FFM15: Off the Rails

When I disappear, I do it with style. I used to go for a puff of smoke, some pizazz, but that doesn’t seem necessary in this place. This seedy little hole, seething, teaming, is somewhere I always knew I’d end up. I just never really thought I’d get here.   And trust me, I’ve been trying to claw my way back out.   “I’m an angel, kid,” I insist- and I mean it; there’s practically a halo hovering above my hat. But the girl with the blue hair and the distant eyes could be a helluva better at listening. “You know I don’t belong here.”   She knows something, but she doesn’t share. Can I blame her?   You always think the cosmos will pull its last punch, now matter how many times you’ve been kicked in the ribs.   Then there’s the woman. She’s scraped up authority in this place, got the fabric of it under her fingernails. “A prince of Hell,” they call her; she’s an impending fatality when she walks into a room. There’s not enough liquor in this dive to make me talk to her, in fear I’d knock the magic off.   But I have to say, dying ain’t half as bad as I expected. And would you believe it, doll? I’ve done this a couple times. As fast as my corsair is (and she’s fast babydoll, she’s fast), there are things I couldn’t outrun.   I just never expected death to have any staying power. You get cocky after a while. A thousand men have tried to kill me and they all regretted it. When you really stop to think about it, committed-like, a damned light bulb flashes over your head. Every time you should have died, you could have done something with it. That extra chance, that saving grace, so to speak.   But the next bottle of booze and the next thick pair of thighs beckons. It never fails.   Fuck, it’s not that different here. There are men I can twist, never-you-mind how I twist them. And there are stinking lies to harvest, favors to collect.   The busted flush of a man they call ‘Luci’- has to be short for Lucille, not the other thing- he’s not whatever he used to be, I can tell. But I have a sense what he was and what he is are two similar shades of red, and the last thing I need is more red in my ledger.   Even if she asks.   I wonder how long she’s been here. Forever, half an eternity? Mauve and plum and violet, lights dance over her hair; I realized she had horns a little late, but that’s my keen observational skills at work. There’s a stiff drink in my hand, more knives strapped to my torso than is safe for bending, and the liquor’s hard enough I don’t think I care anymore about being here. If I’m damned, so be it. There’s a beautiful woman in front of me.   Whatever I say, I always say with style. Some louts in the place will spin their stories, say I was off my tits, standing on a table, whatever makes them feel bigger.   But I know. I have style, I have class, and I’ll woo this lady with her stupid pretty face and her shiny silver cuffs and all the weird shit going on with her hair.   They say death can change a man. But I’m no man, and fuck it, I never change. Life’s too short, and so is everything else.