Part 2

I was relatively content with myself at this point. I'd dragged the haphazard bystander straight into the storm and they seemed to be standing tall. Hesitation was something we were all raised to have when it came to thing that might have challenged us - no matter how fun they might have looked. The grass may have been greener on the other side of the fence, but it might have been a jungle too. This had been the lesson an I had decided, early on, that it was absolute trash. So what if it was a jungle? Was that any reason not to strip naked and run through it? Sure there were beasts and monsters that lurked around ever corner and under every rock...but how was that different from anywhere else in the world?

Even I was considered a ruthless monster, some Frankenstein creation - to many. I had a mouth that never quit and words that carried the force of a cruise missile. I'd heard many social claims that I was dangerous, an I never argued against a one of them. Anything that challenged you should be dangerous. Beliefs, be they moral or on matters of safety, were not things to take lightly. If you were presented with something concrete enough to stop them, it should have been something taken seriously. It's always been my experience people don't take something seriously unless it's got an alluring sense of danger.

The girl seemed to be genuinely enjoying the moment - even if it was probably because she was too drunk to really understand that she was standing in the eye of the storm. She was preoccupied with laughing and cheering at the dancers on display, just like everyone else. She'd risen to the challenge of provocation and was standing quite tall in spite of herself. It was a proud moment to observe, but I was in no gloating mood.

Something in the room, maybe the whole world, had shifted. Despite the atmosphere of revelry and merriment something was pulling at the hairs on the back of my neck. I had the impending sense that lightening was about to strike the field we were all standing in and there wasn't a damn person in the room with the training to handle a real, raging, brush fire.

I remember looking back over my shoulder in a hiccup of panic. My throat almost felt tight and, for a moment, I was choking on the air in the room. The whole demeanor had changed. Everyone seemed tense and the energy of the room felt thick enough to choke out the most hardened of wildlife. I shifted in my seat and pushed to my feet, promising the fledgling life liver that I would be right back. I knew, full well, it was a lie at the time I said it, but I had to get to the bottom of this new mess and quickly. Now was not the time to be idle.

Winds of war swept across the room like it was a forgotten battlefield and nobody had told the soldiers that the war was over. I moved through the crowd carefully. I was clutching onto my drink as if it were some kind of shield, something to protect from the unknown enemy I felt lurking just out of sight. It was a good thing too because, just as I let my focus shift, I felt someones shoulder bump me, rather hard, and lurched to the side. It was a miracle the whole damn thing didn't crash to the floor. Broken glass is not the kind of thing that anyone wants underfoot at a party.

Finding a spot at the bar, some place I had hoped would be more of a safe haven than an Alamo, I settled myself back down and let my eyes wander again. I wasn't the only one who seemed to have got the feeling. Those clinging vestiges of fun, had by those who were sober enough to understand that something truly wicked was brewing, had already begun to crowd in around me. It felt claustrophobic. I felt like the one Cow who knew the car was going to the slaughterhouse, while the rest of the retarded Bovines were content to yap away like an excited dog who didn't know this ride in the car was going to cost him his testicles.

It was then that I heard it. That gruff, slurred, tone that only could have come from a man who was drunk on far more than cheap beer at discount prices. "What the fuck is all this shit?" At least I was pretty sure he said shit, the Northern accent can be complicated when you combine it with beer. It's like someone from the south had all their teeth smashed out and tried talking around a mouthful of cheese. My eyes spun around quickly to take sight of just who owned the phrase and what I saw didn't surprise me at all.

He was a big, surly, cur, with eyes that couldn't have seemed to focus on much at all. His beard, which looked about as a well kept as a mangy junkyard dog, seemed to have bits of food - or possibly vomit - clinging to it. His flannel jacket, even from my distance, stunk of diesel fuel and pine and his boots were scuffed in a way that said they saw constant abuse. He was a real hard worker, someone I normally would have had no problem seeing at a bar, and probably would have bought a drink.

