Diary of a Madman

 The diary landed with a solid 'thunk' on the table in front of me, it even had a pretty red ribbon tied around it to keep it tied shut, and to discourage prying eyes.  "Did you really think that I wouldn't find out?" I looked up at her, and replied "no, not really, but what took you so long? It has been 12 years after all." She snorted a laugh, "Two things I guess. One, I thought that I would be able to let it go, but that just isn't true. Two, I thought maybe you'd change, but that certainly isn't true. So, here we are." I picked up the diary and rifled the pages. "How long have you had this?" She smiled back and said "just about 10 years, you really should find a better hiding place for your sins, or perhaps a different place to commit them."

I shrugged, "well I guess sin begins at home doesn't it sweetheart? It's not like you were interested in anything but the money the business brought into the house. You certainly stopped being interested in me a long time ago." Another snort of derision "you fucking bastard, fucking the maid? How much more of a godsdamn cliche can you be?" I sighed "I am guessing that question doesn't really require an answer, but for the sake of being clear, it wasn't some master plan, and in retrospect it wasn't a particularly good idea." She frowned, and replied "not a good idea Shakespeare? That is the best you can do? With all those pretty little words at your disposal, pretty words that I am sure you employed to talk that little hussy into bed with you." 

She continued, "you realize when the little bitch 'disappeared' I could have told the gendarmes about your little tryst, and they would have probably had a lot of very awkward questions for you to answer? But no, I decided that while you are, in fact, perhaps the biggest bastard I've ever met, that not even you would stoop to murder. I am beginning to think that perhaps I was mistaken." I looked up at her "she left a note, it wasn't the most obvious suicide note, but I think it made her intentions clear enough, and those gendarmes you wanted to feed me to thought so as well." She barked a laugh, "I am sure they did especially after you 'donated' to their Xmas fund, like the loving husband and gods fearing Christian that you pretend to be" 

I pointed at the diary on the table, "you've had this for years, I assume you've read it all?' She sighed "jesus is that what you are worried about? Not worried about me? Not worried about how the lines in that little book ripped my heart into pieces? Not worried about lines sad enough to make me not just cry, but sob so hard I thought my ribs would break. These aren't white lies, you son of a bitch, these are the blackest of black lies. I fucking loved you. You had me believing in the fairy tale that you convinced me we were living, and now I have to cope with the idea that not only is this fairy tale not coming true, but that it was a lie from the beginning. And just for fun, I get to attempt to wrap my head around the idea that you are a murderer." 

That got my full attention, after all being accused of murder by the woman you promised some sort of happily ever after to, does tend to get one's attention. Regardless of the truth of the accusation, it would make for some unpleasant chats with the gendarmes. People who are not known for their sympathy or understanding. I tend to avoid unpleasant conversations, which is a pity, since I was currently trapped in one with no real way out. I stood up, and considered going to her, wrapping my arms around her and telling her how much I loved her (which, in my own fashion, is true), and that we would get through this together. But, I  knew her, I knew that moment had passed, if it ever existed, and that my "pretty, little words" weren't going to get me out of this. At least not unscathed.

She backed up a step, held up a hand, and said "no stay the blue fuck away from me. This isn't something your words can fix Shakespeare. This isn't just you getting drunk, and wandering off, this is...." she stopped there and began to cry. Great racking sobs, not the quiet crying one does at a funeral of a somewhat close friend, but sobs that I thought would break her apart. Ever been there when the nuclear bomb that is you and your actions finally fall? Ever saw someone come all the way apart in front of you and you know it's your fault? I hope, for your sake, that you haven't. It is not pleasant. Not something to tell your mates about over a pint at the local on a Friday night.

She sat down slowly, and said "tell me the truth if you can manage it, tell me why I wasn't enough." That hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks. Ever had someone ask you why they weren't enough? I hope not, it breaks every little bit of you. "I wanted the best for you always, and when I realized that isn't me, I began to drift apart from you. When I realized that I couldn't be the man you needed me to be something inside me sort of broke." She gave me a very, very furious look, and say "broke? something in you broke? you son of a bitch. You're blaming me for what you did?" I raised a hand in protest, "not blaming you, just trying to explain why you just became the voice inside my head, and not exactly real anymore."

She let out a small gasp, "you self-centered son of whore, I am real, I was always real, right here in front of you all this time. I didn't go anywhere, I didn't "fade into the mists of your complicated history" I have fucking been here, right in front of you, all this time. And what do you do? You try to rewrite the 'boy meets girl' story with some tramp almost half your age. I must be as mad as March hare to ever believe any of those pretty lies you told me. You son of a bitch, you even used universal gravitation to explain the attraction we felt for one another. And like a fucking moron, I fell for it, I began to need you like a man dying of thirst needs water. You became my drug, and then you...." 

She again broke off into sobs, and I began to detect an awful pattern, one in which I was the monster that was the cause of the problem. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could form some limp dick excuse for my behavior, she held up a forestalling hand, and said "resolve yourself to telling me, for once in your godsforsaken life, the actual truth. I can't seem to bear the way you can not love me, and for reasons passing understanding, I need you to make yourself unlovely to me." I sat back down, the heaviness of the guilt she was piling on me was becoming more than I could bear. 

"It wasn't like that, it wasn't me trying to do some number on you. I didn't plan to make her into some new, younger version of you. But there she was, a lovely young creature seeking adventure, and ready to see the world. She just didn't realize the world wasn't so sweet or tender. I didn't intend to break her, I wasn't even trying bend her, but well we made the simplest mistake two people in that position can make." Here I stopped and looked at her. She was, even in her grief, beautiful, and here I was admitting that to quote her "she wasn't enough." Not enough for a self absorbed son of a bitch like me. No wonder it didn't register with her, why would it? She was all that anyone with any sense would want. Smart, funny, gorgeous, and even more importantly, convinced that I was what she wanted in a life partner.

"Your betrayal is not something that I can forgive. You have to pay the price for it. All you had to do was tell me. But no, you chose to lie to my face. We can't be together. "This", she waved a hand vaguely around, "can't exist anymore." I nodded, "I had figured as much. I don't have the pretty words that will make this unhappen. I am sure that you hate me." She laughed at that, and replied "You stupid bastard, I really wished I hated you, I wish I had given up on you, I know I am better off without you, but I can't seem to numb the pain of realizing that. So here we are" she pointed at the diary, "stuck with that. Her words aren't as pretty as yours Shakespeare, but they have the advantage of being the simple, raw truth."

She picked up the diary, and opened it to a random page and began to read "June 15th, today SHE had a doctor's appointment in _____ a lovely hour and a half away, giving me and ____ the entire afternoon to explore each other. I have never felt this way before and he tells me that he has to struggle to block out thoughts of me when he is around her." She closed the book with a snap, "I could go on and on and on but you don't need me to, after all you were fucking there weren't you? Then with a small sigh, she whispered "how could you do this to me?"

How do you answer that? How do you explain to someone you professed to love, that at some point things started to go south? How to tell someone who trusted you, that you're hopelessly afflicted with a wandering eye? That is just the appetizer in this confessional feast, then you have to try to explain why/how the 'other woman' made you feel alive again. Or do you? Do you tell her those hard to swallow facts? Do you tell her that, despite being many, many miles out of your league, she wasn't enough? That you might just be the dumbest man in the history of mankind? 

