Dallas City was a place of sound among the derelict world that both the hunchback and the clown found themselves in. The open road came without the constant state of panic one associates with paranoia spurred on by the presence of humanity, but cities remained generally safe—and loud. Music buskers crooned while well-armed guards remained steadfastly observant—especially at the borders of the capital—and construction crews lifted sheeting over their heads or lifted it via mechanical apparatuses. It appeared that Republic borders allowed nothing in their way; where once ancient and abandoned superstructures stood, soon there would be housing and where housing was, entertainment, gardens, novelty, and comfort followed. It was humanity’s right to tame the infested wasteland, so said Republican leaders.
Along the roadway were temporary trailers and pitched tents where foremen sat among their loads of paperwork and on either side of the traveling pair there was a rush of panic among the employed builders. Apartments on either side stood half-renovated and some argued in the street over the expansion project; so, the whispers told that many of the structures did not seem totally sound and rather than renovation, they required total demolition before anything else could be done. The sweaty faces of builders passed by; each one jingling with a belt of tools and the heat of the midday sun beat down on the crews so that some gathered by the massive tombstone buildings in the shade, removed their safety helmets, and wafted their own faces with flat debris—heat steam coiled from the heads of the workers.
The hunchback and the earless clown arrived at the checkpoint where there were fortifications: wheeled trailers and temporary cover; there was no gate to speak of. Just beyond the workers were tables strewn with clerical gear with officers and subordinates looking over notes with tablets. Trailers and wagons and officer lorries stood lined across Pacific Avenue like in a wall. And where there were no vehicles, there stood folding tables affording narrow passage; just beyond was Dealey Plaza. Zigzagging from the checkpoint into Dallas City proper was a queue of travelers guided by arranged low partitions; the travelers lined there seemed from all walks of life and beyond subtle comments about the heat of the day, little conversation was held among them. Trinity and Hoichi came to the rear of the queue and stood and waited.
One of the men at the head of the line, decked in leathers, leaned over one of the tables where officers sat or idly stood by, their sidearms holstered. The man wore a ragged leather brim-cap which encircled his crown, so his face was kept from the light of the sun. He spat sidelong to the ground and the officers there at the folding table scanned their records via tablets and listened to whatever the man said.
On the sidelines were slaves huddled in wagon cages; many sat dumbly against the vertical bars which exposed them like zoo animals to the elements, backs to the sun, faces from onlookers. Somewhere an infant wailed briefly.
The man in leathers drummed his fingers against the folding table and removed a cigarette from the inner pockets of his jacket, craned back on his heels, stared at the sky and seemingly listened to a muffled diatribe the officers imparted. Cigarette smoke came from under the hat and the man in leathers nodded, withdrew something from his jacket, placed it on the table and the officers scrambled over it.
Reconciling, the officers parted the way backed by lorries and the man in leathers strolled toward his caravan of slaves and the other slavers marched on his command and he swirled his index finger in the air; the caravan of slaves took into Dallas City while the queue shuffled forward.
A few stragglers filled the line behind Trinity and Hoichi and before long, though the heat kept the time slow, the pair arrived at the officers themselves and were ushered in after a quick look at their fake IDs.
Once in Dealey Plaza, they were soon struck by political proselytizing from soapbox preachers with pamphlets; some were respectable-seeming grassroots startups while others were apocalyptic; no one stopped to listen.
The plaza was alive by slave auctions from the newly arrived caravan and already the man in leathers was there toting his wares, sizing bare-thread attired humans atop temporary cinderblock plinths. Some passersby—whether citizens or vagabonds—looked on with expressions of abject disgust, spat at the ground, and yet others stopped to ogle the forlorn expressions of those slaves and began to inquire. Some grouped in knots along the corner of Houston Street and Main and the loudening dealings began as the man in leathers barked like a carnival coraller.
Trinity stood in the street across the busy intersection for longer than Hoichi and she watched the man in leathers and the crowd which sprung around him; a honking wagon pushed her into the shade of the finished buildings along the sidewalk and she fought to shoulder the silvery rifle by its strap and gathered onto Hoichi for support. The two of them moved across the walkway while strangers bustled by; a bone-thin woman vulgarly shouted at Hoichi with the word, “Pagliaccio!” over and over, “Pagliaccio, Pagliaccio, Pagliaccio!” and she laughed at his bewildered expression.
