STANDARDS AND POSSESSIONS
August 14 2014
I flipped my helmet down, stuck the rod near the cornerpiece, and light struck, a beam through the darkness. I dragged it across the black, watching the puddle closely as it fused the two pieces together just mere inches from my eyes. I ended the weld on a run-off tab, so I could ensure no porosity, a thing I only did for valued customers, and opened my lid with one hand as I pulled the arc away with the other. The light faded.
A near perfect weld.
“Pure fucking metal.” I mumbled. I mindlessly thought about how godamn cool my job was as I took a carbon arc gauging stick and tore through the tab piece like butter. It took me a half hour to grind the rest of the jagged end flush but let me tell you, it only felt like minutes. Minutes spent altering and bending and destroying steel into something somebody would need. It was the work of the Gods, and it was real work, as real as anything could get. The metal structure was part of a custom cab piece for a custom truck that would be operating in harsh conditions near the southern coasts near all the water and the salt. It was a dune-buggy thing and it was looking pretty damn cool and I wanted to be there to see it roar off into the distance.
Building stuff just made you proud.
I learned to weld all over Canada. I was born in Ontario and brought up in Quebec and followed my brother’s burning path west.
My brother Noah, the black sheep of the family, who had took off with my father’s nineteen-seventy blood red Plymouth Barracuda, had run off far, and never come back. There was all kinds of ins and outs to that story but I don’t have time for them here and all you need to know is that I got myself into a lot of stupid shenanigans and a lot of shenanigans wanted me dead. So I sold everything I had, stole Benjen’s car (one of my other brothers) and fled west with a piece of shit Impala that barely got me past a couple borders. If my brother could do it, so could I. I was more talented anyway and did better on my own then he ever had. I had fun easily and found virtue in the world. Noah on the other hand always had a shit up his ass. When I got off the Grey Hound bus into Calgary I walked into the biggest economic boom Canada had seen since families had started to ride in on their horses, tired of the American slave wars. Now the victim was oil, thick as ever. It had been around 2008 or something in the likes. I made a living off the oil and welded pipe until the boom died down. My belongings consisted of an acoustic guitar and an Xbox 360 in those days. The cash-money days. The stripper-booze-binge days. The fuckit-lets-buy-this-shot-girls-tray-and-bring-her-home-and-plow-her days. Somehow, I made it to the paid-off-most-of-my-debt days. And that’s when New York popped into my life, just like a nip slip.
Queens, to be specific.
I always thought it would be because I’d be going on tour with my band or because I won the lottery or because my best friend was moving there. But no. It was because of a girl. Sometimes you meet someone and you just fucking thrive together. It could have been a girl or a guy but it didn’t matter cuz' this was the one. I flew there and found a job a whole lot easier than you would think. My attitude was easy. People liked to be around me. And my work ethic was unmatched. I fucking loved welding. And my welds proved it. Same as your grandma’s cookies, only my cookies were made of arcs and pure fucking metal.
The shops that I zeroed in on were the ones that didn’t require drug tests. Those were the places you wanted to find.
And lemme’ tell ya, I found the place.
“The only drug testing I will require is to see how fat you can roll ‘em!” Vaughn had told me with a laugh. He was my boss, the best boss I’ve ever had. When he said these words I knew I’d found my workplace. I hadn’t smoked any reefer in a quarter-fuckin’ decade, a draw-back of working on the pipelines. I literally held back tears. I got along so easily with everyone it was almost weird. Yet, my welds were so solid and so often the subject of conversation in my early days at the shop that I kinda' just cemented myself there. The standards I was used to in Canada were fucking in another dimension all the way down here in New York, oddly as that seemed. Most steel here was built by immigrant wage-cutters who welded shit-poor and for shit-less than the average white male who didn’t live in the same house with twelve of his other relatives. Cherry told me it was the reason half the U.S’s fuckin’ infrastructure was crumbling. It was filled with porosity and worst of all, not getting maintained.
I was ready to maintain anything.
