(no subject)
This is some shit I wrote for my fiction class. It's not done. I hope it will be a cool story. It does not have a title.
He taps his grubby fingers on the stained wood of the bar. Grains of filth come loose from his long fingernails. He shoves another pint in a tarnished glass in front of the man who talks too much, spilling some of it on the vile counter. An apology is not offered as he wipes it up, his yellow eyes on the door and nowhere else.
“Waitin’ for somebody?” the customer with the fresh pint asks in a lazy voice.
“None of your business,” is the bartender’s sharp reply.
“Ladyfriend?”
“I said it was none of your business.”
The tavern’s door opens at the same time the inquisitive man’s mouth does. The bartender throws his beer-soaked towel down and, as he shouts loudly that he’s on break, chooses the door.
The bartender meets the new patron who is not really a patron at all because he never buys his own drinks. He is tall and well-bred, with a fresh suit of whimsical pinstripes and shiny shoes devoid of holes. When the bartender places his soiled hand into the younger man’s soft white one to shake it, he does not notice the slight wrinkle that appears between the fine man’s dark eyes as they look down at the miserable fingernails touching his clean skin. The slight downturn of the perfect smiling mouth goes unobserved.
The man who talks too much rotates from his seat at the bar to see who has come in and flings his fleshy arms into the air, sloshing beer from the pint still clutched in his hand down his body, even onto his rickety stool, the foul floor.
“Mr. Badgley!” he cries. The name reverberates through the bar and evokes a warm buzz of affection through its customers. Mr. Badgley’s charm and wit have earned him a colorful reputation in addition to the fondness awarded him by his unique good looks; he is desperately well-loved by the poor and the working class, the kind of people who populate bars like these-he has done business with most of them, if not all. Mr. Badgley’s easy manner is appealing to these people, whose own lives are filled with hardship and long days. Offers to buy him drinks pop up all over the room but he declines, stating that he is here on business. He suggests jovially that they will be welcome to do so next time. Sounds of disappointment flood the small room.
Mr. Badgley tips his hat lovingly to them, flashing faultless teeth, as he allows himself to be guided through the bar to a back room which looks to be used both for storage as well as holding customers who have had too much too drink.
“Sit, please,” the bartender rumbles as he pulls a chair from the old table. “Can I get you a drink?” Before Mr. Badgley can accept, which the bartender knows is his intention, something dark and strong has been placed before him. He eyes the discolored glass as the bartender takes his seat.
“I’ve heard you’re the man to talk to about these kinds a-things.” The bartender shifts his barrel-shaped body comfortably, folding his hands with natural ease on the table. “I don’t much care for the idea of it myself but there’s not a whole lot of options for a poor man like me.”
“Yes, I was so sorry to hear about your daughter, Mr”-
“Call me Sam.”
“Well, Sam, from all I have heard your daughter was very much well-loved. What was her name?”
“Emma. Her name was Emma. Emma Rose. We named her after my mother and my mother-in-law. My poor sweet girl, she was so…she was so…”
Mr. Badgley lowers his eyes sympathetically and waits ten seconds, the amount of time has found gives the impression of an apologetic silence. He drinks as he counts the time.
“Lovely name. May I ask-how did your Emma die, Sam?” he says after the allotted time has passed. His anticipation builds as Sam prepares to answer. Mr. Badgley leans forward with his eyes wide and glittering; his long fingers tremble in his lap. Ignorant, Sam leans his grimy face on his hand, his watery blue eyes focused on nothing.
“We don’t know,” he whispers. “There was no evidence of any…struggle. There was nothing…she was just…well, she didn’t get up in the morning, so’s my wife went to check on her, and there she was, looking like a doll with her eyes all…” Sam’s heavy exhale masks the tiny, shaking sigh that escapes Mr. Badgley’s throat.
