Apex

The sun was nearly set by the time she had reached the dilapidated dive bar in Raleigh, NC. The Yelp reviews gave the establishment its lowest rating of one star; “dark,” “dank,” and “indifferent bartender” were hot words that enticed her; It sounded perfect. The thick stench of mildewed beer and static greeted her as soon as she walked through the open door. To her left was a dimly-lit, tattered pool table covered in blue chalk smudges, while ahead of her was the bar. She could see the hump of the bartender’s back behind the tabletop as he was reaching for something underneath it. Her heels kept a balanced stride atop the chipped, uneven granite of the floor on over towards the bar and took a seat, making sure not to rest her arms on the sticky tabletop. A group of older men were sitting quietly, miserably huddled beside each other, off to the far-left corner of the bar. Bottles of beer collected on the bartop in front of them.

The bartender, a young guy, finally righted himself, a soiled rag in his hand. “Help you with something, honey?”

Linda casually squinted her eyes towards the bourbon selection at the far end of the bar, as if it mattered to her.

“What kind a’ bourbon whiskey ya got? Ya got any Four Roses Yella’?” she asked, lacing her fingers between her thighs.

The bartender gave her a peculiar look. “Uh, naw…” he answered. He cracked a grin. “My grandpa used to drink that stuff when he was sixteen on the farm. I know that label’s still around, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. You must be an old soul.”

Linda chuckled. “Nah, baby, I’m just old.”

He shrugged. “You can’t be past, what, forty-two, forty-three?” He twirled the dirtied rag in his hand and winked.

Linda pushed herself back in her seat and let out a flattered wail. Her crimson lips curled into a smirk as she creased her eyes appreciatively at him.

“Ooohh, chil’, you just tryin’ to get my money, aintcha? Oookay, nah! I ain’t mad atcha!”

The bartender laughed. “No, but, yeah; we got Jack, Jim, Wild Turkey, Woodford, Pappy-”

“Ouup!” Linda shot her finger up. “Pappy Van Winkle. Lay it on me, shuga!”

“Coke or -”

“Nah, baby, just fill the glass.”

The bartender raised his eyebrow uncertainly. Linda cocked her head playfully and tapped her fingernails on the tabletop in reply.

The bartender turned away to prepare her drink.

She shifted her attention towards the men at the bar; a quartet of camo-wearing rednecks who flashed peeks of reflective orange every time they swiveled from side to side and whose fingers were, most likely, forever discolored by smudges of engine oil. Their bottom lips caved inward from the bulges of dip packed against their gums. They had given her a quick profile when she had walked in, hardly a glance, before turning back and continuing on with their drinks. Every now and then one of them would mumble something, and the rest would grunt in acknowledgement.

Small lives, she thought. These men were probably born in the surrounding rural areas of the city, had the opportunity to travel, some actually might have, but decided to come back home to something familiar; to shy away from anything too different from their “conservative” upbringing. They were racists. Misogynists Homophobes. Adulterers. The lack of exposure to new stimuli had stunted their synapses from developing and were now dulled.

Food.

The man on the far right, nearest to her, slightly tilted his head and gave her an discomforting side-eye. Linda stretched her lips into a small, modest smile before turning forward again. She heard him mumble something to his compatriots and, from the corner of her eye, saw the last two men lean forward to glance her way again They huddled together and exchanged jibes, ribbing each other playfully and wheezed out petty chuckles. She kept her eyes forward. This was an old game.

“Here e’ go.” The bartender was back. He handed her a full glass of bourbon on ice and walked out of sight behind the kitchen entrance beside the bar. Linda grabbed it, tossed the two mini-straws aside and took one long swig, making it seem natural. The bourbon easily slid down her “throat” and collected inside an internal reservoir that uncomfortably pressed against the inside of her navel. She then took a big gulp. Then she took another, and another, making a big show of tilting her head back and slapping a splayed palm against the tabletop but keeping a casual air about it, as if she was so enrapt in her drink that she wouldn’t notice the men at the other end of the bar cracking grins and slapping each other on the back at the inevitable drunken show that she was about to give them, or the returning, cross-armed bartender who let out a sigh of dread for the same expectancy. Less than two minutes later, she was beckoning the bartender to refill her glass.

She was absentmindedly picking at her nails when she heard one of the men call out.

