Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash

It was three minutes before the man walked into the public house, which was known to those few folk who were what could be called frequent guests as the Cat O’Nine Tails, that the tender, a morose man with a face like a slab of ham left out in the sun who went by the name of Grady Stiles, took to the corner behind the bar in a moment he would refuse to refer to again. Rocking back and forth with his knees to his chest and the name of his estranged, and if she could ever track him down for long enough to get him to sign the papers, future ex-wife Gladys dancing across his cracked and tobacco-stained lips. By the time the man, Stockton Davies, walked into the Cat O’Nine Tails and began pouring himself a few drinks, Grady was on his side in a full-fledged fetal position and the name Gladys had devolved into a few wet syllables. The reason for this was the white noise of news, data, music, and anything else he could find on the NeuralNet feed to keep his mind busy during the increasingly slow moments at the Cat O’Nine Tails. With the cacophony gone, there was only the empty inside of his head to keep Grady Stiles company, and then there was only her name, Gladys, that he could bring himself to remember, the one name that caused him to cut off his ring finger with a chisel some years ago when he could not remove the ring any other way.

There was the music from when Grady was only a boy playing from the jukebox, and the man who, unknowingly to Grady Stiles, was responsible for bringing down the feed, helping himself to a few pints and shots, and then there was the lovely static of everyday life filling his head, stock and weather reports, several hundred voices asking what had happened to their Feed, and the name Gladys was lost in the fog. At that moment, several nannies filed into the Cat O’Nine Tails, more people than Grady had ever had the pleasure of seeing in the public house. There was a monologue from the man at the bar, and then his hands were cuffed and he was led outside, surrounded by the nannies, while one remained behind.

“Sir, may I ask you a few questions?” the nanny asked.

“Depends on the subject matter of your questions.”

“Funny. What is your name, for the record?”

“Grady Stiles.”

The nanny was silent for a moment as he accessed the tender’s Feed. “Sir, it says here your name is Ben Summers.”

“Shit. Forgot. That’s my real name.”

“Then why did you tell me your name was Grady Stiles?”

“Because that’s my nom de plume”

“Are you a writer?”

“I write greeting cards in my downtime. Want to hear my latest?”

“Why not?”

“‘Merry Christmas, now kindly fuck off.’”

“Sir.”

“I like it. I think it’ll be a huge seller.”

“Fine. Mr. Summers, have you ever seen the man in the bar here before?”

“No, I have not officer.”

“Did he say anything at all before we got here?”

“He asked the jukebox to play a song called ‘Outlaw Scumfuc’. Besides that, not that I heard.”

“Anything else?”

“Want to hear my brand new greeting card? The one I just thought up?”

“Sir.”

“‘Hit the fucking bricks.’ Has a great ring to it, don’t you think?”

“That’s all for now. If we have any more questions, I wouldn’t give us any more problems, were I you.”

“And yet you’re not, because if you were me, that’d make me you, and frankly, I’d probably kill you. Or me. I’d kill myself if I were you, is what I think I’m trying to say.”

“And if I were you, I’d pick a better name than Stiles, and perhaps a better job. You never know when your wife might find you.”

“Oh, thank you, dear sir. Now don’t go kill yourself, now.”

The nanny went to the exit and found himself face to face with a man who happened to missing several teeth, the rest of them happened to be in various stages of rot, as well as greasy gray hair just off the pillow. “Mind yer’ fucking directions,” the man said, his accent distinctly Irish, as he made sure to get as much of his rather foul breath in the nostrils of the nanny.

“Mind yourself. What’s your name?”

“Fer the record?”

“For the record, yes?”

“I’m the Right Honourable Sir Earl Rection, Protector of the Crown.”

“For the record, where are you from?”

“A little town called ‘None of Yer Goddamned Business.’ Just east of ‘Go Fuck Yerself’ and down the road from, ‘Fuck Off.’”

“Very mature, sir.”

“Indeed it is. Now, kindly fuck off.”

“Very well, sir,” the nanny said, as he left.

“Got to be careful there, Shaun,” Grady said as soon as the door was shut.

“Why the fuck is a fucking nanny in my fucking pub?”

“Thinking it had something to do with why the NeuralNet went down.”

“The fucking NeuralNet went down?”

“Maybe twenty minutes ago, I do believe.”

“Well, fuck me. Just woke up, myself.”

“Is that so?”

“That it is. Now, time fer some breakfast.”

“Bourbon?”

“Sure thing. Anyone ask for me yet?”

“Little early to make some bets, isn’t it?”

“Really? What time is it?”

“Little before noon.”

“Fuck me. Better make that two bourbons.”

