Brone Barnheart
“So what’ll it be?” The bartender interjected.
“Jose Cuervo and keep it coming,” I said. After downing 5...or maybe 6 shots, the bartender asks,“What kind of work do you do?”
“Some call me an old fashioned cowboy, but I’m a simple bounty hunter. I also do other odd jobs if my wallet calls for it. Here’s my number if you ever have anything that needs doing.” On my second try I swiped a pen off the bar and wrote my number on a cocktail napkin. The bartender said nothing but pocketed the napkin. I stopped him from pouring me another drink, “Time for a Prairie Oyster,” I said. He made it. "Bottoms up." I downed my drink and headed out. As I meandered up the sidewalk, I decided it was time to give the juvenile delinquent a call. “Yo kid."
“Yeah well I'm still gonna keep calling you kid. Listen, I need some information on the bartender.”
“Busy with what?”
“Why are you investigating all the tenants? Wait a second…my alarm clock!”
“Michael you son of a !”
click. He hung up. The power didn’t go out last night, it was him! Next time we sparred I’d be sure to kick him in the face for that. Lost in thought I entered the Wrath. Piercing dark brown eyes and a hesitant smile greeted me.
“I, ah, I’m looking for someone...can you help me?”
“Follow me,” she said. The next thing I know, I was sitting in a small room smoking a pipe. She sat across from me, legs crossed, eyes closed.
“This is real mystic and all but uh, do you have anything to eat here?” I said. A growling stomach was her reply. “…I see.”
“The blue-eyed thief will appear with the rolling dice. That is what I see.” There was something different about her voice, I couldn’t place it.
“You, swimming bird,” she said.
“Huh?” I said.
“The swimming bird will meet a woman; the bird will be hunted by this women and then….death.”
“Heh, one more time.”
“What’s that?”
“I was killed once before, by a woman.” I got up.
“…you take women too lightly my friend.”
“On the contrary, catch ya laters,” I replied. I put the peace pipe down and headed for the door. At the cash register I stopped. I didn’t know if she was expecting payment so I threw down a 10 and stumbled back out into the world. “I wonder where there's gambling.”
6 comments:
DUCKING SWEEEEEET!!! HILARIOUS! YOU SHALL FEEL MY WRATHFUL RESPONSE SOON!
Employees
"This is Michael."
"I'm fairly certain that I am only two years younger than yourself."
"Not at the moment. I am preoccupied."
"I am currently in the home of a tenant of Washington Heights. Breaking into each of their homes is slightly more complex when you are not here to kick down the door. It is most tedious to place an observational camera, why do you not complain more?"
"I'm not quite sure what you mean, please do not call this line unless you have information or more urgent matters to discuss within the next ten hours or so."
click.
He is a rather intelligent man himself, it is a shame he abibes of alchohol so frequently. What is the use of a mystic? Do I not pay him with money and information for his assignments? What a strange man. His passive nature may lead to my death. There are some things I suppose even I will not be able to solve, such as that man's brain. That and the where abouts of my missing #6.
The Hollow Men
Fey sat on her stool behind the counter that had the cash register facing her. Her shop, The Wrath, was lit and warmed by the help of a small space heater. The overhead lights were hanging ones with metal bowl-looking coverings that cast the light under where they were in round pools upon the floor. There were three lava lamp lights around the world too. One purple and red, one green and blue, and the third blue with glitter in it. The last had been a gift from her sister. Fey kept that one were she couldn't see it. Her shop was simple, small, two stories. The front room was where the shop was. In it there was shelving unit near the door. It held crystal ball stands, candle holders, incense burners (metal, wood, hanging, stick, cone), both harmless incense and harmless candles. These things were, in Fey's opinion, safe to let someone steal, it was the contents in the glass counters that lined two walls, and the one that prevented people from going to the back room without her that needed to be guarded. In these cases she kept articles of the curio and the occult, all made for good magic, but, like people, these things could be corrupted. The cases held tarot cards, candles and incense specific for certain spells, certain herbs (some of which were poisonous), athames, crystal balls, and various other objects with which one could do harm with.
While Fey wasn't particularly busy at any point in time, she did have some loyal customers who came by, some from Washington Heights, others from other towns. They came for her handmade soaps, incense, and candles. Many-a-day Fey would sit with a small portable oven heating wax to make candles, making soap, or crushing and mixing various herbs and spices for her incense. However, there was another service that Fey offered people, one that few knew about. To look at her, or even to speak to her, one wouldn't guess that Fey did readings. Through crystal balls, tarot cards, or even, if she was properly relaxed and the time was good, vision journeys (none of which she ever remembered anything from). While she was now very introverted, she hadn't always been. It was in an earlier time that she had developed what she called gifts, and what her later psychiatrist would call delusions. It would be the last time she saw the good Dr. Her parents had felt that it was too soon, that she should continue going to sessions until she stopped fearing the outside. The dark. People.
No, she had told her parents, she had told her doctor, and she had told herself, she was NOT afraid.
The door to her shop swung open, the tiny bell over the door ringing. A man walked, no thought Fey stumbled in. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't sober. While she was still trying to asses if he meant harm, you never knew in this neighborhood, not even in the early afternoon, he finished looking around and looked right at her. She gave him a meek smile. He approached.
"May I help you?" The man looked down at her, took a breath.
"I'm lookin' for someone."
