tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-307341842024-03-07T03:58:25.602-06:00My Wasted Breathhas been called "more emotionally damaging than a brain tumor."The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.comBlogger831125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-73994174631709430562024-02-16T21:09:00.001-06:002024-02-16T21:09:15.757-06:00Two Trolls walk into a bar<p> I promised more, I didn't promise it would be better. Grammar Nazis prepare for another assault upon your citadel of purity. I hope it kills you.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was happily finishing my first pint of what promised to be at least an 8 pint evening when two trolls walked into the bar, and trundled/lumbered over to my booth. Of course, they weren't actually trolls, but if trolls exist then these two fellows certainly had questions to ask of the female leafs on their family trees. They even have actual names, not some cool troll name like Oric the Hammer or Baldric the Elf Eater, but everyday names like the rest of us. I even knew their names, though I never called them by their name(s). I tried to avoid encounters of any kind with this lot of bruisers. They worked for Felix, and the sight of them usually meant bad news for someone. Usually that someone was me. If they were in my local, they were not here for the fish and chips. They loomed over me, (they are champion level loomers) until I was forced to acknowledge their presence, "hello boys, here for the fish and chips? Pity that, today is chipped beef, or at least that what Sully calls it, my opinion is that the "beef" he uses had nine lives and liked to claw the chaise lounge too much, if you catch my drift." They didn't, Felix didn't hire too many fellows that went to the finishing academy, unless there exists a finishing academy for breaking heads. If so, these two were probably in that institution's Hall of Fame. </p><p>The brighter of the two, which is a low bar to get over, grunted and said "I suppose that was designed to be clever.? I nodded. He continued "as usual if it was we don't care, you know why we are here Felix wants to see you, and said to make sure you were sober, so we came early just to be sure." The dimmer one of the two, the one I call Mutt, Jeff was the brighter of the pair, dropped a coin on the table, and said "your tab is paid, now get in the car easy like, it's too early to crack your head open." For him that was a speech similar to Antony's eulogy of Julius Caesar. I sighed, if they were paying my tab and coming for the sober version of me, then things were probably more serious than the sober version of me is equipped to handle. I stood up and finished my pint, "with such an eloquent invitation and fatherly generosity, how could I refuse? Plus I don't feel like waking up in two days wondering why my nose is pointed a different direction. Lead on MacDuff!, let's go see what fresh hell brother Felix has cooked up for me this time."</p><p>One silent car ride later, Mutt and Jeff deposited me at Felix's front door, Mutt knocked politely, which I had assumed was beyond his skill set, and the voice of Felix said "enter." My two "escorts" nodded to me to go in, and took their usual places on either side of the door, guarding it like two meaty, silent sphinxes. I walked in and plopped my ass into Felix's uncomfortable "guest" chair. The chair itself was fine, it was its location that brought about the discomfort. "Hello, Felix, what's the rumpus this time? Your favorite cat gone missing? If so, I can already tell you a good place to start looking." Felix, not known for his sense of humor, actually smiled at me, and that is when I knew I was in deep, deep trouble. Felix is not a smiler, and it's not because he is hiding crooked teeth, his are perfectly straight, and startlingly white. </p><p>"Glad you can still make jokes GI, for a man in your position it shows that you still haven't given over to despair." I quirked an eyebrow, "my situation? other than being tragically sober, I don't think my situation is so bad in relative terms. I mean I had enough money left to get dramatically drunk, if your playmates hadn't interrupted me" Still smiling, Felix shoved two envelopes across his desk towards me, one white, one blue. "Open the white one first" was his command. I considered opening the blue one first just to express spite and independence, but then considered my "pretty" face, and how Mutt and Jeff were just outside the door, and probably itching for a chance to make it less pretty. Sighing, I opened the white envelope. The contents were not pretty, they depicted what could be politely called a murder scene, more to the point they were pictures of a fucking bloodbath. Five pictures (I am sure there were more) of a man whom was as dead as dead can be, and by the looks of his "remains" someone took a great deal of pleasure in making him deceased. </p><p>"Looks like a fucking bloodbath Felix. not your boys", I nodded to the door, "work?" Felix's smile had disappeared "no GI, my 'boys' as you call them are professionals, this, he pointed to the pictures, was not a professional job, it was done either by a sociopath or someone who really disliked the dead fellow, or someone who is both." He peered at me as he said this and asked "surely you recognize the fellow? or at least what is left of him?" I glanced back again at the pictures, first time around I really hadn't looked at the face, I was too busy "admiring" the gore. "Well fuck" I said "yes I know him, or rather I know of him to be more precise." Felix nodded "of course you do, you killed him after all, wouldn't be polite to kill a stranger in such a personal manner." This was a new tactic even for Felix, "I did what to him?" I asked with a sense of rising panic and impending dread. "You killed him, made him unalive, shuffled him off this mortal coil, however you wish to put it, but simply put you murdered him, and it is of course my job to make sure you are punished for it, despite my warm feeelings for you." You have to give Felix credit he said that line of shite with a straight face, Felix never had warm feelings for anybody, not even his mother. That is if he even had a mother. <br /></p><p>Felix raised a forestalling hand, "before you say anything particularly stupid, you should open the other envelope." I sighed, "what's in it, a pardon from the governor? for this murder that I didn't commit." "Just open it GI you will see, and I will make it clear in due course." was his reply. I decided to open the other envelope, after all if it was another dead body what did it matter they could only hang me once. Felix noticed (he notices everything) the look on my face, and said "don't worry we aren't going to hang you, at least not yet. And besides hanging is passe, in these modern times we put you against a wall and shoot you. But, we aren't going to do that yet either. "Thanks for the "yet" you smug bastard" I replied as I opened the blue envelope, and to my surprise it contained a rather large amount of cash. "That's a lot of coin Felix is this my pay off for not killing that fellow?" Felix shrugged, semantics GI, semantics. That money is all yours, you will need it for your trip. I understand you only have a loose idea of money, so let me give you the highlights. Governments print it, and we can print as much of it as we want within reason, people earn it, steal it, or are gifted it. It even gets handed out to schmucks who 'earn' it with the sweat of their brow, it's called a job, you should try one sometime just for variety's sake. Rarely do people just hand it over to you in blue envelopes just for looking pretty. And as pretty as you think you are, this money is not for your looks. You will earn it." </p><p>"I happen to think I am quite pretty, and the whole sweat of my brow thing never much appealed to me, there are other ways to make money you know. Plus, beer is cheap, and I don't have a lot of other needs in my life. Working is no way to make a living except as a last resort. However, I will bite, what is this trip that you seem to think I am going to be taking?" Felix tented his fingers together and said "oh just a little excursion to R____ L_____. I hear it's lovely there a few mountains, lots of fresh air, and best thing about it, at least for you, is no one there knows you for a murdering scum on the lam from justice." I laughed out loud, "Felix, you wouldn't know justice if he/she/it bit you on the ass on your birthday." I pushed the money back towards him and said "take your fucking money, and shove it up your arse. I am not going to R___ L____ or anywhere else other than back to my pints. You know I didn't kill that guy, and you've got fuck all for proof." I stood up to make an indignant exit, but Felix wasn't done with me. There are times when I think that Felix will never be done with me. The bastard will probably find a use for, or a way to abuse my corpse for public games, or if he dies first he will haunt me from beyond the grave like Marly and Marly did to Scrooge. </p><p><br /></p><p>To be continued . Don't want the TL/DR crowd getting bored, now do we?<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-31478541849382647752024-02-02T18:47:00.004-06:002024-02-03T08:42:21.919-06:00joy<p> "they" whoever the fuck "they"are, ask me what brings me joy. I tell them that writing used to, until the grammar nazis ran me from the field. I have the benefits of a classical education but, I must have slept through the grammar bit of the show. Truth be told that might have been on purpose. If you are reading this for a properly placed comma and a on point semi colon, well fuck you and your friends. This post isn't for the grammar Nazis of the world. They might actually be worse than the real ones, but that isn't for me to decide. Joy is a fleeting thing, it comes and goes but never quite stays. One man's joy might be another man's misery. I guess it depends on who you support, the Vikings, the Arsenal Football Club, the Nationals are sure fire ways to make joy not happen because they are failures. Maybe that is just birds of a feather flocking together. Support Man City, the Chiefs and the Yankees if it helps, that is your right as a free citizen of a long standing republic plus they are winners. Joy comes, or so I hear, in all forms. Maybe joy is music, maybe it is a well written paragraph, maybe it is a correctly spelled word, or maybe it is a Czar being blown to bits by a well placed bomb. </p><p>This return to "writing" isn't going to be long, it isn't going to bring me a lot of joy. It is written, poorly, on purpose. It is a solid "hi, go fuck yourself" to the Orus' of the world (try that on for size you asshats let me know if you have a shrine to that OG grammar Nazi). The Felix's of the world don't worry about semi colons and commas while they are convincing you to betray your friends. They aren't asking for your seams to be straight, they just want names. </p><p>Fear not citizens, Felix will return, he is there in silhouette, waiting for us to split an infinitive, and pounce upon us like a cougar on a deer with no clue as to their surroundings. Felix is not a Nazi, he doesn't give shit if you skip a comma, or if you can do the subject/verb thing. Felix will read your "shit" for what it is intended to be, a cry from the heart about telling Felix to go fuck himself. However, telling Felix that is not the most intelligent idea, after all Felix is designed to take your sunshine away. He will, you know, take your sunshine away, Felix will put you in a very, very dark place for a very, very long time. He will make you wonder if the world has gone completely dark. Felix, god love him, reads you for your content. For that, you are grateful to him, but whilst he tosses you into a lonesome cell, you find it hard to give him a whole lot of love. </p><p><br /></p><p>Therefore, for the love of Felix, if for nothing else. I am back to "writing" it might take a while to sort out all the "stories" swirling around in my mind. It might be a while before I take the risk of standing in front of the wall for the grammar Nazis to put a bullet into me, Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I am not exactly sure as I sit here in this prison that I may have built myself, waiting for a judgement from a court that I am not sure even has authority over me. However, I can for certain say this. Read me for the story, fuck you if you don't like the grammar. If you are looking for perfectly built sentences, then you are in the wrong spot. And finally, for good measure, a lesson from history. The real Nazis, the one that mattered, the one that gave grammar Nazis their name, well they were eventually handed their collective ass(es) by a large group of mostly illiterate peasant Slavs. Perhaps that is irony, but it is worth remembering. <br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-29538483988710134852022-12-21T08:27:00.005-06:002024-02-03T09:07:38.843-06:00LJ the Painter<p> I knew a painter once his name was LJ. Actually only part of that sentence is true, I find that you have to obfuscate the real story to make it more readable. His name wasn't exactly LJ and he wasn't just a painter, but for our purposes it is and he is.</p><p>LJ wasn't a natural painter. I say this like he is dead, and maybe he is or maybe he's not, it's not exactly the point of this story. Either way, LJ wasn't gifted by the gods with the natural ability to see light and colour and shade and all the other shit that the Boschs of the world seem to have been given. No, LJ had the curse of knowing he wasn't a natural talent. According to him this knowledge made it just ever so much worse. "I knew I wasn't a Van Gogh, but I knew I wasn't some house painter either, I was an in-betweener enough talent to be noticed, but not enough talent to make me famous while I was alive, and being famous after I'm dead isn't the kind of fame I want." I am sure this was the cause of a lot of things that LJ did, both good and bad, and he did a lot of bad things. I should know, I was with him when he did several of them.</p><p>LJ the painter as we called him, wasn't someone who would stand out at a party. He wasn’t exactly awkward but he wasn't a social butterfly either. I suppose he had what would pass as a normal enough life, if any life can be considered normal. He wasn't a refugee from some foreign war, or a child prodigy gone to seed. He wasn't ever going to be a contender for the heavyweight championship of the world, nor was he going to win the Gold Cup for his country on penalty kicks. LJ did have the desire to better himself, and he did eventually manage to do that. He realized he had just enough latent painting talent to be good, and hoped that with enough application, and hard work he might become a talent. It wasn't the longest shot on the board, and since he had no other skill, it was the best shot at success he was ever going to have. </p><p>He did the things that painters do, which is I believe mainly painting, and getting too drunk too often. I am sure there have been sober, sane painting geniuses that live mostly simple lives of quiet desperation, but LJ wasn't one of those type. He knew that the "squandered his talent in the pleasures of the flesh" tag was never going to be attached to him, so he went ahead and indulged in as many pleasure of the flesh that he could legally get away with. It wasn't going to ruin him, and it wasn't going to "make" him (he would say) but it was a lot more fun drinking with certain types of ladies at 2 am than it was reading about perspective in the Dutch masters of the 17th century. I don't think he ever got around to reading about perspective, because he lacked it, and not just in his paintings. </p><p>But he soldiered on, painting the stuff that might get him enough to make the rent, but not enough to retire to the south of France. He knew his stuff wasn't going to ever hang in the National Gallery, but he had ambition nonetheless. And like a lot of people, ambition is where LJ came a cropper. He started like we all do at the bottom, bottom for painters is portraits of dowager aunts, seascapes, and bowls of unoffending fruit. It wasn't exactly the Mona Lisa, but someone had already done that. It paid the bills and kept him slightly ahead of the wolf at the door. It was the first step, and all journeys whether they be to the penthouse or the outhouse start with a first step. </p><p>Eventually, he got some notice. Not the type of notice that allows you to sign autographs for people and have a table reserved for you at the Ritz, but notice enough to start being considered a rising talent in the painting world. Whatever the hell that meant. I can't draw a stick figure without fucking it up, so I wasn't exactly the target audience for LJ's talent. Which was probably one reason (if not the only reason) he never asked my opinion of his work. He would call us friends, I would call us friendly. Which would made a difference when the time came for it to. Up through the painter's ranking LJ rose, and to the surprise of most of us he got into some rare air. Slaving away at his canvas and maybe meeting and making nice with the right people, LJ became a semi star. Not the walk of fame kind of star type, but a local celebrity type.The type to have his name mentioned in the local paper a couple of times,but nationally he was barely a blip on the radar. I think that at some point this began to bother LJ. </p><p>I wasn't to be sure because by the time of his local celebrity, he had mostly forgotten my existence. Truth be told that was fine with me. I don't move in rare air. I find it hard to breath, and it makes me slightly sick to my stomach. I became more of a nodding acquaintance to LJ, and that was fine with us both. There were a couple of occasions where I needed LJ's advice or help, and he did the best he could, but by then his best was in the past. I think the rest of us figured that out before he did, which made for some awkward moments (in the few moments that our orbits crossed). I suppose that maybe LJ knew it too, but was in the kind of denial that comes from being hard to see because it is self-denial. </p><p>Last I heard of LJ, which has been fairly recently, he is still painting. He has moved up from bowl of ripe fruit to other, more complex projects, but then again it doesn't take much to be more complex than a bowl of fruit. I think he still has the hope of fame coming to knock in his door, but we all know it isn't going to happen, but none of us are quite prepared to tell him. Not that he would listen, hope or so they say (whomever they are) springs eternal, but the last I saw of LJ, there was the look in his eyes that told me that he knew his star was on the wane. I possess no particular talent, and I am no judge of art, nor will I ever be, but perhaps we should pause and have a little pity for LJ the talented, but just not talented enough to be "brought home to meet mother" as the saying goes. God Jul people. <br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-71448066989505100322022-10-06T08:02:00.005-05:002022-10-06T08:02:51.835-05:00A tale of Two Cities or how to embrace the Mongols at the gate<p> With apologies to M. Dickens this will not be a tale of the best of times or the worst of times, because sometimes the line between the two is so blurry as to be all but invisible.</p><p><br /></p><p>We are also not setting our stage in fair Verona, these two cities, which we will call by the overly imaginative names of city A and city B don't really exist. Well outside of the realm of the possible they don't exist, they aren't real places on a map brought to you by the Rand Mcnally company, they could be anywhere, any place at any time. </p><p>However, for the sake of the story, let's place these cities on some map either real or fantasy just to make it easier to understand their respective dilemmas. They aren't close neighbors, they don't border each other, they aren't physically connected in any way. However, they do share a common problem, both are about to be destroyed, they are also both blissfully unaware of the destruction that is bearing down on them. Or at least they were until it was too late to do anything about it. The manner of the destruction, the force doing the destruction isn't really important. It could be a hurricane, a cyclone, an earthquake, the plague, or a Mongol horde that has had enough of their shit. Though the Mongols pretty much stopped destroying cities in the latter 13th century, they could still serve our purpose in this story. </p><p>Both cities, as cities have done throughout the ages, have had their share of disasters. The crime rate is too high, the weather is shit, the taxes are wasted on vanity projects for the upper crust, while the proles starve to death. As long as they do it quietly, and out of the way, everything is fine in the city. Neither city is remarkable, there aren't sites you have to see before you die in either city. They haven't conquered large swaths of their respective areas, and if they have sports teams, they are a little shit. Neither city has produced any great work of science or art, nor any artists or men of science that are famous. All roads lead to other places not to these cities. In short, they are bland, boring, and not particularly worth visiting. Of course people do visit, but that is to be expected. People come and go in these cities, some never quite stay, some never quite leave, and some haven't a choice in the manner. It is where they are from, and these cities will eventually swallow them without too much fuss. </p><p>What distinguishes these two fair cities isn't the manner of their destruction pick one and multiple it by two, if you require TWO Mongol hordes to eliminate these cites, well then here they are, parked outside of each city, refusing to accept surrender terms, and only here to destroy. Maybe it didn't start out that way, but here we are regardless. Neither city stands a chance, whatever chosen force of destruction that is coming their way, is merciless, there is no escape, no negotiations, no tribute that will stop these cities from being flattened. The good news, if there is any good news, is that while they will be flattened, they will not be like Carthage, they will not be wiped from the map and have salt strewn over their remains to make sure they never can be rebuilt. </p><p>Let's celebrate that bit of good news shall we? Let us realize, even if the denizens of the cities do not, that eventually they will rebuild. They might come back bigger and stronger, but then again they might not. They might rebuild as a shell of their former selves, or they might be better for the destruction. Maybe the destruction will clean out the slums a bit, wipe out the uglier side of town that was already gone to seed and needed more repair than a paint job and some green space. However, the rebuild isn't really something that overly concerns us yet. Because be the rebuild comes the destruction, and the destruction is going to happen regardless of either city's plans for a fancier zoo.</p><p>That destruction, that force that is bearing down on our fair cities is the unstoppable force, and our cities are very much movable objects. They have no real chance to avoid destruction, all they can do it hope for the best. Which is where our cities paths diverge a bit. City A's destruction, and their knowledge of it is slightly different that City B. City A isn't the brightest star in the sky, and has little to no understanding or actual knowledge of their impeding doom. City A should know, they are not a city of retards that haven't read their history. In fact, they don't even have to go back very far in their own history to see that Mongols (or their equivalent) are a real danger. A danger they have faced before and didn't exactly cover themselves in glory with their response. However, City A is a "happy" city, a city that thinks (they are wrong, but they don't know it yet) that everything is coming up in their favor. The odds are with them, the cards love them, and the ponies run swiftly solely to suit their pleasures. City A is a bit like your annoying friend who always looks on the bright side of life. Sure Pollyanna sing your songs of joy, and ignore the dragon in the doorway if you must, but realize the dragon isn't here to listen to you vocalize how happy you are. </p><p><br /></p><p>City B is slightly different, certainly they are no better than City A, let's not give them credit where credit is not due. They aren't the shining city on a hill that we all aspire to move to, and create a happily ever after. City B is just as vulnerable as City A to destruction, and will suffer the same or very similar fate (no two destructions are exactly the same). The major difference is their indifference to it. The hand wringing, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will follow City A's destruction will no happen in City B, or if it does, it will be so muted as to be barely noticeable to outsiders. City B isn't some bloodless, emotionless husk of a city, they just understand historical forces better than City A. It doesn't make them any smarter, better looking, or taller than City A it just makes them different. Maybe they are better, maybe they are worse, I suppose it depends on one's point of view. The major thing City B has 'going for it' is they understand the destruction is coming, they have heard the thundering of hooves on the plains that tell us the Mongols are at the gates, they have seen the dark clouds of doom forming on the horizon and are now heading their way. They understand it is going to happen, for City A destruction is a question of "if", for city B it is a matter of "when." </p><p>That difference, more subtle than you might think, is the crux of the issue. City A isn't wrong for their way of thinking, no more than City B is right for theirs. That is the problem with destruction it is going to happen whether you think it will or not. One might think that expecting it would lead to preparing for it, and in some ways mitigating it. Sadly, that isn't how destruction works, the Mongols, the hurricane, the plague or whatever destructive force that swans into your city, and wipes it out does not give a fuck about your readiness to face it. It just destroys, that what it is here to do. It is not here to teach you any deep, long lasting, historical lesson, it is not here to make you 'better for the experience" it is here to (and will) destroy your city period. </p><p>Maybe you will give the Mongols are harder time of it, if you are expecting them, but they don't care. You can't stop them, you can only hope they leave enough behind for the rebuild to be easier. And you will have to rebuild, you've no choice this is your city. Whether it be A or B it is still yours, and it is incumbent upon you to rebuild. No other city is going to save you, after all they have the Mongols to look out for too, and their own set of problems to sort. It will be hard, but it must needs doing, after all you can't live in a burned out husk for the rest of your life. The wailing of City A or the quite resignation of City B are just two examples of dealing with destruction. Maybe there is a City C out there somewhere that has figured out a better way to deal with destruction. Maybe they have rebuilt, better, stronger, and faster. But that isn't your concern, you don't live there, and they don't like immigrants. </p><p>City A rebuilds in the hopes that destruction is finished with it, that it won't come again, and that they have been taught their lesson, learned it, and things are going to be better going forward. Here's to that, a hope for a brighter, better future is not something that should be dismissed out of hand. It might be the hope of the foolish, but it is still hope. It is not our job to ruin it for them. Let the hope drive the rebuild, the hope that better days are to come, and that the dragon in the doorway won't return. That perhaps the lesson to be learned has been learned, and that the future is bound to improve. We aren't them, maybe we don't want to be them, but let them dream, and hope. Who knows maybe they are right.