The Sapphire Express (6 page)

I observed the awesome escapades of the club of peculiar creatures in total awe and just sat on my barstool and ordered more whiskey and sodas. The madness that was occurring all around me was so raw and primordial that I started to wonder why in God’s name such a place still existed in the twenty-first century. A hole that dark and disgusting wasn’t just a bar—it was something much more sinister than that. It was a landfill of broken dreams, abused souls, and victims of cruel indifference and addict’s neglect. It was a place that was alive and breathing hard with stained lungs, and its black heart was made of tears mixed with cheap makeup, hand-rolled cigarette smoke, the smell of diluted rail drinks, clumsy attempts at seduction, bright-red lipstick applied by trembling hands in a filthy bathroom, pointless drunken laughter, empty promises of an erection that lay dead in a pool of bath salts and malt liquor, memories of accomplishments that were true only in dreams, delusional reminiscing about a good father who had, in reality, been a violent deadbeat, exaggeration, lies, pain, blood, failure, acne exposed by addicts’ acrid sweat, bruised, pale legs, short bursts of excitement and hope, forgotten music that lifted desolate spirits for a fleeting moment, slurred words of fool’s wisdom, agony, misery, filth, doom, death, and quiet desperation. And that was supposed to be fun.

Around midnight, a slim man with bad skin and sharp canine teeth sat on a barstool next to me and started staring at me with cloudy eyes. He was a disgusting man, and his greasy hair looked like a Kentucky cornfield after a harsh and unforgiving heartland winter. He had scratched his face hard with his grimy, overgrown fingernails, and his crooked vulture’s nose was bleeding from the left nostril. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a couple of years, and the bags under his eyes were black and full of nasty liquid. The wicked creature smelled like a rotten onion, and it was clear that his organs wanted to escape that horrible body where they were constantly terrorized and reminded that any resistance was futile.

I looked at him circumspectly, and he put his rat’s mouth so close to my face that I could smell the disease and gunk inside him. Then he tilted his head slightly to the right and asked in a raspy voice, “What the fuck are you looking at, priest?”

I opened my eyes a little wider and looked at his filthy face, but I didn’t say anything. I just hoped that he could have seen through my calm demeanor and noticed that the stew from hell had started boiling in my veins. But, unfortunately, there was no chance that he could have noticed anything in his current state of mind. His brain was fully occupied with other things; things like drooling Komodo dragons feasting on a slimy buffalo leg, an onocentaur with Lieutenant Columbo’s torso, and silver birds with shark fins and lemur tails.

“I am going to cut you now, priest,” the slim bastard said and pulled out a rusty knife and slammed it hard on the bar counter.

I looked at him listlessly and said, “I would try to talk you out of it, but I can see that your rat’s brain is not going to take any commands from me tonight, all right? I don’t want to waste my time by even attempting to address you because I don’t talk rat and you don’t talk human.” Then I moved quickly behind him and choked him unconscious. He was out in a few seconds, and his rodent’s eyes started spinning like a malfunctioning merry-go-round at Tbilisi city fair. I squeezed his testicles as hard as I could for about ten seconds because I wanted him to feel some real pain the next day. He needed to know there was a price to pay when you messed with a man who didn’t need to be messed with. Then I raised my finger and paid for my drinks. It was time for me to go home.

The next day, I woke up on the living room carpet without any major hangover or guilt. I hadn’t gotten very drunk even if I had consumed close to a quart of whiskey at that cursed bar. I figured that my body didn’t allow alcohol to control me anymore, and it had just decided to suck all the pleasure out of the whiskey and coldheartedly kick the negative side effects to the curb. My garter snake’s skin was shedding faster than I thought, and I was getting stronger mentally. There was not a trace of fear left in my body, and all things that used to frighten me seemed completely meaningless and silly. I was powerful, dangerous, and calm, and I respected no one. I was in total control.

