– Nasser has already taught everyone here to play backgammon. You can replace the cards with backgammon. There you won’t be able to cheat there, which means there’s nothing to be afraid of. Try it.
– No. Thanks.
Day 68 at the bar.
Karl Johnsen, a forty-seven-year-old Norwegian, was yelling at the entire bar when it was a clear afternoon outside the window. Two of the customers grabbed him by the arms and dragged him away from the exit and back deeper into the bar.
– Fuck off! – Karl shouted. – Bastards! What the hell? I am a free person!
Free, perhaps in his home, in his city, in his country. But not in this establishment. If you drank a glass, please pay back.
That afternoon his bosom friend Thomas Bormann was leaving the bar. He and Anabella Caceres are a two-faced, conniving, sneaky Mexican whore. From the first day at the bar, when after a half-day drinking session she learned about her credit for seven hundred and fifteen days (only the devil knows what kind of elite booze this bitch was drinking), she completely refused to make new orders and increase her debt to the establishment. This insidious woman decided to take the simplest and most free path. She hooked up some guy among the visitors who paid for her. She drank, had fun, and some preoccupied degenerate paid for everything, who sincerely believed that Anabella was the one he had been looking for all his life. This simpleton turned out to be Karl Johnsen. He paid three hundred and eleven days for all the drinks that Anabella consumed. Then, when the debt to the establishment was almost paid off, she needed a man with a more tolerable appearance. Thomas Bormann’s credit turned out to be three days less than this bitch’s. She persuaded him to take a bottle of champagne on his account to celebrate the deal, and at the same time increase his credit for three days. She no longer needed Karl. More precisely, he was no longer of any use and, in view of this, she boldly decided to throw him overboard, and instead take his friend Thomas on the ship.
Only on the last day did Karl hear rumors that his best friend had been storming his beloved whore for two weeks with great success.
The traitor Thomas and the scoundrel Anabella left the cuckolded Karl to serve the rest of his loan in splendid isolation.
Until the last moment he refused to believe that his best friend and beloved woman would dare to do this to him. And that’s exactly what they did to him. Every night. Many times.
– The poor guy is unlucky – Louis said with some pity, sitting at one of the tables.
– Not a damn thing like that – objected the Arab, whom everyone addressed by the nickname Expert. – It’s his own fault that they treated him like a rag. There was no point in buying mountains of alcohol at his own expense for this whore. She used it like some kind of thing. And he thought that she was head over heels in love with him.
– Maybe he just wanted to be polite? – Louis continued to speculate.
The Expert removed the rolled-up tobacco from his lips and said:
– You know, it seems to me that there is a big difference between being JUST polite and being polite for the sake of simple sex with a simple whore. And something tells me that this smacks of the second case. So next time he will listen to his brain, and not to his animal urges.
The Expert froze for a while, peering into Louis’s face and added:
– And to you, my friend, I recommend not to have any connections with women in this place at all. Alas, it is worth admitting that we – men – often lose our brains as soon as we see some open crack. Everything in this world is bought and not necessarily for money, but sometimes with damage instead of benefit.
Day 77 at the bar.
On this day, Albert announced a pirate-themed party. One-eyed, one-legged, with rapiers, with muskets. Guests of the establishment dressed up as a variety of characters. A Portuguese named Bruno even managed to get a parrot somewhere. The parrot, nicknamed “Bureaucrat”, knew only two phrases: “hello” and “fuck off”. If someone asked: “How are you, Bureaucrat”, – then the answer was quite obvious, since this parrot did not say hello twice.