</p><p>City B rebuilds with the expectation that the dragon, the Mongols will probably be back, and that this all might just happen again. Like a fifth season it is something that just happens, and must be endured in order to be survived. Survival is important, if you quit rebuilding, then the Mongols win. There is a certain sense of calm foreboding with City B, a sense that this rebuild is temporary and that you can make it as pretty as you want, but it will all come down just the same. Maybe is resignation, maybe it is accepting the facts for what they are, but City B rebuilds, and waits. The question of when is certainly important, but it is the time between that makes all the difference for City B. Enjoy the "time in the sun" make it count, make it serve as the reason for the rebuild. After all, you are going to rebuild, no matter what grumblings you hear from City B about "why bother, they will just be back to wipe us out again." They will rebuild, they understand the ephemeral nature of rebuilds, but they also know that it has to be done. Maybe the future is just more of the same. Rebuild only to be destroyed. Plant the fields to watch them burn. Maybe, or maybe not, they can't know until they try, and who knows maybe they are right.</p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-36490468393331742002022-06-08T07:00:00.001-05:002022-06-08T08:26:08.782-05:00Pense<p> I wonder if you ever think of me, then again I have also been taught not to ask questions that I don't know the answer to. I also believe that if you are foolish enough to ask a question you don't know the answer to, then you shouldn't be upset at the answer. After all, you asked for it, and had no clue what is coming, so no complaints should be forthcoming. If the answer distresses you, well tough cookies buddy, you should have known not to ask the question in the first place.</p><p>Which is the reason that I don't ask you, though I am pretty sure of the answer, I feel that I do, in fact, know the answer and it might distress me. The answer that I believe you would provide would distress me, and would cause me to believe that you are a monster, and no one ever wants to admit that they made love to a monster. Of course, 'love' is a dangerous word, a feeling that a whole lot of people a whole lot smarter than I am have used a lot of 'ink' to try to express, explain, proclaim, deny, or swear revenge because of. Gluttons love their lunch, babies love milk, Romeo loved Juliet (or so he thought), Jim Morrison loved all the drugs, the world is full of billions upon billions of people who love or loved all sorts of things. Some of them healthy, some of them, well not so much. You fall into this latter category, and not just for me. </p><p>The other 'guys' that are rowing the same boat of your monsterhood need not detain us. It matter not who, what or where they are. It matters not their present feelings, or lack of them for you. In short they just simply do not matter to me. Of course, they don't matter to you either, in spite of what you may have told them at the time. That is your gift; you convince someone that they are special and that you give yourself solely to them at the time. They fall for it, just like I did, others will fall for it just like we did. It is both a gift and a curse you share with us. Problem is you get the gift, we get the curse. Not to say that we didn't see it coming, in many ways we are the architects of our own downfall. If we had been paying attention (we weren't) we would have clearly seen the downfall of our successor in interest. It's not like we didn't know them, the trailblazers of misery that came before us, we did. We just simply thought we would be different, after all you told us we would be, and we so desperately wanted to believe you that we did. </p><p>Of course, that's how you reel us in, you tell us we are different, that the others are just some passing fancy, and don't mean anything to you. We nod sagely, and assure you, and ourselves that we are different. Even though a small part of us knows better. It is a large gap of idiocy between knowing better, and doing better. Most of us never manage to bridge that gap. You weave a tale of golden times that sounds like the tale of El Dorado, that city of gold that led so many other men to their doom. Of course we aren't all Spanish explorers, we don't really buy the myth, but somehow we still chase it, like the fools we are, like the fools you turn us into. We wall our disbelief behind a wall of hopes and dreams, like Prospero did to Forunato, listen to your tales of casks of sweet, sweet wine that we know doesn't really exist, all the while praying like fuck that it does. Hopes and dreams are about as useless as 'thoughts and prayers', and are in many ways much more dangerous. Given hope a man will do all sorts of shit that would otherwise make an elephant pause, but hope will get us to storm the citadels of disbelief with the ladders of dreams. </p><p>Maybe you are the stuff that dreams are made of, maybe to the right person you are a real life version of the Maltese Falcon. I've come to seriously doubt it, but I have been wrong before. After all, I trusted you at one point, and that was an unmitigated disaster on pretty much every level. So I will continue to ponder the process(es) behind your appeal. The reasons that myself and other fools like me have fallen for you, and can't seem to give you up, even after all the disasters you create and walk away from. You never seem to get so much as a scratch from all the 'wrecks' you cause. The detritus you leave behind in your wake makes the Titanic look like a mere fender bender. Of course, all of us are of age, we aren't children (in the chronological sense at least), we are adults who are given the benefit of the doubt that we know what we are doing, even if we very clearly do not know what we are doing, or what is good for us. Each person has his own mistake(s) to make, but that doesn't stop it from hurting like fuck in the harsh morning light that we find ourselves in daily. I suppose I should say that I hope you rot, but I know that would just be a lie, and unlike your lies that I chose to believe, this lie I can only swallow if I don't think too much. <br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-11883329290173451082022-05-03T07:31:00.002-05:002022-05-03T07:39:12.382-05:00Dear Boris<p> I finished your biography last night, as with all biographies I knew how it was going to end. It is how all biographies eventually end. With your end. I knew enough about you, in passing, from other sources to know how you were to meet your end, but I read your biography anyway. I wasn't hoping for a happy ending, you didn't have one, and I knew that. But as I wrote the date and the word "finished" (as I do with all the books I read) I still felt sad when I realized I had finished with the story of your life 5 days shy of the day you life actually ended 97 years ago. I don't think "celebrate" is the right word for marking that sad anniversary, but I suppose I might be tempted to raise a glass in remembrance of you, and what you did with your life. I doubt any of the people I will be sharing a drink with will have any idea who the actual fuck I am referring to when I toast "to Boris" but since they are my friends they are used to the vague shit I talk about, and are not the type to refuse a drink. </p><p>Your life ended by "suicide" I put that word in quotes because the people who had you in their custody at the time of your death, were prone to have a lot of "suicides" on their watch. It is a lovely way to explain why or how you jumped out of a 5th story window and crushed your skull against the pavement outside of the prison in which that had held you for almost 9 months. Granted you made the most of your prison life. When they caught you, all you really had to say was "neatly done." And it was neatly done, they lured you back to the Motherland with a false flag operation that has made the text books as the way to handle false flag operations, and caught you as neatly as anyone as slippery as you can be caught. Perhaps you had other ideas, perhaps you had a plan to be caught, and to try to escape and pull of one final glorious act of counter-revolution before you shuffled off this mortal coil. Maybe you thought if they brought you back and you confessed your sins (but not really meaning it) they would let you live and would eventually get tired of you taking up valuable prison space. Then they would let you go, and you could try that one last act to cap a career full of a number of remarkable successes, but also marred by some pretty abject failures. All of our lives are full of successes and failures, but the scale of yours was an object lesson in how to "go big or go home." </p><p>After they caught you, you confesses your sins (or at least the ones they let you) they put you on "trial" and you cooperated. You confesses and sought absolution. According to your prison letters, YOU of all people, saw the errors of your ways and went over to the other side. Your friends on the outside denounced you for the traitor you either were or appeared to be (it matters not in the end), and you even threatened to beat one of them senseless if you ever met them again. Funny that, threatening to kick someone ass from a prison cell, that no matter how luxurious, you were never going to be let out of. Well, they did let you out, they trotted you out from time to time, and took you to the opera, and to the park, and other places about town. After all, you were their prize canary, and they had you in a golden cage. A cage is a cage no matter how golden. And even though they let your mistress stay in the same cell as you, and let you furnish it with all the comforts of home, it was still a cage. Eventually, cages start to shrink, no matter how pretty they may be, and no matter if they let your latest playmate share it with you or not. </p><p>They treated you well enough, for a man in a cage, let you write, even let you make money from your writings, and send the proceeds to your long suffering families. They knew that alive you were a showpiece of their cause. The great arch-enemy of the glorious revolution seeing the error of his ways,and telling the word that they were right all along, and you were a fool to ever think otherwise. They gave you a death sentence, but that was just to get your attention. Eventually they commuted that to 10 years of hard labour. You never laboured a day. You believed that you would do your time, and that they would let you go, or at least that what people think you believed. It is what you appeared to believe in your letters, but your letters were read by them, and they weren't the type to let you put your "true" feelings on paper, and publish them to the outside world.</p><p> You began to go a bit stir crazy, and begin to push them to release you. Maybe you thought they would, maybe you were just tired of living. You wrote you own Felix (we all have a "Felix" whether we know it or not), and he either told you a lie, or didn't bother to answer you. All the while writing "never to be released" on your file. They could never let you go, you were worth more to them alive than dead. If you were dead they ran the risk of you becoming a martyr, and they didn't need any more martyrs. Once you began to sing the tune from their songbook, you were worth keeping alive, so you could keep singing. You were the prefect example of a long time foe seeing the light, and coming over to the "good" guys. They pictured themselves as the "good" guys, they were bastards. Not that you were a saint, I am pretty sure that if I had been alive at the same time, and had met you, you probably would have eventually had me shot. You were not one to do such dirty work yourself, you were too refined. Of course you didn't speak a word of my language, and I don't know a word of yours, but I still think we would have found a way to become enemies. </p><p>In fact, I would have probably been on the side of the lot that put you in that gilded cage of yours, at least at the start. I figure at some point, I might have also had a change of heart and rebelled. Because after all, resistance is generally the more romantic position. After a while, being in charge begins to take the bloom of the rose of revolution. Scratch a revolutionary and you will find a gendarme underneath. Of course their exists a school of thought that produced some "evidence" to try and prove you were tossed out of that window. It's not the most far fetched idea, after all they tossed a few people out of windows, helped they down stairs the hard way, and took them on long walks in the woods in which they were the only ones to return. </p><p>The only person who knew the answer to your attempt to fly was you, and with your brain matter leaking out onto the pavement upon which you landed, you were in no condition to give up your final, most perplexing secret. Perhaps that is a fitting end to your life of secrets, betrayals, and life on the fringes of polite society. You didn't take pictures of your entire life, your every meal, or drink was not memorialized for the world to see, you didn't shout your latest successful trip to the bathroom to the world, you lived in a shadow world where lies were as common as dust. Maybe all the lies finally got to you, maybe you lied so often and so much that you couldn't believe a word that came out of your own mouth, and in some sense of misplaced honor you chose the window rather than the cage. Maybe it was your choice, maybe they left the window open for you, and pointed at it with a wink, or maybe they tossed you, kicking and screaming, out of it. I supposed we will never know. And somehow I think that put the cap on your legacy better than anything could. The ultimate mystery to a life lived in the shadows, the final secret that you took down all five flights to your final destiny. Maybe it was glorious, maybe it was terrifying, maybe it was fitting, but as I wrote the word "finished" all I could think that no matter what the reason, it was just sad. <br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-56590476635638849422021-12-07T07:01:00.002-06:002021-12-07T07:01:52.056-06:00Death of a Rationalist <p> This post is another in the long overdue stack, but I am trying people just be patient. </p><p><br /></p><p>The job I came to do was simple they said. Find the Rationalist, explain his crimes, and kill him. Simple and easy instructions to follow, and I try to follow the simple, easy instructions. Makes the hard bits easier to 'fudge' if I need to. Either way it was supposed to be an easy job. Like most things that seem too easy to be true, it was a shit show. But, when your job is to whack people, easy is a relative term. People seem, for the most part, to be opposed to just getting whacked without creating a fuss. Oddly the Rationalist didn't create a fuss, and that is what made it so hard to whack him. </p><p>The "people" that wanted him whacked were, as far as I could tell, a dodgy lot. I only ever talked to one of them, and he was a flighty as a chicken at a fox convention. He keep mentioning that "we" need the Rationalist killed, but I got the sense that "we" was just him, and he wanted to try to spread out his guilt like peanut butter (except onto imaginary people). Maybe that helped him, maybe it didn't I was beyond giving too much of a fuck at the time. He referred to the group that wanted the job done as the "CC". I didn't have then nor do I have now any idea what that meant, again I was paid to do a job. And once I am paid I always see the job through. They gave me a goodly amount of the coin of the realm to whack a guy, so I would whack a guy. Sometimes the job is just that, no muss, no fuss, and no fancy stuff. I wasn't required to send a message to anyone, cut off part of his body to send to grieving relatives, I was told there would be no grieving relatives (not that I cared), and no public display of the body as a warning to others would be necessary. <br /></p><p>He wasn't hard to find, he blunders about the city he lives in like a drunk elephant and his habits are as regular as an old man eating prunes. He can generally be found in one of about seven places, and one of those is his house, which he occupies all by his lonesome. Easy enough, and the lock really posed no problem, mainly because the key he "lost" one night while he was too drunk to see, I possessed. Again he is as easy to track as a herd of buffalo, and it wasn't too hard to nick the key off his drunk ass. So far this job was as simple as falling off a log. Which if you've ever fallen off a log you will know how easy that can be, its the landing that is the hard bit. </p><p>On a not so fine night in ________, I let myself into his shit hole of an apartment and waited for him to stagger home from his local. I figured I had a couple of hours to wait as he is the "drink till you're asked to leave type." I didn't bother to look around overmuch, no need to put too human of a face on the fellow you are here to make non-human, it confuses the mind, and leads to mistakes being made. I don't like mistakes, mine or other people's. My patience was rewarded a little while later when I heard the key turn in the lock, and the Rationalist make his (drunken) way into his apartment. With an ironic "honey I'm home!" he announced his presence to what he thought was an empty house. My sardonic reply of "Oh thank God! I've been worried sick!" was met with a great deal of swearing, and confusion. He made his way into the living room very slowly, saw me sitting on his favourite seat, and asked "who the fuck are you, and how the fuck did you get in here!" There was some bravado in his tone, but I could tell there was just a tinge of fear behind his eyes. After all, the large gun I had pointed in his direction did look pretty terrifying. I like to put most of my cards on the table from the beginning, it avoids confusion as to my purpose. </p><p>He noticed the gun, and if you ever have seen some go from drunk to sober in a flash it can be quite an educational experience. He managed it quicker than most, perhaps he had a lot of practice. He looked down at the gun, and sighed out a question "what took you so long?" I arched an eyebrow at this, he seemed remarkably resigned to his fate, most people in his position at least try to bargain or beg. He seemed almost more ready than I was to get it over with. "I assume the CC sent you?" he asked. I nodded my assent "yes they seem to think you've over stepped your bounds, and have backslid as well. They apparently take backsliding very, very seriously." He nodded agreement "yes, yes they do. How much did they give you for killing me?" I named a figure twice the actual price, it helps people who are about to get whacked feel more important. If someone would pay THAT much to have you killed, well you must be important indeed. He titled his head to the right as if thinking about it, and replied "seems a bit high, I would have done it for half that price if I were you." I nodded "well maybe you're more important than you think, dead that is, few of us are that important alive. Or maybe they just had money to spend to balance the budget, the end of the year is almost here after all. I don't really care much, they paid it, and told me to whack you, so here I am."</p><p>He sat down rather heavily, and sighed, "I guess that's a simple enough answer. You seem to prefer those." I nodded "I don't get paid by the word, I get paid by the job." He smiled a bit as if accepting that his time was being measured in minutes not years. "May I show you something? It requires me going into the other room but I don't own one of those" he pointed at my gun still trained on him, "and I want you to have what I am about to show you, I feel it will help. If not you at least someone." I nodded my assent, "sure, but hurry up, I don't have all night, there are other jobs to do, it's my busy season you know." He laughed, and replied "I won't be long, and no I had no idea that there was a 'busy' season for murdering people." He came back with a stack of papers in his hand that would do any bureaucrat proud. "Here, I know it's lot but at least it explains of all this," he waved his arm around vaguely as if "this" was in the room with us. I pointed the gun down to the ottoman "set it down there and back away." He did as he was told laughing "I'm not a hero, I am not going to try anything funny. In fact, in an odd way you're probably doing me a favour by murdering me. It might make the people who should feel bad, at least for maybe a day or so." </p><p>"What is all of this?" I asked as I picked up the hefty stack of papers, "you're last will and testament?" He chuckled "no, I don't have anything to leave anyone except books that none of them would ever read. That are his and my records." I arched an eyebrow "his?" He nodded "they didn't tell you did they? Just like the CC never tell anyone the whole truth when a half lie will do." Letting out a long sigh, he continued "His, in this case, is a fellow we called the Romantic (notice the large R), and he was my successor in interest, just like I am yours." I frowned, "what the fuck are you on about? I am here to whack you, maybe have a snack after, and go home to sleep the sleep of the just. I am no crown prince, I am succeeding no one in anything." He sighed again "I know that is what you think, because I thought the same thing, then I started reading his records, for a Romantic, he kept pretty damn good records. I thought I would continue the 'tradition' and keep my own. I guess it becomes a thing after a while. It's why the CC sent you here, even though they don't really understand it. Of course, you'll have to start at the beginning of his and read through mine. Which is good news, it means the CC might let you have longer." I looked up at him "longer than what?" He snorted "longer than me you damn fool. Where do you think you are? What do you think this is all about, and who do you think you are that you can just whack me and walk away? No my friend, you are trapped, as trapped as trapped can be, and the CC knew it when they sent you here. So, do you damn job, read those records, and have a merry fucking xmas."</p><p>I sat down the large stack of papers, and stood up. "You're an even bigger fool than they told me you were if you think I am falling into your shoes. You know there is a place in the brain called ...." He interrupted me "... the Circle of Willis, yes I know all about it. Don't you find that odd?" I shook my head determined to finish this job, and get this lunatic to Charon for his 'trip across the river' as the saying goes. I walked behind him, told him to look down, which he did, and put one simple bullet in his brain, just like they trained me to do. He just slumped forward without a sound, and my job was done. I looked down at him with something approaching pity, "you were a damn fool for too long, I should have been sent to do this job months ago. But, better late than never." I looked around his shit hole room, nothing of any real value. My gaze lingered on the stack of paper. "I take this just for a laugh." I said to his rapidly cooling corpse. That was to be a mistake. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-54174671704822161182021-11-04T06:53:00.004-05:002021-11-22T19:44:43.862-06:00The Man from the North<p> <i>Warning</i> some posts are, as Felix is about to say "as interesting as milk", I fear this one might be less interesting than most, but you have to describe the gray, winter day before you can describe the blizzard/storm that wrecks it and makes it worth remembering. You have been warned.</p><p>No one really remembers when the Man from the North first put in an appearance at Sully's. Sully is good at a lot of things, but names and faces isn't one of them. I didn't remember because generally I don't care for newcomers overmuch. As we (not the royal we) put it together later, when we actually were pretending to care, I figured out that I was, at the time we agreed upon his first appearance taking place, very, very busy trying not to die of some sort of plague like disease, that the wags liked to speculate was given to me by some "tart he picked up without remembering it." There are people at Sully's who do pay attention to newcomers, mainly because Felix pays them to, Felix pays a lot of people to pay attention to newcomers. Felix is the jovial, rich uncle we all wished we had, but Felix is spending other peoples money, and is not particularly jovial. </p><p>Even amongst the "paid to pay attention" crowd the Man from the North barely registered. He didn't appear to be overburdened with friends, and seemingly lacked much in the way of personality. He was, as Felix later said, "as interesting as milk." To which I replied "if you're lactose intolerant milk can make your life very interesting, unpleasant, but still interesting." Felix was not amused, not awful lot amuses Felix, and when Felix is amused it generally means you're about not to be. I was soon to realize, to my cost, that once again Felix knew something I didn't. It is, in my opinion, a particular failing of Felix's the knowing something you don't and probably needed to. I suppose it is what makes him good at his job, that and the ability to keep his mouth shut, even when asked not to. </p><p>Either way, the Man from the North was just that. Some cove from a large city up north that has ideas above its station. It seemed so did the Man from the North. It is rarely a good plan to get ideas above your station. Life has a way of making sure that "water finds its own level" and if it has to make it rain in order to do that, well that's just life making it even. He wasn't much to look at, but then again few of us are. You don't get Adonis like physical specimens in Sully's very often. And even if you do, a few weeks of drinking Sully's finest will put a little softness on the hardest of men. Approachability isn't exactly the best quality to posses in Sully's bar. A certain amount of aloofness is usually the best tactic to employ. After all, the less you know or see, the less you have to testify to later (if such a need arises). Besides, Sully's isn't a social club, it is generally a place that a man (or the occasional woman if she's very brave) comes to drink alone, and try to forget that he (or she) belongs to a society that they loathe. </p><p>I was not without resources of my own, and Felix isn't the only curious man in the city. I like to know a few things about the people that I am going to be "bending the elbow with" even if I am strictly speaking, drinking alone. I don't like surprises, and I don't care for Easter Egg hunts either. My source never one to waste words, merely replied "a perfect grey man." Not a lot of information in that report unless you know what the source meant by "grey man." I had a pretty good idea, but decided that my source was being too laconic even for me, and decided to have a little sit down with them to get the fuller story. The tavern that this particular source haunted made Sully's look like a palace, and served beer that might make you go blind on a permanent basis if you drank enough of it. Luckily, it tasted so bad that I could only stomach about 3 of them. It impaired my vision a bit, but no permanent damage was done, I could still see my own way out of the place.