Forever After

Part One

1

In the darkest corner of the dimmest bar in the dankest town, a man sat in silent rage; his only company a half-filled tumbler of whiskey and a lifetime of regrets.

He mumbled under his breath, pure hatred spilled out of his lips and seethed into hollow grey. He spat and he cursed and he grunted. He stomped his tattered trainers on the sticky floor. He shook his head in bitter insolence. He slammed his fist onto the table.

On the other side of the musty room, beyond a fetid assortment of stools, chairs and odours, an apprehensive bartender watched the actions of this deluded man out of the corner of an ever vigilant eye. He could see the man was hurting, he could see he had a story that he probably needed, and certainly wanted, to impart, but he didn’t want to hear any of it. He wanted the angry man to drink up and piss off so he could shut up shop without any confrontation, putting pay to a long day.

The drunk staggered to his feet; the bartender sighed inwardly. He stumbled forward like a man who has only just learned to walk, his gait unstable, his feet kicking through treacle. He crashed into the bar and used it for support, flopping his pliant torso over a surface that the bartender had been polishing for an hour.

“You married?” the drunken man chewed up his words and spat them out over the bar. Fresh spots of spittle glistened on the polished wood.

The bartender offered him a brief glance and an uncommitted shake of his weary head.

“Best way to be,” the drunk slurred, flopping an arm onto the bar. “Wish I was never married,” he said reflectively.

He tried to rest his head on his hand and after a few slips and a close call with the hardwood surface, he finally found flesh. He stared longingly over the bar. The bartender focused his concentration on cleaning a glass in his hand.

“Name’s Neil,” the drunk propped up his other arm and offered his hand to the bartender, it wasn’t taken. He retracted the gesture but retained his stare: “Want to hear a story?”

The bartender didn’t acknowledge the inebriate presently drooling droplets of whiskey soaked saliva onto the sticky varnish.

“Not the talking type huh?”

The bartender replied without making eye contact, “It's been a long day mate and you’re very drunk, why don’t you finish up and head home?”

Neil retreated. He threw his hands forcefully onto the bar, bruising his palms.

“My money not good enough for you?” he yelled. A deluge of alcoholic odour ejected from his mouth.

The bartender didn’t respond. He didn’t even wipe away the stray spittle on his cheek. His eyes remained fixed on the pint glass in his hand, a glass that was in danger of turning back into sand if he cleaned it any further.

Neil looked ready for action; the anger had boiled up inside of him. He glared at the unresponsive bartender and thrust his finger angrily over the bar, threatening an abusive lecture. Then he paused, halted and instantly cooled down.

“F*ck this!” he spat in exasperation, deciding there was no fun in arguing with a human wall. “I’m going for a piss.”

He took his glass of whiskey with him as he mumbled and stumbled his way to an ammonia drenched bathroom.

At the urinal, still cursing under his breath, he used his right hand to drink whilst his left aided with the task of urination. Dipping his nose into the glass he savoured the smell of the alcohol and eliminated the stench of stale piss and shit that was fermenting in the room beyond the calm amber liquid.

With his attention fully on his drink and his mind on other things, Neil’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest when, from his periphery, he saw a young hooded man standing next to him. He felt his body jump inwardly as his organs tried to leave his skin.

He turned to face the newcomer with an erratic fluttering in his chest. “Where the f*ck did you come from?” he blurted.

The man in the next urinal answered in a mechanical voice without lifting his head. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Neil felt his heart settle down. His tensed muscles relaxed.

“You didn’t,” he assured, not wanting to expose his previous panic.

“Can you stop pissing on my shoes then?”

“Shit,” Neil snapped, steering the offending arc of urine away from the young man’s trainers and aiming it back towards the urinal. “F*cking...shit,” he said, laughing slightly “you should have, I mean -- f*ck,” he chuckled.

“Apology accepted.”

Neil urinated with a smile plastered on his face. He finished in a hurry -- too bored and careless to wait for the final drops to release, happy with them soaking into his pants. “So, you live around here?” He turned to the next urinal but the strange man with the wet trousers had disappeared.

Neil shrugged to himself, wiped his hands on his trousers and headed back out into the bar. Spying the man whose shoes he soiled at the far end of the room he sauntered over, shooting a look of disdain at the indifferent bartender on the way.

The back of the room was lit only by a small bubbling fluorescent, positioned above a tacky, dusty and generic landscape painting on the wall. The man was reading -- the title of the book was short and pointlessly generic enough to indicate a mass-market thriller.

