Critical Mass
“Now don’t get me started on the old boss man, lemme tell ya.”
The barely-intelligible words slurred through unsteady lips flushed with disgusting inebriation and made their way, staggering through the musky air, to Mikhail’s attentive ears. The speaker’s eyes almost rolled around the bar, crowded with an evening attendance of regular drinkers. He was pathetically out of control, a feeble mind unable even to muster the minimum of intellectual prowess it might nominally have been capable of. Of course, this was to Mikhail’s advantage, but that knowledge did not make suppressing the utter contempt from his already unamused face any easier, nor was it with small effort that he adopted the patronizing expression appropriate to a sycophant seeking to leech the words he needed from the dirty mass of mindless anthropomorphized vermin sitting beside him. The stupefied rat continued, voice rattling.
“I dunno how much more shit he can get away with, man, you get me?”
The little rodent was breaking down, Mikhail could tell. Defenses collapsing under a thick wave of ethanol, the barrage of intoxication had worn down cautious inhibitions and exposed the sea of gossip. He was obviously not experienced, a child of early twenties giddy on his membership in... what? Mikhail needed to know. He nodded and forced a chuckle, the gesture evidently convincing enough that his target grinned in obvious satisfaction that the hint had entertained. Now the mousy figure huddled over his fifth - was it sixth? - beer and try to suppress the smile, feigning loss of interest. Bait. Mikhail rolled his eyes. He had to bite. He needed the information. He returned the grin, sipped from his whiskey.
“So this boss of yours, he, uh, he does a lot of crazy shit?”
Determined to impress, the man stared down the final portion of his thick lager and only permitted a smirk to show he was pleased as his head wobbled from the alcohol. He snorted and shook his head - at least, so Mikhail thought. The parkinsonian movements obscured any intentional gestures. The mouse only offered a creaky drawl underlined by the happiness of a man drunk beyond his awareness, eyes looking through the bottom of his glass.
“Yeah, man, yeah...” He hiccoughed. “Boss man, I tell you, he’s great but he’s crazy. You don’t even want to know.”
Mikhail raised his eyebrows. More bait. This was too easy. He bit, preparing to pull the unsuspecting fisherman under.
“Come on, you can’t just leave it there. Now I have to know.”
His target finally turned to look at him again, the grin having returned, broader than ever. Mikhail was not sure whether the eyes staring in his direction still possessed any modicum of useful vision. The man chuckled - if that was what the strange noise escaping his mouth was. He gladly gave himself to the shark he believed was caught.
“Alright, man, alright.” He raised a finger in half-serious warning, smile still widening. “But you can’t tell this to anyone, yeah?”
Mikhail nodded, filling his eyes with as much subordinate eagerness he could fabricate in the moment. It worked. The drunkard’s eyes twinkled with egoistic excitement.
“Good, good... so let me start two weeks ago man, yeah? We were doing some regular shit, the same old deals, making our rounds, then he comes out one day all fancy like, rolls up in his Maybach, got at least two new guards with him, weird stuff. So he says, ‘we’re going into Charlie’s land today.’ And Charlie, well, everybody knows Charlie, you don’t mess with his dealers, so we say, we tell the boss, ‘why would we fuck ourselves so bad, boss? Why would we do that?’ And he just smiles and he looks at us and he says, ‘motherfuckers, we’re taking down Charlie, I got us some friends and they’re big, so we’re taking down Charlie.’ And none of us believe it, how can we take down Charlie? Yeah? How can you take down Charlie?”
The rat paused and nodded, prompting. Mikhail turned his thoughtful squint to a grin of interest and responded, shrugging. This would be his chance to turn the tables, pull on the line, reel in the fisherman.
“I don’t know, I’m not even from here and I know Charlie, I know how big he is. But word is some shit went down and nobody’s seen Charlie in a couple weeks now. His guys seem to be falling apart. But that’s just what I heard.”
