A Place To Die
by Michael P Calligaro
On Bourbon Street, in New Orleans, half of the establishments are bars, a third are strip joints, and the rest are either tacky T-shirt shops or exceptional restaurants. The restaurants are truly world class. You can get bad food in New Orleans, but you really have to work at it. The T-shirt shops are like those in any other tourist trap in the world, though they usually take on a more sexual theme. The strip joints are noteworthy only in that they leave their doors open to let all passers-by see inside. More than a few men accepted the offer, but my interest in that sort of thing had died out long ago. While many of the bars were nothing more than places for rowdy people to get drunk, others offered extraordinary live music. I've been around the world a number of times over, and trust me, nowhere can you hear better jazz and blues than in New Orleans.
Having just finished one of those world class meals, I was wandering down Bourbon when the sign for The Absinthe House Bar came into view. They haven't changed that sign since 1806 when they opened the place. It showed its age. The "t" in "Absinthe" hung by one rusted screw, and all of the once white letters had become dull shades of brown and gray. I stopped near the open window next to the stage and listened to that night's act. Much like the strip joints (I won't give them the credit of calling them burlesque houses, even though many make that claim), the Bourbon Street bars leave their doors open to let you experience the entertainment for free. I'm no longer a voyeur, even when it comes to music, and this soulful melody was worth listening to. I went in and found an empty seat near the stage.
The bassist and drummer were mediocre, but that was by design. In blues, the rhythm section is only there to keep the beat going. The more important sax and keyboard players were quite good, but they paled next to the guitar player. He was amazing. I sat right below him and enjoyed a perfect view of his fingers as they blurred across the fretboard making the guitar wail, scream, and cry. With the amount of time I had thrown at learning to play the guitar, you'd think I'd be capable of playing at least half as well as this guy, but I'm not. It takes more than just determination to become really great. It takes something that I don't have, but that oozed out of this guy's every pore.
Yes, sir, incredible food and music; they almost made life worth living. Almost.
The waitress, an attractive blonde dressed in jeans and a stained T-shirt, wandered over to my table. "Can I get you a beer?" She had little to no accent; obviously not a local.
"No honey, I'm AA. But you could bring me some kind of soft drink." I'm not really, an alcoholic that is. At least, I haven't been one for a while. To tell the truth, I didn't want a drink because, like most everything else, I've grown tired of alcohol. It's a convenient lie though. Not even in New Orleans will a waitress pressure an alcoholic to drink.
She brought back a Coke just as the band finished a set. It was a slow night, and she had no other tables to tend to. Apparently bored, she sat down at mine. "So, cutie, how do you like our little bar?"
"Good music. I've always liked this place better than the new one down the street."
She looked confused. "You mean the other Absinthe House? The one over on Bienville?" She laughed when I nodded. "New one? That place has been around since the 1800's!"
I shrugged. "So?"
Evidently deciding that I was stranger than she wanted to deal with, the waitress headed back to the bar. That was fine with me. I didn't come here to chat, I came to listen to the music.
Two sets and five Cokes later, I ambled back out onto Bourbon Street. It was around 1:00 am and the partygoers were out in storm. Bourbon is blocked to traffic at night, and people wander drunkenly in the street with beers and hurricanes in hand. Men stand in doorways leering at strippers who encourage them by wiggling and cavorting in their direction. What these girls would do to get dollar bills stuffed into their panties. Thoughts of Sodom and Gomorra popped into my head. This place gave the two most famous of damned cities a run for their money.* * *
Tired of everything on Bourbon Street (or was that just tired of everything?), I walked down to the new Absinthe House and turned left on Bienville. Absentmindedly, I turned left again on the first street I found. In the truly perverse style of the French Quarter, this street, one away from the drunkenly sexual excess of Bourbon, was full of high-class antique stores. Not that I cared. I walked on oblivious to my surroundings and nearly bumped into the kid that jumped out in front of me.
He brandished a knife and demanded, "Gimme all jour money!"
I took one step back and gave him a bored look. "Go home, kid. I'm the wrong guy to mess with."
Ignoring my plea to his better judgment, he elaborated his request, "Gimme all jour money or I'll kill ju!" He twisted the knife in his fingers in a vain attempt to appear menacing.