Neil sat down opposite the reader, plonking his weight down heavily, audibly sighing and grunting as his backside crushed against the thinly padded bench.

The man didn’t look up; the bartender clearly wasn’t the only person intent on ignoring Neil.

Neil coughed to clear a glob of dehydrated mucus from his scorched throat, and then, in a scratchy tone, asked: “You not drinking?”

The reader casually turned a page in his book before replying: “No.”

Neil stared into his averted eyes. His intuition had drowned in a sea of alcohol, but enough of it remained to warn him against close contact with the man. There was something strange about him, something off. He didn’t seem the aggressive sort, he didn’t look like he possessed any anger at all, but there was something behind those impassive eyes. Or maybe it was the fact there seemed to be nothing behind those eyes that fired so many warning signs in Neil’s mind.

“Go on,” Neil pushed, ignoring his intuition and finding that the sparse warnings capitulated against the remotest sense of resistance. “It’s on me, what you having?” he looked towards the bar, ready to shout an order.

“No thank you.”

“You sure?” he persisted, still trying to catch the attention of the bartender who had now moved onto cleaning a spotless shot glass.

“No.”

“Whiskey? You want some Whiskey?”

Still the reader refused to glance at the alcohol drenched face peering expectantly at him. “No thank you,” he said placidly, turning another page -- the sound of the folding paper audible in the relative silence.

Neil drew his attention from the bar, deflated. Out of eyeshot a relieved bartender continued to clean a pre-polished glass. He took another sip of his whiskey, disappointed to see that the sloshing liquid was nearing the bottom of the glass.

“So, where did you come from?” he quizzed. “I didn’t see you here before.”

The reader turned another page and didn’t utter a word.

“You married?” Neil continued, undeterred. “I bet you’re not, you look too smart for that.” He bent forward; his right eyebrow creased downwards, the corner of his mouth twisted distastefully. “Marriage is for suckers right?” he said in a gravelly pitch.

“If you say so,” came the placid reply.

Neil nodded and leant back on the seat. “I’m married,” he stated.

“Makes sense.”

“Ten years,” Neil continued, not registering the comment.

“That’s a long time,” the reader said, turning another page.

Neil nodded to himself, staring reflectively into the middle distance. “Most of it bad,” he explained. His face twisted in disgust, “And now she’s f*cking my best friend. Doesn’t that just make you sick?” he inquired. “I’m Neil by the way,” he offered his hand over the table, a pleasant look on his sweaty face.

The reader looked over his book for the first time. His eyes stared blankly at the extended hand before dipping back to the pages of the paperback. “I’d rather not.”

Neil withdrew his hand and shrugged his shoulders. “Not the touchy-feely type huh? My wife was like that. F*cking bitch.” He spat venomously. “But she’ll get what she deserves.”

He reached inside his jacket and fiddled around inside, his fingers prodding and probing. When his hand re-emerged it was grasping a small handgun. He turned the weapon this way and that. His chunky, sweaty fingers toyed with the sturdy weapon.

The reader looked up, acknowledged the weapon and then returned his attention to the book. Unimpressed.

“Three hundred quid this cost me,” Neil said, his inebriated eyes gleaming as they drank in the sight of the gun. “It’s worth every penny. You know what I’m going to do with it?”

“I have an inkling.”

Neil nodded sternly. “They’re both at it now. My wife and my friend; f*cking like dogs just a few doors from here. I’m going to give them what they deserve. I don’t give a f*ck about going to jail, it’ll be worth it.”

He drank the remains of his whiskey and slammed the empty glass down angrily on the table. A drop of amber splashed the side of the glass and began a depressing descent to the bottom.

“I just need a bit of Dutch courage,” he grunted as the harsh whiskey rolled down his throat.

The reader slowly nodded.

“You not scared?” Neil quizzed, flashing the gun in front of him, making sure he had noticed it.

“Not really.”

“It's fully loaded. Six shots. This is a real gun you know.”

“I noticed that.”

Neil stared at the unimpressed man, trying to catch a sense of fear or anxiety hidden behind those dead eyes. He looked hard, studying the lifeless orbs, but found nothing. If he was hiding any fear he was hiding it well.

“F*cking weirdo,” he spat.

He climbed lazily to his feet and steadied himself on the table after his legs threatened to give way. He stuffed the gun into his jacket, shot one final look at the side of the bartender’s head and then disappeared out of the pub.

