Ray spent about an hour in the park, juggling and doing small tricks with his flame for the crowd. Hascomb Park wasn’t the best place in town for busking, but it was close to home and he was in a bit of a hurry. As it was close to lunch time, he was able to make a decent amount of money in a short span before he had to head back to Twistville.
The neighborhood wasn’t large, roughly four city blocks wide and long, though the exact borders were somewhat indeterminate. It was located in the heart of the Underneath, the section of the city south of Fort Street and nestled in close to the waterfront… the northern reaches of which had been growing increasingly gentrified, following the example of the revitalized Old City Centre. Such progress had not encroached upon the mostly ethnic neighborhoods further to the south, among which Twistville was usually numbered.
It had once been a primarily Black neighborhood, and before that an Irish one. Today, the residents were almost exclusively mutants or people who stood out for other reasons, as Ray did. Anywhere else in the city, a six and a half foot tall half-naked guy covered with asymmetrical glowing red lines would have been in danger of standing out. In Twistville, Ray almost stood out… for being too normal looking.
He also liked that Twistville restaurants and stores didn’t strictly adhere to the “no shirt, no shoes” policy the health department officially held them to. He could (and when the situation required it, he did) throw on a pair of loafers and a t-shirt long enough to get a little business done, and as long as he didn’t actively use his powers the risk of burning them was very low… but he always felt so constricted by clothes. With his upbringing as the son of a professional fire eater/breather, he’d grown up thinking of shirts as fire hazards even before he had his body covered with flaming brands. Since the carnival had followed the warm weather, he’d never missed them.
The neighborhood streets were fairly empty when Ray arrived, and most of the people who were out and about were fairly unremarkable looking. Many of the more unusual inhabitants felt more comfortable coming out at night. On the corner, a ragged looking man fished around in a rusty shopping cart full of empty beer cans. He pulled out one and took a bite out of it. Ray didn’t know what the man’s birth name had been, but everybody called him the Recycler. Like him, most of the Twisters weren’t superheroes. Some had powers that helped them in their day to day life. Some were just exotic. A very few had abilities that were more of a curse than anything else. Ray had grown up with carnival folk; he took it all in stride.
A normal looking, auburn-haired young woman was watering the flowers in the box garden in front of his building. She greeted him with a friendly, “Hey, Ray!” as he passed.
“Hi, Daisy,” Ray replied.
He passed her again in the entryway by the mailboxes, and twice more on the stairwell. Each copy looked slightly more exasperated as he repeated his greeting, which was why he did it.
His apartment was on the top floor. The rent was cheap… low enough that he could afford it with what he earned irregularly as a street performer, with a little help from the occasional wad of bills dropped by a drug dealer. Most of the other residents assumed he was a mutant, too, or simply didn’t care. Ray’s powers were both intimidating and useful if the block was threatened, so he was a valued member of the community. Twisters looked out for each other.
His apartment was a shoebox-shaped room with a high ceiling and a bathroom not much bigger than a closet. Most of the apartments in the building didn’t even have that. Ray got perks as an official unofficial member of the official unofficial neighborhood watch. Not having to wait in line for the communal bathroom was the biggest of them, in his mind.
It also gave him somewhere to keep his money, since he had a few issues with banks. He dropped to the floor in the open doorway and began groping around in the gap between the bottom of the cabinet and the floorboards until he felt the thick manila envelope taped to the underside of the cabinet. He opened it up and rifled through it, doing a quick count of the bills inside in case his memory had failed him, though he knew it hadn’t. He had just enough when he added the money he’d collected in the park.
He rolled the envelope up and stuck it in his pocket, then hurried back downstairs, not bothering to re-lock his door now that there was nothing more valuable than his futon in the room. He passed the purple-skinned woman from 3-C whose name he could never remember on the stairs, then had to stop at the second floor to let Donny Double-Wide get by him.
He rapped on the door of 1-A, which bore a plaque that read “Daisy Chain, Building Mgr.” and yelled “Rent’s going to be late this month,” as he passed it.
“What else is new?” the Daisy outside said.
Ray headed for the east end of Twistville, where it bordered on Chinatown. He walked straight past King Dragon’s China Buffet, still called that even though King Dragon had long since moved away, having grown too large for city life. Just past it was the narrow store front of Zeke the Lobster’s Adult Novelty and Books.
Zeke was a big humanoid crustacean, his carapace colored the red of boiled seafood. He looked more crab-like than lobster-like, but as he’d once explained to Ray, “‘Lobster’ says romantic evening for two… ‘crab’ says morning after.” Ray wasn’t entirely sure that Zeke was actually a mutant, but he’d never asked.
“Good morning, starshine,” Zeke said as Ray walked in. The store was empty. “Here for another dose of your personal version of Plan B, I take it?”
“Can we skip the jokes, Zeke?” Ray asked a bit hotly.
“Sorry,” the crab-man said. “Just doin’ what comes naturally.”
“I don’t see that this is all that funny.”
“Funny? It’s hi-freaking-larious, is what it is,” Zeke said. “Here I am making most of my living selling love potions to everybody and their brother, and you’re in here six or seven times now looking for just the opposite. If I could just bottle whatever it is about you that makes the broads go bananas, I tell you I could retire in a week.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ray said. “Do you have any more of the stuff, or what?”