This, at least, brought a satirical grin to my face. "That's highly unlikely kid, but you're welcome to try."
The thug slashed at me. I easily stepped back out of range and immediately charged back in when the knife went past. I grabbed his wrist in the most painful grip that came to mind and twisted it up. The would-be mugger screamed in pain as the knife plummeted to the ground. Before letting go, I twisted a bit more, just to make sure he'd remember me fondly. The kid bolted like a rabbit released from a trap. There was never a real need for me to learn self defense, but when you're around long enough, you pick things up. Besides, getting stabbed hurts! Automatically, I grabbed the knife and slid it into my right boot. Picking up things left behind by others is an old habit, one I've never managed to break.
Since I had already been detained, I decided to kill some time by window-shopping. I wandered across the street to an antique shop which displayed a remarkably expensive old chair. Staring at the chair, I reflected on its fate, forced to stand in a window just because it had survived this long. Being older than any of the antiques in the store, I felt a strange sense of empathy with them.
I didn't want to slip into another multi-year lament about my problems. Instead I turned to rush off and leave all the antiques behind. I might be an antique myself, but I don't have to feel like one. Before I could leave, however, a light caught my eye. Between this antique store and the next stood a single thin door with a faint light shining through its rose-colored window. The intricate carving on the door led me to conclude that this was another antique store. This was strange; typical antique stores were never open at this time of night. I also wondered how such an exquisite door had lasted in this depraved neighborhood without being destroyed by vandals or drunken miscreants; the other antique stores had metal cages to protect their much more plain entranceways. The sign above this one read "Free Time: Always Open For Business."
All my trouble stems from the fact that I've seen everything, I've done everything, and I've become bored with everything. This strange anomaly in the fabric of a city I thought I knew intimately piqued my curiosity. There was no way I was going to pass it up without investigation.
The door opened easily to reveal a staircase leading downward. While there was nothing fancy about the staircase, it let to another oak door, this one more ornate than the first. In response to my knocking, it opened inwardly, then shut again behind me the moment I was through. I didn't have time to puzzle out how that worked or even look around the shop before the proprietor greeted me.
"Hello mon, what canna I do fer ya?"
As I mentioned before, I've traveled around the world a number of times, and I thought I had seen and heard everything. But I had never heard an accent like this fellow's. It sounded like what you would get if you took a natural born Scott and forced him to live with Cajuns for a few decades. The character himself was about as out-of-the-ordinary as his voice. The barefoot little man stood barely four feet tall with half of that height obscured by a long white beard that ran down to his waist. The beard partially covered deep wrinkles and other telltale signs of age, though his eyes sparkled with the vigor of youth. Not surprisingly, he dressed strangely too. Although he wore an enormous ruby ring on one finger, his clothes were rags.
"I'm not sure. What is it that you do?"
He feigned shock, "Wha'? Dincha see da sign, laddie? I sells time."
I had never heard such a thing, but given my predicament, I was not beyond believing it could be done. "How do you do that?"
"Why, da same way anyone'd sell som'in'! Ya pays fer it an' I give's it to ya!" He smiled a disarming grin and his eyes twinkled. "So, whatdaya think? Ya wanna buys ya some time?"
I laughed outright, in genuine humor. "No, I don't think so. Time is something I've got way too much of."
He squinted at me then rooted through a desk drawer. The desk, like the doors, was made of a slab of oak and carved with intricate visages of gnomes and elves. This dwarf had some bucks. With an "Aha!" he pulled out an ancient pair of spectacles and donned them. After staring at me through the spectacles, he looked at his own hand. His eyes grew wide, and he glared at me again. Then he pulled out a small gizmo and started writing on it with a pen. I must confess, I had not paid much attention to recent advances in electricity and had no idea what his device was or what he was doing with it.
The thing beeped and he looked up at me again, his eyes even wider. Then he wrote something on the device again, and it made the same kind of beep. "Holy frijoles!" he exclaimed. I ruminated once again on the bits and pieces of different accents I was finding in his voice. This dwarf had obviously traveled, perhaps as much as I had. "You're righty ya are. I shows ye as havin' all tha time in da world."
