The Haunting of the Holy Mackerel
3: Something Wicked
(August 13, 2016)
In the early afternoon of that Saturday, a group of thirteen bikers dropped in at the Skull Fracture for a little refreshment. With the other biker gang name already taken, they called themselves "Satin's Angles." They had no idea why English teachers bullied them so much when they wore their leathers emblazoned with the name on the back. Chrome studs don't come with spell-checkers, you see.
The Ark Angle (there's that spelling issue again) was Honker Dillinberg, who got his name because in his square life he drove a big rig and loved nothing so much as blasting his air horn randomly on superhighways, often causing minor spasms in mild-mannered drivers ahead of him. He was tall and burly (though with a beer gut that overhung so much his feet never got wet in a rainstorm), and he wore his wraparound shades 24/7. Even while sleeping. In fact, his face was so deeply tanned except for his eye sockets that he looked a little bit like a negative image of a raccoon.
While the rest of the boys were relaxing with brews and hot dogs and playing their own brand of pool (Cues? We don't need no stinkin' cues!), Honker felt a call of nature and made his way down the hallway past the back room (private games of chance were often held there), the small kitchen and freezer (food choices were limited in the Skull Fracture), the storage room, janitor's closet, and finally, the splintered, banged-up doors marked GENTLEMEN and LADIES.
If the labels had been a requirement for entry, then during the entire existence of the Skull Fracture, neither toilet would ever once have been flushed. However, the signs denoted only gender rather than the implied social classes.
At urinals, Honker liked to aim for the little deodorant cakes. He had a fantasy of completely dissolving one, but that had never happened. Didn't this time, either. He finished up, zipped up, and then stopped to wash his hands. Not many of the Satin's Angles did, but he was the leader, so he tried to provide a decent example of how a moral degenerate should behave.
He ran the water in the stained sink until it heated up, then started to wash his hands. He did not get a dollop of the liquid soap from the dispenser above the sink, because he knew that some guys like to kid other guys in a good-natured way by urinating in the dispensers. He often did that himself.
He hummed while scrubbing, ignoring the fact that plain water, unassisted by powerful cleaning agents like soap or muriatic acid, was sadly inadequate for the task of removing years of ingrained oil, blood, sweat, and tears. His sweat, but the other bodily fluids always came from donors.
A cheap mirror—not even glass, probably—had been mounted to the wall above the sink perhaps forty years earlier and never once in all that time cleaned. These days, it was almost as reflective as the surface of a damp mushroom, but Honker wet his hands, slicked back his bushy brown hair, and squinted at a splotch that might have been his reflection.
Huh. The face looked wrong. The glasses made his reflection (if it was indeed his) look very, um, skully. And pale. He took off the shades and leaned close.
The face in the mirror leaned close. It looked emaciated, nearly glowing a pale, pale green. "I knew I shouldn'ta et that roadkill possum," Honker grunted. He figured maybe a shot or two of the Skull Fracture's cheapest bourbon might sterilize whatever malevolent marsupial microorganisms he had running amuck in his system, though—
Now, this was weird. The reflection looked like it was moving on its own.
Two bony hands burst out of the mirror, seized Honker's shoulders, and pulled him into the reflection.
He made a mental note to leave roadkill off his own personal menu from now on.
The face was much clearer now and looked like that of a woman, though nearly lost in curls of some thick, greeny-yellowy mist, like the atmosphere in Beijing on a particularly high-particulate bad air day. "Ma'am," Honker said, "I believe I might be sick and out of my head."
The face opened its mouth impossibly wide.
The last thing it swallowed was Honker's desperate, thrashing feet. The boots stuck before the monster slurped, like a two-year-old with a dangling strand of pasghetti, and then nothing at all was left in the mirror. It reflected only on the back of the men's room door.
Out in the bar, at about the same moment, "You guys!" yelled Tats. "Hey! Cut it out right now, or I moana haveta ask you to leave."
This, it should be noted, was his bouncer-speak. Though most people in Gravity Falls were not aware of it, actually Tats had been well-educated and held a Bachelor's in Literary Theory, complete with a phi beta kappa key to show how studious he had been. Unfortunately, after college he had not been able to find proper employment, since employers tended to assume that someone holding a B.L.T. was more suited to a career as a short-order cook than a teacher of college English.