* * *

With a black cloth bag over his head and his hands cuffed before him, the nannies pushed him gently into the backseat of a patrol car. He heard all three doors open before the car settled under the weight of the men. “Man,” Stockton said, as the engine started up in a dull electric hum, “you guys didn’t even knock my head against the car as I got in.”

“Please be quiet, sir,” a nanny in the seat beside him said.

“I’m just saying, damn near every time I get put in the back of a cruiser, the nanny makes sure to be all rough about it. Once, man, once a guy slammed my head against the roof a couple times while punching me in the kidneys. Pissed blood for a damn week after that.”

“Sir.”

“I mean, you guys didn’t even try and tenderize me for the interrogation.”

“Sir.”

“I hope it’s you guys that arrest me next time. Can’t take too many knocks in my old age.”

“Sir.”

“That is, of course, if I ever see the lovely light of day again. Kind of doubtful on that, of course.”

“Sir, we read you your rights. You can be quiet, if you want.”

“Just saying, I mean, that I figure the old Mayor, he would want my head on a silver platter for this one.”

“Please, sir.”

“Probably with a little garnish. Maybe a glass of wine, too, if he’s in the mood.”

“Sir.”

“Of course, there’s hardly any edible meat on the head. You can get a bit from the cheeks, maybe. The eyes, I guess you could make a nice soup from them. The brains, however, they’ll go rotten not long after death. You could keep me alive for that, though, if he, the Mayor, were so inclined. Get one of them tables with the hole in the middle, saw off the top half of the skull and eat them with an egg spoon, do it like some do with monkeys.”

“Christ, sir.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been much for the monkey brains, myself. Had the chance to try it a few decades back when I was China . They told me it was just a myth, of course, but those fellows I was with, well, they just had to try it. So, this chap at the hotel pointed us to this underworld spot down a few labyrinthine streets some blocks away, a place we figured no Anglo had ever gone before. Our lone Mandarin-speaker had a couple words with the host, who at first, I’m sure, thought we were looking for a little ‘nudge-nudge wink-wink’ action, if you catch my drift.”

“Sure, whatever, sir.”

“Sex, so you know. Those host and hostess bars over there, they can treat you right if you have the coin. Also, man, I tell you I’ve never gotten so much respect from a nanny. Thank you, seriously, it really lifts the spirits for an old codger like myself. Anyway, after a little clarification, the host leads us to this back dining room, and invites us all to sit down around a table with a little hole in the middle and a long tablecloth. He brings us some sake, which was a little odd, considering sake is a Japanese beverage, but anyway, there we are, sitting around a table with these small glasses of sake, and they bring in from a hidden door a monkey, a damn monkey. The host took this monkey and the two of them went underneath the table, and he put the top half of that monkey’s head through that little hole. We could hear him screaming and moaning, this monkey, and when the host got out from underneath the table, he’s holding this big knife, and in one chop he got the top of that monkey’s skull open.

“I gagged a little, I’ll be honest. This situation I seem to be in, I should be honest, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate that in the long run. This wasn’t my bag, the consumption of monkey brains, but I figured it would have been rude to refuse. The host handed us each a spoon and, in Mandarin, told us to ‘Dig in.’ Not a one of us wanted to be first, but, well, someone had to, in all situations there must be the first and might as well have been me. So, I get me a big spoonful and, well, it tasted pretty good, so I went in for seconds. Familiar, it did taste a little familiar. Pretty creamy. The guy who wanted to come down and try this delicacy, he runs to the bathroom and spends the next half an hour heaving over the toilet.”

“That’s disgusting,” the nanny said, pausing for a moment before adding, “sir.”

“The host is laughing his ass off, and I would have been too, were our places swapped.”

“Why is that?”

“It was a coconut, in that hole. A coconut. The monkey was fine.”

The nanny beside him chuckled briefly, which was more than what Stockton thought he would get.

“Was that a true story?” the nanny asked.

“In a sense, yeah. Could be. Probably.”

Stockton was quiet for several moments, with only the electric hum of the cruiser and the tires vibrating over the tarmac, smooth as glass, as well as the faint breathing of the nanny in the back with him, who probably held a taser in his lap on the off chance Stockton decided to give him any problems, though the old man was of no mind for such behavior.

“So, I never did ask,” Stockton said with a suddenness that made the nanny jump in his seat, “where are they wanting you to take me? Probably not City Hall , I can’t see the Mayor wanting someone like me brought through those hallowed halls. Possibly that new prison tower I heard-tell you guys put up, down off of Tryon.” The nannies said nothing. “You guys are no fun.”