I was curious before, but now I became intensely interested. "You can see that?" I tried to keep the urgency out of my voice when I asked "Do you see an end to my time?"
"No, I donna do. Yer gonna live forever!"
As I had feared. My face fell as I let out a sigh and dropped into a nearby chair.
"What's wrong laddie?"
"I've already lived forever. I was hoping that forever would end sometime soon."
The dwarf grimaced. "Ungrateful ya are for dis gift ya'were given. Does ya know ta what lengths I've gone ta try ta live forever?"
"Gift?! It's a curse!"
The dwarf plopped down into a chair of his own and said "So tells me about it."
I glanced around and took in the room for the first time. It was a strange collage of ancient and modern artifacts. The chair I sat in was from the early 18th century, and the stained glass window on the rear door was from earlier, but the dwarf held what must have been a modern piece of electronic equipment in his hand.
"First you tell me what that is." I pointed to the device he held.
"Wot, this? It be just a computer. Peersonal dig'tal assistant they calls 'em. I uses it to keep track of me accounts, I does."
"Accounts? What do you do again?"
"I told ye, I sells time!"
He had told me that before. If I hadn't known senility was an impossibility for me, I might have wondered if I was catching it. "How?"
"I uses my gift, and a curse it be not! I con transfers time from one people to another."
I nodded. That seemed plausible. An idea started to form in my head and I wanted to discuss it with the dwarf, but he cut me off. "Listen sonny. I've had ta scrape and scramble to live fer the last four hundre years. I wanna know how you gets to live for free. No more of yer questions now."
I tried to remember back to when I was just four hundred years old. Life was still new and fresh then. I was still happy. This dwarf hadn't lived long enough to become bitter yet. But he had lived a long time compared to everyone else. I had never told anyone why I was immortal. I don't think I'd even told anyone that I was immortal in the last few centuries. It had been so painful watching friends and lovers grow old and die that I had stopped trying to find any. It might feel good to tell someone my story, even if that someone was a weird little dwarf with an even weirder accent.
"You've heard of Sodom and Gomorra?"
"Yeah, from da Bible. Two wretched cities dat God destroyed. I ne'er believed any o' that stuff tho."
"Believe it. I lived in Gomorra, and I was the most wretched of them all." The interest shined on his face, and he leaned closer, not wanting to miss a word. "I remember that night. We had a massive orgy. I drunk myself to incoherence and ran around naked, screwing everything that moved. Then, as the sun broke out over the horizon, the entire sky turned red. People screamed, and I looked up to see giant chunks of burning rock and sulfur raining down on us. I blacked out, and when I came to, I found myself lying in the middle of a destroyed city. Black smoke belched out of the earth itself, and everything had turned to slag. I burned my feet terribly walking out. Then I watched in amazement as they healed themselves in front of my eyes."
"Did anyone else survive?"
"No, just me. I didn't understand why at first. I traveled the globe, seeing all and doing anything my heart desired. When I discovered that I couldn't die, I became even more wild than when I had lived in Gomorra. I had a grand old time...for the first millennium or so. Then I started to get bored. As time stretched on I realized that what I had was not a great gift from God; it was His curse. And what a curse. I'm now bored of everything. I've seen the entire world so many times over that nothing is new. I just wish I could find a place to lay down and die."
The dwarf nodded thoughtfully. "Ah, tis a shame. You wit' too much time an' me without enough."
That brought up my earlier thought. "You had me thinking before. You said you can transfer time from one person to another. What if you took mine from me faster than the curse can put it back? Maybe I could die after all."
His gaze turned thoughtful and he said, "Tis worth a shot laddie, tis worth a shot." He wrote something on his computer, and another device at the other end of the room spit out a piece of paper. I didn't bother to ask how he did that. He thrust the paper in my hands and then offered an old fountain pen. "First ye gotta signs da contract, mon."
"Contract?" I asked. "What for?"
"There be rules, ya know. I no can takea yer time ifin I donna have no contract."
I shrugged and signed. I didn't worry too much about reading it. After all, I was asking the guy to kill me, not sell me a used car. Besides he was getting plenty in the deal.
The dwarf beamed and then asked, "Do ya sleep?"