</p><p>"Hello sweetie" I said to my source as I plopped down on the bar stool next to them, "how's tricks, got any more information for me on that thing I asked you about earlier?" My source doesn't like pet names, and certainly didn't like being called sweetie out loud in public. I knew this, which is of course, why I did it. A certain amount of aggravation would make them get to the point more quickly, and I wanted to spend as little time as needed in their company, and even less time in their bar drinking what I considered to be something very close to rat poison. "Stop calling me sweetie, you daft bastard, are you trying to get us a kicking? This isn't the place for that kind of bullshit, and what's more you know it, I should just let them take you out back and stomp some sense into you, but you paid on time, and fairly well, so I suppose I will refrain for the nonce." I smiled, it was the same reply I had heard many times, and I had no doubt I would hear again. A threat is usually only effective the first couple of times, unless you make good on it, after that it just becomes banter. "Now, now there's no need to get all wound up over a term of endearment, it just angers the blood, and isn't good for your long term health." I pointed at his nearly empty beer glass, "drinking that swill is already enough of a burden for your health to bear." They frowned (they were a great frowner), pulled out an envelope out of their pocket and slid it across the bar towards me. "There is the full story for you to read later, but I'll fill in any details you want now as long as you're buying. You are buying correct?" I nodded to them, and then the bartender ordering us a round. "Yeah, I'm buying, your handwriting is so crabbed that I might as well hear the story first before I hire someone with a permanent squint to try to read what you've written."</p><p> My glass of tavern swill arrived, as did whatever concoction my source was drinking. It was some sort of mixed drink, I didn't inquire as to the ingredients or the price for that matter. The bill is the bill and it just has to be paid, and I figured whatever they were drinking was probably as close to poisonous as the pint in front of me, so what did I care? "Give me the highlights, I think this swill, and this place is bad for me, and I prefer to enjoy the things bad for me more than I am enjoying this." They nodded and said "Felix would have my head on a platter for this you know? But what Felix doesn't know won't hurt me." I replied "you let me worry about Felix, I will keep your head on your shoulders, just tell me what I need to know." "Okay, GI no need to get all upset, I'll tell you though it isn't much. Not because I didn't try, it just that this Man from the North is just as bland as unsalted butter. He is from _____, but you probably already knew that. He left there at least X years ago, came here, got some nowhere job, and has been busy being a nobody every since. He has committed no crimes, even Felix can tell you that, and has seemingly been living out a lifeof quiet mediocrity. He's not got any special talent like picking locks or anything. Has no major bad habits that would land him in Hotel Felix, and seems to be overall a rather boring piece of meat." </p><p>I nodded, "I've already talked to Felix about this cove, and Felix gave me most of that. I was hoping you had something more interesting." My source finished their drink, and replied "that's just it GI, there isn't anything more interesting. I am telling you this guy is a unremarkable, bland, piece of milquetoast. That doesn't really leave much of an impression or much of a paper trail. He just exists, and it doesn't seem that he has much of a reason for that." I nodded, "well we can't all be super talented gentlemen of means now can we? I mean the vast majority of us just exist for the system to grind up into dust, so I suppose his being just a random piece of gravel in the machine isn't completely his fault." They took a swig of their glass of poison, and said "true, but some of us can at least try to better themselves, this fellow just seems to be there, like a house plant that doesn't need watering very often so you just forget about it. Also, I had the joy of conversating with him a couple of times." I raised my eyes from my pint, "you did what? Have you lost your entire mind? I said to follow the cunt, and find out about him, not engage him in person!" "Now, now GI, settle down, everything is fine. This fellow doesn't know me from Adam, and besides he also "knows me" as a ginger who likes horses a lot. I didn't just saunter up to him and announce myself, give my real name, address, and tell him my reason for talking to him, give me some credit will you?"</p><p>I finished my pint, and stood up. I had drank enough of the local poison, and had most of what I needed to know, and still had to read the 'report' my source had prepared. "I am sure you were on your most charming, and discreet behaviour, but it was still a damn silly thing to do. I don't need any tracers of me attaching to this fellow. It's important. I don't want to turn Hotel Felix into my permanent residence." They nodded their assent or their goodbye, I didn't care which. I just turned around and left feeling a little uneasy, but it was probably just the beer/poison working its magic on my digestive system. If only I knew then what I know now, I might have just stayed and drank enough of it to kill me. Because despite his being "as interesting as milk" the Man from the North's part to play in the passion play of my life was far, far from over. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-83277584587843070672021-11-03T07:56:00.001-05:002021-11-03T07:56:18.697-05:00Serge and his Apples IV<p> (the poor tradition continues a year later the continued part, sorry?)</p><p>As I sat down on the well placed (for me) bench and waited for Felix's little red pill to render me unconscious, I pondered how much he had been paid for this little hack job that he was pulling on me. Felix, according to him, is merely a dedicated public servant and is above such horrible vices as greed and a lust for material things. The thing about that is, is that it is apparently true. Felix is one of those most dangerous of men, a true believer. A bit of a fanatic, with the belief of whatever he holds dear written clearly on his face, and burning very brightly in his eyes. A dangerous type indeed, and one that I cannot fathom. Being as I don't believe in much of anything at least anymore, but that is a tale for another time. </p><p>As Felix had mentioned before his goons deposited me on this street like a sacrificial lamb, I had been to this neighborhood a few times before. Most of my visits had been welcome and pleasant the last one was unwelcome and unpleasant (at least for me). I had vowed, and been not too politely warned that my presence "wasn't particularly welcome in these parts, and it would be best for my long term health to avoid a return visit." Being a fan of my long term health, I had heeded that warning, and had avoided this place like the plague, for in many ways it is (at least for me). A first glance, and even after a few more glances it passed more as bucolic than bubonic. A gentlemanly neighborhood where you don't have to been situational aware every second of the day. Well that is if you live here, they don't exactly roll out the red carpet for strangers, and certainly not for strangers that happen to be me. I was aware that the non-welcoming committee had probably already spotted me from behind the fancy drapes that covered the big plate glass windows that this lot seemed to favour, but since Felix's pill was about to drop down on me like an anvil from the sky, I had little choice but to wait for all the unpleasantness to happen. Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed sober. </p><p>However, the committee was going to have one small problem. My eyelids were getting very, very heavy, and I felt the black pool of darkness open up at my feet, and I dove right in, they would have to carry my fat ass where they wanted me to go. I woke up in a chair in a mostly familiar room. It was like I had been here before, but only briefly and was more intent on other tasks more than memorizing the looks of the place. Pity that, since I am sure, like most places, it had an exit, but I couldn't begin to tell you where it was located. Not that I was going to be looking for the exit anytime soon mind you, it seemed someone wanted me to stay a while and had decided in order for that to happen they had handcuffed me to the chair. Not the happiest of ways to wake up, but I suppose I had seen worse days, or so I hoped. It is a testament to the optimistic nature of mankind that I was foolish enough to think that my situation would have anything but a bad ending, or perhaps I am just a fucking idiot. Either way I was, as is my custom, wrong. I sighed the sigh of the fool that I had become, and waited for my latest tormentor to put in an appearance. </p><p>I was in the process of testing the handcuffs to see if they were, in fact, real when my tormentor put in their appearance. "You know they are real GI, you've seen them before. Granted under happier circumstances, but waste not, want not I always say." I suppressed something between a groan and a laugh. "Yes, you've always been a most efficient sort haven't you?" I replied, hoping that this encounter would end better than it started. "An efficient destroyer of things, no wasted motion in you is there?" I figured that I might as well be as big an asshole as my press clippings had made me out to be just to see how she would react. After all, I was handcuffed to a chair with no idea of the way out, and the only coves who knew where I was were Felix and his goons, and since they had delivered me here, I doubted they were going to come riding to my recuse. Felix is the "riding to the recuse type" generally you have to be recused from Felix, not recused by Felix. As I expected the backhanded slap arrived on cue jerking my head sideways with some force. The price you pay for wit these days seems to have gotten higher. "Don't smart me GI, when you smart me I start to think of reasons why you shouldn't be allowed to continue to roam the streets a free man." I rattled my hands in their cuffs, "well if this is your idea of free, maybe you should start working for Felix. To what do I owe this particular pleasure? Have I not abided by the terms of our little "agreement"? Though agreement might not be the correct word, let me rephrase. Have I not done as I was none too gently told?"</p><p>She nodded "you have, which I must confess is a bit of a surprise. We all figured that your miles wide self-destructive streak would eventually have you violate the terms you agreed to, and that I would be rid of you by now. Pity that." I arched an eyebrow, "where's the pity in that? You've got your peace of mind, and don't have to worry about me sullying your streets with my foul presence, or damage your reputation further by being seen around you. Sounds like we both win to me." She smiled what seemed to be a rather too large of a smile and replied. "You're correct after a fashion. I have peace of mind up to a certain point, and I confess not seeing you has been wonderful, but you see I don't like win/win situations, I just like to win. You know this, you should remember this, and you should realize that is what is going to happen." I rolled my eyes "what in the blue fuck are you talking about? You get Felix to bring me here, drug me, then drag me in here, not by yourself I am sure, and are making threats to a man handcuffed to a chair that hasn't bothered you in forever. Have you finally lost your fucking mind?" Another slap which at least I felt I deserved was my first answer. I would have preferred it to be the only answer. </p><p>"Again with the smart mouth, you never learn do you GI? Always a witty reply like you're some damn hero in a novel waiting to save both the world and the damsel in distress. Well newsflash joy boy, you can't save the world, and I am not a damsel in distress. Though I am about to cause you a great deal of it. Distress that is. You aren't the only one who can be clever." I sighed, "I see, well if you could get on with whatever evilness you have planned for me, that would be great, I pointed my nose down at my watch, I've got plans for a smashing game of tennis at 5, and I am sure my partner would be very disappointed if I failed to show. You see we play for a lot of money per point, and I am dross at tennis, so I am running up quite a debt to them. They would be sad if I were to die owing them all the monies." She laughed "oh, I am aware of how terrible you are at tennis, and I'm afraid you're going to miss your little game today. The 'evilness' as you put it, is going to last well past 5, and after it's done you've another appointment. One I am sure you will just love to keep........" (to be continued again) <br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-77161943439161283502021-08-26T08:02:00.002-05:002021-08-26T11:26:19.747-05:00David the Liar Part 2<p> These are the "nothing" days. The days of the summer season that require more effort to breath that should be necessary, and not melting in the sun is the only achievement worthy of note for months on end. This fair city, which truth be told, isn't much of a city, and certainly isn't fair, becomes more like an oven and its fair citizens (also not many of them are fair) just try to avoid getting overheated beyond the point of exhaustion. Nothing really moves more than is necessary in this heat, and not a lot of things worth writing down happen. Hence, the silence of the last two months. It doesn't exactly excuse my laziness, but it's all I got. </p><p>Sully's was hot, but you couldn't hold that against Sully it was hot everywhere, and was going to stay that way for far too long for any of our tastes, but welcome to summer the season that the Devil created just to give you a taste of what was ahead of you for all time if you didn't change your ways. I was not in the mood to change my ways, and was considering sending someone to hell to give the Devil something to do, when in walked David the Liar. This was only noteworthy because we hadn't seen David the Liar around since his "friend" Mac the Knife committed "suicide" a few months back, and most of us had assumed that David the Liar went back to wherever the fuck he was from to grieve, and maybe find a new set of people to lie to. This was a good thing because I had a particular bone to pick with David the Liar, and had figured that it was going to remained unpicked since he had seemingly disappeared, and yet here he was in the flesh, and even better (since it didn't require me getting up and moving in the heat) he was walking towards me. I suppose that sometimes patience (or laziness call it what you will) is a virtue.</p><p>"Hello David, How's the lying business treating you?" I said as he slid into the side opposite me in my usual booth. "Haven't seen you in a dog's age, you been out practicing your lies on some new group of shills? And forgetting your friends." He snorted what seemed to be a laugh "you and your lot are several things, most of them bad, but you are not, and never have been my friends. I had one of those and we both know what happened to him don't we?" This last part was said with a meaning that I wasn't quite sure of. I had told David a lie, I mean after all lie to liars right? It was about the demise of Mac the Knife, and for his sake, I had hoped David believed it. The look on his face told me otherwise. "Yes" I replied "I suppose we do, pity that, Mac wasn't a bad fellow as long as you didn't set the "good fellow" bar too high." David the Liar gave me another look that didn't convince me that I had convinced him, and I figured it was time to buy him a beer, because I had no doubt that wherever he had been it was not at a job that earned him actual money, and he was, as he always is fucking broke. "Let me buy you a beer David old boy, because we do in actual fact have something to discuss." I waved the latest barmaid over, she is a ginger Sully hires all types it seems, but she looked suspiciously like the blonde from a couple of months ago, maybe it was her sister? I didn't feel the need to ask. Sometimes the less you know the better. "Two pints of Sully's finest swill for me and my mate here if you please, my good lass." I said with some relish. I had been looking for David the Liar, but as some people will tell you, I am a follower, not a finder, and had had no luck in my search. The barmaid nodded in a way that made me think she knew something I didn't and promptly came back with two pints of piss for me and David the Liar to catch up over.</p><p>"David, I've a bone to pick with you, and depending on your answer to my query, someone a lot less gentlemanly than I might have one to do more to that pick, so try to pay attention, and save your lies to the end if you can." He nodded his assent and took a drink of his (free) beer. "I recently found out, almost to my detriment, that you David the godsdamn Liar, told me the fucking truth about something. Now why would you do such a crazy thing?" I raised a hand before he could answer. "No, no let me continue setting the stage for you, then you can stride out and make your declamation of truth for me to disbelieve. You see David the problem with your lying all the time is simple. Once we figured out that you lie all the damn time, and we can't believe a word that comes out of your mouth. We stop fully processing your lies. By that I mean that we still listen to them, I mean some of them are quite entertaining, and sometimes even worth repeating to the right group of people, but we don't fully process them. We don't store them away in our memory because we know they aren't true, and that tomorrow you will have a new set of lies for us to hear, and why not just start afresh?" He barked a short laugh at this and said "thanks GI, glad to know that I am so predictable to you." </p><p>"All of us are predictable David, if you pay enough attention, and in this heat paying attention is about the only activity that won't result in heatstroke, so I pay attention. It gives me something to do while I watch my ponies finish last more than first. But you decided to ruin my racing form profile that I've compiled on you, by telling me the truth about something. It was quite disconcerting to find out, and the way I found out almost gave me a fatal case of lead poisoning if you catch my meaning. I am sure by now you've figured out what I am talking about, after all you tell the truth so rarely that remembering the two times you've done it in your life shouldn't be too difficult. You see when you lie David, which for you is when you talk, we know you're lying and we can trust that. It's a bit of a negative trust, but it is trust nonetheless. We don't try to shift your lies, we don't try to figure out if we can or should believe all of what you are saying, or part of what you are saying, we don't go back and rethink what you've said to try to give it a different or deeper meaning. We don't lie awake at night and try to wonder if we believe you or not. Because we don't. You're David the Liar, not David the sometime Liar, sometime honest lad, and we have come to rely on that. Maybe we are just being lazy, and giving you too much credit (or blame) we don't wonder about your tales, and therefore we don't commit them to our long term memory. I guess this is very helpful to and for you. After all, you can tell us the same lie over again, and just start it with "remember the other day when we talked about this" We will nod our assent because why wouldn't we? We don't want to look stupid or forgetful, and we want to appear like we're paying attention even if we aren't. After you say that you could launch into whatever story you like and we will listen, and convince ourselves that sure we have talked about this before, and you are just reminding us to be helpful. But you're not being helpful (at least to us, it's helpful to you I suppose) you're just lying, it is what you do, and you do a fairly good job of it. So you could imagine my shock when I found out that you had told me the truth. Couldn't knocked me over with a feather. Problem was the fellow knocking me over wasn't using a feather."</p><p>David looked up from his beer and winced. "Took a beating did you?" I nodded "Not the worst one I've ever had, but a beating is rarely a pleasant experience, and the goon giving it to me neglected to tell me the safe word to make it stop, so it didn't until he got tired of using me as an alternative bit of exercise equipment." David winced again, and muttered "I'm sorry GI, I mean I told you the truth about that issue because you helped me with Mac the Knife, and because you lied to me about it." I arched an eyebrow at that but he kept on talking. "I know Mac didn't off himself GI and you know it too. In fact you knew it when you told me that little tale about him, and you lied to me anyway. It was an odd feeling hearing you lie and knowing you were lying. Don't get me wrong I don't think you and the truth are exactly fast friends, but you try to be honest until it doesn't suit your purposes, then you lie. You're decent at it, but you aren't "GI the Liar."" He laughed at his own little joke and continued. "I figured that since you were going to take on the role of lying, that I would try to see what this 'telling the truth for a change' idea felt like, and so I told you truth about X. To my credit I did tell you that I wasn't giving you the "facts as I know them" just that I was telling you the truth. I understand why you didn't believe me, but at the end of the day what else could I do? Call in a priest and swear to his god that I don't believe in that I am giving you the straight dope? No I just told you the truth, told you I was telling you the truth, and hoped you, for once, believed me. It is a pity you didn't but the beating you took might have been meant for me, so I'm not overly sorry that you took it."</p><p>"Fair enough David, but that makes going forward a bit difficult. If I can't trust David the Liar to lie to me then what the actual fuck can I trust? You see my point? I can trust Felix to on occasion have me beaten up because it pleases him, but he won't let Mutt and Jeff go too far and actually kill me, he needs me around for whatever dark purpose he's playing at. I can trust Sully to serve me horse piss in a pint glass and call it "world class lager, fit for the gods." And I can trust Bob the Viking to say as few words as possible. We all have roles in this passion play David, and when you start going "off script" it confuses people, and leads to all sorts of unintended things happening. Now as long as they don't happen to me, I could care less, but this did happen to me, and I am a might bit upset at the situation. But I understand I can't change you David, and short of beating the piss out of you, which does have it's appeal, don't get me wrong, what I feel I need to do is change a bit of myself. It's not a fun thing to admit that one was wrong, and to try to change themselves, but that seems to be what is called for in this particular situation. I suppose I will have to start paying attention to, and remembering your lies so I can eventually sort them out for myself. It seems a lot of work, for what also seems to promise little reward, but I can see no other way forward." I finished my beer and gave David what I hoped was a stern look, but I figured it was pointless, more and more of my conversations seem to be pointless now days, and I was tired. Tired of David the Liar and his lies or his truths. I didn't know which, and I was just about too drunk enough to care. </p><p>"However David, I am just about too drunk enough to care about any of this, and am going home to bed, alone which is a pity." I cast a quick glance at the ginger barmaid leaning against the bar chatting it up with Sully. What was his appeal? "Either way David, have another drink on me." I slid enough coin for David to have several drinks on me across the table, and got to my feet. "Just remember this David, now you've got my undivided attention, and that isn't always as pleasant as it sounds." <br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-76443050666876582852021-06-03T07:30:00.003-05:002024-02-03T09:09:46.066-06:00The Cold<p> The wind was cold, the rain was cold, and I was cold. Not that I was out in the cold wind and rain. The days had long since passed where I was the mug standing on the corner or in the lee of some doorway checking on people and their dirty little secrets. No, I was home in front of a nice fire, and a glass of overpriced whiskey close to hand. The cold I felt was internal, and no amount of liquid heat from the aforementioned glass (or even the whole bottle) was going to drive this cold away. This was a metaphysical cold, a cold that started somewhere in your stomach and spread like a cancer, like Genghis Khan's murdering hordes, like a stain from a stab wound perfectly placed to cause the most dazzling of blood splatter. It laid siege to my insides moving from stomach down to the guts, freezing things solid on its travels. It moved upwards as well to the lungs, making it difficult to fully breath, it moved east to the liver already under attack from the current bottle of whiskey, and all the other countless bottles of alcohol that had came before it. It moved west to the pancreas, laying waste to the ability to regulate blood sugar, a dangerous thing to have go tits up when you've a bottle of whiskey close to hand. This was beyond the sheep stealing cold that lead a man to commit all manners of odd crimes to get warm. This was a fatal kind of cold, the kind of cold that people dread when they throw another log on the fire, the kind of cold that leads you to cold, dark places where people don't talk above a whisper for fear of waking things better left asleep. </p><p> This cold had its external source, it lay on the desk opened, and read many times over to make sure there wasn't some cruel mistake. There wasn't. It was there in black and white, the things I had suspected but was too damn much of a fool to believe. Well now, thanks to someone spending some time in the actual cold, I believed them. The "report" left me very little choice. I had hired it done, as I said my days out in the cold (or the heat) had passed, and were not missed. No, these days I hired these things done by people like GI or his erstwhile "companion" Felix. Though I figured that Felix's days of unitrusively leaning against a convenient lamp post were now counted as being beneath his dignity. He had goons for that type of work. Unimaginative goons that wrote reports that, while getting their main point across, made for some tough sledding in the reading department. I made a note to remind Felix to hire some thugs that had been to college or at least could spell words longer than 5 letters. This was one of those reports, I was in a hurry, and I chose to use Felix's resources because he had so many of them, and owed me a favor or two. You knew what you were getting when you used Felix, a straight, to the point detail of events. Presented without comment, or opinion and generally told in short sentences using small words. Sometimes these reports are exactly what you needed, sadly for me, this was not exactly one of those times. I would have to supplement this staid, listless, and lacking nuance report with something just a tad bit different. That meant finding, and sobering up GI. I sighed only one of those things was easy to do.