Beers and Fears

by Tim Meyer

  Louis C. Feir is a gymnastics coach who’s despised by anyone in the business with a code of ethics. He’s notorious for taking talented gymnasts, chewing them up and spitting them out. Mary Lou went to train with him when I told her I could not justify training her for the Olympic team trials.

  Of course, Mary Lou won a spot on the team. When the news got out that my prodigy had won a spot on the U.S. team, I was let go. The owners at my gym were furious I had neglected to hone her talent and bring the prestige of having an Olympic gymnast that had trained at our gym.

  I packed my things and walked out of that gym. And somehow, the path that started at that gymnasium had ended here at this bar. It looked like the greatest place to quietly drink away my sorrows.

  Instead, it seems I walked out of one Hell and into another.

  Mary Lou is a cute little kid. She’s a talented gymnast. She is dedicated, a little too dedicated. It’s that imbalance between talent and dedication that has gotten her into trouble. Most up and coming hopefuls have drive, like Mary Lou, but they reach that level just below the Olympic level and they realize they just don’t have that extra little edge needed to put them over the top. That realization is always enough to take the wind out of the sails of dedication.

  From there, most young, talented women who have aspired to be in the Olympics come to accept they won’t get to the world stage. They still have extraordinary talent that they can hone and use to serve them well in other areas of gymnastics, typically coaching, at some level. This should have been Mary Lou Retton’s story.

  Her dedication never dwindled. She knew she wasn’t good enough and she didn’t care. There are rare instances, when the drive doesn't die, that a gymnast will find the extra little push and make it. A Cinderella story. But Mary Lou had found a much easier route to Los Angeles in Coach Fier.

  You might say she signed a deal with the devil.

  I say she let her pride get the best of her and allowed herself to be manipulated by a man who only wanted to chew her up and spit her out and take all the cash that was left in her wake.

  ***

  “You could have made a life for yourself,” I tell Mary Lou.

  “I am making a life for myself, you non-believer. I’m headed to Los Angeles no thanks to you,” she tells me.

  I throw my head back and laugh at her. The joke is on her. I know how this shit works. “You’re not going anywhere. I know how this shit works and there ain’t no way I’m going to open that door for you so you can just turn your ass around and go back where you belong.”

  “Open the door Coach Dusty,” Mary Lou says, her voice now more human and adorable. She had shed the demonic routine like snakes shed skin.

  “It’s not going to work. I know what you are now. You’re already gone.”

  “Open that door! I deserve this!” she says, the crushed gravel returning to her true voice.

  I don’t even bother. I turn my back on her and go back to the corner stool. Mary Lou would pitch a fit. She would carry on and throw a tantrum like a spoiled schoolgirl and go back where she came from. I had become jaded to the routine already.

  You can imagine my shock when I feel my feet leave the ground as I reach my stool. Mary Lou picks me up and lifts me over her head like she’s Andre the Giant. My feet flail, my hands whip around trying to find something to grab on to so I can stabilize myself. I’m looking at ceiling tiles and awaiting the inevitable slam down on the beer-soaked wood floor.

  The body slam never comes. Instead I float over to the front door. Mary Lou has no intention of allowing me to refuse her demand.

  “Open the door,” she says and instead of a body slam onto the floor I’m slammed face first into the front door.

  The cartilage in my nose cracks and I know I’ll be one notch uglier for the remainder of my life. How much life I have left to live will be determined by how I navigate the next few moments.

  Mary Lou keeps a firm grip on me after my intimate introduction with the door. I’m glad because I would have crumpled to the floor without her help.

  She shakes me again, “Open it,” she repeats.

  “No,” I say, my lips pressed against the door.

  The demon gymnast pulls me back and slams me into the door once more. “Open,” she demands.

  “Nuh uh,” I tell her, fighting the urge to pass out.

  It’s been a long time since I’d last taken a beating. I was in my early twenties, spending my weekends out at the clubs. Every now and again I would get in a brush up with some drunk dude who takes umbrage to me bumping into him or looking at his girl the wrong way or fucking his mother or some shit. I’ve had my fair share of lumps and bumps but none of those scraps compare to the whooping Mary Lou Retton is laying down on me.

