Guild of Tokens

by Jon Auerbach

  Uh oh. It was becoming apparent that I had unknowingly walked into a bear trap and I needed to pull my foot free before this woman attacked me with the ferocity of a rabid dog.

  “Well, uh, no. I just looked at these two cards. And I used to work at the Borough Park Library, so I know how important it-”

  “Oh, so you think because you used to work in a library, you can just waltz down to our card catalog and take out cards to your heart’s content?”

  “No, but, umm, look, I’ll just put them back, so they don’t get los-”

  “You will do no such thing, young lady! I don’t want you anywhere near my card catalog. The fact that-”

  “Look, are you going to help me or not?”

  The rudeness of my question knocked the wind out of Ms. Bakadet’s twin and she just stared at me, unblinking, for several seconds. Then, in what I could only chalk up to a minor miracle, she relented and began searching for the numbers on the cards on her computer.

  “Hmm, I can see why these didn’t come up for you. Someone must have transposed the book numbers incorrectly in the computer system. Luckily for you, I’ve seen this before, or you would be out of luck. Ah, here we go. Oh.”

  “What happened?”

  “So, I found your books. It’s just that I don’t know where they are.”

  That made not one lick of sense to me, but maybe it did in librarian speak.

  “So, they’re lost?”

  The librarian glared at me.

  “We don’t lose books. These two happen to be checked out at the moment, but by who and for how long, I don’t know. It might have been a week or two or 12 years. Whoever loaned these books out did us both the disservice of not properly documenting those transactions. But, I’ll put you on the waitlist and when they do come back in, we’ll let you know. Have a good day.”

  “I, uhh, OK. Thank you very much.”

  As much as I wanted to find out more about these missing books, I knew when I had overstayed my welcome and walked out of the library with even more questions and no answers.

  6

  Questaholics Anonymous

  “We kept to ourselves, mostly, as the English never paid us much attention. Neither did the so-called Americans. Not that they knew the truth. If they did, maybe things would have turned out differently.”

  “Hi, my name is SteveSonOfSteve and I’m a Questaholic.”

  “Hi, Steve.”

  The voices echoed around the church basement, despite the small crowd seated in only one corner of the room. That other people had actually showed up quelled some of my remaining paranoia that I was the subject of a Harry Potter-obsessed lunatic’s idea of an elaborate joke, but maybe everyone here was in on it too? That still wouldn’t explain Polly’s stupid shell, so I brushed such thoughts aside as I tried to listen to the confessional.

  Steve quickly launched into a sad and sordid tale about how he had broken his clavicle falling into the Gowanus Canal while collecting moss and that after a couple of months of recuperating, he had finally attempted to complete the Quest only to fall again into the Canal. By the time he had gotten around to his sixth attempt at collecting the moss, I had largely tuned him out. Unlike the rest of the motley crew sitting in dingy chairs in the barely-lit room, I had not come to achieve catharsis. No, this was an information-gathering mission.

  It was several weeks later and I still hadn’t received any word on the mystery books. I had a sneaking suspicion that the friendly librarian had tossed my waitlist request into the garbage and that I would never find out what Polly was trying to tell me.

  Then I caught a lucky break. I should have realized after the Questing profile appeared randomly that there was more to the Board than just the Quests themselves. Because now when I opened the main menu, there was a new option, E, labeled “Q-Board.”

  I hit E and a new screen popped up. It was a rudimentary message board. The excitement bubbled inside me as I began scrolling through the posts. Here they were, the memoirs of the legendary heroine recounting her trials, tribulations, and defeat of the ancient evil that had ushered in this golden age of prosperity!

  Or the Quest equivalent of spam. Awesome. Even membership in a secret underground magic world did little to slake humanity’s innate compulsion to spam everyone else apparently. But at least I was a member of the club. And, given the lack of a Missed Connections section on the Quest Board, this spam was all I had to dive deeper.

  After checking to see that no one was looking over my shoulder, I printed out each post, stuffed the papers into my purse and ran down to the Treehouse. No, it was not one of our conference rooms (ours were all named after Final Fantasy characters), but rather the woman’s bathroom, my preferred place for silent reflection. As the rest of the engineers were arguing about some nitpick in last night’s episode of Arrow, no one noticed as I scurried past them into the Treehouse and locked the door. Finally alone, I pulled the papers out of my purse and set them down on the marble counter to study.

  There were token banks, where scrupulous individuals would watch over your tokens for free (and probably loan them out to seedy goblins played by Warwick Davis), advertisements for how-to pamphlets (where to find the most frequent Quest-requested items, creative excuses for work absences, and more), and then some of the posts had printed out completely blank as far as I could tell.

  It was all very exciting. But where to start? As much as I wanted to check out the token bank, they would probably laugh me out of the room for bringing my meager hoard. I was also convinced that it was merely a cover for robbing gullible idiots. And my lack of money also made the how-to pamphlets cost-prohibitive. I was about to stuff everything back in my purse when I noticed the last piece of paper, which I thought had been blank.