“If Ragnarok was coming down upon us all in a hail of brimstone and fire, the Gods would call upon a man like me to build them a steel cruiser to see the rest of mankind through the oceans of hell and space.” I had once told her. She had just laughed and looked at me like I was a geek. It had taken me a whole night to write that.
Snap back to the present boy. Your welding and your boss is yelling at you!
“Yall’most done there Hal?!” I heard Vaughn’s voice scream somewhere behind me.
I had my lid down since I was touching up the cab piece with my grinding tool, to keep sparks and shrapnel the fuck away from my eyes, so it sounded like the voice was far off or coming down a tunnel. I lifted my finger off the grinder trigger so the blade slowed along with it’s screeching.
“Two minutes boss!” I yelled back. “I’ll stick the bitch on the truck this weekend and she’ll be ready to go on Monday!”
“Good shit son,” He hollered back as I pressed down on the trigger, “we’ll be out back!”
I didn’t need no reply. When the grinding blade was at full speed I leaned down to the cab piece and finished it to a gleam.
When I cleaned up my work area and turned off my machines I headed out back. Vaughn was standing around with a couple of the boys. Vinny and Troy were sitting on the cab of their own truck, guzzling down shot-gunned beers. I must have just missed the occasion or reason for such celebrations, but we drank every Friday like we did most other days, so the day of the week, or lack there of, was explanation enough for me. Cherry was sitting on a milk crate, her name matching her wild red hair. She wasn’t no boy but she probably could kick all our asses if she really tried. She always wore this ringed out leather jacket that was tight as fuck and totally made me think of Jean Grey from the X-Men. She tossed me a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I cracked it open and with my other free hand I managed to slip a pack of half crushed Canadians out of my pocket and cinched one with my teeth. I lit it up, took a long drink, and then a long drag. Then I asked her how her truck was coming along.
“Two done,” She said, her hand fluttering around in a gimme-a-cigarette kind of motion. “One more to go, all for Cladsdale.”
I held out my pack for her, “Damn girl.” Taking another swig. She was a fast worker. I couldn’t speak much for her quality, because we rarely inspected our welds with any tests or x-rays, since our trucks never broke down or failed, but since they never broke down and failed, I guess our quality couldn’t quite be judged, hers included. Right then Simmons walked out, doused in sweat, seeming stuck in one of those stupid mechanic jumpsuits. I’d rather weld naked.
“Holy fuck.” He moaned. He was usually the last guy done, but it wasn’t necessarily because he was slow at his job, it’s just that his huge mass made him physically incapable of moving quickly. We’d had many debates about it. Cherry tossed him a can, but the Pabst careened off the dude’s clumsy fingers and bounced off his belly and hit the ground rolling. Everybody had a laugh as the big man went after it, like a lazy owner goes after a small dog who doesn’t listen. He came back moments later, none embarrassed, downing half the can in one swallow. “I don’t know how you guys do this shit!” He whined. He was a fat man with fat fat and short limbs and the side pieces of the custom cab were small and long, so apparently, when he stuck his arms in to reach the weld zone, he could no longer see anything, or sometimes got stuck.
“Just use new rods the whole time dude,” I told him, “Switch’ em out every time you loose and inch. That way you don’t need to get so fucking close.”
“You need good core strength to pull that off though,” Cherry pointed out, “Biggie is bound to snap like a whale on a toothpick.” She turned to him, “No offense dude.”
“Some taken.” Simmons replied, nonchalantly. We called him Biggie because he looked like a huge black dead man who also had that name, except for he was white. Either that or Bagels, cuz’ the bastard had one every freakin’ morning, without fail, with about an inch of butter and sweet and sour garlic spread. I gagged just seeing him gargle it down his thick throat.
“Fuck that!” Vaughn glared , sipping on his own beer, “I don’t want us wasting rods.I pay for those fuckin’ things you know.” His eyes zipped my way.
“I’ll put ‘em to good use,” I replied, burning up my smoke, “I got a project I’m working on at home.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Vaughn shot back.
