The Iron Quill - The Face on the Barroom Floor

[Nikko Andass]

“The Face on the Barroom Floor”

 

by Nikko Andass

 

 

The Wastrel drained his cup to the dregs, hoping to wash away the taste and the smell and the memory of a memory all in a single mouthful. 

 

Smokestacks and dust. Turpentine and mineral esters. Unwashed bodies stuffed into a space built for half their number – a fetid medley of sour gin, cheap tobacco, burnt mutton and the faint whiff of sulfur … everywhere. Inhaling deeply he drew it all in, held it in the back of his throat as long as he could stand it til it spilled back out through his mouth and nose, the last note gagging him. 

 

“Pah!” he spat. 

 

Magic. 

 

He looked at the living detritus pressing around him, a blur of colorless faces and shapes, crammed together like rancid herring in an over-packed tin. “The Sop,” didn't they call this place? There was no sign above the door. He had no memory of how he'd found it, so far afield from the relative safety of the Guild Enclave. Industrial Zone? Slums? No matter the place, as long as here was here. 

 

Malifaux.

 

He set the chipped earthenware mug down onto the bar counter with all the tender care of a determined inebriate. Blue-gray eyes (now violet with drink) fixed on the creature busily filling more of the same chipped and cracked vessels with the cheap, sweet, rank, sweet liquid that had a dozen impatient, grimy hands reaching thirstily toward it … him … it. It was a man he supposed. Creature?  All men were creatures but not all creatures men; a minor distinction in this cursed place. 

 

“Another of the same, my good … man,” drawing out the last word with special emphasis. “More treacle, less brimstone with this batch, do be a good fellow,” he muttered, trying to reassure himself.

 

The barman surveyed him with a practiced eye, shaking his head mutely from side to side. “That were sixt' cup, mate, and I ain' seen the color of yer scrip since the firs' un,” he said coolly. 

 

“Yes, of course. It's coin you'll be wanting.” Pushing himself away from the counter, the Wastrel slowly drew himself up to full height. 

 

Even Earthside he might have cut a dashing figure: Topcoat the color of aged burgundy; smoke gray stovepipe banded in silk; long, ash blonde hair that fell well past his shoulders. But the scratched monocle dangling from a gold chain at his collar, and the oaken cane with the worn gilt knob he held at his side both hinted at wealth long past. The coat was stained and fraying along the cuffs, and the hat sat askew his head, slipping down to cover one eye as tendrils of his unkempt, straggling hair fought for position over the others; a wastrel's wastrel, if ever there was.

 

One hand fumbled inside his coat, pulling forth a half torn, Guild-issued banknote from a hidden pocket. Reaching in further, he managed to retrieve a few playing cards from an incomplete deck and a faded, tattered photograph with a scrap of indecipherable writing smeared across the back. Puzzled by his discovery, he opened his hand, letting the contents scatter face down onto the bar counter. The corners of his mouth twitched up slightly.

 

He reached down and began by turning over the face cards, one by one. Jack of Crows. Queen of Rams. Red Joker. 

 

“A win,” he said softly to himself. 

 

Pausing a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Next he turned the photograph over to reveal the image of what must have been a young woman's face – a pretty face framed in a halo of dark hair, though so washed-out as to appear barely visible. “Black Joker loses,” he whispered. 

 

The barman barked over the din of the crowd. “I'll see yer coin, mate.” 

 

“This is all I have.” He stared down at the faded image in his hand. “All I have.” 

 

“Well that won' do then, will't,” the barman replied harshly. “'No cash, no splash,' as me mawr use' ta say. Hawr!” he let out in crude approximation of laughter. Several patrons within earshot of the exchange joined in derisively as well. 

 

The Wastrel seemed not to hear the barman's response nor the rough laughter around him. He sang quietly to himself:

 

I wish I was in Carrickfergus, only for nights in Ballygran … 

 

He let the photo slip from his hand and fall back down onto the counter. 

 

By then the barman's patience had worn thin. “Push off with yer, mate! We gots payin' folk to attend to here. And clear off yer bleedin' rubbish,” he added finally, brushing away the cards and the discarded picture with a single rough sweep of  a mottled arm. 

