Serge and his Apples

"She told me I would find you here" the skinny kid who just slid into my booth on a bleary Thursday afternoon said with some smugness. "She? who in the actual fuck is she boy? That is what the stricter among us call an unattached pronoun. I know and have known a lots of "shes" in my life boy, and I've no time for guessing games with some whelp such as yourself." That took a bit of the smugness out of him, and he tried again "s.s.she said to say the one without brown eyes." I narrowed my own eyes at that comment, and replied "well that does shrink the field considerably, and given that today is Thursday, I believe I know this mysterious "she" of which you speak. Alright lad you up for a walk? Where we need to go is about a 4 mile walk from here, and I need the exercise, or so the quack that pretends to be my doctor tells me." He nodded silently and slid out of the booth, as I did the same on my side and beckoned him to follow. I had hoped that he wouldn't but I was already resigned to the fact that he would. They all do.

I was taking the piss out him on purpose the "hike" I  took him on was twice the length it needed to be, I took the scenic route, if such a thing can be said to exist in this shit hole of a city in which I dwell, but I figured that I really did need the exercise, and if he gave up after 2 miles or so I could just go back to my bar, and my pints.  Sadly, he didn't give up and we eventually arrived at our destination. A market square, if such a thing could still be considered to exist in this world, and the stall we were looking for was where it always was, tucked away in a corner leaning drunkenly against the wall of some pawn shop, and trying to look respectable.  It was not doing a good job of it, and when I pointed it out to the boy, it took him a minute to find it. I begin to wonder if "she" had sent me a dunce on purpose, it would be just something "she" would do. We had that type of complex relationship, or at least I thought it was complex. I never really got around to asking her, what her views on it were. Probably because I was afraid the answer might distress me, and I try not to cause myself too much distress.

"That, boy, is Serge, and that is his apple cart/barrow. Not much to look at is it?" He took a long look, now that he was looking in the right direction, nodded and replied "this is what she sent me to you to find, a fucking apple cart, manned by what appeared to be a homeless man? What in the actual fuck can be so important about an apple cart?" I sighed, and cursed her under my breath, she was really going to have to start sending me people with at least a modicum of common sense, or I was going to have to find a new place to not be found. "Take a closer look, you mouth breathing idiot, and see if you notice anything unusual about Serge's cart of apples." He squinted a bit, probably half blind as well as a half wit, and finally after what seemed an eternity said "wait he's not selling apples is he? No, lad he's not, our boy Serge despite outward appearances is not a seller of apples." I tapped him on the shoulder, "you've seen enough I think, and the walk has made me thirsty, I know a pub around here that pours a proper pint, and you owe me one for all the education you're about to receive. Let's go before Serge spots us, he's a little bit more observant that he looks."

Safely ensconced in the new watering hole with two half way decent pints in front of us, I looked at him and said "so, junior what do you make of our boy Serge, has "she" told you anything of substance about him, or am I going to have to start from the beginning. I hate starting from the beginning every single time she sends me one of you lot."  I could tell he wasn't fond of me referring to him as junior, and made a mental note to continue to do it just to get a rise out of him. "No, she told me quite a bit about Serge, like for starters that isn't his real name, but she has no idea what his real name is. I smirked "few of us do, and that is the way Serge wants it, and Serge isn't exactly the type you want to cross in some back alley, hell I don't want to cross him in the middle of a public square in broad daylight. I happen to be one of the few who do know his real name, but you'll not get it off of me."

"One thing to never, ever forget junior, is you can't trust Serge. As far as I can tell Serge cares only about two things; himself, and his apples. Forget that, and it is all likely to end in tears, and those tears will be yours not his. That is the best advice I can give you in relation to Serge, and it might be the only bit that is worth following. Serge is a slippery bastard, and he treats every person he meets differently. He has some long winded explanation as to why he does it, but over the years I just stopped listening to it. He generally treats me a like I'm a proper cunt, and he's not precisely wrong. I just don't take it too personally, because one thing Serge isn't is too personal." I wasn't sure how much of what I was saying was sinking into his thick skull because he kept the same neutral (or was it bored) expression on his face, but that wasn't really a "me" problem. He could listen to any, part, or none of what I had to say and take any, part, or none of it as truth. I certainly couldn't care less, and besides part of it was certainly not true. Never tell the entire truth to one person, it just makes things complicated when things go tits up, and thing almost always go tits up.

"The point of Serge and his apples, as far as I am able to tell, is that he collects them, like little kids with baseball cards or spinster aunts with matchbooks of bars in exotic places they will never visit. He, as you were correct in pointing out, does not sell his apples. Whether they be Akero apples from Sweden, Golden Nobles from England, Granny Smiths from the US, or any of the other 750 plus types of edible apples in the world, once Serge gets it, he keeps it, or so the story goes. He raised a questioning eyebrow at this last bit, and before he could open his mouth to say something particularly stupid, I raised a forestalling hand, and said before you start with your idiotic questions, I'll go ahead and answer them for you to save me the trouble of listening to you stammer over them. "It is more likely the reason you've been send to me, and I guess she didn't bother telling you that. Typical of her sending a fool off on an errand with as little information as possible. Did she at least tell you what she wants you to do in regards to Serge?"