When the doors of the pub slammed shut in the drunkard's wake; after the bartender breathed a huge sigh of relief, muttered a thankful curse under his breath and allowed his mind to prepare for sleep, the only customer remaining in the bar calmly closed his book, deposited it into his pocket and walked towards the exit.

Neil staggered down the street, spitting distasteful comments as his mind whirled with madness. He paused under the hazy glow of a streetlight -- looking like a Dickensian villain in the ethereal halo -- to paint the pavement with a glob of sticky saliva, before continuing on to his destination.

Through the front window of one of the terraced houses he watched two silhouettes dancing together in the cosy radiance of a dozen candles, their naked forms entwined in the flickering warmth.

“F*cking bastards,” he spat. “Bastards!” his shout was loud enough to twitch a few curtains in the street, but the lovers dancing in the orange glow didn’t flinch.

Shaking with anger, Neil kicked open the gate to the property and stormed to the doorway. Behind him, unseen in the shadows, the reader with the apathetic eyes watched as Neil dropped a shoulder and charged the door, snapping it free from a flimsy lock and stumbling onwards into the warm house.

A scream from the house echoed into the street. Curtains twitched; lights snapped on like lines of luminous dominoes; fingers hovered over final digits on multiple phones. The stranger in the shadows calmly walked forwards.

The screaming woman dragged her voice back to her throat, gathered her senses and glared at the intruder. “Neil!” she pulled away from the tight embrace of her naked lover, clawing his reluctant hands away from her exposed breasts.

The disappointed naked man didn’t seem as startled by the intrusion. “What the f*ck are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes on Neil, his hands still trying to instinctively grasp the flesh next to him. “It’s not what it--”

“Don’t even try to lie to me,” Neil interrupted, his voice sharper in the moment, the slur of inebriation overpowered by adrenaline.

He raised the gun, pointing the trembling barrel at his wife and his best friend, giving them an equal share. “I know what you’ve been up to. I’ve always known. I’m going to give you both what you deserve.”

His wife moved forward, shoving a stray hand away from her thigh. “Neil, don’t do this. Calm down. There’s no need--”

“Don’t you f*cking tell me to calm down bitch!” Neil’s finger grasped tighter on the trigger as the anger coursed through his veins. “Ten years we’ve been married!” he yelled, waving the gun around like he was conducting an orchestra. “Ten f*cking years!” he turned his disappointment towards his former best friend. “How can you do this to me?”

“Look mate--”

“No!” Neil snapped, the gun now madly rolling around his palm, the barrel threatening everyone and everything in the room. “I’m not your f*cking mate, not anymore. We’ve been best friends since junior school, we’ve known each other most of our lives. I’ve never done any wrong by you. I’ve never stepped out of line. I’ve never even looked at any of your girlfriends,” Neil was emphasising his comments by pointing to himself, forgetting he was holding a gun. His potential victims wondered if this was their chance to rush him, to tackle him to the ground, to save themselves from a possible execution and a certain lecture. There was no need.

Neil began to relate a story of how he had forgiven his friend for breaking his Action Man, when he squeezed the trigger. The resulting blast shook the small room to its foundations. In the street everyone was now awake and alert.

The rattling resonance of blasted gunpowder and the stench of blood, defecation and cordite was still in the air when Neil came to his senses. He found himself looking at his own bloodied body; his hand still cradling a smoking gun, his temples tapped with entry and exit wounds.

“What was that?” he asked calmly.

“Looks like you shot yourself.”

He looked up to see the silent man, the man who had been reading a book in the bar whilst he waved his gun, just standing there.

“You?” he said softly. “What is this? What’s going on?” he paused, contemplating his current clarity. “Why am I sober?”

The previously silent man simply shrugged. “Death seems to have a sobering effect on people.

He held out his hand, and, after staring it for a few seconds -- trying to soak in what the newcomer had just said -- Neil grasped it and the two men left the house.

When the deafening residue of the blast had disappeared and the sound of police sirens were hovering on the horizon, Neil’s former best friend was the first to break the resulting silence.

“Well, I never saw that coming.”

His partner in crime couldn’t withdraw her eyes from the lifeless body of her former husband. The chill creeping in from the open door suddenly felt all too poignant. She was cold and shaky. She felt exposed and ashamed.

“What should we do?” she asked, a little hysteria creeping into her voice.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m still horny.”

In the tranquil waiting room for the recently deceased, the untroubled and uninhibited souls of the dead awaited their destination. A plethora of former people -- a mixture of the sinful and the slightly less sinful -- all contently gazing into the middle distance.

