Getting Black Eyes in Houston

World of Becky - Ancient Enmity

 I look up from my drink as the Man of Action comes in. That's how I think of him. The Man of Action. His real name is Hank. He was going to be an author. Maybe a professor. He was going to shape young minds. But his family dragged him into things, as families do. His last name is noble, but short. Something like Blaze or Stake. Something metaphorical but concrete. Like someone in the family in the distant past knew they were going to be Men of Action.

He was going to college. His parents shielded him from the truth of his legacy. Oh, he learned the lessons and he was an exceptional physical specimen. He knew how to fire a crossbow and run like the wind. Helped him when he was playing football during the downtime between studying Shakespeare and Hemmingway. He always liked the contrast between men of letters. How they could be so different and still the same. He was smart enough to know that he didn't know everything. He was going to contribute. Build a body of work. Say things that other scholars were not saying. He was going to be a name in the literature. Then his mother died.

I didn't kill her. It's not on me. But she died, and his father went a little crazy. Stopped being careful. Started being a little too obvious about the hidden part of his life. Stopped being a small town sheriff who just happened to be vacationing in suspicious areas when bad things happened. Started taking his extracurricular habits full time. Like I said, he went a little crazy.

Hank has a sister, but she doesn't know anything about the family legacy. Probably won't unless something unfortunate happens to Hank. She's married to a financial analyst. He's surprisingly undirtied, despite what television shows tell you about everyone in the field. He makes enough money to be comfortable and isn't knowingly involved in any Ponzi schemes or large-scale fraud. He has a Beach Boys cover band and is honestly not bad at guitar. He's no Carl Wilson, but who is? They have three kids. They will carry on the family business, most likely, if something happens to Hank. It would make a good show how their normal family learns that they have a family history of hunting 'monsters'.

Hank, the man of action, shakes off the rain. His thick leather trench coat drips on the floor, collecting in puddles around his heavy boots. Hank, a gentleman, removes his hat, a weathered fedora that I have never before seen not dusty. It's wet now, but it still manages to look both crumpled and old. I think his grandfather wore the same hat. It was dusty then, too. He continues to wear the heavy trench coat as he enters the dark and dingy bar. It's got heavy stuff inside it. The coat rack might not bear the weight. It's got plates sewn into the sides. These are to protect him from monsters. But they are heavy, too heavy to leave on a coat rack. Besides, he might need them. The whole coat and boots give him a heavy step, as if his massive frame weren't enough.

I've paid the bartender to leave the bar for an extended smoke break. It's two in the afternoon on a Tuesday. He had no problem taking the money, even with the torrential downpour. He's at the cute coffee shop a few doors down. It always amazes me that places like this bar still exist in small towns, bumping elbows with Walgreens and shiny gas stations with digital pumps. Before he left, the bartender filled two pitchers with a cheap local beer. These sit, condensation beading on the glass, at the edge of the bar. I have a double malt scotch that I am savoring.

Hank glares at me. If looks were all it took to kill, I'd've been dead long ago, when the first wife of the first man I ever killed stared at me from the ground, clutching his ruined bloody body. But looks can't kill. Well, their looks can't. Human looks can't. He seems angrier than usual. For a moment, I think he will try to kill me. Perhaps this was the last straw, and the man of action will finally spend himself against his ancient foe, dying as his ancestors have before him. His hands twitch, perhaps reaching for an enchanted knife, a gun with salt or silver, a crossbow with a piece of the True Cross. I quirk an eyebrow.

He seems to bunch up, making himself larger, but eventually the tension drains from him, and his fists unclench. Without his anger to sustain him, he looks smaller. Too small in the lined trench coat. I see for a moment, the tenured college professor, beloved by his students, admired by his colleagues, adored by the wife and children he will never have, because bringing them into this world, this fight, would be cruel. He shudders and sits down at the bar.

His hands shake as he pours from the pitcher into a glass. "You always want beer," I say.

"It's clean. Real," he manages.

I sneer a little. "Real?"

He looks up at me. "I can't drink the fine stuff. That would make me like you." He takes a swallow of the cold beer. He winces at first. The local vintage is not fine. After a gulp, though, he warms to the taste, draining his glass. Never mind that I know that he was raised on the fine stuff. That his mother, unbeknownst to his father, slipped him the fine stuff when he was young. Maybe the fine stuff reminds him of his mother.

I sip again at my expensive and undeniably fine whiskey, unable to suppress a sound of enjoyment. As I set my glass down, I notice the puddle of blood that has seeped from my sleeve. I frown at it.

He has finished the first pitcher before he looks up at me again. "You won this time," he says with neither rancor nor resignation.

"I have," I say simply.

"The girl is dead, her family is dead, and another debt you believe is owed to you is paid." There's a little more feeling this time. Shame, perhaps. Regret. He didn't get here in time, didn't stop me. He never has, really. Delayed. Damaged me so that I had to forgo a debt for a generation or so, but never stopped. "If I fight you, here, you'll make this all public, destroy the town?"

"Destroy is a powerful word. I'd kill people. Are people really the town? The buildings would still be here. People who didn't see me could probably live. But I'd have to be sure. Maybe the children..."

He seethes. "See, you joke about lives, children's lives. You're a goddamned monster."

I chuckle. "Oh, undoubtedly, Hank." He looks up at me through red eyes. He's cried some over the girl. Maybe he knew her. He's also had a pitcher and a half of beer in less than ten minutes. Maybe drunk enough to come for me. "But you're not. You won't sacrifice a town to get even for one girl and her family. For a fight you are all but certain to lose." I finish my whiskey. It is very good. Better than I would expect from a little bar in a small town.

I walk past him, pass within inches. If he were going to attack, now would be the time. I tense, probably imperceptible to him, but honestly, more respect than I give to most. He is from a storied lineage. He has the training and the skills. He is noble, for a human. He does not move. As I open the door to the dingy bar into the torrential rain, I turn. "Next time?" I ask, as if we are friends, deciding who will pay the check.

"Next time," he growls around the last bit of beer from the second pitcher.

With the promise of our relationship confirmed, I step into the heavy downpour. I would love to say melodramatically that it tastes like tears of my vanquished enemies, plentiful and sweet, but it actually just tastes like the rain.