Serge and his Apples II

"She told me you'd be here, drinking yourself into oblivion."  I looked across the booth to see the latest "fresh hell" that had wandered into my life and sighed. "What is it with you people and your unattached pronouns "she"?" He looked perplexed, and eventually replied "the one with br...., stop it boy! I fairly shouted, I fucking know what colour eyes your "she" has, and I knew she'd send you, and if either you or her had any sense, you would have known that I knew that already. For fuck's sake how big of a drunk does she think I've become?" I put up a forestalling hand, as I could see that he was actually about to answer my rhetorical question about the level of my non-sobriety. "It's Monday boy, and I knew she would send you around today, so let's not waste any more breath on the subject of who (or what for that matter) she is. Hopefully she also told you to keep your gob shut, and let me do most, if not all of the talking, please just nod if that is the case, voices are a bit much for my head to take at the moment, or rather any more voices." He arched an eyebrow at that, but did as he was told and nodded once in affirmation. "Good, now that we've reached a partial understanding as to how things are going to work, maybe I won't have to stick a fork in your forehead." Again he nodded, quick learner it seemed, probably learning all sorts of things quickly, but that was no longer my concern, I had other more complicated problems to deal with that this latest idiot of inquiry, but I certainly wasn't about to share that with him in order for him to share that with her.

"You're here, just like the last one, about Serge and his apples. Whether you know it or not." He looked a bit confused and replied "Serge? Apples? Who the hell is Serge, and why would she send me to buy apples?" I laughed out loud at that. "She didn't tell you about Serge? Or his apples? Or that eventually that is the point of her sending you?" He nodded his reply again indicating that she had sent this idiot on his "mission" grossly under-informed. "For Fuck's Sake! Do I have to educate the entire free fucking world on this every time your mistress(es) feel the need to pump me for information?" I raised another forestalling hand, "that is a rhetorical question, boy and you don't need to bother making things worse by replying in the affirmative." Sighing, I continued "fine let's start near the beginning, since it seems I am like Sisyphus destined to push this rock up the same fucking hill for all of eternity. But, before I start his long tale full of sighs, I want to make sure of something from you."
"What is that?" he queried "I want to make sure you remember it or if you can't I will give you pen and paper so you can make some notes to write down, I grow weary of telling the same story over, and over again to you lot." He nodded and said "I'll remember it, can't promise you, that others will but I will remember it." "Fine," I said "I guess that's about all I can ask for or expect."

"Our boy Serge, which isn't his real name, was just a normal lad, well as normal as any of us can be in this madhouse we call a world, and around oh twenty years ago you wouldn't have ever thought Serge would turn into the 'man with the apples' that he is today. It isn't like he started to run with the wrong crowd or anything. In fact, Serge is a bit of a loner, and crowds bother him. I think it is his intense dislike of people that might play into his almost pathological hatred of crowds. But, that is his and his therapist's problem (if he has one, he certainly could use one or three). The process that got Serge behind that apple cart was a slow one, it wasn't some Kierkgaardian earthquake that hit him one day while he was singing show tunes in the park. It wasn't some piece of Chinese space junk that landed on his life and flattened it for miles in every direction. No, it was an slow, subtle process of the little things that most of us fail to notice, but that for Serge started to add up to the sum of all its parts."

"Let me know if I'm going too fast for you boy, and by the way this is thirsty work" I waved what was now my empty pint glass towards him and then the bar "be a good lad and stand me a pint, I know she can afford it, and I know she knows it's the price of doing business with me." He nodded and said "yeah she mentioned that when she handed me the money, she said you'd need some lubrication in order to talk." He got up, and walked to the bar while I pondered the double meaning of 'lubrication' and whether or not I was going to bring it up to him. I decided against it, no need to antagonize her even further I thought. He slid back into his side of the booth with our pints, and I nodded my thanks. "Since we had to start at the beginning of this story, I certainly hope she was generous with our allowance for the lubrication. He smiled "she wasn't stingy, and I would imagine that if her money runs out, and I have to use my own she will reimburse me. Oh I am sure that she will lad, I am sure that she will."

"Anyway, back to our boy Serge. He is a clever fellow, but he is also a bit too narrowly focused, which at times makes him look surprisingly stupid. I know it's a bit of a oxymoron but he is what we would call a "clever fool." It makes sense if you know him, but I seriously doubt you'll ever get that chance, so you will just have to take my word for it. Serge is mostly a closed book to new customers now days, and I would not recommend you trying to cozy up to him. He would, more than likely, figure out who sent you, and things would not go particularly well. Serge's path to the glory of his apple cart was not a smooth one, and he spent a long, long time wandering the "desert" as it were. He had, still has, an unique ability to make enemies, and he compounded that talent by making enemies in the highest places he could find. He is fond of saying that in order to judge a person correctly you shouldn't judge them by their friends, but by their enemies, and he made some pretty powerful enemies in his time. Remember I said he was a 'clever fool' and his enemy list is proof positive of the 'fool' part. Still, somehow he survived his wanderings in the desert, and though he would never admit it, it probably made him a better, stronger person in some ways. Sadly, in other ways it also made him a proper cunt, and it is that dichotomy that is central to figuring out Serge as a person. One example is that he will go out of his way every year like clockwork, to buy someone, who publicly at least, seems to loathe him, a birthday present. If you ever want to figure him out try to figure that bit out. I mainly gave up trying to sort out what makes him tick (if anything), and just try to stay out of his way for the most part. That is until, your mistress and others send idiots like yourself to bother me in my golden years."

