VINWALD “SOMEWHERES” MARTOM — LOPPER, THIRTY-FIVE, ID#: 23023094
[With one hand resting on the butt of his axe and his other busy picking bits of viscera from his scabby cheek, Vinwald surveys his handiwork. According to him, he’s chopped up at least fifty bodies since noon. Behind him, his apprentice — a boy no older than five or six — prepares to feed the now-manageable pieces into a meat grinder that groans like some dying beast as it fills the corridor with smoke.]
They say the realm wept as one when Prince Christo lost his head to the guillotine; I say he’s alive and well somewhere in the holy land and this whole thing was just a scam to boost tourism. Prophet? More like profit, if you ask me. Got any smokes?
LADDY KWIKNIK — VENDOR, UNKNOWN AGE, ID#: 87436238
[A line stretches from Laddy’s lonely cart all the way down to the sewer at the end of the street where his usual evening customers continue to emerge. There’s a magic to his movements as he prepares his savory confections; a betting man would wager that he could outperform any of the four-armed half-breeds in Harby Square if it came down to it. He offers me a skewered deep-fried toe, but I politely refuse.]
Tell you what, all that hardy-ha at Chateau de Gral the year ‘fore was the best thing to ever happen for me business hands down. Got meself a jolly corner not far from the south gate and set up shop ‘fore the diddly-dones oozed in to peddle their roach pies and sketter-hollies. Made me bloons ‘xactly the way me father taught me — offering up nothing but the freshest nibs and nolls this side of the Versher to all you lot who love to come running whenever a Prince has his guts spilled in those hallowed halls. Paid one of those church boys less than I paid for me third wife to scuttle on down to the ‘combs and harvest the floaters after the storm. Sold ‘em for a price that’d make your head twist around a time or two if you knew the true number. Something about a murder like that’ll turn a city o’ men into a nest o’ starving rats, eh?
Bloons aside, call me glad to be outta that part of the city now that the blood’s been licked clean from every crack in the stone. View’s better out yonder — Gral still looks like something respectable and holy from this distance, don’t it? Like kings and queens still roam the halls. Like we’re not maggots fighting over the last few morsels o’ rotten flesh that cling to the bones o’ some god’s corpse.
FLOTS GALLET — PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, FORTY-NINE, ID#: 453213479
[Sitting across from me at the Heptoid Hole, Flots halfheartedly plays a game of solitaire while he blows a kiss to some dolled-up gal who’s already snagged herself a sailor. The fedora that rests atop his misshapen head looks like an elephant ate it and shit it out three months later.]
It was the last job I wanted, but what choice did I have? A goon like me who has no better place to lay his head at night than Magdalene’s Casa de Amore sniffs out a dime like a mutt sniffs out bacon-wrapped shit. Plus, Prince Christo was my favorite girl’s favorite customer, so I felt especially inclined to do her — Mary’s her name — a solid and maybe take his place in her fucked up little hierarchy. What can I say? I’m a romantic.
Once I had a few drinks to steady my hands, I stumbled down the thoroughfare with my fingers pinched around my nose. Swear to the gods I don’t believe in the entire city smelled like the inside of Jimmy Hoffa’s asshole that day — all that death that followed Christo’s murder was a testament to something about the human race that greater men than yours truly might be able to articulate. Attack helicopters roared overhead, flying towards what sounded like a pretty serious skirmish in Chinatown. Snipers dangled out the sides, taking potshots at the elderly and the obese — whoever wasn’t fast enough to find cover. Battalions of bums huddled in the sewers, stabbing at each other with pocket knives and plastic shivs while they shot their selfie videos. The King’s pockmarked face appeared on every skyboard in sight, spouting off ad copy for Hella Value Walrus Juice — not a word about his slain son. Go figure.
Sat there staring up at Chateau de Gral for a good hour once I finally pushed my way through the idiotic hoards of pilgrims and thieves and vendors and mutants and hangers-on that choked every street and alley within a ten block radius. Realized I had no idea where to start. I’d burned every bridge, pissed off every connection I’d managed to scrounge up back in the days when I thought my vocation mattered in the slightest. The revolver tucked into my waistband was six bullets shy of being useful and I’d sold off the rest of my gear to pay off my debt to Melonballs Johnny. In other words, I had two choices: I could bang my head against the Gral’s outermost wall until I forgot who I was or I could blow my per diem at the Fetid Lamb and let the unseen mechanisms that usher us towards oblivion decide my fate.