</p><p>Of course, reading one of GI's reports had it own set of issues. When he was in a particularly expansive mood (or drunk) he would try to be as vague as possible. I had read several of his reports that mentioned elephants, peanuts, and Ferris Wheels that made me wonder if he was doing the job I had hired him to do, or was just drunk at the Circus eating fucking funnel cake and spending my coin before earning it. Others had referenced some Ape, and their cage(s), and hippos making me wonder if he had gotten lost at the Zoo, and was just taking the piss out of me for his own twisted amusement. They were at least better written than the ones Felix's goons produced, but I still despaired of his grammar. Apparently he was "all about content, and telling a good story, subject/verb agreement be damned." Sometimes, after a unusually vague report, a follow up report would arrive with the "key" which would put real names to the nicknames he so enjoyed labeling people with. I suppose that they had some sort of meaning in his head that made it worth doing, but since I never actually talked to him, it remained a mystery to me. Some things are best left in the dark. His naming system is one of those things. </p><p>The days of finding lonely drunks with literary aspirations had also passed. I was not going to sully myself with finding GI in whichever dive bar would grant him enough credit for a night's drunk. No, I had people for that; finders are a different breed than followers. I had not yet found a follower that could compare to GI, or even to Felix's goons for that matter. Plus, GI worked cheap. You don't get to over pay for whiskey by overpaying the help. Even when my finders were able to locate him, they never told him who he was working for, just an initial and a Post Office Box to drop his reports into when he was finished. If he ever found out he was working for me, then he would stop working for me, and I still had a use or two for him, before Felix inevitably had him shot. But until then I needed him to write something that made more sense than the report sitting before me. I made a few phone calls, and set the process in motion. It usually took a day to find him, a day to sober him up fully, and a day to convince him that he did in fact need the money. </p><p>It was a simple enough job for someone just like him, there were details that he didn't need to know about it, they would just cloud his already suspect judgment, and I didn't need him going off half cocked and mucking up a simple job. In fact, once I had read the goon's report, I knew that I had to send GI to do the job proper like. He would not thank me for it, he can't really since he doesn't exactly know who I am, but it would be a lesson in life that he would come to appreciate. If I could have him found, and keep him sober long enough to do it. Afterwards, well afterwards, keeping him sober would be more difficult, and I don't think he would want to be found for quite sometime. I sighed heavily this would also mean talking to Felix. A task that I normally would delegate since talking to Felix is like talking to a razor. You feel shorn afterwards, and might be slowly bleeding to death from all manner of cuts you didn't know you had until you left the room. But it must needs doing, and the sooner the better as the saying goes. </p><p>I duly made my appointment with Felix, showed up at the proper place and time, and was rewarded with Felix's presence. Reward might not be the correct word, but the cold bastard did show up on time, a quality that fewer and fewer people seem to possess these days. If 75% of success is just showing up, another 10% can be added by showing up on time. I pushed the report across Felix's desk towards him, and asked "You've read this correct? Is it true?" Felix glanced briefly down at the paper and replied "of course I've read it. Don't be fool enough to think that I let anything out of this office without fully reading it, and yes it is true enough for government work." I arched an eyebrow at that last bit, but held my tongue, because I had suspected that Felix might sometimes engage in "creative editing" with the reports I commissioned from him, and that was a close to confirmation as I was likely to get. Sometimes, direct questions can just cause confusion, especially to Felix's type of "truth tellers." </p><p>"Well I figured as much, just nice to hear you actual come with pissing distance of telling me the "truth" Felix. Now, that we have established this is true enough" I tapped the report that Felix had slid back to me, "what the fuck should I do about it?" Felix leaned back in his chair steepled his hands together and replied in true Felix fashion "shoot him?" I sighed "Felix, that is an unattached pronoun, who is the "him" I should shoot?" Again in true Felix fashion he said "all of them, that way you know you've shot the right person." ........<br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-65780670274210623052021-04-12T07:30:00.002-05:002021-04-19T08:35:42.047-05:00Bob the Viking<p> Sully's brings all kinds out to his bar, and "Bob the Viking" is one of the characters that can be found there on a regular basis. Truth be told, none of are sure if "Bob" is his real name or not. Bob is a bit of a mystery, and seems to like it that way. He's a mountain of a man, well above 6 feet, and at least three bills. Pale blue eyes that give nothing of what he is thinking, if he is thinking anything, away, and blond hair that a super model would be proud of. When asked he says he is from "up north" which for him is quite the speech, and that would be the extent of our knowledge as to Bob's ancestry. Sully has said that Bob told him his 'real' name once, but that it contained a lot of vowels and a lot of syllables and so he just called him "Bob." Bob didn't seem to mind, and didn't bother trying to correct Sully naming of him as Bob the Viking. He answers to Bob, and so it is as Bob that he enters our tale.</p><p>Bob always sits on the same stool (which must be reinforced to hold his big ass up), it seems that Sully's is close to having assigned seats. If some newcomer sits in Bob's seat by mistake, and refuses Sully's request to move, then Bob shows up, looms over said newcomer, and suddenly his seat is free. You only have to mistakenly sit in Bob's seat once to get the message. Bob doesn't talk much, or generally at all. Relying on grunts, and facial expressions to get his meaning across. Trust me, when Bob looks at you at certain way, you suddenly remember all sorts of other places you need to be. Your mother's house, a dentist appointment, a facial, a spa day, anywhere but in his way. Not that Bob is a violent fellow, he just sits at the bar, and quietly drinks his pints, content to be let alone, and not to meddle in the affairs of others. Which considering how many "affairs" are conducted at Sully's is no mean achievement. Bob is a walking example of the strong, silent type. Fair play to him, we have too many talkers at Sully's anyway (see David the Liar). </p><p>Once, many years ago, a few of us old heads did see Bob lose his temper, it was not a pretty sight. Sully is not a small man, and since it is his bar, he was the first to try to get Bob to settle down. He woke up a day and a half later very confused, and with his jaw wired shut for six weeks. It took about six of us to "settle" Bob down, that is after he cold cocked Sully. Bob has a slight scar on his left eye from (what I like to think) was a mean right hook of mine, but truth be told he walked right through my punch like it was a mosquito bite. We never figured out what sent Bob into a beserker rage that his Viking ancestors would have been proud of, we were just glad that he wasn't wielding a battle axe at the time. He was at the point of telling me "to make peace with my gods" when the bar stool crashed over the back of his skull, and knocked him out, was swung by a particularly brave bar maid of Sully's. She knocked him out, and said "that's it, I have enough of this shithole. I quit!" She then walked over to the till, and took her wages out of it, and left. Sully was unconscious at the time, and was in no condition to argue with her even if he had wanted to. Bob seemed to have a bit of grudging respect for me after that, I am not sure if it was because the punch hurt him (I doubt that), or that he appreciated the fact that I was stupid/brave enough to throw it at him. After Bob's "spell" it took several hours for the "survivors" to clean the place up enough to make it worth drinking in again. That is if Sully's has ever been worth drinking in to begin with. It didn't matter that the sole proprietor was carried to his bed to recover, the bar must stay open! </p><p>After that, Bob was as quiet as a church mouse. He just sat on his stool, and drank pint after pint of some foul, bitter beer that the rest of us refused to touch. Unsuspecting first timers would sometimes order it to their cost. It became know as a Bob Special. And the only thing special about it was it was a miracle it didn't kill you at the first sip. Sully told me one day that Bob told him where to get the stuff, and would sometimes go and pick up Sully's order of it, just to make sure that Sully didn't run out of it at an awkward time. I don't think Bob would take to kindly to Sully running out of his favorite libation. One shudders to think of that scenario. Bob even brought his own mug to Sully, and told him to use it, and it only. We all figure it is probably lined with lead to keep the swill from melting it. Sully has never showed us it up close. It holds more than your average pint, but Sully is not inclined to charge Bob more for it. A broken jaw is a great motivator to keep the peace it seems. In spite of the broken jaw, Bob was the type of customer that Sully enjoyed the most, the paying kind. <br /></p><p>We don't know where Bob got the money to pay for the massive amounts of pints he consumed, and few of us cared to ask. Sully's is a good place to practice the idea of "don't ask, don't tell." Even that bastard Felix was perplexed. Everyone who is a regular at Sully's gets on Felix's radar at some point, and the mysterious Bob was no exception. One day when he was feeling expansive, Felix told me that he had his best men tail Bob when he left the bar. And that Bob always lost them in less than 3 blocks. You'd think something that big would be easy to follow, but Bob seemed to be a master at losing people following him. Felix said that Bob would never take the same route two days in a row, so that Felix's goons didn't even have an idea in which part of the city Bob lived. "He could live 4 blocks from here or 4 miles from here" was Felix's sad statement. He went on to say "he could be a longshoreman, or a ballet dancer for all we know." Though the idea of Bob dancing ballet was akin to thinking about an elephant playing tennis, but Bob wasn't ungraceful in his movements, so I guess anything is possible. </p><p>I even made some gentle inquires myself (being the curious type that I am). I was rewarded with one of the longest conversations I ever had with Bob. One day he motioned me over to the stool beside him, and being as I was in no position to refuse such a request, I plopped down next to him, and gave him a questioning look. Not many people got this close to Bob without a reason, and I had a good idea what my reason was. Bob grunted at me as a way of greeting, and I arched an eyebrow. "I don't speak enough "grunt" to get your point Bob, you're going to have to use your words for a change of pace." He turned those very pale blue eyes on me, and said "I know you've asked that pretty, little blond girl that works for Felix to find out what they know about me, and since she's a little sweet on you (only the gods know why) she tried to find what you were looking for." I nodded, and kept my smart mouth shut for once. I had no desire to go on the Sully liquid diet. He continued "ask your boy Felix what she found, oh and get a less pretty spy next time, the pretty ones stand out too much" and then he waved me off to go upon my merry way. <br /></p><p>As mentioned, Bob didn't talk much, seems his philosophy is that if you don't express an opinion, no one can argue with you about your opinion. Probably a sound philosophy in today's troubled times. We are pretty sure that Bob worships the old gods, but ask him about religion, and he would grunt. Ask him about women, and he would grunt "women are trouble." Ask him about the football and he would grunt. Bob did a lot of grunting, and you learned to interpret them. Discussions of politics would garner you another, more dismissive, grunt. Maybe Bob had to talk all day at his job, and by the time he got to Sully's he was just out of words to say. There is a saying that tells us that "we all need something to live for" and maybe that is true for us all. I am not the man to ask that particular question, and certainly neither is Bob. After "knowing" Bob for a considerable amount of time, the conclusion I have reached is that Bob might just live for his pints. Sometimes life is just that simple. We haven't heard the last of Bob the Viking. <br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-49343355368000363542021-04-09T08:28:00.001-05:002021-04-09T08:28:26.380-05:00Mac's Play<p> "Hello, Sully, how are tricks?" I asked my sullen barkeep and sometime "friend" as he slid one of his "finest" across the bar towards me. It was a boring Tuesday, and since I was tired of being bored at home, I decided to come to Sully and at least be bored and drunk at the same time. My mistake. Sully cocked an eye at me and replied "tricks are the same GI, you slobs come in here, and moan a lot, drink a lot, and then tip even less. However, David the Liar" he nodded over in the general direction of "my" booth, "is looking for you for some reason. God only knows why anyone would look for you, and I pity him now that he has found you." I followed Sully's eye and noticed David the Liar nervously occupying my booth. When you tell as many lies as David, nervous is your default setting. It pays to sprinkle the occasional truth amongst your lies, that way you can be less nervous. It seems David never learned that lesson, or he just chose to ignore it, and let the dice fly high. "He doesn't look any more nervous than normal" I said inclining my head in David's direction. "But, I am bored, it's Tuesday, and I am not even drunk yet, so I guess I might as well wander over there and see what the bastard wants of me." Sully nodded, grunted, and went back to polishing his glasses, when Sully polishes his glasses it is a sign that his part of the "conversation" has reached its conclusion, and you can fuck right on off. Knowing this, I decided to fuck right on off over to my booth.</p><p>I slid into my booth and slid the untouched beer I had got at the bar across to David, knowing that, as per custom, he was fucking broke. David the Liar is always fucking broke. "Hello, David. How's the lying business treating you. Still telling elderly widows they are the light of your life, and convincing them to put you in their wills? Or charming bored housewives out of a large part of their husband who doesn't love them anymore salaries?" David glanced up from his (free) beer, and that's when I noticed that the bastard appeared to have been crying. "Christ, David are you fucking crying? Here, in Sully's? Do you want a beating? They beat people in here for showing that kind of weakness on general principle. I'll be lucky not to take a beating just for sitting across from you. For the love of fuck, pull it together. It's a boring Tuesday, but I don't want to liven it up by getting taken out back and having my ribs used as a xylophone by some masher that saw you crying" He sniffled a little more, wiped his eyes, and muttered "sorry GI, but it's been a rough couple of days." I nodded "it's been a rough year or so David, for all of us, but have the decency to cry in private, or if you have to do it publicly find a bathroom stall where you can close the door at least. Anyway what is the rumpus that has you crying like a schoolgirl on a boring Tuesday?"</p><p>"It's Mac, no one has seen him in four days, and I am very worried something untoward has happened to him. I'm even more worried that what has happened to him might happen to me, depending on what it was that happened." I nodded Mac and David were "special" friends, and he was probably right to be concerned on both counts. I said "Mac the Knife?" He hated that nickname but, it fit him perfectly he was very fond of knives, saying that knifing a man was the "more polite way to do things, you have to get up close to him, it shows you care, that you want to get all up close and personal with them. Guns are for people afraid to get their hands dirty (or bloody)." David nodded yes Mac the Knife, you know him, and you know what me and him are all about. I did, and do. David was the Liar, and Mac was the thief. It was a lovely combination, spreading two of the world's greatest sins out over two people instead of concentrating it into one complete bastard. This way you had two half bastards that weren't completely beyond redemption, or at least that was their theory. Mac and David had some very odd theories, and it was generally best not to explore them too deeply, lest you end up in a line up with them being asked none too politely to "turn to the left, now turn to the right."</p><p>"I know this is a silly question, but have you asked Felix or his goons if they have seen Mac?" He snorted "that is a very silly question GI, you know we don't all have the cat/cat relationship that you and Felix have, to the rest of us, Felix is the cat, and we are the mice. I don't know what you "have on" Felix that has him suffering to keep you alive, and not locked in a cage where you belong, but the rest of us try to give Felix, and his goons, as wide a berth as possible." I laughed "fair enough David, but not much in this town happens without Felix knowing about it, doing it, or have it done on his behalf. It was just an idea to solve your little mystery and to get your crying ass out of my hair. I said I was bored, but this isn't the entertainment I had planned, if you catch my drift." He nodded, and follow my glance at the newest of Sully's blond barmaids. "I get it GI, you have your amusements, and they are generally all that matters to you, but to us humans, which I am not sure you are one, there are more important things than a roll in the hay with the new help." I had the decency to look hurt "now David that was unkind, she's a lovely lass, and a lot smarter than she looks." He laughed "by the looks of her, I would hope so, but I doubt it's her mind that has you here drinking beer on a Tuesday. But, can we focus for a bit on Mac? He wasn't your buddy I know, but you two seemed to get along well enough, or at least as well as anyone can get along with you."</p><p>"Mac didn't hold a special place in my heart, no." He winced at my use of the past tense, but I figured that David had already spun out a scenario in which the worst news was the only news he was likely to get. "What was Mac the Knife up to the last time you had dealings with him?" "He was doing a tail job on some woman for a doubting Thomas of a husband." I winced "a good way to find yourself in more trouble than you need. I am sure the husband already knew the wife had declared their relationship to be "open" before he hired Mac?" David nodded "seems right, I think hubby just wanted to know who the fellow was, not if he existed, he had sorted the existence part out already. Mac said that the husband just wanted to know "if he knew the bastard that was two timing him with his wife, or if it was a stranger. I guess it made some sort of difference to him. I don't pretend to know why." </p><p>Mac was good at tailing people, even though I had told him it was going to end in tears one day, he persisted saying "a girl's got to pay the rent GI, and I like to play the ponies on occasion, and I like to eat even more often." Fair enough I guess. Mac's skill was that he was as grey as a mouse. If you spent five whole minutes looking at him, and were to be asked an hour later to describe him, you probably would be the despair of the officer asking you the question. Tall? Maybe medium height, maybe a bit on the short side. Fat? No, I don't think so, too thin perhaps? Eyes, yes he had two of them, but I've no idea what colour they were. Hair? a shade of blond? brown? not red at least. Mac was just there like the coat rack in the corner that no one pays any attention to, even when they are putting their coats on it daily. For all my dislike of the way "he paid the rent" it was difficult not to like Mac. He was a personable fellow that didn't talk to much, and unlike his partner, he told the truth at least half the time. The trick was figuring out which half, but for those of us who pay attention (and I do pay attention) he had a tic that allowed us to know when he was lying. I doubt he had any idea, and I was never going to clue him into it. Turns out I wouldn't have the chance anyway. I knew this, and now it seemed that I was to have the "pleasure" of telling his best mate David the Liar.</p><p>I sighed, "four days usually isn't that bad of a sign on a domestic tail is it? Maybe the paramour took the wife out of town for a long weekend "to visit her sick auntie" and Mac decided to stay an extra day to enjoy the location attractions?" David shook his head. "No he told me when he left that he would be back that night, or the next morning at the latest." I guess there was no way around it, David was just a bit too upset to notice the "let it lie" signs I was giving him. "Okay, David here's the scene, they found Mac yesterday in an alley off of Water Street with a one bullet in his brain, or at least that is what they are saying. They are also saying it was suicide, claiming some note existed that no one has yet to produce, and that is the end of Mac the Knife." He looked stunned and stammered "b.b.but Mac didn't have any truck with GUNS, he's Mac the fucking Knife for the love of fuck! There is no way he would off himself at all, and certainly not with a gun. He could barely stand looking at them, and certainly wouldn't use one to kill himself." I put up a hand "settle down David there is a real need for you not to shout, look around the room." He stopped, and took a look noticing the fellow that I had already pegged as an "outpost" a large, hairy fellow that was straight out of central casting from the "goon who likes to break things" section.</p><p> I said, "his knives were missing, didn't have a single blade on him, or so they say. I find that odd because we all know that Mac the Knife didn't even go take a piss without a blade somewhere on his person." David nodded "this is wrong GI, wrong, wrong, wrong. Who did he piss off? Was the boy toy someone he didn't need to be following? Do you have any idea about this? Now would be a good time to tell me." I shook my head "no, David I don't have any idea, and even if I did, now would be the worst time to tell you ever. I just have the barest of details, and I doubt that I will get any more." He nodded, finished his pint, and left muttering that drinking alone was probably his best choice for the nonce. I paid his bill, and started my walk home. I didn't have it in me to tell him that besides the bullet in his brain, Mac had another one in his heart. I am no expert on suicide,but two bullets are rarely used especially in those two places, but as the saying goes lie to a liar for they are his coin. