by B. L. Morgan
If it was possible the smell got worse as we moved from the docks into town. Well, maybe it wasn’t worse. But it was just as strong.
Packs of sailors walked past us hurrying on the hunt for wild times and women. One of the sailors lifted his leg and ripped off a loud wet sounding fart. He and his buddies laughed.
“That’ll probably help the neighborhood,” I told Johnny.
He answered, “It can’t hurt much.”
The rest of the crew of The Bad Omen went off in search of adventure.
Carmel took off down the road like she was on a mission. The two of us followed her.
I knew that this following shit was going to wear thin real fast but for now, I’d play along.
The city streets that we walked on were mostly sand and dirt. If there was any paving of any kind below that it was so wore down that it was impossible to see. It all looked like dirt to me.
The streets were lit unevenly by lanterns hung from posts driven into the ground outside the front of shops and taverns.
Carmel headed first to a merchant that was roughly about a half mile into the city. There, she arranged for the delivery of five barrels of fresh water and all kinds of dried food.
After that she headed off in search of a place to get some dinner.
We found Casablanca’s version of a café about a block from the merchant. I couldn’t read the Arabic shit on the sign out front but Carmel could. She told us that it said something like “Fresh Food. Not Poison!” That was good to know.
The skinny weathered greasy guy who served us couldn’t have gotten within a mile of a restaurant back at home. Here, with everything as dirty as it was, he fit in perfectly.
There was no menu. This popped in my head as my ass hit the wooden chair. It was another of those things that was normal for this day and age. We just asked the waiter what they had.
He said, “We have boiled chicken and lamb and sliced tomatoes, cabbage and turnips.”
Carmel told him, “Fill me a plate with everything and bring a bottle of your best rum.”
Johnny said, “Bring me some chicken and cabbage and tomatoes.”
I told him, “Give me everything except for those fucking turnips. You can keep those mother-fuckers. And I thought you guys in this town would have some curry. What’s up with that?”
The waiter looked at me like I’d started speaking Martian. He didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
“Just fucking forget it,” I told him. “Go get us the God dam food.”
When the food came considering that the place was filthy and we had to fight flies continuously it wasn’t half bad. The meat was burned in places so I knew it was cooked enough.
The rum tasted good too, far better than the liquor we’d been drinking on board ship. It went down smooth and made my eyes blurry. By the time I was finishing up my plate my eyes were so messed up that I’d probably ate at least ten flies to go along with the meat.
My guess was that was how this meat got its flavor. But that didn’t really make any difference. After being out on the ocean for months a freshly cooked meal of anything tasted like the best that Red Lobster could serve up. I dove into the food in that sorry-ass café and didn’t come up for air until there wasn’t a dam thing left to eat.
I was downing some serious rum too.
I don’t know what they put in that liquor but it seemed like with every drink of the rum I’d get more fucking horny. I wanted to nail some broad real bad and being drunk made me only want to fuck more.
Carmel and Johnny were playing footsy under the table and playing grab-ass on each other out where everybody could see. About five minutes of that was all I could take.
“Look guys,” I told this pair that was groping each other like teenagers. “I’m gonna head out and find somewhere to plant my growing gherkin.”
“I paid you to be my bodyguard,” Carmel shot back.
“Well you didn’t pay me to walk around with a stiff dick all night,” I said. “I got a need to plant some seed so unless you’re gonna spread those thighs on the table in front of me for desert, I’m gonna hit the fucking road.”
Johnny chimed in, “Let him go do his thing,” he told Carmel. He reached out and cupped her breast. “I got your body guarded. You know that.”
“I guess you do,” she said and leaning over kissed him.
I stood up.
“Catch you back at the ship,” I told the two of them and turning walked out the door into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bar-Hopping
Well, the circle turns.
We all end up doing the same things over and over again.
What got me into all this shit was going out and chasing pussy. But what the hell else was I going to do anyway, go back to the ship and beat my meat. Right! Yo-ho-ho you pirate pansies. Come on over here and watch me spank the monkey.
I don’t fucking think so!
Tonight ... guess what, I’m going out and chasing pussy. That’s how it is. That’s how it’s going to be. I was on the hunt for wild beaver, flaming snapper!
The streets of Casablanca were dark.
Not pitch black, there were lit oil lamps on posts outside shops and taverns, but it was dark. Small groups of drunken men wandered the streets staggering from place to place. Fistfights were a common sight. I saw three of them on the first two blocks that I walked down.
Guys vomiting up rank-ass liquor were all over the place. You had to be careful where you stepped and if somebody staggered toward you holding his mouth, you’d best get the hell out of the way. Something was going to spew.
I couldn’t tell if I was staggering or not. I probably was.
Dark streets, wandering packs of partying guys out for a wild night, the distant sounds of laughter and the hoots of drunken men getting crazy and throwing up. Shit, if I didn’t know better I’d have thought that I was back in East St. Louis.