By the way, one of the guests in the recent past was a real pirate. Balthazar spent most of his life sailing the waters of the Atlantic. The ship on which he served was symbolically called the “Sea Plague”. “Sea plague” bringing death – that’s what they would say about it if this ship became a symbol of folklore. The crew of this ship successfully robbed several ships every month. The production always turned out to be quite bearable. So there were more holidays on board the “Sea Plague” than working days. The fun continued until the day when the armed forces of the British East India Company fleet met them, after which they began firing cannons at the pirate ship. As a result of numerous holes in the hull, the “Sea Plague” was inexorably pulled to the bottom near the coast of Senegal. A couple of days later, from the sweltering heat far from the shore, among the distressed pirates only one remained alive. As an honorable reward for surviving in the wild, in the middle of the desert on a sultry afternoon, Balthazar came across the bar. Rescue bar. He had to pay 4 days for a glass of water. In total he drank 12 glasses. Next came rum, whiskey, cognac, wine and much more, so as not to remember the irretrievable loss of the mother ship. And by the way, he didn’t wear the headband specifically for the party or to look dashing. He actually lost his right eye on the day the “Sea Plague” lost its sails.
Louis, as a blacksmith who was skilled in the use of tools, agreed to help Hans Herber prepare for the party. The German asked Louis to pull out a couple of his teeth and, to make him look more like a typical pirate, break one of his central incisors. Hans sat quietly in his chair. It didn’t take long to find anesthesia, since it was everywhere. The patient prescribed the dosage to himself. At least he had no reason to fear an overdose. This medicine was free of side effects.
There was an unfolded cloth on the table. On it were several instruments more or less suitable for dental tricks. Louis took the pliers and pressed them against the second tooth in the right half of the German’s lower jaw. At the request of Hans himself, no one did anything to stop the bleeding. He wanted that in the first minutes of his transformation he had the appearance of a stern, terrifying, bloodthirsty beast, from whose mouth drops of blood were still flowing from the victim he had just torn to pieces. Louis then pulled out the fourth tooth in the left half of the German’s upper jaw. This gap will be clearly visible when Hans starts smiling. After this, Louis, whose hands were almost literally up to his elbows in blood, put aside the pliers and took a chisel, which he applied to the upper right central incisor. Louis placed the hammer on the back of the chisel and took aim several times. Robert gently but firmly held Hans’s head by the back of his head so that there would be no lethal outcome. Louis closed his left eye, lifted his chin, adjusted the directional angle one last time and slammed the hammer down on the steel chisel. Jewelry work. A perfectly straight stripe adorned the site of the broken fragment, while the lower jaw was buried in blood, which was already flowing down the chin, and later adorned the German’s shirt. He was pleased with the crimson pattern on his robe. He thought the blood stripe would be an excellent element for a pirate costume.
– Well, how do you like me? – Hans said admiringly, getting up from the table and pointing at the vertical bloody trail. “It’s like I just returned from a fight.” Holy shit!
This donkey was happy because three of his teeth were knocked out and he bled. Psycho crazy! – Louis thought.
– Apparently, the boarding of the ship failed – Nasser joked sarcastically.
Louis looked at the German’s increased joy. But Hans was not alone.
Adrian from the Kingdom of Romania squealed in amazement as he tore his shirt almost to the base and bulged out his beer belly with a fresh tattoo of a skull and crossbones.
An African man named Samuel was experiencing discomfort from a patch on his right eye that was rubbing his eyelid. Robert of Athens was tired of watching the black man constantly adjust his bandage. He walked up to Samuel, pulled the bandage away from the African’s face so hard that the elastic band tightened, and then he let go and the thick black fabric plopped against Samuel’s eye. He screamed in a panicked voice and started jumping around like a hysterical woman. Robert asked if the bandage was bothering him now. Samuel noticed that he could no longer feel the bandage because the skin over his eye had turned red and began to swell over time. The African shook the Armenian’s hand and thanked him from the bottom of his heart for the help provided.
One parrot was not enough for Bruno. He asked Francisco to draw on his face something prohibited by state and moral laws. Francisco had real talent as a painter. From his home in southern Spain, he painted portraits for high-class clients and had an impressive studio with hundreds of canvases. On the Portuguese’s neck he drew a symbol in the form of a pistol, aimed at a line infantry soldier who was kneeling with his hands raised, and next to it was the inscription: « DEATH TO INFIDELS”.
Everyone around rejoiced at their forced transformation. It seemed that there was not a single visitor left in the establishment with its original appearance. They all surrendered into the arms of execution, parting with their healthy appearance of their own free will. The bar turned into a pirate ship, on board of which there were entirely robbers and brigands. These semblances of dashing pirates were surprised and delighted every time they met well-known visitors in a unfamiliar guise. They looked happier and became even closer to each other when they all decided to hurt themselves a little. Laughter, jubilation, shouts, toasts, toasts and more toasts.