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p> </p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-55245454104118806552021-04-01T06:30:00.005-05:002021-04-01T20:32:35.729-05:00David the Liar<p> It's a quarter to 2 a.m. in Sully's and last call is being bellowed out by Tomas the barkeep. No sign of Sully or his new, pretty barmaid, but the denizens of his place are past caring where they are. The few male patrons are looking blearily around the bar hoping to find that "last call queen" that they can take home and find solace with before the sun ruins it all. Hoping to find someone who will believe late night truths before they turn into early morning lies. I am sitting in my usual spot, alone for a blessed change, no idiot has disturbed my thoughts, and it looks like I am going to be able to stagger home and find my solace in more drink. I should have known better than to hope such a silly thing, but hope springs eternal. </p><p>"Hello GI, what's the rumpus?" he said as he slid into the booth opposite me. I looked up and sighed. "Hello, David, what brings you over here at this hour?" He glanced at his watch, "sorry about the hour, but we both know that "last call" doesn't apply to you, and generally to whomever you're drinking with, and I could use a couple of more drinks." I nodded my assent, and walked to the bar to order us both a drink, because I knew that as always David was fucking broke. David is always, always fucking broke. </p><p>We call him "David the Liar." He's a short fellow with thinning hair that he likes to keep on the long side, hoping (I guess) that length will make up for lack of substance, and sometimes I wonder if maybe he's right, and I am not talking about hair. Either way, David is not his real name, he used several before he decided on David. Muttering something about it meaning "friend" and how he is everyone's friend. Make no mistake David is not your friend, David has one friend in the world, David, and even then the bond is not that strong. If he could find a way to sell himself out, and profit and live, I am pretty sure he would do it. Luckily for the world, David isn't nearly as clever as he thinks. He claims, depending on to whom he is talking to, to be from the north, the west, or back east. It varies from day to day, and from person to person. He explained the system of what direction to use to me once, but I wasn't really paying attention, and plus he lies all the time, so why bother remembering it? Besides, if you every called him out on his lies, he would just spin a larger lie to explain it, and if you kept calling him out by the time the story was over David was the Czar of all of Russia, and was doing you a favor by telling you the "truth."<br /></p><p>David does have one thing going for him. He has some startling green eyes, like emeralds they shine out of his mostly forgettable face, and they have drawn many a person into trusting his tales. I knew that behind those lovely green orbs, he had the loyalty of a cat. He seemed to have more than his share of luck with the ladies, so maybe he was a lion in the bedroom, I mean pretty eyes can only take you so far right? Other than those eyes, David was pretty nondescript, you wouldn't pick him out of a lineup (a fair amount of people have tried), and you wouldn't be dazzled by his wit. He's clever, not as clever as he thinks mind, but he mostly hides that. After all he would say "no one wants to talk to someone that is more clever than they are." Therefore, you wouldn't mind sharing things with David the Liar because you'd never think it would come back to bite you on the ass later, you would be wrong. He doesn't introduce himself as "David the Liar" and by the time you figure it out, it might be Felix time. </p><p>Once you had the misfortune to get to know him, David would come bother you with all sorts of nonsense if he thought it could make him some coin, or get him a few drinks. I had conducted a lot of "business" with David. He didn't know it but I had it all written down, and stored in a very safe location, just in case I needed it. Lie to a liar for they are his coin, but keep copious notes just to be on the safe side. Memory (or so they say) sometimes fails us, but a well written copy of the proceedings can make the difference between your bed, and a bed at the "Felix Arms." The benefit of David the Liar was that you knew he was lying, if he was talking, he was lying. If he told the sky was blue, you should walk outside and verify it. Lying came as natural to him as breathing underwater comes to a fish. His true talent lay in lying by omission. You had to pay careful attention to his lies, not for what he was saying, but for what he was leaving out. He was a craftsman at omitting details, and facts that would change the entire complexion of a story. You had to be on your toes when he decided to regale you with the "facts as he knows them" (a favorite saying of his). Don't get me wrong, David the Liar could lie in every way known to man, and maybe a couple that have yet to be discovered. He was not a one trick pony. He is a very, very tricky bastard. </p><p>I was far from the only person that David the Liar conducted his "business" with and I knew it. He knew that I knew it as well, but he would always try to convince me that whatever lie he was spinning at the moment it was just for me, and no one else. Of course, I knew that he was telling whatever other person/people the same lie about the lie, and I put no stock in that little disclaimer. Again, if David was talking, David was lying. I had on many occasions sworn to myself to just stop listening/talking to him, but he would always come back with some lie that had just enough truth mingled in with it, that I would buy him a drink, and listen to it in the hopes that something in the stew of shit he was pedaling would be a carrot of truth. I was usually disappointed, David the Liar is very disappointing though he doesn't realize it. David didn't know it (yet) but I knew his real name, I knew where he was actually from, and I knew that half of the jobs he'd claimed to have had, and half of the experiences he related to his marks were actually lifted from the life of someone he once knew. I also knew what had happened to that "special" someone, but I wasn't about to share all this information with David the Liar. It might sour our relationship beyond repair, and I wasn't ready to do that, at least not yet. I had a use for David the Liar.</p><p>I slid back into the booth, and pushed his drink towards him. "So, David what is the story tonight?" He gulped his drink, and looked up "No story, just the facts as I know them." I rolled my eyes "Christ David it's nearly 2 in the fucking morning, let's cut to the chase shall we, I've got plans tomorrow." He laughed "I know you've plans, and I know who they are with, and you might want to change them considering the facts." "OK David what are the facts." I asked hoping to shorten the length of his lie. "Well GI" he said smugly "it's 2 a.m. and do you know where she is?" He put up a hand to forestall my speaking, "don't give me the unattached pronoun speech, you and I both know who "she" is, and don't pretend otherwise." I knew who he meant, but was surprised by his knowledge maybe David the Liar had better sources that I had thought. "OK David, where is she, and who are they with?" He proceeded to tell me, and I began to laugh. "David, my lad for a second there I thought you had better sources than I had thought. You once again disappoint me, my 'friend'. I've known that for hours, I know the who, I know the where, and I even know the why." He arched an eyebrow at the last part, and I smiled "the why is for the oldest reason in the world." I motioned him to lean in closer, and decided to get my money's worth. I whispered to him "I know your real name is ______, and I know it means "paid for." Now you can figure out the why can't you?" With that I got up, left enough money for the drinks I had bought him, and a couple more besides, and walked out leaving David the Liar very perplexed. Happy April Fools' Day you mugs. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-10651136216618367592021-03-24T08:23:00.002-05:002021-03-24T09:33:58.581-05:00Ward 15<p> They put me in Ward 15. Two of the possibly only 4 people in the world that still seem to care about my whereabouts caught me at the train station, asked me where I was going, and seemed unhappy with my answer of "anywhere but here." They brought me here mostly willingly, and I was given this new set of clothes to wear, and a nice lady asked me a lot of somewhat personal questions. My friends left before this happened, they had done their duty by me, and they left me here. I guess my answers to those questions is what led me to being put in Ward 15. No one ever really told me why I got put here, and I didn't then, and don't now really care. The hospital had several wards, and their own way of designating who went to which ward. I wasn't overly concerned with the number, and I didn't really care to ask any questions of my own. I am tired of asking questions. I am even more tired of hearing the answers. <br /></p><p>My fellow citizens/inmates of Ward 15 were excited for my arrival. I guess a newbie is a cause for excitement around here, doesn't bode well for the social scene, but then again I'm not overly social anyway. After listening to their chatter about "welcome to Ward 15 and other nonsense" I inquired what was the reason for me being in Ward 15. A couple of them vaguely mentioned there were 17 Wards, and Ward 17 was where they put the truly hopeless. I guess it was a small mercy that landed me in Ward 15. They also shared the news that Ward 15 was called the "Omega" Ward, which made no sense to me since it wasn't the last Ward, but I was listening to the denizens of a madhouse. One old timer (he looked 80 at least) told me. "well, they say the higher the number, the less unwell you are, they don't like using the term "sick" too politically incorrect, and it might hurt our feelings. Which, if you ask me, is our fault for having feelings in the first place. Then again, I've been here neigh on 18 years, so asking me might not be the best idea." He laughed quite loudly, and a bit too much for my liking, but I didn't have anywhere else to be so I listened to him prattle on as he explained my current situation. "They also say that the opposite is true, that the higher the number, the more hopeless your case is, and they just shift you out here to live and die with as much dignity as your mad ass can manage. I don't know which rumor to believe, I've been in Ward 15 for my entire time here. I guess that means I've not gotten any "better" but on the upside it also could mean that I've not gotten any "worse". No, I am pretty sure I will die here in Ward 15, unmourned and unmarked except by my roommate if he happens to be lucid that day."</p><p>I replied "well they told me that I would be here a maximum of three weeks, and maybe only two if I responded well. I'm not sure what I am supposed to respond to, but two weeks doesn't seem that long or that bad, maybe I'll get some rest, and get "better". Though I am not exactly sure that I am sick." The old geezer cackled again and said "Three weeks is what they told me 18 years ago, though they left out the possibility of shortening it to 2, guess they've gotten more hopeful now days. Anyway, if things go as usual they will leave you alone for a couple of days, and then on day 3 they will start trying to "cure" you. Of course, they won't call it "curing" you cure meat, they will call it "getting you well" but the idea is the same." I nodded vaguely, I didn't want to listen to this damn fool, after all he had been here 18 years, he was clearly as mad as a March hare, but he wasn't the type to leave a man in peace. Sure I didn't want to be here, but I was really unsure where I wanted to be, or if I wanted to be anywhere at all. "Nowhere" doesn't exist in the geographical sense, but I sure wanted to go looking for it just to be sure. That's why I was at the train station when my friends intercepted me. </p><p>On day two it somehow got around the Ward as to who I was, and what I did for a living. Which led to all sorts of citizens/inmates coming to me and asking me for advice. I wasn't in the mood to practice my "craft" and politely told them. "I am not here to practice my craft, this is a madhouse right? I am here to be mad." Some of them laughed at that remark, some of them just stared, and a couple swore at me with great fervor, but it was as honest an answer as I was ever going to give anyone here. It was this day that I made the decision that has me still here, and it's been a damn sight longer than 3 weeks. I looked at my roommate John, James, or Jack, I don't really remember his name, said "I'm sorry" and punched him as hard as I could right in the ribs. In my defense, I hit him with my weaker left hand, not in the face, and to be honest it wasn't that much of a punch. I'm a lover not a fighter, it wasn't designed to hurt him over much, it was designed to get my own room. It worked like a charm. He folded over like a tent, and two large, burly gentleman rushed into our room, and frog marched me to my own private Idaho i.e. an isolation cell. I felt like Steve McQueen's character from the Great Escape, except no one threw me a baseball and a glove to use to pass the time in the "cooler".</p><p>I was provided with a lovely "jacket" which buttoned at the back, but luckily for me one of those burly fellows buckled it for me, and tossed me onto the bed, which was the only "furniture" in my new private room. Luxurious it was not, but it was my own, and that was what mattered to me. Alone time was necessary, it gave me time to think of a way out of Ward 15. Surely there had to be a way out, without giving away my soul. Eventually, they came and pulled out of my own head, and led me to an office. I had expected this, I was sure I was going to meet some nice lady or fellow that just wanted to talk to me about my feelings, and make sure I was "better." I sat down, and a bearded fellow walked in, sat down and introduced himself as Doctor K____. He asked me if I knew why I was here, and I told him that as much as I cared that I did. He seemed to think that was progress, and went on about how it was a good sign. I don't know what the good Doctor was expecting from me, but I was in no mood to provide it to him.</p><p>A few more fruitless trips to Doctor K did not result in any further progress, and I kept my private room because I was able to convince the turnkeys that if they put be back in a shared room, my new roommate would meet the same fate as my previous one. I wasn't just saying that for the luxury of the private room. A toilet, and a bed that was bolted down, was not exactly the Hilton, but at least it was private. Here I remain in Ward 15 wondering if I am going to eventually have to give the same welcoming "I've been here 18 years speech" to some newbie like myself with me playing the role of grizzled old timer. I hope that is not to be the case, but as the saying goes, only time will tell. <br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-25650011161639213442021-03-18T07:34:00.000-05:002021-03-18T07:34:04.221-05:00Serge and his Apples: An Interlude<p> Where Felix and his goons left me that November day, and the following disaster that occurred, will have to wait for another day. This story struck me as needing written first, and since it is my history, I get to tell in the order that I pick. </p><p>As I walked into Sully's one fine night, and by fine I mean it was just a day that I was on the right side of the dirt, Sully gave me the arched eyebrow that meant that the idea of "fine" was about to take a turn for the worse (as most turns in my like are wont to do). I sighed, and considered exiting stage left, and going home to write a long overdue letter to my mother, but decided that would probably not be received any better than what I was about to "receive" either, and since writing isn't my strong suit, I decided to brave it out, and hope for the best. Silly me. </p><p>I walked to my normal booth and was not surprised to see some gangly, bright eyed, fellow already sipping on one of Sully's finest pints of piss. "Careful with that stuff lad, it will put hair on your chest, and by the looks of you it would be the first." He glanced up surprised by my sudden appearance, cleared his throat, and stammered "s.s.she told me you'd be here." I rolled my eyes, sat down, gave Sully the bring me pints till I pass out wave, and replied "well son, you see that there "she" is what us intellectual types call an unattached pronoun. I know a lot of "shes" and many of them know where to find me at given moment of my day. Though most of them only know it so they can avoid those places like the plague. So you're going to have to be a little more precise when you tell me "she told me you'd be here." Are we talking about the tall one, the short one, the left handed one, the mean one, the one who treats me like shit, or any number of other exotically nicknamed bitches who keep sending me fools like you to terrorize me in my dotage." </p><p>He opened his mouth to reply, but I put up a forestalling hand. "Never mind lad, whichever "she" sent you isn't really important to me anymore. I've long since stopped spinning different tales for different "shes" one set of lies is enough to keep track of. So why don't you just tell me which lie "she" wants to hear tonight, and I decide if I'm in the mood to spin it for her or not." He narrowed his eyes at me and said "she said for me to figure out which large R you were tonight, and gave me two envelopes to pick from depending on your answer." I sighed "of course she did. Well lad since I am, sadly, stone cold sober I figure you'll want to open the one marked "Rationalist" and start from there. Did she also tell you to wait around for me to get a few pints in me and then open the other one, and to compare the answers?" He nodded his assent to my statement, took the one marked "Rationalist" and started to read silently to himself, trying my patience even further. </p><p>"Damnit boy don't just read it to your fool self. Aren't there questions or some such bullshit written on there that your "she" wants answered, or is it a love poem that you're steeling yourself up to recite to me afraid that it will sound as gay as Christmas to read out loud. Which in case you're wondering nothing sounds gay in this place. We love all kinds here lad." His eyes widened at my comment, and he slowly said "it says to give you these" and he pushed a set of several photographs across the table towards me. I picked them up, they weren't the best quality. A bit grainy, and shot from a (safe) distance, and black and white, but the gist of them was immediately clear. I arched an eyebrow at him, more to hide my feelings than any real reason. It seemed to work because he snow plowed his way past the look in my eyes, and read from his script "not exactly sorry to show you these GI, but I figured you needed to know. Even though with your suspicious mind, I figure you had a good guess." Here he stopped and looked up at me with a questioning look. "I don't have an answer for either you or her lad, so stop giving me the dramatic pauses and finish her little love letter then get the fuck out of my sight."</p><p>He nodded then swallowed hard, and continued his recitation of the tear down job "she" had planned for me. Seems that my earlier idea of a "fine" day had fallen to shit. "There isn't much else here, it just says that you know what those mean." He pointed at the photos that were still in my hands. "and that you know where to find everyone you need to find in case you want to do something about it." I nodded well lad, you've narrowed some things down for me, but you've also caused me considerable consternation, so I'd suggest you get the hell out of here while you still are able to move all your limbs of their own accord." He blinked, and if it is possible to blink loudly, that is how he blinked. He stood up quickly, and pushed the other letter towards me "She told me to read both to you, but I think I'll take your advice, and find myself a safer drinking companion." He walked out without looking back, and left me to brood in silence, which is best for brooding.</p><p>I wasn't about to tell him that even though the photos did tell me which "she" didn't send him, I was still mostly in the dark about which "she" did. Most "shes" don't publish their bile and/or dislike for me, it allows them to have plausible deniability when asked if they know me or not. Generally, they avoid me like I have leprosy, and that is mostly the best plan. A couple of them like to communicate with me when they have something particularly mean that they want to tell me, but those are not everyday occasions. This little photo montage was one of those particularly mean things, and I was beginning to regret not asking the fool lad which "she" it was that sent him to ruin my day, my week, and maybe even my month. Or maybe that was "her" plan all along. She knows me well enough to know that I don't have a high tolerance for fools, and so she sent a fool (or one that seemed to be) to me, knowing I wouldn't listen to more than 4 words he had to say. The photos did tell me something that I already pretty much knew, but they also provided me with new information. Information is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands, and I was decidedly the wrong hands for this information. </p><p>I sighed, and signaled to Sully to bring me the tab, this was a job for the sober me to undertake, and that made me a bit put out, I had planned to get happily drunk. Those plans were now scuppered. I left twice as much money as needed to cover my tab, rose slowly from the booth, and said aloud to myself "well, I guess I need to add a name to my list of enemies, and I guess I need to go see that smug bastard Felix." With that I left Sully's and began to make my way across town....<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-23563354846801557302021-02-26T18:08:00.001-06:002021-02-26T18:08:08.806-06:00Meet Nicklas<p> "I knew that I would eventually find you here." I looked up, slightly bleary eyed from the corner booth at the latest bar I had wandered into to see the source of the voice (slightly annoyed) looking down at me with a great deal of would might pass as concern, unless of course you knew the fellow the look was attached to. I did know him, had known him for years, and know him well enough to know the "concern" was just disdain trying to look clever. He slid a glass over to me that contained some clear liquid, and said "drink that, and when you finish it, you're going to have another and another until I am satisfied." He didn't elaborate as to what he had to be satisfied about, and I wasn't particularly interested in his "satisfaction anyway. "Well at least you brought me a godsdamn drink to go along with whatever sermon you're about to deliver." I took the glass, swirled around it's contents and threw it back expecting some clear liquor, and damn near choked to death with I discovered it was water. Clear, clean (at least for this dump) tap water. I coughed about half of it back up and said "the fuck are you doing Nicklas? Trying to fucking poison me? This appears to be water. Do you know what fish do in this stuff? It will kill you quicker than our mutual pal Felix." He laughed and said "it is in point of fact water, and you're going to drink enough of it to float a fucking ocean liner if I think it is necessary to get you sober enough to get out of here in one piece." I glanced around a bit myopically, "what's wrong with this place? You've survived a few drunken nights here, and were no the worse for it." He shook his head "take a stronger look around you damn fool, where do you think you are? This is Sully's you idiot, I went there first looking for you, and Sully said he stopped giving you drinks two hours ago, and kicked you the fuck out." </p><p>I did as instructed, and looked around with a little more sobriety, and realized he was right. I wasn't at the home away from home that was Sully's bar. I was at the Purga's Cove, a place of last resort. The kind of place your mother warned you about, and even your dear, old, drunken father would think twice about setting foot in, a dive and a dangerous one at that. I had few to no friends at Purga's Cove. "How the fuck did I get here?" He shrugged "as best as I can put it together you somehow managed to walk from Sully's place to here, and even looked sober enough for them to keep serving you. Although for this place that is a pretty low standard to clear." He signaled to the barkeep, and a whole fucking pitcher of that vile stuff known as water appeared. "Now drink up my lovely, you've got a lot of explaining to do to quite a number of people." Nicklas was always a bit of a smug bastard, which I guess is why we got along so well. Well, not the smugness that bit was annoying. It was more the bastard part that I found easier to get along with. </p><p>"Why are you even out and about at this time of day/night Nicklas? Don't you have family obligations to keep you busy?" He scowled "I do but we decided that one of us needed to come and pry you out of the gutter you seem to have moved into on a permanent basis." I raised an eyebrow "and by "we" you mean? I don't understand you lot and your unattached pronouns, like I'm supposed to know who "they" are who "she" is, and so forth. I am not a mind reader, and am too drunk to get the allusion, so you're going to have to be a bit more forthcoming old chum." He let out a long sigh "we" are the few people that still manage to give a fuck whether you live or die. Does that help with your clarity any?" It did, and he knew it would, did I mention he was a smug bastard. "Oh you mean those two?" He nodded "yes those two and me it seems. I'm the one tasked to come here and pour water down you because I picked the wrong card out of the deck that we used to decide who would get this fun little task. All things considered, you're lucky I drew the card and not one of them." I shuddered because the water was cold, but more because he was right. I'd take Nicklas' smugness over the other two options any day of the week. Not that they didn't care or weren't lovely people, it was just their approach might have been a bit rougher than Nicklas'. <br /></p><p>I choked down another glass of water, and Nicklas refilled my glass. He seemed to be enjoying the situation far more than was strictly necessary. "You seem to be enjoying this situation more than is strictly necessary Nicklas. Why is that exactly?" He laughed without mirth, and said "it has been years since I've been your 'running around' buddy, and I find that the experience is not one that I miss, plus I will feel a lot better than you when I wake up in the morning." I nodded "this is true, and I don't need reminding of it. Is there something in particular you lot want out of me, or is this just a warning that this is my 'last chance', because I've already heard that speech before. At least twice if memory serves." He tutted "three, but who is counting? You and your semi-charmed life are about to undergo some changes. Well, that is if you want to keep living in the manner in which you've grown accustomed." Here he waved a hand around, and said "though I am not sure that if you'd call this living in a manner in which anyone would want to grow accustomed. Why hasn't someone done you the mercy of putting a knife in your ribs. That way we could mourn the talent we lost rather than despair of the talent you're wasting by doing this." I arched an eyebrow "Nicklas! where did you pull that line from? Have you developed the soul of a poet all of a sudden?" He chuckled "no dickhead I stole if from you, though I doubt you remember saying it. I just thought it true, sad but true and figured it would hit home. Apparently I was mistaken."