The Devil and Jack, Chapter 2: The Showman
(Note: The following is a much-delayed continuation in an ongoing series here. I recommend you read Chapter 1. If you already have, buckle up. This is going to get bumpy.-j)
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October 12, 2008
Blue lights bounce off bricks and look so damn beautiful in the night.
But I don’t have time to think about that. My legs, they’re pistons that could crack pavement. I’m an automaton that runs on fear and testosterone. I push Jim out of the way as I hear the V8 scream behind us. A door slams, and Jim lets out a curse. Tom and Dick split left and right at the tag. There had been a single car, and I’d been holding the can.
An idea worms it’s way from the cotton comforts of weed. I could give up. I could toss my hands up right now, and turn myself over. My lungs hurt. There’s holes in my shoes, and the soles are flapping. I bet the cops would give me shoes, it’s the dead of winter.
Then I remember that I’m poor and high and they’re on foot. I remember the storm drain a block away. Their pistons stopped, but mine haven’t. So I keep going even as I hear Jim get taken to the ground. He pops off a single “Fuck you, you fucking cock sucking pig!”. His anger echoes off the alley and into my nerves. I duck my head and pretend I’m Naruto.
My lungs are aflame but the lights still bounce from the brick. The cop behind me puffs like my dad. Pops had smoked a pack a day and hadn’t been able to catch me since I was 8.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
I almost smile thinking of that rhyme. But instead I grip a street light, and swing myself round it. I almost miss the alley to the right, but I let go at the last second. My feet hit the ground, and the bottoms of my shoes cough their last. The cop, I can’t hear his breathing anymore. He’ll find my soles, but not me.
I seal the thought by padding my way down the alley. The ground is slick from the culvert at the end, and I slide the last yard into it. I finally collapse about three feet in. The dark wraps around me with only the street light to tell my secret. It’s at least ten yards away, and looks like a stage.
The cop enters, stage left, five seconds later. He’s red in the face, and doubles over to catch his breath. I sit there in the wet dark, a hand clamped over my mouth. I didn’t think he could hear me, but I’d seen that shit too many times in movies. So I sit there trying not to have a panic attack, watching him. He’s still gripping his knees, every breath longer than the one before.
Then he pauses when he sees the new-balance rubbers in front of him. He stands up, his jaw slack as he stares at them. His eyes crane up, and for a hot second we’re staring at one another.
Tiger, Tiger. Burning bright.
I didn’t believe in a god at the time. I was doing that hip, hardcore edgelord thing. But when that cop didn’t move, I started praying. God, Allah, whoever the fuck is listening. I need a break. I promise I’ll stop jerking off and swearing and getting high. Just give me a fucking break. Please, fuck. I don’t want to go to jail.
I take the first breath I’d had since I swerved into the culvert.
Then the cop, his shoulders sag. He looks down at the soles one last time. He turns on his heel, his face still red. He walks to the left and disappears.
I sit there with my hand over my mouth. Not because I might breathe too loud, but to hold back the scream. There I stay, right until it starts to rain. Until the culvert begins to rush with cold water right under my ass. I hobbled out, every bone popping. My legs threatened to give, and I slammed a hand against the brick. It guides me right back to the soles of my shoes. I pick them up and stagger into the street.
There’s nothing there, nothing but the light and the rain and me.
Only then do I breathe.
Only then do I finally let out that scream.
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“Jim got jumped Jack,”
“Yeah. I know,”
Tom and Dick sit with a bong between them. They inhale a forest and stare through me. Tom-he’s the one with the stick n’ pokes all over-he coughs out a cancerous cloud. Dick laughs, and digs into a trash bag at his feet. I knew better than to ask where he got a brick, but I still glance over my shoulder. Towards the doors, towards the two-by-fours we use as locks.
The warehouse belonged to somebody, somewhere. But they hadn’t kept house-so we did it for them. I shudder the chase from the last hour away, and take a seat by the cable-spool-turned table.
We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men.
Dick raises his hand, and packs the emerald green for me. I snap my fingers, and Tom hands me a lighter.
Another snap, and I have fire. Smoke fills my lungs, curling around my nervous system. My brain. The glass pulls from my lips. It meets the table, and I close my eyes. I hold it in, despite the protests of my paper thin lungs.
Leaning together, headpiece filled with straw.
When I opened my eyes, all I see is gray. Tom and Dick are shadows beyond the purple haze. They twist and cavort, Thanatos and Hypnos. Their voices come from the bottom of a well as Tom lifts the bong.
