
“And no visible tattoos, I thought. This town is falling apart.”

We passed a few doors as we ran. Bathroom, bathroom, storage closet, interrogation room. At the end of the hall, we faced a sign. To the right, the sign said, we could hit the locker room, the evidence room and the radio room. To the left, we could hit the prisons. I was about to run left when Joe stopped me.
“Give me the keys,” he said. I handed him the key ring.
“Why?” He didn’t answer. He scanned the keys, removed one and handed the ring back to me. My phone buzzed.
“I’ll meet you outside,” he said and ran to the right. Joe typically knows what he’s doing, so I turned and ran to the left.
I hit the first cell, clearly full of drunks, most of them already far along on their way to sobriety.

“Hey Hank,” one of them said. I stopped as he walked up to the bars. It was Wally, a regular. “Can you believe this?” I could. Wally once offered to sell me his liver for one more shot of Scotch. I don’t think he understood the irony of his request.
“Yea, its tough…Hey, have you seen-“
“He’s next door, he’s fine. Shame about your bar though. I‘m gonna have to find a new place to spend my Saturdays, I guess.” And your Sundays and weekdays, all major holidays and your daughter’s college fund, I thought. I thanked him and ran down a few yards to the next cell. Inside, I found Mike sitting peacefully on a bench on one side of the room while three other prisoners huddled together on the opposite side. They looked terrified. Mike smiled when he saw me.
“Hanky Panky! What’s going on?” I held up the keys. “Oh, cool.” Mike walked over to the bars and waved to the other inmates who all looked away. I fumbled around with the keys. There was about 20 unlabeled keys on the ring and it looked like I was going to have to try all of them to get this cage open.
“Those other prisoners look pretty freaked out, Mike.”
“I don’t know why,” he said with a shrug. Though, I’m pretty sure he had an idea why. Mike can be pretty creepy, sometimes. He pulled a burrito out of his pocket and started eating. “They’re alright, though, nice guys, really. Just a little, I don’t know…squeamish, I guess.” Where did he get a burrito? My phone buzzed. I tried some more keys.
“Oh, so do you know what I’m here for?” Mike asked with his mouth full.
“Yes, Mike. They think you burned down my bar.”
“I know! I tried telling them it was probably Victor, but they weren’t having it.” I almost forgot.
“Victor’s dead, Mike.”

That picture.

“Shit.” I tried some more keys. My phone buzzed. Dammit, not now.
“Anyway,” Mike started, “The food here really isn’t as horrible at the movies make you think. And I asked a couple of the other guys about anal rape and it’s…it’s just not the kind I thought it was going to be.”
“Well, Mike, what did you think it was gonna be?”
“I thought it was gonna be the other way around, and with chicks.”
“Did you really think they were going to let you sexually assault a bunch of women in prison?”
“I always kinda hoped…I mean, where‘s our tax money going if not for that?”
"You don’t pay taxes, Mike." I had about five keys left on the ring when I heard a door open in the distance. The door between the front desk and the main corridor. It was Officers Sideburns-Moustache and Neck Tattoo followed by, what sounded like, a giant bear stomping down the hallway. Huge Bald Man, we presume. I wonder if they caved or if Jimmy caved. Regardless, they were heading this way.
“Shit, Mike, man, I gotta go.”
“Ok.” He seemed fine with this.
“I’ll be back, I swear, but if those guys catch me here, I’m done.”
“Whatever.” Man, there is just no getting that guy down. I ran down the hallway and dove into a janitor’s closet just as the two cops and their huge prisoner were turning down the corridor. They didn’t see me. I heard them mumbling something down the hall, laughing together as my phone buzzed. As soon as they were passed the closet, heading towards Mike’s cell to, presumably, lock up this huge guy, I slid out the door and snuck back down the hallway. I had no way of getting in touch with Joe to let him know what was going on, and I could only hope that he was already out of the building. I quickly and quietly jogged through the main hallway of storage closets and interrogation rooms when my phone buzzed again. Jesus Christ. It was Rebecca Venom and she really wanted to get in touch with me.
Women.

Chapter Four: Ass Shakes

2007-04-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

“I knew I should’ve drank his ass when I had the chance,” Mike said. It was a quarter passed 12, almost an hour after Victor was supposed to meet us, and there was still no sign of him. I was sipping my sixth cup of Irish coffee, disappointed in myself that I even expected him to be here in the first place, and Mike was pacing around my apartment, bottle of vodka in hand. He’s been feeling antsy like this all day, ever since he found out someone else was running his town. It was irresponsible on my part to mix an already trigger-happy Mike with alcohol, but, in fairness to me, I withheld the bottle until I was sure Victor wasn’t coming, so really it was his fault. Also, I didn’t really care. While I brooded in my coffee and Mike stomped around my kitchen, Joe just sat quietly. Thinking.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, finally.
“It makes perfect sense,” Mike countered. “I cut off a few slices of his ass, toss them into the blender and then-”
“I wasn’t talking about your Ass Shake, Mike-”
“Booty Smoothie,” Mike corrected.
“Fine. But I was talking about Victor. Think about it.” I didn’t. Joe was always telling me to think about something, and I never do because I know that he’ll eventually tell me whatever it was he wanted me to think about, which saves me a whole lot of trouble. Instead, I stared intensely at nothing in particular to present the illusion that I was thinking. After some time, Joe interrupted my non-thoughts.