“They’ll be all fucked by time you use ‘em up anyway man.” Vinny responded. Some rods required to be constantly heated after they were opened and not being used, or else moisture would absorb into them and induce hydrogen cracking when welding with the rod. Basically the weld would contain moisture which would freeze at cold temperatures and open cracks in the weld and split, like water in the pavement or on the roads.
“I got an oven don’t I?” I replied, flicking my smoke at him. It whizzed by his face and he scowled at me.
I smiled.
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” He replied, “most people these days just have microwaves.”
“Fucked people just have microwaves,” I retorted, “fuck those things.” I had a thing against those mini nuclear devices. They scared the shit outta me and I swear the emissions made me sick.
“Those machines are the reason people die of cancer,” Cherry explained, taking a long, pensive drag.
“Exactly.” I said, crushing down my beer.
“I like to use my microwave for potatoes and re-heating shit,” Simmons said. When he spoke he always seemed out of breath. “Mostly for potatoes though.”
“Mitch Hedberg once told me it takes forever to cook a potato in a microwave.” I told him.
“You spoke with Mitch Hedberg?” Bagels asked quite honestly. I couldn’t tell if he was humoring me or just actually stupid. I hadn’t been at this shop that long.
“Well he did most of the talking.” I said, I walked over to Cherry and took another Pabst from the fifteen-pack she had bought. “Speaking about potatoes I should probably go buy some. My girl loves hashbrowns in the morning. Fried on the pan, that is. And were outta’ milk.” I made my way back towards the shop. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Come in on the weekend if you want,” Vaughn hollered, “I’ll be in. Just call before.”
“Probably will,” I replied. “Thanks for the beer Cherry!”
“No problem dude!”
The rest of the guys waved.
I walked to my welder and made sure my gas was off and then headed to the end of the shop where we used some cabinets and tables as a break area and poured my beer into a coffee mug for the train ride home.
I really needed a fucking car.
The train ride home was boring. I drank my beer and listened to Clutch off my mp3 player. I was off the train and walking half-way through Earth Rocker.
When I walked in the door the gal was lying on the couch with her back towards the ceiling and her head propped in her hands. She was watching some television without a top on. Usually that would have had me aroused but there was some weird long-limbed kid and his weird yellow dog friend on the TV and they were talking to each other and doing astonishing things. I tried to understand for a couple seconds and asked her what the hell it was I was watching but she was too stoned or too focused on the show to respond. I had met her on a camping trip, just my kind of girl. A friend of mine had brought her along and we ended up keeping in touch and became even greater friends than the aforementioned one. They were visiting British Colombia to model in the Cannabis Cup and got featured in several magazines. Yeah, I chased her pretty fuckin' far. We liked to listen to music and go to bars to watch shows, which was nice, but our greatest common point was beer and sex, which I can survive with. It's also nice to have a woman who can muse when you're playing a fucking instrument. I’m telling you, easterners are the best for this kind of crap. No lovey-dovey bullshit included. Her name was Gabriel Amaryllis but I liked to call her Gabby, since its juxtaposed her "cutie" personality so much. A beautiful dirtier blonde let me tell you. After the New York modeling dream totally fell apart she started working at a witchcraft store and read palms for a living and liked to bring home strange concoctions that would apparently make me last longer in bed. I didn't mind and played along. I had always kinda been into spirituality and I loved horror movies... so fuck it. My eyes wandered from the yellow dog’s arms on the tube (which were stretching half-way across the strange acid-fucky land this show was situated in) to the curve of Alice’s back.
“Yo!” I exclaimed, seeing the reason why she wasn’t wearing a shirt, “You got a new tat!” I ran to the kitchen and dropped off my bags full of milk and potatoes.
“Yeah, Tex just worked on it for four hours this morning.” She seemed bored, her voice blank. But I think she was just really into this show, or, like I said before, really stoned. Both most likely. It did smell freakin’ beautiful in here. I sat down beside her and rubbed her butt as I took in the art on her back. At the bottom right corner of Gabriel’s spine there was a woman kneeling in prayer, her hands blossoming blood-blue winds in streaks and spears, billowing leaves of red and gold and brown (which climbed up her back) towards a moon on her left shoulder blade. The new work Tex had worked into her was in and around the moon. An orgy of stars and space swirled around the white rock, spreading from her shoulder in purples and whites and blacks, jet streams arcing through asteroid fields.