“Think they’ll hold him long?” Says Tom, bubbling away his scholarship.
“Nah, he’s what? Sixteen? They’ll call his folks,” says Dick. He giggles like a hyena, a cacophony from a carnival mask as his thumb births a spark. He takes a deep breath, and turns to me. I almost say no, but my hand reaches all the same.
Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless.
I take a light drag, and put it on the table. My mouth parts, and it’s then I say “I saw a tiger in the alley. Past fifth and main. Got in a hidey hole and spied him, but he didn’t eye me,”
Tom waits, then busts into a laugh. “A fucking tiger? Dude, the shit isn’t that good. The fuck are you on about?”
Dick snorts, and tilts his head towards me. “He’s drunk,”
“Was sober till I came in boys,” I say. My teeth feel fuzzy, and for a moment I think my cavities are fleas. I roll my tongue over them, all too aware of my body in that moment. I pull my knees to my chin and stare at the table. Dick picks up the bong, and takes another step towards the Sandman.
“Still, a fucking tiger. Heh. So-” he pauses, bubbling inspiration. When he pulls his lips back, he puckers his lips and tries to blow a circle. Staring at him reminds me of the time I fucked his throat on mushrooms. I came all over his face and kissed him after. Smearing the cum on his lips and cheeks, I told him he was the brightest star in the galaxy.
He had smiled and clutched my chin. He pursed his lips just like now, and blew a raspberry on my neck.
“-what do we do when Jim gets out?”
Tom shrugs, and reaches for the bong. “Tell him he’s a tough bastard and we love him, same as always,”
“Tell him we’ll butcher those pigs,” says Dick, handing it over. Tom tilts back his head and gives a squeal. Dick laughs, and reaches into his jeans. He pulls out a stiletto I’d seen too many times, a blue and rusted thing. He twirls it between his fingers and smiles with a madness that makes me clench my bowels.
I mutter about the tiger again. Tom rolls his eyes, and hands be the bong.
“Oh yeah, sure thing. Take another hit-your heads all fucky, and we need to be right. It’s only what, eleven?” he says. Dick nods, the blade of his knife flicking in and out, in and out. It catches in the blaze of the lighter as I spiral out.
Then the weed clutches my brain. It smothers the anxiety, and I exorcise it through my nose. I put the bong on the table, and Tom leans forward.
“Still plenty we can do, eh? Tis the season, all that,”
“Mmmhhhmmm,” Says Dick. He slips the knife back into his jeans, and gives a smirk.
“Almost the witching hour,”
“Damn right. So let’s get spooky,” says Tom.
I sit there, staring at the bong as the boys rise. I hear the two-by-fours hit concrete, the footfalls of Dick certain behind me. He claps a hand to my shoulder, and it’s only then I turn away. I meet his eyes, and he smiles. They’re red as tomatoes, but his grip is soft on me.
“Showtime big boy,” he says.
I shamble to my feet, knees wailing in protest. Tom is already gone, with only a swinging door into black to prove he was ever there. Dick keeps his pace with me, his stiletto in his palm. He gives me a kiss on the cheek like it’s the last either of us will ever have-but before he reaches the door. Always before the door.
Remember us-if at all-not as lost violent souls,
But only as the hollow men,
The stuffed men.
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We glide quiet on cat’s feet. Eyes capturing even the smallest light, we prowl the concrete. Heads heavy in toxic clouds and speech difficult. So we speak in grunts, hand gestures. Intuition leads us to piss on church lawns, tagging more buildings. Jim had artist’s hands-we did not. Every scrawl looked primal, guttural to the point of non-recognition. We laughed in the dark, our cackles echoing into the dreams of the town.
So we crawled and crept along every darkened foot. The shadows of the street lamps caressed us, and we relished their touch. Bad men we thought we were, boogies and bog monsters from the recesses of poverty.
Then we came upon the house.
Sloppy it wasn’t, though it leaned with a noted exhaustion. Friend to none and keeping the company of itself, the house reigned supreme at the end of a street. Two stories without so much as a porch light. Tom and Dick stood stock as we came upon it. Their barks and sneers turned to silent awe, spraypaint and knives in their grip limp. I joined them at the side, and tilted my head towards it.
“The fuck is that?” said Tom.
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious what it is,” said Dick. He let out a snort of contempt, accented with an elbow to Tom’s gut.
Tom leered, and took a step away. “No, I get that. What I mean is, the hell did it come from? Either of you ever seen this place?”
