Creature From the Corner

[izeveryboyin]

In the back of the old, traditional pub, the creature with the dark eyes crawled upon the floor. Pulling Paul’s arm, tugging him away from the sheer destruction in the corner and just left of the main bar, Josephine was there. She looked at me with knowing eyes and a smile.
“Ca va?” She asked maliciously.
“Hmm?” I blinked the creature from my sight. “ Oh, uh, oui, oui. Ca va, merci.”
I still had a grip on Paul’s arm as the creature drew nearer, and out of his corner, sulking towards the bar in all his dark quietness, Brunette curls hit his eye.
“Can you let go of my fucking arm, Bertha?” He said jokingly.
“I hate when you call me that, dammit. Use my name.”
“We’ll compromise.” He said.
“Tu connais le garcon la bas?” Josephine whispered slyly into my ear.
“Uh, no. No, I don’t know him.”
“Well then stop staring at him before he bites you.” She said.
We laughed as she dragged me back to our booth. Jack and I were the only two Americans in the place, and he sat in the corner of the booth, leaning against the wall below the window. Meris sat gulping down cheap beer, seated haphazardly on Michael’s lap. Paul was laughing with some gorgeous redhead at the bar. What were we doing here, same as we had been most every Tuesday and Thursday? Why? And where the hell was my tequila sunrise, goddammit!? Answer the questions. Forget the answers. Ask them again. Listen to the dark-eyed creature sing his song with little drunkard angels of life and lift my empty glass in toasting.
“There’s whiskey!” we all cried when the bottle came. “Blessed be!”
There was laughter, so much laughter on this, a Thursday night and we all sat drinking. I had snatched the fag from Paul’s lips before he could enjoy his first puff and took a long drag. I smoked it right down to the filter and watched the spoisoned gray billow around me in delicate wisps and curls. I watched it dance above my head and hang in the air, finally dispersing and mingling in w/all the other deep clouds in the air.
“Goddammit! We’ll all get drunk and eat cake, by God!” Jack cried.
“Oooh, let’s be angels tonight and fly. We should all fly and be drunk and eat cake.” I added.
“Let’s fuck on the table and moan like crazy, lazy cats and be angels and fly and be drunk and eat cake.” He replied joyously.
“That’s the ticket lads!” cried Benny, the old bartender from behind his holy counter.
Again, we laughed. That creature from the corner cut his eyes at me and curved his lips somewhere between a grin and complete nothingness, then paid for his drink and waltzed out the front door.
“Tiens, ma amie. There he goes.” Said Josephine. “There goes your man from the corner.”
Within about a minute, a familiar face from the pub had burst through the doors with such excited zeal and enthusiasm that it brought the whole pub to his attention. The wide smile on his face and the crazed look of ensuing human violence was in his eyes. I knew what he’d come for before he yelled it out. He come to tell us there was a…
“Fight! Fight just up the street! This guy, ‘e’s beatin’ the bloody ‘ell outta some young tosser, ‘e is!”
Half of the pub thrust themselves from their seats in a drunken stupor, us included, to see the fight raging outside. A fight in this neighborhood was a rare occasion, and so when one occurred, it was always a grand spectacle.
“Fuck me!” yelled Meris, “He’s getting his bullocks kicked in!”
Jack let out a buoyant laugh that was half drunkenness, half excitement. I was wobbling just a bit, watching the angry punches being thrown and ground into a body, beaten helpless. My creature was pulverizing someone. Paul and Jack stood together, commentating, while Michael and Josephine had gone back inside for our things, and to assure Benny we were going to pay our tabs upon return the following Tuesday, or so Josephine told me at Paul’s house later on. I stood quietly in awe, watching my creature from the corner draw blood from the face of the unknown who lay below him.
Finally, someone had phoned the cops, and you could hear the sirens sounding from nearly a mile away. They were coming, and the crowd was dispersing. The creature with the dark eyes eased up on the man, and then finally, stopped all together. Softly, as most of the crowd had gone inside, and the cops were drawing nearer, I heard him tell the man…
“You can apologize now, bloke.”
“S-s-s-sorry, man. I’m sorry.”
“Now, sod off.” He said, calmly.
The man slid, slowly, painfully away from my creature and limped on down the dark street. For a moment, I followed him with my eyes. Jack and Paul were heading inside, and I stood there, staring at the creature. It stared calmly, simply back with dark eyes, smiling. Eyes that seemed almost bled into his face, a somewhat slanted shape and an enchanting vibrancy that could screw you up inside… if you dared to look into them. After awhile he spoke, and broke our secret vow of silence.
“Sorry you had to see that, but he was a terribly rude bloke. You’d better hurry off, then. Here come the cops.”
“Well, there’s no one here now. Won’t they have to leave you alone?”