“Jesus Christ,” I was baffled, it was terrific work, “Tex really can work a fuckin’ needle.”
“I waited two years just to meet the freakin’ dude, dude,” She replied in a dull tone, “better be worth it.” Gabby was childhood friends with the guy, one of the best tattoo artists in Queens, but it had still taken her two years to pin down an appointment. They had been working on that back piece for ever. I ran a finger across some of the star clouds that seemed gravitated around a black hole that twisted seemingly inside her shoulder like a cyclone, mumbling a long and mesmerized, “Duuuuuude…” as I did.
She twitched as my touch ran over the fresh wounds, “Ow! Get your fuckin‒”
“Sorry.” I got up, commenting one more time on how awesome her new piece looked.
“Well you should go rave about him in person. He said he wanted to talk to you. Well Tony I mean.” Tony Tex was Marc Tex’s son. Marc owned the shop and was better at jotting down ink to skin but he was also a cocky fucking prick with a my-way-or-the-highway kind of attitude. Tony on the other hand was a chill dude, his work was cheaper and his schedule usually wide open. He was also a fan of old style muscle cars, which gave us something to talk about.
“What’s Tony want to talk about?”
“He just said you should stop by the shop this weekend.” Gabby responded with a shrug.
“Alright…” I didn’t give it much thought as I fetched the bong. My gal read my mind, tossing me the grinder she had cradled in her hands. She must have been using it as a chin-rest. “I got some potatoes.” I said as I packed a fresh bowl.
“Make hash-browns. Right now.” Her voice was as blank as ever, her eyes trained on the tube.
“Gimme some hash and I’ll be right on that.”
That got her attention. Her head snapped in my direction and looked at me as if I had suddenly begun to levitate. She smiled as if watching me through a sunflower in a rainbow tunnel.
“Hash-browns…” She repeated, her eyes as big as dinner plates.
I laughed.
She jumped up, “I’m making butter-weed! But we’ll need more weed for that! And butter! I’m calling Donny!” Donny was our dude. “Then you’re gonna fry that shit up!”
“Titties!” I joyously replied, watching her bounce off towards the kitchen.
Flame to bowl, inhale, gurgle-gurgle, hold, exhale.
Adventure time.
₪₪₪₪
When I walked into Mortal Tattoos the next day it was just after eleven o’clock, the sound of little buzz-box machines and needles hammering away like bees in a hive.
“Hey sweetie.” The purple-haired Janine knew me fairly well. Gabriel Amaryllis and Hal Sawyer, the couple from hell, venture around many tattoo shops. I had a couple favorites myself.
I leaned on the counter, catching a glimpse of some massive cleavage this fantastic secretary possessed. Dog the bounty hunter wouldn’t have known what hit him. “Is Tony in?” I asked even though I knew Marc and Tony Tex were always in. They ran the fucking place after all.
“He’s working on somebody right now.” She gave me a grin, seeming to know exactly where my eyes had been moments before. She didn’t seem to mind though. I think she had a thing for me. “Some weird-ass Satanist guy.”
“No shit…” I replied, taking a peek over the bamboo wood sheets that acted as walls around the shop. I caught Tony’s bald head bent over his work. “Think he’ll mind if I have a quick chat? He wanted to talk to me. Told me to swing by.”
“By all means honey.” She waved me through with a smile.
“Tony!” I walked into his work space and grabbed a nearby bench that looked like it belonged behind a drum kit. The Satanist was lying on his stomach, arms folded under his chin. He gave me a furry eye, which I ignored.
“Hal! What up dude!” Anthony Tex paused and looked up. He was in his late twenties, bald, and possessed a crazy long pointed brown beard that nearly reached his belly-button.
