Splinter Salem Part One
Page 14
When the prisoners requested distillation apparatus, ready-to-drink spirits and alcohol of all types, the Guardians grudgingly acceded. Observing the virus whittling away the population of the Lanes, the Guardians saw each of the monthly drops as the last meal of condemned inmates. It is instinctual to the humanitarian side of people to want to make the sick and dying as peaceful as they can. Yet, slowly, the population of the Lanes recovered — and incoming prisoners did not die as quickly as projected. The Guardians just assumed the recovery showed that the virus had run its course, or the inmate’s immune systems had adapted — but the virus lived. The virus was still running rampant in the Lanes.
“Jonesy!” Marie-Ann shouts, leaning over the bar, smiling and flicking her long hair like she had not a care in the world. “A couple of specials for me and my new drinking buddy.”
“Aye, Right-O, Marie-Ann. Coming right up.” This came from a gnarled, thinly built man in his late thirties. Lip curled up at one side, revealing some charred stumps of teeth, he looked Tommy up and down as he approached.
“Who’s this shower of shite!” says Jonesy in what Tommy could not know is a thick, Belfast accent. “And what the fuck are you looking at, sunshine?”
Tommy looks away, shrugging, trying not to further irritate the volatile dark-haired man who is now starting to smile at Marie-Ann.
“Leave him alone, Jonesy!” Marie-Ann smiles. “Yer full of it! He tripped over me ma, and now he’s covered in what ye jabber. So... get them drinks.”
He grins at Marie-Ann and shoots another frown towards Tommy. Under Jonesy’s skin, at his temples, black swirls briefly appear and then flee, like two deep sea squid disappearing back into the depths. Trick of the light, thinks Tommy and tries to diffuse the situation.
“I’m Tommy,” he says. “Sorry for tramping mud into your bar, Jonesy.”
Jonesy’s smiles at the idea that it is his bar and, tension diffused somewhat, Tommy does not think any more of those dark shifting shapes he saw under the bartender’s face.
Jonesy stops making the drinks, runs a bar towel under a cold tap and throws it in his face. “You must be new, Tommy. Here. Clean yourself up.”
“You’re such a grumpy fucker, Jonesy!” says Marie-Ann shaking her head.
“He doesn’t need a fucking towel — he needs a dunk in the fucking sea!” Jonesy says.
“Where the fuck are those specials!” Marie-Ann mugs in a bad impression of Jonesy’s coarse accent.
“Are ya sure he can handle it? He looks like one of Bowdon’s farts would knock him out?” Jonesy says, nodding over to a person who could only be Bowdon. At the end of the bar, Bowden tries to oblige Jonesy with a fart, but can only wetly shit himself.
“Och, Bowden! You fucking dirty bastard! Get out!” Jonesy points to the door and Bowdon despondently squelches past Tommy and Marie-Ann, head down. As he passes by, Marie-Ann and Tommy were treated to a blast of the foul scent, which made them both heave and then laugh.
Then Marie-Ann looks at Tommy, scrutinising him carefully.
“Would you look at that, now,” Marie-Ann says quietly, her green elbow-length glove caressing the side of young Tommy’s left cheek where he had wiped most of the mud away.
“Is there something wrong?” Tommy asks worriedly.
“There you are, Tommy boy,” says Marie-Ann. She smiles the sweetest of smiles and Tommy cannot help but return the strange searching stare, his heart swelling strangely in his chest. The moment is ruined by the mangy barkeep who slams down their drinks on the counter right in front of them, some of the foaming contents slopping over the sides.
“Would you look at this, Jonesy,” says Marie-Ann, still staring at Tommy’s face. “No black veins in sight.”
“Bollocks! He’s probably covered in them from the neck down.”
Marie-Ann grabs both wooden tankards, full of a frothing and slightly fizzing drink, and then primly says to Jonesy: “Well, I might just enjoy finding that out.”
She marches off to find a table near the window, leaving Tommy staring at Jonesy with an idiot grin on his face. Jonesy’s black swirls start to surface again.
“I’ll — I’ll just ...” Tommy mumbles, pointing in the direction of Marie-Ann’s fast disappearing back.
“Fucking eeedjit!” Jonesy barks as Tommy turns to start navigating the milling drunks of The Weeping Willow.
He finds Marie-Ann near the saloon doors, at a table for two, staring out the window. Maybe keeping an eye out for her mother, Tommy thinks.