The duo spilled from the intersection at Dealey and into an entry with an adjacent neon sign that read: HOSTEL. Immediately, they were cast against the brown brick interior with low sterile lights; the windows which overlooked the street were filthy enough to disturb the sun which came from there. The place was deserted, save a single half-bald barman that offered them a brief nod upon their arrival. To the left was the bar and to the right were a series of ruined booths, and over the head of the barman was a thin speaker that played, “You Sexy Thing”. Trinity moved to the bar and Hoichi angled nearer the door and by its windows on either side.
Hoichi peered through the glass, called to his sister, “It’ll be late soon anyway.”
Trinity brushed a fixed stool planted directly before where the barman stood and nodded at her brother; she then swiveled her attention to the barman and held up a peace sign. “Two. Tequila. Thanks.”
Hoichi moved to join her, and they watched the barman move across the back wall where dust-covered shelves of liquor sat. “You have rooms, yeah?” called Hoichi to the barman.
The half-bald man nodded absently while returning with two empty nip glasses pinched in his right hand and a half-empty bottle of clear liquor clamped in his left.
“Good rooms?” asked Hoichi, “Clean?”
The barman laughed and pinched his expression to bemusement and poured the shot-glasses full till they spilled over, and he responded in the universal ‘eh’ noise to the inanimate objects. He shook his head at the mess, recapped the liquor and planted it on the counter by the glasses; the barman then slid the containers before his new patrons and sent a flat palm across the puddle of tequila which rested on the bar—as if in cleaning—he pushed out his bulbous tongue then licked where his hand was wet. “You want good rooms then you go somewhere else, I think,” said the barman.
“A-C?” asked Hoichi.
The barman shook his head.
“Tap?”
“Water?”
Hoichi nodded.
The barman shook his head, “Not in the rooms.”
Trinity ignored both her brother and the barman and lifted one of the glasses to her lips and swallowed it flashily with her head back. She brought the empty shot-glass down on the counter and quivered before removing the rifle from her shoulder and setting it by her knees against the bar, barrel up. She began to remove her robe to expose her jeans, her tank top, the sweat on her skin. Hoichi did the same while continuing with the barman.
“Breakfast?” asked Hoichi, eagerly.
“I could for extra, but I don’t wake up until late,” said the barman.
“How late?”
The barman sighed and pondered at the ceiling for a moment then shrugged, “Whenever I wake.”
Hoichi nodded, “No breakfast then. Just one—
“Drink,” said Trinity, shifting the other, still full glass in front of her clown brother.
Hoichi winced and nodded and downed his tequila and gathered air through puckered lips. “Okay. Okay. Like I was saying,” He looked to the waiting barman, “One room, please.”
The barman’s gaze shifted between the duo. “I’ve only got the one cot for each room.”
“No matter,” said Hoichi.
“You’ll pay?” asked the barman while chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Trinity pushed the two empty shot-glasses to the inside edge of the bar and nodded vigorously, “We’ll pay, we’ll pay, just get us refilled.”
Upon uncapping the tequila bottle, the barman leveled forward and squinted at Hoichi, “You haven’t any ears? How can you hear alright?”
Hoichi grinned. “Well, your mom’s got thighs like a vice-grip.”
A flush came over the barman before it settled, and he bit into a smile and shook his head. “Pretty good.” He filled the order then snatched a third empty glass—a tumbler—and placed it in front of himself and filled it just healthier than a double. “You hear alright though?”
The barman left the tequila uncapped there before Trinity and Hoichi, and Trinity downed her glass then went to refill it. Hoichi ignored his own and nodded. “It’s only the outside. Cut off.” The clown shrugged then drummed his fingers against the countertop.
The barman took a swig from his tumbler then wiped his mouth and pointed at Trinity. “And you.”
“Me?” Trinity froze with her third shot mid-lift; she returned it to the counter.
“Yeah, your back is,” the barman made an S shape in the air with his index finger.
Hoichi chimed in curtly, “You’re not even going to ask about my tattoo?” he pointed to his own face.
The barman angled forward, studied the clown’s face, “What’d you do that for?”
Hoichi took his shot and hissed then raised his shoulders and put his arms round-like at his sides to imitate a rotund stature. “What’d you do that for?”
The barman laughed and drank. “Fair enough,” he wiped his mouth again, “I’m nosy.”
“I can tell that,” Hoichi pointed at the man’s prominent nose.
