All knuckles and words
Dull thumps rumbled over and over, a rhythm to a bad song coupled with cruel lyrics. Something snapped within Franco for the umpteenth time, a crack of bone from impact, flaring a shock of pain throughout the adjoining muscle though he paid it no mind. The assault upon his person had become routine now. It had become impossible to mentally keep stock of what was bruised or broken – everything had amalgamated into a melody of pain. Days had blended into nights though his captors were generous enough to hold the beatings to allow some respite in the form of sleep.
A splintered echo formed from its fragments and with a sharp inhalation, Franco came back to the now. A mess of colour took the form of Wilheim, who drew every breath like a broken compressor. He had undressed to the waist, his portly body still shaking with grotesque momentum. His flesh was flushed and wet with exertion and when noticing Franco’s lolling head, Wilheim sneered to himself in delight.
‘Never let it be said that I shy from getting my hands dirty, right, lads?’
Other voices agreed, spectators probably, though mostly incomprehensible to the prisoner.
‘Now I thought this would be therapeutic,’ Wilheim whined, pulling bloodied gloves from his hands. The suede apparel was streaked in blood, Franco’s blood, and plenty of it. ‘Working out the anger as it were. Instead it’s having the opposite effect!’
A sudden lunge rattled Franco’s brain in its housing and the quiet returned once more. Before he could fully succumb to it, thick fingers pressed into his face, shaking it side to side.
‘Come on now, stay with me, stay with me, boy. I don’t want you unconscious yet! That would just be rude! I still have such delights to show you.’
Wilheim took hold of the chair back, dragging it backwards, grinding over concrete. When he had finished, Franco cracked his eyes open. Primarily because he wasn’t able to take in most of his surroundings, Franco had believed himself to be in some sort of disused loading bay, presumed by the size of the building, the dilapidated run of frosted windows and ambiguous machinery. He was correct. Ore and other materials would be taken here to be loaded upon trains, their tracks still present. Trains like the Gambler’s Den would have been used for this purpose, before it had been rebranded.
As Franco raised his head, he stared at the curiously familiar bulk of metal concealed in shadow. Its leviathan frame was distorted, twisted almost but in the gloom, light still painted each contour, every rod and piston, every colossal spoke of the wheels. The realization hit him harder than any of the punches Wilheim had thrown out of spite. There was no mistaking the lines of the train. His train.
The Gambler’s Den lay slumped in the disused railyard, split and broken beyond repair. It was a grim testament to Wilheim’s misdeeds, still peppered with folded notes of admiration stuck to its frame.
‘I never understood your reverence. How the little people adored that spectacle you put on, to this degree even! Look at them all.’ Wilheim skimmed each note in passing with flicks of his fingers. ‘Sentimentality from a society that barely finds the decency to bathe. It wouldn’t be as touching if they knew what kind of person you were. They sadly don’t. But we know don’t we, Franco? Oh, we know. We know the truth of things.’
A venom entered his voice, each sentence snapping at their conclusions. His thunder unnerved the crows perched on iron rafters who squawked in concern, a couple finding this the right moment to take leave into the sky via the derelict roof. ‘You’re not an icon of the people no matter how much you pretend otherwise. You’re no balm to the downtrodden. There is a name for your likeness. You are what the educated call a parasite. You cling upon the weak and drain them for all of their monetary worth, under the guise that you are somehow bettering their lives. They welcome it, which baffles me, blind to the gentleman who hides his true intent with coat-tails and pretty smiles.’
One of the notes was snatched away from the caucus, a mottled fold of yellowed paper, its ink bleached by the sun to a fade.
‘Look at this one. To those who brought the light in darkness, may you find your own. How terribly quaint. How utterly ridiculous.’
Wilheim venomously ripped the note apart, tossing the scraps into the air. Tatters of paper fluttered to the floor; some parts met underfoot. He took another and read it aloud with malice.
‘Ha! The Gambler’s Den was well loved, as were all those within it. Our fondest wish is that you are embraced in the afterlife like you embraced others. We hope you find peace.’
This too was shredded before Franco’s eyes and tossed before him.
‘That’s doubtful seeing as you’re here. It’s all so trite! Foolhardiness. Words from blind chumps who part with their money willingly, to a charlatan who doesn’t even appreciate the hooks he has in these people.’
Powerful hands clenched into fists with overflowing agitation, the occasional vein protruding from his bulbous, bald head. With his face a noticeably brighter shade of crimson Wilheim froze in his tirade, engrossed by one of the notes that flickered open and closed on an infiltrating breeze. When surveying it, his face folded up in anger, repeating its well-written sentiment with none of the affection that its creator, Wyld, intended.
‘Death will not stop the show.’
This was torn up slower, firmer, with thick pinching fingers. With every rip his eyes remained on the prisoner, who told himself that they were only words, only simple, kind words, which don’t cease to exist because another wills it. The stare remained on Franco’s split and battered face. Finally Wilheim leant forward and bared his teeth like a wolf bearing down on its prey.
‘I beg to differ.’
Franco coughed something suspiciously solid into his lap, mustering few words. ‘Damn you for this, Fort.’
‘Not for you, Franco. Not for anyone.’
‘There’s no way in hell you’re going to let me go, is there?’ he groaned.
‘That would ruin the surprise now wouldn’t it?’
Concern followed. ‘And Misu?’
Wilheim pondered this for a moment before replying with a left hook. ‘Nobody gets away from me. Not ever.’
Reality left Franco in the violent manner he had become accustomed to.