"You got her with child, you careless bastard. It's all in her diary, she talks about how excited she was to be with child, and how you promised to leave me for her, and raise the child together." She began to shake again, but quickly regained her composure. "She had no idea the lies you were telling her just to keep her silent did she?" I nodded "no she wasn't as clever as you, she believed my lies without fail." I saw the storm begin to brew in her eyes, I waved a conciliatory hand before the storm broke over me. "She gave herself away, and I was there to take advantage, and I understand that was in more ways than one. I am duly ashamed, but...." 

"All the promises you made to her were lies weren't they? Tell me they were, tell me you promised her treasure to look upon just to get in her bed, tell me the river in the time of dryness you promised her was a lie? Tell me that the eyes in the time of blindness you promised were not real." The familiar tone in her voice, made me feel even worse. She was telling me about her hell, the hell that I put her into and through with my stupid choice(s).  She continued "all these years, I made you a daughter and a son. I watched you leave for work, and come home at 5 on the dot, and here you are fucking the help. Don't rub it in how wrong I have been about you all these years. We were married, and I am still here with your children, the children you can't deny. The children you can't abort. The ones that bear your fucking name." She stopped, out of breath, anger making her chest heave.

The mention of the kids broke whatever resistance I had left. I threw up my hands and said "what do you want me to do?" A very small smile came to her lips "I am glad you asked Shakespeare. I have exactly the answer to your question right here." She pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to me. "Read that Shakespeare, and let me know what, if anything, you think?" I took the papers, opened them and read her terms. They weren't overly complicated. I was to 'disappear' presumed a suicide (a neat trick, since "she" was eventually adjudged one too), and never darken the Republics door again. "I don't care where you go, just as long as it is anywhere but here." She was, in her opinion, generous with her terms. I was to write a note, get on a train to _____, and never come back. She allowed me enough money from the sale of the business to make my fall from her grace, non lethal. But it still hurt, a lot. I'd like to say I left a better man, but I doubt that is true.

So here I am, a thousand miles from nowhere wondering where I should actually be. But then, as I look around, and realize that time no longer matters to me, and that the bruises on my memory are beginning to heal, and the bloodstains on my hand are beginning to fade, I understand there is no place I'd rather be. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half Christmas

She slid her quite lovely ass into booth across from me, and gave me a overly bright smile. "Afternoon lover boy, how are you doing? Next week is your birthday? Feeling any closer to shuffling off this mortal coil? Have you named an heir to the ____ Empire yet? Not that I expect there is much to inherit other than unpaid bar tabs." I looked over at her, there was a time when looking at her was my full time job, a job I took with just a shade too much seriousness before it all went pear shaped, and ended in tears (mostly mine, I am not sure she is capable of crying).  Nowdays I was merely content with seeing her from a distance, generally a distance greater than the one currently between us. "I pay my debts. Well, eventually I pay my debts. I have yet to have Sully claim any of my possessions in form of payment." She let out a giggle, "your possessions are a lot of books that no one other than you would ever want to read. What would Sully do with them? Open a reading library for the drunk and cynical? Or maybe a primer for how to plan a failed revolution?" I laughed "none of the above sweetie, Sully knows my reading habits, in fact the bastard has read most of them himself. But I am not here to read Pilgrim's Progress,  I am here to find that old familiar drunken feeling, you know something that I can count on to the end, unlike you."

I sighed, " and yes it is my birthday next week. A day, which I might add, you helped me celebrate a few times in the past by each of us ending up in our birthday suits. Any chance that is why you are here today? One more trip around the bases for old times sake?" She smirked "not bloody likely lover boy, my new man might be a bit upset about that." I laughed "well we don't want to upset anybody now do we? That would just be a damn shame. So, exactly why are you here? To gloat about new boy toy? To rub it in that you won our dirty little war? We drifted apart for a reason, mainly you, so why don't you do exactly that and drift." A look of shock crossed her face, and I must confess I felt a little bit of joy about that. The fact that I could still shock her all these years later meant something. Granted, I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it meant something. Perhaps a shot of whiskey would help me figure it out.

She recovered her composure quickly enough, "I know you will find this hard to believe since you don't really believe in anything, but I do want what is best for you. I just wish you would figure out what is best for you" and pointing at my glass "before that swill kills you." I laughed "this swill as you put it, is about the only thing I want for my birthday. Not a new horse, a new gun, and certainly not a new you." I lifted my glass and swirled the amber liquid around slowly, you see even when whiskey lets me down, and it has several times in the past, at least it has the decency to get me drunk first." I continued "besides I can at least afford the whiskey it merely costs money, I can not afford another you, you cost people their souls."

She sniffed "always the brooding poet on that shit aren't you? You stopped making me happy, the skies became a lot greyer, and you took my sunshine away. That is why I left, this can not be a surprise to you." I laughed "and you call me Shakespeare? that was one of the most sadly eloquent things I've ever heard you say. Usually you saved your eloquence for roundly cursing me for the nine kinds of fool you thought me to be." She  shrugged "you are decidedly still nine kinds of a fool, but thankfully for the cosmos, you are no longer my fool to corral. The only reason I even remember it's your birthday is because you always referred to it as half-christmas, which from a pagan I always thought funny." 

"I don't exactly consider myself a pagan. It's not that I don't believe in god(s), I've just yet to accept their terms. Therefore, while we remain in negotiations about the terms of any worship/boon granting, I shall continue to find faith in nothing other than whiskey." I exhaled "other than coming here to celebrate me being a year closer to the grave, why are you here? It's not like we are getting the band back together, neither of us are going to change into the person the other one needs, and to be honest, you just make me sad. I look at you and see the what ifs of my history writ large in very, very bright letters that even at my drunkest I could read. I see the past we share and the future we should have had but for...." Here I trailed off, there was no need to say the same shit to her again all it did was give her an odd type of joy.

 She rolled her lovely eyes and said "to be such a well read man, you can be as thick as two boards. Of course the band is not getting back together, our past is just that past, we don't have a future, well at least together, and I figure with another birthday your future is dwindling away. So I thought that perhaps you'd have enough sense to understand why I am here. I guess, as usual, I have overestimated you." She stood to go with a slight frown on her face, but I waved her back down. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you're telling me you've an actual reason to be here other than to torment me, and remind me how you want me to die in fire?" 

She sighed "yes Shakespeare, I am here for an actual reason, and it isn't to set you alight in some sort of reenactment of a Viking funeral, at least not yet. You'd probably be better off dead if you were to take the starring role in that act. I know it's hard for you but try to think. Think about it from your own point of view. If the roles were reversed why would you be here?" She stood up, and it began to dawn on me "but just in case the whiskey has addled the little sense you have left, here's a clue, and she slowly so very slowly unbuttoned two of the top buttons on her blouse. I don't need your mouth for the pretty words Shakespeare, I've other plans for it and you. Your tab is paid, and let's get out of here so we can go some place quiet like where you can unwrap your present, me."

 

 

Roseman's Farm

 

 The Duke of Wellington, when confronted with someone who tried to blackmail him by threatening to publish letters of his to his mistress, said "Publish and be damned" So here I go publishing, and I suspect I was already damned, but this certainly won't help. 