“He wouldn’t skip out on this meeting, not intentionally. We know where his bar is and he knows we’d come after him. We made it pretty clear.”
“So maybe he skipped town,” Mike offered. “Sure, he burns down Hank’s bar and splits.”
“No bro, check this out.” A sidebar: We let Joe get away with saying things like “Bro” and “Dig” and “Jibber Jabber” because, as a Pacific Islander, he is the closest thing to a black person we know. Onward. “Victor wouldn’t just pack up and leave that jibber-jabberin’ bar of his, even if he did burn the bar down. Think about it.” No. “Victor’s only motivation for burning down the bar would be to reap all the business. With Hank’s bar gone, Victor is the only bar game in town, dig? All the upper-middle class white folks need somewhere to drink Mojitos and seduce their mistresses and whatnot, and Victor’s lame ass pub is their only option. Why would we leave? Why would he bounce even if he was responsible for the fire, which I don’t think he was.” I was thinking actual thoughts now. I assumed Victor had chickened out; it hadn’t occurred to me that someone had stopped or obtained Victor before he could make it.

“You’re saying Victor burned the bar down?” Mike asked, because he has trouble listening sometimes.
“No. Not at all. He’s saying that someone got to Victor before he could make it here.”
“Someone nabbed Victor? What, are they going after all the bartenders in town?” I wish it was as simple of that. I wish Victor’s disappearance was as random and unpredictable as an anti-bar movement, or some kind of bartender epidemic. But something in my gut told me that my ass was at the heart of this problem. Something told me that, whoever was out there, was after me. Something told me that, had he not been seen with me earlier today, Victor Pennington would still be around speaking in a second-rate accent making fourth-rate Manhattans. Something. Maybe it was my intuition that told me that, suddenly, no one I knew was safe. Alternatively, maybe it was Miss Whats-her-name-Snake-Mouth. What was it she said?

“You, your pathetic bar, your friends your family, your grammar school teachers; no one is safe."

Yep. That was definitely it. Dammit. Perhaps I should’ve taken that Reptilian Sex-Temptress’s warnings a little bit more seriously. The more time these guys spend with me, the more danger I’m putting them in. I thought about Victor; wherever he was, he was there because of me. If he went down, it's because he was seen with me. I thought about waking up one day and discovering that someone else was driving Joe’s truck or hanging around my bar looking for handouts. It made me sick. I've got some family out there, too. A couple of brothers, and I can't even think about what could happen to them. I might even suck up my grapes and work for this crazy Spanish bastard, if it meant keeping these guys safe. I made an executive decision regarding this little meeting.

“I think you guys should call it a night. Stay in a motel or something. You probably shouldn’t go home and you certainly shouldn’t hang around me too much. Get out of here.” Mike was confused and note quite ready to leave, but Joe assured him that he would make sense of the whole thing on the walk home.

“Why do I have to stay in a motel?”
“Just trying to keep you out of harm’s way,” I told him. They left and, kidding myself, I got into bed. As if I could possibly go to sleep.

****

I woke up several hours later to a familiar smell. It wasn’t Mike, who often smelled like every eighth grader who hasn’t been given the deodorant speech yet. And it wasn’t my mother, who smelled like pure heaven. It was someone else.

Snaketooth.

I sat up immediately and there she stood in the center of my bedroom. I mentally kicked myself for falling asleep. I wondered how long she’d been standing there. Hard to say. She was standing though, this much I knew. I’m sort of a detective, I suppose. A beautiful, arguably evil, woman was standing in my bedroom, but she didn’t look like the confident, crotch-taming seductress I met earlier. No, something got to her because at this point she looked like a woman full of regret. She looked like all women who end up in my bedroom; confused, nervous and disappointed, wondering where her life went wrong. Don't let the vulnerable act get to you, Hank ole' boy; stay on your toes.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked as I lit two cigarettes.
“I need your help,” she told me. I stood up from my bed and handed her a cigarette. I reached behind her to my closet and retrieved a bottle of scotch. The action can be seen on page 9 of the free medical pamphlet “Is Daddy a Functional Alcoholic?”
“Oh that’s all well and good, ma’am, but last time I checked, I was down one bar and you were cruising around town in a stretch limo. So if there’s anyone in this room deserving of some charity, I’d have to say I’m at the top of that list.” She lowered her eyes. “But I'm not askin' for any money for this charity. Just answers.” Also, money, I should have added.
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know,” she said. I don’t know why I was listening to her. I have no logical reason to trust a damn word that flips off her forked tongue, but she was the only one who might have some information. Really, my last shot to possibly save my friends, family and myself.

“Did you burn my bar down?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. You’re a bitch.”
“Well, not me exactly. My associates. My employer, or…former employer, I should say.” I walked towards the kitchen indicating with a head nod that she should follow me. I started a fresh pot of coffee and retrieved two mugs from my mug cabinet. I grabbed sugar. I grabbed some milk. I grabbed two spoons. Really I was trying to focus on any and every menial task to calm myself down. If I use my hands to retrieve spoons and prepare coffee, I couldn’t possibly use them to strangle Miss Snake n’ Bake. I had someone who was vaguely connected to the destruction of my bar and it was taking all the willpower I had not to beat her to death with her own snakey arm.

