Slumming it With Jonny

[Bohemia]

With another sip of his warm flat beer, Jon reached for his crumpled pack of cigarettes. Lighting one of the crooked things with a stubborn match, he pulled in a deep, revitalizing drag and picked up his pencil.


I can't figure out who's dumber; me or the rest of the world.

It used to be a pretty broad line. On one side, everyone would be sitting there with their fifty pound books and their geek-ass glasses, memorizing every line of every play and every novel and every history book, and I'd be on the other side, smoking a joint, drooling and fapping to Mrs. Shlebowickz next door. I kind of miss her. I don't think she understood what underwear was, and she didn't own any pants. Compared to most of the rough, square jawed monsters around here, she was hot as hell. Maybe she sat out there nearly spread eagle on that porch cause she was sick of her husband and wanted someone else to rock her world. Fuck if I know. I'm in a world where trees and birds talk and Gimli the dwarf waddles around town and I still don't know a thing about women.

Now it seems I'm the only one that knows what's what. That's sort of scary really. The line got thinner like an anorexic and the people on the other side can't stop talking about the war. The boogeyman got replaced by the Rangers or the Scarlet Brigade for the monsters that would come and get the children if they misbehaved. I'm the only person that doesn't actually seem to give a damn about this war. Kids eight and nine years younger than me are throwing themselves at the recruitment officers. And I get that all the time. "Why aren't you doing your part?" Because I don't give a fuck. No one ever wants to accept the fact that I just wanna get drunk and high and write. I get dirty looks all the time, and I'm sure I get spit or the chef's special sauce in my food all time. Hell, I'd move to Alerar or Raiaera or something, but you know what? There's probably a war over there, too.

This country doesn't need councils. It needs a big nosed, gray-haired Arkansas boy who plays saxophone, eats greasy burgers and gets blown in office.

But nobody is going to listen to me. My landlord still thinks I'm trying to kill myself and thinks I'm brewing up some illegal drugs in his hut.

I'm down to six cigarettes and one last bottle of wine that tastes too much like vinegar. I need to go find a job.

[Bohemia]

"So you have no intention on running off to the army to serve your country?" A brick sailed through the publisher's office with a loud crash, spraying glass across Mister Inkmore's worn wooden floor and cluttered desk. It missed his hooked nose fractionally and thumped hard into the opposite wall. The only notice the publisher gave that he'd narrowly avoided a stone to the temple was brushing some of the shards off his papers, and pushed his small, round glasses closer to his tired eyes.

"Because the last young man I hired did. I think he got run through with a sword." Blinking, Jon leaned over and craned his neck, staring out the broken window. Down on the street, dozens and dozens and dozens of young men and women in black ran around, dodging manure piles, setting fires with torches on crooked sticks and smashing out more windows. Not a single person knew why the youth were revolting; most of the papers just chalked it up to the stress of war. Children acting up after their mothers or fathers had died in a war they thought was unfair. Some said they were high on some new drug they'd stumbled across in the countryside. It was just a theory though. Since all the soldiers were off fighting in the war, there was no one but the local law enforcement to try and halt the aimless, chaotic revolt, and they weren't doing so hot. Jon stared at the burning, teeming stream of hormone driven anarchy, painted in fire red and silver moonlight for a moment more, then sat back in his chair and stared at the publisher.

"Not a fucking chance." Inkmore let out a sigh of relief and eased back into his wooden chair. Jon picked up one of the folded newspapers off the man's desk. He'd heard of Inkmore Tribunal, of course; he'd applied for a job there at least three times before this attempt. But things hadn't been as serious as it had been now, especially since the publisher had stopped sending reporters out into the battlefield to get run through with glaives, and left that sort of thing to the big dogs of the print media. He'd foolishly tried to expand from local news, hoping to push his way in between the fat cats and the greedy hog at the rich trough that was the civil war. Things hadn't gone so well, considering he was more or less, whether he wanted to admit it or not, only small time. Jon could count all the man's certificates and degrees on one finger.

"What tools do you have for the job?" Keeping his face straight, Jon reached into his sweatshirt's pocket and pulled out a dented tin flask. Inkmore began to stutter, trying to force the words out of lips forming about a hundred angry words at once, and Jon laughed, replacing it and pulling out his creased notebook with the crumbling cover and his two inch stub of a pencil. Inkmore blinked, and as Jon adjusted his rather comically small tie, the publisher reached into a desk drawer and slid a sturdier, hardcover notebook, a handful of pencils, and a wooden sharpener across the desk.

"Oh, and this." He reached back into the drawer and laid a flintlock pisgtol beside the gear. It looked poorly made. Jon was pretty sure it'd blow up in his hand if he tried to fire it. He picked the pistol up, turned it this way and that in his hand - then cocked the hammer, pointed at the broken window, and pulled the trigger. There was a loud clunk noise, but the hammer didn 't fall.

"Gods, are you insane?" Inkmore exclaimed, hands clapped over his ears in fear of the roar of the shot that would never be heard 'round the world. Jon tossed the gun back on the desk and shrugged, grinning crookedly.

