Droit

 It's a quarter of 2 a.m. in Sully's bar, and the dregs of the society that I am a card carrying member of, are here, the ones that have nowhere else to go, and no one to answer to other than themselves. A couple of them are looking worse for the wear, singing softly to themselves songs only they can hear. A few of them are looking for that last minute queen they can take home, couple with, and hope neither of them have a disease that can't be cured by antibiotics. Me, on the other hand, I am sitting on my usual stool minding the remains of my business. My business, on this particular Tuesday, is getting as drunk as possible as quick as possible. Luckily for me, Sully understood that from the moment I sat down, and has been "feeding" me turbo beers for more hours than I am likely to remember come tomorrow. 

It was about this time that I stole a glance at the fellow next to me, and realized that perhaps I had partaken of one too many. He wasn't an Adonis or anything, he was mostly just a nondescript fellow that wouldn't warrant a second glance, unless you paid attention to how he was dressed. I blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't a figment of my over-active imagination, and said "why are you here?" He smiled what I considered to be a particularly nasty smile and replied "I'm here for you GI, you know why I am here, and you know that I am here at your 'request'. Don't play stupid with me, it doesn't become you. 

"You're not real." I said with as much conviction as I could manage. "You're just a figment of my drunken imagination." He replied "that may be true, but nevertheless here I am, and while I am here we might as well have a chat about that burden you've been lugging around for the last month."  I frowned, "that is my burden, and I will bear it thank you very much." He shrugged "you might, but since I am here for you, you might as well let it go, or let go as much of it as you can. After all, if I am not real it doesn't matter now does it?"

As much as it pained me, I had to admit he had a point. After all, why not unburden yourself to a willing and imaginary listener? "Fine" I said. "I figure that since you are here, you already know the details of the 'burden' as you call it. It started almost 30 years ago, and has had a couple of reruns since. The first episode (if you can call it that) was a brief but furious affair. It was something that had zero chance of going anywhere of any importance, but was still full of a lot of passion. However, passion doesn't pay the bulldog. Certainly sex almost every two hours is nice for about a day, but at some point one of us has to get up and get a job. And I was not exactly into the Protestant work ethic, and it appeared she might be Catholic." 

"It wasn't the love of a lifetime, and it should have just ended there, but it somehow managed to last a lifetime.  If it had then I suspect you wouldn't be here haunting me at 2 fucking o'clock in the morning." He shrugged, "well two things about that. One here I am, and two I've got nowhere else to be, so please humour an old man and continue." I sighed, "can I at least have another beer?" He laughed "of course you can, and for fun why don't you order me a glass of the best house wine they have? I clearly can't drink it, but it would be nice to at least pretend." I laughed "the best house wine in this shithole is just short of kerosene, but sure let's have a glass of it, just don't bring it near an open flame." I waved the barmaid over and ordered my usual, and a glass of the "finest touch of the grape you can find in this dump, if you please." She glared at me for a second, then shrugged "sure GI, whatever you want. Just as long as you pay." I smiled my best smile (which rarely worked, but was worth a shot) of course I will pay my dear, I wouldn't think of leaving you destitute."

She flounced off, then returned with the drinks and a surly look. "Here you go, lover boy," she said with a wink and left me with my ghost. "You know all of these details, after all you are here." I pointed to my head "whether I like it or not." Another Gallic shrug, "sure I am but, as I said humour me, say it out loud, perhaps it will be a bit of a release." I grimaced "talking out loud to a ghost in a bar at 2 a.m. gets the men with butterfly nets called on you, but since I've nowhere else to be, I'll indulge your old ass." He pretended to lift the glass in front of him in a salute and said "good lad. I knew you could do it."

"After that first youthful wildly passionate affair, she drifted, and by drifted I mean disappeared. You already know that a lot of people disappear on me, it is a gift. I have been ghosted so many times, I'd have to send away to a mathematician to compute."  He nodded, "I am aware of the multitude of people who have thrown up their hands, and walked completely out of your life. I can't say that I blame any of them for the decision." I laughed "I am sure you have it all written down somewhere, but I myself have lost count. Either way, she moved to ____ ___, which was on the other side of a wide, deep river from me. It wasn't like I had to swim the river, there existed good, quality roads that covered the distance between us. The physical distance that is no road nor any bridge could cover the emotional distance.  In fact, I took those roads once, found her on the other side, but that was just the death throes of the affair."