“Not even a tile,” I said.
Dick turned to me, his eyes focused on my lips. He tilted his head as he turned back to the house.
“Gotta say, I’ve never seen it. Lived her every day of 18 years to boot,”
Tom takes a step forward, and glances at the vandal’s talent in his palm. He smirks, and gives it a shake. It gives a dull clatter as he turns back to us.
“Well? What are we waiting for? I don’t see any car parked in the driveway. Free canvas?” he says.
Dick turns to me, but I can’t speak. The words in my head are a Scrabble bag being shook. Dick rolls his shoulders, and walks to join Tom. I follow, and the dark of the street rolls over us in a wave. There’s no light here, none to guide us as we fall upon the house in a pack.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space
Tom yipped with a voice plagued by rabies. The can clattered as his palm birthed an X over the door. Dick snickered, pirouetting like a court jester as he glanced at the windows. My feet were snails, the comfort of their shells holding them still. Tom ran, a howl escaping his throat as his youth dripped from the wall. Dick leaped from the porch, and was at my side in a moment.
With an arm around my shoulder, we time traveled. To the time we first met, to when we first kissed. Then Dick gives his knife a twirl, and I’m back.
“Wanna play home-maker inside?” he says. His lips twisted into the bastard child of a smirk and lust. I give a faint grin, and push his blade down.
“Oh happy dagger,”
Dick’s eyes roll in his head like dice. Another twirl, and the blade is in his pocket. His arm drops from my shoulder, his hand finding mine in the fall.
“C’mon Romeo. Let’s see if she’s as much a tomb inside, eh?” he says. With a tug and a glance back at the street, we’re one in a gallop towards the porch. Tom rounds the corner, and gives turns the can into a forgotten memory. He wipes his hands on his shirt and smiles. Self made-evidence with shit in his teeth.
“Not a fucking light. Think she’s abandoned?” he quips. Dick breaks our pairing, and glances at the door. His tongue clucks as his eyes slice just what he’s thinking towards me. I glance at the door, and step forward.
What it lacks in paint it remedies with pock marks. It’s surface is scarred and stippled, but it’s the handle that draws my eyes. It’s as dull as a forlorn dream, worn by years of regret and neglect. I slip a hand into my back pocket, and pull out my kit.
“We’re all lock and key,” I say, the picks in my grip. Tom snorts. I don’t have to look to know he’s crossing his arms.
“Tell us another Yorick. Or don’t I know you so well?” he says. His voice is edged with the malice only a loving brother or friend could have. The lock slides within, the knob giving a grave rattle.
“Every key fits two locks,” I say as I rack the tumblrs, “one for love, one for friendship,”
Dick gives a giggle, and I watch Tom’s shadow leer at him. A flick of the wrist, a turn of my hand, and the gates of our desolate castle swing free. Beyond lay the void, a darkness so absolute in its existence it becomes all there is.
There’s a hand at my shoulder, a squeeze. Then the smell of acetone, of pigment as Tom pushes past us both.
“Luuuuuucy, we’re home,” he says.
As his foot passes the threshold, the black consumes him utterly. All that is left is a wisp of memory and scent. Dick gives my shoulder another squeeze, and snaps golden flame into his free hand. He steps before me, and in the warmth of his lighter I see Apollo. Cunning and beautiful.
Then he pulls the blade free once more.
“Lemme suck your dick by candle light?”
The deeper he goes, thirst burns in his throat.
I embrace the void.
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BE MESMERIZED BY THE DANCING LIGHTS, THE SOUNDS! THE MIGHT, THE POWER OF TRUE MAGIC!
The poster stands big as a stained-glass Jesus. Dick’s dancing light passes over the words, then turns to us. His brow is raised without a hint of mirth. Tom, the ink on his arm splattered by his passions, tilts his head. He studies the words with a scholar’s guile, then laughs.
“Holy shit, a vintage poster. Think we can get it off the wall?” he says.
Dick chuckles, and tilts his head. “Dunno man-think you’d have to ask him first,”
He raises the flame, and lays bare the posters braggadocious subject. Clad in red and black, the thin profile of a man fills the center. His shoes draw into a point that puts Dick’s blade to shame. His black pants and red jacket are bygone relics from vogue freakshow hovels. But it’s his hands Dick pauses over. Both are clasped over the brim of a top hat, pulled low enough to obscure his face.
“Hah! Dude really knew how to sell his shtick-didn’t even show his face!” says Tom. He takes a step towards the left, and raises a paint stained hand. He fingers the edge of the poster with care reserved for newborns.
