“You.”
I rubbed my nose. Saw a plume of black smoke, abstract and lively, floating just inches away. Felt carpeted lips kiss mine. Breasts rubbing along my cheeks. Then it was gone.
“That was Shadow,” David said.
“Don’t care.”
“I’m going to answer your final question and save you the embarrassment asking.”
“That’s not a sentence.”
“You want to know what you’re doing down here.”
I toyed with my glass. Would have done the same with the ashtray, but it was already spinning of its own accord. “I want to know how I can get out of here…”
“Do you know what’s going to happen in the future?”
“No, but if you hum a few bars, maybe –”
“You can see. Can’t you?”
“Make a shot appear in front of me again, could you?”
“You don’t know it, but you do…” David wasn’t being dramatic. He wasn’t even that interested. The empty panacea of any lifelong bender setting in. Eyelids drooping, stretching down, dipping into his drink before snapping back up. “You tell things. Come up with scenarios that aren’t scenarios. Nobody listens to you.”
“Nobody listens to me because I am genuinely unpleasant to be around,” I said. Drank hard this time. Motioned for Spectrum to bring on the booze. “I’m entertaining. A cautionary tale. Doesn’t prove a thing.”
“Your project,” David said. “The one you’ve been working on since you were fifteen. Came to you out of the blue, right? At The Blue Note, listening to Herbie Hancock’s first concert in years. Pulled out a notepad and just started writing. We’ve kept tabs and it all points to something. A hurricane. An enormous wave. An oncoming disaster somewhere in these United States that is going to change everything.”
I kept cool. “You’ve been reading that nonsense.”
“Yes.”
“You, in particular?”
“The Gentleman helped a little.”
“I hate that guy.”
“You know what comes next.”
I shrugged. “So the words are written proof that I’m some sort of soothsayer?”
“Better hope so,” David said. “Your writing isn’t very good.”
I smiled.
“Want proof?” he asked.
“I would love proof.”
He pulled out a quarter. “TAKING ALL BETS!”
Once more, the jukebox cut out. Halfway through Allen Toussiant singing Mother in Law. Everyone gathered around. Started exchanging money, pink slips, with ice cubes for markers.
David told me to call the coin toss.
“Really?” I laughed. Unconvincingly, washing down my cigarette with Jack. Ice cubes changing shapes against my lips. “Fifty-fifty shot, that’s going to settle it for you?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“Every one of us started same as you.”
“Good for them.”
“We all know you’re a gambler by nature. Call it.”
“Call my balls.”
“Heads or tails.”
“No.”
“Let go and call the fucking flip.”
“Fuck you, and fine!” I took down the rest of my drink and slammed it against the bar. “Chicken!”
He flicked his thumb. Sent the coin flipping. Up towards the ceiling, where a chicken happened to be soaring past. Plucked the quarter right out of its arc and swallowed it. Dissolved into thin air along with a rousing chorus of wan disappointment. Everyone handed their money to the Cyclops, and there was another question that would always remain unanswered.
I turned back to David as the music started up. “Come on.”
“You called it. Heads. Tails. Quantum chicken.”
“You planned that.”
“So those are your options,” David sighed, drank. “Either we’re the most brilliant, conniving people you’ve ever met…” A nearby regular passed out in a plate of lentils. “...or you can see the future, and you belong down here with the rest of us.”
“I don’t belong anywhere.”
“Neither do we.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Glad you think so.”
“About me…” I put out my cigarette. “You’re wrong about me. You made a mistake.”
“We need you, Lucky…” David lit a Dunhill. Took a drag. “We need someone to absorb our sadness and turn it into something else. We need direction, Lucky. We need a Heyoka.”
“A what?”
“Ksa’s idea.”
“So that’s my new designation?”
“Can’t give yourself a nickname.”
“I’m going.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m going.”
David nodded.“Fine.”
“Really.”
“Yeah.” He sent his thumb towards the back. “There’s the exit.”
