Algernon - Part Two

Five years later, a man tries to come to terms with the death of his partner with surprising results.

The Fallen

3013 - Five years later…

Ryan was jarred from sleep by what he thought were the gunshots going off in his head, but in reality was the bartender of the Evening Star rapping sharply on the lacquered counter next to his ear. He lifted up his head sleepily and opened one tired eye.

“What?” he slurred.

“You’ve been sitting there for a few hours now.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Other customers can’t sit here if you’re going to take a nap here.”

“But this is the best place to take a nap,” Ryan argued. He propped himself up on his elbows with some difficulty, brushed his fluffy brown hair out of his face and gazed at the bartender with glazed blue eyes. His tie hung limply from the neck of his yellow shirt, and his navy blue suit bore several stains on the sleeves from where Ryan had been lying.

“The counter is for customers who are going to drink, not ones that’re going to nap.”

“I am drinking,” Ryan said, banging a fist on the counter. The bartender swam in and out of focus and he had to blink several times to make sure there was only one and not three.

“Too much if you ask me.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed and his mouth formed as thin a line as it could, without success. The look came off more as trying not to be sick than it did stern. The bartender shook his head, rolled his eyes, and moved down the bar to help another customer just as a bald man came through the door to the bar.

The man was heavy-set and tall, wearing a skin-tight magenta t-shirt under a well worn, sleeveless mechanic’s smock and black cowboy boots. Half of his face was obscured by a metal plate, through which a very real eye surveyed the scene inside the bar.

Ryan turned towards him as he entered, got up awkwardly off the stool, and tried to walk, but was unsuccessful and decided to stick to standing.

“Moose!” Ryan announced, spreading his arms wide. “Boy, am I glad to see you.” Moose’s face stretched like an accordion as he tried to steady himself. Everything was becoming increasingly blurry, which made Ryan wonder if he was in a bar or on one of those silly children’s rides that went around and around in circles. He had forgotten what they were called.

“So am I,” the bartender sighed. “Is there a chance you could take this drunken b*****d home, Moose?”

“How many did he have tonight?” Moose asked, putting an arm around Ryan just under his arms. Ryan leaned his weight against him and his body went limp.

“Few less than last night.”

“That makes me feel a little better,” Moose said glancing at Ryan, who grinned childishly back.

“Speaking of feeling better, when are you going to pay the tab he’s been collecting over the last five years?”

“I’d say charge the government since they’re the source of his misery, but I don’t think that would come off well.”

Ryan heard the bartender laugh uncomfortably before the world faded to black and he quietly succumbed to the silence.

 

Ryan woke up what may have been the next morning staring at the ceiling. The metal beams of the ship sighed dejectedly and the hull creaked feebly as his eyes focused on the burned grey paneling above his head.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again just to be sure he was where he thought he was. The scent of week-old porridge and nicotine filled his nostrils as Ryan turned his head to the side, slowly inhaled and then exhaled.

He was where he thought he was – the couch.

Once again, he had drank too much and failed to be home by eight, which meant that Moose had come to get him and then returned to the Algernon, a rotting battleship sitting abandoned in the San Diego naval base harbor that Moose had refurbished to the best of his ability.

Moose had most likely dumped him on the couch and let him sleep off the alcohol. To his knowledge, he had probably been lying on the couch for two or three days while Moose took care of business. That was how it had been since his partner died – he went to the bar in the seediest part of town and ran up the tab all day while Moose tried to find a job for them so that they could pay the tab.

Then again, there was not a lot left in San Diego that wasn’t seedy – the streets were littered with rotted limbs and disfigured corpses of both officials and rebels which filled the air with the stench of mildew and the sweet perfume of decay, and no one ever bothered to claim the bodies for fear that the government would come after them. People were no longer human, they were cattle.

Ryan reasoned that perhaps he should be over his grief by now, but the fact that the government had found and caught his partner and girlfriend meant that they were once again hot on the trail of bounty hunters like him.