 "I let it drift for several years, after all, I didn't have a choice and I found other playmates that were more than happy to take her place, and do as much damage as they could given their limited time. Not that I am some Lothario that beats women off with a stick, but she faded into the background after several years of my dating life. Then about 7 years and two moves across two states later, up she popped. I don't remember how it happened, but there she was like the ghost of Xmas past in the flesh. And it was incredible, we talked for days, it became a ritual our daily chats, when I was out getting too stupidly drunk to make our chats, she would leave me notes telling me how much she missed me. Being missed is almost always a good thing, in most cases it beats being there." I took a very long drink of my pint, "and then we met in person after all those years, and it was a disaster. It went as well as Charles XII's invasion of Russia in 1712, an absolute disaster."

He smiled slightly, "I thought that disasters were your specialty. After all, this isn't the first glass of wine I've had sat so tantalizingly in front of me, and not the first sad story I've heard from you." I shrugged, "fine you crafty son of a bitch, you know the rest of part two. I crawled home with my tail between my legs, and licked my wounds for 22 years give or take. Then after several failed attempts on my part to reconnect, I got a reply. It was tentative at first, and I wasn't sure what the hell it was all about, but it was a difficult to believe that after all these years, here she was or at least here she was corresponding with me again."

"Perhaps distance, like absence makes the heart grow fonder. I have been told on several occasions that a long distance relationship with me is the preferred relationship with me. That me in small doses is a lot easier to handle than me full time. Either way, several months later, here she was across from me at dinner, next to me at a bar, and beside me in bed. Nature, as it is wont to do, took its course and here I am drunk as drunk can be talking to fucking ghosts about what I should do next." 

He nodded, "As you said, I know all of this, I am like the cobras in your dreams always around on the perimeter waiting for our moment to strike, and here I am striking while you are awake, I leave the cobras to strike whilst you are asleep." Staring very hard at me he said "you dumb bastard, you got her in your bed after over two decades?" I nodded. "And then she went her way and you went yours?" I nodded again. He barked out a laugh, "you wonderful son of a bitch, I've finally taught you something. I feel like a mother eagle that watches her hatchling finally take flight. Fuck me, but I am PROUD of you GI." I opened my mouth to reply, but he put up a forestalling hand "no lad, don't speak and ruin it. I know what you're going to ask, and it's a fucking silly, romantically infused question. Try living in the moment, and stop wanting all those things from the past. The past is the past for a reason, and it seems that if you walk away now, you've "won"."

I blinked very hard, he was beginning to fade, like a shadow that dissipates in the rising sun. Being that it was not anywhere close to sunrise, I knew that whatever power of my imagination that had called him into some sort of temporal existence, it was beginning to fade. I shook my head to attempt to clear the ever increasing, heavy cobwebs weaving their darkening shade over my ability to pay attention to the problem of being awake. He all but purred, "enjoy the cobras, at least they kill you quickly." Fighting off the lead weights that had suddenly, seemingly been attached to my eyelids, I muttered the phrase I had been resisting saying all along. "You are right."

The last bit that I recall is his melodious laughter as he said "Of course I am right, I am Tallyrand."

The Lane

 I sat down on the first empty bar stool I could find. This wasn't Sully's so I didn't have my usual place at the bar. No matter, a bar is a bar is a bar, or so one would hope, and I had hopes that 'The Lane" was a bar at served a decent pint. The fellow with the ponytail behind the bar decided I wasn't worth his attention for a good five minutes before he deigned to ask me what I wanted to drink. I gave him my order after looking at the shit beer list, and hoped that my choice would taste better than rat piss. He sat the pint in front of me, and I said "cheers" it at least looked decent. But as with a lot of things in life, looks can be deceiving. It tasted like someone had put a cigarette out in it. I sighed, it had been a long week, and now here I was in some strange bar drinking smoky rat piss all for what I could tell was just some whim of Felix. 

He had given me very specific directions as to the bar, the time, and the day, I was supposed to show up. So here I was, piss poor pint in front of me looking around at a bar full of strangers trying to sort out why the actual fuck I was here. What game Felix was playing at eluded me. He merely waved his hand and said "here is where you need to be, and the rest you will sort out when you get there." I had no idea what I was supposed to "sort out." My sorting out days were fast approaching an ending, and I didn't really feel like drinking smokey rat piss in an alien bar. Locals exist for a reason. You find your local, you get to know the people (especially the bartenders, and maybe a buxom serving wench or two), and there you are at your new home away from home. 