The disaster of Powers' Gate broke something in me. I am sure I wasn't the only one of Lobar's Wolves that felt that way, but fuck the Wolves, I was too busy trying not to die to worry about them. I suppose I should have cared, after all Lobar's Wolves had fed me for quite some time, and food is important to maintaining life. However, that kind of thinking was way beyond me after Powers' Gate. Powers' Gate made me want to curl into a ball and die. In fact, several people became quite worried that I would just go ahead and do what Powers' Gate failed to do, and kill myself. I don't know if that was the best idea, but a lot of people who pretended to give a shit about me were concerned it was the path I was going to take.The irony of people thinking I was going to off myself after a surviving a battle in which several people would have happily made me unalive, wasn't lost on me, but irony and all its complicated machinations wasn't exactly something that I was particularly worried about.

 However, offing yourself if you plan to do it right, takes a fair amount of thought. A fair amount of planning and an idea about what comes next. Not to you because you are as dead as dead can be, but to the poor sons of bitches you've left behind to clean up your shit. Shuffling off this mortal coil is easy enough, there are pills to make it happen, there are guns galore to put to your forehead, or in your mouth. There are even ways to make it happen where it looks like an accident. Jumping/falling in front of a train springs to mind. These ideas, and more (which we will save for a later day) all came to mind as I staggered away from Powers' Gate. I couldn't understand what happened at Powers' Gate, It was quite simply a disaster.

Disasters are hard to process, the mind can't grasp the information the world is feeding it. It is like the eruption of Vesuvius. It comes out of nowhere, at least to you, and it destroys everything in its path. It simply does not compute. You weren't prepared for this, and even if you had pretended you were, you really weren't ready for the scope of this. Powers' Gate was the hammer and you were the nail. It slammed into you like a shit ton of bricks, and left you pondering why you were left alive. The educated amongst us call it survivor's guilt. The survivors just call it being lucky. At the time, I called it a mistake. A mistake I thought long and hard about rectifying. 

Moral cowardice was the main reason I didn't finish what Powers' Gate had started. It is a lot easier to be physically brave/stupid when you are doing it in front of a crowd or as a group of people. Collective bravery comes from not wanting to be the first bastard to piss yourself, and run away screaming from potentially becoming thought about in the past tense. I drifted after the Gate, I had no desire to rejoin the remains of Lobar's Wolves (now branded La Compagnie du Chapeau, whatever the fuck that meant), and continue the soldiering life. 

I wasn't anybodies idea of Napoleon, but being a soldier was all that I knew. It was what I had been for the majority of my adult life, and now I was over it. It was wrenching, what was I to do now? Become a fucking farmer, planting some sort of seed I knew nothing about to raise crops I had no idea what to do with? Maybe go to sea and become a sailor, tricky since I was a sinker not a swimmer, and knew fuck all about the sailing life. Factory life? Being a wage slave had no appeal to me, but here I was shiftless, homeless, and clueless. Take the veil, or become a monk? Tricky to do that, when one doesn't believe in god (or at least the current, most popular god). Therefore, I doubted the priesthood was the answer to my question of how to stay alive. It was in this very confused state that I stumbled upon Roseman's Farm.

Despite the years that have passed since, I remember the exact moment I ran into Roseman's Farm. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't something that I saw coming, it just kind of happened. I didn't have Lobar's Wolves or Claudell's Marines at Roseman's Farm, it was just me. It was a simplified version of single combat, and it was all the more intense for that. Divisions and divisions of screaming men trying to murder each other for the love of God, King, and Country are all very confusing, and it is easy to get lost amongst the numbers, but here at Roseman's Farm it was just me, and well Roseman, the owner of aforementioned farm.

This "single combat" was new to me, and I must confess rather confusing. How does one hide in this situation? How does one pretend not to be terrified? Terror, when  you are feeling it among a few hundred other people isn't as awful as one would think. Terror when there is no one to share it with, is crippling. You can't make this type of terror unhappen. It strikes deep inside of you, and makes you want to be anyone else but yourself right now. 

I spent a considerable amount of time on Roseman's Farm. I learned a fair amount about myself, the wolf that raised me, and life in general. If you consider Roseman's Farm a battle, which I am not sure that you should, I would count it as a victory. I walked away from Roseman's Farm, which was the goal. Sometimes walking away is as good as it gets. We don't have to bring back cannons or flags of the "enemy" to adorn the halls of our fair city to prove our success. Sometimes just not losing is to be considered a win.

At the time, I had no idea that this was the first "battle" of Roseman's Farn. After all, it was just a speck on the map, not one that would stand out to anyone making any sort of useful map. A map that I was going to pull out of its case and find a black spot on, and decide that was where I needed to go next. 

 

Waiting on a Train

 I peered off into the distance, every since Big Ed Magee had punched me back into the stone age about a year or so ago in some dusty no name town in the Dakota territory, I didn't see so good. At the time I figured it would go away, but it seemed I was stuck with a bit of permanent blurry vision. I'd like to say that fucking Big Ed's sister was worth, but truth be told, it probably wasn't. Don't get me wrong she was lovely, but Big Ed didn't cotton to the idea of some "low life scum" such as myself planting a seed that would grow into the family tree. That is just a long winded way of saying I couldn't see a fucking thing past about 30 yards in front of me, so I had no idea what I was peering towards. Luckily for me the sound carried, Big Ed's punch didn't affect me hearing, and a train whistle is pretty damn loud. Even more lucky for me, I had the Kid next to me, the Kid had a lot of flaws, but poor eyesight wasn't one of them. If for no other reason than that, he was useful to have around, helps you figure out which direction to shoot. 

Hopefully no one would need to be shot, I wasn't much of the killer type, not like the Kid. The Kid was a killer's killer. Something inside the Kid didn't complete the cycle it was supposed to, and because of that (maybe?) he was a stone, cold killer. I don't think he enjoyed it, I never really felt the need to inquire too deeply into what made the Kid tick, or rather tick so loudly. I didn't figure it would help me sleep at night, nor would I be able to resolve whatever the fuck issues he had, I'm no head doctor. Hell, I am no kind of doctor, I rob trains and, when the mood strikes me, the occasional bank.

Which is why I was here, blindly peering towards the sound of a train's whistle in the middle distance, and checking to make sure my gun was at least loaded. I had no doubt that if anyone needed a little "lead poisoning" either the Kid, or our fellow desperado, a dude by the name of Shaw would be more than happy to unalive someone.  I didn't know much about Shaw, he was laconic personified. If you asked Shaw a question, and got more than four words in reply it was a minor miracle. In fact, the Kid and I had a running bet on just such a thing. So far, the Kid owed me about 11 pints or 4 shots of whiskey, or any combination of the two. However, Shaw wasn't in the outfit to entertain us with speeches from Hamlet or Macbeth. Shaw wasn't quite the killer that the Kid was, but he wasn't exactly shy of pulling his big iron to settle any sort of dispute. Some questions don't need more than four words for an answer.

The Kid was a pretty bright boy, and he had picked our spot well, the train with all that lovely money that we needed to keep all the pretty whores in the territory happy, would have to come to almost a full stop as it rounded Pembeton's Bend.  Which, if the plan went as it was supposed to, three desperadoes, would approach the nearly stopped train, "convince" the engineer to come to a complete stop, while we relieved the _____ Courier Company of its monthly payroll. I knew that the payroll was destined for working men unlike myself, but I figured the company could afford to replace the loss, and beside those pretty whores weren't interested in me for my looks. If she can't love you for who you are (and to be honest I couldn't blame her), then at least let her love you for the money you spend on her.