The rat nodded, pointed in affirmation, almost squealed in delight that he was known. So Mikhail had said the right thing. The information was coming. The man finished his lager and set it down with triumphant force, then looked again to Mikhail with eyes somehow wider and perhaps more conscious. Mikhail took note. The man spoke.
“So you know, yeah? That was us, man! That was the boss man and his crew, all of us! We’re doing big things! He always said we would and we always believed him but, you know, sometimes we wondered., yeah? But it doesn’t matter now, it happened! His crazy plan worked and we’ve been doing more mad shit since! I’m telling ya, we’re starting something new.”
Mikhail took the elation, absorbed it, produced from it a smile almost as genuine as the one he was offered. The information was in his grasp. Just a little more. Just the right tease.
“Really? You? No way, you can’t have. You can’t be the ones who took down Charlie. How big can you guys be?”
The rodent chortled and again shook his head, exuding an aura of superiority with the motion somehow majestic despite his absurd blood alcohol level. Looks like the words worked. He was about to reveal it all. Somehow the man let his eyelids sink into casual indifference.
“Well, you know, the boss man really did get us some friends. I can’t tell you who they are, his orders, he said there would be people asking around so I can’t tell you. But they’re serious. They’re so big, people are too scared to talk about them, so nobody even knows. People talked about Charlie. Nobody talks about these guys.”
Mikhail feigned an impressed nod, and opened his mouth to prompt, but the man continued unbidden.
“It’s a great story man, how we did it, but I can’t tell you. Boss man said there would be people, folks coming into town and asking questions. And we can’t have that. We can’t have them fucking this up. We...”
As the rat’s voice trailed off his eyes seemed to regain even more of their focus, and Mikhail saw them narrow a fraction. There was more consciousness. This was concerning. The target shouldn’t be aware. But the man spoke.
“Hey... man... what was your name?”
Despite the abrupt shift in subject, Mikhail maintained his composure and answered without pause.
“Anton. I’m Anton.”
The man nodded slowly, pensive, squint growing sharper.
“Anton, yeah? And Anton, you said you ain’t from here?”
Shit. Mikhail felt the air collapse around him. He fucked up. The voices resonating throughout the bar, the incessant chatter he had managed to block out, flooded his temples and pounded his skull, demanding entry to the brain upon which they sought to wreak havoc. His grip tightened on the shot glass and he blinked. He managed to force away some of the pressure. Not even a second passed. Maybe the guy didn’t notice. Regardless, Mikhail answered.
“Oh, uh, no. No I’m from out of down, I’ve only been here two months.”
The squint remained.
“Two months, you say? What did you come here for, man?”
Mikhail had to improvise. But he was good at improvising. He chuckled and shrugged.
“A job at one of the factories, you know? I needed money, this was the best place for me.”
Still an analytic gaze. What the hell? How could someone pierce with eyes drowning under all that beer? Enemy or not, that was impressive. The man’s lips curled with disapproval. He leaned back in his chair.
“Ain’t nobody that comes here for a job in the factories. People always leaving because the work is shit and they’re always hiring local, man. Nobody wants to work at the factories, you only go there if you live in our ghetto. And you look like a smart guy. You ain’t here for no factory work. No.”
Was he sweating? The beads were probably forming. He had to maintain the facade. He couldn’t let his nervousness show. The voices twisted. Were they laughing at him? They were mocking him. He fucked up. They mocked. All the glasses clinking in united derision, they would not stop, he knew. Stop. Stop. Humidity multiplied tenfold, he could only breathe with effort, his face was flushing, the man kept squinting, damn it, he had to act, he was better than this, take control, take control. He managed an appropriately defensive snort after what he hoped was an acceptable moment of hesitation.
“Nah, I’m serious, I’m here to work in the mills. I know it’s shit but I need the money.”
Appropriate or otherwise, his response failed to appease. The rodent leaned forward and raised a challenge with his brow. A drunken sneer spread across his stubbly face.
“Yeah, man? Which mill? Which mill you working at? Tell me about it.”