  “Ignoring your spouse to dumpster dive for trash behind the 7-11 at three in the morning?

  Skipping work meetings to meet Quest scalpers outside Madison Square Garden?

  Stealing half-eaten ice cream cones for kids because you think they’re worth a couple of wood?

  These aren’t the signs of healthy Questing.

  No, they may be the symptoms of a Questaholic.

  But you’re not alone.

  We’ve been there.

  And we can help.

  We’re Questaholics Anonymous.

  Next meeting on Thursday at 700 E. 3rd St, Grace Church basement.”

  It was the perfect opportunity for an undercover operation because, after all, I had few tokens to my name but a lifetime of sob stories to really inject some desperation into my fake descent into Questaholism.

  I tucked the papers back in my purse and perused the Quest Board on my phone for Quests I could pretend to have failed. Outside, I could hear the engineers hypothesizing what the title of Star Wars Episode IX should be, but inside the Treehouse, all was peaceful.

  The other Questaholics drank in Steve’s story, nodding at his misfortune while pretending to listen. I surveyed them as a sociologist would.

  Compared to the rest of the group, Steve could pass for normal. Some were disheveled, a cocktail of odors emanating from their bodies and mixing together to form an even more horrid stench. Some stared off into space as if they were observing a parallel reality. One woman wore an empty baby carrier across her front and would from time to time pat the head of the not-there baby. I didn’t have to try hard to imagine how far she had fallen off the wagon.

  I soon realized that my rehearsed tale of woe was not going to be sufficient. These people were far more broken and screwed up than I was going to pretend to be or actually was. If I was going to avoid the fate of a Size 0 showing up at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, I needed to kick it up a notch.

  Luckily I ended up being last in the circle, so when it came to my turn, I had my story ready.

  “Hi, my name is Jade and I’m a Questaholic.”

  “Hi, Jade.”

  “I stopped at the Park Slope Farmers’ Market on my way home from work to pick up an empty lob
ster tail shell. Digging through piles of discarded shellfish, I found the perfect one, or so I thought. As I exited into the alley next to the seafood stand - a shortcut I had found during a previous Questing foray - I was beset upon by a band of teenagers, who circled around me with menace in their eyes. I was about to reach into my pocket to offer them my wallet, when a smile appeared on one of their faces.

  ‘Keep your filthy norm-money, it’s your tokens we’re after.’

  I was never one to carry my tokens on me, but I knew that wasn’t going to be a satisfactory answer, so I stalled for time.

  ‘This lobster tail shell is worth five wooden tokens if you throw it in the sewer grate on the corner of Baltic and Bond. That’s all I have.’

  I held out the shell with trepidation. The leader of the group walked toward me with a smile and took the offering. As he turned to walk away, I breathed a sigh of relief. But in that moment, I let my guard down and thus didn’t hear his compatriot sneak up behind me. As I looked down, a gleaming serrated blade held audience with my throat, its edges just a thin gap of air away from spilling my blood.

  It was then that the first ruffian turned back towards me, a glint of metal reflecting from his knuckle.

  I stood there, paralyzed, as he punched me in the gut three times. The knife wielder withdrew and I collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. Still smiling, my attacker, barely more than a boy, bent down until he was squatting in front of me.

  ‘No one comes questing near the Market without our assistance. If I see you snooping around here without any tokens on ya, the hurt you’re experiencing now will feel like a summer breeze compared to next time. Ya follow?’

  I nodded slowly, which satisfied him and the rest of the group. By the time I got to my feet, they were gone.”

  I looked around the circle, waiting to see the group’s reaction. Finally, a woman in her sixties with greying brown hair smacked her fist into her palm.

  “The Council’s gotta put a stop to these attacks before someone gets hurt! I’ll bring a petition to the next meeting that we can all sign.”

  Most of the other people nodded in agreement, as I breathed a sigh of relief. But then a troubling thought bubbled up in my brain. This manufactured gang might not have been as fake as I had thought and that made my heart beat a little faster.

  “Is there some sort of map charting out the safe spaces where we won’t be attacked or robbed?” I asked.

  If I was actually going to be set upon by marauding teens, I might as well know where the no-go zones were. The brown-haired woman’s brow furrowed for a second at the question.

  “Can’t say that there is, but it would be a good idea to pool our findings. Let me talk to some of the other meeting groups and maybe we can’t just get something whipped up.”

  The meeting finished soon after and I made my exit quickly after grabbing a powdered donut, lest anyone hit me up for more information about the non-existent gang.

  I was nearly up the stairs to street level before Steve caught up to me.

  “Interesting story back there,” he said, with a hint of mockery in his voice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just carved yourself a nice little slice of territory where no one else is going to intrude.”

  My eyes widened. I hadn’t even thought of that. I was just trying to sound troubled.

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin--”

  “Save it, newbie. I’m not going to rat you out to Ms. Concerned Citizen down there, but next time, try to come up with something that doesn’t sound like it was taken from a bad 80’s movie that you watched on cable last night.”