 

The Wastrel looked up from his reverie. The corners of his mouth twitched up again, but the distant look he'd once had in his eyes flashed out, replaced with a hot blue glint. 

 

“A song you'll be wanting for my supper, is it, my good man?” He swung round his heavy cane in a single violent motion. Bringing the full weight of the gilt handle down upon his empty cup he smashed it to bits, sending gin soaked shrapnel flying in every direction. “Then a song you'll be having!” 

 

He leapt onto the bar top, recklessly swinging his cane in a half circle in front of him. The barman cowered, scrambling out of range. A roar went up from the barroom, partly from amusement at the spectacle, mostly in rage from the personal tragedies being played out in spilled and spoilt gin. The Wastrel spun round to face his raucous audience and began to sing:  

 

I would swim over the deepest ocean, 

the deepest ocean for my love to find. 

But the sea is wide and I can't swim over, 

neither have I wings to fly. 

 

His voice was fine and loud, fueled by drink and some (til now) untapped inner fire:

 

With gold and silver I would support her, 

her hair was black as any ink.  

I'm drunk today and seldom sober,  

but I'll sing no more now til I get a drink.  

 

The last line met the general approval of the softening crowd. With the barman nowhere in sight,  several of the patrons crawled over the counter and began helping themselves to the establishment's limited amenities:

 

Oh, but I am sick now, 

and, my days are numbered …  

So come ye young men and lay me down. 

 

His voice rose up high and clear. He could feel the small hairs rising on the back of his neck, hear the faint static crackle; there was sulfur in the air. Not even the unmistakable sound of a pistol cocking behind him would interrupt his final refrain: 

 

Aye, I am sick now, 

and, my days are numbered – 

 

A blur of black and silver went whistling past, right below his knees. The simultaneous report of a pistol firing at close quarters and a man shrieking out in agony brought short his ballad. The Wastrel spun round just in time to see the yowling barman clutching at a bloodied hand, a black handled dagger with near six inches of blade protruding from it. 

 

The drink had taken its toll on the Wastrel's senses, and the room pressed in on him. The mood of the gin-sodden herd changed as swiftly as his song had ended; a dark murmuring began filling the space between him and the crowd. All of a once, dozens of hands reached for him. There was the scent of blood in the air, now. A dozen hands grabbed at him, pulling him down off the bar. A seething mass of drunken rage swallowed him whole.  

 

Another gunshot rang out in the barroom. 

 

“You'll be backing away from my friend there,” someone from the back of the mob shouted. "Unless any of yeh filthy midden heaps is looking to purchase a third eye in yehs bloody, ugly heads.” 

 

The voice belonged to an angular man in a bowler hat, standing by the alleyway door. He held aloft his Colt revolver, smoke issuing lazily from the barrel. Beside him, looking like nothing less than a circus strongman, a bald man with a thick russet mustache stood twirling a length of dockyard chain coiled about his well-muscled arm.

 

The crowd cleared a path in front of the two, all the way to the front of the bar counter, revealing the Wastrel crumpled upon the filthy barroom floor. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, his hat  miraculously still affixed atop his head. He clutched the photograph of the faded girl in one hand, his bloodied oaken cane held in the other. 

 

“Yeh owe me a knife, boyo,” the man in the bowler said as he approached. The large bald one continued swinging his chain, clearing the space before them. They marched their way out, each with a hand firmly dragging the Wastrel by the arms, along toward the open door. 

 

The Sikh stood framed in the doorway, a batholitic effigy carved in the night, immovable, inexorable. Backing out with his Gatling rifle slung low, the dark-eyed giant moved slowly out of the door frame and into the darkened alleyway. A sudden gust of wind from the outside passage slammed the door shut; none followed. 

 

“That bastard ghoul Seamus took her and there's no chance of taking her back, laddie,” the man said. 

 

“Why her? Why?” he called out to no one. “She was all I had,” the Wastrel wept. “All I had.”

 

“She's gone for good, boyo. Not even the swamp crone could avail yeh of that one, the lying hag.” 