</p><p>He pried himself up from his side of the booth and with a long sigh said "I don't think you want to get clean, and until you do this is pointless. The worry I have is, I am not sure that even if you wanted to get clean you could, and that is going to be a problem. But, like you are so fond of saying it will be and is a "you" problem, and you will have to be the one to fix it. If you choose to try, you know where "we" will be." He turned to walk away, but stopped after about two steps and came back to say "however, you might want to read this before you go back to ordering whatever piss that passes for beer in this shit hole." Here he handed me an envelope, turned on his heel, and walked out the door like he owned the place. Which is about the only way to avoid getting stabbed in Purga's Cove. I looked down at the letter he had dropped on the table, picked it up and inspected it. It wasn't anything special just a plain, white envelope with my actual name written on the front in a very familiar handwriting. This was not going to be pleasant, but for some reason I didn't order a beer, and merely refilled my glass with water before opening it and starting to read...<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-73592063924453227272020-11-03T07:01:00.001-06:002020-11-03T12:46:36.757-06:00Serge and his Apples III<p> It's been almost a year since I wrote the cliffhanger of part two, today's a good day for part three (never said I was a quick thinker).</p><p><br /></p><p>I walked between Viktor and Lazar, and behind Felix as we left the latest bar I had decided to attempt to find a beautiful oblivion. I was well on my way to that oblivion, regaling some whippersnapper sent by "her" with the tale of Serge and his apples, when Felix and his playmates decided my presence was required elsewhere. Being the accommodating type, and not currently being strapped, I decided to follow along with Felix. After all, where else did I have to be? It's hard to get places you need or want to be with two broken knees, and one eye swollen shut, which is Felix's playmates general way of persuading you to 'come along quietly and don't make a fuss'. I had seen it happen to several people before, and made the command decision that I was too pretty for one of those persuasions. Therefore, I decided to follow along with Felix's plan without know what it was because I decided that the ability to walk and see were pretty important in my line of work. If I ever decided to do any work.</p><p>We reached the street, and Felix pointed to the straight out of central casting black sedan, and said "get in GI, we are going for a little ride." I sighed "Jesus, Felix can you be anymore of a stereotype? Why can't you lot show up in something with some colour? Try red or yellow, no one would ever suspect you're up to no good if you show up in a bright yellow roadster." Felix's smile did not reach his eyes, "Get the fuck in GI, and stop with the comedy act. You'll need it for your next audience." That didn't bode well for me, as I figured Felix was the worst audience I was going to have. If wherever we were going was worst that where I thought Felix was taking me, then I wasn't nearly drunk enough for this shit. "Fine Felix, just let me finish one thing" I said, and took my trusty flask from my coat pocket swirled it around, uncapped it, and before his thugs could stop me finished the contents at a gallop. I coughed "Christ, alright Felix I am ready for my close up as the saying goes" and I got into the car followed by Viktor and Lazar who took up their stations on either side of me. Sometimes Felix's imagination lacks a certain flair.</p><p>Felix got in the front seat, and looked over at the driver, some mug I had never seen before, and said "you know where we are going, get us there without an fuss." I settled into my seat and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible, that being a difficult task since I was squashed between two bruisers, slightly drunk, and with no clue where I was going, and if I was going to have access to a bathroom anytime soon (that shit in the flask goes right through you sometimes). As the car pulled out into traffic I reflected on why at 2 p.m. Felix was even awake and roaming the streets. With nothing better to do I asked "Felix, it's 2 in the afternoon, why are you awake, and roaming the streets? Didn't you have a long night of beating the shit out of someone to tire you out before your warm milk and bedtime?" He arched an eyebrow at that, not sure if he thought I was guessing or really knew that he liked warm milk before bed, sometimes it's best just to throw lines into the water and see if anything will bite. You just have to be careful they aren't too big to reel in, and don't bite too hard. "Not that you deserve to know, but I despise milk, and I don't beat the shit out of people. I just gently persuade them to tell kind Uncle Felix what he wants to know. Failing that these two sweethearts" here he pointed to Viktor and Lazar, "beat the shit out of them, as you so colourfully put it."</p><p>I figured that was about all the conversation I was going to get out of Felix, he's a tight lipped bastard even on his most expansive days, and Mutt and Jeff were the grunting type. I don't think I'd ever heard either of them say more that five words total, so I decided to enjoy the ride. I generally walk places I need to be, it makes the stagger home more interesting and challenging. A car ride I didn't have to pay for was a treat. Then I noticed we weren't going the right direction, "Hey Felix, is your boy new? He just missed the turn onto Water Street, how else are we getting to your 'office' if not that way?" Felix turned around and said "we aren't going to my office GI, why don't you just relax?" When a man like Felix tells you to relax, you start to get nervous, very fucking nervous. "I'm so relaxed that I am almost in a coma Felix, but I'm curious where are we going? Let me guess, you've decided to take me to a nice restaurant for my birthday, but Felix today isn't my birthday, surely you know that?" He didn't bother to turn as he answered me "I'm also not taking you for a walk in the country, just settle down, and try to keep your face shut for the rest of the trip, though your birthday joke will be even funnier later." </p><p>I knew that a "walk in the country" with Felix meant that Felix would have a nice walk and come back, you would have a nice walk and not, so I decided to keep my whore mouth shut, and began to ponder his birthday remark. Felix is not a man to say things by accident, and only tells you things he wants you to hear. It's a character flaw of his that I have discussed with him many times, and yet he persists in doing it. Some dogs just can't or won't learn new tricks. I suppose the good news, if there was any good news, was that Felix said "later" implying that there would be a "later" in which I would be able to enjoy (or more likely rue) my birthday joke. It's the small mercies that are sometimes the most appreciated. I decided to try one more ploy with Felix, it might not be the best idea, but I don't generally like surprises, and I had a feeling that Felix was about to give me a very unpleasant (for me) surprise. "Well, I know we aren't going to your house Felix, because we aren't going east." That bolt did find its way home. He turned fully around, and snarled "I said for you to keep your face shut, and you had to open your mouth and turn smart didn't you?" He gestured to Viktor, and Viktor punched me very quickly, very quietly, and VERY hard in the ribs. I gasped in quite real pain "Christ, Felix that wasn't necessary." He smiled "it wasn't until you made it so, now settle down, and if you like your ribs in their current condition, stay silent. It's not too far now." </p><p>I looked around with a tad more interest in my surroundings, we had turned into a slightly more posh neighborhood, one where "my kind of people" were only welcome if we were taking trash off the sidewalk, or here to fix the plumbing issue of one of the toffs who lived there. "Wait a second" I begin "Felix are you lost or have you gone mad? This is. . ." "I know exactly where we are going, and so do you, you've been here at least 4 times before, though according to my information the last time was unpleasant. Remember your joke? Now you can see why I think it's final got a little humor in it." He held up a gloved hand and showed me a little red pill, "Though I suspect your last little shot of liquid courage may have been enough to keep you calm enough, we will just have to make sure. Boys have him open wide." His goons nodded in unison and grabbed my jaws and forced them open. Felix handed Lazar the pill. "Make sure he swallows it, he will thank me for this mercy the next time he sees me." I struggled, but it was mostly for show. A man has to know when he beat, and I was beat. Lazar shoved the pill into my mouth and I dutifully swallowed it down. Felix nodded and said "Good lad, now in about 10 minutes you are going to say good night for a while. I am not exactly sure where you'll wake up, but that wasn't part of my deal. I am just the delivery boy. Enjoy your nap GI, I don't think from what I've been able to tell about the person I am delivering you to that you will enjoy waking up from it." About 8 minutes later he nodded to his goons, and I was dumped like a piece of the aforementioned trash onto the sidewalk. I knew then that sleep was on its way too quickly for me to leg it, and so with a sigh I sat down and waited for what was to come. All the while thinking what an absolute bastard Felix had become. to be continued (again).<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-4182222657819164672020-10-15T07:24:00.003-05:002020-10-15T07:53:48.910-05:00Of Barbarbians and Safes<div><div dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_9i"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">"Not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the storm in their blood" - Robert E. Howard.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><span class="_18vi"><div class="l9j0dhe7 k4urcfbm"><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>M. Howard from whom I shamelessly steal the above quote was the man who "created" Conan the Barbarian. It was a very long time ago, and many of us have only accessed Conan through the films starring the former governor of California. Giving the books a read, or a listen in this digital age is worth your time. After all, sexting your boss at 3 a.m. is starting to get old, and you have to try to better yourself as a human being right? </span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>There is a school of thought that rest and peace will allow you do that. I mean hours of study and self-reflection, if properly done, will advance your knowledge (if you study the "right" stuff), and make you more fun to talk to at parties that you probably don't want to attend. Reflecting upon the mysteries of life, and using the right 'detectives' to help you unlock them is a grand undertaking. Aristotle, Plato, all the Greeks will help, but don't forget the Philip Marlowes of the world. The allegory of the cave is a wonderful thing, and there is a lot of life lessons in it to be learned, but The Big Sleep has a lot of more gritty life lessons that you will need to learn as well, especially if you want to get your hands a little dirty. Peace is also a wonderful thing, we all want peace right? Civil unrest, and disorder start to strain the seams of society. However don't forget "the Romans create a wasteland and call it peace." Peace can be a tricky thing, and no all men are made for it. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were pretty necessary for Germany in World War I, and they were not men of peace. Conan is not a man of peace, he is a man of action, and a lot of people think that peace is not an action it is the lack of action.</span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>A nice warm study with a volume of Voltaire is not for the men of Conan's ilk. They can solve the mysteries of the universe if they want, but Conan is out in the universe. Discovering its mysteries by running amok in it. Most men will spend their lives in quiet desperation, reading about the adventures of Conan, and men like him pondering what they would do if they had the balls to do what Conan does. Some might try to "arm chair quarterback" Conan, and point out his 'mistakes' and what they would have done differently to get the girl and the treasure rather than sacrificing one to save the other. That is easy to do with a glass of fine brandy in one hand, and your cock in the other. Any damn fool can point out the errors of others, it takes a different kind of fool to realize that many times those mistakes make the story. These 'men of peace' aren't going to risk anything more than tripping over the cat on the way to the bathroom, and certainly are going to go barrelling around the world in a loincloth with a sword looking for dragons to slay, and women to 'rescue' (whether they need it or not). Perhaps, if they think about it enough these fellows will understand the fact that the warm study, the glass of brandy, and even the cat exist for them because of men like Conan. Maybe they are hyper-aware of the situation of the world, and maybe they appreciate Conan and his kind. Probably they don't, that is why the term barbarian gets stuck to him. They look down their long noses at his savagery, and tut tut his actions as the actions of an uncivilized boor. However, they overlook the fact that without boors like Conan, they probably would have been gored to death by a boar a long time ago.</span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>Take some time to think about the circle of people you loosely call your friends, is there a man or woman (this is the 21st century after all. I for one, wouldn't be upset at being rescued by a 'storm blooded woman') among them? Would they consider you to be that person? Are you all men of peace? Are you all men at peace? Of peace and at peace are very, very different things. Men like Conan may have moments in their lives where they are 'at peace' they are probably never 'of peace'. The storm in their blood doesn't work that way, and it shouldn't. The storm in the blood is there since birth or at least it develops at a very young age. Conan (since his is fictional) is lucky he lives in the Hyborian Age that gives him ample chance to unleash the storm in his blood, and plenty of dragons, snakes, and other monsters to slay (even the human kind). Being more 'civilized' we are unlikely to take up sword and loincloth and go racing to the 'rescue' of the damsels in our lives. Most of us would look shockingly bad in a loincloth, and probably couldn't lift a sword over our head for the life of us, and more than likely the damsels don't really need rescuing in the first place. Polite society, or at least the idea of it, can be rather boring for men with the storm in their blood.</span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>That is the unique thing about this storm, it might can probably be suppressed if you struggle hard enough. That struggle is hard (as a proper struggle should be), and you're never to know if suppression is the 'right' decision. You have to realize that once unleashed the storm is not going to be "put back in the bottle." You unleash the Kraken that is the storm, and you are no longer a man of peace. Storms like that aren't like punk ass bitches of hurricanes that lash a coastal area for a couple of days, pouring rain down on poor citizens, and flooding them out of whatever hovel they call home, and then disappearing inland to go out with a whimper. No this storm is not a novelty, it is not something that you can control any longer. It is the surge in your blood that is going to put you on Conan's path. It is, in some ways, a declaration of independence. A way to tell the world that you aren't going to be bullied anymore. It is also probably going to cost you. Maybe it will cost you the job that you pretend is a career. It might cost you the girl that you are pretending is the 'one'. It might cost you the hovel you are pretending is a home. It might cost you that circle of friends that you are pretending are your best mates.</span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span> </span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span> But in counter weight to all those losses are the potential gains. Don't be confused and fall for the trap of thinking that Conan doesn't have moments of mind numbing terror, he does. Don't think that Conan always get the treasure and the girl, he doesn't. Don't think Conan lives the high life, he spends a lot of nights "sleeping rough" without a copper to his name. He doesn't sleep in a lot of soft comfy beds. He sleeps where he can, and shitty inns with vermin infested beds and kitchens are the norm rather than the exception. Don't think that just because he has the balls (so to speak) to run around in a loincloth that Conan doesn't have his own doubts, he does. He just doesn't let them control him, they may occasionally slow him down, but they don't stop him. Don't think that just slashing the monster's throat always solves the problem it doesn't. The monsters outnumber you on a staggering scale, and those so called men of peace are creating more monsters daily. You, and your kind, will always be outnumbered. The siren's call of the 'storm in your blood' life can also be a dirge. A dirge to the comfy beds, the steady pay, the decent food, and the steady, uncomplicated relationships (yeah right) that make up your placid life. It is a decision that one would think must needs to be made, but in reality indecision can be just as much of a decision as an active unleashing of the storm. You may 'choose' to suppress the storm, and/or not act upon its call. Not choosing it is just as hard of a decision to make. It creates a duality in you that is not always going to be pleasant, and is probably never going to go fully away, or be fully resolved to your (or anyone else's) satisfaction. </span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span> </span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span>Perhaps Howard had the storm in his blood, but living the in the early 20th century, he realized the chances to chuck it all over, and go slay dragons were very limited, so he created Conan. I doubt Conan was his alter ego, and I am not familiar enough with Howard's works to attempt that kind of deep analysis, I am just stealing a quote from him, and fashioning a stupid blog post around it (that also doesn't need any deep seated analysis). Maybe Conan gets a lot of the girls because Howard only ever had one girlfriend in his life, and that didn't end well. Neither did Howard's life, at around the age of 30, distraught over his mother's slipping into a coma from which he was told she would never awaken, he walked out of the hospital, and blew his brains out with a pistol. Not the happiest of ending for a man who created a legend, but all stories can't end with the half naked girl wrapping herself around you while you look over the carnage you've created with your broadsword. The storm exacts its own price, and you just have to be willing to pay it, no matter how high of a price it might be. It takes courage, but sometimes the game has to be worth the candle. I wish you luck. <br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span><br /></span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span> </span></div><div class="l9j0dhe7"><span> <br /></span></div></div></span><p> </p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-41464719809688592272020-10-07T07:30:00.001-05:002020-10-07T11:25:41.994-05:00Of Wheels and their Wagons<p> He staggered in at a little past 2 a.m., and given that it was what he likes to call "a school night" I knew something must have gone terribly wrong. He was listing like a Spanish galleon, and looked a little worse for the wear, and I decided to try to handle him the best I could before he caused too much of a scene. I didn't need a 2:30 a.m. visit from Felix and his boys. I met him close to the door, and boomed "GI so glad to see you gracing my fine establishment. What brings you down here to the docks to drink among the peasants at such a late hour?" He trained his bleary eyes on me "piss off with the fancy talk Sully, you know why I'm here, at least you should if you have a calendar handy, and posses the ability to read it. Which I actually somehow doubt, men like you are only worried about the 1st of the month when all the money you are owed comes due, and you have to figure out how many legs you need to order to be broken." I took a step back, "that seems a bit harsh GI, even for you. You know I run a honest business, and abhor violence. I am a man of peace." That brought a harsh laugh from him "sure thing Gandhi, now peacefully let me find a place to sit down, and then peacefully bring me a turbo, and then bugger off and let me drink in peace, man of peace my arse." </p><p>I lead him to the booth in the back, the one nearest the restroom figuring that he would need to be close to it when all the booze he'd clearly had caught up to him, and it was also the one I could just fold him into and let him sleep it off with the least amount of trouble, it wouldn't be the first time he'd done it. "Certainly GI, might I recommend the booth near the facilities?" Again he laughed "you mean the one closest to the shitter in case I have to puke? And the one I can sleep in without too my fuss? Lead on Sully there are beers that are dying to be drunk, and before you ask" here he pulled a wad of bills from his coat pocket and waved them around "I've got the coin to pay for them." I considered this to be good news, usually the bastard was piss drunk, and piss poor. I didn't bother to ask where or how he'd gotten the money, that wasn't my business. I figured the less I knew, the less I'd have to tell anyone who asked, and I didn't fancy a night out 'dancing' with Felix and his goons. I'm too old, and have robbed too many banks for that shit. "Well, this is an even greater pleasure then GI, your company, and the money to make it bearable!"</p><p>"Just get out of my way Sully, I can find the booth myself, and get me a damn drink. I'd rather die of drink than of thirst." I moved out of his way, and made my own way to the bar. I waved the bartender over, "Tomas, pour GI one of his turbos, and make him a cup of coffee, he will be needed one or the other if not both. I'll take them over myself, no wait that will make him suspicious, or rather more suspicious. Betsy (not her real name, or at least I don't think it is, but good help is hard to find) GI likes you well enough, for a blonde, be a good lass and take these drinks over to his table. Whatever you do, don't make eye contact with him, or you'll be stuck there the rest of the damn night, or morning or whatever you call this time of day/night. If he's doing anything particularly stupid let me know, and I'll come over and sort him. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to." Betsy nodded, and took the tray of drinks over to his table without incident, came back to the bar and said "he's just sitting there talking to himself, or at least there's no one with him, but he seems to be carrying on quite the conversation." I nodded "thanks Betsy. He's known to get lost in his own head from time to time, and when he's tight it has a tendency to spill out verbally. It's most gibberish, and makes sense only to him, but every now and then he says shit he shouldn't." </p><p>I snapped my fingers, "Tomas you know what to do, go over there quite like and sit your ass down in the booth behind him and listen. No wait" I looked at Tomas' considerable girth. "That would be like asking him to miss a mountain, and I don't think he's quite drunk enough for that yet. Go get one of the kitchen boys, the smallest one if you can manage it, and bring him to me." Tomas nodded and soon returned with a small, rather dirty lad that fit the bill perfectly. I looked at him, nodded my approval and sent Tomas back to the bar. He would find out the full story tomorrow without me telling him, Tomas is like that, he learns all sorts of shit that he probably shouldn't and one day it's probably going to get him killed. "Okay lad, I need you to wander slowly over to that booth" here I pointed to the one behind GI "and sit your ass down nurse this beer, and listen to what he says. Can you read and write boy?' He nodded, "good here's pencil and paper, if you can write it all down, and bring it back to me. Don't be obvious, and don't make in sudden moves. The man might look drunk, and he is, and he might look harmless, but he's not. So be careful, and do a good job, and there will be a little extra in your pay packet come Friday."</p><p>I didn't tell the damn fool that I had noticed the obvious bulge in GI's left coat pocket, and had sussed out what that meant. I didn't feel the need to scare him that badly. Besides it was my hope that I was mistaken and it was just another wad of cash carelessly wadded up and stuffed in the most accessible pocket. A few minutes passed, and I kept one eye trained in GI's direction. The boy seemed to have settled in behind GI without notice, and was busy scribbling what looked to be his life's history, as GI's arms moved about a bit in time with his head moving. Clearly he was have an animated discussion with someone that only he could see. I hoped it wasn't anything too serious, crazy, or worse something that he was supposed to be saying out loud. Betsy soon came by on her rounds to report that he was downing the beer like it was mother's milk, but hadn't touched the coffee. I had expected that, he wasn't blurry enough to not care what was in front of him yet. "Bring him another round of both, raise the turbo level on the beer just a touch, it will be the last one we give him. Or at least one that isn't a small beer."