Humans sleep to give their bodies time to regenerate. I don't need that and can go for years on end without sleeping. But sometimes I do it anyway. Sleeping helps pass the time. "Yes," I responded.
"Okay!" He jumped up and started rummaging through the drawers of a dresser. I looked around the room again. So this would be my place to die. After living for thousands of years, you might think I'd want a nicer locale. But I didn't care, so long as this eternal torment ceased. When the dwarf finished rifling through the last drawer, he started mumbling to himself. "Sleepy potion, where for did I put dat sleepy potion?" He consulted his computer gizmo, and it beeped at him. "Of course!" He reached into a file cabinet and pulled out a small vial. "Here it tis laddie!" Handing the vial to me, he said, "drink dis and I'll be gettin right ta work making us both happy critters!"
I took the vial and glanced around once more. A momentary doubt came over me, but the boredom of the last few millennia shoved it aside. I uncorked the vial and held it up as if it were a toast. Melodramatically, I said "goodbye cruel world" and drank it down. As I slipped into unconsciousness, I heard the dwarf chortle with glee.* * *
I awoke flat on my back with my hands and feet securely tied to a table. I was in a different room, but the furniture was the same mishmash of old and new as the other one. The dwarf sprung in through the only door I could see. His beard still ran down to his waist, but the wrinkles of his face were gone. "Ah, you're awake ya'are!"
"Hey, what's going on?" I yelled. "I thought you were going to drain my life. Why am I tied up?"
"Aw, things, aren't goin' how ye planned, are dey laddie?
"But we had a deal!"
Ignoring that, he continued. "Ya were so eager ta go ta sleep, ya never did think 'bout how I've been livin'."
I strained at my bindings, but the ropes were too strong to break. "How's that?"
"Well now friend, just where do ya think I've been gettin' my time?"
I shrugged.
"I've been transferring it from one people to another, just like I said, but I also be skimmin' some off the top for myself."
It dawned on me. "And that was not part of your contracts with these people."
"Righto! As ya see laddie, I'm not a nice bugger."
"Our deal was fair though! You can take all my time! Why did you have to tie me up like this?"
"Tis true, I coulda taken all your time. An that mighta lasted me a hundre years or so. Then wot? I'd haveta go back ta stealin' it from normal folk. Wit you alive I've got an infinite supply. No way I'll be passin' dat up."
I struggled with my bonds again but to no avail. "And you're just going to leave me tied up for all eternity?" The terror in my voice matched the shivers running up and down my spine.
"Yep! I figures ya can't starve ta death, so I won't even need ta unties ya for feeding." I lunged at him, but the rope held me firmly in place. He walked up and slapped me on the cheek, but pulled his fingers back quickly when I tried to bite him. "Was stupidity parta da curse too laddie? Ya spent thousans of years wanderin round bored, wishin ya weren't cursed. Didja ever think dat God wanted ya to do more den dat? Wit da wisdom of all dose years, and all da time ya still had, ya coulda made a difference. Ya coulda ruled da world, made life better for da little people like me, or made great scientifie breakthroughs. Instead ya squandered yer time on Bourbon street, pretendin it was yer own little Gomorrie. An now it be too late mon!" He laughed heartily as he walked out.
I lay back and tried to collect my thoughts, but I had a difficult time of it. That drug the dwarf gave me must not have worn off completely yet. Something pushed at my conscious mind, but I couldn't make it out no matter how hard I tried. Finally I closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander. Things could be worse; I could have been buried alive. The thought of spending all eternity trapped in a little coffin was a bit much. In fact, that had always been one of my great worries. I'd been executed a number of times. I'd been burned at the stake, drowned, and shot. I was even beheaded once during the French revolution. Each time I made sure I got out of there before they buried me. Though sometimes they tied up my body in a bag. The first time that happened I came way too close to ending up six feet under. That's when I started carrying a knife...
A knife! I had just picked one up outside! Maybe that habit wasn't such a bad one after all. Holding my breath, I pressed my boot against the side of the table. The breath leaked out in despair when I did not feel the blade.
The dwarf wandered back in carrying my knife. "Lookin' fer dis, mon? I noticed it I did while draggin' ya in 'ere. Couldn't leaves ya wit' a way ta cuts yer bonds now, could I?" He laughed again and tossed the knife at me. It stuck into the side of the table, agonizingly close, but well out of reach.