That was, assuming she had given something away, which he sincerely hoped had not happened. Ryan cringed as he sat up and stretched.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Moose said, coming down the stairs from the upper decks of the Algernon. “Take off your clothes.”

“Why?” Ryan yawned and felt himself. His shirt, jacket, and pants seemed to be holding up well enough. He grabbed a corner of the jacket, smelled it, and recoiled. “Oh, that’s why.”

“Exactly.” Moose said, catching the clothing Ryan threw at him. “I have to do some laundry any way.”

“Moose,” Ryan commented as he tossed Moose his pants, “You don’t know how to do laundry.”

“I’ve been doing it for the last five years,” Moose said catching Ryan’s boxers and socks.

“No, I have…when you manage to get me sober,” Ryan mused, scratching himself.

“I’ll figure it out one day.”

“And until that day, I’ll do it.” Ryan took his clothes from Moose and making his way to the cargo hold. “Make some coffee,” Ryan added as he disappeared.

The cargo hold was two floors down from where the kitchen was at mid-ship. The washing machine that sat aft on the port side of the ship was not so much a machine anymore as it was a heavily refurbished antique. Washing machines were a rarity in this day and age when most civilians used steam-washing dry clean chambers for their laundry needs.

            Ryan used the pump next to the machine to get the water filter going – the bad part about living on a ship was that all laundry was done with seminally-cleaned sea water – and rinsed himself with the questionably clean water until it ran clear, then attached a rotting, severely duct taped hose connected to the filter to the back of the machine. He cringed as he reached cautiously toward the dial indicating ‘wash cycle’ and turned it toward the ‘on’ position, deathly afraid that the thing would explode.

            chugchugchugchugchugchugchugchugchugBANGchisssssssssssssssssssssh.

            Ryan sighed with relief as the washer began to fill with water – it would work through another load – and filled the washer with the clothes and a quarter of a shredded bar of Ivory soap.

            Still dripping from his ‘shower,’ Ryan went up another floor to the bathroom and dried himself off with a towel, wrapped it around his waist, and made his way back down to the kitchen. The smell of coffee greeted him as he entered the kitchen; Moose was leaning against the counter smoking a cigarette.

“You know you have to do laundry when…” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Turning to Moose he asked, “Got a drag?”

Moose grunted and handed him the cigarette. The two men stood silent, passing the cigarette back and forth. Ryan looked over at Moose and asked, “How is it that you never have anything to wash?”

“I never smell as bad as you. Nor do I go out and drink all day and come home smelling like a bar.”

Ryan lifted an arm and sniffed. “I don’t smell like a bar.”

“Because you took a shower and now you don’t smell like a bar.”

Ryan grunted and finished his coffee.

Going to the fridge, he peered in and then closed the door. “How is it,” he asked, “that we have enough money to buy cigarettes but not enough money to buy food?”

“You wonder about this now after doing this for how many years?”

“F**k off, my brain is still coming out of it.”

“I don’t think it ever has come ‘out of it’ in the last five years.”

Ryan scratched his head and took the cigarette from Moose, puffing thoughtfully.

“You know what you need?” Moose asked, taking back the smoke.

“Besides money?”

“We both need money, cowboy.”

Ryan grunted, took the smoke and finished it as Moose continued.

“Get laid, dude.”

Ryan looked at him warily and crossed his arms. Moose shrugged emphatically.

“What? It put you in a good mood before” Moose reasoned.

“Yeah, before I gave up women.”

“Well, before your partner came along, you didn’t like women either.”

“She was different,” Ryan mumbled. “She was wonderful.”

“You saying it couldn’t have the same effect as last time?”

Ryan pushed himself away from the counter and went to sit on the couch. “Nothing is the same.”

“It was just a suggestion,” Moose shrugged again and poured Ryan another cup of coffee.