The mattress guys arrived at 4:00 p.m., and I asked them to put both of the kings in the master bedroom. It was a somewhat peculiar request, but the deliverymen did what I asked, and they managed to squeeze the two giants into the room without any major difficulties. There wasn’t, however, much empty space left around the mattresses, but that was the way I wanted it to be. I wasn’t going to settle for just a room with a bed in it. I wanted a room that was a bed.

After I had removed the tags from the mattresses and put the pillows, the sheets and the comforter on the bed, I rested in my perfect human cocoon for a couple of beautiful hours and enjoyed the rejuvenating company of the young kings. There were no bedbugs, no filthy odors, no suspicious stains, or signs of old sex and faded love on their delicate skin—just softness and heavenly comfort, all for me alone. I soon drifted into the soothing world of hypnagogia and found myself masturbating softly.

The hours flew like in a forbidden dream, and my brain waves were moving slower and slower, but then the dark part of the twilight arrived like a thief from the thick pine forest, and hunger started moving restlessly in my gut, telling me to wake up and feed the master.

I got up reluctantly, took a quick shower, and put on a new T-shirt and the same Nike pants I had worn the night before. Then I hopped into the Econoline and started driving toward the town center with growing hunger burning in my empty gut. I didn’t even know what type of food I was in a mood for, but I figured that if I drove past several different restaurants, my brain would finally make the choice for me. I just needed to give it some options and let my eyes scan the streets like a starving cat and deliver as much data for it to analyze as possible.

I arrived in town after a fifteen-minute drive and started cruising slowly along the main street with watchful eyes. I passed a Mexican, an Italian, and a Nepalese restaurant, but the call of corn tortillas, pasta, and
dal bhat tarkari
wasn’t strong enough to lure me in. I also managed to evade the pull of a fantastic new oyster bar near the county courthouse, but when I saw a small hibachi place at the corner of a quiet strip mall, I yielded, and my left foot applied the brake gently. I simply couldn’t resist Asian food, especially after a night of heavy drinking and general debauchery. A cup of warm sake didn’t sound too bad, either, and the decision was final: I was going to step into the den of the dreaded
maneki neko
.

I parked the Econoline in front of the restaurant and jumped out enthusiastically. The Fallen Samurai looked inviting, and I pushed all my preconceptions aside as I opened the heavy mahogany door that hid a mysterious, fiery world from the unadventurous. I stepped in briskly, and, sure enough, a golden
maneki neko
welcomed me with its raised left paw. I approached the feline, unafraid, and took a toothpick from an ornamented martini glass that was twinkling next to the little creature. Then I put the toothpick in my mouth and started wondering where everybody was. I shrugged and placed my finger on the little silver table bell that sat quietly on the counter, but before I could ring it, a small Japanese woman appeared behind a bamboo curtain. She looked straight into my eyes and said with a welcoming smile, “One for hibachi, yes?”

“Yes, one for hibachi,” I said, and the woman gestured me to follow her.

I complied gladly, and the nice woman led me through the dark restaurant into a beautiful hibachi room where approximately thirty happy customers were already enjoying their brief visit to the Land of the Rising Sun. The fires were burning hot at the hibachi stations, and onion towers were spewing smoke like little tasty volcanoes while the cheerful chefs were entertaining the guests with their neat tricks and well-rehearsed jokes. The place was almost full, but one of the tables next to a large tinted window was still dark and waiting for more customers. The only two people sitting at that table were a beautiful young mother and her toddler.

The hostess pointed at an empty seat at the table, and I sat down and said hello to the mother as gentlemanly as I could. She smiled at me and said hi softly, and I knew immediately that she was a wonderful young person. Her eyes were kind and sophisticated, and there was true, God-given intelligence behind them. She had lovely brown hair, and her makeup was subtle but elegant. She was wearing a gray University of Texas T-shirt and a nice pair of white slacks. Her entire demeanor exhaled class and mature sophistication, and she was polite and friendly to the waiter who asked if she wanted more water. She was taking fantastic care of her daughter, too, and the child was extremely well behaved and clearly excited about the mysterious room where fires were burning hot, and carts full of colorful food flew past her little eyes like little delicious choo-choo trains. She listened carefully to the sound of sharp knives cutting tender meat and fresh seafood and gazed curiously at the shiny spatulas clanging loudly in the hands of the skilled
teppanyaki
chefs. The place was like a wonderland for a young child, or a starving man in beat-up Nike pants.