During his entire stay in the bar, Louis thought it was the noisiest night. Although he could not remember that in his entire life he had experienced something like this. He experienced a certain alienation. Soon this feeling grew into a suspicion that he did not belong here and that no one was welcome here.
– Hey, Hans – Louis called out to the German.
Hans turned around. Blood was still oozing from his mouth through his teeth, but much slower than five minutes ago.
Louis abruptly threw his leg onto a table, and before that he handed Hans the hammer.
– Come on, hit me – Louis said loudly and boldly, patting himself hard on the leg. – Only so that a bruise remains and the knee does not bend for a long time.
He finally decided to join this parade of masochists and sadists.
Under the pressure of emotions from his appearance, Hans, without hesitation, hit Louis’s leg with a hammer. But either the cognac began to take effect, or Hans still had not moved away from his dashing appearance and got too used to the role, but the German did not hit the target. Instead of the knee, the hammer landed on the inner half of the calf muscle, lightly grazing the edge of the tibia.
In an instant shit started pouring out of Louis’s mouth. Every obscenity he knew was heard throughout the entire bar. He could barely stand on his good leg when Bruno held him by the shoulders.
The eleven spectators crowded around applauded. Of course. The quiet man gathered his courage and still dared to receive an impressive blow.
If desired, the knee would bend, which went against the plan. But a perfect bruise popped up.
– Give me a crutch – Hans said in a satisfied voice. – Now let’s take a look at what kind of one-legged captain we have.
Grabbing his crutch, Louis limped impressively along the bar counter with a confident gait.
– Albert, how do you like it? – Hans shouted to the bartender.
Albert smiled sincerely. No one had ever seen such an expressive smile on Albert’s face.
And yet Louis joined this parade of masochists and sadists. AND HE WAS IMMENSELY HAPPY.
That evening the whole bar was drinking without knowing any limits. Or almost all of it. Louis and a few others limited themselves to ragged drinks, taking small sips of alcohol with frequent breaks.
Louis stood on the terrace and looked at the rising moon, which was visible somewhere from under the bare branches of autumn trees under the cover of late evening.
– Hey? – someone said in a whisper. Then there was a light whistle and another call: – Hey, dude?
Louis turned around. Someone around the corner called out to him. He walked to the right end of the facade. His leg was still lame, but by that time he had already gotten rid of the crutch. In the same way the tumor on Samuel’s eye almost disappeared, and Hans, in some incomprehensible way, began to grow teeth.
There, around the corner, he was met by Harry Fuller, a blond, middle-aged Scot. He was wearing a strange overalls. Harry was new to the bar. He paid the twenty-first day out of seventy-two due on the loan. He had a look on his head, as if he had spent the night in a chicken coop. He constantly twitched and shook his head sharply to the sides, each time convincing himself that no one was watching him.
He grabbed Louis by the shoulders and pulled him around the corner.
– Hey, guy, do you want… that – Harry muttered inaudibly, jerking his head somewhere to the side.
– Sorry, I don’t understand – Louis said in bewilderment, frowning. He looked at Harry thoughtfully with his eyes, one of which was lost in a circle of black paint, depicting the absence of an eye, like a pirate. It didn’t get to the teeth.
– Well, this is… that.
– Listen, friend, I didn’t…
– I say, don’t you want to get out of here!? – the Scot shouted in a whisper.
– You know that there is only one way to get out of here.
– Shhh – Harry hissed, putting his index finger to his lips. – Speak quietly so as not to be detected. I came up with something. If you help, we will escape from here ahead of schedule.
– How?
– Let’s go – said Harry, craning his neck and looking around.
He led Louis away from the bar. They stood at the foot of an old pine tree, where Harry began to talk about the upcoming business:
– Think, what do people do in this place?
Louis thought for a moment. Although he thought rather that he was asked the stupidest question that could be heard at that moment.