He walked over behind the couch, handed the cup to Ryan, and turned on the ancient television set.

Snow appeared on the screen followed by brief flashes of what looked to Ryan like very old television shows from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Or perhaps they were propaganda to try and get the public to join the army, or the police, or to remind them of the next sperm donation.

Moose adjusted the antenna until the screen became clear, then flipped a switch in the back of the set. The screen was blank for a second and then a picture of a man dressed in a cowboy outfit appeared on the screen, his lips moving, but no sound came out. Moose turned it up and sat down on the couch with Ryan.

The two men stared blankly at the screen; neither of then really watched the EVA channels, they simply put it on to fill up the silence of the ship and occasionally some of the hits looked good and they took them, but none recently. Ryan blatantly refused to go on hits. Instead he occupied his time running up a tab that was getting to the point of not being able to be paid, saying he needed to deal with his grief.

Ryan knew Moose was of the opinion that if he hadn’t been sleeping with his partner, it would be easier to deal with. His head hurt to think about the way Ryan thought, a fact which Ryan relished.

Ryan sipped his coffee and stared blankly at the screen thinking.

“Who would sleep with a loser like me?”

Moose chuckled. “We’d need to find someone who was fairly desperate or doesn’t care.”

“We don’t have the money for a w***e, Moose.”

“No, not a w***e. I had someone better in mind.”

 

Ryan inhaled slowly and blew a smoke ring into the air. He leaned his head on his hand, elbow resting on the table and glanced at Moose sitting across the table from him.

“I’m waiting for the part where this will be easy.”

“It will be easy. All you need to do is get her drunk and the rest is cake.”

“Not exactly,” Ryan said, inhaling again. “If she passes out, it’s considered rape.”

“You don’t get her drunk enough to pass out, just get her drunk enough to consent.”

“Which, with my luck, will be when she’s passed out.”

“Ever the eternal optimist.”

Ryan grunted noncommittally and inhaled another lungful of nicotine, or whatever the hell they were putting in cigarettes these days. He still didn’t understand how this was going to help him get over his partner – for one thing, he had already convinced himself that it wouldn’t be as good; if anything, it would only make him feel like more of a pathetic sap than he already was.

His gut told him that nothing good was going to come from it, so why even try?

A small group of men in suits and wearing sunglasses passed their table and sat down at the one behind them. A couple of the men had metal hands and at least one of them had a faceplate like Moose’s, only this man’s face plate made him look more like the Terminator; a tiny red spot shone through his sunglasses like a laser which pointed ominously in whatever direction the man looked.

Ryan inhaled again, privately wondering why people thought it was cool to wear sunglasses indoors.

In his opinion, it was so a century ago.

He smiled as he inhaled and let the smoke out through his nostrils.

A waitress dressed in a small, black cocktail dress, her dark hair pulled back into a bun came to the table of suits and ask for their drink orders. She smiled at each of the orders in turn and then walked away to get the drinks. Ryan watched her walk away and took another drag. If only she was a blond, he thought to himself. 

“Do you have any idea how pathetic I feel?”

“Not really.” Moose lounged back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. “Nor do I particularly care about how pathetic you may or may not be feeling.”

“You cold-hearted sonofabitch.”

“You asked for my advice, so I gave it to you. Just because I give you advice doesn’t mean you have to take it. You took it all on your own.”

Ryan grunted and tapped the end of his cigarette so that ash fell onto the floor.

However, there was some that never got to the floor.

“Are you going to clean my shoes after you’re done putting your ash on them?” asked a surly female voice.

Ryan looked up into the face of the waitress.

She had long black hair pulled back with chopsticks and a widow’s peak, which gave her face the shape of a heart and emerald green eyes that gave Ryan the impression that had she the power, she would have vaporized him on the spot. She wasn’t particularly beautiful in his opinion, but she would do.