The barman shook his head but still smiled. “Alright, enough ribbing. Before I go off and ask too many questions, my name’s Petro—just so we are at least on friendly terms.” He moved his back to the patrons, lifted an electric tablet and the overhead music died to a whisper then he returned to them and nodded; his eyes were reddened like with tears upon him finishing the tumbler. “Awful drink,” he wagged his finger at Trinity, “Terrible taste.” He huffed and sat the empty tumbler along the shelves behind him and continued, “If I overstep just tell me, ‘Fuck you.’, okay?”
“Me? Me fuck you?” asked Hoichi, “We’ll see how many drinks we’ve left in us before we talk like that.”
“Where are you two coming from?” asked Petro.
Trinity, finishing her shot, took what was left of the bottle into her shot-glass, “Why so curious?”
Petro shrugged, “Harmless curiosity.”
“West,” said Trinity.
“Anywhere particular?”
“Maybe a reservation, maybe Pheonix,” she said.
“No Republic territory?”
“Nah.”
Petro seemed ready to spit at his feet but stopped. “I’d like to go west. That’s where my family’s from. Eh. What’s west though?”
“Something different,” said Trinity.
“Maybe. Maybe it’s the same,” offered Petro. “Of course, it is. No matter. Do you see any mutants when you travel?”
The duo nodded.
“What sorts then?” his head swiveled between them, “Are they dangerous?”
“Sure,” said Trinity; she lifted the rifle by her side, “But that’s why we always carry, isn’t that right?” She motioned to her brother then returned the rifle where it leaned.
The clown nodded.
“What do they look like?” asked Petro.
“They’re all different,” said Trinity, “Some nest, some fly, some glow in the dark—some talk too.”
“Demons then?” asked Petro.
Trinity nodded, “Rarely.”
“And what are the demons like?”
“Evil.”
The barman nodded. “Is it true they give you treasure?”
“Treasure?” Trinity asked.
Petro nodded, “Yeah. Treasure. I’ve tales that heard if you speak to them, and you trade something with them then you’ll get treasure.”
Trinity rested her head in her hand and angled to glance at her brother, “You ever get any treasure from them?”
Hoichi’s expression, for a blink, shone incredulously, but quickly shifted into a wearied grin. “No,” he said, “I wouldn’t want anything they’d sell.” Hoichi glanced out the anterior windows toward the framed swatch of Dealey Plaza; evening came on, so the people outside seemed like blackened pastel sticks against the gray. “It seems like there’s nothing you couldn’t buy here with Republic scratch, so what reason would I have for their treasure?”
Petro nodded grimly and asked his patrons if they’d like another drink. Eagerly, they agreed, and Petro, though he awkwardly shifted on his feet when speaking and made uncouth mouth-noises when savoring the aftertaste, joined them. The three drank gaily till night was totally present; the interior electric lights of Petro’s establishment came on stronger to bathe the scene in a stark white glow so that anything outside the windows—the sidewalk, beyond—was black completely, save the vague indigo sky and its pale white moon without stars. Humming electricity hung beneath the long speaker which lowly played indecipherable R&B.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
During the small merriment came callous jokes between a barman with intrigue for the wasteland and the pair of siblings—the hunchback and the clown.
All was amiable until it wasn’t.
The door came in and a straggler came in from the street, ragged clothes and matted hair painted the thin haggard woman as a beggar. Her remaining teeth glanced at Petro before she pulled herself onto the stool beside Hoichi; the clown lowered his head away from the straggler to his sister.
The straggler rummaged within her linen pockets and slammed the money she’d found there onto the counter; Petro eased near to her, lifted the money and counted it—he nodded and stuffed the wad into his own pocket then moved to grab a bottle from the cabinet under the sink, a bottle of translucent yellowy cider. The barman fought to uncork the thing then placed it before the straggler and she drank heartly there, lifting the neck above her mouth like a sword swallower; the bottom of the container was empty quickly and when she finally sighed and set the cider to the bar, cupped between both of her dirt-blackened palms, the drink was gone but a swallow. The straggler wiped her mouth, offered thanks to Petro and he merely nodded and smiled with the visible twinkle of drunkenness in his own eyes.
“Where you from?” asked the straggler; her attention remained on the bar, greyed eyelids resting half-over green irises.
“Me?” asked Hoichi while stretching away from his sister and twisting in his seat to better speak to the stranger.
