}}}Carey. 1982. Los Angeles, California. Chinatown.}}}}}}}}}
The Empty One and I just stared at each other very, very awkwardly for the first few minutes. I guess he’d spoken his piece, and I just couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I felt like if I talked I might break whatever spell we had going here and he’d come after me. I wasn’t in any shape to run yet. So I kept my big mouth shut. For about as long as I could manage that, anyway, which turned out not to be long.
“What?” I said. “You waiting for me to beg? You should do some stretches before you go fuck yourself. Make sure you don’t pull something.”
“Me?” The Empty One laughed. “Nah, I’m just not sure what to do in this situation. I’ve never saved a gweilo as ugly as you before. Do I throw you back, or keep you?”
Holy shit, what? An Empty One with a sense of humor?
“You’re not gonna kill me?” I asked it.
“If I wanted you dead, I would’ve let those dudes back there do it.” He smiled and it was almost halfway convincing.
“So, what, you’re gonna hollow me out and make me one of your groupies? I’d prefer the killing, if it’s all the same to you.”
He blinked a few times. His mouth twitched and the smile broke. His face went slack and his voice fell flat.
“You know what I am,” he said.
I couldn’t tell if it was a question or not.
“Yeah, are you … do you not know who I am?” I asked.
“I do not. Should I.”
Okay, that was supposed to be a question.
“You’re fuckin’ A right, you should! I’m Carey. I’ve taken down more of you bastards than I can count. I’m like the Lex Luthor to your Superman. Wait, no—the other way around. You assholes are Luthor. I’m Superman.”
“If you fight the other Empty Ones and their spawn, then you and I are on the same side,” it said.
Is it fucking with me? What could its game possibly be? Maybe it’s hoping that I’ll lead it back to my base or something, so it can kill all my friends and allies in one fell swoop. If so, joke’s on it. I don’t have any.
“If you didn’t know who I was, why did you save me?” I asked.
“I did not,” it answered. “I just killed the spawn attacking you.”
The spawn?
“Holy crap,” I said, and slapped myself in the head. “Those guys were Unnoticeables.”
“You did not know.”
“Well, no. Normally I can spot the blurry-face shtick from a mile away. But I just figured those guys were Chinese. You all look alike to me, anyway.”
“Wow, man,” the Empty One said, adopting human mannerisms. “That’s like, super duper extra racist.”
I laughed.
“An Empty One that can get offended? I’m not buying it.”
His human mask fell away again.
“That was the correct response to your provocation. Was it not.”
“Yeah, it was. You got me there. So…” I looked around the square, still empty, still pissing fat streams of rain. “What now?”
“I just saved your ass,” the Empty One said, back to feigning humanity. “I think you owe me a beer.”
It held out its hand to me, and like a jackass, I took it. It pulled me to my feet and started to walk away. I followed. I was starting to get my wind back a little bit, but I decided to hang back some anyway. I played up a limp and hugged my chest, like I was still in bad shape. If this fucker turned on me, I’d need all the surprise I could get. It turned around and saw me hobbling slowly after it. It walked back toward me and grabbed my hand. I tensed up, ready to fight or flee or at least spit in the bastard’s eye before he tore me apart. Instead it heaved my arm around its shoulders and took my weight off my “bad” leg.
It’s fucking helping me.
Everything has gone insane.
* * *
The Empty One said its name was Zang. It took me to a dark little hole of a bar behind a Chinese restaurant a few blocks down. It said something to the bartender in their weird language, and they both laughed at me. The bartender ducked down and pulled out a few cans of Old Milwaukee from somewhere below the bar. He cracked them open—one with each hand—and spun them around to face us. Then he retreated to a shaky metal stool and resumed watching his tiny TV set, hidden beneath the cash register.
The whole place seemed to be carved out of one solid block of wood—all the same deep brown color; over-varnished and heavily abused. A small rough-hewn bar made out of a single scratched slab. Wooden stools with faded and split red leather, secured by brass rivets. Wood paneling on every wall, holding up a couple of liquor posters, a Chinese calendar, and a dart board that in no way left enough standing room to actually play the game. The whole place smelled like fried pork and spices. Wafting through the speakers, so faint you almost couldn’t hear it, wailing, twangy foreign music plinked away. Above that, the canned laugh track of whatever the bartender was watching, and angry ranting from behind a swinging door that led to the kitchen.
I took a deep swig from my can. However not my style this place might be, they had the only two things that mattered: cheap beer and a working refrigerator. Oh, god damn. Beer. The first tangy slap on the tongue, followed by the carbonated bite, then the soothing cold of the liquid running down your throat, coating your belly in its beautiful, healing beerness.
Being a bum has some disadvantages. Chief amongst them that you never have any money, so when you do, you gotta prioritize your drunk. Beer isn’t actually that effective. You have to go for the fortified wine, or the rotgut, if you want to sustain an economically feasible blitz. That had been my life for a while. But beer was always my favorite. I hadn’t had a cold one in weeks. Months maybe. I just couldn’t justify paying the money.
Speaking of …
“There’s no way I can pay for this,” I told Zang.
“I figured,” he said. “I’ve got a deal with the bartender.”
“I don’t even know where to start with you. Whatever the hell you are,” I said.
He laughed. It was easy and natural, but he carried it on too long and cut it off too abruptly. None of the wind-down of a human laugh.
“What’s to say?” He sipped from his own can. He savored it, eyes closed, head tilted back, even shivered a little at the end. He looked like he was really enjoying it, until I recognized something in the mannerisms.
They were mine. Exactly what I had done, just a few seconds ago.
“If you’ve got a free beer deal worked out in this place, you can start from the very beginning,” I said.
“All right,” he said, atonally. “I will tell you a story.”