Eventually, you become a fixture, an addition to the place like new wallpaper but better looking (you think), and you settle into a routine. You come, you drink, you stagger home to regret your life choices on the morrow. This new place was not exactly my scene, too well lit for starters, and seemingly going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I glanced around hoping for some clue as to what Felix was playing at when he sent me on this fool's errand, and that is when I saw her. Well lit can be a curse at times, and this was one of those times. She was sitting across the bar at an angle from me, and didn't notice me at first. Which was a blessing, because I let out several swear words under my breath when I noticed her.

Have I mentioned that Felix is a bastard? He is a bastard, and seems to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in being one. I didn't know what to expect when Felix told me to come here, but this sure as fuck wasn't it. This ghost from Xmas past was not a welcome addition to my day. In fact, she had once very pointedly accused me of ruining Xmas. She truly hated my guts, and had no problem telling me that in no uncertain terms the last time she had seen me. That was when she was throwing me out of her apartment after inviting me over to have "one last rodeo" as she put it. Nothing says mixed signals like a woman sleeping with you, and then telling you to "get the fuck out, and never, ever come back or speak to me again."

I left that night very confused as to what had just happened, well I knew part of what had just happened, but as to the big picture I was clueless.  I figured she wasn't serious about the never speaking to her again bit. But, as it turned out, she was serious about that, very, very serious. It took me a couple of pathetic, failed attempts before I got the message, but eventually I did. I never claimed to be the swiftest horse in the stable, but she finally made it so clear that even I could understand. With a final, fuck you she rode off into whatever passes for a sunset in my world. I can't say I didn't mourn her because I did, but after a considerable amount of drinking about it, I realized it was probably for the best that she left when she did. 

That last rodeo was over a decade ago, and bar one brief, and unpleasant interaction since, we had not crossed paths, nor did I ever expect to see her again. And yet, here she was chatting away to someone not 15 feet away from me like nothing in the world was wrong. Well that is until she eventually glanced over and saw me looking over at her with a perplexed look on my face. The look of distaste was fleeting, but it did not go unnoticed. It was like she had just seen a cockroach at her mother's house but was too polite to mention it out loud in front of company. 

I sat very still and cursed Felix for the bastard that he is, and wished ponytail would come back so I could tab out and flee the jurisdiction as quickly as possible. No such luck, ponytail was busy chatting up some thin girl that clearly needed to eat a sandwich, and pretending like I didn't exist. I was beginning to hope that ponytail was correct and I didn't exist when she got up and walked in my direction. Of course she walked in my direction, this wouldn't be a story if she didn't. I tried to pretend I didn't recognize her at first, but as usual my play acting failed miserably. 

She plopped down on the stool next to me and said "don't look so unhappy GI, I am not going to bite." She leaned in way too close and whispered ever so softly in my ear "though there was a time when you enjoyed me biting didn't you lover boy." I leaned away from her with a look of bemusement on my face. "Why the fuck are you here, how the fuck are you here, and what the fuck do you want?" She smirked "all very good questions lover boy, you always had good questions, too bad you also usually had shitty answers to go with them." I growled "let me guess, some bastard named Felix sent you." She nodded slightly. "Right at the first asking, you always were a clever lad. Yes, your boy Felix sent for me, and then sent me here. I took some persuading, but your boy Felix can be very persuasive when he wants to be can't he?" 

"I suppose that persuasive is one word to use for how Felix gets people to dance to his tune, blackmail would be another, more honest appraisal but that is just semantics isn't it?" She nodded again "yes well, either way here I am once again sitting on a bar stool next to you just like old times. The old times that I've no desire to relive, talk about, or rekindle. I am here to deliver something to you from your boy Felix, and then I get to fade back into the mists of your history. This time I hope forever." She managed to get ponytail's attention (wonder how?) and  said "let's have a shot to celebrate our unhappy reunion shall we?" and ordered our usual shot. "For old time's sake." 

She lifted her glass, clinked it again mine, and we had one last shot for the hell of it. She put her glass down very carefully on the bar and said "speaking of shots, after a very long talk about you, me and our mutual past, your boy Felix gave me this to give to you. Don't ask me why, I didn't ask, and I don't give enough of a fuck to care, but here it is anyway." With that she stood up reached into her pocket and plunked something down on the bar. I was on the way to figuring out what when she grabbed me and pulled me into a seemingly passionate and totally unexpected kiss that was lovely as it was surprising.