What I had assumed to be a portal to the kitchen slowly morphed into a set of velvet doors. A thuggish bouncer, skin covered in reptilian scales, stood watch. Arms crossed. Muscles bulging beneath a white t-shirt.
“Let me guess.” I stole one last cigarette . “He can eat bugs, but can’t tell you if crickets go home.”
“He has Ichthyoisis Vulgaris. That’s not funny, Lucky.”
“Well, ok. That one’s on me.”
“You walk out that door, you will never find us again.”
“Fine.”
“You really don’t care?” Tears formed in the corner of his eye, drifted across the air in oblong shapes. “You honestly don’t realize this is where you belong?”
“Whatever Heyoka is,” I said, “he doesn’t belong anywhere.”
“There’s not belonging anywhere, and there’s belonging nowhere.”
“That’s stupid. You’re boring. And I’m going.”
“Goodnight.”
I fell out of my seat. Caught the Gentleman looking up at me from the floor.
“Stay out of my goddamn life,” I told him.
Shook it off and went to the door.
The Bouncer stopped me in my tracks. “ID?”
“Excuse me?”
“Need to see some ID.”
I felt myself vomit a bit in my throat. Held it down. “You need to see my ID to go outside?”
“ID please.”
I sighed.
Pretended to reach into my pocket.
Punched him in the face.
Was planning to, anyway.
His mouth opened, jaw stretched several fathoms beyond my worst nightmares.
Devoured my hand. Wrist. Elbow. Had to stop being cool at that point and scream. Tilted my head towards a ceiling that should have rightfully been a floor. That woman, the Spin, stared down at me with worn disgust. Felt my shoulder meet razor blade teeth before that mouth opened just a little wider. Hollowed sensation of a wet sleeping bag against my head as I caught one last glimpse of David.
He stuck his middle finger out, raised it high. “You didn’t think I meant the door, did you?”
My mind compiled a list of retorts, and I kept screaming.
Acetone mucous dripping into my eyes as I slid down the bouncer’s throat.
The jukebox started up again, a little number by Earth, Wind & Fire.
Not one of those elements available for comment as I slid into yesterday’s throat.
***
Stepped through the door to Creole Nights.
My ears popped.
I checked myself.
All appendages present and spoken for.
Took a look around.
All dimensions reset to their manufactured settings.
Tangerine lightbulbs. Straw hats stapled to the ceiling. Caribbean mural painted on the wall. Earth, Wind & Fire on the speakers urging me to do a little dance, make a little love…
“Get down tonight!” Zephyr cried out from behind the bar.
I sniffed. Air passages clean.
Glanced around once more. “W
hat day is it, Zephyr?”
“It’s not day,” he told me. “It’s night! To-night!”
Ok.
I slid past a couple, drunk way too early to know their hours were numbered.
Took a seat.
Zephyr took a closer look. “Jesus, Lucky. You ok?”
“Huh?”
He stepped aside. Introduced me to the mirror. The entire left half of my face bruised, swollen to resemble internal organs. Flecks of dried blood in my hair, my shirt. Inexplicable shards of glass caught in my collar, embedded into my left hand.
“Ran into some people,” I told him. “We had a little moment, is all.”
“You need anything?”
“Let me get a double of Jack, please.”
“Double Jack.”
I watched, so happy to see his dark hands doing those lovely, unspeakable things he did best.
“You sure you ok?” he asked.
“I think I was,” I told him.
“You’re home.”
“Yes. That much has to be true.”
He smiled past his glasses. Graying mustache doing a little jig.
There were untold injustices playing out in the world, but the television was off that evening. Eventually, the jazz band set up. Replaced proper hallucinations with improvised progressions. Murder, rape, and an oncoming catastrophe took to their place, back room of my imaginary doom. The world was ending. Unwinding. Spinning counterclockwise. I told the woman next to me as much. She didn’t believe me, but figured nodding was good enough.
And it was.
Good enough for me, anyway.
We had ourselves a time, and I never thought twice about what happened that night, miles below the steps of St. Anthony.
I kissed her in her sleep, then left the way I came in.
