Mae wasn't sure about this. "Bea, I'm not sure about this."
The old, worn down, two-story building before her loomed like an angry parent, just daring her to do something stupid in its presence. Something which, if she was being completely honest with herself, Mae knew was bound to happen. Stupidity seemed to follow her around like a stalker, a stupid stalker that dropped out of collage. So it was probably a stalker that wasn't very knowledgeable about stalking people actually. Where was she going with this?
"You're the one who asked me to take you somewhere drinking for your twenty first birthday, Mae," Beatrice countered, a slight edge to her usually monotone voice. "Well this is where you go in this town when there are no parties happening and you only give me half an hour's notice. I thought you would have had something planned for today."
Mae gave her reptilian friend a shocked look and raised her arms in the air. "You know I don't do PLANNING!"
"Ugh, yeah, how silly of me to forget. Come on Mae, its not as bad as it looks. I've actually been here before and it's got decent drinks and nobody will stab you for saying stupid shit," Bea said, taking a small drag from the cigarette in her hand.
Mae's eyes went wide. "Wait, people might STAB ME for saying something stupid in a bar? I thought they would just start a cool bar fight. Maybe break some chairs over people's heads while the piano player plays a jaunty tune to go with the fighting. What kind of places do you go to, Bea?!"
"I just said they wouldn't stab you. Anyway I'm pretty sure you're picturing a saloon from the old west, not a dive bar in a small town," Bea said.
Mae crossed her arms at her friend. "Cowboys are cool, Bea."
Bea sighed, "Yes Mae, cowboys are cool. Look, this is the best place in town and it won't bite. Gregg and Angus would agree with me if you had given them enough notice to actually come with us. Now are we going in or not?"
Mae looked back at the old non-descript building she had never before known was a bar. She really did want to go in. It was her chance to be all adult and stuff, drink legally instead of getting sick to her stomach on watered down beer at bonfire parties. Plus, she had Bea to back her up if somebody did try to shank her. She was pretty sure Bea carried mace with her whenever she went out to places like this. If Mae carried mace she'd probably hold it backwards and spray it in her own face by mistake. "Okay."
"Okay?" Bea asked.
"Okay!" Mae replied, "Lets get drunk off our asses!"
Bea shrugged, "Its your birthday, Mae. Just try not to throw up on anyone this time."
"No promises!" Mae yelled.
Bea dropped her smoke and stomped it out on the sidewalk. As they entered the bar Mae's eyes adjusted to a surprisingly well lit room, due to all the windows on one wall. A single pool table was being used by a couple of old timers in the corner. A hand full of tables filled the mostly empty space. A dusty piano sat near one of the windows. The bartender, an older looking bird with distant blue eyes and green feathers, stood cleaning a glass with a towel. He eyed the newcomers for an instant before going back to his task. There was only one other patron at the bar. He sat on a stool nursing what looked like his fourth glass of, some kind of booze. Mae idly wondered how strong the stuff was.
Mae walked right up and sat next to the big drinker. She waved at him. "Hi there, I'm Mae."
The burly bear wearing a flannel shirt grunted something unintelligible and continued to stare forlornly into his alcohol.
"Aww, not feeling particularly talky today? That's cool, as a newly turned twenty one year old, I too am filled with so many amazingly profound thoughts that I can't even begin to communicate them all either," Mae said.
The bear in the flannel shirt grunted something that must have been too much of a mindblower for even himself, because he immediately fell face first onto the counter and started snoring.
"You girls going to order something?" The bartender asked without looking up.
"Just a beer for me please," Bea said.
"I want ALL the booze!" Mae exclaimed with a big smile.
"Whoa there Mae, maybe just get one drink and see how you feel after that," Bea advised.
The bartender glared at the hyperactive cat. "Do you have ID with you, miss?"
Mae glared back. "Oh you bet I do mister suspicious. Boom!" She pulled out her mostly empty wallet and showed him her ID. "Twenty one as of today!"
He looked it over briefly. "Right, so what are you having?"
"Booze!" she repeated.
The bird nodded. "Right, but what kind?"
Mae rubbed her arm. "Uh, the good kind?"
Bea had to stop herself from cradling her face in her hands out of sheer embarrassment.
"Right," the bird said, "two beers then." He disappeared behind the counter for a second and came back with two glasses of what Mae could only assume was some very sophisticated tasting beer. "Here you are ladies."
The two friends said their thanks and looked at their drinks. Bea almost immediately gulped down a significant portion of her drink. She needed this more then she realized. Mae on the other hand was starring at her drink. What tasty wonders would be offered to her taste buds this day? Only a true adult could appreciate this sort of beverage and now it was all hers. She took a slow sip.