“I think it’s just glued in places-fuck, you think this would have been framed,” he says.
Dick takes a step forward, and brings the light towards the forthcoming vandalism. “Hey, be careful-don’t wanna rip it. Where the hell are we even going to hang it?”
The boys talk, but their voices are miles away. The edge of the lighter gives little to view, but cuts the room into frightful symmetry. There was no furniture about, nor carpet. All was wood and square-head nails. All was empty and quiet-save for we, boogeymen all. Bogies. Bog monsters snarling and ripping and tearing as we tore through the house.
Yet from those flames no light, but darkness visible.
“Hail horrors,” I said.
There comes a tumble behind me as Tom and Dick become scholars of natural laws. My head snaps whip-quick, and I hold back a jester’s smile. The boys sit up quick, the poster taught as a clothesline between them.
“God fucking damn it, did it rip?” says Tom. His eyes wide and feral, hungry for a prey only he saw. Dick gives a groan, and looks at the poster.
“Nah, seems good. Look, you wanna roll this up and us get the fuck out?”
“Where is he?” says Tom.
“Where is-the fuck?” replies Dick, golden light erupting from his thumb. I step closer, and kneel between the pair. We form an awestruck trinity as the boys hold the poster higher.
“Dude, you saw it, right? Like he was right there, wasn’t he?”
“I mean,” says Dick, his iris bouncing like ping-pong balls. “I mean like, yeah? The fuck?”
There, between the tilted and swirling words, was open space. Space without a tear or hint of displacement. Even the dust upon it hadn’t so much as stirred. The poster was whole, but it’s subject had vacated.
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Down into the dark we crept. Gone was the padded quiet of our confidence. In its place ran the panicked, quick feet of of our youth realized. We had taken but a single flight up. Just the one. But as Tom doubled over with his knuckles white upon the banister, I began to count.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said, “The fuck is this place?”
Three, four-
“You’re the one that brought us here!” cried Dick with ragged breath. “You fucking tell me!”
“I didn’t bring us here!”
“THE FUCK YOU DID!” replied Dick, his footfall hard against yet another step. “You fucking glided here. You scoped this place out, didn’t you? Another hidey hole, that it?”
Ten, Eleven-
Tom stands, his brow soaked with the agony of baby fat. He shook his head, and raised a finger towards Dick. “Look man, the street ended here. There wasn’t a light on, and now-”
“Thirteen,” I say.
The boys turn to me, Dick’s brow raised. Tom, too tired to question. I roll my tongue over my lips, and glanced between the two of them.
“It’s been thirteen flights. That’s how many we’ve gone,” I say.
Tom stands a moment, then twists his head in a denial that a criminal would envy. “No, no fucking way. There was one flight up, and we stopped at the poster. We turned and took a straight dive back, and-”
“And you still have that fucking poster!” cries Dick. He takes another step, and lunges. Tom’s hand flies up with the poster, his grip tight upon it. Dick snarls, and tugs it again. “Let fucking go of it man! Just let it go!”
Tom holds his vanity in check, but the paper slides through his fingers all the same. With a single twist, Dick rips the paper in half, forths, tenths and sixteenths. He tosses his hands, and paper snow at his feet. He gives a laugh then, one that lacks the humanity I’d fell in love with. It’s hollow and agonizing, artificial to the point of uncanny. His fingers meet his brow, and curl.
“Thirteen fucking flights, a disappearing guy. Yeah, some fucking hole you chose. Are we still high? You spike that with some synth, you fuck?” cries Dick.
Tom parts his lips-only to fall, along with the rest of us. Gravity takes her tax as we slide down the stairs.
Stairs that are now flat and smooth as glass. We-the bogeymen-scream as our feet hit and bump against one another. The stairs widen by feet, by yards as we toss and tumble. Then, sure as it started, we meet the floor. One atop another, the weight of our comradery crushing. I’m the first to land-then Dick, and Tom last. All for one, cursing and damning our spatial relations.
Tom rolls off the pile, Dick’s breath warm against my back. Tom lays on his back, coughing as he gazes up at the dark. He says nothing at first, but as he speaks it’s with a timidness I’d not heard in years.
“Guys, I don’t think we’re high still,”
Dick slips beside me, his hand finding mine. It squeezes tight, and he glances at Tom. He says not a word. With his free hand, he frees his knife. It clicks like a cicada, a bleeder’s icepick. He holds his gaze a Tom, and takes a breath.