“Get me a drink and we’ll discuss it.” He yawned, flashing his straight white teeth as he smiled as charmingly as possible and stretched in his seat, posing as much like James Bond as he could.

The waitress continued to glare at him, tapping her non-ashed shoe.

Ryan snapped his fingers. “Come on, sweetheart. I haven’t got all day.”

The waitress rolled her eyes upward and stared at the ceiling. “You know,” she said after a moment, “technically since you’ve been coming here for the last five years and not paying your tab, I don’t have to serve you.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed and she glared at him with self-satisfaction.

Sighing, he dug into his jacket pocket and produced a carton of cigarettes, which he set gently on the table in front of her. They were considered contraband for the serving staff, who could only smoke on their breaks in the back of the restaurant.

“Perhaps this is worth at least one drink?” he asked.

Moose looked curiously from Ryan to the waitress and back to Ryan. His expression suggested that he was trying to figure out what Ryan was doing.

The waitress picked up the carton and eyed it curiously, turning it over in her hands, looked back up at Ryan for a moment and then walked away.

Moose raised his eyebrows. “That went well.” he mused sarcastically.

Ryan sat back in his chair and folded his arms, blue eyes narrowed and lips pursed looking at Moose with utmost loathing.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable glaring, the waitress reappeared with two drinks, both whiskey, which she set gently on the table.

Moose unfolded his arms from behind his head and offered the waitress his seat and went to go sit at the bar, leaving her alone with Ryan. The two sipped quietly at their drinks for a moment before Ryan spoke.

“This is pretty good,” Ryan remarked, raising his glass.

The waitress grunted and finished the rest of her drink, setting the glass down with a soft clink, eyeing him curiously.

“Why are you being nice to me now?” She leaned stiffly across the table.

“Well, if you must know,” Ryan said, sipping his drink, “I felt I should get to know you.”

“You haven’t had any action in a while, have you?” she asked, motioning for the bartender to bring her another round. Ryan choked on his drink. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I never took you for a stupid woman,” Ryan rasped, trying to find his voice.

The waitress smiled sardonically.

“Who knew?” she mused, taking a drink from her glass, which had been refilled with whiskey.

Ryan made a choking noise and didn’t answer, so she continued.

“I ask, only because most of the guys that come in here and tell me they want to buy me a drink usually haven’t gotten any in a while.” She crossed her legs, the folds of her dress bunching around her hips, revealing a slim calf and a toned thigh.

“You assume too much,” Ryan smiled, swirling his whiskey, and made a show of not looking down at her smooth, bare limbs. There was no denying that she had a nice body, but if he looked too closely, the waitress began to resemble his partner - the line of her calf curved gently upward toward her slim waist, the natural dip between her breasts and her hips as she arched sideways. But this waitress wasn’t his partner, no matter how hard he tried to make her so.

“Do I?”

“Yes, I dare say you do.”

“Then tell me, cowboy, why did you ask me to have a drink with you?”

“I figure,” Ryan paused, sipping his drink, “that I need to be on good terms with someone is this place.”

“How do you figure?” she asked, hailing for a third round.

Ryan grinned rather shamefully.

“Well, as we both know, I don’t pay.”

“Yes,” she sneered, “of that I am very aware.” She uncrossed her legs and the dress fell back over her knee, leaving only the ankle peeking out from beneath the hem.

“And when I awoke from my most recent drunken stupor, I said to myself, ‘You know, you could stand to make some friends in that joint.’ And so here I am, talking to you.” He finished his drink and set the glass on the table.

The waitress swirled her drink contemplatively and looked from him to her glass.

“So you claim.”

“My claim is not false, dear woman.”

“So, let me see what you’re trying to say,” she said, sipping her drink. “You woke up this morning and decided that after five years of coming to the Evening Star running up a tab and being a horrible if non-existent tipper, you finally decided to try and make friends with one of the waitresses that you’ve verbally abused for the last said five years, and you aren’t doing any of this to get laid.”

