Ander - Part 5: Subchapter 3
3
He wasn't numb enough yet. He could still feel the bartop against his cheek, reeking of rotten grapes. That's all wine really was, when you got down to it. Rotten grape juice. The only reason anybody ever drank the foul stuff was to get drunk, go numb, and forget what a craphole your life was turning into.
Mateo raised his head, peeling his fur from the sticky bar with a nasty gritsy sound that made his skin crawl, and looked around. Othello's was pretty much deserted this early in the morning, inhabited only by Othello himself and a bunch of empty chairs and tables.
Oh, and the dirty old hag passed out in the corner, of course. What was her name? Angie? Angela? Something like that. Not very 'angelic', Mateo thought as she ripped a loud fart and snored against the tabletop she had claimed as her own personal headrest, blowing ripples in the small puddle of drool she had accumulated there over gods knew how long. She was a bit of a mystery, actually. Mateo has never seen her come or go even once. Did she live here? Was this her permanent residence? Did she and Old 'Thello have some kind of sinful arrangement going on? And speaking of Old 'Thello...
Mateo looked around some more, blinking his bleary eyes. The whole place was an attack of contrast on his tired head, with big black pools of shadow broken up by golden bars of sunshine flowing in through the open windows, with millions of little dust blinkles fluttering around inside... goes to show what Othello thought about cleanliness.
"'Thello?" Mateo tried to croak, but what came out sounded more like 'shello'. "'Thello? Where're yoo?"
"I'm right in front of you, genius."
Mateo looked up and there he was: big, burly, and ugly as sin, the master of the rotten grape juice, owner and proprietor of the egotistically named 'Othello's', looking down at him with a scowl on his face, cleaning a dirty glass with an equally dirty rag. "Whacha starin' at, Mat?" he said and chuckled at the weakest rhyme ever uttered in all of Grovenglen's storied history.
"I need more wine."
"Nah, you _want_more wine."
"Whatsit difference does it make? Give me more wine." Mateo took his glass, the one with the sticky black-purple dollop of residue still stuck on the bottom, and gave it a good bang against the countertop.
"And how do you intend to pay for you latest libations, pray tell?"
"Fasser will pay, now give me my wine. By the gods, the servish in this place is atroshu - atro - not good. Bad."
"One of these days your dad is gonna go upside your head, and I won't blame him in the least."
Othello liked to play the part of virtuous keeper of morality and wisdom, but that never stopped him from dishing out the booze to anybody capable of paying, whether they be too old to stand or too young to reach the bar.
"Shuddup and give me my godsdamned hellbound rotten grape joos wine a'ready!"
"Fine, but I'm keeping track of every drop, you hear me, ya little snot?" Othello took his glass and refilled it from one of the kegs, the ones with those little taps near the bottom. Mateo didn't know what was in it, probably the cheap stuff, but he didn't care. He wasn't numb enough yet, and he was getting less numb the longer he sat here not drinking.
"There," Othello said and clunked what looked like three glasses down right in front of his nose, so he had to look cross-eyed in order to get them to fuse together into their true number, which was one.
Mateo grumbled his thanks, took the glass in a hand which felt detached from his arm, and raised it to his lips, but the smell hit him before he could take so much as a sip, that godsdarned hellish smell, that reek of fermented grapes and that certain something else, that something he suspected was what really got Foxes drunk, more bitter than gall. It made him want to -
Mateo turned his head away and dry heaved at the empty chair next to him, whooping up great big lungfuls of air and hacking them out again one after the other, his stomach clenching and his head swimming.
"Hey! If you barf in here I'll throw your ass out my door! Tail over teakettle, you hear me!?"
Mateo clapped a hand over his mouth, closed his eyes, and thought about anything and everything that had nothing to do with booze or barfing. Rainbows. Butterflies. Horseshoes.
"Barf, Matty!" Oh crap, Angie was awake. "Barf your brains out! You can do it! Baaaaarf!!"
"Shut up, Angie!" Othello scolded. "Mat, you better not barf, or I swear to all the gods..."