That so embittered Tats that he almost never spoke of his credentials. In fact, of all the Skull Fracture regulars, only Ghost Eyes knew about his college degree, and that was because Ghost Eyes himself had been an honor student and held a B.A. in Philosophy. He, too, had been unable to find employment in his field of expertise, since these days, nobody seemed to be hiring philosophers. He had recently gone back to college for a degree in business, and now things were breaking for him at last—though he still had a couple semesters to finish up, which he could do part-time in night school, he'd already found a good entry-level position with a consulting firm in The Dalles, one that specialized in consulting other consultants on how to improve their consulting. It was a long commute, but Ghost Eyes told him the salary and prospects for promotion and raises justified the expense. "You ought to go back to school too, my brother," Ghost Eyes had told him.
"I'll think about it," Tats had said. "I suppose it's all like Spinoza said."
"To a limited extent," Ghost Eyes agreed. "But remember your Leibniz."
"Good point, good point," Tats said. "But I find that Dewey cancels out Leibniz."
"Yeah, you're right. Ain't no thang anyway, brother."
"Ain't no big thang," Tats agreed.
But going back to school for a degree that might promise some prospect of employability was something to think about. And that was what he'd been idly considering up to the point when four of the Satin's Angles broke out in an argument punctuated with hurled billiard balls. One nearly broke the big mirror behind the bar, but Tats caught it in his big right hand with a solid smack! "That's enough," he said. "Pay your tab and hit the road, 'fore I hit it with y'all!"
Within the next minute, the dozen Satin's Angles discovered that Tats never made ineffectual threats. He did collect what they owed and he did throw them out—literally—and a lot of them did hit the road, though others hit, variously, the sidewalk, a fireplug, and a passing pickup truck full of manure.
Seeing double but satisfied that they'd put up a good fight—the one last week had been only half a minute long, so they'd doubled their time-in-ring with Tats—they jumped on their hogs and roared out of town. Only very late that afternoon did they realize that somebody was missing. They were no better at counting than at spelling, though, so they never did quite make out that the sole missing member was Honker.
It was as if their fearless leader had just been swallowed up.
Around five in the afternoon, the crowds in the Mystery Shack slacked off. Soos said, "Gee, Mr. Pines, I mean Stan, that was a long day!"
"Yeah, real busy, but not too bad," Stanley said, stretching and arching his back. "Aggh, I ain't used to standing on my feet all day any more. How'd we do?"
"Um, admissions were real good, but I don't have all the figures yet," Soos said. He called to Dipper, at the register. "How were sales, Dipper?"
Dipper gave them two thumbs-up. "Nice! We even unloaded six of those Day of the Dead serapes at ninety-nine bucks each."
That made Stan grin. "You done good, Soos!" he said. The previous winter, while visiting family in Mexico, Soos had stumbled upon a supplier that sold the serapes for two dollars apiece, and he made a profit at that. Soos had picked up a gross. The markup meant a very nice margin for the Shack.
"Thanks, Mister, I mean Stan. They seemed a natural for us."
"I'm gonna grab a cup of coffee," Stan said. "Call me if enough suckers show up to call for another Mystery Trail trip, and I'll take 'em out."
"Sure thing, but won't drinking coffee this late in the day, like, keep you awake tonight?" Soos asked.
Stan shrugged. "Meh, don't matter. Lodge meetin' tonight. Uh. Sorry, Soos, shouldn't have mentioned the Lodge. I know it's a sore point."
Soos grinned, though a little sadly. "No, don't worry about it. I mean, sure, I'd like to be a Mackerel, but since there's only room for thirty-three—well, don't worry about it."
"Tell you what," Stan said. "The very next time we have an opening, I'll put your name up for membership."
Soos's big face lit up. "Would you? Thanks, Mister, I mean Stan! Tell them I'd be the best Mackerel ever!"
"I sure will."
When Stan left for the kitchen—Teek had closed up the snack bar a little past two—Wendy came over. "Hey, Soos, what's the deal with wantin' to be in the lodge, man? All those guys do is drink beer and eat together once a month and then play cards and junk."