“I should warn you,” she began, “that we haven’t much time. Please; continue with your questions and-”
“We will go at whatever pace I see fit, Miss PoisonRatTailedSnake, (that’s not even a snake). If I want this discussion to last all night, then it will, understand? I don’t have to worry about being late for work or anything, because someone burned my god damn bar down.”
“Rebecca.”
“What the fuck did you just call me?” Is she serious?
“Rebecca. Call me Rebecca, please.” Rebecca. Was that it? That doesn’t have anything to do with snakes.
“And I’m sorry about your bar, Mr. Donahue. I really didn’t think it would come to that. And I’m sorry about Mr. Pennington and Mr. Russo- really this…this has all gotten so out of hand so quickly.”
“Hang on- what about Mike?” She was crying now, but I was not about to let any sympathy get the better of me. The patience of a Saint kept me from watching her choke to death on my foot after I found out she was behind the bar fire; I could promise no such protection if she hurt Mike in any way.
“What about Mike?!” I grabbed her arms and pulled her up to me so we were at eye level. I was squeezing, probably harder than necessary, but her silence was driving me crazy. For every second that passed where she didn’t explain what happened to Mike, my coffee-and-Bailey's-saturated brain was constructing intricate and horrible scenarios. I kept seeing images in my head; snapshots in black-and-white. I saw them like the headlines in tomorrow’s paper: A shot of Mike’s motel room on fire. Another second passes and I see a shot of his body left beaten and bloodied on the remains of my bar. Another second passes and I see one of the only two people I trust in this whole damn world floating face down in the Navesink. Another second passes and I see a picture of Mike from graduation, before he grew his hair out and stopped shaving; back when he looked like every other kid. They had to use a picture from his past, I’d learn, because his present was far too gruesome for the Sunday paper. I didn’t want to see anymore of these shots.

“If you don’t tell me where Mike is right now-” I didn’t feel I needed to finish that sentence; she could exercise her imagination to construct her own painful torture. I was almost blind with rage watching her try to compose herself. Just stop fucking crying and tell me he’s ok. My grip was getting tighter; I could feel myself breaking through her skin. If I had a third arm, I’d be slapping her right now.

“Hank, he’s-” I spit right in her face. I don’t know why, I guess I got carried away wishing I had a third arm. I needed to do something to her face and I worried a headbutt might just knock her unconscious.
“Continue,” I said sternly, as if watching my thick spit dance down her face wasn’t totally gross.
“He’s fine, Hank, let go of me. We don’t have time for this.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in jail. For God’s sake, don’t you watch the news?” Actually, I don’t. Interesting story, I let Mike install my cable because evidently he “knew a guy” who could get me 100’s of premium channels for free. Something got lost in translation, so now I only get pornography on 12 different channels and in six different languages. As a result, I haven’t seen the news since my college days. Sure, my fingers may be far from the pulse of society, but when you want to watch some poorly-acted Scandinavian porn and you have two distinct options, it follows that you won’t really miss the news too much.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Finally.”

Chapter Three: Victor, the Dick

2007-04-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Joe arrived at what was once my beautiful bar a few minutes after 9. We stood in the rubble together, neither of us saying a word as I stared at a twisted piece of metal that might have been the door to the freezer I keep mugs in. I like to frost the mugs, and people appreciate the extra effort.
Mike showed up late, as was his custom, carrying three barstools. Without a word, he set two of stools up next to each other and one across. I sat there, at the stool by itself, with Mike and Joe next to each other. The stools were placed roughly in the same positions they were in the bar where the three of us sat whenever we were together. Mike produced three shot glasses from his bag and Joe poured the remainder of his whisky out, saving the most generous portion for me. After some time, Joe spoke.
“How did you know to bring barstools?”
“Heard about the fire. Would’ve called, but…” Mike didn’t own a cell phone.
“Any idea who’s responsible?” Mike and Joe talked for awhile but said nothing that I remember. I couldn’t focus on anything other than my bar. What was left of my bar. It was insured. I wasn’t worried about money, or building up another bar...but there's more to it than money and baseball bats and frosted mugs. This bar was a part of me. I designed this bar, I helped built it. My blood was in the foundation along with a suspicious amount of Mike's semen. No matter what bar was built in its place, the feeling would be gone. I'd miss all of the imperfections, and all of the dents and scars, and their accompanying memories. The frame around the front door was chipped: it was the first time I had to throw out a customer and my aim wasn't spectacular just yet. There was a crack in the ceiling, right above one of the chandeliers: Joe bet Mike that he couldn't climb the chandelier. Joe liked setting people up for a fall, and this was no exception. The truth was, that chandelier couldn't hold Mike's wait, and the result was a sprained wrist and a cracked ceiling. A floor tile was missing: I know Mike stole it because I saw him eyeing it, but that bastard won't admit it.
I spent too much time thinking about this. There was business.
“What’d you find out, Mike? I need to know everything.”
“A couple of things, but nothing too helpful” he began. “The limo left town as soon as it left this bar and no one’s really seen this broad but you and I. Quick question, Hank: What’s Spain?” Joe looked over at me and then at his watch.
“Do we really have this kind of time?” Joe asked.
“Why, what’d you find out?” I said to Mike.
“The Emperor of Spain: He’s involved in a huge way.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Joe said.
“You don’t make any sense,” Mike countered boldly.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
“What?’ Joe was confused and angry. “You’re not actually going to entertain this, are you? Spain doesn’t even have an Emp-”
“I know, Joe.”
“You don’t have an Emperor.”
“Spain’s a Parliamentary Monarch-”
“I know, Joe, shut up. Go ahead, Mike.”
“Well, I didn’t hear too much, but this Emperor is a pretty serious deal. Every one of my guys knows him or knows of him. They’ve all got to be on his payroll or they’re just terrified of him. There was nothing I could do to get any useful information out of anyone. This is fucked.” Mike was clearly aggravated, which is rare. Mike was a physical guy, a violent guy, but not very quick to lose his temper. Sure, he'd kill for me at a moment's notice, but it took a lot to genuinely get him mad or depressed. He didn’t like the idea that someone had more power, more loyalty and was more intimidating than he was. Especially in his town. Joseph was also clearly aggravated, but probably because he knew that Spain couldn’t possibly have an emperor and therefore thought this whole discussion was pointless.
“You met with everyone you know? No one’s talking?”
“No. And they’re not even worried about anything I could do to them or for them. They weren’t interested, not in any punishments or any rewards; there was no bartering with these people. It’s like they’re protected. They’re set and they know it, they know whatever I have doesn’t match up to what He has. They all know it and I’m the only one out of the fucking loop.” Powerlessness was a color that just didn’t go with Mike.