I went with the latter and ended up with a broken arm, a new disease of the spleen, and ten thousand bullshit claims about Christo’s murder — my personal favorite was that the King had him drawn and quartered because he found out that he was a clone of his biological son and that the chateau chaplains drained his body of blood and drank every lost drop as if it were wine. Can’t make this shit up.
After a fortnight of debauchery that would make a senator squeal, I made my way back to Mary and reported my “findings” as if I’d just completed an honest-to-god investigation. Told her how Christo loved her like no other and that he died so she could live on to fuck me in the glory of his name. I’m not sure if she bought it, but she fucked me all the same.
I’d have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn’t eaten those skewered fingers after leaving the Lamb. Upset my stomach something awful and gave me nightmares about my twin brother who’s no longer with us. Don’t ask me if I poisoned his cat food — you know the answer.
SIMILIA BISQUEE — GATEKEEPER, SEVENTY-FIVE, ID#: 09483745
[It’s possible Similia was a heartbreaker back when she had a full head of hair and all her pheromones. Her tortured body, swollen and twisted by one too many years of repetitive labor, makes me want to write a country song.]
You’ll have to talk to me, because my husband ain’t care for nothing in this world ‘cept fishing since the accident. See him over yonder? Never leaves that spot, the pathetic old flutz — smothers that poor pillow with his lumpy ass while he hangs his rod out the window and trolls the moat for pike that tastes about as good as something rotten stuck to the bottom of a garbage can. Keep telling him that moat is nothing more than a glorified sewage ditch, but he don’t listen to a word I say anyhow. Nope, just leaves me to handle this here crank and open and close this godforsaken gate day in and day out as if I’m just some nud who got dropped on her head one too many times when she was a bairn. Even if I was, I’d still be the majors to his little league in the brains department.
He’d hate it if I told you about the accident, so listen up: Happened back when he was marauding for Google, sweeping across the country with his fellow countrymen and pillaging every town they happened upon. Got into quite the sortie with an Antifa splinter faction outside of Tulsa and fell on his sword. Lord, smite me if I be lying! Blade slid right up between his balls and his left thigh. Hasn’t had a hard-on since. Probably has a whole litter of bastards running around out there but he never took the time to give his own wife a proper child. Ain’t that right, Percy?
If you’re hoping for an opinion about what really happened to Prince Christo, I don’t know what to tell ya. I never even met the nud myself, so my insight’s probably worth about as much as the piss-saturated pike I’m destined to force down my gullet tonight.
But since you’re asking, I’ll say this: Anyone who struts around with an entourage the size of his — what was it, twelve? — is just asking for a knife in the back. No one’s that lucky when it comes to making friends. Not in this day and age.
WOLLY MORD — COURT JESTER, TWENTY-EIGHT, ID#: 783021369
[Wolly’s a nice enough fellow, but the dead lizard tied to his cock makes it hard to maintain eye contact with him.]
I clowned for Prince Christo six years straight. Nothing made the asshole laugh more than self-mutilation and jokes about Protestants.
BARBALEEN SHLEB — SPECIAL ENVOY FROM THE REPUBLIC OF UNKERVAUS, FIFTY-THREE, ID#: N/A
[For reasons unfathomable to me, Barbaleen insists that we enjoy a mud bath together and puff on cigars while I conduct the interview. If this is an Unkervausian custom, I’ve never heard of it.]
Many thanks to talk for this words. For Prince Christo, great respect I have. But I confuse about one day in town. Both walk us to pick flower and watch moon shine white. Kiss lips we and forget time, forget where. Nearby is tomb, dark like nightmare sleep. Suddenly hear voice of two demon god wretch the sky in two pieces. Enter scared in me, lightning of face and mind. Two demon god find us in blindness. No eyes, just mouths on fire. Scream at Prince Christo to tell why he bring blood to their bellies. Why he nothing but the end of time. Say he better to drive them to the pigs. So many pigs nearby. All alive and feeding the mud. Their voices wretch what’s left of sky. Filthy pigs. Innocent pigs. Prince Christo shows them UPC code, straight from hand. They scan and float upwards. Ghosts of nowhere. Then fly to pigs, enter like breath. Snort the pigs. Wretch the pigs. Are the pigs. More until they run to cliff beyond courtyard high. Leap the end. Float none. Come the town that missed their dinner. Hands of flame. Say Prince Christo you never return. Please go. Takes hand and never town again. Prince Christo leave before explain. Never know I. Forever miss flowers and kiss and the moon.