Soos sighed. "Yeah, I know. But since I became Mr. Mystery, people in town, like, like me and all, but except for the Chamber of Commerce, I'm not really connected, you know, to the community and junk. I'd just like, sort of have a little more social network and stuff."
"Well, good luck with that," Wendy said.
Soos went back to lead another small group of tourists through the museum, and Wendy sauntered over to the counter to lean back and talk to Dipper. "Guys and lodges. You gonna join any lodges when we're all married?"
"Not me," Dipper said, smiling. "I'm gonna stay home with my best girl every night."
"Good answer, man," Wendy said with a grin. "Seriously, though, what's the appeal?"
Dipper shrugged. "I can't really figure it out. But me, I'm not good at networking or working in groups or even at making friends. Dad keeps saying that when I go to college, I should find a good fraternity. He was Theta Tau himself, but man, I just don't like the way guys in groups act, I guess. I mean, the track team's one thing. I even have some friends there. But even with that, they keep ragging on each other—and on me—and some of the jokes can kinda sting."
"Well, who needs frat boys?" Wendy asked. She reached out and tweaked Dipper's pine-tree cap. "Not me. I just need me a lamby."
"Don't even start," Dipper groaned.
"Sorry, Dip," Wendy said with a giggle. "My place for movies tonight? My brothers and dad are gonna be off bowling until at least midnight."
"Sounds good to me," Dipper said. "Want to go get something to eat first?"
"Mm, yeah, I think so. There's that new French restaurant over in Hirschville. Wanna check it out?"
"It's a date."
"Good. We'll leave at quittin' time and go eat, then get back to my place for the formal meeting of the Loyal Order of the Lamby Lambs!"
"I am not wearing a costume," Dipper warned.
She grinned impishly. "Neither am I. That oughta make it fun!"
At about the same time, Blubs came into the Skull Fracture. No customers were in the place at the moment—lull between the lunch people and the Saturday night revelers—and only Tats and Johnny Beluga, the bartender, were in the place, Beluga reading a racing form, Tats reading Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Orville the cook was in the kitchen, sending out aromas of chili, on the menu for dinner after the meeting.
Tats glanced up. "Hey, Sheriff! Way early for the meeting."
Beluga only grunted. He wasn't a Mackerel and didn't want to be and especially resented that one Saturday night each month, the bouncer was upstairs and not down in the bar breaking up fights. Though, come to that, some of the fights were pretty entertaining, so it was probably a wash.
Blubs hitched up his gunbelt and said, "No, I'm here on official business. Now, whose motorcycle is that out front? It's illegally parked, and I really oughta ticket it, but I thought I'd check with you first and see if it belonged to one of your friends or to a big dangerous guy, just to be safe."
"Is it pink?" Tats asked.
Blubs nodded the way he'd seen Jerry Orbach nod on Law and Order. "Yes. Yes, it is."
"That's one of the Angles' bikes, then," Tats said. "That wild bunch from Bend, you know. They were in here earlier, but they left around lunch time."
"Well, one of them forgot his ride," Blubs said. "Think I ought to have it towed?"
"Nah," Tats told him. "I'll move it around back to the parking lot. These guys will probably realize they left it behind and come back for it. I wouldn't wanna antagonize a customer."
"Good thinking."
Tats didn't recognize the motorcycle and didn't know which Angle might own it—he didn't socialize with the members of the bikers' club—but with a grunt he picked it up, since it only weighed five hundred pounds, and carried it around to one of the narrow bike slots and left it there.
He went back into the bar and found, to his annoyance, that he'd lost his place in Hume. He frowned, trying to remember where he had broken off. Oh, yeah, there it was: "Contrast or Contrariety is also a connexion among Ideas: But it may, perhaps, be considered as a mixture of Causation and Resemblance. Where two objects are contrary, the one destroys the other; that is, is the cause of its annihilation, and the idea of the annihilation of an object, implies the idea of its former existence."
Tats chuckled as he swiped to the next page of the ebook. Man, Hume always knew how to pace a joke.