“Hey, girl! Yo mama taught you that?”

Linda pivoted in her seat, an impish curl at the sides of her lips. This was easier than usual.

“Hmm?”

The first man, the man whose eye she caught, was grinning at her. The rest of the men were leaning either forward or back in their seats to get a better look at her now. Their silence was electric. Linda’s chest tickled electric, also.

“Thirsty, ‘ey, girl?”

Linda chortled. “Oh, I jus’ recovering from a long drive. I’m actually visiting family. This is my tolerance level righ’ tchea’,” she laughed, lifting the full glass that the bartender just handed her.

The man became passive. “Yeah? Where you from?”

“New York.”

The man cocked his eyebrow. “You’s from Harlem, eh?”

His tone was mocking. His compatriots shuffled uncomfortably, even though they all cracked small grins. Linda wasn’t from Harlem. The reveling inhale she took was delicious. If they had known where she really came from, they would have probably died of fright. It was an awkward situation that she didn’t want to tempt right at that moment.

Linda slapped a hand on the table, excited. “How’d you know!? You got family in Harlem!?

“Oh yeah,” he answered, gaining confidence. “I get my hair cut there all the time.” He took a swig of his beer and turned back to let out a petty snort to his friends before turning back to see what she had to say to that. “N’yah mean?” he added.

“I hear you, baby,” Linda answered, and took two gulps of her bourbon. Normally, Linda wasn’t one to play with her food. Why was she pursuing this? Had what had happened earlier that afternoon shaken her sense of identity that much? She thought to herself that she just needed a thrill to take her mind off of the ills of the day, and it would have made her meal taste all the better. On the surface it did, sure, but she knew better. Thoth had told her that his feather would allow her passage into the Underworld, but she knew that she wouldn’t be regarded as a soul; not per se. What did he mean exactly when he told her that he would “claim her” under him; what would he have in store for her? Would she end up like Persephone, unhappily married to a god until the end of time? She reeled at the thought of it. In the event of physical death, what happens to an “aberration?” She gave herself a mental slap in the face before she dwelled any deeper about it. Whatever, she thought. Right now, I am looking at my supper, breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper, dessert, late-night snack and all of it all over again for the next week after. I am the apex, and this is my meal.

The man nodded slowly. His Cheshire grin was waning. A lazy tongue flopped out of Linda’s mouth and skimmed her bottom lip, then hiccuped. She rocked ungainly in her seat. She clumsily regained her composure. The man’s grin returned. She swallowed another gulp of bourbon and smiled, willing her eyes to glaze. The man scoffed and turned to his friends.

“Hey, I’m going outside to smoke.”

Two others pushed themselves out of their seats.

“I’m coming with ya.”

“Yeah.”

The trio bustled out, which left one man left sitting. He nonchalantly turned his head to watch them leave, then turned back, looking down. He was a shabby, wrinkled thing. The ends of his sparse, scraggly beard tickled the forest of white hair exploding from the top of his sweat-stained tank top, which was dressed underneath a dusty veteran jacket. A mottled hand shakily poked out from the tattered sleeve and reached for the bottle of Budweiser in front of him.

After a few moments he turned towards her.

“You must have had a hard day,” he enunciated politely as he modestly flashed a set of the blackened, gunk-covered nubs inside of his mouth; a few being, of course, missing. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a small gulp. He let out a short succession of strained burps and wheezes as he put it back down.

Linda nodded at him. “Lemme tell you,” she began, and chortled. She inhaled. His brain chemistry was certainly different; it was a stew of rancid stenches.

Post traumatic stress disorder.

Bipolar disorder.

Methamphetamine usage.

Clinical depression.

Urinary tract infection.

Developing pneumonia.

Linda gagged. This was why she chose not to work in free-clinics. Caretakers with money were able to supply her with prey who, at least, had balanced brain chemistry afforded by the endless cocktails and therapeutic sessions. Feeding on the elderly was always a given; virtually every patient had a lifetime of sins to satiate her hunger for days and, in the event that one happened to bear witness her true nature, what root didn’t she have on hand to keep them quiet? And if roots didn’t work, well, “death from natural causes” was a staple hot phrase in her profession. This old vagrant had a ballpark nine years left in him. Vietnam veteran, she surmised. Wonder if he bought one of Stewald’s pamphlets. She disguised her chuckling as a light cough.

