Chapter 12
A loser never knows that he's losing
(I'll Leave The Bottle On The Bar - Johnny Paycheck)
Hmm, this maybe wasn't my smartest idea…
I decided to hide up a tree. The thing about climbing a tree is it's always so much easier on the climbing up than the getting down. I was roughly 4 stories high at the moment and I couldn't see an easy way down.
Stupid self-sacrificing idiots, I honestly can't stand them. Just seems like a waste.
He didn't even let me walk away all cool and apathetic. Pessoa had called me back, giving me his leather doctor's bag – asking me to make sure the man in charge got it.
Always a cryptic, the moustachioed punk didn't even give me a name for his mysterious boss.
Ooh la la the man in charge. I peeked down between dense foliage to the forest floor. I saw him between the dense foliage, Pessoa was sat cross-legged on the floor. He won't mind, I'm sure, if I take a look through his bag.
I popped open the bag. Inside was a few manilla envelopes, a toothbrush, some gold jewellery, a glasses case, a penknife, and some large wrapped bundle that took up most of the space, as I reached in to pull it out from below, my fingers grazed against some cold glass.
I licked my suddenly painfully dry lips. How had I not noticed this sensation of an unquenchable first that had been plaguing me since the mess at Pluto's. 'Don't get your hopes up' I told myself. Tenderly I extricated the quarter pint bottle, half full of a dark liquid. With a reverent delicacy, I unscrewed the metal lid, and gingerly lifted the bottle to my nose and inhaled deeply.
Ooooh wow, what a smell, brandy I was sure. It smelt like sweet smokey wood and vanilla… and stung like strong booze. Pessoa had held out on me. Maybe I should leave him to his fate. No, that would be cruel.
I took a deep breath reminding myself to savour the double measure of brandy. Which some benevolent spirit had seen fit to bestow on this wretched sinful seafaring scoundrel.
I lifted the glass to my closed lips and knocked the glass back.
The liquid burned lightly against my chapped lips, I lowered the bottle and licked my lips, shuddering slightly in pleasure as the heady sweet and smokey brandy coated my tongue and gums and teeth. Its burn reached my throat, a pleasant reminder that on earth exists and ail for all ills and it can be found in every port, every castle and every shack from here to the end of the world. booze.
I knocked back the bottle once again, this time into my open mouth, emptying its contents into my waiting mouth. I held it there, not swallowing but savouring the sensation. Finally, I swallowed gratefully and let out a slow hot hissing breath enjoying the burn in my throat.
I screwed up the bottle and stowed it in an empty bird's nest next to me, swapping it for one of the three eggs inside. It seemed no time to rest on my laurels as I heard a loud braggadocious voice filling the formerly quiet forest.
I almost laughed out loud. I really did, I know that silver spoon shit spout anywhere, my old boss, Mr Virgil Hapner Junior in the flesh.
"Well Well Well, if it isn't Fernando Sousa, if that is your real name… who would have thought a snivelling bookkeeper would be a spy hahaha" the slimy young man quaffed and chuckled, delighting in his perceived superiority.
I licked my lips absentmindedly, there were three men in the clearing. Pessoa was leaning against a tree, Virgil was confidently sauntering his way towards him and lastly was a young man with only a sword at his side was waiting by the tree line. I assume not the gunman from the boat.
"I bet you think you are pretty clever, staying behind so I can't track the old drunk with your vivre card," he smirked condescendingly "Too bad for you it didn't work."
An unsettling sensation of impending violence that was becoming increasingly common in recent days made itself known to me. It felt like a static charge running across my skin, up my spine and into my brain. With it came an image or idea of… choking.
Or maybe that was just the sensation of choking, something thick and sticky had wrapped itself around my neck with the speed of a cracking whip. I crashed to the floor in an agonising and jarring mess.
I was dragged by my throat across the forest floor by the sticky object, so fast I could barely claw for my satchel with one hand and at whatever the fuck was choking me.
I gasped and dug in with my nail, barely managing to penetrate the layer of slime coating it and utterly failing to do any damage. As quickly as it arrived it vanished with a similar whipping motion. I gasped quickly for a deep breath as my murky vision began to clear, as I saw a dirty boot smack into my face…
Blissful nothingness overtook me, no pain, or fear. Sweet release. Hmm, maybe I'll catch up on some sleep.
Something cold and oppressive lay heavily against my forehead.
Yawn. piss off I'm sleeping.
It's like when you wake up too cold in bed, but you can't be fucked to do anything about it. So you just lay there.
The oppressive weight jabbed at my head nastily.
"Mmm quit it," I mumbled.
Crack. A squelchy snappy noise that set my teeth on edge.
Oh, I blearily felt my face.
My teeth were on edge. Like really, one of my front teeth was dangling in my mouth. I prodded it gently with my tongue groaning, it was attached by a sliver of meaty gum. Yucky.
I spat blood on the floor. Raised my head to find the unwelcome sight of a bloody rifle barrel staring back at me.
My swimming and blurred vision re-adjusted to see a tall man, slim and handsome. Sporting a swirled moustache and fedora holding the offending weapon.