She immediately spit it out. "Pffffffttt, this is worse than the watered down stuff!"
"Mae, what the hell?!" Bea said.
"This drink tastes like ass, Beabea! ASS I TELL YOU!" Mae yelled.
"No refunds," the bartender said without looking up from the glass he was cleaning.
It was at that moment an eerily familiar tune filled the room. Mae's chewed up ear twitched at the sound. She looked over at Bea. She seemed surprised as well. The piano was being played by someone the two had never seen before. It sounded so sad, yet beautiful.
"I didn't know this place actually had a piano player," Mae said.
"Neither did I," Bea replied in mild shock.
The sounds were haunting in a way that Mae almost couldn't place until the piano man started singing.
Some people are one way and that's how they stay,
Some people find one life and they one life and they live that way,
Hey man have you seen her around, have you seen her todaaay?
I only knew her a week before she went awaaay,
Sometimes you cant see someone until they're gone,
Some people never stop they're always moving on,
So the song continued. Mae stated patting her friend's arm in rapid succession. "Bea, BEA."
"I'm right here, Mae," Bea said in a monotone.
Mae looked her friend dead in the eyes. "He stole our song. That asshole stole our song!"
Bea looked at the no smoking sign at the bar and sighed. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this, Mae. I just can't think of one right now. I mean, how would this guy even steal our song? I've never seen him before in my life and all our songs are on paper or played in the Party Barn. There's no way he should even know our stuff exists."
"He pulled a plagiarism on us!" Mae countered.
Mae was fuming. How dare this rando steal one of the songs her friends had made? No, what was worse was this was one of Casey's songs. He'd worked hard on it and now this guy was just blatantly taking it away from him like a, Mae gulped, like a grave robber. This wasn't right.
The song ended. The other people in the bar clapped in genuine applause, smiles on their faces. Even the guy who was supposedly passed out at the bar had gotten up at some point to applaud the performance before setting his head back down on the bar. The amazing presentation only worked to upset the little feline even more. This guy not only stole Casey's song but he was kind of upstaging him now too, in a dive bar no less! This should have been Casey's place to play. These people should have been cheering for Casey. Where was his moment?
Mae knew Casey would never get his moment now. He'd never get to be the star going on tour with his best friends. He'd never be free of Possum Springs, not now. Because he was… "I'm going to go talk to this asshole."
"Uh, I'm going with you," Bea said.
They got up from the stools and slowly approached the old man playing piano. He was wearing a somewhat worn suit that might have looked nice once. It had a patch over the chest pocket, presumably having broken at some point. A pack of cigarettes filled the pocket. The old cat had graying red fur. His ears drooped like the weight of the world was perpetually crushing them down. His tired green eyes looked somewhere in the distance into a place only he could see. The bags under them only served to give him a more aged presence. He truly looked like the burden of life could crush his skinny body if he wasn't careful. Mae didn't care right now.
When the two girls approached he offered a tired smile. "Hey there, did you two young ladies like the song?"
The gall of this guy!
"No we didn't! It was horrible!" Mae said.
The old cat's eyes widened at that. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. This song is kind of special to me."
"Well it shouldn't be," Mae argued, "Its special to US. We're the ones who wrote the dang thing. You stole it."
"My friend could be a bit more tactful but yeah," Bea added, her arms crossed, "What's the deal dude. How do you even know this song? You didn't write it yourself. We both know that."
"Oh well you see," he started.
Mae couldn't wait to hear this.
"I'm Casey's Uncle."
Mae suddenly felt like a complete ass. "Oh."
"That makes sense I guess," Bea said, "You do look related. I didn't know he had any contact with his relatives besides his parents and drug making cousin though."
Mae raised an eyebrow at her friend. "We don't know his cousin made drugs."
The old cat looked uncomfortably to the side.
The goth alligator sneered a little. "Mae come on, the guy had a chemistry lab in his trailer. That can only mean one thing."
"That he liked to do science experiments in his home?" Mae asked.
"I can't tell if your being serious or not," Bea replied.
"I'm suuuper serious, Bea. So what's your name anyway? Also, sorry for being a butt earlier," Mae said.
The old cat waved his hand dismissively. "It's quite alright. I'm just surprised my nephew never mentioned his old uncle Cullen Hartley."
"I'm Bea and this spazz is Mae. Nice to meet you," Bea introduced.
Mae's eyes widened. "Wait, you're Uncle Cullen?! Casey used to talk about you all the time! You're the one who got him interested in music! He said he wanted to be just like you one day when he got out of here!"
"Oh shoot, really? I didn't know that," Bea said with genuine surprise.
Cullen Hartley suddenly leaned in and placed both hands on Mae's shoulders. Life seemed to spring back into his tired eyes. "When he got out of here? So you know where he went?! Please, you have to tell me if you know."
