Cherry Bomb

Death was here: it was a ghost behind his eyes, the shadow that swept across the waitress’s face, it lay dormant in his beer. In his mind, it wore on: an endless requiem of lamentations too old for words, too alive to be covert. He saw the beer lull, lazily, then begin to cascade itself down, down, his glass, the waterfall of booze for the river of blood. The barmaid sang.

It was a quaint pub, lost somewhere amidst the ominous alleys and endless deeper, darker, places: forgotten by the once-regulars, a haven for the criers, the liars.

A common history: named Cherry Bomb, after the then-new and then-billboard topper song by Mellancamp himself. Yes, sir, the owner would gush, ole John would come by here for a beer and a spill, gettin’ just as topsy-turvy as the rest of ‘em.

He would never mention the lawsuits or legalities involved with the bar, but it was widely known to have been a once-this, once-that, and was now a nothing.

Still, the same old song would play on repeat, forever, as if calling back the splendour the bar once knew: a Siren, a lark, or just another lament. Or would be, if teenagers hadn’t broken in and tore the place to shreds a few years back: the owner- called himself Billy- never bothered to fix it up other than to replace a few glasses, dust off a few chairs, and then settled right back in.

Hey, Billy-boy himself would insist, it just adds to the atmosphere, my boy- just makes it more…unique.

Unique was Billy’s word for rancid. In place of disposing of the rat infestation, he elbowed the bar-sitters over and beamingly insisted that they enjoy the only spectacle worth watching in the city. Toothpaste filled his cracked walls, some turned into various forms of creeping fungus, others floating away to find a better life. The jukebox- a once-novelty, a once-was- sat lifelessly in the corner, having been broken about twenty years back and long since forgotten.

But, oddly enough, there was a dignified presence in the bar, a personality beneath the grime that shone through with an almost humbling glory: a homely, safe place, an old place, a sense of being home.

And such is how Billy saw his bar: his castle, his kingdom, he king of the million-acre garbage pile and never-ending bleak eyes. Truly, Billy-boy loved his bar, loved his regulars: he loved his moulded dishcloth, his cockroach-infested walls, his dripping pipes and unfinished roofing. Billy was content with his lifestyle, completely satisfied with life if he died tomorrow.

Billy’s major flaw was his otherwise only redeeming quality: he loved people. He would plop down next to a regular, heartily clap the fellow on a shoulder, and comment on the weather, the war, the whatever. His extreme density allowed his ego invincibility: never was he offered a reply. Billy would just shrug it off, and would redundantly mop a floor section or half-wash a glass.

Yes, siree, it was good to be Billy- Billy was happy.

He never saw his death coming.

There was a point in Jacob’s life when he had thought to become an astronaut. To walk on the moon, to see the world as a robin’s egg, completing his schooling and really straightening up. He thought of how his mother would smile and cry with pride, of all the gifts he could finally buy for her: he thought of his little brother, of showing him what it felt like to have the weight of reality cast off and to be embraced by floating freedom.

Jacob had intended good, he meant well, but somehow, somewhere, something had gone wrong: he didn’t complete school, and he never made his mother smile. He called her everyday, “Mom, momma, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and he would hang up in shame before she would ever reply. He lived upstairs of the Cherry Bomb, boarding with Billy, but didn’t have a phone of his own: such is why he never found out that his mother had died six months ago.

He was the bouncer, a giant at six-four, a fighter at two-hundred and thirty pounds of biceps and abs. He never knew that he had accidentally killed seven people over the last two years, and if he had, it would have destroyed him.

So Jacob would stand and watch, occasionally drink, always waiting for someone to disturb his fixed idea of peace and interrupt his would-be’s and could’ve-been’s. In was in these reveries that Jacob envisioned his always bettering smiling mother- who grew more loving and beautiful every passing day- and his laughing brother- who became less and less the perverted pyromaniac each minute- and adapted them to his ideal future.

But first he had to watch the regulars, because someday they might start something, like that nasty brawl he had gotten into, yes, he agreed amiably, it was time to watch the regulars more, and be careful. He had a terrible feeling in his stomach, a nauseating twisting that he couldn’t put his thick finger on: so he would watch.