She broke away, let out a small gasp of what I hoped was pleasure coupled with a twist of regret, and said "so long GI, I've delivered Felix's message, and I can only hope to never, ever lay eyes or any other part of my body on you again." With that, she waltzed out of the bar and my life all in one fell swoop. It took me a couple of seconds to get "my laces straight" after the shot and the kiss, but when I did I looked down at what she had left me as a parting gift. What was it that Felix dredged her out of my past to deliver to me in such odd circumstances? I looked down at the item on the bar, and laughed aloud. "Felix you daft bastard, it was a joke." I reached down and picked it up. It was just a single, simple bullet. I laughed again and said quietly to myself,  "you didn't even engrave my name on it, you cheap son of a bitch."

Pluie

 Funny thing about rain, the romantics of the world say it's lovely. Nothing like a good, old fashioned rain shower to make the melancholic words just flow right onto the page. The farmers will say "it's good for the crops" and the environmentally conscious will say it's good for Mother Earth, and water tables, lakes, rivers, and all that nature shit. I suppose all these things are true, and sure I've spent a good amount of time standing in the pouring rain with the world turning circles inside my brain. But tonight, well tonight, the rain is cold and it fucking sucks. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that somewhere, some want to be Lord Byron is composing an ode to some pretty barmaids eyes in some poorly lit room, and I am sure that the crops will be bountiful, and we will have all the peas we could possibly want, and I am certainly sure that the streams will be full to overflowing with all this godsdamn rainwater. 

However much joy the rest of the world is getting out of this thuderfuck of a rainstorm is lovely for them, for me all I am getting is wet, and probably catching my death because it's cold, and I wasn't expecting to be standing out in the damn rain for hours on end. No my plans consisted of cold pints, and maybe a warm woman, but Felix had other plans for me, and as usual Mutt and Jeff delivered me to Felix's office to be told that my plans had "suddenly, and unexpectedly changed, and not for the better." In case I haven't made it clear, Felix is a bastard, and when a bastard like Felix tells you that your plans have changed, it is never for the better. "Just a watching brief, GI. All you have to do is stand around without looking like a pervert or a serial killer for a couple or maybe three hours, and make sure that if a certain person receives company, you report back to me who that company is. And since I know you've not played a winner in weeks, you're not only skint, but I figure L____ is looking to maybe make you less pretty for non payment of losses. Do this thing for me, and I'll put you square with your bookie, and maybe give you a few more coin to waste on whatever loser you pick next."

 "Fine Felix, if all I need to do is stand around without too much work, I guess I can take your coin and turn myself into a millionaire, and forget my current group of friends." Felix nodded, and pushed a slip of paper across his desk towards me. "The address, and directions on how to get there, I figure you can direct my minions to the place as reading isn't their strong suit, it's in a posh section of town that I doubt you're familiar with, unless you burgled it before." I snorted, "why Felix I would never break the laws of the Republic that you are sworn to uphold when it is in your best interests, to do such a thing might put a damper on our friendship." He smirked "I would call you a lot of things GI, but 'friend' isn't one of them. Just get out there and try not to fuck it up this time." I sketched a faux salute, "aye aye Captain. I'll do you proud. Just one quick question?" He arched an eyebrow "what is your question." I said "why can't Mutt or Jeff handle this surely standing around mouth breathing is in their wheelhouse." He sighed, "yes they are great for standing around, even sometimes standing around an intimidating helpless women, and rummies too dumb to run when they should, but for this little job a little more discretion is required." I tapped myself on the chest "I am the soul of discretion my dear man,  in this I shall not disappoint." He laughed "don't overpromise GI, I have unlimited faith in your ability to disappoint me, now get out."

I confess that weather reports are something I skip in the paper on my way to the sports page. What do I care about the weather? It's not like I can do anything about it is there? Well, it turns out there is one thing you can do "about" the weather, and that is prepare for it. You know if it's 100 degree maybe skip the wool sweater, or if it is cold maybe take the wool sweater, or maybe, and this became important to me rather quickly, take a fucking raincoat if it is going to rain. Mutt and Jeff were gracious enough to give me a right to my destination, and didn't even bother to punch me just for the fun of it. As we pulled up to the corner across the street from my "target", Mutt or was it Jeff, whistled and said "careful GI, the toffs around here might call the lawdogs on you for looking suspicious. Try to blend in." With that piece of utterly useless advice given, they sped off. 

