Darker Shades of Fear

(Installment 4)

 

 

Kenny thumbed through the thin sheets of the local Yellow Pages.  As he shifted his weight the old mattress beneath him screamed in protest.  This was an infinitely boring tradition.  He wondered why he even kept it.  Almost two thirds into the enormous yellow book and he’d found no recognizable names.  It didn’t look like he’d be paying any old friends an unexpected visit.   That was fine with him.  Something would surface soon enough, just like it always did. 

He’d taken to the custom when he found himself alone and bored in Chicago.  It was amazing really, what the aftermath of a lengthened period of delirium could do to your attention span.  That, a copy of the local phone book, and a grudge. Truthfully, he had no idea how the hell he wound up in Chicago, and probably never would considering the circumstances.

He messed his hair with his right hand and sighed.  He was getting nowhere.  He flipped the page and scanned the next.  He did this several times until his eyes fixed themselves halfway down page 428.  He grabbed the business card from the motel and the pencil he’d stolen from the front desk and scribbled the name on the back of it.  Satisfied, he folded the corner of the page on which he’d left off and stood.  He stretched his limbs and lit a cigarette as he grabbed his coat and stepped into his shoes, leaving the motel in pursuit of information.

 

He walked the streets, observing the hole-in-the-wall bars and pubs, looking for one in which to mark his territory.  Finally, he stood before one he liked.  It was dilapidated and filthy with a half lit neon sign.  He smiled.  It was definitely his kind of place.

He stepped inside and took in the different smells of different cigarettes and alcohol.  He sat silently at the bar and ordered a gin.  He paid its price, and slipped the bartender a hundred dollar bill.  In his years, he’d concluded that this was the best way to say “hello” in a place like this.

The bartender sized him up with his eyes.  “How old are you, kid?”

“Don’t know.” He replied, downing half his glass.

The man behind the counter looked confused and cynical at the same time.

“Stopped counting.” He added.

“When was that?”

“If I knew that I could tell you how old I was, couldn’t I?”

He rolled his eyes.  “How old do you think you were?”

Kenny thought a moment.  “Maybe seventeen… don’t really remember much about being eighteen.  Then again, I really don’t remember anything.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Don’t know.”

“Guess.”

He hated this routine.  “… I have no fuckin idea.”

The bartender nodded with a smile.  “Okay kid.  You got a name?”

“Kenny.”

“What can I do for you, Kenny?” he asked.

“I need information.”

“On who?”

“Jack Salantino.  He used to go by ‘the Joker’.” Kenny ground his cigarette butt into an ashtray.

“What business you got with Salantino, kid?”

“Oh, I’m an old friend.” He said, smiling falsely speaking in a tone too sweet to be genuine.

Revelation struck the man behind the counter.  He leaned toward the blonde-haired customer and spoke.  “Salantino came ‘round here about two years ago.  He comes in on Fridays for poker in the back room, usually wins, the little fucktard.” 

Kenny nodded.  “How do I get in?”

“Into what?  Poker?”

“No, the fuckin Ice Capades.”

The man chuckled slightly.  “Look, you got something against Jack that’s fine, but there ain’t no way you’ll survive one night of poker with those guys.”

“Can I take you up on that?”

He sighed.

Kenny slammed another hundred on the bar.

The man raised an eyebrow and took the bill.  “You got two hundred dollars in your wallet and you’re wasting it on Salantino?”

“Some things,” he said, “are worth more than they cost.”

“All right kid, I’ll get you in, but if you fuck up-”

“I won’t.”

He sighed, “For your sake, I hope you don’t.”

Kenny smiled and finished his drink.  Not only would he repay Jack a long-overdue favor, but he’d humiliate him as well.  Not like Jack had any integrity to begin with.

It was strange how things always seemed to work out, Kenny thought.  It had been surprisingly easy to find him.  The last time he’d done this it took him months.  Well, he’d decided that it had been months as he stopped measuring time when he’d stopped counting years.  He honestly had no idea what his age was and he honestly didn’t care.  Everything had blurred into one pointless distortion, there was no point in attempting to make any sense of it.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” the bartender said, interrupting Kenny’s thoughts, “you’ve got some balls to take on Jack Salantino.”

He’d seen Jack play poker before.  It was nothing he couldn’t beat.  “He’s full of shit.”

“Yeah, but he plays on hell of a hand.”

“So do I.” He said, rising from his seat.

“Good luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” He replied and vanished through the door.

 

He returned to his room much later that night, having taken the rest of the day to observe the neighborhood.  Drunks, cokeheads, strip joints and hookers… pretty much what he had expected.  He was surprised to find a used bookstore hidden among the venues.  He’d spent most of his time there, checking its collection and searching for individual pieces of literature. 

He marked his page with a dog-ear and closed the book.  He sat at the edge of the creaky bed and lit a cigarette.  He stood in silence and then opened the filthy window.  He rested his arms on the sill and stuck his head outside.  He surveyed the city landscape as the night air chilled the people below.  The chill was unknown to him as the wind brushed against his hair.  He spent some time like that, just silently watching the outside world.  He took a drag on his cigarette and followed the smoke through the air until it was no longer visible.  It had existed one moment, and had dissolved into the boundless abyss the next.  He could not help but smile, reminded of an old quote.

“If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”   The smile lingered on his lips until the first half of the quote surfaced in his memory.  With a heavy sigh, he stared down at the cold concrete sidewalks beneath his room, “He who fights with monsters might take care,” he sighed, “lest he thereby become a monster.”

Kenny had never been a fan of irony.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Danielle Lovallo, 2004