Angie ignored him, choosing instead to demonstrate her impression of a barfing drunkard (something she no doubt had plenty of personal experience with), following each one with her super special patented Angie laugh, the one which made her sound just like a cackling witch out of a children's fairy tale. "Huuuuaaagh!! Eeeeeeheeheeheehee!! Huralgh, Matty! Hooooooarglargle! Eeeeeeheeheehee!!"
Mateo didn't know how, but by some miracle he managed to keep last night's booze and assorted snacks from decorating Othello's floor. He took a deep breath and, without looking up, told Angie to kindly go straight to hell.
"No, yooooo go to hell, Matty! Eeeeheeheehee!!"
"Angie, by the gods, can't you see the boy has problems?"
"Well then welcome to the club! Drinks all around!! Eehee!!"
"No more booze for you!" Othello said and banged his fist down on the counter, signalling that his decision was final and that not even the gods up in heaven could persuade him otherwise. Also, the unnecessary volume gave Mateo's head a good hard throb right in the temple. "How you doin' down there, boy? If you feel you're gonna barf I'll help you outside."
"No, I'm okay... I'm okay..."
"Clearly you're not, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here night after night and morning after morning."
"Why d'you care?"
"Because I haven't got a good night's sleep all week. Now tell me what's going on."
"You 'ready know what's going on. Ev'rybody knows whatsis goin' on. Even Angie knows what's going on."
"Eeeeheeheehee!!"
"Shut up, Angie!" Othello said almost automatically. "Of course I know what's going on, but I didn't ask you to tell me because I want to know, I asked you to tell me because you need to tell. So lay it on me."
"Wel... okay..." Mateo took his glass, held his nose, and emptied the whole thing down his throat in five long swallows, probably not a good idea, but to hell with it. Heat bloomed inside his belly like an autumn rose, warming him up and numbing him down all at the same time. He set the glass down, taking great care not to miss the swaying bartop, and began. "My mother's a whore. Been sleeping around with Wolves..."
"She wasn't married yet, but go on."
"My fiancée'd rather run away than spend any time with me..."
"Don't you mean ex-fiancée? Eeeheeheehee!!" Angie cackled.
"... and now she and that Ander Wolf go kanoodling up on that hill every chance they get... like a pair of teenagers they are. Makes me sick."
"Hey hey!" Angie said, bouncing up and down in her chair. "That Ander is your half-breed bastard half-brother! That's a what I heard! Cuz it's just like you said! Your mommy's a whore a whore a whore! Heeeheeheehee!! She like 'em big, don't she!? Real big! She and your ex both! Eeeeehe!"
"Shut up!" Mateo bent down, pulled off his shoe and threw it at Angie as hard as he could, which wasn't all that hard, to be honest.
It landed on the table and she eagerly snatched it up, holding it in the air like a trophy. "This is mine now, Matty!! Eehehe!" And then she stuffed it down the neck of her dress. Lovely.
"Don't you pay her no mind, boy." Othello put one elbow up on the counter, his index finger extended like a teacher about to bestow great knowledge upon a willing student. "First off, I know your Ma, and she's no whore. You love your Ma, doncha?"
"I do love my mother..." Mateo said, surprised to find himself on the verge of tears.
"Second, I know you caught a raw deal with Kiana, but you better face the facts. She doesn't love you."
"But she did! Before that Ander showed up, we were like... we were like one, 'Thello! Dowry was paid, she was ready to go, and then he ruined it! I coulda saved her, too! I juss didn't know where she was! If I did, I woulda swooped right in there!"
"Swooooooop!" Angie cackled.
"I woulda saved her!" Mateo insisted.
"Of course you would," Othello said. "You conveniently skipped over the reason she fled over the mountain in the first place, but sure, why not?"
"I woulda saved her..." Mateo said one last time, although this one was more of a personal assurance.
"The thing is, instead of looking at this mess like a mess, you should look at it as an opportunity."
"Opportune... ty?"
"Opportoooooooooon!!" Angie weighed in.
"Yeah, you may have lost that particular vixen, but there are hundreds more out there right now, within walking distance, wondering why some dashing young Fox won't come and release them from their loneliness."
"Vixens like me! Eeha!"
"Shut up Ange, we're having a man moment here. You could be that Fox, Mat. Go out there and find a sweet piece of tail ripe for the pluckin!"
"Yeah, Matty! Come on an' pluck me! I could use some pluckin'! Daaaaahaha!"
