Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman

by John Theesfeld

  The Strongman was certain to let me know that Tenpenny was kind to him and offered to take him back to port as soon as his current haul was smuggled. But alas, caught in a storm without a port in sight, attacked by a giant octopus and ravaged to splinters, the ship took water and sank far offshore. Captain Tenpenny, of course as you know, survived as well. He and the boy were able to hold fast to a piece of the deck as the storm battered and whipped them around3.

  Once back on solid ground, the boy vowed two things, One: Never take to the sea again. And two: Prepare revenge on Cornelius Swogglestan and Busko Cloverdorne, no matter how long it take him.

  Eventually with time, as The Strongman grew older, he took to the rails becoming lost in the countryside. He rode the rails from coast to coast, ice cap to continent tip. While hopping from train car to train car, traveling the globe, he never had any idea of where he was. He never became literate for he was never given the chance. He chose his rail car by the color or the design of the engine. He preferred the more mammoth steam engines, possibly a patriarchal issue there. He learned languages bit by bit. He understood cultures as being different and varied, and that each should be respected and honored.

  He found that if he took that fierce stance, like the one he had taken with Swogglestan at the soup house window, with other strangers, he’d get by easily enough. Soon he became known as The Strongman to all. He worked for RailWorks by age 14 (after parting ways with Tenpenny), carrying rail over his shoulder from rail-car to rail-car or other such heavy supplies. He went from heavy lifting job to heavy lifting job from whichever metro to whatever metro by rail. He was still just a kid, but he was learning in his own way.

  Then one day while deciding which rail-car to hop onto next, a particular train caught his eye. It was a deep red, triple spinning-engine, decorated with a whimsically, dark iron work, The Rivoltella Nimbulator X Class. It was Giuseppe's Carnival Cavalcade. He became enamored with the circus and became a part of their crew, eventually becoming The Strongman, of Giuseppe’s Circus Sideshow.

  I often think about my own foray into the world. I think: Paced, systematic, practical, pragmatic, logical, rational, so on and so forth. And I compare it with The Strongman’s. We both grew up and live in worlds of adventure and travel, albeit under far different circumstances. The Strongman is a rock in which he allows us, the ships, to dock in rough waters. He says that wherever he is, is wherever he’ll be. I understand this to mean that he’s content no matter how rough the water becomes, he can take it, but in the thick of it all, rough waters or calm, he is alone. When someone needs him, he’s there steadfast and strong.

  He thinks about being caught in the storm and attacked by the octopus while at sea as a child. It was one of the few times he was truly scared, he tells me quietly whenever he tells me the story, in a hushed whisper. All he wanted was a rock to grow out of the ocean for him to grab onto, but he had nothing. And I know what he means. I understand these things he tells me. And we understand each other. And this is why he allows me to call him my friend, The Strongman.

  *1: Stanislaw the Pauper was, at one time indeed, a poor man, a man some might refer to as a, pauper. Though, those days were far behind him. He had been a gold-hunting pirate for years, originating from the Northward Territories, a large man. Barrel-chested. Boisterous. Bearded. Big. The Pauper looked to be holding the weight of at least three men, but he held it well. He was fit and could, as stories tell, knock out a bear with a single punch to the bear’s face. Whether or not one is to believe those stories, do not be so soon to judge. I have heard the stories as well. And I have heard other stories as well. The punching out a bear story seems the most tame and believable amongst the others. There are indeed so many stories. Some or, at least, one MUST be true. I believe the historians have settled on this one just to be fair. For Stanislaw was not only big and boisterous, but a braggart as well. With a bit of beer and an audience who would not dare boo or hiss, he would tell stories, each more outlandish than the last. If one were to believe all of the stories, Stanislaw would be true Heir to the Monarch, more fierce than a brigade of polar-bear mounted Huntsmen, and be loved and adored by everyone from the cap of the Northward Territories to the cap of Southland. Truth is, Stanislaw was merely a pirate on a search for gold and wenches. Every bit of gold he got his oversized fingers on, he spent it on the booze and women. Sometimes he would buy garish artworks, not nearly worth the coin he paid for them. Though, he paid his crew well. His navigator, truly acting captain of the ship, stayed amused by Stanislaw’s outlandish behavior and complete hubris. He might have possibly been the richest navigator on all of the high seas during his time, in fact. Stanislaw figured that without a navigator, he would never find gold and in turn, paid the navigator very well.