He searched his mental store of names. There had to be one. He found an unreliable vaguety of a memory and seized at it, proceeding as outwardly unperturbed as he could manage.
“It’s the Stuhler brothers, I’m in their mill, it’s just off the east side.” He offered an ambiguous direction with his finger.
Still unsatisfactory. His opponent’s eyes narrowed even further, the sneer grew to preposterous proportions, he was drowning in the suffocating humidity, the sound deafened, everything spoke against him from the walls. What now? How did he screw this one up? The man spoke.
“Stuhler brothers? You sure? That’s where you work at?”
Surely that meant it was a mistake. But he was too far committed now. He nodded and pushed his facial falsification to its limits. He thought he looked confident. He did not feel confident. He hated his nerves with thick self-loathing, and he hated the voices with manic furiosity.
“Yeah, that’s right. The Stuhlers.”
The man scratched his stubble and made a noise of apologetic skepticism.
“Hey man, I hate to tell you this but, uh, we run those bastards. They ain’t hiring except by our orders. And we never told them to hire any ‘Anton’.”
The rat’s body seemed tense, preparing for something. Mikhail was in check. He needed to act before the mate. The voices were pounding now, breaking through his skull, he had no time, he had fucked up, he had to act, he felt the overwhelming rage, he was being mocked, they knew he messed up, they laughed, he had to do this now. He scanned his surroundings with discreet movements. The little man would need to be eliminated. He knew too much. Mikhail couldn’t risk his escape, the man couldn’t be given a chance to warn. He set down his glass and sat straight, waving his arms in apology.
“Dude, I’m just here to -”
Mikhail cut off mid-sentence just as his hands got into position close to the rodent. With one swift motion, before the other could react, he grabbed the man by the back of his head and rammed it down into the edge of the bar’s counter, crushing the nose in with a spatter of blood. Before the flailing hands - or had they gone limp? - could counter, he pulled back the head and rammed it again, this time breaking the man’s forehead in on the same edge. He let go and the rat collapsed to the floor, unresponsive, as the rest of the bar turned to look at the spectacle.
They were pointing, gasping, yelling. Mikhail stood up. He could not understand their words, there were too many, too many all at once, too much for him. But he knew, he knew they were laughing, he saw in their eyes the antagonization, they wanted to destroy him, they were all against him. They formed a circle, all of them, the bouncer was approaching, he couldn’t stand it, the wrong, he couldn’t. He was just doing his job and now the world was against him again. They couldn’t understand. They never would. He could only hear their laughter in the air (how were they laughing without smiling?), supported by the echoes of every wall, by the simultaneous silence, it was all too much. In his mental agony he noticed one still seated, distant, in the corner. A young one, tall, green, watching, scrutinizing. He was laughing more than the rest of them, he could tell, those eyes did not lie, they were all enemies. Before the bouncer could reach him, he pulled out his pistol, disabled the safeties, and pointed around. Today it was his father’s 1911. It would vindicate him. The bone, only the bone handle, only it spoke his support. He had one friend at it was the gun. He screamed.
“Stay the fuck away you inebriated half-wits! Don’t you fucking get close to me, I will pulverize your soft tissue like a tank of lime!”
The circle stirred, a few backed away, the bouncer tried to raise his hands and calm but his words made no sense, the laughter wouldn’t end, the laughing, the anger, the red, it wouldn’t go away, he was being wronged, they didn’t understand. His twisted face continued in shrill screaming, he pointed the gun at random targets in turn.
“I swear if you don’t back off and leave me alone I will destroy all of you! It is by the grace of people like me that you moronic vermin are permitted to live! If I were to see my duty done none of you pathetic mindless cretins could contribute to our rotting genetic composition! You are beneath understanding, you are beneath knowledge, you are simply beneath and so you should not be! I am the messiah! Do you understand? I am your saviour! And I do not ask for appreciation, I demand cooperation! So get your disgusting faces out of my way!”
From behind the crowd, he saw the green one raise an eyebrow.