Lemon Drop.
It was shaping up to be one hell of a perfect night.
My experiment in reckless optimism did not go unnoticed as I made the scene at Creole Nights. Shoulders thrown back. Scuffed shoes bounding merrily along the sunny side of the street, even at this midnight hour. Jeans bulging with a touch of extra green, courtesy of a poker game with an exceptionally dim cartel of Stern students. An insignificant haul by professional standards. But after less than half a year at the tables, three hundred had me reading my own tea leaves. Head brimming with ambition. Gridlocked fantasies of days and nights in the neon casinos of Atlantic City, bouncing around Manhattan from one game to the next. Check-raising and calling all bluffs like numbers in a little black book.
Never mind my negligible grasp of poker theory. Never mind that mathematics and I hadn’t spoken since we broke up in high school. What I had was a real knack for reading the table. Sensing the flow, feeling the pulse. The raw essentials of psycho-strategy.
Again, never mind that getting a bead on a handful of business majors with money to burn was hardly a true test of one’s mettle.
At the time, it was all coming up aces.
The silver bell above the door harmonized with a raucous welcome from the regulars.
“Lucky Saurelius!”
“The man!”
“Hey, look at that!”
“Somebody’s having a good night!”
With an idiotic smile welded to my face, I made my way across the tiny, festive dive. A little slide in my stride. Gave the band a quick nod as they tuned up, sat down to a set of friendly faces. They wrapped up their conversation with a few quick turns of indecipherable Creole. Zephyr threw me a wink from behind the bar, as Ayizan scooted his chair a few feet to the left, making room. Draped his arm over me. The key to his bike lock dangled from a silver bracelet, tickling my arm.
“So what’s all this?” he asked. “Our sad and sorry poet has found his smile somewhere out there.”
Zephyr giggled. “End of the fucking world, man.”
“So I had a bit of a run tonight,” I said, pulling out my smokes. “Doubt you’ll be cracking wise when I buy this next round.”
I expected an onslaught of drink orders; Red Stripes, Coronas and cognac. Instead, Zephyr placed a bottle on the bar. Gold label paired with the easy curvature of tinted glass.
“We’ve got some Rhum Barbancourt,” Zephyr announced. Surely not for the first time that evening, but it was well worth repeating. “Estate Reserve, aged fifteen years. Evan brought it in from his trip, just handed it over…” The regulars nodded with solemn approval. “You want some?”
“God. Yes, please.”
Zephyr poured me three fingers. Refreshed our surroundings. Raised his glass. Led us all in a twisted, unholy prayer breakfast, raising his glass. “To love, peace and FUCKING!”
We made as though to knock them straight down. Handicapping the tilt at the last second, chins bent back just far enough to take in a measured taste. Even an underage drinker such as myself could tell that this was sipping rum. Dynamite palate, citrus mingling with what could only be fire-roasted pear. Pepper-flavored footprints waltzing along my tongue. A finish long as winter nights.
Hardly a burn to speak of as warmth spread its wings.
I set my glass down gently.
Far as the bar flies, things didn’t get much better than that.
“Thank you,” I said.
Zephyr nodded. “So it seems you have had yourself a bit of luck there.”
Creole Nights was experiencing a severe deficit of female clientele. Everyone looking for a little distraction, something to fill the time between the random approach of scandalous fishnets. So I let them all lean in. Heads bobbing to a cover of Tell Me Something Good. Regaled them with a story of seven-stud. Some fat fish whose daddy worked for Lehman Brothers, trying to play a set for a flush, triple betting me on fifth street and all the way down the river.
Rocked back by my made straight, no improvement for him on seventh.
Whether or not they knew what the hell I was talking about, didn’t matter. Lucky Saurelius was on a roll. Three hundred bucks all the richer, a second glass of aged Haitian rum stretching my grin to the limit. Surrounded by candlelight, live jazz, and a cavalcade of regulars who seemed perfectly happy to let me keep on smiling.
Last call could not have been farther away.