– They are having fun, relaxing.
In an irritated tone, Harry said loudly, directing his bulging gaze at the face of the Frenchman, who was a head taller than him:
– They’re boozing there! They tipple like bottomless barrels from morning to evening!
– And what?
– What-what. Have you ever thought that these pigs had to dry up two of these bars in a day? And by some miracle these reserves do not run out.
– AND?
Harry spread his arms, letting out a loud, heavy sigh.
– Merciful Lord, – the Scotsman cried to the Almighty, turning his gaze to the night sky, -why did you send such a dumbass as my partner? – He looked at Louis again: – And the fact that this smart-ass bartender must replenish his supplies from somewhere. Someone has to deliver new batches of booze here. This means that someone manages to penetrate this part of the forest in order to bring in new supplies and escape from here in the same way.
Louis thought deeply. The thought came to his mind that perhaps this mentally unbalanced, at first glance, fool was telling the truth.
– How are you going to find out about this?
– After midnight everyone gradually begins to go to their rooms. Who knows what the bartender does at night?
They waited until the bar began to empty and soon went to their rooms. A couple of hours later, when the bartender should have finished cleaning, Louis and Harry left their rooms and tiptoed down the stairs. Coming down the stairs, they heard some noise that sounded like a door opening. For example, a door leading to the basement. They looked behind the bar and saw a raised cellar door. From the cellar (or basement) came a faint glow from a wax candle.
Soon, several creaking sounds were heard, which stopped for a while, and then returned again, each new creaking becoming louder.
– Let’s hide – whispered Harry.
They pressed their backs against the wall along which the stairs to the second floor ran.
It was heard Albert close the door and go somewhere. He opened another door. This time the entrance. He started talking to someone:
– What I like most about you is that you always come at the same time. Not a minute earlier or later.
There was no response. Perhaps Louis and Harry simply did not hear the answer, but could only hear Albert’s voice. But he was definitely talking to someone. And this someone has just arrived at the establishment.
– Yes, I know. I’d like it too. But these lost souls… I have to deal with this. This is my job. No one will agree except me.
Then there was silence, followed by Albert’s voice again:
– It is too early. The world is turbulent right now. In a couple of decades a big war is coming. There has never been such a war before. Too many people will go to the front. The war will begin in Europe. Dozens of countries will get involved in it. Then all this mess will reach those who live overseas. America, Brazil and the rest of the world, which has already gone crazy at the end. There will be many casualties. Too much violence and grief. And for such a thing we need peacetime, which will last for a long time. Will have to wait.
A short silence and again the bartender’s voice:
– No. Doesn’t make sense. Twenty years after this war a new one will begin. That war will be even worse. A man will come to power who will exterminate entire nations just out of hatred for them. After each occupied country he will want more new lands and this will destroy his authority, then his army, and then himself. But this won’t end quickly. This war will shake the whole world violently for many years to come. And we will have to wait a long time. So, my friend, be patient. Let’s wait for better times.
What was the bartender talking about, and most importantly, with whom?
They never found out. The bartender closed the door, and before that he said goodbye to someone.
Harry followed Albert as he went back down into the basement.
In some incomprehensible way, all the shelves of the bar were filled to capacity, although recently they had been located behind the counter (when they watched the light in the basement) and saw with their own eyes that there were only two half-empty bottles left in the bar.
Mystic!
As soon as Louis got a little closer to Harry in front, Albert’s voice came from the basement:
– Guys, you can take any drink! So be it! For ingenuity, two glasses at the establishment’s expense!
Day 89 at the bar.
Bruno, Samuel, Balthazar, Hans and Louis were sitting at a table. Everyone drank something different. That evening the whole company at the table was arguing about whose people wrote the best jokes.