"It's a floor show." I called back over my shoulder, pushing to my feet. There was a moment where my mind seemed to default back to its safety training then. He was nearly a full foot taller than me, and I stand at almost six feet. There are very few people in the world who have the ability to loom over me, but this guy certainly did. "Sit down, have a drink, it's Mardi Gras." It was my only thought, something to bottle up what I knew was about to happen and give the innocents a few precious seconds to get out of the way.

"Bucha goddamned faggots in here." He slurred, shifting his eyes in my direction for a moment. The problem with the atmosphere in Maine was that it rarely lent itself to forward thinking. Homosexuals were still godless bastard to be blamed for all the worlds problems, rock music was still the devil, and the measure of every man was how hard he worked. Even beating your dog wasn't entirely frowned on by most up here and if you hit your wife? It was generally assumed she had it coming. I'd tried to tell myself, for years, it was getting better and every time I stood at the door of change, someone like this would always walk in and blow the whole theory to smithereens.

"Don't worry about them.." I encouraged for a moment. "They're harmless and you're hardly their type." I was already frantically waving a hand behind my back for the bartender. Whatever they were going to feed this drunk baboon needed to be more water than wine, but he was going to need something in his hands quickly. The situation was getting tense and the waves were already rolling in, if this guy didn't get something in his hands soon they were very likely to start swinging. "C'mon." I rolled my head back over my shoulder. "Let me buy you a drink."

He eyed me for a moment and I, all at once, became aware of the folly of my offer. He was already aware he was in a room full of men who made his loins as uncomfortable as they might be if someone had jammed thistle into his urethra. I wasn't helping this situation by seeming accepting and offering to buy him a drink. The homophobic mind has an impressive ability, when presented with it's object of terror, to see any gesture given by a man as an insult to the purity of its owner. I held my hands up in protest. "Wait." I commanded in a tone that was more a firm snap - the kind you might give a disobedient dog - than a request.

Quickly I turned back to the bartender and snatched him by the arm. "Whiskey." I said, with a sense of urgency to my voice. "I need three shots of whiskey, and I need them five minutes ago."

"We can't give that guy whiskey!" He replied. It was a sensible position, but I was in no mood to hear the argument.

"They're not for him." This was very true. After another skeptical moment, the shots were laid out in front of me. There had been few moments in my life when I'd been more grateful to see those crystal glasses filled with honey colored gold. I knew I was going to need a serious kick if I was going to get out of this whole mess unscathed. Knocking back the first shot, I turned around to the man and held up the other two.


He was scowling at me, his arms folded over his chest, his lower lip caught in the bear trap of snarling teeth. I debated, sticking to the original plan for a minute. I gave the guy a look, and raised the glasses. "If you're going to kick my ass all the way back home, you're going to have to do it while I'm drunk." I kicked back the shots without hesitation. It was a last ditch attempt to show this bear that I meant business.

After all, I was attempting to be the Wolverine. Wolverines were the ferocious beasts who backed down from nothing. They feasted on bones to get them through the winter and they'd charge a rabid bear if it meant getting what they needed to survive. I, and everyone other than the bear, needed this to get through the New England winter. I stared at him for a moment, fully expecting the fists to start flying. I was ready to gnaw his knuckles to stubs and not give him an inch to work with too.

Fear wasn't something you could give these beasts, it simply drove them further into a rage, if only because they thought you'd be an easy meal. You had to stand tall to them and really make them believe, if they tangled with you, there was a very good chance they would lose an eye. Sure, I'd never considered myself a violent man - but there was absolutely no reason I could think of that he even need to have that thought cross his mind. He needed to think of me just as I was: a vile tempered, vicious, snarling, beast that stood between him and the object of his discomfort.

"...You a Faggot?" He spat. The hesitation was a good sign, made me think I'd made some headway towards getting this bomb out of the room before someone got hurt.

"Nope." I replied flatly. "I love fucking women just as much as the next, perfectly straight guy. Not that it would really matter - they still wouldn't give me a stake to burn on." I doubted the reference would fall on proper ears, but I'd committed to the fight. "I'm just your average, whiskey drinking man." I continued, in hopes we might have been able to find some kind of passive solution. "I smoke cigarettes, hate trucks, and think women have a right to drag me into the bedroom anytime they want." I shrugged. "I'm a lover, not a fighter.."