“How long you staying in town for?” he asked. He laced his fingers atop his lap a little too tightly. Gotcha, Linda thought.

“Oh, jus’ until tomorrow, I supposed,” she breathed. “I’m jus’ visiting my motha’. She don’ ‘bout to pass any day now.” She took another gulp of her bourbon. The pressure in her belly was starting to ache painfully.

“Sorry to hear,” he offered. He paused. “You know,” he began awkwardly, as if he was struggling to form the sentence as he was speaking, “I dated a colored girl once.”

Linda blinked at him. “Did’ja now?” she replied. She batted her eyes, interested, and rubbed her thighs together. They could hear the distant, howling laughs of the other three men outside.

The old man blushed and licked his lips. “Yeah…” He pressed his lips together to dry them, then licked them again. “This was back in the 60s. I had just enrolled in college to avoid the draft. I’d graduated high school early but I wanted to help out on the farm, but once they started getting them boys out there,” he laughed, “my mama wasn’t having her son off in no rice patty ‘bout to be blown up. My older brother wasn’t so lucky. He died in ‘Nam. This is his jacket.” He shook his head. “So when I was at school I saw the most prettiest colored girl on campus. We’d walk past each other; she didn’t noticed me at all. First I was mad at her because, you know, they jus’ started that whole integration thing the year before and,” he raised his hands up defensively, “I wasn’t for it. It just didn’t look right. But once I saw her,” he smiled and whistled, “She was just too pretty. Till then, I thought that, no offense, all colored, I mean, they just don’t look right. Like, something’s just wrong with their bodies.” He shook his head defensively again. “I don’t know. Anyway, one day she sittin’ down at a bench outside of class and I just decided to just sit down next to her and start talkin’ to her. Later that night,” he chuckled, “she showed me what a colored girl can do to a boy!” He laughed and coughed and slapped his knee. “I tell ya, she turned a boy into a man that night!”

He took another swig of his bottle. “We kept on seeing each other after that. We had to see each other in secret, though, you know. It wasn’t normal; people weren’t used to it.”

Both casually turned back forward as soon as they heard the bustle of his friends returning. The man who sat nearest to her noticed and eyed her suspiciously, but didn’t acknowledge it. He slapped a hand on the wizened man’s shoulder.

“Hey, Don, we’re getting out of here. Ed has work in the morning and you know how my wife gets if I don’t get home soon,” he grunted. “You gonna be alright?” He tone made it seem like it was asked to spite her.

“Yeah. I’mma stay here, Bubba,” Don answered, nodding his head a little too assuredly. He lifted his half-full bottle as explanation.

Bubba slapped down a wad of cash on the table and nodded at Linda as he turned toward the door. Linda nodded cheerfully and waved up a hand. F**k!, she thought as she slapped a palm against her thigh in frustration. I could have had her fill of all of them. She was off of her game. She should have been more in control of the situation. She grunted to herself and reached for her bourbon. When the men had cleared out, Linda lifted her drink, slid out of her seat and hopped up in the one next to Don. Don raised an eyebrow in apprehension and turned his eyes downward.

“So when’d you stop seeing that colored girl?” Linda asked.

“Four months,” he replied conversationally, and took a swig. “Her name was Dorothea. I called her Sunshine. She wore a sunflower dress her mama made her that first day.” He looked at her, giving her a thorough profile. She smirked at him at batted her eyes. “You ain’t colored,” he said. “I ain’t seen a colored with hair like yours. What, you mulatto? What are ya?”

“I am mixed, yeah,” Linda smiled, and raised her glass to him. They both took large swigs of their drinks. “My daddy was white and my mama was black. Who knows, you coulda had a baby who look like me,” she laughed.

Don shook his head. “Oh, no, no. That wouldn’t be good.”

Linda grunted. “Can’t stand colored babies, neither?”

He caught his breath. “I wouldn’t trust myself around someone as pretty as you if they’re under my roof, colored or not.”

Later, four more empty Budweiser bottles and thirteen bourbons between them, Don burped and collapsed in Linda’s cleavage. They were alone. Linda had found out that Don was actually the owner of the bar, and that the bartender was, in fact, his grandson who, at that moment, had run out to buy some cleaning supplies.