The straggler nodded, “Both of you, I guess. Would you happen to have a smoke? Just a quick drag? Oh, Petro don’t make that face—you smoke in here too because I’ve seen you.”
Hoichi shook his head. “No, sorry.”
Petro smirked, lifted something small from behind the counter then placed a pack of half-crumpled corn-husk cigarettes beside the straggler’s right knuckles. The barman sighed then added, “No charge extra.”
The straggler greedily buried her fingers into the pack, withdrew a cigarette, fished a loose match from within and struck the thing on the barstool till it danced with fire then puffed and waved the match to smoke. Her face became briefly orange in the glow, and she pursed her lips sidelong to blow her exhale in the direction of the door. “Eh, thanks, Petro. Thanks a lot.” She nodded some, continued staring at the bar more. After studying the marred surface of the counter, she asked without looking away from her study, “Is the circus in town?”
Hoichi snorted and shook his head. “Fashion statement, I guess.”
Trinity added, “You should’ve seen what was underneath!” and clapped her brother on the back.
The clown shrugged his sister’s hand away and shook his head, but he grinned. “It’s alright, isn’t it? To be a clown without a circus.”
The straggler drank heartily from the next bottle, smoked stiffly, nodded. She looked exhausted. “Know any tricks?”
“Bar tricks?” asked Hoichi.
“Eh,” said the straggler, “Bar tricks, circus tricks, whatever.”
“I know a few, don’t I?” he glanced in Trinity’s direction.
Trinity nodded. “Too many. He’s too proud of himself, if you ask me.”
“Oh,” said Petro, “Don’t bother the poor fella’.”
“I’m not bothering him,” said the straggler.
Hoichi polished off the drink he nursed. “Do you pay for tricks? Or do you only get paid for them?” He laughed hideously.
The straggler swiveled on the barstool and shook her head; the corners of her mouth glanced upward.
“Eh,” Hoichi’s head wobbled from dramatic contemplation, “Fuck it. I’ve got one. You see that wall over there?” he pointed at the wall opposite the bar, across the narrow pathway behind their stools, between them and the booths.
“Sure,” the straggler nodded.
Hoichi leapt from the stool and knelt against the middlemost booth where nothing hung on the wall; the others attentively craned forward with attention. “I bet I could knock down this wall.”
“I can’t bet,” said the straggler.
“For fun!” Hoichi smiled, shrugged, “For fun!” he repeated.
“Okay. It’s a bet.”
Hoichi balled his right fist and lifted it high over his head while kneeling on the bench seat. He rapped against the wall at the highest point he could reach, like knocking on a door. Then he lowered his fist and rapped again near where his face was then he rapped a third time nearest the seat of the booth. Brow raised, expression broad, he pivoted to look on his audience and they responded without reaction.
The straggler lifted her bottle till it became empty. “Pfft, stupid clown.”
Hoichi shrugged and returned to his stool between the two women. “That is the point, after all.”
Petro swept the counter with his hand. “Eh, it’s a little funny.”
“I just throw whatever at the wall until something sticks,” said the clown. “Eh? Eh?” His shoulders raised in unison with this repetition. He waved his hands at his small audience.
Trinity offered up her empty glass to the barman and it was refilled. The hunchback posed her question at the straggler, “What’s your name?”
The straggler smiled. “Bel.”
“Just Bel?”
Petro interjected upon filling Trinity’s glass, “Don’t try harder. I’ve tried to get that one’s story and she never budges. Bel is all she’s said when she comes in. That’s her name. She’ll gladly let you spill your guts, but she’d never let you see hers.”
“How much to see them guts?” asked Hoichi, vulgarly.
Bel ignored this and tapped the counter for a replacement on another empty cider. “Petro, you shouldn’t be so rude. You know me well, no?” Her smile was black. “You know me better than anyone.”
“Well, you two,” Petro double pointed with his index finger and middle finger at the siblings, “Offer her a drink and then maybe you’ll get answers. Ha!”
Bel straightened in her seat. “You want to know?” Her tone was entirely exaggerated with intentionally poor acting.
Trinity nodded, “Why not?”
“There’s orphanages here in Dallas—
Petro frowned, “You grow up in one of them?”
Bel lifted her palm for silence. “There’s orphanages here in Dallas and they take care of the city’s stolen children—god I hope they do.” She smiled without teeth then looked glumly at the fresh cider in front of her. “You see if someone in the Republic can’t afford the kids they’ve got, they get taken to those orphanages and then the orphanages and those witchy women which run them get a government dole to clothe and feed those kids. Taxes. Taxes, Petro! How much taxes do you pay on this place?”
