Stranger Realms

by Jarred Martin

  As the doors banged shut, all the sour air and tense atmosphere the man brought along seemed to vanish with him, and Colt looked around once more, to see that it was just a dingy bar he had been sitting in. Just a dingy bar with a handful of bitter souses and reprobates, nothing more, and it had never been anything else. He turned to Daisy deciding whether he should crack wise or see if she’d answer a few of the many questions the ten o'clock man’s visit had inspired. But he did neither, for before he had the chance, Daisy put a drink in his hand, and said “What do you say you spare another nickle for the jukebox and see if you can get this joint back on its feet?”

  And so he did. And what was more, the place started to fill up soon after. Bodies trickled in by ones twos and threes, and before long the place was packed so tight the walls were sweating. Daisy was right about what she said earlier, the place really did jump after ten. With the booze flowing, and the music humming, Colt could almost forget the strange salesman and the odd wares he pedaled. Almost.

  After the night had worn down, and juke was silent, and the bar was closed, Daisy took Colt home to her apartment, which was fine with Colt, because rent was up in the rat’s nest he rented by the day across town. He knew he could have gotten an extra day or two out of the landlady, maybe even a week, but he liked Daisy’s place, and he liked Daisy, so he decided to see how it played out.

  It was late, and Colt could see the taillights light up red from the line of cars at the stop light below the half-open window, the smell of exhaust wafted up, and he heard the odd car horn. He and Daisy were laying back on the rumpled bed sheets, winding down, empty and lazy from making love. Colt lit a cigarette, staring up at the ceiling with a hand behind his head.

  “It’s a scam. You see that, don’t you? He’s playing you all for fools.”

  Daisy took the cigarette out of Colt’s mouth, transferred it to hers and inhaled deeply. “You didn’t see that bottle of brandy anywhere did you?”

  Colt ignored her. “You all congregate there every night, drinking yourselves silly, pouring your guts out to anyone who’ll listen. No wonder he knows so much about all of you. What’s that they say about bartenders and barbers knowing all your secrets, or something like that? Yeah, that's got to be it.” He snapped his fingers. “The bartender’s probably in on it too. Makes perfect sense. But the boxes he has. That’s what I can't figure out.”

  Daisy sat up on the side of the bed, leaning far over to search the floor for the misplaced bottle. Colt couldn't help but look at the curve of her naked back as she did. “Here it is,” she said, pulling the cork out, taking a long drink directly from the bottle. “I’d leave it be if I were you,” she said, lying back down. She shut the lamp off.

  “You ever see someone take one of those boxes?”

  “Of course,” said Daisy, her voice slow and languid, drifting off. “Lots.”

  “So what happens to them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don't know?” asked Colt.

  Daisy yawned. “I mean, nobody ever hears from them again.”

  Colt Brewster stayed awake for a long time thinking about that. He listened to Daisy sleep next to him, her warm body in the dark. Sometime later, he drifted off.

  Colt opened his eyes a few hours later. It was morning, and the inside of his mouth tasted like he’d eaten an ashtray the night before. Daisy was in the kitchen. Colt rolled over on his side and took up a not-quite-empty bottle of warm flat beer and drained it. Daisy was in the cabinet below the counter banging pans around, not because she was cooking, but because she was trying to wake Colt up. She peeked over the counter.

  Colt noticed that Daisy was wearing long skirt and a blouse with a ruffled front, and had her hair nice and pinned back, looking a lot more put together than when he’d met her, though he saw, she was taking long pulls from a glass of vodka-orange juice and smoking a cigarette, so she wasn’t a complete stranger to him.

  Colt cleared his throat, slurring his words with early morning atrophy. “What’re you doin’ up so early?”

  “I’m going to work. You should try it some time.”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  Daisy checked her reflection in the toaster. “I worked in a department store, since you were interested enough to ask.”

  “Tell them you’re going to be coming in late,” said Colt. He patted the empty bed side. “C’mere, baby. Let’s ball.”

  “Ball a toothbrush,” said Daisy.