The whistle got closer and the train began to struggle around the bend, which had the advantage of slowing it considerably down, and off we went 3 idiot desperadoes waiting on a train. We got it stopped easily enough, too easy now that I think about it, but at the time what did I know about stopping trains?  We did the whole cliche of "hands up and no one gets hurt" bullshit. And Shaw kept the passengers "calm" while the Kid and I moved toward the big payday. Just as one would expect, some overly loyal employee of the _____ Courier Company barred our way. The Kid asked "George" very politely to open the safe, but out a misplaced loyalty George refused. 

Unlike all the stories you hear, saying "no" to a fellow intent on robbing you does not end well for you. The Kid sighed deeply and then very calmly shot George in the forehead. As George toppled over, as dead as dead can be, the Kid slowly stepped over his body, placed what he thought was just enough dynamite against the safe, lit the fuse, and yelled let's blow baby!!!" And blow it did, the fucking amount of dynamite the Kid used might have opened the gates of Heaven, and they sure as fuck blew the door right off the ____ Courier Company's safe, and left me with a slight ringing in my ears that persists to this day. At this rate, I'd be blind and deaf in a year, and of little use to the Kid, or the pretty whores. 

"Burned money doesn't spend Kid" I said when I was able to stop the dust from choking me to death. The Kid spat out a mouthful of dust himself, and just laughed, "gold don't burn my boy."  As a few paper bills swirled in the aftermath of the Kid's dynamite experiment, I arched an eyebrow. "what do you mean gold? I thought we was after the payroll." The Kid looked at me like I was simple, and replied "don't think GI, when you think you weaken the nation. Just point your gun at who I tell you to, and try to look desperate when the occasion calls for it, oh and grab the other end of that there box. Your strong back is more use of me than your half blind eyes." 

"The _____ Courier Company doesn't pay its employees in gold Kid, so what the fuck are you babbling about gold for?" The Kid nodded "they surely don't, and we ain't here for no fucking payroll to deprive some poor son of a bitch of his monthly wages. We, my little buttercup, are here for that there box. Which, I might add, I asked you to grab the other end of already." I glared at him, and then grabbed the other end of the box. The dynamite hadn't done a lot of damage to it, and stenciled on the side of it were words that made my blood run cold. "Fuck me Kid, have you lost the last part of your mind? We can't rob this, this will get us hanged, and probably hanged again for good measure as a way to discourage others. Don't you remember what these sons of bitches (here I pointed to the box) did to Black Tom Doyle? Took his fucking head clean off when they hanged him. Folks still talk about it and it has been 7 years ago. They say half the town fainted when his head popped off like a cork coming out of a bottle."

The Kid shrugged, "they'd hang us anyway" he pointed at George's body. "Killing that fellow isn't exactly going to be counted as community service in these parts, so we might as we get as many dollars as we can, while we can." I grunted I supposed he had a point, but still being hanged once and proper like was bad, being hanged by the bastards we were now robbing would be twice as bad, even if you were just as dead either way.  Just then Shaw came through the door, looked around at the disaster we had created with the dynamite, saw the box, saw the words on the box, and said  "what the fuck are you idiots doing? We came for payroll not that shite." much more than four words, thus costing me one shot of whiskey. I only hoped to remain alive to buy it for the Kid. 

The Kid smiled, looked at me and said "you owe me a shot of whiskey that was 14 whole words." Then he looked at Shaw and said "stop making speeches and go get the fucking horses you ape, we need to be anywhere but here, and quick like." Shaw, having used up his allotment of words for the week, just nodded and went to get the horses as he was bidden. We lugged the box out of the boxcar, put in on the spare horse, and rode like the devil himself was after us for almost a full day, until we decided that killing our horses would be a bad plan, and we could at least pretend we were safely far enough away from the scene of the crime to rest.

When we woke up from what seemed a week of sleep, and opened box, we found enough gold to make Midas jealous. Gobs of the stuff, it was like finding Blackbeard's long lost treasure, gold, gold, everywhere gold. I confess it gave me heart palpitations, and I idled away a few lovely hours thinking of how all the lovely whores in the territory would find me handsome for at least a year with all this gold in my pockets. Which as it turns out was way overestimating how long all this gold would last. You see, the ___ Mining Company, whose name was on the box, were a proper set of bastards, and apparently clever ones as well. It seems they had been robbed before by other immoral, thieving bastards (unlike us), and had taken to spreading a thin layer of real gold coins on the top of every box to make it look like we had made the haul of the century. As we later found out, to our cost, the rest of the "gold" coins were brass painted up to look like gold. Our take was barely enough to keep me in whiskey and whores for a week (not that I stinted myself on either, but I am not a spendthrift either). 

However, one thing we did 'gain' from our little robbery, was a lovely pair of watches that Shaw had taken off a couple of passengers, and the eternal enmity of the _____ Mining Company, which wasn't exactly what I was aiming for, but it seems they take losing any amount of coin as a personal insult. I considered the brass coins the insult myself, and therefore the ____ Mining Company and I were going to have a long, healthy hate, providing one of their hired dicks didn't shoot me in the back like a dog one day. Those watches would come in handy in later days, but those are stories for another time. This was merely a starter tale to the life I lived with the Kid, and how shockingly the only one of us to end up dancing at the end of a rope was Shaw. 

 

 

 

 

Droit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pluie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

She hates

 "I hate you, you arrogant son of a bitch" she said as she sat down on the bar stool next to me. It was not exactly what I was expecting to hear on a random Tuesday at my local, but when I stole a glance over at the person making this statement, I was not surprised. "Well, hello to you too sweetheart, can I interest you in a drink?" She glared at me, again another one great at glaring.  "Yes you stupid bastard, buy me a drink and I will try to pretend I don't hate every bit of your guts." I waved  to Sully to bring her whatever the fuck it was she drank. Sully, being the classical trained bartender that he was, knew exactly what it was that she drank. I, on the other hand, knew that it was red, and fruity, and that was about it You would think I would know what it was, but I had no clue. Another entry on my list of sins according to her. 

"I don't think you fully understand how much I hate you" she said with real conviction. I took a long, slow sip of my beer, sat it down and said "well I've a pretty good idea, but feel free to clue me into what exactly it is that inspires such emotion." She let out a small laugh, "that's the problem with you, you stupid bastard. You've no idea why I hate you as much as I do. I could have said I love you and your reaction would have been the same." This peaked my interest, and I looked over at her, "well I would have preferred the latter to the former, but I suppose you are correct. As much as I hate to admit it." 

I sighed, after all I had been waiting for this encounter. It wasn't a surprise that me and her had issues, a fair amount of people knew it, and a fair amount of people were very confused about whether we hated each other or were having a torrid affair with each other, thus was the confusing nature of us. "Would you like to know what I think about this, or would that just make you angrier?" She chuckled, "no you fucktard, I've no desire to know what, if anything that you think. In fact, I've a fair idea that you don't think much at all, which is the problem." 