“No damage?” he whispers. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Sam murmurs emotionlessly. “It doesn’t matter now-police don’t help folks like us, couldn’t afford to pay them even if they would. If somebody did it to my poor girl I don’t expect ever to know who it was, why it had to be Emma. Louise-that’s my wife-can’t stand to think of it, somebody doing this to her, says maybe she was sick and we didn’t know it. Truth to tell, Mr. Badgley, I’ve been up most nights wondering, and I just can’t bear to wonder anymore. It hurts too much. Gotta put it behind us, see. Louise doesn’t get out of bed, and I can’t stand to see her so broken up. Dwelling on it like this is just going to make it worse. Gotta get on with ourselves, you know.”
Mr. Badgley clears his throat and nods, his face now a picture of concern. His hands fall still with the close of the bartender’s story.
“I understand, Sam. Often I too find it’s easiest to just let things be. The last thing I wish to be is be indelicate, but what…is the state of Emma’s body?”
“We didn’t have nowhere to put her except the bed in her room. She’s only been there a few days-I know on your brochure it says you’ll only take ones what’ve not rotted.”
“If the body has only been deceased for a short period of time I am sure it is in a fine condition-just to be certain, though, I wonder if it would be too much an imposition if I might ask to see the body, Sam.” Mr. Badgley locks his warm chocolate-colored eyes on Sam’s creased face, his own arranged with such cautious politeness it cannot help but be affecting. Sam’s expression darkens.
“You want to see her?”
“Yes, if I may. I’m afraid I cannot enter into business with you unless I am able to verify what you’re telling me with my own eyes. We have made some poor purchases in the past, and it is now just a policy that we see what we buy in person. It’s nothing personal, I promise you. It’s just business.” He cracks a wide, indulgent, practiced smile. Sam nods slowly as he chews the inside of his mouth.
“I guess that’s okay. Louise is probably asleep. I live real close-you mind walkin’?”
“Not at all, not at all. Shall I come back or would you like to wait? We don’t recommend waiting as the sooner we are in possession of the body the better, but we are happy to accommodate your schedule if need be.”
“I’m on break. We’ll go now.” Mr. Badgley smiles and they both rise from the table and exit the back room together. The friendly hum of the bar perks up as they appear, dies broken-hearted when they leave.
The walk is a solid fifteen minutes through empty, desperate streets, where power lines lay disconnected and clean laundry hung out to dry is soaked with murky rain. They’re an odd pair, the bartender and the businessman: Sam is not an unusual face around this neighborhood, and he is generally well-received among the residents. His thin gray-blond hair has not been washed in a long time, the folds in his face have not been cleaned. His clothes are patchy and dirty; his expression is empty. Mr. Badgley, for his part, is tall and beautiful and his clothes suggest that he is very far from poor or even working-class. Though he is welcomed heartily into this section of the city, by the simple nature even of his dark and well-groomed hair it is evident that he cannot fit in here permanently.
“Thought there was supposed to be two of you-Castle and Badgley Enterprises or some such,” Sam says. Mr. Badgley nods.
“Oh, yes, I have a business partner, Mr. Castle. He is on holiday today.”
“Just as well-I’ve heard he’s a creepy bastard.” Mr. Badgley’s laughter is very fine and echoes strangely on this street of crumbling buildings and decrepit houses.
“People do seem to find him that way. He tends to run more of the business aspect of Castle and Badgley as a result-I suppose he’s not very personable, but he is an excellent businessman.”
Sam and Mr. Badgley turn into a miniscule driveway behind which is a miniscule gray house. The mossy roof sags as if the burden of being the roof of such a house in such a place is too great; the paint believes it can get away by peeling. It is evident that the front door, now a faded dusty rose, was once a vibrant red. The windows are all covered by curtains. The stone of the front steps has fallen apart. There is no garage door. The old ’69 Dodge Coronet Sam used to drive was stolen in the eighties.
The inside of the house is no cheerier. The wood planks that pretend to be a floor are gray and extremely worn; several of them are missing. Mr. Badgley wrings his hands. Everything in the house reeks of must, including the heavy-set and curly-haired woman seated at the foldout card table in the kitchen. The flowers on her bathrobe seem an amusing contradiction to their surroundings. No steam rises from the cup of black tar-like coffee in front of her.
The door’s loose hinge squeaks as it closes loudly behind them.
“Hello, darlin’. Thought you’d be asleep,” Sam calls to the woman. She is slow to look at them and slow to respond in her flat, dead voice.