"Even when he was wandering in the desert, a desert that he was responsible for putting himself into in the first place I might add, Serge was making progress. He probably didn't even realize it himself, because again he's a fool, but he was. Wisdom, if it comes at all, comes late, and that is doubly true for our boy Serge. Don't get the impression that Serge is an idiot, he's not, he's just too narrowly focused for his own good, and deep down he expects more out of people than he is willing to admit, and when they 'fail' him, it usually surprises him, even though he would never admit that out loud.  He will loudly proclaim his hatred of people, then turn around and trust one with something of major importance. It makes as little sense to me as it does to everyone. It is the fundamental flaw (or the multitude of flaws that he has) in his character. I don't believe he has ever really resolved it, and he probably never will. He is torn between the polar opposite ideas of trusting no one, and trusting everyone. And it seems he can't reconcile the two, or find a happy medium. More the fool to him."

I put down my freshly emptied pint glass, and gave him a look "don't gawk boy, go to the damn bar, get us another pint, and be generous ask them to 'leave space in one of them'. "They will know what that means, even if you don't." He toddled off to the bar, and I began to wonder if perhaps he couldn't hold his liquor. That was going to be a problem if he was to continue to listen to the story of Serge and his apples. He managed to make it back to the booth, and I took the one with space, and topped it off with the contents of the flask I had in my coat pocket, took a long drink of it. "Good stuff, boy. If I liked you more, I'd share, but I don't so I'm not. Also, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps you might not need to slow down on your drinking the story isn't even half finished yet. In fact, let me help you out." I reached across took his pint from in front of him, and downed about half of it in one gulp. "There you go, don't say I never did you any favours lad." He took the now half empty pint glass back with a morose stare, and said "yeah she cautioned me against trying to go pint for pint with you. Guess she was right." I laughed "that she was boy, that she was indeed. Now, settle down, nurse your drink like it was your favorite dying auntie, and pay attention."

"Your attention will have to wait another day boy." Both he and I looked up to see who the intruder into our little chat was, and why he was being so very rude to people clearly engaged in a private talk. I let out a long, deep sigh. "Hello, Felix how are you doing today, killed anyone yet?" The tall, thin and exceedingly dangerous man that I had addressed, looked down his aquiline nose, and replied. "Not yet, GI, but it is just barely past 2 p.m., so the day is young. You know we like to visit people we need to talk to after dark." I laughed "well I guess that makes me a special project then huh?" It does indeed GI, it does indeed." I looked around the bar, and noticed them "I see you've brought your usual playmates with you." Felix, or as we call him 'Iron Felix' wasn't the muscle type, make no mistake. He is a bastard, and will make your life a misery, but usually he won't have to lay a hand on you to do it, it made him even more of danger than if he had just punched you in the mouth like any honest thug would. I gave a little wave to Felix's companions, Viktor, and Lazar, large men with very little skill in the finer art of communication, and even less in the way of a sense of humour.

Felix glanced at the boy, "run along to your mistress, and tell her that GI will have to finish his sad tale of woe and neglect some other time, for now he has other, more pressing business with me and my people." I nodded over to the boy "it will be fine, Felix here is an icy bastard, and loves to put the fear of god or devil into people, he's good at it so he does it a lot. I figure his mother didn't love or hug him quite enough as a child, which is why he's such a cunt, but that isn't really the point at the moment. Tell your mistress that I've not become a grave man yet, she will understand. Maybe she will fill in some blanks for you before she sends you back for the rest of the story of Serge." Felix rolled his eyes at this "you daft bastard, you're telling this whelp" pointing at the boy "about Serge and his Apples? You've gone madder than Sully thinks, and he thinks you're round the twist already."

I sighed "Felix stop being such a fright, you'll give the lad a heart attack or a complex. I'm just telling him what she wants to know, and you already know. It's not like I'm giving away the keys to the castle." I looked at the boy, "trundle along lad, I'll be right as rain, after I talk to this lot. Just a minor misunderstanding of the ways of the world among old friends. We are old friends aren't we Felix?" He shrugged "I've known you a long time, and haven't needed to kill you yet." I smiled "see lad, for Felix that's almost family." The lad got up, turned tail, and left in as much haste as a husband whose wife has found the naughty pictures of his boyfriend, and 'needed to talk to him'." I stood up, "lead on Felix, and tell Mutt and Jeff there will be no need for their unique brand of persuasion. I've known Sully has been wanting to talk to me for a week. I was beginning to wonder what was taking him so long. Let's go and get this beating over with, I've other things that must needs doing afterwards."   To be continued ...