Athea Stories pt.3

Balthazar (Age 10)

I’m ten and Mr. Balthazar is back in the Nine. I’m in Mr. Pinch’s office reading when I hear the news. My shoelaces are untied like they always are and I’m waiting for him to give me a hard time about it. There’s blood on the white shoelaces that’s turned brown.

The Nine is quiet. Resting. There’s been a lack of energy. Maybe it’s because of the weather. It’s a hot, slow, sleepy summer. Dead flies have lined the windowsills. I’ve stuffed pillows with the feathers of the birds that fall on the roof. Men usually light as shadows snooze like bags of cement in the lobby.

The only break from the heat is the bar with its eternally blasting air conditioner or Mr. Pinch’s office.

Mr. Bishop is mean like a lawyer and looks like a Picasso and talks like a chimney sweep, but he gives me big books and glasses of ginger ale with maraschino cherries. 

I told this to Mr. Valentine. He turned his sightless eyes down to my face,  hidden behind silk like always. I wondered what he saw that I couldn’t see. If it was better than what I saw. 

I didn’t ask. That would be rude.

Mr. Valentine said that Mr. Bishop was a strange one. You just mind yourself Miss Althea, and don’t go giving him cause to complain about you.

I told him that Mr. Bishop contains multitudes. That’s a word I learned from one of his books. Mul.Ti.Tudes. 

Mr. Valentine did that thing where he’s trying not to smile, and I knew I wasn’t in trouble.

‘He certainly does,’ he had agreed. 

Mr. Balthazar lives here, like me, but I don’t see him all that much. 

Mr. Malick says that he’s a very busy man. Mr. Pinch says I need to stop pestering people. 

I’m not a pest. I’m just curious. 

A lot of people are real scared of Mr. Balthazar.

Even Mr. Pinch is extra nice to him, bowing and bobbing until you get seasick just watching him.

Mr. Bishop tells me stories about Mr. Balthazar, sometimes. When I’m sitting at a table in the back of the bar reading or doodling or doing my homework. 

Mr. Malick and Mr. Valentine are very serious about homework.

Mr. Balthazar is one of the greatest killers of the past hundred years, says Mr. Bishop.

Other assassins are afraid of Mr. Balthazar.

They say when Mr. Balthazar wants someone dead, they’re already gone. People treat them like they’re ghosts.

And not the good kind of ghosts.

Mr. Bishop is polite to Mr. Balthazar, even when he’s rude to everyone else. Even when he’s rude, he does it in a sneaky polite way. 

The Proprietor and Mr. Balthazar have Conversations sometimes, because they’re both very important. 

Nobody’s allowed to listen. 

Anyway they make sure no one is eavesdropping by the door. 

They say Mr. Balthazar moves like a snake and kills like an artist and that if you cross him you might as well chug a bottle of bleach and call it a day.

Mr. Balthazar travels a lot, for work. Goes to pretend places and talks to fake people and eliminates them.

That’s another two dollar word. Eliminates.

My stomach feels weird when I learn that Mr. Balthazar is back. I like Mr. Balthazar. I just don’t think he likes me all that much. 

Sometimes he does. I hope this is one of the times when he says hello and asks me how I am and listens to the answer. 

I look up from my book. It’s called ‘Sideways Stories from Wayside School.’ It’s pretty good. 

‘Mr. Balthazar is back?’ I ask. Mr. Malick and Mr. Pinch exchange glances. I hate when adults do that. ‘What?’ I ask.

‘You know the rules about bothering the guests, Miss Althea,’ says Mr. Pinch. Each word precise as a military march. Warning me to shut my mouth and get back to reading. 

‘He’s not a guest,’ I say. ‘He’s a permanent resident.’ It’s not like I bother him or anything. I’m real busy. I have friends to visit and books to read and new places to explore and things to learn. Delphine is teaching me to fight. Mr. Malick shows me all sorts of useful skills, like lock-picking and math and how to kill a man with your thumb.

‘Don’t sass,’ says Mr. Malick in a mild but serious voice. He’s not mad but he wants me to stop talking.