  Colt looked around, uncertain. “You don’t happen to have a spare, do you?”

  “I have toothpaste. Put it on your finger. Or chew it for all I care, just hurry up. I’m leaving soon, and you’re not going to be here when I shut the door.”

  “Oh, you think I’d want to stay in here all day?” said Colt, out of bed now and struggling to get his pants on. “In your one-bedroom apartment that looks like an exhibit in the museum of old maids? You’re lucky I don't knock you down trying to get to the door. You know, you really aught to get some new curtains, or potted plants, or something, think about redecorating, because this place is depressing.”

  “Well something must be awfully compelling about it, because here you still are.”

  “Well, yeah, about that,” said Colt, eyes on the floor, suddenly timid. “I was sort of wondering if you could float me a buck, you know, just so’s I could ride the tram downtown and back if I want. I mean, I’m good for it, but you already know that.”

  “And here I was thinking you weren't good for anything,” Daisy muttered, searching her purse.

  The left the apartment, but Colt lingered while Daisy locked the door. “So, look, if I wanted to meet up with you later . . .”

  “You’ll know where to find me,” said Daisy.

  ***

  And so Colt rode across town. He bummed a cigarette from the cook at a Greek place where he ordered ham and eggs. He sat eating, trying to work out the angles of the scam the bartender and the salesman were running at the Leaky Tap, and why they would perpetrate it on sad booze hounds, and what the hell it all had to do with boxes. He bummed another cigarette and left without tipping.

  He walked the streets all day, trying to make sense of it all, like a man desperately wishing to tell an audience how a magician had just made a rabbit disappear, despite having no clue how he’d done it. He wandered into the ritzier part of the city, not caring where he ended up, it still being too early to try and catch Daisy at the Tap. He came across a well dressed and well-to-do lady on the sidewalk standing next to a collection of hefty antique furniture, with a story about incensed and lazy delivery men who had given up before they could finish the job. She paid Colt ten dollars to move the furniture, which was only just a bed frame, a chest of drawers, a few boxes and a desk and chair, into her building. Colt obliged on the condition that there would be no stairs. There weren't and afterwards she found another two singles for him, and let him leave with two roast beef sandwiches and three bottles of beer from her ice box in a brown paper bag. He did not credit this to any particular good fortune, and in truth, he expected most days to turn out this way, such was the easy life of Colt Brewster.

  He bought a pack of cigarettes and sat down on a park bench to eat the sandwiches and drink the beer, waiting for it to get dark so he could go see Daisy. He couldn’t keep his mind off the little salesman, and wondered if he’d be there at ten. He’d be watching him this time, ready to spot the guy wires that trussed him up.

  A policeman came by as the sun was setting and warned him about drinking in public, but did not arrest him, or write him up for it, he just told him to be careful where he did it from now on. Colt thanked him as he walked away and then turned his bottle up for that last sip of beer.

  ***

  It was full dark when Colt pushed in the doors of the Leaky Tap, he walked there instead of catching the streetcar, and still, so as not to appear too eager, he waited round back for ten minutes before he went in.

  “Hiya, dol
l. Buy you a drink?” He smiled at Daisy sitting at the bar, looking worn-out, and like she was ready to suck the alcohol out of her L’air du Temps.

  “Have a seat, sailor. You set ‘em up and I’ll knock ‘em down.”

  “There’s a girl.” He signaled Orval behind the bar. “Orval, my good man,” he slapped some bills down on the counter, “why don;t you leave us that bottle of Grand Dad you got back there and make sure to keep us in plenty of ice.”

  “What’d you do, rob a bank?” asked Daisy

  “Naw, its just how they reward the better Samaritans around here.”

  “I guess it beats honest work,” Daisy snorted.

  Colt was a little wounded at the implication. “I guess it does. I’m sorry I don’t pop my hump working at some department store if I don’t need to. But if you’re so concerned about the cash, you should ask the chip on your shoulder to start paying rent.”