  I am hopeless to fight back. My only defense is the knowledge she can’t kill me. For some dumb reason, all these fucking things that had come in the bar tonight need me to open the door for them. Not once had any of them deferred to the bartender to open the door for them and it is obvious they are not able do it themselves.

  Demonic rules are so weird.

  ***

  The bartender watches Mary Lou Retton beat the shit out of Dusty. Most bartenders would shout at Mary Lou to knock it off before she broke the door and would remind her that, if she did break the door, she would be paying for it. The bartender at this bar had been through this before.

  Even the times before this was a bar and before he was the bartender in the bar.

  The bartender had been here since the gates of hell were first opened at this portal. There are, of course, portals from Hell all over the Earth. This one is his to guard. The bartender isn’t a demon; he’s a gatekeeper. He is a sort of lost soul and a servant to the demons. He does as he’s told, for all of time and then some.

  He is never to interfere.

  So, he watches as the demon known as Mary Lou Retton pummels Dusty to within inches of his death. She will not kill him, not if she wants out. That’s the thing about the portal from Hell. Demons can’t just walk on to the Earth. They must be invited. It’s an odd formality but it all plays to the magics at work, facilitating a demon’s ability to walk the realm Earth exists within.

  It’s true, a demon can take the possession route and inhabit an Earthly vessel, but that method has its limitations. The preferred method is to roam the Earth in pure demonic form. No limitations and freedom unlike that in their hellish existence. A vacation for demon-kind.

  The bartender’s impressed with Dusty’s wherewithal. It's been quite some time since the demons had to try this hard. It’s rare they show themselves for what they are, using out and out fear to get their way. Most times all it takes is a drink or two. Maybe flash some cash or tits depending on the human target and away they went.

  Dusty had a defense. He was a gymnastics coach. No demon could have seen that coming. The bartender knew it right away. It’s the chalk. The chalk gives it away every time. Gymnastics coaches and pool sharks are always coated in chalk. The way of the world only a former human like the bartender could have keyed in to.

  Dusty could have talked about it. He could have opened up about Mary Lou and the shortcuts and his integrity as a coach and love of the sport. The bartender could have told him it was time to go, before the demons showed up and played their little game. It should never have been Dusty at the corner stool. He had too much fight left in him. He would not crumble like any plain, old drunk, the usual candidate to sit on the corner stool.

  The bartender felt bad. It shouldn’t be Dusty and he knew it. But he couldn’t break his vow, his oath to the netherworld.

  Could he?

  Is there a way he could justify the redemption of Dusty the gymnastics coach? Could he save him from the very demon who his student had sold her soul to? There would be poetic justice to it all, but blood-thirsty demons weren’t ones for romanticism.

  Could he betray the demons without them knowing? It is risky. If he gets caught, he could be erased. It
would be a fate worse than death. But he isn’t a demon and right is right.

  The bartender pours a shot.

  ***

  “Wait,” I hear the bartender say, “let the guy have a drink before he dies.”

  What a swell guy, I think to myself. But since he flat out tells me that I’m about to be killed by this demon, which is the opposite of how I saw this going, I figure I wouldn’t mind a shot after all. I hope it’s something good and strong.

  The demon pulls me up off the floor and, instead of slamming my face into the door once more, she opts to have my face meet the top of the bar. I don’t know if it’s all the head trauma I’ve suffered already but the wood on the bar top feels softer. I’ll take any bright side I can get at this moment. I thank God I am still coherent enough to have that insane thought.

  I’m kind of glad she plans to kill me. I’m already picturing the astronomical doctor bills I’ll be racking up with all the visits to various neuro-specialists that will have to treat me from the vicious concussions I’ve already suffered.

  My thoughts are all over the place. My thoughts don’t make sense at the moment. The shot in front of my face looks like medicine. I want to drink it. It will make me better, mommy.