Her green eyes blazed with anger as she said these last words. They were the green eyes of a cat, and she was about as loyal as one. That was one of our major problems, neither one of us was particularly loyal to the other, or so we thought. It wasn't until after I had "betrayed" her (in her eyes at least) that I realized how loyal she was to me. After that, she never believed that I was ever capable of being loyal to her.  Which was a shame, because my betrayal of her was made under circumstances in which I should have known better.

I paid the price of my "betrayal" in many ways. I lost her. Whatever she was to me. I lost the person I "betrayed" her to, and I lost a lot of self respect. I should have known better, and I should have done better, but I didn't, and no matter how many times I admitted that to her, she was not in a forgiving mood. I glanced over at her, I could feel the anger radiating off of her, she was all but vibrating with rage. "I'm a bit too drunk for this conversation, but I figure you knew that already." She laughed "of course I did, you fucking moron. I know you a lot better than I would ever admit, and I know Tuesday is a day of drinking for you, and I know you'd be doing it in this shithole."  

I nodded "well I understand you are here to vilify me, and I can't say that you are wrong, but I would like to at least attempt to explain." She gave me a very, very dirty look and said "fuck you Shakespeare, you've explained it to me over and over, and all it comes down to is that you preferred fucking her over being friends with me." I shook my head and tried to think of a reply to that statement. The problem was that, godsdamn her, it was exactly on point. How do you reply to that shit? How do you tell what might have been one of the two people in the world that you trusted (and she would say of me multiple times that "___ doesn't trust anyone.") that you betrayed one of her deepest secrets to one of her "enemies." 

How do you explain that you were, in fact in love with one of her enemies? How do you explain that to someone who is angry enough to murder you in your sleep? She's in no mood to listen to how your were retarded enough to believe her enemy was anything but your enemy as well, no matter how many times she fucked you. "You've no idea the way I felt about you do you?" she asked. I pondered this for a minute. I had an idea but it was more of hope than an idea, and I didn't figure that this was the time to try that theory out on her. Instead I shrugged, "well I had some hopes about what we were, but to be honest I was never exactly sure." 

She rolled those lovely green eyes, "you fucking idiot, how in the hell could you have not known? I trusted you. I told you shit that I didn't tell anyone else. How, in the actual fuck, could you be so godsdamns stupid? You sat across from me in my office, at meetings, and at several bars, and we talked about this, here she waved her hands in the air to imply what "this" was. "This is why I hate you. You ignorant bastard. Even more so because you're too fucking stupid to know why." 

An odd thing about a woman you've know for several years, a woman whom in spite of her theory of you, you did in fact trust, a woman that perhaps if things had been slightly different you could have made an attempt at, telling you that she hates you. It has a rather sobering effect, no matter how many pints you've managed to pour down your throat, being told "I hate you" with the conviction she had, sobers you up a bit. How do you show her how you feel? How do you tell her all that trusting bullshit, when you put a knife in her back? Stop pretending you weren't the bastard she is calling you? Admit you are the bastard she claims you are? Will either of those help? The result is the same. 

I looked her in the eyes, and said "don't leave like this, I promise someday I can be the man I used to be in regards to you." She said "I wish, I really wish I could take that for the truth, but I know I can't keep believing I will ever see a change in you." She looked me back in the eyes and said "don't bother telling me anymore lies, I've heard them all before, and I understand that you'll never be the man I thought you could be." With that she stood up, and said "I imagine you'll spot me one final drink for old time sake" and walked all the way out of my life.

The Day they Hung the Kid

 It was a rather nondescript day, the day they hung the Kid. I was there, but I wasn't exactly advertising my presence. There were several people at this blessed event that would have liked to had a "word" with me outside, and would have left me laying in a puddle of my own blood "outside". Either way the Kid, was the man of the season at this soiree, and this dusty, little town in the backwaters of _____ didn't have a lot of soirees, and I was just there in the back to see them do what they needed to do. ____ had saloons yes, whorehouses yes, and an oddly plentiful supply of banks, but they didn't throw a lot of parties for the likes of me or the Kid.  What is not to love about a town full of whiskey, whores, and money that just begs to be stolen? Two of thsoe things are just there for the taking if you have money, and well the third, if you were me and the Kid possessed the money we needed to get the first two, and we weren't the "taking out a small loan against next years crop" types.

I had the dubious pleasure of knowing the Kid longer than anybody, bar his parents.  I can't say that it was exactly a decision I had a lot control in making. We went to school together and our last names were one letter apart. Therefore we got sat together, picked to do random tasks together, and in no relation to our last names, punished together. Usually, such forced socialization results in random conversations in which most people find they have something in common, even if it just vices. The Kid and I, well, we had a lot of vices, most of them in common. The vices we shared (he had one that made me shudder, but that is not our concern here), were the usual ones of young, stupid men with no idea what they want to do with their life other than enjoy it too much. 

After school was through with us (which was long after we were through with school), the Kid and I went our different ways. I heard about him, and his "exploits" from all the usual sources, and I secretly hoped he would become so infamous that I could tell people I knew him "back when he was a nobody" for free drinks at my local bar (after all, a boy has to pay the rent). I figured that was all I would ever do, read about the Kid and his crimes, I never figured that I would be a part of them. But, life doesn't stop for you to think too much, life generally carries you along like drift wood on a raging river. 

It was in a riverside tavern that I ran into the Kid. I was propping up the bar, and making sure they didn't go out of business for lack of custom, when in walked the Kid. At first, I didn't really think of him as "the Kid." After all, we were the same age, and I wasn't going to call someone I had spent time trying to learn my letters and numbers with, "the Kid."  "Hello A____, it has been a while, I would ask what you are up to, but all I need to do to know that is read the paper." The Kid glared at me that is until he recognized me, then he broke into a wide grind, "GI, fancy meeting you here! Where have you been hiding yourself all of these years?" I shrugged "working, earning, you know being a good little Prole. Just like my father and his father and so and so." 

"Still playing the sucker bet GI? You know of all the reprobates we grew up with, I figured you to do better. You were my guy." I looked over at him with a bit of shock, "your guy? I am not sure that being your guy leads to a long and healthy life." He let out a small chuckle "aye, you've the right of it. My 'guys' have a bad habit of dying. But, you GI, you're a lucky cunt if there ever was one. You'd beat the Maid at her own game, and few, few people beat the Maid." 

"I was very,very lucky to beat the Maid, it took exactly zero skill." He laughed "see that's me point, even after winning the jackpot, you're too stupid or humble to admit that it took a fair amount of skill. Humility, is what they call it, and since I've none and you seem to be awash in it, I decided to bring you along." I smiled at him, "well since that jackpot has long since been used upon the vices we used to (and probably still do) share, I guess I am "volunteering" to be your partner, unless you've a better option." He slapped me on the shoulder and said "good lad, I knew that I could count on you. Now here is the idea." With that, I became his 'second'. His partner in a fair amount of crimes, that if caught and convicted of, would see us spending a fair few years of our lives in stir. 

The law was thin on the ground in those days, and the Kid and I made a lot of hay while the sun shined. We stole a lot of things, and money. We tried to justify it by saying that we stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and that we were the poor, but that was bullshit. We stole for the sake of stealing, and for the lifestyle we lived off of it. We tried very hard to steal just from the banks, not from the people, but sometimes a large diamond ring is just too pretty to resit. These days were happy in their own way, and I don't regret them per se, but I realized that perhaps the Kid had different ideas.

