NOLA: Job Too Soon

“And he's back!” My “Aunt” Susan remarks when I walk through the door, “Are we sure you're feeling okay? You're on time.”

“I can leave if you want,” I point out, “and come back in...half an hour or so...”

“Go on with you and get your work shirt on!” she whips at me with the bar towel as I make her a fake yip and go to the back office where she hangs the clean laundry, and find a shirt to pull on over my shirt.

“Hey,” Mags says from behind, announcing herself.

“Hey,” I return, cautiously, turning around, twisting the long sleeves back into a comfortable position.

“How're things?” she asks, one hand fidgets with what passes for a door frame.

“They're good...” I answer.

“We never got chance to finish our talk,” she says, “Can we later?”

“On the walk home?” Given Susan insists that Mags must be escorted as though she can't take care of herself.

“That could work,” she nods, “Provided you're willing to listen.”

“I'm--” I start, but she just looks at me, challenging me to talk about earlier, “I was tired--”

“Yes,” she says, shortly, an unspoken 'sure' hangs there and pops, “We agreed I would look into this, Key. You can't shut down because you don't like the results.”

I can't help frowning at her. None of what I recall us talking about made any fucking sense and there were other arguments and Peanut being upset. At least on the walk home there will be no Peanut to upset. How much sense everything else will make...?

“You getting here on time doesn't count if you're going to shoot the shit down there!” Susan shouts over at us. At least neither of us look rumpled and guilty? Or would that be better?

 

Shift goes fairly smooth until Dave is coming back from break and Mags is getting ready to go when I get a call from 'Work Bitch'.

“Go--” Mags grumbles, “But be quick, please,” she adds, with a pissy face directed entirely in Dave's direction.

I answer the phone as I walk out front onto the street, “What do you want?”

“Pleasure to talk to you too, Garriden,” Joanna replies.

“What do you want?” I repeat, “The job's done. Paperwork is in. I've been paid. Everything's square. There is no reason to be calling now.”

“There's another job,” she says.

“No.”

“Garriden you--”

“No,” I repeat, “We have rules about this. None within at least seven days of another. I came back to work today. It has been nowhere near seven days. Is this some world-ending calamity?” I look around for the hellfire tornadoes, and stop picking bits off the brick face of the front wall, “because it doesn't seem like it.”

“It is close by,” she says.

I snort, “It could be down the street for all I care. We have the rules that were signed. If it's not world ending it can wait.” I hang up on her.

My head is starting to throb a bit with the annoyance as I stalk back in towards the bar itself. The phone chimes again in my pocket and I swipe the denial option of “Can't talk right now” and shove it back into my pocket.

“What happened?” Mags asks, as I slide back behind and crouch down to rifle through random things.

“Just bullshit.”

“Please,” she says, sideways, given she's still standing up, “It's more than that.”

“Just take your break,” I tell her, “I'll have calmed myself down by then.”

“Hm,” she remarks, as I stand up again, “Are you sure?”

“It's just stupid bullshit with—just, go before a rush comes in or something and you don't get a break at all?”

“He has a point,” Dave says, from the other side.

“Fine,” she says, and walks out.

“You do seem wound up,” Dave says.

“Don't you start.”

“Ex girlfriend?” he asks.

Don't crazy laugh, “That might be easier to deal with, actually,” I tell him as I turn the phone to “Do Not Disturb” when she calls again. I'm 90% sure it's her even though it's from a different number. If it's not then it's a wrong number given there are only about four people who ever call me intentionally.

Mags comes back from break while Dave is answering the bar phone and catches Billy coming in and nods to me I pull the beer and set it down in Billy's usual spot and he sets the money on the counter.

“It's for you,” Dave says to me.

I don't want to answer it but at the same time if I don't the bar phone will probably blow up, “This is Kieran,” I say, taking the receiver, and biting each word, “How can I help you?”

“You can answer your cell phone,” Joanna remarks.

“Well, I'm at work right now so I had to turn my ringer off,” I point out, “and I can only talk for a little while.”

“We need you to do this job,” she says, “It's close by. It's urgent. It's only going to be this once.”

“Sure it is,” I say, making sure to not say just 'sure' sarcastically and have it be misinterpreted as agreement, “You know what these things do. We're not starting a thing.”

“We're not starting a thing,” she says, “but this needs to be taken care of. It's not like you're going to get fired from the bar for going away again.”

“That's not what I'm concerned about.”

“You need to do this.”

“I told you no. Don't call here again about this and I'm turning my cell phone off,” I say taking it out of my pocket and doing so.

“You're going to be selfish over a matter of a few days? What about the other people, innocent people who might suffer or die because of this?”

“If it's that urgent you take care of it,” I hang up, though it takes a few tries given I'm shaking.

“Key--” Mags says.

Dave is thankfully off waiting on a table.

I wave a hand at her, but I just...I'm tempted to grab one of the beer bottles out of the cooler but that's not a good idea because things would be...my stomach's churning enough as it is.

