Jabberwock Jack (7 page)

"Szandor sobers up quick, so let's give him this moment," I said.

Lem and I talked for a while as I smoked a cigarette. When no more drunken songs were forthcoming, we decided to join Szandor and Dickie.

"Ah, good of you gentlemen to join us!" said Szandor boisterously, raising his glass. "My comrade and I were just discussing how we all need to pool our resources."

Lem and I sat down in the other two chair and I lit another cigarette.

"How do you figure?" said Lem.

"We were discussing how we were two princes of Avalon," said Dickie, clearly very buzzed. "Four princes now!"

"And yet, all of us are single!" said Szandor.

That was true, this was a rare moment. Lem was boyfriendless and I had taken a break from dating. Szandor tends to strike out, so that's normal. I don't know a ton about Dickie's love life, but I guess this was a sign that he was similarly unentangled.

"The world should be our... what's that... uh..." said Dickie.

"Oyster?" suggested Lem.

"Yes,
oyster
! The world should be our oyster!" He took another drink. "Whatever that means."

"What my esteemed colleague is trying to say," said Szandor with good humor, "is that we should be parlaying our youth and beauty into success with members of the opposite sex... or the same sex too. Sorry, Lem."

Lem shook his head with a smile. "It's fine, Szandor. I know you're typically only thinking about your own dick."

"But why shouldn't I? He's right here!" said Szandor, grabbing Dickie's arm and pointing with a huge smile. Then he laughed.

So when you're around Dickie, there are dick jokes. Dickie's typically the first to make them. It sounds cheesy and lame, but after the first five thousand times, it becomes endearingly funny.

"But seriously, friends," said Dickie. "We're all suffering a shortage of bedroom companions. I propose we go on the hunt! I can think of no finer wingmen!" Dickie raised his glass in a toast that only Szandor answered, clinking his own nearly empty pint glass.

"So you just want to go pick up girls?" I said. "Then go, nobody's stopping you."

"Here?" said Szandor. "There are no hot girls here. Sorry, Maybell, no offense."

Maybell, the fifty year old bartender who had worked at Twin Eagles for longer than any of us had been alive, shrugged. She stood at the bar not ten feet away cleaning a glass. "None taken."

I'm not sure why I was being the downer tonight. Maybe I hadn't drank enough, or maybe I was hiding my own reluctance to go out on the prowl. Maybe it was the thing I was avoiding. I looked around the club, noting there were at least a few younger women.

"What about them?" I said.

"We were thinking of girls that we hadn't known since elementary school," said Dickie.

This was a fair point. Twin Eagles was a neighborhood bar. It wasn't a ritzy Midtown bar or a trendy Southend dive, keen on attracting new customers. It was just a neighborhood bar, focused on neighborhood regulars. We knew about half of the people in the bar by name and the other half were related to someone we knew.

"Fresh blood, Mikkel, fresh blood!" said Szandor with relish.

"So you're looking for girls who have no idea who you are," I said with a grin. "Good move. The Szandor Mystique usually drives them in the other direction."

"Ha ha," said Szandor sarcastically. "But Dickie and I were thinking...
Southend!
" He threw his hands up indicating sparkle or a boom.

"You want to pick up college chicks," I said.

"And college boys. Right Lem?" said Szandor, looking for support where he could find it.

A large portion of southern New Avalon had been dubbed Southend, the way Midtown contained a huge chunk of central Avalon. Southend covered the area from Avalon University south to nearly the lake. It came east as far as the border of Five Points. It was the bohemian part of our town. Artists, pretentious people, coffeehouse denizens, and musicians. Dickie actually had an apartment on the east side of Southend. But the other important and common residents of Southend were college students who lived off the Avalon U campus. And those that didn't live in Southend often came to the neighborhood's bars to drink. Lots and lots of students.

None of us went to college. But we were college aged, so those students were technically our peers, albeit more educated ones. I had even dated one particular student...

"So we're thinking we hit up a Southend bar, dressed to impress, and then we all have a great night," said Szandor. "That works for Dickie all the time."