I snarled through clenched teeth. "That was mean. While you're at it, why don't you use the knife to cut me, then pour vinegar on the wound?"
The dwarf laughed. "That'll no be necessary. I'ma nota bad guy, justa greedy one." He chuckled as he skipped back into the other room.
I thought my life had been crummy before, but that was nothing compared to the boredom I would endure for the rest of eternity. There was no doubt that the dwarf would be very careful to keep me from escaping. He'd not let my ropes get old and would check on me frequently to insure that I couldn't get away.
A day passed, or maybe two. In the windowless room I had no way to keep track of time. With nothing better to do I decided to review my whole life, in as much gory detail as I could remember. At least it was something to do. I started with my earliest memories and worked my way through my first few centuries of life. At first I smiled at the good times, but slowly grew bored even of remembering them. I really had been a single minded son of a bitch. Some unknown number of days later I came across the answer to my problem. My eyes got wide, and I pounded my head against the table. Maybe stupidity had been part of the curse. My memories had come to one of the times they executed me and put my body in a bag. I just barely managed to get out before they buried me alive. It was after that nerve wracking experience that I had started carrying a knife. I had been so close to this days ago, but then my mind jumped to the knife I had taken from the kid outside the shop.
I used to keep a very thin, flexible blade buried under the fleshy skin of my left forearm. Yeah, it hurt like all hell when I put it in, but I just stayed continuously drunk for a month or two while my body got used to it. And no one ever thinks to search inside of you for a weapon. Trouble was, in the last few centuries of boredom, I hadn't been much trouble for anyone and hadn't been executed in a long time. Did I still carry the knife? I couldn't remember. And as this was possibly my last chance to escape, I was almost afraid to check. I pressed my arm against the table and sighed when I did not feeling anything. Of course, it had been at least a century since I had last thought of the knife. The skin around it would definitely have callused by now. I pressed harder, but still felt nothing. In desperation, I smashed my arm against the table. I stifled a gleeful shout when I felt the wonderful pain of the knife shifting and cutting me.
So the dwarf had found one of my knives but not the other. I wasn't at all sure I would be able to get the knife out of my arm and into my bound hand, but at least I had a chance. I listened intently for the dwarf, but if he was in the other room, he was silent. Hoping that meant he was either asleep or gone, I bent my wrist back and rubbed the base of my forearm against the table. I had inserted the knife with the tip pointing at my wrist. If I had done this at all correctly, I should be able to force the tip through my skin and then slide the rest out. I clenched my teeth to the pain as the blade started cutting. Only the terrible boredom of the last unknown number of days and the fear of spending the rest of eternity this way gave me the endurance to keep going. Tears of pain were rolling freely out of my eyes when the point broke through the surface of my arm. It was easier going when I got past the widest part of the blade, but by then my whole arm felt as if it was on fire.
Then calamity almost struck. I misjudged the length of the knife and pulled it all the way out before I realized it. With a resounding crash, the knife dropped onto the table and started to bounce toward the floor. My heart stopped as I slammed my arm down on top of it, hoping to God that it wouldn't fall. I got my wish, but the knife sliced deep into another part of my arm and stayed there. I heard the outer door open and the dwarf stumble in and drop something on the desk. He then came in to check on me. I gritted my teeth against the pain and pressed my arm against my body, driving the knife in deeper, but hopefully hiding it. I prayed that he wouldn't see the blood. Yeah, I actually prayed!
The dwarf glanced at me from the doorway then looked over the ropes around me. They must have appeared fine, for he shook his head and wandered back into the other room. I managed to extricate the knife from my arm again. Then I spent way too many frenzied heartbeats as I slowly maneuvered it into my hand. Once I clasped my fingers around the blade I cut the rope binding that hand. I had lost a lot of blood, but who needs the stuff? My arm was still bleeding as I cut the remaining three ropes and jumped off the table.
As I crept to the door, I tried to decide whether it would be more fun to wring the dwarf's neck or tie him to a table and torment him for fifty or so years. Slowly, I eased the door open and I saw him sitting behind his desk whistling to himself. I charged into the room and positioned myself between him and the exit to the street. "So, you were going to leave me tied up for the rest of eternity were you?" I snarled.