“This sounds like something we should be worried about,” I said.
“It sounds like a load of bullshit,” Joe began. He stood up from his stool and slid off his sports coat, like a college professor about to start a lecture. “Look, in 1978, the Spanish Constitution was officially approved, democracy came in and they became a Parliamentary Monarchy, without an Emperor. So whatever problem you think we have-“
“1977, asshole, and I already knew that. I think it’s pretty obvious that the ‘Emperor of Spain,’ is just a pseudonym, a codename. Now, are there any organizations we know of who would call themselves Spain?”
“1978,” Joe said quietly, and I ignored him.
“I thought about that. I couldn’t find anything. This is fucked. Everyone knows about this guy but me? Bullshit. There is no way he was in this town and I missed him. No way. No one’s that good, no one can fly that far under the radar.” Mike sure was using a lot of Italics.
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if I didn’t know he was here, than he wasn’t here, ya know? It’s like this guy happened overnight, but then how did he get so much done? How does everyone know him, and- Jesus. It's like there was some huge plan that everyone's in on. Some big fuckin' choreographed 'Fuck-You-Hank' dance, and we're the only ones who weren't invited to rehearsal. This is huge. If someone new comes into this town, I know about it. I know their name, their business here and where they take their shits.” He does. It's weird.
“I don’t know if it’s as big as you’re making it, man.” I said.
“Look where we are!” Mike waved his hand to indicate the ashes and scraps that used to be my bar.
“Where are all the cops? This place burned down hours ago, where were the firemen?” I thought about this. I’d been so preoccupied with finding the bastards that did this that I didn’t think twice about the bastards that let it happen. A car pulled up. Not something useful, like a police car or a firetruck or a station wagon full of supermodels and the assholes who were responsible for this. No. It was a car I knew very well. It was one of those stupid little Mini Coopers, all yellow, and there was only one person in town that possessed enough Douchebag gaul to actually buy one. Victor Pennington stepped out of his car with a smug look of total satisfaction. He breathed in deeply through his nose, though it was unclear whether he was taking in the smell of ash or his own farts, which I’m sure he’d bottle if he had the resources.

“Mmm hmm. What a pity. Guess you shouldn’t leave the iron on when you’re straightening the wrinkles out of your favorite cocktail dress, eh, Hank?” He laughed hard at his joke, compensating because none of us were even smiling.
Victor Pennington was a competing bartender. The only competing bartender in the whole town, in fact. The only asshole stupid enough to own a bar in my town. He’d been number two in sales since he opened, and he only stayed in business because of various theme nights and costume parties, all equipped with sales on liquor, contests and prizes. People will even deal with a stuck up, second-rate bartender if it meant they got cheap liquor and the excuse to dress like a pirate. Victor fished around in the rubble, retrieving and inspecting the charred remains of what used to be a Boston shaker.

“Had to see it for myself, mate. Feels good, I have to tell you. Of course, I’d have eventually beaten you in business and subsequently bought you out, but this certainly speeds things along quite nicely.” Who the hell says ‘mate,’ I thought.
“Who the fuck says ‘mate?’” screamed Mike.
“The English,” Victor said, even though I’m pretty sure he’s not even English. As if reading my mind, Joe said
“You’re from Ohio, asshole.”
“Scoff all you want,” Victor said in an inconsistent accent he picked up watching the BBC. “Nothing you say can spoil my mood today. It’s like Christmas for me, you see, and I got what I’ve always wanted.” Mike moved his hand to his satchel bag, presumably for his...we’ll say “toys,” for now. He hears things like ‘Nothing you say can spoil my mood’ and takes it as a challenge. I stop him with an open palm.
“A bold move for you to show up here, Pennington. You have anything to do with this?” He laughed and I thought about choking him to death.
“Surely you don’t think I’m involved, Hankie. If I was going to burn down your dirty little establishment, do you really think I’d stick around to gloat?” He lost his smile and his accent in one move, stepping closer to me. “Look: I despise the undeserved attention you and your bar get, but I’m not some kind of destructive monster. Honestly, I wanted to win this little bar battle on merits, because I‘ve earned it. Idiots go to your bar, Hank. Sheep who only pick your bar because once upon a time it was something great. Before I opened. It only would have been a matter of time before the sheep realized that there was a clearly superior bar just down the road." He relaxed. "But, I suppose this’ll have to do. Unforseen circumstances, yes?” A smirk appeared, the kind that generally accompanies one of those arrogant Star Wars Imperial generals right before he gets his ass choked. Victor continued.

“And I am sorry, Hank. It is unfortunate for you, but, you know what they say. To the Victor, go the spoils, eh?”
“Hm. Mike- rip his arms off.”
“With gusto.” Mike advanced menacingly as Victor turned from fake-English-pale to pissed-his-pants-white.
“I said I had nothing to do with it! Hank, call him off!” Victor was sweating and Mike was grinning a grin that bordered disturbingly on his sexual arousal smile. Joe intervened.
“Wait- Pennington, you said you had to see this for yourself. Who told you?”
“Hank’s not the only one with shady spies and brutish informants.” Yes I am.
“Tell us who, you fake-limey bastard.”
“No,” he said foolishly. I sighed. To be honest, I hated when things got violent, but, desperate times. Someone burned down my bar. Someone needed to answer for this, and Victor was standing in my way. I turned to Mike, nodded. He reached into his bag. I always kind of looked forward to these moments; it was always a surprise to see which of his little toys Mike would decide to go with. This time, he produced a blender. I set the mood.