  *2 The Walls: Short, slang term for the metro walls that separate bordering metros. The walls themselves are not just of brick and mortar, but that of gears and cogs and cranks and pistons and machine parts that keep the cities running. There are the University Walls that separate The University from University City. The Grimmchester Walls that seperate Grimmchester from Haverton Falls and The University, but allow the free flow of traffic from University Metro. While these are the better known and larger Walls, there are many other just formidable, yet habitable walls in other metros. These vast lengths of walls, wide enough to fit their machine parts and service people, are full of nooks and crannies large enough for various underdwellars to live, these can include gasters, mauzenhoffs, maldeviants, and quite a few normal people as well who just choose to live where they work. I fear what would have become of The Strongman had he grown up within The Walls of any metro. I really do fear what would happen to the world had the Strongman grown up within the walls and then been released onto the people.

  *3 Captain Tenpenny & The Strongman: I have chronicled the exploits of Captain Tenpenny and The Strongman when he was a wee lad in a volume of Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle. Hamilton Tenpenny, while brashness and a bit of a flashy theatrics may get him attention, he is a fine man, an adventurer extraordinaire in his own right. If not for him, who knows what The Strongman would have grown up to be.

  19

  The Strongman offered to have my hat and umbrella checked, but I declined. “Get your shoes polished? Maybe your monocle?” He joked.

  “This lift,” I inquired, “how far up?”

  “Just a couple of floors,” The Strongman said working the lever, “it’s the only entrance to private hall from the casino.”

  The cage clunked to a halt and The Strongman opened the heavy iron doors and we stepped into an almost entirely different world. Mother Moth’s private gaming hall was a world of difference for only being a staircase and lift-ride away from the ground level. An upper class social lounge; like an exclusive private club, its members comprised of the rich, the affluent, gangsters, criminals, politicians, cultists, clergy, libertines, and at least one little person who was not affiliated with any of them.

  Upon first glance, the decor was finer than an ambassadors’ lounge within royal confines. Though, it didn’t take long to get the feeling that it was all stained by corruption. It was as flashy as the airship pirates who inhabited the bar. It was as gaudy as the high roller lacking all taste or tact. The entire room clashed, but came together, like the metro sentry lieutenant playing cards with one of the metro’s most wanted criminals.

  Stained glass and ornamental crystal glowed and reflected the ambient light of the room. Flickers of cigars and pipes, candles and gas lamps, the flashing and sparkling of a winning machine.

  A pianist hammered down on the porcelain keys of an upright, backed by a maldeviant fellow plucking deep bass notes of an upright of his own. There was an accordion player melodically in tune with the others. Weaved within it all, a percussionist ticking away like a group of clocks out of synchronization, but somehow mimicking what I was feeling in the repression of my feet. I found the sound they created to be haunting and daunting and rather pe
culiar, but not altogether unpleasant. The burlesque dancers adorned in the feathers of the casagarian whooper moved with the music as if they were taken by it.

  There I recognized Blind Ernie Stetson playing the horn. It was indeed a rather wobbly and interesting sound.

  Mother Moth sat in the back, off to the side, in her own private lounge within the glittery chaos. In her company a group of dapper young well to-dos, two of whom were maldeviants, all presumably gamblers and libertines. There was a Gorillian gentleman, I noted how much he dressed like an unfancy gentleman pirate. A rather old woman, her wig as red as fire and make-up applied with a trowel, sat with the group looking like a clown set on fire. I believe she was once a star of the stage, but now, a flaming red, wrinkly prune. The little fellow sat next to Mother Moth; he seemed to be augmented upon each of his limbs with clockwork gear extensioners, as it were. He stood up with a grinding and clanking, just audible relative to the music, and stepped forward. The wee gent was nearly my height with the extenders upon his legs.