“You look green,” Mags says.

“I'm—it's fine,” I mutter.

“Bull shit,” she says, “Why don't you just go out back and get some air?” she kinda trails off a bit herself there, “You'll break something you try to serve someone right now.”

“Fine.”

She's not wrong anyway. That might be the worst part. My calm is not maintaining. I've got something stashed somewhere in the not so much outside out back--

--but the swirling of what unlucky sod Stephenson wants gone so fucking badly he's calling on me already has me off in the back toilet giving up the breakfast Peanut made and Susan knocking on the door all concerned, and then opening it, as I forgot to lock it in the urgency, and given I don't answer because I'm sitting down against the wall breathing slow, making sure it doesn't happen again.

She sighs seeing what's happened and flushes the toilet, “What did--?” she starts, then just puts up a hand, shakes her head and says, “Well you're going back home you ijit,” before disappearing up front.

I try and fail at getting up before Susan returns with Mags.

“I'm going to work the front for a bit. Mags said she'd get you home instead of me taking you given all the times you've walked her at night. We've got Callie coming in. How grateful are you?” she demands.

“Tres, tante. Merci,” I mumble, as between Mags and the wall we get me to my feet. Mags scolding me in Romani about being so not fine.

 

The walk is slow and cautious. Mags asks for actual explanation once we're out of sight of the bar. I'm uneasy but at it's Mags not Dave or all things forbid Callie.

“Watch called. Job,” is all I really have to say anyway.

“But you barely got back!”

“I know.”

“Well, I know you know,” she retorts, “I just—why would they? Other than assholery?”

“I don't know. 'It's...urgent'?” We pause for a moment and I lean against a nearby wall taking a drink from a bottle of water she snagged before she left. I spit the first part out, and pull a snarky face at a tourist who gives me a look, and then take an actual drink.

“No wonder you were so pissed,” Mags says.

“Hmph.”

“Hey, come on,” she says, “I'm on your side on this, you know?”

“Yeah,” I rub my temples after she takes the water back, “I just—they're not going to leave me alone. If they show up...maybe Peanut should go with you for a few days?”

“What about you then?” she says, “Maybe we should just show our hand? Say 'fuck you guys!' ?” We're only a few buildings from the apartment now.

“Just us or will the rest of your Pillar peeps be on board with that? They don't even know about Peanut, right?”
“Nooo,” she sighs.

“And what's the situation with us as far as they're concerned?”

“What's it as far as the Watch is concerned?” she points out, “or as far as we're concerned even?”

I unlock the door to the stair well.

“Exactly,” she says.

Once we get into the stair well and push the door closed she splits honeysuckle and one of her heads back towards he bar at a run, and the remaining her locks the door behind the other. She follows me cautiously up the stairs one hand in the small of my back to help keep me steady, she says, even though I'm sure it's fine now.

“Don't be an idiot,” she scolds in Romani.

“I'm not.”

“Yes. You are. You're swaying so much you might as well be Billy.”

The door cautiously opens ahead of us and Peanut peers around the edge of it and through the bars of the gate, “You're early,” she says, both wary and accusatory.

“Yeah,” I start but I'm not actually sure what to say.

“Kieran's aunt sent him home,” Mags explains, “because he got sick...” she looks at me and shrugs like what else could be said and she has a point.

“It shouldn't fight back,” she says, “Especially not so late.”

“No,” I assure her, as she comes to open the gate and we walk inside, “It wasn't that at all. It wasn't your fault.”

Peanut seems only slightly relieved as Mags pushes me towards the chair. Flopping into it like that hurts my head more.

“I'm not--” I start.

“Maybe something conventional,” she suggests, “Please, Key? Do you have something like that in here? For Peanut?”

“I...'m honestly not sure right now.”

She sighs, “I shouldn't be surprised,” she turns, instead, to Peanut, “Has there ever been anything he's given you to make your tummy feel better when food's been fighting back?”

She shakes her head, “It fights back. It wins. I feel better. Just like sometimes with Kieran before naps...or in the morning.”

Mags gives me a vaguely annoyed look.

I just shrug because she's not wrong but this is different. This isn't dope turning things around. I don't know how to explain the overwhelmed and literally sickened by my other job. It's not like we've explained that to the preteen because well...hi your guardian is a bartender slash murderer why do you like staying in his shitty apartment again?

“I probably will feel better after I have a nap,” I point out.

“Kieran--” Mags starts, as though I'm a five year old who just painted on the wall with crayons, “That...” then she looks out of the window for a moment, “fair point.”

I can't help but stare at her given the 'you get paid HOW?' of the other day.

“It's the truth, isn't it?” she says, “It's not going to stop this second. I just—what you said before about the Watch...should I stay? Should we go?”

“Whatever makes you and Peanut most comfortable,” I tell her, “I'm going to be asleep.”  

Mostly.

After a little while anyway.