</p><p>Betsy did as I requested, came back and said "Umm, there's a revolver on the table, and he's still talking to himself. Should we do something?" I sighed, my guess had been right. "Tomas, go fetch Roscoe for me, and then recall our little "listening post." I need to read what he's heard so far. Tomas nodded came back with Roscoe, and I slid him into my coat pocket just to be safe. A dangerous drunk with a gun wasn't something that I needed on a random Thursday night. The boy made his way back handed me his "homework" and said "he seems to be telling some crazy story about two people named Rome, and Readel I can't make any sense of it, but it seems important to him." I nodded as I begin to read what he had written, nothing in it made a whole lot of sense if you didn't know GI, but I knew him and despite the boy's poor spelling and dodgy grammar, I made enough sense of it to be slightly alarmed, and a mental note to educate the boy a little better. "Here Betsy let me take him another round over to him, just the beer though the coffee is useless at this point." I walked over to him he was muttered about horses or some shit, I knew what that meant as well. "Don't you think you're taking this if people are horse bullshit just a little too far?" He glanced up, smiled and said "well Sully we will see, I mean not every bet is a winning bet. You just have to make sure you don't bet more than you can lose." I looked down at him, go to the men's room you daft cunt, you've spilled beer on yourself." He looked down starting to disagree when I poured just about a fourth of the pint I had brought him onto his coat. "Whoops clumsy of me. You know we don't have a fucking back door, so don't try to bounce on the tab, clean up and come back and I'll top this one off for you on the house." He reached down for his revolver, "leave it, ain't no one in here to steal it, and no one is going to try to kill you in the damn toilet" I patted my own coat pocket "and I've got me own iron." </p><p>He nodded, I was thankful he had enough sauce in him not to argue, and toddled off to the bathroom. Both of us knew what I was doing, but at least he had the sense to do it. I grabbed his revolver, emptied it, and placed it back on the table, he gave me ample time to do it before he came back to the booth. Nodding his thanks for the beer (wink, wink), he picked up his pistol, hefted it, nodded knowingly to me, and said "well, I guess I need to be heading home." Grabbing the coffee and drinking it down in one long gulp he said "thanks for the beer Sully, here's your coin, minus of course the cost of the bullets you just took off of me." Grinning I replied "you're welcome GI, now get the fuck out of here, and make your bosses proud by showing up on time tomorrow like a good boy." "The last thing my bosses think of me is as a good boy Sully, but I'll do my best. See you next Thursday."<br /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-10967435218872339822020-10-02T07:52:00.001-05:002020-10-02T07:52:48.089-05:00Heureuse<p> We (the non royal we that is) are going to try a little something different in this post. It will probably fall to shit somewhere in the middle, like the majority of the things we write, but at least it will be a different kind of shit. Sometimes you have to try new things in order to realize the old thing was better for a reason. </p><p><br /></p><p>We are going to leave behind, for the nonce, the seedy little world that GI has been trying to navigate himself, and by extension ourselves, through without getting himself killed, or giving away too much of the actual truth. Today we leave behind Serge and his apples (that aren't really apples), Sully and his bar that sounds a real palace, Felix and his fanaticism, and any other "characters" that GI has, or might introduce us to that will make us wonder about his poor taste in relationships. They will return to foul the internet soon, but for now let's us talk about you, and the elusive idea of happiness. This is going to be difficult, so bear with me dear reader(s).</p><p>If you've been rotating on this planet, and by extension revolving around the class M star that is our Sun, for any length of time, more than likely someone, somewhere has told you something along the lines of "I just want you to be happy." If you are lucky they actually meant it, for some of us it was generally said as the person was making us decidedly unhappy, but that isn't the point of this ramble. I will try to stay focused. Happy is, from what we hear, a lovely thing to be. Birds sing louder and more melodiously, the sun is a little brighter, but not as hot, and grass is a lot greener, and doesn't make us break out into hives when we are happy. Things just taste, feel, smell, and look better when we are happy. They (whomever they are) tell us that happiness is contagious like the clap, though most of "them" don't use that analogy. One other problem that "they" leave out when they make that statement is they don't tell you how to achieve this happiness that they seem to desperately want you to be. If you are a little chubby, there are loads of people both willing and able to help you with ideas about how to become less thick and more fit. If you have less than acute fashion sense, many people will give you "helpful" advice on how "not to dress like a homeless person." Many of life's problems are just a helpful agony column away from being solved, but happy, well happy is a tougher nut to crack. It involves a lot of variables that are quite beyond your control, or so you would think, and it depends on whether you think it is the type of feeling you have in the here and now, or the type that thinks it concerns your overall life quality.</p><p>Before we delve into that last idea, we have to take a bit of a detour, you were warned dear reader that things might fall to shit, and this might be where it happens. We need to discuss you for a minute. You, whoever you are, have probably been told that you are a unique, one of a kind, individual, and that it makes you "special" (the good kind of special not the sad kind of special), well we hate to break it to you, but that probably isn't true. You are one of around 7 billion people on the planet, and the idea that you are unique on the planet is unlikely. Depending on where you live, there are probably a lot of people in your city, county, state, province, region, or country. Then we start to talk continents, lots of people live on at least 6 of them. There are probably one or two of "yous" running amok in your country, probably 3 or 4 "yous" on the planet, and then we start to expand our horizons, I mean that's what horizons are for. </p><p>We start with the easy expansion, science is pretty sure that Earth is the only planet with a "you" on it in this particular solar system. That's good, no version of you is rotting away in a prison on Mercury, or dying of radiation poisoning on Jupiter, sadly this also means that no "you" is emperor of a large chunk of Saturn. We continue our expansion to the Milky Way the barred spiral shaped galaxy which all the version of you inhabit. It's a monster to us, but fairly mundane in the universe of 'galaxies'. It contains about 100-400 billion stars, and about an equal number of planets. It is about 170,000 light years wide whatever the hell that means. A group of people way smarter than any version of you knows, have estimated that there are at least 30 "active, intelligent, communicating civilizations" in the Milky Way, we just can't figure out where exactly they are, and how to communicate with them, maybe they can't either, or have made contact with us, saw how shitty we run this planet and decided to bugger off without talking to us (can't says that we blame them). There are a whole lot of other mind boggling numbers that we could toss out here about the Milky Way that would make you feel even more small and insignificant, but we aren't here to do that, this is about happy. We leave our loving "little" Milky Way, and expand further to the universe. That monster of a Milky Way is but one galaxy in the universe which contains somewhere around 2 trillion galaxies, of which about 500 billion would be "Milky Ways." Ponder that for a second (we will wait), and think of the implications it has to "you" and your uniqueness.</p><p>If those clever people are correct and there are 30 "active, intelligent, communicating civilizations" in our Milky Way, then if all things are equal (and of course we've no idea if they are or not) multiple 500 billion by 30, and in theory at least that would give you a working number of how many "active, intelligent, communicating civilizations" that are pinging around in the universe. Of course, all of this is in theory, and certainly some of those civilizations probably are Klignons or Ewoks, making them unlikely to contain a 'you'. A Klignon you isn't just quite the same, and you can feel safe in the idea that in relation to Klignons you are unique by comparison. Also in theory, some of those civilizations might be less advanced than we are. Maybe they haven't reached the walking upright stage yet, therefore rendering you unique in comparison to them as well. We can eliminate a certain amount of those civilizations as not quite good enough (in your theory, we are sure) to contain a 'you'. That is the good news, the bad news is that even if we err on the side of 'you' and eliminate 65% of those civilizations, well we still have 35% left, and by our exacting standards and well reasoned research that leaves a virtual fuck ton (which has to be an actual unit of measurement somewhere in the universe) of potential 'yous' populating a whole lot of other places.</p><p>Process that for a second, or longer if you need to, it is a sobering thought in many ways, and then begin to ponder what that means to 'you'. You've just been knocked off a very high perch, one that the rest of the world has put 'you' and themselves on since time immemorial. It is an idea sanctioned by usage and consecrated by time. That idea is that you are unique like a snowflake (not the political sissy type, but actual snow), and that the world would at least be different without you in it. Maybe not better, hopefully not worse, but at least different. Let's not break our arm patting ourselves on the back, the idea that the world would be worse off without you is hubris, which is also a long held idea by a lot of people but that need not detain us here. More than likely, any of the 'yous' wandering around scratching their respective asses in the universe(s) aren't in any position of power that would make their respective demises world altering events, but I guess you never know. Maybe you are the head of some far reaching, world crushing empire, and when you gasp your last breath the entire trajectory of that world will change. I suppose that is both a depressing, and comforting thought. Depressing in the fact that it isn't the 'you' you know about and sort of makes this version of 'you' seem a bit of a failure, comforting in the fact that at least one version of 'you' has achieved the world domination that you are pretty sure all versions of 'you' have planned since birth.</p><p>However, those versions, however likely, are unconfirmed and probably never will be confirmed to your satisfaction. World domination aside, this version of 'you' has goals even if you don't exactly realize it. A goal can be as highbrow as writing the great American novel, or as simple as getting through the day without strangling someone to death. Goals can be defined very broadly. Not committing homicide is a good goal to achieve, and if you manage it, you should buy yourself a beverage of your choice to celebrate. If you are generous you could buy the person who came the closest to having you fail in that homicidal goal a drink as well, and just merely talk about how'd you almost murdered them today. Maybe you can tell them of your desire to write the great American novel about your plan/desire to murder them as a plot device, and they find it funny or flattering, or perhaps they run screaming from the bar, and you never see them again. Thus, removing the problem of potential homicide from your life without you having to solve the pesky problem of how to get rid of a dead body. </p><p>All of this of this rambling shitshow of a post has been written in the aid of making this version of 'you' happy. I suspect it has failed in that task, but then again happy is, for the most part, an undiscovered county or a bridge too far for a lot of people. The point is that even if there are 30 or more other versions of 'you' flailing about in the void, or picking their nose in the next county over, you are this version. The version that has been dealt these cards at this moment, in this place, and you have to play them. Certainly they may not be the royal flush you were hoping for, and they may (more than likely do) suck, but they are 'your' cards. You are the one that must needs play them. For better or for worse they are all you've got. Bluff if you have to, bet wisely, but don't fold them, they are the only cards you can be certain you'll get. And if those cards lead you down the path of curing cancer great, but if they have you turning in to a serial killer (which isn't so great) at least be the best at it you can be. 'You' won't be dealt a new set of cards, or at least if 'you' are it won't be anytime soon. I wish 'you' luck. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-15960710101551882412020-09-09T07:42:00.001-05:002020-09-10T14:27:04.071-05:00Of Wagons and their Wheels<p> The knock when it came at the ungodly hour of 2 a.m. (it's a sign I am getting old when 2 a.m. becomes an "ungodly hour") wasn't delivered with the force that I had expected. It was a hesitant, almost nervous, knock. It was like the person on the other side of my door really didn't want me to be home to answer, and was knocking out of a sense of duty, and hope that they would be able to go back to whomever sent them to me and say "sorry governor, but the cove wasn't at home, I knocked loud and proper like." Sadly for my nocturnal visitor, I was awake having just ushered a "lady friend" out the aforementioned door with a sigh, and a promise of "brunch" tomorrow. At least that was the plan, I figured our reluctant knocker probably was about to change tomorrow's plans for me. At least I knew it wasn't Felix or one of his goons, their knocks thundered throughout the neighborhood, and damn near took the door off its hinges. Nothing like a good show for Felix and his playmates. Since I didn't have a "double header" scheduled for the night, I decided to end the mystery, and open my door to the nervous Nellie knocking on it. Upon opening it, I was met with a kid of about 10-12 years old holding a note in his, none too clean, hands. "You GI?" he asked, I nodded, "this is for you Sully sent me, said you'd know what it meant." and with that he handed me the, none too clean, piece of paper and scarpered off like he had been shot out of a cannon. </p><p>I suspected that I already knew the gist of the note, if not the actual words, and I began to get dressed (putting on pants at 2 a.m. is just wrong I tell you). For form's sake, if for nothing else, I opened the note and read it "your boy's here, and his wagon has developed a wobble in its wheel. signed SULLY" It was pretty much as I had expected and since it was technically Thursday, I knew what that meant. With a curse and a sigh for being put upon again for the same thing, I left my cozy little love nest and headed to Sully's. It was looking like "brunch" tomorrow was going to have to wait. The walk to Sully's isn't too terribly far from the shithole in which I live, and I figured I would use the time to try to think of a new idea to fix this weekly problem that had begun to plague me, and the few people I sometimes refer to as friends. Multiple approaches had been tried, and they all seem to have failed. Of course, that is the problem inherent in the fact that you've got multiple people trying to solve the same problem each in their own way, and a lack of a "leader" to coordinate the effort. But we do our best, and hope it's good enough, though lately it rarely seemed to be. <br /></p><p>"He's been pouring whiskey down his neck for the better part of four hours, figured it was time to let you know your duty. It being Thursday and all." Sully's greeting was delivered with just a slight grin on his ugly mug, and I grimaced in reply and said "thanks Sully you're a sweetheart as always, bring him the coffee he doesn't want, but needs, and me one of your 'turbo' beers. No need for both to be all the way sober for this shit show." I glanced around Sully's place, which didn't take long being as it's as big as a postage stamp, and saw "my boy" propped up in a booth near the back. Good place for him, since it was closest to the bathroom, and the most dimly lit (which is saying something). I slid into the booth across from him, "what's the rumpus cowboy? To what do I owe the 2 a.m. call of the wild?" He focused his bleary eyes on me, which took a considerable amount of both time and effort. "She's dating someone else, and is probably going to sleep with him." I sighed "well it has been months, and it is my understanding of relationships, limited as it might be, that at some point sleeping together is involved, if you are to advance the relationship that is, otherwise you're just friends without benefits." That at least brought a laugh out of him "of all my 'handlers', and yes I know about your schedule, you're the one that makes me laugh the most GI. Why do you think I picked this shit hole on a Thursday? It ain't for the atmosphere or the crowd." Here he waved a hand expansively about taking in the glory that is Sully's bar, and the 5 patrons in various states of drunkenness that inhabited the place.</p><p><br /></p><p>"So, because I'm the quickest wit of the group, I get the pleasure of this enthralling conversation? Well isn't it just my lucky day" I replied making a mental note to swap my scheduled day with another of our group just to avoid him becoming too smug, and thinking I was at his beck and call. Wait for him to try the old "get drunk at Sully's on Thursday, and expect GI to show up trick again, and be surprised when the least favorite of the group storms in and rips him a new one because they hate Sully's with a passion. He put up a conciliatory hand " now, now don't take it that way, other than the quickest wit, you've also been in the same boat I'm in more often, and more recently than the rest of that lot that call themselves my handlers." I rubbed my eyes "well that is true, but I'd don't think I handled my 'boat' very well, and certainly not well enough to warrant the giving of advice on how to handle yours." He smiled "oh no I'm not going to do what you did, I keep you around as an object lesson, a lesson in what NOT to do." </p><p>The waitress, gods love her, chose that moment to bring our drinks, keeping me from swearing at him with the venom he deserved for that wisecrack. "Here drink your fucking coffee, and no we are not going to "Irish" it up for you." I nodded my thanks to the waitress, gods love her, and sipped my 'turbo' beer, coughed a bit as I realized that Sully had gone heavy on the 'turbo' and light on the beer. "Well my failures aside, what are we here to discuss? her moving on, your crippling inability to deal with that fact, or the fact we've both got to work in the damn morning, and our boss(es) won't be happy to see how shitty we look when we come into the office?" "Oh GI, that is tomorrow's problem, if we survive will handle that tomorrow, for now let's try to deal with today's problem shall we?" </p><p>"This, whatever this is, isn't today's problem. It didn't just pop up this morning and surprise you like an Apache scout coming out the bushes and putting an arrow in our cowboy hero's back. This has been an ongoing problem, and I suppose you've picked today for it to come bubbling to surface like oil, but I don't think we are going to get rich off of it" He smirked, "always the wise ass aren't you?" I nodded "yeah, that's me the wise ass who doesn't know any better than to be in this dive with you on a school night. Other than a sense of duty to keep you employed, and not have to do your work if you get fired that is." He laughed again "don't die because I don't want to handle your "cases." I guess that was the battle cry of our group back in the day wasn't it? Well, back before the group went to shit, for which you are partially to blame, I might add." I sighed "we aren't here to discuss my high crimes and misdemeanors, I don't have enough of this in me for that." I said as I waved my beer glass in front of me.</p><p>He opened his mouth to reply, but I raised a hand "stop, just stop talking for a bit. You wanted me and my 'quick wit' here, well you've got it, and now I am going to regale you with slash force you to listen to a story that will help you out. It's all connected to the solution of your problem that I came to on the walk here. I'm going to shorten it a bit for you, because Sully will want us out of here soon, and given the amount of rot gut you've had, I figure your attention span has been considerably shortened. The story or stories involve two men, one named Alfred Redl and the other Ernst Rohm. One was an Austrian military officer, and the other a German thug. They had a few things in common the full details of which need not detain us here, but the major thing they had in common was their end. Both found themselves in rather hopeless situations, and were given a loaded revolver and told "to do the honourable thing." Meaning here take this gun, go into that room, and blow your own brains out, if you do we will say you died a "hero's death" and your family won't have to live with your shame."</p><p>He sighed and started to speak, but I was quicker "one of them chose the hero's death, and blew his brains out. It was Redl, I guess being a military man, he had a sense of honour or some shit I don't know, but he took the simple way out and avoided the scandal. Rohm, the thug, was actually a decorated veteran of World War I, but when he was offered his loaded gun, a room alone, and 10 minutes to do the right thing, he refused. After the allotted time, hearing no gun shot two of his jailers walked into his room (cell) and shot him. He was then erased from history, at least for as long as his killers were in power. We remember them both today, but neither are remembered fondly. Infamy is the price of treason I suppose." I paused and looked at him, gathering my thoughts for the next bit of my speech to explain to him the plan I had formulated on the walk over. I didn't think he would like it, but I wasn't in the mood to coddle him. He had been coddled enough in his life, which I figured was half the reason we were in this shithole of a bar at an ungodly hour.</p><p>I took out my own revolver, and pushed it across the table to him. "It's got the one bullet it needs, and there is the bathroom." I pointed behind him. "Sully knows all about this, and this place has a very discreet back door, and no one here will have seen or heard anything, if you choose to take Redl's path. The good news that if you don't, you won't be faced with what happened to Rohm, you just come back here give me the gun, and we won't speak of this ever again." He looked at me with alarm, then looked at the gun, "back that way?" I nodded "the men's room yeah. It's closer to the back door, and it's got a lock. I'll expect a decision in 10 minutes. If it's time enough for Rohm, it's time enough for you." He nodded his head, grabbed the gun, and stumbled his way to the bathroom. Sully came over and dropped another "turbo" in front of me, and said "you mad bastard what are you doing?" Inclining his head towards the men's room. "I'm giving the lad a choice, and waiting to see which one he takes." Sully shook his head "don't you think you're taking this "if people are horses" bullshit just a bit too far?" I smiled "well Sully, we will see, I mean not every bet is a winning bet, you just have to make sure you don't bet more than you can lose." Sully shook his head, and got up "you damn well know we don't have a fucking back door." and walked away without another word.</p><p>I looked at my watch, but about that time he came out of the bathroom, handed me the gun, and sat back down. "I couldn't do "the right thing" as you call it, guess I'm a Rohm like coward after all." I shook my head, "no lad you're not a coward at all. Your crime isn't treason, and all of this was just an unfair test. Sorry I had to do it, but I had to know." I flipped open the cylinder on the revolver and turned the gun over, nothing came out. "It wasn't loaded anyway. I was just listening for the click. Also, there isn't a back door anywhere near the bathroom, and carting your fat, dead ass out of there was more work than I was prepared to do. Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.” His eyes widened and he spluttered "you bastard, you gave me a gun with no bullets and told me go shoot myself? You.... you..." I smiled "I gave you a unloaded gun, and told you to do the right thing. Which you did, now the hard part starts." He raised an eyebrow "and what is the hard part?" I smiled "living you daft cunt, living is the hard part, and living without her is going to be harder than Chinese math, at least for a while, but you've made the first step onto that path, and now let's continue that trip by getting the fuck out of here, going home, and making our bosses proud by showing up to work tomorrow like good little boys."<br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-82084852147781130492020-08-25T14:13:00.001-05:002020-08-25T14:13:38.931-05:00Of Silver and Bags<p> I find myself in a strange room, not Star Trek strange it's not that exotic, just a room that I am fairly certain I've never been in before, and I begin to wonder why and how I got here, and who is responsible for my presence in this strange room when the door opens. A cheery, fat fellow walks in, smiles brightly and says "Oh good, you're awake at last." I nod, not quite sure when I was supposed to have "gone to sleep" and not sure why I would have, and I figure it's best not to talk much (or at all) until I figure out what in the blue fuck is going on here. The fat fellow pushes his glasses back up on his nose, smiles again, and proceeds to look at me with some curiosity. "You seem to have calmed down a bit since they brought you in earlier today. Good that means that maybe now we are ready to begin with why you are here." I nod again, narrowing my eyes, but still don't say a work. Since I don't know where "here" is exactly, and do not remember being brought "here", I figure to let fatty do most of the talking. He nods "I understand your reluctance to talk, maybe you don't remember the last few hours, and are worried about what you've done to be wearing that" here he points at the "gown" that I am wearing. Paper thin (aren't they all) and a light shade of blue that has been tied at the waist, but still feels like I am less clothed than I need to be whatever the situation. </p><p>"You were found wandering down Elm, near Main babbling about "trying to find someone to sell her cocaine, and were quite adamant that you did not want to cooperate with the fellows who found you. In fact, one of them has a lovely bruise on his jaw thanks to you. However, there were more of them than there were of you, and eventually you were "persuaded" to get in the car, and be taken here." I grunt in reply, as I do the math, and figure out where here is, still I have no recollection of wandering down Elm, or any other street near Main, at least recently. I begin to wonder if that 'last call' drink might have been a bridge too far, and perhaps that is the reason I am about to have an unpleasant time with this fat fellow. I shrug mentally to myself, and think it wouldn't be the first unpleasant time I've had with a fat fellow. I suppose I should try to make the best of it. Fat boy chooses this moment to stand up, leave the room without a word, come back a few minutes later, and toss a bundle of clothes in my lap. "Here, we washed them, and got them clean, put them on, we have an appointment, and that," he pointed at my gown "isn't suitable attire for our meeting, it would shock the tender sensibilities of the majority of the Nazi party, and certainly we aren't going to be meeting any of them, get dressed."