President's Day.
Whether you want to admit it or not, a bar is never ever a happy place. Sure, it may appear lively, and fun as a nightly get away or serve the purpose for an interesting "Girls Night Out", the air is gilded with a false sense of happy; with a monotonous realization that you will be going home later to the life you so desperately hate. There is always something sinister in the air of your local neighborhood dive. It doesn't have to be the classic case, the usual diagnosis of a poor man, down and out drinking his feelings. Or even the cliché break-up victim re-acquainting themselves with the temporary comforts of the bottom of a bottle.
It could just be the presidential assassin lurking in the corner.
"I am not lurking." John Wilkes Booth declared as he stepped out from behind the wooden bar that would soon become his stage; his podium. "Lurking is for cowards. Those who believe what they say and are willing to convert works to action have no need for lurking."
Already, the philosophy of Booth had started.
The bar was just like any other bar; too dim to truly see anyone properly. Which was probably intentional. There was a soft buzzing sound from an undetermined source and the air was just sort of there. Stale. The whole bar was, really. No force was stronger than any other. The sound was the air was the light was the bar. Equal. Limbo.
Booth approached his congregation.
"Why are we just sitting here, collecting unearthly dust?" He asked, his words slicing like daggers. For emphasis, he ran a strong finger along the table before him. He in fact, cleared a line of dust from the top. Blowing it from the tip of his finger, Booth smiled a sinister grin. One man, Leon Czolgosz, a brute of a man; the downtrodden sort grunted.
"What?" John turned to the man with a glimmer in his eye. A sparkle of potential. Booth walked a few steps forward, striding with confidence.
"Don't you see those foolish grunts and off beat sighs really restrict you, sir." Booth used a proper title. He wanted to establish a relationship. "Surely sitting here with your beer, no matter how fine and delicious it may be, doesn't accomplish anything." Czolgosz looked up, but again, only grunted.
Shrugging it off, but not really, Booth walked to the bar. He cleared his throat and looked to those surrounding him.
""You aren't understanding." He said cold and distant. "What I want you to hear is the hook." The cold faded from his voice and he became warm. Incendiary.
His words, like a magnet, would pull you in.
"We may leave here only to return time after time, but we never really leave To leave, we must create something new that will allow us to continue on. We return here because it's what we have. We don't create so we succumb to the faded lights. The beer. The stale air." Booth clenched his fists tighter on the bar. With each word, he became angry, his knuckles white.
He looked out to a sea of dead faces. Booth exhaled and began to pace.
"You are all pathetic." He attitude was apparent as he paced even more, the routine becoming like a disciplined dance. "While you can sit here and grunt-" the word was pointed at Czolgosc and flared, "And cry and moan and complain and drink and remain utterly and totally useless in your existence, I am going. Just going." Booth smiled once more, violently and without any specification. He didn't need to tell them where he was going; he didn't need to tell them he was going to recruit. Instead, Booth turned on his well-polished heel and left the bar, the door swinging open with a dim chime.
Usually when the door opened, when the annoying bell sounded, Booth found himself somewhere of importance. Last week it was in John Hinckley's bedroom. Yesterday it was with "Squeaky" Fromme. These things happened, and Booth welcomed them. It was his way of traveling around the fucked-up planes of the not world. Not today, however. Today he found himself surrounded by trees. And sunshine. And the sound of water. Today John Wilkes Booth had to shield his eyes and look out into a jungle.
Today, John Wilkes Booth was transported to an island. Suddenly, he missed the stale air and the patronizing chime of the old, bar door.