Because they might just do…something.

He always sat in the corner, always claimed the dark spot next to his busted jukebox. They had called him Klepto Chris in school, made jerking motions to him and obscene references about his family. Hey, Klepto, did you steal your mother’s baby yet?

Had he ever gone to a psychiatrist, they would have prescribed drugs and immediate relocation: had he ever gone to a psychologist, they would have marvelled and cried. Just like his mother.

Chris hated his mother, hated her endlessly, blamed her and tormented her in his mind: she was the whore he killed last night, she was the dog he had beaten, she was the victims he gave birth to, and she was always in his mind.

His father, he hated the man: he hated that man almost as much as his mother- that whore, that dog- and now his father was dead. Daddy’s dead, lost his head, his blood flows ever red…

He sat in the dark- in his dark- so no one could see his beloved treasures: once, a homeless man had tried to his treasure, so he had beaten him to death with a garbage can.

Some would say he was mad, others would blame society- many did, so Chris never learned any lesson offered- and so he roamed the streets, muttering and cursing, drool dripping from his freezing mouth. Sometimes he would find himself suddenly in Manhattan, wondering bleakly in dull panic, then suddenly forgetting again and waking up back here.

No matter how he tried, he couldn’t leave.

He was never aware of the lore about Cherry Bomb, or even that it carried a name as real as its personality: but he recognized that the place was special, was his. He felt the place as if on another level, acknowledged it, respected it. Perhaps that was why he had never wanted to destroy it like everything else: the fact that people were inside was often beyond his capacity to register.

But Chris had a secret, had a very special secret that he only let his treasures know: he knew things. Had anyone ever trusted him enough- followed their words with their actions, he would sneer- Chris could have really become something. He could read, and write- certainly, yes- and he knew math, science, anything.

There was never a chance for Chris, and so he would growl and spit, groan and moan, abhorrent of the hypocrites: tear off their faces, destroy them inside, take all they have and burn them alive. Let them sing their praise in terror.

Klepto Chris crouched lower, huddling as he began to giggle unnervingly, until he erupted into obscene laughter.

Perhaps it had occurred to him that he had an hour to live.

Sam was at the bar, just as he was every other night of the week.

He would sit there for hours, unmoving, and suddenly rise and leave, only to return minutes later. Cherry Bomb would never closed for Sam: he fought in the war, he was a saviour to his country. No one ever questioned why he was no longer permitted in his country.

Sam looked at the sun without blinking, his gaze unfocused and fiercely intense despite. As he walked, people moved, and if he looked, people turned away. But he was honoured, alive, and respected for his work: a Lieutenant, they’d say, a real credit to the country, taking down a whole bunker of the suckers before they even knew he was there.

Sam knew what he was good at, and knew what he wasn’t: he accepted his early retirement, and shook hands with Mayors and Majors alike. But it was said that no one ever saw him smile again.

Sam watched his beer, empty, vacuous, ever expanding into further nothingness. Shot six times, lost half his hearing and had a serious liver problem. But he was alive.

He had watched his comrades die, seen their bloated faces as gas filled their lungs and they flailed, screaming, howling, foaming sacks of swollen flesh that lulled. Lullaby to madness.

Sam never spoke. His real name was long forgotten, a thing of the past, right behind the melody of gunfire and the raining blood.

Sam never laughed. His face was a wrinkled mask of stone, a contradiction that stopped the hour glass.

Sam never smiled. There was no point in this life, this meticulous, garrulous life that started no where and ended no where: a prisoner of the blood-red dawn, there was no life for him here.

There is no life for a killer.

Sam, he may think, your days are over, you should settle down now and enjoy what you fought for. You’re a hero, Sammy-boy, and now they’re going to cheer your name. Aren’t you happy you fought for them?

No- Sam’s mind worked differently. He knew that he was never a fighter: there were no fighters in war. Fighters died, killers survived. War gave birth to killers, fighters were useless: killers made society work.

Sam’s first ambition was to save society, but society refused his help, gave him a check, and shoved him out the door.