‘It’s not against the law or anything to say hi,’ I sniff. It’s not like I bother Mr. Balthazar. I don’t see him all that much.

It’s just when he sees me his face does all these weird things and his posture changes and he looks at me like he can’t stand the sight of me then glances back like he wants to make sure I exist.

I do that too when I’m nervous. Check to make sure I exist.

I don’t know why I make him nervous. 

‘You can say hi when you see him in the lobby,’ says Mr. Malick. ‘Mr. Balthazar is very busy and important.’

I am too, but I don’t say that. I don’t want to get in trouble for sassing.

‘Okay,’ I say. I don’t pick up my book. I kick my legs against the wall until Mr. Pinch gives me a dirty look and I stop kicking.

‘Why don’t you go run around for a bit?’ suggests Mr. Malick. That’s adult for go away. 

I pick up my book and walk out with my head up and my nose in the air. 

I’ll just go read at the bar, then. It’s daytime and it will be quiet and sometimes Mr. Bishop will tell me stories I don’t understand and I learn a lot of new swears. 

It’s not like Mr. Balthazar is all that interesting or anything. Everyone talks about him like he’s the devil a demon a hellbeast a boogeyman. But he doesn’t look like one. He looks like a tall, thin man with a big mustache and dark hair and big, serious eyes. He smokes handrolls and drinks bourbon and reads newspapers and mostly is alone.

But Mr. Pinch wants me to leave him alone. Tells me not to bother him more often than any of the guests or residents. More often even than the Proprietor.

Not that I would ever bother the Proprietor. I’m not stupid or anything.

There’s a woman sobbing like a baby in the lobby in a long old fashioned dress. One of her eyes is hanging out by a thread. Nobody else seems to notice her. 

Nobody is at the bar, but there are a few people sitting at tables in the shadows, eating and drinking and smoking and doing dirty deeds dirt cheap.

I take a seat at the bar. It’s sticky even though Mr. Bishop is always wiping it. There’s some blood on the bar, and what looks like part of a finger. Mr. Bishop comes over, wiping down a glass. I think it’s always the same glass. The bar has a ground in feeling, like it’s never really clean. It’s old and worn and dark and I love it like I love the Nine itself. 

‘Is that Miss Althea?’ he asks, even though he can see that it’s me. ‘Ah, out and about causing no end of mischief, I imagine.’

Mr. Bishop uses a lot of words to not say much. I told Mr. Valentine that and he laughed until he cried.

‘I’m just reading,’ I say, because manners are important and I don’t want to get in trouble for sassing. Even though Mr. Pinch hates Mr. Bishop. I show him the cover of the book. He nods in approval.

‘If you promise not to be telling that shite Pinch, I can set you up with a ginger ale and some cherries.’

‘On the rocks,’ I say, like he taught me, and he grins.

‘On the rocks, as ordered, posthaste, as it were,’ he says. Disappears into the murky darkness of the bar. I look at my book cover. Don’t open it. It’s bookmarked with a ripped piece of paper with the words ‘Memento Mori’ stamped on it in big thick letters. Like a poster for a band.

I hear footsteps and I turn. Mr. Balthazar is standing behind me. His throat works and his eyes are glassy and sad and shocked, like I’m another one of the Nine’s ghosts and he can finally see me.

He’s frozen, like the room with the puppet people, aside from his throat. Like there’s a frog trapped in there or a burrowing insect, like I saw on the TV show. 

I don’t know what to do. Sometimes Mr. Balthazar makes me feel small and stupid and worthless and sad just by existing.

‘Miss Althea,’ he says. Like I’m his judge jury executioner I’m reading from the book of life and counting out all his sins.

What do you see when you look at me, Mr. Balthazar.

‘Hello, Mr. Balthazar,’ I say. He weaves back and forth like he can’t decide whether to stay or go. Like a drunk or someone high on drugs but his eyes don’t look like he’s done drugs.

They look like he wishes he had.

