When Beggars Ride

‘For the third time this week,’ hissed the lone man into his palms. He was drifting along the silent pavement, beneath the tender streetlamps in dungarees so stained with sweat and muted colours wholly betraying the fact that once they had been new and white.

Camden peeled his eyes from the glinting paint that speckled his hands. It felt like every time he got kicked off a job, the moon was up there, laughing at him. Like it knew something he didn’t. A silver sickle smirk, just peering from behind smoky fingers of midnight cloud.

What would Cleo say? She was surely at the end of her tether by now, no matter how well she pretended. Camden was useless; kicked out of three jobs in a week. A week. He sighed from between his chapped lips and his sad, wispy cloud of breath dissolved into the brisk air. There was nothing else for it… before he got home, he had to stop somewhere. Just to pass the time. Maybe give Cleo some hope, however false it was. All hope was really just one side of a lie, or an anticipation. This shouldn’t be any different. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. It didn’t matter. The streets were empty. No one was listening.

***

At the bar, a man best described as derelict, sat. He was nursing something stronger than he could afford: the cheapest drink they sold.

‘Last call,’ Joe barman said.

Camden, his head swaying, his movements indelicate, his chapped lips gone gummy, grumbled. ‘Last call, barman’s a fool—’

‘Please stop singing that,’ Joe barman snapped over his shoulder, ‘or I’ll kick you out now, Camden.’

The drunken painter shrugged. ‘So what. Not like it’ll happen any other way.’

Joe barman stopped scrubbing and tucked the tankard away. He leaned over, close, his little greasy goatee practically bristling Camden’s forehead. ‘If it’s like that, I’ll get your bill now.’

‘Wait,’ Camden blurted out, throwing his hands around just to prove his point, ‘wait. I’ll be good. No more singing.’

Joe barman grunted, unconvinced. Truth was, to kick out Camden on such a slow Thursday would have been a disaster for Smilin’ Tony’s. Aside from the dark-dressed man who’d only just stepped through the door, there were about three other customers at best. Camden didn’t make any effort to count them. He was busy listening. ‘…What’ll it be…’ Joe barman said to the dark-dressed man, ‘…on the way…’

Camden tipped the entire bottle to his lips. A bouquet of engine oil, essence of amnesia, hints of bile…

‘Excuse me.’

…Camden, sluggishly, drooped the bottle down and frowned. The dark-dressed man. ‘What?’

‘Well, I thought you looked a little lonely, is all.’ Camden couldn’t see his eyes, though he was barely looking. His clothes were the colour of every paint mixed up in one. ‘And I felt inclined to strike up a conversation.’

With a glum shrug, Camden nodded. In moments, they were talking like familiar old friends. ‘…So, that’s what’s got me here,’ Camden finished, having explained the mispayments, the dry period in work, how he was getting to the age when his back ached earlier in the day.

‘You know,’ the dark-dressed man said, ‘I think I want to help you.’ He winced, slightly, as Joe barman shouted out that he was closing up for the night.

‘Help me? Well, unless you got a mansion needs painted, or twenty grand in your pocket…’ Camden’s lazy eyes widened, his smile faded, as the dark-dressed man slid his hand across the bar. ‘Twenty grand.’ He squinted at the dark-dressed man. ‘What’s the catch?’

He retracted the money, and his hand. Camden’s heart picked up. ‘I’ve got three things on me that I think you could use,’ he tucked the money briefly away, and flashed a black, leatherbound, ‘this notebook,’ he withdrew it carefully, and fumbled in his pockets for a moment, ‘a draught, which I seem to have misplaced. Has the elixir of immortality—’

Camden snorted hot rum out of his nostrils. ‘What?’

The dark-dressed man shrugged, but no more. There was an oddly tense pause. ‘Or that money. Pure cash.’ Camden couldn’t place his eyes. He was hooded, but fuzzy, drifting apart, like there were two of him, or maybe more. ‘I think you have your heart set, though, no?’

Camden nodded. A little more convincing, though it was hardly needed. Not a single fray of a single strand of string was attached. They shook hands and waved Joe barman an enthusiastic goodnight.

On the walk home, Camden turned back and called out. He had hoped to catch the man’s name, but there was no one else with him on the street. He had gone.

***

Cleo was beautiful. She always had been, to Camden if no one else, but that new red dress, the silky kimono, just the high way she held herself now. And their boy had never smiled so much. In fact, it was getting to the point that he was a bit cocky, even. Hogging the television for episodes of The Sleuth. His sixth birthday was just joy, frankly. Camden, however, was less and less content the longer and longer things stayed stable. That one kind, generous man had given him life just long enough to get back on two feet. How can a single person do that? Why?

Camden wandered into Smilin’ Tony’s. He had already paid off every tab, and then some. But he wasn’t there for a drink.

‘Joe barman,’ he called out, as the door lazily flapped in and out, ‘any news?’

‘None, Camden. Honestly, I still think you’re just pulling it out of your—’

Without a second wasted, Camden was off. He had to find that dark-dressed man. If nothing else, he needed the sleep; needed the right side of the line and the truth. Besides, whatever was in that black book?