"Morning," the man drawled boredly.
Adrenaline began to dull the sharp edges of my pain, bringing my circumstances into harsh focus. On the beach. Virgil Junior kicked me so hard in the head I passed out I think. Little bastard. His boat was there, onboard was Pessoa, tied up and unconscious, a nasty gash on his now hatless head.
"Junior wants a word," said the man, nodding to where said man was standing on the beach marveling at… my fruit, the Home Home Fruit. The route cause of all this madness, that and my own death wish.
"Go prep the ship Dante and keep watch for unwelcome visitors," he dismissed the tall man casually
He turned to me, an unusually contemplative look on his young face. "I suppose I should thank you Algea."
I looked around for a weapon, my pistol was gone, and my sword for some reason lay down on the beach in the sand. I was in no position to retrieve it, I was in bad shape and we both knew it.
"Whys'sat," I grumbled, trying not to agitate the hanging tooth and failing miserably. I reached into my mouth and plucked it out, barely registering the renewed sting and bleeding.
"Well without your intervention when I had planned to confront my late father, I can't help but admit he would have likely killed me." he stopped and breathed deeply looking out to sea.
He seemed vastly different to how I remember him when he was my boss, calmer and more contemplative.
"My world has changed."... "No, the world is the same, I have changed, I see things more clearly now."
"I think it's fate what happened, that's why I'm sparing you, that, and the fact I was able to recover this fruit, you have no idea what this means to certain people."
"I think I do," I muttered bitterly. I felt like a damn failure, that fruit was my duty, the last place I wanted it to be was in the hands of him or people like him.
"Hmm maybe, anyway…"
"Junior, Revolutionary ship on the horizon, best clear out." came the call from Dante as the grunt began raising the anchor.
"Listen Algea, in light of how things went down I'm gonna consider this wrapped up and let you be, but if I get one whiff you're looking for me or the fruit you'll be dead before you know it, that's a promise."
He looked behind to see the ship slowly drifting away from shore. He crouched low and his legs expanded and lengthened, his exposed skin turning very light green so light you could almost… and he disappeared, leaving a crater on the beach. Kicking up a cloud of dust and sand. When it finally settled the sleek ship was already halfway to the horizon, and in the distance I could make out a speck slowly, dreadfully slowly getting larger.
"Here comes the cavalry," I muttered sarcastically.
Shards of pain crept back into my body one by one. My head was throbbing with deep undulating pain, my face was more of a stabbing, but no less pleasant.
I looked over at the rippling sea, as the sun set on another day, sending glistening sparkly specks of light dancing across its apathetic surface. I felt it judging me. You should be stronger said the sun's bright rays. The wind whispered in my ear that I am too old. The birds cawed in amusement at my sorry state. And the sea said nothing, but I could feel its disappointment, even as it carried the culprits to safety on its back.
With nothing to do but wait for someone to turn up or the sun to rise, I sobbed briefly, no tears came. It was just a painful jagged spasm of the diaphragm. It hurt my face as I grimaced in sorrow. I had fucked up.
The cold air stung against my injured face, the lack of momentum really allowed the pain in my body to be unignorable. My back and side, my hand was trembling and so sore I could hardly open and close it. I dug around in my pocket, looking for some solace in a cigarette.
The packet was gone, I pulled out a clump of what was either lint or tobacco, perhaps a mixture of the two. Nothing to smoke it in, I dug around in my many other pockets. I found one match, the small clump of vivre card, tugging away from me which I tucked back safely away. Finally, after searching the same pockets again and again I found one cigarette paper crumpled tightly into a ball. I delicately flattened it out with sore fingers careful not to tear it. I delicately shaped the tobacco mixture and rolled it up, licking the edge and stuck it down.
My shaky injured right hand found the match. I attempted to strike it against the bark of the tree I had slumped against… and it snapped, scrapping my fingers against the harsh bark. Delicately pinching the small end of lightable match, I quickly flicked it against the tree again. It sparked in light burning my fingertips. I quickly brought the cigarette to my mouth and smoked, inhaling as deeply as I could.
When I pulled the cigarette from my mouth it stuck to the blood on my lips and pulled a slip of skin away with it. I held my breath as the toxic smoke burned my throat and lungs, the heady mixture making me feel lightheaded and dizzy. With a desperate slowness ,I released the breath, making a rattling gasp as the plume of smoke drifted on the evening air.
With it, my pain dulled and a sense of calm settled onto me. I have no less now than I did a few days ago. I'll track down that bastard and make him pay, who cares. Somehow I'm alive and that's what matters. With a crooked painful smil,e I went on smoking my cigarette, listening to the cold sea breeze play with the leaves.
I sat and watched in the growing darkness as the distant dot slowly turned into a ship. Mastless and adorned with metal augmentation, it was propelled by two water wheels and billowed smoke from the upper deck.
Suddenly it dawned on me… Pessoa's bag must have been slung into the woods. I quickly finished my cigarette and set off limping into the woods in search of his lost bag.