The Kid was, not to sound gay or anything, a very pretty man. He had the indecency to couple his good looks with a charisma that would make a nun blush. I was just basking in his reflected glory, and counting the money we stole. We never actually had to shoot anyone, which was great because for the most part I handed the Kid a shotgun that was as empty as his head. I figured the Kid would never pull the trigger on purpose, and I didn't want him pissing himself and accidentally shooting some poor fool that we had no grudge against. We weren't going to retire to the south of France with the money we took, but it was enough to keep us in a semi-fancy lifestyle. 

It was that semi-fancy lifestyle, and the Kid's natural charisma that changed his, and by extension, my life. It seemed that people just naturally liked the Kid, and he ate that admiration up like a kitten with a bowl of milk. I, on the other hand, just cared about the dollars. I wasn't trying to win a beauty contest, I was just trying not to have to go back to mines and work for a living again. Over 12 years, the Kid and I robbed 15 stagecoaches, and 4 banks. The banks were the harder of the two, and twice I rode away with a bullet in me from a over eager bank guard. The Kid, as one would expect, rode away unscathed.

 Living what people would later call a 'double' life can get confusing after a while. Getting names straight when you have to change them as often (or more often) as you change your underwear, can be very confusing. Add a fair amount of whiskey to the equation, and a fair maiden or two that just needed one more fancy lie to fall into bed with you, and you have a prescription for disaster. The Kid didn't partake of much of the former, and his good looks and charm made the telling of the latter less necessary, However, those among us (i.e. me)  who possessed less beauty and loved more than his fair share of john barleycorn, had to tell a few tall tales to those fair maidens to convince them that we were the heroes of the day that they had been waiting all their lives to meet. 

As one would expect, eventually one of those fair maidens would take more than a little offense to my convincing lies, and would find her way to the gendarmes to explain that at least of the fellows who had recently robbed the stagecoach to ____ was, at present, snoring the remains of the morning away in her bed as they spoke. It was only because the Kid had remained less than black out drunk the night before, that he was able to rouse me out of my death slumber, and get us the hell out of that particular town. The Kid was a happy go lucky type, but he was not amused. "Your love of the bottle will be the death of us one day ___," he would say with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "mark my words." 

I did mark his words, but whiskey has a call that's easy to hear and hard to resist, and fair maidens well they have a certain allure that I didn't even bother to attempt to resist. After all, life is short and you might as well dance while the music is playing, because eventually you'll die dancing on the end of a rope. Which was why the Kid decided that maybe the outlaw life wasn't for him anymore. I suppose besides those pretty looks, the Kid was also the brains of the outfit. Looks and brains, why did I hang out with such a loser? I suppose it was inevitable that the Kid and I would eventually go our separate ways, which one day in ____ we did. He shook my hand and said "____ we have had a good run, but there is just no future in this for us, you're either going to drink yourself to death, or your drinking will be the death of us, and I am just not quite ready to feel the Devil bite me on the ass as they pull the lever on me because your drunk ass couldn't keep his story straight."  I nodded "fair enough Kid, I don't really understand why you've stuck around this long, but no harm done, and I hold no grudge against you and wish you well." With that, I went west and he went east, I found out eventually he went very, very far east.

I kept the big iron on my hip, and went about the business of trying not to starve to death. Honest work had long since lost its allure to me, and I decided that without the Kid at least my percentage of the take would double. The main problem is robbing stages and banks is a lot harder by your lonesome. I had some near escapes, and wound up with a lot less of a "take" than I had hoped. Several weeks would pass when I did have to bite the bullet (so to speak) and perform what people would call "honest work" just to keep body and soul together. I didn't like it, but I figured that dying of hunger was a lot less fun.  

I would get news of the Kid from time to time, seemed going east had agreed with him, and he had become some nob banker type. The irony of that was not lost on me, and I figured the Kid was just playing the long game before he robbed the bank from the inside for a change. The allure of ____ like the allure of hard work, lost its luster, and I decided that maybe east would be as nice to me as it was to the Kid. Which is why I was there the day they hung the Kid.

I was surprised that the Kid hadn't ended up in some big Eastern town, but I guess he wasn't as sociable as one would think, maybe all those years of hanging out with me had rubbed off on him. The dusty little town of ____ would not have been out of place a thousand miles west, but it was this town that decided that day that the Kid needed to be hung. I am not much of one for parties, and parties that require me to play dress up are even lower on my list of things I want to do, but I figured I owed it to the Kid to be there when he was hung. But here I was, wearing what passed for my Sunday go to meeting clothes, waiting for the guest of honour to make his appearance. 

Eventually he did, he swanned into the room flanked by two fellows who were clearly strapped, all smiles and with the same woman melting grin on his face that I had seen a thousand times. He didn't seem to have changed much, except his Sunday go to meeting clothes were a lot nicer than might. Seems getting hung required everyone to play dress up. The actually act of being hung took a lot more time than you would think. A few people had to give speeches about the Kid and what he had done and whatnot, and then someone would remember a story about him, and would just start talking. It went on, and on and on. I was begging to wonder if I had came to see the Kid hung or to some sort of rally in support of the Kid becoming governor. 

I stayed as far back in the crowd as possible. I ain't much for mingling with strangers, and I didn't think this lot wanted to hear MY stories about the Kid. Seems most of their stories made the Kid out to be some gentleman who loved his mother, Jesus, and walked on water. I knew that the Kid's mother was a whore in a parlour house on Utah Street in El Paso, and that he didn't much care for Jesus, and that he couldn't swim. I also knew that my stories making the Kid the human bastard that I knew him to be wouldn't exactly win the crowd over to my side. I decided, for once, that keeping my gob shut was the best plan, at least until the Kid saw and recognized me. 

He was in mid-conversation with some overstuffed fellow in a suit, and his eyes raked over me, and expressed only a moment of surprise before he looked away, if you hadn't been paying attention, you wouldn't have thought anything of it. Lucky for me, I happened to be paying attention. Robbing places on your own makes you pay a lot more attention than if you have a partner. I didn't make any move to talk to the Kid, I figured as he was the star of this show, he would find his way to me in his own time.

For once, I was right. A few minutes later the Kid sidled up to me and said loud enough for some people to hear "Henry Mckinney!!! As I live and breathe. Last I heard of you, you were in the frontier prison of ____ for conning little old ladies out of their egg money. When did they let you out?" My face reddened as I gave him the best "fuck your mother" glare I could manage under the circumstances and "Replied, You sir are confusing me for my brother Dick, the shame of the family he is, and we try not to talk about him in polite society." Nonplussed the Kid walked closer and grabbed my elbow and steered me to a quiet corner. "You sir are correct, I apologize and beg a moment of your time." 

The Kid was not longer a Kid some grey had reached his hair that I could see now that he was up close and personal with me. "You miserable Son of a Bitch what are you doing here? I really did figure you to be dead or in prison by now. How have you managed to maintain both life and freedom at the same time?" I shrugged "well Kid, I guess they" I pointed to the crowd "don't know you by that name do they?' He smiled "No they do not, and I would ask you not to tell them. It might shock their tender sense of decorum to know about the things we did together." I laughed "Oh don't worry Kid, your secrets are safe as houses with me, not like this lot would believe me anyway. Besides I just came to see you hung."