  Mary Lou lifts my head off the bar by my beautiful mane of hair. I think some comes out, my scalp burns. Maybe it's my brains. Ouch.

  “Drink,” Mary Lou Retton tells me.

  I snicker. It’s funny that she thinks she has to instruct me. She is the one controlling my limp body now. I’m a demon’s puppet.

  “Shove your hand up my ass,” I tell her and laugh. I’m losing my marbles.

  Somewhere deep inside I’m coherent enough to understand the rest of me has gone bye-bye. My mind checking out before my body has the chance. This is what it must feel like when a puppet dies, I thought.

  I wish for a hand up my ass. It will fill me with life.

  I don’t get a hand up my ass. I’m being manipulated more like a ventriloquist’s dummy. My head is being yanked by the hair on the back of my head. Another hand opens my mouth. And then the shot goes in.

  I remember stories about ‘the cocktail’ you get when they strap you down to execute you by lethal injection. This is the cocktail, I assure myself.

  I don’t want to die but at least I stood by my britches and refused to open the door for Mary Lou Retton and her cadre of demons from Hell. She won’t get to the Olympics after all. She had sold her soul for nothing. Ha!

  I feel the drink fill my mouth and I allow it down the back of my throat. It burns like tequila but tastes like nothing.

  I hear the jukebox change songs. A guitar plays a catchy little riff. It’s twangy sounding, gritty and dirty. It sounds like music that belongs in a bar. A drum crashes and bangs to punctuate the riff and then kicks into gear.

  I recognize it right away. AC/DC’s Have A Drink on Me.

  I don’t know if it’s the shot or the song, but I feel the strength fire back into my bones, spread out into my muscles and explode in my nerves. I feel great!

  I shrug off Mary Lou like I’m a big burly bouncer. I feel surreal. Then, I roar and spit fire. I mean, I literally spit fire.

  Bad ass!

  I hiss red hot lightning at Mary Lou. Her leg catches fire and she shrieks. Her skin melts like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, reduced to a smoldering pile of nothing in a matter of moments.

  Mary Lou curses. Her skin and muscle burnt down to her bone, but she still stands on her charred leg bone. Instead of attacking me, she leaps over the bar and goes for the bartender. I’m not expecting that. What the hell did he do to her?

  I don’t interfere. I watch, kind of entertained and curious. The bartender has been a total dick to me thus far; I think he’s earned this beating. Not sure if it is justified as much as karma catching up to him.

  I stand and watch, fixated as the demon lays into the bartender. Mary Lou is really letting him have it. That must be what I looked like a few minutes ago.

  That’s when it strikes me. A few minutes ago, I was about to breath my last breath. In a matter of moments, I’m rejuvenated. Right after I took that shot. The one the bartender had poured for me. He had saved my ass.

  Son of a bitch! I must return the favor.

  ***

  The bartender is taking a beating. He deserves it. He had broken the code. His actions had jeopardized the portal. The punishment, worse than death: annihilation. Complete and painful erasure from existence, his mark on the cosmos erased. His effect on time and space rendered null and void.

  But first he had to experience extreme pain. Demonic torture is horrible if you’re already a lost soul. But, if you aren’t a soul yet, it’s something worse. You can’t die but you are also physically incapable of coping with the level of pain a demon can inflict. Souls are designed to be tortured for eternities. Flesh and bone, not so much.

  Humans that experience extreme pain have a defense mechanism known as shock. But those are biological mechanisms developed over millennia to deal with pain that could be felt in the physical plain. The equivalent of shock a soul experiences cannot carry over into the physical being.

  But it doesn’t mean death. It means experiencing a level of pain your brain cannot comprehend; therefore, it cannot go into shock and protect you from processing that hellish sensation you are experiencing. It is worse than being driven mad. Your brain literally fries itself from the sensory overload.

  Demons love torturing flesh and bone beings for that very reason. There is a satisfaction in it they can never achieve while torturing the souls of the damned in Hell. Mary Lou Retton is really getting her rocks off beating the bartender for his transgressions against demon-kind.