They weren't wrong, this part of town was not my scene. It looked as if people actually mowed the grass, and didn't let dead dogs lie where they fell to rot. This place looked as if the streets were mopped clean on at least a weekly basis. Hell, it looked as if trees might actually grow here. I decided to lean against what I figured was the most comfortable looking lamppost, and wait upon Mutt and Jeff came to collect me, as per the plan. As much as I racked my brain, I couldn't fathom who Felix would want me spying on in the part of town. Well "spying" is an ugly word for it, but let's call a spade a spade. 

It was about 10 minutes later, that the gods decided I was entirely too comfortable against that lamppost, and decided a little water would be good for me. Of course, what the gods consider a little, and what a man with no raincoat consider a little, are wildly different amounts. Just for fun, or to fuck with me, which I consider to be the same thing for them, the gods decided "let's make that rain as fucking cold as a witch's tit in a brass bra." And so the gods command, and the down came the rain, to attempt to wash GI out, but unlike that loser spider, I am made of sterner stuff, or perhaps the spider didn't have a bookie threatening to break his legs (a much tougher of a job, one would think), I wasn't going to run off because of the rain. Besides, I didn't have any money, and walking home in the rain would be just as bad if not worse than waiting it out, and being driven home in style by Mutt and Jeff. 

I found a doorway that allowed about 30 percent of me to not get soaked to the gills, and waited to solve the curious little mystery that Felix had provided me. Have I mentioned that Felix is a bastard? I knew there was no way that he was giving me this seemingly simple job as a way of helping me get out of debt. It was his way of paying my debts through me, and somehow still making it liked I owed him for paying them himself. It is a pretty shitty arrangement at least for me.  No, there was a lesson in this little, rain soaked tryst, that I had yet to suss out. I just hoped I could suss it out before what harm Felix intended for me, and I had no doubt he intended me harm, came to fruition, or if it did that it didn't kill me. 

About an hour of being the toilet for the gods, I noticed someone walking very carefully down the street. They seemed a bit out of place, not as out of place as me, but still this wasn't their hood. She, a knocking of heels on concrete, told me it was a she, seemed to be struggling to remember the exact house she was looking for. Like someone would had been there once, maybe twice, and maybe was a bit tipsy that second time and it is all a bit hazy. Luckily, or so I briefly thought, the toffs around here paid the light bill so the lamp that the posts held actually worked. It was when the unknown lady passed under one of those expensively working streetlights, that I got a good look at her, no mistaking her even from this distance, and the rain. Once you had seen that walk from the proper angle, you'd never forget it. Sadly for me, at least this night, I had the 'correct' angle. 

It was that walk that sashayed its nice little bottom into the house that Felix had bade me watch. Of fucking course she did, and of fucking course he did. It was the cute, little typist from his office. His secretarial pool as it were. If someone as prole as Felix can have a secretarial pool. I stifled what would have been a very loud curse, and silently damned Felix to the deepest pit of hell. I stood there being a sucker as I watched the lights go out in the windows of the house she had entered, and I cursed him harder. So he knew, and now he knew that I knew. I wondered if he let her know that he knew, or that he was going to let me know. We seemed to be a knowledge bunch, but for all of that "knowledge" all I had were questions. 

Oddly enough, as if they had been told to wait for "lights out", Mutt and Jeff pulled up and one of them said "your chariot await my lady, now get the fuck in." I sighed as I climbed into the back seat "where are we off to in such a rush boys?" I asked figuring that I knew the answer already.  Mutt, or was it Jeff, turned around and replied "the worst place for you, bosses' orders." I shuddered to think of where in the world Felix would think was the worst place for me, but I didn't exactly have a lot of options. I closed my eyes and at least pretended to sleep, not that Mutt or Jeff were any great shakes at conversing, but I didn't even want to try. I had a fair amount of thinking to do, which I knew was the overall point Felix was making, and I knew that his smug ass would ask me all about it in due course. A few minutes later Mutt, or was it Jeff, shook me awake and said "you're here lover boy, get out and we will see you sooner rather than later." With that I was semi-shoved onto the sidewalk, I stumbled a bit then got my bearings, and barked out a laugh. "Felix, you bastard" I said aloud to the street, "you've figured it out." I looked up at the place Felix had determined "was the worst place" for me, fumbled in my pocket for the keys, and prepared to wake up in me own bed (alone) in the morning.