“You make me sound like an a*****e,” Ryan frowned.

“Well, you are an a*****e. I’m not going to sugar coat the facts.” She sipped at her drink and smirked at him, satisfied with herself.

“You’re kind of a b***h, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yes, and what’s so fun about it is that if I don’t hurt anyone, I get a nice paycheck. It is that, and that alone, that has kept me from turning your sorry, drunk a*s into hamburger every night you come in here.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She ignored him and continued. “You seem to be underestimating me.”

“And I have good reason,” Ryan said as the drinks were refilled.

“Why? Because I’m a woman?” Ryan froze halfway with the drink to his mouth but said nothing, so she continued. “I wouldn’t underestimate me if I were you. I have killed people before, you know.” She leaned in closer to him, her breasts hovering over the table like water balloons, dangerously close to falling out of the front of her dress.

“I’ve committed crimes,” she whispered. “That robbery a few years ago where government information was stolen, yeah, that was me.”

Ryan continued to stare at her as she threw back the rest of her drink.

“I’d like to see you steal some government information, hot shot,” she continued, her voice rising. “I’d like to…” she trailed off.

The suits at the table behind them turned and got up from the table, knocking over chairs, guns drawn.

One of them grabbed the waitress in a headlock and pointed a gun at her head. Ryan also rose from his place and drew his gun, pointing it at the suit holding the waitress.

“So, Miss Hartman, we have found you,” the suit mused, looking at Ryan but obviously directing the comment at the waitress. His gaze then shifted to the waitress and then back to Ryan.

“Good work, Mr. Stone. You have assisted in the capture of a dangerous fugitive.”

 The waitress blinked nervously, but said nothing.

“Just doing my civic duty. But tell me: why target this woman? You target her as if she owes you something. Do you have a history?”

The suit looked exhaustedly at Ryan. “Well, if you must know, this woman, one Miss Valerie Hartman, stole important government information from a birthing facility and has been evading capture for the last three years.” He said all of this in a very bored manner, as if it was common knowledge.

Valerie’s gaze shifted from the suit to Ryan and back to the suit, continuing to blink nervously and not say anything.

“I’ll take that as a ‘maybe.’” Ryan said sarcastically.

“Now then, since we have finished our chat, we will now take Miss Hartman into custody and…remedy… the current situation,” he said, smiling slowly.

Ryan thought that “remedy” was perhaps a poor choice of words – most rebels taken into government custody were either immediately killed or were given a very strong memory serum that would allow them to brainwash their victims and make them more suitable for the government’s purposes. The severity of the punishment depended on the crime.

Ryan chuckled softly and cocked his gun. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“And why is that, Mr. Stone?”

“Because,” Ryan said. He paused, fired his gun and planted a bullet between the suit’s eyes.

The suit’s arms went limp and he fell to the floor in a pile of dirty, bloody laundry.

Valerie stepped back, a horrified look on her face.

Gunfire erupted.

“Run!” Ryan yelled, flipping the table and ducking behind it to avoid fire. He put his back against the table and returned fire during the brief breaks between rounds.

Valerie ran to the right, towards upturned tables where she could hide. She pressed herself close to the wall in order to avoid gunfire and then ducked behind a table.

Moose, sitting at the bar, had drawn his gun, returned fire and then quickly jumped behind the bar. The scent of fresh blood mixed with the metallic stench of gunpowder and the faint aroma of fermented wheat. Bullets whizzing over his head, breaking bottles of liquor lined up behind the counter. During the brief recesses in gunfire, Moose leaned over the bar and returned shots.

Ryan listened to the gunfire and wished rather sorely that Valerie had a gun. Looking around, he noticed that she was trying to get to a gun in the hand of one of the dead suits. She got down on her belly and reached slowly for the gun.

Just as she wrapped her fingers around the handle, a shot got fired just over her hand from across the room.

She quickly picked up the gun, fired in the direction of the shot, and ducked back behind the table.