“Livin’ the life man,” I replied, spinning in my seat, “fuck how you been?”
“Busy as shit.” He replied, revving his needle gun. He pointed to his client, “This here is Moriker.”
“Moriker?” I didn’t mean it to sound like a question, but it kind of came out that way. “Nice to meet you.”
Moriker looked like a pasty corpse and gave me a violent nod, which shook his barbed little goatee.
“This guy knows all kinds of shit about the deep dark corners of hell and demonology,” Tony told me, “He was just telling me how he got some kid to sell his soul to the devil for five hundred bucks.”
“Fuck,” I blurted out, almost laughing, “I’d sell mine for two hundred.”
Moriker didn’t look impressed. “Grab a table and a chair.” His voice was fucking cold.
A chill ran up my spine, “What?” I garbled, not quite understanding. I thought quickly for a second. A table... I looked to Tony who just shrugged his shoulders and went back to work on the dudes back. I decided to stall.
I turned back to the person whom I actually knew here.“So what did you want to talk about Tony?”
“Fuckin…” Tony carved a line or two, “car show… car race I mean.” He drew and dipped and drew some more, his needle poking into the Moriker guy’s skin like a machine gun. After a while he continued. “A drag race around Chinook mall, Monday night. You should check it out. ‘Gonna be some big underground racers and some rad fucking engines dude.”
“No way, nice! What time?” I always liked a bit of illegal racin’ and I liked 'em even better when they were done with my kind of cars.
.
“Starts at one eleven in the mornin’, on the dot. You’re now one of the twenty people who knows about it.”
“Twenty-one with Moriker here,” I gave a sarcastic nod towards the Satanist, trying to warm up to him. “Shoot me some details on my phone, I definitely want to check it out.”
“Fuck yeah dude.” Tony responded, “Knew you would.”
“So what the fuck we tattooing on Moriker anyway?” I asked, leaning over the bloodied back of the Satanist. Apparently some fucked up ritual. There was a devil, or some kind of evil lookin’ shadow with clasped hands and the outlines of a body across the way, levitating and probably being‒
“A Possession.” Moriker said darkly. I swear his breath was cold.
I rubbed my hands together restlessly.
“Buddy’s getting a fucking devil possessing a body on his back!” Tony explained, genuinely excited, “How bad is that?” Tony mean’t “Bad” ass in “bad-ass”. I would have gone with “creepy as fuck”. The poor man being possessed was in the air, his limbs bent painfully out of shape, and beneath him, I watched as Tony started on a blood streaked pentagon, ritualistic style, dripping from the tormented victim. Another chill went down my spine.
“You getting that table?” Moriker’s voice seemed to come from under me.
“What?” I said again. This guy was seriously creeping me the fuck out.
“You said you’d sell your soul for two hundred bucks.” Moriker looked at me, his eyes like dirty chips of ice.
Tony was looking at me like he was about to laugh but bent down to his work instead, “I can grab a small coffee table if you guys need one.” He added.
I shot daggers his way before turning back to address this creepy goateed fucker.
“You’re telling me you got two hundred dollars cash on you right now?” I asked, seeming to think this would deter him.
Moriker twisted back towards Tony, telling him to hold up. Tony stopped tattooing. All I could hear was Marc Tex, working in the booth next to us, the familiar buzzing-scrapping sound of steel on skin singing for us as this devil-worshipping-son-of-a-bitch pulled out a wad of cash that looked pretty near two hundo.
My jaw dropped.
“You’re gonna be paying me too, right?” I heard Tony’s voice say with a laugh.
Anthony helped set up. He seemed to be getting a kick out of this. I sat across from Moriker, his bony face dead as a stone, which looked like it could be anywhere from forty to sixty years old. This mother fucker was definitely on crack. His eyes danced around the objects he had set up on the table before him, a pencil case and the wad of cash and three coffee mugs Janine had fetched for us. Janine looked at us like we were all fucked in the head before giving a shrug and going back to the front of the shop.