"Only vaguely" he replied." She seems to have some sort of grudge against him, but wouldn't tell me what it was about or what exactly I was supposed to do. I don't know if she wants him kill, in which case I am not the man for the job, or she just wants some type of vague revenge on him." I smiled "no lad, you are not the man that will take Serge out of this world, that person's identity has already been decided, and you'd be a damn fool to try it. Of course she wouldn't give you too many detailed instructions before she sent you to me, she does that just to annoy the shit out of me, and as usual it has worked." He arched an eyebrow "wait, you mean I'm not the first person she has sent to you about Serge and his apples?" "No you damn fool, you aren't and you probably won't be the last, but that isn't exactly the point. Though I am not sure exactly what the point is anymore. But, since you are here and are paying for these pints, whether you know it or not, I'll give you a quick crash course on Serge and his apples. Speaking of go get us another pint junior, this is going to be thirsty work."

He wandered off to the bar, and I began to wonder how much she wanted me to tell him, I didn't know him from Adam, and even though I'd known her for years, she had become a stranger to me recently, and I wasn't sure if his visit to me was a genuine request for help, or some sort of test that I was surely destined to fail. One of the many things I have become skilled at in my lifetime is failing tests, especially ones that I wasn't sure I was taking or not. Luckily, the line at the bar was long enough for me to formulate the answer to the self asked question of how much to tell him. It was going to be dicey to tell him anything because first of all, he seemed a bit of an idiot. Secondly he was going to run back to her and tell her everything I said which I was sure he would garble, and lastly I wasn't exactly sure about Serge's role in all of this. This being a very broad term for life in general, and mine in particular. He finally made it back to the table with our pints, sat himself and them down, and with a look of expectation said "You going to tell me the mysteries of Serge and his fucking apples or not?"

I pointed at his beer, and said "Don't let that liquid courage let you get ideas above your station junior, I don't owe you a fucking thing. My loyalty, such as it is, is to her not to you, so calm down, and try, just try, to keep a civil tongue in your head." He seemed to understand his misstep, and merely nodded his agreement. "Good, now that we've an understanding of the general situation I will give you the information you need. It might not fully satisfy you, but I really give fuck all about you or your satisfaction. As you so cleverly noticed, Serge doesn't sell apples, or at least he's never sold one to me, nor have I seen him sell one ever in the time I've known him, and I've known him a long, long time. No, our boy Serge is more of a collector of apples than a merchant of apples, and I am fairly certain that by now he has a fairly decent sized collection of apples to his name. However, the story goes, and I've not been able to confirm it yet, that Serge once upon a time trusted someone with one of his apples, and it ended poorly. Very, very poorly for Serge. The precise details are a bit fuzzy, and a couple of them can't be proved or disproved with any degree of certainty, but the general theory is that Serge, the man who didn't trust anyone finally made the mistake we all make, and trusted someone. It was, for that mad bastard, quite the Kierkegaardian leap of faith, and like most leaps of faith it ended in tears."

"Serge himself will tell you, if you get him drunk enough, that he was wrong for what he did. In a rare case of accepting responsibility for what he has done, which for him is very, very rare, he will say that the reason he has amassed so many apples is because he didn't trust anyone, and that people who knew him, knew that. That was his selling point, it certainly wasn't his sunshine like personality or good looks. But it would appear that our boy Serge is, despite his repeated attempts to not be, human and therefore a sucker. He gave away one of his apples to the wrong person, and his whole apple cart had a terrifying moment of near complete upset before he (barely) managed to keep it from collapsing entirely, at least so far. There are those among us that aren't exactly sure that Serge is keeping his apples in nice little stacks like he used to, and that makes quite a few of us nervous, myself included. For you see, junior, Serge has a considerable number of my apples in his collection, and that is why she sent you here. To make sure that I don't do anything untoward to Serge to trigger the complete upsetting of his apple cart. It is her making sure that I am still stable, and on the path of the "righteous" smart people, and not going off the rails entirely. Therefore, lad, finish your beer, pay our tab and get the fuck out of my sight. Tell her that I've not gone as crazy as she thinks I have, and that, for the nonce, I am sober, sane, and safely under control. Whose control I am under is not, as of yet, any of her business."

He nodded, finished his beer, and got the fuck out of my sight. I don't know if he will get the full message through to her or not, because again I think he's an idiot, but if the gist of it gets passed along then it will have to do. I hope, for my own sake, that he gets it through to her that I am not quite the fool she used to know, and that the slumbering loyalty I once had to her has re-awakened, and perhaps that will be enough to repair things between us. I don't hold out much hope, but then again I've never been the hopeful type, hopeful types, even one time hopeful types like Serge, end up with bastards like me looking over their shoulders, and the last thing I need is a bastard like me in my affairs. I wandered back to my usual watering hole, ordered a pint, and thought well at least I should have some peace until Monday, because Monday was the day the other one usually sent their lackey around to check on Serge and his apples.