The barman threw up his hands like he’d been accused.
“Anyway,” said Bel, “They take kids from those sick and degenerate mothers that can’t care for them. Those mothers that can’t get a dole, a hand, a little government friendship.”
“It takes a village,” said the barman.
Bel opened the cider then looked into the neck’s mouth like through a telescope. “A village for the children, but no mothers.” She lifted the cider in jest—a mock toast—then turned the thing up and drank once more, greedily.
Trinity sighed, “That’s the story then?”
“Wait,” said Petro, “Were you the degenerate mother or the child in this?”
“Eh,” said Bel.
Hoichi picked at his fingers, examined the nails on his hand in the white overhead lights. “I’m sorry,” said the clown, without looking up.
“So,” said Bel to Petro, “You wanted to know, so how’s it change?”
“It changes nothing,” said the barman, “You pay then you drink.”
“You’re not looking down on me?”
“Why would I?” The barman swiftly lifted his shirt; the bulged belly there was covered in dark hair and a patchwork of knife scars. “I used to fight, you know. For money. There isn’t shame in what’s happened for any of us, is there, Mister Clown? I imagine no one reputable puts that on their face—or loses their ears, for that matter.”
Hoichi shook his head.
The next question came from Trinity and was directed at Bel, “What would it take to get your child back?”
The straggler squinted her eyes down the bar, past the clown, “There’s no way. They changed his names on documents—he’s grown anyway, and I haven’t seen him since he was a baby. I could see him on the street and would not know.”
“Life’s a bitch like that,” said Hoichi.
“Surely,” Bel sank back to her drink, “Anymore tricks then?”
“Maybe,” said the clown.
Before anything else could be said among the group, the front door of Petro’s bar swung open and a man stood there, pressed against the open doorframe; the darkness which encompassed the new stranger offered an odd impression, like a shadow against shadow. Acrid stink—sweat and soil and perfume—came with the man from the doorway as he lurched into the bar, leaving the door to slam behind him.
Bel, sitting nearest as she was, offered a mild nod in the direction of the new man.
The man came in and took up alongside the straggler and his forehead shone slick from sweat in the glow of the overhead bulbs; he wore a leather jacket, leather britches, leather boots, and strung around his narrow throat was a leather strand suspending a leather rancher hat betwixt his shoulder blades; his hair stood wild on ends. He said nothing and smiled and casually tapped his black-crescent fingernails against the bar’s surface in unison with the barely audible rhythm of “Baby Love” which came from the speaker over Petro’s head; perhaps he even mouthed along silently with the words, but it could not be certain with the way he glowered over the bar’s edge.
“Drink?” asked Petro to the new stranger.
The man in leathers looked fully on the barman and grinned and asked, “Do you know how to do an old-fashioned?”
“Afraid not,” said the barman, “We haven’t any fruit for the garnish and I’m all out of bitters.”
The man in leathers scanned the wall beyond Petro, lingering on some bottles, merely glancing at others. “Top-shelf gin then,” he said, “Don’t cut it with anything. I’ll pay whatever for whatever’s considered top-shelf here.”
Petro nodded and gathered a glass for the new patron and Bel laid her head upon her own bicep so that the dead cigarette between her fingers was leveled over her own head; she watched the barman. Hoichi and Trinity watched the barman. The man in leathers watched all the others, examining them as if searching—he twisted his neck, so his head hung sideways, and he smiled all the while.
When Petro slid the man in leathers the brackish tumbler of gin, the man took it up quickly and gulped twice then cupped the tumbler with both hands then tilted it overhead again and gulped once more; he sat the glass down hard. A long hiss escaped between his teeth which almost came on like a whistle and he shook his head like mad. “Thank you,” said the man in leathers, after composing himself.
“Eh,” offered the barman, “It’s nothing much.”
The man in leathers traced the room, the empty booths, the speaker, the lights, the shelves of bottles, and the others at the bar. “It’s late. I tried sleeping out there,” he hooked a thumb to the door, “We’ve a caravan. Everyone else has turned in for the night. There are, of course, a few lights on in town, but I’m only across the square and I saw the light on in here and thought it might be good for a quick nightcap.” He directed his face towards Bel, “Do you come here often?” and before the woman could speak, he asked the others this as well.