  “You two remind me of my own mom and dad,” Orval interrupted. “They’d argue like that. Dig at each other. Course it took them thirty years to get so nasty, but you two just jumped right in. It must be love, huh? What do you say to having a drink, a spin on the dance floor, and maybe afterward acting civil to each other, you know, like indoor people do sometimes?”

  Colt looked over to Daisy, whose smile pushed up the tired lines around her eyes. “You know, you just might have something there.” He held out a hand. “You wanna listen to the man? See if we can saw that rug in half?”

  Daisy poured a drink and downed it just as fast. “Sure, what the Hell. My feet were starting to numb-up anyway.” And she slipped down off the stool, and let Colt lead her out onto the floor.

  They danced, and while they did, there were some who trickled in. Some stayed, like the young couple, and Iris, and of course, brokenhearted Mr. Mendel, but by a little after nine, there was no new face in the joint. And it was strange, although Colt had been somewhat obsessed over the little salesman and his wares throughout most of the day, while he was spinning Daisy on the dance floor, and losing count of how many glasses of whiskey he drank, and how many dollars were in his wallet, he did not have so much as a single thought to spare for the old man. But, of course, as ten o’clock arrived, that all changed.

  Just as the night before, the juke suddenly fell silent, and everybody found a seat and sat stone-faced and nervous, staring up at the second hand ticking away on the wall clock while Orval admonished to get their drinks in in a hurry, because he wasn’t gonna be serving for awhile. But what was different about this night, was that Colt now knew the menace the little salesman’s arrival imposed, and he felt it teasing at him. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, and he slowly raise a glass to his mouth, looking from the clock, to the door, and back again.

  Just as the night before, the door flew open without warning and banged against the wall. Colt jumped when it did, stirring his heart and rattling the ice in his glass. A cool air came wheezing and hissing through the doorway, immediate followed by the awaited salesman. The little white-haired man, not imposing by his size, but by some mystical air that seemed to haunt him. The little white-haired man in the tuxedo and top hat, came into the Leaky Tap carrying his concession tray, smiling and adjusting his bow tie.

  Colt eyed the old man with a narrowing gaze, focused, unfriendly and scrutinizing, wanting the salesman to know he was being watched. I see you, Colt thought, and I’ll see your tricks this time. The little salesman gave no indication of Colt’s intensity save for a polite nod when he recognized him sitting at the bar.

  Like the night before, the white-haired salesman drew in a great breath of air and commenced to stalk the bar, all the while the interior of the Tap darkened, save for a strange glow highlighting the little man, the source of which no one could discern. But the man had no grandstanding pitch tonight. Tonight he simply stopped at each table. First at Iris, and held out a box to her. Of course she refused to make even the faintest eye contact, which did not seem to bother the old salesman, and he instead eyed her this night, as if she was worthy of receiving the box, and with a subtle shake of his head, determined that she was not. Next the young couple, he treated in much the same manner, holding out the box, saying nothing, but ultimately shaking his head and walking away. And all the while Colt watched the man. What wonder and doubt and curiosity danced in his eyes as they lighted on the boxes he selected each time. Crude little things they were, oblong and shoddy-looking, cheap wood, hastily glued together. Who could possibly be impressed by this charlatan's cheap novelties? But still, Colt could not look away after he had seen them. And he did wonder what could be inside. It was . . . maddening to a degree. It was hard to think of anything else. And as he looked, they seemed to become so much more than the thin pieces of wood that made them, and they became the sum of all closed boxes, the unknown, and the unknowable, the answers that only a wise hand who has seen far beyond what human minds may know. Yes, quite maddening.

  Colt Brewster twisted his head suddenly, snapping himself out of his queer reverie. Damn the boxes. He was too focused on them. That was exactly what the old man wanted him to do, to stare at the magicians trick while he subtly conjured his cheap illusion. Misdirection. Why, he hadn’t even noticed that the old white-haired salesman had been talking this whole time. Talking to who? It was the poor widower Mr. Mendel. What the devil had he been saying?