  “He’s clean,” The Strongman growled. “You’ve got to excuse Henry, here. He’s new.” The Strongman gave a glare.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I extended my arm to greet him and he shook my hand with his mechanical extension and sat back down, never taking his eyes off of me. The little bugger was tough, not one to be trifled with.

  I stood at the edge of their table, they sat circled around it, lounging, wrinkling themselves, and lazing about as their conversations tapered off and their attentions turned to me and then slowly to Mother Moth.

  Her eyes were large, over-sized, deep green, and piercing within their yellow center; simply haunting. In a glance she could cause turmoil. Her face was smallish in features. Her nose petite. It was hard to make out behind the decorative silk veil she wore, but she had a unique beauty. Perhaps it was her pale, light ashen gray skin, delicate and smooth.

  Her wings rested idly beneath her cape and shawl, barely visible, worked into the design and fabric of her gown. Even sitting, one could tell that she was above average in height. She held a very long body, slender and agile.

  “Hello, Em,” I gave her a smile.

  “Good to see you, Arthur,” Mother Moth said reaching for her drink on the table, “here for the festivities?” Her friends laughed and seemed to go back into their conversations figuring me to be some old, loony codger. Or worse, a politician.

  “Our arrangement stands,” I stated.

  “Price went up, dear doctor,” she said and flashed a mouthful of sharp teeth in a wicked smile, her eyebrows raised.

  “He gets his share,” I reminded her, “you get yours. And let me remind you, you are lucky to be getting yours.”

  “He gets his share, I get his share.” She said flatly. “What you pay him, you pay me.”

  “I think you’re making pretty good coin doing nothing, but keeping a man indentured,” I said in a huff.

  “He’s my employee, my assistant, not a servant,” Mother Moth laughed. “Perhaps he doesn’t have much choice in the matter, but he is mine. In fact he’s fighting tonight, so you’ll be pressed to wait, my dear.”

  The room was spotted with games of chance, all outcomes favored for the Moth to win. I felt I would be lured into one of her own games, so I fought not. “Oh, good,” I said, “a match of fisticuffs!”

  “Bowery Butch, tonight,” Henry said, “one of Judge Huppard’s fighters.”

  “Oh, will the Judge be in attendance?” I asked and everyone laughed.

  Mother Moth smiled, “Do you believe old Oberon Huppard would show his piggish face around here? The man who denounces crime and sin while profiting from it? Please.”

  Mother Moth’s brawling matches, the privately held affairs not to be confused with what went on down in the cellar for public show, were often attended by the affluent and the upper class. Working men could buy their way into the festivities, but the steep price kept many away. The crowds at these matches were a strange mixed bag. I thought it not odd to inquire about Judge Huppard’s attendance seeing as his brawler was brawling and there were plenty of other politicians in sight. I did suppose that some of these politicians were owned by Mother Moth, though. The politicians relied on her to keep Rust Waters orderly. She relied on them to look the other way.

  “So, where to this time, Arthur?” Mother Moth looked at me deeply, I would argue seductively, but that was her lure.

  “The Chasm,” I said assertively, knowingly aware of her relation to the situation, “I do believe you have family there, yes?”

  Everyone at the table went silent. They didn’t know whether to look at her or at me. The subject of The Insectoid Six was that of a sour topic. Besides there being something instilled in Mother Moth that moved her to want to violently destroy that generation which preceded her, she wasn’t fond of the group in the slightest. Like any right minded individual, she found them to be dastardly and without remorse. The Insectoid Six were vile and a class of criminal that were merely violent psychopaths wanting to see life suffer and the world crumble. They enjoyed stealing, they liked abusing their power, they longed to see the lights of men's eyes go dead. Like the quaymoth they are so descended from, they merely enjoyed ravaging an area and destroying its resources for whatever tastes their minds attuned.