“Sorry, Charlie… they stopped making it a year ago. No market for it,” Zeke said. “But I’ve got something better here…”
He ducked down beneath the counter and rummaged around for a minute, then came back up with an octagonal bottle in his immense claw. He set it down on the counter. The contents were a thick, oily-looking liquid in every color of the rainbow. They sloshed and swirled around as the bottle moved, but didn’t mix.
“It looks like paint,” Ray said doubtfully.
“Smells like it, too,” Zeke said. “They call it LP-6.”
“LP-6?”
“Love Potion Number 6,” Zeke said. “Guaranteed to crush crushes, erode eros, harden hearts, and rust lust, or your money back. In clinical trials, a small percentage of LP-6 users reported a loss of appetite and will to live. If you are taking antidepressants or are prone to melodramatic gestures, consult your apothecary before taking it, and all that jazz. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not handle LP-6…”
“Why not?” Ray asked.
“Well, for one thing, if a baby gets this stuff in their system, there’s a slightly large chance the kid will end up a twisted sociopath with no capacity for the simple emotion of human love,” Zeke said. “Also, it’s lead-based.”
Ray looked at the bottle dubiously.
“Hey, you weren’t planning on slipping this gunk to no pregnant broad, were ya?” Zeke asked. “’cause that’s just low, and I mean lower than low.”
“No,” Ray said. “Definitely not. Any other warnings?”
“Just one: LP-6 is not effective in cases of true love.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Ray said. “This is more like an out-of-control crush.”
“Even so, messing with emotions is kind of… meh,” Zeke said, waggling a claw in a see-saw motion. “Ethically speaking, I mean. See, the way I figure it, why not mess with their memories instead? I’ve got something here they call ‘Lethe-All Dose,’ retails for a tenth of what something like this’ll cost you. You could take a broad home, show her the time of her life, and then make her forget you ever existed… and if the date goes way south, you can always take one yourself, too. Fun for the whole family! That’s my philosophy.”
“No thanks,” Ray said.
“You sure?”
“Positive,” Ray said. “And how much will ’something like this’ cost me?”
“For you? Five grand,” Zeke said.
“Can I pay you half now?” Ray asked.
“Sure thing,” Zeke said. “And when you gimme the other half, you can have the bottle.”
Ray pulled the envelope out of his pocket. He pulled the wad of bills out and pulled out two twenties and one hundred dollar bill. He handed the rest to Zeke, who counted it before pushing the bottle across the counter to Ray.
“Good thing I don’t have to eat very often,” Ray muttered as he stuck the remainder of his money in his pocket.
“You know, you wouldn’t have to go to these extremes if you’d just partake of my more usual wares,” Zeke said. “Get yourself a couple of movies…”
“I don’t own a TV,” Ray said.
“A doll, then.”
“Not interested,” Ray said. “I can get plenty of the real thing. I just need to manage the emotional side better.”
“Good luck with that,” Zeke said. “And good luck getting Ms. Lucky Whoever to drink that glop… it not only looks and smells like paint, it doesn’t really mix with anything, either. I do not envy you, buddy. Oh, did I mention there’s no returns?”
“Won’t be a problem,” Ray said. “Really.”
“You know, most guys get tired of a girl, they just dump her,” Zeke said. “You’re a good customer and all, but you might consider it next time.”
“I’m not tired of anything,” Ray said. “I’m just a dangerous man to fall in love with.”
“You oughta think about getting married… that’ll solve that problem permanently.”
“Bye, Zeke.”
Outside, Ray flipped open the hidden flap on his armband and pulled out the dialpad. Entering the phone number, he felt even more like a heel using the gadget Perfect had made for him, but since she’d cannibalized his phone in the process he had no other choice.
“You take care of it?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s done,” Charade hissed, “but this is the last time… the next time you want a character assassin, you can damn well do it yourself.” He hung up without another word.
“Had to be done, buddy,” Ray said anyway. He choked a little on the words, then repeated more strongly, “Had to be done.”
He unstoppered the bottle and downed the foul, viscous rainbow goop. As Zeke had said, it smelled and tasted like nothing so much as house paint. He wasn’t sure that he felt much different; a little bit of emptiness, and a lot of self-loathing. Did that mean it had worked? It had to… at least one life depended on that.
He had to be sure. Perfect had caught him off-guard with her open declaration of love that morning. Ray knew that could not have gone unnoticed. There was only way to be certain, though… he would have to go to the Club, which meant finding the black door. Though, it wasn’t really a matter of looking for it. As soon as he made up his mind, he remembered exactly where in the city it was. It was in the nature of the door to be found, which was why he usually tried not to think about it.
The Club was not bad itself, but it was her realm, and she was to be avoided whenever possible. This time, it wasn’t possible. Ray simply had to know that Perfect was going to be okay, even if that meant doing the very last thing he ever wanted to do.
He realized he was going through a lot of effort to keep Perfect safe.
He tried not to think about the implications of that.
« « 4.2: And I Will Unmake As I Speak 4.4: The Sands of Time » »Note: I'm trying out a new comment system. It's new and subject to jiggerypokery. It's moderated. Detailed guidelines to come but follow the general rule: be excellent to each other.
If you enjoy reading, please consider a financial contribution.
« « 4.2: And I Will Unmake As I Speak 4.4: The Sands of Time » »