Marching home, or really, in any direction, Camden was lost in thought. First, about the way his new shoes had enough heel, how the soles clopped so comfortably. Then, about dinner, about if they might call up for curry. Third, how warm his new cashmere-lined leather gloves were. A shock drove his last thought: who was that?

At the other end of the street shuffled a man. A strange, dark-dressed, shadowy-looking man. There wasn’t any doubt. Not another soul on the streets but Camden and the dark-dressed man. Name first, reasons second, notebook last.

‘Hey,’ Camden called out, raising a hand, eagerly breaking into a jog.

The dark-dressed man darted back the way he came. Some alleyway, up ahead, and Camden — a national-level sprinter, in his youth — broke into a run. A forward stride, a dart left, left again, right, left, that alley there, between those boxes: no escape. Right, left. Pounce. The dark-dressed man wriggled like a worm between the raven’s beak.

‘What do you want? Please. I have nothing.’ Camden steadied him. He almost asked but thought it better: it was clear the dark-dressed man didn’t recognise him. ‘Empty your pockets.’ He breathed heavily and squirmed back against a wall. Sludge shifted apart from his palms. Camden leered up and over. There was nobody else around. ‘Empty your pockets now.’

The dark-dressed man did. That black book. That was it. What was in it? Camden felt an urge of violence; it came from a place of strength. Of pride. He struck a flat, hard kick across the man’s murky cheek. After he had snatched the book, he kicked him again. And again.

Something metallic clinked against the ground and the dark-dressed man whimpered. Blood leaked from his indistinct orifices, pitted cheeks and nostrils. ‘Please,’ he begged. On his knees, he begged.

Camden snatched the metal. It was a flask, cold, like the heat of the moon. He unscrewed it, dexterous despite his clumsy gloves, and tipped, and drank. It tasted sublime, in the way the water shivers at midnight, glistening beneath space’s silver glow. Without another thought left to the drink, Camden kicked the dark-dressed man again, thrice more, and left him with his flask, empty.

By the time Camden was gone, the man had less life in him than a shadow.

***

After the program about rabbits and hares, the news channel came on. It was breaking. A man, found almost dead in an alley, near Smilin’ Tony’s.

‘Don’t you drink there?’ Cleo asked, half-curious, half-numb after the long scenes about rabbits in meadows.

‘I used to,’ Camden replied, fidgeting. He leaned over and kissed her soft cheek. It was young to his dry lips. ‘I’ve got work to catch up on.’

‘Good luck.’ She shuffled into her corner of the sofa. ‘Tell your son he’s off to bed soon.’

Camden was barely in earshot and used that as a mental excuse to ignore her. The boy would probably only quip about something obscure, anyway. He had translating to do.

In the basement, Camden flick a lamp switch, and slowly, an intense white light grew on the grey walls. The black notebook was out, open to the same page. His translation texts and monographs on deciphering code were open beside, as they were when he’d left them. There had been no reason for paranoia. Though, there was rarely a reason not to be paranoid, Camden found.

‘Almost dead?’ Camden muttered, asking no one but himself. He couldn’t reconcile what was more surprising: that he had nearly killed a man, or that he wished he had made sure. Still, thanks to his new gloves, there was no way they’d find a thing. Besides, there hadn’t been a soul around that night.

He turned to the black notebook. It was dense with writings, in some semi-pictographic language, certainly exotic and very alien; like written in another, cursed, world. That man had spoken like a local, yet wrote in… this?

However, Camden had almost finished his translation. It was coming on remarkably well. “Rabbit’s Moonshine” it was called. He picked up where he left off.

***

Money, instructions, brewing, apparatus. It was all so simple. This was, it seemed: a recipe. A recipe for Rabbit’s Moonshine, reportedly the elixir of immortality; eternal life, in every sip. Camden laughed. Laughed out loud, to no one but himself. It was crazy, frankly. But he had put the hours in getting the instructions ready, so now there he was, with all the chemical gauzes and alchemical retorts and glassware and bungs, crystals, salt, and other strangely simple ingredients.

Camden boiled, distilled, mixed, combusted; he chanted, draw the symbols, watched his reagents smoke, his salts effervesce, the aroma at both times putrefying and alluring. He had never done anything quite like it, except as a younger lad, when he’d wanted to be a landscape painter; before he had become a wallpaper painter.

In what felt like minutes, or less still, Camden had a glass full of shimmering silver solution. Without hesitation, and with intense satisfaction, he necked the entire dose. It was bitterly cold, but deeply, painfully beautiful to the taste. Somewhere between the texture of engine oil and the viscosity of icy water. That was it. According to the madman’s journal, Camden was immortal. He felt no different. Maybe Cleo would be interested. She used to be good at science, back in school.

‘Cleo,’ Camden shouted up the basement stairs. Something thick, gruesomely so, coated the walls. It was only then that he noticed the once-intense desk bulb was barely alight, flickering like forgotten embers. He squinted, but pushed upwards.

At the top of the stairs, his home had changed. The television was gone. No—he noticed, looking at where the kitchen table had been—moved.

‘Who are you?’ a young man said. He looked like Cleo. He looked like Camden.

Cleo, it had to have been, appeared. Police officers flanked her. A man, too, whose face was cruel vengeance.

Camden sighed, eyes wide. Through the window he could see a full moon.