“Well, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all night. Now you’re going to keep making smart decisions, or I’m going to help you make them. Got that, you fucking-”
“If you’re going to run-then you better run from yourself,” came a honey sweet, bass salutation.
Heads rolled in slow, creeping brotherhood at the far end of the room. A wall of shadow, the bubbling abyss that had swallowed us when we entered met our gaze. Tom scrambled to his feet, and tucked a hand into his pocket. It reappeared with a glint-the knuckles he saved for his twitchiest of moments. Dick stood, my hand smacking against the floor as he rose for battle.
“We don’t want no trouble man-we just wanna get out, alright?” Said Tom. His feet swept behind and forward, hands raised. Dick flanked him, blade out. He could have been a fencer in a different world.
The sticky-bass dripped in a rolling chuckle, a reverb like thunder carried through the boards. I scrambled to my feet, sole-less and sliding. I joined Tom’s opposing side, and gazed into the dark. Tom’s fist glinted in a wide sweep as Dick’s back met my own.
“A magician’s got many tricks-of most, you’ve no clue,” said the thunderous voice. There came a clap, just the one. But it was enough to make our heads snap their direction with military precision. Our eyes as one, we beheld-
“Oh, fucking shit,” said Tom.
There he stood, in a spotlight from nowhere. Though the poster gave him no stage, he had one now. A simple wood box, tattered and ragged as he. The coat and pants were the same, but aged. Feasted upon by moths, the affair laid bare the gaunt man beneath. The firm spine of the posters was replaced by a crooked one, crooked as the cane he held in his gloved hand. But of all that captured my attention, it was the top hat upon his head. Pulled low past the nose, it edged a yellowed grin.
The hat itself however was pristine.
Save for his lips, he was still as stone. And as they moved, his teeth did not. The voice that escaped came from him, but wasn’t of him. It was of its one unique timbre, one that gripped behind the eyes to clutch the brain.
“Evening, gentlemen Have you came to enjoy my works?”
The hat tilted, the tip of a nose daring to peek from it’s safety. It was a butchered thing, diced and stitched like a ragdoll. Tom-stick n’ pokes good as warpaint-stepped forth.
“Mister, I don’t know who you are. Frankly, I don’t really give a shit. But it’s like this. We want out of-whatever the fuck this place is. We want gone right away, and if you’re nice enough to show us the door, we won’t trouble you no more. But if you ain’t, you’re a stick. And it ain’t nothing to snap a stick,”
The man smiled with a wolf’s delight. The gnarled digits which held his cane flexed, and he stepped forward. He kicked the soap box away, and it rolled without a clatter into the dark. Tom stood his ground, fists ready. But they wavered, the tremble like a guitar string post-plucking. Dick looked to me, and his eyes held as the back of his hand grazed mine.
“A stick, dear boy? Is that what you think I am? Something to snap beneath your heel, or twixt your mitts? Tell me true. Is that what you find me to be?” said the man.
Tom didn’t speak. He flexed the grip in his brass knuckles, the tendons of his forearm taught. The man took another step, and in his light I held my gaze. But it wasn’t his gait or the geometry of his being. It wasn’t his frightful resemblance. It was, as my eyes strayed along his figure, a singular fact that held my heart within my throat.
He cast no shadow.
“Tom, get back,” I said.
I reached, and gripped Dick’s fingers. I tugged him towards me-but Tom stood even now, his chest heaving. The man dared another step, and bent at the waist. The rim of his hat almost met the ground as he slid forward. His shoes didn’t make a squeak or squeal along the wood-but Tom did. He raised his fist, and let out a war-cry echoed from ages past. His fist gave a glint, and propelled forward.
Then he was on the ground, and the man was gone. Tom gave a grunt as his chin clacked against the floor, right into the unwavering light of the stage.
“A stick, he says. Do you have the faintest idea what a stick can do? Why, many a wondrous thing, if one has the will. And your friend here, well-his will is so singularly concentrated right now,” came the voice. From either side of us, from above. From behind, the sound warm against our necks. Our spines. Our heads.
Tom swept a foot and rose, his face flushed as he glanced about. He turned towards us, knuckles high as he said “Did you see him? The fuck did he go? Swear to christ I’m going to-”
His speech was broken along with his teeth. The knuckles had thirsted-and found purchase with Tom’s own face. He fell to the floor, limbs akimbo as his head clacked against the boards. His fist, though, didn’t join him. It stayed above him, the knuckles coated in a fresh paint of folly. Dick gasped, his fingers tight on mine.