Sam was never happy. For every Billy in the world, there must be a Sam: though Sam did not hate, he was endlessly apathetic, endlessly empty. The sociopath hero.

Thus, Sam’s second ambition evolved into something a little bit more alive: seek to enlighten the world. Show the good people how the sky turned black, how the air turned black, how the whole damn thing turned black. How the faces of dead comrades turned to ashes, how the constant biblical chants turned to endless droning, how the once-magical sunrise turned into a pitiful pastel promise of more bloodshed.

At first, he feared how he had wanted the world black, how he wanted the ashen faces, mindless droning, the blood-red sky: how he loved them, how he yearned for them with every single confused, abhorrent, enraged fibre of his disillusioned soul.

His glass of beer spilt a little bit more, continuously adding to the gene pool of a puddle already dripping, falling, screaming to the floor.

The room was hot, burning, painful, and Sam felt that hatred again: he felt that time-stopping flare, that charge of disgusted cavalry against the ignorant pestilence of the world. Those savage fools, those pathetic little specks of worthless life: each and every one of them to die without knowing, always enjoying that stupid freedom they believed they so rightly earned. Earned? Those fools have never earned- Sam knew, yes, he knew, he had earned it the only way possible: he earned it by blood, by the river of blood that flowed through his crimson hands even now, even here!

The nightmares were his medals, his scars all his proof: he had lived, he had killed, he was damn proud and he deserved better.

So this was honourable Sam’s prelude, his requiem nigh, his eyes now shining. Aged eyes, peerless eyes, distant and journeying eyes, the once-was, once-hero Sam.

He lived the lie: it was good and fitting to die for your country. But Sam knew, he knew: his country would never die for him, would not even accept him. Hypocrites- let God sort them out, let him do the paperwork: Sam was here only to do what was his purpose. His purpose was his perception, and his perception was slave to his ideals, and his ideals worked for his ideas, and his ideas were dampened by reality: and so was his hellish circle, his cycle of agony for his reality guided by his purpose.

Sam’s mouth twisted into something very wrong, very unreal: his eyes remained dead, but his mouth contorted into some bizarre rendition of a smile.

Sam never smiled.

So he fingered the gun’s safety off. Better to be safe than sorry, Sammy-boy. Say lights out, Sammy-boy: let’s have a finale.

Billy nodded to the bouncer, happily busying his wandering mind with the task of shutting down for the night. He hated kicking out the regulars, his heart ached for them, but it had to be done.

He tipped his hat amiably to dear old Klepto Chris in the corner, ignoring the rapid rambling that leaked out from his corner. Mind numbing vines, some forbidden sector of Billy’s mind hissed, take the bastard out of his misery and give him a little too much.

No, Billy’s other half was a once-was, a once-threat: now it only whimpered. So Billy smiled once more at Klepto Chris, feeling redeemed by his act of goodwill. Boy-oh-boy, Billy’s doing well tonight: life was good, Billy was happy.

Beaming, Billy went to say a word with Sam.

Jacob was fretting over whether he had fed his goldfish when the gunshot pierced through his thoughts like a comet, it’s trail long and numbing.

Fumbling with his thoughts for a few seconds, Jacob’s mouth moved in a vain attempt to voice his confusion: no, impossible, this couldn’t happen, impossible, no, not me.

When his eyes began to register, he was peering into the twin hazy vortexes of Sam: a crack of lightning, then a sudden burst of liquid fire shot through his chest.

Jacob’s last thoughts screamed to his mother.

Chris heard the shots, but cursed the liquid solidity of the superfluous air: he was an unknowing statue too long.

He didn’t even know that he was dying.

Sam smiled.

Sam never smiled.

So Sam placed the gun’s nuzzle into his mouth. His eyes suddenly shone, rekindled by his beloved tragedy, his bloody success and mistress death.

Good job, Sammy-boy, let’s have a standing ovation: what a wonderful audience, let’s give them their finale, Sammy-boy: let’s call it a night.

He pulled the trigger.

The Cherry Bomb had never enjoyed as much attention as it did the next nine weeks. Then it was forgotten again.