Bel shrugged while the others shook their heads.
Hoichi asked, “You’ve come from the east then?”
The man in leathers nodded, “That’s right. We are taking a load of runaways from those we’ve caught in the Alabama region—there was a great nest of hideaways there. We’re leading them to Fort Worth, but I imagine the military won’t be too upset if some get lost in transit. Me and mine need to eat too, of course.”
“You’re a slaver?” asked Bel. Though she posed the question, she hardly looked from where her gaze had focused on the black end of her dead cigarette.
“Indeed,” said the man in leathers, “It’s a difficult business, as I’m sure you all know.” He tapped his index finger to the side of his nose and smiled thinly. “It is a business much the same as any other.” Then he went on to add, “It’s quickly becoming the backbone for the Republic’s economy. Labor is difficult to come by.”
Hoichi seemed done with drinking entirely and merely examined his empty glass; at Petro’s wordless prompt, the clown shook his head. “What do you say to those that find it questionable?” asked Hoichi.
The man in leathers shook his head, took a sip from his gin, and rolled his eyes. “What’s morally questionable about that? It’s commerce, of course. Commerce is what separates you and me from the animals.”
“But you sell humans like animals,” said Hoichi.
“Not at all!” said the man in leathers, “Any human, as far as I’m concerned, that takes a seat at the table of commerce and ends up in chains has debased themselves and the philosophy to the point that they no longer deserve the title. Am I wrong? We are, under God, of course, given the opportunity to all meet at that table and we do so equally. There’s no such thing as morals when it comes to a deal. You show up to the table just as well as I do. If you want to argue against that then I saw a few political barkers on our way into town. I think they were spouting something about communism and all it’s good for. Go ask them about it.”
Petro interjected, “Well hold on—we never said anything about communism. There’s no reason to take it that far.”
The man in leathers polished off his tumbler, held it out for a refill. Petro poured the gin. “Fair-fair-fair enough, I suppose. We could sit here all night and wonder about the morality of buying and selling humans. What’s it matter at the end of the day? I can tell you, and I’ve dealt with many a slave, that they end up there only because they desire it. There is something in the eyes of a man or woman that ends up in chains; it’s a vile and animal nature they have, of course. I’ve seen it. I know it well.” He sipped from his freshly poured glass and shook his head at the sting of the alcohol again. “There was nothing else for them in this world. Whether it’s exorbitant debts or abject poverty—Oh! Get this! You do not know how many people will sell themselves into it just for their own family’s sake. Some people give up their very lives for a standard sum which we ensure to pay to their spouse or their children or their parents.”
Hoichi leaned forward on the bar, stiff-spined, “How often do those payments get lost on their way to the families?”
The man in leathers frowned and removed his long jacket and sat the article across the bar beside himself. The skin of his leather vest shone as well as the cotton shirt underneath, as well as the revolver strapped to his hip. “You may find what I do ‘questionable’, as you’ve so said, but you are skirting closely to insult.”
Petro guffawed long and nervously to the point of parody. “No one meant any insult, did we? No! We apologize if there’s any wounded feelings.”
“It’s not so much my feelings I’m concerned with,” said the man in leathers, “As it is the philosophy of the world.” He grinned; perhaps the gin urged a gleam in his eyes. “Anyway, barman, we are only two fishermen, no? You are the owner, yeah?” Petro nodded, and the man in leathers continued, “Then we are two fishermen with vastly different product, but it is all the same. Commerce has served you well enough for this,” he motioned around at the barroom, “You know what I say is true, of course.”
Hoichi’s fists sat on the bar in such a way that his forearms created an X. “You continue to use the word, ‘commerce’, but I wonder what you mean by it.”
“Commerce?” the man in leathers tossed his head to the side. “It is trade, of course. I suppose you could further analyze it to the point of distillation and call it communication; that’s humanity’s greatest evolutionary trait. Communication. As it is, if you need something, and I have it, then we deal or vice versa. We meet evenly there at the table. It’s a metaphorical table, but it is used to demonstrate the equality of all parties.”
“Is a person equal once they’re sold?”