 

A tall man on horseback fixed the weeping wastrel with a visage harder than granite (but only half so hard as his irredeemable soul). “That's the price of progress,” he said, with an ultimate finality.

 

“There's no changing what has to be done. Your pretty little bride and her master are awaitin', lad,”  the man intoned. “Look around you, you sodden fool! Breathe in the wealth – taste the power of it. This is Malifaux and Malifaux is progress! You've not paid a dearer price than any of the rest of us.” He shook his head in disgust and turned his mount about. “Don't be long, lads.” he drawled. “We have a job to do.” 

 

The man dug his spurs into the flank of his blood bay and rode off into the night with his bawling, mongrel bitch chasing after.

 

Sobering with an almost preternatural rapidity, the Wastrel shrugged off the support of his two fellows and drew himself up to his full height. “At last,” he breathed. “Something makes sense for a change,” he said in a clear voice. He climbed into the back of a waiting wagon. His fellow wastrels piled in after him. 

 

The Sikh snapped the reins and the wagon rolled off into the night. 

 

 

**Edited for clarity and formatting by N. Andass on 11/12/14**

[Nikko Andass]

Word count: 1820 (hopefully this is considered a "reasonable overage.") 

 

Mystery Ingredients:

 

Location - Industrial Zone

Item - An incomplete deck of cards

Line - "It would be so nice if something made sense for a change." (My non-literal interpretation of this line)

 

"The Face upon the Barroom Floor," is a poem originally written by the poet John Henry Titus in 1872. The poem was well-known, in circles high and low, throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

“Carrickfergus" is an Irish folk song, named after the town of Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.  

 

- Nikko

[vinush]

"the memory of a memory all in a single mouthful" Too many memories...

 

"with the cheap, sweet, rank, sweet liquid" a redundant sweet.

 

Otherwise a very good story.

 

Vince.

[Nikko Andass]

Hey, Vince - thanks for the input. 

 

Just to clarify, both of the "redundancies" you've noted were intentional. "... the memory of a memory," was meant to be just that. And, unfortunately, part of my "comedy of errors" when I posted was blowing out all of my formatting -- several words in the story were originally italicized for emphasis, the second "sweet" was meant to read sweet. I'm sorry I didn't make that more obvious. 

 

- N

[admiralvorkraft]

Nikko Andass,

First off, I love your language. You walk that fine line between poetic and purple and I ate it up.

If your story had ended with the Wastrel going down and then a short denouement I think I would have liked it more. Having him hook up with the whole McCabe crew seemed rushed and unnecessary, and it gave me a kind of, "yeah, right" moment. That's the only critique I can muster though, and I only mention it because I loved the first three quarters of this piece so much.

Thanks for sharing!

[Nikko Andass]

Nikko Andass,

First off, I love your language. You walk that fine line between poetic and purple and I ate it up.

If your story had ended with the Wastrel going down and then a short denouement I think I would have liked it more. Having him hook up with the whole McCabe crew seemed rushed and unnecessary, and it gave me a kind of, "yeah, right" moment. That's the only critique I can muster though, and I only mention it because I loved the first three quarters of this piece so much.

Thanks for sharing!

 

Admiral, Sir -- 

 

Much thanks for you kind words of encouragement -- that was precisely the flavor of language I was trying to capture, apropos the period. 

 

As to the final part, I can't say I find much with which to disagree. Oh, for another two or three hundred words ... Perhaps next time our Master of Ceremonies Ed would permit us a 2000 word limit? 

 

- N

[vinush]

Bugger off, I struggle to get mine up to the word count without ruining the flow of my stories. Lol.

[Nikko Andass]

Bugger off, I struggle to get mine up to the word count without ruining the flow of my stories. Lol.

 

I know, I know. Brevity has never been my strong suit. 

 

- N

[Hateful Darkblack]

Really nice writing style! The character's well-written and endearing in his Wastrelness.

[Matney X]

Great story, good job.

[Treemonkey]

So, I picked up the McCabe box set this weekend.  ALL YOUR FAULT

[Nikko Andass]

So, I picked up the McCabe box set this weekend.  ALL YOUR FAULT

 

Yep, that McCabe -- pure troublemaker. Wish I could take all the credit. 

 

- N