Before he could reply, some fat fellow in a suit two sizes too small for him called for everyone's attention. I figured that we should at least pay some attention to the fellow as he seemed to be making the announcement that I had came for. It was the big moment for the Kid, and here he was caught off guard and out of place (in the back talking to me) seems the east had dulled his sense of timing, and I was secretly thankfully that I wasn't robbing the place with him, he would surely get us killed with timing as bad as that. 

The speech came to it's big finish and cries of "George Rawlins, George Rawlins" rang out from the crowd. I quickly figured out that "George Rawlins" was name that these people knew the Kid under (it wasn't close to his real name, but I wasn't Henry Mckinney either).  With a flourish, the fat fellow pulled a rope, and a silk covering fell to the floor. "It is my pleasure to unveil this portrait of George Rawlins, the youngest director of the Bank of _____, and all around good egg. I looked over the heads of the crowd, and there on the wall hung a fairly well done picture of the Kid, all dressed up and smiling like the cat let loose among the pigeons. 

I suppressed a large laugh, and looked at the Kid "It's a perfect likeness, really catches the je ne sais quoi of you. Don't you think? He hissed back between firmly clenched teeth "we will talk later you SOB!" Then he plastered that pigeon eating smile on his face, and made his way to give the speech these people had come to hear. Not me though, I shook my head one last time, and gave the Irish goodbye to the Kid. Maybe one day we will talk again, but for today's purposes I had heard this town was famous for a certain brand of whiskey, and I was anxious to find a bottle of it to climb into. And that is the story of the day they hung the Kid. 

P.S. for those poor savages that don't know. Things are hung, People are hanged.

Powers' Gate

 Fresh off the victory of Brock's Pass the collection of reprobates that deemed to call themselves Claudell's Marines staggered away drunk both literally on a lot of pints, and figuratively on its own sense of power. I say we called ourselves Claudell's Marines because, well we did, none of us had managed to figure out a new name to attach to our mast, and therefore we wandered around as Claudell's Marines. We were just missing Claudell, and as mentioned before none of us were in any shape, form, or fashion marine material. Hell, I couldn't even swim. We had won the battle of Brock's Pass, and we thought that maybe this fighting thing wasn't so tough after all, and therefore, full of piss and vinegar we stumbled onto Power's Gate.

By this time, Wilson had managed to find a new 'leader' to be the semi-loyal second in command to. His name was Apple, like the fruit. He was far, far from a fruit. He was a hard man, tough as a two dollar steak, and as dumb as a box of hair. Perhaps, that was what endeared him to Wilson. Hard but stupid is a lot easier to control than a thinking man who doesn't really want to die, but realizes that he has to fight for a living. I wasn't involved in the command decisions of the group who by now had decided that Lobar's Wolves had a intimidating ring to it. Therefore we were newly christened Lobar's Wolves. No one had to know that Lobar was the cook of the outfit, who it seems had one goal, which was to poison us with his terrible cooking. Perhaps, we could wreck terrible revenge forcing Lobar's 'stews' upon the unsuspecting populace of the world. If the stew didn't kill us first. 

Victory, no matter how easily achieved, has an affect on people. Win one, and you start to think maybe you are a lot tougher than you really are. I mean after all, Brock's Pass was a walk in the park wasn't it? Maybe Hester's Reach was just a mistake, an anomaly that wasn't a true expression of our fighting abilities. Yes, that had to be it, Hester's Reach was just a foolish mistake made by that damn fool Claudell and now that he was rotting, unmourned, in his grave, we could move on to victory after victory, and become the men our mothers wanted us to be. Of course the problem with becoming the men our mothers wanted us to be just meant we were becoming our fathers, a terrible idea for a lot of us. 

 Avoiding falling into the trap of "becoming my father" was the main reason that I took the King's Highway away from the small, small town that threatened to "swallow me".  But, as I have said, victory does crazy things to people, and despite our most fervent sputtering to the contrary. We marched the direction they told us to march, because that's what dogs do, they follow the path the master has pointed out. Apple was a bastard, but he marched right with us, no fancy high horse for him. Apple ordered you to march with him, not for him. That makes a very, very large different once things that can kill you start getting thrown around. 

Swaggering away from Brock's Pass, our newly christened band of idiots now known as Lobar's Wolves, decided to go north. I mean on maps north is up, and we all want to get "up" in the world right? We packed our death dealing baggage and hit the road. Thankfully for us, the powers that be had built a fairly easy road north. Striding north, on good paved roads, led us to getting what was, for us, considered "happy" not the smiling, giggly type of happy that most people experience, but a brief lifting of the gloom which is what passed for happy for us.  When things seem to be too good to be true, they probably are, it was on that gentle walk north to nowhere, that Lobar's Wolves ran into Powers' Gate. 

The flatness of the road was a lie, a trick played by the god(s) of geography into making us think we had a easy run in front of us. As usual, we were wrong, it wasn't Apple's fault per se, but a few of my fellow 'wolves' weren't best pleased with him. Flat land does funny things to time, climbing up, or falling down a hill or mountain has a way of making time flow a bit differently. It slows at some points, and speeds up at some points, but when walking on flat grass and seeing nothing much more than flat grass all around, time drags. Eventually, the fattest among us started to complain. It seems that the fatties of the group could tell when they were walking uphill. 

As we topped the rise that the fatties had told us we were climbing we stopped for a second. Most people, if they are actually human, stop for second at the sight of Powers' Gate. The South River tore a great, gaping hole in the landscape in front of us. It made zero sense that the South river would be north of where we had been, but who are we Mercator? The South River had at least one unique quality about it. For reasons none of us could figure out, drinking from the South River made about 1/3 of us puke our guts out. We had a doctor with us, and one would think he would have sorted out what made the water make some of sick, but when he was sober (which was one day in three) he would say it's in Gods hands. 

A religious doctor was as useful as tits on a boar hog, but he was all we had. And when it is the only opinion you are given, well then it has to be true. The power that the South River threw against Powers' Gate was amazing to behold. The cannoning of hateful water against the iron gates of disdain was enough to make a man deaf as a post. The news that we were dreading, but assured of, happened within minutes. Our task was to force/take those gates to slam into those gates like the South River, but with the added benefit of capturing the gates for the Empire. 

Powers' Gate didn't fuck around, it was very tall, very solid, and very much storm proof. The son of a bitch that had designed Powers' Gate was a real bastard of engineering. I don't think the Empire was ready to pay the bill that it would cost them to have us force Powers' Gate. But, funny thing about Empires they pay those costs all the time, need a garrison of men to die for the cause in some desert wasteland? The Empire can provide, need a band of heroes to die in the flat grasslands of the East? Ask and the Empire shall provide. Want to launch a winter crusade? The Empire will provide a multitude of men wearing crosses on their armor prepared to die for whatever God you are crusading for, and a few for the God you are crusading against just to make it interesting. 

However, Empires be damned, we weren't Empire men. We were Lobar's Wolves, and Lobar's Wolves didn't want to get sent home in tiny, wooden boxes to the few loved ones they had left behind. But we had been paid, and Lobar liked to say that "once I've been paid, I always see the job through." It would have made a nice epitaph for his tombstone, problem was we never found enough of Lobar to bury, so he received no tombstone. The main problem was we weren't experts at this fighting business one crushing defeat, and one walk over victory do not make hardened mercenaries out of farm boys, shop clerks, and degenerate gamblers. Powers' Gate was very much a bridge too far for Lobar's Wolves, and it was at Powers' Gate that Lobar's Wolves ceased to exist.