***
Time went this way and that. The band capped off their final set with a heartrending cover of Redemption Song. Passed the tip jar around. Select strangers walked in; some half-hearted, some ready to wholly invest in the experience. A fresh young couple made out in the corner. Snifters of cognac served alongside Lynchburg Lemonades and Long Island iced teas. An ex-Seal wandering in, drinking his share of sake, then nodding off. Benson & Hedges dying in the ashtray before Zephyr was forced to wake him up, send his ass home.
All things as they should be, exception being that I was still smiling.
Riding the wave. Unhinged confidence leading to otherwise unthinkable transgressions. Seated halfway down the bar. Glass half full with exquisite sugar cane. Chatting up a couple who would ordinarily turn my stomach with sour jealousy.
They were in their mid-to-early twenties. Or at least old enough to remind me I shouldn’t be there. A man with dark hair, two inch ‘do spiked with generous amounts of product. Skin the color of banana bread, even in the folds of December. Not a single misplaced fiber hanging from his jeans. Light blue, button up CK shirt hugging his torso, sculpted somewhere at the crossroads of casual and conceit.
His woman was no less worn for the wear. Hair a spotless shade of onyx. Genes working to preserve some sort of East Asian ancestry. Slender body painted in a shimmering green dress. Hips sticking to their script, legs loving their very existence. Genuine smile, makeup two splendid shades past the line of good taste, one peach of a paint job.
They had come in round about one in the morning. Ordered a couple of beers. Well on my way to wasted, flush with money and free rum, I offered to buy them a drink. Buy the three of us a round. Of whatever. On me.
The decision was delegated to the lady.
 
; Ordinarily, dry ru n on a Lemon Drop would have been chilled vodka. Garnished with a lemon caked in granulated sugar. More than a few bars tended towards Absolute Citron, and Creole Nights had no problems being part of that particular lineup.
We sent our shots straight down.
They sucked on their chasers.
I washed it back with another taste of Barbancourt.
And then we got to talking.
Rick was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey. Currently an ad man working for Stanton, McGregor and Plymouth. Living with his girlfriend in Hoboken, New Jersey. Tamara was studying to be a paralegal. Moving on up, well past her humble beginnings in a Pennsylvania town she kept insisting I’d never heard of. Point proven when I promptly forgot the name over a fresh round of Coronas. On me.
We shared a toast, lounging in our chairs, wooden barstools massaging our backs. I got us another set of Lemon Drops. Another trio of Coronas. Another round of Lemon Drops. Zephyr set us up from left to right. Myself, Rick, and Tamara. No accident in our seating arrangements; I knew better than to approach a couple from the female side of the equation. We murdered those drinks, ripped the meat right off the rinds.
The underground was packed solid for two-thirty in the morning, and our voices rose above the clamor.
Rick glanced back at the television, then back to me. “So, Lucky! Who you liking this year? Only two and a half months ‘til March Madness!”
“Search me if you think you’ll find anything!” I replied. “Don’t follow sports!”
“Really?” It wasn’t even rhetorical, he honestly figured I had misspoken. “That’s a little hard to believe!”
From the look of things, Tamara was equally skeptical.
“Believe what you like!” I told him. Gave Tamara a nod, let her know this wasn’t a closed circuit between two dudes. “No basketball, baseball, football, no balls of any kind!”
“Well, that’s cool, dude!”
I couldn’t tell what he meant by cool.
“It’s kind of interesting!” Tamara joined in. “I don’t know a lot of guys who aren’t into sports!”
“What can I say? I guess I’d rather spend my time looking at naked women in magazines than a bunch of men sweating it out in basketball shorts, or piling on top of each other in the middle of a field! I know how gay that must sound!”
Tamara smiled.
It was Rick who blindsided me with his laughter. Threw his head back, howling at the straw hats stapled to the ceiling. Brought his palm to my shoulder with a hearty smack. “That’s not a bad point, Lucky! Pile of dudes in a field! Hard to argue with that, I can’t deny it!”
I picked a bit of lemon from between my teeth.