How the fuck did he have exactly two hundred dollars in his pocket? I thought nervously, my brain twitching. I had counted all twenty bills. I could have said three or even four! Why the fuck didn’t I just settle with five! Weird-ass son of a bitch! I studied Moriker’s face, as if I might learn something there that would help me. It only creeped me out further. Tony was tattooing and the Satanist didn’t even seem to notice. He just laid there, resting his chin on his arms. I hoped the money was Tony’s tip.
“You ready?” He spoke.
“I guess so…” I said.
The crack-head took out a piece of chalk from his pencil case and drew a rough symbol on the coffee table. It was a symbol I had never seen before. It looked like a jagged triangle with drooping horns inside a rough circle. Then he put the chalk aside and poured the contents of the pencil case into the black mug. They were all colored differently. One was yellow, one was black, and the other was red.
“Cast them onto the table.” Moriker said.
I paused to ponder a "You-take-me-for-a-fuckin-wizard?!" response but took the mug instead. Cast, I thought. What a fag. I juggled the objects around in my mug. There was a twenty sided dice, a small bird skull, a ring, and a small piece of hempen rope. I mixed them up a bit, hoping for a lucky shake. I saw Tony looking over Moriker’s shoulder too, slightly interested, and I hoped he would inadvertently fuck up and ruin this assholes tattoo. I couldn’t believe I was in the process of selling my soul in a Godamn tattoo parlor.
If this actually works I’m gonna track this fucker down and strangle him with some of my own hempen rope… I pictured Moriker’s face turning purple and his eyes popping out of his skull. I felt like cracking him over the cranium. Instead I let the contents of the mug fall to the table. The hempen rope was touching the bird skull and the ring fell almost dead center on the symbol. It was a scary looking thing made of jet black steel yet I could picture myself wearing it. The ring itself was a weird snake with a man’s face, eating his own tail. The twenty sided dice was off on it’s own, fallen on number thirteen.
You gotta be fucking kidding me... Thirteen? Out of all the fucking numbers…
“Mhmm,” Moriker grumbled, “This is interesting. The rope is clutching the skull, a bad omen… Yet the ring has fallen upon the symbol. Depending on your actions…” He didn’t say anything about the dice, yet I figured that number thirteen wasn’t going to help me much.
I was about to ask him what this all meant but instead I nearly fell over as the fucking Satanist slammed down the black mug on the ring, hiding it from view. Tony didn’t even flinch. It was as if he hadn’t heard a thing. His eyes were on his client’s back and the constant buzzing sound came and went from his gun as he wiped away blood in-between strokes. I looked back to Moriker, my toes curling, as he put the dice and the skull and the hempen rope back into the pencil case with his chalk. He then took the mugs and started weaving them together. I followed the black one as Moriker moved the mugs in an almost impossible grace. This crazy shit was getting tattooed for Christ sake!
When he was done he nodded to the mugs. “Pick one.”
“The fuckin’ black one.” I said, irritated.
Moriker’s scaly old hand revealed that indeed, the ring was beneath the black mug I had chosen.
I rolled my eyes, “La-dee-fuckin-daaa.”
My right foot started tapping against the floor. This stupid game was starting to piss me off. The Satanist moved the mugs again and nodded to them again when he was done with their little dance.
“Pick once.” He said again, his voice prickling and popping as he pronounced the P.
Tony wasn’t paying attention. I stared at Moriker for a moment instead. If you were to look at his face you would have never guessed he was getting a square foot of ink tattooed into his back. He looked like he was reading a boring book.
I looked at the black mug. My irritation was growing, and the sound of needles buzzing really didn’t help. Marc and Tony going at it in combination made it seem like the sound was never ending and multiplying.
“That one.” I said, pointing to the black one again. He took the mug off the table.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
What the fuck. What the fucking fuck! I remained calm, even though a sweat broke instantly over my forehead. The ring had fucking vanished. And I was paying attention, it had been the black mug that he had put over that fucking ring.
When did that slimy bastard slip the ring into another cup?! I was looking the whole fucking time!