"I live around a corner from one that is quite the place," said Dickie. "On the weekends I go in, talk about how I'm in a band, and usually take one home."

"So you're the one night stand king," I said.

"Not to be a Dick," said Dickie with a chuckle at his familiar quip, "but you are known to have quite the revolving door for girls."

"That's not really true - " I said, but Szandor cut me off.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, let's not be divisive," he said, putting his hand on each of our shoulders to reassure us and keep us separated. His voice took on that of a drunken politician trying to cut a deal. "This is not the time for judgment or recriminations. Let us not focus on the past, lest we drown in it. Let us focus instead on a future of our own making."

"Szandor advising us about letting go of the past, now I know he's drunk," said Lem with a laugh.

Dickie and I also laughed, but Szandor shot Lem a sour look. "I'm just saying, we four kings, we four horsemen, we princes of Avalon, should go out for a night and see whom... who... whom... we can impress. I say we hit a Southend bar, free from our past, and see what happens. I already know Dickie's with me, what say you two?"

"Sure," said Lem with a shrug.

"Now?" I said.

"No, not now," said Szandor. "We are a little too... inebriated for that. I also left my fake ID at home. I gotta make sure it's not peeling or anything." Szandor turned twenty-one in just days, but he had been drinking at Twin Eagles for a long time. When he had originally gotten the ID, he made a big deal of his ID to Maybell and Frank, the owner, but they had never believed it was accurate. They had known our Mom. But they just let him drink anyway. They figured if he drank here they could keep an eye on him. None of us had needed to show our ID in a long time. "Tomorrow! We go tomorrow!"

"We got that hunter audition tomorrow," I said. Meat was introducing us to the mysterious hunter of Jabberwock Jack.

"In the daytime," said Szandor. "That won't last all day. And nobody starts partying before like nine or ten. It's just the thing."

I conceded that it wasn't going to be a problem. My brother needed to get out more. And I was uncharacteristically being the spoilsport. I shouldn't be holding everyone back just because I was off on my game. "Okay, then it'll probably be fine. I'll go out with you guys."

"Then it's a
date
!" said Szandor. "Err, well, not a date, but an arrangement! And try to be excited about this! You can meet someone new! Someone to make you forget about whatshername!"

"I told you not to mention her," I said sourly.

"I didn't, I called her whatshername!" said Szandor proudly.

Our conversation was interrupted by a loud bar patron whose voice had been steadily rising as he argued and shouted.

"Speaking of Southend, it's come here," said Lem in a low voice.

Y'know, I hate to play into the stereotype of drunken frat boy, but holy shit, it was a drunken frat boy. He wore a gray Avalon U shirt, a baseball cap with Greek letters that meant nothing to me, cargo shorts, and an angry expression that reeked of "I'm better than you." That was reinforced by the fact he was basically saying that.

"I don't fucking come to this piss poor side of town to be treated like shit," he was saying to Maybell, leaning across the bar in a somewhat threatening manner. Maybell had her arms crossed and was unimpressed. "I come here for cheap drinks and not to hear some bullshit about ID or tabs. I don't want to hear your bullshit. I don't want any bullshit at all."

He was a few feet from me, since I was on the outside of our table. He was clearly very drunk, something I could smell, which was impressive since we were in a bar. I didn't know the situation, but I assumed he had been refused a drink because he was too drunk. I wasn't drunk, but I had a little to drink, enough to make a bad judgment. So I didn't think Maybell could handle it, even though she had probably been handling drunks since before I was born. For some reason, I decided to get involved.

"Maybe you should go back to Southend. Or wherever the fuck you are from." I had said it tersely, but not necessarily loudly.

The frat boy spun. "Excuse me? What the fuck did you just say?" His fists were practically up already. It suddenly began to make some sense. He didn't come here for a drink, he came here for a fight. I turned my head and looked to see if he had any friends. I didn't see anyone who fit the bill. Lots of familiar faces and no one who looked like a student or rich kid. Strange. I could see him coming here for a fight, especially against people on the bad side of town he didn't respect. But did he really come to a bar on the other side of town alone just to get into a fight? Why wouldn't you bring friends? If not to help, just to show off. You're just asking to get beaten or stabbed by pissing off the one wrong person. People in South Egan are generally good, but it was still the east side of town, you could end up with the one Russian gangster visiting a relative.