Moving down the street, going past a place lit up by multiple oil lamps where laughter was coming from inside, a familiar voice caught my attention.
It was one of the guys from the ship. I went in.
It only took one glance to tell me that this was a tavern and a whorehouse. Several tables of drinking guys had loose women hanging all over them.
The place had thick wooden tables. Oil lamps hanging from chains burned under a low ceiling. There was a guy in a corner who was attempting to sing. I was glad the singer was doing his thing in a language that I didn’t know because whatever the hell that song was, he was murdering it.
Carter, the guy with a face like a rat and Kane, a big brawny dude who could play Conan in any movie, were at a table with wooden mugs in front of them.
Kane had a woman dressed in what looked like a burlap sack sitting on his lap whose breast he was playing with. She glanced my way when I came in through the door and, dam, that girl had a face that could scare the shit out of the Devil himself.
Carter waved me over.
I went and sat keeping my distance from the troglodyte Kane had the clutch on.
Carter spoke to Kane as I sat, “You need to send the wench to the back to wait for you. Bleeding hell man, every time she opens her legs it smells like a pig farted in me face.”
“You’re only jealous,” Kane told him. “And besides, that’s just your breath blowing back in your face. I noticed a smell like pig shit every time you’d open your mouth the first time I met you.”
Carter turned to me. “What do you think of this fine lass?” he asked nodding at the girl. “Is she fit for man or swine?”
“She’s good enough for the two of you,” I told them and the both of them laughed.
The woman laughed too.
“Don’t mind her,” Kane told me. “She can’t speak a word of English. Taking the piss out of her doesn’t mean a thing.”
A waitress came, and if it was possible, she was uglier than Kane’s girl. She had a mug in her hand that I paid for. In this place there was
only one thing to drink. So you drank what they brought.
I took a big swig of the mug set before me and immediately regretted it. The stuff tasted horrible, like piss, beer, vomit, and a hint of rancid fish.
I shook my head and swallowed the shit down and shouted, “God-dam man! What the fuck is this?” Looking down I saw a fish head swirling in a circle in the mug.
“Hah!” Kane spat. “The Rumfustian got to you aye?”
Carter went on for him, “They make it special here. It’s a mix of sherry, gin, beer, raw eggs, and left over fish parts.”
Still shaking my head I told them, “If I see the son-of-a bitch that made this shit I’m gonna fucking knock him to his knees.”
I took another drink. Why I did, I’ll never know. It went down easier than the first. The third went down even easier. After that I have no ideal how much of that shit I drank. It all got foggy real fast.
Something that the singer sang grated on my ears.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled at him.
He probably didn’t know what the hell I was saying but since I was looking at him when I yelled, he shut the fuck up.
“Now you went and did it,” Carter told me. “You ruined the entertainment. He won’t be coming back.”
“Who gives a shit,” Kane said. “And who needs him?”
“Are you gonna bloody well sing for us?” Carter said.
“How about a contest of rhymes, aye?” Kane asked.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Carter told him.
Kane turned to me, “You done run pretty boy off, so you get to go first.”
My mind, now rapidly fogging up from the alcohol got a flash of doing this in other taverns.
“Alright, what the hell,” I told them.
I went first.
I recited; “There once was a healthy young lass
That was famous for flaunting her ass.
But that came to an end
After beans with her friends
When she blew the walls down with her gas!”
Carter choked on his liquor, sputtering.
Kane howled, “That’s a bloody good one.”
Carter went next.
He spoke; “There once was a man from Was
Whose balls were made out of brass.
They jingled together
And played stormy weather
And lightning shot out of his ass!”
It was my turn to choke on what I was drinking that time.
Without missing a beat Kane launched into his.
“Just see if you can top this one,” He told us.
“There was a girl from Hitchin
Who was scratchin’
Her crotch in the kitchen.
Her mother said, ‘Rose,
Then the crabs I suppose.
She answered, ‘Yes,
And these buggers are itchin’!”
Carter and me about fell on the floor from that one. We conceded the contest and paid for Kane’s next mug of Rumfustian.
We drank on for about an hour more. We had more laughs but I don’t pay for pussy and since no women were coming in I decided to get the hell out of there. So with some backslapping and handshakes I headed out on the hunt once more.
I left that tavern with the feeling that those two guys weren’t all that bad. They might be cutthroats, murdering for money, raping and killing wherever they could get away with it, but they weren’t all bad.
You just wouldn’t ever catch me turning my back on any of them.
I staggered out into the street just one more guy buzzed out of his mind with a need to breed.
It was getting really late and the street walkers still out were downright scary looking. If I had to fuck something that looked like one of those girls to ensure the survival of our species, I tell you what buddy, we’re going extinct.
And there were packs of roving gangs out too.