Approaching slowly, he could see Marie-Ann’s attention is on the rain as it starts to speckle the window, and then begins to lash into the pane. The sight of Marie-Ann at that window seemed to morph into an old oil painting, in his romanticised mind. Perhaps one from the ancient Impressionist period. He thinks the title of this painting would have been: The Storm. A curious feeling settles over him as he places himself across from her on an old wooden stool — a feeling of déjà vu, that he had been here before. He stares at Marie-Ann, smiling at her, trying to act normal and remembers what Talon had said about sticking to your path in life. That advice feels perfect as he smiles at Marie-Ann, searching her bright but troubled eyes. Marie-Ann pushes the tankard over to Tommy across the stained wooden table.
“Welcome to The Weeping Willow, Tommy Boy, and the end of the world.” She turns her attention briefly from Tommy to the falling rain and assorted drunks outside, sighs a little and then returns his gaze and raises her tankard as if in a toast.
“Eternal happy hour awaits,” she says and gulps at the fizzy liquid.
Tommy repeats the toast and drinks, feeling compelled to match the drinking speed of this lady. He immediately regrets this decision as he feels the fluid burning down his throat and setting fire to his stomach. He powers through the pain, gulping at the beverage, all the while cursing his competitive nature. The drinks finished, they slam their tankards down. Marie-Ann smiles and looks at Tommy as if waiting for something. His face slowly screws up and he slaps his hand over his mouth, as if to stop flames bursting out.
“What do you think of that, Tommy Boy?” Marie-Ann asks, noticing his pale, sweat-beaded brow.
“What the fuck was that!” Tommy mumbles through his hand — his eyes watering, his vision hazy and impaired. The hand not holding the tankard moves from vice-like grip of his mouth to rub at his throat. The brew had dried out his throat and, instead of quenching his thirst, it made him feel thirstier. Through his murky tear-filled eyes, he blinks at Marie-Ann. As the tears retreat into his tear ducts, Marie-Ann’s neck and face start to swarm with moving black tentacles. They pulsate and move, getting darker and darker, before slowly fading back into her fair complexion. Tommy automatically leaps back away from Marie-Ann in his shock. His ears have a loud ringing in them, he cannot hear what she is saying to him. He also wonders why she is gesticulating towards him so frantically.
Tommy backs away from the still silently gesturing Marie-Ann ... and into Jung Heindricht.
Heindricht is a barbarian who thinks arguments are for people who cannot punch. At first, Tommy thinks he has backed into a wall. His ears still ringing, he feels the wall vibrating on his back, like it is growling. Yes, that’s it, thinks Tommy surreally. The wall behind me is growling. Tommy spins around to be confronted by a wall of leather and black chest-hair. He looks further up to see Heindricht frowning down at him.
“Stupid boy!” spits the dark face of Heindricht through long, crooked teeth. Marie-Ann sees the punch before Heindricht throws it and leaps over the table. She throws one of the wooden tankards into Heindricht’s angry face, to distract him, as she is moving, then pushes Tommy aside, before sending Heindricht reeling with a quick knee to the crotch. Jonesy drags Heindricht from the floor in a headlock and out of the bar.
“You’re barred, Heindricht! Just for today, mind,” Jonesy says as he reaches the wooden saloon doors. Then, using Heindricht’s head to open the swinging doors, Jonesy sends him sprawling in the mud with
a pushing kick to the posterior of the bent-over troublemaker. Heindricht stays where he is for a good five minutes — Tommy watches him nervously through the window — before starting his long crawl home, no doubt to nurse his embarrassing injury.
In that ball-shattering moment, Tommy’s life changes. When that poor Neanderthal drunk fell — writhing in agony — on to the floor; Tommy fell in love.
(In the future, Tommy will poetically muse about this moment, thinking: It was a cruel, drunk, intergalactic goblin who stole cupid’s bow that day and peppered my heart with a quiver of love for a flame-haired barroom brawler.)
As love blurs the lines between reality and romanticism, causing the dumbstruck few to act irrationally, problematically, painfully, he realises he has no plan for this. Tommy, for once, is without a plan. Planless. The supremely neat and organised schedule of his mind is thrown into chaos by the sight of an angel and the intoxication of raging hormones. No plan; just love. Something he has read about but never personally experienced. Until now. How far will he go for her? What will he get for her? Easy. He will go anywhere for her and get her everything she wants: everything that heaven and hell holds. Anything. He will tear this reality apart and drag into existence a world that she deserves. He will sacrifice himself for her. His heart now belongs to her. Somehow, it always has.
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Also by Wayne Hill
Splinter Salem
Splinter Salem Part One
Splinter Salem Part Two
Splinter Salem Part Three
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