And then, there was silence.

Cocking the gun, she stood up from behind the table, ready to take a shot. Most of those who had been in the bar were now lying on the floor in a sticky mess of blood. Ryan saw her grimace as she walked towards the bar, avoiding the pools of blood so as not to soil her shoes.

Moose stood up cautiously, also ready to fire at anything that moved.

“Well, that went well,” Ryan spat sarcastically, ejecting another clip and reloading as he stood up. He smiled at Valerie and Moose. “What do you say we get out of here before they show up with backup?”

“You mean, if they haven’t already?” Valerie asked, gesturing with her gun behind him.

Ryan turned to see flashing lights reflected in the windows and then turned to Moose.

“Empty the register and grab some booze.”

Turning to Valerie, he said, “Grab every gun you can find and let’s move.”

“I wasn’t aware you were into looting,” Valerie smirked as he bent and started gathering guns from the bar patrons.

“I wouldn’t call it that. I see it more as taking advantage of what goods are being afforded to you” Ryan said, spreading his arms wide to indicate the bar.

Cars screeched to a halt in from of the Evening Star and police swarmed out of the cars, all armed. Moose, Valerie, and Ryan quickly ducked behind the bar and waited, guns cocked.

Upon ducking behind the bar, Moose noticed the dead bartender lying on the floor, a pool of blood forming under his chest, a milky film starting to form over his open eyes.

Moose sighed and leaned over to close the eyelids, shaking his head. Ryan noticed a bottle of French bourbon on a neglected shelf under the bar and catching Moose’s glance, pointed at it emphatically. Shrugging, Moose took the bottle off the shelf, unscrewed the cap, and drank deeply from the small bottle. Ryan smiled as he watched Moose drink. It would be a shame if perfectly good bourbon went to waste.

They heard footsteps enter the bar and Ryan motioned them towards an open door to their right. Moose nodded and started towards the door, but Valerie didn’t move.

“Come on!” Ryan mouthed to her. She shook her head and he rolled his eyes. “You would rather stay here?” he mouthed quietly.

No movement.

“If you stay, you get arrested,” Ryan continued.

He could tell she was struggling with this: go with the a*****e customer or get taken hostage and tortured.

To Ryan, the answer was simple, but apparently not everyone thought the way he did.

She finally sighed heavily and followed Moose and Ryan, crawling on their hands and knees out the door, through the store room, and out into an alley where they stood up again.

Ryan glanced sideways at Valerie. “You’re wanted, eh?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“But I want one thing clear,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“If I come with you, you can’t turn me in and I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“Well, firstly, why the hell would I do that?” Ryan asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Money? You’re very obviously broke.”

“Broke is such a relative term. However, as correct as you are, I’m not willing to turn in a perfectly capable partner.” Every muscle in his body contracted as he said it – there would never any partner ever that could be as capable as his dead girlfriend had been. He could never replace her, but the waitress would make an acceptable substitute.

“You want me to work with you?”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’m in the market, and you’re on the run.”

She folded her arms and studied him for a moment. “Yeah, you have a point there.”

“As to the second term, do I look THAT desperate to you?”

“Are my terms clear?” Valerie put a hand on her hip and shifted her weight to her left foot, her right foot forward.

“Crystal. Now let’s scram.” Ryan said, and they moved quietly down the alley.

Back on the street, they found an unmarked, abandoned car and drove back to the Algernon.

Reviews

[Rob Fitch]

I like this story. You have a very natural style with the dialogue. It seems effortless. I would have liked to see the waitress be a little more guarded about her secret. It seemed like she just blurted out her secret past to this guy she doesn't trust or like. That part felt forced. That's not to say that you can't have her keep her secret and still get the gun battle. After all, if the suits are any good at their jobs then they would have know where she was and already been at the bar to pick her up that night. But overall, I like the story and I'm looking forward to reading more of your stuff.