Bruno was the first to cheer up his friends:
– So, the Portuguese have landed in South America. They organized a colony, began to build houses, exchange goods with local tribes, and all that. But suddenly something went wrong and the Portuguese began to fight with the natives. They fight for a day, rest for ten. They fight for a day, rest for ten. A whole year has passed, and the battles are as scheduled: they fight for a day, rest for ten. And on the second day after the end of the next battle two conquistadors find a coca bush. The drought dragged on, the bush dried up, and there were still eight days until the next battle. In general, they decided to relax. They took a dried bush, went to the beach, ground it into powder, set it on fire and put their faces to the smoke. A few minutes pass and then an aborigine runs out of the jungle. He runs in what his mother gave birth to, raised his spear, shouts something and flies towards the conquistadors. But they are worth no attention. The aborigine runs up to them and stops. The conquistadors stand calmly, not even moving. The native scratched his head, thought and asked: “Why aren’t you defending yourself? I’m going to kill you”. Then one of the conquistadors says: “Friend, you were in a hurry. We fought the day before yesterday. Come running in about eight days, by that time we’ll be so inhaled that we won’t give a damn about this whole war”.
A short laugh replaced Balthazar’s voice:
– The ship plows an ocean for a hundred days and a hundred nights. Everyone is sitting without any spoils. Not a single ship. There is no one to rob. It was as if all the ships had sunk to the bottom. And then a sailor comes into the captain’s cabin and says: “Captain, we have discovered a ship”. The captain rushed onto the deck. Everyone watches as the ship with the same pirates, who are stagnant, is approaching them. They both rob and kill. The captains thought and thought, and then one said to the other: “To hell with robbery. Maybe we can sail west? There’s a first-class brothel there”. Others supported the idea. In the evening both ships moored to the harbor. Every last pirate entered the brothel. Before the captains had time to cross the threshold, both had their eyes on the owner of the brothel. Well, they started butting heads over who would get the woman. The hostess did not like the fact that she was being divided up like some kind of prey and loudly announced at the top of her voice: “SO, GENTLEMEN! I DON’T NEED A FIGHTER HERE! SO THERE ARE NO CLIENTS SERVED TODAY AND THE ESTABLISHMENT IS CLOSING UNTIL THE MORNING! SO, NO ONE WILL GET ANYTHING UNTIL DAWN!” Hearing these words, one of the captains says to the other in a whisper: “Resistance”. The second captain took out a pistol, shot at the ceiling and shouted “BOARDING!”
Only Balthazar himself laughed at his story.
Now it’s Hans’s turn:
– One farmer had large livestock: bulls, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens. In general, it’s full of everything. Wife, children, roof over head. There is plenty of everything. Suddenly, he felt that something was missing. And he decided to go to a sage for advice. He came and said, they say, there is food, there is shelter, wife, children, work. But there is missing something. The sage answers him: “Tomorrow you will go to the neighboring village and visit the wife of the butcher there”. The farmer did just that. A week passes, he again comes to the sage for advice. The sage says: “Go east, you will reach the lake and there you will meet a mermaid”. The farmer did just that. A month passes. He comes again to the sage for the same thing. The sage says: “Go to the city and find a house on the southern part of the river where the twin sisters live”. The farmer did everything exactly as the sage said. Two months pass. Same reason. The farmer asks the sage for advice, and the sage answers him: “Go to hell, you insatiable creature! Fucked someone else’s wife! Fucked a mermaid! Fucked the twins! What more do you need!? Would you know what it’s like for me, an impotent man, to sit here in one place around the clock and give advice while someone is getting screwed somewhere!?”
Everything around was filled with wild laughter. It’s time for Samuel to entertain the company:
– A wolf, a rabbit and a hamster are planning to move from the forest to the jungle. They reached the border and stood at the border post. Two bears in helmets with rifles are standing at the post. In order for someone to be allowed through the border, there needed to be a compelling reason. So, one of the bears asks the wolf: “For what purpose are you going to the jungle?” The wolf replies: “I will keep everyone in fear. We must maintain order among the animals”. The bear says: “You convinced me. Come on in”. It’s the rabbit’s turn. The bear asks the same question: “Why are you going to the jungle?” The rabbit replies: “I heard that there are few rabbits left on the other side. I’ll be breeding day and night”. The bear says: “There is such a thing. Come on in”. A hamster crawls up. The bear looks at the rodent with a menacing gaze. The hamster thought and thought and said: “There needs to be someone there who will be bullied all the time”.