“Ah!” The man in leathers half-laughed. “I see! It’s not so much that a person can lose their equal status. I wonder if they ever had it. Again, there are specific subsets of people which are animalistic by nature—maybe it’s IQ or maybe it’s something far beyond like the spirit—it’s not a thing about race or genetics. They are born the way they are—some are born to good parents or wealthy lineages, but there’s something off about them. And they are something—hmm,” he tapped his fingers against the bar some more, “I guess they are something less than human, if you insist. There is nothing in their face that says they desire for anything greater than what me and mine can give them. See? I have this horse, and I love the horse and she’s a good girl, but I would never meet her there at the table of commerce. I would never consider her human; it would be akin to bestiality in that sense. You can have an affection, and you may even extend your sympathies to a creature as much, but my horse has no greater desires. It is much the same. Woo. I feel this gin is kicking my ass.” The man in leathers pointed at his second empty glass and Petro took it from him to refill. “Fuck!” shouted the man in leathers, “I’ve only just noticed,” he pointed at Hoichi the clown, “You’ve got no ears. This whole time I’ve been looking at you and trying to parse what was wrong. Well, besides the makeup.”
“It’s not makeup,” said Hoichi, “It’s a tattoo.”
“So, it is. So, it is. How’d that happen? The ears.” He nodded thanks to Petro upon the return of his filled gin.
Trinity put a hand on her brother’s crossed forearms and responded to the question in his stead, “They got up and walked away one night while he was sleeping. That’s what he’s always told me.” Her tone was apprehensive, jovial.
“Well,” said the man in leathers, “And what made you tattoo that on your face?”
Hoichi remained stiff but managed to shrug. “I like clowns. Don’t you like clowns?”
“Can’t say that I’ve ever met one that tickled my fancy. Anyway, it’s the ears that strike me funnier than the face—being as I’m persistent in the trade, I’ve known many other slave handlers—worse ones than me—that sometimes shear the ears from difficult slaves and so I’m looking at you now and it makes me think of this man I know from the north and he takes his slaving duties seriously. For every one overseer, he has perhaps fifteen or twenty slaves—it’s a wonder where the profits derive with such a packed staff—but he, more than any others I’ve met, has a tendency for removing slave ears and he collects them for intimidation, and I wonder about your ears and where they’ve gone.” He pointed at Hoichi from down the bar counter and smiled, puckered his lips so that the end of his pink tongue shone for a moment; he took a healthy drink. The man in leathers sighed. “Of course, of course, I’d be crazy to assume the identity of a runaway, especially in Republican land. Still, your stance, your belief, and the absence of ears leave me entirely curious.”
Hoichi’s jaw clenched and pulsed.
Petro moved to the tablet he kept there along the back counter and shut the music off. “I think it’s best if we move for last call.”
The man in leathers smacked his lips and lit one of his own cigarettes then sipped his gin. “One more for the road?” he asked Petro.
The barman froze where he stood in the center of the counter; he angled onto his elbow away from where the man in leathers sat and seemed to think then he abruptly nodded and came to the man in leathers with the bottle of gin. “This is it though. It’s getting late and I’m tired.” He topped the glass.
“Much thanks.” The man in leathers removed a billfold from his pocket and counted out the money necessary for his drinks. He spoke around the cigarette in his mouth, “It’s been an illuminating night. Though you all have likely not enjoyed my spiel—yes barman, I can see the expression on your face—I must say that it is not something I’m not accustomed to. It is your right, of course. All that being said,” the man in leathers stood, choked down his last tumbler of gin, and gasped through the ethereal burn, “I wish that each of you have a good night. No matter the previous conflict. No matter our differences.” He reached for his long jacket and nodded one last time on his way out of the door.
Petro moved from around the bar and peered into the night; he clicked the HOSTEL neon sign off and locked the door. On turning to his remaining patrons, he grinned and went like he intended to say something but shook his head and returned to his post.
“So,” said Bel, “When you said ‘last call’, that didn’t mean me, did it?”
The barman sighed and shifted from foot to foot, “Something about that man gave me a feeling. He said we were fishermen. I’ve never seen a fresh fish. I don’t know what he could’ve meant by it, but it gives me some issue.”
Bel laughed, “Don’t let him bother you. It looks as though Mister Clown’s the most disturbed from the ordeal. What’s the matter?” She nudged Hoichi..
Hoichi relaxed his frame and settled and stared at the floor between his spaced legs on the barstool. “I’ve just never met a slaver,” he lied, “Strange country.”
Petro assured him kindly that it was not such a frequent thing.
“Still,” said Bel, “It’s weird to think about. He said people sell themselves into slavery.” She shook her head and sipped her cider.