Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Put that way, nothing. We laughed and looked a bit sheep-faced, I guess, and then we joined right in. It was wonderful. There were all kinds of folks there. It was one of the biggest inns in the territory and situated well along the major trade routes. There were merchants with their entourages and young swordsman types like Lanny and me and old swordsman types like Smada. One of them, the general, a big old tough dude with a full beard and scars, turned out to know somebody who knew somebody who was a cousin of somebody Smada knew well before she died, and on the basis of that intimacy the two decided to combine parties at once, and within an hour the old general and his bunch, along with Smada trailing us, had all but taken over the place.

All but. There was this obnoxious punk I mentioned before who was feeling left out, I guess, on account of our bunch having bought up all half-dozen whores for the evening or maybe just because he knew what a jerk he was and was embarrassed about it. Or both, I dunno.

Anyway, he went out of his way to make a big deal of it when Smada, quite by accident, bumped into him on the way to the outhouse and spilled his tankard of ale.

Smada apologized. Profusely. More profusely than I would have, and a lot more than 1 expected him to. But the punk still wasn’t satisfied.

“If the old man is too befuddled by drink to make true his steps, then he had best learn greater care in a public inn or someone else will leap to instruct him.”

And I thought: Whoops! Here it comes! And I was looking at Lanny, who was already looking for his sword.

But all Smada did was bow and say: “An excellent point, young sir.”

And my mouth just sorta fell open. But there was more to come. The punk kept pressing it.

“Perhaps, old man, 1 shall trouble myself to give you this lesson here and now, lest you forget the point that must be made.”

And 1 thought: Here we go for sure! Smada will never take that!

But while I was thinking that, he was doing that very thing. With another bow, he said: “A generous notion, young sir. But 1 fear the very drink which provoked my unfortunate mishap might further besmear my appreciation for your kind instruction.”

I couldn’t believe it. But there was more still. When the punk was still standing there uncertain about what to do, Smada groveled some more.

“Pray, young sir, perhaps another time when I am not so clumsy with wine?”

And the punk stared. Then he nodded, abruptly and rude as hell, and just turned away back to the bar. Smada waited a beat and then trod on off to the can.

Lanny and I looked at each other. He was the first to speak.

“That chickenshit old fart!” he hissed. “Can you believe that?”

“No, dammit!” I replied in the same harsh whisper. “And we thought he was such a big deal!”

“Well,” Lanny mused, “he was the first swordsman we found. 1 guess that’s why we thought he was something. And on that big horse and all. Dammit!” he muttered a few seconds later. “I just hate being embarrassed for people.”

And 1 nodded to that.

Later on when Smada reappeared from the outhouse we had trouble looking in his direction. But, interestingly enough, no one else did. We assumed it was because no one else had seen it. Lanny and 1 had been the closest ones to the exchange. And the party hadn’t stopped at all while it was going on. So we just figured nobody else had noticed.

Wrong again.

With everybody else apparently immune to the tension, Lanny and I felt it was pretty hard for us to maintain it. And Smada really was the life of the party. In no time at all we were right back into the swing of things.

We thought. Hell, we never picked up on the rhythm of that place!

It was storytime that did it. Smada insisted on a story, and the old general echoed his sentiments loudly, and then the girls cheered and encouraged the idea. The first guy was this little short thin jester type, the old general’s official storyteller. He cranked out this tale about—who else?—Bili of Morguhn, and then another one about the legend of the Undying One, who Lanny and I knew damn well was none other than good ol’ Milo but nobody else considered anything but a fairy tale.

Then it was our side’s turn. And Lanny did The Mummy.

No fooling. He did the whole damn movie. Got a bunch of white cloth and wrapped it around his head and legs. He had one wrist tied to his chest and the other arm stretched out in front of him reaching for victims’ throats and dragging the one dead leg behind him and the whole bit. It was great. And the people at the inn absolutely ate it up. The whores squealed and held each other and us when the mummy snatched the beautiful archaeologist’s daughter and everybody cheered like hell when the evil Egyptian got zapped by his own monster.

Lanny was a tremendous hit. He should’ve been a writer.

After that was singing and dancing by the whores. It was, trust me, worth seeing. By the time the food came 1 was so horny my mug shook. But the food took care of that. I use the term “food” loosely.

Ate something they said was owl and tasted like one—that or anything else that had stayed up several nights in a row. Probably drinking that ale stuff the whole time. Let me tell you about that ale: It was no Budweiser. Though it probably would sell well in Milwaukee or anyplace else where they have trouble starting their cars on icy mornings. A little shot of that shit in the carburetor and “Zoom, zoom!”

The wine was—how shall I put this?—worse. In fact, the whole meal gave me a Big Mac Attack. I remember thinking about all the preservative fuss always going on back home and thinking that Ralph Nader, who had never manufactured anything and never would, didn’t know what a glory he had.

