When Graveyards Yawn by G. Wells Taylor (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

I left the car at the curb. It leaned battered and beaten at the base of a dim street lamp. A carload of Firebugs roared past moments before an ancient truck burst into yellow flames down the street. A dead wino looked at me with frightened eyes. I gave him a quarter and stumbled up crumbled steps under a neon sign that throbbed the word Berlinz.

Shortly, I was curled around a pink marble bar. Some sex kitten purred in a voice of rustling bed sheets, a song about Stormy Weather. She seemed oblivious to the many blatant leers that dripped around the lips of foamy beer mugs. I leaned over my drink and slurped with a bruised pucker. My vision jumped like jacks as I waved for the bartender’s attention and stabbed my empty glass.

“You like that stuff, eh, Mr. Clown?” He was a small Latin fellow with thin black hair slicked over a tiny head. His skinny arms worked the bottle of Canadian Club over my glass. “You got a lot of blood on you there.” He looked me up and down.

“Just pour, Caesar. It isn’t mine.” I turned away absently. My head ached, my body shivered with pain, and my guts burned with each glass of whiskey. I was in a great mood—felt like sixty-six cents.

I reached back, got my drink and concentrated on the singer. Her dress was slit to the crotch, and for a lascivious moment I distracted myself by playing peek-a-boo with a white silk bunny that flashed its cute little nose from time to time. When the singer jerked her hips in just such a way, her enormous augmented breasts heaved provocatively against the tight silk dress. I lit a cigarette, drained my glass and put my injured brain to work.

Pigface and the monkey-twins were obviously in Mr. Adrian’s employ. One might ask the question, why does Mr. Adrian hire gentlemen of questionable heredity when he’s just a nice old taxpaying businessman. The dead men’s wallets had provided little more than a few small bills in way of information; in fact, they were buying me a round. I hadn’t expected to find anything. Nobody carried identification any more. Regardless, Mr. Adrian called the shots. He would soon know that I had escaped because his boys wouldn’t be home tonight. I decided not to worry about what he would do—he would do it anyway.

I was curious about Tommy. He had never intruded when I was taking my kick at the cat before, so why now? During my past possessions there had been a few odd Tourette-like explosions, but never awareness. He usually just picked up and went along his demented way when I was through with him. But now, he knew about the interview with the lawyer, he’d given that away when he was talking to Inspector Cane. The phantom baby case. Now out came his damn voice when I was talking to Mr. Adrian. Again, the phantom baby. And I couldn’t forget the other new twist—my fall from the Morocco—I’d been knocked unconscious for the first time since I’d become what I am. Whatever that is…

A voice intruded into my thoughts.

“Hey, what’s with the makeup, Mac?”

I turned with my lips folded for an ‘f’ sound and looked into a face without a nose. I stopped.

“How are you, Pogo?” I really didn’t care. I was surprised at how much I didn’t care.

“Fine, you monkey fucker!” He hopped onto the stool beside me. “What brings you out on a day like this?”

“If I didn’t go out on days like this, I’d never go out.” The whiskey was starting to take the edge off. I’d known Pogo for about a year and a half. We frequented the same damp places on the underbelly of the world.

Pogo laughed in his peculiar wet way. He once told me he was a full-blood Apache Indian. Of course, it explained the brilliant war bonnet he wore to cap off his expensive suit. The subject of his heritage had come up once when we watched a documentary on the TV over the bar. Apparently terrified by the ramifications of the Change, large numbers of people had forsaken the godless life of the cities to return to nature. Some of the old tribes were letting them in too. Pogo laughed at the whole process but said he could never go back. “They ain’t got no video, no nothing in nature. Who the fuck needs that?” Later, he had had his nose cut off when he’d fallen into the hands of the Brotherhood of White Order. But he took the facial redecoration in stride. Pogo spent his afterlife as a pimp and dealer in exotic entertainment. He felt the new look terrified debtors and creditors alike. I added these facts to the list of things I didn’t care about.

“You’re as crazy as ever, Tommy!” he said and lit up a long imported cigar. Smoke curled up and was sucked into the wet nasal opening. My guts juggled whiskey. He continued. “But like I said, what the fuck are you up to man?”

“Same old shit, Pogo. Shooting people, getting beaten up, falling out of windows.” I pointed for a fresh drink.

“Oh shit man, I know,” Pogo laughed. “I heard about you whackin’ that Queen. Now, them Queens like whackin’ but not with no goddamn bullets… If I was you I’d keep my balls the hell away from the Downings—forever! A few girls down there want to wear them for earrings.”

“What the hell would I go there for anyway? Probably some other clown.” I slurped my new drink. “You know I don’t shoot people. Death’s a serious thing these days.”

I noticed Pogo fumbling with something in his hands. It was a little can of Greaseasy—the newest high in town. He squirted a drop into each eye, clenched his face and held the can out toward me. I smelled ethanol.

“No thanks,” I said, pushing the tin back. “I’m working.”

“Come on, man,” he muttered; his head wedged between his knees. “You’ll see clearly now…” He gripped his skull with broad hands. “Oh shit! There we go…”

“Maybe later.” I turned away from Pogo and his convulsions, and watched the singer. She had just started into the same sultry tune again. I still couldn’t name it—some sad song about a storm, and somebody’s baby going away.

“Hey, Pompeii!” I waved the bartender over. “Have you got anything to eat in this joint?”

“Just sandwiches, Mr. Clown!” He smiled insolently and showed off a gold tooth. I wondered if he’d like to have it surgically removed from his bowel. I clenched my fists instead of swinging them.

“Sham sandwich—make it two, and one of those giant deli pickles if you have them.”

“You want sham or real ham Mr. Clown?” He gave me another grin. “Maybe it’s payday at the circus?” I glared at him as he walked away from the bar, and whispered through a door at the back. He waved a finger to signify that it would be just a minute, hour, day or month—possibly a year. It would just be one of something.

I scanned the bar while I waited. Most of the waiters were dead. They were cheap labor, and would work for nothing: busier, the better. About ten people in all enjoyed the atmosphere of Berlinz. It was not a big place—just a long rectangle that looked like it had been made over into about nineteen different styles. Flickering lights behind a smoked glass wall screamed, “We’re a disco.” Ancient sepia-tone pictures of black men holding saxophones over their bellies like brass entrails drawled, “We’re a blues bar.” A prancing little maitre d’ in a lavender tuxedo looking more bored than gay lisped, “We’re a bistro”; while from the ceiling, low hanging wagon wheels slung with oil lamp light bulbs twanged, “We’re a country bar.” It was that type of thing. Oddly enough, the customers fit right in.

My sandwiches arrived. My pickle didn’t. The bread was white and dry; but I found the sham to be white and dry, so decided not to complain. Everything breaks down after a while. Who was I to rock the boat?

I looked over at Pogo. His convulsions had ended. The veins in his neck stood out like sewer pipes, and his face was apple red.

“Good stuff, Pogo?”

He smiled, eyes wide as an ocean, and nodded idiotically. “Yeeaaah!” His voice was wild and uncontrollable. “Gooood stuuuff, baby.” He nodded his head so rapidly that I had to turn away to smirk.

“Heeyy, Tommmmy!” His voice followed me.

“Hey, Pogo.”

“Da-da Elmo, wwhere’s h-h-heeee?”

“At home looking after the kids…” My voice trailed off. Mood momentarily lifted, I smiled at Pogo’s noseless face then threw a ten dollar bill at the bartender and left.