I let my voice trail off to see just how he'd respond to that one. Maybe if he could see me as another guy who could appreciate some boring, vanilla, sex in the dark, he might be willing to just sit down instead of start swinging. "So yer one of them jobless punk hippies." His sneer only doubled as he spoke. I blinked at him.

"Punks and hippies are the same thing." I replied smugly. "Only difference is what they wear and how much meat they eat." I tugged on my jacket with a sense of pride and straightened myself out. So far, I'd been lucky. He hadn't thrown a punch and nobody else had stepped into the scene. I was only hoping everyone had as much confidence as I was faking, and that they thought I could talk this situation away too. At the same time I realized it was more likely that everyone knew what was coming and nobody else really felt like stepping in front of the bus. "But yeah, I'm one of those."

It was like I always said: There were all kinds of things that lived in the Ocean. There was a reason the old world had been littered with tales of Kraken and Sirens. There was always something out there, lingering just out of sight, waiting to crash your boat and swallow all your dreams. I wasn't about to let it happen, not this time. It would have undermined everything I was setting out to do. If that meant I had to go down in a fray of blood and whiskey? Well, that was what it meant. I was ready to stand up to it. I was ready to get split clean down the middle. I was ready to give just as hard as I got and make sure everyone involved left with stitches and one hell of a story.

"I hate punk, faggot, hippies." As if him telling me that as a fact wasn't something he'd already communicated.

"Is there anything you don't hate - aside from your wife, your truck, your guns, and raw meat?" I asked him plainly. "Those are fantastic things for a man to love, don't get me wrong, I'm just curious."

"Kickin' smartasses in the teeth..." The response had been predictable, but before I even had another turn at bat, someone else was already stepping up and swinging. I should have seen it coming, but I'd been content with the idea it would have been a classic duel, rather than a full blown fray. However, when a drunk man overhears something that he perceives, and rightly so, a very real threat to someone who he doesn't passionately dislike? Nobody can fault him for the defensive response.

The punch came from a skinny, post-armed forces, guy deceptively sporting a lei and beads. He wasn't the kind of guy I'd taken for a scrapper, even given his experience at volunteering for conflict and shooting at people. Unfortunately, scrapper or no, the big monkey hardly even seemed to notice that he'd been hit. It was an absolute horror show, what happened next.

Nobody could have blamed the brute for trying to defend his sinking ship. He was drunk and stupid, not exactly the kind of guy you'd expect to think that maybe picking a fight in here wasn't the best idea. I tried to tell myself that maybe he just didn't care? That would have been easier to respect. At least, in that case, he had his principles and was prepared to go down fighting for them. I stood back for a moment, deciding to give the fight some pretense of honor and let the two warriors battle it out alone. The bar was already scrambling to get out of the way while the Bartenders shouted to try and keep things from escalating any further.

When the second punch came back though? That was it. It collided with the skinny guy like a wrecking ball and sent him crashing back into the bar, spilling a container of beads and several peoples drinks. Now, if you've ever been in a bar full of drunks - even drag queens and people just looking to have a good time - you know there is one absolute rule about fighting: Everyone is content to ignore it until drinks get spilled. When they do? All bets are off and it's everyman for himself.

Now was not the time to stand idle. I reached for the nearest person to me and gripped them tightly by the shoulder. "Listen to me!" I shouted, giving him a firm shake. "This is going to get ugly fast. Get the women and children out of here and -." I looked back over my shoulder to see just how bad it was going to get. "- God help you son. Oh..and look for a small thing near the front...she'll need you.."

With hardly another word I was tossing my jacket on the floor and moving forward, fists first. Battle lines had been drawn in my delay and, now, people who'd been content to be pacifists were lining up to get their guns. Even some of those who'd been here for hours were stepping to defend the mountain man, but that made sense. Six on one wasn't a fair fight, and if you didn't know the details it only made sense to take the underdog's corner.