  But whatever had been spoken between the two men had passed, and there now crept an air of silence around them, lingering like a despicable haze. As Colt watched, he saw the unthinkable. He saw wizened Mr. Mendel reach out an old bony hand to accept the box being offered to him. The look on his face was one of blanched and purest terror, and Colt could see that, although he seemed to be resisting the impulse, he was hopelessly drawn to the object, and whatever fear he had seen, whatever loathing and dread could ever be summoned by the temptations within the box were now totally eclipsed by his horrid curiosity. And now the box changed hands, and the little white-haired salesman smiled his small, front-toothed smile with his lips drawn oddly back, but no far enough.

  And it was done.

  Colt watched poor Mr. Mendel cradle the box, his hands shaking with fright, his head drooping in shame, and mortal disappointment. But the little salesman could not be happier, and he nearly skipped to the exit, tipped his hat, saying his goodbyes while promising to see them again the same time tomorrow, and he was gone. He left, and once again, seemed to take the cold air and freezing menace with him as if he had created a vacuum outside the door that drew those cruel elements.

  All eyes in the bar were on Mr. Mendel as he fingered the awful box he held. They looked at him wordlessly in solemn intimacy, for each person in the bar knew he was witnessing his own fate.

  All was hushed as Mr. Mendel turned the box over in his hand and ever so gingerly touched the lid with a finger. They waited, hearts stopped in their chests. Not a breath was drawn or exhaled.

  Mr. Mendel raise the lid slightlyand let it fall back down. A single tear slid down his wrinkled face, and he got up, never letting the box go, got his coat and left without another word.

  Colt watched all this aghast, barely comprehending what had happened “Now where is he going?”

  Daisy threw back her drink, her expression smoldering for a moment with what could have been anger. “You’ll see,” she answered quietly. “We’re all going to get there.”

  Later that night, after the queerly-full barroom had emptied out, after the bottle was emptied, and the bottle after that was emptied as well, Colt took Daisy home. He tried to make love to her, but it was no use. Too many horrible things on his mind, too much booze in his blood. He rolled off Daisy after an egregious display of effort, not that she was complaining. She fell asleep almost instantly. Colt lay awake next to her, trying to wrap his frayed, wet brain around the old salesman and his little boxes. Soon, he slept. Dreamless black wreathed in a mist of ether vapor.

  The next morning Daisy woke him to administer the bum’s rush, a
nd he did not argue. He could see she was upset, more hungover than she should have been, a plate of cold eggs before her on the breakfast table, a glass of vodka, straight up, half finished next to it. Colt dressed and asked if she had Mr. Mendel’s address.

  “It just so happens I do. Orval gave it to me when he caught sick last year and I brought him soup for a few days and checked up on him. What do you want with it?”

  “I thought I’d pay a visit.”

  “Just pop in and surprise him, huh? That right?” said Daisy.

  “That’s right. And you know why, too. So are you gonna let me have it or aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know why all right. You’ve suddenly been stricken with compassion. You come down with concern for someone else. Bleeding hearts and all that, right?

  “Yeah, that's right. Is it so hard to believe?” Colt spat back.

  “It is for me, but only ‘cause I know you.”

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “”It means,” said Daisy, “That none of what you’re up to involves Mr, Mendel. It involves Colt Brewster, and there’s where it stops and starts. He has something and you want to know what it is, and don't pretend for a second that you care about anyone other than yourself. You don’t. You don’t because you never had to. Other people are just things you can bum cigarettes off of, or con out of drinks, or out-and-out rob. You don’t have to care about people, because everyone always had to be concerned with you, and that was all good enough, and it still is. So I’ll give you the address if you want, but do me a favor and keep your eyes open, take a look at yourself today and you just might learn something. I doubt you will, though, I don't think your ego could handle it.” She tore a scrap of paper off a notepad, scribbled something on it and hand it to Colt. “I’m not your mother, Colt. You make me sound like it, though. But if you want some advice: don’t go see him. He’s gone. Wherever he is, he’s gone, and whatever you find in his place is going to be something that haunts you, I can guarantee it. Don’t go.”