“Victor, this is a special blender. Stronger than most blenders, reinforced. I think it came from Thailand. At a moment’s notice, Mike would like nothing more than to put a part of your body, any part really, into the blender and then watch you drink the resulting smoothie. He does this all the time and he's never not enjoyed himself.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I don’t even know what ‘bluffing’ is,” Mike said, and, unfortunately, it was true. Joe and I both regret that we don’t spend enough time educating Mike, filling in the gaps left by the increasing uselessness of public schools. Mike checked his fly, probably assuming that ‘bluffing’ meant ‘penis is hanging out.’ Accepting that he was not, in fact, bluffing, Mike held the blender with one hand and clutched Victor’s throat with the other.
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk,” he managed to squeak out.
“Smart move,” I told him.
“Yea,” Mike agreed. He leaned in so he was about an inch away from Victor’s face. “Because you were just seconds away from drinking your fucking face.” Victor took a few steps away from Mike and looked around nervously.
“If it’s all the same, please; let’s not have this little meeting here. If my informants catch me discussing these matters to you, well…I’m just worried about what they might do.”
“Could it be any worse than a Cocktail?” Mike asked. Victor looked at him, confused.
“It means he’s going to make you drink your own genitals,” Joe clarified, shaking his head in disappointment. Did I mention he could have been the highest-paid attorney in the country?
“No, it’s fine. We’ll move somewhere else. But I won’t be seen in your crappy-ass gay bar and I sure as hell won’t be getting into your Hot Wheelz HomoMobile. So, what did you have in mind?”

Chapter Two: Joe

2007-04-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

At the intersection of Livingston Road and New Street, a very tall Filipino man is handing out snowcones to preteens and offering legal advice to a troubled-looking businessman. His base of operations; a Little Jimmy’s Ice Cream Truck.
“You want to settle out of court. Be thankful you even have the chance,” the ice cream man said, his arm plunged shoulder-deep in a freezer of cotton candy-flavored Italian ice.
“Are you sure? I mean, everyone I’ve spoken to says I can probably pull it off with a countersuit, if I had the right-"
“But you don’t,” the ice cream man interrupted, clearly aggravated. “You don’t have the right lawyer, you don’t have the right judge and you’ll never get the right jury. There’s a chance that a countersuit would work, but it’s too slim to risk it. You’d be relying on too many variables that’d never line up.”
“But I-” The Filipino Man’s frustration was dramatically increasing with every pathetic argument the businessman tried to bring up. This Filipino Man has no time for nonsense.
“Listen to me: You don’t have a case. You fired the wrong people, you dealt with the wrong assholes, you didn’t cover your ass, you blatantly took money that didn’t belong to you and, on top of all that, you fucked a secretary. Literally, you fucked a secretary on an enormous pile of money that you embezzled from your own company. On your wife’s birthday. Could you counter sue based on the means with which they obtained their evidence and information? Theoretically, yes, but the people already hate you. The blue-collar jury wants your upper-class latte-sipping ass to pay and if you bring this into court, you will. A lot more than what they’re asking you for out of court. 25 million? Shit, chump change compared to what you’d be paying if you lost.”
“But what if I won?” the idiot businessman said.
“You won’t. You’d need the best lawyer in the country, and you can’t get him.”
“Why?”
“Because the busy schedule of the trial would interfere with the best-damn-lawyer-in-the-country’s ice cream truck driving. And trust me; he won’t give it up.”
The businessman, realizing that the Filipino ice cream man was probably right, looked like he was about to cry. The ears would not work. This ice cream man has gotten much, much sweeter offers to leave his job to practice law, and he never gave a single one of them a second thought.
“Please,” the man begged, “please represent me. I’ll pay-" The ice cream truck lawyer put his hand up.
“No. Forget it. Just trust me: Settle out of court. Buy off the Ukranians. Bribe that sexretary into submission, and hire a press agent or publicist to do some damage control so maybe you can get another job some day.” The businessman reluctantly nodded and turned to leave.
“Wait,” the Filipino defense attorney said. “Don’t forget your Choco Taco.” The man took his chocolate tacolate and left.