"Hey, fucker's broke. Better I found out now than out there." Inkmore drew in a few more gasps of breath, then wiped several beads of sweat off his pale face, nodding and shaking slightly all at the same time. Jon stood up and gathered his new notebook and pencils into his leather messenger bag.

"Besides, I've got a knife. And they're just kids. I'll interview them, compile it all up, and be back in no time." The publisher slumped further in his seat, pulling the gun over to him, poking at the hammer and flashpan, inspecting the muzzle with one squinted eye, as though he thought he had the gunsmithing skill to dianose the problem.

"Yes, yes. Welcome to Inkmore Publishing. Now get to work, Mister King."

[Bohemia]

As it turns out, I was wrong. Big surprise. Maybe its something they started putting in the water. Maybe its a bad batch of medicine some doctors gave out for puberty sniffles. Maybe thehy found a treasure of some seriously killer mushrooms. Fuck if I know why, but I know these kids have gotta be on something. I'm definitely not interviewing them, partly because they're psychopathic, and partly because they're just plain creepy. Their eyes are pure white. Yeah, like no fucking pupil or anything, just white, like they're glazed over like a corpse thats been laying out too long. The hell is this, Bodysnatchers? Are they worshipping some vague demon that Walks Behind the Rows? Or, shit, is it just the good old Romero virus? I don't think they're zombies. Tney smell, but in a way that a sweaty awkward teenager smells. They don't stink putrid.

So, I'm not going to stick them with one of my knives, but if they fuck with me again, I may rethink that. After I left Inkmore's building I walked right up to a group of them with pencil in hand like the good little reporter that I am. And one of them whipped around with a howl and broke my nose. Son of a bitch, its not bleeding anymore, but that's the last time its breaking without returning to its usual perfect Adonis shape. I'll just tell the tavern skanks I'm on leave from the military and that's how I broke it. Bitches love the rugged look. Anyway, it wasn't bad enough that they chased me with nail boards and claw hammers and shit, they lit my hair on fire. That's the third time in three months that my scalp has been ablaze, and the first time I didn't do it myself with a bedtime cigarette.

Listen. If I die here and you find this notebook -and judging from the population around here, you'll either be a pig farmer, a descendant of some great knight, or a hot lady adventurer with brass balls - do not judge me. Kids get bedtime milk and bedtime stories. I give myself a bedtime cigarette. The nicotine calms me, ok? Besides, its not like I'm the only person to ever light himself on fire. Richard Pryor burned himself up in bed and he's famous. Wait, wait, you're not gonna know who that is. Ok, back where I came from, Richard Pryor was one of the funniest men to ever live, and when paired with Gene Willy Wilder Wonka, the jewish owner of one of the greatest chocolate factories in the world, they merged and became basically the comedy Thayne. Richard Pryor was so funny they made him king of Africa, which was this big continent shaped like a horse's head. He rode around in a limo that transformed intol a big robot. That limo robot didn't have a name then, but when he got his promotion he became Optimus Prime. That's right. Optimus Prime. But, Richard Pryor lit himself on fire in bed smoking out of a pipe that talked to him. So if the king of Africa can light himself on fire and remained beloved by the people of the world, I think Jon King can lit himself up with his bedtime cigarette once in a while and be forgiven. Also if I am dead and you are a sexy lady adventurer reading this, take your tits out now so I can see them with my ghost eyes. I mean, give me a break here, I'm a damned ghost now.

I really hope those kids don't get in here and string me up like a scarecrow in some field and sacrifice me to a corn demon. That would just be pickles on parade.

Jon looked up at the door from his position, sprawled on the shop floor. He'd made it to the door just in time to throw the iron bar across. The psychos had pounded on it for about an hour, but had stopped about halfway through his journal entry. His bad luck had struck again; they couldn't have chased him into some blacksmith shop, or an armory, could they? The sweet, yet stomach turning stench of rotting fruits, vegetables, and meat permeated every inch of the store. The first few minutes inside, he'd wanted to throw up, but like all bad smells in enclosed spaces, after breathing the air for a while, the stink faded into the background. He'd poked around the shelves and trays for a little bit, but couldn't even find a single apple to put in his stomach. He was guessing the grocer had gone off to war and given the shop keys to a friend that had been too frightened to visit when the kids began rioting.

Jon lit himself a cigarette with a flimsy match, briefly illuminating the spoiled tomatoes beside him. He had three left. Maybe if he could dodge the kids long enough, he could do a little looting of his own. Taking a deep pull of it, he reached for his flask, looked up - and choked back a shocked cry. Dozens of emotionless, cold white eyes stared at him from the outside, through the grocer's window. The kids weren't moving, all silhouetted in flickering torchlight from their friend's behind them, running wild in the street. He gave his audience the finger, but felt disappointed at the lack of satisfaction it gave him, and chose to substitute it with a long drink of his flask.

After the cigarette, Jon laid down on the hardwood floor of the shop and struggled down into sleep with the white-eyed human monsters watching.