“Yer so pretty,” he slurred as he tried to grope her hips. His hands slipped around the wide surface of her muffin-tops so he eventually relegated to gyrating the flabs of meat clockwise in his hands. The action made him giggle. Linda stroked the back of his head.

“Hey, let’s say you and me get outta here,” she purred.

Don pulled away, shocked, and ruefully shook his head.

“I-I can’t - ” His hands slipped back inside of his sleeves. His eyes darted between the floor and her. Through the bleariness and double-vision he could swear that the instant he would glance back up at her he saw quick flashes of sunflowers, like flashes of a camera, blooming to life and dissipating into the nothing, like fireworks, on her purple blouse. Was it the dim bar lights dancing in his eyes, amplified by his inebriation?

“What was her name again, baby?” Linda slowly asked.

Don looked at her face and moaned in astonished recognition. “Sunshine…”

Linda didn’t move. She just sat, smiling gently.

Don’s head lulled, trying to stay coherent. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” Tears rolled down his cheeks and he began blubbering. “My brother died, and when my daddy found out he said that if I ever saw you again he’d kill your whole family. He beat me. He beat me so bad…” He grabbed her hands and lifted them to rest on his cheek. “I never got to tell you why. I felt so bad… I felt so bad about setting the fire…” He became quiet. “You’re here to take me, ain’t cha?”

Linda plopped out of her chair and took his hand.

Don’s head lolled from side to side, trying to keep it lifted. “I have a mattress in a room in the back.”

Linda gently stroked his wet cheek.

“Make love to me again.”

Linda slung Don’s arm over her shoulder and they stumbled behind the bar, into the kitchen and into a room further down, next to the back entrance. The room smelled mustier than the bar. It smelled like Don, just less pungent; kind of like rotten eggs.

She looked over and saw a stained bed mattress with a haphazardly thrown blanket laying on top of it in the dank corner. She led him to it and let him plop down, the springs looking like they had given out long ago. Don hardly supported himself single-armed for a full second before collapsing on his back, groaning. Linda began stripping off her upper clothes; her purple blouse easily slid off, then she unlaced her corset. The ache in her belly relieved itself, but only by a margin. She climbed over on top of him and straddled his hips. Don’s eyes weren’t open, though he was still lolling his head left to right. The slit in between her breasts shivered, then began to glow with a dull light. She hadn’t even let herself get a full whiff of his sins before. She wanted to surprise herself and see what morsels, other than starting a house fire that had killed, from what she had assumed, his one true love, he had to offer.

The haze crept outward and engulfed Don. Something was wrong! Immediately, she vomited out her bourbon and collapsed face-down beside him. Her body was overloaded with sin in that brief instant. Her torso felt as if its insides were twisting in on itself, like coiling snakes, which was impossible because she didn’t have any organs or veins or the like. The pain was excruciating. The hydrant of bourbon that splashed onto Don and the mattress spilled towards her and, for a moment, clogged her nostrils, drowning her. When her nose had cleared, she inhaled deeply into the wet mattress. That smell… Rotten eggs?, she thought. She realized with a creeping panic that that smell wasn’t rotten eggs - it was sulfur. With all of her might, she rolled off of the mattress and onto the grimy floor, which felt unnaturally hot, like she was lying on a blacktop out in the hot summer sun.

“Hey, girl,” she heard a familiar voice call from the doorway. “Didn’t yo mama teach you not to open those warm little thighs of yours on the first date?”

Linda staggered to right herself but only had enough strength to lift her head towards the doorway.

Bubba, the two other men, and Don’s grandson were back. They still looked the same, the kitchen light illuminating upon their baggy, tattered camo, save for their red skin, yellowed horns protruding from either side of their forehead and the spaded tails that wagged between their legs. The room tore away, as if being ripped apart by a tornado, leaving the open environment a dark, fiery landscape made of hot charcoal, rolling streams of lava, and billowing gusts of steam. Linda looked back at Don. His appearance, also, had changed to that of a demon. He was standing upright before her, his shabby clothes tightening and changing hue on his body. Soon, Don was now sporting a sharp, well-tailored, cream-colored three-piece suit, though he was barefoot. Linda hardly noticed. She was staring, horrified, at an object that Don was sternly flipping off of his thumb and catching again: a silver coin, the exact coin that souls had to give Charon as their ferry toll to the Underworld.

“Aww, shiiiit,” Linda groaned.