Tom turned his head, and gave a wet cough. He spat, and blood splattered against the boards.
“A stick can bind,” came the voice, rich bass echoing through every synapse, “a stick can break itself-but others too,”
Tom screamed as the knuckles smacked wet into his jaw once more. Dick unclasped his hand from mine. His blade shimmered with captured light as he rushed forward.
“Tom! TOM!” he said.
Another punch, another wet smack of metal on bone. Tom wailed, and Dick leaned in. He reached forward with a fool’s haste.
The hand he reached with gave a final glint before diving into Tom’s chest. Dick screamed as it happened, a wail in such agony it nearly drowned the gurgles of Tom. Dick pressed a foot against his friend’s chest, and dared kicked away. But Tom stayed upon the blade, hacking and coughing and punching all the while.
He met the floor a final time as the voice spoke once more. As Dick turned to me, blood splattered against his hand. His wrist. His chest. His eyes were wide and white as Cain’s own guilt.
“Out, damned spot! Out, OUT!”
Dick’s eyes met mine. His adam’s apple bobbed live wire as the hand gripping the knife raised. With every muscle taut, with Dick straining against a will that wasn’t his own, he let out a scream as the voice broke through once more.
“And for my next trick, I’ll-”
“STOP!”
As the word rolled from my tongue, Dick froze. Every muscle, every tendon grew still as silence. There was a clap-and the light went towards the left. The darkness enveloped Dick and Tom, absorbing the space they had once occupied. Within a second, there was nothing there.
Nothing save the man and me. The crooked man, with his crooked smile and his crooked hat.
“Well, isn’t every day we’ve an intermission. And for what purpose could you possibly wish to interrupt me? No, wait-” he said, raising a single finger. “Under love’s heavy burden do you sink,”
My heart pulses right to my brain as every thought of Dick surges forth. The time we first met. Shoplifting comics. His lips on my neck after we spent all night, our minds past the darkest side of the moon. Tom yelling at us to “cut the gay shit”. Getting high and nude by a fire that felt cooler than he.
But I shake my head. I roll my tongue over my lips, and step forward.
“You can’t lose the game if you don’t play the game,” I say.
The man snorts, and replies “love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. How often have you done the latter, boy? Enough for him to deny you, isn’t it? Isn’t that just one time too many, hrm?”
There’s a clap, and the light splits. Dick stands there, not a single twitch to betray him. Frozen with his mouth agape, the knife ready to plunge. I stand there for a long moment, just looking at him.
Then my eyes close, and I turn my head away.
“Please, just-just not him. Let him go, and you can have me. You can do whatever you want, but just-”
“Oh, but boy?” says the man, his grin widening beneath his brim, “These violent delights have violent ends, don’t they? You know that tale, don’t you? It’s so much like this one, isn’t it? Why, your whole head is full of stories, isn’t it? Don’t lie to me either. I can see it all, every word. That’s why it bubbles out of you. But he-he doesn’t understand, does he? None of them do. Answer me boy,”
I dare to swallow the stone in my throat. It’s not easy, but it passes after a great while. I shake my head, and the man gives the slightest tip of the hat.
“Such a powerful will you’ve got there. So big and passionate, and yet you’re squandering it on these mongrels. Would be a shame to let that happen,” he says. He lifts his cane, and slams the tip against the planks once, twice. He lifts it a third time, and slams it with a clatter. The stagelight on Dick disappears. When I turn back to the man, I find him before me. Cane hooked over his forearm, the top of his hat greeting my eyes. His hands are spread wide before me.
In his grip are playing cards. Filthy, torn and bent things they were. I count thirteen in all.
“Pick one,” comes his voice from the back of my skull. “And whatever it might be that’s how your story will go. There’s a chance here-a chance for you all to wake as though this was a dream. A chance for you to die, a chance for him to live. All things are here-”
“Who are you?” I blurt.
His lips pause, then dance as a giggle erupts from him.
“Mayhaps that’s in there as well. But do be coy-you can only draw once,”
“What happens if I choose the wrong card?” I say.
“There’s no wrong cards. No wrong ends. Death, life-it’s all aspects of the same wriggling, writhing beast of will. What is it you will most, boy? It’s here, you know-”
His hand splays over the cards, his yellowed fingernails dragging against them.
“-all you need do is choose,”
I stare at the cards. These tattered slips of paper, filthy with possibility and worse yet.
I raise my hand, and I pull a single one from his grip.