These were not the groups of guys getting drunk and looking to get laid. These were gangs of cut throats out to kill for whatever they could lay their hands on.
They were leaving me alone though. Whenever I’d pass some of them on the street they’d look me up and down and I’d grin back. I guess something in my face let them know that I was no one to be fucked with.
About fifty yards up the road there was a well lit place that people were going in and out of. I figured one place was as good as another so I headed in that direction.
That was when from a side street a woman came hurrying along. She carried a bag and was dressed in the robes of a merchant.
There was something familiar about the way that she carried herself, about the way that she moved. She even had a veil drawn across her face so I could barely see her eyes and none of her features at all. But for some reason I just felt like I’d seen this woman before.
The bag that she carried was slung over her shoulder and clinked as she walked.
She passed a group of four guys going in the opposite direction. One of the guys lashed out and grabbed the bag jerking it to the side and yelling something at the woman in a language I didn’t understand.
The woman was spun around but kept hold of the bag and a tug-of-war took place.
She shouted in English, “Let go!”
The other three guys drawing knives turned on the woman.
She screamed at them, “Get away from me!” and kept a death grip on that bag of hers.
I’d seen enough.
Bolting across the street, I ripped my sword out.
The three had fanned out making a half circle around the woman. All four of them had their backs to me.
I didn’t exactly tip toe up but with the shouting going on they never heard me until I was on them. Jumping in I sliced straight down with my cutlass and cleaved the wrist completely through from the guy who’d grabbed the bag.
He screamed as blood shot out of his stump and clutched what was left of his wrist to his chest. The man stumbled away, leaving his hand still gripping the bag behind. His three buddies, with knives in their fists and murder in their eyes now came at me.
One tried to rush me by jumping in past my guard. That wasn’t a good idea. A quick back stroke laid his throat open. Blood flew like it was squirted from a plastic ketchup bottle. He went down gurgling out his life in the dirt.
The next guy leaped in and got close enough to take a slice at me with his knife. I jumped backwards and the knife ripped my shirt and I slipped in a hole in the street.
Staggering back to regain my balance this guy ran at me stabbing at my chest. I fell straight to my back to keep from having his blade buried in my heart.
He leaped on me and I met him mid-air with my foot in his stomach. The wind whooshed out of him as I tossed him up over me to the dirt in the middle of the street.
I rolled and came to my feet grabbing up my sword. I’d dropped it when I fell.
That guy was staggering away wheezing. He wouldn’t be answering the bell for round two.
The last guy was staggering toward me but he was spitting blood. He coughed a red mist into the air then collapsed to his knees. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell forward on his face.
Behind him stood the woman, she still had hold of her bag. It dangled from her left hand. In her right fist she clutched a bloody dagger.
She wiped the blade on her robe.
The woman eyed me up and down still wary. On these streets she had every right to be.
“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she answered. “A room at the Inn just up this way.” She motioned to the East with her knife.
“Do you mind if I walk you?” I asked.
She considered this.
“Are you like him?” She motioned to the man lying in the street.
“No,” I answered and sheathed my sword. “He’s dead. I’m not.”
That seemed to satisfy her. She put her dagger away and we walked together.
Chapter Thirty<
br />
Many Soul Mates
We walked together and she removed her veil. That same feeling of familiarity, like I somehow knew this woman was almost overpowering. I did somehow feel like I had known this woman before, but that was impossible.
Her hair was shiny and as black as moonless midnight. Her face was fine boned with smooth skin and her eyes held just a hint of Oriental blood. Every time I glanced at her eyes my breath caught in my throat. There was no explanation as to why.
“My name is Jondar,” I told this lady who herself was the answer to questions I was unable to ask.
The hand of the guy who’d grabbed her bag still clung to it like a big pale spider. I reached out and plucked it off.
I held it out.
“Do you need a hand?” I asked.
She laughed.
“Not like that,” she answered.
I tossed the hand to the side of the street and a scrawny dog ran out of the shadows snatched it up then ran off again.
“He needed it more than I do,” she told me.
She told me her name was Sari Santo Clark. She lived at a mission on the outskirts of the city where they take in homeless children and raise them as well as they can.
All around us the savage night went on with the gangs attacking unwary travelers. Distant screams filtered in to us of the night creatures out on the hunt. But we were in our own world as we walked the streets toward Sari’s room.
I did not ask her to open up her life to me but she did.
“I don’t really remember much of my parents,” Sari told me. “But I seem to recall that they were kind to me. Then they were just gone. I lived on the streets doing anything to get food that I had to until the Sisters Mission found me. Now I work with them to keep the children fed and safe.
“In my bag are the things we make at The Mission that I can sell at the market; lamps, cups, toys, anything that someone will buy. The money keeps The Mission going.
“It’s what I do. It’s what I live for. It’s what I feel I should be doing with my life.” As we finished speaking we came to the Inn where Sari was spending the night.