I think what surprised me most, aside from how stable the bearded guy was on his feet, was that the Queens were getting involved in it too. It really should have made sense, but I couldn't quite grasp the whole equation of trying to bottle up testosterone and shoving it in heels - not when I was trying to not get my jaw broken.

People were pushing and shoving, punching and shouting like mad. It was a crazy scene, and there seemed to be no rules for honorable engagement. There was hair pulling, biting, clawing, punching, shoving, and shouting. It was like someone had loosed all the animals from the zoo after slipping them a heavy dose of acid. I grabbed the larger man nearest to me and pulled him away from the door. I couldn't let him block the exits, people were trying to get out of her. Giving him a tough shove back against the nearby wall, I smiled cheerfully. "Fun?"

The punch that followed was not fun - nor did it indicate any desire to have fun at all. It caught me square in the stomach and sent me into wretch of bile. Fortunately, for everyone, I have a good constitution and was able to restrain the ability to vomit with a few, well placed, backwards steps. The guy wasn't content to lose his advantage and kept coming right along with me though. Covering my head with one arm, I began reaching blindly behind me. It took me a few minutes, but I found what I was looking for before too many more punches cracked against me.

Reaching my hand forward, the water tap in hand, I gave it a firm blast in his direction. "Back! BACK!" I bellowed, pushing at him with my feet as he attempted to recoil in surprise. "We've no place for you here! Back in your cage!" I stomped my foot and pressed my advance as far as the hose would allow. When I felt it go taunt? I dropped it from my grasp and rushed at him, using momentum to carry him right out the door and land him on his ass. "And stay out!" I shouted, turning around to see what was left.

Bar fights, generally, are blessedly short things. Either those who start them are beaten senseless and run away quickly, or the cops show up and mace the hell out of everyone. Luckily, tonight, it looked like we were going to avoid pepper spray and handcuffs. Still, the scene was messy at best. Half the bar had cleared out - which was good, and everyone who wasn't somehow invested in the fight seemed to been amongst the refugees. I gave a quick look around for the short little mouse. When I didn't see her? I smiled. At least she'd left with a story to tell.

I shifted slightly when I felt a weight on my shoulder. "You okay?" The gentle voice asked with a genuine sense of concern haunting its tones. I turned to see a very diminutive man - at least I think it was man - looking over me with a soft, nurturing, smile that even the most devout of Nuns would have been hard pressed to pull off.

"I'm fine, nothing serious. Just some bruises for the morning." It's hard to keep track of who, and what, is going on in these situations until it's all over. Half the time you don't even know you've been beaten so badly you're bleeding until someone stops to point it out to you. I knew that look as soon as it'd been given, those blue eyes narrowing in on a space just around the edges of my mouth. I reached for it and felt the sticky heat of blood on my lips. I sighed and wiped my fingers on my pants and pushed up to the bar.

Everyone around me was icing their wounds and dabbing at the stains with water and napkins. There were wigs and fake nails all over the place. Everyone had someone standing by their side making sure the welts and cuts weren't anything serious. It was like the Drag Queens were all performing Triage on the soldiers - some of which were their own - who'd gone to war to see them defended. Those not cleaning the wounds of the humans? They were busy sweeping up ice and broken glass, making sure nobody got further hurt.

"You okay?" The voice asked again. I still wasn't sure which of the genders it belonged to, but it didn't really matter. It sounded grateful. "Is there anything I can get you?"

I turned to face him. I only had one thing on my mind, one thing I could say. Everyone else wanted ice, water, something to make their outsides feel better. Me? My outsides felt fine, hell, they felt great. I'd stood tall and proud during a dark moment, and I'd come out on top. I'd done exactly what it was I'd set out to do. I defended the idea of dreaming as hard as you live and I'd gone to war for it. I was in no mood for somber tending. I was in the mood for one thing and one thing only.

"A shot of Whiskey. I'm in the mood to celebrate."