"Ain't nobody ever gonna pluck a sour grape like you, Angie!" Othello roared, making Mateo's ears hurt in addition to everything else.
Angie stuck her tongue out and blew the both of them an exceptionally wet, bubbly raspberry, and suddenly Mateo felt like vomiting again.
"Whoa there, boy! You all right? I'm all for helping out the younger generation, but if you blow your load all over my bar I will throw you out in the dirt for every passer-by to sneer at, you get me?"
Mateo put his chin down on the counter again. It may be sticky, but at least it was cool. "I don't think I'll be plucking anything for a while, 'Thello."
"Well obviously I didn't mean right now, you idjit! Gotta sober up first!"
"I don't wanna be shober."
"Then what do you want?"
"I wanna sit here."
"You wanna sit here?"
"Yea..."
"That the plan? Just sit here?"
"Yuh."
"For how long?"
"Umm..." Mateo tried to think up an answer, but his thinker appeared to be faulty. And his arms, too. Just hanging limply by his sides, occasionally brushing against the too-tall legs of this too-tall stool. Also faulty. He must look the sorriest sight in all of Grovenglen. "How much wine is left?"
"Got 'bout a dozen barrels in back, counting the brandy."
"That long."
Othello threw his arms in the air. "Dear gods up in heaven, please grant me the strength not to pop this boy right in the jaw."
"Do it, Telly!" Angie tittered. "Do it do it do it do it do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiitt!!"
"Go ahead, 'Thello," Mateo moaned. His chin was still squished against the counter, so the whole top of his head bobbed up and down as he spoke. "Pop me in the jaw. Knock me out. Kill a few hours for me. Don't stop until I forget I'm related to that big brown oaf."
"So you got a half-brother. Big deal. Lots of Foxes got half-brothers an' half-sisters runnin' around they don't even know about. You should hear some of the drunken conversations I'm privy to in this place! 'Course I can't repeat any of 'em, confidential information you know, but I will tell you there's a whole lot more back-shadow shenanigans goin' on in this town than most Foxes think, and that's sayin' a lot."
"Is that shuposhed to make me feel better? I don think you fully understand the situate...shun fully. It's not just that he's my mother's bastard, he also is the one that convinced Kiana's... her parents to call off the engagement! I'd be married now if it weren't for him! Tasting the sweet fruits of marital bliss... but no! He's the one with it now, 'Thello! He got my fruit of bliss and all I got is this... fruit of the vine." Mateo lifted the glass to his lips, but it had somehow become empty again.
"Look, Mat, you're making a mountain out of a molehill here. You're still young, got your whole life ahead of you, your parents are pretty well off, there's dozens - nay, hundreds of Foxes who would love to trade places with you."
"And I'd let 'em, too."
"Okay, that does it! I'm done being nice!" Othello banged both fists down on either side of Mateo's head and the shockwave travelled through his head and made his teeth clack together.
"Ow!"
"Now you listen here, you little snot!" Othello said, wagging his finger in Mateo's face. "Here comes the best damn advice anybody's ever gonna give you. You ready?"
"I gue-"
"Stop being such a pansy, pull your head out your ass, and act like a MAN!! You get me!?"
Mateo wiped some of the spittle from his face, looked Othello in the eye, opened his mouth to make an undoubtedly brilliant retort of razor wit and guile, but what came out instead was a wine flavoured belch, followed by a bubbly gurgly sensation rapidly traveling up his throat.
"No!" Othello shouted, his eyes as big as the kegs he tapped his noxious drinks from. "Not in my bar! Not in my bar!"
Mateo clapped both hands over his muzzle in an effort to keep the rotten grape juice inside, focussing all his mental acuity, which wasn't easy with Angie cackling herself into a coma in the corner, going, "Baaaarf, Matty! Hooooooaaargh!! Heeeheeheheheh!! Huuuaargh! Ghalargla! Heeeehehehehe!!"
"Not in my bar! Not in my bar!" Othello flew around the counter in lightning time, and suddenly Mateo felt a strong pair of hands seize him by the collar and lift him right off of his too-tall stool, and then he was gliding backwards through the air, watching the dust blinkies in the sun.
"Not -
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