I somehow managed to stagger away from the disaster of Powers' Gate, one of the few of us that did. I don't remember much about it. I take that back, I remember way too much about it, but every time I think of it, I go and get mind numbingly drunk to make myself unremember it. It is not a pleasant memory, nothing about the massacre that happened at Powers' Gate bears remembering or repeating. Apple died, Lobar died, and most of Lobar's Wolves died. I almost died, there were and have been many, many times that I wish I had died there, and Wilson almost died, which is saying something, because Wilson is not the dying kind. 

Powers' Gate was the kind of life altering experience that most men don't walk away from intact. I damn near didn't. Powers' Gate made me consider the priesthood, and I don't believe in any of the Gods. That's how bad it was.  I counted the steps away from Powers' Gate in inches, not miles. Every inch away was a minor miracle. It was nasty, brutal, but not short. Time has a way of elongating when you think you are about to die, and I felt that the 'battle' of Powers' Gate lasted as long as the Trojan War. 

I did manage to make it away from Powers' Gate alive, I had no dignity, I had no pride as a fighting man left, I was a husk. Someone who the battle had ripped open, and sucked out all but the very last dregs of life. It was a massacre, it was a disaster, and to this day we do not speak of it. All of all the bruises left on our collective souls, Powers' Gate is the biggest by far. It has never healed, and I doubt it ever will. It was nearly the end of me (us), and the less said about it the better. It was many years before I even considered re-entering the lists again. Many, many times after Powers' Gate, I considered joining my fallen comrades in the most simple of ways. It took a lot of will power that I didn't know I had to not just end it all, but I figured I owed the fallen something. I owed them the chance at redemption. It just was going to take a while to achieve anything close to it.

 

She loves

 She sits down next to me, and tells me she's fallen in love with me. "I love you" she says as she stops her thoughts and turns her head. "I guess I am not suppose to care but I do, I love you."  It is said in an almost apologetic voice, as if falling in love with me is something to be sorry for. If only she knew the truth of the matter. However, who am I to tell her? She's not a classic beauty she's not the tall, willowy type that has a walk that makes traffic stop, and grown men feel underage. Yet, she is still miles out of my league, and has no business being in love with me. She just sat down and said "I'm in love with you." Not something one expects whilst drinking himself into yet another stupor on a random Tuesday, but nevertheless, here we are. I glance over at her to see if maybe, just maybe, she's taking the piss out of me, but no she is looking as earnest as can be, and seemingly quite serious about her declaration of love. 

She  glances back at me and says "don't laugh, it isn't fucking funny. Do you think I had any intention of falling in love with you. YOU of all people. You're a self confessed bastard, and that is putting it mildly as to what you really are." She lets out a small laugh that could have been confused for a madman's giggle. "It makes exactly zero sense to be in love with you, after all you seem to only capable of loving yourself and no one else. The shitty part about that is, that you told me that, and I wasn't clever enough to believe you. Why, I don't know. What it is about you that made this happen? You bastard, do you have any idea how alive you make me feel?" I looked at her with something approaching panic, and said the only thing I could think of which wasn't clever. "I've no idea what that means, am I supposed to?"

She calls for a drink, which I think she desperately needs, and looks at me with those muddy brown eyes, and repeats "I am in love with you, you stupid son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what this means?' I shudder a bit as the reality begins to sink in. "Well, I guess it means we need to think things through a bit more than we have so far." She chuckles a bit at that, and replies "think things through? What the actual fuck do you think I've been doing for the last month, you ignorant bastard? I've spent hours telling myself that there is no possible way that I love you, that you're the most self-centered bastard I know that you always take the hard way to get what you want. That I love you in spite of yourself." 

I take a very thoughtful swallow of my beer, "you will get over it, I promise." Her eyes flash at that and she very, very calmly says "fuck you, you dumb son of a bitch. This isn't something to 'get over' like the flu, I am IN LOVE with you. Do you have any fucking idea what that means?" I look over at her again, her eyes are virtually shining with feeling, "no I don't think that I do, and I think I might be afraid to ask." She glares at me again, and says "well let me clue you in Shakespeare, it means I am in love with you, you with all the faults you tell the world you have, and all the faults that you refuse to admit that you have. All that shit you spew out to the world to convince them you're a terrible person, I don't buy, I see past it. I see the large "R" romantic in you that refuses to die, no matter how hard you try to kill him. I see the not only the man you are. Which, godsdamn me for saying so, is pretty amazing, but the man you can so easily become if you just get out of your own way just a little bit."

I shake my head, "sweetheart you are much too smart for this, this is a decision that someone like you just doesn't make." She puts up a forestalling hand, "no dumbass stop talking. You just don't understand it, and I am not sure you ever will. To be honest, I am not sure I can put it into words, or at least words you could understand. And you know what, fuck that why do I need to? Why do I need to break this feeling down for you? Why can't you just accept the fact that, for reasons passing understanding, I am in love with you. It defies logic, it makes exactly zero sense, it is perhaps the worst decision I've ever made, but here I am madly, passionately in love with you. All you have to do is just accept it." 

I take another long swig of beer, and smile at her. "You're as mad as a March hare. There is no way anyone like you can possibly be in love with someone like me. It makes as much sense as chickens learning the polka. I am not quite the bastard I make myself out to be, but I am still not worth all this emotion." She snorted at that, "don't you think I know that you, you idiot. Of all the men I know you are the least likely..." What I was least likely to do, I never found out, because at that moment, the front door of Sully's swung open and in walked the dynamic duo of Mutt and Jeff. "Boss wants to see you dickhead, come along nice and quiet like for a change." said Mutt or was it Jeff? Who the fuck knows, and at that moment I gave exactly zero shits. I nodded at her. "Well, sweetheart, it would appear that my dance card has been filled by another. Fear not, I shall return, or at least one hopes I will. With these ladies" I pointed at Mutt and Jeff, "one is never exactly sure."

She glared (she is a great one for glaring) at me, then at Mutt, then at Jeff. I winced because I had been on the wrong end of that glare before, Mutt and Jeff, well they aren't smart enough to understand the meaning of that glare, then again it probably didn't bode as ill for them as it did for me. I stood up, and pushed enough money across the bar to cover my tab as well as hers. "I am sorry for the interruption, but these gentlemen, using the term very broadly, don't like to be kept waiting. Do you boys?" Mutt, or was it Jeff grunted, and replied "just get your ass in the car GI, we have other things to do besides retrieve you." I finished my beer, I am sure you do lads, I am sure you do, helping little old ladies across the street, saving children from burning buildings, and such other heroics surely take precedent over ferrying me back to your boss. Lead on MacDuff, off we go to pay the piper that is Felix." 

With that I walked, cheerfully for once, out of Sully's with Mutt and Jeff to find out what fresh hell Felix had cooked up for me. I suspected that when I walked in and all but kissed him on the mouth for rescuing me from the spot of bother I was in,  it would greatly confuse him. Which for once, gave me the upper hand with the bastard. However, I knew that at some point, he would let me go, and she would find me again. After all, all the Pipers must be paid.