The Filipino’s name was Joseph, and I’ve known him for almost 20 years. The guy was brilliant, always has been. He was brilliant even in grade school, at nine years old when we weren’t even old enough to understand what brilliant was, he was brilliant. He was at the top of the class every step of the way, his reign unquestionable, and he made it look effortless. Some people study a lot or work with top-notch tutors. Joe was not one of those people. He was just naturally smart; biogenetically designed to get better grades than you and excel in any field he chooses. For our high school graduation, his valedictorian speech consisted of a slideshow. The slideshow displayed picture after picture of him sleeping through classes or wandering the hallways. Occasionally, there’d be a picture of him playing video games or eating burritos in a pair of shorts that were far too short for public viewing, always with a helpful caption of “This is me, not studying.” The final slide, the one that almost cost him his diploma, was a close up of his middle finger, fully extended, with the phrase “Eat Shit” appearing vertically down the finger. Joseph is still a legend at our old school, and his legacy will remain untouched until the end of time.
He graduated from college in three years and sailed effortlessly through law school. With his scores, ability and natural charm, any practice would jump at the chance to work with him and the offers came piling in, practically at graduation. He turned every single one of them down. Instead of making an assload of money and living the American dream, Joseph became an Ice Cream truck driver the summer after he graduated. He does this every day of every summer. He never told me why he chose this life, and I never ask him. As long as he’s happy and as long as I get free, expert legal advice, then I’m happy. I waited patiently while he served the impatient kids in front of him, already cranky because they had to wait while a corrupt businessman begged for legal advice. When the line disappeared, I approached the window to talk to Joseph. Joseph was talented, in every sense of the word.
“Did you know the age of consent in Texas is 14?”
Joseph was also a pedophile. There’s really only one sense to that word.
“Just please tell me you didn’t already buy a plane ticket,” I said.
“Just think about it for a second, Hank.”
“You know I don’t like thinking about…that kind of thing.”
“Seriously. Texas was against sodomy until 2003. 2003. Against sodomy, presumably, on some strong moral ground. ‘Thou shalt not,’ sort of thing, ya dig? A couple of forty year olds can’t hang out and pleasure themselves in the privacy of their own chateau because God says it’s wrong, but a 26 year old eighth grade gym teacher can plow a former student until kingdom come? Think about it. Some cheerleader just leaves eighth grade. A month after she graduates- her mouth full of braces, not old enough to have a job, not smart enough to recognize her own mistakes, still too naïve to even understand manipulation- she’s responsible enough to get fucked sideways by some redneck former-dodge ball star? That’s ok?” With nothing better to say,
“The law’s the law, man.”
A pause.
“So I have your approval?” And a trap’s a trap.
“No, Joseph, you do not. It‘s okay legally in Texas, but I‘ll never condone it. Mark my words, you will never trick me into being a pedophile.” I handed him the bottle of Southern Comfort, which he took graciously. He scooped up crushed ice and, instead of adding syrup, he poured on the whiskey and handed it to me. It’s called a SoCone.
“Thanks.”
I consider myself very lucky to have acquired friends who could be rented for a few liquor bottles, because their services were worth a whole lot more. Joe’s knowledge of the legal world has helped me out of plenty of jams. He knew who I should talk to when I needed contracts or licenses or the right jury. When, for example, I accidentally sold eight bottles of Hennessey to a 15 year old, he knew my best course of action. Any time Mike did something illegal- which is to say, any time Mike did something- Joe knew what to do. Joe was there for all of my important decisions and all the big events in my life. Whatever was going on with this Snakemonster character, he’d be involved in that, too.
“So what do you need?” he asked.
“I’m not sure if I’ll need you for anything, I’m still waiting to hear back from Mike. Besides, it looks like you’ve got your hands full,” I said, indicating the line forming behind me. Half kids, half rich alcoholics that need some fast legal advice. His usual crowd.
“Meet me at the bar when you get off.”
“Can do,” he said, and I walked away. This was my team: Joe’s sharp mind and rational thinking, and Mike’s knowledge of the streets and his shrewd, ask-questions-later negotiation tactics. They were all I needed to face anything that might come up in my life. We’ve met at my bar to grapple some of the most difficult decisions, or the most vicious adversaries since the bar opened, and today, I thought, would be no exception. Another tough problem, another solution brought about by a quick brainstorming session with my team over a few drinks.
The problem was, Joseph got off at 9:00, and by around 7:18, the bar would be burned to the ground.