Anyway, the men got to dance after that. Lanny and I needed to do something to work this stuff through our tummies. And we got into it full steam. We sang and danced and fell over benches and laughed so hard we couldn’t organize arms and legs enough to get back up, and that only made us laugh all the more and on and on and on.

It was a blast.

About then is when I asked to use the phone and Lanny and I started laughing and the punk who had backed Smada down (we thought) got upset and demanded to know what was so bloody amusing and stupid me said he probably wouldn’t understand it.

A lot of it was the booze I had downed, and a lot of it was the women watching. Some of it had to do with Smada being (in our minds, at least) such a weasel to this punk before. Maybe 1 just wanted to show how much neater I was. Or something.

At any rate, I said what 1 said knowing damn well the punk wasn’t going to like it. And, sure as hell, he got mad and pushed off from me at the bar and reached for his sword. At first I thought it was just a bluff. I mean, he was moving so damn slowly! But then I got a look at his face and it was plenty grim enough to make this serious. Then I realized my sword wasn’t on but over there across the room with the pillows and the whores, and by this time his, the punk’s, was almost out.

So I slugged him.

Clouted him good with an overhead gauntlet-fisted right cross right on the button, and he careened back against the bar and sat down with a plop. There were the usual gasps and cheers associated with a barroom brawl. Because that’s all this was all of a sudden, on account of having hit him with my fist. The punk was hep to that, too. He loosed his swordbelt to the floor where he was and came up swinging.

At least you could call it that. I’m pretty fast, like I said before, but he was so goddam slowl His first roundhouse missed me by days and left him staggering in a circle three feet past me.

That got a big laugh.

So I decided to get cute. The next time he swung and missed 1 ducked underneath his arm and tapped him on the shoulder from behind and said: “Here 1 am!”

That got boos. No kidding. The crowd was ugly. I’d never been in front of an audience before, but it was clear to me that making fun of your victim was a definite no-no. Lanny’s look told he he’d read the same attitude. So I set about finishing it.

Which was damned hard. He was slow as hell and no bigger than me, but he just kept coming. I’d jab him and punch him and knock him staggering or, more rarely, knock him down. But he just kept coming. I was really starting to admire the guy, all bloody and puffy and nose broken but not giving in an inch.

The only time he hit me was when, like an idiot, I stopped right in front of him, held out my paw to shake and said: “C’mon, man, let’s call it a draw.” He ignored my hand and hit me so hard you can’t believe it. I felt the stones smack the hack of my head and looked up kinda dazed to Lanny peering over me and hissing, his voice furious with anger and concern: “Finish this, goddammit! You’re not at homel"

And that kinda woke me up. I laid into him hard and kept at it. But it was getting a lot tougher. My right hand was swollen and sore, and I’ve never had a decent left, and the punk was still coming on.

I remembered Lanny saying, “This isn’t home,” and realiz

ing the naked fatal facts of that. I wasn’t home. I wasn’t anywhere else but where 1 was, and this was not only happening, it was gonna keep on happening until it ended. That thought, and the punk still coming on, got me a little scared.

Which is what I damn well should have been all along.

The first time 1 kicked him I got a few more boos, but by that time I didn’t give a shit. / was the one doing the fighting, and nothing else had seemed to work. So 1 kicked him some more, once in the chest and once toward his balls. I missed his balls—you almost always do—but his groaning wince as my booted toe slammed into his thigh muscles opened up his bloody face again. 1 tried one more right cross, laying all my weight and momentum in behind it, and missed his chin and hit his throat and felt something awful go crunch and collapse, and then he was down and turning blue and wheezing and everybody tried to help but they couldn’t get the windpipe clear in time and all of a sudden 1 had killed someone else.

It was quiet while they drug the body out and Lanny sat me down on a bench in front of Smada and the old general and the girls. Smada was clearly disgusted by something, and for a while 1 thought it was because it had taken me so long. And then 1 thought maybe it was on account of my using my feet. And then I didn’t know what the hell was bugging him and was starting to get a little pissed off myself and said so:

“You got something to say to me, old man?” 1 snarled, calling him what the punk had called him on purpose. “Then say it!” I added.

Smada sat up and eyed me coolly. “Very well, lad,” he began, and leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. “I don’t know where you are from. But in this land there are far too few opportunities to be gentle instead of murderous.” He paused, looked disgusted, added: “And you have just wasted one.”

Then he stood up and went to the outhouse.

Conversations lamely shuffled ahead after he had gone. Lanny sat down beside me and handed me a mug, which I downed thirstily in a couple of swigs. Under the sound from the others talking I leaned over to him.

“Do you know what he’s . . . ?” I began before Lanny shook his head to say, no, he didn’t understand what was bugging Smada either.

But now I think he did know. He was just too embarrassed to tell me. Lanny was always quicker than me, and 1 think he did see Smada’s point. The punk had been slow and ponderous and, while a jerk, still a harmless one. And we would have noticed how slow he was, as everyone else had, because everyone else had been paying attention to who was armed and drinking in a public inn from the first moment they had entered. You know, the way we should have been?