"I'm sorry, I don't really understand." Fey had accidentally let her normal sweet smile drop. What did he want? What was he doing here? Fey didn't know anyone in Washington Heights, least of all someone who this man would be looking for. The man made a sweeping gesture around her shop and asked her again,
"Can you help me?" Fey nodded in understanding, went to the door and locked the door so that it was locked from the outside, called Finicky to her side, and beckoned the man to follow her to the back room. The back room was were readings took place. The doorway was covered by a deep purple cloth. The room itself was very plain. The walls were painted in swirls, trees, and various other scenes that had come upon her in moments of deep meditation. In the center of the room there was a table lamp covered in a blood red cloth. Above that from the ceiling hung a brass incense burner, and around the lamp were pillows. Fey sat down cross legged after lighting the incense. The man sat opposite her. She started the meditation.
Breath, breath, in, out, in, out. focus on the heart become one with the world in all its stages. bump, bump, bump, bump. Fey's heart found the steady tempo needed, it was meant to be. Focus on the man. See him. See his mind. See his query. As the vision began to form, she heard the man ask a question, but could not hear it.
"There is a man. He has eyes like the bluest ocean. There is a noise. dice. The man is casting dice." There was a sudden flash in Fey's mind. All of a sudden she was in a future that was the past. She was the new moon in the old moon's arms. The vision was fleeting, as was her strength.
"The woman! Death! New Moon in the Old Moon's arms!" Fey heard the man say something. He stood and left. She collapsed on the pillows. Finicky came over to her and rested his head on her stomach. She put her hand on his head. Too tired, Fey thought, never a good sign. Her last thought before she fell into a deep sleep was one of hope that the man had been too inebriated to remember or care what she had said lastly. She wasn't even sure if he had clearly heard anything she had said.
Sleep overcame Fey, and with it dreams.
TROY NOOOO!!!
george jefferson has seen the post i erased...and uh...he wrote about it...NOOOOOO!!!!!!
what're we gonna doooo!!!???
TROY NOOOO!!!
george jefferson has seen the post i erased...and uh...he wrote about it...NOOOOOO!!!!!!
what're we gonna doooo!!!???
Gifts
Grandmother is the sort of woman whom you can crown with a thousand and one metaphors but never quite capture in type. She is as immense, as ancient as the Appalachian mountains wherein she dwells. She has tree-trunks for legs, boulders for breasts and white wisps of cirrus clouds for hair. Her teeth are jagged stones, her face is an autumn-leaf tracery of wrinkles and veins. Her blind eyes are the sun-starved gray of a snail's underbelly, and yet she sees incalculably more than those with technically perfect vision (which is a good thing, on account of her being somewhat hard of hearing).
The wind was howling, the sun rising and the year 1989 when Grandmother felt it -- the strangest sensation, as if something had reached its hand into her, grabbed a clavicle and started tugging.
Vexed, she stopped her knitting to swat at the thin air and mutter, "Busy, busy now. Leave me, you hands, you little imps' hands!" Then she resumed the project that lay across her lap -- something trying very hard to be an afghan but, in truth, more closely resembling an exploded woolen eggplant.
It was no use. The tugging only grew more insistent. So Grandmother tossed aside the blanket-in-progress/defunct aubergine and with a tormented cry of "Imps! Damned little imps!" reared to her full height (which was as impressive as a mountain's, a redwood's, a bear's, etc). She stormed out the cabin door, through brambles, across creeks and up steep slopes (in her stocking feet, no less) before finally her demons relented. She cupped her hand to her ear and heard something -- a weak wailing, a whimper. She dropped to her knees. Sure enough, there it was at her feet -- a mewling infant, black curls just beginning to sprout on its out-sized head.
The blood drained from Grandmother's wrinkled face and her voice dropped to a whisper. "It has begun."
. . .
Victoria ponders the question for a second, tops, and then shakes her head no. "He's not for sale." The man heaves an alcohol-reeking sigh, but Victoria only strokes the vulture's unfeeling head and offers the man a squirrel instead. "Little guy makes an excellent paperweight."
"I'll take him," the man says amiably before shifting to a more conspiratorial tone of voice. "You, uh, know of any good gambling around here?"
She glares at him. "I don't hold with gambling, Mister."
He shrugs. "I'll take that as a no."
She turns back to the vulture as the sinful man leaves with his squirrel. "That was a close one," she hisses. "I've just plucked you from the very fingers of perdition, you know."
She nods at the fat woman who has just now passed by, with grocery bags in her hands and an elegantly cut coat on her back. "Look at her," Victoria adds. "Where did she get a coat like that, I ask you, in a place like this? She's a harlot if ever a harlot I saw. This is a wicked place, and only me between you and it. You'd best remember that, and try doing your job -- next opportunity you get, that is."
Then she smiles, believing her feathered associate sufficiently chastened. "Oh, I could never part with you. You're downright important, you know! Why, I'm not quite sure . . . but Grandmother said it was so."
. . .
"I will give you three things before you go, Victoria," Grandmother said. "And they're all of them downright important."
First was the opossum, and next to it a bottle of whiskey. "Give this one a drink, and he speaks the truth," Grandmother said. "Just don't spoil him with fine liquor. Whiskey will do."
Next came the vulture. "This one will scream when danger is near -- and you'd best take heed of such warnings when they come."
Finally, the box. Grandmother did not explain the box. She said only, "Do not open this. It will open when the time comes."
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