Chapter One: Mike

2007-04-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

It was 10:07am when Venom left, and at around 10:08, the entrance door of my bar opened for the second time that day. Not too many people usually show up this early in the morning. Sure, I get a couple of miserable alcoholics hoping to get a jumpstart on their day every once and awhile, but on this particular morning, I wasn’t expecting the usual brand of dedicated AM Alcoholics: this particular morning was different.
Without taking my eyes off the glass I was needlessly drying, I slid my foot around beneath the bar to make sure my wooden bat was in place. I keep the bat around in case anyone has a little too much to drink and needs some “sobering up.” The special kind of sobering up that knocks a few of your teeth out. Once I was sure my lucky bat was there, I looked up slowly, fully expecting to see Ms Venom or some of those “more aggressive types,” the ones she referenced earlier. Instead, it was Mike Russo a smile on his face and a brown leather satchel bag over his shoulder. Just like always.
“Hanksgiving day,” he practically shouted. It was his quirky little custom to come up with a new nickname for me every time I saw him and it was his quirky little disorder, I decided, that he lacked an indoor voice, which explains the needless shouting. I imagined that, one day, he’d run out of words that rhymed with “Hank,” and he’d finally have to find a name and stick with it. “How did it go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, because I didn’t.
“The sex. The sex with that major dame. The sex that you had with that major dame…The one I just saw butter-ing her way through the parking lot.” Hm, he thought she moved like butter as opposed to my syrup observation. However she moved, we agreed that it was delicious on pancakes. Regardless, all I could do was stare at Mike, desperate to figure out what he was getting at with all this sex talk.
I should have guessed.
“Well, I mean, I see a beautiful woman leave your bar, it looked like she was crying, so I just naturally assumed you slept with her.”
This was Mike Russo. Bad jokes and tactless behavior to one side, he was a decent guy. No formal education, but he knew the streets of this town. He could read its shady underbelly like a book. And that was good, because Mike was functionally illiterate. It’s nice to see him reading something, figurative though it may be. Without any references or any credentials, none that you’d want to put on a resume, anyway, Mike was almost un-hirable. So, he worked for me and others like me. People who needed his less-than-legal services. He was my gopher; my go-to guy if I wanted information or I wanted something done. Mike knew how to get his hands dirty. He wasn’t too clear on how to get them clean, however, and it always aggravated me when he put those filthy hands all over my immaculate bar. I handed him a few napkins, which he quickly put into his satchel bag, clearly missing my point.
“That broad,” I said, pouring him his favorite drink; Vodka (in a glass). “Have you seen her before?” Mike lost his smile and sat down, realizing that his visit had suddenly turned into a business meeting.
“I haven’t, Boss. But I could. You want me to follow her? Scare her? Protect her? Kill her? Satisfy her sexually? I could do it…All at the same time, if you’d like.”
I considered this.
“That won’t be necessary,” I decided.
“This woman; is she a big deal? She was leavin’ here in a pretty serious car. A limousine.”
“Did you happen to catch the license plate number?”
“Give me a second,” he said, and he closed his eyes.
Let me tell you a little about Mike: He was some kind of gifted. Since as far back as anyone can remember, he had a unique ability to effortlessly pay attention to every detail, and it didn’t hurt that he had a photographic memory. He was constantly aware of every detail of everything around him; it just took him a little time to access the image. At any given time, there was a library full of information stored in his head, even if he didn’t realize it was there. If Mike saw something once, he had it logged away somewhere in his memory. Mike knew things he didn’t even know he knew, and that’s how I knew he knew her license plate, even though he made no conscious decision to memorize it. He opened his eyes.
“LSZ-14D. Not that you’d need it. Not many limos that big come through this town. What was she doin’ here?”
“She came in here just as soon as I opened up, runnin’ that sweet little mouth of hers, tryin’ to make some waves about my bar. A couple of offers, a couple of idle threats.”
“Threats? Want me to follow here?”
“Yes,” I said, refreshing his drink. “Figure out what’s what. What can she do, what’s bark and what’s bite, ya know? Ask around. Somethin’ about this dame ain’t right.” I paused, not sure if I wanted to proceed. “See if you can find anything about the Emperor of Spain while you’re at it…He may be involved.” Mike nodded enthusiastically, evidently unaware of the ridiculousness of such a request.
“Sure, Boss, you got it. I’ll track her down and find out her angle. If need be, I’ll even fuck some information out of her myself.”
“I’m sure it won’t come to that.”
“Well we’ll see. Did ya get her name?”
…
“No…No, she didn’t leave it.”
“Alright, I’m sure someone in town will know it.”
Black Widow? Blood Python? Red-Tailed Boa?
“And as for my fee?” I handed Mike an unopened bottle of Barton Vodka.
“You get the other one when you come back to me with some information, same as always.” The only payment that Mike ever requested was two bottles of Vodka and my personal guarantee that, should the need arise, he could crash somewhere, either my apartment or my bar, for an indeterminate amount of time. He’s never collected on the lodging clause of our unwritten contract, but he sure as hell accepts the vodka. The boy loves his cheap, crappy vodka. He carefully places the bottle in his bag and zips it up.
“Always a pleasure,” he says with a wink. Ok, so everyone knows how to wink except me? Is that it? Did I miss the god damn wink awareness meeting? As I glared at the floor, brooding and lamenting my inability to wink, Mike left, apparently.
With his absence and the realization that I was alone again, I reached down and picked up my bat. I felt foolish immediately afterwards, angry at the fact that I was scaring myself because of this woman; some big-talkin’ broad who was all ass and mouth but no guts and balls. I clutched the bat, prepared to defend this bar to the death. I built this place from the ground up, and no one was going to muscle it out from under me. Knowing that Mike had his eye out and that he had my back was a comforting thought. There was still something else, however, I needed to take care of. Someone else I had to talk to. I grabbed a bottle of Southern Comfort and shoved it in a brown paper bag. I left the bar, locking the door and putting up a “Back in an Hour” sign.