The dwarf spent the next thirty seconds spewing colorful words, a few of which I had never heard before. Then he eyed the door behind me. I gripped the knife tightly and waved it at him. "Don't even try it," I threatened. "There's no way you'll get past me, and this is the only way out."
He frowned but nodded. "So, whatdaya want?"
"Let's start with the contract."
He shook his head. "No con do, mon."
"Oh yes. You'll do. I won't have you running around leeching off of me. You'll give me the contract, or I'll kill you."
He snarled back at me. "Find it. Betcha can't searchy da place and still guard da door."
He was right, but he was underestimating me. "I guess I'll just need to burn the whole place down then. I'm sure the contract will go with it, but even if it doesn't, you will. The contract is meaningless if you're not around to use it." That got to him. "Oh, and don't think you'll escape either. I'll just stay here and make sure you don't. Burning to death is an extremely painful way to go. Trust me, I've done it a few times. But ya know laddie," I tried to emulate his accent, "I'll live through it."
My adversary thought about it for a moment. He then pulled a piece of paper out of his top drawer and slapped it down on the desk. Even from across the room, I could make out my signature on it. "Come 'n' get it," he taunted.
I slowly inched forward, keeping an eye on the dwarf. I knew that with each step he had an easier shot at the door, so I was wary of any sudden moves on his part. He didn't even flinch. I had gotten to the desk and had reached out for the paper when his eyes glowed a luminescent blue.
Suddenly, I felt eighty years old. My back hurt, my hands shook, and the knife in my right hand became very, very heavy. Worse, I felt like I had no energy. The dwarf, on the other hand, became younger by the moment. His beard receded and turned a darker shade of brown. His arms became more muscular. In a youthful burst of speed, he grabbed the contract and bolted for the door.
Fortunately for me, my curse returned my life force extremely quickly. I managed to spin around and grab him by the back of his collar. Then I picked him up and tossed him into the wall behind the desk. He groaned when he hit.
"Nice try. Now, give me the contract." He angrily balled it up and tossed it at me. I easily caught it with my left hand, but in the moment of confusion I missed the little computer he threw immediately thereafter. On seeing it hurtling toward my face, I reflexively stuck my hands up and it struck me in my wounded left arm. Crying out in pain, I dropped the knife and gripped the arm with my right hand. The dwarf used that moment of disorientation to slip between my legs, kicking out at my knee as he went through. I heard him laughing as he ran down the street and I fell roughly to the ground.
It looked like I wouldn't get my revenge after all, but that's okay, revenge is another thing I'd grown tired of. I straightened out the contract and carefully verified that it was the correct one. Then I tore it into little pieces and burned the pieces. Satisfied, I picked up the computer and headed home. * * *
Strangely enough, the incident with the dwarf seems to have helped me more that it hurt. His little speech got me thinking about my life and all that I could be doing with it. And my days of reflection showed how much I have not done with it so far. Maybe God really does want me to atone for my sins. Maybe if I work to make a difference in this world, He'll let me off the hook. Maybe someday I'll find my place to die. Besides, even if I don't, trying to do good is at least something to do. It should keep me occupied for a few centuries. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I know I've got a lot to learn. If nothing else, I've let knowledge of current technology fall by the wayside these last few decades. But I've been playing with the dwarf's computer and am enjoying myself. The device is quite intriguing. It lets me write on it with a pen-like thing and it sort of understands my handwriting. I've read the help screens, and they tell me it'll get better the more I write. So I'm training it by writing this story. At first it did not understand me at all, but with time we've been getting better working together. And that's okay, time is something I've got plenty of.* * *
The dwarf looked up from his new PDA and smiled. "Yes me immortal friend. Ignorant of technology ya are. Ya donna even knows about wireless networks yet. Or hows I can not only reads yer files, but keep tabs on where ya go with my toy. But donna worry yerself. The next time we meet, I'll tell ya all 'bout it. 'Cause we will meets again."
He began to plan the next encounter.The End
Copyright Michael P. Calligaro
All Rights Reserved
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