Bea looked nervously between her friend and the old cat.
Mae looked down at her feet. Her voice was low. "No, I'm sorry. I don't know where he is."
The tired expression returned to Cullen's face. It was like a light had flicked on only to burn out a moment later. Mae hated herself right then, but she couldn't just tell him though, not here and not now. The truth was too unbelievable anyway. A cult of old men hell bent on bringing back Possum Springs' glory days so much that they were willing to sacrifice people to an abhorrent goat demon just to keep the place on the map. People like Casey were the sacrifices of course; people who were "born to lose" as Casey would have put it. At least the cave in had put a stop to them.
"Oh, of course, I just thought that, well never mind." Cullen tried his best to offer a genuine smile, but it came off as looking more forlorn then anything.
Mae looked at Bea, she too looked sad at the whole situation. An uncomfortable silence settled in for a few moments before Cullen spoke up.
"Well anyway, I'm back in town for awhile, so if either of you want to come by just to hear some music, I'd be happy to oblige."
"And if you want to rock your socks off, come down to the Party Barn after five on weekdays! Me and my friends play there a lot of the time," Mae offered, trying to put a happy spin on this less then happy reunion of sorts.
A small smirk showed up on Cullen's otherwise sad features. "I didn't know that place was still in business."
"It's not really," Bea explained, "We just play there for anyone who might be interested. Usually that's just this kid named Germ though."
"Germ Warfare?" Cullen asked.
"You know him?!" Mae asked back.
"Of course I do. He was one of Casey's best friends. He told me all about him before I went on my last tour. When I came back four months later, he was gone. No word from him, no goodbye note. He was just gone with the wind. People around town say he hopped a train but I can't believe he'd do that without telling his mother at the very least. He'd never just leave her behind like that. They were a team," Cullen said.
"Yeah, Casey loved his mom. She was one of the few family members who wasn't complete shit to him," Mae said before hearing what she just said. Foot meet mouth. "Uh, no offence, you're really cool."
Cullen just laughed, "It okay, I know what you mean. I wont pretend my family doesn't have a lot of problems. That's why I left to become a musician. The only thing I ever got from my family was piano lessons and a kick in the pants."
Mae nodded in understanding. "All Casey got was a boat and a crappy tree house from his dead dad."
Cullen's brow furrowed just a bit. "I know its wrong to speak ill of the dead, but I never liked that man my sister married. He never gave his full measure in anything and he hardly cared what his son got up too. Casey could have died in a hole somewhere in the woods and that man wouldn't have noticed until a year later."
Mae and Bea both flinched at those last words.
Cullen didn't notice. "But yeah, I know where to find you if you feel like talking about things."
Mae knew that "things" probably meant reminiscing about Casey. Some part of her didn't want to think about it, but a much bigger part of her felt a longing to talk about it with someone besides Gregg and Germ. The former was often too sad to talk about it and the latter was so curt that the conversation often died out before it really began.
"And I know where to find you too," she said.
That night Mae snuggled up into her bed, thinking about the days events. It had mostly been uneventful after the bar with no name. Mae had gone out to get some much better tasting milkshakes and not so better tasting pizza at the click-clack diner with Bea, Gregg and Angus. She had told the two boys of who she met that day and how cool he had been. They had been somewhat apprehensive about it. Mae had quickly brought up other topics like how the big move for them was coming along and how was Bea doing with the Ol' Pickaxe, but her heart hadn't really been in it. She had wanted to talk more about the elephant in the room that nobody else seemed to want to talk about. But if her friends didn't want to talk, they didn't have to. Mae wasn't that big of a jerk. Well, she WAS, but she tried very hard not to be. She was a big enough dumpster fire without forcing her friends to chat about other dead best friends. It was on that note, she finally fell asleep.
Everything was neon colors. The bright shapes in the sky floated about without a care in the world. The birds were swimming, the fish were singing and that one old guy in the corner was playing a piano. All in all a normal night in Possum Springs, right? Mae turned around to the sound of train going by on the tracks. She had been standing right in front of it and hadn't even noticed. As the train sped by at an impossible pace Mae could just make out someone standing on the opposite side of the tracks waving at her to get her attention. Who was that? She could just make out the red fur, green eyes and midnight blue hoodie.
"Casey is that you? What are you doing over there past the train tracks you weirdo? Come back over here," Mae yelled with a smile.
Casey looked desperate to tell her something over the roar of the train rushing past. If only she could hear what he was saying.
"D- -e- -, Mae!"
Mae cupped her paws around her ears. Even through the fog in her mind, this seemed important. "WHAAAT?!"
Casey cupped his own paws around his mouth, "I said wake up!"
Mae woke up.