Prologue

2007-04-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

I am a bartender. I prepare drinks in a timely fashion and customers often tell me that the manner in which I pour drinks is impressive and exciting. I like to humbly think of myself as the single greatest bartender in the history of time, worthy enough, even, to serve Kings.
A woman with fire-red hair and piercing blue eyes enters my bar and sits down gracefully. She probably wasn't a king, but she had Money and Power written all over her, and in my neighborhood, that's as close to Royalty as you can get. She took out a cigarette and placed it between her lips as I approached her.
"There's no smoking here," I told her as I casually lit her cigarette. She smiled at me, most likely recognizing and appreciating my Fonzie-like contempt for the rules.
"Thanks," her mouth said. "Take me,” her eyes implied.
"The name's Hank Donahue," I said. "And yours?"
"Venom. Rebecca Venom." Venom, huh? Must have been tough growing up, I thought.
Till she hit puberty, that is.
I'd say she was about 5'9, but I'm terrible at guessing a person's height.. She could have just as easily been 5'4 or 6'3, for all I knew. I was almost %100 certain, however, that she wasn't a midget. And that's what's really important. When she did move- grabbing a few napkins or reaching into her purse- she moved slowly. It was like watching syrup being poured in slow motion except not quite so sticky. And with a face. She took her time with that illegal cigarette; really enjoying each sinful drag. Pretty soon the whole bar smelled like guilty nicotine, her sweet perfume and enough sexual tension to fill a garbage truck.
She looked up at me, all seven-feet-eleven-inches of her, and flashed me a smile that drives the boys wild. She winked at me. I never really know how to react when people wink at me, so, in an attempt to “up the ante,” so to speak, I just winked back at her with both eyes- what you would probably call “blinking.” This seemed to appease her as it brought on another smile. I winked again, albeit, less appropriately, and she turned her gaze from me back to her purse. Damn. Really went overboard with the winking, there. While she was distracted by whatever she was distracting herself with, I took the opportunity to give her the up and down, really objectify her and make her feel special. She was 12 feet of pure woman; soft skin, pouty lips, and legs that went on for days. She wore a tight dress, the color of money, and she wore it well. The fabric hugged her body like wrapping paper. Kudos to the lucky bastard who finds himself opening up that present on Christmas morning. Her eyes were an electric blue and her hair was the color of red money...red.
It's times like this I remember why I love being a bartender so much. Sure, I'm good at pouring drinks and I enjoy what I do, but I do this job for one reason: The Women. Over the years, I've been working on perfecting the art of enticing women to sleep with me. I hope to one day get it down to a science. A sexy, dangerous science. Like Physics except without any clothes and significantly less math.
"What can I get for you, Ma'am? A 'Screaming Orgasm?' Some 'Sex on the Beach,' maybe? A little something 'Between the Sheets,' perhaps?" These are all legitimate cocktails, and it was this list of sleazy-sounding drinks, in this order, that I offer to every single attractive woman who walks into my bar. 9 out of 10 times, what they really end up with is a little something I like to call, the "Happy Bartender."
"I don't want a drink," she said.
"You came to a bar to not drink? Interesting choice," I said with yet another regrettable wink.
"I'll cut right to the chase, Mr. Donahue," she said in a very cut-to-the-chase-ish tone.
"I want to buy you."
Silence from my end.
"You and your bar," she continued. "I represent some very powerful, very rich people, Mr. Donahue. They have considerable means and they will stop at nothing to acquire your services."
"Why me?" I asked. I knew the answer, I just like hearing it out loud.
"Because," the woman said, "My client is accustomed to having only the best of everything. And, according to our records, you're the best." I took a white rag off my shoulder and started drying a glass mug. The mug was plenty dry, but I bet I looked pretty friggin’ cool, regardless.
"You're records are accurate, Ma'am. I am the best. But whoever told you I was for sale...Well I'm sorry, but they lied right to your pretty little face. Now, unless I can interest you in a 'Raging Orgy' or a 'Pants-less Bartender,' this is the end of our little meeting."
"I already told you that I didn't want a drink, Mr. Donahue."
"I wasn't offering a drink," I said, cocking my eyebrow suggestively and doing everything I could to stop myself from winking. The look of disgust that crept onto her face assured me she got the message.
"Let me be frank, Mr. Donahue. I represent the Emperor of Spain, and he wants you to bartend for him. Exclusively. I'll give you some time to let that sink in." Something was off about this dame, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was those flaming, beguiling eyes. One look tells you those eyes have led more than a couple of guys to their downfall, the poor saps. Or maybe it was her all-too-eager-to-spend attitude. No one opens up their wallet that wide unless they know they’re getting the thicker end of the bargain. Or maybe it was because this is 2006, and Spain doesn't actually have an Emperor. It is, in fact, a European Parliamentary Monarchy and as such acknowledges either an elected or hereditary monarch as its head of state. It could have been any one of these things, but whatever it was, my gut was telling me to stay away.
"Sorry Miss..." I trailed off, not for any dramatic effect, but because I'd forgotten her name. It was something...snakey. I remembered because she herself was kind of snake-like in mannerisms and appearance. Those almost reptilian eyes widening with every second I spent not remembering her name. Jesus, it was something ridiculous and terrifying. Viper, maybe. Ok, ok, shot in the dark here.
"Miss Cobra," I guessed, probably incorrectly. "I'm not for sale. And that's final."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Donahue."
Was it Poison? Miss Poison?
"Are your sure we can't come to any sort of agreement?" Miss Rattlesnake began. "There must be something you want. Something I'm sure we can provide." Well that confirms it. Any woman who is willing to sleep with me without getting a couple of Appletinis is clearly up to no good. This broad’s got “Trouble” written all over her face.
"It's not in my nature to disappoint beautiful women," I lied, "but I'm afraid my answer is not going to change. I'm staying here, and unless I can get you a drink, please excuse yourself from my bar, Miss Conda." Was that it? Like, first name 'Ana?' That'd be pretty clever.
"You do realize, Mr. Donahue, that my employer has a great deal of influence in the bartending industry, right?" Really? The make-believe emperor of a foreign sovereign nation has clout in the bar world? That's news to me.
"We can make your life very easy, or very difficult."
"Are you threatening me, Miss Snakeface?"
Well that definitely wasn't her name. Hearing it, in fact, just seemed to make her more angry.
"I am losing my patience, Mr. Donahue."
Scales? Miss Scaly? Miss Python?
"I'll have you know that my employer will surely send some of his, shall I say, 'more aggressive' associates when he learns of your foolish decision.' She put little air quotes out when she said 'more aggressive.' I hate when people inappropriately use air quotes, its one of my biggest pet peeves.
"I'll have you know that I 'won't' be scared, Miss Cottonmouth." I decided to put my own air quotes around 'won't,' just to show her how stupid she looked. Was it Copperhead?
"The rest of your life, Mr. Donahue, will not be pleasant," she said, clearly missing my little joke. "Make no mistake about it, you will suffer."
Garter Snake. Diamondback. Sidewinder. Blackhead Snake.
“You have no idea what my employer is capable of when he doesn't get what he wants. You, your pathetic bar, your friends your family, your grammar school teachers; no one is safe."
"Venom!" I shouted. "That's it. God, that was gonna be bugging me all day."
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes," I said, despite the fact that I wasn't listening even a little bit.
"You've ruined a wonderful opportunity here. This could have been a beautiful partnership, but now… You can’t possibly imagine the hell you're about to go through. You damned fool." And with that, Miss Rachel or Raquelle or Michelle Venom stood up, all 28 feet of her towering over me. Tears started to form in her eyes as she gave me one last look. She turned, shaking her head as she walked away.
"I'm sorry it's come to this," she whispered.
"I'm sorry I'm checking out your ass while you walk away," I whispered back, fully aware that we both knew I wasn't sorry at all. Her shoulders shook with sobs as she syrupped her way out of my bar.
My bar.