I put the phone into the dock, telling Siri to play the appropriate mix, and dump my keys on the cabinet in front of her before going and finding everything I need for prep, and locking the bedroom door. I can hear tones of Mags talking but not much from Peanut, but in a little while none of it matters, just the pulsing rhythms running through the mattress and rippling the colors of the room around me.

 

The hell?

I didn't think I turned the ringer back on, just the music. But there's the tone and Siri telling me that Work Bitch is calling. I scrabble the phone out of the dock, because it's just going to keep ringing but I hit answer instead of dismiss in the flailing for it and there's Joanna's voice, faintly given speaker's not on and the phone's not to my ear, “You actually answered. This is a good sign.”

“Mmph,” I grumble at her, “It wasn't intentional.”

“Ah,” she says, “Don't hang up. Please.”

“Why shouldn't I? Are you calling to apologize for...earlier? It was all a mix up?”

“I can't do that,” she says, “but please, don't hang up.”

I sit up more fully on the bed, and actually turn the phone on speaker so I can hear her better. Whatever this is it better be good. This is a rude come down.

“Alright,” I tell her, “I'm listening. For now.”

“Thank you,” she says, sounding very unusual with all this politeness.

“Did you get possessed or something? You sound weird.”

“No. I just—Stephenson and I had a discussion earlier, and he...pointed some things out to me. We came about things the wrong way.”

“There isn't really a right way to come about this,” I point out, “I mean, if you're in breach doesn't that mean I can just...leave?”

“And go where?” she asks.

She has a point with that one though. Where's going to hire me with my extensive range of skills in bar tending, ass handing and death bringing? That's basically bouncer, bar tender or enforcer for a drug cartel, but that sort of thing is what landed me in Centralia in the first place. Not quite that high up though. Maybe I wouldn't have wound up in prison then some other schmuck would...

Anyway!

“Your point was?” I ask her.

“Just come downstairs and let's talk this through,” she says.

“Ugh,” I tell her, “That requires walking.”

“Yes,” she says, “It does. One foot in front of the other. We going to square everything away.”

“Fine,” I tell her given this seems like it's going to be the only way to get this shit over and done with. I'll go downstairs tell her to fuck off face to face and then we can put this behind us, at least for a week I suppose.

Joanna's sitting on the hood of Bennet's car, out on the street just to the left of the stair well. She gives me a sly wave and a smile as I close the door behind me.

“It's good to see you,” she says.

“Hm,” is all I trust myself to answer.

She slides off the hood of the car and comes towards me, “It's okay,” she says, “I do want to say I'm sorry. This whole situation...it could have been avoided.”

“It should have been,” I tell her, “If it's not apocalyptic there is--”

“I know,” she says, and I realize suddenly that her hand is on my arm, “but everything will sort itself out.”

“Right...how exactly?”

“It just will,” she says, “Trust me.”

 

Leaning back in the chair. The most boring radio announcer ever is droning on in the background, undercut by a deep voiced singer, worried about family.

 

I stop in a corner store. The type run by immigrant locals and their reluctant first generation children. He's in the middle aisle and I slip by, getting the wallet is easy, checking the address, slipping the tag into it, putting address into phone and seeing what's around it, and then buying a soda at the front and turning it in, “Someone dropped this, and hey I need directions to this place...”

Guy, “Oh, I live near there. You just go here and then turn there and...” patting pockets trying to find wallet to pay for his chips and soda.

Clerk opens the one and asks for some verification it might be his. I thank him for the directions and walk out.

 

There's nowhere appropriate in the actual area. Tag puts him twenty minutes away. Lets get this done.

 

And now we're in an alley. Great. He's a semi decent fighter for someone who looked like a misplaced executive whose only brush with sports was doing that zumba bullshit with their significant other. Childhood martial arts lessons, maybe? It's not power, nothing's turned on yet. Was the Watch wrong?

No, wait, something—shift in smell but I would have expected ozone from what they said, not metal.

 

Mugging. Say it was a mugging. Take all his shit. Mugging gone bad.

 

Keep your fucking phone.

 

I need to be out of the way.  

 

The wall is rough brick but only goes part way against my side and arm on the right side. Against my back is smoother, warming...I need to...I shouldn't have thrown the phone, but it wasn't mine. Where is mine? My hand is...sticky. From the left is gray flat and on the right is the rough small wall and then a drop off but I can't see how far down it goes.

I can just take a minute and things will get clearer.

I can't...smell anything dangerous.

I can pull my shit together. That's what I need to do.

Sort out where I am, what I was doing, and how the hell to get back...to...the apartment.

Apartment.

My legs don't want to move. I give myself...I'm not sure how long to be honest, and then try again, but no. I want to laugh, but I'm too drained. I just lean my head back against the smooth, warm wall behind me.

Okay, up...no.

There's a half-assed thought of dragging myself across the floor until I find some way out or off of wherever this is but that's not practical at all. Okay, get your ass up.

Or just lay here. That's lovely.

Thanks body.

What the fuck is wrong with you?