Finally he takes a seat next to me, stool screeching against the floor. He takes out a pack of cigarettes. The pack is smashed and bent and the cardboard is torn. He lights it with a big Zippo lighter. Blows out a long plume of smoke. Stares straight ahead, but keeps doing sneak glances at me. 

‘You don’t smoke that brand,’ I say. Wince. Shit. That definitely counts as bothering him. There’s a smile on Mr. Balthazar’s face for a moment, mustache hiding most of it but you can see it in the way his eyes crinkle and his cheeks move. 

‘You’re a sharp one,’ he says. Holds the cigarette between two fingers, delicate as a needle. ‘Got these off a friend.’

‘Doesn’t look like he wanted to share,’ I say. Mr. Bishop comes back with my ginger ale, four cherries floating at the top on ice. 

‘Ginger ale, on the rocks,’ says Mr. Bishop with a flourish.

‘He didn’t,’ says Mr. Balthazar. Gives Mr. Bishop an ugly look. ‘Whiskey, neat.’

‘Isn’t this nice and cozy?’ asks Mr. Bishop with a mean smirk. I don’t know what he’s smirking about. I suck hard on my straw. 

Mr. Balthazar’s face has gone strange and tight. There’s something dangerous in his face. I know dangerous.

Mr. Bishop’s smirk fades, but he still looks like there’s some big joke no one else gets but him. 

‘Absolutely sir,’ he says with a big flourishing bow. ‘Just thinking of the next book I should give Miss Althea here.’ I perk up. 

Mr. Bishop is a scoundrel and a killer and a lunatic and sometimes I think Mr. Malick is going to pull his teeth out with pliers one by one until his words turn to screams, but he gives me good books. Lots of them are for adults, but he says I may be a wee slip of a cunt but I’m no fooking fool of kid and it will do me a world of good to know what’s really going on.

‘What kind of book?’ I ask. He waggles his eyebrows and glances at Mr. Balthazar. Grabs a brown glass bottle and pours a generous serving of whiskey into a glass. Slides it across the bar.

‘A bit more psychology, I imagine,’ he says. He’s looking at me but I think he’s really talking to Mr. Balthazar. Adults do that sometimes. ‘I was thinking of Carl Jung.’

‘Jung?’ says Mr. Balthazar. ‘Bit advanced for her, don’t you think.’

‘I’ve read all sorts of books,’ I say. ‘Mr. Bishop has given me Kafka and Hemingway and Steinbeck and Mary Shelley and Howard Zinn.’ He gives me lots of kids books too, but I don’t mention those.

I don’t want Mr. Balthazar to think I’m some little kid or something. 

Mr. Balthazar leans back in his chair. Taps his cigarette into a cracked ashtray and takes a long drink. 

‘Well,’ he says, ‘that sure is something. Why Jung?’ he asks.

‘There’s a quote keeps running through my mind,’ says Mr. Bishop. Taps the side of his nose like he’s checking if it’s ripe. 

‘The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents,’ he says. ‘Well. Parent.’ He gives a nasty peal of laugh. 

Mr. Bishop has a crummy sense of humor. Mr. Balthazar stares into his drink. I eat another cherry, but for some reason it doesn’t taste as good as the first one. 

‘You finish that book,’ Mr. Bishop says to me. ‘I’ll get you some more. Think you’ll learn a lot. Don’t you agree, Mr. Balthazar?’ He’s trying not to grin, which is worse than the mean grin itself. I feel like I’m missing something important, something vital, something that’s slipping through my fingers. 

I feel ugly and weak and stupid and I want Mr. Balthazar to go away forever but also ask me questions about my day and teach me stuff like Mr. Malick and Mr. Valentine and even Mr. Pinch and Mr. Bishop sometimes when they’re not being complete wankers. 

‘Thank you,’ I say to Mr. Bishop. He notices, for the first time, the finger bleeding on the bar.

‘Fucking animal,’ he mutters. ‘Told him not to do this again.’ He grabs a dirty dish towel and sweeps it away. Wipes at the stain of blood until it’s gone. Still muttering to himself, he stuffs the finger in his pocket and stomps to Mr. Pinch’s office. 