  Mother Moth had turned from a pale gray to that of a dark ash, while the skin of her cheekbones and beneath her eyes scaled into a prickly formation. “Private quarters for a word,” Em directed us to a side office, a door, barely noticeable between two cabinets full of liquors and spirits behind one of the several bars.

  Mother Moth’s private quarters were dark, to say the least. There was one solitary window that looked out upon the metro. I could see Fruendlich Tower in the distance, thousands of run-down homes, industrial factories, smoke stacks, and skyscrapers in-between. There was nothing particularly interesting about the room, nearly everything was painted black. There was a painting on the wall, an older woman, her features seemingly off, just noticeably, and her skin as pale as a freshly fallen snow under moonlight.

  The floor was adorned with an ornately designed Eastern Bay carpet. Em had fine taste, one of her nicer qualities. Though, the rug probably was stolen. There was a floor-to-ceiling clock, carved by a skilled craftsman, the body rich in intricacies. There was a writing desk, and small table, low to the ground, surrounded by several high-backed chairs. Centered in the tall ceiling hung a decorative lighting fixture, dimmed and there only for show.

  I took a seat in a high-backed chair and I explained to Em that my business in The Chasm was that of exploring and not fighting or assisting in the war effort. I told her as much as I could without giving away too many details. She returned to a more normal state as she calmed.

  She looked at me for a moment, silence hung in the air. It was ever more noticeable with the muted sounds from the other side of the wall. She looked to The Strongman, finally breaking the silence, “After you’re done assisting Arthur, you kill Maximillian Havis before returning home.”

  The Strongman looked at her, uncertain.

  “Do you understand?” She snapped.

  “You got it,” The Strongman answered back.

  Mind you, The Strongman wouldn’t kill or hurt just anyone, he did have his standards. Mother Moth knew not to ask him to hurt someone that didn’t deserve it, someone usually very late on their debts might get a little roughed up, though. Mother Moth had only ever asked The Strongman to kill three other people, in fact. There were the cultists in the Quinthelm section of Rust Waters abducting children, and the other being a gang rival (although it is disputed as to who, in fact, that rival was for The Strongman has been mum on the target).

  I’m often astounded at the amount of assassins employed and how good they’ve gotten at their trade. Most of them, anyway. The down side to being an assassin, a killer-for-hire, was that you were most likely to wind up assassinated. Even if caught and jailed, most assassins were poisoned or done in by a bribed guar
d while behind bars. Occupational hazard, I do suppose.

  Not that I would consider The Strongman an assassin by any length of reasoning. He just happened to have the unfortunate task of taking care of whatever Em wanted done. Giuseppe would have never asked The Strongman to do harm upon anyone at all. Times had, though, changed.

  “If you’ll pardon me,” The Strongman said looking to the large ornamental clock, “I gotta get ready. Need to prepare myself.”

  “We’ll see you upstairs,” Mother Moth said as The Strongman left the room. He closed the door behind him, the echoing rattle shook me. Em looked at me, deeply, meaningfully. She strolled over and sat in the chair next to mine, “You won’t let anything happen to him, you promise?”

  “Of course not, Em,” I smiled, “but I think I’m the one more likely to get hurt. Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts anyway, though.”

  “I worry about him, Arthur,” Em said softly, “he’s not as big and as strong as you think. He’s the only thing I have left that’s close to being family. You think these politicians and whores care about me? They’re scared of me. Frightened. Or they want my coin. They want things. That’s all. If I had nothing? I’d have one thing left; The Strongman.”

  I nodded, “Aye. I understand.” The two of them had a strange relationship. They complimented each other in strange ways. They stood at stark contrast at times, as well. While it certainly wasn’t a romantical relationship, neither was it a relationship akin to that of siblings. I’m really not certain what they felt for each other. At times it was pure contempt. Other times, adoration. They were a complex couple of people in my mind, but they managed.