FRAKS BARCLAY — PRISONER, UNKNOWN AGE, ID#: 39265748
[Somewhere off in the darkness of a neighboring corridor, a man screams as something sharp is repeatedly thrust into his belly. Fraks leans against the bars of his cell, the amber torchlight reflecting off his golden canine as he smiles.]
You’re god damn right I’m the one who iced Christo. Knew him long before he bumbled his way into the castle — back when people called him by names you wouldn’t believe: Glorified Grim Reaper of the Good Book Gulags; Calamitous Creature of the California Crannies; Holiest Hellion of the Heavenly Horrorshow. He was my white rhino. Almost had him back in Juarez, but my pride got the better of me as always — never have and never will play nice with the crooked cops down there. Doesn’t matter now anyhow. From hence forth I’ll speak of my success as if it were merely the result of patience. Waited him out for years, I’ll say. Served him a dish so fucking cold that scientists want to use it to study the carbon emissions of eras past.
Some other big ones you may not know were actually all me: JFK, Malcom X, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Robin Williams, the dinosaurs, Chairman Mao, Thanos, your mom, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hunter S. Thompson, General MacArthur, Francis Bacon — both of them, Pluto Nash, Beethoven, the Roswell aliens, Franz Ferdinand, Dimebag Darrell, some dickhead named Joffrey Clementine… I could go on, but you get the picture.
Like the TV? Every cell’s got one. We live large down here in Gral’s dungeon — but don’t be jealous; they only let us watch CNN. That Jake Tapper is a snide little prick.
BOB — MAINTENANCE CHIEF, SIXTY-TWO, ID#902749238
[In Bob’s office, I sit on a bucket while he crouches in the mop sink and eats Hella Value REALBEEF straight from the can.]
Yeah, I’m the only one they keep on retainer at Gral, so I’ve always got something to do around here. This old building is ninety-nine percent problems and one percent shelter. The wiring is shit — probably installed by a drunk with glaucoma and a burning hatred for his fellow man. The plumbing I had to completely rip out a few years back — everyone’s been using the garderobes and terrorizing the fish in the moat ever since. And don’t get me started on all the tech issues — intercom systems glitching out, Wi-Fi as fickle as my first wife, software bugs that crash the entire employee portal, you name it. It’s not my department whatsoever, and yet here I am installing the newest operating system for Nelly here because she’s paid much too well to be bothered with closing out of her programs and clicking the “Update Now” button. Used to be a fella named Potty’s job, but he got disemboweled for some sorta insider trading deal. Don’t remember. Little did I know when I was cleaning up his guts that I’d be cleaning up after him for the rest of my days. It’s true — it’s all on me around here.
Say what you want about Christo, but he always treated me well enough. Probably because he used to be a carpenter before he decided to go corporate. Tradesmen never forget to show respect when respect is due. Sometimes we would shoot the shit in the break room, talk about the weather or hockey or The Sopranos. He even gave me some advice during my divorce that’s really stuck with me as time goes on.
That’s why it was so hard for me to clean the room after they finally removed all the yellow tape and concluded their investigation. He deserved more than what he got. They’d collected his remains on day one, but there was still a lot of charred flesh stuck to the floor. Took me an entire afternoon to scrub it clean and prepare his office for Gral’s next big hire.
Originally, I’d planned to put in a good word for my niece — she’s about to finish up her MBA at Dartmouth. But now…I might just tell her the position’s already been filled.
STABS MCGUNK — VP OF SALES, EIGHTY-NINE, ID#: 7832349823
[McGunk doesn’t speak. Instead, he pulls a Rolex mind reader from the bottom drawer of his desk and attaches its oversized suction cup to his forehead. All the while, he fondles himself through his khakis and stares at me like I just killed his dog.]
Imagine the word synergy, but wait — don’t think of it simply as a great joining of the minds to accomplish a common goal. Reach beyond business speak and instead think of synergy as kneeling down before each of our ten major shareholders and allowing them to piss on your face — all at once. One glorious golden shower. If you can graciously accept that salty yellow human brine with a smile on your face, you have what it takes to work for Gral.
My father taught me power through degradation. If you let someone take everything from you — including your ability to go through life without getting pissed on — their desire to control you eventually loses all meaning. It becomes a charade. They become actors in a play that will never receive applause. And all the while, your self-agency remains intact despite all evidence to the contrary.
He taught me this in ways that anyone outside looking in would likely perceive as demented. One such moment of note might be the time he dosed me with LSD before driving me out into the woods in the middle of the night and leaving me there — those terrifying old logging trails in Oregon that are their own sort of liminal space. I was only ten years old. You can imagine how confusing it was for me to feel the effects of such a drug without having the capacity to understand it. I’d never even been on a roller coaster.