The buzzing and jabbing sound of the tattoo guns were really starting to itch at me.
I stared at Moriker and thought, What the fuck is this douche-bag playing at? There’s no fucking way…
Moriker smiled a vicious smile and raised the yellow and the red mug. The ring appeared under the yellow mug. He slammed them back down and started to move around the three mugs between themselves. I followed as closely as I could, looking for any little slight of hand, but he was moving the godamned mugs so slowly it seemed impossible for him to perform any kind of trick. Usually magicians twirled them around as fast as they could so that the cups were practically blurring. Moriker was being so coordinated it was infuriatingly obvious. My eyes followed the yellow mug. There was a black one and a red one and a yellow one. I followed the yellow one. When he stopped I was sure of it. The yellow one. No trick had been performed.
.
They’re fucking colored mugs for Christ sake! I nearly flipped the table then and there and stormed off, but my ego kept me in check. There’s no fucking way…. There’s no fucking way… There’s just no fucking way…
“Last time.” The dead voice said.
Should I pick the yellow one? The black one? The red one? I thought to myself madly. Moriker watched me with his ice chipped eyes and his slight smile. Jesus Christ which one do I pick? Which one do I fucking pick? My finger danced over the yellow one, then gravitated towards the black one, then… Fuck it. Red was my favorite color. I picked the red one. Moriker took the mug off the table. The ring was there. The motherfucking ring was right there. I went to swipe it away but when my hand made contact with the table it seemed held there, as if an invisible hand was squeezing my own against the table or as if my hand and the table had turned into Godamned fucking magnets!
What the Jesus-fuck is goin‒ I began to panic and thought I was going to have a heart attack as the table started to shake and then I screamed and when I did everything stopped and flew backwards and I fell off my stool, nearly knocking a rolling high table with some tattooing accessories on it the fuck over.
“Yo what the fuck!” Tony hollered, getting up. He looked down at me like I was a retard.
“The fucking table,” I blathered, trying to regain my feet, “Didn’t you fucking see that?! The fucking table was… It was…”
It was apparent Tony had no fucking clue what the hell I was talking about.
“Get up you fool, what the fuck happened? Moriker scare you a little? Jesus.” He walked over and rolled the ink-table over towards him, as if I might damage it further.
Moriker was looking at me with a blank stare, holding out the two hundred dollars.
I snatched it. I don’t know why. I just did. I needed the money. Weed and butter.
“When you walk out of here look down at your feet and say your name.” He said.
“Why the fuck would I do that?”
“So he knows your name. Only do it when you’re alone.”
“Fuck you man!” I fuckin’ yelled. “I’m not doing anything you fucking say.”
“Dude!” Tony exclaimed, “You guys gotta calm down.”
“I’m fucking outta here,” I pointed to Moriker, “You better swear you don’t cross me on the fucking street pal.”
The creepy son of a bitch just smiled.
₪₪₪₪
Gabriel was staring at me in disbelief. "What the fuck do you mean you couldn't move your hand?"
"I couldn't move my fucking hand man!" I repeated. I had told her the whole story. "It just stuck to the table!"
"How much did this table weigh?”
“Like nothing!” I yelled, “That’s why I thought I’d just stand up and leave with the fucking thing but when I did it started to shake and wouldn’t fucking budge and that’s when I fucking screamed and everything fucking stopped!”
“And nobody else noticed?”
“No!” I paced around and leaned on the kitchen counter, staring at my fridge. “Tony was like, fucking oblivious.” I mumbled.
“What was this guy’s name?”
“Moriker.” I spat.
“Moriker what?” Gabby asked.
“I don’t fucking know I didn’t ask.” I was just so godamn rattled. Although, I was grateful Gabby wasn’t freaking out. “His last name is probably Spellbinder or Lifedrinker or some crazy shit.”
“We gotta’ find out who this dude is.” She answered. “What did you do with the money?”
“I bought some weed and some butter.”
“You fucking spent it!?” She was walking around me, incredulous. When I didn’t react she smacked me, “Are you fucking mad!?”