  It’s better than the Olympics, at least for the demon inside of her. But her sold-out soul is still fresh, and the human still left dying inside of her somewhere desires her moment of glory in the Olympics. And so, there is a certain restraint in the beating she’s delivering. A human would never see her pulling her punches though because they are still more brutal than a human eye is capable of processing with the naked eye.

  The bartender, knowing full well what he was doing when he did it, had slipped Dusty a drink that would help his mind understand the severity of the situation. That and the superhuman power he’d also been infused with to stand up to the demons, if only for a few moments.

  It was still a gamble. He had placed his bet on Dusty knowing what to do with that power when he realized he had it.

  ***

  Popeye comes to my mind. I feel just like Popeye. In fact, I feel so much like Popeye that I roll up my sleeve, hoping to find an absurdly bloated bicep emblazoned with a fully animated tattoo of a battleship blasting its guns in a glorious burst of flame and smoke. My bicep is just a bicep though.

  That doesn’t matter, because I still feel like my bicep has the power of the navy’s ultimate weapon on the seven seas. Whatever the bartender had slipped me in that shot is making me feel like Superman.

  I reach over the bar and grab Mary Lou by the back of the neck, as she beats the shit out of the bartender. Before I can pound her head into the bar, she does a standing backflip and twists her way out of my grip. At least the bartender is getting a moment of reprieve.

  I won’t worry about him. I pivot and keep focus on Mary Lou Retton. She completes a double backflip over the bar. Most would be in awe of her gymnastic ability but not me. This is standard stuff she’s pulling. A double backflip isn’t going to get you a spot on the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics team. I can handle her if she is going to keep coming at me with this entry-level shit.

  I vault over the bar top like I had just hit the pommel horse. No big feat for me either, especially with the shot of vigor the bartender had slipped me.

  Mary Lou cartwheels at me, attempting to make herself a human (or demonic) Chinese throwing star. I parry by leaping into a somersault forty-five degrees left of her forward assault. I dodge another attack.

  We can do this dance all ni
ght. I know she knows she’s got to put a bit of distance between her and me to attempt anything that could catch me off guard. She needs a vicious floor exercise-like combo I won’t be ready for. I’m ready for anything she brings my way. I trained her.

  There is an X-factor. I don’t know what the demon, Coach Lou C. Feir, has taught her. My gamble is nothing. Coach Feir is known for cutting corners. He’d rather manipulate, intimidate and influence outside forces than put in the hard work and push Mary Lou to a level she is physically incapable of achieving.

  That’s to my advantage. Just because she hasn’t been trained to Olympic standards doesn’t mean I haven’t.

  I don’t have the advantage of having a set of rings nearby. But there are two fans dangling far enough down from the tall ceiling I estimate can accomplish what I need them to before Mary Lou can charge me again. I leap up and I grab hold of two of them. It’s an awkward grip, nothing at all like the ergonomic grip the rings provide but I won’t be up here doing an entire routine.

  I swivel my hips back and forth, kicking forward and back, gaining momentum. Mary Lou gets an idea of what I’m trying to do and charges to stop my momentum before I can build up to full force.

  I throw all my weight into the pendulum my body is creating. I need a full rotation before she is on me. There isn’t much room and I strain my hips to bring me around full swing like a Ferris wheel.

  I hear her scream, giving everything she has to reach me. The muscles in my hips scream as I push myself over the top. Full rotation. My feet meet Mary Lou’s face like a battering ram. She’s launched backward off her feet with tremendous force.

  I don't realize how much vigor the bartender’s shot has provided me. I don’t expect to launch Mary Lou off her feet, let alone launch her like a ball bearing out of a slingshot.

  I should have felt the pride of victory in that moment, like knowing you are getting perfect 10’s before the scores are flashed on the big board. To my horror, my gold medal moment on the ceiling fans is turned into a moment of horror as I watch Mary Lou Retton rocket across the bar directly at the front door.