What I remember most about it is everything I couldn’t see. Sure, my mind projected all manner of colors and geometric shapes onto that endless black canvas that had swallowed me whole, but I didn’t think much of it. Instead, every neuron blasting through my synapses focused on a formless leviathan presence that shifted around beneath my feet like a restless tectonic plate. It yearned to swallow me, but didn’t know how. It had no mouth. Only the desire for one. It was starving and alone — just as helpless as me. I eventually stripped naked and collapsed in the mud on the edge of the road, so miserable that I was able to will myself to die. But as my flesh decayed and melted into the soil, I found that I was feeling more than ever before. Instead of ceasing to exist, I had somehow become that nameless thing that roiled beneath me. I inhaled millennia and exhaled eons. I felt civilizations rise and fall with each beat of my heart. And even after the drug finally loosened its grasp and my father returned to get me as if he’d simply left me to play at a friend’s house, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Still can’t to this day. How’s that for a transformative childhood experience?
Father would tell me years later that he left me out there that night so that I could feel an inkling of what he felt during his third tour of duty in Vietnam, in which he would regularly ingest any substance he could find in order to numb the horror that plagued his platoon on a daily basis. One night, under the influence of LSD, he wandered into the jungle with a Vietnamese woman they’d stolen from a nameless village southwest of Saigon — who was quite yacked out herself on amphetamines and bad coffee — and became hopelessly lost. They were eventually come upon not by Charlie, but by a rogue LRRP soldier who had lost his mind after spending so much time in solitude. The crazy fuck tormented them for what seemed like days in my father’s mind. Lurked in the shadows. Hissed like a snake. Spoke to them in tongues. Rushed them every once in a while with a rusted bayonet and sliced them up real good. Made them beg for their lives. Convinced them that they were stranded in some fucked up Eden. That they were Adam and Eve and he was the serpent. Sometimes offered them food before taking it away right at the last second and throwing his own feces at them like a monkey.
Thing is, he never told me how it ended. He only told the story once, and when he got to the part about the food and the shit he started crying and attacked the waiter when he came to offer us refills — we were enjoying a two-for-one lunch deal at Applebee’s.
It wasn’t until the day he died, thirty-five years later, that he finally finished it. I’d gone to visit him in hospice after months of ignoring his calls. Found him in that room wearing the most evil smile you could possibly imagine. Called for me to sit on the edge of his bed. The ashtray on the end table was overflowing with butts, and he had another one that’d burned down to the filter dangling from his lips. Let one rip and told me that he was the LRRP soldier. That he was the serpent. That the man who stumbled upon him that night was just some poor bastard he ended up eating alive out there in the bush. But he let the woman live, and said that she — now old and hobbled by advanced arthritis — still told her story to the village children every now and again when they came wandering into her shanty looking to steal her goat milk. Said he could see her in that very moment, filling up her pail with river water and winking at him with her one good eye. And wouldn’t you know it, those were the last words he ever spoke.
I told Christo this story back when we were both still grinding on the thirteenth floor as junior account executives. He told me I should forgive my father, which would have made me laugh out loud if I’d been able to. There was nothing for me to forgive. I owe every bit of my success to him and him alone.
I suppose that’s why Christo ended up with a bullet in his head and I’m still sitting here in my corner suite talking to you about him in passing before I take my usual three hour lunch.
We were just never on the same level.
USER_GRAL — N/A, UNKNOWN AGE, ID#: GO FUCK YOURSELF
I’m getting sick of all this. I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Maybe I’ll make it so that you don’t have arms or legs or eyes or ears or a mouth — you’ll be nothing more than a helpless blob that can feel everything I’m doing as I violate you. And you won’t be able to comprehend me. You’ll just know someone is there, kneading you like dough and shaping you into exactly what they want you to be. Would you like that?
Or maybe I’ll do the complete opposite and give you a life so rich that you’ll yearn to see me in everything you do and everyone you meet. Every bird will say my name. It will intoxicate you over time and make you do evil things, like kill your own children or run for public office. The world will end at your command — all so you can get your chance to finally meet me.
I’ll let you decide.
— Anthony Lien is a writer/editor who lives in the Northwoods of Minnesota. If he isn’t writing, reading, recording music, or spending time with family, he’s probably outside talking to crows and trading them almonds for cool trinkets. His work has been published in Bruiser Mag and Maudlin House.