</p><p>I nodded again, and he had the decency to leave the room, while I got dressed into my newly clean clothes, they smelled like industrial cleaner, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. Chubs comes back into the room, gives me an appraising look, and snorts "good enough for our purposes I suppose, but you could do with a shave. Oh well, no time for that now, and I am sure they won't mind, I'd imagine they seen you look much worse many times." I raise an eyebrow at the mention of "they", but fatso ignores my silent inquiry, and walks out, motioning for me to follow. I sigh, ponder the identity of they, suspect it isn't going to be Nicole Kidman coming to take me away from my life of toil that I am going to meet, and follow him out the door. I follow the fellow down a few hallways of your typical bland, institutional type building with the gray walls, and the neutral smells that are designed to be calming, but rarely succeed. We pass no one on the way out, and we eventually make it to chubs car. "Get in we don't have far to go, my office is close, and I figure that would be the best place for our little conference." I slid into the passenger seat, and buckle my seat belt. I figure at some point this is going to be a bumpy ride, might as well get prepared in advance. </p><p>A few minutes later, we pulled up to a typical office building that I assumed contained my new fat friend's office. Confirmed seconds later, when he said "my office, get out, and remember try to play nice. Playing nice is going to be VERY important for your future." Just what I wanted a fat, cryptic fellow trying to be all James Bond on me, while I was still trying to sort out the last missing few hours of my life. I go out of the car, and followed the smug bastard into the building. "In here old boy, and remember, PLAY NICE." He opened the door, and gestured me inside. I walked in, took one look around, noticed the occupants,and turned on my heel with a snarl to head back out the way I had came. Suddenly fatty had a large playmate at his side, a large man with a lot of muscles that were just begging to be used on some idiot like me. Fatty smiled again (he's quite the smiler, our fatty) "now, now just stay calm, and have a seat, and Clarence here" he waved at the mountain beside him "won't have to ensure your compliance." I looked up at the mountain, and figured that I might hit him, but I doubted he would have the decency to fall down if I did, and therefore would probably hit me back, and since I am a decent fellow, I would fall down, and probably wouldn't be in the mood to get back up, so I decided to not test that theory.</p><p>I turned back to face the room (and the "music" inside), glanced around, and took the seat furthest from the other occupants. There were two of them, and neither would ever be confused for members of my fan club (I am convinced I have a fan club, though I've never met anyone who claims membership). Fatty chimed in with "I guess you all wonder why you are here?" Neither of the other two spoke a word, just sat there stony faced, clearly as unhappy as I was in be in this situation. I decided to finally break my silence, and replied "not particularly wondering as much as can't see the point of it. None of us, and I am sure my silent partners will agree, think we have anything further to discuss with or about each other." Tubby grinned, and replied "Oh, I sure you, and these two lovely ladies actually agree about that, it might be the only thing you agree upon, but I am here to give you the, unwelcome to you, news."</p><p>I looked at my companions "since I've apparently got a hole in my recent memory, can either of you lovely ladies clue me into what this fat fuck is talking about?" I pointed at the smug, fat bastard across from us. Both of my companions shook their respective heads in the negative, one looking innocent as is her custom, and the other looking angry as is hers. Mr. Know it All waved a hand "oh no, no none of you would have any idea that this little conference was going to happen today, so don't rack your brains trying to figure out if you missed something. I mean you have missed something, all three of you, but none of you would have any idea that you missed THIS." Here he waved a print out of some considerable thickness, and said "you see when we found Mr. drunk off his ass there (here he pointed at me) wobbling down the street last night, he had this on him and was waving it around like a street preacher waves the bible, the only thing missing was the 'doom and gloom' speech about it being the end of the world. Which is ironic, because after reading this" here he dropped the manuscript onto the table in front of him, " someone's just might." </p><p>That was when the drunken memory flooded back to me. I stood up, rather too suddenly for my head to get the message, swayed a bit, pointed my finger at the fat bastard and shouted "you fat son of a bitch! I knew it! I knew you'd betray me, and here you are making ME pay the price for YOUR betrayal!" I lunged at the table, grabbed the papers sitting there, and begin walking to the door. "Call your boy the mountain if you have to tubby, but I am walking out the door, and out of this shit show of a meeting. I suppose I'll give you the customary 30 pieces of silver for this little 'passion play' at a later time, but for now, I am getting the hell out of here." He put up a forestalling hand trying to placate me "now, now it's not as bad as you think maybe you should read the highlights of that little manuscript before you go off the rails entirely." </p><p>I glanced down at the papers I was holding and rifled through them quickly, oddly most of them were blank. "Are you taking the piss out of me, their blank" I said. "Look closer at the last two pages" he replied. I thumbed to the two back pages, and smile bleakly. "Of course, I should have known that even drunk me would have to be too clever by half. Here you go ladies, I'll leave this mystery solving bit with you" and I left the room. I had made it about 5 steps out the door before I heard them both mutter in unison. "that son of a bitch!" Being the aforementioned son of a bitch, I resolved two things to stay off Elm Street, and to thank a certain apple seller for his silence.<br /></p>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-27239448362380342912020-07-14T07:00:00.001-05:002020-07-14T07:00:08.880-05:00L'Auto Nouvelle"Well this is fancy" I thought to myself as I pulled my newly purchased, new to me, car out of the "dealership." Time to take her on the "open" road, open her up, and see what she will do. Odd how we give ships and cars the female gender (one notable exception Herbie the Love Bug, strange). I wasn't too worried about why we call our cars "her." Truth be told, I was more excited about the joys of ownership to worry about much of anything. After all, I had possessed the same car for quite a number of years, and was pretty chuffed to try out the "bells and whistles" on my newer model. Newness is a wonderful thing, be it a new pair of sneakers, a new pen, or a new car, we all like to try out the newness of our freshly "purchased" items. We like to show them off to our friends (and even our enemies) in a "see what I got you bastards" type of way. Envy me, you peasants, because I've got something new, and you are left with your "old" shit. Admiring glances are nice when they are cast in your direction, and you don't really care if the admiration is for you, or your new possession, at some point, you take what you can get.<br />
<br /><div>
Which is the point of new possession, taking/purchasing what you can get. It is a fundamental tenet of the market. If it isn't for sale, well then sorry lad, you aren't purchasing that particular model today. However, even if the luxury row isn't for you, there are other aisles for you to shop. We all need something to live for, and for some of us new possessions will do as well as anything else. In this mad, mad world where black is white, and up is down, why not live for a new possession? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die has never before struck quite so close to home. Home might be where the hearth is, but this new toy of mine isn't ready for the staid garage that is attached to my lovely house. At least not quite yet. For now this new toy is ready to be taken out and given her head. Let home wait, it will be there when I get back, and eventually we have to head home at some point. Just not right this second. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>No, this second, or minute or hour is going to be devoted to learning the "ins and outs" of my new toy. The previous owner didn't have much to say about her, not that I asked. The transfer of title between me and him wasn't the most "open" transaction on the market, but that is a "him" problem not (yet) a "me" problem, so I will leave him to solve it. She is much sleeker than my older model, and quite a bit faster, this is not exactly a surprise, I mean after all technology is a wonderful thing, but it is a pleasant thing to have confirmed. Just a little press on the accelerator, and off she goes like a shot. Who knew she was ready for life in the fast lane? Oh yeah, the previous owner(s) probably knew. After all, I am not the first to sit behind this wheel, and while I am "ok" with that, I don't really want to give it too much thought. Thoughts like that might "angry up the blood" or take away a bit of the pleasure coursing through my body as my new toy reaches speeds that I haven't been at for a long, long time. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As I reach those speeds, I imagine my new toy telling me that "she" had never been driven quite this fast or this well, I mean after all we all want to be Jimmy Johnson, and be the baddest driver on the road right? I have no trouble thinking this to be true, after all why would the new toy lie? Especially so soon. The engine makes a lovely little purr when I give the fuel necessary, and it is a lovely sound to my ears. I haven't heard that 'purr' in a very, very long time, and I think I could get used to it. If this is the way this toy is going to react, then I believe it is going to require a lot more of my attention. Which is just fine with me. My other toys have gotten a bit staid by now, and gone to seed a bit as well. But this one, is just my type, as George Jones put it, "long and lean, and every young man's dream." And while I wouldn't be called a young man the idea is still the same. Turning heads is a lot of fun, especially at the DMV. This is the kind of ride that needs to be kept behind a gate, to keep prying eyes, and wandering hands away.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Motoring along the King's Highway headed west, I feel as if everything is coming up in my favour. New toy, old owner fleeced, and miles of unexplored road in front of me. But wait, what the devil is that red light on the dashboard? That's a new symbol, the old car didn't have as many bells and whistles, and now I might have a deeper appreciation of that. Less features, the less that can go wrong. Bollocks what was that grinding noise? Nothing to do for it but to pull over, and check out the owner's manual. Hopefully it can shed some light on the "break" that is currently happening with my new toy. I open up the glove box, and out falls some papers, not the owner's manual but maybe it will help? Unfolding them, I get a sneaky suspicion that perhaps my new toy, now belching smoke, and making odd rattling noises, might not have been the "steal of the decade" after all. I unfold the papers, and begin to read, the title seems to be written in French, oddly fitting since today is Bastille Day. The rest is written in English, which is a relief since I've no French to speak of. It starts with "you won't thank me for this...", and only gets worse from there. The main take away from it seems to be that I have bought a "goer, not a stayer" and as the engine finally dies with a loud noise that could be heard a country mile away, I am beginning to think that might be correct.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whomever wrote this little 'love letter' to the next generation seemed to have experienced the same problem that, it appears, I am about to have, I wonder how it turned out for him? Since I am in the driver's seat, I would guess not so well. Great just what I need a fellow traveler on the road to perdition. Reading further, I figure out that the previous owner will not actually walk with me to the city of fools, nor will he welcome me there when/if I make it. Well, that is just grand, he seemed a bit of a cunt anyway, but still in the meantime what the actual fuck do I do about my current situation. Trying to restart my toy doesn't seem to be working, and the owner's manual is not in the glove box, just that letter that was enlightening, but not helpful. I put my head in my hands and wonder, should I call my wife? No that doesn't seem to be the best plan, at least at the moment. Wait, squinting into the middle distance behind me, I see a small building on the side of the road, and volia! I remember I had just passed an apple stand, I wonder if the apple seller might be able to help out a fellow in need. Nothing to do for it, but to hoof it that way and see. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734184.post-47555911938029819962020-06-30T07:50:00.032-05:002020-06-30T18:02:10.920-05:00Of Tallyrand and Banks"Good Morning Chief" he said as he does almost every morning that he swans into my office to annoy me about some trivial matter or the other, and to steal chocolate, always stealing chocolate. I looked up from doing actual work, and noticed he looked a bit "different." I couldn't resist, so I asked "you look like death eating a cracker, something wrong?" He smirked at the insult, sat down heavily, and replied "I under slept a little." In fact, it looked like he had not slept at all, and I figured I was about to get the reason why. He likes to use me as a sounding board, and then generally does what he wants to anyway, but I indulge him, because shifting his fat ass out of my office would take a crane, and I don't own a crane. I gave him the opening he was going to take anyway, and asked "so what's the rumpus?"<br />
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"Aren't you so very clever?" he replied. "It's not like I hide the lack of sleep well, so I guess I'll lay it on you, and see what you think. Sadly, this time chief, I think I may have to leave the solution of this problem in your lap. I am very sorry for that, but once I explain it (using too many words) you will understand why I do not think I have much of a choice." He popped a chocolate in his mouth, chewed it slowly as if to give him time to think of how to start, even though we both knew he had already "written" it out in his head hours ago when he was not sleeping. I waited with as much patience as I could muster, which these days is not much, but rushing him generally doesn't do a whole lot of good. Plus, generally he can tell a good tale when the mood strikes him, and it had appeared the mood had struck him several times over the course of a sleepless night.<br />
<br />
"I have a moral dilemma chief, and one of my long held theories is that when I have a moral dilemma, I always ask myself "what would Tallyrand do?" He sighed and waved his hand "I know this is going to require a bit of a side trip through history, but I owe a lot of money to the student loan people, so let consider this as a benefit of my classical (and as yet, unpaid for) education. Charles Maurice de Tallyrand, to give him most of his names, was an absolute bastard of a Frenchmen who lived from 1754-1838. A pretty wild time to be alive, and French. The main thing to admire about our boy Tallyrand is that he was able to serve as a high government official to King Louis XVI, to the government of the Revolution, to Napoleon, to King Louis XVIII, and finally, to King Louis-Phillipe. I understand that most people don't understand the talent it takes to pull off such a feat, and I struggle to put it in modern terms, but let's just say that collection of governments and masters were pretty much the entire "political spectrum" in France during his life. Sort of like being a Capulet and a Montague at the same time."<br />
<br />
"One of my favorite quotes from Tallyrand is 'I condemn not, I praise not, I merely tell a tale' well chief, that's what I am about to drop on you, a tale (full of sighs) that I have been unfortunate enough to be a minor player in, involved mostly against my will. Well, at least for the last part." This last part was said with a grin, because he had noticed my arched eyebrow, and the skeptical look on my face. "One other thing to remember about our boy Tallyrand, is that he served a lot of masters, but few, if any of them every really trusted him, but he was the best they had, so they used him in some really important shit, like sending him to the Congress of Vienna. Also, he was not the only bastard around, Napoleon was not a sweetheart, and his rival the Minister of Police was a bit of a bastard as well. One last thing about Tallyrand that drew me to him years ago as I was borrowing the price of a F-35 jet fighter to get my education, was that he shared a certain physical handicap that I also possess. It was as close to an inspiration as I was likely to get."<br />
<br />
"But let's leave Tallyrand, at, or near the top of the many greasy poles he climbed (handicap notwithstanding) for the nonce, and move on to part two of this story." Part two concerns banks, and Fat Uncle Carl." I interrupted "who the hell is Fat Uncle Carl, and what is this nonsense about banks, are you drunk, as well as sleep deprived?" He chuckled "sadly I am as sober as a judge, and it will all make some sense at the end I promise. Let's start with banks, since they are only a small part of the story, but still a critical one. We need not go through the history of banking, delving into the Fuggers, and the Welsers, and their near banking monopoly of the 16th century economy in Europe, it is an interesting tale, but one that does not need to detain us at the moment. A famous thief was once asked why he robbed banks, and he replied "that's where they keep the money." pretty simple, and a very clever idea. I mean why waste time robbing the liquor store, that's bush league. Go big or go home, rob a bank, write your name large in the history of thieving."<br />
<br />
"As you're aware, I am a prole, and once a prole, always a prole in my view, and therefore I am not overly fond of banks. As an institution I understand why it has to exist, and I even use a bank on occasion, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. As Winston Churchill once said of his view on the church, "I could hardly be called a pillar of the Church, I am more in the nature of a buttress, for I support it from the outside." That's sort of my view of the institution of banking, necessary, but not exactly something I can get behind with any sort of enthusiasm. Besides there are so ever many choices in the banking world, and I just can never pick out which one is best for me. Some people stay with the same bank for years, and I guess that's commendable, but I also think that at some point familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe people get tired of the same bank after so many years, and want to take their money elsewhere. Who knows why people do the things they do? All banks are not exactly created equal."<br />
<br />
"However, that's is enough about the joys and perils of banking, at least directly, for now let's move on to Fat Uncle Carl's Kleptomaniacs. No one is every really sure if there is actually a Fat Uncle Carl, there is a place, a club, a hangout, or a shithole (depending on one's tastes) that goes under the name of "Fat Carl's", but no one is really sure if he exists, or why the word Uncle got added to his description (it's just Fat Carl's on the sign). I suppose he might be a bit like Keyser Soze, a myth to keep the thieves that come to his club in line. Give us our 15% of the take, or Fat Carl will break your knees, don't steal from other member or Fat Carl will burn your house down to the ground with you in it. I don't know if Fat Carl is real or not, and even if he is, I sure as fuck never, ever want to be (knowingly) in the same room with him. There is no honour among thieves, but they can be convinced to act right by fear, and a healthy fear of Fat Carl keeps many a thief in line. Several miscreants have been led away to face the modern version of the Minister of Police because they broke Fat Carl's rules."<br />
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"Fat Carl's club is the hangout for a bunch of low characters, which is why I go there a lot. I like to fit in, and Fat Carl's is generally a judgement free zone. After all, you can't really look down your nose at a thief if you are polishing the silverware you nicked the night before from some unsuspecting citizen's house now can you? Fat Carl's club has a few unique rules. You can't just walk in off the street like some yeg, and expect people in there to accept you like you're one of Ali Baba's forty. A vetting system, of which few people understand, is in place to keep the absolute riff raff out is in place. Also, there is a password system in place that is a twist on the usual password game. For to get into Fat Carl's requires a password, but the twist is that each 'patron' has their own, unique password, and you give that at the door to the guy with the password book. You say your password i.e. Kumquat, and he looks in the book and decides if your 'nest' is ready. Another unique thing about Fat Carl's is there isn't really a public room. There are sets of "nests" two (or at a pinch) three seat stalls with curtains that allow you to conduct your business in private. If you see another cove at Fat Carl's it is usually only a fleeting glance, and you are best to forget the sighting as soon as possible."<br />
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"There is also a 'rent' system in place, you have to give Fat Carl his share or your nest ceases to exist. Maybe that's where the Uncle title originates. Fat Carl is the jovial uncle that loves his nieces and nephews as long as they pay the rent, but skip a payment and Fat Carl's sunny, sweet disposition starts to cloud over. No one wants to cloud over Fat Carl's sunny disposition. We are all thieves at Fat Carl's hence the "kleptomaniacs" addition to the title. Of course, it is unofficial, can't put that on the sign out front, and not expect the gendarmes not to get wise to the idea. Obviously, there are more thieves that are 'members' of Fat Carl's than there are nests (it isn't an overly large establishment), and when you give your password at the door, you have to wait to see if your nest is free. Fat Carl's other innovation is the "time sheet." When you get there is not the important bit it is the when you leave that matters, and you have to sign a book when you leave. Each cove has his or her own book, and they are kept separately by the gorilla at the door (for he is a large, large man who's bad side you never want to be on). It is a system designed purely to protect Fat Carl. He has the ability to say to the gendarmes "nope don't know what time he got here, how long he stayed, or who he talked to, but this is the time he left. Hope that helps officer." Fat Carl is loyal only up to a point, and between you and him, Fat Carl will pick himself every single time."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Now that the majority of the background is out of the way, I can get to the actual dilemma." You see I have my password book at Fat Carl's and I know other people who do, of course we have to pretend like we don't but you don't get into Fat Carl's by openly wearing a mask, so sometimes a glance is exchanged in the joint. The other trick concerns the fact that me and this other thief got pretty cozy a few years back, and I sorted out their password. If I had to, I could access their visit book, and tell you what time on what day they left Fat Carl's. Not that I would. There is some honour among thieves, but if the gendarmes are trying to pin something on me that I know this dodgy cove may have had a hand in, well, honour is great, but freedom is greater. Which leads to the exact problem, I am about 92% sure that this daft cunt has pulled a bank job, I am also just a sure that the gendarmes have figured that part out as well, and in their rounding up of the "usual suspects" I am sure to have my chance to hold a number up in front of me, turn to the right, turn to the left, and speak some random line to an audience I can't see 'in a normal speaking voice'. I've been there and done that, and it isn't pleasant. I also wasn't a part of the job, but I knew about it (I had seen them planning it at Fat Carl's in one of those accidental meetings we try ever so hard to avoid, and I put it together rather quicker than most)."</div><div><br /></div><div>"One of the problems I have with the gendarmes is they aren't the type to accept Sargent Schultz's "I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing" excuse. They want things simple. They want their man (or woman) they want them now, and they want it as neatly done as possible. Don't get me wrong, my hypocrisy only extends so far, I have pulled a bank job or two in my past, and I am not fan of banks, or what they represent, but I also like waking up in my own (or a pretty girl's bed) without having to wonder if there is an over eager gendarme waiting for me on my walk to the corner store to buy beef jerky and fizzy water." I held up a forestalling hand, "so what is the actual dilemma?" He sighed "I have a copy of the book..." He trailed off shaking his head, "and I don't know which group wants to know what I know more, the gendarmes, or Fat Carl." I don't want to go to stir, especially for something I didn't do, but I also don't want Fat Carl to break my damn legs." I stopped him again, handed him a piece of paper that I had scribbled something on, and stood up ( I had work to do) "here go talk to this guy, tell him all of this, and if he doesn't throw you out on your ass, he might help you." I watched him take the paper, unfold it, read what I had written, and with a look of bewilderment ask "who the fuck is Serge, and what the hell do I want to know about his apples?"</div><div><br /></div>
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<br />The Grand Inquisitorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13938037802131838571noreply@blogger.com0