I hoped that the young mother and her daughter would be the only other customers at the table, but, unfortunately, that dream was cruelly dashed when a white Cadillac Escalade and a black Porsche convertible pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. Two women in their late forties—one blonde and one brunette—stepped out of the Escalade, already drunk, and the Porsche spat out a semimuscular man in his early twenties who was smoking a small cigar and sporting a two-day-old beard. I knew already at that moment that they were coming into the restaurant and would sit at our table. That made my face tighten a little, but I gave the boisterous group the benefit of the doubt because I was a nice man.

Sure enough, the loud trio was soon walking imperiously toward our table with the poor Japanese woman in tow, and their brash talk and cheap laughter filled the restaurant as if someone had accidentally let in a flock of hungry, drunken seagulls. The cawing show was on the road, and the women’s expensive, but tasteless, clothes revealed four augmented breasts that were desperately fighting for air and shelter. Their excessive, flashy jewelry looked uncomfortable on their salon-tanned skins, and the makeup on their synthetic faces was bright and gaudy. Their precarious lips were unnatural and crafted by the needle of insecurity and vanity, and it was evident that the inspirational dream of eternal youth that had filled one lucky doctor’s coffers was alive and well.

The young man didn’t look much more original than the women, and it was clear that he wanted to be a criminal, a pimp. He was smiling victoriously because he was proud that he had figured out all by himself how to skip a hard childhood and the horrors of sobering poverty and jump straight into the good life. He had been born with a silver spoon deep in his spoiled ass, but he still believed that he was the uncrowned king of the mean streets. The silly man didn’t seem to understand that fake toughness was not toughness. It was weakness.

As soon as the boisterous group was seated, the blonde started complaining loudly to the waitress about how the butter had been too soft on their previous visit. She said that she didn’t want to come back to the restaurant ever again, but had agreed to change her mind because her son had insisted. The waitress was friendly and apologized sincerely. I took a deep breath.

Then the motley crew ordered a glass of red wine and a mojito each and began complaining some more. There seemed to be something wrong with everything that was brought to them, and when the wine arrived, it didn’t seem to be even remotely up to their standards.

I looked at the young mother with growing aggravation building in my unforgiving heart and noticed that she was clearly getting uneasy. Her daughter was staring at the group, eyes wide open, and probably wondering why the circus had arrived at the restaurant so unexpectedly.

The two women finished their wines with lightning speed and deafening laughter, and ordered a new bottle to share. I thought that was a little surprising because they had just told the waitress that the merlot she had given them was worse than the wine they used for cooking Monday dinners. Then they pulled out their smartphones and started looking at family pictures and commenting on them as if they were the only people in the restaurant.

“Oh, I still have a picture of my stupid-ass ex-husband here,” the blonde said loudly.

“Watch your damn language, girl,” the brunette said and snickered like a schoolgirl.

“Oh, sorry, it’s just that my ex is a dick,” the blonde said and looked at the young mother and me as if she expected us to agree with her choice of words. “He is a doctor, and he thinks that the whole world must wait for his highness to arrive because only his time is important, and the rest of us can just waste a whole day waiting for him.”

Then the young guy felt like he needed to contribute, too, and he said to the blonde, “Sally, you are fucking gorgeous; you can get any man you want, any man. Look at you! Forget Steve already. Screw him and his little bimbo nurses.”

“Screw Steve,” the blonde said proudly and raised the mojito glass high above her head. Then she finished the drink with one giant gulp, leaving her plump lips sticky and shiny.

I looked at the young mother and her beautiful daughter, and I felt really sorry for them. It was as if the dove of peace was sitting at a table with three ugly vultures, blood dripping from their nasty boors’ beaks. The child was sitting quietly on her lap and just looking around innocently. She didn’t understand why world-class nastiness had arrived from the valley of fools and stolen the show.