“How do you do.” Sam coughs and suggests uncomfortably that he take the young man upstairs to Emma’s room. He issues a warning about stepping only on the sides of the each stair; their centers are weak. He says he did not feel the need to introduce Mr. Badgley to Louise.
Emma’s bedroom is tiny, with a small stained desk and a bookcase with only one shelf. The twin-sized bed is pushed up tight against the far wall; a purple bedspread is draped across the lumps that used to belong to an adolescent girl, and are now the bounty of the dead.
Mr. Badgley is given permission to remove the sheet so he can observe what lay beneath. He looks at the body as if he has never seen it before; he examines its skin, its face, its hair. It is wearing the same outfit it wore when it died: a pair of jean shorts and a blue t-shirt. The marks on the knees are still there. Mr. Badgley’s fingers rest momentarily over the bright blue and open eyes, electing to close them. It had been an especially beautiful young girl, sweet and genuine; even in death the purity of its character is reflected in its delicate features.
“You were right, Sam,” he notes aloud. “No damage. Not even much decay.” He asks to photograph her, so that Castle and Badgley Enterprises can have her on file. The bartender agrees. He looms outside the bedroom door, unable to bring himself to enter it, unable to look. Seeing this, Mr. Badgley covers the body with the bedspread and goes to him. “Not, of course, that you would lie. She was your daughter.”
Sam clears the emotion clogging his throat. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think we can do business. I can offer you seventy-five dollars and have my men pick it up in about an hour.”
“Seventy-five dollars?” Sam winces. Mr. Badgley nods, contemplating.
“Tell you what. I like you, Sam, and I can see what the loss of your daughter has done to you and your wife. I know this is an extremely difficult time for you, and money cannot be equated to the value of Emma’s life. Will you accept a hundred? In addition to the price I can guarantee you she will be treated with respect. You won’t have to worry about funerary costs. You won’t have to do a thing.” Sam leans against the wretched wall, his face a mirror of the cheerlessness of the house. He looks at his shoes.
“I know…I know your brochure said you’ll take care of everything. But where will you take her? What will you do with her?”
“We do exactly what that brochure says. We will store her body in a large space-efficient mausoleum. She won’t ever decay there. Nothing will happen to her once she is inside.”
“Can we visit? Louise and me?”
“The compartments are designed to prevent decay. Once we close hers it will not be possible to reopen it. You can always visit her compartment, but it will always be closed.”
“Are you telling me I won’t ever see her again?”
“Sam, I know this isn’t easy, but this is the best thing you can do for her now. I’m making you a great offer for better service than you’ll ever get elsewhere. No other service will pay you and relieve you of the costs. We won’t waste your time. Surely Emma would want you to accept this; I’m sure that she would be happy her death could bring you a little comfort.” He squeezes Sam’s thick arm sympathetically. He pushes his price up twenty dollars, and another ten when he sees Sam’s eyes start to sparkle.
“Fine,” Sam says. “We just want to be done with this. We just want it to be over with.”
Mr. Badgley smiles happily; this time he looks into Sam’s eyes as he shakes his dirty hand.
“I think you’re giving Emma Rose the best that you can.” It takes him exactly seven seconds to leave after he presses the money into Sam’s fingers.
An hour later, Sam and Louise hold hands across the card table as they watch a pack of men dressed in black remove their daughter’s fifteen-year-old body from her bedroom in a canvas bag. The men do not acknowledge the dead girl’s parents. They load the body into a truck and do not seem to notice the pairs of eyes who have not seen a working vehicle in ten years or more appear in windows all along the road.
At home in his massive estate in a tremendously affluent part of the city, Fox Badgley has already alerted his clients to the addition of a particularly pretty young girl with perfectly shaped lips and a fine, straight nose to the Castle and Badgley surgical warehouse. Once he uploads her picture onto the company’s cosmetic improvement website, he is far from surprised when his phone is almost instantaneously bombarded with calls from his absurdly wealthy, narcissistic female client base.
In his home office, Fox loosens his tie and leans back in his comfortable leather chair. Smiling, he waits for the highest bidder.