Neil sat in complete silence amongst those quiet souls for several minutes before finally turning to the man that had accompanied him on his journey and asking the question that had been niggling away at him since they arrived. A question which had further bothered him after witnessing other confused people enter the waiting room, each accompanied by a man or a woman who, like his accomplice, seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going.

“Are you my guardian angel?”

The apparent angel had been staring disinterestedly towards the front of the room, where a short female receptionist sat behind an open desk, calling out names and room numbers.

He laughed softly at the question

Neil smiled politely, but still wanted an answer. “Are you?”

“No,” he said softly.

Neil nodded solemnly and turned his attention towards the front. A short stubby man guided a confused youngster down a corridor where they both disappeared through an unseen doorway. Moments later the short stubby man emerged with a slip of paper in his hand and a smile of contentment on his face.

“You are an angel though?” Neil wondered.

“Something like that.”

The receptionist called the room to attention by clearing her rattling throat over the loud speaker. “Michael Holland,” she said, looking up expectantly.

The man next to Neil stood.

“Is that you?” Neil quizzed. “Is that us I mean?”

Michael nodded.

Neil stood, feeling a twinge of trepidation for the first time since entering the room. “Where are we going?” he asked as Michael led him down the corridor towards a beckoning black door.

Michael shrugged his shoulders and the last words Neil heard before entering the room were: “I have no idea.”

The smile of contentment that Neil had seen on the face of the stubby man, was moments later plastered on the face of Michael Holland. It was a smile of relief, of a day’s work completed.

He took his slip of paper to a small computer terminal embedded in the wall near the reception area. When prompted he typed his serial number onto the touch screen and inserted the paper into the slot provided. A series of electronic beeps followed before the details of Neil Simon’s life flashed onto the screen.

His date of birth, his date of death: The cause of his death was listed as “Accidental Suicide”. His destination as “to be decided”. In the end that was all it came down to; four snippets of information, leaving Michael feeling that he got more out of their life than they did.

Moments later the details dropped away, replaced with a notice stating: “Thank you. Your account has been credited” before the screen returned to default, retaining the slip of paper.

Michael walked past the waiting room without a glance. He felt the sneering eyes of the receptionist on his right shoulder; the snobbish glares of fellow reapers on his right. He made for the exit, but before he could slip out, and back into whatever part of his world he chose, he bumped into someone who regarded him with equal degrees of snobbish sneering.

The tall foreboding figure stood defiantly in front of a line of teenagers all wearing expensive clothes and sombre expressions. As Michael took an instinctive step backwards, the spindly giant shifted forward, looming over him.

“Anything good this evening Michael?” he asked. His sunken eyes glared down at Michael like a warden studying a new arrival.

Michael didn’t like the man, but he couldn’t help but feel meek in his presence. “Hey Seers. No, not really,” he answered submissively

Jonathan Seers stepped back. His bandy legs shifted sideways to expose the line of sullen teenagers that had all but vanished in his shadow. They all looked up at their warden expectantly.

“I gate-crashed a party,” Seers announced smugly.

He grabbed the boy at the head of the line, his thick, long fingers tightly grasping his shoulder length hair. He pulled him forward with a hard yank and held him in front of Michael like a prized turkey.

“Freddy here turned 18 today,” Seers explained as the boy capitulated to the overbearing presence still grasping his hair. “He wanted to be popular. Wanted to give his friends a night they wouldn’t forget. He tried to buy some pills,” he pulled harder on the teenager’s hair, lifting his tiptoes off the floor and holding him up by the mangy locks. “Smart-arse ended up with a batch of rat poison from a dealer who didn’t take too kindly to being talked down to.”

Seers grinned. Michael feigned a smile.

He yanked the boy backwards, back into his prominent shadow. The boy toppled and fell over his own heels, but he seemed relieved to be out of the grasp of the derisive behemoth.

“Another exciting day in the Heights,” Seers gloated, the smirk still smeared on his bony face. “Maybe you’ll join me someday.”

“Maybe,” Michael replied without conviction.

Seers grinned one last time and then shoved his way past Michael into the waiting room. Michael held his ground until the last of the followers had sulked their way past. In the waiting room he could hear the greetings and arse-kissing that Seers received, even the glum receptionist was up on her feet with an adoring smile on her face, as Seers worked his way around the room like a King addressing his loyal and adoring subjects.

Michael whispered under his breath: “F*cking prick,” before scooping the hood of his jacket over his head and walking out of the little piece of Purgatory.