“I didn’t spend all of it!”
“You go through all that shit and you weren’t afraid of the consequences of spending the money of the Godamned fucking devil? What the hell is wrong with you?” She smacked me again. “Seriously man!”
“Dude, it was probably some fucking trick. He must have had the table mounted with some kind of weird hydraulic thingy…” I rubbed my beard and the sudden urge to rip it out occurred in my mind. “Tony must have been a part of it. I bet you he was. They probably put a magnet under the table or something.”
“Were you wearing the ring?”
“No.” I replied.
“Well last time I checked your hand wasn’t made of fucking metal!”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed, “I dunno, I dunno man.” I felt like I was going to faint again but somehow got it together. Nothing like this had really ever happened to me.
She came over and hugged me. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”
I hugged her back, caressing her hair. I looked at the TV and my eyes scanned every window in the house and then after that I stared at every lamp and light. It was starting to get dark out and already I was checking for odd shadows or ghostly silhouettes or flickering light bulbs. I was already going fucking crazy.
“At least you didn’t spend all the money.” Gabby said, her head against my chest. She pulled away a little, catching my attention and looking into my eyes, “And you didn’t say your name, did you?”
“No,” I replied. Oddly I felt that uttering my name when no one else was around was more dangerous than spending the money. “No I didn’t.”
“Good.” She said, “Make sure you don’t do it by accident you fuckin’ tard.”
“When the hell would I ever have to say my own name with no one else around to ask it?” I responded, a little smile stretching on my lips. Maybe I thought I was being clever or something.
“I don’t fucking know, just don’t do it.” She replied, a slight smile somewhere on her face as well. She was a piece. Sharp features. Looked like a sorceress from a DnD game. She put her head against my chest again and gave me a squeeze. We stayed like this for some time. “What did the symbol look like?”
“What?”
“The symbol that the dude drew on the table. You said he drew a symbol with some chalk.”
“Shit.” I tried to think. “It had a triangle, with horns, like, a horn on either side. Almost looked like a horned head. And it was encircled.
“Mhmm. I’ll read into it at the shop and do a little bit of thinking.“
“Don’t directly tell Anne what happened. I don’t want her freaking the fuck out right away. She’ll probably make shit worse.”
“Yeah,” Gabby laughed, “She might.” Anne was her boss, a real fucking whack job. Gabriel had brought her along for a couple drinks to a show one time and she introduced herself and immediately grabbed both my hands and told me she was sorry for my mother, who had recently died, and also wished me luck in finding my brother Noah, who had ran away from the family, and told me that my other three brothers, Benjen, David and Isak were doing well. Apparently Gabby hadn’t told her a thing about me and I hadn't told Gabby a thing about Noah so that was all fucking weird as shit. If I had ever met a true psychic, Anne was the one.
“What did Tony want anyway?” Gabby asked.
“Told me about a top secret drag race going down around Chinook.” I was actually pretty excited about that, ”Gonna be raaaaaaaad.”
“Sweet.”
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s on Monday night, you should come.”
“I don’t know man, I work in the morning.”
I shrugged. “Your loss dude, it’s like… Real Need for Speed shit.”
She chuckled a bit. “Let’s watch a movie. I downloaded Deliver us From Evil with Eric Bana.” She gave me a smile that made me want to punch it off her face. I didn’t, obviously.
“Don’t even.” I said. A horror movie, after all the shit I had gone through?
“We might learn a thing or two.” She punched me on the shoulder and jumped over and onto the couch.
“I want to watch Shrek, or something with Robin Williams, or some… Stand up, or something.”
“Dude!” Gabby turned to me, as if she had forgotten about something really important but just now remembered, “Robin Williams killed himself today!”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Gabby grabbed her face with both hands, as if the thought was too much to bare, “They’re saying asphyxiation.”
“I sell my soul to the devil the day Robin Williams hangs himself…” I looked at her. “I’m fucked.”
Statistics: Posted by Hal Sawyer — Mon May 04, 2015 6:28 pm