I’m alone with Mr. Balthazar. I wish he would finish his drink. I wish I could drink faster, but if I do I might get sick.

He’s watching me now. Just looking at me, like he’s never seen me before. He does that sometimes, even though he’s seen me a million times, probably. He was living here before me, even. 

It makes me annoyed. I like Mr. Balthazar fine most of the time, but I don’t know why he has to go around staring at people like they’re the answer to a question he never wanted to ask. Like they’re tying a noose made of braided gold. Like they’re a failure and a fuckup and a disappointment and a disaster and everything that went wrong in another world. 

I’m just a kid. I don’t know why he looks at me like that.

I look at myself in the mirror. My face, a bit twisted and curling around the edges but normal enough. Big blue eyes and messy white blonde hair that needs a trim. Missing front tooth that’s just starting to grow in.

I can see Mr. Balthazar’s profile from the corner of my eye. He’s handsome in a cruel way. Like a villain from some old Hollywood movie. There’s something sharp about his features. Like he’s more real than other people.

I’m sharp too, in my nose and chin and cheekbones, but I’m the opposite. I’m less real than most people.

‘I lost a tooth,’ I say to Mr. Balthazar. His face falls like I just told him he had to leave the Nine forever, like all his friends are dead, like the world is going to end before he has time to finish his drink.

I say the wrong thing around Mr. Balthazar a lot.

‘Which one?’ he asks after he clears his throat. I bare my teeth at him and poke my tongue through the hole.

‘Tooth fairy left me a pocket knife and some other teeth,’ I say. I don’t know who the teeth belong to. I put them in a pot of dirt to see what will happen.

He smiles again, smokes his cigarette. Takes a long drink, like talking to me makes him extra thirsty. 

‘You doing all right?’ he asks after an eternity a millennium of silence. The bar is quiet and Mr. Bishop isn’t back and my ginger ale is getting all watery and I hate Mr. Pinch for kicking me out of his shitty office. 

I nod. He always asks me that.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. He leans over the table and takes the whole bottle of whiskey. Holds a finger to his lips and gives me a fake looking smile. This one doesn’t reach his eyes. 

‘Don’t tell Bishop,’ he says. I mime putting a key in a lock and then throwing it away. He stands, bottle in hand. Looks down and frowns.

‘Your shoes are untied,’ he says.

I almost ask if he’s pulling my leg. Mr. Valentine does that sometimes. Then he says made you look and I pretend to get mad and he laughs.

But Mr. Balthazar doesn’t look like the sort to make jokes. And I know my shoelaces are untied, but it would be rude to say that.

I’m about to climb off the stool and fix them. Mr. Balthazar crouches down on one knee. With an intent look on his face he takes the bloody laces and ties them into a neat bow on each foot. Looks up at me and gives me a real smile, just for a second.

‘There you are,’ he says. I don’t think he’s ever been this close to me.

‘Thank you,’ I say. He nods.

‘You’re very welcome.’ For a minute it looks like he’s going to say something else. Then he sighs like a balloon with all the air rushing out. ‘You have a good day now, Miss Althea. I’ll be seeing you around.’ He takes the bottle of whiskey and walks out.

I finish the rest of my ginger ale even though it’s gross and mostly melted ice. Put the glass back behind the bar after I clean it in the sink. 

I take my book and walk out to the lobby. It’s deserted aside from the dead people, and the creature with the open sores and the extra tongues.

There’s something new crawling around on the ceiling, but I’m not in the mood to meet it. Not in the mood to read or play or go in the air vents and eavesdrop or bang on the piano in the ballroom or even learn about what’s inside people from the inside out lady. 

Right now I want to go sit up on the roof and lie in the hot sun until it sizzles and burns me, until it makes me all black and crispy like an overcooked french fry and I can get thrown away with the rest of the unwanted trash.

For the first time, even the Nine can’t soothe the uneasiness I feel.