  We reached the top of the stairs and Steve starting walking away.

  “Wait!” I cried. This guy obviously knew a lot and I would be stupid not to try to milk him for whatever information he would tell me. Steve stopped and turned around, and I jogged over to him.

  “Look, I’m only a level 2 and honestly I just want to know more about what the hell this whole thing is. An iron for your story? I’ll throw in the first drink too.”

  I held out the token in my palm and stood there in silence while he considered my offer. I only had four iron, but this seemed like a good use of the tokens. Plus I really had no idea at this point what else I would spend them on. Finally, Steve shook his head and pushed my hand away.

  “Keep your tokens. Don’t need ‘em.”

  “But,” he said, giving me a look up and down with a creepy smile that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, “I do need a drink and some company after the day I’ve had.”

  On second thought, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Did he think I was hitting on him in a weird roundabout way or something? Gross.

  But then that stupid shell flashed in my mind again. I had to know more, even if it meant enduring the stares of this creepazoid for a few hours.

  7

  Tales from the Cantina

  “When the war broke out, we didn’t want to get involved. The Guild had played both sides for so long, why take a risk now?”

  After the third subway transfer, I was beginning to suspect that letting Steve pick the bar had not been a good idea. When we finally walked down from the train platform at Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, it had taken the better part of the evening and despite the long trip, Steve had barely said a word to me.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I said, finally breaking the silence. Steve ignored me and we continued weaving through the crowded sidewalk, passing one bar after the other. He abruptly turned off the main drag onto a side street, where he quickened his pace. I followed, but my danger radar was about to reach its boiling point.

  Thankfully, we had finally reached our destination: a three-story brick building with a boarded up storefront. Someone had tagged the boards with black spray paint and the second floor windows were all dark. So much for a night out at a trendy cocktail lounge.

  “Look, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, but there’s no way I’m stepping foot in your apartment. Why don’t we just go back to one of the 15 bars we already walked by?”

  Steve ignored me and hit a buzzer next to the door, which after a few seconds swung open on its own accord.

  “You coming or not?” he asked.

  Not waiting for my response, he walked into the building.

  I could have walked away then. It would only have cost me a wasted evening. But, against my better judgment, I ran to the door before it swung shut. The interior opened almost immediately into a set of stairs dimly lit by rusty light fixtures that lined the walls and Steve was already close to the top landing. I caught up to him and saw that there was someone else there, a woman who looked to be in her seventies, sitting on a metal folding chair.

  She would not have looked out of place at the Questaholics Anonymous meeting, her grey hair bushy and unwashed, a pair of reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. If she and Steve knew each other, they didn’t acknowledge it. Steve pressed onward through a red door at the end of a short hallway and I followed, the woman paying no mind to me either. I hoped they weren’t paying her a lot to be the bouncer because she was doing a terrible job.

  The red door swung backward after Steve went through and I waited for it to rebound before pushing it back. If what waited for me on the other side was some sort of torture dungeon, at least I would be able to quickly escape.

  But all of my trepidation vanished, as I stepped foot into a crowded, noisy bar. I blinked, waiting for the illusion to vanish, but it didn’t.

  In contrast to the woman outside, all of the people here looked, dare I say, normal. The bar itself was in the center of the room, a huge square manned by four bartenders who were efficiently serving up drinks to the dozens of patrons on all sides. A balcony ringed the room above, with tables spaced around a metal railing. If I hadn’t just spent the last 90 minutes trekking across the city to a random, abandoned-looking building, I would have thought it was indistinguishable from the bars I frequented i
n my post-college, finally-on-her-own-in-the-big-city days.

  Steve walked past the bar to a small spiral staircase that led up to the balcony. The upper level was quieter, the crowd from downstairs evidently not preferring the intimate tables. We sat down at one of them and the long journey finally was over.

  I waved over a waitress so I could fulfill my promise to buy the first round, only to realize that I had no idea if I even had enough tokens to cover one drink.

  “Umm, Steve, I know I said I would get the first round, but uhh, how many tokens does a drink usually cost?”

  Steve snickered.

  “Where do you think we are? Some secret Quester bar?” He shook his head. “This is just a regular bar pretending to be a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Only difference is the extra $2 a drink for the ‘ambiance.’”

  The waitress arrived and we gave her our order. Now that I knew we were no place special, I held my Quest talk until she had dropped off the drinks a few minutes later.

  “Oh. But, if this is just some random bar, then why did you make me trek all the way out here?”

  “Been meaning to try this place and wasn’t sure they would let me in without a pretty face.”

  He grinned and I shuddered internally. Did he think that was a compliment?

  “So, Jade, why were you at the meeting? I thought I was the only one who liked to feel better about myself by listening to those sob stories.”

  “Wait, so you didn’t break your clavicle trying to get some moss?”

  “Of course not. It just sounds so pathetic and, to be honest, most people don’t know what a clavicle is, which means I don’t have to show up to the meeting in a fake cast.”

  “Oh.”

  This guy was turning into a real scumbag, but I tried not to let my disgust show.