"We don't want any trouble," I said, feeling suddenly like someone out of an old Western. "This is our neighborhood bar, we just want to drink in peace."

"You should have thought of that before you got up in my face," he said.

I looked around in confusion. I hadn't even stood up yet. I was still in my chair with this idiot looming over me.

"They should bulldoze this whole fucking neighborhood, like they're doing with North Egan," continued the frat boy. "Get you fucking rats out of here."

Lem immediately stood up in anger. In general, we hated when people from better neighborhoods looked down on us. It was a sore spot, but at least we could deal with it. The whole destruction and gentrification of North Egan which might drive us out was yet another sore spot. It was a looming issue, but it still hadn't affected us yet. Except for Lem. He had just had to move his aunt because of it. This was a personal issue for him.

I'd like to say I was the guy who kept his cool. I wanted to be the guy who didn't take this asshole's bait. I should have grabbed Lem's arm and kept him from standing, so we could avert this fight that the frat boy really wanted. But I didn't. I like to call myself a man of principles. The main principle that drives my monster hunting is I'm willing to risk my life for others. I put myself in danger so that others won't have to. Some call it admirable, while others I've known in the past have said that it's just an excuse to be suicidal. Whatever the case, that principle triggered here. I wouldn't say Lem couldn't handle himself in a fight, but he was no career brawler like my brother and I. And I don't think I could sit by and let Lem take this one.

I stood up nearly as quickly as Lem, my chair falling to the side. The frat boy who had the looming height advantage while we all sat now had me actually up in his face, since he stood right behind my chair. We were about the same height, so I was eye to eye with him. The look in his eyes said he wanted to do this, that it wasn't false bluster. He hadn't been pulling some power trip where he got off by us backing down and being cowardly. No, this guy wanted to cause someone pain. And the alcohol on his breath told me he had loaded himself up with Irish Courage.

"Shall we take this outside?" he said through gritted teeth.

This surprised me. That was surprisingly civil considered the lengths he had gone through to pick a fight here. Maybe he didn't want to get hit by a chair or a bar stool. I saw Szandor grabbing my chair, but whether to pick it back up or hit this douchebag I didn't know.

But I nodded in agreement, even with this concern. "Okay, let's do this." I stepped past the frat boy toward the door. He turned to walk with me. Sucker. I took about a step, then turned casually, as if I were going to say something to Maybell. And in this turn I suckerpunched the frat boy.

Say what you want about how dishonorable or dickish that might be. I argue that this fight had no honor or class to begin with. He had wanted to pick a fight and my emotions got the better of me and I accepted. Even for all my principle, there was no reason for this fight. It was all testosterone and alcohol. It was a brawl and that had no rules.

The frat boy fell immediately. I was actually surprised about this. I expected him to stumble or fall off his feet. Then I could either prove my point or end the fight. I didn't expect him to have a glass jaw. Maybe it was just the surprise punch?

He began falling, his body completely unconscious. I grabbed at his shirt, trying to keep him standing. Unconscious people fall a lot more violently than stumbling people. It's like the weight just drops. The frat boy still headed toward the floor, despite my handful of shirt. Szandor appeared at my side, grabbing at the frat boy's shoulders to hold him up. Lem also came to my aid. With a communal nod, we all hefted the limp body of the frat boy. As we began to carry him toward the door, I nodded to Maybell.

"Call the police and tell them we have some trash out front," I said.

As we carried the limp frat boy to the door, we intended to just put the frat boy out in front, go back and have some drinks, and be very anonymous when the cops came to question the bartender. If they even came in. They might just get this guy on public intoxication and not worry about the bar. Even if they came in, nobody in the bar was going to turn us in.

As I said, this is what we intended. The universe has ways of turning intentions into amusing failures. Szandor pushed the door open and we three carried the body out onto the sidewalk. We were just in the middle of propping the unconscious frat boy up against the wall in front of the bar when we heard a shout.