He smiled and raised his bloody hands to me. I wriggled my brow and went over to him. I had been in situations like this before and I always got my friends out of trouble using the same plan. I figured it worked in Chicago, it can work in Chorley. I grabbed his hands and place them under my shirt, so that the cool, wetness of blood and the faint warmth peeking through his skin were on my lower back. I stood on my tiptoes, and pulled him down, so that I could place my cheek against his and pretended to be whispering playfully in his ear. The squad car pulled up beside us and an officer stuck his head out of the window to talk to us.
“Pardon, folks. Do you know of a brawl that broke out here.?”
“Yeah.” I told him. “Seems the sirens scared them off. Everybody was walking away when we got here. You might check down the road for ‘em.” I said, pretending to laugh at something my creature was doing.
“Hey, thanks ma’am.” The officer said to me.
“Sure thing.” I smiled.
We stood there for a moment, embracing, to give the cops a chance to get way down the block before we broke apart. He gave me an inquisitive look.
“Why’d you help me?” He asked.
“I had nothing better to do.” I told him with a smile, just as Paul and the others were coming out of the pub.
“Bertha!” They all screamed at me.
“Fuckers!” I yelled back with a laugh.
“Is that your name?” he asked.
“No, no, not at all. It’s a bit of a joke I have amongst friends.”
“Ah. And what is your name?”
“Jose Cuervo, or something like that. What’s yours?”
“Guess.” He smiled.
“Creature from the corner.” I whispered, not meaning for him to hear it.
He smiled again and said, “That’ll do.”
Just then, Paul sauntered up behind me with a devilish grin. The others stood in the background laughing, swaying, chattering, stumbling. He threw his arm sloppily around my shoulder.
“So who’s your chap, then? Have you got a boyfriend?”
“No. This, apparently, is 'the creature from the corner'.” I said, turning to look into those dark eyes of his.
“I seen you two necking each other. What’s all that?”
“She was keeping me out of a cage.” The creature said.
“What’s he on about, eh? C’mon then, let’s be off. The gang’s all headed to the flat.”
With that, he grabbed my arm and pulled me away. The creature and I waved to each other until I finally had to turn around and face front. We had about a four-block walk back home. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to know his name or tell him my own. After all, who needs a name, anyway? I knew that somehow, I’d see him again, in a solid space of time, or if not, then maybe in another life when we are both cats. It didn’t matter either way. The only thing that mattered was that we met. I’d be thinking that all the way home, and even as we finally got there. I’d walk in, I’d get a rag and wipe the blood from my back, the gang would play a round or two of pass the bottle and I would surf the net until Paul interrupted me with demands to hop online and check his mail. At which point, I’d steal away from the noisiness of the living room to be left alone in Paul’s bedroom with my thoughts.
I was waiting for it. That moment in life where there is a purity of happiness no words or phrases can express, that moment where no one thing matters because everything does. A moment where you know that life is too important to remember to walk the dog, or go to church, or feed the cat or pick the kids up from soccer practice, or shop for groceries or pay the phone bill. Life is too important even to breathe or talk or eat or move. I was waiting, and in that room, a voice kept telling me it would never come. I would always remember to walk the dog and get the groceries, and when I could afford it, I would pay the worthless phone bill. Life would never be that important. But then, embracing the strange creature from the corner, I’d felt as close to that moment as I’d ever been, and I wondered if the attainment of that moment lied in meeting him again.
If so, then all may very well be lost, then again, there may be a real underlying chance of it coming to pass. I went to sleep on his pillow with poetry in my head. It sang to me sweetly:
“The night is young and full of rest, I can’t describe the way she dress’d. She’ll pander to some strange request. Anything you suggest. Anything to please her guest."

[Lightning Rod]

kayla,

as always your use of language and your sense of narrative and tight thread of action has won me over. I can overlook your creative grammar.

Yer a natcherel

[izeveryboyin]

creative grammer? I misspelled again? where? where? how? I proofread!!! *hangs head down in shame for lack of correct grammar skills% LOL. I'm glad you enjoy my writing. now put all that (save for the creative grammer part of course) in the mini-editorial I asked you to write... and all will be lovely. Also, would u please remind D. I'm going to send her a private message a bit later, but just in case she doesn't get it.

--k

[judih]

i guessed i missed the creative grammar - it all looked cool to me
and the scene got me.

well done, kayla (delighted with your post)

[izeveryboyin]

yay judih!!!! I was so afread that i might have been grammatically incompetent. Glad u enjoyed!!!


--k